Just a quick comment.
I've started to read this book now.
I agree with Geo. This guy spends more time talking about God than a preacher does while giving a sermon.
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I. Introduction - "Sense and Goodness Without God"
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Re: I. Introduction - "Sense and Goodness Without God"
Last edited by ant on Wed Aug 20, 2014 5:59 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: I. Introduction - "Sense and Goodness Without God"
The "without god" portion was in the title. Any comprehensive worldview that is proposed in modern America will do so with Christianity as the dominant worldview. I don't think it would be a very comprehensive defense of metaphysical naturalism without paying tribute to all the theological arguments against it.I agree with Geo. This guy spends more time talking about God than a preacher does while giving a sermon.
“In the beginning the Universe was created. This has made a lot of people very angry and has been widely regarded as a bad move.” - Douglas Adams
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Re: I. Introduction - "Sense and Goodness Without God"
Yeah, Berlinski, thinks it's what Freud termed; "The return of the repressed!"ant wrote:I agree with Geo. This guy spends more time talking about God than a preacher does while giving a sermon.
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Re: I. Introduction - "Sense and Goodness Without God"
I'm speaking in general terms. Obviously many great scientists were believers and probably many crappy scientists were atheists. One pursuit doesn't preclude the other. But generally speaking, atheists may tend to have a stronger aptitude towards the materialist pursuit of science. It makes sense, right? Someone who is energized by religious beliefs is probably not going to pursue science as a career at least not in the modern era.ant wrote:Geo wrote:
Francis Collins is "invested" in "religious beliefs"I also believe it's at least possible that an atheist may be able to more clearly see the (natural) world as it really is than someone who is heavily invested in religious beliefs
Was his thinking too fuzzy in his cerebrated work and contributions to genetics?
Explain how it was, please, and how an atheist's vision might have been better.
How are you defining religion here?
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Re: I. Introduction - "Sense and Goodness Without God"
Carrier's description here closely resembles the Buddhist state of enlightenment that usually takes years of practiced meditation. He must be a natural in this regard. I think many people throughout history would have interpreted an experience like this as being in communion with God. Indeed, even Carrier describes the experience as a a "Vulcan Mind Meld with God."Carrier wrote:I fell so deeply into the clear, total immersion in the real that I left my body, and my soul expanded to the size of the universe, so that I could at one thought perceive, almost ‘feel’, everything that existed in perfect and total clarity. It was like a Vulcan Mind Meld with God.
This leads to a question. Why does one person interpret this as a supernatural experience and another as a completely natural phenomenon?
By the way, I was so intrigued with Carrier's description of the Tao Te Ching that I bought a copy for my Kindle. it sounds pretty awesome.
-Geo
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Re: I. Introduction - "Sense and Goodness Without God"
It is a good question what we can say about the creation of the universe. Science has discovered a lot about the early cosmic expansion known as the Big Bang. From science, the usual rational approach is a method known as Uniformitarianism, which holds that "the same natural laws and processes that operate in the universe now have always operated in the universe in the past and apply everywhere in the universe. It has included the gradualistic concept that "the present is the key to the past" and is functioning at the same rates. Uniformitarianism has been a key principle of geology and virtually all fields of science."Flann 5 wrote:It seems to me you avoided the question,Robert.
You made an assertion that the real creator is a set of scientific principles and laws that caused the big bang. How so? How do you support this assertion? Or don't you?
We cannot know if uniformitarian assumptions can apply before the Big Bang. But if they do, which appears the most likely hypothesis, there is no place for a personal entity as divine creator. If we say the same laws and processes at work in physics today have always been in operation, we define the parameters of what we mean by any metaphorical talk of a creator. There are absolutely no grounds except ignorant churchy duplicity to assert that a personal God is more likely as a creator than the operation of natural laws and processes.
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Re: I. Introduction - "Sense and Goodness Without God"
Robert, have you read The Life of the Cosmos by Lee Smolin? I know there are criticisms of his idea, but many of them fail for one reason or another. Selection theory doesn't rely so much on uniformitarianism. It still applies, but instead serves as the criteria for demarcation between various universes within the multiverse. The same holds true within Chaotic Inflation theory, except that one key difference is that the laws of nature vary across space, if not necessarily time.
Regarding the big bang, both theories explain it, relying on natural laws to do so. The real creator are those laws, in a sense, and there is no evidence nor good reason to believe they aren't timeless. That god caused the big bang, or anything for that matter, relies on so many post hoc assumptions that it's implausible when compared to the naturalistic theories.
Regarding the big bang, both theories explain it, relying on natural laws to do so. The real creator are those laws, in a sense, and there is no evidence nor good reason to believe they aren't timeless. That god caused the big bang, or anything for that matter, relies on so many post hoc assumptions that it's implausible when compared to the naturalistic theories.
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Re: I. Introduction - "Sense and Goodness Without God"
No I have not read anything by Lee Smolin.
I have no interest in multiverse theories. In my opinion they are as bad and irrelevant to anything real as introducing speculation about God. Neither God nor the multiverse has any evidence whatsoever to support it. As far as I can see, our universe is the only one that exists. Understanding the real existing universe is already a very daunting challenge without introducing fanciful speculation.
It is better that we try to explain our own universe as it appears to us. I have little interest in the Big Bang as a philosophical issue, except in the sense of accepting science as the real framework for truth.
The time scales of billions of years are far removed from human time scales. The issues arising from Big Bang cosmology are settled enough within the CMBR as to make no real difference for a scientific world view except as a true foundation.
I am more interested in the mesotime framework of millennia, the scale encompassing our historic reckoning of decades and centuries, to examine how time provides the regular ordered framework for evolution, as that is the big problem area that is generally ignored but is decisive for survival.
An old Buddhist saying says ignore questions you can't answer. That includes the unanswerable questions of whether the universe had a beginning, whether there are other universes, and whether we can tell if entities exist without evidence.
I have no interest in multiverse theories. In my opinion they are as bad and irrelevant to anything real as introducing speculation about God. Neither God nor the multiverse has any evidence whatsoever to support it. As far as I can see, our universe is the only one that exists. Understanding the real existing universe is already a very daunting challenge without introducing fanciful speculation.
It is better that we try to explain our own universe as it appears to us. I have little interest in the Big Bang as a philosophical issue, except in the sense of accepting science as the real framework for truth.
The time scales of billions of years are far removed from human time scales. The issues arising from Big Bang cosmology are settled enough within the CMBR as to make no real difference for a scientific world view except as a true foundation.
I am more interested in the mesotime framework of millennia, the scale encompassing our historic reckoning of decades and centuries, to examine how time provides the regular ordered framework for evolution, as that is the big problem area that is generally ignored but is decisive for survival.
An old Buddhist saying says ignore questions you can't answer. That includes the unanswerable questions of whether the universe had a beginning, whether there are other universes, and whether we can tell if entities exist without evidence.
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Re: I. Introduction - "Sense and Goodness Without God"
So, you're right not because you understand how they're wrong, but because as far as you can see, our universe is the only one that exists?I have no interest in multiverse theories. In my opinion they are as bad and irrelevant to anything real as introducing speculation about God. Neither God nor the multiverse has any evidence whatsoever to support it. As far as I can see, our universe is the only one that exists. Understanding the real existing universe is already a very daunting challenge without introducing fanciful speculation.
Robert...
Then you are as guilty of aborted inquiry as theists. The Buddhist mantra is excellent for a fulfilling life, but terrible for a collective pursuit of knowledge.An old Buddhist saying says ignore questions you can't answer. That includes the unanswerable questions of whether the universe had a beginning, whether there are other universes, and whether we can tell if entities exist without evidence.
That is precisely what a multiverse theory does. What is your explanation for how finely tuned the laws of nature are in allowing for the development of life? It is not merely a perception issue, cosmologists and physicists broadly agree that the universe is fine tuned. What's more, there is other evidence that we live in a multiverse besides fine-tuning. Why reject and idea that you haven't researched, and does not otherwise conflict with what you believe, but resolves the conflicts you're unaware of? Especially when other physicists are undecided over which is true?It is better that we try to explain our own universe as it appears to us.
“In the beginning the Universe was created. This has made a lot of people very angry and has been widely regarded as a bad move.” - Douglas Adams
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Re: I. Introduction - "Sense and Goodness Without God"
Hi Robert,
Thanks for your response.I didn't really expect you to be able to explain how the universe came into existence.
I certainly don't understand much of these concepts and theories of cosmology, being a non scientist. I do try to understand what they are saying.So, it's more the philosophical and indeed physical problem of getting something from nothing in the first place that interests me.
So attempts by Hawking and Krauss to do this are interesting,and the question is whether they or anyone else, has or can do this.Can physical laws or quantum vacuums create a universe? And I think this is a problematic question.
I came across a very interesting lecture by Prof George F.R Ellis titled; On the nature of Cosmology Today; at the 2012 Copernican Center Lecture.
He makes these things reasonably accessible to people like me and I think addresses questions and issues,scientific and philosophical in connection with current cosmological knowledge and theories related to the big bang.
He is a theist and a very distinguished scientist.But I hope that doesn't deter you from considering this talk and discussion which I think is interesting on many levels. www.youtube.com/watch?v=tq8-eLGpEHc
I would agree with you that modern cosmology makes young earth creationism untenable, as far as cosmology goes and would tend personally to accept what looks like good science.
Thanks for your response.I didn't really expect you to be able to explain how the universe came into existence.
I certainly don't understand much of these concepts and theories of cosmology, being a non scientist. I do try to understand what they are saying.So, it's more the philosophical and indeed physical problem of getting something from nothing in the first place that interests me.
So attempts by Hawking and Krauss to do this are interesting,and the question is whether they or anyone else, has or can do this.Can physical laws or quantum vacuums create a universe? And I think this is a problematic question.
I came across a very interesting lecture by Prof George F.R Ellis titled; On the nature of Cosmology Today; at the 2012 Copernican Center Lecture.
He makes these things reasonably accessible to people like me and I think addresses questions and issues,scientific and philosophical in connection with current cosmological knowledge and theories related to the big bang.
He is a theist and a very distinguished scientist.But I hope that doesn't deter you from considering this talk and discussion which I think is interesting on many levels. www.youtube.com/watch?v=tq8-eLGpEHc
I would agree with you that modern cosmology makes young earth creationism untenable, as far as cosmology goes and would tend personally to accept what looks like good science.