hollaback said:
Right.....
Ok Dex, you're a prof right? etc....
No, I am not now and have never been a prof. But thanks for thinking I might be.
No, the Ten Commandments are not concepts that generate religious opinions about humanity and our place in the world.
And no, no modern legal system is based on the Ten Commandments.
The Ten Commandments are just 10 of something over 600 prescriptions for correct behaviour we find in the Old Testament, mostly in Leviticus and Deuteronomy, and if you actually tried to live by them, you'd be in jail. What I meant by concepts are things like the existence of God, and what his supposed characteristics are, and ideas like these, just for example:
1. there are supernatural forces that will protect us if we follow the proper rituals.
2. some part of your personality survives the death of your body.
3. the universe has some purpose
4. humans have some special role in the universe's purpose.
5. people have special, untapped powers that will enable them to get something for nothing.
There's no evidence that any of those are true statements, but most people at most times in history have believed at least two of them.
The first four of the Ten Commandments are the prohibition of the worship of any deity but God, prohibition of idolatry, prohibition of taking God's name in vain, and the requirement to observe the Sabbath. Nowhere in the world are those enforced in any modern legal system, they'll exist only in feudal theocracies. The other six, to honour your parents and the prohibitions against murder, adultery, stealing, lying, and coveting all the cool stuff your neighbour owns, are just common sense rules necessary for any ordered society. You'll find them in some form in any civilization. The Bible provides both a religious and a humanitarian justification for them, but they're not unique to or even original in the Old Testament.
I never suggested religious opinions are created by potheads, all I'm suggesting is that they're very likely wrong. It's true they'll endure longer than most scientific explanations, but an idea's longevity or the number of people who believe it has nothing to do with its truth content. Scientific explanations get modified as new information emerges, which rarely happens with religious opinions. Science has been wrong many times, about many things, and makes no claims to absolute knowledge the way religions tend to. The essence of the scientific enterprise is that it's self-correcting in a way religious belief can never be.
I rather resent being called closed-minded. My conclusions are the result of about 30 years of study, reflection, and analysis of these issues, and I suggest I've thought about them a lot more, and a lot more deeply, than you have. I went where the evidence took me, and if you have some good evidence that'll take me somewhere else, I'll cheerfully change my mind and thank you for enlightening me.
As for what started the Big Bang, the only honest scientific answer is that we don't know. Is there a Greater Force--I presume that's a euphemism for God--that started it? Possibly; we don't know that either, but the evidence doesn't particularly point that way. You're invoking what's called the God of the Gaps argument: anything we don't understand, God must have done it. That's not an explanation, it's just avoiding an explanation. The argument turns around nicely too: if God did it, then where did he come from? Invoking a deity as an explanation for anything is the death of rational investigation.
Dex
