On God and Science

[mosespa]

You might be surprised by how civil PI and I keep it...does that count?

[snifferdog]

<grabs popcorn>

[Idisaffect]

Pass that popcorn, snifferdog!

I think science is as full of shit as religion is.

The occasional nine-year-old girl must be raped and murdered in order to cast into sharp relief how wonderful it is that all the other nine-year-old girls weren't raped and murdered.

I don't like a god who lets some 9 year old girls be raped and murdered and lets others grow up to live happy lives. It must suck when it has to be your daughter who gets raped. Who does god think "he" is? And who or what created god??

The way I see it, "Heaven" (whatever it may be) will be a lot less congested without you lot around.

Have fun in a heaven run by a god who dishes out equal measures of misery and joy. Maybe when they get there god will explain to the ones whose children were murdered why it had to be. That will make all the pain worth it. "Now we understand why our daughter was brutally raped and murdered, god. It's the yin and yang that you so desperately crave".

I think that life is completely out of the control of any god or any science. It's a runaway train. I'm glad humankind can't really know the mystery of life and death. If humans knew everything we'd really be screwed. Life would be absolute with no mystery.
If there's no mystery - there's no freedom. Think about that.

[J Ed]

science is a systematic attempt to explain the universe, if further research shows the Big Bang was preceded by an old man with a beard rolling the dice or some such, than science could in fact prove there is a god, theres nothing inherent in science to block such a possibility
science is not some sort of competing godless universe, its a methodology for explaining the universe, sort of like landscape painting but with more rigorous rules
and if there is a god, and god created humans, god created humans' capacity for reason and therefor yes god did "cause science"
but I think this sort of god would be of the Blind Watchmaker variety, rather than the actively involved Moralist god

PublicPhlegm I gotta take issue with your "Flat earth" logic above - Ive seen that argument for a while now, that people in the Middle Ages did know the world is round and its just our modern sense of superiority that claims otherwise
Im sure there was a worldly elite, in government or international trade, that understood the earth was at the very least a big curved surface - navigators certainly were aware the stars changed if they travelled far enough
but for most of humanity, they never travelled 100 miles beyond their village, and did not read
Ive met people travelling today who have never travelled beyond the next village
for folks like that, Here Be Dragons begins very close to home, and Im not convinced the majority of peasant stock would guess the planet was a sphere
theres lots of historical atlases available with mediaval maps, regardless of what the ancient Greeks had figured out and what the Arabs contemporaneously knew, even learned Europeans at the time had completely screwed up ideas of what the world looked like, for centuries such maps showed completely spurious features like the Garden of Eden and Prester Johns Kingdom to the East

[mosespa]

1. I think science is as full of shit as religion is.

2. I don't like a god who lets some 9 year old girls be raped and murdered and lets others grow up to live happy lives.

3. It must suck when it has to be your daughter who gets raped. Who does god think "he" is?

4. And who or what created god??

5. Have fun in a heaven run by a god who dishes out equal measures of misery and joy. Maybe when they get there god will explain to the ones whose children were murdered why it had to be. That will make all the pain worth it. "Now we understand why our daughter was brutally raped and murdered, god. It's the yin and yang that you so desperately crave".

6. I think that life is completely out of the control of any god or any science. It's a runaway train. I'm glad humankind can't really know the mystery of life and death. If humans knew everything we'd really be screwed.

7. Life would be absolute with no mystery.

8. If there's no mystery - there's no freedom. Think about that.

1. With you so far.

2. That's the thing. That's not how God operates (as I understand it, anyway.) God created and could manipulate His Creation as He sees fit...but somewhere in the New Testament, God seems to choose instead to just let it go and do what it does. The only way you could really accuse God of "allowing bad things to happen" would be to accuse Him of guilt by omission. But according to the Old Testament, whenever God DID actively intervene in the affairs of man, it caused atmospheric disturbances and all sorts of stuff to go out of balance. Maybe He realized that that causes more harm than good?

3. I'm sure it does suck. But the "random chance" that scientists are so wild about doesn't have to be removed from theology. If God simply created everything, messed with it for a bit and realized that that was a bad idea and chose to step out and just let whatever happens happen, then it's not His fault...and "random chance" still takes place.

The idea that God would intervene in your very own personal affairs is a pretty self abosorbed notion, really. Why should God care what happens to you enough to risk turning His creation upside down? Are any of us really so important in the Grand Scheme Of Things that hurricanes, floods, typhoons and potential columns of fire and brimstone should be called into existence and wipe out many, many other people just to save our own skin?

There are Bible verses which I could look up (but won't,) in which God basically explains to someone "I'm not doing this to you. This is the result of your own hand," when they ask him why God was punishing them.

Now...I'm not suggesting that the parents of a nine-year-old child brought the murder of their child down upon their own heads. That's just the end result of that "random chance" thing. It still rears it's ugly head.

It's nothing personal.

4. That's pretty much the big question, isn't it? The thing is...since the Holy Spirit seems the be the ultimate leader of the Godhead, I'd go with the Holy Spirit as the Creator of God if there had to be one.

God's ways are not our ways. He has different rules to abide by. Which to me makes sense if it was indeed He who decided what the laws of nature are going to be. In order to be the Creator of this realm in which we find ourselves, it stands to reason that He Created them while existing within a completely different set.

But that's just my take on it.

5. Again, I don't view God as one who "dishes out equal measures of misery and joy." Where God exists is outside of the realm of duality that I'm so fond of reminding everyone that this one is. I've no idea what Heaven is as I've never experienced it and I believe that the descriptions of it in the Bible are metaphorical. In the end, the simplest explanation of Heaven is "that which is beyond (and better) than this."

But therein lies the paradox.

"Better" is subjective.

Maybe what Heaven really is is a place where the lowest common denominators of what all ideas of a pleasant afterlife can be come together.

6. I halfway agree with you here. I wouldn't say that the world is "out of the control of any God." But to be controlled BY God would run counter to the whole point of us having Free Will in the first place.

But that's the subject of another thread.

Where I agree with you is that given human nature, knowing everything would mean that ultimate knowledge is ultimately used for...shall we say, "inappropriate reasons." Part of human nature is a certain degree of self-interest. It's connected directly to the survival instinct. It can be used inappropriately and frequently is, imo.

But that's just the nature of politics for you...

7. I dunno. I've met people who seem determined to learn all that is learnable by them. They tend to be my favorites.

8. I have...and I don't agree with it. I have managed (if only within the confines of my teeny little mind) to reconcile the concepts of "free will" and "pre-destination/fate" with each other. They don't have to cancel each other out. In fact, given that they are two sides of a particular coin, for one of them to vanish would mean chaos for the whole...and it seems to me (based upon my admittely limited exposure to things scientific,) to be a scientific tenet that chaos reigning is a sign of failure.

It's a variation on a cliche, but imagine existence as you understand it as a painting. From a distance, you see the complete image. It's only upon closer inspection that you notice the brush strokes created at a different time and in a different place from where you are observing which make up the whole picture.

From what I've gathered and interpreted for myself; the past, the present and the future all occur simultaneously where God exists.

Isn't it a commonly accepted notion that time is illusory, anyway?

I understand it to be a mathematical "proof" (if that's even the correct term,) that on a large enough decimal scale, numbers cease to be significant enough to "count" as anything higher than zero.

I believe it a corallary of that notion to be that on a large enough time scale, the whole existence of this entire universe drops to an instant...or less. Perhaps even zero. A nothing.

I also believe that God exists in a place where that nothing may not necessarily be irrelevant...but it handles itself in a manner which is appropriate for what it is, according to it's own laws.

Existence (or, to be scriptural about it, Creation,) is doing what it's supposed to be doing in a manner which is appropriate for what it is.

It continues to do so when you introduce free will because free will still abides by the laws of nature. You can want something, you can even do something about it...but that doesn't mean you're going to succeed every time because that "random chance" thing still comes into play.

Maybe it's just me...........

[Idisaffect]

I think that we both feel the same way inside. We're just coming at it from different angles. You seem like a trustworthy person. That's all I really care about when it comes to people. That was an extremely well thought out series of posts you did. I appreciate it. PI, too.

[mosespa]

Thanks.

(Look, everyone!! Yet ANOTHER post that doesn't read like a dissertation. I CAN do it...I just often choose not to. )

[cwta eugene]

I think that we both feel the same way inside. We're just coming at it from different angles. You seem like a trustworthy person. That's all I really care about when it comes to people. That was an extremely well thought out series of posts you did. I appreciate it. PI, too.

And what am I? Chopped liver? Ah, who am I kidding? Of course I am!

[Idisaffect]

Sorry, cwta... there was so much text between your posts I forgot you were the one who started this discussion. I enjoyed this topic. Thank you. After reading all of this I have come to the conclusion that we are all just pets of unseen aliens.

[mosespa]

There IS a school of thinking which I find interesting that the human race was genetically engineered by a race of aliens from a planet orbiting Alpha Centauri. They engineered us for the purposes of mining gold in order to save their depleting ozone layer (or equivalent.) How that works, I don't understand, but it does explain a couple of things to me:

1. The human races obsession with gold

and

2. The human races obsession with enslaving other humans that they feel are "beneath" their particular race.

*shrug*

It STILL beats Pastafarianism for credibility points.

[Idisaffect]

That's cool.
I do like to believe that the spirit or energy of people who have passed on might be lingering here on earth. Or maybe working magic for loved ones from beyond. I had a very close friend who lost her 7 year old daughter and I remember feeling quite strongly that the daughter (who was also my friend) was looking out for her mom somehow from beyond the grave. So...I'm just as crazy as any christian or radical scientist.

[mosespa]

The problem between Faith and Science is really, to me, not to dissimilar between Faith denominations.

Every group of people thinks that their group's way of thinking is superior to others. That's why people form groups.

The solution to the problem between Faith and Science is, again...to me, the same as the solution to that of different denominations and faith systems:

The realization that humans lack the ability to conceive and/or process The Whole Truth.

It lies in between all the differences...or maybe it's the sum of all of them.

*shrug*

[PooF]

The problem between Faith and Science is really, to me, not to dissimilar between Faith denominations.

Every group of people thinks that their group's way of thinking is superior to others. That's why people form groups.

The solution to the problem between Faith and Science is, again...to me, the same as the solution to that of different denominations and faith systems:

The realization that humans lack the ability to conceive and/or process The Whole Truth.

It lies in between all the differences...or maybe it's the sum of all of them.

*shrug*

A fool might say that Science is superior to Faith, but I don't think scientists who don't believe in god(s) necessarily claim superiority over Faith (religious beliefs). If you do not believe in the supernatural then you don't believe in it and there is no value in claiming superiority. But it doesn't work the other way round: believers in god(s) must still deal with the natural world that is around them.

If by The Whole Truth you mean Knowledge, then Science readily admits it doesn't have the full picture (and also that the current partial picture may not be right).

[Idisaffect]

Science readily admits it doesn't have the full picture (and also that the current partial picture may not be right).

They have to... otherwise they would be looked upon as frauds.
I think the MYSTERY is the most important thing in the whole human experience. The wonder. Not knowing if "supernatural" occurrences or influences exist or not. It gives you the freedom to make of life whatever you wish.
Occult simply means beyond human comprehension. The infinite universe is occult. Hell, the ex planet Pluto is occult. Death is occult. We know what happens to the body but where does the energy go? Beyond human comprehension.
Lucky for us.
If "they" knew for sure what death was we'd really be enslaved.

[iwantmypinkfloydnow]

The realization that humans lack the ability to conceive and/or process The Whole Truth.

I like to follow Gödel's opinion that systems lack the ability to logical answer all questions, but human intuition can.

I always found Einstein's view on this whole matter the most reasonable: http://www.update.uu.se/~fbendz/library/ae_scire.htm