And that is why the flying spaghetti monster has a church in the netherlands. Totally rational. Go FSM, may thou noodles touch me for I am open to ur blessing.Absence of proof is not proof of absence. So it is absolutely rational to think that god exist.
Just wanted to say I respect the believing, it doesn't bother me at all, what bothers me is trying to explain why the believe is rational, since it's by definition not. Big part of my family believes in god and I respect it 100%.
1) If some scientist were religious, is it so foolish to believe in god?
-> Believing in god is a cultural thing, that is passed from generation to generation. These cultural thing takes a lot of time to fade away if at all. Look at, e.G. how we wear clothes in Brazil (really hot, doesn't make sense) or how we glorify women tits. There are tons of cultural things that are acceptable or even demanded, which if the world started from scratch again, but with some slight changes, it could go totally other way. One of those things is the believing in a very powerful being that started it.
2) Science is always changing
The big difference between science and faith is that science knows it can be wrong. Somebody comes with the best hypothesis available. Since then, everyone that thinks they have a better idea give their best to prove that their hypothesis is better. And so many times until the answer is closer and closer to the truth and matches reality. With believing there is no such thing as actually trying to prove, or building better answers. Just a kind of thinking where you surrender to the idea that finding the actual answer is impossible because of the number of variables being too high and say, well ok here we go, it was a giant bearded dude in the sky. (Or an omnipotent omnipresent endless being).
But I honestly think that if they were born into a world where not one person believes in god, they would probably not reach such a conclusion that there is one.
It comes from the fear of being still ignorant to the matter and our internal desperate need for answers, even without some concrete proof. Also, from the need to hold to something, to know that you aren't all alone in a random world where divine justice doesn't exist, but rather our existence is meaningless.
They should have as little ties (if any) to cultural influence, being seekers of the truth without a real bias.
, the last of which essentially means to me that science is trying to uncover "god's form", to go to the core of everything working (an "original choice", setup of rules, a founding choice that starts all rational processes in the framework that exists). This of course assumes that god is not a singular entity that could be subject to anthropomorphism.He said: "Both Religion and science require a belief in God. For believers, God is in the beginning, and for physicists He is at the end of all considerations… To the former He is the foundation, to the latter, the crown of the edifice of every generalized world view"
Yes, being rational being able to accept posibility of existnce of entity which non existence is impossible to prove so far is absolutely equal to satirical mocking of other faiths by "praising" spaghetti monster. Dude you are so smart.
/endsarcasm
Its a great book. I also loved the ancestors tale.anybody who says we have absolutely no idea how life or DNA came to be should read the selfish gene.
This is quite impossible for a human, as part of a society though. You mentioned Planck, whose wikipedia article says he didn't believe in a personalized god/God (even near death), but was deeply religious (by culture). Particularly relevant to my view is his apparent quote:
My point is, aside from those being separate, can't you have both?
Sigh. I am not discussing shape or color or matter of "godly entity". My point is that since you cannot prove non existence of something you should at least acknowledge possibility of its existence. If you are unable to acknowledge possibility you are not smart you are ignorant.Ya. You cant prove God exist, nor can you disprove the flying spaghetti monster. Like someone said, absence of proof is no proof of absence. If you get insulted by my analogy then so be it. I hope you respond with proof of absence of the flying spaghetti monster, that will change my mind.
I'd imagine it would be pretty big news if somebody figured it out but I guess I just didn't hear about it. MAYBE the book just contains a theory. Is it possible!?!?!??!?!anybody who says we have absolutely no idea how life or DNA came to be should read the selfish gene.
We may have theories that are widely accepted but no definitive answersWell science is all about theories and im not saying his theory is necessarily super accurate and perfect. The point Im trying to make is that we definitely have ideas how DNA and early life-forms could have come into existence without anything supernatural or a god. It's all about statistics and chance and when you have billions of years to play with, very unlikely things are suddenly likely to happen just once. The only features that you want this "thing" to have is that it is self replicating and stable. The good thing is. we now know lots of nanomaterials that behave in this way (think about polymers for example).
Sounds great, let's go! <3I would like to ask you a few questions if you don't mind. I am not trying to start anything with you to say, as it could be inferred. Just curious about another view, and see if yours can intersect with mine.
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I assume you mean this distinction of, let's call it "timeframed divinity"? You can indeed have both, belief in god (acting T<0) and free unrestrained thinking/acting/study,
but in my view only in the choice that existence of god is irrelevant in T>0 era, unable to interact, judge or intervene in any shape or form (by eg. resurrecting people or performing miracles, conveying orders/rules etc).
I like to think that rational is what we can define using logic/proof and being open to changing your mind if some better idea comes that fits all the criteria right. This however doesn't mean I find irrational behavior bad. To me sometimes love is irrational (we've all been there), and letting your emotions get to you too. Yet love is a beautiful thing and should be respected, not tried to justify.
Yes, wanting/choosing to believe something without proof always is irrational
I think that it doesn't really matter the way that you started to believe in god. If it was because of cultural motives which is 99% the case of people that I know, or if you saw something that because of evolution was so well functioning (which is a biased opinion, for all we know the world is 14 Bi years old, living 100 years of that is really really tiny fraction of that, meaning that we're not so perfect functioning either). Plus i've heard many times people coming up with: "Well, we can only live in very specific conditions, don't you think that it's amazing that we live in a world providing it?" . Well, maybe we evolved into a world like this, if we were in another wolrd we would have evolved differently, without the need of a god having to create our earth.
And asking a more personal question (if you don't object), do you consider belief in God irrational because of the way people generally are convicted of it (and to an unpersuadable degree to add)?
I'm sorry, maybe it's the language barrier, but I didn't understand your question, if you could rephrase <3
A scientist always tries to not be biased, yet he is. Absolutely nobody is absenced to society, we evolved to be a social being, we need this to survive and is our extinct. I consider masturbating a normal thing, yet I don't do it publicly because it's not sociable acceptable. This is my case, but a biologist who knows it's totally natural and isn't wrong at all, doesn't do it either. That's the power of the social pressure, which in this case is easy to notice, but is not always obvious like this. I agree, they should have little ties to cultural influence, yet they do. Not only cultural, but also depending on what instruments are available (E.G. what kind of microscope exists, as to see what's the tiniest particle) and also what the focus of the modern science is. It's really hard to randomly choose something and start digging until you find something amazing out. It's usually trying to answer one question that you find the answer to a totally different question.
This is a valid point, maybe you can say: "Okay god may the universe how it is, but let's see how he(it?) did it. " This is ok to me, but again, you should know that you BELIEVE god made it, and not try to rationalize it in any way. Or teach it at schools as it were true. And let's be honest, now we're on the 21st century, and still a big portion of the world's population preach that god invented everything. Preaching is wrong, so is telling kids that instead of evolution (which seeing you're a smart man, I believe you agree that it's the best explanation available) God made the animals the way they are. It's ok for you (Rayne) because you know it, not so true for the enormous majority of religious people.
So, it is very OK for you to believe in anything you want, I won't judge it. But you HAVE to know that it's a believe. It's your right to teach your belief to your kid and tell him: "See, this is what I believe and you can believe it too if you WANT, even if there is no proof for it" . It is (In my vision of the world) wrong, that you tell him something like: "Einstein believed in god, I know that god exists because A, B and C", because you'll be taking away the poor kid's chance to think for himself and reach the best conclusion. And that is why I find it dangerous for people to try and rationalize things that are not more than beliefs.
Dawkins doesn't say he doesn't believe in God,he doesn't like God.he refers to himself as the devils chaplain.