I would also add that the ideas that (1) belief is enough and (2) the scientific method isn’t foolproof has been the cornerstone of the belief of a significant number of people that global warming isn’t real.
As for the ‘scientist’ who first argued the world was flat. It wasn’t a scientist who thought that. Poets, religionists and pre-Socratic philosophers such as Thales posited that the world was flat without actually doing the ‘science’ to prove or disprove the hypothesis. Even Plato who said the world was a sphere wasn’t a scientist, he was a philosopher. If he had done the work in proving his hypothesis, then he would be a scientist.
Religion is supposed to be a prism through which you can understand and make sense of your observations and experiences. There is nothing about religion that is inherently peaceful.
You only see it as moving towards complexity if you start at the endpoint of something complex and view the progression towards that point. That is merely one way evolution occurs though.
They didn’t. That view point was never a result of science.
That’s like claiming liverpool are shit because Maguire is a donkey. You cannot question the ability of science to know things by identifying the failures of people who did not follow the scientific method and were not scientists.
I think it gets more complex than that. What was before the Big Bang? I think discussing religion with this often confuses that the Big Bang explains the how, but religion tends to focus on the why. I don’t think that Christianity for example, necessarily contradicts the Big Bang Theory as much, unless you choose to read it literally word-for-word (in which case you’d start to encounter a lot of inconsistencies, not just about creation itself).
I agree, there’s no way to disprove a creative impetus to the universe either through the scientific method or rationalisation. Evolution has been messy which some people have used as evidence of a random universe, but I think that even programmers write messy code, it doesn’t mean that there wasn’t a design behind the program.
What I was highlighting was creation myths in particular vs. the big bang theory. I think science, even though it’s not perfect is much more reliable than simple belief.
That is a great point. To expand on it, the big bang doesnt even deal with the creation of the universe, only the period in the very immediate aftermath of the “creation”. As you said, it is perfectly compatible with a a role of a creator. The only issue is that in science that isnt a viable answer and to religious people it is.
Except that pesky book at the beginning of the bible that was clearly written by people who had absolutely no idea how the world began. We’re all children of stardust, gorgeous line. So a belief that all the bible is true is absolutely at odds with science. Sort of my recurrent point, you either believe the book or you don’t. Once you start to cherry pick you’re using humanity to make decisions on the validity of what’s considered to be god’s word. Then where do you stop? Genesis? The commandments? I could do pages on those (1st 3 being all about god just being jealous) Look to Hitch for a far more eloquent throw down than I can type on a phone.
I know little about religion outside the Abrahamic god of the bible but I’m not sure about the depth to which it explains why god created everything? I could go full comedy routine here but not sure the why is that well covered.
Us being here to praise god only points to a god who needs praise which would be a very odd thing for a being capable of creating more than our observable universe. Always struck me as odd from being a kid. He created us so we could spend our lives thanking him and sent to eternal torment if we didn’t? Again from Hitch, we’re commanded to love someone we must fear, that’s the foundation of sadomasochism.
Read the Devil’s Apocryphia. It’s a book about Lucifer’s view of his expulsion from heaven. In it he describes his confrontation with God being about the cruelty of creating mankind just for the benefit of using their (forced) praise and adulation as a source of energy.
The fundamental problem with all creation myths, and the argument that there must have been a creator, is that if everything has a creator, who or what created the creator.
And Thomas Acquinas’s argument for a “prime mover” is no better than “turtles all the way down”.
Neither of the two Biblical accounts of the creation (Y & P) are remotely compelling. Let’s face it, they couldn’t agree even on the order of creation.
Evolution drives towards reproduction of genes. Complexity is favoured only where complexity confers an advantage to that end. Typically though that comes with increased energy demand and longer replication cycles and so where those things are limited such that there is an advantage to require less of it, you get a trend back towards simplicity.
But surely, when it happens, it’s always in order to get more efficiency? Not to suppress, say, intelligence or conscience and find back a previous, more primitive evolutionary stadium ?
I was baptized due to my young parents wanting to keep my grandparents wishes, however we have never practiced. mix of Christian and Ukranian Orthodox lineage.
I’ve never connected with any particular religion. I have beliefs on how things work in the big wide world, how matter and energy are big parts of our existence and there is no right/wrong answer to what you can believe in. I spent years trying to read The Tibetan Book of the Dead, and failed to understand it until I was traveling through Fraser Island and my tour guide was a part-time anthropologist. he summarized YEARS of my struggling with this book and its message in a 15min conversation. changed my perspective on it, and the afterlife.
TBH, I really don’t care if you’re pastafarian. Don’t be a dick, respect others and nature. help those that need it, be a good role model to those who look up to you. pay it forward. BE KIND!
