BS: Science and Religion

Subject: RE: BS: Science and Religion
From: frogprince
Date: 09 Jun 09 - 11:38 AM

Susan: the thread may be more interesting than it would have been if you had clarified your original question more. : )

Don Firth: as a one-time student of Moody Bible Institute...may I have a key to your club-house? I may still be just a little more biased toward a "creationism" that the creation museum people would never recognise, but I'm very close to absolute agreement with everything you said.

Subject: RE: BS: Science and Religion
From: Goose Gander
Date: 09 Jun 09 - 04:23 PM

"Religion presupposes the existance of a god/creator. Can anybody produce one piece of scientific (or otherwise) evidence that such a thing/being exists?"

Look for a First Cause. What created the universe? The Big Bang? What was there before the Big Bang? How to explain a universe created out of nothing without some recourse to a First Cause? I don't mean some guy with a flowing beard sitting on a cloud listening to harp music. Just an explanation for why there is 'something' rather than 'nothing'.

Subject: RE: BS: Science and Religion
From: Little Hawk
Date: 09 Jun 09 - 04:31 PM

Religion does not necessarily presuppose the existence of a god/creator. It does, however, presuppose the existence of a meaningful Universe and a meaningful life, as opposed to a meaningless or accidental Universe and a meaningless life.

That's what is vital about religion/spirituality, and that is its greatest strength.

Subject: RE: BS: Science and Religion
From: Bill D
Date: 09 Jun 09 - 04:44 PM

"What was there before the Big Bang? How to explain a universe created out of nothing without some recourse to a First Cause? "

It's a personal thing as to whether one even tries. I don't need that explanation. I sincerely doubt it CAN be answered, so I don't think inserting premises, anthropomorphic OR metaphysical, gets me anywhere. All *I* can do is look and follow what can be learned from what we can study thru science. I do not believe anyone can even tell me what it means to "create something out of nothing" without recourse to poetry and linguistic juggling.

∞^∞ (if you see those symbols, they makes as much sense as 'something out of nothing')

Subject: RE: BS: Science and Religion
From: Black belt caterpillar wrestler
Date: 09 Jun 09 - 05:03 PM

Science is a recursively self-verifying method of explaining what we can experience.

Religion is non-verifiable by definition as it is a belief.

If you accept these definitions which would you trust?

Subject: RE: BS: Science and Religion
From: Little Hawk
Date: 09 Jun 09 - 05:08 PM

I trust things I experience. They are personally verifiable. They may not be quantitatively verifiable, however, because they are not all physical in nature.

Subject: RE: BS: Science and Religion
From: Amos
Date: 09 Jun 09 - 05:15 PM

There may have been universes before this one, the implosion of one of which was the Big Bang. Depends on how you conceive of space. But ignoring all that, there is no reason to elect "a" First Cause.

For all you know we might all be First Causes, taking a tea break. After all if you can posit One, you can posit Many of the same nature. ∞^∞ makes a good deal of sense from this perspective. Where, after all, is the "Kingdom of Heaven", if not "within" You?


A

Subject: RE: BS: Science and Religion
From: Black belt caterpillar wrestler
Date: 09 Jun 09 - 05:24 PM

Little Hawk,
If I experience something that is not physical, or not currently explainable, that moves it out of belief into personally verifiable, such as the fact that the clock at home stopped at the time that my first wife died.

Subject: RE: BS: Science and Religion
From: Goose Gander
Date: 09 Jun 09 - 05:25 PM

Remarkable answer, Bill. Your incuriosity seems to me to be the antithesis of science!

1st Law of Thermodynamics – energy can neither be created nor destroyed (and matter is another form of energy).

2nd Law of Thermodynamics – all energy is moving toward a less usable form: Entropy. In other words, the universe is winding down slowly, inexorably . . .

. . . though not all the way to absolute zero – 3rd Law of Thermodynamics.

So if science is the empirical study of the universe, then the question of origins cannot be avoided. I'll rephrase my question: minus a First Cause, from whence came all this 'stuff'?

Subject: RE: BS: Science and Religion
From: dick greenhaus
Date: 09 Jun 09 - 05:28 PM

I suspect it's Science ANDReligion, much in the same sense that it's Bananas AND Volcanoes. I don't really see any intersection (ethics, medical or otherwise, don't necessarily derive from religion).

Subject: RE: BS: Science and Religion
From: Goose Gander
Date: 09 Jun 09 - 05:32 PM

"There may have been universes before this one, the implosion of one of which was the Big Bang."

Rightly so, Amos. If I'm not mistaken, Hindu philosophy/religion deals with this question. But what preceeded these possible previous universes?

In another tradition, it is put this way: I Am That Which Am.

Subject: RE: BS: Science and Religion
From: Goose Gander
Date: 09 Jun 09 - 05:33 PM

"I don't really see any intersection (ethics, medical or otherwise, don't necessarily derive from religion)."

Dick, you really need to study the history of ethics.

Subject: RE: BS: Science and Religion
From: Little Hawk
Date: 09 Jun 09 - 05:34 PM

BBCP - Uh-huh. Well, I'm just telling you what I trust. I trust direct personal experience. I also trust things that I can reason out and which seem through my process of reasoning to be "reasonable" to me. Everyone does that.

I also tend to trust information I get from people I deem trustworthy...but that doesn't mean I trust it absolutely. The only things I trust absolutely are those I know by direct experience or by my own powers of reason.

Again, everybody does that.

I tend to trust both scientific things AND spiritual things, provided they make sense to me. I don't tend to trust them if they don't make sense to me.

I see no reason why I have to deny the one (science or religion) in order to accept the other. They are not necessarily in conflict. There isn't just ONE way of being "religious" and there isn't just ONE set of rules, beliefs, etc...similarly, there isn't just ONE set of scientific theories. There are many.

Subject: RE: BS: Science and Religion
From: Don(Wyziwyg)T
Date: 09 Jun 09 - 05:38 PM

""Religion presupposes the existance of a god/creator. Can anybody produce one piece of scientific (or otherwise) evidence that such a thing/being exists?""

Is there any reason why anyone should NEED to produce proof.

Just over one hundred years ago the concept of talking to someone in America by wireless transmission, the concept of travelling in a vehicle without a horse in front, and the concept of reaching America in three hours in a flying machine would have been equally matters of blind faith for believers, and objects of ridicule for those of a scientific mindset.

Yet some DID believe, and have since been proved right. The concept of a deity may be similarly unbelievable to many, but it would be UNSCIENTIFIC to say that such an entity is IMPOSSIBLE, unless of course YOU can PROVE it to be true.

Don T.

Subject: RE: BS: Science and Religion
From: Paul Burke
Date: 09 Jun 09 - 05:38 PM

So if science is the empirical study of the universe, then the question of origins cannot be avoided. I'll rephrase my question: minus a First Cause, from whence came all this 'stuff'?

You missed out the all important qualifier "in a closed system".

The Universe could be infinite in time and space, in which case there's an infinite amount of entropy to draw on, and the observable Universe could draw on energy from elsewhere (i.e. the Universe may be closed, but the onservable part is not so) without any violation.

Pah! Postulate an infinite Universe? Let's postulate an infinite God instead! Universes don't set Rules of Behaviour, Dress Codes, Dietary Rules, and Laws of Sexual Behaviour, or any other useful levers of power.

So where did it all come from?

Science don't know. Science is trying to find out.
Religion don't know. Is Religion trying to find out?

Subject: RE: BS: Science and Religion
From: GUEST,Shimrod
Date: 09 Jun 09 - 05:48 PM

"I trust things I experience. They are personally verifiable. They may not be quantitatively verifiable, however, because they are not all physical in nature."

LH - can you explain to me how a thing or force, or even an experience (leaving aside hallucinations or other tricks of the mind/brain) can be something other than physical in nature? Surely, something that is not physical has little chance of interacting with physical phenomena such as you and I? Please give me an example (not just a personal, unverifiable anecdote - but something that I can experience myself) of a 'non-physical' phenomenon.

Subject: RE: BS: Science and Religion
From: Black belt caterpillar wrestler
Date: 09 Jun 09 - 06:19 PM

I would deem it impossible to prove that something does not exist. Therefore I depend on being able to prove that a particular thing does exist.

What can be problematic is proving the necessity of a thing that you cannot prove to exist. Why do you need to assume that there was something before time started. That does not make sense. It shows that we do not accept limits.

On another tack how can you ultimately prove that what you experience is not an illusion. You have to make some assumptions or else we could all equally well be hooked up to a machine in the 35th century experiencing the virtual reality equivalent of a historical documentary video!

I thinh it was Robert Heinlein who invented pan-dimentional multi-person solipsism.(spelling?)

Subject: RE: BS: Science and Religion
From: Goose Gander
Date: 09 Jun 09 - 06:31 PM

"Pah! Postulate an infinite Universe? Let's postulate an infinite God instead! Universes don't set Rules of Behaviour, Dress Codes, Dietary Rules, and Laws of Sexual Behaviour, or any other useful levers of power."

You still need an ultimate source, Paul. Energy is neither created nor destroyed, only transformed. Some folks might see an equation between an Infinite Universe and God. That's what I lean towards, anyway.

"Rules of Behavior," etc. are normative in all human societies, so why the tired, marxist phraseology about "useful levers of power"?

Subject: RE: BS: Science and Religion
From: Bill D
Date: 09 Jun 09 - 06:47 PM

Michael Morris: "Your incuriosity seems to me to be the antithesis of science!"

Oh no! I have no lack of curiosity. I am abundantly curious....about things where there is any coherent way to investigate. I am perfectly willing to consider "First causes" if anyone can explain how.
I studied 'first cause. as part of 130+ hours of college Philosophy. I understand the **concept** of 1st cause (and 'remote cause' and 'final cause' and 'formal cause' etc..) Much of this is why I see the 'investigation' of first cause as something like infinity to the infinityth... *grin*
Thus...IF someone claims "the universe MUST have a cause, as I can't imagine anything coming into being from nothing.", I reply..."Well, *I* can't imagine what might BE 'something' that existed before what exists, and 'created' it all!"
What might that even mean? This is where I claim that any attempt, no matter how emotionally desirable, resorts to poetry and linguistic Gerrymandering. It is perfectly natural that folks would try to make sense out of such ultimate questions....I just can't comprehend how it can be done...except personally and subjectively.

Subject: RE: BS: Science and Religion
From: Bill D
Date: 09 Jun 09 - 06:50 PM

"You still need an ultimate source,,,"

Need? In what sense?

Subject: RE: BS: Science and Religion
From: Goose Gander
Date: 09 Jun 09 - 07:01 PM

Bill, the 'something' I reference is energy. Energy is neither created, nor destroyed. I tried to express this as simply as possible.

"Need? In what sense?" I was responding directly to a statement from Paul Burke. The context and meaning of my statement should be clear enough.

Some quotes from Albert Einstein, one of many great scientists who were not athiests:

"Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind."

"I want to know how God created this world, I am not interested in this or that phenomenon, in the spectrum of this or that element. I want to know His thoughts, the rest are details."

Subject: RE: BS: Science and Religion
From: gnu
Date: 09 Jun 09 - 07:05 PM

Oh wow man. Pass it over here.

Subject: RE: BS: Science and Religion
From: bobad
Date: 09 Jun 09 - 07:16 PM

"Some quotes from Albert Einstein, one of many great scientists who were not athiests:"

Albert Einstein is sometimes claimed by religious theists seeking the authority of a famous scientist for their theistic views, but Einstein denied the existence of the traditional concept of a personal god. Was Albert Einstein therefore an atheist? From some perspectives his position would be seen as atheism or no different from atheism. He admitted to being a freethinker, which in a German context is much the same as atheism, but it's not clear that Einstein disbelieved in all god concepts.

http://atheism.about.com/od/einsteingodreligion/tp/Was-Einstein-an-Atheist-.htm

Subject: RE: BS: Science and Religion
From: Bill D
Date: 09 Jun 09 - 07:23 PM

If you read ALL of Albert's quotes, it is a bit ambiguous whether he did or didn't thing religion was relevant. He seems to have wavered form one interview to another.

Yes, I understand about mass & energy and the relevance of the **hypothesis** about energy being ...ummm... 'eternal'. But IF you assume that "eternal energy" therfore implies a 'creator', you merely reduce the question to "why, or how, could an 'infinite creator' exist in the first place? And what is IT's cause?"
Maybe one does....it is not something I can investigate or 'know'. That is where I say "I do not 'need' to try to answer that. Those who claim 'the answer' tend to do some very awkward things with it and to each other.
I have read Kierkegaard, Kant, the Bible..(several of them).. and attended 5-6 different churches. They all purported to have some sort of answer... I'm waiting for the clouds to part and the 'right' answer to appear in the sky. I'm not holding my breath, 'cause I don't look good in blue.

Subject: RE: BS: Science and Religion
From: Bill D
Date: 09 Jun 09 - 07:25 PM

Thanks, bobad... that's the ambiguity I referred to about Einstein.

Subject: RE: BS: Science and Religion
From: Dorothy Parshall
Date: 09 Jun 09 - 08:10 PM

LH speaks my mind except for "everyone does that". That part I doubt.

Subject: RE: BS: Science and Religion
From: Amos
Date: 09 Jun 09 - 08:14 PM

Apparently you didn't read the second half of my post, michael. The notion that there MUST be a prior First Cause is not binding in any sense and depends on a very fixed view of space-time and being.

There is no more reason to postulate ONE first causation point than there is to postulate four quintillion, which is a figure I think closer to the truth.



A

Subject: RE: BS: Science and Religion
From: TIA
Date: 09 Jun 09 - 08:28 PM

"Science has become a religion."
Oh goodness no. Disproving what everyone has believed for a long time, and which is taught by the great masters, is the surest route to fame in science.

"Science is not always correct."
science is *never* correct. The "state-of-the-art" in any science is simply the current best hypothesis which is waiting to be killed by the coming better one.

Subject: RE: BS: Science and Religion
From: Mrrzy
Date: 09 Jun 09 - 09:29 PM

Do we have a tally of answers, e.g. ands vs. vs's?

Subject: RE: BS: Science and Religion
From: TIA
Date: 09 Jun 09 - 09:47 PM

A tally would be too scientific! What do you believe the results to be?   :)

Subject: RE: BS: Science and Religion
From: Riginslinger
Date: 09 Jun 09 - 09:50 PM

Well, Mrrzy, I'll give you mine.
          Science makes sense, it explains what happened in the past, what might happen in the future, and gives us all kinds of answers to complex questions.
          Religion is a mental disease. The sooner the victims of religion recover, the happier the world will be.

Subject: RE: BS: Science and Religion
From: Slag
Date: 09 Jun 09 - 09:52 PM

WYSIWYG (Susan):

1. Do you see it as
Science AND Religion?
Or Science VS Religion?
Or what?


Silly you, asking that a simple "either/or" question be answered here. What WERE you thinking?

I'm not really sure what you mean by it (not "is" but "it"). Is "it" a category? A reality? A cultural inclusion? A personal view point? "Verses"? Do you mean as in "contrast" in "compare and contrast"? I really do not know what it is YOU are asking.

If it were two books sitting side by side, you might see it as "Science" and "Religion". If it were a single volume you might see it as "Science and Religion". If it were a history of conflicts between science and religion, then I could go for the title of "Science vs Religion".

Religion is pretty much a category of human behavior about certain notions or reactions to certain experiences or unexplained phenomena whereas science is a method of reasoning, thought. Each has its own history and culture and points of intersections and interactions. There have been mighty conflicts between some proponents of either faction and some amazing points of agreement. Each category has had certain language develop around subcategories in each vast field.

I could go on but you were just seeking a simple answer, therefore, my answer (which I regrettably did not give in my first reply) is "Yes".

Subject: RE: BS: Science and Religion
From: Amos
Date: 09 Jun 09 - 10:00 PM

A general observation: I think it is really interesting that this theme--in this thread and a dozen similar ones, differently phrased but touching on the same questions--is one that can be guaranteed to get folks energized and conversing enthusiastically (and occasionally, antagonistically). But because it speaks to such deep-seated ways of knowing AND being, it is fascinating to watch how much energy it generates.


A

Subject: RE: BS: Science and Religion
From: wysiwyg
Date: 09 Jun 09 - 10:45 PM

Too soon for a tally.

and

"It" was defined a post or two of mine ago.

Carry on, folks.

~S~

Subject: RE: BS: Science and Religion
From: GUEST,Michael Morris
Date: 10 Jun 09 - 12:59 AM

As I said, my own views tend towards an equation of Infinite Universe with God. Hence, the Creation and the Creator are, somehow, one. These are verbal devices that, however clumsy, help me to define my beliefs.

Bill, I'm sorry that you spent so much of your time in churches, classrooms and libraries and didn't find any answers. Others haven't been quite so frustrated. I fully understand that Einstein didn't believe in a personal god, but that doesn't make him an atheist. He was one of a great many scientists who held religious beliefs of one sort or another. Science or Religion? That is a false dichotomy. At best, they complement each other.

Subject: RE: BS: Science and Religion
From: Paul Burke
Date: 10 Jun 09 - 02:01 AM

OK Michael, if science needs to explain where stuff came from, religion needs to explain where God came from.

Subject: RE: BS: Science and Religion
From: Little Hawk
Date: 10 Jun 09 - 03:19 AM

Shimrod - "LH - can you explain to me how a thing or force, or even an experience (leaving aside hallucinations or other tricks of the mind/brain) can be something other than physical in nature? Surely, something that is not physical has little chance of interacting with physical phenomena such as you and I? Please give me an example (not just a personal, unverifiable anecdote - but something that I can experience myself) of a 'non-physical' phenomenon."


Sure thing. When I experience great respect for someone or something, that is an experience I have which is real, and it's important to me, but it's not physical. It's a perception of something not physical. It's a real experience.

When I experience joy or calmness or excitement or depression, those are all perceptions of something that are real experiences I'm having...but they're not physical. They can have effects ON the physical system to some extent, but they are not themselves physical events. They're mental/emotional/spiritual events or movements in consciousness.

When I experience love for a person, an ideal, or a concept, it's a real experience for me, but it's not physical.

When I experience the thrill of a new idea it's real, but it's not physical.

You can say if you wish that I am physical, and that without my physical self I would not have those experiences. You might be right about that. You might not be. In any case, I experience all kinds of things in consciousness that are not physical, and they are among the most important things in my life. Life would be pretty meaningless without them, seems to me.

Spirituality concerns consciousness. Consciousness is not based on the physical, it simply passes through the physical and uses it as a device the way a radio signal passes through a radio receiver and uses it to play music or to steer a radio control sailboat.

The radio signal is not physical either. It's a form of coherently organized and purposeful energy, as is consciousness.

Without consciousness, you wouldn't even be reading this. Without your eyes you wouldn't be either. We need both a physical body and a non-physical consciousness to do all the wonderful things we do here during our physical lives.

I think the non-physical consciousness continues after the body is dead and gone. I expect you think it doesn't. Well, we'll find out after we die, won't we? Or else we won't. If I turn out to be right about this I will have a chance to say to you, "Surprised?" if I run into you in the afterlife. ;-D If not, well, it won't matter anyway, will it? Cos we'll both be gone.

It's okay with me either way.

Subject: RE: BS: Science and Religion
From: GUEST,Shimrod
Date: 10 Jun 09 - 04:46 AM

"The radio signal is not physical either."

That's a new one on me! As I understand it radio signals are physical phenomena (amenable to study and measurement by physicists) - it's just that we can't perceive them directly with our senses. And, yes, there may be other things out there that we can't perceive directly with our senses - 'absence of evidence is not evidence of absence' - but if we do discover them I would be prepared to bet heavily on them having some sort of physical reality.

As for what happens after we die - I don't know ... absence of evidence etc.

Subject: RE: BS: Science and Religion
From: Slag
Date: 10 Jun 09 - 05:57 AM

Shimrod, no honest scientist would begin to give you definition with an ironclad guarantee for light, or any other part of the electromagnetic spectrum. Truth is, they really don't know what it is. They can tell you some of the ways it behaves in our four dimensional existence but on the quantum level it get verrrrry strange. Throw in a few measures of dark energy, dark matter, the essence of string theory, what the limit of the universe may be, what precipitated the Big Bang, if indeed there was one (it has come under doubt of late!) and a few other conundrums, the enigma, wrapped in a riddle (the original description of a Quasar) and then tell me what you mean by physical.

In the nuts and bolts "soulless" universe, when you die your basic chemical composition assumes a random and inert (other than chemically) form, sans efforts of those beauticians of the dead---morticians. Your conscious mind ceases to to exist as the electrical energies in your brains become random (whatever that really means). From your perspective, the universe ceases to exist and the unknown and unknowing infinity from whence you came reclaims your temporary consciousness.

Have you had a night when you did not dream? Where were you? Who or what are you during that time? How is it that you are still you when you awake? No, that is not true. You are ALMOST the same person who went to sleep the night before, but you have changed, physically, mentally. Some changes are big and some little. For most folks death is a big change, or at least a surprising one but for others it is only a slight shift from their present mode. For many, it is a welcome relief from a lifetime of pain and if you have ever lived you know that life IS pain.

If you have lived right, after you die you are missed by some. You don't have a heart unless you have loved someone other than yourself. If you managed to get outside yourself and touch someone else you have done a good thing and you will be remembered for one generation only; then you are gone from living memory. If you have made a significant contribution to mankind then your secondhand memory will persist for a little longer. If you have slaughtered millions during your time on this planet, you may be remembered for even longer as a great leader like Julius Caesar or as the embodiment of evil like Adolf Hitler. Who knows? and to you it will make absolutely no difference, at least not in THIS dimension.

Sweet dreams.

Subject: RE: BS: Science and Religion
From: Black belt caterpillar wrestler
Date: 10 Jun 09 - 07:29 AM

I have always prefered "I think therfore I think that I am" to "I think therfore I am".

Subject: RE: BS: Science and Religion
From: Amos
Date: 10 Jun 09 - 09:31 AM

BBCW:

I submit that is because you missed the concept.

Radio signals are certainly physical, LH.

The core nature of awareness in non-local, meaning it has no location in space or time except to the degree it decides to generate one. Life has the ability to decree--to say things will be so, and have them exist. If you don't believe me, I decree you will think of a purple onion.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Science and Religion
From: Uncle_DaveO
Date: 10 Jun 09 - 09:41 AM

I think it was Michael Morris who asked:

What was there before the Big Bang?

That's not a meaningful question. "Before" depends on time, and the concept of "Big Bang" is that spacetime was begun by it. There wasn't a "before", because there was no time for "before" to exist in.

Yes, this sounds contrary to all our everyday experience, but so is all of quantum theory, and string theory too. And those concepts, although not "common sense" and not fully understood, are useful, operable concepts.

Dave Oesterreich

Subject: RE: BS: Science and Religion
From: GUEST,Shimrod
Date: 10 Jun 09 - 10:12 AM

"Shimrod, no honest scientist would begin to give you definition with an ironclad guarantee for light, or any other part of the electromagnetic spectrum. Truth is, they really don't know what it is." Slag

I agree with that ... and your point is? The fact is, though, radio waves have enough of a physical reality to allow my radio to pick up Radio 4 (UK radio station) broadcasts in the morning.

I can have lots of 'deep thoughts' about life after death too. Those thoughts don't tell me what's going to happen though. I don't know and, 'deep thoughts' notwithstanding, neither do you!

Subject: RE: BS: Science and Religion
From: John P
Date: 10 Jun 09 - 10:47 AM

Human beings are, through meditation/prayer/fasting/spell-casting/etcetera, capable of an ecstatic blissful experience that is identified by many of us as spiritual. Common experiences are a feeling of connection with the rest of the universe, a temporary suppression of our sense of self, and internal "visual" effects such as a light shining within us. Lots of people from all of history and all over the world have reported these experiences. I have had them myself, and see no reason to doubt the reality of this experience. Many people attribute this to a god, ignoring the fact that other people have the same experience and attribute it to a completely different god, or to no god at all. Saying that this is a manifestation of a god makes as much sense as saying that last night's lightening storm means that Zeus was angry with Hera, or that life is so complex that it must have had a creator. That is to say, none at all.

I remember when I was a kid going to Sunday School at church. There I was, an innocent five year old, being fed stories that simply did not make sense. I knew they didn't make sense at the time, and I sat around wondering why all the adults were such idiots, and why they were lying to me.

Why do so many people have to ascribe anything they don't understand, and anything that happens to them that isn't a physical phenomenon, to the intervention of some being that no one has ever seen or heard from? In this sense, religion is the exact opposite of science. The willingness to believe in something for which there is no proof, or even any evidence, places most religious people in a position of being shockingly unscientific at their cores.

I know that the word religion has as many meanings as it does gods, so having this conversation without a clear statement of what is meant by religion is a sure way of having people use the same word for many different concepts. Susan, I have to say that expecting any useful information or meaningful discussion when you want everyone to define the terms in their own way seems a bit silly. It's made for some interesting reading, however, so thank you!

John

Subject: RE: BS: Science and Religion
From: Amos
Date: 10 Jun 09 - 10:53 AM

There is no reason to iden6tify a spiritual experience by association with "god", especially an anthropomorphic, gender-embodying, icon whose godliness is highly dubitable. Why not just continue to observe the spiritual experience, and see where it leads? I am sure of one thing--it does not lead to a cranky old man.


A

Subject: RE: BS: Science and Religion
From: John P
Date: 10 Jun 09 - 12:00 PM

If you define religion as an experience of The Universe and don't go for deism or faith, then there isn't any conflict -- maybe no difference -- between religion and science. If you define religion as in a deistic way that requires believing things on faith, then religion is the exact opposite of science.

JP

Subject: RE: BS: Science and Religion
From: Bill D
Date: 10 Jun 09 - 12:06 PM

"Bill, I'm sorry that you spent so much of your time in churches, classrooms and libraries and didn't find any answers. Others haven't been quite so frustrated. "

Did you ever hear the story of the guy who prayed for something and was disappointed? His friend said: "I told you religion & prayer were useless. All that praying and you got no answer."
The guy replied: "God answered...he said "No"."

That's the religious form of the answer *I* got from all those studies. Because I found no consistent, testable answers in some areas, or any answers which were not based on 'wishful thinking' or linguistic equivocation, the answer I got was that certain questions do not have answers we can be sure of, (or possibly, that we have framed questions improperly.) This is what I call learning. I do not assume in my questioning that the answer MUST take some pre-determined form, or that there IS a religious answer entwined in all the confusion.

   I am not "frustrated" that I didn't 'find' certain answers - I put such things into the category of 'stuff humans can't seem to get a handle on'. (If you want to add "yet" to that, be my guest). Just as we can't really answer "How many angels can dance on the head of a pin?", we can't answer "What is the nature and origin of all reality?"

When someone tells me, "I can't imagine how anything can exist without a First Cause.", I reply, "I can't imagine what a First Cause might imply or how IT got there."

You can't say that something **EXISTS** or happened, just because we have words for it. Are there Unicorns? or Elves? or Ghosts?

So, "frustrated", for me, applies to other things....like being told I "haven't opened my mind" to the 'truth'.....

Am I taking my chances with my eternal life? *shrug*... sadly, If I'm right, I don't get to say "I told you so."

Subject: RE: BS: Science and Religion
From: Amos
Date: 10 Jun 09 - 12:19 PM

But if you're wrong, you DO get to say "I told you so"!!!


A

Subject: RE: BS: Science and Religion
From: Little Hawk
Date: 10 Jun 09 - 12:26 PM

You said something quite interesting, Amos, when you said:

"The core nature of awareness is non-local, meaning it has no location in space or time except to the degree it decides to generate one. Life has the ability to decree--to say things will be so, and have them exist."

I think you're probably quite right about that.

****

When I say that a radio signal is not "physical", I mean that it's not a solid, a liquid or a gas. It has no physicality in the normal sense and you can't grab hold of it with your hand....or pour it into a glass...or blow it around with a fan. It will pass seamlessly through the solid wall of a building. But, we can observe it using certain instruments we have invented in fairly recent times, and we can use to to control a machine.

Prior to the invention of those instruments which can detect or generate radio waves, people didn't believe there was anything such as a radio wave. Why? Well, their physical senses could not detect it.

Because their physical senses do not (generally) detect the presense of spirits, souls, and such spiritual phenomena, they tend to not believe those exist either. Some people, however, do detect the presence of spirits, souls, ghosts, whatever.....but it's easy for someone who hasn't done so to just dismiss their reports and say, "Oh, they were having a hallucination." or "They're not telling the truth."

Such is the arrogance of those who are absolutely sure that they already know what is and what isn't real... ;-)

Well, I think that one day science may well invent instruments that DO confirm the presence of spirits and can, for instance, photograph them and measure their energy signature. And then the skeptics will probably change their tune, since they will have what they term "verifiable evidence".

For me, my direct experience IS verifiable evidence...but just for me...not for someone else who wasn't there at the time. I am willing to show a good deal of respect for other people's accounts of their direct experience of the unusual, even if it doesn't fit my expectations. That doesn't mean I will categorically accept their explanations as being true and accurate. Neither does it mean I will categorically deny them. I'm in no position to. I wasn't there.

Subject: RE: BS: Science and Religion
From: Little Hawk
Date: 10 Jun 09 - 12:31 PM

100! Oh joy.