The answer to Evolution vs. Intelligent Design
POSTED BY: BadgersHat
UPDATED: Tuesday, April 25, 2006 22:38
VIEWED: 15240
PAGE 9 of 11
As to the larger question of the role of religion, I don't have a good answer.
Personally, religion stopped making sense for me at a young age - if there were, are and will be multitudes of religions claiming to be 'the one and only', it's less likely that only one is right, than that all are right or all are wrong.
About 5 years ago I literally dreamed an ethic of 'just enough', which makes sense to me as a real principle of life that can free the heart of anxiety and greed, secure life, and heal our planet.
It also doesn't depend on a(the) god(s) reward and punishment for motivation. I suppose it is closer to Confuscionism - right thought leading to right action and right outcome, except the right thought is "just enough".
In between there were literally decades of pragmatic living - striving for financial security while at the same time treating others ethically, and expecting ethical treatment in return. (Which BTW can be a mistake if adopted as an invariant rule, as there will be the occasional sociopath who, in this society, cannot be treated like everyone else.)
I've met three people in my life whose personal dignity, integrity, and tolerance seemed to be enhanced by formal western religion. And there are many on this board who seek spirituality outside of standard western religion. Perhaps my dream was the culmination of some silent search for meaning.
What I think you are reacting to is religion as a manipulative tool of those who seek power over you. These people want to turn your sense of cooperation and interest in others well being and happiness against you. They want to use your own best feelings against you and twist you inside. If you had accepted their religion, their war on you would be over - you would be waging it on yourself inside every minute of every day for the rest of your life.
So in the landscape, I see rare examples of those enhanced by religion, those who seek spirituality outside of 'mainstream' religion, and those who parted with religion. On the other side I see a vast majority for whom religion rationalizes their own worst impulses (those of greed, power, hate, fear etc) and those who cynically manipulate those impulses in the name of god.
Who will be reached by your message against religion? I don't see it having a large effect on people, except those who share your vision of religion as a destructive tool.
Nearly everything I know I learned by the grace of others.
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First of ALL religions AFAIK contain three components to a greater or lesser degree: A system of ethics (a list of rules or precepts), an impulse to control the uncontrollable (disease; sun, rain, and game) and a system of beliefs- a reference to the unproveable and unknowable (spirits and gods).
It's systems of belief that I have an issue with. When you get down to it, ALL belief systems are equal. While some are more socially acceptable than others, Moloch is just as valid as Santa Claus because you CANNOT- by the very definition of belief- test or prove either one. (If you could it wouldn't be belief.) Religion forces people to be intellectually dishonest. On the one hand, they are forced to acknowledge the existance of reality every day. If they don't, they cancel out themselves- and their beliefs-pretty quickly. (In fact, I know someone who believed so strongly in spiritual light as nourishment that she was found starving and hallucinating near the Seattle bus terminal and had be to forcibly fed.) But then on the other hand, they turn around and deny the material world. They pray to God for blessing, which has a far lower success rate than flicking on a light. They live mentally divided lives... it's socially promoted craziness.
I know that you're right. Most people will never adopt a strictly material view of the universe. And there are people who actually seem to make religion attractive: you and HK, for instance, who seem to be perhaps more deeply or inutitively in touch with reality than I- you both reach very deep insights that generally rather escape me.
But hey, you know, SOMEBODY'S gotta hold down this end of the discussion spectrum! 
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Hi SignyM
I appreciate the kudos. I feel however that HK is insightful, you are logical, and I am pragmatic.
I get that belief is defined as intrinsically what you are left with absent physical tesing. And that belief in the non-real is an insanity that divides people's minds - on the one hand they must live in the physical world, on the other hand they must deny it.
I can't speak for HK, but I think that HK's world is more complicated than mine and perhaps yours as well. (My experiences of the unexplainable have been exceedingly rare - except for the 'lights' thing.) And so HK has to go beyond explanations based on the simply testable.
As for myself, I'm not religious. My paradigm is (what I think is) an inevitable outcome of one concept.
So out of the ethics/control/belief triad, I have my ethic, control is a matter for science and technology, and belief doesn't enter into the equation.
Nearly everything I know I learned by the grace of others.
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Perhaps one of the (but certainly not the only) failures of science is that it blocks insight, inspiration, vision. Science is a very "rejecting" process. As we have discussed, it can only disprove hypotheses. It doesn't offer any reliable forward-looking path, but depends on that mysterious AHA!!! moment when observations gel to insight.
To get to that moment one must be in an accepting, waiting, still frame of mind. You need to let the universe speak to you. As your signature says, you can see anything with the right filters. Science is a rigorous filter that screens out what is "not" (at least by current thinking) but it can't point out the possibilities.
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Quote:
Originally posted by SigmaNunki:
[B]@CITIZEN:
"""Quantum Mechanics allows for some pretty strange things to happen, farseeing, telepathy etc"""
QM says no such thing.
Erm no, your right, no where in Quantum Mechanics does it say, farseeing telepathy etc are explained by this or that...
I didn't say it did either.
What I said is it allows for some pretty strange things, that, given a mechanism for our brains picking them up, could explain farseeing, telepathy etc.
QM has shown that information can be transmitted between particles with no 'physical' link faster than the speed of light, for instance.
I didn't say QM says anything.
Q: What do you have when you are holding two little green balls in your hand.
A: Kermit's undivided attention.
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When I was pre-teen to early teen I used to dream poems, parables and chants. Here are a few examples:
(the picture is the world in space, the voice is a woman's gentle voice with the depth of the voice you hear in your head)
Spin yourself some magic
That you can call your own.
Spin yourself a dream,
And the world can spin alone.
(the picture is an arid, rocky sun-drenched Middle-East setting, the voice is a medium-register neutral man's voice)
A man looked upon the world and its various ways, and became confused.
He asked his god - what way am I to follow that's good?
And his god asked him - do you till your field? The man answered - yes.
And his god asked him - do you know your field? And the man answered - yes.
Then his god said - I say to you, you do not know your field. You must go into your field and turn stones, until you know the shape snd shuttle of each stone.
And the man was content from that day.
(the picture is a ridge top with some dead grasses and a bent, twisted evergreen with snow blowing on it, and a dreary sky; the chanting voice is that of an old, old woman)
Snow blows over the hill,
Wind hits cold against my back.
Long as it's winter, I won't look back.
Oh mercy me -
the Joshua tree.
My days be gone,
My friends be dead.
Wrinkled, dry, without a tear.
Here I am, and I won't look back,
Oh lonesome me -
The Joshua tree.
Wind blows over the hill,
Snow hits cold gainst my back,
I don't see far,
But I won't look back.
Oh mercy me -
The Joshua tree.
Since then, these dreams have gotten rarer, but longer, more complete and more freighted with meaning and insight. And they culminated (I feel) in the 'just enough' dream.
I have always wondered where those dreams came from.
Nearly everything I know I learned by the grace of others.
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Wow. Your last poem kinda wants to make me cry. If you promise to post your "just enough" dream. I'll post my "sanyagoing" one. Or maybe my nomads one. Or maybe the one that begins "When we were young we tussled like puppies playing in the tent."
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I'm not sure that my 'just enough' dream is readily understandable. It didn't have events, it was a setting. I think understanding the setting depends on being able to truly envision a better world. Without that basic act the dream itself loses its essence.
But there is something about the "When we were young ..." beginning that intrigues me. Could you post that anyway? The language, the wording, the image - I see Middle East nomad.
Nearly everything I know I learned by the grace of others.
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Quote:
Originally posted by citizen:Quote:
Originally posted by SigmaNunki:
[B]@CITIZEN:
"""Quantum Mechanics allows for some pretty strange things to happen, farseeing, telepathy etc"""
QM says no such thing.
Erm no, your right, no where in Quantum Mechanics does it say, farseeing telepathy etc are explained by this or that...
I didn't say it did either.
What I said is it allows for some pretty strange things, that, given a mechanism for our brains picking them up, could explain farseeing, telepathy etc.
QM has shown that information can be transmitted between particles with no 'physical' link faster than the speed of light, for instance.
I didn't say QM says anything.
Q: What do you have when you are holding two little green balls in your hand.
A: Kermit's undivided attention.
You're going to have to re-iterate what you are saying as your use of grammer is preventing me from getting that.
"""
QM has shown that information can be transmitted between particles with no 'physical' link faster than the speed of light, for instance.
"""
And this is just plain wrong. QM says that information can not travel faster than the speed of light. If you want to get into details, I can post an excerpt from a QM book I have (if you understand LaTeX that is).
----
"We're in a giant car heading into a brick wall at 100 miles/hr and everybody's arguing about where they want to sit."
-David Suzuki
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Sorry about the poor grammer, my Brain tends to work quicker than my typing and I'm dyslexic, so things can get a little, *ahem* hard for people to understand sometimes.
My point was:
If there is a mechanism for our brains to exploit them QM allows the possibllity for farseeing and telepathy.
Quote:
Originally posted by SigmaNunki:
"""
QM has shown that information can be transmitted between particles with no 'physical' link faster than the speed of light, for instance.
"""
And this is just plain wrong. QM says that information can not travel faster than the speed of light. If you want to get into details, I can post an excerpt from a QM book I have (if you understand LaTeX that is).
Nope, your thinking of special relativity. Special relativity says that the speed of light is the 'speed limit' to the universe. QM as far as I know says nothing about maximum speeds of information, at least.
As a side not General Relativity does allow something to travel between two points in less time than a ray of light would take.
Now as for information traveling faster than the speed of light in QM, I refer you to entanglement. Information about the particle states is being transmitted, although 'classical' infomation can't be transmitted.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_entanglement
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/qt-entangle/
Q: What do you have when you are holding two little green balls in your hand.
A: Kermit's undivided attention.
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