Richard Dawkins on Religion
- Thread starter Scott Free
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Scott Free,
I really like Richard Dawkins' stand on religion. It resonates with my own. But I began to see in the clip on enemies of reason a rigidness that is endemic in science. Science is a new religion. Its commonality is steeped in black or white. Neither seems capable of perceiving gray areas.
My perceptions of spirituality are based on the science of quantum physics and mechanics. I believe that we are spiritual beings because science cannot find material, just energy. That energy is intelligent; has a consciousness, is creative and is the basis of what we perceive as reality. But physical reality, as we see it, is nothing more than a belief system that has been refined over many millennium by our exclusive focus on material reality.
That is the problem I have with most scientists. They only focuses on the material and fail to consider the intelligent energy behind it: that props it up. A rock may seem solid, but it is made up of atomic structures that are almost entirely made up of empty space. The energy that holds together the neutrons and protons that make up that rock have a certain intelligence required to accomplish that task.
On the other hand, scientists "see" only the material structure because they focus entirely on observable evidence. They can't see the energy that holds it together and therefore ignore it, except when they get into the quantum aspects of particle colliders.
I really like Richard Dawkins' stand on religion. It resonates with my own. But I began to see in the clip on enemies of reason a rigidness that is endemic in science. Science is a new religion. Its commonality is steeped in black or white. Neither seems capable of perceiving gray areas.
My perceptions of spirituality are based on the science of quantum physics and mechanics. I believe that we are spiritual beings because science cannot find material, just energy. That energy is intelligent; has a consciousness, is creative and is the basis of what we perceive as reality. But physical reality, as we see it, is nothing more than a belief system that has been refined over many millennium by our exclusive focus on material reality.
That is the problem I have with most scientists. They only focuses on the material and fail to consider the intelligent energy behind it: that props it up. A rock may seem solid, but it is made up of atomic structures that are almost entirely made up of empty space. The energy that holds together the neutrons and protons that make up that rock have a certain intelligence required to accomplish that task.
On the other hand, scientists "see" only the material structure because they focus entirely on observable evidence. They can't see the energy that holds it together and therefore ignore it, except when they get into the quantum aspects of particle colliders.
I agree to a certain extent however science does have effective safety mechanisms built into it that make it very different than religion. The scientific community isn't ordered like a religion either; it is very much a collective of free thinking individuals. Another major difference too is that science is concerned with finding the truth whereas religion claims to have it already.
These are very significant differences that keep the two quite separate IMO.
I think your criticism is warranted and I have made the same one myself, however, I discovered that it is only a fair charge when levelled at individuals not science itself.
Science tells us energy and matter are the same things; the famous E=MC^2, where E is energy and M is matter.
The world we see is the product of our evolution and has little to do with reality and I agree shapes our perception of the world. I think a lot of our current challenges are a direct result of this.
That is probably because there isn't much evidence that energy is intelligent.
That's what they say.
I don't see how that means energy is intelligent?
I don't think they ignore it. It seems to me there are a lot of fancy theories that posit all kinds of invisible forces like "dimensions" and what not.
But I do agree they seem to miss some obvious things but when looking at the history of science and the genealogy of current theories, particularly the reason for them, it becomes, I think, evident why science misses certain things.
Scott Free,
I guess what I am getting at is that if you or I were not conscious beings, we would be nothing but masses of protoplasm. It takes "intelligence" or consciousness to be human. I am suggesting that it also takes some form of intelligence to be a tree or a rock. Something holds it together. Some call it god, I call it intelligence. You might call it something else. I think the problem is semantics.
I don't know if you have ever experienced seeing the energy of a living thing like a tree. There are various ways to attain such vision (meditation, yoga, certain drugs) but it not an uncommon occurrence. In that frame of mind, one can experience a state of oneness with the object. In that state, the "intelligence" is perceived, felt, experienced... add your own definition. Rocks can be experienced in the same way.
One must be able to break free of the restrictions of status quo thinking in order to see beyond the "normal" to what is hidden from view by restrictive belief systems.
I guess what I am getting at is that if you or I were not conscious beings, we would be nothing but masses of protoplasm. It takes "intelligence" or consciousness to be human. I am suggesting that it also takes some form of intelligence to be a tree or a rock. Something holds it together. Some call it god, I call it intelligence. You might call it something else. I think the problem is semantics.
I don't know if you have ever experienced seeing the energy of a living thing like a tree. There are various ways to attain such vision (meditation, yoga, certain drugs) but it not an uncommon occurrence. In that frame of mind, one can experience a state of oneness with the object. In that state, the "intelligence" is perceived, felt, experienced... add your own definition. Rocks can be experienced in the same way.
One must be able to break free of the restrictions of status quo thinking in order to see beyond the "normal" to what is hidden from view by restrictive belief systems.
I get what your saying. The only part I don't get is the "intelligence" part. I am not a materialist; I am a realist but I don't understand why a binding agent (like a spirit) that creates a rock needs to be intelligent. I see no evidence that it is nor that it needs to be.
I have had a great many such experiences but I do not suppose that they are real anymore than I support that the colour green as being real.
We are in total agreement on this.
I call it the strong and weak interactions together with electromagnetism and gravitation.
Therein lies the problem. If your going to say its gravity then why not just say it's god? Since you don't know what gravity is then you cannot say it isn't. You want proof of God - then look to gravity! There is God and there is your proof!
Don't get me wrong I don't think there is a "god," I'm just saying we have been lucky on this forum that the religionists are not better at argument but that does not mean we can rely on the same superstition.
I disagree...gravity can be demonstrated in a controlled test environment, god cannot...
We know gravity exists, and how and why it works...
Just because we can't see it all around us with the naked eye does not mean that we must use faith to determine it's validity...
But you just said you did demonstrate it?
No we don't! We know that it exists and that it works. The why and how is not known.
No, I agree, but neither does it mean we can assume it to be anything other than what it is - an invisible force unlike any other; that is what we know.
This is where I very much agree with Cliffy and see similarity to religion and science in that both make presumptions. I know science would argue its presumptions are better but I would argue that they aren't really aware of all the presumptions they have made so science doesn't really know if theirs are better or not.
"...scientific discovery is impossible without faith in ideas which are of a purely speculative kind, and sometimes even quite hazy"
- Karl Popper
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What?
Where?
So we don't know that gravity is the force that exists between two bodies of different mass, and that the effect is greater when the differnce of mass is greater?
I thought Newton figured that one out 400 years ago...
Gravitation - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
While there are some tricky questions about gravity that have yet to be answered fully, it's the best model we have for explaining the nature of bodies of mass in our universe...
This follows creationism into the hollow pit of pseudoscience, and neither serve to increase our understanding of the universe...
You are trying to answer questions on the basis of possibility rather than probability...
"gravity can be demonstrated in a controlled test environment"
That isn't "what" it is.
That's right "a model," which is very different than saying what it is - which we don't know.
Pseudoscience you say? How so? Because I am speculating on a different model away from that which is established in wikipedia!!! OH THE HERESY!!! I blasphemed! Next I'll be saying Einstein and Plato were wrong! Just who do I think I am!!!!!!!
I know exactly what I am doing. A person just has to find a few errors and come up with a better theory and possibility becomes probability.
Equations for a falling body near the surface of the Earth
Ball falling freely under gravity. See text for description.
Main article: Equations for a falling body
Under an assumption of constant gravity, Newton’s law of gravitation simplifies to F = mg, where m is the mass of the body and g is a constant vector with an average magnitude of 9.81 m/s². The acceleration due to gravity is equal to this g. An initially-stationary object which is allowed to fall freely under gravity drops a distance which is proportional to the square of the elapsed time. The image on the right, spanning half a second, was captured with a stroboscopic flash at 20 flashes per second. During the first 1/20th of a second the ball drops one unit of distance (here, a unit is about 12 mm); by 2/20ths it has dropped at total of 4 units; by 3/20ths, 9 units and so on.
Under the same constant gravity assumptions, the potential energy, Ep, of a body at height h is given by Ep = mgh (or Ep = Wh, with W meaning weight). This expression is valid only over small distances h from the surface of the Earth. Similarly, the expressionfor the maximum height reached by a vertically projected body with velocity v is useful for small heights and small initial velocities only. In case of large initial velocities we have to use the principle of conservation of energy to find the maximum height reached. This same expression can be solved for v to determine the velocity of an object dropped from a height h immediately before hitting the ground,
, assuming negligible air resistance.
Oh? Are you suggesting Newton was wrong?
The gravitational model is well established, meaning that we do know what it is and how it works...we wouldn't have any idea of particle physics without knowing this.
Is it time to up your meds Scott?
If this is your goal, I suggest you read a bit more, and stop trying to find intelligence in inanimate objects...
No, I'm saying you're wrong. Newton said gravity was a force like no other. You're saying you know that it exists which means therefore that you know what it is, and that is wrong - you don't know.
Your wrong. What can I say? Believe what you will.
ad hominem already? I have shaken your faith that easily?
Maybe you should try reading what I posted. You'll see that I made no such claim.
Here, a NASA site, since you're apparently offended by Wikipedia...I think it's geared to around grade 6 students, so you shouldn't have too much trouble following along...
NASA's Cosmicopia -- Ask Us - General Physics - Gravity
Hardly, you were just being a dick...
Fair enough...
So you're agreeing with Cliffy in principle, but not in practice...I get that...
Still doesn't excuse you from denying science that we already know...
There is no faith involved in gravity...just a lot of math, without which we never would have been able to calculate escape velocity for any of the NASA launches...
Me? Hardly. I wasn't pushing my beliefs on anyone.
I was trying to understand why he perceived intelligence in energy. You see he might be onto something. How would I know unless I listened to him? I am not going to presume because he is on some forum he isn't worthy of an opinion.
Excuse me!?! What? Have I sinned?
Science is flawed. That is the fun of it. If it weren't it would be a religion. Maybe that is what you're looking for?
The science you apparently know doesn't even exist except maybe on Star Trek :lol:
So what? I don't see how that is even relevant.
If gravitons are proved by the Hadron collider then we will know the model is correct and what gravity is. If they are not then the topic will still be open for debate.
The absence of an identifiable gravitron does not negate what we know about gravity or how it works, just as the absence of an indentifiable Higgs boson does not negate what we already know about .wave-particle duality
Do you guys ever sleep?
Science is a guessing game. They are breaking their own laws on a daily basis. It is always about speculation and trying to prove the speculation's accuracy. But it has been discovered that the mindset of the experimenter has a direct influence on the results. One of the conclusions of Einstein's theory was that reality is relative to the beholder. In the end it is what we believe it is.
Scientists end up proving their hypothesis because they believe it to be correct. A lot of the time, someone with a different belief will come along and prove them wrong. That is the beauty of science, it is not static like religion, but it is not a heck of a lot more accurate.
In some sciences, archaeology, for example, the beliefs of some of the establishment have held back some discoveries because they didn't fit into their preconceived ideas of how things evolved. There are hundreds of archaeological anomalies that cannot be explained by the official story, so they just ignore them. That is a problem with many scientists. They become famous for a theory or postulation then fight like hell to block an opposing view. It is pure ego on their part and in a lot of cases the truth is stifled for generations because of it. For example, how many people are aware that the Bering Straight Land Bridge theory has been debunked? How many people know that the Americas were occupied tens of thousands of years before the end of the last Ice Age or that Europeans visited here hundreds of years before Eric the Red?
Science is a guessing game. They are breaking their own laws on a daily basis. It is always about speculation and trying to prove the speculation's accuracy. But it has been discovered that the mindset of the experimenter has a direct influence on the results. One of the conclusions of Einstein's theory was that reality is relative to the beholder. In the end it is what we believe it is.
Scientists end up proving their hypothesis because they believe it to be correct. A lot of the time, someone with a different belief will come along and prove them wrong. That is the beauty of science, it is not static like religion, but it is not a heck of a lot more accurate.
In some sciences, archaeology, for example, the beliefs of some of the establishment have held back some discoveries because they didn't fit into their preconceived ideas of how things evolved. There are hundreds of archaeological anomalies that cannot be explained by the official story, so they just ignore them. That is a problem with many scientists. They become famous for a theory or postulation then fight like hell to block an opposing view. It is pure ego on their part and in a lot of cases the truth is stifled for generations because of it. For example, how many people are aware that the Bering Straight Land Bridge theory has been debunked? How many people know that the Americas were occupied tens of thousands of years before the end of the last Ice Age or that Europeans visited here hundreds of years before Eric the Red?
30 seconds into #1 and I have a question. When they mention what science has done they bring up 3 'useful things'. Science is also behind some things that have resulted in many deaths. Science is behind every weapon ever made since they stopped throwing rocks at each other. Eradicated small-pox, maybe after they were done using it for a 'weapon'. Once it made it around the world everybody left should have immune to it anyway, the very back of the 'unexplored' world was the last place it was taken. Oddly enough that is where the 'vaccine' was first used and declared to be the cure/prevention. Then the rest of the world was charged $10 each for a shot that was as effective against small-pox as distilled water is against anything.
60billion thoughts/sec on a computer but not everybody has a pair of shoes or a book to read. Has science always taken the right direction in terms of what it focuses on? Is that direction controlled, if so then science is a tool, nothing else and tools are there to do brute force work with no morality entering the decision making process.
Science will spend (and demand even more) 60 billion to go to Mars but they will not spend 1/10 of that on projects that are more important to the needs of people that are alive, let alone the whole 60. Take away the money that is given to science that goes to something that harms man (or just has no immediate benefit) and apply it to projects that take care of some woes then explore the cosmos.
Other than that it was a great start, oh, why do (I assume these are scientists sitting around) they chant?