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Pastimes : Let's Talk About Our Feelings!!! -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Brumar89 who wrote (93969)	1/19/2005 1:15:34 AM
From: epicure	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 108807

As I understood it, Cosmic was saying that scientists, good scientists, are often very undogmatic about religion. If you look at the studies done of nobel prize winners, for example, they tend to be much less religious than the public at large- at least in the way the public at large tends to manifest religion. Scientists tend to believe in a god that Einstein or Spinoza would agree with, as opposed to Jerry Falwell's God. I think the mumbo jumbo mysticism of religion probably doesn't have much appeal for scientists. After all, we can prod the brain in to having religious experiences. We can now explain many phenomenon that religions previously were created to explain. We can create new organisms, and manipulate the genome of creatures before they are born. We can probably destroy the planet with our nuclear weapons. Scientists are almost Gods themselves now, or perhaps they are Gods. As Oppenheimer said "I am become death, the destroyer of worlds. " If that isn't a Godlike ability, what is? Creation and destruction- it is encompassed in science. It is possible science will render God irrelevant, or maybe it will discover God. Either way, I can see how either of those things would pose some real problems for religious people invested in one very specific POV. Because even if Science finds God, there's no telling what kind of God they will eventually find. I can imagine some pretty long faces in many corners of the world if it turns out God is like Einstein imagined him.

To: Brumar89 who wrote (93969)	1/19/2005 1:27:53 AM
From: cosmicforce	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 108807

No, it isn't training. I think its wiring. There is an evolutionary advantage for someone to believe that the creek will continue to flow. There is also an evolutionary advantage to believe the creek will flow despite 2 or 3 years of drought. I think some of us have to trust in God that the creek will flow again after 10 years of drought. I wouldn't be one (never have been - decided at 10 years old that there was no "Master Puppeteer" controlling the mechanism). That is the type of belief we're discussing. I don't think we have any more or less choice about that than our gender or artistic ability. There are both kinds of belief (which differ in their degree of faith) and they both have their role in human society. The questioners (unwilling to stick it out in the faith game) break new ground and the non-questioners plow the same field or follow the same tradition hoping for a return to normal. There is lower affinity to science for the latter. Science really doesn't reward conformism or sticking it out with old methodologies that don't seem to work anymore. Religious systems can. All Nobel prizes are given for shaking the status quo, not affirming it.