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Atheism is what I'm up to in my old age. Like the "examined life" it's the only existence, harsh as it is, that *reality* can justify as worthwhile.

I have enjoyed everytihng I've read by Mr. Harris. I came to this site in an attempt to follow up on somehting he wrote in his "The End of Faith" essay. He wrote in that book that recent scientific experiments seem to indicate that consciouness cannot be located within the mind (or brain) itself. Perhaps I am mistaken, but I seem to recall that Mr. harris indicated that these same experiments lead those who study consciouness to believe that it is located beyond the confines of body and brain. Can he or someone elso commnet on this assertion and post it on this same website for us?

I have enjoyed everytihng I've read by Mr. Harris. I came to this site in an attempt to follow up on somehting he wrote in his "The End of Faith" essay. He wrote in that book that recent scientific experiments seem to indicate that consciouness cannot be located within the mind (or brain) itself. Perhaps I am mistaken, but I seem to recall that Mr. harris indicated that these same experiments lead those who study consciouness to believe that it is located beyond the confines of body and brain. Can he or someone elso commnet on this assertion and post it on this same website for us?

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So in your view there is nothing beyond this despite an ever expanding universe that actually relates to some principles or tendencies. Is all the complex flora and fauna complexity mere natural change? Why a need to call a central force God - it is there regardless - this is all too complex to be reduced to your simplistic natural theory. Not that the last Chapter of the Bible is somewhat off kilter in then it has heaven a measurable rectangle and only really discusses the fate of the middle east. I think it is all bigger and more complex than that - like Sagan if there is no heaven than I want to float throught the universe for infinity.

You have a view of Christianity that is wholly unbiblical and not even Christian.

What so called Christians do in violation of their Scripture called the bible cannot be blamed on the bible. Mr. Harris read the bible for yourself. Just because I call myself a Volkswagen doesn't mean I can get more than 20 miles per gallon!!!!

The bible on the other hand is a rational book and able to be believed as true BECAUSE IT PROVIDES RATIONAL SUPPORT FOR WHAT IT SAYS TO BE TRUE - if you read it objectively and honestly in accordance with what each author is saying in a properly translated version!! But don't take my word for that or the word of a bunch of idiots who call themselves Christians and hardly know how to put two verses together, READ IT FOR YOURSELF in accordance with the normative rules of language, context and logic.

If you need lessons in reading, (which most people do when they open up their bibles - for a variety of reasons not the least of which they cannot think for themselves - can you?), then go here and I can walk you through it section by section:

http://www.biblestudymanuals.net/jn6_observe.htm

No I am not asking you to believe what it says, but observe what it is saying. That's all. What you believe is your business. But at least go to the source and not those who tend to live in a make-it-up as you go along world.

727-204-8189

Sam Harris yoour views on spirituality are meaningfull to me, you should write another book just talking about the spirituality subject.

Mateus Zica

Dear Mr. Harris:
Reading your and Richard Dawkins's books have helped make me an avowed "born-again atheist." Growing up in a Mexican-American Catholic family while having inchoate feelings of pessimism and doubt about religious faith was confusing and frightening. Your books are helping me to become an enlightened, poised and happier non-believer. I look forward to reading your upcoming books and articles and hope to see you speak in person someday. You are one of the most eloquently articulate writers I've ever had the joy of reading.

When I was ~19, I begged that if there was a God, that I should be made aware. It seemed vitally important to know, one way or the other. I attended the services of various churches and Quaker meetings and so on. I also read a great deal. Still, I could not accept what I didn't 'know'. I was not prepared to pick a system, like picking a raffle ticket from a bin, and pretend that it made sense to simply 'believe' it. Yet I found the concrete, objective world lacking.

In the course of my reading, I learned about hatha yoga and raja yoga. I determined to try these methods that appeared to contain a good deal good sense. I spent half an hour each morning, and one and a half hours each evening practicing several relatively undemanding yogic postures and breathing exercises. I combined this with the advised eating and sleeping habits and so on that agreed with my existing knowledge of healthy living. Within a short time (possibly a few weeks, I don't recall exactly, as this was about 37yrs ago), I began to experience altered states of consciousness that may parallel those to which Mr. Harris refers. In effect, a door had opened onto a greater reality. There was an inherent purpose in that reality that obviated the search for religious experience. If I wanted to call it God, I was free to so, but it was what it was, and it is what it is, by any other name - simply being, in fullness, and with a sense of cosmic purpose.

I don't believe in "the middle." There is either all or nothing. If the choices are (more or less): 1) We die and then there is nothing left of us, 2) We die and join some "non-self" thing that is not God, 3) We die and go to God - then I will dismiss number two immediately. My rationale is that I think all extremes exist. There is hot and cold, dark and light, etc. The notion that there is a place or existance in the middle of it all (without the two extremes) that doesn't have purpose or the one "truth" of all things doesn't make sense to me. Therefore, it doesn't make sense that someone or something "out there" doesn't have all knowledge and truth (to that extreme as well as to the opposite - and we all KNOW the opposite is true). That all is irrational - is not rational.

However, number one is also not rational because I think there is purpose to life - expecially if number three is true (the only option left) that God (the extreme truth) exists. A person's life is only a tiny speck in the line of eternity. This Earth's existance is only a tiny speck in the line of eternity. A bazillion years is only a speck in the line of eternity. The time when/if the universe were to implode would be a speck in eternity. Then, is all for naught? Our lives are meaningless? If indeed all extremes exist, then our lives are not meaningless (you'll have to dig into that one yourselves because it requires a lot of thought to be typed out - maybe later?). Then, number one doesn't make sense.

I've settled on number three. But don't think I've settled on an eternity as a singing angel with a harp - floating on clouds forever without knowing the extreme of truth. If God is the extreme truth/love/intelligence, would God not be ABLE to share that - espcially if it is true that we are created in God's image? If not able to do that, God wouldn't be the extreme - and therefore nothing (options one, two or three) would not be true - leaving a fourth option which is that nothing is rational - and that doesn't make sense because I believe in extremes. So, God being the extreme is indeed able to share - just as a good father/mother shares, teaches, loves his/her children - except This parent is perfect. Why wouldn't God share truth? Why wouldn't we have a purpose? I think God has an eternal purpose for all His creations. Everything does make sense. The Truth is out there. Our little experiences on this Earth are good for something and do have meaning and purpose in eternity - but like small children, we just don't know it all yet. We are in kindergarten. It is easy to get confused in kindergarten. We start learning, but there is a long way to go and many tests to take. We have to experience extremes in order to know them. If you didn't ever know hot, then how would you know you are cold? Cold would just be the only thing you know. By tasting extremes we gain understanding. Even when you graduate from college, you still don't know it all - and we won't in this life.

Good and bad also exist - and they also have to separate (another reason for life on Earth). Those extremes choose for themselves their appropriate separation in their appropriate extremity (think of the "many mansions"). If that were not so, then eternity would not be fair, and if there is no fairness and justice, then God would again not exist and therefore nothing would make sense again. If God is the right answer/option, then we are God's creations, we have purpose, we will progress much farther throughout eternity, and I'll hang my hat on that (though I have more to say).

That is why I like to read good books - like the Bible and like the Book of Mormon. I Believe in Christ (when you understand the concept and reason behind Christ in this plan on Earth, it too makes sense). I believe God guides us and helps us as much as we are willing to show faith. Faith is a concept many "intelligent" people like to shun. Faith is a tool for getting to know God and gaining understanding. It gets us passed the kindergarten tests and prepares us for more.

I'll stop now.

I think most people who call themselves atheistis are really just "a- religionists". One can be theistic without supporting religion per se. I willingly and happily attend a church because many of the people there have the same views on ones responsibility to society that I do. It happens to be a Baptist church but the denomination is irrelevant to me. Most Baptitst churches I wouldnt want to get within a mile of.

If you read people like Marcus Borg or listen to preachers like Robin Myers and Rob Bell you'll find that there is a significant voice within Christianity that is saying, "The dogma associated with Christianity is keeping people off Jesus' true message, which has nothing to do with believing certain things about him or the Bible." Jesus would be thoroughly disappointed in what people are doing in his name without a doubt.

I love what Sam Harris is fighting against, I just think the answer isn't NO religion, its better more responsible religion.

He needs to enlist the help of religious leaders who share his concerns.

Dear Sam,

I find every one of your essays and emails electrifying, as it is one of the very few opportunities I have to commune with someone who is so adept at arguing for the triumph of reason over superstition while acknowledging man's 'spiritual' bent and finding a rational way to accommodate these emotional needs.

As one who once, in my youth, longed for a sort of spiritual union with "God" and experienced a sort of soaring of the soul in such places as the Galilee, Assisi, and various Gothic Cathedrals, but was ultimately let down by the utter silence coming from the "beyond," I was deeply moved when I discovered Langston Hughes' brilliant short story "Salvation." I don't know if he became an atheist as a result of the experience he recounts in this autobiographical work, but he certainly expresses a healthy skepticism about religion which I completely identified with. I recommend it to you and would be interested in hearing your reaction to it.

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It has been written that the wisdom of men is foolishness to God. If the scientists meditate on their wisdom or themselves, they will come up with nothing but "we are gods". Nothing new that hasnt been thought upon by other wise men in the past. If they do conclude "we are gods", I wait with anticipation on what they conclude will solve the wars, famines, diseases, crimes, hatred. If men do not want God, so be it. They will live their lives without him, or will they? Just because one says there is no God, but if there is One, man will not confound this God's ways or timing. All their efforts will fall flat, because this God will have his way no matter what they think, say or write. God is not mocked; whatever these men sow, they will reap, and they cannot confound Him.

I'm just after reading of the astonishing premonition Duckphup experienced at the moment of his dad's death.
It is the sort of thing that stops me from being an out and out atheist, there is so much in this world that is inexplicable.

It brought to mind a strange experience of my own from just over 15yrs ago when I spent over a month in hospital.

While there I once asked a night-nurse about her work, and she told me that it could be frightening. For example, in one of her wards she had looked after a patient who was dying, and in his final days they placed him in a separate room with a screen round his bed for extra privacy and they gave him a small hand-bell to summon help if he needed it.

He died on a summer evening an hour or so after the nurse had taken over the ward for the night. This would be about 9pm when still plenty of daylight in these parts.
It was too late to remove him there and then so she left him on the bed under a sheet. At about 10pm the bell started to ring furiously. She was too scared to enter the room and go round behind the screen alone so she phoned a senior nurse and they went to investigate. I had guessed it was a wrong diagnosis of death and the patient wanted a cup of tea. But no, it was a seagull which had come in through the open window and was standing on the bedside table with the bell in its beak, ringing it repeatedly. What, I asked, did she do? She said that it was only a bird and so she shooed it out of the window. And the bell? “It took the bell with it!”

I tested her for knowledge of early Christian artwork, in which the departing soul is represented as a white bird. But she knew nothing about that and so her testimony was free from bias. For her, it was just a seagull making a nuisance of itself. Who knows? At least it was not violating a law of nature.

Jesus wiz a carpenter.

THERE IS NO SALVATION IN IGNORANCE!

Christianity & Islam do more than demand ignorance, they thrive on it, they create.

There is no hope for humanity in their idiocy.

Timmy, not that it matters what I think, but I've gone back and read the posts:)
Someone does not think blue collar=low IQ.
She was honestly confused and thought that's what some of you were getting at, that's all.
I think she admitted that she misconstrued your posts.
It's not my argument to get in the middle of, but I've been reading all these On Faith posts since like November, and I think it's a shame when 2 smart people who have a lot in common take each other the wrong way.
Please, have patience with each other, and have a great night.

I agree with what you said Victoria,
But that's not agreeing with "Someone"
"Someone" thinks that blue collar worker is synonymous with low intellect.

i agree with someone- i find these posts on intelligence without compassion or insight= what about the mentally ill? if the oneupsmanship that seems to fuel the subject is so necessary for you to feel superior to the dumb people- i would say it is a superficial appelation- no one controls the intelligence they are born with- but we do control how we treat others- so i can see no undue credit to being born smart (by ones own self definition it seems) over an accident of birth.

Someone,

Why do you think that brick layers and McDonnalds employees are of lower intellect than average? This is terribly elitist. I find your attitude towards these people quite offensive.
I was a warehouse employee and a construction worker for many years. I did not feel that my occupation made me a person of lower intellect and I am offended at your insinuation that it did. You need to wake up. There are Einsteins and Hawkings laying bricks right now as we speak. They are unfortunate enough to have not been given the opportunity make the best use of their intellect. They are not stupid. I wish you would come down off your high horse and stop insinuating that these people are stupid.

If you think that all construction workers are dumb then I have no use for conversation with you so I'm glad you are bowing out.
What an elitist.

I know I said I wouldn't be back. But I do have just one more thing to add. I would like you to think about the fact that if we didn't have different degrees of intellect, who would be there to do the hard, dirty, grunt work? No McDonalds, No streets and sidewalks being paved, no mail being delivered, no carpenters, brick layers etc. And above all a armed forces. If it weren't for the lower IQ types we would not have much of any of these things in our world. As everyone would be too busy in college becoming intelligent.

Thanks and this really is it for me. Have a nice comcfortable, intelligent life.

**Like it or not our government is a reflection of our society. If there are poor people living on the streets, it is not because the men who work for the government don't care. It is because society as a whole does not care enough to do anything about it. It's our, "survival of the fittest" instinct playing out.**

How true and what a sad commentary.

**It is the ugly truth. Some of usare capable of discussing the ugly truth without getting emotional and sentimental. And then there's "Someone".**

Your right. I jumped in the middle of your posts with an emotional objection. I apologize. I was emotionally offended by the use of the definition of *others* in reference to people like myself.

I know what it was like to fight hard to make it in this world. To have needed a help out and up. I no longer live on the system and have a relatively good job. Blue collar job but one of the better ones. I am grateful for that. I struggled hard to better myself. Unfortunately not to the degree of the rest of you. I have not had the time or made higher education a priority when most of my time was spent working 3 jobs to feed myself and my *2* kids. I guess I can be glad that those are the only 2 *others* I have added to the mix. I apologize for holding the rest of the world down with my struggle to leave my low income/middle intelligence level behind and strive to become at least middle income/average intelligence. I am not writing this out of pity, as I am rather proud of myself for wanting better for me and my children.

I guess I just want to say that I enjoy life just as much as the rest of you. And think that I have just as much value on this earth as the next person. I live to learn, which is why I came and stay reading on this site.

And I know there are many more of me out there that deserve their space on this earth.

I will keep my emotions checked at the door from now on before entering.

Not necessary to reply back as I will be leaving this thread and not returning. Please continue on with your discussion. No more interference from me.

Pam Meloy said:
"I see that the people on here that are attacking "Someone" are all men. Does that have something to do with all of this?"

We were attacking "Someone?"

Pam you need to go back and read the posts. We were having a discussion about evolution and natural selection and how technology has perhaps had an effect on it. It was "someone" who came from nowhere and attacked us, and made a disgusting childish reference to Hitler.

Pam said:
"I suppose you didn't have children to raise and were able to better yourself. It is a difficult thing to do when you are a single mother raising children on your own."

Are you saying that men can't have babies too early and unprepared, and have it ruin their lives? It happens all the time. I didn't. And yes, it worked out for me. Good thing I was smart about it. I know that there are women who find themselves single mothers through no fault of their own. My mother was one of them. But that is not what we were talking about.

And Pam said
"Having a high IQ often means you have no common sense."

I'l give you the opportunity to either retract that, or back it up with some data, before attacking it for the idiotic statement that it is.

And Pam, the government is us.
Like it or not our government is a reflection of our society. If there are poor people living on the streets, it is not because the men who work for the government don't care. It is because society as a whole does not care enough to do anything about it. It's our, "survival of the fittest" instinct playing out.

It is the ugly truth. Some of usare capable of discussing the ugly truth without getting emotional and sentimental. And then there's "Someone".

Andy Ross (said)

"In a world where high living standards and civilized social norms reduce the death rate, it looks as if the fast breeders are on a roll."
"In an age of intelligent machines, high IQs may become as irrelevant as bulging muscles."

These comments are in line with the original thought idea I had put out. Is technology deprecating natural selection, are we breeding toward a "devolved" human in the future.

Timmy (said)

"Tell me, what is it about a persons financial situation that forces them to have five babies when they can't afford to take care of one?.... Stupidity. How is it the government's fault?

Yep!

First let me say I applaud all of you who have come from a poor background and made something of your life.

I came from a highly educated upper middle class family and ended up uneducated and poor. Now of course I am not going to bore you with all of the details of that process but it happens much more often than you might imagine. I have no clue what my IQ is nor was it an important factor in most of my life. I simply had to do what it took to get through life for many many years.

I see that the people on here that are attacking Someone are all men. Does that have something to do with all of this? I probably should be posting this on the other thread concerning women, however the discussion in on this thread. I suppose you didn't have children to raise and were able to better yourself. It is a difficult thing to do when you are a single mother raising children on your own.

This entire argument would be better posed in another environment. I will say that I do believe in education and think it is the only way poor people get out of the ghetto. However, please remember that it is not always that easy for everyone. As far as the government is concerned it is guilty of continuing this madness as it has little ability to do much except people poor and in the ghetto.

Trust me "I have been there I have done that and I have a tee shirt". Please things in this world are not as easy to figure out. Having a high IQ often means you have no common sense.

Said GAD to someone:
First you say we are "ignorant and arrogant" for even talking about such a subject. Then you brush aside all historical and current data on the subject. Then you imply that it is an issue, you then imply that there are really no bad or ignorant groups of people, only the unfortunate who keep having babies that they can't feed, keep healthy or educate because the government only cares about corporations and rich people getting richer! So it's everyone else's fault except the ones having the babies that they can't take care of but deliberately keep having.
(January 20, 2007 1:57 AM )

People find this subject hard to be cool about, so you have to go easy to maintain a reasonable debate. The data is hard to interpret because there are lots of implicit assumptions here that many would dispute if they could. Your own story as a computer engineer from a modest background is one I can readily appreciate. I too worked in a variety of low-pay, low-skill jobs in my earlier years, and I now work in a team developing a software engine. I do my heavyweight philosophy on the side.

People have more kids than they can afford for reasons they are unable to understand. This is biology in action. Intelligent people have fewer kids (or none) for their own reasons (I'm waiting for a better world) and take more care of the ones they have. These are contrasting reproductive strategies: either pop out lots and let some die or have fewer but take better care of them. In a world where high living standards and civilized social norms reduce the death rate, it looks as if the fast breeders are on a roll.

But in fact this is more like division of labor. An organized society made up of people is like a human body made up of cells. In a society, some people do the thinking and others have kids. In a body, the brain cells do the thinking and the gonad cells work hard to maintain instant readiness for reproduction. In some kinds of people the brains are dominant and in others the gonads, but a functioning society needs both kinds.

A human body is a heap of stuff churning away chemically to maintain the higher functions. The higher functions cannot keep going without all that churning. Our society is like that. A lot of people are unable for various reasons to contribute much to high culture, but they can keep doing their jobs and raise families. With luck, some of their kids might make good. It's a lottery at that level. For a person who likes thoughtful pursuits, that sort of lottery is no fun unless you can stack the odds, for example by putting your kids through college.

In an organized society, kids don’t just grow up wild but are put through a compulsory program of socialization, also known as education. This encourages them to value more thoughtful pursuits and has the overall effect of increasing the average level of functional intelligence in a community. Now we know that the intelligence measured by IQ tests is in large part genetically determined, so trying to educate some people may be about as much good as putting lipstick on a pig, but on the whole we tend to agree that universal education is the right way to go. Extremely intelligent people have a major say in shaping the education program and that may be their best contribution to the future.

I think Sam Harris would agree that until we know more about the science of mind, we cannot reasonably say that people would automatically be better off with higher IQs. In an age of intelligent machines, high IQs may become as irrelevant as bulging muscles. But it certainly seems to be a good thing that a society both has intelligent people in it and makes effective use of their best efforts. This is why we want to put a box around religion.

Someone,

Hitler huh?
Boy, you know that someone's on their high horse when they drop the H-Bomb. Pretty insulting to those who lost family members in the holocaust when people toss that one around so frivolously.

I wouldn't normally respond to such offensive hyperbole but this one begs to be addressed.

We are talking about stupid people having too many babies. Not poor people. You talk about poverty. Tell me, what is it about a persons financial situation that forces them to have five babies when they can't afford to take care of one?.... Stupidity. How is it the government's fault? In fact I've seen hoards of young women on Gerry Springer every week talking about having another baby because "you get a check from the government." They're so stupid they don't know that the baby costs more than the check. I guess your suggestion is that we raise the size of the check so that having these babies is profitable like they think.

We never said the problem was poor people having babies. There are plenty of smart poor people. They're the one's not having babies they can't afford.

Like Gad, I also pulled myself out of poverty. I was raised by a single mother raising three children on a school bus drivers salary and no help from my deadbeat dad. No money for college, so I didn't get to go. I worked hard and made something of myself with my public high school education. No excuses.

Oprah Winfrey was born a poor black girl. She's now one of the richest people in America. You talk to all of the immigrants who came to this country with nothing but the shirts on their back and a work ethic and became successful millionaire business people. And most of them had to had to learn a second language. You ask them if this isn't the land of opportunity where anyone who's willing to work hard can make something of them self.

Before you came along with your new idea, I had already pointed out that there is a difference between people of low intellect and people of low income. I had already pointed out that better education is the hope for the future. All you added was this idea of more government handouts which will of course require more government employee watchdogs to try and catch the weasels who regularly commit fraud on such government programs. There is way to much sense of entitlement in this country.

You call us Hitler, and your only new thought is one that frightens me. Talk about ignorance.

And Google "Christian quiverfull"

GAD, I commend you, and have similar experiences as you. I don't speak for Someone, and I've seen the same statistics as you concerning education-level and number of unwanted pregnancies.
Almost everyone I grew up with can be counted among the unwanted pregnancies of uneducated mothers, and so it is on behalf of everyone like you(and me) I felt the current discussion on this thread had become elitist.

Someone,

First you say we are "ignorant and arrogant" for even talking about such a subject. Then you brush aside all historical and current data on the subject. Then you imply that it is an issue, you then imply that there really no bad or ignorant groups of people, only the unfortunate who keep having babies that they can't feed, keep healthy or educate because the government only cares about corporations and rich people getting richer! So it's everyone else's fault except the ones having the babies that they can't take care of but deliberately keep having. Your solution, have the government take more money from the people who take care of them selfs and use it to take care of those who don't. WOW, how nice for them.

I came from the ghetto, broke the cycle by doing nothing more then walking out, put my self through college [NO gov grants my $9.00 an hour cook job at AppleBees put me over the income level] worked full time while going to school full time, paid my own way %100%, graduated with honors, became a computer engineer, and waited till I had amassed a significant amount of wealth before having children, which I now provide a very good life for!

So you'll have to forgive me for laughing at your notion that it's the governments fault that people are breeding baby after baby that they can't take care of!

Oh and by the way.....

maybe its just the fact that stupid people are getting laid more than you?

Lower income families living on minumum wage or slightly higher have more difficulty in sending their young off to higher education. Its a job in itself to just try and feed the family. They may procreate at a higher level, but they have less access to health care ie: birth control. Many have to depend on churches to help them make it, in this dog eat dog world. It becomes a vicious cycle. Without government programs,not counting welfare, very few if any can break the cycle. Churches on a whole go against many forms of birth control. Government has tightened its reigns on some private and government run clinics and what services they can provide. Either because of religious lobbyists and/or it takes too much tax dollars.

Unless we all want to pay more taxes for government run programs, that help people out of the cycle, the cycle continues. Its the same old story of the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. People hate the democrats because they ask for more money to implement more programs (to which I have to agree someone has to watchdog these programs more stringently) to help these people learn the skills and educate them on how to obtain funding or partial funding for higher education. The republicans only concern is how to give the large corporations the best tax breaks.

I don't advocate keeping people on welfare all of their lives, but some need a handout and up at times. For a period of time. Together with the ability to learn social skills and real workable employment skills the cycle may break eventually. But it has to be consistent and the programs monitored.

It appeared to me that you people were
insinuating that nothing will change while *stupid people* continue to *breed*. Nothing will change until intelligent recognize the changes that need done on a governmental widespread. Too much government in peoples lives now? Well, how about we all in a better educational/financial situation adopt one lower income/lower class/lower intelligent person and give them the same playing field?

I do know calling uneducated lower class citizens as *others* is an ignorant and arrogant definition of people left behind. And borders on a very Hitler like mentality. It was in my mind very offensive.

"very rich forum of ideas"

Someone,

I second what Timmy said.

It was just a topic to discuss and debate, if you think it has no merit, state you case, thats what this is about. That said, there is valid data that supports some of this, Like 'Statistics show that the most intelligent people in industrialized countries wait longer and have fewer children then the less intelligent."You can look this up your self.

To see what happens when this is taken to it's limits see link,

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pol_Pot

"in an attempt to purify the Cambodian people as a step toward a communist future. The means to this end included the extermination of intellectuals and other "bourgeois enemies". "

Finally, if you have not gotten anything out of this very rich forum of ideas, thats very sad and you should ask your self why.

Someone,

I second what Timmy said.

It was just a topic to discuss and debate, if you think it has no merit, state you case, thats what this is about. That said, there is valid data that supports some of this, Like 'Statistics show that the most intelligent people in industrialized countries wait longer and have fewer children then the less intelligent."You can look this up your self.

To see what happens when this is taken to it's limits see link,

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pol_Pot

"in an attempt to purify the Cambodian people as a step toward a communist future. The means to this end included the extermination of intellectuals and other "bourgeois enemies". "

Finally, if you have not gotten anything out of this very rich forum of ideas, thats very sad and you should ask your self why.

Someone,

What is this point that we have missed?
I'm pretty sure we've covered everything
We'd love to hear your thoughts.

Pretty cheap to criticize, and not offer any constructive thoughts of your own.

Please. What is this point you speak of?

I have been following this thread for quite sometime.

Interesting that the topic has now changed to stupid people vs intellectuals.

How utterly ignorant and arrogant.

I am an atheist. Does that put me in the intelligent slot vs a believer in the stupid part.

Or is an atheist with an IQ of lower than normal a *stupid bright* and a christian with an IQ of over 120 a *brightly stupid*?

I guess its a good thing that an uneducated atheist is held in higher standard.

I have now decided that this entire thread has been totally wastefull and borders disgusting.

You are all so busy being intellectuals trying to out do the other one, that you've all completely missed the point.

Thanks Anony,

I like your new handle.
Canada has universal healthcare.
Rich people and poor people going to the same doctors.
Sounds like something both Jesus and John Lennon would be proud of.

Far out dude. Share the medicine.

Our favorite funny, funny pothead says, "Toss away all of the deity based metaphor and Roman imposed dogma, and the general message of the fictional Jesus can be distilled down to the lyrics of John Lennon's 'Imagine'."

Wow, man, far out!

yup

Re: out-breeding

Google for 'Christian quiverfull'

Google for 'Christian dominionism'

Google for 'Jesus Camp' (and see www. kidsinministry. com)

Scary.

Thanks Gad,

I agree. It is one scary statistic.
But are we lumping uneducated people in with those of lower intellect or IQ?
Can the availability of information and education show us the difference between super-breeders with low intellect and super-breeders with low income?

Is there some hope in that thought?

Timmy,

There is a lot of knowledge in the world and technology helps us access it like never before, but I would guess it is not modifying our genes for intelligence.

If someone with a 185 IQ has 1 kid and someone with an IQ of 85 has 8, then the smarter one is being out breed 8-1. In the past you had to have more kids because the death rate was so high, even for the rich and smart. But today, due to technology, the survival rate is pretty much the same across the board. Now if there were a disaster that killed 1/2 of all the children the score would be 0-4.........

anyway it is just an interesting thought [imagining]

"I'm not challenging you, just weighing in with my thoughts"

I think we know each other enough now that we don't need disclaimers?

Gad,

I do agree with your concern that intellectuals are not breeding nearly as much as..... well let's just call them, the others.
But I'm not sure how technology is the enabler?
Can you elaborate?

Unbeliever,

I was using an example that is moot. It will never happen, and is therefore a joke. I will try to be a little more broad and slapsticky with my humor in the future. I didn't realize that the lowest common denominator was listening on this thread. My bad.

That being said, if it wasn't a moot point:
If 2 billion Christians, including all of the very very rich Christians, decided to sell all of their worldly goods, (as a man named Jesus supposedly preached), and shared all of their wealth with their fellow man, the result would be so revolutionary that we would all be inspired by this selflessness. And while we would not convert to the religion of Christianity, we would certainly all of us, act a little more "Jesus" like, or if you prefer "Gandhi" Like, or if you prefer, selfless and compassionate.
And then, we would indeed, all win.

I interpret the teachings of the allegorical character of Jesus, in the completely fictional work of literature, the Bible, as metaphorical. Toss away all of the deity based metaphor and Roman imposed dogma, and the general message of the fictional Jesus can be distilled down to the lyrics of John Lennon's 'Imagine".

Imagine no possessions. I wonder if you can.
Nothing to kill or die for. A brotherhood of man.
Imagine all the people, sharing all the world
You may say, I'm a dreamer. But I'm not the only one.
I hope some day you will join us. And the world will live as one.

and of course that all important line, "And no religion too"

Before you label me a communist as you have labeled me a believer, please note that the line is "Imagine"
not "The people will share all the world or go to the gulag"

I'd like to get back to my religion bashing now.
I wish the atheists would stop trying to distract me from that.
I'm not sure exactly what they intend to accomplish by doing so.

Gad,

I found Sam Harris on TV. And this thread through that.
The 22 hours of video footage from the Beyond Belief Conference I got of of the internet.
With my digital cable package, in one day, I can watch, 5 episodes of NOVA, a six part documentary series on the Roman Empire, Naked Science, BBC world news, Al Jazera, The History channel etc.
On the internet, I have the ultimate access to the most comprehensive encyclopedia ever imagined.

It's not technology's fault that people watch American Idol any more than it is reading's fault that "People Magazine" is so popular.

I'm not challenging you, just weighing in with my thoughts.

Cheers

ANDY ROSS:

My suggestion was that stupid people are out breeding the smarter ones, and that "current" technology is a big enabler in that.

Are you suggesting that technology e.g. watching TV is raising our IQ?

Said Pam:
Oh, Andy, please! We're predicting the future in our dreams??? Would you like to explain the exact mechanism by which that would take place?
(January 16, 2007 5:10 PM)

I would indeed. Sadly, I can only give hints as to possible mechanisms, but they will suffice to show that this is not just a nutty idea. Sam Harris will doubtless encounter related issues quite often in the quantum mind community. Let me give a few hints.

All the generally accepted equations of physics are time-symmetric, and the most glaring apparent example of asymmetry, namely the inexorable rise of entropy, is itself a time-symmetric phenomenon in the sense that retrodiction, if you know no historical facts, is subject to the same probabilistic rise of entropy. On this curious aspect of entropy, read David Albert or Brian Greene. The fact that the laws of electromagnetism (EM) could be satisfied by waves propagating outward into the past, instead of the observed direction of outward into the future, was remarked by James Clerk Maxwell and has remained a minor puzzle ever since. On this curious aspect of EM, Dick Feynman was bemused too.

Nowadays we often say that quantum mechanics proves determinism is false and that there are alternative possible futures, but this need not be true. Some theorists, such as Gerard ‘t Hooft, now think there may be a deterministic layer of nature below the layer described by quantum mechanics. Also, Einstein believed in determinism, and believed that quantum mechanics was not yet a correctly developed or understood theory. He believed that the future is as fixed as the past. He thought the passage of time was an illusion generated by the limitations of our conscious minds and that the true view of nature was sub specie aeternitatis (Latin: from the standpoint of eternity).

With a fixed future and a unique universe, time travel must be impossible, on pain of paradox bordering on contradiction. So it seems that causal influences must flow unidirectionally from past to future, yet this is not quite right. Causal relations are lawlike relations, and the paradoxes of induction show that our knowledge of such lawlike relations is never more than hypothetical. Things happen, and make lots of pretty patterns, but exactly which patterns are the real regularities of nature and which are merely approximate or superficial, no-one can say with absolute certainly. So how about retrograde causation?

Now to the point. The quantum mind community includes people who speculate that although almost all EM waves propagate from a source in the past to sinks in the future, there is also a non-zero flow in the opposite direction. In case you think this is nuts, remember that in relativity theory, light rays are null infinities, as Stephen Hawking and Roger Penrose call them, which means time stops at light speed and all points along a light ray are simultaneous, so the causal relation between the source and the sink of a photon is puzzling anyway. The quantum mind nuts think there could be emanations from the future that impact our minds.

To forestall any more flames, let me hasten to add that I do not think this explains biblical prophecy or apparently precognitive dreams. However, believers in such things are not barred by logic and fundamental science from doing so, rather by elementary facts about history, human psychology, the probability of various events, and so on. For all we know, rigorous studies could one day find a kernel of truth behind such apparent nonsense.

Said GAD:
Technology is the great equalizer. … Is it possible that technology has neutralized natural selection and stalled evolution? Are we breeding toward a devolved future man?
(January 16, 2007 5:58 PM)

By definition, the evolution of species by natural selection is not neutralized by technology. If anything, technology enhances it, via genetic engineering and so on. Remember that technology is part of our extended phenotype, as Richard Dawkins explains, and therefore the influence of technology on our evolution is no more neutralizing in its effect than that of brightly colored feathers on the evolution of birds.

Said Pam:
I don't believe in anything supernatural (as I've stated before) and I think that this sort of thinking is what religion depends on. I have no problem with keeping an open mind, just not so wide open that your brains fall out on the floor.
(January 16, 2007 6:29 PM)

But what is supernatural? I think everything is natural, including the subjective phenomenology of religious revelation (which I guess is probably psycho). My brains are still neatly encased in my head.

Said Pam:
I don't see any evidence that the brain and its contents aren't the only factors in dreams.
(January 17, 2007 1:25 PM)

Nor do I, or at least no hard evidence. But absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.

Said Pam:
Creation requires a creator. … There is, in fact, ONE legitimate use of the term in quantum physics, when you're talking about creation or annihilation operators that add or remove electrons from atoms.
(January 17, 2007 1:38 AM)

If I may correct you, creation does not require a creator. This is a transposition into the linguistic domain of the fundamental error of the Intelligent Design nuts. More to the point, creation and annihilation operators in quantum field theory do not apply only to electrons but are quite general in their scope and effect. As Steven Weinberg said, in trying to predict the behavior of a system of particles, the best we can do is calculate the probabilities of creation or annihilation at each point in spacetime. Inded some cosmologists now speculate that the universe may have been created in this sense, as a quantum fluctuation!

To all: please excuse my ex cathedra tone. It's just a manner of speaking.

Per Timmy-
"Attention all 2 billion Christians.
If you lead by example?
You win.
the world will convert.
Christ wins.
We all win."

We ALL WIN????!!
Pam is right.

Said Pam:
Oh, Andy, please! We're predicting the future in our dreams??? Would you like to explain the exact mechanism by which that would take place?
(January 16, 2007 5:10 PM)

I would indeed. Sadly, I can only give hints as to possible mechanisms, but they will suffice to show that this is not just a nutty idea. Sam Harris will doubtless encounter related issues quite often in the quantum mind community. Let me give a few hints.

All the generally accepted equations of physics are time-symmetric, and the most glaring apparent example of asymmetry, namely the inexorable rise of entropy, is itself a time-symmetric phenomenon in the sense that retrodiction, if you know no historical facts, is subject to the same probabilistic rise of entropy. On this curious aspect of entropy, read David Albert or Brian Greene. The fact that the laws of electromagnetism (EM) could be satisfied by waves propagating outward into the past, instead of the observed direction of outward into the future, was remarked by James Clerk Maxwell and has remained a minor puzzle ever since. On this curious aspect of EM, Dick Feynman was bemused too.

Nowadays we often say that quantum mechanics proves determinism is false and that there are alternative possible futures, but this need not be true. Some theorists, such as Gerard ‘t Hooft, now think there may be a deterministic layer of nature below the layer described by quantum mechanics. Also, Einstein believed in determinism, and believed that quantum mechanics was not yet a correctly developed or understood theory. He believed that the future is as fixed as the past. He thought the passage of time was an illusion generated by the limitations of our conscious minds and that the true view of nature was sub specie aeternitatis (Latin: from the standpoint of eternity).

With a fixed future and a unique universe, time travel must be impossible, on pain of paradox bordering on contradiction. So it seems that causal influences must flow unidirectionally from past to future, yet this is not quite right. Causal relations are lawlike relations, and the paradoxes of induction show that our knowledge of such lawlike relations is never more than hypothetical. Things happen, and make lots of pretty patterns, but exactly which patterns are the real regularities of nature and which are merely approximate or superficial, no-one can say with absolute certainly. So how about retrograde causation?

Now to the point. The quantum mind community includes people who speculate that although almost all EM waves propagate from a source in the past to sinks in the future, there is also a non-zero flow in the opposite direction. In case you think this is nuts, remember that in relativity theory, light rays are null infinities, as Stephen Hawking and Roger Penrose call them, which means time stops at light speed and all points along a light ray are simultaneous, so the causal relation between the source and the sink of a photon is puzzling anyway. The quantum mind nuts think there could be emanations from the future that impact our minds.

To forestall any more flames, let me hasten to add that I do not think this explains biblical prophecy or apparently precognitive dreams. However, believers in such things are not barred by logic and fundamental science from doing so, rather by elementary facts about history, human psychology, the probability of various events, and so on. For all we know, rigorous studies could one day find a kernel of truth behind such apparent nonsense.

Said GAD:
Technology is the great equalizer. … Is it possible that technology has neutralized natural selection and stalled evolution? Are we breeding toward a devolved future man?
(January 16, 2007 5:58 PM)

By definition, the evolution of species by natural selection is not neutralized by technology. If anything, technology enhances it, via genetic engineering and so on. Remember that technology is part of our extended phenotype, as Richard Dawkins explains, and therefore the influence of technology on our evolution is no more neutralizing in its effect than that of brightly colored feathers on the evolution of birds.

Said Pam:
I don't believe in anything supernatural (as I've stated before) and I think that this sort of thinking is what religion depends on. I have no problem with keeping an open mind, just not so wide open that your brains fall out on the floor.
(January 16, 2007 6:29 PM)

But what is supernatural? I think everything is natural, including the subjective phenomenology of religious revelation (which I guess is probably psycho). My brains are still neatly encased in my head.

Said Pam:
I don't see any evidence that the brain and its contents aren't the only factors in dreams.
(January 17, 2007 1:25 PM)

Nor do I, or at least no hard evidence. But absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.

Said Pam:
Creation requires a creator. … There is, in fact, ONE legitimate use of the term in quantum physics, when you're talking about creation or annihilation operators that add or remove electrons from atoms.
(January 17, 2007 1:38 AM)

If I may correct you, creation does not require a creator. This is a transposition into the linguistic domain of the fundamental error of the Intelligent Design nuts. More to the point, creation and annihilation operators in quantum field theory do not apply only to electrons but are quite general in their scope and effect. As Steven Weiberg said, in trying to predict the behavior of a system of particles, the best we can do is calculate the probabilities of creation or annihilation at each point in spacetime. Inded some cosmologists now speculate that the universe may have been created in this sense, as a quantum fluctuation!

To All

check this out

http://speakingoffaith.publicradio.org/programs/biologyofthespirit/index.shtml

Sherwin Nuland
Nuland is Clinical Professor of Surgery at Yale University and author of many books, including How We Die and The Wisdom of the Body.

Kate,

From Pam:

"A future emotive event casting a shadow on the mind of a dreamer, creating prophecy."

Try this:

A dream casting light on a future emotive event.

You've given me a great title for an essay, collection of short stories or a book on dreams:
The Theatre of the Absurd

Kate,

From Pam:

"A future emotive event casting a shadow on the mind of a dreamer, creating prophecy."

Try this:

A dream casting light on a future emotive event.

You've given me a great title for an essay, collection of short stories or a book on dreams:
The Theatre of the Absurd

Okay, now that I've admitted to Pam that I believe in ferries and Gods, and I am not a true atheists, not even close, I'd like to get back to me reigion bashing.

On the other thread, Anonymous wrote:
"Yes, as they say, the problem with Christianity is that it's never been tried. Churches are full of hypocrites, myself included. Yet without the Church, no one ever would have heard of Jesus's teachings or even imagined following His example. Does separating oneself from the communion and companionship of those who share that desire make one any more likely to succeed?"

Anonymous,

"Yet without the Church, no one ever would have heard of Jesus' teachings or even imagined following His example."

The church? Which church? You mean the church in general?

Actually Christianity was a religion long before the "church" and it may very well have spread and lived as a group of people dedicated to following the example of Jesus. Then along came the church. (AKA the Romans and the counciil of Nicea) This is the day that Christianity died and the marriage of church and state arose. Christianity ceased to be an homage to the lord and became a device for wealth and power gathering and human mind control.

Said Anonymous:
"Does separating oneself from the communion and companionship of those who share that desire make one any more likely to succeed?"
No.
But separating oneself from the church will.
Keep the companionship. Keep the love and charity. But tell the emperor (oops, I mean the Pope. Same thing) to go to Hell.

Bill Mahr had the best line about this. He said they should change their name from "Christians" to "Christ Likes".
This would remind Christians what they're really supposed to be about. Don't command others to follow the doctrine of Christianity. Be Christ Like, and lead by example.

The message of Jesus was so powerful because he led by example. Christianity would take over the world in one generation if all 2 billion Christians started leading by example.

But don't hold your breath. Too many churches preaching that your new second home that you just acquired in the Hamptons is a blessing from Jesus. Thanks Jesus, for our new swimming pool.

Okay I have to go throw up now.

Attention all 2 billion Christians.
If you lead by example?
You win.
the world will convert.
Christ wins.
We all win.

Too bad that will never happen.
The church began to tear true Christianity appart 1700 years ago. They are only a couple of generations away from destroying it completely. Keep it up. You're doing a better job than the atheists.

Hi guys. Just stopped by to see how you're doing. Looks like you're keeping up the good work.
Remember way back how this discussion was first about enlightenment experiences? Somebody told me years ago that enlightenment might better be seen in terms of weight rather than light. It can help people lighten up.
Just a thought. I wish you well.

Sloppy language?
No way. The people who run all of these hundreds and hundreds of science websites are creationists, they just can't admit it. Oh sure they will tell you otherwise, but their language tells the truth.
LMAO

I give up.
You got me Pam
I believe in gods and ferries.
Straight up.
Thank you for pointing that out to me.
I had no idea.
So does WM, Andy and Kate I guess.
So many religious freaks trying to pass themselves off as atheists.
Good thing you're here to lift the veil.

Have you seen that South Park episode Pam?
You really must. I thought it was funny before I met you.
Now?.... It's bloody genius.

And you would second guess your assertion that my imaginations are a waste of time if you saw my tax return. I make my living off of my imaginations Pam. I think I'll keep them even if you think that they are stupid.

You're just no fun Pam. I'd rather have a beer with George Bush than with you. Not name calling, just an observation. lol

Said DuckPhup:
"The answer to the overriding question "Why" might very well be: "No reason. That's just the way it is. Get used to it." Or, maybe: "Just because." However, acknowledging that as a possible (even probable) answer is NOT a reason to stop seeking for an alternative answer."

Hear Hear.

Kate wrote:
"What was the absurdity again?"

A future emotive event casting a shadow back on the mind of a dreamer, creating prophecy.

This one just begs to be answered point by point, although I'm getting quite tired of it, and this will be my last post on this subject.

"Here's why you are confused. I knew that you would be."

Wrong. You mistake irony for confusion. Why am I not surprised?

"DuckPhup was not talking to me, he was talking to creationists."

Are you sure?

"I am not a creationist. I don't argue for creation or a complex designer. I argue that we do not know the origin of the universe. I argue that all three options are on the table. My argument with you is that you want to take one of these options off the table because you somehow think that science has eliminated it.
1) Infinite existence with no beginning.
2) Sudden appearance or formation out of nothingness
3) Creation."

Actually, I'd take two off the table (2 & 3). And #1 would be heavily qualified.

"Your problem, as I have been trying to point out, is that I say the word 'creation', as ONE of three possibilities. And you somehow hear me say, 'I believe that the universe was created by God or something like a God'.
And then you argue with that, not what I said."

Timmy, I think you'd better look up the word "creation." Creation requires a creator. Besides that, it's a heavily freighted word. Google that one and see what kind of hits you get.
There is, in fact, ONE legitimate use of the term in quantum physics, when you're talking about creation or annihilation operators that add or remove electrons from atoms. Somehow I doubt that was what you had in mind.

"Then you accuse me and others of believing in the supernatural. Then you actually accuse me of denying my belief in God."

I would never "accuse" anyone of those things. They aren't matters for accusation. Anyone who wants to is welcome to believe in whatever they want. All I'm doing is saying how your posts come across to me.

"And then (laugh) you complain that I am putting words into your mouth? This is your little trick Pam, not mine."

Hardly. I have never put into quotation marks anything but your exact words. The same is not true of you. See below.

"Do me a favor Pam. Google 'how was the earth created?'
The good news for all of us is that only 2 out of the ten links that come up are for the religious version of creation. The other 8 links are all to science magazines and web sites that answer this question scientifically. Exploding stars, nebulas and that sort of stuff. But notice Pam, that every one of these science based sites uses the word creation or created."

Well, DUH, Timmy, that's the word you put into the search engine! Now *you* Google "Earth origins" - you'll get 36,900,000 hits. Might that suggest to you that the ones that use the word "created" are relatively rare?

"They don't feel the need to point out that they are not talking about God when they use the word created. They obviously have never met Pam."

Clearly not. I'm a tech writer, and I would have edited their work for sloppy use of the language.

"Guess what Pam. In a term used on every science website I can find, the earth was indeed CREATED. We know when, and how, and by what."

I realize that there are likely to be some scientists who use this term - it's a speech habit that comes from the religious backgrounds that most of us have, but at best it's an imprecise way of speaking, and at worst it gives an impression diametrically opposed to what they're trying to say. Further, Timmy, we were not talking about the origins of the Earth, we were talking about *ultimate* origins, and your statements were pretty clear as to infinite numbers of creators. At one point you even postulated aliens. You weren't talking about nebulae.

"Your immature, uninformed question would be, well then if the earth has a creator, who created the creator? Well the creator isn't a 'who' Pam, it's a 'what'. A nebula or an exploding star. And yes it also had a creator. And it's creator had a creator. And on and on to infinity. But none of these creators are a 'who' either. They are things."

See above.

"When I say that the universe MAY have been created. You ask the question, 'Oh yeah? By who?'."

You put that last bit in quotation marks, but I never once wrote those words. I never would. I would say "by *whom*", and "oh,yeah" is not my style. You're putting words in my mouth again. At least I quote you accurately.

"You do much worse than put words into my mouth. You put your own meaning on those words so that you can justify calling me a believer in magic because it makes you feel smarter than everyone else."

How would your believing in magic make me feel smarter than "everyone else?"

"If someone tells you that they don't believe one tiny bit in magic, or the supernatural, or God, You need to take them at their word and stop looking for signs of belief in them. To do so, is, as I said earlier, witchunty."

Timmy, I don't have to "look for signs" in you - you shout it out!

"There are all kinds of imaginative supernatural sounding thoughts on the universe that are born out of science. The bending of the space time fabric, we are all energy that lasts forever, the universe (as DuckPhup has said) may be on a journey to understand itself.
These thoughts and others are only supernatural if we go from imagining them, to believing in them as incontrovertible truths without scientific evidence to back up the theory. But if we are just imagining, we can imagine anything, like time travel, meaning of dreams and even an intelligent designer. So long as we accept that if any of these things are one day discovered to be true, there will be a scientific explanation for them that will make them very natural, not supernatural."

OK, so you're admitting that you were imagining an intelligent designer? Why, if you're such an atheist, would you even entertain such a thought?
Timmy, all these wild speculations for *highly* improbable concepts are just a waste of your time and mental energy. You keep talking about things that we know to be real today that would have sounded improbable to past generations, but they didn't get here by scientists (or anyone else) sitting around letting their imaginations run wild. They got here because scientists made observations, developed hypotheses based on those observations, and then found ways to test their hypotheses. And the work of one was built on by another. Do you think that Einstein just "imagined" E=MC2, or the roots of quantum theory? He made observations (like the Doppler effect) and he - quite literally - did the math.

"When I see you stop putting supernatural thoughts into other peoples mouths, who deny having such thoughts, I will show you the respect that you will then deserve."

Yes, you deny having them, but what you write says otherwise. Not an accusation, just an observation.

"Until then, I will correct you every time. And if you're going to start with the name calling, which you have, I can play at that game as good as anyone, so I wouldn't do it anymore if I were you."

Oooooooh, scary. Yes, I know you can "play that game" - you have amply demonstrated it. I have said how you sound to me, but I have not called you names.

Pam
Arguing with idiots about the validity of opting for moronic fantasy over tangible reason doesn't warrant my spending any energy in this venue, especially if one more person claims that we can't disprove the existence of imaginary characters. This "discussion group" might be entertaining, even educational, if the religious nuts weren't the most long-winded, clueless lot on the page. The one thing I can say for them; they do take up a lot of otherwise useful space.

Dyed In The Wool Skeptic,

I wasn't talking about banning "regular" pornography which is undertaken by consenting adults (although, to be fair, at least 95% of it appears to be immensely degrading to women, but it's their life, not mine); I'm talking about using law enforcement resources to fight CHILD pornography. Simple equation -- Less police worried about consenting adults smoking pot in the home + less $$$ spent on police resources solving drug-related murders and armed robberies (as the man said, when's the last time you heard of anyone killed because of a vodka deal gone south....or anyone was busted for selling cigarettes near a schoolhouse)

EQUALS

more resources (money, time, personnel) to solve the truly horrifying crimes of child exploitation and pornography (and, while we're at it, human trafficking as well -- big difference between a $400/night call girl in the 'business' because of her personal choice and an enslaved 15-yr-old girl from Cambodia lured here by human vipers and with no place to go or no one to turn to....) *** gritting teeth **** It just burns me up how much time and energy and manpower we are wasting in the 'war on drugs' when there are so many other, far more vast problems out there....sorry for going off topic, I'll get off my soapbox now..

JWR

Pam,

Here's why you are confused. I knew that you would be.
DuckPhup was not talking to me, he was talking to creationists.
I am not a creationist. I don't argue for creation or a complex designer. I argue that we do not know the origin of the universe. I argue that all three options are on the table. My argument with you is that you want to take one of these options off the table because you somehow think that science has eliminated it.

1) Infinite existence with no beginning.
2) Sudden appearance or formation out of nothingness
3) Creation.

Your problem, as I have been trying to point out, is that I say the word "creation", as ONE of three possibilities. And you somehow hear me say, "I believe that the universe was created by God or something like a God".
And then you argue with that, not what I said.

Then you accuse me and others of believing in the supernatural. Then you actually accuse me of denying my belief in God.
And then (laugh) you complain that I am putting words into your mouth? This is your little trick Pam, not mine.

Do me a favor Pam. Google "how was the earth created?"
The good news for all of us is that only 2 out of the ten links that come up are for the religious version of creation. The other 8 links are all to science magazines and web sites that answer this question scientifically. Exploding stars, nebulas and that sort of stuff. But notice Pam, that every one of these science based sites uses the word creation or created. They don't feel the need to point out that they are not talking about God when they use the word created. They obviously have never met Pam.

Guess what Pam. In a term used on every science website I can find, the earth was indeed CREATED. We know when, and how, and by what.
Your immature, uninformed question would be, well then if the earth has a creator, who created the creator?
Well the creator isn't a "who" Pam, it's a "what". A nebula or an exploding star. And yes it also had a creator. And it's creator had a creator. And on and on to infinity. But none of these creators are a "who" either. They are things.

When I say that the universe MAY have been created. You ask the question, "Oh yeah? By who?".

You do much worse than put words into my mouth. You put your own meaning on those words so that you can justify calling me a believer in magic because it makes you feel smarter than everyone else.

If someone tells you that they don't believe one tiny bit in magic, or the supernatural, or God, You need to take them at their word and stop looking for signs of belief in them. To do so, is, as I said earlier, witchunty.

There are all kinds of imaginative supernatural sounding thoughts on the universe that are born out of science. The bending of the space time fabric, we are all energy that lasts forever, the universe (as DuckPhup has said) may be on a journey to understand itself.
These thoughts and others are only supernatural if we go from imagining them, to believing in them as incontrovertible truths without scientific evidence to back up the theory. But if we are just imagining, we can imagine anything, like time travel, meaning of dreams and even an intelligent designer. So long as we accept that if any of these things are one day discovered to be true, there will be a scientific explanation for them that will make them very natural, not supernatural.

When I see you stop putting supernatural thoughts into other peoples mouths, who deny having such thoughts, I will show you the respect that you will then deserve. Until then, I will correct you every time. And if you're going to start with the name calling, which you have, I can play at that game as good as anyone, so I wouldn't do it anymore if I were you.

My "hear hear" to DuckPhup stands. I agree with every word he said. Especially when he includes lines like this:
"The answer to the overriding question "Why" might very well be: "No reason. That's just the way it is. Get used to it." Or, maybe: "Just because." However, acknowledging that as a possible (even probable) answer is NOT a reason to stop seeking for an alternative answer."

Hear Hear.

Pam,

"Making educated guesses about people you know well is a far cry from predicting disasters that affect people you *don't know*, years ahead of the fact."

Yes, you're right. That's why I stayed with "people you know well." I was setting up the "familiarity" supposition for venturing to say that some part of me who knows me as well or better than the personna typing this email supplies the information for "dreams," motivating me to listen to them.

But, yes, analogies limp.

"I don't see any evidence that the brain and its contents aren't the only factors in dreams."

Yes, again you're right. We're really in the field of psychology, aren't we?

For centuries people had no evidence that the earth was round.

There's still something mysterious (for me; not you) about intuition, synchronistic events, memory, dreams.

But then I'm a romantic ... but let's not go there.

"If people are going to postulate such absurdities, they need at the very least so explain their hypothesis of the exact method by which it takes place and how it might be falsified, so that it can be scientifically tested."

What was the absurdity again?

But since, as you know, I do not have a scientific background to go there either, let's leave my above question as a rhetorical one and steal away from any discussion of dreams.

OK?

Kate

Hi Kate,
Making educated guesses about people you know well is a far cry from predicting disasters that affect people you *don't know*, years ahead of the fact.

I don't see any evidence that the brain and its contents aren't the only factors in dreams.

If people are going to postulate such absurdities, they need at the very least so explain their hypothesis of the exact method by which it takes place and how it might be falsified, so that it can be scientifically tested.

Gee whiz, Timmy, I tell you that infinite regression of creators doesn't work logically and I'm told that I'm on a witch hunt. Duckphup tells you the same thing and gets a "hear, hear."

If I didn't find you so immature and emotional, my feelings might be hurt.

And for the record, I never said that the universe had existed forever. You put those words in my mouth, and repeated it in a further post. Don't do that.

Re: 'complexity'

In my preceding post, I had meant to provide a note of disambiguation regarding that term 'complexity'... but I forgot.

Readers should take note that 'complicated'... what the Intelligent Design' folks mean when they say 'complex'... is a VERY naive definition, and is not at all what scientists and mathematicians mean when they speak of 'complexity'. 'Complicated is the opposite of 'simple'. 'Complex' is the opposite of 'independent'. Complex systems are typically self-organizing and self-adaptive (which certainly doesn't apply to watches), and they typically exhibit 'emergent' properties and behaviors (also does not apply to watches).

So, when creationists/IDists say 'complex', they mean 'complicated'. But when I say things like "complexity arises from simplicity", I do NOT mean that things get more complicated.

Pornographers?

So you believe adults should be the final arbiters on what substances to put in their bodies, but what goes into their minds should be filtered, presumably through…………what? You tell me.

Anonymous,

The 'war on drugs' is the most notable example of censorship going on today. (Again, never taken them, probably never will -- unless I get terminal cancer and the pain gets to be too much.) I am perfectly capable of determining (along with a qualified doctor) what I should and should not put in my body. Did we learn nothing from Prohibition? The money spent on the drug war would be better spent on...border security, port security, nuclear weapons security, catching child molesters and pornographers, rousting deadbeat dads, arresting scam artists, arresting red-light runners.....

Similarly...the drinking age being 21. How does this make sense when teenagers are allowed to be indicted for 1st-degree murder at age 15? 18-year olds have died in Iraq and Afghanistan fighting for our freedoms.

Also, the 'war' being waged against the teaching of evolution. It's science. ID and creationism are religion. Two separate entities.

I don't have access to large amounts of broadband now, when I get home from deployment I'll surf the web for examples of books banned from schools -- and I realize that it isn't just the far right; the far left is also filled with busybodies that think they know how to run your life better than you do and banning kickball and dodgeball because someone's feeling's might get hurt.

Ok, now that I've addressed that issue, care to comment on the 48 other questions asked? Or do you simply cherry-pick as well, hoping to change the subject so that you won't have to answer the hard questions?

WM- I've come to the conclusion that I probably just think too much. The "after life"? It is what it is,or isn't, and no amount of pondering on my part or anyone else's will change what it is, or isn't. I am much more attracted to the idea of the universe itself than a designer because I've seen something of the universe (which is awe inspiring) and nothing of a designer. I'd rather at this point spend my mental energies on learning as much as I can about and seeing as much as I can of the universe. The new book of Carl Sagan's presentations to the Un. of Glascow are the kind of thing I am talking about. Also, I spelled Falwell wrong. And, I have to say in that vein that he and Pat Robertson are probably two of the most honest fundamentalists because the Old Testament God is exactly what they describe. That god would not only kill you with a hurricane, he would turn you into a pillar of salt if you just looked the wrong way!

Kate

Dear Pam,

I hope you have a good night’s rest and a sweet dream that you remember.

Re dreams and a “predetermined future.”

Have you ever known someone so well that you knew how they would vote on something or how they were going to raise their kids? When a woman said she was going to leave her abusive husband, did you know she was going to stay—and she did. Did you know that a bright, young kid was going to “make it”? And he did. Did you ever “predict” something about a person or an event, and say, “ Mark my words”?

And if you were right on all the above scenarios, were you predicting and already predestined future?

Familiarity breeds knowledge, grants us an inside track and educated guesses.

Where does the intuitive impulse that is right on come from?

Where does the memory that surfaces unasked, but right on time, come from?

Where does the dream that doesn’t make sense until twenty years later you stop in the middle of a room and say, “Oh, my god, I’ve been here before” and you know exactly what to do because you did it in you dream?

I suggest they come from a source that is deeply familiar with us, knows our proclivities, and gives us sneak previews in dreams, aid in intuitive knowings, affirmation in synchronistic events. Perhaps one of our multiple selves!

Let’s take a break at this point. I find it hard to language the origin of dreams, since I don’t know; I’m guessing here. But this is clear, for me, they are in no way pointing to a minister or mullah in the sky; they are not religious.

Kate

Anonymous,

I asked you before and never got an answer.
What is the purpose of not being a fundamentalist?
I see fundamentalists as being the only non hypocritical Christians.
What is non fundamentalist religion?
The Bible is kind of right?
Some of it is divine word and other parts are to be tossed aside. But different parts depending on what sect you are?
Some of it is literal, but some of it is metaphorical?
And again, depending on what sect you are?
This is an honest question. I really don't get non fundamentalist religion.
Can you help me?

DuckPhup,

Hear Hear.

Is "religionist" a synonym for fundamentalist or creationist? Fundamentalists actually comprise a minority of the world's Christians, fundamentalism being a relatively recent and very American phenomenon.

In this day, facts in evidence weigh most heavily on the side of naturalistic explanations for the existence of the world, the universe and life... and I think that Creationists have introduced a fatal flaw into their 'Intelligent Design' arguments by asserting (or implying) that the 'complexity' of the universe demands a 'creator'.

The main argument for the necessity of a creator hinges on 'complexity'; i.e., "... something as complex as the world, the universe and life must have a creator... it is the only thing that makes sense." But, if you think about it (Christians, in general, are not renowned for their critical thinking skills), it makes no sense at all. In fact, the 'designer' argument is a sterling example of the logical fallacy called 'Argument from Incredulity', a subset of 'Argumentum ad Ignorantiam' ('Argument from Ignorance'). It goes something like this: "I can't conceive of (or imagine) how this might have come to be; therefore, God did it."

The argument asserts that something so complex as a pocket watch... or the universe, or life... requires a creator who, of necessity, must be more complex than the creation... otherwise, the creator would not have been able to 'design' it, or create it. But IF complexity requires a more complex creator, THEN the FACT of the creator's complexity demands, of necessity, that it must ALSO have been created. Remember, according to the argument, complexity cannot arise by itself. That being the case, then, we end up with an infinite regression... creation... creator... creation... creator... creation... creator... creation... creator... creation... creator... etc... ad infinitum... ad nauseum... leading to infinite complexity. That is impossible... and thus, so is the concept of a creator of the universe... IF the logical argument for a creator is predicated on 'complexity'... which it is. (One way of looking at this... once you get past the creator/designer of this universe... is that each subsequent creator IS the creation of its predecessor. Trying to make sense out of that makes my hair hurt.)

Also, they can not seem to make a distinction between natural systems and a human artifact (watch):

* A watch is complex (complicated).
* We know that the watch was designed and created by an intelligent agent.
* The universe is complex (complicated);
* Therefore, the universe (of necessity) was designed and created by an intelligent agent.

That, in a nutshell, expresses the whole of the argument for intelligent design... an exemplar of sloppy, fallacious thinking.

Creationists conveniently ignore, though, the simple observable fact that in natural systems, complexity DOES arise from simplicity, in accordance with elementary natural processes and rules. (Interested parties can look up "self-organizing complex systems".)

The religionists might get around this dilemma by proposing that some all-powerful, supernatural, universe-creating entity evolved, all by 'himself' (itself?), from simple beginnings; but that proposition self-destructs upon the shoals of their own insistence that their deity is eternal... "always was and always will be."

The answer to the overriding question "Why" might very well be: "No reason. That's just the way it is. Get used to it." Or, maybe: "Just because." However, acknowledging that as a possible (even probable) answer is NOT a reason to stop seeking for an alternative answer.

The answer to the question "How" is "We don't know yet, for sure, but we've got some pretty good, pretty interesting ideas... and we've got some really smart people working on it. Maybe we'll figure it out, some day... and maybe not."

Funny-funny Timmy, I look forward to a more cogent reply after your "smoke" break.

And Anonymouse,

Environmental concerns are a necessity, not a moral.

anony-mouse,

If Michael Richards is on me then Pat Robertson is on you.

Ralph nader is not a moralist he is an environmentalist, and a socialist.
Jesus would vote for Nader if he had to vote for anyone.
And yes, I am telling you what Jesus would do. I am so very arrogant indeed.
Nader is a politician who works with the collective ideas of the public for support. There is no book of uncontrovertable truths from which he preaches. His supporters each have their own moral set and he does not bribe them with a bogus afterlife in a bogus Heaven.

And I suppose it was the church that is responsible for the level of censorship being at it's lowest point in history as opposed to people free from religion exercising their rights and demanding access to what ever they want information wise.

Any more perforated ides?

Pam,

Agree totally. If Sam is tuning in to this feel good EST encounter group, he must be either shaking his head or laughing his ass off. Or pick any other body part. Doesn’t matter. (Except the brain of course).

Pam,

When I say that you are looking too hard for sounds of supernatural thought, I am not endorsing supernatural thought. I am saying that you are finding it where it is not because you are looking so hard. It is very... witchunty.

moving images of people flying through the air, would have at one time been a supernatural thought. Turns out it's completely natural.

When someone like Andy proposes what sounds to you like a supernatural thought, he is not saying that magic is involved. He is saying that there may one day be a scientific explanation for this phenomenon. It won't be magic. It will be explained.
But what you do, is try to tell him, and me, and others who speak of such imaginative thoughts, that we believe in magic and you don't.
You are flat wrong.
Flat flat wrong.
None of us believe in magic Pam, and it is arrogance on your part to imply that we do. Any thoughts of possible answers to questions about our universe that we can not answer are nothing more than scientific open mindedness.

You are welcome to believe with conviction that the universe has always existed, and that "why" is irrelevant, just as believers are welcome to believe in God if they like.
But like them, you have no proof of your theory. It's just your theory. It's not science's theory. Science has no theory on origin. Just data to show what we know so far. And none of it rules out creation, or infinity or sudden appearance out of nothingness. These are all still on the table.
But you don't think so?
You think that science has eliminated one of these options?
Certainly we all know that it has not.

You want the general public to stop believing in God.
How will you achieve this if your story is less plausible to the human mind than theirs is?

"It's always been here and there is no reason for it. No I can't prove that but I'm going to tell people who don't accept that to wake up and stop believing in ferries."

Just because we can't prove that your infinite flying spaghetti monster doesn't exist doesn't mean that it does.

Creation is still on the table Pam. And if it turns out to be true? It will not be because of magic. We will have found scientific evidence that it is true.

There are three possible answers. I haven't discounted any of them, and I lean towards none of them. And I understand why the human mind has trouble comprehending the first two, and an easier time comprehending the third. This is intellectual honesty. It is helpful with the problem of religion to understand this. Your close minded brand of atheism is not. But you are welcome to it.

Kate writes:
"You sigh “… predicting the future in our dreams????????”
Yes."

Kate, this requires the belief that the future is predetermined. By whom? Our designer?

I think there are a lot of very religious atheists posting to this thread. I had originally been quite encouraged to find so many in this On Faith forum who identified themselves as atheists. I thought there might be hope after all. Now I'm not so sure.

Enough from me for one night.

Tammy, with respect, if you look into that Grand Canyon story I think you'll see you have it quite backwards. In this instance it is in fact anti-creationists who are banning books and demanding censorship. I have no brief for creationists, but the point is that the incident lends nothing to Nuke's claim and actually provides an amusing counterpoint. And even if the shoe were on the other foot, an inventory decision at a park gift shop hardly amounts to the kind of censorship Nuke claims.

Funny-Funny Timmy says, "The point NavyNuke was making is that there are many Christian leaders like the Gerry [sic] Falwells and the Pat Robertsons who fight a constant battle to force their Bible morals on the rest of us through government policy." Actually, he made a very specific claim about people who "try to ban books and movies that I (as a grown man) should decide for myself whether I will read or watch." Has anybody any EVIDENCE for that (you do favor evidence-based arguments, don't you)?

And are you and your pal Nuke truly libertarians — or are you in fact perfectly okay with moralists like, say, Ralph Nader and environmental zealots ramming THEIR values down our throats?

"And if not for people like me [Thank you for saving us by smacking down them Jehovah's Witnesses in the park real good, Funny Timmy!] and NavyNuke and others speaking up about such things, they would be winning..." In point of fact there is less censorship now than at any time in human history, and absent clear and convincing EVIDENCE to the contrary, I am absolutely certain you have nothing whatsoever to do with that.

"...because their brainwashed flock are fine with religious leaders telling them what to think on issues of morality. It seems as though most of them don't know what moral is until Gerry [sic] Falwell speaks." Do you think hateful ignorant bigotry is an attractive quality in a performer, Funny-Funny Timmy? Two words of entirely unsolicited professional advice: Michael Richards.

Richard:

You ask re my cultivating my dreams … making some “progress” … but … to what end?

I cultivate my dreams for the same purpose I would cultivate a field of corn: to feed myself. Deamwork is a tool for self-examination leading to self-awareness. That’s progress!

In my dream toolkit, I have many, many techniques but such a discussion would lead us far afield from the purpose of this forum. So would analyzing Timmy’s dreams.

Pam:

You sigh “… predicting the future in our dreams????????”

Yes.

Andy:

Multiple Selves. Multiple drafts of ourselves. Revisions. Publication. Well, I’m off and running with this. As I’m writing my memoir (overtly the last two years of my mother’s life), I encounter the strangest people: a young woman in a Catholic burka; a young woman apparently accomplishing nothing in Southern California; a hippy cleaning houses in northern New Mexico. Yee, gods! They all have my social security number!

I shall look for Dennet’s (sp?) book. Thanks for the recommendation.

Duckphup:

Where are you? I miss you.

Kate

Timmy wrote:
"I don't think that Andy actually thinks that the future was speaking through my dream."

No? Read it again.

"But you're reaction to his imaginative and open minded thoughts is telling. Your ears seem to me to be a little too pricked for signs of supernatural thought that you are ready to pounce on."

Undoubtedly correct - I don't believe in anything supernatural (as I've stated before) and I think that this sort of thinking is what religion depends on. I have no problem with keeping an open mind, just not so wide open that your brains fall out on the floor.

Sorry you don't think I've presented any interesting thoughts. What's interesting to you seems to be just wild flights of fancy. I'm more grounded in reality.

Right, a list of designers can't go back forever. It's an infinite regression, and that isn't logically possible. Energy, however, isn't created or destroyed, only transformed.

I don't understand why you gave up God, Timmy. You seem to be trying so hard to get back to him.

Yes gad,

This is my curiosity as well.
What do you think of my thought on genetics?
Could this be the future of evolution?
Not so natural selection?
Or is it natural?
Isn't everything we do natural?
Even making plastic?

Pam said:
"All the way down to what? This is an infinite regression, and you're always stuck with ending it somewhere by postulating one designer (in this case) who just IS. To me that's ridiculous. I have much less trouble with *energy* existing forever."

So energy and the universe can have no beginning, their existence can be infinite, but a list of designers can not be infinite?
The universe and everything in it can go back and back forever, but the list of designers can't?

???

Here's a thought on the future of evolution.

Technology is the great equalizer. Statistics show that the most intelligent people in industrialize countries wait longer and have fewer children then the less intelligent. This coupled with modern technology, allows those with characteristics that would not have been selected in the past to survive and thrive equally as well as those with better characteristics. It is possible that technology has neutralized natural selection and stalled evolution? Are we breeding toward a devolved future man?

Just a thought..............

And Pam,

I have an even better explanation for my dream than coincidence.

Before it started, when I was younger, I got the opportunity to operate a commercial jet flight simulator because one of my Boy Scout leaders was an airline pilot trainer. When you are operating the simulator, the screen in front of you displays a cartoon version of what your view out the windshield would be during the simulated flight.
Being a mischievous teenager, and knowing that no one would get hurt, I purposely flew the plane into the CN Tower. (in Toronto)

It wasn't until years later that I started having that dream. This is most likely the culprit.
Never the less, I will be very curious to see Andy's response to your attack on his imaginative theory.

You really do spend most of your time on this thread launching close minded attacks on other people's thoughts rather than producing any interesting thoughts of your own. I've noticed.

I don't think that Andy actually thinks that the future was speaking through my dream. But you're reaction to his imaginative and open minded thoughts is telling. Your ears seem to me to be a little too pricked for signs of supernatural thought that you are ready to pounce on.

Have you ever seen the episode of South Park, with Richard Dawkins, where they take the piss out of atheists? I have been enjoying watching these guys trash religion since the very beginning of their series. They finally decided to take a run at atheists. Irreverence to all is their deal.
Anyway, when I first saw this episode, I laughed, but I was kind of offended. I was like "come on guys, funny jokes but based on a false premiss. Atheists aren't like that."
Then I came on this thread and realized that they were not talking about me and my kind of atheism. I am no longer offended by that episode. It is genius funny.

I hope you get a chance to see it one day.

Timmy wrote:
"...science articles that I have read which report that humans have been getting less hairy and that our eyesight is getting worse."

Less hairy need not mean bald. More likely that they were talking about body hair. Our ancestors lost most of that before they ever left Africa - once they moved from the forest to the savannah, a hair coat was maladaptive. No surprise that it's still regressing. In evolution, it's use it or lose it. We are also in the process of losing our wisdom teeth, the human jaw has been getting shorter for a long time and can no longer accomodate them in most people. That's why the surgery. Head hair, however, is still attractive to the opposite sex, so not much chance that will go away.

As for eyesight, it's still too important to our lives to be totally lost; but, where visual acuity would once have been critical (to those hunter-gatherer ancestors), it's no longer a life-threatening problem for us (we invented lenses and lasik), so probably poor vision will become much more common.

Timmy wrote:
"And who says the designer has to have no beginning, or designer of it's own.
We currently have computers that design things. And those computers have a designer. And for all we know, we had a designer. And our designer could have a designer. Perhaps it designers all the way down."

All the way down to what? This is an infinite regression, and you're always stuck with ending it somewhere by postulating one designer (in this case) who just IS. To me that's ridiculous. I have much less trouble with *energy* existing forever.

"I'm not saying we have a designer. I'm just pointing out the interesting fact that the human mind can not comprehend the other options as easily as it can comprehend design. And I'm suggesting that this has much to do with our problem of religion."

The human mind was evolved to deal with Earth's three dimensions and the sensory inputs pertinent to getting food, avoiding danger, and raising offspring. Thinking outside that box will always be more difficult.

Pam,

I was kind of joking with that last comment:
"What ever it is, I think it will be bald, and maybe even blind."

You said:
"How would that be adaptive - and to what?"

Less hair because we no longer need protection from the cold.
And I don't know about the eyesight thing.
Like I said, I was just making a joke based on science articles that I have read which report that humans have been getting less hairy and that our eyesight is getting worse.

And I guess the 10% of our brain thing is a myth. At least according to that one website. Too bad. There goes one of the cool things that I used to like to ponder.

I still like to think that the next evolution could have something to do with our brains, or our imagination.

Thanks for your thoughts.

Andy Ross wrote:
"An emotive future event throws its shadow back onto your mind while it is dreaming. This would be an example of the mind working in prophetic mode."

Oh, Andy, please! We're predicting the future in our dreams??? Would you like to explain the exact mechanism by which that would take place?

Seems much more likely to me that Timmy has observed planes taking off near cities (as we all have) where they appear visually to be close to tall buildings, and his brain made a story out of it. That a plane later did fly into a building is pure coincidence.

I don't believe Pat Robertson's predictions, either. He's been wrong more than once, and yet they come to him straight from God. Hmmmmmm...

Andy said:
"An emotive future event throws its shadow back onto your mind while it is dreaming. This would be an example of the mind working in prophetic mode. Spooky action at a distance!"

Thanks. I'll never sleep again.
My most recent recurring dream is one where a rapping Jesus freak named Jason shoots up a science convention with an uzi.
Run for your lives!

Timmy wrote:
"We use only 10% of our brain.
To me this is one of the most fascinating and exciting things to think about. What if we found a way to use 15%, or 45%?
What could we do with all of this extra brain power?
So much mystery to that for me."

Timmy, this just isn't so. It's an old saw that's been buzzing around for far too long. See this site:
http://faculty.washington.edu/chudler/tenper.html

"And here's another one.
Homo Sapiens have been around for at least 250,000 years now. (correct me if I'm wrong about that) We seem to be about due? For What? Evolution. Into what? Homo Erectus - Neanderthal - Homo Sapien - ?
What's next for us, evolution wise.
Perhaps a creature that uses 28% of it's brain as opposed to 10%?

Richard Wade's reply was good - all true. I'd just like to add that evolution doesn't follow a timetable - the first of our ancestors to use the most basic stone tools to split bones for their marrow went on like that for millions of years before there was another bit of "progress." And it goes where the evolutionary pressures push it. A change in climate can do it (global warming?), but because we can control our indoor climate, and dress for our outdoor climate, it's been less of a factor for us than for some other animals. This may change if we don't find a viable alternate fuel source for when the oil runs out.

We might have evolved a different body type to deal with the problem that women have with childbirth due to our change to walking upright coupled with larger cranial size due to the bigger brain, but we've got the C-section, which allows all to procreate. Ditto fertility clinics to work around the reproductively unfit.

The stress of living in our noisy, busy world takes a terrible toll, but its effects aren't usually fatal until after peak reproductive years, so no evolutionary pressure there.

The same applies to our problems with obesity. We have them, because our distant ancestors were hunter-gatherer societies whose access to food was uncertain at best. Evolution gave them a taste for fat and sugar (think honey), as these were potent sources of energy. There was no danger of them becoming overweight - their lives were too active and their sources of fat and sugar too scarce. What fat they were able to put on was a good thing - a hedge against harder times. Unfortunately, we've developed the ability to make food easily obtainable, but we still have those old hunter-gatherer cravings.

If we continue polluting our environment to the point where people are starting to die young, then a new, more pollution-resistant human might emerge. One that could deal with things like mercury and lead without being poisoned by them.

"What ever it is, I think it will be bald, and maybe even blind."

How would that be adaptive - and to what?

Hee hee ... Linda, I guess the devil's in the details! It's probably not something we're ever going to have to deal with, so I guess there's no point in worrying about it.

Sorry, that should be: read Dan Dennett's big book "Consciousness Explained" for the full story.

Will the next evolution of hominids be self determined?
Genetics?
Not so natural selection? And yet, completely natural.
The new natural?
Or will the real natural selection beat us to it?

In the future, say we were to develop the ability to isolate and alter the gene responsible for greed. Given that greed can clearly be pointed to as being the one thing that causes most human conflict.
Would we, should we, consider altering this gene if we are capable? Genetically remove greed?

It's an interesting thought and a moral concern we may soon be faced with. I think that greed is a large part of our human survival instinct. Perhaps that's the only thing that greed is.
People hate greed, but perhaps our species would not survive without it.

Questions for which I have no answers. Just a deep fascination.

GAD- your comments about the designer vs. the universe and being OK with the mystery are excellent! Best argument I've heard on the claim that God is something separate from time and space. Thank you!

WM- I used to think like you about still being able to see loved ones etc. even though I had no proof. But, when I try to imagine that, it gets weird past the initial reunion in Paradise. It's sort of like "now what do we do"? and then it becomes "oh my god, Jerry Fawell lives here too!!"

Said Timmy:
It was not my humorous use of those words that got me into trouble. It was a very earnest emotional application of the everyday soft meaning of those words that raised questions about my sanity.
(January 15, 2007 4:11 PM)

Thanks, point well taken. If words like are "divine" or "sacred" are not artificially hardened with explicit meanings (such as definitions or specific context of usage), they tend to generate semantic meltdown and hence hint somehow at insanity. So one answer is to fuss about the semantics (as I often do) and another is to go ahead anyway, but with gravitas, for example by speaking in basso profundo or refusing to radiate any sense of humor. Whatever, I think we agree.

Said Pam:
Einstein's thoughts on religion in his own words:
http://www.sacred-texts.com/aor/einstein/einsci.htm
(January 15, 2007 7:14 PM)

Thanks for this. Let me copy a part that resonates strongly with me.

Said Albert Einstein:

Common to all these [previously described] types is the anthropomorphic character of their conception of God. In general, only individuals of exceptional endowments, and exceptionally high-minded communities, rise to any considerable extent above this level. But there is a third stage of religious experience which belongs to all of them, even though it is rarely found in a pure form: I shall call it cosmic religious feeling. It is very difficult to elucidate this feeling to anyone who is entirely without it, especially as there is no anthropomorphic conception of God corresponding to it.

The individual feels the futility of human desires and aims and the sublimity and marvelous order which reveal themselves both in nature and in the world of thought. Individual existence impresses him as a sort of prison and he wants to experience the universe as a single significant whole. The beginnings of cosmic religious feeling already appear at an early stage of development, e.g., in many of the Psalms of David and in some of the Prophets. Buddhism, as we have learned especially from the wonderful writings of Schopenhauer, contains a much stronger element of this.

The religious geniuses of all ages have been distinguished by this kind of religious feeling, which knows no dogma and no God conceived in man's image; so that there can be no church whose central teachings are based on it. Hence it is precisely among the heretics of every age that we find men who were filled with this highest kind of religious feeling and were in many cases regarded by their contemporaries as atheists, sometimes also as saints. Looked at in this light, men like Democritus, Francis of Assisi, and Spinoza are closely akin to one another.

(New York Times Magazine, November 9, 1930)

Wonderful. But note his caution over the word "atheist". Sam has it too. For what it's worth, I do too. I'd much rather be thought of as a saint than an atheist (unlikely though the former is compared with the latter).

Said Richard Wade:
The psychological view of dreams has gone through a long, twisting evolution, and has arrived today at a very confident shrug of the shoulders. I studied a whole lot of silly stuff that psychologists wrote about dreams to get my shrink degree. ... You asked, "Who or what creates them while "I" am sleeping? (I've got some ideas.)" My immediate answer would have been you, but then I noticed that you had put quotes around the word, "I." Is there a "you" other than you? A night-shift you that takes over for the day-shift you?
(January 16, 2007 12:39 AM)

Let me try this. I've attended neuroscience conferences where speakers talked about dreams, and I know the current orthodoxy is that dream contents are just odd stuff from the previous day processed into rather random narratives that sometimes reflect personal concerns or predilections, as if the brain were doing garbage disposal and playing around with the poop. But science often advances when people take something apparently trivial and understand it in a new and systematic way. Given the huge advances in neuroscience over the last decade or so, I guess it might be time to find a new theory of dreams, nothing like Freudian mythology or tea-leaf reading but based on a clear model of the underlying neural processes. Needless to say, I'm not the one to create this new theory.

But the second point here, about the dream self, is easier to make a start on. Many years ago, when I was teaching philosophy part-time, I asked my star student to write an answer to the question "Am I responsible for what I do in my dreams?" She came back the next week with a wonderful essay distinguishing three senses of the word "I" – the everyday sense (that is, the day-shift self), the dream actor, and the dream observer. She pointed out that the dream actor often acted irresponsibly relative to the day self, while the dream observer was often deficient in reasoning power. Skip the rest – I gave her an alpha for the essay.

The multiplicity of selves is a natural outcome of Dan Dennett's theory of the self. Since Dan is America's greatest living philosopher and also a keen student of neuroscience, I hope you'll agree that his view is worth taking seriously. Let me cite my own summary of his view (adapted from the comment dated January 2, 8:05 am in the previous Harris thread):

A self, as Dan Dennett sees it, is a construction of the brain. We make selves for ourselves (so to speak) to put our thoughts into better order. Each of us builds our own autobiography to sort out our memories, as an ongoing drama starring our own self. That is, Dan thinks we create ourselves as something like fictional characters within our own stories, and we do this for deeply rooted biological reasons. We create multiple drafts of this story, each with its own version of the self. Dan thinks the self is like a virtual machine, which is to say an emulation, like a virtual Windows machine running on a Mac. The parallelism of the brain supports a serial virtual machine, which he calls a Joycean virtual machine because it generates a stream of consciousness using words, like the fictional character Nora Bloom in James Joyce's novel Ulysses. For Dan, a human self is spun from words like a spider's web is spun from silk.

By the way, I checked a longer 2002 version of this description with Dan himself and he had no objection. But read his big book "Explaining Consciousness" for the full story.

Said JWR, alias NavyNukeCdr:
After reading some of the posts here by members of the Islamic faith ... I'm not entirely convinced that holding hands and singing "Kumbaya" works with some of the more vicious interpreters of the Koran.
(January 16, 2007 5:31 AM)

Sir, I like your thinking, not just in this quote but in your longer comment. I'm mightily relieved that America's nukes are in the hands of people like you. If you were running for Congress and I were allowed to vote for you, I would.

Said Kate:
Dreams ... it could be that dreams are nothing but the old coffee grinds of the used-up day ... when people dismiss or scoff at dreams, well, I too at the end of day throw away the old coffee grounds. But many of us throw those grounds onto the compost pile ... for life can grow from them.
(January 16, 2007 10:54 AM)

Indeed. See my comments above. A theory can grow from them.

Said Timmy:
What about recurring dreams? ... I will forever be freaked out by this dream that I had maybe a hundred times before I saw it happen on live TV.
(January 16, 2007 1:45 PM)

Indeed. See my comments above. An emotive future event throws its shadow back onto your mind while it is dreaming. This would be an example of the mind working in prophetic mode. Spooky action at a distance!

Gad,

You said:
"Nope, but I prefer that mystery over being designed by a designer"

You say prefer like you have a choice as to what you want to be. And whenever you say designer you refer to it as him. Perhaps another larger intelligent universe created ours.
And who says the designer has to have no beginning, or designer of it's own.
We currently have computers that design things. And those computers have a designer. And for all we know, we had a designer. And our designer could have a designer. Perhaps it designers all the way down.

I'm not saying we have a designer. I'm just pointing out the interesting fact that the human mind can not comprehend the other options as easily as it can comprehend design. And I'm suggesting that this has much to do with our problem of religion.

I love the mystery myself. I do not require an answer to enjoy my life to the fullest. But I love to think about it. And I certainly won't dismiss the designer option just because I don't like it.

Everything we know in the universe has a beginning. The sun, the planets, life. It was all created at some point that we can determine going all the way back to the big bang.
All of these things were created. We know that.
By what? By the universe itself it seems. Or at least that's all that we know so far.
So if this planet has an origin, and the sun has an origin, and the galaxy has an origin, how can we not assume that the universe itself has an origin. We know that the big bang is the first thing that we know of. But we still don't know the origin of the universe. Did it exist in some other form before the big bang? Or was the big bang the creation. And by what? And why?

It's a mystery that I love, and all options are on the table. I will most likely die not knowing. But for the future generations, I wonder what incredible things they might discover that might give some indication.

Anonymous (Annoying Most?)
I took philosophy courses in college. They were not my favorites. To examine *my* life, all I need is a philosophy of my own, I don't need to know every other possible way of thinking, particularly when it is completely subjective.

I agree that study is a good thing, generally speaking, but the world encompasses too much knowledge for all of us to be experts in every possible field - we go where our interests lead.

Sorry, but theology, to me, is a joke. Why not leprechaunology? Dragonology? Unicornology?

I'm a bit tired of your insulting style of writing and your implication that I lack intelligence (I'll stand my IQ against yours any day of the week) so this is the last time I'll respond to one of your posts.

Timmy, nice discussion seeds. You asked,
"Homo Sapiens have been around for at least 250,000 years now. (correct me if I'm wrong about that)
We seem to be about due?
For What?
Evolution.
Into what?
Homo Erectus - Neanderthal - Homo Sapien - ?
What's next for us, evolution wise."

The continuing discovery of fossil evidence tends to keep pushing the dates back, since recent fossils are easier to find than older ones. It could be much older. Some experts are suggesting well over a million years. Hard to draw the line on a continuum.
I read somewhere that the average life span of any species is between one and two million years. A few last far longer, and many last far less. So it could be that what we're due for is extinction.
Big brains have appeared in only one brief period in all the earth's billions of years, and there were at least six big brained primate species around at the same time. Only we and the "dumber" primates have survived. The jury is still out on whether big brains is a good idea in evolutionary terms. Lately it doesn't look so promising.

Remember evolution isn't "going" anywhere; there's no train track laid down in front of the train. We're just the descendants of the best survivors of the past. Life is making it up as it goes along.

Timmy, nice thought seeds.
"Homo Sapiens have been around for at least 250,000 years now. (correct me if I'm wrong about that)
We seem to be about due?
For What?
Evolution.
Into what?
Homo Erectus - Neanderthal - Homo Sapien - ?
What's next for us, evolution wise."

The continuing discovery of fossil evidence tends to keep pushing the dates back, since recent fossils are easier to find than older ones. It could be much older. Some experts are suggesting well over a million years. Hard to draw the line on a continuum.
I read somewhere that the average life span of any species is between one and two million years. A few last far longer, and many last far less. So it could be that what we're due for is extinction.
Big brains have appeared in only one brief period in all the earth's billions of years, and there were at least six big brained primate species around at the same time. Only we and the "dumber" primates have survived. The jury is still out on whether big brains is a good idea in evolutionary terms. Lately it doesn't look so promising.

Remember evolution isn't "going" anywhere; there's no train track laid down in front of the train. We're just the descendants of the best survivors of the past. Life is making it up as it goes along.

Gad, Re "My question is this, the idea of being designed is completely repugnant to me, why would anyone want to be designed, what is the appeal of being designed?"

I think that for a lot of people, the idea of being designed is appealing because if they were designed, there must be a designer. And if there's a designer, maybe it's looking out for them and has a plan for them after they die. Maybe there's a way for their lives and the lives of their loved ones to continue and for them to be reunited in a paradisial afterlife.

I can't say that I mind that idea myself. I just wish that there was some good evidence for it and that I could believe it! For me, believing something just because I want it to be true is not an option.

Timmy,

"Are you able to wrap your head around time having no beginning?Or sudden existence for no reason out of nothingness?"

Nope, but I prefer that mystery over being designed by a designer....... I don't see that a designer who had no beginning and whose existence came from nothingness makes it any easier to wrap ones head around these ideas. Well,other then just putting the burden of the mystery on the designer, so one doesn't have to think about it, problem solved

Gad,

It's certainly not about wanting to be designed, for me.
Although I don't find the thought repugnant.
But there is no question about the fact that we are (like it or not) a creature that can't help but wonder about it's origin.

Are you able to wrap your head around time having no beginning?
Or sudden existence for no reason out of nothingness?

I don't know what I should imagine. I don't have any control over it. I imagine what I imagine. Time having no beginning and sudden existence of the universe are the hardest things for me to imagine.

Wether I like it or not, creation is the only thing that I find easy to imagine. On how, what or why? Now it's getting difficult again.

Kate, thanks for your persistence.
Your post at 10:54 AM is much like my own dreams, kind of fragmented like an unfinished jigsaw puzzle, with ideas and their counter-ideas floating around in equal measure. Your effort to cultivate them is interesting, and it sounds as though you have had some progress. Progress toward what end I'm not clear on. Could you help with that?
So as I said before, we have a confident shrug of the shoulders about what dreams are and what they're for, if anything. Everything from "the Royal Road to the Unconscious" as Freud said, to a random flushing away of useless junk at the end of the day. The existence/nature/purpose of the unconscious is still up for grabs, with not much convincingly proven or disproven. We're even still scratching our heads (or banging our heads) over the conscious, much less the unconscious.
I used to think that our unconscious is as old as life, and our conscious is only as old as we individuals are, so the unconscious possesses a great wisdom. That's about as close to believing in a god as I ever got. It's a very romantic notion, and lately I've come to question all my romantic notions, but yet without a conclusion. So a both nod of my head and a shrug of my shoulders to you.

Here are a couple of other things that I like to think about with fascination. I'm looking for others to comment.

We use only 10% of our brain.
To me this is one of the most fascinating and exciting things to think about. What if we found a way to use 15%, or 45%?
What could we do with all of this extra brain power?
So much mystery to that for me.

And here's another one.
Homo Sapiens have been around for at least 250,000 years now. (correct me if I'm wrong about that)
We seem to be about due?
For What?
Evolution.
Into what?
Homo Erectus - Neanderthal - Homo Sapien - ?
What's next for us, evolution wise.

Perhaps a creature that uses 28% of it's brain as opposed to 10%?

What ever it is, I think it will be bald, and maybe even blind.
Be on the lookout.

Or have we subverted natural selection with our science and medicine?

Some thought starters for this week?

Timmy,

Traveling on business (response delayed), but wanted to give my $.02 on your question of "why are we here" and "what does it all mean".

"why are we here" and "what does it all mean", I don't know. More then that I posit that we can never know, with one exception, "if" we were designed for a purpose "and" the designer tells what that purpose is. To put it another way, if there is "no" designer we can never know "why are we here" and "what does it all mean".......I think this makes logical sense, how could could we ever know without being told, and only a designer would have the answer if there was one.

I do not believe in a designer, but if we suppose there is one, my first question would be who designed the designer. If the answer is the designer just "is" and will always be, then why can't the universe just be an "is" and will always be. I would prefer that over being designed by any designer, good or bad, but especially a cruel vindictive one.

My question is this, the idea of being designed is completely repugnant to me, why would anyone want to be designed, what is the appeal of being designed?

More questions about dreams:

What about recurring dreams?
from the time I was about 19, I began having a recurring dream. This is very scary to me. I worked in a tall office building Toronto, Canada around that time. My dream was that I was walking from the subway to work and just as I got close to my office tower I look up to see a jumbo jet sized plane fly right into the office tower. Sometimes the dream would end there, but often it continued on as I helped as best I could to rescue people from the burning building. The first time I had this dream was in 1987. I had it at least 50 to 100 more times over the next 14 years. Maybe more. It was extremely vivid. I have not had this dream since September 11, 2001.

I will forever be freaked out by this dream that I had maybe a hundred times before I saw it happen on live TV. Anyone care to take a stab at explaining that one? Very creepy and disconcerting.

I have other recurring dreams that are much more abstract, but the same every time. These are the dreams that really freak me out.

Anyone else?
Recurring dreams?

Anonymous,

Yes. We certainly do have access to "the most vile material of every description".
That's a good thing isn't it? Not because the stuff is vile, but because censorship is draconian and wrong. Do you disagree?

Navy Nuke just said that they're trying, not that they're succeeding. We would have to resort to much more drastic measures if they were succeeding.

The point NavyNuke was making is that there are many Christian leaders like the Gerry Falwells and the Pat Robertsons who fight a constant battle to force their Bible morals on the rest of us through government policy. And if not for people like me and NavyNuke and others speaking up about such things, they would be winning that misguided battle, because their brainwashed flock are fine with religious leaders telling them what to think on issues of morality. It seems as though most of them don't know what moral is until Gerry Falwell speaks.

Thank goodness that we have overcome most of this "moral authority" through the word of God crap. We still have some ways to go, but we are definitely winning this battle.

Thank God.
(God in this case means Eric Clapton)
Just so there's no confusion.

Ahem.

Back to one of our threads: Dreams

When the ego disappears, and the ___________ (fill in the blank) steps into that vacuum, we have what we call dreams ... as opposed to ego's daytime conversations and monoglogues (whether with others or itself).

Set aside mental illness or drugs.

Back then to dreams.

Because I so enjoy them, collect them, work with them, I have taught myself to remember them. My memoir is rife with them, as others would speak daytime happenings that "made all the difference" to paths they took (and I certainly make use of those too).

I, like others, have developed my own dream language with its own symbology. I have dreams in a series. I have personal and collective dreams. I've broken their code ... most times.

That part of me that dreams (please name it--brain, unconscious,...) is brilliant. It will let come to the surface what ego buries. It stages plays every night: characters with scripts, costumes, props, plot.

I'm going to stop now.

And it could be that dreams are nothing but the old coffee grinds of the used-up day that I have cleverly brought my knowledge of myself and an open mind to see meanings, connections, possibilities that my daytime intelligence missed.

For example, you can read all the horoscopes of a day and make all of them apply to you because you know yourself so well. Thus you can discount any of them as being relevant. (You can discount them on many scores ... this is just a quick example.)

And so I know that's what I may do with dreams (i.e. , I place meaning where there is none.)So when people dismiss or scoff at dreams, well, I too at the end of day throw away the old coffee grounds.

But many of us throw those grounds onto the compost pile ... for life can grow from them.

Kate, struggling for words and w/out her first cup of coffee on a freezing mountain morning.

Well, Anon., there is that creepy business with the true geological age of the Grand Canyon(for some reason the US Geological Service isn't allowed to sell books in the Grand Canyon gift shop that include the Canyon's estimated age).
I wish I had time right now to find that link for you, but someone did bring it up in one of these Sam Harris threads. Sorry for the redundancy if you've heard this before.

NavynukeCDR objects to those who would "try to ban books and movies that I (as a grown man) should decide for myself whether I will read or watch."

Notwithstanding the creeping theocracy his febrile imagination tells him is upon us, perhaps he can cite an example or two of any *serious* incidents along these lines in the US of A over the past four decades?

And even if he can, surely he acknowledges the obvious fact that he enjoys unfettered access to the most vile material of every description to a degree that would have been utterly unimaginable even two decades ago — notwithstanding said creeping theocracy?

As I said, I had hoped you would've corrected me if I was wrong in assuming the worst.

I see now, I had not read back far enough in the thread to understand how the statement originated.

For any misunderstanding I apologize.

And yes, I totally agree that there is nothing praiseworthy in dismissing formal study.

My comment was based on the worthiness of life.

Robin,

Thanks for giving me the opportunity to clarify my earlier post. I regret the unintended implication that I was commenting on the quality of anyone's life, or devaluing lived experience, or unreasonably exalting formal knowledge and education. I wasn't.

I was responding to a post that explicitly dismissed the study of philosophy, and questioned what philosophy has to do with an "examined life". Since the latter is a classic definition of philosophy (from Socrates' defense at his trial), I could not but point out the irony. And while I agree completely that formal study is not the only path to knowledge, at the same time I hope you'll agree that there is nothing praiseworthy in simply dismissing it.

Hello again,

After reading some of the posts here by members of the Islamic faith (and those others who, like seemingly everyone else, wish to pin the blame for all the worlds troubles on the USA)...I thought I'd post this also. This is my response on amazon.com to a comment about "The End of Faith". As you can see, I'm not entirely convinced that holding hands and singing "Kumbaya" works with some of the more vicious interpreters of the Koran...

JWR
============================================

I am constantly amazed at the apologists -- religous and otherwise -- for the evils committed in the name of the Islamic faith. Seems like the same people that, back in the 50's thru the 80's were willing to be apologists for every evil committed under the Soviet Union....and today are willing to overlook the evils committed by North Korea, China,, and Cuba on their way to march at Guantanamo Bay -- are the same people willing to overlook the atrocities committed daily in the name of Islam. By the way -- where were these people when American airmen were being imprisoned in Hanoi under much more horrific conditions??) One of the points Mr. Harris made in his marvelous (and long overdue) book was that the Muslims carrying out many of the suicide attacks are educated (by conventional standards) men -- architects and engineers willing to perish for an invisible God. Many of the problems in today's world come about because far too many of us fear to honestly and openly address the issues that Mr. Harris raises.

Mr. Goldstein, if modern-day Islam ISN'T the largest threat to peace in the world (along with the other literalist interpreters of various
religious texts), then perhaps you can explain to those of us not quite as enlightened as you the common thread for the following events... while you're at it, perhaps you can also explain to us how well the policy of appeasement worked with similarly irrational men back in 1938:

a. 9-11-2001; 3-11-2003; 7-7-2005; 10-12-2000 (i.e. the USS COLE); the Khobar Towers bombing in 1996, the attacks on the US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998, the attack on the WTC in 1993....

b. the practice of 'honor killings', where sisters and daughters must be killed because of the 'shame' brought on the family after being raped..

c. the violent riots that erupted in many Arab cities after cartoons (let me repeat that, cartoons) were published in Danish newspapers --
these same countries where vile cartoons are published regularly about those that practice the Jewish faith and citizens of non-theocratic nations like the USA. (Remember, this is Denmark -- i.e. a country where, if you decide to move there, the practice of freedom of speech is supposed to be respected..) I don't think we saw too many Christians (even the fundamentalist lunatics like I grew up around that handle rattlesnakes and think dinosaurs roamed the earth 6000 years ago) rioting after the Mapplethorp exhibits of "Piss Christ" or the similar issue in Brooklyn a few years back with elephant dung on the Virgin Mary -- people were upset that their tax dollars were used to subsidize this 'art' but no one got killed....

d. What was the religion of the men that killed the Dutch filmmaker Van Gogh for his transgressions'?

e. The leaders of what religious faith issued a 'fatwa' against Salman Rushdie for his 'blasphemy' of...writing a book? I don't recall too many leaders of this same religion standing up for freedom of speech...could it be because they were afraid, or because they agreed with the fatwa...or both?

f. In Afghanistan, the Taliban (which religion did they represent?) forbade the education of females under penalty of death (which they
enforced from time to time)...and would still be doing so if it weren't for a certain country that has aircraft carriers. Do you honestly think diplomacy would work with people that have beheadings as halftime entertainment?

g. Would you hold to your pacifist ideals if, say, your son or daughter or wife was a cartoonist or filmmaker and was threatened by others simply because she dared 'blaspheme'. Should the USA have NOT struck back against the ideology that says blowing others up in the name of religious faith is a good thing? What about the Tiananmen square massacre from 1989....how well did diplomacy work then? Germany, 1938? Japan, 1931? Diplomacy only worked against the USSR because it was backed up by credible firepower. Just ask Hungarians circa 1956 how well the Soviets respected peace....or you could check with the Czechs (no pun intended) circa 1968....have you learned nothing from history, sir?

h. care to comment on the hypocrisy surrounding the death of Saddam Hussein? By that I mean how these same Islamic fundamentalist leaders couldn't be bothered to intervene as he was subjecting hundreds of thousands of Iraqis to chemical agents or torturing them in his jails or secret prisons...or starting a war with Iran..or ignoring 17 consecutive UN Security Council resolutions....but let him be hanged for crimes against humanity after being tried by an Iraqi government that the US-led invasion helped to bring to life and let the crying and moaning about the infidels begin...

i. Finally, where would YOU, personally, rather live -- in a secular nation like the USA (yes, I know about the religous right and the
hypocrisy and the way the Catholic church protected the priests over the kids -- all points made in Mr. Harris' excellent book...and by the way did you agree with his subsequent book "Letter to a Christian Nation"?) or, would you prefer to live in, say, Saudi Arabia or the areas of Pakistan under Taliban control? Seems to me the overarching theme of this book was the need to confront members of all faiths regarding their irrationality and how they are basing their reality (and forcing their version of reality on the rest of us) on centuries-old texts that fly in the face of the accumulated weight of scientific scholarship. I don't care if you believe that a man flew to heaven on a winged horse...it's when you wish to kill me or others like be simply because we don't subscribe to the same ridiculous dogma that I have a problem. I don't care if you believe that you can handle rattlesnakes and speak in tongues -- it's when you want to teach creationism in a public school...or think 'abstinence-only' sex-ed is a realistic approach...or try to ban books and movies that I (as a grown man) should decide for myself whether I will read or watch -- that I have a problem with you. As Mr. Harris describes, for too long we have remained silent in the advance of irrational, fundamentalist dogma worldwide -- the most visible and violent of which, by far, is fundamentalism as practiced by those of the Islamic faith. Have you heard any major Islamic religous leader or politician in a majority-Islamic country condemn the actions of the Taliban? Condemn the fatwa against Salman Rushdie? Condemn the riots? That's the issue, sir.

Certainly when one of our 'fine' Christian leaders (such as the Robertson/Falwell/Dobson legion of doom) makes a boneheaded statement they get justifiably ripped by the secular media in the West and by at least Left-leaning politicians...do you see the same treatment in the Islamic world? The answer is, clearly, no -- and until free-thinkers in those countries (and elsewhere in the world) have the courage to tell
the proverbial emperors they have no clothes liberty and freedom will continue to wither unless brought at the cost of American lives.

Mr. Goldstein, you either missed the overall point of the book, or you are deliberately trying to obscure the point in order to advance your own agenda. For others out there, I can't recommend his two books or Richard Dawkins' book "The God Delusion" strongly enough.

The last post of mine is follow up to Anonymous.

Going to bed now, been up way to long as it is more than showing by my sparatic ramblings.

Now that I totally agree with you on. And if I misunderstood what you meant before. Please correct me on it.

All I meant to say in that very long post was that through my adversities in life along with the struggle came the rewards.

My life wasn't charmed and still isn't by most peoples standards. But I choose to find the positives. Not by ignoring the negatives but by learning from them and about them.

I just didn't feel the need to pick up a book of philosophy to try and understand my purpose here.

I still don't know what my purpose is. Maybe I never will. And don't think that my adversities were ever so slight that my world wasn't rocked. It was, more times than enough.

But wisdom, comes with age. Knowing whats really important and whats not. To appreciate the strength it takes to look adversity in the face and keep on going even when everything inside you doesn't want to. But you wake up another day and your another day stronger.

Hello everyone,

New to this board...was asked to post my comments from another Sam Harris-begun thread elsewhere on this site to this thread. As expected Mr. Jason Bradfield disputed many of my comments; his response and my counter-battery fire are included in this post. Lengthy, but I hope you find it entertaining and thought-provoking.

==================================================
**** ORIGINAL POST ****

I'm new to the debate, but I must say I find it interesting...and long overdue.

Background -- I grew up Southern Baptist. Never really felt a connection to the church, though. Earned a civil engineering undergrad degree and a Master's in industrial engineering. Currently a deployed active-duty US Navy officer, with a specialty in running carrier nuclear power plants.

After the debates in TIME, I recently purchased both of Sam Harris' books, as well as "The God Delusion" by Richard Dawkins, and the book on Thestic Evolution (BioLogos) by Francis Collins (forget the name right now). All thought-provoking books.

Politically -- these books and the arguments they are making are long overdue. I am fed up with the fundamentalists attempting to make decisions for other adults -- especially in a country that was founded on the separation of church and state as one of its guiding principles. I am a grown man, I can decide on my own what to watch, what to worship (if anything), what to drink, what to eat, what books I should read, what movies I should watch...I don't need anyone else to make that decision for me. I am fed up with the fundamentalists who completely ignore scientific discoveries and proof (Fortunately, Francis Collins does not do this.) in an attempt to convince others (using our tax dollars) that the earth is 6000 years old, that the universe was created in less than a week, that Adam was created from dust (by the way...did Cain marry his sister?). I have had it with politicians who think that somehow my marriage (to a beautiful woman) is threatened by what other consenting adults do in the privacy of their own homes. I am fed up with the Catholic hierarchy that feels it is more important to protect the priests rather than the children they molested. I am amazed that we (in the Western world) continue to cave in (worldwide) to the Muslim fundamentalists whom are very clear on their aims to create an Islamic caliphate via the sword, gun, etc. I am tired of the apologists for the tremendous atrocities of fundamentalist Muslims -- especially the Taliban. I could go on for hours..fortunately, however, Sam Harris addresses much of these issues in his books. I was pleased to see that he did not (as I expected) take the 'wacko Left' POV so prevalent (i.e. the current Administration is responsible for every evil in the world..) and instead looked at the issues from a neutral point of view and criticized idiotic behavior at all ends of the political spectrum. What a refreshing change -- instead of agreeing (no matter what) with one political party or the other, he applies a uniform standard. Bravo!

In terms of the existence (or non-existance) of God/The Creator...I have to say that...I guess for me the answer (or Answer) is that I don't know for sure. I certainly don't agree with the literal reading of the Bible -- I don't see how anyone reasonable could. I can't believe I live in a country where people actually believe the earth is only 6000 years old. I can't believe I live in a country where people actually allow children to die while 'praying' for them to get better rather than get medical treatment. I agree that the scientific evidence for evolution is overwhelming, as is the scientific evidence for the creation of the universe, etc. However....it seems to me to strain credulity to consider that every ounce of matter in the universe was at one time (at the instant of the Big Bang) confined to an infinitely dense singularity less than the size of the head of a pin. Perhaps it's my feeble mind, but I just can't see how the mass of the earth could be compressed to such a degree....and the earth is a grain of sand compared to the Sun...which itself is a grain of sand in the Milky Way...which is one of millions of galaxies. Furthermore...dark matter? Dark energy? I know that once we get down to the atomic level and quantum mechanics the Newtonian world is left behind...and in the realm of sub-atomic particles (quarks, muons, mesons, etc) all common sense departs....but I just can't buy into this invisible 'dark matter'. Also, how can science explain Beethoven....or AC/DC...or U2...or Guns N' Roses (the 1987 version)...or Shakespeare...or the Sistine Chapel...or the sculpture of David? Also...Something had to have created the universe...right? Who or What created the atoms that make us up? Who designed the atoms to work like they do and to form molecules? For instance...what a fabulous invention water is. Combine the two gases Hydrogen and Oxygen to get....a liquid (at room temperature and pressure. By the way, Jason, pure water always boils at 212F/100C at 1 atmosphere of pressure. Raise the pressure -- raise the boiling point -- such as in a pressurized-water reactor plant. Lower the pressure, lower the boiling point -- as in a typical shipboard distilling unit. You really should acquire some knowledge of science before speaking of scientific or engineering issues....else you run the risk of coming across as a buggering fool. While we're at it, Jason -- since you seem to know so much about why God designed the natural universe to work the way He did - care to enlighten the rest of us on why God chose the model of the atom that he did? Why do electrons only occupy quantized energy states, for instance? Why did God design elements to fit the periodic table like He did? Why is the speed of light only 186,000 miles per second? Why not 500 million miles per second? 700 billion miles per second? Also...if God designed and allowed marijuana and opium plants to bloom, He must have had a reason for doing so, right? So why the opposition to them? If God created us all (or caused us to be created) -- why the unreasonable hatred of homosexuals? Aren't they children of God also? I didn't 'choose' to be attracted to women -- I simply AM attracted to women. Do you think that homosexual men honestly 'choose' to be attracted to other men? I don't understand why they do it (not with women like Kate Beckinsale, Ashley Judd, Linda Stouffer (of CNN), Scarlett Johannson, and practically every Italian woman around), but it doesn't affect my life or marriage in the slightest. Also (as Sam Harris states) why would an omniscient, omnipowerful God allow a child to be abducted and raped? If you know so much about God, Jason, then please enlighten the rest of us poor mortals...

At the same time, ...why did God reveal himself 2000 years ago regularly...but not now, in the era of instant communication? Surely, if God appeared in the noon sky of NYC...or at a Presidential news conference for all of us to see and be in awe of, then there would be no doubt. So why doesn't He appear that way? Also...according to the Christian faith...a deathbed conversion to Christianity (by, let's say, Stalin) would wipe out a lifetime of causing agony for millions ofothers, whereas someone that might have led a conventionally 'moral' life (helping the poor, building houses for Habitat for Humanity, feeding the homeless) but that was a Buddhist or Hindu would be condemned for an eternity in Hell. (Eternity is a long time....think of a trillion years to the trillionth power. Still not a drop in the bucket compared to Eternity.) What kind of a God would allow something like that to happen? Why wouldn't He at least come forth and remove all doubt of His existence?

I don't mind saying that it is difficult for me to resolve the issues above in a neat, coherent package. I don't know that we can ever know this side of death. Is the soul a product merely of brain synapse firing...or is it Divinely granted. I can't say. What I can say is that I agree most strongly with Sam Harris -- it is long overdue for religion to once again be a private matter and be kept out of public policy. Religous fundamentalism and intolerence is by far the biggest threat to world peace -- most notably by those that practice Islam. Until our politicians (worldwide) have the courage to state this and take the lead on this, then we will continue to careen ever closer to the abyss.

thanks for everyone's time. Look forward to the debate.
==================================================
**** Mr. Jason Bradfield's rebuttal ****

Navynukecdr,
I’m not sure what the “debate” is here because you haven’t really said anything of value other than whine about stuff you don’t like. I can play that game too.

I’m fed up with queers running around telling me that sticking their you know what up each other’s b-hole is a “natural” given and parading that around downtowns and insisting I honor it. I’m fed up with ignoramuses who argue that homosexuality is just some “private” issue that hasn’t had any effect on others. (See “Power in the Blood” by David Chilton to forever dispel that myth) I’m fed up with scientists who on the one hand argue that science produces no “certainties” yet tell us that anyone who denies the certainty of evolution is an idiot. (Dawkins) I’m fed up with the fact a great number of kids go through 12 years of public high school and are taught empiricism from every corner and never offered an alternative theory of knowledge such as Christian rationalism. Your tax dollars were NOT used to teach me creationism as an alternative but evolution and the big bust theory, so what the heck are you whining about? I’m fed up with atheists who complain Christians not being “rational”, “logical” people but then turn right around and tell me that the law of contradiction is a law we can take or leave. I’m fed up with people who bring up crimes that Christians have committed to use as some proof against the truth of the Bible. (again, arguments by those who say they are “rational”) I’m fed up with morons who tell me that no one with any sense would believe the Bible and then turn right around and say, “but I have no idea how we got here.” I’m fed up with people who INSIST on the certainty of evolution yet can not produce ONE transitory fossil. I’m fed up with morons who think that asking a ton of questions somehow constitutes a valid argument against a position. I’m fed up with morons who instead of asking Christians like me what I think about the legalization of marijuana ASSume to think that I oppose it like other Christians they have met and then proceed from there to argue some ridiculous point with another stupid question.

See Navynukecdr, two can play this game. I have a better idea.

How about scrolling up to the top of the page and addressing the five points I raised.

1. Observation is unreliable

2. All scientific experiments commit the fallacy of asserting the consequent.

3. Science commits the fallacy of induction

4. Equations are always selected, they are never discovered.

5. All scientific laws describe ideal situations.

In fact, I’ll make it even easier on you; let’s just start with point 1.

1. Observation is unreliable

Do you believe that observation is reliable?

jason bradfield:
oh, and one last thing...i find these comments hilarious:

"I am a grown man, I can decide on my own what to watch, what to worship (if anything), what to drink, what to eat, what books I should read, what movies I should watch...I don't need anyone else to make that decision for me."

then:

"why would an omniscient, omnipowerful God allow a child to be abducted and raped? What kind of a God would allow something like that to happen?"

hmmmm...so that's how it works...Your life is not open for criticism yet you're going to proceed to tell me i am an idiot for believing the Bible and force evolution down my throat and then tell God how to run His biz with your ignorant rhetorical questions...

oootttaayyyy.
==================================================
*** My counterbattery fire to Mr. Bradfield ****

Well, well, if it isn't Mr. Bradfield...

Before we start, you should know that I'm not a scientist, I'm an engineer. Slight difference, easily misconstrued by the untutored layman. I suppose I should be grateful you didn't question my patriotism as well...
--------------------------------------------------
Part 1 -- where I attempt to answer your questions

As to whether observation is unreliable, it depends...on the frame of reference (are we talking Newtonian or at the subatomic/quantum level) and who or what is doing the observing. Fallible human beings are notoriously unreliable and 'unrepeatable'....however, a calibrated instrument (such as an ammeter, voltmeter, electron microscope, etc) are reliable when used as designed and can give repeatable measurements.

Now..."equations are always selected, they are never discovered." Let's take a simple example: Ohm's Law. V = IR... or voltage equals current times resistance. That law was deduced via scientific experiment and deductive reasoning....it wasn't just plucked out of thin air. And it can be repeated and confirmed independently. Take a constant voltage, apply it across varying resistors, and measure the currents. Plot the results to verify. More complex examples would be the laws governing electromagnetism and gravitation.

And no, scientific laws do not just apply only in 'ideal' situations. For example -- the law of gravity. You're not suspended in mid-air, right? There are, however, issues to account for when not in a laboratory -- frictional losses, internal resistance of a cable, inertia required to get a prime mover going, and the like.
--------------------------------------------------
Part 2 -- where I address the issues you raise

I thought I made it quite clear that I don't buy completely into the argument that there is no Creator, and that I still have some other questions -- where did all this matter come from? Who/What designed the atom? (We know how...but why?) What caused the Big Bang (i.e. why did the singularity explode to create the Universe?) I freely admit I don't have the answer, and I wonder if we will ever have the answers. Nevertheless, I thought the overarching point of my post was my agreement with Mr. Harris and Mr. Dawkins on the need to remove religion from the public, tax-financed sphere and move it back to the realm of private matters. I recognize that the Founding Fathers were (at least publicly) "God-fearing" men; yet (to me at least) the meaning of the Constitution is clear -- separation of church and state. Would you prefer we live in a theocracy? If so, who would be the supreme arbiter of truth?

And, au contraire, my life is extremely open to criticism. Professionally, that's why we have peer-reviewed publications, open scientific forums for other subject-matter experts to look for flaws, etc. As for the private sphere -- there are legitimate laws that exist to protect others from the consequences of irresponsible behavior -- I can't, for example, take my Glock out to my front yard and fire it in the air or at my tree. And, of course, the example from Missouri (of the abducted boys) make it clear that there is behavior that even in the privacy of homes is intolerable and the will of the people and power of the state as carried out by the police will intervene. However, it is the private behavior of consenting adults that is the issue I raised. Just as it is not my business how you choose to worship or who you choose to marry or what books you choose to read (or not read) in your home I don't see how it's your business to tell this grown man what I should or should not do in my home. I can't see how what the actions of two consenting adult men in Peoria or two consenting adult women in Phoenix have to do with my marriage to my wife. And, no, I don't want to see two men or two women making out in public -- I'd tell them to 'get a room', just like I would a heterosexual couple.

Do you understand the term "theory" when it applies to science and engineering? You are confusing it with its more colloquial usage by the general public to mean "an untested idea or opinion". In the scientific realm, however, "theory" refers to a well-established and verifiable explanation accounting for known facts or phenomena. Big difference. "Christian rationalism" is not a 'theory' in this sense. If you believe that Christ was resurrected and that He walked on water because the Bible says so....ok, that's your prerogative, but don't try to pass it off as scientific proof. Same thing with creationism. That's why us "secularists" don't want these items discussed in public school science classes using tax dollars -- they aren't even remotely 'science'. If you want to pull your children out of school and home-school them or put them in a Christian school -- again, that's your prerogative. My stepdaughter was pulled out of the public school and put in a Catholic one, in fact -- not because of religion, mind you, but because the public school lacked discipline and accountablity...but that's another topic for another day.

And, finally, I didn't ".. tell God how to run His biz with your ignorant rhetorical questions..". Unlike some, I don't claim to understand the mind of the Creator of the universe. I was simply asking the question as to why an omniscient, omnipotent, loving God (as Christians claim) would allow this to happen?
--------------------------------------------------Part 3 -- where I re-ask my questions.

Care to enlighten the rest of us on why God chose the model of the atom that he did? Why do electrons only occupy quantized energy states, for instance?

Why did God design elements to fit the periodic table like He did?

Why is the speed of light only 186,000 miles per second? Why not 500 million miles per second? 700 billion miles per second?

If God created us all (or caused us to be created) -- why the unreasonable hatred of homosexuals? Aren't they children of God also?

Why did God reveal himself 2000 years ago regularly...but not now, in the era of instant communication?

Also...according to the Christian faith...a deathbed conversion to Christianity (by, let's say, Stalin) would wipe out a lifetime of causing agony for millions of others, whereas someone that might have led a conventionally 'moral' life (helping the poor, building houses for Habitat for Humanity, feeding the homeless) but that was a Buddhist or Hindu would be condemned for an eternity in Hell. What kind of a God would allow something like that to happen? Why wouldn't He at least come forth and remove all doubt of His existence?

and some new ones:

Do you believe that military members should swear an oath to preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic...or should we be swearing an oath to something else?

Do you believe that Muslims, Jews, etc should be able to practice the religion of their choice as they see fit in the privacy of their homes or places of worship in the US?

If all things come from God -- then why the opposition (if not from you, from so many fundamentalist Christians and Muslims and members of all religions) to opium plants, coca plants, and marijuana plants. Don't they serve a purpose (morphine for pain, marijuana for cancer victims)?
(And, no, never done them -- very incompatable with military service -- my biggest vice is Sam Adams...and a little blackjack on the side.)

Have you ever taken a math class at the level of college trigonometry or above? College-level physics? Any engineering classes at all? I can say I've read the Bible (some of it -- like Psalm 23 -- is incredibly beautiful); have you ever dipped a toe into the realm of the scientist or engineer and explore the majesty of science?

Time to go, duty calls....looking forward to your erudite response...

JWR

So sorry! I meant...all the pot I smoked back in the day.

Not to be confused with thinking I was high when I wrote that. Nope not high... just illiterate.

Not everyone faces the same degree of adversity in life, and I gather from this discussion that some actually lead truly charmed lives. But most grownups encounter enough heartache and disillusionment that questions of meaning and purpose are unavoidable, and shrugging them off is not a very satisfying response. That's not to say we should expect a definitive answer in this life — it's just that struggling to ignore the questions is more painful than acknowledging the contingency of any "answers".

ooooops! sorry, my mistake. I got confused.

Not sure if its the lack of *book learnin* that makes me less intelligent or all that pot I smoked in the day.

Anonymous,

From Wikipedia.....Philosophy (literally 'love of wisdom') is a subject in the Western intellectual tradition that is concerned with rational inquiry into issues of knowledge (What is it to know?), being (What is?), and conduct (What is right?).

From Wikepedia....Wisdom is the ability, developed through experience, insight and reflection, to discern truth and exercise good judgment.

If in fact I am understanding you correctly when you stated that...

"Foregoing the study of philosophy makes your life 'unexamined?' How so? And doing without philosophy makes life not worth living?"

You can't have an examined life without philosophy, because that's what philosophy *is*. If you're going to have an examined life, your only choice then is to do it with or without study. I assume most intelligent people believe that study is a good thing — something that improves their skills and enhances their knowledge.

That appears to me to be a very arrogant statement of opinion.

I would agree *book-learnin* is a good thing for people that want to improve their skills and enhance their knowledge. I just don't think its *necessary* to have a life worth living.

My level of education *book-learnin* stopped at the high school level. Not something I am particualarly proud of. My level of education in *life* continues onward.

I know what my strengths are and my weaknesses. I know what kind of human being I am and what kind I strive to be. I know that I love and respect my family and friends, my animals, my garden, my love for learning new and exciting interests. When I sit out on my deck and watch the wind blow through the trees or look out my window at the snow falling, I am in awe of nature and its beauty and wonderment. I love the squeals of laughter that come from my grandchildren when they are happy. I know what its like to be hungry and I know what its like to have a full belly. I know what its like to be unemployed and I know what its like to have very good employment. I appreciate good health and have compassion for the infirmed. I know what my limitations are and what not to limit myself with.

Every moment in time of my life is another opportunity learn further (wisdom) on a life worth living.

You tell me what school of higher education and/or teaching of philosophy is gonna make my life more worthwhile?

I, my friend, have just as much wisdom of what it takes to have a fulfilling life as any educated philosophy student or god-fearing person.

Which anonymous? I'm getting the anonymi mixed up.

I agree with the other anonymous

"Foregoing the study of philosophy makes your life 'unexamined?' How so? And doing without philosophy makes life not worth living?"

You can't have an examined life without philosophy, because that's what philosophy *is*. If you're going to have an examined life, your only choice then is to do it with or without study. I assume most intelligent people believe that study is a good thing — something that improves their skills and enhances their knowledge.

"I do smoke an awful lot of pot." Believe me, we know.

Sorry, but the idea that any kind of mature productive thinking — much less intelligent dialog — about these matters can occur without at least the basic tools of philosophy and theology is just whack. It's like a five-year-old explaining neuroscience.

Hi Pam,

Pretty sure I get where you're coming from.
I don't know if the question "why" necessarily indicates that the answer would give us a purpose either.

The question for me that I often find myself trying in vain to wrap my head around is "Why is it all here?"
When I think about the big bang, I can't help but think, what was there before the big bang? The answer to this question in my mind, "why is it all here?" Can only have one of three answers as far as I can see.

The universe has always been here, in which case, time has no beginning and there may not be an answer to "why?"
This one is possible to me but very hard to wrap my head around.

The universe suddenly appeared out of nothingness.
This one is even harder to wrap my head around.
Why? How? What?

Something created it.
Don't get nervous about my sanity but this one is the easiest one to wrap my head around. I think it is for most non scientists. And I think that is why religion is so prevalent. Perhaps creation is most plausible to humans because we are such great creators ourselves. Again, I don't imagine anything like a deity as the creator. More likely another universe, or a scientist in an alternate universe. This is the thought that led to the premiss of the screenplay I just wrote.

Anyway, I don't lean toward any one of those three options. But the first two are so hard for my little brain to comprehend.

This is the great unanswered question to me. It doesn't consume my life. Thinking about it is like a hobby for me. But then, I do smoke an awful lot of pot. This might explain my mystical thoughts on the ultimate question.

I would love to know your thoughts.

That last post to Kate from Anonymous was actually from me - forgot to put my name on it.

Timmy, you wrote:
"It seems that I am even more confident than you that it's not God. I am 100% certain. But I sure as heck love to wonder about what it is? I'll drop it now. If it doesn't jazz you up to wonder about it, it doesn't."

Oh, I *do* wonder about things I mentioned - why there's something instead of nothing, and how life got started. Other things, too. But I'm never tempted to think that there is any "purpose" implied by the answers, whatever they might be. As for being less certain about the God non-factor, I leave that tiny particle of possibility open only because 100% implies absolute knowledge, which none of us can possibly have. I'm as sure as I can be without absolutely knowing. :)

By the way, I liked your post about speaking up, and your conversation on the airplane - way to go!

Hi Kate,
You wrote:

"...mystery for me is more connected with my relationship with the universe."

Again, I have a less mystical mind. We are made of atoms of elements that were born in the hearts of stars. Atoms are made of energy (at least mostly, and maybe entirely) and that energy never dies. It may be transformed, but it will always be part of the universe. That is what I see as our connection, and our only true immortality. That's as mystical as I get. :)

"Here's one for you. Dreams. I've cultivated them for years. They're absolutely full of information, and so artful.
Who or what creates them while "I" am sleeping? (I've got some ideas)"

Who? Why, *you* of course. :) Your brain never actually sleeps - it continues doing what it always does. The difference between waking and sleeping is just the sensory input. When you sleep, it's mainly turned off (a small part of your brain is still alert to things it deems of great importance or survival value). Anyway, without the filter of senses, your thoughts are free to go on flights of fancy, and they do!

Have you ever noticed that when someone happens to awaken while dreaming (and therefore remembers the dream) and decides to tell you about it, they always start with "I had the strangest dream last night..."? ALL dreams are strange, it's the nature of the beast - but all come directly from the file cabinets of your own brain.

Kate,
I'm glad you brought up dreams. It's a fun subject because anybody's guess is as good as anybody else's.

The psychological view of dreams has gone through a long, twisting evolution, and has arrived today at a very confident shrug of the shoulders. I studied a whole lot of silly stuff that psychologists wrote about dreams to get my shrink degree. I can't remember much if anything that had empirical evidence to back it up, whether it was investigating the nature of dreams themselves, or the efficacy of psychotherapy using dream analysis or journaling or a dozen other techniques. Nothing seemed to produce a better therapeutic outcome than anything else, if it was even measured at all. Almost all of it is anecdotal or idiosyncratic. A theory about dream symbolism for instance, told us a lot more about the mind of the theorist than the rest of us. He'd say a house means this, an animal means that, but it was always so culture bound and so full of assumptions it never would hold together. After decades of research, writing, arguing, it's really kind of a disappointment.
But enough about psycho stuff.
You asked,
"Who or what creates them while "I" am sleeping? (I've got some ideas)"
My immediate answer would have been you, but then I noticed that you had put quotes around the word, "I." Is there a "you" other than you? A night-shift you that takes over for the day-shift you? So I won't answer with duh, you, because you're implying something more subtle. Please tell us your ideas.

Anonymous wrote:
"Undoubtedly much of humankind sleepwalks through life without asking questions. Most intelligent people, however, are possessed of much more restless intellects, and are not content to do that. Indeed, asking questions generally is considered a hallmark of intelligence."

Hmmm, seems to me that you and I have had this conversation before. I hardly "sleepwalk" through life, and I have plenty of questions about many things, some of which I mentioned in my last post. I absolutely love learning and wish I could spend even more hours reading than I do - and that's a lot. You miss my point (deliberately?) - I don't question the "meaning" of life, because I'm convinced that it doesn't have one in that sense. That doesn't mean that individual lives can't or don't have meaning, they absolutely do, even if only to those who are living them. But life itself? No. Our Cinderella planet circling our obscure little Cinderella star in an unremarkable galaxy is just, for us, a happy little accident.

"Find God a stumbling block is one thing. But for God's sake, let's not toss out philosophy too. The unexamined life is not worth living."

Speak for yourself. If philosophy turns you on, fine, study it all you want. I'd rather think than think about thinking. Let alone be told how to think. As for your last sentence I find it completely nonsensical. Foregoing the study of philosophy makes your life "unexamined?" How so?
And doing without philosophy makes life not worth living? If you believe that, I think your head must be in a place that requires you to assume a very uncomfortable position.

I agree with E.Favorite about Timmy's suggestions. The process by which I moved over the years from Christianity to non-theist started with questioning what I was being told. The answers did not make sense. My change to non-theism took a long time and many different paths and I wasn't even that devout to begin with, so I am very aware that peoples' long held beliefs will not just melt away quickly. I have, since reading Sam's book, been following Timmy's suggestion #1 about questioning silly religious statements whenever I can. Like leaving notes in the Gideon's bibles in motel rooms that point to inconsistencies (the first page of Matthew) or to God's approval and direction of violence in the Old Testament. I recently emailed the head of an interfaith group after reading an article about a gathering they held to pray for an end to the Iraq war. I just politely asked what he thought the results would be of all that praying and whether he really believed in a deity that actively responds to prayer. He's sort of avoiding the question, but he is interested enough to have started an online dialogue with me. Small steps.

Another comment- I know that Soja has posted off, but her last series of comments (1/14 at 8:55 p.m.) demonstrated just how ingrained this type of thinking is. She actually wrote in all seriousness about what God had in mind when he created humans. She knows what God had in mind. Think about that and then look up the psychiatric definition of "delusion". I guess I should be kind and just say that she has a great imagination!

Thanks, Kate, for that link.

Thanks, E Favorite, for the tip - I was surprised to see how many atheist groups there are in my area. I'm going to check them out.

Timmy, your approach makes a lot of sense - sorry I misinterpreted you. If anyone confronts me or approaches me about religion, I will certainly be an, um, dynamic participant in the conversation. I haven't been approached by many people on this subject, though - one of the benefits of living in the S.F. Bay area, I guess. I moved recently, though, so I guess my sheltered life is going to change.

Ted Stewart

Hey, Ted, re Mysticism and Philosophy by Stace, look what I found.

http://homepages.ihug.co.nz/~dcandmkw/spirit/wts%20-%20mp1.htm#2

I tell you the internet is like being in the Alexandrian library.

Kate

Pam,

It seems that I am even more confident than you that it's not God. I am 100% certain. But I sure as heck love to wonder about what it is?
I'll drop it now. If it doesn't jazz you up to wonder about it, it doesn't.
Some love the wonder more than others to be sure. You are the first I've ever met who didn't care about it one scrap. I appologise for thinking that it had anything to do with your imagination.
I have certainly learned a lot about all of the different kind of atheists on this thread.

The Pams,

Pam M., thanks for setting me straight. And no sooner than you did--up she pops.

Pam, yes my remarks were for you. You said you see no mystery in the diversity of life or how it came to be.

Wow! You're right! I've got to ponder my use of mystery. But my next thought was: mystery for me is more connected with my relationship with the universe.

Here's one for you. Dreams. I've cultivated them for years. They're absolutely full of information, and so artful.

Who or what creates them while "I" am sleeping? (I've got some ideas)

Anyone can jump in.

PS On-going revelations:

1. All day radio programs on the prophet Martin Luther King.

2. This evening's scripture: "Dreamgirls" at the local theatre.

Kate

The author of the original article is a pretty big atheist.
But this forum is certainly open to all.

Bud - this is a non-denominational forum

Welcome

Is this an atheist or Christian forum?

A commentator says, "Are these questions innate to all humans? Apparently not. I'm the falsification factor." And: "I'm not a big fan of the study of philosophy."

Only this commentator can describe their own experience, but it does sound anomalous.

Undoubtedly much of humankind sleepwalks through life without asking questions. Most intelligent people, however, are possessed of much more restless intellects, and are not content to do that. Indeed, asking questions generally is considered a hallmark of intelligence.

Find God a stumbling block is one thing. But for God's sake, let's not toss out philosophy too. The unexamined life is not worth living.

I too think some are confusing me with Pam Meloy. We are not the same. I'm a little confused as to which posts were directed to me. If yours was, Kate, then thanks, and yes, I've been to Taos and I love it there.

I'm pretty sure that this one from Timmy was to me:
"One conversation I would like to have with you is the 'why' question. In earlier posts, you indicated that you had never wondered "why we are here?". "What it all means?"
I am intrigued because I have never met anyone who did not. This question is always the first one to pop up in my mind when I turn to deep contemplation.
Aren't these questions innate in all humans? Aren't they the whole basis for philosophy? Plato, Socrates and all of that. Is it not all based on the unavoidable human question of 'why?'"

Right, I meant what I said. I consider that I'm here because my parents had unprotected sex on a particular day. Had they not, I would have never existed, and the world wouldn't have cared. My existence is precious to me, and I hope I'm not wrong in assuming that it's important to my family and friends, and perhaps even some more casual aquaintances, at least in some small way.

I don't think that "it all" has to have any meaning. It is because it *can* be. In a nearly infinite universe, pretty much anything that can be, will be. Like Duckphup (I think he was the one) I'm pretty certain that there is other life out there, probably including intelligent life, although it probably won't be anything like us - or anything like what you see in Star Wars. I always have to laugh at Hollywood's aliens - they so obviously evolved on Earth. :)

For it all to have "meaning" implies to me some kind of overweening intelligence (God?), and that just doesn't make any sense to me.

Are these questions innate to all humans? Apparently not. I'm the falsification factor. Are they the basis for philosophy? Maybe. I'm not a big fan of the study of philosophy. It's just the musings of a bunch of people, most of whom didn't have all the information that we now have to work with. As I said before, if I have to identify myself with a philosophy, it's naturalism, which doesn't truck with what it all means. I have elements of empiricism, and elements of rationalism, but neither one by itself seems true to me and that is what I don't like about philosophy - it tries to chop the mind into little pieces. The brain can go in many directions.

You said at one point that I must not have any imagination. Anyone who knows me would find that pretty funny. I'm an artist and a writer and I breed animals. You can't be a successful breeder unless you can imagine the perfect example of your breed.

I know a lot about evolution. It's been fascinating to me ever since I first heard of it, and I've done a great deal of reading on the subject for lo, these many years. Because of that, I see no mystery in the great diversity of life on Earth, nor in how it came to be. Beauty, yes; majesty, yes; awe at the power of something as simple as DNA, yes; mystery, no.

I can't explain the origins of the universe. I can't explain how the first amino acids to form chains began to replicate themselves (probably as RNA). We may have the answers some day, particularly to the latter, but maybe not in my lifetime. Then again, we may not. I'm OK with this, although I would *like* to know. Whatever they are, I am, based on all my prior knowledge, about 99.99999999999999999% sure they have nothing to do with God.

WM - Try googling "Atheist Meetup" - There might be one near you.

Also, I like Timmy's approach - I already find myself being much more "out there" - not provoking, but responding to provocation, which in the recent past, I would not have recognized as provocation.

Consciousness raising

Einstein's thoughts on religion in his own words:
http://www.sacred-texts.com/aor/einstein/einsci.htm

WM,

I'll need to clarify myself.
When I said:
"It is our responsibility to lift this taboo in every place we find it applied."
By
"Where you find the taboo applied."
I mean where ever the taboo presents itself to you. Don't go looking for a fight. But If you are having a frank discussion with a group of people at a social function with and the topic turns to the gay marriage issue or to stem cell research or even just religion in general. And you make an honest comment that causes someone to admonish you because "we don't say such things about one's religion", this is where you confront it.

When someone throws religion in your face, in the way that a smoker will carelessly let their second hand smoke drift right into your face, then:
"Be one of those annoying non smokers.... As respectfully as possible."

And when I made a list for "When confronting believers"
I never meant for the atheist to force that confrontation.

I was on a plane the other day, flying home from Christmas holiday, and the woman sitting beside me asked me if I had God?
I said "no, I don't believe in God"
She asked why not?
I said, "the question to me is, why? I can find no reason to believe in God"
She said "The Bible"
And I said that's a two thousand year old book written during a time filled with similar allegorical literature. It was written by people, and to have faith in that God, is really to have faith in the people who told you about him.
She said, "Don't you feel God? Can't you feel his love? It's in you."
I said, "I certainly do feel a lot of love inside me. But it would only be faith in the words of mortal people that would make me believe that this love comes from the God in the Bible."

The conversation didn't go much farther. We both soon realized that we were not going to change each others mind. But the important thing is that I took that conversation farther than I would have before Sam Harris. And if she was willing to continue to try and convert me, I was going to continue to try and de-convert her. Politely, and respectfully.

I was also, not too long ago, approached while walking my dogs in the park by a couple of Jehovah's. Before Sam Harris I would have politely waved them off and said, not interested. But now I am very interested. I sat down with them on a park bench and let them talk to me for as long as they wanted. And when they finished and asked me what I thought? I started talking. I watched their eyes grow wide as I very politely and respectfully preached back at them some thoughts from Einstein and Carl Sagan.

I want to be clear that I was not advocating being confrontational unless you are provoked. But when you are?
I used to see it as an annoyance. I now see it as an opportunity.

This was all I meant.
When people come in to a comedy club, it is with the understanding that the performers are not censored, all is fair game. I see this as an opportunity as well. I take full advantage as do many comics today. As I said, I feel quite fortunate to get to blab off about this more often than your average non believer.

WM, you asked:
"Are there public forums in the non-wired world for discussing religion or atheism?"
I found one. As luck would have it, it's been my place of work for the last fifteen years. Yeehaw I love my job.

Wow, the electrons were sure hopping while I was on my day of rest! So many interesting posts and additions to my reading list.

Gad, I was horrified when I read the HPV article you mentioned. I had no idea that thousands of women were falling to this virus, that there was a vaccine available, or that “good” Christians were blocking it from the standard vaccine schedule for girls. The “culture of life” that some Christians promote is such an obscene joke.

Timmy, I’m glad you’re back. In response to some of your comments:

Re Point 1: “Work it. Everywhere you can. Be one of those annoying non smokers.... As respectfully as possible.”

I’m not sure that working it everywhere we can is a good idea for all of us. For a comedian, this seems appropriate, and I’m glad that Timmy is raising these issues in his professional life. As just an ordinary Jane, I don’t come across many venues at which discussing issues of belief would seem appropriate. I’m not going to become an Atheists’ Witness and go door-to-door to strangers (physically or online) to bring the good news to non-believers; this seems rude to me. So, as others are wondering, what makes sense for me to do as someone who is not in the public eye? Are there public forums in the non-wired world for discussing religion or atheism? Is identifying myself as an atheist whenever reasonable and looking for private opportunities to share my non-beliefs with the fence-sitters and seekers the best I can do? Maybe if people like Richard Dawkins and Sam Harris are successful at making their views well-know, this will become much less of an issue. I don’t watch much T.V. – are they becoming household names due to media exposure?

Re Point 3: “When confronting believers, talk as much as you can about all of the imaginative ideas that have been coming up recently in this thread. The wonders of the universe, the idea that we are part of it in a very deep way. Show them the Einstein Spiritual side of science. In fact, Quote Einstein. Talk them as much away from Bible God as possible. Allow them to keep Einstein's god and your respect if you have to. If you can't talk them out of Bible God, talk them away from the church. And if you can't talk them away from the church, then try to talk to them about the ideal of separation of church and state. It should be an ideal for them every bit as much as for atheists. Try to get this across.”

Talking about all of these issues with believers seems important: lots of good suggestions here. I don't think that I want to "confront" people, though. I don’t like it when people confront me and go about conspicuously trying to change my thinking; I am much less likely to listen to what people have to say when they approach me with a confrontational attitude. I think it would usually be better to “discuss with” believers or “raise awareness” than to “confront” believers. I have been learning on this forum that it would probably be more productive. Maybe I could think of myself as a farmer – sowing seeds of awareness in fertile fields, with hopes that they will take root and grow into towering trees of disbelief. This approach has the advantages of being gentle and respectful to the believer as well as potentially being more effective than a forceful approach. Some of the seeds of awareness that I have shared with my sisters have already taken root and are showing promise. I think that if I had been more confrontational with them and put them in the position of feeling that they had to defend their beliefs, they would have “dug in” and been less willing to consider what I had to say.

There’s so much more that I’d like to respond to in many people’s posts and so little time … I’ll be back!

Pam, we've been keeping pretty quiet lately, and now here we are at the exact same moment. If I didn't know better, I might think it was meant to be(harhar)
Well, who knows?(Probably Ted or Richard)

Hello,All, I have been enjoying reading everyone's thoughts.
Like you, Timmy, I worry about language, but only a little bit. I think everyone experiences similar things, in terms of our spirits, or souls (though I personally doubt that it's anything seperate from our consciousness), and so there's no reason to think we should stop using those words. I really like what Kate said in her post about metaphor, and somehow Great Spirit makes a ton of sense to me. It expresses the way in which I feel connected to the cosmos.
I think everyone holds something sacred, and so I still use that one, too.
The word god, on the other hand, is different than "spirit" or "soul". For me, those are words I can relate to and use to describe the individual essence of each living being. "God" is something like "fairy" or "dragon" to me, sorry to say, and I can't imagine a way that I would feel comfortable using it. When we say God, do we mean the god of the pantheists, the deists, the monotheists, or do we mean one of many gods? Since there are so many widely varying "gods" we could be describing, I don't even see a good reason to join in a conversation about god, and would rather discuss the fact that each of us is an unrepeatable miracle of nature.
Since everyone seems to want the word "god" to mean just about whatever to whoever, I think it's become meaningless and shouldn't be used by any but the true believers.
By saying "god" when I mean nature, or the cosmos, I would be pretending to believe something that I don't.

KATE, I believe you have me confused with PAM who posts on this tread. Thanks and I will take it but it really isn't me. I have not posted on here from the beginning because as I said I needed a rest.

TIMMY, I have no answer for you. I have questioned everything else in the world but have always just accepted the fact that I was born and I will live and I will die. I had a rather strange childhood and suppose that has much to do with it all. I would not feel comfortable sharing it on this website but I can invite you to "our" other website Sam's Fans and you might get more of an idea of who I am. If that would be of any help to you.

After my experience on this website I believe that because my life took the turns it did I simply did not have a chance to think about all of the questions that many who post on here do and have studied, taught, read, etc.

Personally, I came here to learn. Ted, Richard, Tammy have taught me alot and so have others as I tend to read more than I post. I simply have a hard time with the confusion that sometimes takes place. LOL LOL

I believe that Kate's correct when she says I should just move on past those posts. I am going to take her advice.

Ted,

Sounds like a good read for me. I will check it out.
all the best.

Hi Timmy:

Not sure I can help very much. I would just like to report my observation that -- apart from the ding dong altercations -- many of the atheists/agnostics participating in this thread have exhibited agreeable surprise that being both an atheist and a mystic is perfectly possible.

I would like to recommend a top notch book called Mysticism and Philosophy by W.T. Stace. This book grapples with the nature of mysticism from a purely secular point of view. Although it was written in 1960 it is by no means dated. I have checked www.amazon.com and they have 4 or 5 copies at about $40,00 a throw. www.alibris.com also has copies but they charge $50.00 and up. If I did not already have a copy (since 1963)I would hunt around at various second hand outlets to try and get a better price. All I am really saying is that I know of no better book for those who are interested. Signing out. . . Ted . .

Andy,

It was not my humorous use of those words that got me into trouble. It was a very ernest emotional application of the every day soft meaning of those words that raised questions about my sanity.

I appreciate the clarity of your comments on the phenomenon that I was trying to express.

Pam,

When there is reasonable conversation going on, I will always ignore the Anony's and Jason's and keep on the conversation at hand. But when all other conversation has died, and I can get no response to an on topic and neutral post of mine except for Anony. What's a bored comic to do?
A simple suggestion would be to skip all posts labeled Timmy, Anonymous or Jason Bradfield.

If you and others keep me engaged in good conversation, I will not have time for Anony.
(Who I don't actually think is Jason Bradfield. The argument is very different. Equally as malicious, but quite different)

One conversation I would like to have with you is the "why" question. In earlier posts, you indicated that you had never wondered "why we are here?". "What it all means?"
I am intrigued because I have never met anyone who did not. This question is always the first one to pop up in my mind when I turn to deep contemplation.
Aren't these questions innate in all humans? Aren't they the whole basis for philosophy? Plato, Socrates and all of that. Is it not all based on the unavoidable human question of "why?"

I’m on European time: this is my hard-earned evening, still at the keyboard.

Said Kate:
You have just described ME. With one big exception, I don't process these experiences in order to generate "the illusion of a stable external world." In my imagination I referred to these experiences as entering from a parallel universe … I'm a lay person when it comes to science. I have organized my life around imagination, art, creativity. I pay attention to my dreams, to synchronicity, intuition … I use words like sacred, "the whatever," the mystery, the "force." I play with the possibility that the "force" is evolving as we are, all being within the universe and subject to its laws. … "What the bleep do we know!?"
(January 15, 2007 9:31 AM)

I can imagine your mindset, Kate. I have had valued relationships with people who share it. Science at its best needs imagination, art, creativity as much as logic and rigid methodology. As for dreams, I tend to think they’re the best things we have – "lose your dreams and you will lose your mind." (there, Timmy, I can do it too). As Nietzsche once perceptively said, it’s not absurd to regard the purpose of life as to sleep well – which I think also means to dream well, though I suspect for Nietzsche it meant rather to dream big, to dream bold, to thrill to the prospect of the coming of the superman.

Returning to Einstein for a moment, he stated quite clearly that his God was the God of Spinoza, and Spinoza was excommunicated from his Jewish community for his godlessness. Both of them saw the sometimes manifest, sometimes hidden harmonies and symmetries of nature as somehow divine, and used talk of God as a poetic metaphor to indicate this divinity. The philosopher Schopenhauer, in many ways a cold, hard, godless man, saw life as the manifestation of a universal force, which he called the will, and which Nietzsche later recast as the will to power. Freud saw the same force as either Eros or Thanatos, or maybe both. But Einstein was less impressed by such thrusting talk.

What we undeniably have in the universe is things changing in time, and these changes seem to track the ongoing forms of a polymorphous entity that finds little godheads in people and big fountainheads in stars. This entity is the universal distribution of mass-energy, which determines all that happens and even the geometry of spacetime itself. Broken symmetries engendered by the decreasing average density of this distribution since the big bang created the forces we observe now, all of which may have started as one superforce, back in the era when spacetime was as small as the higher dimensions of string theory are said to be. See how poetic the words of physics are! But guess how much gym work you need to do first to throw these words around without losing it.

At last we come to the movie "What the bleep do we know!?" Certainly one of my favorite movies of all time (check my blog for early 2006 to confirm that) but still deeply flawed. I know some of the scientists interviewed and have debated their views on many occasions. They are out on the fringe of orthodox science, and most of that quantum holism is too way out to be worth trying to relate to Heisenberg’s principle or Schrödinger’s cat. But something survives the critical acid, which is that because we ourselves are realized as incredibly delicate and fragile patterns of electrical activity over neuronets much finer than spider’s webs (which only escapes our everyday attention because it all happens inside our case-hardened meat heads), quantum effects are quite likely to play a role. If so, then we cannot rule out such quantum phenomena as entanglement (a.k.a. spooky action at a distance, or we are the world) and superposition (a.k.a. opposite things happening at once, like 0 and 1 in a qubit, or being in two minds). All this suggests that the multiverse picture can help us, which in turn suggests a role for something like free will to choose a path through the branching tree of possible futures. As I said, great movie! Timmy, you seen it yet? I offer my heartfelt thanks, Kate, for triggering all these fine words.

Said Timmy:
I wish my language skills were such that I could get away with using words like "higher power", "force", and "sacred". Though they are words that express some of my deep imaginations, they are words that seem to make some atheists nervous. I'll leave these words for Andy and others for now. That being said, I do very much enjoy thinking of these kind of feelings as being something that is beyond me as a singular entity. Because, as beyond me as they feel, I still know that I am an important part of it all.
(January 15, 2007 1:42 PM)

OK, you see how they work. They’re great words if you can manage not to make jokes with them. I see humor as great fun, as you obviously do, but also as something that can sometimes turbulate the water too much. For clear vision you need a water surface as flat as a mirror, no turbulence. And humor gets those giggles bubbling up. Good when you need to break out of the zombie blues but too distracting for cosmic consciousness.

I’m gonna stop here for today. Life must go on in the stuff world.

Yes,

Mother nature - the universe itself - the science we have not yet discovered. All things for awe and wonder.
These are all things that are bigger than us, and yet things that we are an integral part of at the same time.

I don't see my perception as a flawed view of reality. It is the only view that I have, therefore it is reality. Perhaps not someone else's reality, but it is mine of course. Of this I am sure.

These thoughts we have been discussing are closer to the Hindu idea of God than to the other versions. To Hindus, God is everything, everywhere. The entire universe is God, and so is that tree. Because God is such a general idea to them, they choose idols like Vishnu to put God into so that they can worship God = the universe = everything.

Here's a question. If humanity does lose it's widespread belief in a monotheistic God, in the future, as we all hope. What will become of the word God? When Christianity sits along side paganism in the history books, what use will we make of the word God? Surely it will not go away. The word itself. What will it's most common definition be in the future we all dream of?
Because I would like to go ahead and start using that definition now. Instead of destroying God, can we just steal him and redefine him? A la Einstein? Into a thought that is not delusional or dangerous?
God is not dead. He's just getting a major entity change operation.??

Pam,

Did not take your remark personally at all. I knew to whom it was directed. And I assume that when I told some folks to "stick a fork in it," you knew that was not directed to you.

I welcome your posts: direct, focused, informed. You love animals and nature. You would fit in Taos beautifully. Have you ever visited here?

Kate

Sorry Kate (Kat) Timmy I did not intend that remark to either of you. Well, except for the Timmy and Jason debate.

I have been posting on here since the begining and just probably need a break. I am listening by reading right now.

Carry on!

Dear Timmy,

Meow! Kat is Kate. Whatever “singular entity” once labeled a post of mine “Anonymous” has now named a recent post Kat. Go figure. Probably because these posts emanate from a place high in vibrations: Taos, New Mexico.

Timmy, I don’t care whom I make nervous. That’s the beauty of age. I guess you to be a young lad.

As I was editing a section of my manuscript this morning, I came to my leaving Taos for a year to care for my elderly mother in Chicago. A counseling client gave me as a farewell gift a prayer stick to plant either in Taos or in Chicago to “send prayers to the creator.” This client also brought a Mexican Huichol shaman, Guadalupe de la Cruz, to Taos many times. I will never forget the whole night peyote ceremonies we had.

At any rate, while I was editing I was wondering about the “prayer” I said when I planted that stick back in 1994 under sagebrush before I left: “Great Spirit, I leave my home and the land she sits upon in your care. Bless the ones who will live here. Take care of HoneyBear. Bless my coming and my going. Bless all my endings and my beginnings.”

I was going to strike the whole thing out. Me! Personifying a Great Spirit. Couldn’t strike it out. I’m a poet. I speak in metaphors, in symbols … use all sorts of figures of speech.

Some of us who have long left the belief of a personal god, have not yet left and may never leave, the realm of symbol.

Sometimes I refer to nature as Mother. I try to place “meaning” on things. Hopefully, the reader understands symbolic language. I believe Andy Ross and Duckphup do, and both are eloquent writers of both fact and symbol. We are fortunate to have them sitting with us at the table. (Now I could have said “forum.” Right?)

Bring your act to Taos. We are completely irreverent here. We'll love it. Remember Richard Pryor?

Kate

Oops.

It was Kat I was responding to there I guess, not Kate.
Sorry for the mix-up.

Kate,

I am like you in that I struggle to understand the science of what Andy is saying but I get enough to know that these thoughts appeal to me.

I wish my language skills were such that I could get away with using words like "higher power", "force", and "sacred". Though they are words that express some of my deep imaginations, they are words that seem to make some atheists nervous. I'll leave these words for Andy and others for now.

That being said, I do very much enjoy thinking of these kind of feelings as being something that is beyond me as a singular entity. Because, as beyond me as they feel, I still know that I am an important part of it all.

This kind of discussion is exactly the kind of thing we need to talk to believers about. This is the welcome mat I have talked about. We can have thoughts like these and still reject religion. It is important for believers to know that some atheists have thoughts of...... well I won't use those words again. I'll leave it for Andy and others who can inject enough science into these thoughts so as to not sound like they are on the slippery slope to God belief and global jihad.

I look forward to more comments on this line of thought.

I came back in with a sensible post. Something on topic and sharing. No body commented. Nobody was talking at all last night except for Anony (jason). So I tangled a little and had some fun with him. Nothing verbose. Just some quick illuminating back and forths. Don't read if you don't like.
And instead of commenting on that, why not comment on my neutral post to all, or start a conversation, or continue a conversation that you would like to have.

Is it not a bit contrary to ask people to ignore the posts that you are commenting on? Physician heal thyself.

If it sounds like Jason Bradfield, and writes like Jason Bradfield, then it must be Jason Bradfield.

Anonymous, you are not fooling me for a second.

Richard, Pam,

What we feed grows, what we starve dies.

Just ignore them.

Or as one of my Aussie students taught me when I was giving my attention to some racous (sp?) students, "Miss," he piped up, bobbing his chin over to those boys,"Pay them no mind."

Please respond to my recent post if you care to as I have carefully read all of yours (though did not always respond), unless it's too "out there."

Wondering about the wonder,

Kate

Kate

Andy,

Thank you! This is exactly what I'm looking for--a frame for my experieces of which you speak of.

"For me, everyday sensory experience is an ongoing revelation, which one might poetically ascribe to a higher power in the sense that it came from one knows not where, if one is to be honest with oneself. Sensory input comes in, and we process it as best we can to generate the illusion of a stable external world. People impressed by this revelatory aspect not only for sensory experience but also for thoughts whose logical provenance they are unable, for whatever reason, to reconstruct may as well describe them as revelations too. That is, they dimly sense that something they consider true is as true as anything else."

Andy: You have just described ME. With one big exception, I don't process these experiences in order to generate "the illusion of a stable external world."

In my imagination I referred to these exeriences as entering from a parallel universe, but you caught me there later in your discourse: "Game, set and match to the metaphysicians, who can now have a field day speculating about parallel universes."

I'm a lay person when it comes to science. I have organized my life around imagination, art, creativity. I pay attention to my dreams, to synchronicity,intuition ... I use words like sacred, "the whatever," the mystery, the "force."

I play with the possibility that the "force" is evolving as we are, all being within the universe and subject to its laws. I play, then, with the possibiity that all my choices affect everything--even--the "force." (Blasphemy! the religious cry.")

"What the bleep do I know" for lay folks like me spoke to all my above inclinations.

PS I have lived for 30 years with the American southwest Indians whose great seasonal mystery dramas feed me.

So maybe I'm a hybrid, not pure in anything. I would appreciate any of your thoughts. (Duckphup, too!)

Respectfully,

Kate

RICHARD, I am with you. I keep checking back to see if any "sane" people have posted. This bickering is way too much for me.

I can't believe you guys are doing this again. Didn't you have enough futility and abuse on the second Harris thread?
Bye.

Anonymous,

I am well versed in the Christian religion. I have 5 different Bibles and a nice size library of books on the history of church, and even on Christian apologetics.

When I'm feeling sad I pull them out because they make me laugh, and that cheers me up.

"Are evangelists zealots?" You mean like on TV? Not the funny ones. The funny ones are merely performers. The earnest or zealous ones are unfunny.

Mr Anonymouse

Are evangelists zealots?

Anony,

What is the point of not being fundamentalist?

God is almost perfect?
The Bible is almost right?
Jesus literally rose from the dead, but other stuff is metaphorical?

Aren't fundamentalists the only ones with true faith?

Hard for me to imagine a zealot could actually be funny. But if you can pull it off, more power to you. Thanks for offering me a supporting role, but I'm not into making scenes (even premeditated ones).

Anyway, it's Mr. Anonymous to you — we haven't been introduced.

Gad that's a great idea. I will definitely do that if I get a chance. I think I need anony in the audience for that. I'm sure that I have offended many a Christian over the years but I wouldn't know for sure because I have never been heckled by one. It's hard to heckle a comedian who's getting laughs at your expense.
There are definitley clubs where that Michael Richards spoof would go over. Urban centers like LA and NY of course. Wouldn't try that one in El Passo.

I need Anony at one of my shows. Where are you anony? I'll let you know when I'm coming to town and you can come and heckle me. When I ask you your name, you can say, Anonymous.

You're some kind of scriptural exegete, GAD? Interesting take, but sounds awfully fundamentalist.

Timmy, fat chance of anybody convincing you guys of anything that doesn't help you nurse existing prejudices.

GAD, exceptionally brilliant rejoinder. But (despite the lack of any evidence) I'll bet you're bright enough to distinguish sarcasm from bitterness.

Anonymous,

Just a reminder that per your law book, the bible, the world must come to an end. You can not stop it, and at the end only a "few" will be called, the vast majority of humanity will be left to suffer and die in the battle of Armageddon, and then on to hell. Read between the lines, that means no matter you do, or how many people you kill or put down, at the end of days the majority of humanity won't be Christian. You are fighting a losing battle per your own rules. You should not stand in our way, you should encourage us so the end will come sooner and you can go to heaven and not have to suffer any more time on earth with us than necessary!.

No, no funny Timmy!!! Don't say there is no hope for me! Don't abandon me to the great tsunami of unbelief! Save me from my delusions with your brainiac gut-busting irreverence!

I thoughht Eric Clapton was God.
I saw that spray painted on a brick wall in a picture once.
But I think that your definition is also valid.
Hindus also have God. And Muslims and Jews of course.
You're right. Einstein wasn't clear.
Which is odd. Like I said, he knew it was a sound bite. Why not be clear. Why not Religion is lame without Christ?

But I'll bet you will eventually convince this panel that Einstein thought that Christ died for his sins. You really have a chance I think.

Anonymous,

For a person who has found the love, joy and happiness of God, you sure seem awfully god dammed cranky and bitter! Did not enough folks die of AIDS this week to cheer you up? Maybe you need a good old fashion abortion clinic bombing to lift you spirits!

I wish that I could save you Anony. But unlike you, I am not delusional. There is no hope for you.
As I said. I'm working on your children's children.
And we will save them.
If literal jihadists don't kill us first in the name of God.

Ever go to comedy clubs Anony?
Or are you pretty certain that you will hear words that will hurt your ears. Thousands and thousands of people every week sit in comedy clubs across America and laugh at pithy religious irreverence Anony.

It's a tsunami Pal. And you are standing on the beach holding up your hand to the first wave and saying, "Stop, in the name of God".

Good luck with that.

For a monotheist, there are not multiple gods, only God (or not). Did Einstein say anything about multiple gods? Whether or not God is, God is not other than God.

Timmy,

I had funny thought (at least I think is).

Since your a comedian I was thinking about your doing your religion routine and getting heckled by some believers, then you go off like Michael Richards, only instead of yelling about what would of happened in the past to African Americans for doing that, yell about what we are going to do in the future to the religious fools who dare speak out..... It's a parody and it has an Armageddon feel to it. I wonder if the people would freak out, or go along with it like in Borat?

"Not that it will change my beliefs any"

Of course not. Nothing would.

I can't imagine how anyone could read Einstein on religion and think that, when he said God, he meant the father of Jesus.
When he said "Science without religion is lame". Notice that he does not say which religion. He is speaking of the general idea of religion. Otherwise, why not be clear about it. He knew it was a sound bite. Why not just say, Science without Christ is lame?

Oh, great. A zealot comedian. That's a joke.

Funniest line: "A brave producer will be required." No doubt. One can only imagine the pious peer pressure among the Hollywood devout.

See funny Timmy. Please, please save us from our ignorant selves, funny Timmy! O comedic savior! O droll deliverer! O erudite jokester! O all-wise wisecracker! We are so weak and ignorant! We have longed for you in our humorless darkness. Deliver us from our childish beliefs, O Enlightened One of the One-Liners. We are unworthy. Funny, funny Timmy.

Kate said:

"GAD: Could we say, generally speaking, (and from my personal experience) that the Christian god is a "he,"; that he fathered a son, Jesus, who also is god; that "he" rewards and punishes us; that "he" possess human qualities (loves, weeps, wills things to happen or not to happen), etc."

"If we agree on the above, then do you, just using your common sense, think that Einstein would believe in that kind of a "god"? Do you? I don't."

>> works for me, but apparently if any of the two billion "Christians" have a different list, then Einstein was a "Christian". Not that it will change my beliefs any, but they seem to want to claim him real bad. He could have believed in the same god as the "Christians" but not that Jesus was the son of god, then he would be a Muslim. lol!

Timmy,

Welcome back! Nice post. I like the smoking analogy.

WM, and others who have asked: What do we do?

1.
The end of the taboo on criticism of religion as put forth by Sam Harris, and Richard Dawkins, is key. This is, in my opinion, the most important contribution that they have made. We must follow their lead and support their brave attempts to shock us into a badly needed and long overdue raising of our collective consciousness. It is our responsibility to lift this taboo in every place we find it applied. Politely, responsibly, and respectfully. When I say respectfully, it is not possible to treat the taboo or even the religion with respect, but respect the person.

Is it tougher to quit God, or smoking?
Smoking is extremely addictive both physically, and mentally. It is also a social thing. Telling people that it could kill them and pressuring them to quit didn't seem to work. It was the social stigma of smoking that built over time that motivated most people to quit. It became not cool to force your second hand smoke on others. We are all hoping that the end of the taboo on criticism of religion will be similarly effective.
Work it. Everywhere you can. Be one of those annoying non smokers.... As respectfully as possible.

2.
Of course anything political you can do to get that last bit of church out of our state.
I agree with (I think it was Kate) who said this latest surge of religion in the US is a death rattle. I liken it to the drowning man's last grasp. Sparked off by the last straw, Janet Jackson's nipple flash at the Super Bowl. The heads of the Christian Corporation see it slipping and they are not going down without a fight. So be it.

3.
When confronting believers, talk as much as you can about all of the imaginative ideas that have been coming up recently in this thread. The wonders of the universe, the idea that we are part of it in a very deep way. Show them the Einstein Spiritual side of science. In fact, Quote Einstein. Talk them as much away from Bible God as possible. Allow them to keep Einstein's god and your respect if you have to. If you can't talk them out of Bible God, talk them away from the church. And if you can't talk them away from the church, then try to talk to them about the ideal of separation of church and state. It should be an ideal for them every bit as much as for atheists. Try to get this across.

4.
I don't know.

________________________________________________

I am in a fortunate position to help with the lifting of the taboo. As a comedian, it is exactly my job (after make em laugh, of course) to lift taboos of all kinds. Sam and Richard have motivated me to concentrate more and more of my act on this topic. I get to stand on a stage, under a spotlight, in front of hundreds of open minded American's, every week. I take full advantage. As a Canadian, living in America, I have a unique perspective from which to make comment.

Sample bit I've been doing lately:
"A lot of Canadians have been heard bad mouthing America lately. I assure you I am not one of those. I love Americans, for Many reasons. You still believe in God, that's so cute. (This draws laughs, even from the believers) It is, it's bloody adorable. You're like the kid who still believes in Santa even after his parents have told him that it was all made up. But he refuses to stop believing. Still writes him letters. Still likes to visit him at the mall. Cause unlike the other kids, he likes the bad touch. "

This goes over bigger on the coasts than inland. But I can make it work in Tucson if I'm careful. But you don't find a lot of sensitive believers in comedy clubs.
I am expanding my religious material until I have enough for a full length show which I will mount in small theaters and hope to tour the country with it.
My working title is "Mad Sacred Cow Disease".

I am also working on a second draft of a screenplay for a movie that will also raise consciousness to this conversation. If I can get it made. It is raising some eyebrows in Hollywood. A brave producer will be required. I have been given much reason to be optimistic. i'll keep you all updated.

I do feel fortunate to have an outlet for this message. I feel that I can truly make a contribution in this way. Hundreds of people a week hear my public irreverence for religion. And I am far from the only one. More and more comics are latching on to this lifting of the taboo. if you add us all up, thousands and thousands of people a week are having their tender ears pierced by religious irreverence of a hilarious nature. It's a sneaky way to get the message across. And we are taking full advantage.

We are all doing the right things. It will always feel like a snails pace of progression. Because as revolutionary as the message is, it can only help with the evolution.
I think that it's the best we can hope for. We do this for our children's children. They will be the benefactors.

God speed.
lol

Soja,

ciao

Kate

should be "people would be unembarrassed"

Phillip Tripp,

Adult converts — people who acquire their knowledge of the faith while possessed of a fully developed brain and adult understanding — always have a HUGE advantage over those whose formal religious education effectively ended at the age of 10 or 12, and who consequently are totally unequipped to develop a mature faith. (Is there any other field of knowledge about which people would not be unembarrassed to claim they learned all they need to know by fourth grade?)

Someone who approaches the faith as an adult does so with adult questions and concerns in the first place.

To Kate:

Errata: The meeting with Fr Bede Griffiths should have read May 1984, NOT 1994!

Phillip Tripp,

You say: “What if 2 billion people, adults and children alike still believed in Santa? What if, along with all of the other Santa myths, came eternal life in Heaven along Santa's side? … Would such conversions be happening in a world without the billions of adults who were brainwashed into belief at the age of 4? “

I’ve been wondering about exactly the same thing recently – thanks for expressing it so well. Seems to make sense to me. Don’t know what else to say.

WM, You say,

“Somehow I am left feeling that I should do something more (other than the obvious political stuff). I just don’t know what.”

Me too and me neither, but I’m thinking about it.

My closing thoughts on this thread:

• The closest word to describe going beyond reason/mind/logic without denying reason/going out of one’s mind/becoming illogical is “INTUITION.”

• Where do I stand on the IQ vs. religiosity statistics – i.e. my IQ vs. my religiosity? It is a non-question. I challenged the conclusion of a correlation between IQ and religiosity with my example of Einstein’s observation and the statistics of believers among scientists and mathematicians. I tried to point out that despite the observations made in the study mentioned by DUCKPHUP, the conclusion drawn is seriously questionable and opposite conclusions may be drawn using a different set of data and combining it with Einstein’s statement based on his observation.

• I never had the conflict - science vs. religion, for I never consulted the Bible or any other Scripture as a science or history text book. Scripture is not meant to serve as substitutes for science and history text books. The Bible explains creation in symbolic ways and it may have snippets of history or implications for science, but that was not the purpose for which Scripture was written, just as science and history is not written to serve the purpose of Scripture. In my understanding of God from the Bible, God made man only a little lower than the angels, gave him free will, and made him steward of the earth God created. It was out of love that God did not make human beings as puppets who would obey his laws, just as nature obeys His laws. God who created the marvellous universe does not need man’s help to create anything. In creating man with a free will, the potential for man to reject God, the ability to hurt fellow man, was the risk God had to take. Yet God wanted a relationship based on love with man, and that would not be possible without creating free will. God could have created man like puppets, men who obeyed His laws mechanically, but He chose not to.

• Science explains the details of God’s creation. One scientist explained it this way “So that’s how God did it!” Another scientist explained it in effect this way: “If I were to come across a watch in the forest, and pulled it apart and understood its intricate working mechanism, I come to the conclusion that an intelligent man must have designed and made the watch.”

• Believers like me come to this conclusion: In man’s capacity as steward of the earth, man uses his God created intelligence to discover the laws and various other aspects of God’s creation, uses his intelligence to change the world he lives in, to increase his comfort and happiness, and as his brother’s keeper, man uses his God given capabilities to make the world better for his fellow man. God is the source of all knowledge and wisdom. This outlook does not require the IQ of a scientific genius. It requires no more than humility, no more than a logic and reason that looks at the marvellous world and says “man did not create this universe, some superior intelligence did it and I call it God.” The extravagance and the marvellous beauty of the universe is mind boggling. To me it looks like an emperor who buys his children a million toys as an expression of his love and to keep them happy and fascinated. One does not need to be a scientist and understand all of quantum physics, mathematics, chemistry and biology etc to come to appreciate the beauty of the universe or draw the conclusion that a superior intelligence created it. But there is more to a man’s life than understanding the physical world in which he lives. There are aspects of the human being that science does not deal with – aspirations and dreams etc. Giving the superior intelligence a name, trying to explain it in different ways, catering to the aspirations and dreams of man, etc is the work religions sprang from. What man does not understand, religions call the mystery of God. One might call it as yet undiscovered aspect of God. Christians believe that Jesus came to give man a deeper insight into the mysteries of the greater intelligence and its plan that man had been grappling with since the beginning of time, and the superior intelligence had been trying to convey in different forms, through prophets, seers, founders of religion etc. A tiny spark of that superior intelligence behind creation resides in man and that has been called the soul, spirit, conscience etc. – the imminent God Dom Bede Griffiths was referring to.

• Einstein came to the same conclusion of a superior intelligence based on his knowledge of science. He called it a religious feeling. Did Einstein convey his religious feeling based on his knowledge of the physical world, merely as an ambiguous attempt to pacify believers as DUCKPHUP implied with (post 14 Jan 2007 12:07 PM) “As you can see, Einstein’s language was colourful, concise, poetic… and ambiguous, all at the same time; i.e. ‘believers’ could understand it on their own terms. Such was his genius.” Wasn’t Einstein expressing his idea of the one God in the way he knew best, just as the primitive peoples expressed it in the way they knew best?

• If an atheist is one who believes in a superior intelligence behind creation like Einstein did and has a religious feeling, then what exactly is atheism? In what way does it differ from that of a believer? Is atheism simply a means to explain God based on the intellect alone? No religion rejects the intellect; theologians use it to understand God. Is atheism merely a denial of an entity called god, but believes in an entity without name and form as mystics have described the reality of God?

• Is it possible for a sceptic and an atheist to communicate with a believer based on genuine respect? Do hard core sceptics believe in goodness and love? Do sceptics and atheists believe that there might be aspects of the universe and man that is as yet not clearly understood and believers have approached those aspects from an angle different from science? Do sceptics and atheists accept that just as science does not need to have all the answers in order to make science a valid way of knowing the physical universe, believers do not have to have all the answers in order to believe in God? Do sceptics and atheists know that their perception of reality, that their very non-belief is limited by their individual conditioning and unique perception?

These are just some of the thoughts that went through my head after reading the responses of DUCKPHUP, GAD and DYEDINTHEWOOLSCEPTIC.

To Richard Wade:

Many thanks for your kind words Richard. I’m here today because of the hundreds of ways in which people who crossed my path cared for me. The caring not only helped me to become who I am today, it also helped me cope with the less than caring things some have done to me. I wish you many good friends and caring people along your lifelong journey!

To anonymous (Ref post 14 Jan 07 1:59 PM):

Many thanks for telling me that John Stewart is Australian and for your implicit support by answering some of the comments made based on what I wrote, in ways I could never have done.

To Kate:

A correction regarding the time period I knew Fr Bede. It works out to nine years I think. I met Fr Bede for the first time in May 1994, and I saw him for the last time in September 1992. Fr Bede wrote to me for the last time in January 1993, after he had already started to lose the use of his hand for writing. Somebody else had to complete his last letter to me. Less than a week later, he suffered a series of strokes and after much suffering he passed away on 13 May 1993. I’m grateful that you mentioned Fr Bede in such a special way, for it brings back all my memories in a flood and I realise I have work to do for God, for that is what he wrote in his last letter.

I do not see any possibility of making meaningful contribution to the discussion on this thread because I notice that I am merely repeating myself. So after a very long break, I’m going to pick up the threads of working on myself again. Thanks to my participation in the discussion on this thread, it has been brought home to me clearly that I need to begin work on myself all over again with a beginners mind. The right time to start is now.

Thank you one and all! It has been nice “meeting” you, the exchanges have been interesting and I have learnt a lot. Let’s all - atheists, anti-theists, agnostics, believers, freethinkers, thinkers who are not free, sceptics and all other named and unnamed categories of human beings - keep our real common goal always in mind – happiness and deeper meaning for one and all.

Auf Wiedersehen!

Soja John Thaikattil
Sydney, Australia

LBJ - My siblings are true believers: a charismatic Catholic, a traditional Catholic, and an evangelical christian.

Some of their kids are true believers also, but most are what I would call cultural Catholics. They got married in the church, take their kids over for baptism, communion, confirmation; some send the kids to catholic grammar school and then off to the public school. I don't see any Sacred Hearts or Sorrowful Mothers hanging on their walls.

Their kids will be even more removed from the church. And so it will go on. Plus kids will be more and more aware of other belief systems; how other families conduct themselves in terms of "going to church." They will see the array of choices out there.

It's falling away.

I was in Quebec this summer. Took a tour around the St. Lawrence Seaway. The guide pointed out the Catholic churches along the way. Many are empty, sold.

Hopefully, our homegrown "religious right's" loud voice is the sound of a death rattle.

GAD: Could we say, generally speaking, (and from my personal experience) that the christian god is a "he,"; that he fathered a son, Jesus, who also is god; that "he" rewards and punishes us; that "he" possess human qualities (loves, weeps, wills things to happen or not to happen), etc.

If we agree on the above, then do you, just using your common sense, think that Einstein would believe in that kind of a "god"? Do you? I don't.

Kate

Soja John,

You say, "Maybe I could spend the rest of my life reading books written by people who are convinced Jesus didn't exist."

No, there are just a few - written recently. Shouldn't take you long to get through them. I recommend it - considering all that's out there about Jesus - you owe it to yourself to hear alternative views.

Also, you say, "Equally I could spend a hundred lifetimes reading books written by people who dedicated their lives to Jesus and did wonderful things as a result."

Yes - that kind of book has been around for many centuries - because Jesus is a very old story, that after its first three centuries, had the Roman empire behind it - no wonder so much has been written -- doesn't mean it's all true.

GAD,

Your original claim was the following: "the God that Einstein was referring to is not the Christan [sic - are you making some kind of statement by continuing to misspell it? Just curious.] God" — to which you add, to indicate your absolute certainty, "of course".

Not sure how it's possible to assert non-equivalence except by defining the terms and providing some kind of logical proof.

Is there enough information about how Einstein understood God to provide a useful definition?

Next, how do you define "Christian God"? Must that definition be acceptable to all two billion Christians? Any? Certain kinds? An authority? Who decides? Or are you simply positing a definition for purposes of discussion (and in that case, aren't you rigging the game)?

Anyway, with those definitions you can proceed to demonstrate that they are not equivalent.

Assuming reason still matters to you.

LBJ wrote: "Did you not do exactly this to Timmy, no matter how much he pleaded that he was simply imagining the possibility of a higher meaning? He implicitly stated over and over again that he related this idea of a higher meaning to science, not to God or a deity or anything like it. You don't like it when people read something into your thoughts that you clearly did not mean. I saw nothing in any of Timmy's posts that would be considered any more supernatural sounding than "The Universe is on a journey to understand itself". You do not deserve to be jumped on for such a statement. And neither did Timmy."

-- Timmy spun his 'Shmorf' yarn, in which he attempted to weave a mystical quality around his his inner feelings, and then he asked: "Anyone with me?" I replied: "Sure... except for your invocation of 'faith', 'believe' and 'worship'."

That set Timmy off on a hysterical rant in which he assused people of being 'afraid' of the words he was using, among other things.

That's all I had to say on the matter, until a couple of days later, when I called him on his rant, and his sloppy use of language. I did NOT call him on his imaginings about some form of 'higher meaning'.

Anonymous:

Between Soja's poetic emotional pleas to God, that if you can't understand them it's because it's unexplainable, and you need to go beyond the mind. And your intellectually conceived 2 + 2 = 5 arguments, you guys have all sides covered.

It is absurd, there for it is true!

Also reminds of the Chewbacca Defense.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chewbacca_Defense
http://youtube.com/watch?v=vTd77TB8ef8

Please enlighten me, based on the evidence that was presented, how is the statement that Einstein did not believe in the Christan God, wrong? I'm willing to learn, teach me why that is an irrational and unreasonable conclusion based on the evidence..........

DuckPhup:

You said:
"Anyway... after all that... all that I said was that the above is an interesting paradigm... a useful (and interesting) way to think about things. Please don't read any more than that into it... and for Pete's sake, don't 'believe' it."

Did you not do exactly this to Timmy, no matter how much he pleaded that he was simply imagining the possibility of a higher meaning? He implicitly stated over and over again that he related this idea of a higher meaning to science, not to God or a deity or anything like it. You don't like it when people read something into your thoughts that you clearly did not mean. I saw nothing in any of Timmy's posts that would be considered any more supernatural sounding than "The Universe is on a journey to understand itself". You do not deserve to be jumped on for such a statement. And neither did Timmy.

That being said, I'm not at all a fan of Timmy's idea that we be soft on the soft believers. I feel that these are the believers to be most cutting with. I believe (soft believe) that there is actually hope in talking sense into these "soft" believers and waking them up from their delusion. It is the deeper believers who are the lost cause, and only by waking up the moderates will we be able to put a dent in this stranglehold that religion currently holds on our society. I am for the Harris approach on this.

On another thought. Are we delving too much into the psychology aspect of belief, and looking for things like "the God gene" a little too much? Without bringing too much science into it, I am most curious about the simple effect of parenting, where it pertains to belief in God. The Santa thing has been brought up a number of times. What if our parents never told us that Santa was a lie? What if the mysterious presents kept appearing under the tree? What if most of the kids at school kept on believing into adulthood? What if 2 billion people, adults and children alike still believed in Santa? What if, along with all of the other Santa myths, came eternal life in Heaven along Santa's side?

The question was asked, "If science has now answered most of the mysteries that caused our forbearers to seek out and invent God, why, with all of these mysteries now uncovered, does the God myth still prevail in three quarters of the world's population? Because parents tell their kids, at the most impressionable age imaginable, that God will punish them if they do not believe, and reward them with eternal life ever after if they do believe. Could it be this simple? No God gene. Nothing that we're born with. Just the most horrifying, unintentional form of child abuse possible.????

My question is; could it be this simple? Or would it have to be something more than just that. I know that there are many cases of people who did not grow up in a religious household, who turned to God later in life, but are these not anomalies? Would such conversions be happening in a world without the billions of adults who were brainwashed into belief at the age of 4? I put this question out there to all. I don't know the answer. I would like to hear everyone else's thoughts on this.

Hmmm. Speaking of things not being what they seem to be ...

Point of clarification: my last post referencing John Steward's essay although written and signed by me, nonetheless, bears the heading Anonymous.

Hmmm.

Kate

Said DuckPhup:
The only people claiming to know the absolute 'Truth' (note the capital 'T') about fundamental matters pertaining to existence and reality are those who claim that it has been 'revealed' to them by a 'higher power' ... I am referring specifically to people who ... harbor the delusion that their internalized ideations map to objective reality. ... Even if one of these assertions happened, quite by accident, to actually BE 'true', it would still be irrelevant, because we are not coupled closely enough to objective reality to verify it by observation or experience ... I am quite comfortable with saying "NOBODY knows ANY absolute 'truth' pertaining to objective reality." ... I don't see this as being in conflict with the 'Law of Contradiction'.
(January 14, 2007 1:21 PM)

I sympathize with the general drift of your statements, but I’m pedantic enough to want to trip you up on a few points. For me, everyday sensory experience is an ongoing revelation, which one might poetically ascribe to a higher power in the sense that it came from one knows not where, if one is to be honest with oneself. Sensory input comes in, and we process it as best we can to generate the illusion of a stable external world. People impressed by this revelatory aspect not only for sensory experience but also for thoughts whose logical provenance they are unable, for whatever reason, to reconstruct may as well describe them as revelations too. That is, they dimly sense that something they consider true is as true as anything else they know, and fall back on revelation as the best account they can give of why they think it true. Now the normal rules of social engagement demand that such people admit their own fallibility, just as you do for your own core beliefs (at least for all truths that are not mere tautologies, which are best regarded as true merely by definition, such as the law of contradiction). Yet I hope you will agree that we do not want merely to silence those who lack the sophistication to express their beliefs in politically correct epistemological circumlocutions.

Said Duckphup:
The thing about Bell's theorem (and why I singled it out) is that it is a mathematical proof. It tells us that non-locality is a feature of reality ... Even if Quantum Mechanics is discovered to be totally wrong, and is rejected in its entirety (not terribly likely, of course), 'non-locality' will still persist as a feature of reality, to be explained in terms of whatever theory replaces Quantum Mechanics.
(January 14, 2007 1:21 PM)

Indeed, Bell’s theorem is a mathematical proof, given the premises. But the premises are statements about the physical universe, which may or may not be true of our actual universe. The theorem asserts that given those premises, a certain inequality holds in the quantum case that would not hold in the classical case. Experimental results then show that the quantum predictions are upheld. Good for quantum mechanics, bad for classical mechanics. But one of the premises is that causally efficacious signals cannot travel faster than the speed of light. This one can deny, if one is prepared to reconsider special relativity. The distinguished physicist David Bohm did just this, and developed a consistent, local quantum mechanics that incorporated superluminal information waves. Needless to say, most of his colleagues regarded his achievement as empty, since he did not explain how special relativity could fail to apply to information waves. Another premise of Bell’s proof, this one implicit, is that the described experimental interaction takes place in one universe. In that case, it appears that the nonclassical statistics can only be explained by nonlocal interactions, or what Einstein called spooky action at a distance. However, as David Deutsch and others have pointed out, if the interaction occurs simultaneously in a set of initially similar universes that branch to realize the respective possible outcomes of the experiment, then the probability that we find ourselves in the branch with the observed results is predicted correctly by quantum mechanics without nonlocality. Game, set and match to the metaphysicians, who can now have a field day speculating about parallel universes.

Said Philip Tripp:
I often wonder why religious beliefs cling so tenaciously to the majority of the world's people. Particularly a belief in a supreme being. With science dispelling miracles and explaining so much that was a mystery to ancient men, why do the beliefs of the ancients still resonate today?
(January 14, 2007 1:24 PM)

Anything that has stood the test of time seems safer than ideas that seem to come and go like spring fashions. For example, since Christian orthodoxy has apparently survived twenty centuries of vigorous philosophical criticism, it seems it cannot be entirely unsafe. Reality is full of paradoxes to a naïve logician, yet life goes on. So maybe the paradoxes of Christian doctrine are harmless too, says the believer. But I agree wholeheartedly with you that in an age where science has established itself so successfully, only someone who fails to understand the basics of the scientific method would seek to deny it on the basis of faith alone.

Said DuckPhup:
The ways in which we perceive the world owe much more to what goes on in our brains that to what actually goes on in the universe. Take vision. Think of a pencil, for example. We perceive it as a solid, opaque object. … The pencil is made up of molecules, which are made up of atoms. If you consider a hydrogen atom (the simplest), and imagine it blown up to the size of our Solar System, the 'nucleus' (sun) would be about the size of a grapefruit, and its single electron would be about the size of a pea, somewhere out around the orbit of Pluto. Now think about a Uranium atom ...
(January 14, 2007 1:52 PM)

Our perceptions owe a lot to what goes on in our brains, true. We have evolved to be efficient at perceiving things that are salient in our human worlds, where our survival depends on correct and exact perceptions, and yet remain hopeless at other, quite similar perceptual tasks. As for atoms, I must play the pedant and correct you. The hydrogen atom has a diameter of about a tenth of a nanometer, and all the other atoms are not much bigger (they have more electron shells, but also more massive nuclei that pull the shells in tighter). The hydrogen nucleus is a single proton, with a diameter on the order of a femtometer, which is a millionth of a nanometer. So if a hydrogen atom were as big as a football stadium (a few hundred meters), the proton would be a little pea (a few millimeters) in the middle. The biggest nuclei have two hundred or so nucleons, so they would be just a handful of peas. The general drift of what you said is right, but I wanted to set the record straight. By the way, inside nucleons it’s mostly empty space too, with three tiny quarks rattling around busily inside each one. Whereas electrons seem to be truly point charges, except for the fact that spacetime itself breaks down at the Planck scale, another twenty powers of ten down below the femtometer ...

GAD, whatever it is you used, you flatter yourself unreasonably if you call it reason. You made an argument based on assertions that you fail to demonstrate and terms that you fail to define and could not possibly know.

Anonymous said:

"GAD says, "the God that Einstein was referring to is not the Christan [sic] God of course."

Just curious how someone who is neither a Christian nor Einstein can presume to make such a categorical statement? The "of course" underscores the arrogance (of course).

It's entirely possible that none of us — not even GAD — perfectly understands what Einstein had in mind. And since there are more than two billion professed Christians, it is highly improbable that GAD is an authority on how they all understand God."

>> from what was stated, if you [anyone] can equate that to being the Christan God, then you are one of those special folks who "can go beyond the mind".

>> I used reason, not authority to reach my conclusion.

So reading today's posts, here we are ... NOW.

Here is the opening paragraph of John Steward’s essay “The Potential of Evolution” in the January-March 2007 issue of “What is Enlightenment?” (page 40)

“A major evolutionary transition is beginning to unfold on earth. Individuals are emerging who are choosing to dedicate their lives to consciously advancing the evolutionary process. They see that their lives are an important part of the great evolutionary process that has produced the universe and the life within it, and they realize that they have a significant role to play.”
______________________________

(By the way, Soja, Stewart is Australian. He’s the author of “Evolution’s Arrow: The Direction of Evolution and the Future of Humanity.”)

So how do we participate? I’ve moved from the authoritative stage, and the adolescent rebellion stage, but I’m not as fully adult as I believe I could be re the present possibilities.

Ideas?

BTW, who has seen the films/videos “What the Bleep do we know?” and “The Secret”? Reactions?

Kate
Snowed in again in northern New Mexico

Anonymous wrote: "If one refused to "harbor the delusion that their internalized ideations map to objective reality," would not that person be immobile and incapable of any action?"

Not in the least. The ways in which we perceive the world owe much more to what goes on in our brains that to what actually goes on in the universe. Take vision. Think of a pencil, for example. We perceive it as a solid, opaque object. But, it is opaque ONLY with respect to a narrow part of the electromagnetic spectrum to which 'light' belongs. The pencil is made up of molecules, which are made up of atoms. If you consider a hydrogen atom (the simplest), and imagine it blown up to the size of our Solar System, the 'nucleus' (sun) would be about the size of a grapefruit, and its single electron would be about the size of a pea, somewhere out around the orbit of Pluto.

Now think about a Uranium atom... one of the heavier ones. In that case, the nucleus would be about the size of a Volkswagen 'Beetle' (the sun)... and the atoms would be like a bunch of peas, starting out around the orbit of Pluto, and extending far, far beyond.

(For those who know that I have just described a model of the atom that was known to be obsolete around 100 years ago... so what? Consider the audience. We know that it would be more like a 'ghost-pea', smeared out around the entire solar system, and it would not actually 'become' a pea until something tried to interact with it.)

So, the pencil (and anything else we perceive as a 'solid' object) consists mostly of space. In fact, for all practical purposes, there is just as much actual space in the pencil as there is in an equal pencil-sized volume in the depths of outer space. Yet you can see it, pick it up, write with it, chew on it.

So, now... pick up a pencil, look at it, then close your eyes. When your eyes are closed, do you still imagine the pencil is as you perceived it to be when you were 'looking' at it? Yes? No? Well, it isn't. NOTHING is the same as what you 'perceive' it to be, when you are looking at it. Pencils have the POTENTIAL to be perceived as an opaque object when somebody is looking at it. By the act of 'looking', you are transforming POTENTIALITY into ACTUALITY... but ONLY in your own mind... in your own subjective reality. The rest of the universe does not care that you are temporarily deluding yourself.

I am aware of this 'truth' (small 't') about pencils. It has not made me "...immobile and incapable of any action." I am just as capable of seeing a pencil, and using it, as those who are harboring the delusion that 'what you see is what you get."

If one refused to "harbor the delusion that their internalized ideations map to objective reality," would not that person be immobile and incapable of any action?

I often wonder why religious beliefs cling so tenaciously to the majority of the world's people. Particularly a belief in a supreme being. With science dispelling miracles and explaining so much that was a mystery to ancient men, why do the beliefs of the ancients still resonate today?

Logic insists that either God doesn't care or God doesn't exist. God could exist. There just isn't any valid empirical evidence for that premise. God could be hiding and hasn't shown himself since Abraham. That premise also begs its own questions.

Believers don't use real logic to support their belief. They rely primarily on faith, "the good book" and an occasional one on one moment with God to affirm their belief. Most believers will agree that empirically, there is not much proof of God in the scientific realm. You simply have to use other means like faith. When I hear that someone's awe in the beauty and complexity of a leaf is all they need to prove God exists, I need not say more. You can't argue with that statement in the real world.

Instead, logic and science are equally perverted and distorted to support the belief in God. I think that is what particularly distresses non-believers so much. As I have seen so many times, logic and science becomes so distorted by believers, that often I can't understand quite what the are saying. It is almost as though a different language is being spoken. Their thinking goes right over my head, as it should, for we do speak different languages.

Now back to my original question. Could the tenacity of religious dogma be related to a lifelong core belief that one cannot and will not ever consider changing? Because changing your position, after so much is invested in the belief, is way too painful for most humans to even consider. It is so painful a thought, that they will fight with all of their might, both figuratively and literally, to maintain their belief is valid and good. In fact, in some cases they justify actually killing those that doubt their core belief. The bible is full of that truth. The fundamentalist Moslems that fly airplanes into buildings certainly believe that.

When I was a child, I believed in Santa Claus until my parents informed me of the "truth" about Santa. I was about 8. It was a devastating moment in my life. I didn't want to believe that my most cherished belief, as a child, was a lie. My sister, who was a year younger than me, seemed to have no problem with the news. I was speechless and in shock.

When I was 10 I found in our home, and read, a copy of "The Age of Reason" by Thomas Paine. Our family were regular churchgoers and I learned about all of the major stories in the Old Testament. When I started reading in Paine's book about major inconsistencies with the Old Testament, my eyes became wide open with the reality that even religion may be like Santa Claus. It is just not true. A few years after that, even the concept of God fell into the trash heap of belief along with Santa and the bible.

Now fast forward a few years. My childhood brain developed into a far more powerful entity with which to view the world. Now, the seemingly innocent views of a child developed into hardcore non-belief.

Now let's use the Santa analogy and attach it to any of the millions or billions of lifelong believers in God(s) and all of the associated religious creeds. They are taught and believe their entire life, that God exists, there is a book that is the word of God, and miracles happen in the realm of the almighty. At some point in their lives, all believers are confronted with someone or something that says God doesn't exist. It usually hits them in the face when they are young or active adults and their adult intelligence is in place.

Now when they are told that Santa/God doesn't exist, they absolutely will not let that lifelong belief die. I had only my parents telling me that Santa doesn't exist. There was no other supporting "evidence" in Santa. I was 8 and had no way of validating Santa's existence on my own.

An adult has the Bible, a church and its congregation, and millions of others that insist that God does exist. The believer is safely nested in the soft womb of their chosen religion and its brethren.

It is conceivable to me that if my parents had not told me the truth about Santa when I was 8, but rather I heard it from others when I was 16, I would have fought hard to prove that what they say is a lie. At age 16, if I had a book written thousands of years ago that is the word of Santa, and millions also believe in Santa, then what easier thing could I have to tell that non-believer in Santa, that what they are saying is a lie.

For me, that premise answers many of the questions of why religious dogma for all religions is so prevalent. It doesn't profess to answer all of the reasons for religion. Some posters are going to attack my premise as not complete or not applying to everyone. You don't need to go there. I already know that.

For believers, I would only wish that they consider the premise that I have suggested, and consider it for their own beliefs.

There is no way that most of you are going to be able to accept the lack of evidence for God. For it would be too painful to abandon a life long core belief. One that speaks to the very essence of your being.

But there are some out there that are indeed riding the fence and don't feel a strong connection with your life long faith. Those are the ones that I speak to.

All the best, Philip Tripp

By the way, my sister who so easily accepted that there was no Santa Claus when she was 7, was recently babtized again as a fundamentalist Christian in the Great Lake that Chicago sits on. Perhaps that begs even more questions to my premise?

ANDY ROSS wrote: "Sorry, but this can’t stand. If the “NOBODY” claim is true, it’s absolute. Maybe we can know absolute truths, but maybe they become trivial to the extent that they’re absolute. If the law of contradiction is granted as absolute, then it becomes trivial in the sense that it regulates what we allow ourselves to assert. Similarly, the “NOBODY” claim would become trivial in the sense that we would simply refuse to grant absoluteness to any other claim, however solid."

-- Science doesn't deal in absolutes... scientists (except, perhaps, for very bad scientists) know that all theories are approximations, and that they represent a proposed explanation for observed facts. A 'good' theory is one whose explanatory power and predictive power have been demonstrated as reliable to such an extent that it would be "perverse to withhold provisional acceptance" (Dennett?). But you, of course, know all that... I say it only for the benefit of readers who might NOT know that.

The only people claiming to know the absolute 'Truth' (note the capital 'T') about fundamental matters pertaining to existence and reality are those who claim that it has been 'revealed' to them by a 'higher power'... which is, of course, nonsense. In this regard, then, I am not referring to 'logical' truth... I am referring specifically to people who are asserting their internalized conviction that they 'KNOW' the absolute truth (description of) pertaining to fundamental matters of existence and reality; e.g., the Genesis account of creation, or the resurection of Jesus. In other words, people who harbor the delusion that their internalized ideations map to objective reality. I say such assertions of internalized convictions are baseless, and thus nonsensical, if only by virtue of the fact that such assertions are inevitably in conflict with OTHER assertions, which provide a DIFFERENT (and often contradictory) 'Truth', pertaining to the same thing. Even if one of these assertions happened, quite by accident, to actually BE 'true', it would still be irrelevant, because we are not coupled closely enough to objective reality to verify it by observation or experience... and even if we COULD observe it, we are not intellectually equipped to properly interpret it (our biological hardware and wiring are 'designed' for a 3-D cause-and-effect world). Of course, all of that might change over the next few hundred or few thousand years... if ever... but in actuality, we are just babes in the woods, at the very beginning of our efforts to 'understand', and figure out what's what, and what 'is'. So, on that basis, I am quite comfortable with saying "NOBODY knows ANY absolute 'truth' pertaining to objective reality." I acknowledge that I might be wrong... but I still feel comfortable in saying it, for the same reasons and on the same basis that Russell felt comfortable in denying his sun-orbiting china tea pot. Also, I don't see this as being in conflict with the 'Law of Contradiction'. (Of course, in saying that, I might be guilty of the same sloppy thinking and sloppy use of language of which I am so often critical. Sigh.) --

"It is curious that you should single out quantum non-locality, of all things, as certain. A hundred years ago, a poll of scentists would have shown unanimous belief that non-locality was false (Einstein: “spukhafte Fernwirkung” – spooky action at a distance). Bell’s theorem is interesting, but it took some very careful experimental testing before we all agreed to accept it as certain. And it is certain only in the sense that the overall picture conjured up by quantum mechanics, for all its paradoxical weirdness, is the best we can do to explain the amazingly exact technical applicability of the laws of quantum mechanics."

-- The thing about Bell's theorem (and why I singled it out) is that it is a mathematical proof. It tells us that non-locality is a feature of reality... not of Quantum Mechanics... reality. Quantum Mechanics, for all its unprecedented success, does not provide us with a certain description of reality; instead, it predicts (with unprecedented accuracy) how reality will respond when we 'poke it'. There are several distinctly DIFFERENT descriptions of what fundamental reality is really like, which are ALL consistent with Quantum Mechanics.

Even if Quantum Mechanics is discovered to be totally wrong, and is rejected in its entirety (not terribly likely, of course), 'non-locality' will still persist as a feature of reality, to be explained in terms of whatever theory replaces Quantum Mechanics. I.e., non-locality is a 'fact', which Quantum Mechanics seeks to explain. I concur that it didn't start out that that way... but John Bell, mathematically, showed it to be a 'fact'.

(For those who might not know, 'non-locality' refers to interactions which are 'superluminal'... faster than the speed of light. Einstein's "spooky action at a distance.") --

"The problem I have with all this talk about absoluteness is that our own standpoint, relative to which all claims of truth must be evaluated, cannot be elevated too far without absurdity. We can bootstrap toward infinity, but we can’t get there, or at least not that easily. Whatever platform we stand on is absolute for us."

-- I find myself choking on "Whatever platform we stand on is absolute for us." I think that is so ONLY in the minds of people who don't know any better. Granted, though... that accounts for MOST people. --

"Because we are finite beings (or rather to the extent that we are finite beings, given that we might sometimes be mere channels for an infinite agent, for example an angel who tells us what to write), we are all fundamentalists about something, somewhere in our conceptual schemes. We may be arrogant enough to regard that something as known, but more often it will be wiser to admit to mere belief. I say we better get used to that fact, and try to make the practical consequences bearable."

-- The only thing that I am aware of being fundamentalist about in my own conceptual scheme is "I don't know". I regard all 'knowledge' pertaining to matters of existence and reality to be 'provisional'. With regard to 'mere belief'... about 80% of humanity constructs their world-view on the basis of their (mostly dogmatic) 'beliefs' derived from ancient myths, superstitions and fairy-tales. For me and you, perhaps, they are 'mere' beliefs... for others, they are the foundations of the universe. --

"(re: metaphysics definition) "Good, and well said. But we are in what the Germans call Zugzwang, which is a term in chess for the situation where you have to make a move. We can’t live with metaphysics, but we can’t live without it either. Any background beliefs, however trivial they may seem, to shore up our practical beliefs, both in everyday life and in scientific pursuits, add up in effect to a metaphysical system, which may of course be more or less systematic. I say we do better to look at the metaphysics and try to tidy it up, rather than just look away and hope it will somehow sort itself out."

-- I agree with that, except that I would make note that there are subtle qualitative differences in the meaning of 'belief', depending on the context of the conversation. Most people are oblivious to these differences. It is quite acceptable in the course of ordinary conversation, to say things like "I believe the sun will come up tomorrow morning"... which has no congruity at all with a statement such as "I believe that the world and the universe and heaven were created in six days, six thousand years ago, by god, as described in the Genesis account of the bible." In the first case, the 'belief' is trivial... and upon analysis, is not really a 'belief' at all. Rather, it is a metaphor (the sun doesn't REALLY 'come up') that expresses a reasonable expectation based upon one's knowledge base and experiential reference. In the latter case, the 'belief' is an internalized filter via which one interprets information, and constructs their personal (subjective) reality... and rejects, perhaps, the idea that dinosaurs existed hundreds of millions of years ago, and died out 67 million years ago. I contend that such faith-based 'beliefs' (delusions) are an insidious mind-killer, which cuts one off from the open-minded and intellectually honest (willing to question and doubt one's own assumptions) consideration of alternative possibilities. I contend that it is the job of anyone who strives to be/become a rational thinker to ELIMINATE such absolute internal filters... to stamp out internalized 'beliefs' like cockroaches... and to re-file interesting ideas in a different brain compartment labeled 'paradigms'... useful ways of thinking about things. To work with and pursue 'ideas'... not 'convictions'.

Thanks for playing, Andy. I like it. --

LBJ wrote: "Sounds like a higher meaning to me DuckPhup

-- Higher meaning? Well, it certainly would represent a 'higher meaning' than any we are presently capable of perceiving, or even imagining. However, the way that you express your thought implies 'intent'... and 'intent' implies the 'guidance' of a higher power. I do not see 'intent' in the basic idea any more than I see 'intent' in evolution.

Having said that, though, one must acknowledge that the universe is evolving (changing over time), just as life on earth is evolving, language is evolving, culture is evolving, and ideas are evolving... and the evolutionary process is one in which complexity arises from simplicity. As the complexity of biological structures on earth increased, what we call 'consciousness' also arose. Is consciousness a function, or an inevitable consequence, of complexity? (Google for: 'self-organizing complex systems' and 'quantum consciousness'.) I don't know. Could be, though. And if that is the case, who is to say that the universe has NOT reached a level of complexity where it has become self-aware, or that it will not do so at some point in the future? After all, the universe at-large has been at it (evolving) a lot longer than WE (humans... biological 'life') have. How might we, as conscious entities, be wired into that process? Are we a part of the universe's 'neural circuitry'... its 'nervous system'? Just as individual cells in our bodies play a role in our existence, might we not play a minor (and probably insignificant) role in the existence of some 'higher' (for lack of a better word... language is abstract and limited) entity? Might we minor elements in the system by which the universe will become... of has become... conscious?

When I referred to the universe 'becoming', that simply refers to becoming whatever it is going to end up 'being'. The term has no mystical connotations whatsoever, any more than there is a mystical connotation to the process of a child 'becoming' an adult... its just that when applying the term to what the universe was, or is, or is going to 'be', there are a lot more unknowns.

As the universe 'evolves', and if any of the above happens to be operative, who could say that the universe would NOT develop 'intent'... that is, to begin to interfere with and direct what had hitherto been entirely natural processes? After all, it can be said that in the course of life on earth, 'life' (in the form of we humans) has developed 'intent'. Do we not 'intend' to understand the workings of the universe? Do we not intend to interfere with natural biological processes to cure and/or prevent disease?

The case might also be made for the idea that humans have interfered with (and at some level taken control of) evolutionary processes. We cannot interfere with the 'meta-rules' in deep reality which govern the processes of evolution... but we can (and do) interfere with the superficial natural 'procedures' by which those meta-rules are implemented. Are we?... could we be?... fulfilling the evolved 'intent' of the universe? Again, If any of this is so, I see no mystical or 'supernatural' connotations here at all. From the perspective of a red blood cell, or a liver cell, are the workings of the human body 'supernatural'? I don't think so... although the cell might think so, if it could think.

A thought about 'meta-rules'... might these meta-rules that govern biological evolutionary processes be operable at ALL levels of existence? Might not the subatomic structure of atoms have evolved, in the early epochs of the universe, in accordance with the very same meta-rules that govern the organization of the large-scale structures of the universe, or biological systems? The organization of DNA? (When I refer to meta-rules, I am referring to (unproven) exceedingly simple rules that reside deep in reality, and provide the basis for ALL self-organizing complex systems, at ALL scales of complexity, from the microcosm to the macrocosm.)

Anyway... after all that... all that I said was that the above is an interesting paradigm... a useful (and interesting) way to think about things. Please don't read any more than that into it... and for Pete's sake, don't 'believe' it.

Afterthought... I just want to add that I think 'life' is a common as dirt in the universe, and that within the next 50 to 100 years, we should have the technical wherewithal to confirm that. --

Soja... Einstein was an atheist. He SAID he was an atheist. He described his deep awe and appreciation for the beauty and complexity of the universe and nature as a 'religious' feeling in order to convey the nature of his feelings to ordinary people who were (and still are) religious. In other words, Einstein used 'god' as a metaphor, so that his expressions could resonate with the feelings of the people he was trying to communicate with. By trying to read any more than that into it, you are just confounding yourself. For example, take the quote which you cited: "Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind."

Translation (my words):

If you coldly work to uncover the secrets of the universe without harboring an inner sense of wonder, awe and appreciation for the beauty, majesty, and symmetry of nature, you are depriving yourself of the most personally enriching part of the experience in what you do.

If you focus entirely upon what you think 'is', or what you have been told 'is', you are depriving yourself of the knowledge of the true basis for the awe and reverence that you feel.

As you can see, Einstein's language was colorful, concise, poetic... and ambiguous, all at the same time; i.e., 'believers' could understand it on there own terms. Such was his genius.

Good Morning All,

I sit down with my first cup of steaming dark strong black coffee at this table, and what a fine table has been set before me.

Soja, please stay. Welcome Andy. And the "old" voices who have become so dear how good to still hear from you.

It is a feast this morning of ideas and listening and open minds.

I have nothing more to say, except thank you.

But I shall be back, oh yes, you can count on that.

Andy and Duck"pup," you have struck a chord in me and it is vibrating now; the coffee is sloshing over the cup's rim (not really!). I just can't formulate my words yet. "The sea is so great and my boat is so small."

Later,
Kate

GAD says, "the God that Einstein was referring to is not the Christan [sic] God of course."

Just curious how someone who is neither a Christian nor Einstein can presume to make such a categorical statement? The "of course" underscores the arrogance (of course).

It's entirely possible that none of us — not even GAD — perfectly understands what Einstein had in mind. And since there are more than two billion professed Christians, it is highly improbable that GAD is an authority on how they all understand God.

To Soja John Thaikattil,
My warmest thanks for your encouragement. You are a most gracious and kind person. I am very moved by your caring. Thank you also for recommending "Cutting Through Spiritual Materialism." I read it several years ago, and it had a powerful influence on me. I'll dust it off.

I will remember your words of comfort as I resume my effort. Your "two cents" are worth more than gold.

To KATE:

Dear Kate

I posted a short version of my experience with Dom Bede Griffiths OSB on the main thread. I agree he is one of a kind and I consider myself very blessed to have have had a personal relationship with him for eight years. There were many others around the world who enjoyed a personal relationship with him.

Fr Bede was a visionary well ahead of his time, and all we need to do is fulfill his vision. We don't have to wait until someone like him comes along. As a monk, he was used by God to be one of the important lights shining in the darkness to show the way, an answer to the pain stemming from religious intolerance. He didn't play the Guru at all. Fr Bede asked me to follow the leading of the Holy Spirit at all times in my life. Fr Bede was an incredibly kind and gentle person, with the personality of an Oxford don and Indian sanyasi rolled into one!

Wishing you and yours peace and joy!

Soja John Thaikattil
Sydney, Australia

andy ross, Why not? And isn't it probable, whether or not we should?

Said Leejay:
As of today, I'm inclined to think that when the Big Bang occurred there was a flash of light and all things came from that. We are beings of light. We are human beings with a consciousness in each of us that is the universe awakening to its own existence.
(January 13, 2007 7:33 PM)

Once upon a time there was a big bang. A sea of particles and photons was created. The particles made stars, the stars made dust, the dust made planets and people, the people made gods. The photons made starlight, the starlight made life, life made electromagnetic symphonies in cerebral neuronets, and those electromagnetic symphonies made information structures invested with symbolic and totemic value.

Said DuckPhup:
I don't know about the "beings of light" part, but I've always been intrigued with the idea that we could all be component small-scale elements in the universe's journey to 'become', and to understand itself. It is an interesting 'paradigm'... in the sense of being "a useful way of thinking about things."
(January 13, 2007 7:49 PM)

The best and noblest part of a human being may be the brainwave symphonies in the brain. These carry our consciousness, represent an external world and our reaction to that world, and give form to the hopes and fears that launch our spiritual quest. Brainwaves are made of photons, and so is light. If we are stardust, we are also beings of light. The metaphoric extension of scientific doctrine here is equally good.

If human consciousness includes a world model that reflects the external world, then the tiny part of the universe that plays out its life inside a human skull may be understanding the universe at some level, as part of an awakening that spreads like a flame through the universe. So is the flame of awareness a real phenomenon? Experienced meditators report less a flame than a steady glow, or rather an inner transparency. The ecocycles that constitute human life peak in a state of being that is open to the universe.

Said Kate:
In the late '60s when I struck out on the "pathless land of truth" I had Chardin's "The Phenonemon of Man" and "The Divine Milieu" in my knapsack. I thrilled and still do to at the idea of a continuingly evolving universe. To be on the productive side of this evolution is meaning enough for me.
(January 13, 2007 10:42 PM)

Teilhard de Chardin found a scientific resonance in a big 1986 book by astrophysicists John Barrow and Frank Tipler. Their idea was that the anthropic principle, which is the idea that the universe is well furnished to accommodate life because otherwise we wouldn’t be here to remark on its furnishings, had a deeper significance and would drive the evolution of the universe to an information-saturated analog of Chardin’s omega point.

What can we make of this sort of idea? That we are tiny parts of the evolution of the universe is clear enough, and it also seems fair to say that our concerns reflect cosmic themes. We should naturally expect to see ourselves as on the productive side, and even to find that this view suffices to give life meaning. We are happy with where we are and what we’re doing. This is just as well, for if we weren’t we’d be in trouble.

One way to check the strength of a set of ideas like this is to spell out their practical consequences for our personal and public lives. If human beings are mere support structures for the photonic symphonies that take place in their brains, and if such symphonies can be bigger and better elsewhere, for example in quantum photonic supernanohyper computers, then we could upload our music and trash our old bods. We could leave the old stuff world, the world of stardust, to the robots, who could vacuum around the new machines and keep the electricity flowing by themselves. In our new global online digital paradise, we would be free to commune with each other to eternity, raptured away from the struggle in the Darwinian slime outside. But would we, could we, should we?

To GAD:

Once I tried to explain to a European, who had never seen a Indian mango, how it looked and tasted like, how an Indian jasmine looked and smelled like, and then realised some explanations get nowhere.

Soja John Thaikattil
Sydney, Australia

To LINDA JOY: (Ref your post 13 Jan 07 10:40 AM)

Linda, thanks for the suggestion to read Acharya's book. Maybe I could spend the rest of my life reading books written by people who are convinced Jesus didn't exist. Equally I could spend a hundred lifetimes reading books written by people who dedicated their lives to Jesus and did wonderful things as a result.

Food for thought? Surely!

Soja John Thaikattil
Sydney, Australia

Soja,

"Real belief in God is based on a personal experience."

>>The difficulties with this statement are immense! To much so for me to even try and take a wack at. maybe someone else will.

"In matters pertaining to faith the mind may be a blessing or a curse, because an intellectual person must go beyond his mind, not give up his intellectual capacities, but go beyond it to discover faith."

>> How does one "go beyond their mind"? What does that even mean, it seems completely nonsensical.

" Science does not require faith in God as a skill. Based on Einstein’s observation, could one then conclude that a little knowledge leads to atheism and profound knowledge leads to a religious feeling?"

>> No, I can't see that one necessarily follows the other?

>> Lastly from the article you sent the God that Einstein was referring to is not the Christan God of course, there is no communications, laws or faith involved, and from this "neither the rule of human nor Divine Will exists as an independent cause of natural events" he doesn't do anything for you. All that is need "rapturous amazement at the harmony of natural law".

>> Where was talking about Einstein and God together supposed to lead?

To DYDEDINTHEWOOLSCEPTIC:

Please read my comments in context. I was merely responding to the study which according to DUCKPHUP supposedly concluded "In other words, the more intelligent a person is, the less likely they are to be religious...statistically speaking." I was just trying to point out how conclusions drawn correlating IQ and religious faith, may be done wrongly! The irony of my statement was obviously missed.

If you read all of my posts in context, you'd know that I have always maintained IQ and religious faith cannot be correlated. I have read comments on this thread which implied that religious belief was somehow an inability to reason and a defect in logic. I just tried to point out that if the same logic was used, a different conclusion could be arrived at, depending on how one looked at the issue and what data one chose to use for the purpose.

I have no quarrel with atheists at all. I'm not trying to convert anyone. In one of my earlier posts on an other thread I had mentioned that I would not cross swords with an atheist. Both atheists and believers could argue until the end of time and we wouldn't get anywhere. I had also mentioned that no one is coverted through arguments. Faith is an experience and I'm perfectly comfortable with atheists holding on to their point of view and I respect them as persons. By the same token I expect an atheist to respect that I have a different perspective. This discussion is about trying to build a common point of communication. The differences are all too well known.

Peace!

Soja John Thaikattil
Sydney, Australia

If you say so. Don’t forget to click your heels three times though.

Belief in God is based on a personal experience, and/or faith in a being higher than a human being. Faith in God has nothing to do with anyone's IQ.

Soja John Thaikattil
Sydney, Australia

WM,

"How do we connect with reasonable people of faith and other atheists in a meaningful way and work to make the world a safer place for all our children?"

>> Thats a tough one. A slick atheist marketing and media corporation would do it.

"Somehow I am left feeling that I should do something more (other than the obvious political stuff). I just don’t know what."

>>I have the same feeling. When I see articles like this one I go crazy and want to do something, I just don’t know what either. Perhaps being is a start.

http://daily.stanford.edu/article/2006/2/8/spreadLoveNotHpv

Soja wrote:

Based on Einstein’s observation, could one then conclude that a little knowledge leads to atheism and profound knowledge leads to a religious feeling?

Sure you want to advance this idea? Ah, never mind, but I am curious: as one who has “never had a crisis of faith”, where you would put yourself on this scale.

To DUCKPHUP: (Ref your post 13 Jan 2007 9:58 AM

-------------------------------------------------
From Wikipedia about Einstein:

Einstein published a paper in Nature in 1940 entitled Science and Religion which gave his considered views on the subject.
In this he says that: "a person who is religiously enlightened appears to me to be one who has, to the best of his ability, liberated himself from the fetters of his selfish desires and is preoccupied with thoughts, feelings and aspirations to which he clings because of their super-personal value ... regardless of whether any attempt is made to unite this content with a Divine Being, for otherwise it would not be possible to count Buddha and Spinoza as religious personalities. Accordingly a religious person is devout in the sense that he has no doubt of the significance of those super-personal objects and goals which neither require nor are capable of rational foundation...In this sense religion is the age-old endeavour of mankind to become clearly and completely conscious of these values and goals, and constantly to strengthen their effects."
He argues that conflicts between science and religion "have all sprung from fatal errors." However "even though the realms of religion and science in themselves are clearly marked off from each other" there are "strong reciprocal relationships and dependencies"... "science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind ...a legitimate conflict between science and religion cannot exist." However he makes it clear that he does not believe in a personal God, and suggests that "neither the rule of human nor Divine Will exists as an independent cause of natural events.

"To be sure, the doctrine of a personal God interfering with natural events could never be refuted...by science, for [it] can always take refuge in those domains in which scientific knowledge has not yet been able to set foot."

"I believe in Spinoza's God, Who reveals Himself in the lawful harmony of the world, not in a God Who concerns Himself with the fate and the doings of mankind."

“You will hardly find one among the profounder sort of scientific minds without a peculiar religious feeling of his own. But it is different from the religion of the naive man.”

“But the scientist is possessed by the sense of universal causation. The future, to him, is every whit as necessary and determined as the past. There is nothing divine about morality, it is a purely human affair. His religious feeling takes the form of a rapturous amazement at the harmony of natural law, which reveals an intelligence of such superiority that, compared with it, all the systematic thinking and acting of human beings is an utterly insignificant reflection.”
________________________________________________

Duckphup, it is true that Einstein did not believe in a personal God, but he did admit that he "believed in a God who reveals Himself in the lawful harmony of the universe, that reveals an intelligence of such superiority that, compared with it, all the systematic thinking and acting of human beings is an utterly insignificant reflection." It is vitally important to note that he said “science without religion is lame… a legitimate conflict between science and religion cannot exist… Accordingly a religious person is devout in the sense that he has no doubt of the significance of those super-personal objects and goals which neither require nor are capable of rational foundation...”

You mentioned the statistical significance of an inverse relationship between intelligence and religiosity, and the conclusion “ In other words, the more intelligent a person is, the less likely they are to be religious... statistically speaking.” I presume one could possibly find the same correlation between materialism, wealth, and REAL religiosity. Does that mean that wealth directly affects religiosity in a way that is beyond the free will and control of a human being?

The survey that showed 7% of scientists, and 14.3% mathematicians were religious, might seem like a terrible blow to religion. But the real question is how do those scientists and mathematicians maintain their faith despite their intelligence and scientific knowledge? According to Einstein, “You will hardly find one among the profounder sort of scientific minds without a peculiar religious feeling of his own.” Real belief in God is based on a personal experience. Being subtle, anyone may choose to ignore such an experience if they had one. In matters pertaining to faith the mind may be a blessing or a curse, because an intellectual person must go beyond his mind, not give up his intellectual capacities, but go beyond it to discover faith. Science does not require faith in God as a skill. Based on Einstein’s observation, could one then conclude that a little knowledge leads to atheism and profound knowledge leads to a religious feeling?

Soja John Thaikattil
Sydney, Australia

I'm feeling quite refreshed after my trip to the science center. Good times with my little girl! What could be more inspiring than giant cockroaches and life-sized, moving dinosaurs?

I can't take credit for DuckPhup's comment “I was not looking to be converted or join an army, just debate ideas to see where mine stood. The very act of talking about and sharing these ideas is powerful, spreading the word is more powerful then taking up arms,” but I had basically the same intention when I started commenting here. I enjoy discussions with interesting people if for no other reason than to further develop my thoughts, benefit from others’ experiences and reasoning, and figure out where I’m missing the boat. And I have to admit, I thought that some believers could benefit from some exposure to various atheist ways of reasoning on matters of faith.

If nothing else, this forum has given us a chance both to expose ourselves and seekers to various atheist ways of thinking about spirituality – and show what a diverse non-group of people atheists and agnostics are! And hopefully we have discovered and shown that atheism does not have to be a cold, unfeeling, unconnected state of being.

The questions that Timmy has posed remain – and I think that they are vitally important. How do we connect with reasonable people of faith and other atheists in a meaningful way and work to make the world a safer place for all our children? Is discussing faith and belief and our mutual experiences with seekers, contributing to forums such as these, going to make enough of a difference? I doubt it, though it is a starting point. Nobody except for my sisters and my mom has ever asked me about my religious non-beliefs in my non-wired life. Besides, the most dangerous people are not the ones listening to atheists – or anyone else for that matter - with open minds. Somehow I am left feeling that I should do something more (other than the obvious political stuff). I just don’t know what.

What do the rest of you think about this?

Linda Joy - also check out "the Jesus Mysteries" by Freke and Gandy - same stuff, but more mainstream, I think, and has a lot of references (haven't seen the one you mention, but have heard of it).

Then there are the liberal Christians who have discounted the pagan-related Jesus life story, but think there was a Jesus who, like a fair number of Jews in first century Palestine, were out preaching and predicting the end of the world. They think the whole miraculous, pagan-inspired story was then constructed around this actual person to make him more God-like. Still, there is very thin evidence for such a person – just some writings (“sayings of Jesus”) that can be found in several of the Gospels in the New Testament and in some of the lost gospels just found in the 20th century, that seem to point to a specific personality. But they could also could have come several like-minded people.

To RICHARD WADE:

I dare to suppose that the sixteen years you spent facing the wall and meditating aren't wasted. Who knows the experience you were longing for was probably just around the corner. It will all come back when you go back to meditation. Nothing is ever wasted. We are expected to wear our false egos out like an old shoe. Meditation is about surrender and that is always a difficult concept for the intellectual mind to grasp. I found the book "Cutting through spiritual materialism" very useful.

Just my two cents worth.

Soja John Thaikattil
Sydney, Australia

To TIMMY:

I wrote that I would respond to your post of 9 January 2007 3:05 AM over this weekend because I wanted to give it a little thought before responding. I hope you return to the thread and notice that I am posted before your weekend came to a close.

I’m not any closer to feeling that I have any appropriate response, but I will respond anyway.

First of all, I like your spirit – the enthusiasm and passion you bring into your search for truth. Keep that up! Our journey is for life and the path is the goal. You are entitled to your thoughts and opinions no matter what they are. As long as you don’t insult anyone, you have the right to express anything you please. You are allowed to challenge anyone’s thoughts, as they are allowed to challenge yours. There is no need to feel alone because of your thoughts. Come to think of it, none of us have 100% in common with anyone else in the world. Thoughts and opinions are just thoughts and opinions. Don’t cling to them as if they were your life. Thoughts come and go, and most of all thoughts evolve with time as we gather more information. That information gathering goes on until we die. So wear your thoughts, opinions, convictions, including your atheism like a loose garment, ready to throw it off as you process new information and be ready to modify and change your thoughts and opinions as a result. Keep only what is right and good for you. If your atheism makes you happy keep it. If it should become outdated, throw it away without fear of what others may think. It is like today’s science superseding yesterday’s science.

Since I have never felt called to be a spiritual guide of any kind, I tremble at the thought of giving you any sort of suggestion. I can only speak about my own experience, which isn’t probably of much use to an atheist because I was never an atheist and never had a crisis of faith. My Christian beliefs evolved with time of course, but I did not have to find it. (Aside, to satisfy historical curiosity – I belong to the Syro-Malabar Catholic tr