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Two arguments that give the creationists the upper hand.
Numsgil:
--- Quote from: rsucoop ---Ah, but the logic it is derived from is very basic, and does not rely on deranged lunatics hearing voices. Every thing has mass. All mass is energy (Einstein's theory of relativity). All energy is movement, with all Newtonian laws applied one can see how this aplies to say, light or magnetism. So all mass has a frequency. All particles have a frequency. Therefore it is most likely that we are all just made of vibrations, or strings if you will. There isn't much speculation involved, not like the speculation that some God exists.
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Reread what you just said: if that doesn't sound like the deranged rantings of a lunatic, I don't know what does It's no more absurd than the animistic viewpoint that all matter has a spirit self. String theory at best is a sort of mathematically based metaphysics.
--- Quote ---Furthermore, it does not matter who wrote the bible, the basis was that God had to prove he existed to the prophet or the saint by speaking to him. If God exsisted, he wouldn't have to talk to the prophets. Beyond that, Mark Twain makes many good remarks on why its so obsurd to even believe in a God (or at least one that pays any attention to the Universe). Finally, if God doesn't exist and the saints say he does, then God cannot exist by virtue of their writing (Yet if God does exist, then why is he not runnign the Universe? Better yet, why is he not creating more universes and dimensions). Because under saint prestense, god is all-knowing and all-powerful, so it would only make sense that a simple planet would be a waste of his effort (he would already know the outcome of anything he did, and he would know that before humans can do anything to help it, the Universe will hyper-expand). So this idea of a God in the bible sense has many logical errors, making it ilogical and irrational. But the idea of a God who somehow built something seems abit odd too. Why build something that you'll outlive if you're so smart? Seems like a big waste of time if I was god. Sort of like doing this
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Not at all. It should be amply clear that the Judeo-Christian monotheistic God has a very straightforward goal in mind: growing a larval stage of His progeny on Earth: namely mankind. That is, raising his literal children. Why do you think the imagery of "Father-Child" is used? It's the same way that teaching a kid to ride a bike isn't a waste of time. Sure, you could ride the bike yourself, in a fraction of the effort, but the act of teaching is infinitely more meaningful. That God isn't directly visible gives us a hint of the level of growth mortal life represents: mankind is something like a toddler going to preschool for the first time. Sure it seems to us like our Parent has abandoned us, but in reality it's just the first step of growing up and becoming independant.
And who says that Earth is the only planet God is working on? I'm pretty sure I've heard phrases like "worlds without end" at various times in different services. The whole idea of the Judeo-Christian God is that He's quite literally the God of the whole universe. Or at least our observable neck of the woods. Other sentient life is presumably also under God's charge.
--- Quote ---Also, its odd that a believer of God would deny that there aren't more dimensions that cannot be percieved with limited 3 dimensional sensors. After all, is that not what religion is abou? Some higher place out of sight, even when using the Hubble Space Sattellite.
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I make a careful distinction between belief and science. If you came to me and said that you're religion claims that there are an extra 8 unobservable dimensions, and that all of everything is built from vibrating strings, that's fine, that's what you believe. However, when you claim it's good science, I require supporting evidence before I accept it.
--- Quote ---Also, your analogy does not seem to fit. You're comparing some language that cannot be interpreted (but can be percieved) to something which cannot be percieved yet can be interpreted.
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Perhaps something such as this would make more sense?
--- Quote ---(BTW, time is the 4th dimension. Can you see time? Einstein's proof is 100% accepted and solid. And many things are beginning to show that this fact is the case).
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Time is observable. We can percieve time. Time was understood (in our rather constant inertial frame) long before Einstein. That's what makes general relativity work: it makes predictions about things we know about. Einstein didn't have to invent anything new, he just reformulated what we already understood. When you start talking about compacted dimensions, I must scoff.
--- Quote from: EricL ---Only religon claims to have all the answers and proof in the positive. Ask your religious leader "what experiment could I perform where if the results came out a certain way would falsify your claims?"
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Here's what I almost guarentee a Christian priest would answer:
"Let Christ in to your heart and life, allow him to be your personal savior, and I guarentee you that you will receive a testament of the truth of these things".
The problem is that you as a science minded individual want to measure with a ruler and stopwatch, whereas a priest wants to measure in warm fuzzies. They're really orthogonal to each other; you might as well be speaking different languages. Almost everything religion is about (morality, our place in the universe, our relationship with our ancestors, our future destiny, etc.) are things that science has no business even asking. How do you measure morality? How do you develop a theory about the meaning of existence? It just doesn't work.
Really the whole idea that science and religion are in direct competition with each other is extremely stupid. There is a tiny portion of Judeo mythology that modern science conflicts with: namely Genesis and the creation story. And only like the first 10 chapters at that. And even then the only reason it's a big deal is that most Christians don't seem able to read more than the first 40 pages of their Bible. They worked hard on reading that first chapter. It's all they have. I mean, once you get into later Genesis you start having all sorts of boring geneologies, and the Mosaic law, and who in their right mind wants to read that? If the bible started with something like Isaiah, I think people would have a better idea about the whole point of all this.
Ispettore:
In the last right-wing governement here in italy (berlusconi) we had a minister of public education who wanted to abolish the darwin theory teaching in schools and restore the teaching of creationism. These are very dangerous people, Darwin died 150 years ago and some stupid catholics still don't belive him... italy is truly the third world.
EDIT: BTW the proof that bible is completely wrong, is that earth goes around the sun (in the bible it is written the opposite) and that jews are the most unlucky people in the world, and they should be the chosens. Of course I'm not a nazist, just look at history: they where fucked by all governments, and they have been slaves since the age of pharaons by the hitler's government. Another thing, we italians killed Jesus (if he existed) and god haven't punished we yet.
EricL:
--- Quote from: Numsgil ---Here's what I almost guarentee a Christian priest would answer:
"Let Christ in to your heart and life, allow him to be your personal savior, and I guarentee you that you will receive a testament of the truth of these things".
--- End quote ---
Why not budda? Or Allah? Or Gaia? Or Apollo? Or Elvis? Every religion is a minority. If Christians claim only they are right, then they must think most of the world is deluded and they must therefor accept that it must be relativly easy to be deluded regarding religon. BUt on the other hand, if they allow that beleif in any god can produce the same inner, untestable statement of truth, then they must acknowledge that perhaps it's not so much the god that matters but rather the belief itself....
--- Quote from: Numsgil ---The problem is that you as a science minded individual want to measure with a ruler and stopwatch, whereas a priest wants to measure in warm fuzzies. They're really orthogonal to each other; you might as well be speaking different languages. Almost everything religion is about (morality, our place in the universe, our relationship with our ancestors, our future destiny, etc.) are things that science has no business even asking. How do you measure morality? How do you develop a theory about the meaning of existence? It just doesn't work.
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Well I strongly disagree here as you might imagine. All religions make scientific claims: virgin births, turning wine into blood, physical miricles, the power of prayer and so on. All of these things are testable and measurable. Morality is easily measurable for example. A well designed questionaire or experiment is all it takes. There have been many studies measuring morality and you might expect, they all find no relationship between religious beleif and morality. There are moral religious people and immoral religious people, same with athiests and any other large demographic group.
Science is just a methodology for seeking the answers to questions through rational processes. As such, I would claim there is nothing that cannot be explored (and eventually addressed) using a scientific method. But one of the first steps to answerring questions scientifically is to make sure the question is well formed. Asking "what is the meaning of existance?" is not IMHO a well formed question, in the same way "what came before the big bang?" is not well formed. The term "meaning" is human centric and presumes aprori that there must be a meaning, that existance and everything else must mean something to humans. This is obviously not the case. Similarly, humans have brains evolved to deal with the macro world with it's 4 dimensions. It should not be surprising that humans have a hard time understanding additional dimensions or that that time itself started with the big bang and that asking "what came before the big bang" is not well formed.
--- Quote from: Numsgil ---Really the whole idea that science and religion are in direct competition with each other is extremely stupid.
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I used to feel this way. I used to take a live and let live approach. I changed my mind the day a bunch of religious whack jobs flew airplanes into buildings. Religion and the irrational beliefs in an afterlife (not to mention unlocked cockpit doors) allowed that to happen.
The irrational beleifs of others effect me, effect the world I live in and the world my children are growing up in. I have no probelm with someone belonging to a social club they attend every Sunday (or Saturday or Tuesday) morning with their friends. I have no problems with people (willingly) following a personal code of conduct or subscribing to an organized code of conduct. I have no problem with tradition and culture. I was married in a catholic church and celebrate a secular christmas for example. But supernatural beleifs in direct contradiction to reality are dangerous. If you beleive in the irrational, you can believe in anything and that makes you dangerous. Someone may convince you strapping on an explosivie vest and detonating it in a shopping mall is the path to salvation or that electing leaders that believe in armragedon and putting them in charge of tens of thousands of nuclear missles is a good thing.
And let me just add that the whole "those guys weren't my religion" or "those guys were misguided extremists" or "my religion is a kind, gentle religion that would never condone such things" argument is total bullshit. By beleiving in the supernatural, by making belief in the supernatural not only socially acceptable but desirable, adherants of kinder, gentlier religious are giving aircover to extremists. Why is it that we would send someone who truly beleives Elvis is alive and talks to them in their head to see a phsycologist but we don't do that for the gods supportted by organized religion? We should. Ignorance is the enemy of rationality and beleif in the supernatural is ignorant.
Numsgil:
--- Quote from: EricL ---
--- Quote from: Numsgil ---Here's what I almost guarentee a Christian priest would answer:
"Let Christ in to your heart and life, allow him to be your personal savior, and I guarentee you that you will receive a testament of the truth of these things".
--- End quote ---
Why not budda? Or Allah? Or Gaia? Or Apollo? Or Elvis? Every religion is a minority. If Christians claim only they are right, then they must think most of the world is deluded and they must therefor accept that it must be relativly easy to be deluded regarding religon. BUt on the other hand, if they allow that beleif in any god can produce the same inner, untestable statement of truth, then they must acknowledge that perhaps it's not so much the god that matters but rather the belief itself....
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Which many might do. Christianity as a whole is a rather fragmented patch of related but distinct beliefs. Among these is the so called Christian Humanist. Another take might be that, like the blind men and the elephant, each religion has a correct, but limited, view of the Almighty. Yet another view might be that each present religion grew from the same seed of truth, and have long since strayed and erred. Religion is not cohesive like science. Religion is not based upon an independantly verified truth. If science is about removing the human component from our understanding of the universe (removing bias, superstition, etc.), religion is about understanding the universe through the human component.
--- Quote ---Well I strongly disagree here as you might imagine. All religions make scientific claims: virgin births, turning wine into blood, physical miricles, the power of prayer and so on. All of these things are testable and measurable. Morality is easily measurable for example. A well designed questionaire or experiment is all it takes. There have been many studies measuring morality and you might expect, they all find no relationship between religious beleif and morality. There are moral religious people and immoral religious people, same with athiests and any other large demographic group.
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What if I answer "I like to kill people" on your questionaire? Is that a moral or amoral act? How do you even begin to define "good" and "bad" in a purely scientific manner? Science is great at being impartial, but it does not deliver any value systems with which to judge the world. You could maybe develop a theory about the effect of murder on societies and trust, etc. but at some point someone is going to have to make a judgement call about what is desirable and what is not. That's the realm of religion, philosophy, etc. Things that are definately not scientific.
--- Quote ---The term "meaning" is human centric and presumes aprori that there must be a meaning, that existance and everything else must mean something to humans. This is obviously not the case. Similarly, humans have brains evolved to deal with the macro world with it's 4 dimensions. It should not be surprising that humans have a hard time understanding additional dimensions or that that time itself started with the big bang and that asking "what came before the big bang" is not well formed.
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I would say that the argument that "of course humans don't understand higher dimensions, because we don't have the capacity" is anti-human centric. Imagine for a moment the beginning of life on earth. The first thing that learned how to move can only move in a straight line. It's immediately out-competed by a creature that can swim in two dimensions. That creature is immediately out competed by a creature that can move in 3 dimensions. etc. etc. If we can only observe 3 physical dimensions and a strange one way dimension, that must mean that those are the only dimensions that have meaning in our existance. Higher dimensions may or may not exist in any real sense, but they do not effect our normal, everyday life.
Same way that relativity does not effect normal, everyday life. You want me to believe in relativity? I can use suspension of disbelief for a moment, but you'll need to provide empiracle evidence very soon after. Thankfully, it was just a handful of years after a single man created a new theory that it was confirmed by empiracle evidence. My assumption was justified.
I will take the existence of higher dimensions as an assumption in a scientific theory, in the same manner as I took relativity. String theory is like, what? 30 years old? With thousands of scientists working on it. And it's not even done. How many falsifiable experiments do we have? Talk about much to do about nothing. You're straining my powers of assumption. It's just like a software project. You need to test each individual function against specification. In science, you need to test every single assumption against evidence. String theory has put the horse before the carriage, and the result is a huge theoretical mess with no practical use. Relativity gave us nuclear plants and bombs within just a decade or so. String theory hasn't even been able to figure out how to test itself yet!
--- Quote ---
--- Quote from: Numsgil ---Really the whole idea that science and religion are in direct competition with each other is extremely stupid.
--- End quote ---
I used to feel this way. I used to take a live and let live approach. I changed my mind the day a bunch of religious whack jobs flew airplanes into buildings. Religion and the irrational beliefs in an afterlife (not to mention unlocked cockpit doors) allowed that to happen.
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Sept. 11 was about as much about religion as the crusades were: meaning only a flimsy pretense. Think about it. If it was a Muslim war against Christianity, they would have attacked the Vatican. If it was a Muslim war against Jews, they would have attacked Israel. Instead it was an attack on trade. On capatalism. It's a political attack by a political organization that hides behind its religion for justification. They're upset with American support for the monarchy in Egypt, or something like that.
People hide their hate behind religion because they're ignorant and stupid. Don't blame religion. Islam certainly does not advocate military attacks on civilian targets. People don't need help being hateful.
--- Quote ---But supernatural beleifs in direct contradiction to reality are dangerous.
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Are dangerous to whom? To the people? Big deal. You're upset when they intrude on your life. And rightfully so. That violates the very founding principle of your country: libertarianism (which, by the way, is a philosphy and not a science. How would you scientifically define the idea of the right to be left alone?). But that isn't the fault of belief. That's the fault of people. And people will act stupid and hateful regardless of what religion, belief, or philosophy the believe in (or don't). If anything, religion, belief, and philosophy are what prevents Man from being stupid and hateful all the time. How easy would it be to fall in to a science-only world view, and adopt Social Darwinism as a guiding principle? How would that make you any better from someone who falls in to a religion-only world view and adopts I-don't-understand-that-it-must-be-magic guiding principle? Both views can cause so much harm.
Numsgil:
--- Quote ---EDIT: BTW the proof that bible is completely wrong, is that earth goes around the sun (in the bible it is written the opposite)
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Really? What verse? No, the bible never says anything about the sun and the earth, and which revolves around the other (and technically, with relativity and lorentz transformations, both are correct).
--- Quote ---and that jews are the most unlucky people in the world, and they should be the chosens. Of course I'm not a nazist, just look at history: they where fucked by all governments, and they have been slaves since the age of pharaons by the hitler's government.
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You don't understand what it means to be "chosen". It doesn't mean life's going to be great for you. It means God's given you a great deal (not always material goods.) and it's your job to live up to God's expectations. If anything, being chosen is a burden, requiring extra work and effort. I'm sure there's a parable about that Something with money and digging holes
--- Quote from: Ispettore ---Another thing, we italians killed Jesus (if he existed) and god haven't punished we yet.
...
In the last right-wing governement here in italy (berlusconi) we had a minister of public education who wanted to abolish the darwin theory teaching in schools and restore the teaching of creationism. These are very dangerous people, Darwin died 150 years ago and some stupid catholics still don't belive him... italy is truly the third world.
--- End quote ---
You just answered your own question Anyway, the Romans didn't kill Jesus. The Jews did. Or that's the story anyway. Pontius Pilate (or however it's spelled) tried to get Jesus exonerated, but the (Jewish) crowd wouldn't go for it. Personally I think the Romans killed Jesus, and the story was changed to make the Empire look better (so Christians wouldn't be killed as unpatriotic). But whatever.
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