Whether the net energy of the universe is zero, below zero or above zero is still question to scientific debate. Also, the laws that govern physics were written by humans. Evidence that they are written by humans is that we are quite willing to change them, when we see evidence that contradicts these laws. The prime example is classical mechanics (written by Newton) -> general relativity (written by Einstein).
What you fail to realize is that "energy", "laws of physics" and "the universe" are each and all concepts created by humans to describe the world live in.
Except that anostics do care, especially when religious people try do force their policies onto them. So their god can have a very direct effect on your life.
Agnosticsm is only tenable if you exclude yourself from other people and live a life of an emeritus.
Well, the problem is that we only can go by what the leaders are saying. Ignoring what the leaders are saying is going against church dogma with the consequence that you'll burn in hell. (Simplifying, of course, by only talking about Christianity, but the catch is there in almost every religion.)
So, we can get rid of the concept of God for a moment and focus on what and why church leaders are saying. Focusing on the why, a chief reason, in my view, is that it gives them power over other people. Namely the members of the church that are not leaders.
Of course, this only works with religion and not spiritiuality, but then atheists have no beef with spiritual people per se. It's just when a church comes along that we start scratching our heads.
And there's the agnostic cop-out: Suggesting that the door is glued shut and that we'll therefore never know if the proposition is true, because we lack the ability to test the proposition.
What rational human mind would argue that we will never know, regardless of what happens in the future?
4th option about Jesus: A guy like you and I with some bright ideas (love your neighbor) whose message has been corrupted by the power elite. I'm sorry if that offends you, but take this an example: Early christian communities were based on equality. Then Pete comes along and says I'm God's right hand and now we have catholism with a billion people deferring their lives to the authority of the Pope. Can you see the power play there? The same happens in your church (I assume you're not catholic), when you repeat what your pastor preaches. You do what he says, because you think he's an authority of what Jesus would have wanted you to do. This appeal to authority is what gives your preacher power over your life.
Also note that we have no primary sources from what Jesus did or said, only secondary sources (the gospel of various people). Thus to describe the state of mind of Jesus by what others have said/written is not entirely fair to Jesus, is it?
The mind of a Great Ape also has no ability to create fire, play Mozart, or describe general relativity to its fellow apes, at least we've never seen it in apes. So, by your reasoning, these are all on the same level as religion?
The only reason, you see religion as a qualitive difference between human and ape is because you're religious. Because I see religion as a cultural invention of humans, it's no qualitative difference between the minds of humans and apes. Apes have a culture as well, which is seen by their tool making.
There are no absolute moral systems and that's a good thing, because otherwise we still would have slavery and women would've no say. Morals that are very deeply seated in the human conscience can be explained by social or evolutionary traits.
For example, you shalt not kill. When humans procreate they usually only have one offspring and it takes years of energy to raise that offspring. So going around and killing people can be counter-productive on an evolutionary level, because if you make the population too small, then your genes will likely die out too. Secondly, the most likely punishment if you kill someone is going to be killed yourself, unless there are laws in place to stop the carnage. So self-preservation (the most important drive) will act as a check on killing desire.
Note also, how easy it is to tear that moral down. Militaries indoctrinate (brainwash) new recruits with propaganda that dehumanizes any enemy which makes him easy to kill. You might want to do some research into killing ratios of US marines from WWI to Vietnam and what the military had to do to achieve the rise.
There are no proofs in science. Only in math and philosophy, don't you get it? Unless science can accurately describe and/or predict how a theist, atheist or agnostic belief system influences the physical world (probably by the actions of the people who hold these beliefs) than these questions are not scientific, but philosophical or theological.
Agnosticism is to state that we cannot prove the unprovable.
The underlying assumption of that circular argument is that the existance of God cannot be proven or disproven. I reject that assumption and I've argued above my proof why I think that he is fiction and how that fiction has come into existance. So in my belief system your tautology is meaningless. But I'm looking forward to you poking holes into my argument.
BTW, nowhere have I said that atheism is not a "faith" like theism. They are both belief systems as is agnosticsm. I'm curious why you had to argue that straw man.
Well I was trying to say that not only fundamentalist christians and muslims think alike (on some issues), but also the non-fundamentalist kind. I mean, surely there are muslim doctors or biologists who believe in evolution right?
Interesting views on the dynamic between the military and the AKP. I would think that a Turkish EU membership would strengthen secular forces in long run, don't you think? That would be of the reasons I'm generally for it. Another one being that there's a significant Turkish minority here in Germany and Berlin and I like diversity.
* What keeps me honest is the society I live in: my fellow human beings and the realization that I am not different from them except for my experiences. And even most of these are shared with other people. Because humans are social animals. I see no problems in taking values espoused by religions when I find them useful and reasonable. The fact that Jesus is referred to as a God does not mean that he wasn't onto something when he said to love your neighbor. Religion informs morals. But it is not the root of them. Beliefs are.
* We will never know whether God exists or not is pretty much textbook agnosticm as far as I know. I also don't see how it is humanist, since it allows for a (superhuman?) God.
* You say, that science isn't equipped to answer questions about the supernatural. I deny the existance of the supernatural. Yes that is a belief, but a very sound one, IHMO. Many things were once considered supernatural (lightning, the seasons, flooding of the nile river, solar/lunar eclipses,...). Everything has been knocked down into the natural world by science except for some religious holdouts. I simply see no reason to believe why these concepts should be supernatural when the rest before them weren't.
* My only need to confront questions about God is, because other people believe in him and I keep finding aspects in (organized) religions that I don't like. My main beef is against with the implied submission to authority which cannot be questioned because it is dogma. That goes against my values. However, I don't see atheists better than religious or agnostic people and of course they have the same reasoning process. As I've said above, we're all humans. Everybody is free to make their private choice in regard to their belief system, but when they discuss their views in public they have to expect that these views are scrutinized.
* Two questions: If you don't believe in God why are your referring to Him in a capitalized way? Secondly, wouldn't the life of every theist, atheist and agnostic totally change when there was definate proof of God? Like Jesus or Mohammed returning to earth or the FSM?
Also, you're right that I'm a slave to my desires insofar that it is a battle every day to not let them get the better of me. But that's just a function of life. The price we have to pay so to speak.
I've not thought thoroughly about qualia so far (didn't now the word until today), although the question is of course very pertinant to life. I think that in my late 20s I'm still a little to young for that.;)
The theories behind the birth of the universe I find so imaginative right now, that I believe we'll find an explanaiton soon. (Soon, of course is relative on a historical time scale. We may as well blow ourselves up before.) But I'm no expert in astronomy.
The mind-body crack I consider closed. In my view, this concept is a false dichtonomy, because the mind is part of the body that lives in the natural world. They are inseparable, kinda like the two sides of the same coin or the the wave-partical duality. It depends on your perspective, whether you look at a human from a physical or cultural point of view.
For example, primates are thought to be self-councious as well and they use tools, plan actions and are social animals. What is the qualitative difference between the mind of a human and that of one of the Great Apes? (Other than the fact that we are able to dominate much more niches on the planet than they do.) The only biological difference in our brains is primarily associated with foraging (predicting the future), but primates and other animals can do that as well, only not as good as we can.
I also see no fundamental difference between the two types of cracks you describe, except that some are currently in the scientific realm and some are in the philosophical. Still no need to invoke the supernatural or God.
Yes, I was referring to Atatürk, but specifically as an example that secularism is not a unique western or christian concept (although I'm using a western word for it). Regardless of any backlash that has happened since then. From what I hear about buddhism it's not a religion in the traditional meaning of the word either.
That muslim and christian people have similar ideas about evolution and creation does not surprise me in the least.
Off topic, having lived in turkey, what are your thoughts on turkey entering the eu, if it will ever happen?
revisionists history. chinese invented paper, gunpowder and rockets. arabs and babylonians invented lots of classical math, even though we know most of it from the greeks. agriculture was invented in the middle east way before jesus or even abraham was born there. as for freedoms, i'd rather live in ancient athens than in the modern US. (provided of course, i'm a greek property-owning male, that is.) hmm, modern switzerland (not very biblical) seems to be a nice place as well.
you sound like someone from orwell's 1984 who has read to many publications by the ministry of truth. i don't want to mock you, i would just ask you to point your scepticism of non-biblical ideas towards the ideas you hold dearly, even if it may be painful. be open for other ideas, seek out people who disagree, listen to what they say and think for yourself.
There's nothing natural about companies or countries, these are cultural inventions. So natural selection cannot be acting onto them, only to biological life. They do evolve, but by other mechanisms. As do genetic algorithms. Or ideas. Creativity is an evolutionary process.
The theory that life came about from inanimate chemicals is called abiogenesis. It's much hotter debated than evolution, but there's solid evidence that points to a couple of explanations. We're getting there.
Once life existed though on this planet it's been evolution by natural selection ever since.
There are no proofs in science. What I'm trying to tell you is that the overwhelming evidence as I see it is best explained by the "theory" that God is a fiction, as another poster has put it.
BTW, I don't care about other people's religion or spirituality. Except for my closests friends and family, because I like to be on a compatible wavelength with them. I do believe though, that it should be a private matter. I see the usefulness of spirituality. (Organized) religion, not so much.
However when religious or agnostic people will discuss their beliefs in public I will discuss mine. And, frankly I specifically see agnosticism as intellecutaly lazy/bankrupt, because if you think it through to its logical consequences it simply doesn't make sense. What practical relevance to your life do you derive from the statement, that we will never know if God exists or not? How does this "knowledge" guide your thoughts and actions?
Re Higgs-Boson: Wikipedia tells me that the Large Hadron Collider built in Switzerland is expected to confirm or deny its existance. At least it will give us more understanding regarding its nature, if it does indeed exist.
A very sensible position by your teacher. My biology teacher was a convinced evolutionist. We've suspected that he wanted to become a biology scientist/professor, but was too lazy and became a "only" a high school teacher instead. That's why he pushed us so hard.
Anyway, besides the hard facts of evolution he also taught us the "evolution" of the science behind it, for example he mentioned Lamarckian evolution and contrasted it to what Darwin had argued. I don't remember him mentioning ID specifically, but given that I went to a school in Germany ten years ago, that's not really surprising.
Monsato is doing genetic engineering and not ID. No need to confuse concepts. ID, for example, claims that there are "irreducable complexities" in life when we're reducing these complexities (eyes, ears, mouse traps) all the time.
By your account ID is not a hypothesis, because it does not fit the observations. Or rather, evolution explains the wealth of observations much, much better.
As for The Matrix, I'd say that this topic is currently in the realm of philosophy by which I mean logical thought experiments that may or may not have a bearing on our life. Until Matrix theory is testable it's not science. ID doesn't even have a place in philosophy, because it's not logical.
You and me, can't probe this. Claiming YOUR specific version of what GOD is fact, is a lie. You don't know. Claiming GOD does not exist is a lie, because you (nor anybody else) can't prove it. The thing is that it may exist, and that existence is independent of YOUR or my beliefs.
My agnostic friend, I can tell you exactly where "God" came from. He's "real", because biological evolution created our overly complex brains, which in turned enabled a cultural evolution that made humans see him in the cracks of their knowledge of the world they were living in. So they labeled those cracks the supernatural. Some of the them they found beautiful, most of them they found frightening. Unfortunately, then the elites latched onto the concept and have done their best ever since to keep enlightened people from correcting that cultural error. Because there is no supernatural, there's only nature.
Thank God! that secular, humanist people are turning the tide everywhere in the world (even in e.g. muslim countries -- see turkey) and relegating religion to the place it belongs, the private life of individual people.
So, please, live a happy and peaceful life with your agnostic beliefs. As I will do with my atheists beliefs. But don't go around and tell me that I can't prove that God doesn't exist, because I can. And I will call you out on your intellectual dishonesty every time you do it. Because, in reality, agnosticism is just a cop-out.
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Whether the net energy of the universe is zero, below zero or above zero is still question to scientific debate. Also, the laws that govern physics were written by humans. Evidence that they are written by humans is that we are quite willing to change them, when we see evidence that contradicts these laws. The prime example is classical mechanics (written by Newton) -> general relativity (written by Einstein).
What you fail to realize is that "energy", "laws of physics" and "the universe" are each and all concepts created by humans to describe the world live in.
Except that anostics do care, especially when religious people try do force their policies onto them. So their god can have a very direct effect on your life.
Agnosticsm is only tenable if you exclude yourself from other people and live a life of an emeritus.
Well, the problem is that we only can go by what the leaders are saying. Ignoring what the leaders are saying is going against church dogma with the consequence that you'll burn in hell. (Simplifying, of course, by only talking about Christianity, but the catch is there in almost every religion.)
So, we can get rid of the concept of God for a moment and focus on what and why church leaders are saying. Focusing on the why, a chief reason, in my view, is that it gives them power over other people. Namely the members of the church that are not leaders.
Of course, this only works with religion and not spiritiuality, but then atheists have no beef with spiritual people per se. It's just when a church comes along that we start scratching our heads.
And there's the agnostic cop-out: Suggesting that the door is glued shut and that we'll therefore never know if the proposition is true, because we lack the ability to test the proposition.
What rational human mind would argue that we will never know, regardless of what happens in the future?
4th option about Jesus: A guy like you and I with some bright ideas (love your neighbor) whose message has been corrupted by the power elite. I'm sorry if that offends you, but take this an example: Early christian communities were based on equality. Then Pete comes along and says I'm God's right hand and now we have catholism with a billion people deferring their lives to the authority of the Pope. Can you see the power play there? The same happens in your church (I assume you're not catholic), when you repeat what your pastor preaches. You do what he says, because you think he's an authority of what Jesus would have wanted you to do. This appeal to authority is what gives your preacher power over your life.
Also note that we have no primary sources from what Jesus did or said, only secondary sources (the gospel of various people). Thus to describe the state of mind of Jesus by what others have said/written is not entirely fair to Jesus, is it?
The mind of a Great Ape also has no ability to create fire, play Mozart, or describe general relativity to its fellow apes, at least we've never seen it in apes. So, by your reasoning, these are all on the same level as religion?
The only reason, you see religion as a qualitive difference between human and ape is because you're religious. Because I see religion as a cultural invention of humans, it's no qualitative difference between the minds of humans and apes. Apes have a culture as well, which is seen by their tool making.
No way. You're confusing God with belief system. God always implies something supernatural and this is what I explicitly reject.
There are no absolute moral systems and that's a good thing, because otherwise we still would have slavery and women would've no say. Morals that are very deeply seated in the human conscience can be explained by social or evolutionary traits.
For example, you shalt not kill. When humans procreate they usually only have one offspring and it takes years of energy to raise that offspring. So going around and killing people can be counter-productive on an evolutionary level, because if you make the population too small, then your genes will likely die out too. Secondly, the most likely punishment if you kill someone is going to be killed yourself, unless there are laws in place to stop the carnage. So self-preservation (the most important drive) will act as a check on killing desire.
Note also, how easy it is to tear that moral down. Militaries indoctrinate (brainwash) new recruits with propaganda that dehumanizes any enemy which makes him easy to kill. You might want to do some research into killing ratios of US marines from WWI to Vietnam and what the military had to do to achieve the rise.
The underlying assumption of that circular argument is that the existance of God cannot be proven or disproven. I reject that assumption and I've argued above my proof why I think that he is fiction and how that fiction has come into existance. So in my belief system your tautology is meaningless. But I'm looking forward to you poking holes into my argument.
BTW, nowhere have I said that atheism is not a "faith" like theism. They are both belief systems as is agnosticsm. I'm curious why you had to argue that straw man.
Well I was trying to say that not only fundamentalist christians and muslims think alike (on some issues), but also the non-fundamentalist kind. I mean, surely there are muslim doctors or biologists who believe in evolution right?
Interesting views on the dynamic between the military and the AKP. I would think that a Turkish EU membership would strengthen secular forces in long run, don't you think? That would be of the reasons I'm generally for it. Another one being that there's a significant Turkish minority here in Germany and Berlin and I like diversity.
Couple of points:
...). Everything has been knocked down into the natural world by science except for some religious holdouts. I simply see no reason to believe why these concepts should be supernatural when the rest before them weren't.
* What keeps me honest is the society I live in: my fellow human beings and the realization that I am not different from them except for my experiences. And even most of these are shared with other people. Because humans are social animals. I see no problems in taking values espoused by religions when I find them useful and reasonable. The fact that Jesus is referred to as a God does not mean that he wasn't onto something when he said to love your neighbor. Religion informs morals. But it is not the root of them. Beliefs are.
* We will never know whether God exists or not is pretty much textbook agnosticm as far as I know. I also don't see how it is humanist, since it allows for a (superhuman?) God.
* You say, that science isn't equipped to answer questions about the supernatural. I deny the existance of the supernatural. Yes that is a belief, but a very sound one, IHMO. Many things were once considered supernatural (lightning, the seasons, flooding of the nile river, solar/lunar eclipses,
* My only need to confront questions about God is, because other people believe in him and I keep finding aspects in (organized) religions that I don't like. My main beef is against with the implied submission to authority which cannot be questioned because it is dogma. That goes against my values. However, I don't see atheists better than religious or agnostic people and of course they have the same reasoning process. As I've said above, we're all humans. Everybody is free to make their private choice in regard to their belief system, but when they discuss their views in public they have to expect that these views are scrutinized.
* Two questions: If you don't believe in God why are your referring to Him in a capitalized way? Secondly, wouldn't the life of every theist, atheist and agnostic totally change when there was definate proof of God? Like Jesus or Mohammed returning to earth or the FSM?
Also, you're right that I'm a slave to my desires insofar that it is a battle every day to not let them get the better of me. But that's just a function of life. The price we have to pay so to speak.
I've not thought thoroughly about qualia so far (didn't now the word until today), although the question is of course very pertinant to life. I think that in my late 20s I'm still a little to young for that. ;)
The theories behind the birth of the universe I find so imaginative right now, that I believe we'll find an explanaiton soon. (Soon, of course is relative on a historical time scale. We may as well blow ourselves up before.) But I'm no expert in astronomy.
The mind-body crack I consider closed. In my view, this concept is a false dichtonomy, because the mind is part of the body that lives in the natural world. They are inseparable, kinda like the two sides of the same coin or the the wave-partical duality. It depends on your perspective, whether you look at a human from a physical or cultural point of view.
For example, primates are thought to be self-councious as well and they use tools, plan actions and are social animals. What is the qualitative difference between the mind of a human and that of one of the Great Apes? (Other than the fact that we are able to dominate much more niches on the planet than they do.) The only biological difference in our brains is primarily associated with foraging (predicting the future), but primates and other animals can do that as well, only not as good as we can.
I also see no fundamental difference between the two types of cracks you describe, except that some are currently in the scientific realm and some are in the philosophical. Still no need to invoke the supernatural or God.
Yes, I was referring to Atatürk, but specifically as an example that secularism is not a unique western or christian concept (although I'm using a western word for it). Regardless of any backlash that has happened since then. From what I hear about buddhism it's not a religion in the traditional meaning of the word either.
That muslim and christian people have similar ideas about evolution and creation does not surprise me in the least.
Off topic, having lived in turkey, what are your thoughts on turkey entering the eu, if it will ever happen?
revisionists history. chinese invented paper, gunpowder and rockets. arabs and babylonians invented lots of classical math, even though we know most of it from the greeks. agriculture was invented in the middle east way before jesus or even abraham was born there. as for freedoms, i'd rather live in ancient athens than in the modern US. (provided of course, i'm a greek property-owning male, that is.) hmm, modern switzerland (not very biblical) seems to be a nice place as well.
you sound like someone from orwell's 1984 who has read to many publications by the ministry of truth. i don't want to mock you, i would just ask you to point your scepticism of non-biblical ideas towards the ideas you hold dearly, even if it may be painful. be open for other ideas, seek out people who disagree, listen to what they say and think for yourself.
There's nothing natural about companies or countries, these are cultural inventions. So natural selection cannot be acting onto them, only to biological life. They do evolve, but by other mechanisms. As do genetic algorithms. Or ideas. Creativity is an evolutionary process.
The theory that life came about from inanimate chemicals is called abiogenesis. It's much hotter debated than evolution, but there's solid evidence that points to a couple of explanations. We're getting there.
Once life existed though on this planet it's been evolution by natural selection ever since.
Great way to phrase it. I take it you have access to a video camera?
There are no proofs in science. What I'm trying to tell you is that the overwhelming evidence as I see it is best explained by the "theory" that God is a fiction, as another poster has put it.
BTW, I don't care about other people's religion or spirituality. Except for my closests friends and family, because I like to be on a compatible wavelength with them. I do believe though, that it should be a private matter. I see the usefulness of spirituality. (Organized) religion, not so much.
However when religious or agnostic people will discuss their beliefs in public I will discuss mine. And, frankly I specifically see agnosticism as intellecutaly lazy/bankrupt, because if you think it through to its logical consequences it simply doesn't make sense. What practical relevance to your life do you derive from the statement, that we will never know if God exists or not? How does this "knowledge" guide your thoughts and actions?
Re Higgs-Boson: Wikipedia tells me that the Large Hadron Collider built in Switzerland is expected to confirm or deny its existance. At least it will give us more understanding regarding its nature, if it does indeed exist.
A very sensible position by your teacher. My biology teacher was a convinced evolutionist. We've suspected that he wanted to become a biology scientist/professor, but was too lazy and became a "only" a high school teacher instead. That's why he pushed us so hard.
Anyway, besides the hard facts of evolution he also taught us the "evolution" of the science behind it, for example he mentioned Lamarckian evolution and contrasted it to what Darwin had argued. I don't remember him mentioning ID specifically, but given that I went to a school in Germany ten years ago, that's not really surprising.
Monsato is doing genetic engineering and not ID. No need to confuse concepts. ID, for example, claims that there are "irreducable complexities" in life when we're reducing these complexities (eyes, ears, mouse traps) all the time.
Evolution right now is as solid a fact as is Relativity or QM or the fact that the apple fell on Newton's head.
By your account ID is not a hypothesis, because it does not fit the observations. Or rather, evolution explains the wealth of observations much, much better.
As for The Matrix, I'd say that this topic is currently in the realm of philosophy by which I mean logical thought experiments that may or may not have a bearing on our life. Until Matrix theory is testable it's not science. ID doesn't even have a place in philosophy, because it's not logical.
BTW, I recently read two nice articles with opposing viewpoints regarding Matrix theory: Are You Living In a Computer Simulation? and Gehirn im Tank (Brain in a tank, in German only.)
My agnostic friend, I can tell you exactly where "God" came from. He's "real", because biological evolution created our overly complex brains, which in turned enabled a cultural evolution that made humans see him in the cracks of their knowledge of the world they were living in. So they labeled those cracks the supernatural. Some of the them they found beautiful, most of them they found frightening. Unfortunately, then the elites latched onto the concept and have done their best ever since to keep enlightened people from correcting that cultural error. Because there is no supernatural, there's only nature.
Thank God! that secular, humanist people are turning the tide everywhere in the world (even in e.g. muslim countries -- see turkey) and relegating religion to the place it belongs, the private life of individual people.
So, please, live a happy and peaceful life with your agnostic beliefs. As I will do with my atheists beliefs. But don't go around and tell me that I can't prove that God doesn't exist, because I can. And I will call you out on your intellectual dishonesty every time you do it. Because, in reality, agnosticism is just a cop-out.
but the judgement runs counter to what higher courts (bgh) have decided. didn't know that the appeal was struck down, though.
This is according to the ruling of ONE judge, hotly debated in Germany right now, and likely to be reversed on appeal.
yeah, except that giving a cd to a friend is not called distribution
(at least not in my part of the woods)