As Above, So Below - the religion thread (formerly: People of California, beware)

Well, yeah. A typical agnostic wouldn't simply *care* about making a former decision.

Now, to Bregje's post, yeah. I think there exists a need for a religion or at least an overall metaphysical air around reality. Now, I don't fully know where does the Anglo-Saxon school of analytic philosophy come from (obviously, it's not easy, there are at least 3-4 famous German-Austrian - the Vienna neopositivism school - philosophers treated as analytic, and at least two Poles). They somehow managed to reject metaphysics coming stricty from philosophy of language and formal logic (which tends to intertwine sometimes).

What if someone actually needs a metaphysical art? Nature? Science? I stated many time that physics professor heavily respected for input in cosmology happens to be a Polish Catholic priest. How does that compute for staunch awards. Professor Michał Heller got awards that weren't just theological.

Does science necessarily *reject* religion? We have a student Catholic group in the city, not connected to a particular university, just city-specific, or whatever is the term. I thought that most of students there would be students of humanities (I never attended those meetings), but a heavily Catholic friend told me that most of them come from scientific community, namely the Warsaw Institute of Technology. What does that mean?

How come people who are religious come mostly from the logical world of mathematics then?

An agnostic says that you can't say if there is a God or there isn't one, but wouldn't make a choice that there isn't one. He just doesn't know. An atheist says there simply isn't a God, that's what I mean.

Quoted for truth.

I myself see no reason for religion whatsoever (and am happy to enter any discussion on that with both proponents and opponents), as I honestly think there is no more historical function religion can offer that hasn't been taken over better, cheaper, quicker and easier by other social and societal structures.

But I wouldn't negate man's need for spirituality at all.
And I am fully cognisant of the fact that this need also is catered to by the classic religions.

I'm sure you must have some idea, Pawel?

But fair enough, I'll play along.
Short answer: the need to believe in something that transcends the corporeal or the observable.
The long answer would include massive treaties on psychological defenses like the urge to be sheltered and nurtured, and philosophies on man's requirement for and dependence on mystery and the overarching need to find order in chaos.



Who cares?
If you feel happy dancing in the nude with girl friends in an Isis Mystery Cult, go right ahead.
If you feel satisfied by lighting a bit of incense in front of a stack of Hans Zimmer CDs, power to you.
As long it's a personal choice that does not impact society or your direct surroundings (or basically anyone else) in any negative or obligatory way, why should I be bothered?



Jolly good. That pretty much seems to be in line with what I wrote above.
So why should I even be bothered by that?

The fact that my personal opinion is that religion has run its course, and that I truly believe hat mankind as a whole would be better off once we turn our back on it, in no way entails me begrudging any one person finding solace, comfort or strength from religion.

Many social structures that we find at best outmoded and at worst ridiculous today at one point or another yielded benefit to man somehow.

http://csp.org/experience/james-varieti … eties.html

An interesting read Pawel

Just a few thoughts:

I would be curious to know as well what being catholic means to scientists (or people in general). What I know from some people is it gives moral guidance. It gives meaning to life. Peter mentioned charity.

Unfortunately some people don't understand these are things that can be found without religion as well.

I know people who choose a catholic school over a neutral school, because it's "better than nothing" and with that they mean: catholic schools probably teach more values or something.... Of course that makes no sense. Values, ethics, meaning of life are NOT only connected to religion.

Something about spirituality: this years Month of Philosophy is about the soul. Very interesting subject. I would say discussion about whether such a thing exists has to do with spirituality. I really like this discussion and new discoveries in the brain and new knowledge about (self)consciousness keeps the discussion alive these days.

I don't know what my friend meant precisely by saying that, but it was definitely a food for thought. Personally, I think there is something beyond what's observable, not for any particularly religious reasons, but for the sole reason that I think there must be something that keeps the world together.

When it comes to atheists, a few videos I saw from links in these boards definitely felt like they preferred to simply ridicule their opponents than giving pretty much important and possibly disputable arguments. I don't like the fact that recently when a celebrity's religious views are stated it's only because they are atheist or because they are an actor version of Sarah Palin. There are sensible religious people among them for sure, but as I said in this thread a few months ago, moderate people don't discuss anything. I know that Tom Hanks changed his faith to Orthodox before (and because of) his marriage to Peta Wilson, but that's all.

Science is provisional, but there is something like trying to form a big theory. I know that Isaac Newton was hugely religious though. He was one of people who were looking for a mathematic formula *proving* God's existence, so yeah, this is a food for thought as well. All the big theories, which don't have enough proof are something that tells us that we try to control the processes happening in the world. Now we have, I think quantum physics, but what will be the ruling paradigm in 20-30 years? Will it explain reality in any way? Quantum and Einsteinian physics basically ruled out most of research confirming Newtonian theory. What does that mean?

Can we find an answer to everything? Because the "answer to everything" is basically a religious question. Should we settle for answers that were written at the best 300 years after Christ was born and heavily edited anyway? Surely, no. But can't we accept that there are things we don't simply understand and we won't ever? This leads to another question.

Is religion and science, very often put as a total opposition, really mutually exclusive? Is there really no place for a deity in this world? And let's assume for the sake of the argument that we, like me, believe in that deity's existence. Do we expect to see God at work all the time? I don't think so really.

To me what I really like and what I really *need* is that there is someone who knows more about me than I do, I need the sense that while I influence my own life a lot, there is simply a point of reference. I think that a God-less world is a very sad one, based purely on a single person or a single society. Does that say that there is no evolution, no quantum physics, no string theory at all? No, it does not. If we interpret the Bible literally, we're in a very sad place. It's a piece of literature, dictated by God or not, it's still a piece of literature that needs an interpretation, maybe multiple ones, but DEMANDING an interpretation. Does it answer cosmological questions or is the Biblical cosmology highly metaphorical? I am going for the latter thought. The Bible has several, several ethical propositions which demand being taken into account, but are they the only answer or do they demand more precise defining? Of course the latter.

There are difficult questions to be asked of course. Do we actually *know* what happened before Big Bang? What is anti-matter? Why do we keep looking for the so-called (oh, the irony of it) Higgs boson, called also "God's Particle"? And what will it mean if we manage to *synthesize* that particle in the Large Hadron Collider? There will be always multiple mysteries to the world. Can physics answer metaphysical questions, if as the name goes, they *are* metaphysical, so beyond physics?

Yep. They're called the four fundamental forces; the strong force, the weak force, the electromagnetic force and gravity.




Ridicule is often the best way to deal with silly beliefs. Ridiculing those for having silly beliefs is a very different matter.




It depends on how you define 'God'. If you decide that God is defined by a mathematical description of the universe, then you're surely going to find it. You've already come to the conclusion about what God is before you look for it. With a simple bit of semantic trickery, God can be found just about anywhere. The problem is, science works just as well without invoking God into the equation. God is not needed. That to my mind is where the friction between religion and science truly lies.





It means Newtonian physics isn't the whole picture. Shifting the paradigm from classical to quantum didn't mean Newton was wrong (Newtonian physics is still used today; it works), it simply meant Newtonian physics was incomplete. As is quantum physics - scientists have yet to discover a verifiable quantum description of gravity. But that doesn't mean it's wrong or isn't useful.




I couldn't disagree more. Purely on a personal level (and in no way serving as proof either way), I'd say a God-less world is a far more meaningful place. A beautiful sunset is made more beautiful knowing it's a natural process rather than an all powerful creator deciding it so. Where's the beauty in that? Why should I be amazed at something which is easy for it (God) to do? I'm far more amazed at the natural processes that led up to that sunset, including my own evolution in being able to appreciate it. That seems far more poetic to me than God clicking its fingers.

A God-less world is also a far more rewarding place to live in. A composer's skills are their own, and not borrowed from a superior being. In much the same way as the sunset analogy, a piece of music is made far more beautiful in this sense. (You also don't have to excuse God for allowing bad things to happen; you don't have to play that mental game of coming to terms with a decision you don't understand.)



We don't know for sure, but we can use observation to come to some pretty interesting conclusions about what happened "before" the big bang (although asking what happens before the big bang is, in a sense, like asking what is north of the north pole).




Anti-matter is the opposite charge of its particular particle.



To explain where mass comes from.



It will explain where mass comes from.



It certainly has a better chance of doing so than any scripture I'd say.

No one knows. But the fact that no one knows does not support theism, or any other claimed explanation. 'God of the gaps' is an ancient, fallacious form of argumentation, that I don't recommend using.

Peter

I approve of this post.

Unfortunately for theologians, science is doing a far better job of answering this than religion!

Ah, and I wonder what will happen if we know everything, IF we can know everything?

I'm curious why you need that.
I also wonder if people believe it is like that or hope it is like that, like a comforting soothing feeling.

A bit related to believe versus hope: it amazes me how many people say they believe in heaven and a better place after they die but are still afraid of dying. If you truly believe it you won't be afraid. It makes me wonder if they hope rather than believe.


I think the world is wonderful and life is wonderful. The 'magic' is right in front of us. And by magic I just mean how amazing life is and how beautiful the universe is and everything.

Also, when we think of ethics, I think true goodness is when people try to do the good things, for the sake of goodness and not because they think a god is watching them or will be punishing them or something like that. It's the difference between inner motivation and outer motivation (not sure if these words are right). Autonomous morality and heteronomous morality? When people do good because of what god might think of them, they're being very selfish.

I just believe in nature, in the sense that is all there is and everything is a product of nature. Ethics is a product of evolution and therefore of nature too. And matter is a product of nature. Simply everything. Nature is very beautiful and complex. I think that's a spiritual thought, it can be overwhelming. But it has nothing to do with god or something like that.

That's an interesting side note that you make, Bregje, on ethics being natural.
I understand what you mean I think ("everything is borne out of nature, therefore our own intellectual and fanciful capacities, including philosophies, religious considerations and ethics must be natural as a matter of logic"), but I think these aspects -focusing on ethics for now- are FAR from natural.

In fact, they are very human constructs, as in nature there is absolutely no such thing as ethics.
Balance, yes. Evolution, yes.
But not ethics: that is something that can only exist by the very grace of man's capability to think, reason and analyse the consequence of his actions. This capability transcends the pretty straightforward morality of nature (which pretty much comes down to "eat or be eaten; adapt or die").

EDIT: I didn't read properly. You pretty much said exactly that: "Ethics is a product of evolution and therefore of nature too."

I'll go put in my contacts now.