Cornell President Rawlings Condemns Intelligent Design

Drawing from sources ranging from Cornell's founders to Voyager
space missions, Interim President Hunter R. Rawlings III condemned
the push to teach intelligent design in public schools Friday. The
attack came during the president's State of...

http://www.cornellsun.com/vnews/display.v/...4/435c7762cf891


"The desire to understand the world and the desire to reform it are the two great engines of progress." - Bertrand Russell

Eeek - not sure I like where this thread will end up going, but let's see what happens. Play nice boys

Doug

Interesting topic, and not completelly out of science stricto sensu. Eventually the discution can go bad, but I think we shall not regret it.

First of all, the link posted by ljk4-1 provides a complete discution of what is Intelligent design, "Intelligent design is the belief that nature and complex structures were ultimately designed, directly or indirectly, by a higher intelligence, rather than mechanistic chance." and why some oppose it being teached in public schools.

We can lead this discution at different levels:
1) the relevance of teaching it a school (I think we can, so long as we present it as only an hypothesis or religious tenet)
2) if the idea of Intelligent Design can be considered a scientific hypothesis or not. (I think we can, but with caution: it implies non-physical causes and it is not really proven)
3) the physics beyond the idea, which most interests me.

The idea of Intelligent design is based on some facts which arise very difficult questions.

Anthropism: the universe physics seems to be "designed for" he existence of life (matter antimatter assymmetry, unlikely tuning of the triple-alpha reaction leading to the only atom able of creating long chains...). Some take Anthropism as an evidence of a creation, but others consider it only as a side-effect: many universe would exist, will all the diversity we can imagine for physical laws, physical constants, etc, and we would be into one of the rare law set suitable for life.

Auto-formative mechanisms simulate very well a purpose. The evolution/selection of life forms is typically such a mechanism, where complex and highly organized structures emerge when they are extremely unlikely to appear. The evolution of consciousness is too such a mechanism, and we can see it working into the appearance of science, organized societies, moral codes, human values... From where to infer that a God leads the walk, there is just a little step. But we can also consider that the apparent purpose of the evolution of consciousness IS God, and worship Him in the same way.
God emerging from life rather than creating it? This contradiction disappears if we try to reply the question "why this universe exists", but this discution leads very far, I invite interested people to rather visit my site and eventually discuss this here.

4) a fourth point would be a debate science versus dogmatism. I would say that we cannot automatically write the equations science = materialism and no more religion = dogmatism. Great scientists like Einstein, Liebniz, Newton, were also involved in religion. Einstein favoured a kind of rational questioning of what seems to be a meaning of life, universe and consciousness. On the opposite side, it also happened that materialistic science led to extremes of violence in certain dictatures. With my opinion what we call reason (from rational) can deal with physics, yes, as science today knows to do. But it can also deal with consciousness, its content and its meaning. Refusing to envision what is the more important in our life, and lefting the field free for dogmatists and sectarians is really a very serious mistake.

Is this nice enough?

Story

Once upon a time there was an astonomer. Peering Long and hard through his telescope, he noticed strange lines on the planet Mars. To him, this network of straight lines looked very artificial and could only be of Intelligent Design! The people loved the many Books he wrote on the Designers' grand plan to fight a drought of Biblical proportions.

Years later scientists discovered that the astronomer had been tricked by his own eyes. The lines were an optical illusion! No canals on the martian surface! Only craters. The scientists said the craters were made by meteors, not Martians. The people were very disappointed, because they liked the story in the astronomer's Books better.

But then some of the people started to see a pattern in the Rows of Craters and Hills. And some of these hills were shaped like pyramids and even a face! Surely this could only have been Designed by Intelligent martians!

The scientists tried to explain that these shapes often form naturally when hills Erode, but the people didn't want to believe that and accused the scientists of hiding the truth! They wanted science books to include the real story of how the face was Created. The scientists said they didn't like the idea of teaching pseudoscience and resisted. The people were very Creative and claimed the martians used Erosion to Create the pyramids. The people and scientists continued arguing for years.

But in the end, history proved the people right. In 2032 the remains of a obviously very Intelligent martian were found on Mars:

OWW, you have obviously gotten the dates wrong - the FSM is CLEARLY visible in the recent images of the planet and this is obvious PROOF that his Noodliness is following this discussion and has given us a SIGN!!!

Thank you OWW and helvick I though I was alone on this topic


The problem of Mars channels is not the same thing than Intelligen Design. Intelligent Design is the idea that the world was designed by a divine intelligence, a theory which is not yet proven today, so that it is a bit of irrationnal to "believe" in it. But it still remains as a bit of intuition. May the poet be able to find things that science cannot?

The problem of Mars channels was though at the epoch as an evidence of Intelligent Life on Mars, an hypothesis which was legitimate one century ago, but which is completelly disproven today, as the channels turned to be only optical illusions.

The face on Mars was never seriously considered as an evidence of Intelligent Life on Mars: it is a nice and poetical curiosity.

I like very much the story of His Noodliness, as it explains well how dogmatic thinking justifies itself, what is sometimes called circular thinking. But it do not really settle many questions such as a purpose of life, purpose that we have to find in our hearts, for instance loving each others. Dogmatic materialists do not see this (or laugh at it to protect themselves of taking any commitment). Sensitive people see this. Honest people try to put this in practice. Dogmatic religious nuts grasp on it.

Doug, is my sandcastle nicer than OWW's???

Now, here is the crux of the issue. Intelligent Design is *not* a theory. It is a statement of *faith*. And, by definition, a statement of faith *cannot* be proven. It must be taken as truth, even though it is not possible to prove.

As such, ID is not, cannot be, and will never be a theory. It must either be accepted on faith, or not. As it can *never* be proven (as with any matter of faith), it cannot *ever* undergo tests of proof, and therefore cannot be a theory.

Period.

End of discussion.

Now, the reason why some people here in the U.S. want to have ID taught as science, when absolutely no stretch of scientific process can make it such -- that's another matter. The reasons behind it are the stuff of what Doug doesn't want this board degenerating into... i.e., politics. But, no matter how energetically some people may wave their arms in support of their point, ID simply is not, cannot be, and never will be a scientific theory, or *any* kind of theory -- not as long as its basis is a matter of faith.

-the other Doug

Amen brother. Doug's probably gonna slap me for this one, but what the heck.

This is why the "discussions" about ID are not debate but rather dogmatic position statements like this. There is no possibility of debate in the subject of treating ID as a scientific anything because debate is a rationalist activity and belief just doesn't qualify for entry. The confusing part for me is why true believers should care in the first place. I tend to believe that the problem is that they don't. Believe that is. More on this later.

This is just todays flavour of the power struggle between blbilical literalists and rationalists and much of it is nothing new (see Thomas Paine's "The Age of Reason" for one side of the argument from 230 years ago). When you strip away the specifics you can see that the argument is about the very lucretive property that is the minds of future generations. The proponents of both sides know that their future relies on taking ownership of the development of the future minds of the nation. The question that needs to be asked openly is whether rationalist or literalist minds are what the country wants. Evolution is just the specific target of the day.

It's worth wondering why many religions don't have a problem with accepting and co-existing with scientific rationalism while some seem to have the denial of rationality as a commandment; this seems to be a particular problem for some protestant christian sects. The problem those particular religions have appears to be that they don't genuinely rely on faith but on distorted rationalism (as seen in "arguments" for Creatinism\ID) and a reliance on the absolute veracity of "The Book". As such the foundations of those religions are far too easily threatened by real rational argument. The proponents claim to "believe" but also seem to need constant proof and re-assurance hence the struggle to eliminate sources of doubt particularly in the minds of the young.

I've also always found it interesting to look at the relationship between organised religion and government. It is rarely a pretty sight when the former has an significant influence in the latter but that is a separate argument.

As a final thought - for any one who might have been offended - I have to further risk eternal damnation by quoting the immortal* words of Bill Hicks.

* Immortal in a hopeful rather than literal sense.

Ah, discution starts to heat, good. (Not a problem so long as everybody keeps respectful of others).

Dvandorn, I agree that ID is, for most of its proponents, an article of faith, or rather a dogma in the worse meaning of the word. And that it is dangerous to foster literalist dogmas in education.

ID is not a scientific theory, at least not yet.
But it could be an hypothesis. Free to everyone to pose it or not. Whatever we think in a scientific background or spiritual background, either.

That it will never be proven, this is not sure. The only thing sure is that if will be never proven by material science, and certainly not by materialist fundamentalism. If there is a God who created this universe and assigned us a purpose, there will be a moment where we shall have to fulfill our purpose. And this day the theory will come under test... For instance if this purpose is loving and kindness, those who do not practice loving kindness will have some trouble... You see that the experiment field is not a physics lab, it is our lives, our society.


Helvick, I appreciated your post, and could add or remove little.

To both I should add that spirituality is not that. Not fundamentalism, literalism, power struggle, not " the stuff of what Doug doesn't want this board degenerating into... ". Genuine spirituality is like science: questionning first. And after, to test our hypothesis with meditation/morals practice. Many great scientists were interested in spirituality. Most non-dogmatic great spiritual masters are interested in science. There is a famous one today, who lost his country from materialist fundamentalism. Let us not quote names.

Our human minds, our universe do not belong to religious nuts or fundamentalists.

Science as much as religion must take care not to be used to justify taboos or ideologies.

I would add that, to somewhat recenter the topic on something more or less related to space, that some purpose (if not ID) could be incorporated into cosmological scenarios.

Today most accepted cosmology theories study how the physical universe evolves from an intitial state (the singularity at the big bang). But they do not tell why this singularity exists. I say exists in the present tense, as, at this moment, time as we experience it has no meaning, so the question is "why the universe exists" and not "why it appeared". (to be exact some speculations are made about "before the Big bang", most of them predicting that many universe can exist).

Today accepted theories about life evolution say that this evolution is an auto-formative process, which can create complex structures from mere simplicity. This goes straight against the idea of Intelligent Design, as self-formative processes can generate structures which much ressemble very clever engineer designs for far reached purposes. So thinking, like literalists do, that life forms were designed by God is today really very naïve and it is understandable that it makes biology scientists angry.

So if there is really a God and a purpose, it is not to be seek into biology processes. It is obviously something deeply related to consciousness, meaning of life and eventually happiness. Is this matter related to cosmology and the existence of this universe? Do only exist universes where life evolves toward consciousness and wisdom, or do exist any universes with no life? If an universe contains no scientists to observe it, does it exist?

There certainly are extremely intriguing questions facing us that are so difficult to encompass that they can only be dealt with by hypothesis and, dare I say it, belief: The nature of consciousness; what exactly is spirituality?; if there was a big bang then how do you deal with the concept of "before the big bang" ?.

Speciation (and evolution) is so solid as a theory that it certainly does not qualify as an area that can't be wholly understood from a rational scientific point of view. The current discussions on whether or not the "Pioneer anomoly" or any other data from current probes can provide data that will force us to adjus our current Newtonian\Einsteinian theory of gravity don't qualify either as all of these are perfectly manageable within the context of standard rational scientific investigation. We can make falsifiable predictions, investigate and get answers that prove or refute the assertions. We can (and do) carry out experiments and create accurate theoretical models.

No doubt there are researchers out there pushing the edge of the envelope on understanding the mind who are preparing a scientifically rational model as I type but I haven't come across any yet. Likewise there are plenty of Cosmologists who are foaming at the mouth at my earlier comment as they say that there is no such thing as "before the big bang" so the question is meaningless but that just doesn't cut the mustard for me as that requires me to believe that well, it all just started which is logically equivalent to "God did it" in my book.

Spirituality is one that I have difficulty with because I don't understand it or empathise with it as a concept at all. Frankly I don't see the need (personally) which makes it very hard for me to take discussions on it seriously. Why does there need to be a higher purpose? After all very little that we see on earth or in the universe makes it seem at all likely that such a "Higher Purpose", if it exists, is anything but a very, very cruel purpose indeed. Why have predators and prey? Diseases? Death? What purpose do the myriad of hugely destructive forces in the universe have apart from just being forces? Personally I think I'd have a hard time remaining sane if I thought there was a "higher purpose" because I cannot see how such a thing could have any hand in the way things are. So I remain a happy rational atheist for the time being even though I have no explanation for how I'm able to think and cannot for the life of me get my head around why "what happened before the big bang" is a meaningless question.

Considering the number of accidents, cock-ups and plain disasters we see in the universe at large (and locally), isn't it best to assume that the ID scenario is indeed, quite wrong, and that in fact UD is the way to go?

Er... ...that's 'Unintelligent Design', as I'm certain you all guessed. I'm sure Douglas Adams had some comments on a species which was searching for the Supreme Being just so they could give Him a piece of their mind...

Bob Shaw

Not quite the same DA quote but definitely the same intent:

Also relevant:

Possibly on topic but totally irrelevant:

All thinking is circular.

Actually, some of the more recent cosmological theories propose that our entire Universe consists of a membrane which floats through a matrix of higher physical dimensions. It is but one of many such membranes, and the sudden creation of all of the matter and energy within the Universe occurred when our membrane touched another membrane, some 12 to 15 billion years ago.

I certainly don't understand all the math, but there are apparently mathematical descriptions of all this that show it could maybe be the path via which quantum behaviors at small particle levels can be reconciled with Einsteinian general relativity at macro levels.

But one of the things that is appealing (at least to scientific rationalists) about the membrane theory is that it allows for a "before the Big Bang." Instead of making the Big Bang a singularity that cannt be examined or evaluated on any rational level, it makes it simply the logical consequence of some other natural event.

-the other Doug

It is difficult to figure if we stick to the naive story rehearsed by "believers": "there is a bearded god who created everything perfect, and after men (or rather they make bear the fault by women) introduced imperfection in his perfect design so that since he is angry after us". This does not make sense, it is just mythology (in the most rationalistic meaning) as much absurd as the Dogon mythology who tells that it is the fonio seed which created the universe (or something like that)

But if you consider that in spirituality there is "spirit" (the mind, not ghosts) you can then define spirituality as a more scientific (or at least reasonable) approach where we study things such as consciousness, happiness, purpose of life (with my opinion there is not "commissionned purpose", the consciousness itself implies its own purpose: to be happy, to get new abilities, to explore the universe, etc) from where you can infer morals, society models, etc. This is typically the approach of a doctrine such as Buddhism. After, what is there before the universe or after death, or if miracles are possible, this is a matter of metaphysics or parapsychology, but it is not the core of spirituality. So that an atheist like you could be in fact more spiritual that a religious nut (it is even very easy).

And, about the evolution of physical universe or life forms as well, I think that things happened like physicists and biologists discovered, except that the appearance of consciousness introduced stakes which are not present in a desert universe.

It is fairly easy to understand without maths, if you consider a 3D universe (as the one we are familiar with) containing spheres (2D spherical surfaces) called branes. These spheres are roaming about, and when two meet, their intersection is a circle. (A one dimentional surface looping on itself). With the movement of the branes, this circle starts from a zero radius, then the radius increases very fast (the speed tends toward infinite when we approach time zero) and then much quieter. It is easy to build a mental image of this.

Then you just add two more dimentions to all of these objects: we are no more able to build mental images of them, but basically things work the same.

This hypothesis gives a strikingly understandable vision of the early universe, especially of inflation.

From a metaphysical point of view, this theory just eludes to a nearby infinity the question of the beginning of time, and it does not solve the question "why this universe exists", just sending to "why the brane universe exists". Things could be like that, but if so it would just add mistery. On the countrary general relativity can fairly easily envision curved space and beginning of time without any need of a higher dimentionnal space to contain all of them.

But physics too has an argument against this theory: the inflation would obey a power law, when observation shows an exponential law (as far as we can observe this).

Our mind has strong difficulties to envision a reality where time would not exist, or would have a beginning. But it could happen that things are really like that. It is not so difficult after all: mathematic theorems exist in a realm where there is no time. We cannot say that a mathematic theorem appeared at a given epoch!

We used to have this 'purpose' discussion when I was at school, late into the night we'd try and figure out why we all existed.

As a species, our purpose is to continue the existance of our species, maintain our survivability. How do we do that? Reproducing. But what's the point - what is the poing in continuing the species at all? Why do the obscure animals that have rare, complex mating rituals which barely work and struggle for survival etc bother doing it? For humans, it's not hard to figure out why we do it, but a spider, or a fish or a toad or a fly or a Marmoset or a Badger....why do they bother?

We never figured THAT one out.



Doug

Thank you for the interesting questionning, Doug.

I do not think we have any purpose such as "continuing the existance of our specy, maintain our survivability". Simply the self-formative process of evolution-selection produced beings which are able to reproduce and survive. There is no purpose at all (unless we suppose that the self-formative process was created by Intelligent Design to generate life forms at random!)

Animals have no purpose either. Simply they have, deeply implemented in their psychism, emotions and instincts which lead them into doing the right things. For instance if they see a viper, even for the first time, neurons react to this form, produce fear, and this fear will induce the individual in fleeing, shouting, etc, all relevant behaviours in the situation. The same is true for reproduction, etc. Animals do not need to reflect about what is good for them, and anyway they do not have the ability for this.

We, as nearby animal beings, are not really different, even if we put intellectual motives above our desires, such as perpetuating the social ideology (by reproduction) onto our basic sexual desire. But we (or at least some of us) have the ability to analyse the situation, and take decisions which are not necessarily what our animal part request us to do. For instance we can involve into art, spirituality, science, etc, in place of raising children.

In doing this, we create our own purposes, which are purposes of our consciousness. (or we re-discover purposes which were deeply burried into the very physical continuum of the universe, 13 billion years ago, if it was created.)

Perhaps the most basic purpose of consciousness is seeking pleasure. And, at this level, even animals were able to influence evolution, by creating pleasant body forms and sexual behaviours. They were the first Intelligent Designers!

Will our purposes (search for happiness, for knowledge, new abilities...) be an unprecedented breakthrough and drastic change of direction into the overal evolution of life? I hope so. We can do it.

I also thought Douglas Adams had the human race right on target when we were described in the opening to Hitch-Hikers Guide as the species that once nailed a guy to a tree for saying that we should all be nice to each other.

A little more speculation:

What if our Universe was created, not by a supernatural entity but by an advanced race from another universe that created ours either as a by-product of their version of the Large Hadron Collider or deliberately as an experiment? Either way the theory goes that such an event would leave the creators with no way to contact or find out about the universes they created, thus making them quite the Deists.

If we can envision such a thing, imagine what a really technologically advanced civilization can do. And may already have.


As for the purpose of the human species, what if life on Earth is essentially one giant organism with many complex, independent parts, which we cannot see as a whole because we are one of those parts? Think Gaia or Lem's Solaris.

What if our purpose is to deflect all those potentially life-threatening planetoids and comets from hitting Earth? Thus we were given big brains and space travel for that purpose. Of course these same tools may also be used to spread Earth life to other worlds, thus ensuring our survival. And of course it may have happened many times before, and is happening now in our galaxy and others.

I like Carl Sagan's view of intelligent life: It is a way for the Universe to know itself. And with such a big thing as a galaxy, one is going to need numerous intelligent species to comprehend it all.

Stephen Hawking said something to this effect, "Why does the Universe go to all the bother of existing?"

I think that any purpose in our life must come from us. I'm from the God-doesn't-exist camp, so that's what I've come up with. We were created by natural processes, and since we're the only ones with self-awareness and the ability to express that awareness to each other, we are able to seek reason for doing things. Animals just do things because they feel like it. We ask "why do we feel like it?" We evolved to do certain things, simple as that. Where you want to take it from there is up to you. I personally like the idea of improving the species, and eventually travelling to other star systems, and possibly encountering other life forms.

I think that quite simply all reality is experiencing everything possible. Everything is infinite. There is no beginning and there is no end. Enjoy.

And as far as Adams' quote, Jesus wasn't exactly nice to everybody else. He forced temples to not take money, which is not nice for the temples, and he created bread from nowhere, which is bad for all those farmers who wanted to feed their families by selling their bread, etc. etc. etc. etc. etc.

It's just this.

All of the trillions of things that don't bother -- all of those critters that don't eat, that can't or choose not to reproduce -- aren't there.
The things that do bother are.

What you end up with is a landscape full of things that bother. And things like mountain ranges that don't need to.

Why is everything in the library written by people who choose to write? Same deal.

We have a choice - we can consciously decide not procreate. Technology makes it much easier for us than the abstinence that would otherwise be required.

Some animals (rabbits and hares, I think) have the ability to reabsorb a fetus if food becomes scarce, but this is different from deciding not to go at like rabbits in the first place . So the answer is they bother because they have no other choice. A species that didn't wouldn't be here.

Chris

I understand that - but the question remains - WHY do they bother. They are around because they DO bother, but WHY do they bother. Why do we bother? They have no choice if they want to survive, but why does a species want to survive

Doug

Doug, species have no brain, no consciousness. Only individuals have. And animals just do what they desire to do, eat, hide, have sex. From natural selection they inherited a psychism which make them desire to do what is required to survive and perpetuate the specie. But they can even not envision such a purpose. So they do not bother for this. They just bother for food, shelter and the like, without even imagine what is the stake beyond. The only marvellous thing is that all these individual unawareness make the specie survive, perpetuate and even evolve.

Interesting speculation. It can eventually be true, but, as I replied to Dvandorn, it does not reply to a question "why the universe exists", it just eludes this question and reject it to the creation of our creators.

Eventually a civilisation able to create a universe may be able to see what happens in it, and eventually the technology required to create an universe would allow to modify it afterward. So communication is not a problem.


In all the theories where an intention created our universe or our specie, whatever the creator is a divine entity or a superior civilization, there would be a moment where he intervenes in a way or another, a moment where, being ripe enough, we discover some box containing instructions about what to do after, or who created us. So these theories can be tested:
-by finding traces of past intervention (such as Anthropism, traces of ancient spaceship visits, messages coded in our genes like here (a fiction story)
-by finding messages of the creator
-by finding indications about what to do or why we were created.

Until today no clear such artifact was found. But this makes very interesting the search of such past evidence, which, if they are known by some, may take the form of strange stories, strange things happening somewhere, or mythological accounts. Of course there is many work to clear out all the garbage in these domains, bit if only one such fact is clearly demonstrated, it would be a real philosophical breakthrough.
In the case of a divine creation, the message could be simply hidden in our hearts (our emotions) telling us, for instance, to love each others, to look for beauty, knowledge, etc, a thing that many people do spontaneously without communicating to each other. The reason why a divine creator would suppress all hard evidences and left us only with feelings would be simply to point at what is really relevant for Him. (Yes I see the many adepts of His Noodliness Cult on this forum replying that this is circular thinking or eluding rational questioning. I say no, it is lefting us with no other alternatinve that heeding our hearts, a thing which is not really difficult and which does not forbid us to make good physics and space exploration. By the way the elected people of His Noodliness is the italians, its main holy day is April 1st and he lefts us with no other evidence of his existence than being funny)

I oftened wondered if the Universe was made as some giant practical joke, with God the Ultimate Practical Joker. It would explain so much.

"God is a comedian playing to an audience that is afraid to laugh." - Voltaire

And read his great science fiction story, Micromegas, here:

http://wondersmith.com/scifi/micro.htm

An excerpt:

The conversation grew more and more interesting, and Micromegas spoke as follows:

"O intelligent atoms, in whom the Eternal Being has been pleased to manifest His skill and power, you must doubtless taste joys of perfect purity on your globe; for, being encumbered with so little matter, and seeming to be all spirit, you must pass your lives in love and meditation--the true life of spiritual beings. I have nowhere beheld genuine happiness, but here it is to be found, without a doubt."

On hearing these words, all the philosophers shook their heads, and one, more frank than the others, candidly confessed that, with the exception of a small number held in mean estimation among them, all the rest of mankind were a multitude of fools, knaves, and miserable wretches.

"We have more matter than we need," said he, "the cause of much evil, if evil proceeds from matter; and we have too much mind, if evil proceeds from mind. For instance, at this very moment there are 100,000 fools of our species who wear hats, slaying 100,000 fellow creatures who wear turbans, or being massacred by them, and over almost all of Earth such practices have been going on from time immemorial."

The Sirian shuddered, and asked what could cause such horrible quarrels between those miserable little creatures.

"The dispute concerns a lump of clay," said the philosopher, "no bigger than your heel. Not that a single one of those millions of men who get their throats cut has the slightest interest in this clod of earth. The only point in question is whether it shall belong to a certain man who is called Sultan, or another who, I know not why, is called Caesar. Neither has seen, or is ever likely to see, the little corner of ground which is the bone of contention; and hardly one of those animals, who are cutting each other's throats has ever seen the animal for whom they fight so desperately."

"Ah! wretched creatures!" exclaimed the Sirian with indignation; "Can anyone imagine such frantic ferocity! I should like to take two or three steps, and stamp upon the whole swarm of these ridiculous assassins."

"No need," answered the philosopher; "they are working hard enough to destroy themselves. I assure you, at the end of 10 years, not a hundredth part of those wretches will be left; even if they had never drawn the sword, famine, fatigue, or intemperance will sweep them almost all away. Besides, it is not they who deserve punishment, but rather those armchair barbarians, who from the privacy of their cabinets, and during the process of digestion, command the massacre of a million men, and afterward ordain a solemn thanksgiving to God."

Good,





Yes, God is a joke, it is serious.

If it weren't for all these 'evil wretches' you wouldn't know what to do with yourself.

Vatican cardinal said Thursday the faithful should listen to what secular modern science has to offer, warning that religion risks turning into "fundamentalism" if it ignores scientific reason.

http://blog.sciam.com/index.php?title=the_...1&c=1&tb=1&pb=1

Yeah, they say that now, now that virtually everyone sees what benefits science has to offer. Back in the olden days they didn't want Galileo using telescopes, and the Earth wasn't really round, and everything rotated around the Earth, and oh yeah, if some of our priests happen to be a little naughty, we'll just cover it up rather than ever do ANYTHING about it...

God sure is a wacky fella!

Despite the perception fostered during the last few centuries as science became a split culture from art and religion, the Roman Catholic Church was the big promoter of science and knowledge for Europe during the Middle Ages and Renaissance. Like any politicial institution, they just didn't like having their power and authority threatened.

Galileo was not a modest man. He was right about many things in astronomy (except that he thought the Moon had no effect on the tides, but hey, Newton wouldn't be born until the year he died in 1642), and he wanted to make sure everyone else knew it, too. The Catholic Church would likely have "adjusted" their worldview to include the Copernican one given time, but Galileo forced the issue, essentially backing the Church into a corner.

Not a smart political move, but then again, how many scientists to this day are politically savy? Galileo also used words from the Pope in one of his Dialogues that made him look foolish. Bad move Number 2. This was a Pope who had the birds in the Vatican courtyard killed because their singing and chirping annoyed him. Plus he was no dummy, either. Thus the big fallout and the Science vs. Religion issues to this day.

Yes, I know there are many more complex details to the whole story, but this is the essence of it. It is not as clear-cut as some groups would like it to seem.

For details on the Trial of Galileo, see here:

http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/f...eo/galileo.html


Hmmm, is it a sign that Copernicus' skull was found quite recently?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copernicus#Grave

True.

But it is for his science that Galileo was condemned. From where the problem.


I think that, from the Catholic power, condemning science (or at least ignoring it for centuries) was a very bad move, much more serious than the awkwarness of Galileo. They bear the responsibility of what happened after: loss of spirituality (the science speech looking much more "realistic" with its hard evidence, than the spiritual speech) loss of ethics ("if there is nothing after death, why to bother about respecting others")

Spirituality and science do not speak of the same thing, but they speak in the same world, for the same human beings. So they MUST dialogue, and this dialogue MUST start by recognizing each other, and at very first in not interfering. (By interference I understand creationists who pretend to do science with Intelligent Design, or scientist who pretend to do spirituality or ethics by predicting that there is nothing after death).

I don't feel I've researched enough about exactly how afraid of science the catholic church has been throughout history, so I won't comment on that.. but look at just how well they've been doing lately.

Regardless of that, I think that science and spirtuality can eventually merge together quite nicely. There is no reason to think that one couldn't produce so much evidence of what happens once you're clinically dead (no oxygen in the brain for some time) that only an insane person wouldn't believe there is life after death. Whether that life after death involves good ole' heaven and hell and some 'God' sitting on a throne and judging you I highly doubt, but hey, I could be wrong. There are so many religions, though, I wonder how exactly the Great One in the Sky expected me to know which one to follow, exactly.. I guess he's just a BIG JOKER. YOU GOT ME, BIG GUY!

Good.


To be noted that the Catholic Church are not the only religious persons in the world, there are other religions, and buddhist masters went to this point for tens of years now.

The problem of the relation science-religion is complex, but I think we can have some grasp on it with some simple examples. Since about the Merovingian epoch (where the stake made Catholicism the "norm" in Europe) nearby everybody is persuaded that the world was created in seven days, 6000 years ago. Science disproved this point of view, with the geological times, primitive nebula, big bang, etc. Did religion lost any value from this? Alas many persons began to think that, if religion was false in geology, it was also false in ethics, metaphysics etc. From where the rise of libertine ideas (with their Sade extreme) which led to our modern notion of "freedom" in many minds (at the extreme associated with anti-ethics). And person who still grasp to ideas of the creation in six days are really cut from something, if not fundamentalist. From here the move of the Vatican, good move but four centuries late.

But would not be science doing the same kind of mistake today? Science claims not to study the spiritual-ethics domain, but it however made quite a bunch of implicit or explicit statements in these domains, as what, for instance, there is no survival after death, or that our only purpose is to perpetuate our genes whatever injustices and lack of happiness, or that we can do things such as uterus lending, chemical war, etc. Some scientists even denegate the existence of consciousness itself, just considering bodies and behaviours.

With my opinion, scientists should be more modest, and publish their results in physics and biology without telling us what to do with, as if they were our ethics masters or gurus. We cannot prove the value of any ethics idea with physics, we prove it in society. And if there are things such as a survival after death, it obviously cannot be demonstrated with the tools of physics, but it may have some other testable effect of our lifes, at a more philosophical level.

Science risks turning into "fundamentalism" if it ignores consciousness.

I agree with all this.

It is said that persons being temporarily brain dead were reporting consciousness experiences aferwards. I could tell the story of a woman who had her brain cooled at 16°C for a delicate surgery, and who reported experiences during this time. The problem is that this matter is not considered seriously, there are no institutionnal checking, so I am not completelly sure that this story is real. However you could check one of the best links I know: Horizon foundation, which is not hoaglandite but from scientists.

The stories of judgment and God sitting on a throne is obviously invented, but it may hide some symbolic hint of what awaits us beyond. For instance, in a non-physical world where the consciousness is the "particule" and consciousness relations are the "physical interactions", it would be very difficult, see impossible to lie or hide our thinking. So we would be judged by everybody and ourselves first...

To say that God is a joker would have led you to the stake some centuries ago! But I think it is true, in a way. And today science settled the issue: the works at the Princeton University proved that jokers perform better than mystics in telekinesis! Since I know this, I joke very much... (did the smiley moved??)

There actually have been some studies on near-death experiences. NDE experiences share remarkably similar basic traits (meeting dead loved ones [some NDE experiencers meet loved ones they didn't realize were dead until after they come back], meeting some sort of guide spirit, being presented with some sort of 'rift' over which they must cross [an actual chasm, a stream, you get the idea], and being pulled back to the 'original' world, invariably to their dismay), and while I suppose you could argue that this is all some sort of 'brain defense mechanism', I fail to see how the tiny bit of oxygen left in your brain right before you're clinically dead could inspire so many things to happen.

Then, too, I think that a lot of people want to believe that there is nothing, so that they don't have to feel guilty about being inconsiderate to other people. But they'll figure it out one way or another.

I think that as medical technology advances and more and more people have these experiences it will be impossible to dismiss them as 'meaningless'. There is no drug that can reproduce the entire near death experience, unless of course it causes you to die, and oxygen deprivation certainly doesn't cause people to experience all these things (unless it makes them die).

Ultimately, though, it doesn't matter if anyone believes in life after death or not, and in fact it seems rather obvious to me that some things can only be experienced if you don't believe in life after death. See ya on the other side.

The day anybody demonstrates telekinesis in ANY form whatsoever (even making something twitch one billionth of one billionth of a micron), it will be quite a breakthrough indeed. I don't think that day has happened just yet.

My opinion of religion, on the level of this discussion, is that whatever or however you express your spirituality, I think you do so most *usefully* when you take, as a basic truth, that your deity is a practical joker.

I think David Brin has it exactly right in his Uplift War series of novels. He populates the Universe with a myriad of intelligent species, and one which we get to know well are the Tymbrimi. They are the Universe's practical jokers. Their jokes can be downright nasty, and/or destructive. The idea behind their jokes is expressed, approximately, as "sometimes you need to have a chunk taken out of your ass to get you to where you can see what you need to see, and do what you need to do." The Tymbrimi's practical jokes, large and small, were usually designed to help their fellow beings -- but that didn't mean people didn't get hurt in the process.

So, my basic take on the deity I can see, feel and sense around me is this:

God is a Tymbrimi.

-the other Doug

If there is indeed a singular God, I'd rather he (she, it, whatever) wasn't a practical joker. Why not just tell me what I need to know instead of pointing up how weak I am compared to it? It seems cruel.

If there is a God(s), he/she/they/blah/blah obviously don't want us to be entirely sure they exist. While this is annoying, I get the distinct impression that if we were to know for certain we'd be completely unmotivated to do the things we do now. And while the things we do now (must do to survive, mostly) tend to be annoying, I figure there has to be some purpose to it all, even if it's simply to gather raw information. Any other viewpoint invariably depresses me (including that God is a big practical joker), and I don't like being depressed.

Also, I personally hate being the butt of jokes. The thing that makes it a joke is that people laugh at you. Funny for them, not funny for me, and frankly they can kiss my 'rump' if that's how they want to 'teach me a lesson'. Now, if you enjoy being the butt of jokes, then go crazy. Many entertainers have built an entire career on making fun of themselves...

Pat Robertson insinuates ill-will on PA town that rejected ID

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/9995578/

The Dark Ages on a comeback tour....

Ho hum. I really like the way Pat's God takes such a personal interest in School Board elections. With all the work that has to be done meting out retribution, wrath and righteous vengeance on the mega-sinners of the world it's nice to see that the Ultimate being will still have time to schedule in a natural disaster for those ungrateful wretches.

If God's lurking (and why not), may I politely suggest that his vengeance take the form of a sudden volcanic eruption centred on the School Board offices. That way we'd all get the message. If he made it a methane spewing cryovolcano it'd be even better. Can you imagine the droves that would be converted overnight? That would be a Sign!

If anybody wants to defend religion or spirituality the very first thing to do is to condemn all this.

I wonder what it means that so many Red States got hit by the most hurricanes recorded in one season this year?

And don't forget the just-after-Christmas 2004 tsunami that wiped out just a few lives from Africa to Indonesia, or the recent earthquake that left 80,000 dead and 200,000 homeless in Pakistan.

Conclusions: Everyone's a sinner, God doesn't discriminate, or maybe we just happen to live on a planet with an active geology and climate.

God reports - we decide.

Yeah, but see, God works in mysterious ways and He never Tells you what exactly He Wants, so You Just Have To Guess All The Time. So what God wants is for You to be Worried all the Time that You might be Pissing Him Off, and He Hopes that You Die of Anxiety long Before you meet an Angel or see Jesus create More Bread from Nowhere. Then, once You go to Heaven, He Will Laugh at You because It was Obvious what He Wanted the Whole Time, and You will Probably Burn in Hell for all Eternity.

Praise God, or Else He Will Destroy You, which He might Do Anyway, because He is one Wacky Dude.

This is because climate change is worsening hurricanes, as predicted for already more than ten years by mainstream meteorologists. In a way, it is a punishment for our sins, but do not seek for God's hand in there, it is a self-inflicted punishment.

Unintelligent Design...

mike,

what I think is, if there is something like God who exists, it is very likely some metaphysical entity, or very evolved being, to be able to master space and time. You consider or not this hypothesis, but I think it is anyway awkward to impute Him a psyche of reality-show and petty bourgeois motives. He is surely not a guy like us. The question "why he tolerates evil" is complex and has no definitive response today. The best guess I think is that he tolerates evil because we tolerate it too. Or that we must learn by ourself, in place of paying indulgences to priests in hope to be saved and not the others.

A bit of reply is perhaps that about 3 percent of NDE experiencers report very unpleasant experiences, including strong disconfort, pain or terror, and also invariably the feeling of being mocked at. But afterward they realise that only their fear or mind limitation made their experience unpleasant, and feel that they were taugh a lesson by beings who laughed at them as we laugh at a child who is scared to climb on a bicycle for the first time.

The concept of "evil" is an odd one in many ways. Ecosystems tend to be pretty evil if you look at them closely - prey\predator relationships, parasites and even innocent seeming herbivores can be agents of mass (and totally arbitrary) destruction.

Any higher (if he\it\they exist(s)) being would certainly pay as little attention to our "evil" as we do to a parasitic wasp injecting it's eggs into a paralysed victim.

Levels of Intelligence might alter that. I am more upset for example by my cats arbitrary cruelty than I am when I come across a spider slowly sucking the life out of its prey.

Evolution is a pretty evil process much of the time if you choose to look at it that way - it simply rewards success and pays no attention to morality. In the long term it may be that non-evil attributes\behaviors will be more successful for a species or ecosystems as a whole but for our ecosystem right now success at all costs is what gets rewarded. I have at the back of my mind a groundless concern that at the galactic scale if there is a lot of life then evolution could create some truly terrible predators.