From: Hermit (virus@hermit.net)
Date: Tue Sep 02 2003 - 13:24:11 MDT
[Jonathan] This is simply wrong. He wrote, "We live in a wantonly
irreligious age-at least at the level of public discourse." "Wantonly"
modifies "irreligious" which could mean, amongst other things: "We are
playfully irreligious" or "Unrestrainedly excessive in our irreligiousness"
or "We live in an undisciplined irreligious age". [
http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=wanton ].
[Hermit] So Fred was bitching because we are "playfully irreligious". I'm sure this somehow makes sense to somebody, somewhere.
[Jonathan] Adopting the language of Marxism will not help. We are not oppressed and the constitutional protections remain firm.
[Hermit] I've researched this. Have you? virus: Dawkins: The future looks bright, Hermit, 2003-06-23 (http://forum.javien.com/XMLmessage.php?id=id::LV1VFBxN-KhVi-OCV2-LwYn-IAg2FDAnbgMZ) Search for [Lucifer 5] and continue from there.
[Jonathan] So the CoV is belief less? I have beliefs, supported by reasons, but beliefs none the less. We are a church, organised around certain shared beliefs. We are as jeopardised by dogma and extremism as any church.
[Hermit] re Beliefs. You may have them. But I recommend you check any Dictionary. Here is a Virian one. http://virus.lucifer.com/wiki/belief re Dogma, not at all. It says so right on the cover . http://virus.lucifer.com/wiki/SenselessSins
[Jonathan] He simply offered some examples. You ought to know better than to
attack an example. His point still holds - many brilliant, great men have
been religious. This is simply true.
[Hermit] And many brilliant, great men have been non-religious and antireligious. This is simply true.
[Jonathan] I cannot think of a single Renaissance master who was not avowedly religious. Even St Darwin is alleged to have seen the light at the very end :-)
[Hermit] I can think of many who were not religious - but as those who avowed this tended to end up as the centerpiece of bonfires, they didn't typically make a noise about it.
[Jonathan] Your see presumptions where there are none. Yes, there may be
fairies too.
[Hermit] The presumption is that it takes belief to reject an idea for which strong evidence tending to disallow it exists.
[Jonathan] [Hermit] This is the same argument used by Theists! It is not that God does not exist, but our nature is too limited to comprehend him/it/her. I am not satisfied with the evasion "Your too limited to understand the concept of pre-Big Bang", either the answer exists within our conceptual abilities or it is..dare I say it...in the realm of the religious and otherworldly (or othermindly).
[Hermit] I said no such thing!!!
[Hermit] Sheesh! There is nothing about our nature which limits our comprehension of the BB or the Universe. Please read the link (http://virus.lucifer.com/bbs/index.php?board=32;action=display;threadid=284
97;start=0) before you make statements which run counter to the well accepted consensus position (or become abusive). Spacetime was instantiated in the Big Bang. Thus there was no "time" before the Big Bang. So any assertion of prior causation - just like an assertion of causation for detectable quantum fluctuation (particle instantiation and evaporation) is meaningless and must fail. And stating that this is the realm of the religious is to state that Religion has no place in our Universe - as anything - real or imaginary - which has the attribute of existance, is in our Universe simply because no evidence supporting any model which allows anything outside our Universe to interact with it (as interaction requires information exchange and information exchange is energy exchange which would mean that the Universe is not closed), exists.
[Jonathan] He did not make a universal assertion. I am a scientist too and I
confirm Fred's thesis.
[Hermit] If not purely nominal, would you mind explaining how you have adhered to the scientific method in confirming "Fred's thesis". Hint: FAQ: The Scientific Method (http://virus.lucifer.com/bbs/index.php?board=31;action=display;threadid=11537)
[Jonathan] Unless they never appealed to authority in the first place. <snip> Fred Reed not being such...[appeal to popularity]
[Hermit] "I note however that over millennia people of extraordinary intellect and thoughtfulness have taken religion seriously." is not a simultaneous appeal to popularity and authority? What is then?
[Jonathan] He asks no direct questions.
[Hermit] I remind Jonathan:In the essay Fred asked tough, insightful questions with humility
[Jonathan] He did not make negative statements about scientists, he simply
pointed out scientists are limited. This is not an insult, but a fact. He
warns against smugness and overconfidence. He argues for humility and
respect. I agree with these sentiments.
[Hermit] Fred can reply to this:
[Fred] It will be said that we have learned much since the time of Newton,
and that this knowledge renders us wiser on matters spiritual. We do have
better plastics. Yet still we die, and have no idea what it means.
[Fred] We do not know where we came from, and no amount of pious mummery
about Big Bangs and black holes changes that at all.
[Fred] These are the questions that religion addresses and that science
pretends do not exist.
[Fred] For all our transistors we know no more about these matters than did
Heraclitus, and think about them less.
[Fred] This fellow is very different from the common atheist, who is
bitter,proud of his advanced thinking, and inclined toward a (somewhat
adolescent) hostility to a world that isn't up to his standard. This is
tiresome and predictable, but doesn't offend me.
[Fred] Less forgivably, he often wants to run on about logical positivism. etc, ad nauseam.
[Hermit]To me, more invidious even than his attacks on atheists etc, is this:[Fred] The following seems to me to be true regarding religion and the sciences: Either one believes that there is an afterlife, or one believes that there is not an afterlife, or one isn't sure-which means that one believes that there may be an afterlife. Where it is quite clear that Fred "believes*" that there is no quantitive or qualitive differences between the reasoned evidence based scientific weighing of a matter, and the acceptance through faith evidenced by the religious. Of course, you appear to be saying something similar.
[Jonathan] After reading you state that "we know enough to be able to state
that the question, "But where did that come from" is an illusion caused by
our nature, not an attribute of the Universe", I think you ought to consider
a name change to Hermit Risik :-)
[Hermit] Yet causation is an illusion, which our brains create for us. This is not a matter of speculation, it is a matter of very solid fundamental physics (think Bell inequalities, spooky action and Heisenberg). When you have read the expansion and links above, and if needed done additional research (Weinberg and Feynman are good starting points on the physics aspects), I'll be expecting your apology.
Hermit
*http://virus.lucifer.com/wiki/belief
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