This has been on my mind a lot lately.......We are about to be a multi-planet living species, once this happens and the deep space exploration begins, what happens to religion? What happens to the Bible where there is a God and he created this earth and conservatives take everything so literally?.......Maybe there is a higher "force" out there, but to say what that is.....is something I battle with.
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What about conservative atheists?!
Last I checked it's possible to hold right wing fiscal views without being religious? And while I'm being dumb enough to stick my toe into this debate, what science wrt creation of human life do atheists ignore?
NigelM
Recovering Member
Because God is a god of love and mercy and not one of murder and suicide.
As for the Bible...well, who wrote it? Men....
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I did say, liberal atheists....but to answer your question (and risk this thread going off the rails) I think you'll find that close to 100% of scientists will agree that life begins at conception.
This thread was on rails? Hmmm... that wasn't obvious to me.
That being said I'm sure that exactly 100% of scientists will agree that life begins well before conception. Sperm/eggs are most certainly alive after all. They're simply the haploid forms of the human male and female. The debate, which I'm smart enough not to wade into, is around what we feel about the resulting diploid cell after fertilization and after the many subsequent divisions. There's a lot of room for debate there and no obvious way to settle it.
Laurent
Member
It's already happened. Given the stupendous size of the universe, there's likely millions if not billions of other civilizations out there. I’m pretty sure that they couldn’t care less about any purported “holy books” from that tiny speck of dust called Earth. Most young civilizations like ours likely have their own gods while others have moved beyond religion and embraced reality.
And you "know" that because you've randomly chosen to trust one set of telepath-liars instead of some other. (BTW, I'm curious, do 'love & mercy' include floods & disease, etc.?) Once you're into sci-fi type supernatural explanations, you're going to have an impossible time showing some other fantasy isn't actually happening instead.
That's easy. Religion is infinitely malleable. Religions have sprung up grown and died since well before recorded history. Those that don't fit a social need or that happen to be confined to a declining social group decline and fade away. The ones based on the the most obviously absurd claims (thinking Greek, or the many end of the world cults as examples) tend to die off when their claims are clearly refuted. Over time that leaves religions that either make few specific claims or make claims that are pretty ephemeral, that cannot be proven or disproven. Most modern religions fit this latter category.
Were we to go to Mars or elsewhere, religion would simply adapt or die. I suspect that the leaders of the major religions have enough business & marketing smarts that they'd find a way to adapt.
I can't give you any more +rep so I'll just +1 this.
Are you suggesting the following RELIGIOUS people didn't contribute to science or technological advancements?
James Watt, Michael Faraday, Isaac Newton, Johann Gutenberg, Aristotle, Euclid, Charles Darwin, Copernicus, Galiloe, Albert Einstein, Louis Pasteur, James Maxwell, Wright Brothers, John Dalton, Guglielmo Marconi, William Morton, Alexander Bell, Alexander Fleming, Lious Daguerre, Gregor Mendel, Joseph Lister, Edward Jenner, Wilheml Roentgen, Johannes Kepler, Gregory Pincus, Henry Ford, etc.
The list could go on and on but I think thats enough to make a point.
I drive a Tesla, love science, and believe in God.
Not to pick nits, but some in that group were atheists - Einstein for one. And some of them lived long before science was established enough to present a compelling alternative to the religion of the day. Newton, Galileo and all of the Greeks fit in that category. So they don't count.
As to the remaining religious ones.. Yes, certainly religious people can contribute to science. With some notable exceptions (like young earth creationism), it's not really possible for science to disprove most of the fairly ephemeral claims that religions make. But certainly, there is a LONG history of science slowly knocking down the tenets held by various religions. And I personally find it tough to see that that pattern won't continue.
Laurent
Member
Why do we even have threads about religion on TMC? It never ends well. Plus, it's not like we're going to move the needle either way.
Einstein was raised by Jewish parents.
He wrote to Erik Gutkind:
“I am not an Atheist. I do not know if I can define myself as a Pantheist. The problem involved is too vast for our limited minds… The child dimly suspects a mysterious order in the arrangement of the books but doesn’t know what it is. That, it seems to me, is the attitude of even the most intelligent human being toward God.”
However at death he likely was an Atheist, but that only shows that "religion" didn't stop him from making his discoveries.
Can't refute your list; I don't know. Einstein was agnostic according to Wikipedia. Do you consider that 'religious' and if not, did you purposely misrepresent? It's ok, you can confess to me. (That was a joke; I'm not a scam artist). Anyway even if the above were all religious, that would mean they weren't very good believers! god can't have all his slaves going around using their brains (which can't be trusted, incidentally) trying to figure out the universe when they already know how it works via the bible. They needed better faith, not human reason. Anyway for a balanced view next, show me a list of the criminal religious men who held back and persecuted, delaying progress by who knows how many centuries. And of course the murder and atrocity. That a few religious men are able to do otherwise doesn't affect the argument of the effect on civilization.
Probably true, unfortunately. Con artists are always adapting. Note the ease with which they use phone, email, viruses, malware., etc., to scam the weak, gullible, and inattentive.
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Absolutely true. None of this stuff is new and it goes absolutely nowhere. But this is off-topic and for whatever reason one likes to mindlessly doodle sometimes. The subject of religion merits no serious discussion. It'll die off on its own and is doing exactly that over the last few centuries, tyvm.
Einstein had a habit of applying the word "God" as a label to the underlying order & symmetry of the universe. His quote "know the mind of God" is another one commonly misrepresented by religious folks to imply that Einstein was religious. He certainly wasn't religious in the same sense that most church-going folk would be. He certainly recognized an astounding symmetry and organization in the makeup of the universe and recognized that there were principles at play far beyond our current comprehension. But any good atheist scientist would agree with that wholeheartedly, and it certainly does not imply the existence of a god in the biblical sense.
Stephen Hawking has done the same on a couple of occasions; he used the work God in this far reaching philosophical sense and a lot of religious folks quickly claimed him as one of their own. In his later writings he regretted the comments and made it explicitly clear that he sees no evidence for any biblical god and he would be considered by most to be an atheist.
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I don't think it will. Human society is a self-organizing system and for whatever reason, religion is one of the forms of organization that humanity favors. Religions will crop up and grow as long as there are people smart enough to take advantage of this tendency, develop a philosophy and build a religion around it. Hubbard has proved, without a doubt, that in this day and age it's STILL possible to build a thriving religion around the most absurd and shadiest of premises.
beeeerock
Active Member
This falls into line with what I said a few pages ago... the universe is far too complex for us to begin to understand even the basics of what it's about. We think we do, but I suggest we're probably at an infantile level still. So when it comes to our understanding of what God is, we're really far too stupid as a species to have even the first clue. Somebody writes a book and it become, literally, The Bible, to answer all our questions. I suggest it's far more valuable to provide the basis of civilized behavior, with the penalty of going to hell if you don't fall into line.
What I find interesting is the work done by researchers looking into 'near-death experiences'. They don't have any answers (in my opinion at least), but ask the question "What is it that gives us life and consciousness?" Evolution can explain plenty of that, except for the actual spark that gives us (somewhat) intelligent life.
That keeps me from being a card-carrying atheist, because I'm smart enough to know that I really DON'T know what it's all about. And that we're all far too stupid to have the first clue! Frankly, I don't think our brains are evolved far enough to comprehend what it is all about, if a higher being was to visit us and attempt to explain it.
People need an assurance that the sun is going to rise tomorrow. Earlier religions literally worshiped the god of the sun, rain etc... because they were (in our 'modern' opinion), a bunch of primitives. News Flash!!! On the galactic scale, we really aren't that much more advanced than we were back then!!! Today's religions are simply what is flogged today. Give it a few thousand years and religion will look completely different, if it exists at all.
It really wasn't so long ago that suggesting the earth orbited the sun was good for a flogging... or worse... I guess that orbital understanding pretty much killed off the poor sun god... "we don't need you anymore, we're SMART now!!!"
NigelM
Recovering Member
It seems to me from your posts in this thread that you have a big problem with anyone who believes in God? Overall there's a lot more tolerance in this thread (on both sides).
I've always thought the following would be interesting:
From each major religion gather together an individual who represents everything that is great about the religion. Someone who cares deeply for others and gives much of their time to help others. Sort of the best of the best.
Then have a discussion of what happens to the souls of everyone who does not practice their religion.
From each major religion gather together an individual who represents everything that is great about the religion. Someone who cares deeply for others and gives much of their time to help others. Sort of the best of the best.
Then have a discussion of what happens to the souls of everyone who does not practice their religion.
NigelM
Recovering Member
Zapped
Model S - PURE EV
Apparently Einstein was reading a book by Velikovsky with he was found dead.
Velikovsky caused quite a stir in the scientific community in the 50's and 60's but since recently reading his books my faith has come into question.
I'm now leaning more towards Intelligent Design, the stuff that created us, nature and the TESLA.:wink: ( Thanks Elon )
Velikovsky caused quite a stir in the scientific community in the 50's and 60's but since recently reading his books my faith has come into question.
I'm now leaning more towards Intelligent Design, the stuff that created us, nature and the TESLA.:wink: ( Thanks Elon )
Liz G
P03056
I don't believe in god for the same reasons I don't believe in magic. I think I have a better chance of meeting a unicorn than meeting God. I could make an argument for a series of genetic mutations that could result in an animal with the form of a horse and a horn on its head. I have yet to see a compelling argument for the existence of a god.
My question - if God created man, then who created God? And, if God does not require a creator to exist, why does Man?
My question - if God created man, then who created God? And, if God does not require a creator to exist, why does Man?
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