Theism vs. Atheism ... will it ever be settled?

Textbook wrote: Isn't faith the abandonment of inquiry and personal agency? That seems intellectually lazy to me.

Faith is trusting in something beyond your understanding and the will to trust in something that you can't see or prove but you know is there. That's nothing to do with lazy... In fact, faith without action is nothing. It's in the Bible man. What's so great of faith if you sit and just see the life running around yourself. There's a lot to do for a believer. I you believe but don't do, there's nothing great about it. But that's something that a believer should know... if they do their homework...

Textbook wrote: Look, just because someone wrote some things that a lot of people have discussed for many years, doesn't make them an indisputable genius. I am very suspicious of someone who makes inquiries into the nature of the universe but before beginning, assumes certain principles as fact on a basis of faith. This is arguing from a conclusion and is a very dubious pursuit.

Textbook wrote: As what?

Equality 7-2521 wrote: Textbook wrote: Look, just because someone wrote some things that a lot of people have discussed for many years, doesn't make them an indisputable genius. I am very suspicious of someone who makes inquiries into the nature of the universe but before beginning, assumes certain principles as fact on a basis of faith. This is arguing from a conclusion and is a very dubious pursuit. Einstein work for you then?

 

Oops!
Maybe you should've said that instead of this

Textbook wrote: faith = laziness/complacency/failure to be a functioning person

Seems like a bit of a difference between the two.
I hope you are trying to be "out there" or "edgy" because otherwise you are forcing yourself to go back on your own arguments with your...extreme claims.




Edited by JJLehto - July 19 2010 at 21:09

The T wrote: Textbook wrote: Once again, it is intellectual laziness with regard to certain questions about the universe, not EVERYTHING. Well, really, religious people could accuse us of being more lazy if you see it clearly. After all, they have made up a whole system of rules, gods, saints, holy books, etc, etc, etc. We? We just say "no, I don't think so".

Mike........................faith is instinct and knowing within the self

Edited by Chris S - July 20 2010 at 03:16

Textbook wrote: Once again, it is intellectual laziness with regard to certain questions about the universe, not EVERYTHING.

that's just words, one might just as well say it is spiritual laziness to have no faith.
Friede and I do have faith in a deity, but to understand that deity you have to use a lot of your gray matter first. we have explained how our thinking works before, but I will gladly do it again. mark that there is absolutely nothing unscientific about it.

first of all: most people think the universe is made of matter and energy. that's in our opinion the wrong way to look at it; it is way too static. the universe is a process, made of myriads of sub-processes which themselves have myriads of sub-processes and so on. matter becomes energy and vice versa in these processes.

now let us have a look at consciousness: where does it come from? it is one of the big unanswered questions of science; no brain scientist has the slightest idea. so we can only make hypotheses about that. our hypothesis looks like this:

if you look at the way the universe is organized (as far as we know, of course) it appears that the more complex a process is the more consciousness it has. our brain, of course (actually brain and body together) is a process too, and a quite complex one, with lots of self-reference.
now our hypothesis is: any process of sufficient complexity and self-reference develops a consciousness. this is of course nothing but a hypothesis, but since no-one knows where consciousness comes from it is just as valid as any olther.

now the most complex self-referential process there is is of course the universe itself. we there fore claim it has a consciousness, but a consciousness that is so far advanced beyond ours that it is difficuklt to get in contact with it. and this consciousness, or rather the process that causes it, we call "God".

Mike made a quite funny remark at one time; I don't recall the exact words but it was something along the lines of "well, if that is your concept of God only then I can live with it". I really like the "only" in that statement; to speak of the whole universe as "only" is quite funny indeed.
t
he misconception many people have, believers as well as non-believers, that God is somewhere out there fluttering about. no, God simply is all there is.

now some may say "this is just another form of pantheism", but excuse me, what do you people who deny the existence of a deity think this God is supposed  to be? the old man with the beard? a kind of ghost fluttering around somewhere? then I agree with you: there is no such God. however, you just have the wrong concept of God then.

and don't go saying "I don't have a concept of God"; to deny the existence of something you must first have a concept of it. if you deny the existence of unicorns you must first have the concept of a horse-like creature with a horn on its forehead. if you deny the existence of tigers you must first have the concept of a cat-like creature, only bigger, with black and yellow stripes. then you can say "there are no unicorns" or "there are no tigers". to deny the existence of something you don't have a concept of is pure nonsense.

the interesting thing about our concept of God is that it is a dynamic and evolving God. not a static one, and in this we differ from other religions.

 but can one really use the word "God" for a concept like ours? well, let us check: the three qualities which define God are omnipresence, omnipotence and omniscience. our God certainly is everywhere; it is the universe, so check for omnipresence.

what about omnipotence? well, we have to check k that too; anything that can happen does indeed happen in the universe; nothing happens outside of it, at least not if the definition of "universe" means "all there is" (there are some scientific hypotheses about the existence of more than one universe, but if there is any substance to them of course we will either extend our concept of God to include these other unicerses too or become polytheists, with each universe being a God of its own; we have not decided about that yet, and there is no pressing need to decide right now.

and what about omniscience? well, it appears that the elements in the universe, or, as we like to say, its sub-processes, are interconnected, like a hologram. experiments like the Alain Aspect experiment from 1985 have shown that. since in a hologram all the information is in any fragment of irt already we can say "yes" to omniscience too.

the mathematician and logician Raymond Smullyan has written an interesting fictitious dialogue between a mortal and God, which I have recommended to read before. actually I recommend to read the whole book that dialogue is from, "The Tao Is Silent". there is nothing mystical about this book, but you will look at a few things with different eyes after having read it. and it is a highly amusing read; Smullyan is not only deep but also witty. as you can tell from this dialogue:
http://www.newbanner.com/SecHumSCM/IsGodTaoist.html

the amusing thing is that most people who read that dialogue don't understand it all, as comments like "this is no proof that God exists" (it was never meant to be a proof) clearly show.

anyway, the reason I mention that book is that we got the idea of seeing the universe as a process from it. (the book should be right up your alley, Mike; it is scientific, challenging and very different. and it is funny too)


Edited by BaldJean - July 20 2010 at 07:41

Textbook wrote: BJ: So what I took from that is that you believe that the universe exists as a single coherent unit/process and that you have chosen to label this unit/process god. Correct me if I misunderstood.

yes, and that this entity as a whole, being the most complicated process itself, has a consciousness. that's the important point. the universe does have a consciousness

Mr ProgFreak wrote: ^ What bearing does this belief have on your daily life?I don't mean this in a condescending way - your belief just sounds a bit esoteric to me.

there is nothing esoteric about that. it is simply a different way of looking at things, Mike. I see a mind at work when looking at nature's wonders, a conscious mind, while you just see the end product of an evolution.

mark that I believe in evolution; did I not say that the universe consists of processes? what I don't believe in is the simple explanation of mutation and selection. it can be easily demonstrated that mutation is by no means random at all; if you are familiar with scientific works on genetics you should know about that. this is quite simply because some mutations are more likely to happen than others because of the delta structure of the genetic code. previous mutations determine what further mutations are most likely to happen. that is anything but mere randomness.

I see a conscious spirit when looking at some of nature's wonders, and I become aware that somewhere out there is a consciousness which is far bigger than mine, and this fills me with a sense of awe.

this is all based on the hypothesis that consciousness is a phenomenon that occurs when a process becomes significantly complex and self-referential. it is as good as any hypothesis about the origin of consciousness, since no-one has any idea where it comes from.

maybe it can be proven one day, though it would be difficult. the discussions about the Turing test and how it is to be interpreted show that we have not understood consciousness very much yet.

what practical implication does it have, by the way, that you don't believe in a deity? it seems a bit esoteric to me