It’s just cognitive heuristics, right? Many animals appear to use heuristics to competitive advantage; it’s reasonable to assume early humans did too. But there are limits to the effectiveness of heuristics when things are complex and these cognitive short-cuts don’t necessarily give the right answers. Finding reasons for things helped us better exploit them, but when we started understanding that things were more complicated and the answers weren’t obvious, this tool wasn’t up to the task and accidentally created gods.
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Science v Religion
(138 posts) (15 voices)
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Finding reasons for things helped us better exploit them, but when we started understanding that things were more complicated and the answers weren’t obvious, this tool wasn’t up to the task and accidentally created gods.
Love this - could try a FP around "Adam and Eve forced to sit God down and explain that He was an accident"?
Posted 2 weeks ago # -
I'll bow out now with this wonderful Tim Minchin stand-up...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DA5lIFUply0&ab_channel=MattiHoldenPosted 2 weeks ago # -
Stalin & Mao have never struck me as very risible but I understand that 2 famous mass murderers among the ranks of the atheists is a bit uncomfortable to the supposition that atheists are not extremists and are good whereas religious people are extremists and bad. If you say they were atheists but not humanists then you need to define humanism. If your definition says human beings must be the sole judges of right and wrong and the arbiter of all values, then unfortunately this is not incompatible with Hitler's idea of the ubermensch and Nazi ideology of the Master Race.
As for the leprechaun v God debate, I would like to take a leaf out of Al's book and bring in some numbers. Percentage of the world's population who believe in leprechauns < 5%, percentage who self identify as theists >50%, which means belief in these are not statistically comparable, even though trying to disprove the existence of either is equally futile in scientific terms.
@ Sinnick, I don't like the OUP definition of belief with the addition of especially one without proof unless proof is used precisely in contradistinction to evidence. The crux of the issue is often how much evidence is needed to constitute proof. When you write “I also suspect almost all life forms would have to be built from Nucleic Acids … and There don't seem to be other mechanisms...” are these examples of beliefs or of judgements?
As for evidence (not proof) for the existence of God you could say it is all around you. Is the universe a totally chaotic, random, meaningless conglomeration of atoms, or are scientists not being intelligent when they look for patterns, regularities, systems, which start to amount to design? From design it is a simple step to the hypothesis of a designer.
If you want more specific evidence, Al, then a few questions. Was your mother a Catholic? Did she love you? Was this love because she believed you to be a gift from God whose initial purpose was to be a recipient of motherly love, an echo of divine love? Does not the 'fact' of your mother's love not hint at the possibility that perhaps Love is the supreme value and meaning of the universe? If St. John is right and God is Love, then maybe Love is God?Posted 2 weeks ago # -
Bloody hell Granger! Is "Intelligent Design" still a thing?
Is the universe a totally chaotic, random, meaningless conglomeration of atoms
Well the little I remember of thermodynamics points to the answer; Yes. Certainly chaotic & random.
Everything descends into chaos. Patterns form briefly. Solids have a clear pattern, add energy and liquids are a lot more chaotic. A bit more energy and gasses are as mad as a box of frogs. (Entropy comes into it somewhere. Something about equilibrium of systems. I really wish I'd concentrated more during thermodynamics lectures.) Think of an ice cube melting and the resulting puddle evaporating. Remove the energy and the gas condenses. Remove more energy and it solidifies into a pattern determined by inter-atomic bonds.If St. John is right and God is Love, then maybe Love is God?
If generations of anthropologists are right then love is what stops a mother eating her baby. It's also what keeps people together to raise offspring. It's a useful tool in evolution and also why we dote on anything with two big round eyes but recoil in horror from anything with more than two or slitty eyes. Maybe Love is Darwin?And finally. Scientists talk of believing something and look for proof. Clerics talk of having faith which fortuitously does not require any proof. If you had proof you wouldn't need faith. And faith is what keeps the clerics in business.
Posted 2 weeks ago # -
That means God is our reaction to a chemical created in the hypothalamus and secreted by the nearby pituitary gland. Some people with low oxytocin levels have lower levels of God. Some people with autism have lower levels of oxytocin; it’s been shown that if their oxytocin levels are artificially increased, their understanding of the expressions of others is increased. We can chemically induce God in the God deficient.
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If you want more specific evidence, Al, then a few questions. Was your mother a Catholic? Did she love you? Was this love because she believed you to be a gift from God whose initial purpose was to be a recipient of motherly love, an echo of divine love? Does not the 'fact' of your mother's love not hint at the possibility that perhaps Love is the supreme value and meaning of the universe? If St. John is right and God is Love, then maybe Love is God?
Well, since you have got personal, I'll do my best to answer through the tears, as she has just died.
No she wasn't religious. Clearly she loved me, and I loved her. She is now gone, but alive in my memory.
Stalin & Mao have never struck me as very risible but I understand that 2 famous mass murderers among the ranks of the atheists is a bit uncomfortable to the supposition that atheists are not extremists and are good whereas religious people are extremists and bad. If you say they were atheists but not humanists then you need to define humanism. If your definition says human beings must be the sole judges of right and wrong and the arbiter of all values, then unfortunately this is not incompatible with Hitler's idea of the ubermensch and Nazi ideology of the Master Race.
Being an Atheist or a Humanist doesn't compel you to do bad things to other people, but it doesn't give you an excuse either. Mao and Stalin had no excuse - but at least they didn't claim God was on their side. Hitler believed in some weird Occult shit.
"The evidence is all around you" - now that really is risible.
See Myke on Mao and Stalin above, B-J on thermodynamics, but I'll add life is characterised by dissipative structures, creating internal organisation by stripping it out of the rest of the Universe. See Prigogine.
What it comes down to is theists opposition to humans working things out for themselves - it's all in the bible, Torah, Koran etc., no need to think. It's no surprise that "Lucifer" can be translated as "Bringer of Light".
Posted 2 weeks ago # -
Bit of a stupid thing to say about mothers, there, granger. Most of us are middle aged here, and the chance of picking on someone with an ill or deceased parent is high. I was aware of his recent loss, and you owe Al an apology
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Your arguments are full of flaws, and I really can't be arsed to my waste time pointing them out to you any more. Preferring your own definition of a word to that in the world's most accepted dictionary. FFS, that's idioticIf that's the standard of dicussion, then no wonder the intelligent world's turning towards atheism
Happy to discuss with others, of course
Posted 2 weeks ago # -
Percentage of the world's population who believe in leprechauns < 5%, percentage who self identify as theists >50%, which means belief in these are not statistically comparable
Why ever not? If they have separate characteristics, as you seem to be suggesting, then you could use a t-test or bayes formula to compare the two, despite the cohort size difference. If, as Myke suggests, they are essentially the same cohort, then you can compare the two as you’d comparing a slice of pie with the rest of the pie, right?
Posted 2 weeks ago # -
percentage who self identify as theists >50%,
I would add that a lot of those who self-identify are not practicing which is why Al asked us to put "No Religion" on the census rather than our ancestral tribe.My mum also died recently. She always told me she loved me but only after I'd explained that I was her son.
Anyway... This thermodynamics thing. I do recall that there is something about everything ultimately moving to a state of chaos which I remember as being quite poetic/prophetic. My career moved rapidly away from science to wine so, for both reasons, my mind is not a sharp as it was. Can any one explain in REALLY simple terms what this theory/law is? I tried looking it up but the normal miasma quickly came down as it used to when I was furiously trying to take notes in the lectures.
Oddly the two things I could never get my head around enough to fully understand, Latin and Thermodynamics, I now realise are probably the most important things I missed out on in my early education.
Also: I once had a girlfriend who had the revelation that ice didn't sink in water as it should. If it did, ponds would freeze from the bottom and your goldfish would die. She extrapolated this phenomenon to be other worldly and from it came up with a lot of spiritual "answers". God probably came into it somewhere but I'd lost interest by then because a quick google explained about hydrogen bonds. My view was that it was probably easier to call on the research of previous generations than invent your own.
Posted 2 weeks ago # -
Entropy = randomness
Overall entropy of a system can never decrease
Take a shoe box, fill the left end with white sand, the right end with black sand. Shake it. It always mixes, it never separates into the 2 colours
Randomness increases, ie entropy increases
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Another example: a car battery discharges, releasing energy. When exhausted, it can't release any more energy. The same materials are in there, just located differentlyWhen recharging the battery, you reduce its entropy again - but that energy came from something else which itself has now increased its entropy = randomness
Posted 2 weeks ago # -
Many years after university I came across a sheaf of paper covered in formulae. It made absolutely no sense to me what so ever. The weird thing was that it was in my hand writing. The lecturer fulfilled his obligation by rattling stuff off and all we could do was make notes in the hope it might make sense later - it didn't.
I now realise how important it is in understanding the fundamentals of physics and feel a bit cheated. There were only 4 of us in his lectures so he could have sat down and explained it more slowly.But basically I was right. The universe is totally random and chaotic.
Posted 2 weeks ago # -
... ice didn't sink in water as it should. If it did, ponds would freeze from the bottom and your goldfish would die.
Similarly, I remember once looking at a graph (link too lengthy to post here) showing the transparency of seawater at different frequencies, being amazed that the stuff is apparently quite opaque at most frequencies outside the narrow spectrum of light which just happens to be visible to us, and thinking 'Wow! That's lucky!'
Being a bit thick, it was only a day later that the very obvious and inevitable reason struck me.
Posted 2 weeks ago # -
There are very few other substances where the solid is less dense than the liquid: silicon, germanium, gallium, arsenic, acetic acid, antimony, and bismuth. Probably a few others. Usually the solid sinks
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Our atmosphere is mostly opaque too, apart from visible, some IR & microwaves, and radio. I think it's the water & CO2 content that stops the others. I suspect longer wavelengths would uncover some interesting science, but you'd need a very large radio scope in space to do that. You'll see from the following graph that astro research using long radio wavelengths isn't possible from the ground, though interestingly they're used for long-distance comms to submarines etchttp://gsp.humboldt.edu/OLM/Courses/GSP_216_Online/lesson2-1/atmosphere.html
Posted 2 weeks ago # -
Yeah, but isn't it amazing, that the greatest transparency is just at exactly the same wavelength as our eyes work at?
Obviously a brilliant bit of design by God, who must therefore undoubtedly exist. You'd guys has better shape up and stop baiting him, or there'll be a great bolt of lightning delivered to your laptop by ultra-fast broadband.
Don't say I didn't warn you! Repent, you sinners.
Posted 2 weeks ago # -
This clip from the Time Bandits should help clear matters up.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R6OKLgLZHFk&ab_channel=TopClips
Posted 2 weeks ago # -
I hope from the general tone of my posts that no one believes it was my intention to provoke Al to tears. I spoke of his mother due to a careless misreading of his post referring to his mother-in-law and my sincere apologies for the misunderstanding. I chose to be personal because I've found Christianity makes most sense at the personal level, rather than at the cosmological about which I know little from lack of interest. Also I've never studied thermodynamics though had come across the idea of entropy. I have heard also of the brazil nut effect, which, to paraphrase, suggests that if you put a pile of small steel ballbearings in a box with much larger but lighter plastic balls, then however random the original positions may be, the longer you shake the box, the more separated the two types become. So whatever thermodynamics predicts about ever increasing chaos, it seems that on this planet in our days there can be examples of the opposite. I think that from a basic knowledge of human history, including Darwin's evolution, we can observe a direction towards ever increasing complexity. Is life today not manifestly more complex than 2000 years ago? Also within the solar system movement is so not chaotic that scientists cannot predict it well enough to land a probe on Mars.
It was interested to see Mr Gradgrind's interpretation of life, where only hard facts are considered important, lives on. Great art works – mere daubs of colour on canvas. Beauty – how can that exist if it has no weight, no volume, no atomic number? Ben would like to define love purely in terms of movement of chemicals in the brain but is that the love that makes the world go around? I'd rather have the devil's dictionary definition – a temporary insanity curable by marriage, which at least has the advantages of wit, humour and jollity, all fantasies under threat from the Gradgrinders.
My reference to evidence all around was not an attempt to revive Aquinas' argument from design as a proof of God but merely to say through the eyes of faith, the hand of God is evident throughout nature, where faith is not a commodity on sale from clerics but a way of looking at things which can add a whole new dimension. A metaphor which partly works is those magic eye pictures that were popular 20 years ago. Some stare and stare but see only blotches of colour, while others can see carefully placed optical clues which create a 3D effect. This can be called an illusion but it is also in one sense real. My caveat about the OUP definition was not of course an attempt to vaunt myself as superior, replacing it with something completely different of my own. The suggestion was that it could be improved by replacing 'without proof' by something like 'with limited evidence short of proof.' When you write, Sinnick, that 'I also suspect almost all life forms would have to be built from Nucleic Acids, but not necessarily the same ones (though they are the simpler ones). There don't seem to be other mechanisms that could work in the same massively complex way,' are these examples of beliefs or judgements? What makes the crucial distinction?
PS: Love the Time Bandits link, MykePosted 2 weeks ago # -
Science v Arts. A little story from my school days.
I did quite well at O Level. Got abut 13 across the board. I was shunted into Sixth Science to do Double Maths, Physics and Chemistry. Friends who were a bit thick when it came to science went to Sixth Arts and did English, History and Geography (Which was considered as "Arts"). I got much better grades in English than most of them but as there were only 4 or 5 of us who could, we had to do science - It was a very small school. You couldn't mix Arts and Science. What further pissed me off was that as "Scientists" we had to do "Further English Studies" AO level. The Arts people didn't have to do even a basic grounding in Physics. So I suppose we had the broader education. I could appreciate literature but my "Arts" friends didn't have a clue about how stuff worked.This is probably still true for the majority. Scientists can appreciate art but few artists can appreciate science. We can appreciate love, nature, beauty etc. We just ALSO know how it works.
Posted 2 weeks ago # -
Also I've never studied thermodynamics though had come across the idea of entropy. I have heard also of the brazil nut effect, which, to paraphrase, suggests that if you put a pile of small steel ballbearings in a box with much larger but lighter plastic balls, then however random the original positions may be, the longer you shake the box, the more separated the two types become. So whatever thermodynamics predicts about ever increasing chaos, it seems that on this planet in our days there can be examples of the opposite.
Yes, I can tell that you have never studied thermodynamics. Denser objects sink, lighter objects rise with an input of energy. It's called gravity - ever let go of a balloon filled with helium? So this is not analogous to the mixing example previously described.
Beauty – how can that exist if it has no weight, no volume, no atomic number? Ben would like to define love purely in terms of movement of chemicals in the brain but is that the love that makes the world go around? I'd rather have the devil's dictionary definition – a temporary insanity curable by marriage, which at least has the advantages of wit, humour and jollity, all fantasies under threat from the Gradgrinders
That's your choice - fine, I am happy for you. We continue to seek the rules that govern the Universe, our method works far better than yours.
This is probably still true for the majority. Scientists can appreciate art but few artists can appreciate science. We can appreciate love, nature, beauty etc. We just ALSO know how it works.
Artist friend of mine once said "blimey, just two days ago it was 10 degrees C, today its 20 degrees C - twice as hot!" FFS apart from me and my scientist mate laughing our rocks off, what can you say?
Posted 2 weeks ago # -
Grateful, Al, to be allowed the choice. The main aim of my contributions to this thread has been to have the acknowledgement that the choice of theism as a belief system is equally reasonable to that of atheism. I wished to combat the mistake of the the v (versus) in the title which falsely implies a competition or binary choice between the two, conveniently ignoring the fact that millions of scientists would also call themselves theists and why not. I have never claimed to have methods of finding truth totally different from 'ours', by which I guess you to mean those scientists who choose to count themselves atheists. Is it not insulting to assume that all theists are fools who believe in fairy tales? Anyone stupid enough to believe that 20° feels twice as hot as 10° must be a theist!
Personally I have no beef with any scientist, except those arrogant enough to claim a monopoly on intelligence and reasonableness.Posted 2 weeks ago # -
Surgeons are universally admired and respected - regardless of their religion. They can believe in Vishnu or Jesus, but only their medical intervention will save the patient’s life.
Just because scientists can debate spiritual matters does not mean theism is an equally valid belief system. They are chalk and cheese. Cars are moved by engines regardless of what the driver ‘believes’.
The fallacy of your argument is that I must accept something exists precisely because I cannot prove it's non-existence. Yes, a scientist can believe in the supernatural, but they cannot manifest supernatural medicine. Most people accept this to be true.
Surgery: Branch of medical practice that treats injuries and diseases by the physical removal, repair, or readjustment of organs and tissues, often involving cutting into the body.
Belief: An acceptance that something exists or is true, especially one without proof.
I Googled a cure for hiccups and here’s what I got.
1. Hold your breath and swallow three times.
2. Breathe into a paper bag but stop before you get lightheaded.
3. Drink a glass of water quickly.
4. Swallow a teaspoon of sugar.
5. Pull on your tongue.
6. Gargle with water.I tried 4 & 5. Half an hour later my hiccups were miraculously gone! There is more to heaven and earth than is dreamt of in my philosophy.
Posted 2 weeks ago # -
Fallacy well spotted, Myke; only thing lacking is any evidence the 'argument' was mine (or anyone else's?). This way of treating straw men always reminds me of Edward Woodward.
BTW are you claiming that fools who believe fairy tales can qualify as respected surgeons - who would have thought/believed it!
My wife suffers badly from hiccups but has found a quick gulp of vinegar works for her. Belief in God is not essential though faith in the cure probably helps. Placebo effect & psychosomatic pains are a bit tricky for Gradgrinders, things happening without clear physical cause, unless we're back to chemicals moving in the brain. Of course if you prefer Ben's scientific finger up your are, that's your choice.Posted 2 weeks ago # -
FFS! This is why arguing with religious people is such fun, if by fun I mean banging my head against a wall.
Granger, you said:
I guess you've never seen the reports that a written when a 'miracle' is declared in Lourdes? The committee which investigates includes doctors who are agnostics and atheists and the conclusion which is sometimes reached is not 'God did it' but more like 'our current state of knowledge has no scientific explanation for this event,' - seems fair enough?I said:
The fallacy of your argument is that I must accept something exists precisely because I cannot prove it's non-existence. Yes, a scientist can believe in the supernatural, but they cannot manifest supernatural medicine. Most people accept this to be true.
To which you replied:
Fallacy well spotted, Myke; only thing lacking is any evidence the 'argument' was mine (or anyone else's?). This way of treating straw men always reminds me of Edward Woodward.
As for:
BTW are you claiming that fools who believe fairy tales can qualify as respected surgeons - who would have thought/believed it!
That was in response to me saying:
Surgeons are universally admired and respected - regardless of their religion.
As for fairy tales, I assume you're referring to me saying:
But unless I can prove leprechauns don't exist, I must respect people who believe in them.
which I stand by. It's a valid point.Finally, you know full well what my meaning is, and that of many other posters here. I respect everyone I meet until or unless they give me reason to think otherwise. But no one – not me or anyone else – deserves unconditional respect. If someone starts talking to me about god, divine love, redemption through execution etc, I’ll ask them to kindly close their cake hole. It’s that simple.
Posted 2 weeks ago # -
Do I hear hear the sound of knickers twisting as well as head banging? If I may rephrase my words in your 1st quote - scientific 'agnosticism' seems a fair response to those uncomfortable with the word miricle. How this relates to your words - 'I must accept something exists precisely because I cannot prove its non-existece'- I fail to see, though I can admire the construction of your straw man.
If I may take the liberty of paraphrasing your words - because belief in leprechauns and god are equally unprovable, then the two beliefs are equivalent - not a valid point in my logic.
If you look back you will see I objected to your idea of redemption through execution and substituted the word sacrifice.
If the mental effort of seeking scientific PROOF of the NON-existence of something (which by definition is not a 'thing') becomes too exhausting, you could take a break by trying to calculate how many angels can balance on a pin. I use my mouth for eating as well as for rational discourse but rarely eat cake.Posted 2 weeks ago # -
If I may take the liberty of paraphrasing your words - because belief in leprechauns and god are equally unprovable, then the two beliefs are equivalent - not a valid point in my logic.
Why not?
Granger, you really should try removing the log from your eye, before trying to remove the mote in ours.
Posted 2 weeks ago #
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