The Physics of God and the Quantum Gravity Theory of Everything

Stavros, it just occured to me that you might not be atheist or agnostic like I am. I'm really sorry if I offended you, my friend. I am! For some reason, I just assume you were and I responded just as if it was the case and as if I knew it. Put that on long years of Scotch whisky consumption, would you?

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Originally Posted by danthepoetman

Stavros, I hope I won’t deform or disfigure what you are saying to me. Don’t over estimate my capacity to understand English. You know it’s not my mother tongue and not my usual language of expression, and I’m not at all on your very educated and eloquent level. If you mean to say that we need to “believe” in general, of course no one can disagree. But we can’t confuse, in my opinion, the common concept of believing with the belief in a supreme being. I think it’s a good example of a concept which has a subtlety of meaning which can create misunderstanding in a conversation. I invoke here the principle of identity, which is always violated in a normal conversation as meanings of the same concepts changes. Banal beliefs, we all have. Belief in a God is something else. Yes, you’re right, the people we call “animists” can not understand that we wouldn’t “believe” in invisible forces. The question here is very complex, but mainly lye on conscience, on the apprehension one has of him/herself. You know that conscience has a history in our culture (and surely others, of course). Conscience is not the same for Homer’s characters, for instance; they believe that “forces” are what animate objects, any objects including they, themselves. What is animated is what has an anima, a force which moves it (inside and out). These forces are independent from their objects. A river, the sky, etc., are so animated. Forces that move us are the same. When Homer refers to love, he sees the immediate action of Aphrodite; when Achilles for instance, at the beginning of the Iliad, has his conflict with Aggamemnon and feel the urge to draw his sword, it’s Athena herself, the voice of reason, who hold his elbow to stop him. And similarly, he doesn’t run fast, it’s his feet that are light, etc. etc. Conscience has since then changed considerably. The internalisation of motives, the sense of a intimacy (self-intimacy) were developed slowly and are at the very foundation of our culture; without them, for instance, no justice as we have is possible, no individual rights, no democracy, no artist as an author, etc. etc. they wouldn’t even make sense –the major turning point for us having been the Renaissance etc. (you know all of that). Now it is always difficult today to evaluate what it has to do with people from other cultures who are still animists. I think for some of them, who share the same sense of self, animism is at a stage of superstition rather than this way of perceiving and sensing the world Achilles had, and therefore no more an absolute “need” for them, no more a way of living.
I do share your idea though, that we are “religious” being. I worked as a research assistant, when I was doing my MA, with a teacher who was working on a philosophical anthropology which was redefining human through religious manifestations and expressions of every kind. It was fascinating. There is no doubt in my mind that religious beliefs are the expression of a phylogenetically acquired mechanism which is useful to the survival of our specie. Of which nature? That would be very difficult to determine, of course. But for us to believe in a God as a supreme being who is watching over us is really silly, it’s really absurd! The very mythology of it, besides the fact that you can easily follow it’s evolution through history, and therefore deconstruct it completely, the very mythology of a father who punishes and reward us, who creates an “us and them” type of world based on the flattering of his ego, and the credibility given to the institutions that are defending such constructs and imposes rites and taboos have to be set aside once and for all before they do more harm that they already have caused, imo.
A type of deist belief could be defended, but here intervenes my Camus quote. On a simple “moral” ground (and I use “moral” in a very broad sense, here), the idea of an interventionist God should render the belief useless. Once again, “either God is all powerful, but then he is responsible for evil, so why give a cult for such a God, or either he is not responsible for it, but is not all mighty, and then why would we even care?
(As I'm rereading myself, I realize once again how poor my expression is. I'm sorry, my friend).

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There doesn't seem to be much wrong with your English, Dan, so don't worry about that. I think my point was that the way we think and express ourselves is based on shared meanings or we would just be grunting, but it doesn't follow that religion is essential, that we must believe something. There is a view that science has replaced religion for many people- it is logical, reasonable and has practical benefits for life, and as Trish has admitted, science doesn't know everything and cannot explain everything, whereas some religious people believe they can do just that, even if, as once happened to me when the explanation I was given for 9/11 was just two words: 'God's Will'. But just as science has been used to lie, steal, oppress and murder, so some have used religion for those purposes and mostly in violation of what they claim to believe. I think that is what annoys people as much as the debate on whether or not God exists.

I agree that science has been misused to justify all sorts of immoral proposals as well as conclusions that do not follow from the available evidence. It has at times been used to label some individuals as inferior, to swindle some out of money, and to justify greed and selfishness as essential features of human nature. But these are not characteristics that flow directly from the study of the natural world. It is only proof that people will use any vessel available to promote an agenda.

Scientific advancement also brings with it the risk of unintended consequences such as the development of more sophisticated devices to maim and kill, environmental damage, and social alienation. But at least the discipline is based on trying to explain what's going on around us. It can be an honest and rational means of analyzing all available evidence, generating theories about the natural world and testing them.

Religion, on the other hand can be used to pacify people, or variably, to incite the masses. By its essential nature it provides a narrative that is unsupported and unsupportable. If so then it seems to me that its value is not in its ability to explain the world or act as a useful guidepost but to control behavior through manipulation. How can something that is not supported by any evidence be a guide for moral behavior unless someone has decided a priori that a certain set of propositions is correct and that it is acceptable to say things that aren't true to encourage adherence to them?

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Originally Posted by broncofan

Religion, on the other hand can be used to pacify people, or variably, to incite the masses. By its essential nature it provides a narrative that is unsupported and unsupportable. If so then it seems to me that its value is not in its ability to explain the world or act as a useful guidepost but to control behavior through manipulation. How can something that is not supported by any evidence be a guide for moral behavior unless someone has decided a priori that a certain set of propositions is correct and that it is acceptable to say things that aren't true to encourage adherence to them?

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I am surprised at your bias, Broncofan -you admit that science has been used to do wrong and that this is an abuse of knowledge; yet you cannot accept something more positive for religion: that people turn to religion for comfort, perhaps for community? People born into a religious community can find it difficult if not impossible to believe in an alternative narrative, and may indeed modify their behaviour in conformity to the rules and expectations of that religion. And yes, some converts can often be more militant about their faith than people born into it; but I think you should allow for people who maybe had some crisis in their lives, and for whom religion has been soothing, comforting and given them a structure that has changed their lives for the better. Same with people who were born into say, Christianity, Judaism etc, but were never particularly religious and then 'return' to the faith later in life.

This will probably seem shocking but to me, the main problem lye in the fact that real ethic thinking occupy a minuscule place in our daily life. And unfortunately, I would go as far as to say that it is largely the same with authentic, deep reasonable thinking, as of course, we think with our whole nervous system, with our whole body; our instincts and our passions occupy an enormous place in the life of our minds, much more than we like to believe –much more in fact, than the whole history of ideas has made us to think. Anyone who’s a little bit honest with himself can easily see this by examining his own behaviour and life a little –I would invoke for instance, the ever so vague notion of identity (through time)… We act mostly through acquired automatisms in our private life and especially in our collective life; we adopt the values and the behaviour of our group and it becomes the essential of our lives. We take some habits in our private life and the use of reason is relatively limited. Moreover, our choices are much more motivated by our feelings than we like to think, once again, and reason often seem to be present only to justify our behaviour after the fact.
We know that there is phylogenitically acquired mechanisms in us to reinforce the sense of gregarity and solidarity which evolution developed long before we were what we are, not to say anything of the others, like territoriality, fear, aggression, etc. Religion, values, morals, whatever form they take, are obvious expressions of these biological inner mechanisms, most of the time and for most people. When you manage to deprive people of religion, or even for most individuals who renounce any, there is always some kind of substitution that occurs, which is often even more dangerous, as it ignore itself. Political substitutions have been lethal –I would define “patriotism” (not national pride) as one other expression of these mechanisms, and the absence of religion often have the effect of reinforcing tremendously such feelings. I had a teacher who used to tell us: “When the flag is up, intelligence is half-mast”; the same can be said of religious objects. I’m not of course denying the importance of intimate, spiritual life, or of the life of the mind in general, but we have to wonder what place exactly it takes in the general practice of religion.

(Broncofan! I'm glad to see you're still around! I've been "back" since last month and I was wondering about you. Happy to "see" you!)

Dan I think that is why for most people who have been raised in a religion there is no questioning of the faith, and if there were to be such reflexive activity it could create some anxiety in believers, or reinforce the beliefs they had. By contrast, a crisis can open up precisely a difficult set of questions: there were some fascinating articles in the Journal of Holocaust Studies -I think in the 1990s- in which Jews who had either survived the European nightmare or whose relatives had survived -or died- had been interviewed, and given expression to the crisis that occurred in their religious beliefs, because of an 'absent God' or even the belief that God wanted it to happen -whichever it was it caused real anxiety for Jews for whom faith had been hugely important, not just as a cultural part of their community. I think crises like this can shake that comfortable inheritance of belief, and it doesn't happen that often, and I think that it is this unquestioning devotion which make some people think believers are like sheep.

I admit it sounds like bias. People I know and care about are religious. But could you imagine asking someone who is religious to admit that what they believe is valuable only because it provides them comfort? That it is more important that they believe it is true than that it actually is true?

If people turned to religion for community or comfort then I agree that these are positive factors.

But could you imagine going up to a Rabbi or Priest and telling him/her that you don't really think the scriptures contain an ounce of truth but that pretending they do makes you feel better? There are so many devoutly religious people who want people to believe their scriptures are a historical account and not merely a way of living. Why do religions proselytize? Maybe they think that if others remain skeptical then their religion provides less comfort.

If you believe that there is a God and a heaven then why should you be receptive to the possibility that there is neither? A religious person's entire way of living depends on it being true. Maybe in some circumstances it does create community and provide comfort, in which case I like it in that limited context whether the beliefs are true or not.

Broncofan I did once have a conversation with a Muslim (an Ahmadi) -I have referred to this before. His position was that if there wasn't a God life would be pointless. He had obviously thought about it, and for him it was not just spiritually comforting, it also made sense intellectually -he is a Mathematician. For people who have had some personal crisis, and are not intellectuals, it is comforting, it provides them with something to believe in, a set of rituals that fill the annual calendar, perhaps a sense of community in a local church. And there are priests who don't believe the literal truth of the Gospels but take them as a 'design for living' -not sure if the last Archbishop of Canterbury took this line, but there was a senior Church of England clergyman (Bishop of Durham) in the 1980s - David Jenkins- who did not believe every aspect of the Christian story told in the Gospels.

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Originally Posted by Stavros

I think that it is this unquestioning devotion which make some people think believers are like sheep.

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Just a little anecdote. I don't know where this fits in. But I remember my mother admitting to me when I was young that she did not want me to see a movie about the life of Jesus Christ because she was afraid I would be seduced by the tale. She wanted me to continue to be a Jew and she was afraid that the somewhat more positive and magical seeming story of the life of Jesus would sweep me away. Afterall, the old testament story of a jealous God who will smite you for masturbating might seem less attractive.

I understand her concerns and I don't think there's anything too unusual about them. I spoke to a kid in college who was converting to Judaism and his Catholic parents were not happy with it.

I just question the broad value of this religious competition when it so obviously competes with free inquiry and dissent. Religions don't mind dissent as long as it's limited to small issues. When it questions the major articles of faith it sounds a lot more like heresy or blasphemy.

P.S it's nice to see you too Dan!

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Originally Posted by Stavros

Broncofan I did once have a conversation with a Muslim (an Ahmadi) -I have referred to this before. His position was that if there wasn't a God life would be pointless. He had obviously thought about it, and for him it was not just spiritually comforting, it also made sense intellectually -he is a Mathematician. For people who have had some personal crisis, and are not intellectuals, it is comforting, it provides them with something to believe in, a set of rituals that fill the annual calendar, perhaps a sense of community in a local church. And there are priests who don't believe the literal truth of the Gospels but take them as a 'design for living' -not sure if the last Archbishop of Canterbury took this line, but there was a senior Church of England clergyman (Bishop of Durham) in the 1980s - David Jenkins- who did not believe every aspect of the Christian story told in the Gospels.

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It's good to know this. In my personal life I am surrounded by believers and I would never live my life thinking that there is something suspect about them for it. On a personal level I have never seen religion present the problems I speculate about. People seem able to segment the different parts of their lives; religious, social, and intellectual, or reconcile them if need be.

I think I am only talking about the very rare fervent fundamentalist that causes a problem.

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Originally Posted by broncofan

I think I am only talking about the very rare fervent fundamentalist that causes a problem.

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This is to me the key issue, because 'funadamentalists' have a way of forcing themselves into a debate or a situation, catching headlines and becoming the news, and often it is because they are so overwhelmed by the absolute truth of their beliefs they feel impelled to 'do something about it', which sometimes may be illegal. Then the usual suspects step up -not just extreme Muslims, but Scientologists (not known for intense and open debate about their 'religion', you either believe and obey or become a 'squirrel'), and the more extreme Christian groups who think the Churches have betrayed Christianity with its 'liberal' attitudes to divorce, abortion and homosexuality. I think for the most part, most people who believe are pragmatic on most issues, and tend not to make a fuss about the things they don't agree with, as long as it is what the majority wants, which is why there are people in the UK, for example, who think the 'gay marriage' issue is being forced on the country. I think most people couldn't really care less, as civil partnerships are broadly accepted. It isn't going to be the spark that starts a revolution.

Where's Jamie?

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Originally Posted by Stavros

Dan I think that is why for most people who have been raised in a religion there is no questioning of the faith, and if there were to be such reflexive activity it could create some anxiety in believers, or reinforce the beliefs they had. By contrast, a crisis can open up precisely a difficult set of questions: there were some fascinating articles in the Journal of Holocaust Studies -I think in the 1990s- in which Jews who had either survived the European nightmare or whose relatives had survived -or died- had been interviewed, and given expression to the crisis that occurred in their religious beliefs, because of an 'absent God' or even the belief that God wanted it to happen -whichever it was it caused real anxiety for Jews for whom faith had been hugely important, not just as a cultural part of their community. I think crises like this can shake that comfortable inheritance of belief, and it doesn't happen that often, and I think that it is this unquestioning devotion which make some people think believers are like sheep.

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You guys will probably think that I’m taking a common conversation pretty far, but you both made me think a lot, Stavros and Broncofan –not that I’m coming back with some great revelation, though… But I must admit that this argument, Stavros, that some people, especially after a difficult experience, might find great comfort in religious beliefs, is something that I feel without really reasoning it, when I am in the company of believers. I always try my best not to say anything that would shake their potentially candid if not naïve faith. It’s a respect I entertain almost mechanically. And in some cases, indeed, as you both evoked, religion goes beyond beliefs, and maybe even beyond a social or cultural bond; the case of Judaism comes to mind, of course, after the Shoah. But this is something that is so out of any criteria that it is still to this day, very difficult to “think it”.
To me, the proper way to see this world and this life, the only way in fact, is the tragic perspective. I’m not talking of course of the classical form of theatre, but rather of what is the deeper form of a middle term between optimism and pessimism. Life is short. It ends fast. There is no reason for our presence here. Our reality in this infinite universe is, relatively speaking, so insignificant; our whole history is meaningless in the duration of the universe. Strangely, I think that, religious or not, believers or atheists, we all have a feeling of this reality within us. In fact, I think it is the very reason why we do become religious and sometimes, fanatics. It is the only thing, when you stop to think about it, that really gives us a real sense of how precious life is, and how beautiful, and how important. As Blaise Pascal says (I’m sorry for the pedantic reference again), or either Nietzsche, we need to be diverted of ourselves for this very reason, because it’s a truth of such radical meaning for ourselves that it’s hardly bearable. But simulteneously, it is everything.
Yet, and this is where I’m getting at with this, anything that could potentially allow us to understand ourselves better and to create a better world (idealistically or with simple pragmatism) is to face this condition and this tragic truth. Fundamentalism is an epiphenomenon; but the only way to obviate an epiphenomenon that keeps reoccurring over and over is to get rid of the subjacent phenomenon.
Now, we can’t just start shaking people and kicking them for trying to find a comfort we all crave for. But as for anything else, we need to talk, to open eyes, to discuss, to educate.
I guess it’s not much to bring back, as I was saying, after more than a week thinking about an answer… :)

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Originally Posted by trish

We agree then (with cosmologists) that the theory of cosmic expansion is not a theory of origins.

One way of thinking about the expansion is to imagine the spacetime metric (written in the coordinate frame of the fundamental observers) is simply time dependent. This is akin to thinking of time dilation as a frame dependent phenomenon rather than the metaphysical creation or stretching of time. It may be mind bending, but no rules of logic are in jeopardy.

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Seems in reality that we are probably more in agreement than not, Tbh my belief in the infinite allows me to believe in the idea of the now seemingly impossible but soon to be not:p

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Originally Posted by joeninety

...my belief in the infinite allows me to believe in the idea of the now seemingly impossible but soon to be not:p

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Whatever :neutral:

Whoops see how that might have come across...........I was actually being genuine when I made that remark lol

Nice recent piece by Brian Schmied
http://www.scienceomega.com/article/1275/will-science-kill-religion?utm_source=MailingList&utm_medium=email&u tm_campaign=ScienceOmega200813
Once, not so long ago, theology was the queen of sciences. The advent of modern scientific thought put a stop to that, and science became something new and separate. Today, you see religious groups trying to appeal to the authority of science, which differs from the past, when science bowed to the authority of scripture. Religion has been taken down a few hundred pegs in this sense.

Within the scientific community, the conflict was settled a good century ago. This does not hold true for wider society – especially in the United States, where science is still in the process of becoming fully accepted. When you examine the wide variety of American religious traditions, we now come across attempts to borrow credibility from this new and increasingly dominant method for accumulating knowledge.
Systems of truth
Religion relies on a system of determining truth called ‘authority’. Authority is an old alternative to science that determines truth as being whatever an agreed-upon source of authority says. This seems silly today, but on closer examination, was quite rational once.

In a time before long-term data storage existed, it was very important to respect the information passed down through tradition. Just as a child must take their parents’ word on things they do not understand, knowledge passed down through generations could not be discarded or mistrusted without risking the loss of knowledge and innovation by smarter people from the past. The bad data was accepted with the good, for the sake of maintaining the authority of the source.

The flaws seem obvious to us today, but our system relies on our ability to store, share, and challenge ideas. Science, the method that says truth is determined when a cause-effect relationship is observed and can be reliably replicated, revolutionised our civilisation just a few centuries ago. Even if someone used a scientific approach in those days, they had to rely on authority to pass their knowledge down.

Even today, most people must determine truth by recognising the authority of scientists whose method they trust. So for most people, even in our age of science, authority is the main system for determining truth. This is why religions have little problem existing, no matter how untestable their claims are, provided they can maintain their authority.
Borrowing authority
Paradoxically, the authority of science is untouchable because it does not rely on authority. Rather, it defines truth as anything we cannot falsify through experiment or observation.

Religions, having bound themselves to scriptures that often contradict observed truth, try to build superficial associations with science. Appealing to the authority of science, even if science does not back up any specific faith, is a great way to sound more credible.

So religions all over are injecting the term into their rhetoric. There is the Church of Scientology, the Church of Divine Science and the First Church of Christ, Scientist, best known as Christian Science. It would be hard to count the number of Christian denominations that rely on a doctrine that has been misleadingly called ‘creation science’, to encourage their children to avoid learning things in school.

The most obvious historical effect of science has been a slow decline in the number of religious people. Low academic achievement in maths and sciences and poverty are both correlated with religiosity. This makes sense when we consider that increased wealth allows for a better education focusing on teaching analytical thought, which has been shown to decrease religious belief.
Religion bowing to scientific authority
Many religious people are becoming less literal in their beliefs. In a recent Gallup poll, 47 per cent of Americans answered that they did not believe in the literal seven day creation of Genesis, even though 92 per cent of Americans answered yes, when asked if they believed in God.

Even the extremely conservative Emeritus Pope Benedict XVI has stated that denying evolution is absurd. There is no better illustration of how science has bent religious doctrine.

It was Catholic Bishop James Ussher who calculated the age of the Earth that is still presented by Young Earth creationists as the true age of the planet. Though the Catholic Church once went after Galileo for claiming that the earth moved, they now accept that the age of the Earth is a matter for astrophysicists and geologists, not theologians.

Churches used to split over debates of whether blessing bread could literally turn bread into human flesh and wine into human blood. Later, churches split over whether Jesus would save them from the apocalypse before, during, or after the divine tribulations that would serve as warning.

These days are over. Fundamentalist holdouts that cling to the unshakeable authority of scripture have been forced to move on to more fundamental matters; tearing families apart over whether or not the Bible is absolute truth and whether direct observation is a reliable way to know what is real.

So, will science kill religion? I doubt it. Religion is adapting. Most people rely on authority, and not everyone has the time, money, or inclination for the years of study needed to understand how each scientific truth has been determined. They will continue to bow to authority for the sake of having knowledge. As long as people submit to authority, they are open to suggestion, which makes them open to religion.

Not sure about an article that accepts Scientology as a religion, and I suspect that the rift between religion and science is strong in a lot of countries, but simultaneously contradictory -last night's programme on Nigeria and Polio offered a bewildering, scientifically and socially offensive idea that injections cause Polio, perhaps because people are ashamed that the link between faeces and the disease suggests they are unclean even though their local habitat is in every sense a threat to health -whether they can control it or not. Yet Nigerians accept the science behind mobile phones, oil wells, and hundreds of other daily events.
China has a long and distinguished history in scientific theory and practice, yet many Chinese believe Rhino horns ground into powder will make them virile; and I believe there are Saudi clerics who think the world is flat.
But just as worrying is the corpus of anti-science commentators in the UK and North America who claim a 'rational' basis for climate change 'scepticism', those deniers who are key players in the attempt to demolish science for no other reason than political -in this link the conversation Paul Nurse has with James Delingpole is illuminating -he says the idea that there is a consensus in science is 'despicable' and is basically scientists conniving with each other to agree publicly with each other, even though he freely admits he has not, indeed, cannot read the scientific literature on global warming an the data sets that were at the core of the controversy over the emails from the Climate Research Unit in East Anglia -Nurse does a good job of exposing the rift between science and the public in an age when it seems anyone can have an opinion about something which they actually do not understand...but which doesn't mean the science is wrong.
Ironic perhaps that Jamie has attempted to prove the scientific link between physics and God yet has failed to demonstrate that Tipler's theory is anything but a theory...says he with no knowledge of the science!

enjoy

Science Under Attack (BBC Horizon Documentary) - YouTube

Suppose you want to know the distance across the globe from Lima to London. What do you do? You can look it up on the web. Go to the library and consult an atlas. Call a travel agent. Etc. Or you can survey the route yourself. All but the last are a form of reliance on authority. Even if you opt to measure it out yourself, if you rely on GPS technology, or use tools you didn’t build yourself, then again you’re relying on the skills and knowledge of other human beings; i.e. experts in the art of crafting surveying tools. No one, not even the most critical and skeptical scientists can get around reliance on the judgments of other human beings.

I can test a hypothesis against the raw data that I download from the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe. I know a little something about the instruments that collect it, but largely I trust the engineers who built those instruments, and monitor and maintain the satellite that houses them. I trust the data hasn’t been corrupted before it’s been made available to me and my colleagues. Etc. We put a lot a faith and trust in each other, as do you when you board a plane, cross a bridge or drive through a tunnel.

I live in the rural MidWest. I’ve heard a lot of testimony. “I prayed to God, and don’t you know he showed me right to where I dropped my keys in the grass next to the car.” “Mary’s X-ray showed a mass in her brain. The whole congregation prayed for her and bless the Lord it’s gone now.” “I was scared seeing my boy off to Afghanistan, but I ask God to protect him and I felt Him right here in this car, as sure as you’re sitting there, assuring me that Luther’ll be alright.” Tim Tebow’s whole career is offered to us as a testimonial.

Isn’t the report of an experiment the same thing as a religious testimonial? “Here’s what I did and this is what I observed. This is what I witnessed.” What are the significant differences (if any) between the kinds of trust to which referred in the first two paragraphs and the kinds of trust people place in religious testimonials?

One difference I can see is the spatial-temporal location of the experiment. In the case of the finding the distance from Lima to London, you can imagine exactly how the survey might be accomplished. You can read about exactly how the Earth is surveyed and how maps are constructed. You can, if you have a mind to do so, do it yourself. If you do, and you publish your work, it will be criticised. If you’ve the integrity of a real cartographer, you’ll answer some criticisms, take others to heart, modify your maps and perhaps even redo the survey. As time goes on your maps will become more detailed and have increased accuracy. But the whole process is there for all to see should they care to do so.

In the case of the lost keys, the experiment goes on in the believer’s head. It is a thought, not an observable procedure (like collecting starlight or leveling a sextant), not even in principle. She’s reaches out with her mind, or her soul in way that cannot be witnessed by anyone else, and communicates with a supernatural being with whom she claims to be intimate. We can’t see the email, nor do we see ink on a page inside an envelop addressed to Heaven. There’s no NSA tape of the exchange. We have no idea how to accomplish such a feat ourselves. Here’s what we know. We know that yesterday she was in a panic because her keys were lost. We know that today she found her keys. We have her testimony that God led her to them. Even if we think she is honest in her belief, do we find her testimony at all credible? I don’t I’m curious to know what others think.

(Disclaimer: Of course, it would be biased to claim the whole case for the supernatural depends on testimonials such as the ones alluded to above. There are also the works of theologians, the testimony of holy books etc. etc.)

Yes, as a scientist I have to accept the authority of others; but I know that I could test their views and their claimed evidence. I would not thought to be a heretic. In fact science depends on its views being tested. I could "falsify" the distance between Lima and London (or even if Lima existed at all). I could present my own evidence that could be tested. For religious beliefs there is no way to falsify - maybe just accept (unthinkingly) some other belief - I have a soft spot for the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster.

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Originally Posted by trish

Suppose you want to know the distance across the globe from Lima to London. What do you do? You can look it up on the web. Go to the library and consult an atlas. Call a travel agent. Etc. Or you can survey the route yourself. All but the last are a form of reliance on authority. Even if you opt to measure it out yourself, if you rely on GPS technology, or use tools you didn’t build yourself, then again you’re relying on the skills and knowledge of other human beings; i.e. experts in the art of crafting surveying tools. No one, not even the most critical and skeptical scientists can get around reliance on the judgments of other human beings.

I can test a hypothesis against the raw data that I download from the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe. I know a little something about the instruments that collect it, but largely I trust the engineers who built those instruments, and monitor and maintain the satellite that houses them. I trust the data hasn’t been corrupted before it’s been made available to me and my colleagues. Etc. We put a lot a faith and trust in each other, as do you when you board a plane, cross a bridge or drive through a tunnel.

I live in the rural MidWest. I’ve heard a lot of testimony. “I prayed to God, and don’t you know he showed me right to where I dropped my keys in the grass next to the car.” “Mary’s X-ray showed a mass in her brain. The whole congregation prayed for her and bless the Lord it’s gone now.” “I was scared seeing my boy off to Afghanistan, but I ask God to protect him and I felt Him right here in this car, as sure as you’re sitting there, assuring me that Luther’ll be alright.” Tim Tebow’s whole career is offered to us as a testimonial.

Isn’t the report of an experiment the same thing as a religious testimonial? “Here’s what I did and this is what I observed. This is what I witnessed.” What are the significant differences (if any) between the kinds of trust to which referred in the first two paragraphs and the kinds of trust people place in religious testimonials?

One difference I can see is the spatial-temporal location of the experiment. In the case of the finding the distance from Lima to London, you can imagine exactly how the survey might be accomplished. You can read about exactly how the Earth is surveyed and how maps are constructed. You can, if you have a mind to do so, do it yourself. If you do, and you publish your work, it will be criticised. If you’ve the integrity of a real cartographer, you’ll answer some criticisms, take others to heart, modify your maps and perhaps even redo the survey. As time goes on your maps will become more detailed and have increased accuracy. But the whole process is there for all to see should they care to do so.

In the case of the lost keys, the experiment goes on in the believer’s head. It is a thought, not an observable procedure (like collecting starlight or leveling a sextant), not even in principle. She’s reaches out with her mind, or her soul in way that cannot be witnessed by anyone else, and communicates with a supernatural being with whom she claims to be intimate. We can’t see the email, nor do we see ink on a page inside an envelop addressed to Heaven. There’s no NSA tape of the exchange. We have no idea how to accomplish such a feat ourselves. Here’s what we know. We know that yesterday she was in a panic because her keys were lost. We know that today she found her keys. We have her testimony that God led her to them. Even if we think she is honest in her belief, do we find her testimony at all credible? I don’t I’m curious to know what others think.

(Disclaimer: Of course, it would be biased to claim the whole case for the supernatural depends on testimonials such as the ones alluded to above. There are also the works of theologians, the testimony of holy books etc. etc.)

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...but I know that I could test their views and their claimed evidence.

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and you also know (in most cases) those tests have been carried out repeatedly by scores of independent observers each time confirming the claims and often obtaining another significant digit of accuracy.

Science Under Attack (BBC Horizon Documentary) - YouTube

Very nicely done. Thanks for the link, Stavros.

I have always regarded it an intellectual duty to prove every theorem I quote and use in my own work. Of course that’s a relatively easy thing to do in the theoretical realm. One cannot perform every measurement and do every experiment upon which one wishes to build (though we should ~imo~ understand and critically scrutinize those measurements and experiments).

But what is our intellectual responsibility in ordinary life in domains not pertaining to our professional work? What is a non-expert to make of claims of global warming, the teaching of evolution or the claimed risks of vaccinations against horrible childhood diseases?

The problem of determining which “authorities” deserve your trust become even more acute in this age when misleading the public is now a multi-billion dollar industry. With governance comes responsibilities, and in a democracy it is the citizens and their representatives that ultimately shoulder that responsibility. One of those responsibilites is to base your vote and support (whether it’s for a candidate or a policy) on the most accurate and reliable information currently available.

http://nyti.ms/19KagUT

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Originally Posted by trish

http://nyti.ms/19KagUT

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There is scant evidence that rationalism will survive.

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Originally Posted by trish

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Originally Posted by Jericho

So, I'm confused, does God exist? :hide-1:

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There are no peer reviewed papers in any respected journals (that I know of) claiming to demonstrate the non-existence of God. On the other hand, there are no such papers (that I know of published after the nineteenth century) claiming to use the hypothesis that God exists to explain a physical, chemical or biological phenomenon. On the third hand, there are quite a number of ordained reverends, priests, preachers, bishops etc. who professionally endorse the claim of God's existence and even talk to Him. On the fourth hand, many of them (despite the fact they they all talk to God) disagree about what God says, thinks and intends for us to do. If you actually have the four hands required to follow this nonsense, you're probably the god Kali. :Bowdown:

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In answer to Jericho's question: according to the known laws of physics (viz., the Second Law of Thermodynamics, General Relativity, and Quantum Mechanics), God's existence is mathematically unavoidable.

The Omega Point cosmology, which is a proof of God's existence, is now a mathematical theorem per the aforesaid known laws of physics, of which have been confirmed by every experiment conducted to date. Hence, the only way to avoid the Omega Point cosmology is to reject empirical science. As Prof. Stephen Hawking wrote, "one cannot really argue with a mathematical theorem." (From p. 67 of Stephen Hawking, The Illustrated A Brief History of Time [New York, NY: Bantam Books, 1996; 1st ed., 1988].)

The Omega Point cosmology has been published and extensively peer-reviewed in leading physics journals.

Additionally, we now have the quantum gravity Theory of Everything (TOE) required by the known laws of physics and that correctly describes and unifies all the forces in physics: of which inherently produces the Omega Point cosmology. So here we have an additional high degree of assurance that the Omega Point cosmology is correct.

Regarding the conformance and unique attributes of the Omega Point cosmology with Christianity:

The Omega Point is omniscient, having an infinite amount of information and knowing all that is logically possible to be known; it is omnipotent, having an infinite amount of energy and power; and it is omnipresent, consisting of all that exists. These three properties are the traditional quidditative definitions (i.e., haecceities) of God held by almost all of the world's leading religions. Hence, by definition, the Omega Point is God.

The Omega Point final singularity is a different aspect of the Big Bang initial singularity, i.e., the first cause, a definition of God held by all the Abrahamic religions.

As well, as Stephen Hawking proved, the singularity is not in spacetime, but rather is the boundary of space and time (see S. W. Hawking and G. F. R. Ellis, The Large Scale Structure of Space-Time [Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1973], pp. 217-221).

The Schmidt b-boundary has been shown to yield a topology in which the cosmological singularity is not Hausdorff separated from the points in spacetime, meaning that it is not possible to put an open set of points between the cosmological singularity and *any* point in spacetime proper. That is, the cosmological singularity has infinite nearness to every point in spacetime.

So the Omega Point is transcendent to, yet immanent in, space and time. Because the cosmological singularity exists outside of space and time, it is eternal, as time has no application to it.

Quite literally, the cosmological singularity is supernatural, in the sense that no form of physics can apply to it, since physical values are at infinity at the singularity, and so it is not possible to perform arithmetical operations on them; and in the sense that the singularity is beyond creation, as it is not a part of spacetime, but rather is the boundary of space and time.

And given an infinite amount of computational resources, per the Bekenstein Bound, recreating the exact quantum state of our present universe is trivial, requiring at most a mere 10^123 bits (the number which Roger Penrose calculated), or at most a mere 2^10^123 bits for every different quantum configuration of the universe logically possible (i.e., the powerset, of which the multiverse in its entirety at this point in universal history is a subset of this powerset). So the Omega Point will be able to resurrect us using merely an infinitesimally small amount of total computational resources: indeed, the multiversal resurrection will occur between 10^-10^10 and 10^-10^123 seconds before the Omega Point is reached, as the computational capacity of the universe at that stage will be great enough that doing so will require only a trivial amount of total computational resources.

Miracles are allowed by the known laws of physics using baryon annihilation, and its inverse, by way of electroweak quantum tunneling (which is allowed in the Standard Model of particle physics, as baryon number minus lepton number, B - L, is conserved) caused via the Principle of Least Action by the physical requirement that the Omega Point final cosmological singularity exists. If the miracles of Jesus Christ were necessary in order for the universe to evolve into the Omega Point, and if the known laws of physics are correct, then the probability of those miracles occurring is certain.

Additionally, the cosmological singularity consists of a three-aspect structure: the final singularity (i.e., the Omega Point), the all-presents singularity (which exists at the boundary of the multiverse), and the initial singularity (i.e., the beginning of the Big Bang). These three distinct aspects which perform different physical functions in bringing about and sustaining existence are actually one singularity which connects the entirety of the multiverse.

Christian theology is therefore preferentially selected by the known laws of physics due to the fundamentally triune structure of the cosmological singularity (which, again, has all the haecceities claimed for God in the major religions), which is deselective of all other major religions.

For much more on the above, and for many more details on how the Omega Point cosmology precisely matches the cosmology described in the New Testament, see my following article (published under my legal name):

James Redford, "The Physics of God and the Quantum Gravity Theory of Everything", Social Science Research Network (SSRN), Sept. 10, 2012 (orig. pub. Dec. 19, 2011), 186 pp., doi:10.2139/ssrn.1974708; PDF, 1741424 bytes, MD5: 8f7b21ee1e236fc2fbb22b4ee4bbd4cb. http://ssrn.com/abstract=1974708 , http://archive.org/details/ThePhysic...ryOfEverything , http://theophysics.host56.com/Redfor...ics-of-God.pdf , http://alphaomegapoint.files.wordpre...ics-of-god.pdf , http://sites.google.com/site/physico...ics-of-God.pdf

Furthermore, in the below resource are six sections which contain very informative videos of physicist and mathematician Prof. Frank J. Tipler explaining the Omega Point cosmology, which is a proof (i.e., mathematical theorem) of God's existence per the known laws of physics (viz., the Second Law of Thermodynamics, General Relativity, and Quantum Mechanics), and the Feynman-DeWitt-Weinberg quantum gravity/Standard Model Theory of Everything (TOE), which is also required by the known laws of physics. The seventh section therein contains an audio interview of Tipler.

A number of these videos are not otherwise online. I also provide some helpful notes and commentary for some of these videos.

James Redford, "Video of Profs. Frank Tipler and Lawrence Krauss's Debate at Caltech: Can Physics Prove God and Christianity?", alt.sci.astro, Message-ID: jghev8tcbv02b6vn3uiq8jmelp7jijluqk@4ax.com , 30 Jul 2013 00:51:55 -0400. https://groups.google.com/forum/#!to...ro/KQWt4KcpMVo , http://archive.is/a04w9 , http://webcitation.org/6IUTAMEyS The plain text of this post is available at: TXT, 42423 bytes, MD5: b199e867e42d54b2b8bf6adcb4127761. http://mirrorcreator.com/files/JCFTZSS8/ , http://ziddu.com/download/22782349/ , http://ge.tt/3lOTVbp

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Originally Posted by Jamie Michelle

In answer to Jericho's question: according to the known laws of physics (viz., the Second Law of Thermodynamics, General Relativity, and Quantum Mechanics), God's existence is mathematically unavoidable.

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I've been able to avoid it mathematically.

May I be so bold as to point the interested reader to this

Thanks Martin. Excellent.

God does exist however in many people's minds. That is undeniable.

A concise demolition of Tipler's silly views, but if anything I think it demonstrates the trend among some scientists who use mathematics to suggest they can explain everything. As Martin and Trish have pointed out in various threads science cannot explain everything, which suggests Tipler is deluded in believing not only that he can explain everything but that he has the intellectual means to do so. I suppose the question is this: how limited is mathematics as a tool of explanation? Most of the surveillance technology that is used by google or the NSA or GCHQ is based on algorithms that are the compression of data into numbers, but doesn't recognise poetic licence: so to say in an email 'we bombed in New Haven' is not to say we -assuming 'we' to be a terrorist cell- dropped a bomb in Connecticut but that there was a play of that name performed there -but algorithms searching for that sequence of letters that makes 'bomb' would not know this.

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Originally Posted by Prospero

Thanks Martin. Excellent.

God does exist however in many people's minds. That is undeniable.

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So does Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy

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Originally Posted by Stavros

A concise demolition of Tipler's silly views, but if anything I think it demonstrates the trend among some scientists who use mathematics to suggest they can explain everything. As Martin and Trish have pointed out in various threads science cannot explain everything, which suggests Tipler is deluded in believing not only that he can explain everything but that he has the intellectual means to do so. I suppose the question is this: how limited is mathematics as a tool of explanation? Most of the surveillance technology that is used by google or the NSA or GCHQ is based on algorithms that are the compression of data into numbers, but doesn't recognise poetic licence: so to say in an email 'we bombed in New Haven' is not to say we -assuming 'we' to be a terrorist cell- dropped a bomb in Connecticut but that there was a play of that name performed there -but algorithms searching for that sequence of letters that makes 'bomb' would not know this.

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The short answer is "no". Math can not explain everything. Trish and I will go on about Kurt Gödel's Incompleteness Theorem, which basically states that there are some things which can never be proven in a strict mathematical sense. You can not write a computer program that will be able to tell is any other computer program will terminate or run in a loop for ever. This may seem rather abstract but it tells you you can never locate every computer virus in a system.

On a practical level - the NSA algorithms are somewhat incomplete in another sense - they may fail to take into account the nuances and context of human language but that's not because they are outside the capabilities of math. It's our fault for believing the output of computers!

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Originally Posted by martin48

The short answer is "no". Math can not explain everything. Trish and I will go on about Kurt Gödel's Incompleteness Theorem, which basically states that there are some things which can never be proven in a strict mathematical sense. You can not write a computer program that will be able to tell is any other computer program will terminate or run in a loop for ever. This may seem rather abstract but it tells you you can never locate every computer virus in a system.

On a practical level - the NSA algorithms are somewhat incomplete in another sense - they may fail to take into account the nuances and context of human language but that's not because they are outside the capabilities of math. It's our fault for believing the output of computers!

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And according to Jamie we are destined to evolve into supercomputers which will take advantage of the 'singularity' and the collapsing universe to reign over all time. Curious how nothing ever goes wrong in the future and there is an unlimited supply of energy to keep the lights on...

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Originally Posted by Stavros

And according to Jamie we are destined to evolve into supercomputers which will take advantage of the 'singularity' and the collapsing universe to reign over all time. Curious how nothing ever goes wrong in the future and there is an unlimited supply of energy to keep the lights on...

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Keep voting Republican and the future will be full of energy and freedom :geek:

All the people I know who excel in the sciences are atheists, most all of the regular people I know have no opinion on the subject.

While Darwin and modern science really takes off about two hundred years ago, I think for the scientific mind, DNA=GOD.

Everything that is alive is alive because of DNA, DNA has been silently screaming to live for millions of years, DNA is why we have lungs instead of leaves, hands instead of flippers. DNA is the seed of life.

And the exciting part is that through DNA engineering, we can maybe do what Jesus couldn't do- wipe out many diseases and give your great grandchildren 20-10 vision.

Of course many a sci-fi movie warns us what happens when Man plays GOD.

DNA is an anagram of AND. This is perhaps appropriate since AND is a logic gate and DNA is a long molecule that codes for the logic and assembly of nearly all forms of terrestrial life.

I wouldn't say, however, that DNA=GOD, especially not for scientific minds. Explanations that invoke God are almost always teleological. I would think, to a scientific mind, this would have to be a feature of any god-equivalent explanation.

Arguments that invoke the random mutation of DNA and the relative reproductive fitness of the corresponding phenotypes are ultimately never teleological. It is not the goal of DNA to propagate mutant copies of itself into the future, rather that it does so is a consequence of contingencies and terrestrial chemistry.

There is nothing in modern science that can replace God. So if science removes Him, won't it leave a hole? Actually it's more like removing the crinkle when you steam a blouse.

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Originally Posted by trish

.....DNA is a long molecule that codes for the logic and assembly of nearly all forms of terrestrial life......

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NEARLY all or all?

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Originally Posted by buttslinger

NEARLY all or all?

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Depends on what you call life and what terrestrial life forms remain undiscovered. (E.g. the infectious agent in madcow disease appears to be a "misfolded" protein called a prion. Like Vonegut's Ice 9, when it's present among other proteins of like kind it causes them to misfold and so the anomaly appears to grow. It can even be transmitted from organism to organism by ingestion. Is it life? I say no, but some disagree.)

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Originally Posted by martin48

May I be so bold as to point the interested reader to this

http://www.hungangels.com/vboard/att...1&d=1389611599

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Hi, Martin48. For my reply to physicist Prof. Lawrence M. Krauss's above review of physicist and mathematician Prof. Frank J. Tipler's book The Physics of Christianity (New York: Doubleday, 2007), see Sec. 4: "Criticisms of the Omega Point Cosmology", pp. 26 ff. of my following article:

James Redford, "The Physics of God and the Quantum Gravity Theory of Everything", Social Science Research Network (SSRN), Sept. 10, 2012 (orig. pub. Dec. 19, 2011), 186 pp., doi:10.2139/ssrn.1974708; PDF, 1741424 bytes, MD5: 8f7b21ee1e236fc2fbb22b4ee4bbd4cb. http://ssrn.com/abstract=1974708 , http://archive.org/details/ThePhysic...ryOfEverything , http://theophysics.host56.com/Redfor...ics-of-God.pdf , http://alphaomegapoint.files.wordpre...ics-of-god.pdf , http://sites.google.com/site/physico...ics-of-God.pdf

Additionally, in the below resource are six sections which contain very informative videos of physicist and mathematician Prof. Frank J. Tipler explaining the Omega Point cosmology, which is a proof (i.e., mathematical theorem) of God's existence per the known laws of physics (viz., the Second Law of Thermodynamics, General Relativity, and Quantum Mechanics), and the Feynman-DeWitt-Weinberg quantum gravity/Standard Model Theory of Everything (TOE), which is also required by the known laws of physics. The seventh section therein contains an audio interview of Tipler.

A number of these videos are not otherwise online. I also provide some helpful notes and commentary for some of these videos.

James Redford, "Video of Profs. Frank Tipler and Lawrence Krauss's Debate at Caltech: Can Physics Prove God and Christianity?", alt.sci.astro, Message-ID: jghev8tcbv02b6vn3uiq8jmelp7jijluqk@4ax.com , 30 Jul 2013 00:51:55 -0400. https://groups.google.com/forum/#!to...ro/KQWt4KcpMVo , http://archive.is/a04w9 , http://webcitation.org/6IUTAMEyS The plain text of this post is available at: TXT, 42423 bytes, MD5: b199e867e42d54b2b8bf6adcb4127761. http://mirrorcreator.com/files/JCFTZSS8/ , http://ge.tt/3lOTVbp

Can Physics Prove God and Christianity? Frank Tipler vs Lawrence Krauss - YouTube

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Originally Posted by trish

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Originally Posted by buttslinger

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Originally Posted by trish

.....DNA is a long molecule that codes for the logic and assembly of nearly all forms of terrestrial life......

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NEARLY all or all?

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Depends on what you call life and what terrestrial life forms remain undiscovered. (E.g. the infectious agent in madcow disease appears to be a "misfolded" protein called a prion. Like Vonegut's Ice 9, when it's present among other proteins of like kind it causes them to misfold and so the anomaly appears to grow. It can even be transmitted from organism to organism by ingestion. Is it life? I say no, but some disagree.)

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All known forms of life (i.e., things that are commonly thought of as being alive) consist of nanoassemblers. That is, all such lifeforms manipulate individual molecules in order to reproduce and to maintain their functioning. Human babies, for example, are constructed molecule-by-molecule through cell division, as the cells intake molecules and chemically process them in order to grow and divide. Through biochemical processes, even individual atoms are manipulated in this manner. For instance, iron atoms are biochemically manipulated as part of the process in making hemoglobin.

Based upon this common view of what life is, prions are a form of life, since they are protein structures which reproduce themselves on the molecular level (in this case, by changing the chiral structure of their structural isomers, especially enantiomers).

But there are also RNA forms of life, such as RNA viruses.

Physicists Profs. John D. Barrow and Frank J. Tipler devised the definition of life as a process which uses natural selection to preserve its information in their book The Anthropic Cosmological Principle (Oxford, UK: Clarendon Press, 1986), with the "Foreword" by John A. Wheeler.

Profs. Barrow and Tipler's definition of life comes the closest to hitting upon that aspect which makes the difference between being alive or dead. Yet this definition of theirs produces what most people would consider weird results. For example, under this definition of life, an automobile car is alive, since it is a pattern that is being reproduced via natural selection, i.e., the natural selection of what patterns of cars humans choose to assemble and to maintain. Tipler freely admits that cars are alive under this definition.

Howbeit, even arrowheads are alive according to this definition.

Yet this strikes people's minds as odd that such could be the case. But in actuality, one runs into even more problems with other attempts at defining what life is, since Profs. Barrow and Tipler's definition of life just reduces life to the fundaments of essential evolutionary biology.

The reason why all attempt to define what life is, as contrasted with things that are not alive, run into situations that seem obviously either ill-defined or absurd is because no distinction can veridically be made. The reason why no such distinction can in truth be made, and hence why all such attempts at making such a distinction must run into problem-cases that are either undefined or ridiculous, is because everything is alive. If literally everything is alive, then of course one is embarked upon a fool's errand to attempt to find the difference between what is alive or not.

In the Omega Point cosmology, all matter eventually becomes superintelligent computing machinery. So also, in the Omega Point cosmology, all event horizons must eventually be eliminated. In other words, not one tiny speck of matter can be left behind. What this means is that even if a blind piece of matter doesn't seem alive right now, it is just the supporting-structure for the lifeform that will eventually grow. Like the inorganic minerals which make up the bones in humans. Or the keratin which make up our toenails and fingernails.