what religion?
but a basic principle of Islam is the beliefe in the Qur'an. Sure, there are plenty of muslims that aren't entirely orthadox, but The Qur'an's Indesputable Credibility is a law in Islamic culture. I'm not trying to argue, I'm just saying that it's something Islam teaches... if you find something contradictory in the Qur'an, you're misenterpretting it or you're just missing the basic idea that is trying to be passed on. I'm not even saying that this statement is true. I'm simply saying that it's a statement that has been made by the Nation of Islam. I find it very powerful and interesting...Jeremy wrote:I think that's a gross generalisation. There are plenty of moderate Muslims, just like there are plenty of Christians who believe the Bible is the word of God and plenty that don't. Just like the Bible, the Koran has numerous contradictions and claims that are false according to the historic evidence, as well as plenty of very questionable moral teachings - that most Christians and Muslims choose to ignore.
Ben Roscoe
-
HackMaverick
- Multidex Master
- Posts: 229
- Joined: 23 Apr 2002 15:36
- Location: AUSTIN, TX
I came across this article by Pulitzer Prize winner, Natalie Angier at www.edge.org and thought some people would be interested in reading it. Edge is a place for discussion amongst probably the greatest minds alive at the moment - Noam Chomsky, Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett, Richard Foreman, Stephen Pinker and Michael Shermer to name just a few of the many contributors. Lately God has been one of the major discussions, and although most of the contributors are atheists and non believers (although Stephen Jay Gould is another contributor), there are also the odd religious apologist or sympathiser. Anyway, here is what Natalia Angier says about God.
MY GOD PROBLEM - By Natalie Angier
In the course of reporting a book on the scientific canon and pestering hundreds of researchers at the nation's great universities about what they see as the essential vitamins and minerals of literacy in their particular disciplines, I have been hammered into a kind of twinkle-eyed cartoon coma by one recurring message. Whether they are biologists, geologists, physicists, chemists, astronomers, or engineers, virtually all my sources topped their list of what they wish people understood about science with a plug for Darwin's dandy idea. Would you please tell the public, they implored, that evolution is for real? Would you please explain that the evidence for it is overwhelming and that an appreciation of evolution serves as the bedrock of our understanding of all life on this planet?
In other words, the scientists wanted me to do my bit to help fix the terrible little statistic they keep hearing about, the one indicating that many more Americans believe in angels, devils, and poltergeists than in evolution. According to recent polls, about 82 percent are convinced of the reality of heaven (and 63 percent think they're headed there after death); 51 percent believe in ghosts; but only 28 percent are swayed by the theory of evolution.
Scientists think this is terrible—the public's bizarre underappreciation of one of science's great and unshakable discoveries, how we and all we see came to be—and they're right. Yet I can't help feeling tetchy about the limits most of them put on their complaints. You see, they want to augment this particular figure—the number of people who believe in evolution—without bothering to confront a few other salient statistics that pollsters have revealed about America's religious cosmogony. Few scientists, for example, worry about the 77 percent of Americans who insist that Jesus was born to a virgin, an act of parthenogenesis that defies everything we know about mammalian genetics and reproduction. Nor do the researchers wring their hands over the 80 percent who believe in the resurrection of Jesus, the laws of thermodynamics be damned.
No, most scientists are not interested in taking on any of the mighty cornerstones of Christianity. They complain about irrational thinking, they despise creationist "science," they roll their eyes over America's infatuation with astrology, telekinesis, spoon bending, reincarnation, and UFOs, but toward the bulk of the magic acts that have won the imprimatur of inclusion in the Bible, they are tolerant, respectful, big of tent. Indeed, many are quick to point out that the Catholic Church has endorsed the theory of evolution and that it sees no conflict between a belief in God and the divinity of Jesus and the notion of evolution by natural selection. If the pope is buying it, the reason for most Americans' resistance to evolution must have less to do with religion than with a lousy advertising campaign.
So, on the issue of mainstream monotheistic religions and the irrationality behind many of religion's core tenets, scientists often set aside their skewers, their snark, and their impatient demand for proof, and instead don the calming cardigan of a a kiddie-show host on public television. They reassure the public that religion and science are not at odds with one another, but rather that they represent separate "magisteria," in the words of the formerly alive and even more formerly scrappy Stephen Jay Gould. Nobody is going to ask people to give up their faith, their belief in an everlasting soul accompanied by an immortal memory of every soccer game their kids won, every moment they spent playing fetch with the dog. Nobody is going to mock you for your religious beliefs. Well, we might if you base your life decisions on the advice of a Ouija board; but if you want to believe that someday you'll be seated at a celestial banquet with your long-dead father to your right and Jane Austen to your left-and that she'll want to talk to you for another hundred million years or more—that's your private reliquary, and we're not here to jimmy the lock.
Consider the very different treatments accorded two questions presented to Cornell University's "Ask an Astronomer" Web site. To the query, "Do most astronomers believe in God, based on the available evidence?" the astronomer Dave Rothstein replies that, in his opinion, "modern science leaves plenty of room for the existence of God . . . places where people who do believe in God can fit their beliefs in the scientific framework without creating any contradictions." He cites the Big Bang as offering solace to those who want to believe in a Genesis equivalent and the probabilistic realms of quantum mechanics as raising the possibility of "God intervening every time a measurement occurs" before concluding that, ultimately, science can never prove or disprove the existence of a god, and religious belief doesn't—and shouldn't—"have anything to do with scientific reasoning."
How much less velveteen is the response to the reader asking whether astronomers believe in astrology. "No, astronomers do not believe in astrology," snarls Dave Kornreich. "It is considered to be a ludicrous scam. There is no evidence that it works, and plenty of evidence to the contrary." Dr. Kornreich ends his dismissal with the assertion that in science "one does not need a reason not to believe in something." Skepticism is "the default position" and "one requires proof if one is to be convinced of something's existence."
In other words, for horoscope fans, the burden of proof is entirely on them, the poor gullible gits; while for the multitudes who believe that, in one way or another, a divine intelligence guides the path of every leaping lepton, there is no demand for evidence, no skepticism to surmount, no need to worry. You, the religious believer, may well find subtle support for your faith in recent discoveries—that is, if you're willing to upgrade your metaphors and definitions as the latest data demand, seek out new niches of ignorance or ambiguity to fill with the goose down of faith, and accept that, certain passages of the Old Testament notwithstanding, the world is very old, not everything in nature was made in a week, and (can you turn up the mike here, please?) Evolution Happens.
And if you don't find substantiation for your preferred divinity or your most cherished rendering of the afterlife somewhere in the sprawling emporium of science, that's fine, too. No need to lose faith when you were looking in the wrong place to begin with. Science can't tell you whether God exists or where you go when you die. Science cannot definitively rule out the heaven option, with its helium balloons and Breck hair for all. Science in no way wants to be associated with terrifying thoughts, like the possibility that the pericentury of consciousness granted you by the convoluted, gelatinous, and transient organ in your skull just may be the whole story of you-dom. Science isn't arrogant. Science trades in the observable universe and testable hypotheses. Religion gets the midnight panic fêtes. But you've heard about evolution, right?
So why is it that most scientists avoid criticizing religion even as they decry the supernatural mind-set? For starters, some researchers are themselves traditionally devout, keeping a kosher kitchen or taking Communion each Sunday. I admit I'm surprised whenever I encounter a religious scientist. How can a bench-hazed Ph. D., who might in an afternoon deftly purée a colleague's PowerPoint presentation on the nematode genome into so much fish chow, then go home, read in a two-thousand-year-old chronicle, riddled with internal contradictions, of a meta-Nobel discovery like "Resurrection from the Dead," and say, gee, that sounds convincing? Doesn't the good doctor wonder what the control group looked like?
Scientists, however, are a far less religious lot than the American population, and, the higher you go on the cerebro-magisterium, the greater the proportion of atheists, agnostics, and assorted other paganites. According to a 1998 survey published in Nature, only 7 percent of members of the prestigious National Academy of Sciences professed a belief in a "personal God." (Interestingly, a slightly higher number, 7.9 percent, claimed to believe in "personal immortality," which may say as much about the robustness of the scientific ego as about anything else.) In other words, more than 90 percent of our elite scientists are unlikely to pray for divine favoritism, no matter how badly they want to beat a competitor to publication. Yet only a flaskful of the faithless have put their nonbelief on record or publicly criticized religion, the notable and voluble exceptions being Richard Dawkins of Oxford University and Daniel Dennett of Tufts University. Nor have Dawkins and Dennett earned much good will among their colleagues for their anticlerical views; one astronomer I spoke with said of Dawkins, "He's a really fine parish preacher of the fire-and-brimstone school, isn't he?"
So, what keeps most scientists quiet about religion? It's probably something close to that trusty old limbic reflex called "an instinct for self-preservation." For centuries, science has survived quite nicely by cultivating an image of reserve and objectivity, of being above religion, politics, business, table manners. Scientists want to be left alone to do their work, dazzle their peers, and hire grad students to wash the glassware. When it comes to extramural combat, scientists choose their crusades cautiously. Going after Uri Geller or the Ra‘lians is risk-free entertainment, easier than making fun of the sociology department. Battling the creationist camp has been a much harder and nastier fight, but those scientists who have taken it on feel they have a direct stake in the debate and are entitled to wage it, since the creationists, and more recently the promoters of "intelligent design" theory, claim to be as scientific in their methodology as are the scientists.
But when a teenager named Darrell Lambert was chucked out of the Boy Scouts for being an atheist, scientists suddenly remembered all those gels they had to run and dark matter they had to chase, and they kept quiet. Lambert had explained the reason why, despite a childhood spent in Bible classes and church youth groups, he had become an atheist. He took biology in ninth grade, and, rather than devoting himself to studying the bra outline of the girl sitting in front of him, he actually learned some biology. And what he learned in biology persuaded him that the Bible was full of . . . short stories. Some good, some inspiring, some even racy, but fiction nonetheless. For his incisive, reasoned, scientific look at life, and for refusing to cook the data and simply lie to the Boy Scouts about his thoughts on God—as some advised him to do—Darrell Lambert should have earned a standing ovation from the entire scientific community. Instead, he had to settle for an interview with Connie Chung, right after a report on the Gambino family.
Scientists have ample cause to feel they must avoid being viewed as irreligious, a prionic life-form bent on destroying the most sacred heifer in America. After all, academic researchers graze on taxpayer pastures. If they pay the slightest attention to the news, they've surely noticed the escalating readiness of conservative politicians and an array of highly motivated religious organizations to interfere with the nation's scientific enterprise—altering the consumer information Web site at the National Cancer Institute to make abortion look like a cause of breast cancer, which it is not, or stuffing scientific advisory panels with anti-abortion "faith healers."
Recently, an obscure little club called the Traditional Values Coalition began combing through descriptions of projects supported by the National Institutes of Health and complaining to sympathetic congressmen about those they deemed morally "rotten," most of them studies of sexual behavior and AIDS prevention. The congressmen in turn launched a series of hearings, calling in institute officials to inquire who in the Cotton-pickin' name of Mather cares about the perversions of Native American homosexuals, to which the researchers replied, um, the studies were approved by a panel of scientific experts, and, gee, the Native American community has been underserved and is having a real problem with AIDS these days. Thus far, the projects have escaped being nullified, but the raw display of pious dentition must surely give fright to even the most rakishly freethinking and comfortably tenured professor. It's one thing to monkey with descriptions of Darwinism in a high-school textbook. But to threaten to take away a peer-reviewed grant! That Dan Dennett; he is something of a pompous leafblower, isn't he?
Yet the result of wincing and capitulating is a fresh round of whacks. Now it's not enough for presidential aspirants to make passing reference to their "faith." Now a reporter from Newsweek sees it as his privilege, if not his duty, to demand of Howard Dean, "Do you see Jesus Christ as the son of God and believe in him as the route to salvation and eternal life?" In my personal fairy tale, Dean, who as a doctor fits somewhere in the phylum Scientificus, might have boomed, "Well, with his views on camels and rich people, he sure wouldn't vote Republican!" or maybe, "No, but I hear he has a Mel Gibson complex." Dr. Dean might have talked about patients of his who suffered strokes and lost the very fabric of themselves and how he has seen the centrality of the brain to the sense of being an individual. He might have expressed doubts that the self survives the brain, but, oh yes, life goes on, life is bigger, stronger, and better endowed than any Bush in a jumpsuit, and we are part of the wild, tumbling river of life, our molecules were the molecules of dinosaurs and before that of stars, and this is not Bulfinch mythology, this is corroborated reality.
Alas for my phantasm of fact, Howard Dean, M. D., had no choice but to chime, oh yes, he certainly sees Jesus as the son of God, though he at least dodged the eternal life clause with a humble mumble about his salvation not being up to him.
I may be an atheist, and I may be impressed that, through the stepwise rigor of science, its Spockian eyebrow of doubt always cocked, we have learned so much about the universe. Yet I recognize that, from there to here, and here to there, funny things are everywhere. Why is there so much dark matter and dark energy in the great Out There, and why couldn't cosmologists have given them different enough names so I could keep them straight? Why is there something rather than nothing, and why is so much of it on my desk? Not to mention the abiding mysteries of e-mail, like why I get exponentially more spam every day, nine-tenths of it invitations to enlarge an appendage I don't have.
I recognize that science doesn't have all the answers and doesn't pretend to, and that's one of the things I love about it. But it has a pretty good notion of what's probable or possible, and virgin births and carpenter rebirths just aren't on the list. Is there a divine intelligence, separate from the universe but somehow in charge of the universe, either in its inception or in twiddling its parameters? No evidence. Is the universe itself God? Is the universe aware of itself? We're here. We're aware. Does that make us God? Will my daughter have to attend a Quaker Friends school now?
I don't believe in life after death, but I'd like to believe in life before death. I'd like to think that one of these days we'll leave superstition and delusional thinking and Jerry Falwell behind. Scientists would like that, too. But for now, they like their grants even more.
[First published in The American Scholar 72, no. 2, Spring 2004]
MY GOD PROBLEM - By Natalie Angier
In the course of reporting a book on the scientific canon and pestering hundreds of researchers at the nation's great universities about what they see as the essential vitamins and minerals of literacy in their particular disciplines, I have been hammered into a kind of twinkle-eyed cartoon coma by one recurring message. Whether they are biologists, geologists, physicists, chemists, astronomers, or engineers, virtually all my sources topped their list of what they wish people understood about science with a plug for Darwin's dandy idea. Would you please tell the public, they implored, that evolution is for real? Would you please explain that the evidence for it is overwhelming and that an appreciation of evolution serves as the bedrock of our understanding of all life on this planet?
In other words, the scientists wanted me to do my bit to help fix the terrible little statistic they keep hearing about, the one indicating that many more Americans believe in angels, devils, and poltergeists than in evolution. According to recent polls, about 82 percent are convinced of the reality of heaven (and 63 percent think they're headed there after death); 51 percent believe in ghosts; but only 28 percent are swayed by the theory of evolution.
Scientists think this is terrible—the public's bizarre underappreciation of one of science's great and unshakable discoveries, how we and all we see came to be—and they're right. Yet I can't help feeling tetchy about the limits most of them put on their complaints. You see, they want to augment this particular figure—the number of people who believe in evolution—without bothering to confront a few other salient statistics that pollsters have revealed about America's religious cosmogony. Few scientists, for example, worry about the 77 percent of Americans who insist that Jesus was born to a virgin, an act of parthenogenesis that defies everything we know about mammalian genetics and reproduction. Nor do the researchers wring their hands over the 80 percent who believe in the resurrection of Jesus, the laws of thermodynamics be damned.
No, most scientists are not interested in taking on any of the mighty cornerstones of Christianity. They complain about irrational thinking, they despise creationist "science," they roll their eyes over America's infatuation with astrology, telekinesis, spoon bending, reincarnation, and UFOs, but toward the bulk of the magic acts that have won the imprimatur of inclusion in the Bible, they are tolerant, respectful, big of tent. Indeed, many are quick to point out that the Catholic Church has endorsed the theory of evolution and that it sees no conflict between a belief in God and the divinity of Jesus and the notion of evolution by natural selection. If the pope is buying it, the reason for most Americans' resistance to evolution must have less to do with religion than with a lousy advertising campaign.
So, on the issue of mainstream monotheistic religions and the irrationality behind many of religion's core tenets, scientists often set aside their skewers, their snark, and their impatient demand for proof, and instead don the calming cardigan of a a kiddie-show host on public television. They reassure the public that religion and science are not at odds with one another, but rather that they represent separate "magisteria," in the words of the formerly alive and even more formerly scrappy Stephen Jay Gould. Nobody is going to ask people to give up their faith, their belief in an everlasting soul accompanied by an immortal memory of every soccer game their kids won, every moment they spent playing fetch with the dog. Nobody is going to mock you for your religious beliefs. Well, we might if you base your life decisions on the advice of a Ouija board; but if you want to believe that someday you'll be seated at a celestial banquet with your long-dead father to your right and Jane Austen to your left-and that she'll want to talk to you for another hundred million years or more—that's your private reliquary, and we're not here to jimmy the lock.
Consider the very different treatments accorded two questions presented to Cornell University's "Ask an Astronomer" Web site. To the query, "Do most astronomers believe in God, based on the available evidence?" the astronomer Dave Rothstein replies that, in his opinion, "modern science leaves plenty of room for the existence of God . . . places where people who do believe in God can fit their beliefs in the scientific framework without creating any contradictions." He cites the Big Bang as offering solace to those who want to believe in a Genesis equivalent and the probabilistic realms of quantum mechanics as raising the possibility of "God intervening every time a measurement occurs" before concluding that, ultimately, science can never prove or disprove the existence of a god, and religious belief doesn't—and shouldn't—"have anything to do with scientific reasoning."
How much less velveteen is the response to the reader asking whether astronomers believe in astrology. "No, astronomers do not believe in astrology," snarls Dave Kornreich. "It is considered to be a ludicrous scam. There is no evidence that it works, and plenty of evidence to the contrary." Dr. Kornreich ends his dismissal with the assertion that in science "one does not need a reason not to believe in something." Skepticism is "the default position" and "one requires proof if one is to be convinced of something's existence."
In other words, for horoscope fans, the burden of proof is entirely on them, the poor gullible gits; while for the multitudes who believe that, in one way or another, a divine intelligence guides the path of every leaping lepton, there is no demand for evidence, no skepticism to surmount, no need to worry. You, the religious believer, may well find subtle support for your faith in recent discoveries—that is, if you're willing to upgrade your metaphors and definitions as the latest data demand, seek out new niches of ignorance or ambiguity to fill with the goose down of faith, and accept that, certain passages of the Old Testament notwithstanding, the world is very old, not everything in nature was made in a week, and (can you turn up the mike here, please?) Evolution Happens.
And if you don't find substantiation for your preferred divinity or your most cherished rendering of the afterlife somewhere in the sprawling emporium of science, that's fine, too. No need to lose faith when you were looking in the wrong place to begin with. Science can't tell you whether God exists or where you go when you die. Science cannot definitively rule out the heaven option, with its helium balloons and Breck hair for all. Science in no way wants to be associated with terrifying thoughts, like the possibility that the pericentury of consciousness granted you by the convoluted, gelatinous, and transient organ in your skull just may be the whole story of you-dom. Science isn't arrogant. Science trades in the observable universe and testable hypotheses. Religion gets the midnight panic fêtes. But you've heard about evolution, right?
So why is it that most scientists avoid criticizing religion even as they decry the supernatural mind-set? For starters, some researchers are themselves traditionally devout, keeping a kosher kitchen or taking Communion each Sunday. I admit I'm surprised whenever I encounter a religious scientist. How can a bench-hazed Ph. D., who might in an afternoon deftly purée a colleague's PowerPoint presentation on the nematode genome into so much fish chow, then go home, read in a two-thousand-year-old chronicle, riddled with internal contradictions, of a meta-Nobel discovery like "Resurrection from the Dead," and say, gee, that sounds convincing? Doesn't the good doctor wonder what the control group looked like?
Scientists, however, are a far less religious lot than the American population, and, the higher you go on the cerebro-magisterium, the greater the proportion of atheists, agnostics, and assorted other paganites. According to a 1998 survey published in Nature, only 7 percent of members of the prestigious National Academy of Sciences professed a belief in a "personal God." (Interestingly, a slightly higher number, 7.9 percent, claimed to believe in "personal immortality," which may say as much about the robustness of the scientific ego as about anything else.) In other words, more than 90 percent of our elite scientists are unlikely to pray for divine favoritism, no matter how badly they want to beat a competitor to publication. Yet only a flaskful of the faithless have put their nonbelief on record or publicly criticized religion, the notable and voluble exceptions being Richard Dawkins of Oxford University and Daniel Dennett of Tufts University. Nor have Dawkins and Dennett earned much good will among their colleagues for their anticlerical views; one astronomer I spoke with said of Dawkins, "He's a really fine parish preacher of the fire-and-brimstone school, isn't he?"
So, what keeps most scientists quiet about religion? It's probably something close to that trusty old limbic reflex called "an instinct for self-preservation." For centuries, science has survived quite nicely by cultivating an image of reserve and objectivity, of being above religion, politics, business, table manners. Scientists want to be left alone to do their work, dazzle their peers, and hire grad students to wash the glassware. When it comes to extramural combat, scientists choose their crusades cautiously. Going after Uri Geller or the Ra‘lians is risk-free entertainment, easier than making fun of the sociology department. Battling the creationist camp has been a much harder and nastier fight, but those scientists who have taken it on feel they have a direct stake in the debate and are entitled to wage it, since the creationists, and more recently the promoters of "intelligent design" theory, claim to be as scientific in their methodology as are the scientists.
But when a teenager named Darrell Lambert was chucked out of the Boy Scouts for being an atheist, scientists suddenly remembered all those gels they had to run and dark matter they had to chase, and they kept quiet. Lambert had explained the reason why, despite a childhood spent in Bible classes and church youth groups, he had become an atheist. He took biology in ninth grade, and, rather than devoting himself to studying the bra outline of the girl sitting in front of him, he actually learned some biology. And what he learned in biology persuaded him that the Bible was full of . . . short stories. Some good, some inspiring, some even racy, but fiction nonetheless. For his incisive, reasoned, scientific look at life, and for refusing to cook the data and simply lie to the Boy Scouts about his thoughts on God—as some advised him to do—Darrell Lambert should have earned a standing ovation from the entire scientific community. Instead, he had to settle for an interview with Connie Chung, right after a report on the Gambino family.
Scientists have ample cause to feel they must avoid being viewed as irreligious, a prionic life-form bent on destroying the most sacred heifer in America. After all, academic researchers graze on taxpayer pastures. If they pay the slightest attention to the news, they've surely noticed the escalating readiness of conservative politicians and an array of highly motivated religious organizations to interfere with the nation's scientific enterprise—altering the consumer information Web site at the National Cancer Institute to make abortion look like a cause of breast cancer, which it is not, or stuffing scientific advisory panels with anti-abortion "faith healers."
Recently, an obscure little club called the Traditional Values Coalition began combing through descriptions of projects supported by the National Institutes of Health and complaining to sympathetic congressmen about those they deemed morally "rotten," most of them studies of sexual behavior and AIDS prevention. The congressmen in turn launched a series of hearings, calling in institute officials to inquire who in the Cotton-pickin' name of Mather cares about the perversions of Native American homosexuals, to which the researchers replied, um, the studies were approved by a panel of scientific experts, and, gee, the Native American community has been underserved and is having a real problem with AIDS these days. Thus far, the projects have escaped being nullified, but the raw display of pious dentition must surely give fright to even the most rakishly freethinking and comfortably tenured professor. It's one thing to monkey with descriptions of Darwinism in a high-school textbook. But to threaten to take away a peer-reviewed grant! That Dan Dennett; he is something of a pompous leafblower, isn't he?
Yet the result of wincing and capitulating is a fresh round of whacks. Now it's not enough for presidential aspirants to make passing reference to their "faith." Now a reporter from Newsweek sees it as his privilege, if not his duty, to demand of Howard Dean, "Do you see Jesus Christ as the son of God and believe in him as the route to salvation and eternal life?" In my personal fairy tale, Dean, who as a doctor fits somewhere in the phylum Scientificus, might have boomed, "Well, with his views on camels and rich people, he sure wouldn't vote Republican!" or maybe, "No, but I hear he has a Mel Gibson complex." Dr. Dean might have talked about patients of his who suffered strokes and lost the very fabric of themselves and how he has seen the centrality of the brain to the sense of being an individual. He might have expressed doubts that the self survives the brain, but, oh yes, life goes on, life is bigger, stronger, and better endowed than any Bush in a jumpsuit, and we are part of the wild, tumbling river of life, our molecules were the molecules of dinosaurs and before that of stars, and this is not Bulfinch mythology, this is corroborated reality.
Alas for my phantasm of fact, Howard Dean, M. D., had no choice but to chime, oh yes, he certainly sees Jesus as the son of God, though he at least dodged the eternal life clause with a humble mumble about his salvation not being up to him.
I may be an atheist, and I may be impressed that, through the stepwise rigor of science, its Spockian eyebrow of doubt always cocked, we have learned so much about the universe. Yet I recognize that, from there to here, and here to there, funny things are everywhere. Why is there so much dark matter and dark energy in the great Out There, and why couldn't cosmologists have given them different enough names so I could keep them straight? Why is there something rather than nothing, and why is so much of it on my desk? Not to mention the abiding mysteries of e-mail, like why I get exponentially more spam every day, nine-tenths of it invitations to enlarge an appendage I don't have.
I recognize that science doesn't have all the answers and doesn't pretend to, and that's one of the things I love about it. But it has a pretty good notion of what's probable or possible, and virgin births and carpenter rebirths just aren't on the list. Is there a divine intelligence, separate from the universe but somehow in charge of the universe, either in its inception or in twiddling its parameters? No evidence. Is the universe itself God? Is the universe aware of itself? We're here. We're aware. Does that make us God? Will my daughter have to attend a Quaker Friends school now?
I don't believe in life after death, but I'd like to believe in life before death. I'd like to think that one of these days we'll leave superstition and delusional thinking and Jerry Falwell behind. Scientists would like that, too. But for now, they like their grants even more.
[First published in The American Scholar 72, no. 2, Spring 2004]
-
tuomoruutufan
- Fearless
- Posts: 646
- Joined: 22 Jul 2004 23:34
- Location: South suburbs chicago
- Contact:
i believe in mother nature.
mother nature is infallible, everything else is just an idea/concept or tool.
its a pretty simple belief and it makes me happy to know that when i die my brain will stop functioning so i can no longer care about "what happens after i die"
The only reason why anybody cares about this stuff is cause they are alive, its a biased interest.
I do respect other religious beliefs i just wish it didn't influence politics and laws.
I tell people im an atheist and they look at me like i just raped their daughter.
religion is a lifestyle choice, do what makes you happy and respect others the way you would like to be respected.
mother nature is infallible, everything else is just an idea/concept or tool.
its a pretty simple belief and it makes me happy to know that when i die my brain will stop functioning so i can no longer care about "what happens after i die"
The only reason why anybody cares about this stuff is cause they are alive, its a biased interest.
I do respect other religious beliefs i just wish it didn't influence politics and laws.
I tell people im an atheist and they look at me like i just raped their daughter.
religion is a lifestyle choice, do what makes you happy and respect others the way you would like to be respected.
~Shawn Patrick Boyle~
As long as people are willing to lie to themselves and be lied to by others, it is beyond the power of logic to stop them.
This guy might be lying to......hmmmmm...
Jesus Bones in a Box
This guy might be lying to......hmmmmm...
Jesus Bones in a Box
-
ObArA'BaRs
- Flower Child
- Posts: 2086
- Joined: 30 Jan 2006 19:05
- Location: Chicago burbs, IL
- Contact:
-
Just call me hagesy
- Atomsmashasaurus Dex
- Posts: 913
- Joined: 15 Oct 2004 21:43
- Location: Rockhampton, Queensland, Australia
How can someone reasonably say "fuck God" or "I hate God" if they don't believe in Him?
It sounds as silly to me as "fuck the closet monster" or "I hate the flying spaghetti monster" if you don't believe in them.
It sounds as silly to me as "fuck the closet monster" or "I hate the flying spaghetti monster" if you don't believe in them.
"I contend we are both atheists, I just believe in one fewer god than you do. When you understand why you dismiss all the other possible gods, you will understand why I dismiss yours."
Emily Kulczyk
Emily Kulczyk
-
crazylegs32
- Egyptian Footgod
- Posts: 1341
- Joined: 02 Sep 2005 19:45
- Location: Palatine/Chicago Burbs
)Moxie wrote:How can someone reasonably say "fuck God" or "I hate God" if they don't believe in Him?
It sounds as silly to me as "fuck the closet monster" or "I hate the flying spaghetti monster" if you don't believe in them.
What makes you think that believing means liking? Saying i hate God implies that you still believe in God
Alex Urano
Unless by "God" you mean the concept of God, rather than the literal non existent God.
I hate materialism. That does not mean that I hate material possessions or that I don't have any. It means I hate the idea of living your life with the purpose of collecting material wealth.
Likewise saying "I hate God" or "Fuck God" does not refer to a supposed actual God, who the person thinks exists, but hates; rather it refers to the concept of some supernatural being controlling the universe, and more significantly, the human actions and culture that are the result of this concept.
I hate materialism. That does not mean that I hate material possessions or that I don't have any. It means I hate the idea of living your life with the purpose of collecting material wealth.
Likewise saying "I hate God" or "Fuck God" does not refer to a supposed actual God, who the person thinks exists, but hates; rather it refers to the concept of some supernatural being controlling the universe, and more significantly, the human actions and culture that are the result of this concept.
Sam Harris in The Bulletin http://bulletin.ninemsn.com.au/article.aspx?id=260044
Its interesting, at times he sounds like he should be thought of as agnostic rather than athiest:
Its interesting, at times he sounds like he should be thought of as agnostic rather than athiest:
So Jesus may in fact be the son of God bornfrom a virgin, and Zeus may actually be god, we just can't know because there is no evidence for either. Sounds agnostic - god might exist we just can't know, rather than athiest - there is no god.WARREN: So you are open to the possibility that you might be wrong about Jesus?
HARRIS: And Zeus. Absolutely.
Again this does not say to me - there isno god. It says to me that there maybe a god but we can't be expected to know and it is irresponsible to pretend otherwise in either direction.I don't want to pretend to be certain about anything I'm not certain about.
Who wears short shorts?
Dylan Govender.
Dylan Govender.
Perhaps you should read his work, rather than an edited interview.
In any event, no atheist says that they're completely sure that God exists, because there is obviously no evidence to support the non existence of anything. An atheist believes that it is as likely that God exists as it is likely that there is a 5 tonne diamond buried at the centre of the MCG.
Read what Sam is saying; he's saying that it's as likely that he's wrong about the existence of God as he's wrong about the existence of Zeus.
No scientist is 100% certain of their beliefs, that would be unscientific. All scientists are open to convincing opposing arguments, if they exist.
Sam doesn't think that God might exist, he thinks that God doesn't exist, but he's willing to admit that it's theoretically possible that he's wrong.
A true agnostic is somebody who thinks, despite the complete lack of evidence, that it's equally likely that God does or does not exist. Such people must obviously be agnostic about every theory that can't be disproved, otherwise they're logically inconsistent.
In any event, no atheist says that they're completely sure that God exists, because there is obviously no evidence to support the non existence of anything. An atheist believes that it is as likely that God exists as it is likely that there is a 5 tonne diamond buried at the centre of the MCG.
Read what Sam is saying; he's saying that it's as likely that he's wrong about the existence of God as he's wrong about the existence of Zeus.
No scientist is 100% certain of their beliefs, that would be unscientific. All scientists are open to convincing opposing arguments, if they exist.
Sam doesn't think that God might exist, he thinks that God doesn't exist, but he's willing to admit that it's theoretically possible that he's wrong.
A true agnostic is somebody who thinks, despite the complete lack of evidence, that it's equally likely that God does or does not exist. Such people must obviously be agnostic about every theory that can't be disproved, otherwise they're logically inconsistent.
-
BainbridgeShred
- Post Master General
- Posts: 2352
- Joined: 10 Nov 2004 23:22
We have different definitions of "agnostic". I always considered someone to be agnostic if they believe that the existence of god is not provable as opposed to athiesm which is the belief that there is no god. There is nothing about "equally likely" in the OED I looked at under agnostic (perhaps there is a more comprehensive one that does have it, i only looked at the pocket dictionary I had handy).
As you say, no scientist is 100% certain of their beliefs. With this in mind wouldn't it make sense that science - while providing no evidence for the existence of god - because of its fundamental nature, rooted in scientific observation, is limited to being agnostic.
Surely the moment you say god may well exist, even if you add that it is so unlikely that it should not for the basis of any behaviour, that is agnositic not athiest. 0.0000000000000000001% chance god exists is enough to make you agnostic rather than athiest.
I Harris and other scientists who actively engage in debating religious beliefs with believers feel forced into the extreme position of athiesm, is not by the nature of science, but in response to the argument that if you're agnostic surely it would be better to bet on god rather than bet on no god. The line of reasoning goes even if the odds are against it you're betting you're soul and its a double or nothing bet. Indeed, the dude Harrsi debates in the article takes this approach at the end. There are better ways of dealing with this than pre-empting it by claiming certainty where there is none, because the weight of probablitly is enough, and to falsely engage in accepting a religion against this weight of probablity would not be enough to get into heaven. If you accept rationality, you accept the weight of probablitly, and you cannot rationaly hold faith as demanded by religions. An agnostic person who comes that belief rationally should act the same way an athiest acts - ie as if there is no god.
I understand completely that you really need to read the body of Harris' work - not least because (as he does in the article) he often makes his clain to athiesm very specific - ie. claims to be athiest with respect to x-belief. But I'd suggest that this is a form athiesm that could hapily exist within a broader agnostic belief.
More to the point I'm sure Harris makes a range of arguments for athiesm over agnostic belief too.
As you say, no scientist is 100% certain of their beliefs. With this in mind wouldn't it make sense that science - while providing no evidence for the existence of god - because of its fundamental nature, rooted in scientific observation, is limited to being agnostic.
Surely the moment you say god may well exist, even if you add that it is so unlikely that it should not for the basis of any behaviour, that is agnositic not athiest. 0.0000000000000000001% chance god exists is enough to make you agnostic rather than athiest.
I Harris and other scientists who actively engage in debating religious beliefs with believers feel forced into the extreme position of athiesm, is not by the nature of science, but in response to the argument that if you're agnostic surely it would be better to bet on god rather than bet on no god. The line of reasoning goes even if the odds are against it you're betting you're soul and its a double or nothing bet. Indeed, the dude Harrsi debates in the article takes this approach at the end. There are better ways of dealing with this than pre-empting it by claiming certainty where there is none, because the weight of probablitly is enough, and to falsely engage in accepting a religion against this weight of probablity would not be enough to get into heaven. If you accept rationality, you accept the weight of probablitly, and you cannot rationaly hold faith as demanded by religions. An agnostic person who comes that belief rationally should act the same way an athiest acts - ie as if there is no god.
I understand completely that you really need to read the body of Harris' work - not least because (as he does in the article) he often makes his clain to athiesm very specific - ie. claims to be athiest with respect to x-belief. But I'd suggest that this is a form athiesm that could hapily exist within a broader agnostic belief.
More to the point I'm sure Harris makes a range of arguments for athiesm over agnostic belief too.
Who wears short shorts?
Dylan Govender.
Dylan Govender.
Richard Dawkins makes the point in The God Delusion that there are are really no "atheists" under the definition that they "know" that God does not exist. Rather atheists are sure that God does not exist with in the realms of reasonable doubt.
It's like a legal case. Imagine a person is found is found holding a gun with no other finger prints on it with a dead person shot by that gun lying dead before them. The person dead just rewrote their will so that the gun holder would inherit a million dollars. The gun holder argues that somebody else shot the person and they just picked up the gun and the mystery shooter was wearing gloves. The gun holder did not see the shooter and the police find no evidence at all that a second person was present. There is a security camera of the entrance of the door but a second floor window is open, and the defence puts up the argument that the person climbed a drain pipe, crept across a ledge and in the window, shot the person and then left the same way without leaving any evidence.
While it is theoretically possible that the defence argument is true, every single court in the world would find the defendant guilty of murder, because that's what all the evidence points to.
Atheists are making the same judgement, the theory that God exists is so unlikely and implausible that we judge God guilty. We could be sending an innocent deity to jail for 20 years, but all the evidence points in one direction, and the defence has nothing to support it.
An atheist says; We have no reason to believe in God and in all probability God does not exist.
An agnostic says; "We don't know if God exists or not, and we can't make a judgement. It is as probably that God exists or that God does not exist."
This is clearly contrary to the evidence.
It's like a legal case. Imagine a person is found is found holding a gun with no other finger prints on it with a dead person shot by that gun lying dead before them. The person dead just rewrote their will so that the gun holder would inherit a million dollars. The gun holder argues that somebody else shot the person and they just picked up the gun and the mystery shooter was wearing gloves. The gun holder did not see the shooter and the police find no evidence at all that a second person was present. There is a security camera of the entrance of the door but a second floor window is open, and the defence puts up the argument that the person climbed a drain pipe, crept across a ledge and in the window, shot the person and then left the same way without leaving any evidence.
While it is theoretically possible that the defence argument is true, every single court in the world would find the defendant guilty of murder, because that's what all the evidence points to.
Atheists are making the same judgement, the theory that God exists is so unlikely and implausible that we judge God guilty. We could be sending an innocent deity to jail for 20 years, but all the evidence points in one direction, and the defence has nothing to support it.
An atheist says; We have no reason to believe in God and in all probability God does not exist.
An agnostic says; "We don't know if God exists or not, and we can't make a judgement. It is as probably that God exists or that God does not exist."
This is clearly contrary to the evidence.
I'm interested in what evidence you have that God doesn't exist.Jeremy wrote:Atheists are making the same judgment, the theory that God exists is so unlikely and implausible that we judge God guilty. We could be sending an innocent deity to jail for 20 years, but all the evidence points in one direction, and the defense has nothing to support it.
Ben Skaggs
Amateurs practice until they can get it right.
Professionals practice until they can't get it wrong.
No, I don't play soccer. Yes, there are competitions. 4 years. Lots of practice.
Amateurs practice until they can get it right.
Professionals practice until they can't get it wrong.
No, I don't play soccer. Yes, there are competitions. 4 years. Lots of practice.
Christians shouldn't believe in evolution, that defeats the purpose of a god, but evolution is proven to be true therefore god doesn't exist.
I think a good philosophy is better than believing in a god.
This is my church: http://www.churchofsatan.com
Essentially worshiping nature rather than a god.
Anton Sander Lavey plagiarized this philosophy anyway...
I think a good philosophy is better than believing in a god.
This is my church: http://www.churchofsatan.com
Essentially worshiping nature rather than a god.
Anton Sander Lavey plagiarized this philosophy anyway...