Re: religion


Jimmy,

I responded to this because it needed response :-)

Obviously, I strongly disagree with your position, but please bear in mind I
totally respect your right to hold it and I don't think you are "wrong";
just that it is an individual thing and what works for you simply doesn't
for me...

Discussions in CLC should never be too serious.

Comments below...

"James J. Gavan" <jgavandeletethis@xxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:ujnsf.90462$2k.14349@xxxxxxxxxxx
> Defaultuser wrote:
>> "Alistair" <alistair@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
>> <snip>
>>
>>>>Negative energy is a concept that is required by Quantum Mechanics and
>>>>the
>>>>Uncertainty Principle.
>>>>
>>
>>
>> Is it just me that finds the irony in a discussion about the God and
>> evolution evolving into a conversation about the Big Bang Theory as a
>> *sound* alternative...
>>
>> As a basis is has an "uncertainty principle"....it requires a level of
>> mathematics that is studied by post doctoral mathematics, physics and
>> cosmology students....and is changing constantly as new things are
>> "discovered".
>>
>> I don't know that I find the human interpretation of measuring and
>> analysing any more accurate on the scientific level than I do the
>> spiritual level. Last time I checked, Einstein (so often a reference) was
>> not always right and even apologized for being wrong on something that
>> was subsequently proved right....even NOW the leading cosmologists and
>> astrophysicists and "experts" in M-Theory don't agree on fundamental
>> issues. So, great minds are wrong, just like great books....
>>
>> I've read that there are 11 dimension, but that their might be 12, but
>> then there might be as many as we need......and as for what was their
>> before the big bang?.....the same things that's North of the North Pole,
>> obviously.
>>
>
> Interesting that you developed above theme, because I'm still on the tack
> 'Nothing' doesn't become 'Something'. Bear with me, see if my lousy
> description puts some of you on to the right track, then having got the
> correct name, go to pbs.org and Nova and do a search on the topic by name.
>
And the "right track" would be...? :-)

> Unfortunately I came into the TV programme during about the last 25%,
> roughly a month or two back.

What TV program? What topic? Need more information here for those of us
outside North America. I have some excellent DVDs from pbs.org sponsored by
Nova. One of my favourites is the DVD of the programs made around Brian
Greene's Book "The Elegant Universe". It describes many of the topics we
have been discussing and, like the book itself, is easily assimilable by
anyone remotely interested.

> Taking something like a small branch on a tree, or another example might
> be a strand of patterned seaweed, using magnification, you can get closer
> into the object and what is revealed are a set of repetitive steps, the
> same structure appearing more minutely, over and over again. Chances are
> what I was looking at were coloured computerised graphic patterns, and it
> was the colouring which initially attracted me.

This is a well known phenomenon and represents the Mandelbrot set. It is
covered by a simple algorithm based on a simple equation and these sets can
be generated on a computer. Some of them are extremely beautiful.

> Obviously the more powerful the microscope the more depth one could get
> into - probably to the point of infinity - I wasn't considering this topic
> at the time - but perhaps there just isn't infinity to this process.

No, it is far from infinite. Democritus used the process you are describing
more than two millenia ago, and he didn't even have a microscope! He
reasoned that if he could cut something in half and keep on doing that (in
effect, magnifying it by two each time he cut it), he should eventually
arrive at a particle so small it could not be divided. This would be a
fundamental building block of Nature. He named it with the Greek word
"atom", meaning "indivisible", but a Kiwi named Ernest Rutherford upset his
apple cart and split it in the early 20th century. That doesn't mean
Democritus was "wrong"; it just means there was more...

Today, we have progressed to the point where we recognize that there ARE
fundamental particles and we understand they arise from fluctuations in an
energy field that was created some 10 -20 billion years ago. People
sometimes say: what if the quarks are splittable? They might be. (It is
considered unlikely, but so was splitting the atom until Rutherford did
it.). Even if they were, we know the process is not infinite. It stops at
the Planck length. I sometimes visualise the H bar as a bistro that sits on
the border between reality and virtuality. Across the border is meaningless
in this universe. Although by the time you reach the H bar you are
unthinkably small (several trillion times smaller than an atom), you are
still finite.

> If we think 'humans' we would tend to suggest there is an infinity - but
> is that 'assuaged' by the fact that this process of infinity is generated
> from the mother's womb or the male sperm or both, going back to endless
> previous generations.
>

I don't understand this. When I think 'humans' I think "latecomers"... been
here no more than 3 million years... that's a few seconds on the clock of
the Earth's 5 billion years. 'Humans' to me certainly does not suggest
'infinity'... The dinosaurs were here for over 200 million years and
cockroaches for around 600 million (no wonder the little buggers are
impossible to eradicate... :-)). There are no "endless" previous
generations; it is a finite line. The DNA you carry today did not come from
somewhere in infinity. Just because you don't know the details of every
generation of it, doesn't mean it is infinite. It is demonstrably finite.
(There was a time in the Earth's history when there were no humans on it.)
Similarly, there will be a time when humanity no longer exists. Even if we
managed to disperse ourselves throughout the universe we will still be
nailed by it's eventual heat death, just like all other living creatures (if
there are any) at that time. When the stars go cold and the night closes in,
none of our kind will witness it. It is a long way off, but nothing like
'infinity'...(30 billion years max...)

The line of Adam's seed is not infinite in the backwards or forwards
direction...

> It seems to me, that our so called pure scientific thought is derived from
> our own human historical experience.

It isn't "so called"; the scientific method is a stated set of principles.
Certainly, it is based on logic and experience, rather than faith. "So
called" is incorrect and pejorative in this context.

>We tend to see time as being finite, the sun rises, the sun sets, the earth
>cycles with other planets and we have seasons etc.

Agreed. That fits the observations.


>For a human 'convenience' we have built the concept of time to indicate a
>Beginning and an End.

It is observably so. Time is more than a concept. The cycle of "creation -
survival - destruction" is demonstrable in all things, at all levels. All
the great religions of the world recognize it; the Bible talks of creation
and destruction, the Hindus have separate Gods to handle it (Brahma the
Creator; Shiva the Destroyer), and so on. The concept of Beginning and End
is demonstrable in Nature and far from being a 'human convenience'.
(Actually, I find it bloody INconvenient when I have to get up in the
morning and go to work... :-))

>Not only that, but how do we place the Ice Age, Bronze Age, Iron Age
>without some time check-book. Time was further compartmentalised into
>calendars, hence the fact that the old Jewish calendar gives us Hannakuh on
>the same day as Christmas this year.
>
So? We recognize that time passes and mark it's passing. What is your point
here?

> With due regard to pure scientists like Einstein and Hawking, I see the
> word 'theory' being used to explain current concepts. Are they still
> purely theory or are they provable, but only by a 'leap of faith', in a
> scientific context.

If you disagree with the "theory" of gravitation, it will not enable you to
fly unassisted.

Scientists don't take "leaps of faith" (well, good ones don't...). They
observe and postulate, based on their observations. Those postulates are
then tested by experimentation and new data is acquired. From this, new
postulates are made, and so on. Every so often, something is confirmed
beyond all reasonable doubt and passes into accepted science.

The problem has been that science is suffering from its own success. During
the last 80 years more knowledge has been acccumulated than in the previous
3 million. When you talk about the word 'theory' being used currently, that
is because some of these 'current concepts' don't fit the traditional
classical ideas that have been with us for thousands of years. How can a
scientist explain quantum weirdness in a form that people can assimilate,
with brains that have evolved to deal with three dimensions and cause-
effect timelines? How do we cope with phenomena that deny logicality? What
about things that behave contrary to normal experience? What about
experiments that cannot be guaranteed to be repeatable, but only have a
probability of being so? All of these ideas are new and exciting and
scientists are only just coming to deal with them.

When we find that some of these things look like they may not be "True" but
we cannot prove them "False" either, we are forced to call them
'theoretical' until more evidence arrives that helps us understand better.
In some cases, we don't need to understand in order to be able to use the
knowledge acquired. We certainly don't know what particles and energy are
doing when we are not watchng them, or even if they exist or not at that
time, but that doesn't stop us building microwaves, lasers, computers, cell
phones, satellite communications and other high tech electronic
applications. The fundamental probabilistic laws apply. We know a certain
number of electrons will tunnel through a substrate and create a transistor,
even though we don't know which ones or at what time.

My point is that we don't need EXACT knowledge any more for something to be
scientific. In fact, the Uncertainty Principle tells us there are some
things we are simply not allowed to know or measure, except within certain
ranges, based on probablilty. (However, that doesn't stop us searching for
more understanding of why things behave the way they do.)

>An honoured man has got his logic and mathematics right, so he must be
>right.

Or, a Bishop or Cardinal has a Doctorate in Divinity, and is seen to be a
pillar of the church, so HE must be right... The argument from authority is
no more appropriate in a scientific discussion than it is in a religious
one. It is just as wrong in both places. It isn't about WHO's right; it
should be about WHAT's right.

>On the basis that he is right, now we advance further with another
>extension of scientific thought.
>
No, that is a mis-statement of the scientific method. His "rightness" (and
the completeness thereof) has to be verified by experiment before proceeding
on the basis that he is right. If the experiments support the theory, then
there is a good basis for proceeding; if they don't, we learned something.
Often it is just as important to know what ISN'T so, as it is to know what
IS so...

> Back to the tree twig or seaweed, unless proven otherwise, it looks to me
> like hard evidence for an infinity and that there never was and never will
> be a Beginning and an End.

And I have taken some pains to argue against this and support the exact
opposite. There is no infinity, there was a beginning, and there will be an
end. The universe is finite and knowable. It is only the church that seeks
to prevent us from knowing it, because the church relies on mystery for its
very existence (what thinking person could support religion otherwise?)

I understand that you will never accept this, and your "unless proven
otherwise" is simply a weasel clause because there is no proof on earth that
would make you change your mind :-). That's OK; this is a friendly
discussion with no chance of changing minds anyway :-).

Only the Bible says "World without end". That is a comforting thought for
people who never had the luxury of an education, and never learned to think
(and, more importantly, question) for themselves.


>Things, shapes might look very different in a zillion years from now, but
>still no nearer to a finite conclusion.
>
It won't be a zillion years, but neither of us will see it out :-)

> I searched PBS thinking Evolution might give me a lead to what I had been
> watching. No luck - but I did find the following under that ubiquitous
> title - FAQ :-
>
> 11. Does evolution prove there is no God?
> No. Many people, from evolutionary biologists to important religious
> figures like Pope John Paul II, contend that the time-tested theory of
> evolution does not refute the presence of God. They acknowledge that
> evolution is the description of a process that governs the development of
> life on Earth. Like other scientific theories, including Copernican
> theory, atomic theory, and the germ theory of disease, evolution deals
> only with objects, events, and processes in the material world. Science
> has nothing to say one way or the other about the existence of God or
> about people's spiritual beliefs.
>
Precisely. Evolutionists are not out to discredit the church. Darwin lived
in a deeply religious society. It would have been crazy and political
suicide to come up with a theory that proved church teaching was wrong. The
manuscript lay unpublished in his desk for a number of years before he had
the courage to publish it. He feared the backlash from the established
churches. And he was right. Even today, fundamentalists see Evolution (or
anything that contradicts the words of the Bible) as an attack on the
chiurch and God. Just look around this very thread....

Personally, I have not traded belief in God for belief in science. I accept
neither on faith. My investigations over decades into the fundamental
questions I posed as a teenager have led me to believe that God is extremely
unlikely and definitely unnecessary in my everyday life. I have had, and am
having, a thoroughly enjoyable life in the expectation that when it ends
that will be it.

It doesn't frighten me, and I don't lean on my Imaginary Friend in times of
need. Neither do I blame Him for the ills of this world or the fact that
things are not perfect, and there is injustice. Instead, I seek to do what I
can and encourage others to do what they can to make it a better place. We
simply can't wait for God :-)

If I believe in anything, it would be personal responsibility. (Which
immediately rules out Christianity... :-))

Pete.





.