Richard Dawkins: The God Delusion.

[mdk]

what mysteries do you mean?

and what is the paradox of this dualistic universe?

[Machinesworking]

this thread has actually risen to another level! this is the god discussion i was hoping for in stead of biblical nonsense and stuff. thank too simplesatisfaction!

Biblical nonsense? Religious zealots and R2DT-type athiests deserve each other. Curious...when you're on stage performing live, do you give credit to your serotonin and dopamine and perfectly formed synaptic cleft for your creative genius? I mean, they're the REAL reason you're making music...it's not spirit or soul or anything, it's just chemicals.

Honestly I consider you a religious zealot in every way. Your reply to my statement that religion or lack thereof has never in my opinion determined the level of ethical behavior in a person, was to insinuate that the particular religion you are indoctrinated in was different etc. You simply stated through not so subtle insinuation that your particular religion, and branch in it was of a superior moral trajectory. That's pretty much the dictionary definition of a zealot.

As far as this conversation about the nature of music, so in your opinion if you do not believe in a higher power, or an afterlife, then you cannot have any mystery or sense of wonder? As an atheist I have no problem whatsoever acknowledging that there are things I do not know, and elements to life that are mysteries. I simply do not ascribe to what I consider mythological tales in order to comfort myself away from the unknown. I prefer simply to not know.
To a certain degree that's what musicians do IMO, examine the mystery. Whether you are of a secular or religious persuasion it's the same experiment in rearranging patterns of sound.

[simpleton]

I haven't really read thru this entire thread, and I refuse to click on any youlube links cause I won't pour any more $$$ into Murdoch's coffers but... I know what we're debating here.
Last year sometime (or maybe the year before that) I was really stoned (but in an enlightened sense, not a stupor). I was watching alot of stuff on string theory and cosmology and I figured out that there has to be a universal consciousness at the sub-atomic level. I wrote it all down on a piece of paper but I misplaced it (but I'm not worried cause I don't throw anything away). Anyway, if you wanna call it god or whatever, it's cool, but there is something out there. The universe is not composed of only matter man.

[Machinesworking]

I was really stoned (but in an enlightened sense, not a stupor).

let's just say that the rest of your post is compromised by this piece of information.

You cannot convince anybody who is NOT a believer in "enlightenment" that this explanation of your chemical state allows you the certainty in your next assumption.

and I figured out that there has to be a universal consciousness at the sub-atomic level. I wrote it all down on a piece of paper but I misplaced it (but I'm not worried cause I don't throw anything away). Anyway, if you wanna call it god or whatever, it's cool, but there is something out there. The universe is not composed of only matter man.

OK so you were enlightened stoned then lost the paper that explained it all, in that enlightened stoned short-term-memory-loss sort of way? Did you get the enlightened stoned muchies?
Hey, drugs got me through high school in a shitty small town, not knocking them, just realized that most of my breakthrough thoughts while stoned were just freaky, and not reality at all. Good art though, sentences like "A mirror cooks with gasoline."

[shlomo]

I prefer simply to not know.

Have a cup of tea!

[BoimB son of BoB]

Science isnt a religion, science is a method.

Its true. I believe thats why people like Dawkins come up with nothing when they probe the mysteries with the instrument of science - the essence of religious experience has to do with the paradox of this dualistic universe, and the nature of science is to collapse the paradox along rational lines. Nothing wrong with that, but it has to be recognized for what it is.

dualism is old pie. nobody takes it serious anymore, can anyone summarize the arguments against the cartesian dualism?

but maybe i mis interpreted your sentences.

indeed, science /philosophy did collapse the dualism paradox. and it did it well. if i could just find some good reading reference...

it's in Dennetts book: darwins dangerous idea. but it's a long read that one. written pretty boring.

[BoimB son of BoB]

I haven't really read thru this entire thread, and I refuse to click on any youlube links cause I won't pour any more $$$ into Murdoch's coffers but... I know what we're debating here.
Last year sometime (or maybe the year before that) I was really stoned (but in an enlightened sense, not a stupor). I was watching alot of stuff on string theory and cosmology and I figured out that there has to be a universal consciousness at the sub-atomic level. I wrote it all down on a piece of paper but I misplaced it (but I'm not worried cause I don't throw anything away). Anyway, if you wanna call it god or whatever, it's cool, but there is something out there. The universe is not composed of only matter man.

matter is energy. E = mc² . that is something reliogion will never come up with.

i think simpleton you can call it god, really. einstein would call it god. but

really: "I figured out that there has to be a universal consciousness at the sub-atomic level."

doesn't sound to convincing yet. maybe youshould definately try and back it up with that paper you wrote.

enlighten ous

[shlomo]

matter is energy. E = mc² . that is something reliogion will never come up with.

wrong!
most of the eastern religious thought (which is centered around the principle of dynamic universe) is based on the idea of energy being manifested in the form of matter...Shivas dance is a beautiful metaphor for this...
If yet not please refer yourself with Fritjof Capras "Tao of physics" book.
Some very nice and deep parallels between modern physics and ancient religious thoughts are outlined there...

[Meef Chaloin]

yes i think Buddhism & Hindusim would have something to say about that claim

[BoimB son of BoB]

i stand corrected.

as you can see, buddhism and hinduism probably benefit a lot from science actuall giving it a rational foundation. being it coincidence or not.

[elemental]

People see what they want to see... and if they are stubborn enough everything will be interpreted as proof of what beliefs they hold onto.

[andydes]

I find it fascinating that all, and I mean all evolutionist argument, atheist belief, philosophical self-actualization, and even the field of bio-engineering requires just as much presupposition as a religion does. I always wonder about that. Scientists and philosophers alike form a meta-narrative of their own and present it as support for a personal morality, a personal philosphy, of no communal impact or consequence really apart from their own physical reach.

As I see this present age dawn on the human race, I marvel at our inablity to solve our own problems, and our insistence that each of us has an answer or some profound observation that needs hearing.

Oh I hear much high rhetoric on the "problems" caused by religion itself, but I see the forces of contemporary thought applying their strength to the creation of greater military weaponry, commercial drugs with a massive risk/failure rate, and the home-delivery of greater forms of deviance (real violence video games, porn, mindless programming).

We call this evolution? Even if the order of universal principles converged in a random moment of greatness to birth existence as we know it, we humans are certainly not ordering them on to greater result. Forgive the ancients for leaping past our post-modern dilema with a story of the "fall of man." Apparently they were trying to spare us an embarrassing moment getting caught mentally masturbating in public.

You know what I see in evolutionists and atheists? The dying bitter words of the modern era. It is comical to see this desperate clinging to the comic book drawings of Darwin. There is no more proof of this position than that of the "religious zealots." I for one will cease acknowledging Enlightenment-era foolishness.

Before I go down in a blaze of flames, I ask: Don't point me to any "empirical" evidence for a godless and progressive existence. First look up the meaning of "empirical" at webster.com and ask, what human being has climbed out of themselves to make such an observation.

These threads are freaking absurd with their post-modern knots, as if somehow together we can berate one another into some kind of existential solution.

And as for Dawkins, there are colleagues of his the believe the exact opposite, in whom shall I place my faith?

Yeah, I did it... I brought choice into the matter? Did I upset the Karmic balance? Did I insult my neurotransmitters? Are my elemental particles spinning in a new fashion?

Wait, tell me what I believe on an internet forum, because that is why I bought Ableton Live... I had a void in my heart and wanted your rational religion to fill it.

All evolutionary argument based on presupperition? And there was me thinking it was based on the mountains of evidence.

Well I agree with you about our inability to solve our own problems, it saddens me too. But whether you’re religious, atheists, agnostics, we're all part of society so we're all to blame. No use pointing the finger and saying look at that bunch of heathens, this is all their fault. I can’t say I think having religious beliefs necessarily makes anyone a more moral person. There’s plenty of people out their prepared to twist their faith to justify almost anything they want it to. And plenty who will be inspired to become better people. A good person is a good person regardless.

With commercial drugs, there’s always risk, but I can’t begin to imagine the number lives they’ve saved and improved. The main problem is that they’re not necessarily getting to everyone they should (HIV sufferers in Africa for example). But this is more down to politics and business than science.

As for clinging to the comic book drawings of Darwin, I’ve said before that this doesn’t disprove the existence of God. We may not fully understand the process, but the process is there for all to see. If you have seen anything that contradicts it, I’d be very interested in hearing about it.

I have no interest in telling anyone what to believe. This is a discussion and an exchange of ideas. I hope everyone will see it positively, think about their own position and consider other peoples. I think the world could use a bit more of that. I’m sorry if talking about it offends you.

Was the mindless programming point about electronic music? Couldn’t work that one out.

[victorjohn]

All evolutionary argument based on presupperition? And there was me thinking it was based on the mountains of evidence.

Show me the evidence for specifically Macro-evolution. Trait shifting in a single species does happen, and its reasons are obvious, but I did not come from a dog, or a fish, it is simply genetically impossible. I have been fed things n school, things for example like the idea of human and chimp DNA being 98% the same... this was based on 98% similarity between the less than 13% of the total decoded. That is called dishonesty by ommission. This was my proof for evolution. Science as we know it has become a cult onto itself.

I spent yesterday afternoon rock-climbing with my friend Hamish, who is getting his PhD in Biology. He has more than once flatly shared that there is no consistent thread of evidence to support macro-evolution, but that it remains today a theory.

Well I agree with you about our inability to solve our own problems, it saddens me too. But whether you’re religious, atheists, agnostics, we're all part of society so we're all to blame. No use pointing the finger and saying look at that bunch of heathens, this is all their fault. I can’t say I think having religious beliefs necessarily makes anyone a more moral person. There’s plenty of people out their prepared to twist their faith to justify almost anything they want it to. And plenty who will be inspired to become better people. A good person is a good person regardless.

True, nothing I can say there.

The main problem is that they’re not necessarily getting to everyone they should (HIV sufferers in Africa for example). But this is more down to politics and business than science.

I agree, politics and business dry up the fount of life that true medicine could be. I have personal friend who are NOT thanking Glaxo-Wellcome for helping them with their AIDS condition.

As for clinging to the comic book drawings of Darwin, I’ve said before that this doesn’t disprove the existence of God. We may not fully understand the process, but the process is there for all to see.

No, it doesnt disprove the existence of God. I am not anti-evolution either, I just want a clear path of intellectual honesty for popular knowledge on the origins of our existence.

On another note:

As to discussion that particle and quantum physics were discovered by Enlightenment era science... this again is not true. Medieval Rabbi Nachmonides derived such thought by studying Torah in a spiritual context 700 years ago.

From Missler:Quantum Physics - the Boundaries of Reality
The ancient Hebrew scholar Nachmonides, writing in the 12th century, concluded from his studies of the text of Genesis that the universe has ten dimensions: that four are knowable and six are beyond our knowing. Particle physicists today have also concluded that we live in ten dimensions. Three spatial dimensions and time are directly discernible and measurable. The remaining six are "curled" in less than the Planck length (10-33 centimeters) and thus are only inferable by indirect means.3 (Some physicists believe that there may be as many as 26 dimensions.4 Ten and twenty-six emerge from the mathematics associated with superstring theory, a current candidate in the pursuit of a theory to totally integrate all known forces in the universe.)


Anyway, I jump off here for good. I don't want to continue a discussion in which I cannot document my thought process with support, or cite all the authors that lead the way here. It is intellectually irresponsible. I remain secure in my ideas, but I apologize for abusing the internet.

Thanks, all.

[Huey]

The first chapter of any biology book and the first thing out of a true scientists mouth will be "something can NOT come out of nothing". based on that how could life just spawn out of nothing. Science contridicts anything an atheist can drum/twist. Big Bang could not have happen. Explosions don't generate complex life like humans. Darwin himself could not prove and he admitted it, that one species evolved into another. He did successfully prove, and no religion will argue, that species did adapt to their environment. But for a monkey to turn into a man.......NEVER proven, not even by Darwin.

[shtreimel]

Honestly I consider you a religious zealot in every way.

Sticks and stones... The fact remains that you're out of your league my friend. In our last exchange, it was clear that you knew very little about Judaism but decided to debate me nonetheless. 1st rule of debating...educate yourself about the topic you're discussing. I believe the term you used was "hassidic laws"

Your reply to my statement that religion or lack thereof has never in my opinion determined the level of ethical behavior in a person, was to insinuate that the particular religion you are indoctrinated in was different etc. You simply stated through not so subtle insinuation that your particular religion, and branch in it was of a superior moral trajectory. That's pretty much the dictionary definition of a zealot.

Are you high son? I said that I can only speak about Judaism because I'M NOT Christian, Buddhist, etc., and stated that I wouldn't be surprised if it wasn't similar for other traditions. Building another straw-man, huh?

And you're definition of Zealot is wrong. Try a real dictionary.

As far as this conversation about the nature of music, so in your opinion if you do not believe in a higher power, or an afterlife, then you cannot have any mystery or sense of wonder?

Is that what I said? No. It's the matter of reducing everything to science...a very unhelpful approach to many of the things we do/feel.