Re: views of academic scientists

Reading from news:talk.origins,
unrestrained_hand@xxxxxxxxxxx posted:

On Mar 25, 3:57+AKA-pm, Damaeus <no-m...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Reading from news:talk.origins,

I wonder if that's science's biggest problem with religion. +AKA-Does science
believe that the religious think some will live forever, while some will
be tortured with fire and brimstone for all eternity?

The Southern Baptists who raised me think that way. I have seen
nothing to indicate that they have changed their minds on this.
Science (the science community) has a problem with people who
substitute mythologies for science and want to destroy the scientific
process thru the degradation of science education, funding, etc.

When I say "Creationism", I am using the term in the sense that
American fundamentalist Christians do - a literal interpretation of
Genesis. There is a legitimate and larger sense of the word which you
seem to be using: There is a supreme being who is the creator of the
world, who perhaps can be seen a a watchmaker who set things in motion
but who hasn't *necessarily interfered since.

Exactly. To God, it would be like putting the universe into a ZIP file
that takes 13.7 billion years to decompress. Since the original copy is
still on backup in probably what Einstein intuited as a "solid state
universe", or a "decompressed infinite universe", we were all basically
crushed by God to a point of compacted matter and then the Big Bang
happened and we've been evolving ever since.

People can thing this and do perfectly good science. Around the
world, this probably represents the majority of Christians and other
theists.

Christians and atheists are both good people. It's just that atheists
ascribe their good behavior to common decency. Christians have the same
sense of natural common decency, but in their case, they've been promised
a reward for good behavior: eternal life. Their religion says they are to
spread this good news to the whole world, telling everyone who will listen
that eternal life waits for those who can be good to each other. Well,
people usually are as long as the laws they live under don't creation
conditions that cause domestic conflicts. The ideas that come with
religions, such as the idea that Jesus died for everyone's sins sound
corny now, but it has helped a lot of people live their lives in ways that
activated their God molecules.

The problem comes when someone says something along the lines of "the
bible says that there was a global flood i human times, so there was,
and I don't care what the evidence shows. By the way, this is
science." Well, no, it's not science.

I understand that perception. Belief in a global flood isn't necessary
because that the earth at one point did not exist at all is a lot worse
than any worldwide flood. In the face of that, belief in a Great Flood to
see the Face of God begins to sound as superstitious as belief that
spitting on a broom that has swept your feet will

We no longer use open campfires for survival, but for pleasure, as a break
from using the stove and oven inside. Or in the case of my dad, as a
normal household appliance. He prides himself as a "meat and potatoes"
man.

+AKA-/That/ is
ridiculous. +AKA-But when people say that Creationism = Religion, when it
includes that kind of ideology, is actually insulting to one who might be
a pantheistic creationist. +AKA-That is, the universe has become God through
the natural force of evolution.

Heh. So you're saying that there wasn't a God prior to the existence
of the universe?

I can see it from any perspective I must to discuss the issue on the level
of the person interested. The way I see it, that we can imagine things
none of us have ever seen before is evidence to me that there's something
more to life that what we can see with our eyeballs. I have been testing
my tolerance for psychosis by doing everything I can to exacerbate my
condition by smoking pot and not taking any anti-psychotic medications. So
I could tell you a couple of of scenarios:

There's a god who existed before creation and who created the universe and
did everything he could to keep it alive in front of and behind the angels
living within it as he cast upon them the illusion of contraction and then
expansion. Or maybe it was the actual compaction and explosion of matter.
Either way it doesn't matter. I've heard physicists say that the Big Bang
was not really an explosion of matter, but an "effect" on the universe
that created space-time.

2. Something popped into being by random chance and evolved to this.
We're now figuring things out and seem to be creating God based on our
brain's own ability to hallucinate him into existence based on our own
interactions with each other, nature, what we've built, and the laws we
write to live under.

Anyway, science has no problem with religion per se. But if anyone is
a Creationist as I use the word above, in its more restricted sense,
then it is for religious reasons, not evidential.

Christians find evidence in the happiness and order that comes into their
lives when they feel as if they've been obeying God. They feel obedience
is necessary for salvation, so they play along those lines and feel happy
when they feel they've been obedient because it makes them feel like
they're in God's good graces.

Would an intelligent, harmonizing force (the one described by Einstein)

That's not exactly what Einstein meant, I think...

Then tell me what he meant instead of just telling me that my
interpretation of what he meant was wrong.

one day "forget" how to be intelligent and forget how to harmonize the
universe? +AKA-Does the universe die?

It looks lie it will. Not all the data is in yet.

That's the difference between atheistic pessemism and religious optimism.
Everybody in the world feels that they are living their lives in the way
their God feels is best, even if that position is in anger toward God.
People who kill cops feel they are leaving their legacy because, living in
a world where being on television is what gives you a voice, that some guy
has the balls to kill four cops is just a testament to his courage to do
what needs to be done to tell society there's a problem here. Why is this
happening? Find out what drove him to do that, and fix the conditions
that created the problem. If it's lack of money, find a way to get more
money where it's needed most. It helps the people, and it creates more
jobs because more people who desperately need money have it to spend on
things that boost production for replenishment.

Someone in this group in the last 12 hours or so, suggested there is no
beginning to the universe, saying both the big bang and creation theories
are wrong.

There are alternative theories, yes. The Big Bang is mainstream, but
not the only scientific model. The data is insufficient to be sure
about many things.

I am merely uncomfortable with your assertion that it is not necessary
to know the origins of the universe in order to understand its end.

I didn't say that. I just quoted someone else who had said in the group
that the universe had no beginning. For me, contemplating how the
universe began is how I put together a story that made sense in a way that
I can wrap my mind around it. The story before the big bang is just
whatever we dream up to make our fantasies more real for us. Everything
that happened after the Big Bang just plays out as a matter of physics.
The only question that remains is: do we want to play like wizards and
have absolute control over reality and matter, moving objects with our
minds as we lounge around? Or do we want to play in a universe of solid
matter, climbing mountains, going on adventures and enjoying each other,
while knowing we can't die. Imagine climbing a mountain and being able to
have to ecstasy of jumping off of it, knowing hitting the ground will be
utter pleasure. That's what immortality brings. Then you can get up and
do it again. Climbing feels great, jumping off feels great, hitting the
ground feels great. We really are perfect. We just think we're ***
because of all the abuse we've been through having been destroyed out of
one universe and struggling our way back to the one who did it to us to
begin with. It's sort of funny when you think about the irony of it all,
having no choice but to return to the one who has already destroyed us in
hell, having no choice but to trust that he won't do it to us again.

Based on my experiences, there's no way out of my situation. I see my
life progressing and never ending. Ever. That means once we imagine our
way out of this state of existence, we will never have to do it again, and
we'll live forever.

Damaeus
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