I think it was DeGrasse Tyson who mused that the universe's purpose seems to be the creation of black holes.
My buddy, the aforementioned planetary scientist and Pluto expert, and I regularly mock NDT. Heâs not a dunderhead, but he seems to be not as well versed in topics as he represents himself. I wouldnât use him as a final authority. Itâs easy to find well-publicized instances where heâs asserted something that was factually wrong. And, he refused to have a debate with Alan Stern regarding the nature of Pluto (about which NDT is wrong); that is, he wouldnât pit his knowledge base against someone who is another expert on the subject.
And, from what I can surmise/guess in my very limited understanding and this is just my nascent idea, it may be that the consequence of black holes might be the creation of our universe. Taking us back to the atheism questionâ¦
If everything everywhere is evidence for a particular explanation ("God did it! QED.") you need to refute other explanations that offer better explanations. You flip a light switch and lights come on. A miracle! Well, the result is explained by the motion of electrons and the principles of electricity, and if you disconnect a wire the miracle stops happening. "God did it" fails to explain this, but electrical theory does.
The "God did it" explanation offers no predictive value. God does it when he feels like it, so when the miracle doesn't happen either God decided not to do it and we'd need to know God's mind to be able to actually use the phenomenon in question. Or something else makes it happen.
You're free to exclaim that the lights coming on is a miracle beyond human comprehension, but that will not make you an electrician. And by declaring something beyond human comprehension you have spoken strictly for yourself. You can say definitively that you don't understand something, but that doesn't mean nobody understands it.
And if you do understand it feel free to keep declaring it a miracle. That costs no one anything, and if it amuses you...well, I'm in no position to convince you otherwise. I'll just insist it adds nothing to the understanding of the lights coming on.
Historically "God did it" has been both a tacit admission of ignorance and an obstacle to further inquiry. If you declare case closed (and can enforce it, as has happened so often) then anyone who dares try is a blasphemer. Ask Galileo if you can raise him in a seance, but he doesn't get the last word. The universe does. The truth remains for those curious enough to discover it.
Ok. I'm not taking this personally at all, because I'm positive you don't mean it to be. But, setting that aside for a moment, that is a fine examination for someone trying to argue from a religious point of view, certainly as monotheism goes. The flinger of fate and punishment and thunderbolts. Big beards and burning bushes. lol. We need an updated version before the machines get there first!
j/k
It all historically feeds into the now where we find our generations.
I gotta think of a better way of splaining what Ima trying to get at but I'm a slow thinker sometimes and now I gotta go. Talk later.
If a faithful person claims that the evidence is positively everything and everywhere, what would an undecided or negatively inclined person as to faith accept as evidence? Not being tricky. Literally is there a marker or condition?
If everything everywhere is evidence for a particular explanation ("God did it! QED.") you need to refute other explanations that offer better explanations. You flip a light switch and lights come on. A miracle! Well, the result is explained by the motion of electrons and the principles of electricity, and if you disconnect a wire the miracle stops happening. "God did it" fails to explain this, but electrical theory does.
The "God did it" explanation offers no predictive value. God does it when he feels like it, so when the miracle doesn't happen either God decided not to do it and we'd need to know God's mind to be able to actually use the phenomenon in question. Or something else makes it happen.
You're free to exclaim that the lights coming on is a miracle beyond human comprehension, but that will not make you an electrician. And by declaring something beyond human comprehension you have spoken strictly for yourself. You can say definitively that you don't understand something, but that doesn't mean nobody understands it.
And if you do understand it feel free to keep declaring it a miracle. That costs no one anything, and if it amuses you...well, I'm in no position to convince you otherwise. I'll just insist it adds nothing to the understanding of the lights coming on.
Historically "God did it" has been both a tacit admission of ignorance and an obstacle to further inquiry. If you declare case closed (and can enforce it, as has happened so often) then anyone who dares try is a blasphemer. Ask Galileo if you can raise him in a seance, but he doesn't get the last word. The universe does. The truth remains for those curious enough to discover it.
Taken alone, yes. âItâs so complex it mustâve been created.â
That runs up against the other part: that people who really know the universe (better all the time) know its vastness - and emptiness (so far). Matter/Energy, Dark Matter (there is 5x more of that than there is âregularâ matter) and the biggest portion: Dark Energy. Is there a Watchmaker responsible for that, too? So the mere existence of us suggests a creator - but the lack of existence of something else Out There - back towards the beginning of time - suggests the opposite.
I think it helps to make a distinction here.
Invoking religion/faith/belief in a higher obtuse power to explain things we don't understand ultimately runs the risk of being pure tautology;
why did this or that happen?
Well, God.
why didn't this or that happen?
Well, God.
Ultimately, this doesn't help much if you are trying to work out why things happen. Here science really did suddenly shed light on the Dark Ages and in terms of the explanatory power (of chains of causation) it easily trumps religion.
However, if you merely invoke a faith/belief in God as an act of humility, as an acknowledgement of pure wonder at being alive and that not only do we exist, but are aware of the fact and surrounded by a vast universe of being, almost all of which appears to be insentient, then it has a different role and that is something I can acknowledge as valid, for it is an emotional response - a response to the awesomeness of things. Kind of like singing as the sun rises, or Gregorian chants in a monastery. There is something undeniably "ecstatic" about this.. ex-stasisâ in the sense of standing outside your customary point of view and sensing the universal flow through you.
I guess this is the spiritual aspect of religion. But IMO this is completely unrelated to the causative aspect that many religions claim to have a monopoly over, which by nature are exclusive and the absolute opposite of universal ex-stasis. Note also, the spiritual state of being is passive/receptive. You let it happen. It is not programmatic/dogmatic (make it happen).
To go a step further, an emotional/spiritual response to being does not necessarily mean we have to postulate the existence of a God as a causative, explanatory factor. Most birds I know appear to get along quite well without being aware of "God" and still sing gloriously at sunrise. But if someone finds the concept of God as a neat encapsulation as the source of all wonder, I can live with that. Maybe that is where birds are at. This would at least explain all that singing.
What I can't live so well with is when some people seem to think their religion gives them some kind of prior knowledge or right to tell others what to do. That is a fatal flaw of many religions and seems rooted in my view in basic tribal instinct than anything remotely spiritual.
Likewise, I also can't live with people who use scientific causative arguments to belittle people whose religious basis is purely spiritual.
That seems to be what religion should be teaching us...or the purpose of prayer.
To get out of the way and let God, the energy of the universe...whatever you want to call it...flow through you.
Maybe not so different as to how artists explain their works?
Slay the ego dragon.
If you want to experience, regardless of one's faith,
sit in a quiet room and ask, what is it that is keeping me from my true self?
If you are still enough, the answer will come...but i can only from my own experience.
As for those use their religion as some sort of "monopoly"...I probably have less time for these folks than an atheist
Things that do manifest themselves without any known physical explanations.
Whupping out my Occamâs Razor I always believe that stuff like that is a problem with data gathering (e.g., we canât see magnetism so why does that metal move?) or with our logistics (well, we know that the sun revolves around the earth but measuring how Mars moves across the sky with that weird pathway just defies explanation).
Taken alone, yes. âItâs so complex it mustâve been created.â
That runs up against the other part: that people who really know the universe (better all the time) know its vastness - and emptiness (so far). Matter/Energy, Dark Matter (there is 5x more of that than there is âregularâ matter) and the biggest portion: Dark Energy. Is there a Watchmaker responsible for that, too? So the mere existence of us suggests a creator - but the lack of existence of something else Out There - back towards the beginning of time - suggests the opposite.
I think it helps to make a distinction here.
Invoking religion/faith/belief in a higher obtuse power to explain things we don't understand ultimately runs the risk of being pure tautology;
why did this or that happen?
Well, God.
why didn't this or that happen?
Well, God.
Ultimately, this doesn't help much if you are trying to work out why things happen. Here science really did suddenly shed light on the Dark Ages and in terms of the explanatory power (of chains of causation) it easily trumps religion.
However, if you merely invoke a faith/belief in God as an act of humility, as an acknowledgement of pure wonder at being alive and that not only do we exist, but are aware of the fact and surrounded by a vast universe of being, almost all of which appears to be insentient, then it has a different role and that is something I can acknowledge as valid, for it is an emotional response - a response to the awesomeness of things. Kind of like singing as the sun rises, or Gregorian chants in a monastery. There is something undeniably "ecstatic" about this.. ex-stasisâ in the sense of standing outside your customary point of view and sensing the universal flow through you.
I guess this is the spiritual aspect of religion. But IMO this is completely unrelated to the causative aspect that many religions claim to have a monopoly over, which by nature are exclusive and the absolute opposite of universal ex-stasis. Note also, the spiritual state of being is passive/receptive. You let it happen. It is not programmatic/dogmatic (make it happen).
To go a step further, an emotional/spiritual response to being does not necessarily mean we have to postulate the existence of a God as a causative, explanatory factor. Most birds I know appear to get along quite well without being aware of "God" and still sing gloriously at sunrise. But if someone finds the concept of God as a neat encapsulation as the source of all wonder, I can live with that. Maybe that is where birds are at. This would at least explain all that singing.
What I can't live so well with is when some people seem to think their religion gives them some kind of prior knowledge or right to tell others what to do. That is a fatal flaw of many religions and seems rooted in my view in basic tribal instinct than anything remotely spiritual.
Likewise, I also can't live with people who use scientific causative arguments to belittle people whose religious basis is purely spiritual.
I believe that in most cases man is likely to be a factor.
Yes. Knowledge evolves understanding. Additionally, refines curiosity.
Beautifully stated.
Just because we might not believe in "God" doesn't necessarily mean that "God" doesn't believe in us.
If a faithful person claims that the evidence is positively everything and everywhere, what would an undecided or negatively inclined person as to faith accept as evidence? Not being tricky. Literally is there a marker or condition?
I think it helps to make a distinction here.
Invoking religion/faith/belief in a higher obtuse power to explain things we don't understand ultimately runs the risk of being pure tautology;
why did this or that happen?
Well, God.
why didn't this or that happen?
Well, God.
Ultimately, this doesn't help much if you are trying to work out why things happen. Here science really did suddenly shed light on the Dark Ages and in terms of the explanatory power (of chains of causation) it easily trumps religion.
However, if you merely invoke a faith/belief in God as an act of humility, as an acknowledgement of pure wonder at being alive and that not only do we exist, but are aware of the fact and surrounded by a vast universe of being, almost all of which appears to be insentient, then it has a different role and that is something I can acknowledge as valid, for it is an emotional response - a response to the awesomeness of things. Kind of like singing as the sun rises, or Gregorian chants in a monastery. There is something undeniably "ecstatic" about this.. ex-stasis— in the sense of standing outside your customary point of view and sensing the universal flow through you.
I guess this is the spiritual aspect of religion. But IMO this is completely unrelated to the causative aspect that many religions claim to have a monopoly over, which by nature are exclusive and the absolute opposite of universal ex-stasis. Note also, the spiritual state of being is passive/receptive. You let it happen. It is not programmatic/dogmatic (make it happen).
To go a step further, an emotional/spiritual response to being does not necessarily mean we have to postulate the existence of a God as a causative, explanatory factor. Most birds I know appear to get along quite well without being aware of "God" and still sing gloriously at sunrise. But if someone finds the concept of God as a neat encapsulation as the source of all wonder, I can live with that. Maybe that is where birds are at. This would at least explain all that singing.
What I can't live so well with is when some people seem to think their religion gives them some kind of prior knowledge or right to tell others what to do. That is a fatal flaw of many religions and seems rooted in my view in basic tribal instinct than anything remotely spiritual.
Likewise, I also can't live with people who use scientific causative arguments to belittle people whose religious basis is purely spiritual.
Belief is holding something as a truth
Faith is hoping something is truth...so there should be a nice heaping of doubt in faith.
...and if you hold something of faith (and there are universal things of faith) as a belief,
then we haven't slayed the dragon of ego...
If a faithful person claims that the evidence is positively everything and everywhere, what would an undecided or negatively inclined person as to faith accept as evidence? Not being tricky. Literally is there a marker or condition?
I was thinking more in terms of the paranormal. Things that do manifest themselves without any known physical explanations. And outside of religious acceptance and explanations as well.
Or in other words, is the paranormal (and perhaps reincarnation) considered not real and therefore self delusional ?
Or never mind. Maybe next year.
"I can't explain it" encompasses vast amount of daily life. None of that implies any particular actor or cause being at play.
If you assign some cause (outside of the influence of the physical) to anything you can't explain you have entered the realm of religious belief.
I was thinking more in terms of the paranormal. Things that do manifest themselves without any known physical explanations. And outside of religious acceptance and explanations as well.
Or in other words, is the paranormal (and perhaps reincarnation) considered not real and therefore self delusional ?
Or never mind. Maybe next year.
One size doesn't fit all. Some atheists might believe in spirits/ghosts/whatever, while not believing in deities of any kind.
