Richard Dawkins: The God Delusion.
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sparklepuff
- Posts: 3300
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This is such a unique subject (is it completely unique in this regard?), since it's patently impossible for anyone to describe what's behind the universe in a "scientific" fashion. Maybe another subject like this is free-will, which is another question that has been debated for millenia and, like God, will be for millenia more.
I think this subject is especially intriguing in the late 2000s, because our age holds up a Naturalist/Materialist philosophy as "the sole way we figure things out". Then, there arises this question that, by definition, is unanswerable within the bounds of Naturalism or Materialism. (The clincher is that the question is a rather important one -- we can't just dismiss it.)
Personally I feel the presence of God quite strongly -- but as a former Atheist (is that capitalized? I never know for sure) I can't blame those who don't feel it, nor those who dismiss those feelings as a biological trick.
(I do think there is strong scientific evidence for design behind the universe and for design within evolution, but this falls far short of justifying the practice of any specific religion.)
My feeling is that one's belief or disbelief in God reveals a lot more about one's social alignment and degree of comfort with authority, than it reveals about one's propensity to be "reasonable" or "spiritual".
I do think that both sides should be kinder to one another though, since, regardless of what they may say, neither one has a monopoly on "objectivity" in the discussion. (If God were objectively provable or disprovable, this wouldn't be a 100-page thread.)
$0.01,
rs
I think this subject is especially intriguing in the late 2000s, because our age holds up a Naturalist/Materialist philosophy as "the sole way we figure things out". Then, there arises this question that, by definition, is unanswerable within the bounds of Naturalism or Materialism. (The clincher is that the question is a rather important one -- we can't just dismiss it.)
Personally I feel the presence of God quite strongly -- but as a former Atheist (is that capitalized? I never know for sure) I can't blame those who don't feel it, nor those who dismiss those feelings as a biological trick.
(I do think there is strong scientific evidence for design behind the universe and for design within evolution, but this falls far short of justifying the practice of any specific religion.)
My feeling is that one's belief or disbelief in God reveals a lot more about one's social alignment and degree of comfort with authority, than it reveals about one's propensity to be "reasonable" or "spiritual".
I do think that both sides should be kinder to one another though, since, regardless of what they may say, neither one has a monopoly on "objectivity" in the discussion. (If God were objectively provable or disprovable, this wouldn't be a 100-page thread.)
$0.01,
rs
Isaac Newton was driven by his insistence that God had left physical clues for humankind which would reveal our cosmic 'purpose'. IE there were clues left in nature, in trees, in gravity, in light ... which needed adding together like a very cryptic crossword puzzle
Take the speed of a falling object and multiply it by the combined weight of all the toads in Northampton, then make a sentence out of those numerically related elements on the periodic table.
Apparently it spells out : "leave me alone you self obsessed apes, shit, do you think I have nothing better to do? I can make universes in a week and you shower keep hassling me with you wishes for fucking shinier wheels for your SUV. Give me a break"
well, OK, perhaps it didn't spell out like that.
But anyway that's what Newton believed.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isaac_Newt ... lt_studies
Take the speed of a falling object and multiply it by the combined weight of all the toads in Northampton, then make a sentence out of those numerically related elements on the periodic table.
Apparently it spells out : "leave me alone you self obsessed apes, shit, do you think I have nothing better to do? I can make universes in a week and you shower keep hassling me with you wishes for fucking shinier wheels for your SUV. Give me a break"
well, OK, perhaps it didn't spell out like that.
But anyway that's what Newton believed.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isaac_Newt ... lt_studies
Last edited by Angstrom on Thu Oct 25, 2007 3:00 am, edited 1 time in total.
