Into what rabbithole did I step?

What is a human being? What is life? Can science give us reliable answers to such questions? The electricity of life. The meaning of human consciousness. Are we alone? Are the traditional contests between science and religion still relevant? Does the word "spirit" still hold meaning today?

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folaht
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Into what rabbithole did I step?

Unread post by folaht » Thu Jun 05, 2008 2:40 pm

Oh man...
From being addicted to the internet plushaving read parts of 'the God Delusion' I end up here.
And that is quite ironically, as I favor the god hypothesis more so than not (okay okay, I put it at 50%, but I suspect that's more than average here). :D


I am addicted to forums and like civility and world news/problems I ended up being addicted to a Christian news forum and a peak oil forum.
I find most people a lot nicer there and even agree with some of their views I hardly see anywhere else.
Perhaps through visiting the Christian forum for such a long time I felt compelled to support their views to some extend and reject 'the God Delusion'.
Or perhaps it's because I'm a computer programming student and the thought of a universe being created doesn't sound crazy when game programmers create their own little virtual universes all the time.
So my idea was, why not? and began to search any idea that could torpedo Dawkins' ideas.....actually ways to just torpedo Dawkins :twisted:
I gathered enough info to comfort myself again.
No proof that god exists of course, but enough logic that enforces my agnostic stance instead of abandoning it due to his 'strong' arguments to do so.

So I went back to the Christian forum and well, you know, there's always a discussion about the age of the universe and it got me thinking when I was browsing again
for pretty pictures of planets and galaxies..
which led me to question the big bang, something about the story of the big bang's age just didn't add up what they were showing me.
Not that I saw the redshift of quasars being far off :lol:
but I was missing a story of... "and here you see that the older galaxies are a lot closer to each other than the current ones"
I mean, go back in time and everything is more dense, so galaxies should be closer to each other right?
But the galaxies I saw... they all look-a-like.
I also didn't see or "and this is as far as we can see, here we see the impenetrable cloudy area".
but we can see 13 billion year old galaxies?
I could just imagine that when the James Webb Space Telescope is launched that scientists will be stunned to see even 'older' galaxies.


Anyway, I googled for an alternative theory and came upon a youtube video about the EU.
Man......
why didn't I think of this before?
Alarm bells should have ringed when seeing stories about supposed black holes in the center of the milky-way in contrast to very bright centers in every single galaxy.

I can't believe that all through the 20th century this was the best we could do when it comes to cosmology :|



I like to note though that in the youtube videos I too often saw this reasoning that this was because they still wanted to believe in creation instead of a steady-state universe.
I really really doubt that.
I'm positive that when scientists knew for the first time that almost every galaxy in the universe is redshifting.. most were thinking of another pangea, not proof of god.
I also have a little problem with an infinitely old universe.
Oh well..
That's my story.
I wanted to get that off my chest.

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MGmirkin
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Re: In what rabbithole did I step into?

Unread post by MGmirkin » Thu Jun 05, 2008 4:05 pm

Welcome to Wonderland. ;)

~Michael
"The purpose of science is to investigate the unexplained, not to explain the uninvestigated." ~Dr. Stephen Rorke
"For every PhD there is an equal and opposite PhD." ~Gibson's law

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SciRPG
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Re: In what rabbithole did I step into?

Unread post by SciRPG » Thu Jun 05, 2008 4:53 pm

So my idea was, why not? and began to search any idea that could torpedo Dawkins' ideas.....actually ways to just torpedo Dawkins :twisted:
I gathered enough info to comfort myself again.
No proof that god exists of course, but enough logic that enforces my agnostic stance instead of abandoning it due to his 'strong' arguments to do so.
Hi _sluimers_.
Well that sounds like quite the challenge... Dawkins... hmm...
Facing the Atheist...

A wise friend of mine, (this year he is 91 years old, brought up in the Caucuses mountain region, one of only people who is capable of translating ancient Sufi manuscripts, very interesting person) was once conversing with a group of people who came to the conclusion that God was dead.
He, then said to them : "Dimur is dead" (recollecting here I believe Dimur was the word he used).
The group was a little confused over his statement.
Finally one asked, "what is Dimur?"

The evaluation of my little story, is that most atheists will come to the conclusion that God does not exist.
If you were to ask one of these people "what is God?" or "what is their definition of God?" perhaps more insight can enable one a better understanding of what (the person you are asking) he or she defines as God.

My wise friend at one time in his life, pondered, he rejected the Imams definition of God (this was in the region of Turkey) and he rejected the Catholic Priest's definition of God (visiting the region, it was the 1920's)... he even thought of being an atheist. But he realized that if one is to truly believe in "God" one must ask "what is God... what is the definition of God?"

[note: Imam was defining a punishing wrathful God, the Catholic Priest was defining a wrathful God, brimstone and fire... but he loves you.]


So to better understand Dawkins, as each person is defined with genetic memories, private thoughts and experiences which make us all completely and truly individual, one must ask him "what is God?" One must know exactly what "it" is that one rejects. One truly cannot say that he rejects peanut butter, if one has not clue of what peanut butter is.

It is quite likely that my own definition of God is different than your own definition.
But, that is ok.

At least, that is the way I approach Dawkins' works and his debates, Dawkins needs to have his own experiences that may lead him into discovering his own spirituality. You can't force him to eat peanut butter.

Hehe,
Its like yourself, accidentally finding the EU... and it opened your mind.
It happened to me too (James P Hogan's PDF is what started my own investigations into EU).
Welcome to the community. (I'm new here too)
~~Richard K~~
3D SciFi Illustration

folaht
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Re: Into what rabbithole did I step?

Unread post by folaht » Fri Jun 06, 2008 2:53 am

Yes, that's a problem also...

My opinion is that the definition of God should be an intelligent entity that has created the universe.
The entity should also have sensors in order to get information from this universe.
It should be able to interact with it, otherwise it's existence is useless in our model, whether it exists or not.
It's like the difference between watching a movie and playing a game. You don't exist in the movie, but do in the game... well... kind of.

As we are not even sure if extra-terrestrials exist, I find it quite difficult to discard anything beyond that.
We haven't thoroughly explored the universe yet, so there's no telling what we will find.
Although it goes against our current physics....hehehehehehehehe :D *cough cough*
Although it goes against our current physics, we should not exclude if we have thoroughly searched just one grain of sand on a beach
that we are not even sure how large the beach is yet.
An ant can't tell whether he sits on palm beach or palm island if he cannot see far and is not able to move around.
Until we have thoroughly searched the universe, I remain unconvinced of either the existence or non-existence of
gods, unicorns(who says out of a possible gazillion types of extra-terrestrials one can't look like that?), spaghetti monsters, hobgoblins, the silver surfer and fairy-tales.
I just remain atheistic about here on earth and the solar system.

Extra-terrestrials haven't shown up in recent years and we don't see them in our telescopes, so why should a god?

The strong arguments from atheists and Dawkins was simply saying "which God?" and "people made it up to explain mysterious things, It's an old idea. we're more knowledgeable now".
But then you could also say "which extraterrestrial?" and people made up all kinds of sea monsters in the past, that doesn't make the giant squid disappear.
According to BB an alien civilization is more likely to be 100 million to 1 billion years more advanced than ours than not.
Not only makes this a paradox as they could have conquered our galaxy many times over, if at least one extraterrestrial species does exist and they're 500 millions years more advanced than us, surely
they could tell more than you and I.

I have the feeling that too many atheists and Dawkinists base parts of their 'beliefs' on sci-fi television.
Just like I expected as a child that when I would go to highschool I would get beat up, eat lunch in a cafe or lunchroom and have numerous choices of extracurricular activities.
Just like "saved by the bell" and I'm not even an American.

I hear they're not sure what aliens will look like but I get the feeling that they expect star trek to happen or whatever show they watch. And television shows are not able to look 100 millions years into the future. Almost all of them take place in the 20-something century. And according to them, thanks to our ever-accelerating progress in technology we'd be sailing the milky-way by then.
It makes me think... what would the 30th look like then? the 40th? the 50th? 60..70..80..90..100..110..120....200.....300.....400........1000........2000................10000.. notice a problem here?

Ah well..
Since 1 % 1, 1 * 1 and 1 - 1 do not add up, we must conclude that 1 + 1 is 3.

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Re: Into what rabbithole did I step?

Unread post by shrunkensimon » Fri Jun 06, 2008 5:27 am

Very interesting synchronicity.. i was just watching Dawkins videos on youtube haha!

No matter how stiff he keeps that upper lip and how eloquently he pushes the words out of his mouth, he is still small fry in my honest opinion. It makes me laugh infact, that anyone as smart as Dawkins could end up in such a bizzare belief structure. Maybe he is not as smart as we think.. book smart yes, wise no. He is also pretentious enough to compare himself to Darwin, giving people the impression he is the 21st century equivilent or something..

But no, he is small fry. Darwin deserves credit, because he OBSERVED his environment and noticed an underlying pattern/logic to what he saw. Dawkins does not deserve credit really, because he has just taken someone elses pre-existing interpretation of observed patterns and spawned it into a quasi-religion.. which is what i find totally ironic and hilarious, because all his supporters absolutely deny this, despite how obviously true it is!

Heres the problem for Dawkins, and any atheist i mite add.. when you set aside your own BIAS towards a creative force/intelligence being involved in reality, the truth becomes apparent almost immediately, because it does not matter where you look (if you have the "eye" to see).. the evidence of an intelligence is everywhere! I get the impression the vast majority of atheists hold the belief because of bias, not because they've actually sat down and thought about it all.. they are too afraid to confront the obvious truth of it all.

To suggest that life, and intelligent life, can arise by sheer newtonian chance, that is, atoms/molecules banging into each other over "time" eventually organising into a more complex form, is THE most absurd idea in science, period. To believe it means you believe that the arrangement of the atom bond angles etc just coincidentally can form together like a complex puzzle, yet at the same time this is all just a chance thing.. much like the Big Bang, which just "happened" for no apparent reason.. WHY (WHY being the most important question anyone can ask about anything) should anything take on more complex forms, and not just stay in a primordial type of soup? And WHY (and how) did DNA just appear out of nothing, this spectacular piece of engineering which can self replicate, repair and so forth..

It makes far more sense to consider some type of driving force/intelligence. As much as i hate Bill O'Reilly (hate with a passion), he said it best when he spoke to Dawkins on FOX;

"I think it takes more faith to be like you, an atheist, than like me, a believer, and its because of nature.."


There is a pattern to reality/nature, and its called Sacred Geometry. It is the architecture of the Universe, the bridge between physical and metaphysical, manifest and non-manifest. It is EVERYWHERE, when you have the eye to see. That to me is proof of a driving force/intelligence.

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Re: Into what rabbithole did I step?

Unread post by Grey Cloud » Fri Jun 06, 2008 5:43 am

I always think of Dawkins as the High Priest of the Church of Darwinism.
If I have the least bit of knowledge
I will follow the great Way alone
and fear nothing but being sidetracked.
The great Way is simple
but people delight in complexity.
Tao Te Ching, 53.

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Re: Into what rabbithole did I step?

Unread post by Muser » Tue Jun 24, 2008 1:22 am

I once made up a diary of the dreams I could remember, with observations based on knowledge at the time. I called the diary "follow the white rabbit" because like Alice you went underground, into the subconscious, a world of wonder and illogical but imaginative ideas.

My dreams are not so easily remembered these days, but they still happen now and again and when they do the visualisation is usually the strongest part, although sometimes I have audio memories too.

How much do I actually "create" my dreams? Could it be that I am on another plane or dimension where others can be met and they can then influence my dream (creation)? I do know that sometimes I have intrusions in my dreams by people who are not my creation at all yet they have managed to infiltrate my dream, and it is obvious even in my dreams that they don't belong there. In the past I have tended to run away from these beings, then I began to let them stay, now I just accept them and see what they want to do in my dreams. They appear to do very little, but their images are very strong, and there is a different aura about them even in my dreams. It is their faces that leave the most lasting impression, and their eyes even more so.

Is there a God? Is this God interfering in my mind, my dreams? You tell me.

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Re: Into what rabbithole did I step?

Unread post by moses » Tue Jun 24, 2008 3:05 am

Muser wrote: How much do I actually "create" my dreams? Could it be that I am on another plane or dimension where others can be met and they can then influence my dream (creation)? I do know that sometimes I have intrusions in my dreams by people who are not my creation at all yet they have managed to infiltrate my dream, and it is obvious even in my dreams that they don't belong there. In the past I have tended to run away from these beings, then I began to let them stay, now I just accept them and see what they want to do in my dreams. They appear to do very little, but their images are very strong, and there is a different aura about them even in my dreams. It is their faces that leave the most lasting impression, and their eyes even more so.

Is there a God? Is this God interfering in my mind, my dreams? You tell me.
I guess one must be sure that these beings are not part of your memory.
Your mind might have created these beings as expressions of a memory.
The memory could arise from an event in your childhood or as a foetus,
or ancestral memories are possible. Only after eliminating all possible
mind-created beings can one consider something else. Is some part of
your mind trying to communicate something ?
Anyway - you asked !!
Mo

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StevenO
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Re: Into what rabbithole did I step?

Unread post by StevenO » Tue Jun 24, 2008 3:51 am

Anyway you study it, the fact is that "God" is just a thought......anything in between is something else.
First, God decided he was lonely. Then it got out of hand. Now we have this mess called life...
The past is out of date. Start living your future. Align with your dreams. Now execute.

Muser
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Re: Into what rabbithole did I step?

Unread post by Muser » Wed Jun 25, 2008 3:01 am

Thanks Moses. You are right that I should try to eliminate any other form of memory before trying to consider something else is intruding. Yet, there is something different about this type of being. There was once I was dreaming and saw my husband climb the stairs in my dream, and then when he turned to me, his face changed out of all recognition. It was one of these "intruders" taking over his aspect in my dream.

I remember in the film the Matrix, the agents were able to take over any character within the matrix version of our human reality. In a way, this is what happened in my dreams. I found that part of the film quite spooky because of my own dream experiences.

But thanks again, Moses. I will try to look at other possibilities. Thanks for answering.

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