Post #133,477
1/4/04 2:29:44 AM
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What I find unreasonable.
I find it unreasonable that the conclusion of "special creation may have occurred" is excluded from the list of possibilities.
Ben, I find no point or need in taking up this argument again with you. We've demonstrated before that I can't change your mind and that you can't change mine.
Wade.
Is it enough to love
Is it enough to breathe
Somebody rip my heart out
And leave me here to bleed
| |
Is it enough to die
Somebody save my life
I'd rather be Anything but Ordinary
Please
| -- "Anything but Ordinary" by Avril Lavigne. |
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Post #133,481
1/4/04 3:05:24 AM
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Re: What I find unreasonable.
Well, if you maintain that "special creation" happened a few thousand years ago, then it's a ludicrous position to hold, and to teach that to children is criminal. Every legitimate improvement in human life from better health to heat to clean water and abundant food is a direct result of NOT allowing oneself to believe in fantasies.
If you want to hold such a belief, then you are an enemy of civilization and should feel very bad about yourself.
Furthermore, we see here in this country the absolutely direct correlation between holding such beliefs and starting aggressive wars of conquest, negation of the value of the poor, and allowance of criminal behavior by the wealthy. The evidence is that creationists are immoral and corrupt, and there is no reason to not believe that they would destroy freedom itself if given half a chance.
-drl
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Post #133,482
1/4/04 3:48:17 AM
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But that WAS NOT excluded from the possibilities!
Science started from beliefs around 1700 which was indistinguishable from current Creationism. After all that was what is in the Bible, which virtually all educated people accepted (though they warred - literally - about the right interpretation). Step by step science moved away from that picture as the physical evidence overwhelmingly mounted against it, and alternate explanations were put forth that explained the physical evidence far better.
The fact that you have no interest in learning this history or the evidence that was accumulated doesn't change it. And further even without going through the history, there is no question that the Creationist viewpoint is not now scientifically accepted. And therefore I maintain that Creationism shouldn't be taught as science.
Please answer the yes or no question. Given the current state of our knowledge, should Creationism be taught as part of science?
I'll answer the corresponding question. Given the current state of our knowledge, I am quite happy with it being taught that Creationism is believed by millions today based on the account in the Bible. I'm not happy with this being done as part of the science curriculum though, because it isn't science.
Regards,
Ben
"good ideas and bad code build communities, the other three combinations do not"
- [link|http://archives.real-time.com/pipermail/cocoon-devel/2000-October/003023.html|Stefano Mazzocchi]
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Post #133,496
1/4/04 9:38:10 AM
1/5/04 12:11:58 AM
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Oops?
I didn't notice till now that I somehow posted a blank post.
Sorryyyyy.
Nightowl >8#
This space left blank till Owl can change her quote.
Edited by Nightowl
Jan. 5, 2004, 12:11:58 AM EST
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Post #133,497
1/4/04 9:39:34 AM
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I've been staying out of this...
because I don't know enough to be in it very deeply, but I wanted to say one thing.
I wonder sometimes if maybe God created everything, but allowed it to evolve... that is, his "days" were not the 24 hours we are used to. That allows him to have created it all, but allows for the "time frame" of evolution.
(Going back into my hollow tree to hide now. Hehe)
Nightowl >8#
This space left blank till Owl can change her quote.
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Post #133,521
1/4/04 1:32:40 PM
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Quite a few believe that
A variation on that, for instance, is the position of the Catholic Church.
However you still can't interpret that position too literally. If you read Genesis carefully, you'll find that creation is described twice, and things are described being created in 2 different orders. Neither of which matches the order that species appear in in the fossil record.
Of course all serious contradiction between the Bible and current science goes away if you understand the Bible to have been a fallible human account which documents actual events. At that point you are free to accept the New Testament as being an eyewitness account while being free to reject certain parts of the Old Testament as being myth, and free to question parts of the Old Testament as possibly having been subjected to editing by generations of priests before being put in writing. (And yes, I've talked with seminary students who believed exactly this.)
Cheers,
Ben
"good ideas and bad code build communities, the other three combinations do not"
- [link|http://archives.real-time.com/pipermail/cocoon-devel/2000-October/003023.html|Stefano Mazzocchi]
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Post #133,535
1/4/04 4:06:45 PM
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I'm in that group
as long as we're using "myth" in the anthropological sense, which is much closer to the word "story" than "fiction". I only really get irked by those people (on both sides of the Creationism issue) who believe that the Bible *could* be read from a scientific perspective, since such a thing did not exist when it was written. Anachronisms 'R Us.
I was one of the original authors of VB, and *I* wouldn't use VB for a text
processing program. :-) Michael Geary, on comp.lang.python
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Post #133,566
1/4/04 7:56:25 PM
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Speaking of Catholic thought
Just wondering where you stood on Tielhard de Chardin? I would suspect you hold that evolution is not goal directed - in Tielhard's terms the Omega Point or Noosphere. Can't say that I agree with that either, but the point that life and evolution are nature's method of fighting against the laws of thermodynamics does hold a certain appeal in my thoughts.
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Post #133,652
1/5/04 11:41:35 AM
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Nowhere in particular
I didn't recognize the name. Googling I saw [link|http://www.crosscurrents.org/chardin.htm|this bio]. So we have what, possibly one of the people behind the Piltdown Man hoax, a strongly religious scientist, who told the religious people that they should accept science and the scientists that they should be motivated by religion?
I must say that I'm not feeling massively inclined towards him or his views, but I really shouldn't comment when I haven't read or thought about him in particular.
Cheers,
Ben
"good ideas and bad code build communities, the other three combinations do not"
- [link|http://archives.real-time.com/pipermail/cocoon-devel/2000-October/003023.html|Stefano Mazzocchi]
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Post #133,671
1/5/04 1:03:15 PM
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Tielhard only wrote once about Piltdown
and he dismissed the find as being two seperate specimens. I read Gould's assertion listing Tielhard as a possible co-conspirator, but for someone who was bent on observing scientific objectivity, the case Gould makes against Tielhard is, at best, purely circumstantial, if not downright innuendo. Gould assigns Tielhard's motives as a student's joke gone awry, noting that Tielhard never wrote favorably on Piltdown.
Scientifically speaking, Tielhard is better remembered for the discovery of Peking Man.
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Post #133,699
1/5/04 4:31:03 PM
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As I said, this I do not know about
Peking Man aka Homo Erectus was a significant discovery. Googling for it, Teilhard (note spelling, you have flipped ei to ie) was not the discoverer or even the main researcher on it, but was involved in early research.
Again, I shouldn't comment much more because I don't know anything about him other than a few short summaries that I found through Google. I doubt that (given my beliefs, etc) I'd agree with his views, but I might find myself respecting his views as a reasonable position for someone with his prior beliefs.
Cheers,
Ben
"good ideas and bad code build communities, the other three combinations do not"
- [link|http://archives.real-time.com/pipermail/cocoon-devel/2000-October/003023.html|Stefano Mazzocchi]
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Post #134,504
1/9/04 11:35:53 AM
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As long as this thread won't die
I guess I shouldn't have framed the discussion in terms of Tielhard per se, as we get off of the response that I was trying to elicit. Tielhard's religious views don't interest so much (ok, ok, this is the religion forum but i digress).
More interested in whether there's a scientific reason evolution exists. Is it globally goal-directed?
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Post #134,509
1/9/04 11:46:54 AM
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I see no evidence of a global goal direction
Co-evolutionary trends can cause the appearance of such in some lineages. But globally I don't see evidence for it.
And certainly if, say, we were the goal, then the process has been incredibly inefficient at arriving in us. See the Eiffel tower description that I gave elsewhere in the thread.
Cheers,
Ben
"good ideas and bad code build communities, the other three combinations do not"
- [link|http://archives.real-time.com/pipermail/cocoon-devel/2000-October/003023.html|Stefano Mazzocchi]
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Post #134,520
1/9/04 12:23:43 PM
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Meandering along
So, I guess the scientific reasoning is we can not see an end-game, or know the macro direction of the process. We can simulate, manipulate, and/or estimate evolution within a local environment with known conditions/stimulations.
Not really arguing for or against a anthropomorphic viewpoint. Just wondering where the boundaries of scientific reasoning on the subject of evolution. Most discussion seems to be oriented towards where the universe has been (creationism, paleontology, etc...).
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Post #134,521
1/9/04 12:33:29 PM
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Re: Meandering along
First, there is no "theory of evolution", the way there is a "theory of the electron" or even a "theory of continental drift". Evolution is a principle - that genetics operates in jumps due to random mutations, to produce life forms that are better adapted to survival in a particular environment. The better adapted life is more robust and more likely to pass on beneficial mutations to later generations. This is so simple and so perfectly explanatory that there is no serious doubt about it.
An actual theory of evolution would require the ability to predict what sorts of mutations would occur and be favored in a given population. As far as I know (and I'm very weak in biology) this does not exist.
To make an analogy, evolution is to biology as vorticity is to weather.
-drl
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Post #134,528
1/9/04 1:09:07 PM
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Which touches on a different concern I've had....
This is so simple and so perfectly explanatory that there is no serious doubt about it. In a totally different direction, I've always had the concern that Darwin & Evolution have been elevated beyond the significance they deserve - exactly because it elicits such a defensive response from religious fundamentalism. Sometimes I cringe when I see scientists explaining behavior attributable to "evolution" that I don't see as being any more meaningful as attributing that behavior to an "all powerfull force". Creationism is a non-starter for myself (as it is for many - if not most with a Catholic background (due in some measure to Tielhard)). But the attributions to evolution seem a bit overcompensating in the other direction. The weakness to evolution is not that it can't disprove creationism, but that it's usefullness in modeling (and thus prediction) are not excatly concise.
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Post #134,533
1/9/04 1:22:31 PM
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Exactly!
The differences between men and apes are far less significant than, say, between sea lions and deer, because men and apes live in similar environments.
As far as I'm concerned, the mechanism of evolution is irrelevant to the argument against creationism. The latter is wrong because it is not useful, the way the epicyclic explanation of planetary motion is not useful. Science works because it rigorously discards rigid, useless concepts in favor of flexible, useful ones.
I don't understand why religious people who at least pay lip service to science are incapable of asking the right question - what exactly is it about men, who are after all animals, that makes them special? What border was crossed that enabled men to become aware? It's not just a matter of being more clever. Even bees are clever.
-drl
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Post #134,586
1/9/04 4:11:04 PM
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Your knowledge is insufficient
When evolution is combined with game theory, it can make concrete predictions about what behaviours we expect to see in which populations, and why.
One of the first non-trivial predictions of this form was detailed by Edmond O. Wilson, and it involved the treatment of ant larvae depending on gender, and depending on whether the workers or queen were in control of the colony. (The workers are normally in control, except in slaver ants, and there only if there are few workers and many slaves.) Because of a quirk of ant genetics, 2 daughters share 3/4 of each other's genes, while a daughter only shares half with a parent, child or full brother. Hence one expects favourtism towards sisters, and IIRC game theory predicts that they will get fed more by a ratio of 3/1. This prediction is born out in observation. The queen, of course, has no reason to favour one over the other, and so when she is in control you expect an even ratio. And in slaver ants, the treatment of larvae varied as expected.
Incidentally this quirk is why ants and bees tend to form colonies. The daughters do a better job of passing on their own genes by helping mom have more daughters than by having their own daughters. The result is a colony with one queen, hordes of sterile daughters, and a smaller number of fertile sons and daughters.
If you talk to people in fields like ecology and animal behaviour, the ability to make predictions like these directs a lot of their research.
(There are other ways that evolution matters for prediction. For instance research on the role of genetic diversity in rapid evolutionary responses was utterly critical to figuring out how to breed better crops in the "Green Revolution" that started in the 60s. But those results are about theories of how evolution might progress, and are not consequences of its having progressed for a while.)
Cheers,
Ben
"good ideas and bad code build communities, the other three combinations do not"
- [link|http://archives.real-time.com/pipermail/cocoon-devel/2000-October/003023.html|Stefano Mazzocchi]
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Post #134,591
1/9/04 4:18:42 PM
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Fascinating - I stand corrected!
As I said, I'm very weak in biology :)
-drl
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Post #134,590
1/9/04 4:16:55 PM
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The boundaries are broader than you might think
See my response to Ross for some examples. Along the historical line, see research on genetic clocks (much of which is more preliminary than you will see claimed in popular reports) and research on cladistics (which has multiple times now has lead to successful predictions that there should be an ancestor that looks like X, and it might be likely to be found somewhere around Y at time period Z.)
Of course all of that discussion tends to take place out of the public eye because following it takes a lot more knowledge than most people have, and you can't even begin to present that stuff until the basic assumption of evolution has been accepted.
Cheers,
Ben
"good ideas and bad code build communities, the other three combinations do not"
- [link|http://archives.real-time.com/pipermail/cocoon-devel/2000-October/003023.html|Stefano Mazzocchi]
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Post #133,816
1/6/04 6:18:08 AM
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Good.
Please answer the yes or no question. Given the current state of our knowledge, should Creationism be taught as part of science? When Science meets Religion, yes. Because the two do meet whether you admit it or not. The fact that you have no interest in learning this history or the evidence that was accumulated doesn't change it. And further even without going through the history, there is no question that the Creationist viewpoint is not now scientifically accepted. And therefore I maintain that Creationism shouldn't be taught as science. Enough. My views and beliefs of how the universe came about are not so well-defined as to pigeon-holed as "Creationism", irrespective of what you think you know about me. I would also not say I have " no interest" but rather " little interest". Whilst I find the subject interesting, I also realized it was less important to my personal faith than the majority of those who would advocate "Creationism". In other words, I have far better things to devote my time to. I certainly don't need to be your personal punching bag on the topic. Wade.
Is it enough to love
Is it enough to breathe
Somebody rip my heart out
And leave me here to bleed
| |
Is it enough to die
Somebody save my life
I'd rather be Anything but Ordinary
Please
| -- "Anything but Ordinary" by Avril Lavigne. |
|
Post #133,846
1/6/04 10:56:53 AM
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You did not answer the question
Please answer the yes or no question. Given the current state of our knowledge, should Creationism be taught as part of science?
When Science meets Religion, yes. Because the two do meet whether you admit it or not.
I see that it is an item of faith for you that eventually science will meet your personal religion. However they do not in the present, and there are no signs that I can see of a convergence at any point in the forseeable future. In this present, should Creationism be taught as part of science? The fact that you have no interest in learning this history or the evidence that was accumulated doesn't change it. And further even without going through the history, there is no question that the Creationist viewpoint is not now scientifically accepted. And therefore I maintain that Creationism shouldn't be taught as science.
Enough.
My views and beliefs of how the universe came about are not so well-defined as to pigeon-holed as "Creationism", irrespective of what you think you know about me. I would also not say I have "no interest" but rather "little interest". Whilst I find the subject interesting, I also realized it was less important to my personal faith than the majority of those who would advocate "Creationism".
I'll accept that you have little interest rather than no interest. The difference is not discernable from here, and you know yourself better than I can. In other words, I have far better things to devote my time to. I certainly don't need to be your personal punching bag on the topic. Then don't express an uninformed opinion that you know invites response. I'm serious. I didn't bring this topic up, and I didn't single you out. If you had not left a [link|http://z.iwethey.org/forums/render/content/show?contentid=133320|snide remark] dangling as an open challenge, I would have never have tried to get a yes/no answer to whether you think that Creationism should be taught in science. (Which was my way of getting at what kind of compromise you think should be accepted between science and creationism.) By your own admission, you have little interest in educating yourself on the topic. And surely you had to realize as you were posting that your post invited response. That means that you were expressing an uninformed opinion which invited response. At which point it seems disingenuous to complain that you got exactly the kind of response that anyone here could have predicted. Regards, Ben "good ideas and bad code build communities, the other three combinations do not"
- [link|http://archives.real-time.com/pipermail/cocoon-devel/2000-October/003023.html|Stefano Mazzocchi]
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Post #134,034
1/7/04 5:56:30 AM
1/7/04 6:16:33 AM
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I rather thought I did.
But that is neither here nor there. Then don't express an uninformed opinion that you know invites response.
I'm serious. I didn't bring this topic up, and I didn't single you out. Bullshit. If I can't post an oblique comment about a discussion in progress regarding Origins without you putting me in your crosshairs, then you are singling me out. I'm equally serious. My initial remark was a fairly carefully worded comment mirroring, as I understood it, the unaligned views between PEER and the publishers of the literature they disliked. Given the recent fracas, I would claim more than informed experience, thank you. If I must expect a lecture from you whenever I so much as breathe about the topic, then I must suspect a distinctly unfriendly agenda. I don't want to suspect that. Wade.
Is it enough to love
Is it enough to breathe
Somebody rip my heart out
And leave me here to bleed
| |
Is it enough to die
Somebody save my life
I'd rather be Anything but Ordinary
Please
| -- "Anything but Ordinary" by Avril Lavigne. |
Edited by static
Jan. 7, 2004, 06:16:33 AM EST
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Post #134,077
1/7/04 11:21:00 AM
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Bullshit
The question that you answered was whether Creationism should be taught as part of science if Creationism and science converged. Which is, of course, a justified yes.
But they manifestly have not done so in the present, and you never answered the question of whether Creationism should be taught as part of science in the present.
As for whether I have an agenda, you're being disingenuous and you know it. I would have reacted in much the same way if any other person had posted the same thing. You are only singled out in that you were the one who decided to single yourself out.
Let me side-track a little. There is a classic negotiating tactic where you let one person state their desired position accurately, and then you state your baseline as one where they have given you everything that you want and more. Then you start to negotiate, and lean heavily on them for the fact that they aren't willing to compromise.
This is a tactic that comes up a lot with Creationism.
Knowingly or unknowingly, the way that you put your post matches a common Creationist debating technique. Many Creationists stake out a position where they claim that it is only fair that their views get equal time in science classrooms. After all scientists claim that Creationism is wrong, Creationists believe that science is wrong, what is a fair compromise?
Scientists who point out that in a science classroom you should teach science are painted as unwilling to compromise. They are being unfair, they should bend a little. Which really translates into saying that scientists should accept teachers lying about what science is and isn't. This after scientists already have to put up with having most of evolution cut from classrooms because of manipulations of local schoolboards.
Hence I raised exactly the issue that I thought you were trying to slime around without ever coming out and saying it. And after broad discussion, you still haven't been willing to state your opinion is on this. Why not? You are pushing buttons, you know that you're pushing buttons, and you're refusing to admit it. That is your choice, and that that is your choice is obvious to anyone who is bothering to follow this discussion.
Let's discuss how well informed you you are. By your own admission, you have little interest in educating yourself. When we last actually discussed evolution versus Creationism, it was a rather one-sided affair. As I recall, it wound up with you unconvinced but admitting that your sources were not as accurate as you thought that they were. You said that you'd have to do a lot more research before talking about it again, but weren't that interested in doing so.
Which tells me that you don't know the evolution vs Creationism evidence in any detail, don't care to know it, and yet claim to be well-educated on that point. What doesn't fit in that?
Now again. Will you please answer the yes or no question that you haven't answered, and know very well that you have avoided answering. Given the present state of affairs, should Creationism be taught as part of science?
Regards,
Ben
"good ideas and bad code build communities, the other three combinations do not"
- [link|http://archives.real-time.com/pipermail/cocoon-devel/2000-October/003023.html|Stefano Mazzocchi]
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Post #134,421
1/8/04 10:36:13 PM
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I made a mistake.
I should have never replied to you at the top of this thread. As you yourself pointed out, I said at the termination of a previous discussion that I would not discuss this with you before I had done more research. I have still not done this research which should explain to you why you think I have not answered your question. (I also said I had some experience being in the conflict surrounding your question, which you have misread.)
I deeply resent being painted into corners like that, Ben. It tells me you want me to give up my current faith and beliefs and place them where you place yours which I know is absolutely not your motive so perhaps you might think about how I got that impression. Or not, because right now I don't care.
Wade.
Is it enough to love
Is it enough to breathe
Somebody rip my heart out
And leave me here to bleed
| |
Is it enough to die
Somebody save my life
I'd rather be Anything but Ordinary
Please
| -- "Anything but Ordinary" by Avril Lavigne. |
|
Post #134,514
1/9/04 12:08:33 PM
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How you should interpret my actions
It is my belief that you have strongly held beliefs about what should happen in classrooms that run exactly counter to what I want to happen. When you (or anyone really) makes snide remarks hinting at those positions, I want to verify this, and want to better understand how someone can reasonably hold those beliefs.
As you note, I'm not interested in telling you what faith you have, etc. I'm instead interested in the practical question that affects people I care about, namely What should we do in science classrooms? It may feel to you that I'm challenging your belief system, but I really am trying to divorce that one question from your belief system. To the extent that the two don't get divorced, I may come across as challenging your faith. But I'm honestly not trying to.
Perhaps I should clarify. To me it is quite possible to say, "I think that schools should teach X." while also saying, "I think that X is wrong." For instance while subject admissions tests remain what they are, I think that schools should teach much of the current math curriculum even though I think that the way that it is taught sucks, and the priorities for choosing subject matter are horribly off. Or in something closer to the instance under discussion, I think that schools should give students perspective about what fraction of the public believes various things, even though many of the things which are widely believed I don't accept.
To me that isn't promoting religion. That is giving students perspective on the society that they will enter and live in.
Cheers,
Ben
"good ideas and bad code build communities, the other three combinations do not"
- [link|http://archives.real-time.com/pipermail/cocoon-devel/2000-October/003023.html|Stefano Mazzocchi]
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Post #134,413
1/8/04 10:09:28 PM
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Pardon me, but that'll be when pigs fly.
When Science meets Religion, yes. Science is model building. There is no "faith" involved (with a pedantic exception that certain Axioms be accepted as true in order to make the mathematics work that science uses as a tool for the refinement of its models). Religion is the pursuit of "ultimate truth", a spiritual belief. Science doesn't give a damn about "ultimate truth". It cares about making the best models possible. Ben will probably assail me, but whether he likes it or not, science is about model building, not "truth" finding. Shit, you can't even get to "complete truth" as long as science uses mathematics. Goedel showed us that, for crap's sake. bcnu,
Mikem
I don't do third world languages. So no, I don't do Java.
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Post #134,416
1/8/04 10:17:52 PM
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Why would I assail you?
Your description of science is correct. I can illustrate it by pointing out that it is scientific progress to find a truly useful approximation, even though the approximation clearly is wrong. The example that I like to refer to of that is boundary layers in fluid mechanics.
However I'll defend Wade's statement this far. I took the statement to mean that Wade believes that the models produced by science will someday come into agreement with things that his religion claims. That statement is technically possible to fulfill. Of course it is patently absurd if you know much about why science has come to the temporary conclusions that it has. But it is not a logical impossibility.
Cheers,
Ben
"good ideas and bad code build communities, the other three combinations do not"
- [link|http://archives.real-time.com/pipermail/cocoon-devel/2000-October/003023.html|Stefano Mazzocchi]
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Post #134,431
1/8/04 11:33:26 PM
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Okay, here we go.
Here's where you and I part ways if I understand you correctly. Without regard to whether you believe any religion can bring to an individual "the complete, whole and consistent truth", any science based upon our mathematics clearly cannot.
Let T be goal to find "the complete, whole and consistent truth".
I think we can agree that the purpose of Religion is T.
We, apparently, agree that the goal of science is not T.
Let's assume that Religion X has achieved T.
Science, as we know it today, can simply not achieve T. Science today relies upon our mathematics. Goedel's Thereoms imply that "there are some true statements which cannot be proved." Since T requires a complete truth that is consistent, I fail to see how science can ever cross paths with Religion X. And there is the rub. Every "religious" person believes that his religion is Religion X. Certainly this cannot be the case, but how to disprove it? Moreover, why attempt to disprove it? It is not a question for science.
Caveat. I'm not disagreeing with your read of Wade, nor with your position stated in your post. I can't really say that I know you well enough to make this assumption, but from previous postings I'd assumed that you believe that science can come to a complete, consistent view of reality. If that is your position, we disagree most strongly for the reasons stated here.
bcnu,
Mikem
I don't do third world languages. So no, I don't do Java.
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Post #134,438
1/9/04 1:30:19 AM
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Umm *cough* - I thought this had been "done": piecemeal
from IW --> Ez --> zIWE, in at least 3 installments.
First, while Ben is probably least likely of all, to need any assistance in clarifying his positions, I'm not sure you grok the essence of this particular contretemps (?)
Never mind your capital-T thingie, especially if it is meant to signify something like, "the final, complete and logically explicable map of (say) Reality".
(capital-T Truth is often taken to suggest such. Silly, that.)
I believe this moderate-scale argument was solely about a here & now actual National, Social and Political problem: the various whingings and manipulations and assorted orchestrated faux-logic spews - intended patently! to insert pure-distilled Christian Dogma\ufffd into the pabulum fed innocent young kiddies.
And to do so baldfaced, within a science curriculum!
Yes: here in the USA, courtesy of the same folk as brought us [fill in the faith-based blank].
This thread, I deem - a rather small subset of the HUGE Scale, Reality; is not about *any* cockamamie notions that 'we' are apt to eventually create The Spreadsheet and go into the material- Universe Building bizness. Via 'science' or any other little 'process'.
Please, let's not intermix practical questions about disingenuous propagandizing / evangelism with.. YAN try for parsing the ineffable, via our Western stone knives and bearskins. English hasn't the vocabulary even to try for beginner level. 'Ineffable' is about the sole entry within that 'vocabulary'.
HTH,
Ashton
(Surely the ineffable deserves its very own thread? however doomed to futility in most expected wordage.)
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Post #134,460
1/9/04 6:31:28 AM
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"Silly that"?
Hardly. The capital T thingie is what man has sought since the ape was first capable of thought. Surely you'd grant that "why are we here?" has been asked for at least several generations, no?
I haven't been in a serious religious discussion, at least I don't recall having been in one, in quite some time. It is "silly" to discuss religion imo. Too personal, entirely subjective, etc.
As an aside to this longish debate about whether mythology and science belong in the same classroom, I thought I'd point out the idiocy of believing that the two can ever cross paths to Scott (as I'm sure Ben would agree, but not necessarily for the same reasons). In past discussions in other forums, my interpretation of Ben's remarks is that he believes there is a true, reliable relationship between the laws of mathematics and reality.
If science were ever to "come close enough" to modeling T so that the "models were consistent with religious convictions" as has been suggested by both parties in this thread, at best that would make science a subset of religious convictions. At worst, that would mean that science was fundamentally flawed. But science simply cannot ever get close to T because of the ambiguity of the relationship between the laws of mathematics and reality. Is that relationship close? Yeah, well, kinda. We tend to ignore things that bother us too much, like yeah, we kind of cheat in physics (1/n = 0 for sufficiently large n, and such) Is that relationship certain? No.
If T is ever to be achieved, and contrary to what you might think it will continue to be sought for as long as there are humans, it will not come from science, but from religion. That, in a nutshell, is the statement I think Ben would argue with.
Science and mathematics are very interesting games, and nothing more. It may well be argued that T is the only thing worth using our brains for.
bcnu,
Mikem
I don't do third world languages. So no, I don't do Java.
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Post #134,462
1/9/04 6:38:40 AM
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Re: "Silly that"?
Science is most definitely something more than a "game". There nesting of theories has very little arbitrariness. The symbolic representation of reality in math is a remarkable TRUE thing about existence. Anyone who has ever struggled through it will understand.
-drl
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Post #134,480
1/9/04 9:34:24 AM
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Unless they look too deep.
Throw out the Choice Axiom, contemplate Goedel's Theorems and much of it is a game. A truly outstanding game, rigorous, absolutely. An excellent way to explain and predict human observations of reality. But a good approximation of "true" reality? Who knows? And why is that even important? That's religion's domain.
bcnu,
Mikem
I don't do third world languages. So no, I don't do Java.
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Post #134,500
1/9/04 11:24:57 AM
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? It's right on the surface
Even the Ptolemaic system of epicycles has a certain beauty. The very act of looking for patterns seems to be a survival instinct. What I originally meant by "reasonable" is that the patterns are there and they are permanent. They are part of the real world, as much as a tree is.
-drl
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Post #134,565
1/9/04 3:10:51 PM
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Concur.
bcnu,
Mikem
I don't do third world languages. So no, I don't do Java.
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Post #134,503
1/9/04 11:26:54 AM
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You have to know what is relevant
The pieces of mathematics that you are focussing on (Choice, Goedel, etc) are of little importance in the practice of science, and are highly arbitrary.
For instance there is no absolute truth upon which one can say that the Axiom of Choice should be included in our math, and it has been proven that any result that you can prove about integers using ZFC can be proven without choice as well. Since integers can model computing which can model all of our scientific results, right there is a proof that Choice doesn't matter to science.
Math is a fun game. The application of mathematical techniques to science is not a game, and as Ross says, Anyone who as struggled through understanding it will understand (that).
Cheers,
Ben
"good ideas and bad code build communities, the other three combinations do not"
- [link|http://archives.real-time.com/pipermail/cocoon-devel/2000-October/003023.html|Stefano Mazzocchi]
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Post #134,684
1/10/04 6:35:37 AM
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Re: "Silly that"?
Inherent language problems aside (in any other than Sanskrit) - the word 'reality' is simply unuseable! in any serious, persistent effort towards that seeming impossibility: [somehow] viewing from a higher Scale, the totality of "this" scale (the physical universe | 'self' as self-aware creature). Yet that word gets tossed about -- as if we had more than an inkling of what it might connote.. Especially in 'the West'.
That said, most fantasy essays, extrapolating from recent techno- feats (such as have placed a significant part of the population into jobs of dreary paper-shuffling within horrifying pens called 'offices', and called that Progress) -- postulate that, "more of the same" might? Shall! "reveal the Process of Processes" (or whatever words you like). In time.
Then too, the idea that "religion" such as we see - is somehow a necessary (if not sufficient) entr\ufffde to such an imagined Process -?- fails equally to convince / or demonstrate.
If there is a universal theme to the (recorded) utterances of the handful of folk who have somehow 'Realized' what it is 'they are' - and what that signifies about the prospects for approaching reality (better, Reality - in this context):
These Sages (and a handful of 'Avatars') do the best with language as perhaps Can be done with language [?] in the way of giving hints, pointers to those sincerely desirous of knowing. Yet all say that, there is no process by which this realization may be induced.
In brief, the idea that a further quantity of new knowledge about the workings of the cosmos (ie physics - formerly termed 'Natural Philosophy') - shall lead to awareness of the Whole: does not appear any more likely than - an idea that intricate study of music composition might lead to one's achieving Mozartean abilities.
I'd call 'believing' otherwise: faith-based faith. Language (nor math) just isn't up to such a Task.
[Of course, many will settle for just a nice metaphor - which appears to be the assembly-language of our jelloware. WTF: it's a start..]
A.
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Post #134,507
1/9/04 11:42:35 AM
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I think that you misunderstood me then
Using your terms, I'm claiming that it is reasonable to believe that if the scientific approximations eventually converge to a good enough approximation of what is true, then they will start saying things that agree with what has been The Truth all along. Science cannot, of course, ever prove The Truth in all details, but it should eventually confirm parts of it.
This statement is unobjectionable so far. In fact beliefs like this one motivated scientists from start to finish. For all that we technically only have improving provisional knowledge, every scientist believes that they are trying to find out something more about what really happens, what is really true. And scientific theories with enough backing tend to get described, by professionals and laypeople alike, as true.
But I took this farther. I said, I took the statement to mean that Wade believes that the models produced by science will someday come into agreement with things that his religion claims. Which ascribes to Wade the belief both in the statement that I made above about The Truth (which I also believe), and adding the fact that Wade has faith that he already has hold of a piece of The Truth. And what is true won't contradict itself, so if the scientific process comes to its natural confirmation, it has to converge on what Wade believes.
I disagree with this belief, of course. But I don't say that he is trivially wrong, that he is expecting science to reach a point that it can never reach.
This is my interpretation. I have projected my own belief structure on what Wade actually said and come up with an interpretation that I then worked with. This is necessary, I can't read anyone's mind, and so have to come up with interpretations of what they likely mean to understand what they say. This is doubly true when, as with Wade, those people start with assumptions that differ sharply from mine.
However I have to point out that it is my interpretation simply because I could be wrong! I think that this is what Wade thinks. I don't really know. And I'm not going to go around putting words in his mouth if I can avoid it.
Cheers,
Ben
"good ideas and bad code build communities, the other three combinations do not"
- [link|http://archives.real-time.com/pipermail/cocoon-devel/2000-October/003023.html|Stefano Mazzocchi]
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Post #135,473
1/13/04 1:44:11 PM
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What we can agree to disagree on.
For me, science is the study of Plato's cave shadows and religion is the way out of the cave.
Several times over the past you've scolded me about the Choice Axiom having no consequence on the certain relationship between the laws of mathematics and reality. I don't buy it, and without proof I won't.
Your more recent claim that everything in science can be done with integers - I guess only the biology dependent upon e is gone with this view, as well as the insignificant impact pi has on scientific models, does not address the implications of Goedel's work (that was integer math he was talking about).
So, in summary, I will leave you to your shadows.
bcnu,
Mikem
I don't do third world languages. So no, I don't do Java.
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Post #135,475
1/13/04 2:06:05 PM
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If you need actual proof...
then you are going to have to learn some logic than I have not. I've merely quoted an often-quoted fact from logic.
The result that I am quoting is a consequence of Goedel's "constructible universe" construction. The purpose of that construction was to prove that if ZF is consistent, then ZFC is consistent. A side-effect of the construction is that every arithmetical statement provable in ZFC turns out to be provable in ZF.
However I haven't personally been through that construction, so I can't give you any details other than "ask a logician". If you post what I said above on sci.math and ask for recommendations on where you can learn about the construction, it is likely that someone will have a good answer.
As for the sufficiency of integers for questions of physical interest, integers are sufficient to model classical computers. Any aspect of reality that can't be modelled with a good scientific theory and a good enough computer is unlikely to ever be amenable to scientific analysis. That is a statement of belief on my part, but it is a belief that I think most will accept.
Cheers,
Ben
"good ideas and bad code build communities, the other three combinations do not"
- [link|http://archives.real-time.com/pipermail/cocoon-devel/2000-October/003023.html|Stefano Mazzocchi]
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Post #135,540
1/13/04 8:27:55 PM
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Ah...
I've merely quoted an often-quoted fact from logic.
So you do take some things on faith.
I'm only kidding, Ben. But it does remind me of something I heard long ago. I was watching Asimov being interviewed on television and, although I can't quote him exactly now, he said something along the lines of "Science is of higher moral ground than religion. If science discovers something that does not agree with its most valued theories, the theories are thrown out - or modified. When religion discovers something inconsistent with its dogma, the evidence is destroyed." So, you'd be right, imho, to be more willing to accept at face value a "widely held scientific/mathematical truth" than any religious truth.
IMO, there is damned little sacred about organized religion. The religion I spoke of in this thread is a personal religion, which can neither be taught, explained, nor discussed. True religion comes from within. Even discussing religion is a fool's errand. There's an old Taoist saying, "Those who know do not speak. Those who speak freely do not know." That'd apply to darned near every "professional" religious zealot (preachers,priests,mullahs,rabbis,etc.) I know.
bcnu,
Mikem
I don't do third world languages. So no, I don't do Java.
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Post #135,581
1/14/04 12:42:54 AM
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Depends on which mathematical truth...
I'm willing to take on faith something which is a widely known theorem in logic, the proof of which I know is understandable and has been widely examined.
However something like the classification of finite simple groups which I know is big, complex, and has not been reviewed? Well when the authors publically say that they don't believe their own proof, I'm not inclined to believe it either.
Incidentally Asimov was being seriously unfair to religion. Yes, there are religious groups which act like he described. There are also groups of religious people who definitely don't. Religion itself doesn't act in any consistent way.
Cheers,
Ben
"good ideas and bad code build communities, the other three combinations do not"
- [link|http://archives.real-time.com/pipermail/cocoon-devel/2000-October/003023.html|Stefano Mazzocchi]
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Post #135,625
1/14/04 8:07:49 AM
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IMO 'religion' is oft a sub-set: religiosity
As practised in these parts, anyway. It's a language problem because 'metaphysics' arguably -- needs no such social construct. (And most Murican 'religion' is far more a social experience than, anything resembling solitary contemplation)
I believe most of the interminable threads from IW --> zIWE + the fulminations of Nick et al: derive from this very confusion of er aims, methods and imagined 'results'. Language problems.
ie Not all cultures suffer in the way our locals do; why some.. manage almost the sublime, with some regularity.
Now as to whether Asimov was 'unfair' to relig(iosity)? Nahhh.
(But he ascribed to science wrongly, anyway - that which science is unsuited to deal with, by definition. Bad Isaac.)
Ashton
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Post #135,757
1/14/04 5:05:32 PM
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Einstein's thought on that:
The further the spiritual evolution of mankind advances, the more certain it seems to me that the path to genuine religiosity does not lie through the fear of life, and the fear of death, and blind faith, but through striving after rational knowledge. Alex
The mind is not a vessel to be filled but a fire to be kindled. -- Plutarch
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Post #133,486
1/4/04 5:48:50 AM
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"special creation may have occurred"
Any absurdity may be imagined - does it matter if it is one person's imagination, or an orchestrated folie \ufffd millon? Does quantity of superstition outweigh all observation?
Merely postulate a meddlesome Gawd - who plants carbon-14 in unlikely spots and alters its half-life, for good measure, while saying what-if-? And in that direction lies the madness of human sacrifice.. to appease such a chimera.
Children are malleable and ductile.. and are unable to learn critical thinking about the environment they inherit, when told by adults that "something which might have occurred" is of the same CLASS of thought as -- simple observation, experiment, debate, further experiment.. and the process by which that has DEMONSTRATED: that it becomes possible to make predictions [without snake oil].
You appear to be uninformed of the track record of Believers, in concert with political exploiters - in this country, hence you likely cannot see that Ross's concern about the prognosis is hardly hyperbole. The Right-Wing / Religio axis of political power in the US is no imaginary phenomenon. Nor is that joint thirst for $/Power merely slander.
But even in more bucolic places, it takes little history study to recall the Crusades and the Inquisition - in all their Gory.
And to the extent that we still have amidst our various populations, medieval minds of similar ilk - but now with vastly more lethal weapons to employ in Winning The Endless War for (what many of these dare to call 'Jesus's or Mohammed's Sake) - it's the same old battle against a remorseless homogeneity among those who have guessed what may be: and will kill to preserve their illusion over any other may be, slightly different.
In an (imaginary) sane society, there is beaucoup room for The Mystery of Existence (metaphysics) and.. for the (science) of 'demonstrable cause & effect". In our present milieu, it is solely the True Believers (of all the varied One-Truth persuasions / mutually exclusive of the Others' One-Truths) who constitute a threat to all life -- and not vice versa.
'Science' needs no enforced inculcation of beliefs; 'scientists' are not concerned with being Right-eous, merely Correct-eous as current information and thought permits. Only the Terminally Panicked can think in terms of 'killing a Commie for Christ'. 'Iraq' has occurred precisely via these Fundamentalist roots of disdain for the 'welfare of the world' -- Bush + handlers' self-anointing Angels of a Wrathful Deity. (Bush has confirmed his personal-certainty, if one allows for the Texan-translation).
See ya on the barricades. Some things *ARE* worth fighting.. for and against, brethren. (Nuke-assisted terminal dumbth would seem to be one of those. Even for those in hopes of bein Raptured-out of what they have incited, on Good-ol Gawd's behalf)
Ashton
Scratch an Evangelist and often you'll find the suppressed rage of an infantile "left-out" Ego, just lookin for armamants + venegeance. (I grew up around such - I don't have to 'imagine' anything)
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Post #133,815
1/6/04 5:49:01 AM
1/7/04 5:49:46 AM
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Ashton you know me better than that.
You know me far better than that. You look lazy and disingenous when you identify me with the rabid Christian Fundamentalist faction you cite. I will not cannot and do not apologise for the excesses and many wrongs committed by "the church" down through the ages. The Jewish ghettos should not have happened. The Crusades should not have happened. Gallileo was treated abominably. The Puritans in England were also. Slavery should not have taken the centuries it took to eradicate.
Yet despite this, I still hold on to my Faith. I currently believe you do not want to know or understand why.
Wade.
Is it enough to love
Is it enough to breathe
Somebody rip my heart out
And leave me here to bleed
| |
Is it enough to die
Somebody save my life
I'd rather be Anything but Ordinary
Please
| -- "Anything but Ordinary" by Avril Lavigne. |
Edited by static
Jan. 7, 2004, 05:49:46 AM EST
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Post #133,853
1/6/04 11:51:03 AM
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I think you meant...
... Slavery should have NOT<b/> taken the centuries it took to eradicate. Just thought I'd ask if that was what you really meant. Good post, Static. :) Nightowl >8# "It is understanding that gives us an ability to have peace. When we understand the other fellow's viewpoint, and he understands ours, then we can sit down and work out our differences." Harry S. Truman
"Whenever you're in conflict with someone, there is one factor that can make the difference between damaging your relationship and deepening it. That factor is attitude." Timothy Bentley
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Post #134,033
1/7/04 5:49:19 AM
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Dang. Thanks.
Is it enough to love
Is it enough to breathe
Somebody rip my heart out
And leave me here to bleed
| |
Is it enough to die
Somebody save my life
I'd rather be Anything but Ordinary
Please
| -- "Anything but Ordinary" by Avril Lavigne. |
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Post #134,027
1/7/04 4:49:56 AM
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Why, of course..
But I take the main squabble prompting this thread - not to be about specific content of 'theologies' - but about preventing -at all cost- the intentional further muddying of Language. (A lesser form is that of advertising-lies, but not a Lot-less..) There is a pattern - particularly in that perverse mixture of politics and religiosity rampant in the US - of attempted redefinitions of important words. Disingenuous is too kind a word to use, re the premeditated fabrication of such a monster phrase as, Creation Science.Your comment, I find it unreasonable that the conclusion of "special creation may have occurred" is excluded from the list of possibilities.
suggests that you might deem it permissible to use this phrase, defensibly. Simply, I aver: it is indefensible; it is Language Murder. As Ben observes, a ways up the threads - the '6000 year' guesstimate of "the age of the earth" appears to have originated with one particular English cleric - and latched onto since. But it matters not whether it is 6K or some other figure: the method of arrival is nothing whatsoever to do with the "methods of science". Ergo: this is not a matter of whether it is "good science" or "flawed science" having been done. Nor is metaphysics -distinct from religious connotation- as may be revelatory to some - "science"; it, as with all 'belief' through internal ruminations: has nothing whatsoever to do with application of the scientific method of observation, experiment, demonstration and debate (over the possible significance). 'CS' is dogma, pure and simple. Creationists, intending to pollute the very meaning of the word 'science', merit no accommodation - only do they merit the clearest explanation of why their assertion demands opposition by all honest persons, whatever their personal religious attitudes. Religion, for some - seeks to construct a Why of existence. Science merely seeks to determine the How of material processes observable by anyone. Never the twain shall meet, except in fantasy. Or demagoguery. Render unto Caesar. Confucious was correct re the consequences of "language not being correct" - a quote I posted long ago. We see those consequences daily: barricades worth manning. Cheers, I.
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Post #133,491
1/4/04 9:02:28 AM
1/4/04 9:06:34 AM
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Touching faith in the GICB's omnipotence.
The big problem with that is the giant invisible cloud being would have to have a right wicked sense of humor planting all those fossils and then giving us the curiosity to ask; I wonder how old these are?.
Like saying Jesus wore prewashed jeans.
-----------------------------------------
"After months of searching and billions of dollars,
we've finally captured the man who had absolutely nothing to do with 9-11 !"
-Rob Cordry, The Daily Show
Edited by Silverlock
Jan. 4, 2004, 09:06:34 AM EST
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Post #133,493
1/4/04 9:16:39 AM
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Re: Touching faith in the GICB's omnipotence.
Indeed, why resort to a parlor trick?
That is what is so puzzling about these creationists. If one steps out on a clear night, looks up into infinity, and asks "Why is there anything here at all?" a sense of mystery and awe comes over one that does not require parlor tricks to ignite. I can't understand why this truly religious experience is unavailable to the creationists - and I maintain then that the impetus behind creationism is the need for authority exactly to prevent the soul from being overwhelmed by the majesty and mystery of it all. So creationism is not only a hideous affront to science, it is a blasphemous insult to God, and a deliberate pushing away of actual religious inspiriation.
-drl
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Post #133,529
1/4/04 2:29:43 PM
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Fundamentalists don't like mystery
Awe certainly, but mystery is exactly what Christian fundamentalists are trying to avoid. What they want is certainty, which is almost exactly the opposite of mystery.
They can't stand the uncertainty of only being 99% sure of something, they want 100% certainty. This is why they would rather believe a trite explanation presented as absolute revelation then incomplete but plusible solution.
Jay
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Post #133,560
1/4/04 6:43:55 PM
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It is the Heat Death of the literalists -
Those who wish to be handed effortlessly, The Right Answers\ufffd to questions they never have felt! (nor ever worked to investigate, within or without).
I believe that the general dumbing-down, so evident all-round (the preoccupation with Machiavellian bizness dogma, that mindset which now pervades almost all of life) - is the Real CANCER: we see merely the overt symptoms, the endless materialistic consumption as a consequence of the root, a massive poverty of thought, feeling -- personal Effort. Ennui. Infantile amusement.. for life. 25,002 songs about, She Left Me .. Oh, Woe Woe Woe {plonk}
And not - vice versa. The seeking of ever more automatic 'comfort', the choosing of the simplest content-free courses in "school" and forever after - betrays the univeral sloth; diversion/distraction (from the fluff within) - is the evidence of why.. trite action flics/games/campaigns are now The Norm. We Are the Eloi, at last!
'Creationists'? Hah.. Seekers of Mind-fluff (if... the seeking isn't Too enervating - maybe 1.5 hours on a Sunday?)
Pshaw,
but WTF - it's all just a Play, anyway!
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Post #133,522
1/4/04 1:41:47 PM
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Re: "right wicked sense of humor"?
That's rather generous, it's more like the Master of Deception. Perhaps the creationists are mistaken about who the creator is. :)
Alex
In every country and every age, the priest had been hostile to Liberty. -- Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826), US president
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Post #133,584
1/4/04 9:08:57 PM
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What I believe
is that God created everything, and that the creation stories in the bible were told to early humans in terms they could understand. So humans got made out of Earth rather than primordial soup, there was a blast of light instead of a bing bang, the dinosaur age got skipped, and two groups of people explained things as they thought they were to get included in the book of Genesis. It was explained before the creation of writing, so the story got told over and over again before someone wrote it down. So there are certain truths to it, and some things that didn't get retold quite right. The thing that is important is that life, the universe, and everything has an Intelligent Design to it. Some being must have thought about it before creating it. A creator, or God if you will. It has yet to be disproven that God exists.
God does seem to have a weird sense of humor, further proof of an Intelligent Design, as how can humor exist in the universe without some sort of intelligence behind it?
As I said before it is impossible to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that God does not exist absolutely. You can say that you've never found God or any evidence that there is a God, but you cannot say it absolutely unless you did everything absoltely there is to do in the universe to find God. Sometimes you don't find God, and God finds you. :)
"Lady I only speak two languages, English and Bad English!" - Corbin Dallas "The Fifth Element"
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Post #133,595
1/4/04 10:33:51 PM
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Re: What I believe
What I believe is that God created everything, and that the creation stories in the bible were told to early humans in terms they could understand. So humans got made out of Earth rather than primordial soup, there was a blast of light instead of a bing bang, the dinosaur age got skipped, and two groups of people explained things as they thought they were to get included in the book of Genesis. It was explained before the creation of writing, so the story got told over and over again before someone wrote it down. So there are certain truths to it, and some things that didn't get retold quite right. The thing that is important is that life, the universe, and everything has an Intelligent Design to it. I always wonder about that theory, it is saying that God intentionally chose to mislead the vast majority of humans about the nature of the universe. This is really an admission that god is fundamentally evil, for how else could you describe a god that creates a universe and guides it to contain sentient life then intentionally misleads those beings about where they came from or why they are there. Would it really have been that hard for God to tell Ezra to add a little index throwing something indisputable in? Just a few pages explaining the principle of photon - electron equivlence or particle/wave duality or something that would indisputable show that the bible has an understanding of the world greater then the humans that wrote it, Ezra wouldn't even have to understand it. Heck, just a clear cut statement that the Earth was roughly spherical and orbited the Sun would a massive step in the correct direction. Some being must have thought about it before creating it. Why? For that claim to be true as an absolute you must be claiming that nothing is random. I would like too see you provide any evidence for that. A creator, or God if you will. You need to be more carefull in your terminology here. God implies the Christian god, god implies some divine being, creator only requires a entity with powers well beyond those currently available to humans. Those things are not in any way interchangable. Even if ID turns out to be true despite the evidence against it, it is also likely that humans at some point might gain the understanding and power needed to create our own universes and join the ranks of the creators. It has yet to be disproven that God exists. Nor has it been proven that he does. To allow God into science without evidence is to leave a gap in our understanding and say we are not going to look there because that is reserved for God. This is an act of foolishness, if something was done by God then science will find nothing, if it was not then it was an error to lable it so in the first place. Jay
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Post #133,744
1/5/04 8:21:13 PM
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Re: What I believe
I believe that a distinction needs to be noticed re the 'God' concept:
For Xians of multitudinous individual stripes - the idea of a "personal-God" is a root of the orthodoxy.
Others may use a similar name to 'God' (the Indian continent postulates a pantheon of Gods), endowing each with notably human qualities/ +and- yet all the while acknowledging a concept of The Absolute - and clearly 'saying' about That: "The Absolute is without attributes, is beyond knowing/not-knowing, being/non-being etc."
ie: beyond our illusionary world of Opposites {also implicitly recognized as 'illusionary'}.
It is within this Personal God\ufffd idea, where mischief begs to be done: "God hates the ___. God loves the ___. I Talk to God." yada yada. God (here) is "assigned attributes" by every overheated preacher and demagogue politico using the simplistic ideas to acquire more Power.
Personally, I find the thought that, 'God is within all things' idea sustainable without logic-fault or dance, or absurd ideas of proving the Ineffable. It hasn't caught on in the land where the real Deity is [Moi + $$]. I wonder whyever not?
I Who Be
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Post #133,919
1/6/04 5:04:06 PM
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While you were out:
When: 5:00 Universal Time
Who: God
Number: 5x2 (folded)
Concerning:
Ashton,
God told me that he wants you to stop posting evil things about HIM. He's got something for you at the gates. Unless you repent soon, well, you know.
Just the messenger,
Pope c.o. Danno
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Post #134,026
1/7/04 4:03:12 AM
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s'OK Danno
Not to worry.
She's made it abundantly clear to moi - that there really is no Hell such as.. an infinite NT-farm needing hourly rebooting.
{It was just a nightmare She intercepted from someone in a place called 'Redmond'} -
She hadn't ever visited there - so when I explained about the place..
She promised to do something Innovative, when a certain New Arrival showed up.
Arch-Daemon moi
Notre Dame des Citr\ufffdens
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Post #134,009
1/7/04 2:16:41 AM
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I see it as this
we are like children to God. Unable to understand all that God knows. God works in mysterious ways and does not reveal all of his secrets to us. Instead he wants us to try and discover them. It is debatable if the story of creation was told by God, or holy men. Maybe God told the whole story, the holy men couldn't understand most of it and wrote down what they understood or thought that God said. Repeat the retelling of it for thousands of years before writing is invented and the story loses a lot of details and gets changed a lot. Perhaps God was misquoted? :) For another example read the book of Revelation, John had a vision and wrote down what he saw, he explained it in a way that did not make sense and was cryptic. It was like a dream or a vision, need Joseph from the Old Testiment to translate it for us. A mystery or puzzle to solve before time runs out. We may see the truth but be unable to recognize it or understand it. We do our best to describe it, but being flawed, we have flawed observations. Over time we can create the tools, theories, ideas, etc to understand it better, but still we are flawed. Maybe we cannot put the pieces of the puzzle together yet.
Even if ID turns out to be true despite the evidence against it, it is also likely that humans at some point might gain the understanding and power needed to create our own universes and join the ranks of the creators.
It is also likely that we will fail because we don't understand it absolutely, and maybe never will? Maybe trying to do so will destroy our current universe? Oops, misplaced a decimal place, must be missing part of the formula, now we are all going to oblivion! :)
"Lady I only speak two languages, English and Bad English!" - Corbin Dallas "The Fifth Element"
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Post #134,025
1/7/04 3:51:29 AM
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Didn't address the issue
It is debatable if the story of creation was told by God, or holy men. Maybe God told the whole story, the holy men couldn't understand most of it and wrote down what they understood or thought that God said. Repeat the retelling of it for thousands of years before writing is invented and the story loses a lot of details and gets changed a lot. Perhaps God was misquoted? The issue is this, if God is actually all-knowing then he knew exactly how it's story would be misused. God intentionally did things in a way that would condemn the majority of humanity to hell, because he didn't feel like providing a clearer guide to how to be a good Christian. The only way out of this is claim that the bible's view of God, Jesus and religion is inaccurate. At which point you cease to be Christian, since you have now rejected all of the basic claims of the religion. Jay
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Post #134,073
1/7/04 10:46:02 AM
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Disagree
You claim that for God to let The Bible has mistakes condemns most people to Hell.
But that isn't necessarily so. What if God only cares about mistakes that actually might condemn people to Hell? Had The Bible been scientifically accurate about things that could only confuse in 200 AD, would that have made it more or less effective?
That said, it is true that most Christians believe that most of the world is going to Hell. Whether this squares with your impression of God is a well-known debate on the problem of evil. How you resolve that depends entirely on your impression of God. Since there seem to be as many of those as there are believers, and I don't subscribe to any of those, it is senseless for me to have a position on that.
I just wanted to point out that perfect accuracy in religious texts might not matter that much to a Deity. See the Baha'i faith for an example of a religion that claims that. More specifically they say that most religious texts are distorted in various ways to make them more effective at reaching people of that time and place and limited understanding.
Cheers,
Ben
"good ideas and bad code build communities, the other three combinations do not"
- [link|http://archives.real-time.com/pipermail/cocoon-devel/2000-October/003023.html|Stefano Mazzocchi]
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Post #134,084
1/7/04 11:44:38 AM
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That's true
But that isn't necessarily so. What if God only cares about mistakes that actually might condemn people to Hell? Had The Bible been scientifically accurate about things that could only confuse in 200 AD, would that have made it more or less effective? Because it wouldn't matter so much how the world came about, in living one's Christian life, as it would to follow say, the 10 Commandments, or other things God would have you to do. The way things happened isn't part of how to live. Nightowl >8# "It is understanding that gives us an ability to have peace. When we understand the other fellow's viewpoint, and he understands ours, then we can sit down and work out our differences." Harry S. Truman
"Whenever you're in conflict with someone, there is one factor that can make the difference between damaging your relationship and deepening it. That factor is attitude." Timothy Bentley
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Post #134,147
1/7/04 8:04:24 PM
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Re: Disagree
But that isn't necessarily so. What if God only cares about mistakes that actually might condemn people to Hell? Had The Bible been scientifically accurate about things that could only confuse in 200 AD, would that have made it more or less effective? That was actually the point of my second paragraph. That it is possible to have concepts of god that don't fall into the problem of evil, but that such religions are no longer Christianity in any meaningfull sense of the word. The problem of evil is largly a Christian problem because the Christian faiths are among the few ones that postulate a god that is all powerful, all knowing, perfectly good and yet for some reason only gives certain people a chance to avoid eternal torment. Jay
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Post #134,440
1/9/04 1:58:20 AM
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It's most likely pointless
In Murica, the prevailing form of religiosity is carried out within our Murican language, somewhat like English. There really aren't any common words which can assist in 'signifying' some of the problems with talking about er, "that which we are incapable of Grokking to Fullness". Further - there is precious little general Interest in such matters: these matters are settled permanently via early inculcation. Period. For most. (My experience, anyway)
Arguing Dogma with a dogmatist.. must be a lot like trying to describe ephemeral levels of sublimely timeless musical compositions - in a school for the hearing impaired. Further, as with geography - the average Murican is bone-ignorant of the rich tapestry of metaphysical thought in the world -- ancient or modern. (And often - even about the one chosen by default, by others) QED?
Norman's 'take' - in my experience - IS umm The Norm.
We believe, most of us, that which we Like; those in dire need of a 'personal god' - will invent one, no matter What. And the idea that there could be Evidence of such [either. way.] -- swears at all efforts 'mankind' has ever made, to build a language capable-even, of truthful admission: of one's incapacity to deal with certain 'issues', at all.
But then, these foribuses sometimes seem, occasionally, to come close to certain 'intimations', so .. WTF! Beats arguing Who was the Best fussball Coach ever, no?
Ashton
uh, never mind, I guess
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