Does Science Piss Off God?

[luke warm]

In any event it seems per this poll 47 % people who only learn evolution think the world is only 6000 years old....

 

You really should consider auditioning for Robert Murdoch - you're ability to spin half-truths into semi-logic is exceptional. :P

actually i thought he made a good case... if in any particular city, state, country, no mention of God or creationism is taught and where only evolution is taught as the origin of species, why would anyone think the number (47%) who believe God created everything about 6000 years ago drop if ID was taught?

I guess the influence of church "teaching" and home environment "teaching" are separate from this poll due to the exclusion clause. To me this poll simply reconfirms the power of fear - that when confronted with conflicting evidence fear of hellfire overcomes reason. Don't think fear is a cause....take another look at Pat Robertson's statement:

it doesn't matter, winston... if ID was taught in public school do you expect that number (47%) to increase or decrease? i'd expect it to increase in all states and across all economic lines

[hrothgar]

In any event it seems per this poll 47 % people who only learn evolution think the world is only 6000 years old....

 

You really should consider auditioning for Robert Murdoch - you're ability to spin half-truths into semi-logic is exceptional. :P

actually i thought he made a good case... if in any particular city, state, country, no mention of God or creationism is taught and where only evolution is taught as the origin of species, why would anyone think the number (47%) who believe God created everything about 6000 years ago drop if ID was taught?

I guess the influence of church "teaching" and home environment "teaching" are separate from this poll due to the exclusion clause. To me this poll simply reconfirms the power of fear - that when confronted with conflicting evidence fear of hellfire overcomes reason. Don't think fear is a cause....take another look at Pat Robertson's statement:

it doesn't matter, winston... if ID was taught in public school do you expect that number (47%) to increase or decrease? i'd expect it to increase in all states and across all economic lines

I believe that Intelligent Design is equivalent to Creationism, however, I don't think that it is the same as Young Earth Creationism.

 

I don't see any reason why a decision to teach ID would necessarily have a significant impact on belief in Young Earth Creationism.

[Winstonm]

In any event it seems per this poll 47 % people who only learn evolution think the world is only 6000 years old....

 

You really should consider auditioning for Robert Murdoch - you're ability to spin half-truths into semi-logic is exceptional. :P

actually i thought he made a good case... if in any particular city, state, country, no mention of God or creationism is taught and where only evolution is taught as the origin of species, why would anyone think the number (47%) who believe God created everything about 6000 years ago drop if ID was taught?

I guess the influence of church "teaching" and home environment "teaching" are separate from this poll due to the exclusion clause. To me this poll simply reconfirms the power of fear - that when confronted with conflicting evidence fear of hellfire overcomes reason. Don't think fear is a cause....take another look at Pat Robertson's statement:

it doesn't matter, winston... if ID was taught in public school do you expect that number (47%) to increase or decrease? i'd expect it to increase in all states and across all economic lines

Jimmy, I don't think this is the way it was presented.

 

In any event it seems per this poll 47 % people who only learn evolution think the world is only 6000 years old....

 

First, if people "only" learn evolution the poll would be 0% - the "world is only 6000 years old" part had to be learned somewhere.

 

To exclude this "outside of school" learning while comparing the poll results to "only in school" learning skews the results and is simply spinning the results to make an invlalid point - IMO.

[mike777]

I am a big fan of letting local school boards tell the schools what to teach, even if we know in advance that some nonsense will slip through.

We have enough checks and balances, the state or the courts, to keep the nonsense to a minimum level.

 

 

The alternatives are worse. When the alternative happens, people who can flee the public schools. See where Congress sends their kids despite huge amounts of money going to local public schools.

 

I went to Public school in Chicago in a working class area, where the Pullman car trains were made. I am told by friends back there that even in the few rich areas of Chicago, few send their kids to the "good" local schools.

[mycroft]

First: I believe in a God. I am a member of a recognized, mainline Christian Church in my country (which, by the way, if it even appears on Robertson's or van Impe's radar, causes them to foam at the mouth and go batbuggy. But I digress).

 

Second: I happen to believe, as opposed to my Church's official dogma (but given the doubts of some of our Moderators in past years, I don't think it's not an excommunicable opposition), in a version of ID - however, again, one that would cause Robertson and his ilk stress-related coronaries. You see, I believe in God the Scientist, or God the Experimenter.

 

I believe that God set up a bunch of rules and said "let's see what happens." And one of the ways I can serve my God is to try to work out those rules.

 

BUT MY BELIEFS HAVE NOTHING TO DO WITH SCIENCE, and I am also a scientist. As exactly one person in this thread has stated explicitly, Science works by creating tools that predict "future" behaviour (when discussing the science of the past, The Future Is Now, of course). I can't prove my beliefs (not that I am not willing or able to - they are by their nature unprovable), nor can I use those beliefs to predict anything at all about the universe or what happens when I do X. Therefore, for the purpose of Science, they are irrelevant. Whether they are right or wrong is also irrelevant - literally, Not Science. I'm comfortable with that - I don't use Screwdrivers to pound Nails, and my solution to all problems is not "get a bigger Hammer".

 

Those who say "if you can't test it with Science, it is by definition Wrong" have turned Science into their own religion. Those who do it who do not have a grounding in advanced Mathematics - those who can not understand, or have never heard of, Goedel's Incompleteness Theorems - are particularly susceptible.

 

Beliefs, unless they are testable and/or allow for testable, useful predictions, are all fine and good, but scientifically useless. If one is willing to teach ID as a not provably false theory, and show, by its improvability, what is actually Science, go for it. Our young'uns may learn Science, rather than "they said it in my classes, therefore it must be true" which, with s/classes/church/, is immediately recognizable as Religion.

 

Fantasy is not science, nor is a large part of Science Fiction. Nor are a lot of other, vital and pleasant, things in this world. That doesn't make those things wrong or useless, just not Science.

 

Michael.

[mikeh]

You see, I believe in God the Scientist, or God the Experimenter.

 

I believe that God set up a bunch of rules and said "let's see what happens." And one of the ways I can serve my God is to try to work out those rules.

I respect your point of view, and it is, again, a pleasure to read something from a more moderate religious p.o.v. than those how espouse the form if ID that certain elements of fundamentalist christianity are trying to impose on us.

 

But I am puzzled as to how you reconicle your take on God as the experimenter and your beliefs as a Christian. I am to a large degree functionally illerate as a Christian.. I went to Sunday School and Mass (in Latin) and have since read parts of the bible (and even read part of the Koran), but I have never attempted to study theology, viewing it as by definition a waste of time (which says more about me, perhaps, than about theology).

 

But if you accept that there is or was some external agent that set the universe in motion via the Big Bang (as I infer you to say), then why would/did that experimenter decide to interfere 2000 years ago (less than the blink of a cosmic eye) in the tiny society of Palestine on a small planet orbiting a modest-sized sun in an ordinary galaxy? Why did your experimenter engage in miracles in contravention of the basic parameters (and intent) of his experiment?

 

You refer to Godel. I refer to Heisenberg. Even your god presumably can't observe the experiment without affecting the outcome. And if your answer is that, as the god who established those physical rules, he can step outside them, then you still have to explain why your experimenter would want to, in effect, cheat at solitaire. He wants to 'find out what happens' and then alters the process? That is how I interprete the idea of being both a christian and a believer in the experimenter God.... I suspect I am missing something.

 

And of course, all recourse to a god whose nature and intentions need never be understood is the ultimate intellectual surrender. It may be, as I posited in an earlier thread, that our brains are not equipped, as a matter of physics, to understand the concepts behind or witin the creation of the universe, or it may be that Hannie's ideas are more accurate. Either way, it seems to me that it is not a real answer to posit the unexplainable and say: this explains everything and obviates the purpose of further thought.

 

Please don't take this post as an attack on your post or beliefs: I repeat the repect I have for and the pleasure I derived frm reading your post, but these points did occur to me... my apologies if my framing of them offends you (or anyone else)

[jonottawa]

"L'homme est bien insensé. Il ne saurait forger un ciron, et forge des Dieux à douzaines." - Michel de Montaigne

 

"Translation: Man is certainly crazy. He could not make a mite, and he makes gods by the dozen."

 

http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Michel_de_Montaigne

 

I used to be an 'Uncle Tom' atheist. But current events have amply demonstrated just how dangerous preposterous supernatural/superstitious beliefs can be.

 

Join the 21st Century, folks.

[helene_t]

Thanks for your nice post, mycroft.

 

Just one question: those who equate non-testable with wrong ... are there people who really say that, or are you somehow inferring that sentiment? I would say it would be a very stupid thing to say. The bulk of a human's knowledge (give or take some semantic issues on how to define "knowledge") comes from intuition, gossip etc, only a small part from rigorous scientific scrutiny.

[Gerben42]

I'd be quite happy with that with a minor modification along the lines of, "a mechanism by which ID may have occured might have involved aliens placing species here ..."

 

Who designed the designer? About the "alien origin"... why not, except that Ockham's razor cuts off this story.

[gwnn]

I'd be quite happy with that with a minor modification along the lines of, "a mechanism by which ID may have occured might have involved aliens placing species here ..."

 

Who designed the designer? About the "alien origin"... why not, except that Ockham's razor cuts off this story.

I think some of the aliens put DNA on earth proposers say something like "we're too dumb to understand how those aliens came into being". Of course, claimed inability to explain something is not exactly an explication (in fact, quite the opposite). But I think that's what they're saying. At least, the ones who have actually asked themselves the question.

[blackshoe]

In any event it seems per this poll 47 % people who only learn evolution think the world is only 6000 years old....

Not possible. If they'd actually learned the theory of evolution they'd know the planet is older than that.

 

Robert A. Heinlein wrote, in From the Notebooks of Lazarus Long

History does not record anywhere at any time a religion that has any rational basis.

 

He was right.

[Winstonm]

you would think that theory or what a theory is or is not would be taught/discussed/debated but that would be basic science so why bother? You would think the goal of a theory, any theory, would be discussed but again it is not.

I would like to clarify a point here about definitions.

 

Lay people often misinterpret the language used by scientists. And for that reason, they sometimes draw the wrong conclusions as to what the scientific terms mean.

 

Three such terms that are often used interchangeably are "scientific law," "hypothesis," and "theory."

 

In layman’s terms, if something is said to be “just a theory,” it usually means that it is a mere guess, or is unproved. It might even lack credibility. But in scientific terms, a theory implies that something has been proven and is generally accepted as being true.

 

Here is what each of these terms means to a scientist:

 

Hypothesis: This is an educated guess based upon observation. It is a rational explanation of a single event or phenomenon based upon what is observed, but which has not been proved. Most hypotheses can be supported or refuted by experimentation or continued observation.

 

Theory: A theory is more like a scientific law than a hypothesis. A theory is an explanation of a set of related observations or events based upon proven hypotheses and verified multiple times by detached groups of researchers. One scientist cannot create a theory; he can only create a hypothesis

.

 

It seems plain to me by these simple definitions that ID is at best a hypothesis, whereas evolution is a tested and thus-far proven theory.

 

The object of science education one would think would be to teach the principles of scientific methodology - advancing a single hypothesis does not help teach this - showing the tested progression of evolutionary theory, however, does help teach this method of inguiry.

 

During the trial, Behe admitted that under his definition astrology would be considered a theory. Should we also teach astrology as a possible explanation?

[blackshoe]

During the trial, Behe admitted that under his definition atrology would be considered a theory.  Should we also teach astrology as a possible explanation?

 

Another quote From the Notebooks of Lazarus Long:

 

A touchstone to determine the actual worth of an “intellectual”--find out how he feels about astrology.

 

Lazarus is a pretty smart cookie. B)

[Winstonm]

I would like to clarify some thing here - this thread was never intended as an anti-religion attack nor an attack on personally held religious beliefs. If anyone has been offended by this thread, I sincerely apologize.

 

Of course we all are biased, and to my personal bias this question of restricting science teaching in science class to scientific principles and methods is so overwhelmingly logical as to make ID or creationism a moot point - not to mention that the Rebublican, Bush-appointed judge came to the same conclusion and found for the plaintiffs.

 

What stunned me about the Nova broadcast and actually prompted the thread was again Pat Robertson's comments, which were rebroadcast in the telecast. It was such a shock to me to hear such spite from a "good guy" who supposedly represents the "moral majority" that it made me wonder where the basis for this reaction comes - what is there about the separation clause that drives the hardline religionists to villify it so and fight so hard for inclusion of dogma? Did they watch the same show I just watched? The case for the separation clause was set out so eloquently, politely, and completely that no other logical conclusion could be drawn. How can others deny the simple logic presented?

 

But my real hope was simply to direct attention to the show on Nova, which I found to be exceptional - hoping others might find it beneficial as well for understanding the debate.

[skjaeran]

During the trial, Behe admitted that under his definition atrology would be considered a theory.  Should we also teach astrology as a possible explanation?

 

Another quote From the Notebooks of Lazarus Long:

 

A touchstone to determine the actual worth of an “intellectual”--find out how he feels about astrology.

 

Lazarus is a pretty smart cookie. B)

Well, you learn a few things during a 250+ years lifespan I guess.

[mycroft]

And to think I thought I was going to get flamed.

Now I know why The Water Cooler is my level.

Thank you all.

 

Mike: Did you never play in the gutter of a street after a snowmelt/rainstorm, and build dams to try to stop the water from getting into the drain, or otherwise retrain gravity? Did you not try something, see it sort of worked, but could work better if..., tried that, saw what happened, continued? And is that not the nature of the Scientist/Tinkerer/Engineer? Is not the primary question of the Scientist "What if?"

 

Also, I was going to keep vagueish my actual affiliation, but in order to answer your "how do I reconcile" issues, the Moderator I was talking about (who makes my "heresies" seem well within bounds) is The Very Rev. Bill Phipps. You can see...

 

As for obviating thought - where did I ever say that? I said what I believe, what I have believed for years, what I have thought about, and tinkered with, and discussed with others, and argued with others, and reinterpreted, and... Unthinking allegiance to *anything* is abhorrent to me, and when I catch myself doing it, I think. When I catch someone else doing it, I scream (inside). Sometimes I tilt at windmills, and say something. But the number of people who have such unthinking allegiances (carefully fostered, no doubt) who are even willing to question that allegiance is small.

 

There are simply some things that Science can not truly, completely, 100% accurately and without possible contradiction say. Do they affect my life? No. Is it an interesting exercise in theorizing? Sure. Is investigation to get that fourth or fifth 9 on the probability a waste of time? Of course not.

 

You are blunt in your arguments, and they could have been smoothed a bit - one expects that is the rigour of your own training coming out. But no, I read in them no malice or attack. Thank you for making sure I knew, however.

 

Helene: There are many for whom Science is the New Religion; those who say that evolution is "right" because it's the current theory of Science and ID is "wrong" because Science says so - as opposed to saying that ID is not Science, and not scientifically useful, and evolutionary theory answers the current questions, and predicts successfully in future, and therefore is scientifically useful - are inductees in the New Religion. Also those who say "Science says this, so it must be true" without being willing to do the research to make up their own mind if, in the instant case, "Science" is right and valid.

 

Case in point: Science said Vioxx was safe. Evidence has shown that it is not. That's okay, new evidence that invalidates theories comes up all the time. It turned out that investigation has shown that the science used to make that Science was bad science, however, and should not be Science. But either way, Science was wrong. Science is wrong - at least in some things. Anyone who does not accept that - that does not continually look upon the teachings of Science with doubt, and check the formulation to ensure that it is Good Science, and eternally check theories with the new evidence as it emerges - is not a scientist, he is a believer (or a charlatan).

 

There are also those (as has been since the year dot) for whom Money is the New Religion; and there seems to be a many who are trying to re-establish the personality cults of the past, or for whom their country is the new God.

 

Humans make gods; if they don't have one, they look for one. Truly it is the exceptional who can honestly live without religion of some sort. In modern times, where what can be learned in one lifetime by any one person is only a tiny fraction of what is known, it becomes yet more difficult to avoid ascribing religious "truth" to *something*.

 

Ed: Good way to needle me, picking That Writer for your quotes. I'm sure not on purpose - but let's just say that in my opinion his juveniles make good reading :-), and every once in a while I pull out his sermon with a plot attached, and see if I still think it rests on sand (which doesn't mean that I don't respect his intellectual integrity - that movie, augh, that movie!). All I can say is that equating "rational" with "true" is equally a statement of faith, and see where that gets me.

 

Oh, of course, if I truly wished to live my life simply on what was rational for me, it would be long, boring, and bear a lot more resemblance to Adam Wildavsky than it currently does. And even that is a faith.

 

Michael.

P.S. (now that you've got me thinking of Silver Age SF writers) I would have approved more of the Struldbrug Club method of raising the age of WBF Senior rather than the current "you guys were in one year at a time, you guys will be in one year at a time, you guys are stuck at 'almost senior' for 5 years while we fix things." But who listens to me? mdf

[mycroft]

Oh, Mike, one more thing:

 

"moderate" religious p.o.v.? You must be Canadian. Even I admit that I am on the nutty, liberal (but not Liberal), way out on the moonbat (great word - for whoever brought that one up vs. wingnut, thanks!) fringe, lucky-not-to-be-lynched-in-Alberta end of the spectrum. Imagine what traditional "conservative Christians" think of me.

 

Of course, I happen to think that I'm right, as well. I also happen to think that, espousing my views as I do, I don't do enough to practise what I believe.

 

I'm working on that.

 

Michael.

[mikeh]

And to think I thought I was going to get flamed.

Now I know why The Water Cooler is my level.

Thank you all.

 

Mike: Did you never play in the gutter of a street after a snowmelt/rainstorm, and build dams to try to stop the water from getting into the drain, or otherwise retrain gravity?  Did you not try something, see it sort of worked, but could work better if..., tried that, saw what happened, continued?  And is that not the nature of the Scientist/Tinkerer/Engineer?  Is not the primary question of the Scientist "What if?"

 

Michael:

 

I love this topic, perhaps too much B)

 

It just seems to me that to believe in a god (of the ilk required by all organized religions of which I am aware) requires wilful blindness to so many factors.

 

These include, if we confine our concerns to your experimenter type god:

 

1. Is he 'our' god or are there other beings out there who also worship him?

 

2. If we have souls, how do we reconcile that with evolution? When and why did he confer a soul on the first being to have one? Did he await homo sapiens? What about the neanderthals? Homo Erectus? And so on, not to mention my two dogs, who definitely have personalities, so why not souls? I have never read of any rationalization (let alone plausible explanation) of when souls appeared in the evolutionary scheme.

 

3. Since we are contingent and remarkably improbable consequences of evolution (random chance winnowed by natural selection) it seems that god got really lucky that we developed as we did. We cannot even rationally argue (I mean, beyond the confidence level of speculation) that self-aware intelligence was inevitable, let alone that it would resemble us.

 

4. Given the size and age of the universe, what prompted him to meddle when and where he did 2000 years ago?

 

There are many many other problems with the god hypothesis.

 

Personally, I find the concept of the universe as I imagine it to be to be breathtakingly beautiful, with no need of a god. I regret that we live for such a short time, and that we lack the ability to know and experience more of the universe, but the glimpses we are afforded fill me with awe that needs no god as an explanation or justification.

 

Personally, I find the very concept of a god who expects any form of worship or explicit acknowledgement to diminish my sense of wonder, not to enhance it.

 

I stress that, despite the bluntness of my language, I have respect for those who are comfortable (or uncomfortable but persist) with faith so long as they acknowledge that there is a real difference between faith and knowledge, and that they are prepared to narrow the scope of the former when the field of the latter expands.

 

If all goes well for homo sapiens or our successor species then maybe the field of knowledge will finally squeeze out the areas of unknowledge in which faith exists. I realize that for some that would be threatening, and I feel sorry for such. In the meantime, the limits of our (ever-expanding) realms or knowledge leave open areas in which faith can rationally dwell, and I enjoy debating with those who feel that such areas will always persist. I may be convinced that they are mistaken, but I would be as opposed to eradicating the concept of religion from our schools as I am to allowing it to be taught as science. I only add the caveat that I would want to see atheism taught as a logical and sensible alternative to belief.

 

As a bit of a digression, your argument that 'science' knew that Vioxx was safe is erroneous. What 'science' knew was that any drug will have an impact on the body. What 'science' led to was testing. That testing, as I understand it, initially resulted in data suggesting that the risks of serious side effects was acceptably low... not zero. Further experience with the drug resulted in additional data, which 'science' interpreted as requiring a reassessment. The manufacturer is now alleged, as I understand the allegations, to have known about some of this new data for quite some time. Science didn't fail in the vioxx case: humans did.

[Winstonm]

Mike and Mycroft,

 

I am enjoying eavesdropping on your discussion and hope it is not too bold to add another perspective?

 

I appears to me the difficulty with evolutionary theory for Christian beliefs is due to the concept of original sin. The conflicts stem from this need for atonement. The continuity of life strikes at the heart of those beliefs but does not similarly effect a broad spiritutal belief.

 

In purely spiritual thinking, there is no need for this conflict as a higher power - or superior intelligence if you rather - is simply there to be accessed if one so wishes.

Someone else wrote that "From nothing comes nothing." In this sense, everything that is could be considered to be part of an original something, and hence there is no need to atone for being a part of this whole - it is only when an organism evolves to the point of complexity where a need arises that the organism turns to the greater part of itself for guidance. It could be compared to walking mindlessly on a stairmaster - the legs need little input from the brain to repeat this mindless task - but when it comes time to stop excercising and interact with others, the brain is then fully engaged.

 

So in this sense you might say that everything has a soul - or is a part of - but it is irrelevant to lower life forms. Thus, it could be argued that there was no point in time that soul was injected, rather soul was and has always been.

[barmar]

No scientist would say "If it's not testable, it's wrong." What thay say is "If it's not testable, it's not SCIENCE."

 

I just started reading The Trouble with Physics by Lee Smolin. In the introduction he gives a good description of scientific theories:

In science, for a theory to be believed, it must make a new prediction -- different from those made by previous theories -- for an experiment not yet done.  For the experiment to be meaningful, we must be able to get an answer that disagrees with that prediction.  When this is the case, we say that a theory is falsifiable -- vulnerable to being shown false.  The theory also has to be confirmable; it must be possible to verify a new prediction that only this theory makes.  Only when a theory has been tested and the results agree with the theory do we advance the theory to the ranks of true theories.

 

So when considering ID or Creationism as possible theories, how do they fit this definition? What predictions do they make that differ from those of evolution by natural selection? What experiments could be done to determine whether evolution or ID is the truth? AFAIK, ID proponents don't have an answer to this; they simply say "Evolution doesn't seem adequate to explain {the eye, the flagellum, AMP synthesis}, so it must be ID." When real scientists encounter something that's hard to explain through evolution, they just admit "we don't know yet, but we're not giving up and assuming it's supernatural." And often by looking and thinking harder they figure it out -- intermediate eyes and precursors to the flagellum have been found.

 

The reason ID proponents are so willing to give up is because their religious beliefs make them WANT there to be a supernatural explanation. They've assumed that God has created everything, and then use any little missing piece in the evolution theory as an excuse to put forth ID as the alternative. ID works as a solution because it doesn't really explain anything.

 

Believing in ID is like believing that a stage magician really has magical powers, simply because you can't figure out how he pulled off the trick.

[Codo]

It just seems to me that to believe in a god (of the ilk required by all organized religions of which I am aware) requires wilful blindness to so many factors.

Hi Mike et al,

 

I enjoyed this thread too, espcially the part between you and Michael.

As I hopefully "acknowledge that there is a real difference between faith and knowledge, and that ( I am) prepared to narrow the scope of the former when the field of the latter expands. " I try to answer some of your great questions.

 

1. Is he 'our' god or are there other beings out there who also worship him?

 

How should we know?

I think sometimes that we are a little bid like intelligent fishs who swim in their own aquarium. From time to time they see "the hand" comming into the bowl. "The hand" let it rain food from heaven- every day. Sometimes "the hand" catches one of us for reasons we do not understand. Sometimes these fellow fishs return, sometimes not. There stories about what they had seen outside our fish bowl are scary and unbelievable.

 

Now if you and me are fishs in a fish bowl. How can we judge about the hand? How can we know that this hand is just part of a person and that there are millions of them outside?

We simply don´t know, we just have our faith that "the hand" is our allmighty god. He can do anything. But he not always does.

 

Maybe our fish science will help us to develop lenses to look clearer outside of our bowl. So now we see that "the hand" is part of "a person". We develop a new picture of our god. He is not any more "the hand" he is now "Paul". And we can see that our science helps us to have a better picture of our god then before.

We still know nothing about the planet, about anything in his world. But it still helped us for a better understanding of "our small world" andf gave us even a little insight in his "outside" world.

 

2. If we have souls, how do we reconcile that with evolution? When and why did he confer a soul on the first being to have one? Did he await homo sapiens? What about the neanderthals? Homo Erectus? And so on, not to mention my two dogs, who definitely have personalities, so why not souls? I have never read of any rationalization (let alone plausible explanation) of when souls appeared in the evolutionary scheme.

 

 

Maybe there is even a scientific evidence for a soul: In physics we have the law that nothing- no mass and no energy- will ever get lost. They may change to something different, but it cannot disapear. So, when you are dying, your life seems to disappear. But this is impossible, nothing can disappear. So maybe every living plant or animal has a soul?

Or maybe god in his endless wisdom decided that we are now grown up enough to have a soul on the 12. of November on a rainy day some 4.456 years ago?

 

3. Since we are contingent and remarkably improbable consequences of evolution (random chance winnowed by natural selection) it seems that god got really lucky that we developed as we did. We cannot even rationally argue (I mean, beyond the confidence level of speculation) that self-aware intelligence was inevitable, let alone that it would resemble us.

 

 

Maybe you get lucky when you find the singleton king behind the ace because you havd been able to play better and count the hand out? Or because you looked into the cards? Or dealt the deck yourself? It is the same thing with god: His abilities are much higher then the abilities of us mortals. So maybe it was not just luck, but skill. And maybe we are just fish in the fish bowl and he left us alone for a period and was realy lucky that we developed. Or maybe he was really unlucky because he expected an intelligent nice, beautyful and warm species?

 

4. Given the size and age of the universe, what prompted him to meddle when and where he did 2000 years ago?

 

 

Maybe he was scheduled to look after the fish bowl? Or he was just curious to see what had happened sinces he creates the aquarium? Maybe he knew it was time to look after us?

 

 

I really enjoy to talk to atheists like you or Gerben who give "the other side" some room to life.

I see the possibility that god was just an invention to explain the world and that science may "narrow the range" of the faith.

 

But I prefer to believe in god. It is just nicer then to believe that we are alone and that my life will be finished in some mintues/years/decades...

 

And besides that I am quite sure that even the exploding science we have, will never be able to explain everything. There will be grey areas even besides Heisenberg.

[helene_t]

Hi Michael, Mike and Roland, what a nice civilized discussion, how silly of me to think that the only thing that could come out of this topic would be flame wars B)

 

I was brought up with Marxism, which I see as the ultimate way of turning science (well, "science") into a religion. While I struggled, during my late teens, to get rid of the remains of Marxism in my self, I felt quite sympathetic towards Christianity, which seemed (at that place, at that time) to provide a belief system able to separate moral and spirituality from science. Now I have grown older and the Berlin Wall has fallen so that aspect does not apply for me personally anymore, at least it does not feel as strongly now. Yet when I read what Michael and Roland write it reminds me of a way of thinking that allows one not to search for answers to scientific questions in religion, and not to search for answers to religious questions in science.

 

(Of course, science can often provide insight that is relevant to moral discussions, and some scientists (Niels Bohr) attribute the intuition that helps them as scientists to spirituality. But neither provide ultimate answers for the other).

[Gerben42]

And besides that I am quite sure that even the exploding science we have, will never be able to explain everything. There will be grey areas even besides Heisenberg.

 

I think so too, simply because of the complexity of problems. If you want to explain why bananas are yellow, it won't help you too much if you start out with quantum physics even if you did have the "theory of everything".

 

I'd like to quote Douglas Adams here:

 

There is a theory which states that if ever anyone discovers exactly what the Universe is for and why it is here, it will instantly disappear and be replaced by something even more bizarrely inexplicable.

 

There is another theory which states that this has already happened.

[han]

Indeed, very enjoyable read so far, how unusual for a discussion on this topic. Michael, would you mind saying what kind of scientist you are?

[mycroft]

Was a chemistry intern for a few years (long enough to know I needed a degree that would give me a real job, rather than lab tech, and didn't feel like going full PhD to get one), am an Electrical Engineer, work as a sysadmin/crypto tech.