Believers VS Non-belivers

[edwardcullensotherwoman]

Why is it that if someone believes in something, they will talk about it as exactly that - something they believe in - and not portray it as absolute fact; yet if someone doesn't believe in something, they will say this as an absolute fact and ridicule those who believe?

It's almost as if those who don't believe (in whatever the subject: angels, God, reincarnation) consider themselves superior to those who do, and view those who do as stupid for doing so.

Surely everyone's beliefs are their own belief and opinion - nothing "woo" can be either proven or disproven, so therefore nobody is right or wrong.

It just seems that every thread that starts "Do you believe" on this board ends up in a bun fight with believes defending themselves against non-believers who tell them they're being ridiculous. The clue is in the title of the board - if you don't believe in anything that's likely to be discussed under that heading, just avoid the board!

I don't know whether the "lack of respect and rudeness"brigade had noticed, but this thread was happily being an interesting discussion til they decided to bring it back to the failings of atheists/anti-wooists.

Corus,

I did not say what happened after the Big Bang was not real or worth studying, I questioned the easy concept of reality vs 'unreality'. It is interesting that someone on this thread came back with the rejoinder that 'photons and electrons' were merely what they were (and perfectly real) but waves and particles were models we used to understand them. This goes for a lot of things we believe we understand: we can give them a name and have a model in our head that we are comfortable with and makes the concept 'real' to us.

The reality is we increase our knowledge of the early universe but can never know it perfectly. The Big Bang is what is mathematically described as a singularity; the equations and models no longer work.

I proposed Einstein as a religious scientist. I never claimed he was a Christian or a Jew. He believed in a guiding consciousness of some sort. I would not personally even go that far. I could honestly say I have no idea and don't believe that I have the intellectual tools to find out one way or the other. What surprises me is that so many people with far less knowledge than me (physics degree from cambridge) seem to think this is a trivial question and can just dismiss a guiding consciousness of some sort with a click of their fingers.

What surprises me is that so many people with far less knowledge than me (physics degree from cambridge) seem to think this is a trivial question and can just dismiss a guiding consciousness of some sort with a click of their fingers

There are many people with more knowledge than yourself that still reject the notion of a guiding conscious of some sort and many people without so much as a GCSE that believe that and more so I'm not sure what point your making by citing your qualifications.

What's your evidence of a guiding conscious?

*you're

And what evidence do you have that they have dismissed the idea with the click of their fingers?

Head,

I am not arguing for a knowing consciousness, nor against it. I am arguing that humans cannot answer the question. I only mention my qualification in response to people airily dismissing what I am saying on the basis of one of their relatives being a subatomic physicist.

As for tools, yeah, I'm kind of with you in that. I don't know that xyz doesn't exist but I am unconvinced by the claims and evidence presented to me (but deeply interested in the people who can accept such claims without evidence.) Because I am unconvinced by current arguments/proofs I reject groundless claims until I have something more to examine. That seems most logical to me.

That was one person, and I still don't see that you know they dismissed it without thought.

larrygrylls I am interested in your views- do you have any religious or spiritual beliefs?

Deep,

I am genuinely agnostic, I have no idea. Most scientists I meet are quite humble with respect to this kind of question and feel it belongs in the realm of philosophy, not science.

I was brought up to respect others' beliefs, though, and still feel that this is the correct approach.

Head, yes it was one person and, if you care to read my post, it was addressed to that person.

larry interesting. I can't say most scientits I have met are humbles with respect. Some for sure, but very few wish to attribute a watchmaker to scientific processes.

I do respect others, but not always their views.
I think religion gets far too much respect.
As an atheist I am told that my children are born into sin and that I will be sent to hell for not embracing Jesus.
I don't see a lot of respect for my atheist views.

No,

I don't often think about the 'watchmaker' as it is not a part of science and gets in the way, in the same way as I would not expect a religious philosopher to try to describe god in terms of mathematical equations.

What I do struggle with is people whose knowledge and understanding of science could be written on a postage stamp trying to use scientific concepts to 'disprove' god.

I can't say that troubles me. The onus is not on those to disporove anyway, it is on those making the claims. So unless thay can can come up with concrete evidence I am happy to live with the knowledge that god is a mythical beast.

larry - re "we can give them a name and have a model in our head that we are comfortable with and makes the concept 'real' to us."

But they are real, and the models we have for their properties & behaviour do work. These models are not "in our head". They are working models. If you are indeed a Physics graduate, you must know this.

"The reality is we increase our knowledge of the early universe but can never know it perfectly."

"Never"? A bit defeatist for someone who has trained in a natural science that didn't even exist a few centuries ago.

"The Big Bang is what is mathematically described as a singularity; the equations and models no longer work."

It is a singularity so we don't expect to find out what was going on before Big Bang. However, we can and do find out what happened just after it.

"I proposed Einstein as a religious scientist. He believed in a guiding consciousness of some sort."

Einstein is on record as having said that he does not believe in a "personal God" and even "a God who concerns himself with fates and actions of human beings". I wish you would stop saying this.

"What surprises me is that so many people with far less knowledge than me (physics degree from cambridge) seem to think this is a trivial question and can just dismiss a guiding consciousness of some sort with a click of their fingers."

How is your Physics degree relevant, unless you have some evidence either way that we don't, a higher understanding of the universe through which you see a proof for a creator? (And you clearly don't)

Personally, I dismiss hypotheses for which there is no evidence. I don't buy the whole Abrahamic God hypothesis because there is absolutely no verifiable evidence for it. Zero. Zip. Nada.

It is possible that what we call Big Bang was a deity creating our universe. If ever there is evidence of that, I will re-evaluate the God hypothesis at that point and possibly believe it.

"people whose knowledge and understanding of science could be written on a postage stamp trying to use scientific concepts to 'disprove' god."

Who are these people?

I would be interested to see someone try to use scientific concepts to disprove the God hypothesis. I don't think "Watchmaker God" can be disproved, since we can't look beyond Big Bang.

"What I do struggle with is people whose knowledge and understanding of science could be written on a postage stamp trying to use scientific concepts to 'disprove' god."

I don't think anyone does this, do they? What I would say is that it is sound scientific method not to accept anything without evidence. There is no evidence that there is a God, so it is reasonable to work on the assumption that there isn't, until such time as evidence emerges to reexamine the no-god hypothesis. With things like the Higgs Boson there was evidence that it did exist, even though it hadn't been found. So I was reasonable to work on the assumption that it did exist, until such time as more evidence was found to show it didn't.

Cote,

'Never"? A bit defeatist for someone who has trained in a natural science that didn't even exist a few centuries ago. '

Not at all, it is a fact, it is the nature of a mathematical singularity :). We may get ever closer but we cannot get there. FACT.

'Einstein is on record as having said that he does not believe in a "personal God" and even "a God who concerns himself with fates and actions of human beings". I wish you would stop saying this'.

Except you are arguing with a straw man. I never said he believed in a 'personal god' or 'god who concerns himself with the fates and actions of human beings'. I said he believed in a higher consciousness. Let's look at some quotes from him:

'Then there are the fanatical atheists whose intolerance is of the same kind as the intolerance of the religious fanatics and comes from the same source. They are like slaves who are still feeling the weight of their chains which they have thrown off after hard struggle. They are creatures who—in their grudge against the traditional "opium of the people"—cannot bear the music of the spheres. The Wonder of nature does not become smaller because one cannot measure it by the standards of human moral and human aims.'

— Einstein to an unidentified adressee, Aug.7, 1941. Einstein Archive, reel 54-927, quoted in Jammer, p. 97

'The idea of a personal God is quite alien to me and seems even naive. However, I am also not a "Freethinker" in the usual sense of the word because I find that this is in the main an attitude nourished exclusively by an opposition against naive superstition. My feeling is insofar religious as I am imbued with the consciousness of the insuffiency of the human mind to understand deeply the harmony of the Universe which we try to formulate as "laws of nature." It is this consciousness and humility I miss in the Freethinker mentality. Sincerely yours, Albert Einstein. '

—Letter to A. Chapple, Australia, February 23, 1954; Einstein Archive 59-405; also quoted in Nathan and Norden, Einstein on Peace P. 510

I think that proves that Einstein did believe in a higher consciousness of some sort, which is exactly what I stated in my earlier posts. It may irritate you that he believed in it, but believe in it he did.

Hakluyt,

'I don't think anyone does this, do they? What I would say is that it is sound scientific method not to accept anything without evidence.'

Agreed concerning science and scientific concepts. God is not intended to be a scientific concept. He/she is a matter of personal faith. That is what having 'faith' means. I don't personally have a meaningful faith but would not try to argue with people who did. I think sometimes that is where these threads become a 'dialogue aux sourds', people are arguing about completely different things.

Interesting. I don't think those quotations say that Einstein believed in a higher consciousness at all. Rather the opposite. He believed in the interconnectedness of things- but no suggestion of a higher power.

larry - You are misrepresenting my words. And yours.

"it is the nature of a mathematical singularity. We may get ever closer but we cannot get there. FACT."

Of course we can't see beyond the Big Bang - that is what Singularily means. However we can see what happened shortly after the Big Bang (i.e. 'early universe'), which is what you claimed wasn't possible:

larrygrylls Tue 10-Jun-14 07:03:55
The reality is we increase our knowledge of the early universe but can never know it perfectly.

"Except you are arguing with a straw man. I never said he believed in a 'personal god' or 'god who concerns himself with the fates and actions of human beings'. I said he believed in a higher consciousness."

No. You said "guiding consciousness", which is not any higher consciousness like a 'watchmaker God' but a 'god who concerns himself with the fates and actions of human beings' whom he guides.

larrygrylls Tue 10-Jun-14 07:03:55
I proposed Einstein as a religious scientist. He believed in a guiding consciousness of some sort.

Cote,

You are being very pedantic, and incorrect.

What I meant by guiding consciousness was that the he believed that there was a consciousness guiding the laws of the Universe, not personal or fates and actions of human beings. Where did I state guiding related to human beings?

Yes, we can never know the early universe perfectly because that would mean approaching asymptotically close to the singularity. I said we could increase our knowledge, which is scientifically correct. There are many scientific and mathematical problems with perfectly knowing the early Universe, so I stand by my statement.

I don't think it's at all pedantic to differentiate between a higher consciousness and a guiding consciousness.

Hakluyt,

'My feeling is insofar religious as I am imbued with the consciousness of the insuffiency of the human mind to understand deeply the harmony of the Universe which we try to formulate as "laws of nature."'

It is the above sentence which shows me that Einstein doubted that we could comprehend the Universe and to merely ascribe it as 'laws of nature' whilst dismissing a higher consciousness was very arrogant.

You may interpret it differently...

Hakluyt,

But why does 'guiding' have to refer to humans? It is not I who is being anthropomorphic. It is always amusing to change the values of one of the physical constants and see what circumstances it would have on the Universe. Normally, it is fairly catastrophic. Now, I am not saying that there is a higher consciousness as I am agnostic on it. However, if a higher consciousness decreed the value of the gravitational and Planck's constant, it would still be a GUIDING consciousness, no matter whether humans existed at all.

I'm sorry for remembering what you actually said being pedantic

Re God - "Guiding consciousness" sounds like you are referring to an interventionist God, one who guides people and events. Physical laws of the universe don't need guiding since they don't change. (There are different laws at subatomic level but those don't change, either.)

Someone finding beauty & harmony in the universe and feeling humbled by it can hardly be called "religious". If that is religious, so I am, I suppose although I have never believed in any God or followed any religion for a single day in my life. To be called 'religious', by definition, you would need to follow a religion and believe in the God of that religion.

I'm sorry if you would call that being 'pedantic' but I feel it is important to use words in their correct context so we can understand each other.