 |
 | Home | Contact Us | FAQ | Search & Site Map | Link to Us |
 | Sign In | Join | Other 45 Sites in Network |
Medical Forum / General / Cardiology / May 2008Does science make belief in God obsolete?
Does science make belief in God obsolete? Yes, if by... "science" we mean the entire enterprise of secular reason and knowledge (including history and philosophy), not just people with test tubes and white lab coats. Traditionally, a belief in God was attractive because it promised to explain the deepest puzzles about origins. Where did the world come from? What is the basis of life? How can the mind arise from the body? Why should anyone be moral? Yet over the millennia, there has been an inexorable trend: the deeper we probe these questions, and the more we learn about the world in which we live, the less reason there is to believe in God. Start with the origin of the world. Today no honest and informed person can maintain that the universe came into being a few thousand years ago and assumed its current form in six days (to say nothing of absurdities like day and night existing before the sun was created). Nor is there a more abstract role for God to play as the ultimate first cause. This trick simply replaces the puzzle of "Where did the universe come from?" with the equivalent puzzle "Where did God come from?" What about the fantastic diversity of life and its ubiquitous signs of design? At one time it was understandable to appeal to a divine designer to explain it all. No longer. Charles Darwin and Alfred Russel Wallace showed how the complexity of life could arise from the physical process of natural selection among replicators, and then Watson and Crick showed how replication itself could be understood in physical terms. Notwithstanding creationist propaganda, the evidence for evolution is overwhelming, including our DNA, the fossil record, the distribution of life on earth, and our own anatomy and physiology (such as the goose bumps that try to fluff up long-vanished fur). For many people the human soul feels like a divine spark within us. But neuroscience has shown that our intelligence and emotions consist of intricate patterns of activity in the trillions of connections in our brain. True, scholars disagree on how to explain the existence of inner experiencesome say it's a pseudo-problem, others believe it's just an open scientific problem, while still others think that it shows a limitation of human cognition (like our inability to visualize four-dimensional space-time). But even here, relabeling the problem with the word "soul" adds nothing to our understanding. People used to think that biology could not explain why we have a conscience. But the human moral sense can be studied like any other mental faculty, such as thirst, color vision, or fear of heights. Evolutionary psychology and cognitive neuroscience are showing how our moral intuitions work, why they evolved, and how they are implemented within the brain. This leaves morality itselfthe benchmarks that allow us to criticize and improve our moral intuitions. It is true that science in the narrow sense cannot show what is right or wrong. But neither can appeals to God. It's not just that the traditional Judeo-Christian God endorsed genocide, slavery, rape, and the death penalty for trivial insults. It's that morality cannot be grounded in divine decree, not even in principle. Why did God deem some acts moral and others immoral? If he had no reason but divine whim, why should we take his commandments seriously? If he did have reasons, then why not appeal to those reasons directly? Those reasons are not to be found in empirical science, but they are to be found in the nature of rationality as it is exercised by any intelligent social species. The essence of morality is the interchangeability of perspectives: the fact that as soon as I appeal to you to treat me in a certain way (to help me when I am in need, or not to hurt me for no reason), I have to be willing to apply the same standards to how I treat you, if I want you to take me seriously. That is the only policy that is logically consistent and leaves both of us better off. And God plays no role in it. For all these reasons, it's no coincidence that Western democracies have experienced three sweeping trends during the past few centuries: barbaric practices (such as slavery, sadistic criminal punishment, and the mistreatment of children) have decreased significantly; scientific and scholarly understanding has increased exponentially; and belief in God has waned. Science, in the broadest sense, is making belief in God obsolete, and we are the better for it. Steven Pinker is the Johnstone Family Professor in the department of psychology at Harvard University. He is the author of seven books, including The Language Instinct, How the Mind Works, The Blank Slate, and most recently, The Stuff of Thought: Language as a Window into Human Nature. This should get the losers shrieking... ;-)) > Does science make belief in God obsolete? > [quoted text clipped - 102 lines] > The Language Instinct, How the Mind Works, The Blank Slate, and most > recently, The Stuff of Thought: Language as a Window into Human Nature. > This should get the losers shrieking... ;-)) And so will this Once upon a time there were a number of strong scientific arguments for the existence of God. One of the oldest and most prevalent is the argument from design. Most people look at the complexity of the world and cannot conceive of how it could have come about except by the action of a being or force of great power and intelligence. The design argument received perhaps its most brilliant exposition in the work of the Anglican archdeacon William Paley. In his Natural Theology, or Evidences of the Existence and Attributes of the Deity Collected from the Appearance of Nature, first published in 1802, Paley wrote about finding both a stone and a watch while crossing a heath. Though the stone would be regarded as a simple part of nature, no one would question that the watch is an artifact, designed for the purpose of telling time. Paley then proposed that objects of nature, such as the human eye, give every indication of being similar contrivances. When Charles Darwin entered Cambridge in 1827 he was assigned to the same rooms in Christ's College occupied by William Paley seventy years earlier. By that time the syllabus included the study of Paley's works, and Darwin was deeply impressed. He remarked that Paley's work "gave me as much delight as did Euclid." Yet Darwin ultimately discovered the answer to Paley and showed how complex systems can evolve naturally from simpler ones without design or plan. The mechanism he proposed in 1859 in The Origin of Species (inferred independently by Alfred Russel Wallace) was natural selection, by which organisms accumulate changes that enable them to survive and have progeny that maintain those features. But, as Darwin recognized, a serious objection to evolution existed based on the known physics of the time. Calculations by the great physicist William Thomson (Lord Kelvin) estimated ages for the sun that were far too short for natural selection to operate. However, at the time, nuclear energy was unknown. When this new form of energy was discovered early in the twentieth century, physicists estimated that the energy released by nuclear reactions would allow the sun and other stars to last billions of years as stable energy sources. Prior to the twentieth century, the simple fact that the universe contains matter also provided strong evidence for a creation. At the time it was believed that matter was conserved, and so the matter of the universe had to come from somewhere. In 1905 Einstein showed that matter could be created from energy. But where did that energy come from? This remained unanswered for almost another century until accurate observations with telescopes determined that an exact balance exists between the positive energy of matter and the negative energy of gravity. So, no energy was required to produce the universe. The universe could have come from nothing. Independent scientific support for a creation was also provided by a basic principle of physics called the second law of thermodynamics, which asserts that the total disorder or entropy of the universe must increase with time. The universe is growing more disorderly with time. Since it now has order, it would seem to follow that at some point in the past, even greater order must have been imparted from the outside. But in 1929, astronomer Edwin Hubble reported that the galaxies were moving away from one another at speeds approximately proportional to their distance, indicating that the universe was expanding. This provided the earliest evidence for the Big Bang. An expanding universe could have started with low entropy and still have formed localized order consistent with the second law. Extrapolating what we know from modern cosmology back to the earliest definable moment, we find that the universe began in a state of maximum disorder. It contained the maximum entropy for the tiny region of space, equivalent to zero information. Thus, even if the universe were created, it retains no memory of that creation or of the intentions of any possible creator. The only creator that seems possible is the one Einstein abhorred?the God who plays dice with the universe. Now, such a God could still exist and play a role in the universe once the universe exploded out of chaos. We no longer have total disorder; but disorder still dominates the universe. Most of the matter of the universe moves around randomly. Only 0.1 percent, the part contained in visible parts of galaxies, has any significant structure. If he is to have any control over events so that some ultimate plan is realized, God has to poke his finger into the works amidst all this chaos. Yet there is no evidence that God pokes his finger in anyplace. The universe and life look to science just as they should look if they were not created or designed. And humanity, occupying a tiny speck of dust in a vast cosmos for a tiny fraction of the life of that cosmos, hardly looks special. The universe visible to us contains a hundred billion galaxies, each with a hundred billion stars. But by far the greatest portion of the universe that expanded exponentially from the original chaos, at least fifty orders of magnitude more, lies far beyond our horizon. The universe we see with our most powerful telescopes is but a grain of sand in the Sahara. Yet we are supposed to think that a supreme being exists who follows the path of every particle, while listening to every human thought and guiding his favorite football teams to victory. Science has not only made belief in God obsolete. It has made it incoherent. Victor J. Stenger is emeritus professor of physics and astronomy, University of Hawaii, adjunct professor of philosophy, University of Colorado, and the author of seven books including God: The Failed Hypothesis?How Science Shows That God Does Not Exist. >> This should get the losers shrieking... ;-)) > [quoted text clipped - 10 lines] > Colorado, and the author of seven books including God: The Failed > HypothesisÑHow Science Shows That God Does Not Exist. Another confused scientist. Just ask him what is magnetism. Does it even exist? If so, what is its mode of existence? You might as well ask what makes him so sure that he knows of all the modes of existence there is or there can be. Does he even know how many modes of existence there are?  Signaturemonkfish * alt.atheism is removed from the header because atheists there consider quoting the Bible proselytizing and as such it is prohibited by their undebatable policy. -- The best way to handle spams is to ignore them. But if you must reply to them, you should at least set the followup-to header to something other than your own newsgroup. > This should get the losers shrieking... ;-)) > [quoted text clipped - 11 lines] >> The Language Instinct, How the Mind Works, The Blank Slate, and most >> recently, The Stuff of Thought: Language as a Window into Human Nature. Ask psychologists whether they know what self is. They don't even know what sanity is. Does sanity exist? If so, what would be its mode of existence? Why don't you ask him? When scientists try to do philosophy, they usually make fools of themselves. So, most of them run away saying they have better things to so. Signaturemonkfish * alt.atheism is removed from the header because atheists there consider quoting the Bible proselytizing and as such it is prohibited by their undebatable policy. -- The best way to handle spams is to ignore them. But if you must reply to them, you should at least set the followup-to header to something other than your own newsgroup. > This should get the losers shrieking... ;-)) > [quoted text clipped - 5 lines] >> white >> lab coats. ...... I am sure some will use circular reasoning and use the Bible to prove the Bible. > Does science make belief in God obsolete? > [quoted text clipped - 80 lines] > most recently, The Stuff of Thought: Language as a Window into Human > Nature. Is psychology really a science? Can it even tell us what sanity is? What does it mean for self to exist? He seems to think science can tell us all the modes of existence there is or can be. What kind of existence does freedom of speech have? When was it invented? Do our lives have any meaning? What is the mode of existence applicable to the meaning of life? Does it even exist? Can science really tell us how to live well? Signaturemonkfish * alt.atheism is removed from the header because atheists there consider quoting the Bible proselytizing and as such it is prohibited by their undebatable policy. -- The best way to handle spams is to ignore them. But if you must reply to them, you should at least set the followup-to header to something other than your own newsgroup. > Does science make belief in God obsolete? The answer rather depends on the version of God believed in. It depends on what God is and what's it for. > Yes, if by... > "science" we mean the entire enterprise of secular reason and knowledge [quoted text clipped - 5 lines] > basis of life? How can the mind arise from the body? Why should anyone be > moral? That is one thing God is for. I don't think its even the most important function of God in peoples lives. Its the one Richard Dawkins talks about for example. A major purpose/function of religion is to give people a moral compass - some moral ideals to strive for. Another major purpose of religion is to give people a sense of purpose and meaning. Another major purpose of function is to give people a sense of beloning to a community united in their sense of belief and purpose. So science can do damage to only one of these 4 reasons why people belive - so it does dammge to 25% of the reasons to believe in God and leave the other untouched or actually emphasises that science is useless for anything other that explaning what and how things are. So in summary Religion/God fulfils the following functions: (1) Explanation - where do we come from. (2) Moral guidance. (3) Sense of purpose - the "Why" of existence rather than the what or how. (4) Sense of belonging - fellowship. Science is a challenge to (1) - and leaves the other untouched or makes it even more obvious that they are needed. Cheers, Mark. -------------------------------------------- Mark Richardson. m.richardson61 AT gmail.com Member of SMASH (Sarcastic Middle-aged Atheist with a Sense of Humor) -------------------------------------------------- > > Does science make belief in God obsolete? > [quoted text clipped - 39 lines] > Science is a challenge to (1) - and leaves the other untouched or > makes it even more obvious that they are needed. Agreed, however when any particular religion is proven wrong when it come to (1), it logically should be assumed that said religion is based on falsehood. Hatter >> > Does science make belief in God obsolete? >> [quoted text clipped - 45 lines] > > Hatter No. As science advances, religion just needs to change its exposition of factual matters to reflect the new understanding. You will get into trouble if you try to rely on the court opinions for making narcotics in your kitchen. Signaturemonkfish * alt.atheism is removed from the header because trying to prove the existence of God is prohibited by their undebatable policy. ** Atheists have blind faith in their ability to know of all actual or possible modes of existence. Such hubris cannot be good for science. > >> > Does science make belief in God obsolete? > [quoted text clipped - 51 lines] > to change its exposition of factual matters > to reflect the new understanding. Religion needs to disembowel itself with a whaling harpoon. Now. > You will get into trouble > if you try to rely on the court opinions > for making narcotics in your kitchen. I prefer baking soda, or sometimes ammonia when I want a real kick. > I prefer baking soda, or sometimes ammonia when > I want a real kick. Whoosh The following groups were put back in as you can see in the header below alt.christnet.theology, alt.philosophy, alt.religion.christian, From whoosh's header: From: monkfish <monkfish@nowhere> Newsgroups: alt.christnet.theology, alt.philosophy, alt.religion.christian, sci.med.cardiology Followup-To: sci.med.cardiology Do not feed whoosh http://HeartMDPhD.com/Convicts/PrayForPhobos <>< http://HeartMDPhD.com/HolySpirit/Love > On Mon, 5 May 2008 19:27:33 -0500, Father Haskell wrote > (in message [quoted text clipped - 17 lines] > > Do not feed whoosh Sorry Phobos but I'm done here. Shotgun jockeys are not who I was looking to debate with and they seem to be lining up. --tension > Does science make belief in God obsolete? Most certainly, as the pharmacology field has made positive strides in treating mental illness. "My religious conversion was a symptom of a mental illness for which I now take a drug called lithium carbonate." -- Larry Flynt. http://HeartMDPhD.com/Foolishsatan <>< http://HeartMDPhD.com/HolySpirit/Warns On May 2, 7:10 am, Pavlov's Dog barked: > http://HeartMDPhD.com/Foolishsatan > > <>< > > http://HeartMDPhD.com/HolySpirit/Warns The caravan passed. http://HeartMDPhD.com/Whinersatan <>< http://HeartMDPhD.com/HolySpirit/Warns On May 2, 10:11 am, "Andrew B. Chung, MD/PhD" <heartd...@emorycardiology.com> wrote: > Whine, whine Follow that camel..... http://HeartMDPhD.com/Fakersatan <>< http://HeartMDPhD.com/TruthCutssatan "Andrew B. Chung, MD/PhD" <heartdoc11@emorycardiology.com> popped their head through the hatch and pleaded: > http://HeartMDPhD.com/Fakersatan > > <>< > > http://HeartMDPhD.com/TruthCutssatan http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iWUBmO1hVhk SignatureDavid Silverman aa #2208 Defender of Civilisation Lord Mayor of Dis Lawful copyright holder of the term "Earthquack". Not authentic without this signature. http://HeartMDPhD.com/Whinersatan <>< http://HeartMDPhD.com/HolySpirit/Warns > On May 2, 7:10 am, Pavlov's Dog barked: > [quoted text clipped - 5 lines] > > The caravan passed. LOL. Dogs barked, cats meowed (chung reference), donkeys brayed, and the holy spirit awaited the lithium... On May 2, 2:10 am, "Andrew B. Chung, MD/PhD" <heartdo...@emorycardiology.com> wrote: > http://HeartMDPhD.com/Foolishsatan > > <>< > > http://HeartMDPhD.com/HolySpirit/Warns Bah. Who would you trust more, a self-made pornographer in a wheelchair, or a crazed street person who claims he's god? > On May 2, 2:10 am, "Andrew B. Chung, MD/PhD" > [quoted text clipped - 8 lines] > in a wheelchair, or a crazed street person who claims he's > god? Actually, I would trust the street person, in a heartbeat. Even if I know he's not a god, he's less likely to snooker me than the one with clear indications of moral impairment. --tension >> Bah. Who would you trust more, a self-made pornographer >> in a wheelchair, or a crazed street person who claims he's >> god? > Actually, I would trust the street person, in a heartbeat. Even if I > know he's not a god, he's less likely to snooker me than the one with > clear indications of moral impairment. OK, then the next question would be: who would you trust more, a scientist like Einstein or a pediophile priest http://HeartMDPhD.com/DumbSockPuppet <>< http://HeartMDPhD.com/HolySpirit/Warns >>> Bah. Who would you trust more, a self-made pornographer >>> in a wheelchair, or a crazed street person who claims he's [quoted text clipped - 6 lines] > OK, then the next question would be: who would you trust more, a > scientist like Einstein or a pediophile priest Atheists who hate Christains or Jesus Christ who loves even His enemies? Signaturemonkfish * alt.atheism is removed from the header because trying to prove the existence of God is prohibited by their undebatable policy. ** Atheists have blind faith in their ability to know of all actual or possible modes of existence. Such hubris cannot be good for science. http://HeartMDPhD.com/Convicts/PrayForMonkfish > satan via a sockpuppet (corporeal demon) depairingly posted: > [quoted text clipped - 13 lines] > Atheists who hate Christains or > Jesus Christ who loves even His enemies? That would be LORD Jesus Christ for those of us who have been redeemed by HIM through HIS suffering, death, and resurrection nearly 2000 years ago: http://www.interviewwithgod.com/forgiven/ Laus Deo ! ! ! http://HeartMDPhD.com/LausDeo <>< http://HeartMDPhD.com/HolySpirit/Love > On Sat, 3 May 2008 2:00:37 -0500, tension_on_the_wire wrote > (in message [quoted text clipped - 9 lines] > OK, then the next question would be: who would you trust more, a scientist > like Einstein or a pediophile priest Who would I trust more....to do what? To act as predicted? To change his ways? To look after my kids? To earn the next Nobel prize? The honest answer to that question, and even the previous one, is that it would be highly prejudicial to decide whether to trust a human based on any of the characteristics you describe. It's called bigotry and profiling. I trust the person who demonstrates that he can be trusted, regardless of his faith, occupation or even sanity. Actions, however, speak louder than words. The person who demonstrates that he cannot be trusted, such as a pornographer, or a pedophile, is going to be treated as such no matter what he believes (or claims to believe). A person who claims to maintain a certain set of moral values but betrays even his own standards, such as a pedophile priest, does not represent any kind of belief at all if he is that much of a hypocrite. --tension >> OK, then the next question would be: who would you trust more, a scientist >> like Einstein or a pediophile priest > > Who would I trust more....to do what? To act as predicted? To change > his ways? To look after my kids? To earn the next Nobel prize? I was just following up with another extreme example of the previous question asked. Many people trust, and will overlook negative things, of those with whom they agree than with those with whom they disagree. On May 3, 1:20 pm, tension_on_the_wire <tension_at_h...@yahoo.com> wrote: > > On Sat, 3 May 2008 2:00:37 -0500, tension_on_the_wire wrote > > (in message [quoted text clipped - 12 lines] > Who would I trust more....to do what? To act as predicted? To change > his ways? To look after my kids? To earn the next Nobel prize? One would f.ck him, the other would improve his math grades. On May 3, 3:00 am, tension_on_the_wire <tension_at_h...@yahoo.com> wrote: > > On May 2, 2:10 am, "Andrew B. Chung, MD/PhD" > [quoted text clipped - 14 lines] > > --tension True, until the crazed street person founds a religion that cows the civilized world for the next 2,000 years. > Does science make belief in God obsolete? > > Yes, if by... > "science" we mean the entire enterprise of secular reason and knowledge (including history and philosophy), not just people with test tubes and white > lab coats. I'm not sure if the poster IS Dr. Pinker, or is quoting Dr. Pinker. However, I think it is important to examine the question being posted a bit more carefully. Does science make belief in God obsolete? Obsolete means "no longer in general use, fallen into dismoded type, out-of-date, etc." (Random House) You have given many reasons why you think that the belief in God is irrational, but you have not proven your statement that belief in God is obsolete. In truth, belief in God is at an all-time high right now as noticeable trends in cultures and countries around the world including the USA are showing a return to religious life in the last couple of decades by people who were at best nominal members of their religions. By definition, this is not obsolescence. It seems to suggest, in fact, that progress in science and technology has failed to dispel belief in God, and maybe even has added to the tendency to search for a supernatural explanation to current conditions on Earth, and in our societies, all of them, though of course it would require an un-doable study to demonstrate cause-and-effect. The fact that so many people are turning to religion right now, or remain steadfast in their belief is in itself proof that belief in God obviously satisfies a deeply felt need in humans throughout the planet, in which case it is impossible to call belief in God obsolete. However, perhaps the poster meant to ask "Does science make belief in God irrational?". And this is a very different question, to which the answer is also no, but for different reasons, of course. > Traditionally, a belief in God was attractive because it promised to explain the deepest puzzles about origins. Where did the world come from? What is the > basis of life? How can the mind arise from the body? Why should anyone be moral? > > Yet over the millennia, there has been an inexorable trend: the deeper we probe these questions, and the more we learn about the world in which we live, the less reason there is to believe in God. Again, an assumption is being made here. It may be that for you, a belief in God could only be of use for explaining origins of the world, life, etc. However, I would suggest that for many members of religions throughout the world, the largest attractor for belief in God has nothing to do with conditions in this world at all but is, in fact, the explanation it holds, and promises it makes, about death, and life-after-death. There is absolutely nothing in science that addresses this issue, therefore there is nothing irrational about looking to religion, or any other type of philosopy to explain what happens to human consciousness, mind, soul, whatever you want to call it after the moment of death. > Start with the origin of the world. Today no honest and informed person can maintain that the universe came into being a few thousand years ago and assumed its current form in six days (to say nothing of absurdities like day and night existing before the sun was created). Nor is there a more abstract role for God to play as the ultimate first cause. This trick simply replaces the puzzle of "Where did the universe come from?" with the equivalent puzzle "Where did God come from?" In this paragraph, you make it quite clear that you are no longer arguing about belief in God, but belief in the Bible, which refers to a much smaller subset of believers than the ones you were originally referring to. If your issue is with Christian theology, you need to be more specific about that since more than three quarters of the world believe in God without believing in Jesus Christ as God, or the Earth having come into existence over a period of six days. As far as the abstract role of God that you referred to, I'm not sure what your point is. It seems to me that you are eloquently pointing out that science cannot, in fact, explain where God came from. So how is it that you think science answers all questions? Please, don't get me wrong, I am posting here as a scientist, but the question of using science to observe God, or God to contradict science is much more complex than your sentence implies, and I'll be happy to address that later on in this post. > What about the fantastic diversity of life and its ubiquitous signs of > design? At one time it was understandable to appeal to a divine designer to [quoted text clipped - 5 lines] > the fossil record, the distribution of life on earth, and our own anatomy and > physiology (such as the goose bumps that try to fluff up long-vanished fur). In this paragraph you make it sound as if "evolution" is an accepted, uncontested fact, but you have not demonstrated (nor has anyone else) how evolution could be the cause of the origins of life itself. Science has yet to satisfactorily explain how "replicators" came into existence in the first place. What is commonly referred to as evolution is, in fact, the process of random mutation (of already existing genes which came from where?) and natural selection in the creation and origins of species. That is the name of his book "Origin of Species", not origin of life. In his appendices, Charles Darwin goes, himself, into some details about the areas of study that break down in his hypothesis, including the troublesome concept of irreducible complexity in the eye, and makes it very clear that he is not trying to explain the origins of life, only species. James Watson and Francis Crick were the first to describe the double helical structure of DNA. That is all they did, though it was no mean feat, but they did not show anything else that would have bearing on the existence of God. I'm sorry that you think "creationist propaganda" is the only current argument against evolution being the be-all and end-all of genetic processes. There is a strong scientific component that has everything to do with assessment of probabilities (which are considered infinitesimal in the case of the eye and the blood coagulation cascade) of certain changes being able to be made in a step-wise process without losing the "utility" component of each mutation which is absolutely essential to the validation of the theory of evolution. This is a huge scientific obstacle and it cannot be minimized by labelling it as creationist propaganda. However, taking all of that into account, even if one granted the possibility that evolution could at least get us from the first single cell to the moon itself, why is any of that proof that belief in God is irrational, or even obsolescent? Would you, as a scientist, not expect that the Creator of this Universe, as the creator of both Newtonian physics and quantum mechanics and whatever is missing in our attempt to unify the fundamental forces (which by the way, I will point out has not yet been done, therefore science still hasn't yet explained this universe completely)....would you not expect that any Creator would have the magnificent ability to create using the science that he himself put into play? What on earth would be the good of just saying "BE" and poof? Is it not infinitely more elegant that a Creator could say "BE" and hence the Big Bang itself? To me that is infinitely more awe-inspiring anyway. And to some extent it explains why science can never disprove the existence of God, though it can very easily disprove the claims of any given religion which is foolish enough to insist on an unscientific explanation of anything. It also demonstrates that there is no reason for religion to attempt to contradict science if it is honest in its desire to believe in God, and not just supernatural explanations for anything willy-nilly. > For many people the human soul feels like a divine spark within us. But > neuroscience has shown that our intelligence and emotions consist of [quoted text clipped - 5 lines] > space-time). But even here, relabeling the problem with the word "soul" adds > nothing to our understanding. Neuroscience has gone a long way to explaining the presence, but not the nature of, consciousness. But it still cannot explain "the mind", or where sentience comes from, or how it is actually generated. Accepting a premise of consciousness, neuroscience is now describing patterns of both structure and function and the intricate play between firing and wiring in the dynamics of intelligence and emotions, but it is a very long way from being able to explain not how, but WHY we think. You should know, however, that none of that is what is being re-labelled when believers refer to the soul. > People used to think that biology could not explain why we have a conscience. > But the human moral sense can be studied like any other mental faculty, such > as thirst, color vision, or fear of heights. Evolutionary psychology and > cognitive neuroscience are showing how our moral intuitions work, why they > evolved, and how they are implemented within the brain. You have hit the nail on the head here with respect to my original statements about why a belief in God cannot be obsolescent. As you mention, the human moral sense can be studied like any other mental faculty because it IS a mental faculty. The fact that it may have evolved as a faculty meant to strengthen the social fabric, thereby strengthening the tribe and the survival of a collective gene pool does not change the fact that the stronger that faculty evolves, the stronger will be the human search for moral guidance. Especially as we "evolve" as a society into one of decreasingly described moral standards of human origin. The more lenient the society, the more confused are the searchers for moral guidance. If they cannot find moral standards generated by humans that are anything better than totally arbitrary, people will search for an absolute standard which is almost uniformly provided by every religion on Earth. It is the second major reason why belief in God cannot be obsolescent as long as there are people on Earth looking for absolute moral standards for guidance. > This leaves morality itself‹the benchmarks that allow us to criticize and improve our moral intuitions. It is true that science in the narrow sense > cannot show what is right or wrong. But neither can appeals to God. It's not just that the traditional Judeo-Christian God endorsed genocide, slavery, > rape, and the death penalty for trivial insults. It's that morality cannot be grounded in divine decree, not even in principle. Why did God deem some acts > moral and others immoral? If he had no reason but divine whim, why should we take his commandments seriously? If he did have reasons, then why not appeal > to those reasons directly? In some respects it is unfair for you to have to extract your argument only from the Judeo-Christian God since the only available material you have is grossly inaccurate as any kind of historical document of what was actually, originally taught and done by the individuals in question. Therefore, you cannot really attribute an endorsement of genocide, slavery, rape or even the death penalty to God, Judeo- Christian or not. At best, if you refer to incidents which have corroborating historical documentation, you can blame religion (as interpreted by the humans of its time) for these things, but not God. And it deeply confounds your attempt to describe arbitrariness in God's moral decree. The entire point behind obedience to that moral decree does not lie in understanding whether it is whimsical or not. It lies in the not knowing, but choosing to follow anyway, because it comes from a trustworthy source (and I mean God, not the Bible, the Torah or any such). On the whole, the morally reprehensible acts in human history that have supposedly been committed by religion were not, in fact any such thing, but acts that were committed by humans. Humans who, in most documented cases, had personal aims of their own that had very little to do with God or any religion, but more often had everything to do with power, greeed, and ambition. Humans who commit atrocities in the name of religion are just that; the religion cannot be blamed per se. > Those reasons are not to be found in empirical science, but they are to be found in the nature of rationality as it is exercised by any intelligent > social species. The essence of morality is the interchangeability of perspectives: the fact that as soon as I appeal to you to treat me in a > certain way (to help me when I am in need, or not to hurt me for no reason), I have to be willing to apply the same standards to how I treat you, if I > want you to take me seriously. That is the only policy that is logically consistent and leaves both of us better off. And God plays no role in it. As logically consistent as this policy may be, the unfortunate truth is that, human nature being what it is, no one agrees with you. Or at least, if they do, they are most certainly not practicing what they preach. And as ideal as it is, in the real world, people do not treat others as they wish to be treated. People treat others according to what they can get away with, and some foolish ones don't even consider that much as they forget that they will come down the same ladder on which they are currently stepping on fingers while they scrabble for the top rung. This is primarily due to the slippery slope of arbitrary morality I mentioned earlier as established by humans. There is no absolute standard. Even the age-old commandment against taking of human life is treated with increasing casualness as wars become confused with military occupation, and genocide is as on-going as it ever was, and killing for personal gain or for personal rage is rampant. The only "absolute" standard that exists for people with no moral code is the one that says Do Whatever you can get away with Under the Law. If it isn't illegal, most people seem to think it's alright. And God help us all if we rely on our lawmakers and governments to decide what is morally right or wrong. What a great example they set of treating others (in their foreign policies) as they would wish to be treated. > For all these reasons, it's no coincidence that Western democracies have > experienced three sweeping trends during the past few centuries: barbaric [quoted text clipped - 3 lines] > waned. Science, in the broadest sense, is making belief in God obsolete, and > we are the better for it. I mentioned earlier I would address the issue of how science and God relate. I already described the beauty of the idea that all the science we see in action around us is a manifestation of an incredible elegance that we still cannot completely understand, and my insistence that religion, to be true, cannot contradict any scientific facts that we know. But I did not explain how science can actually make it possible to understand God better. Until science can determine once and for all whether or not we have a closed universe, or, as Stephen Hawking wishes, a universe without boundary, we cannot ever expect science to be in a position of proving or disproving God. It is a crucial question because the strongest suggestions in favour of the existence of God come from the study of thermodynamics. If we are in a closed universe, then the equations already exist to prove that the universe was not eternal and it did have a beginning and it must have an end. The principles of entropy demand that there will be a slow winding down of usable energy in the universe to a state known as Heat Death, and if the universe had been eternal with a beginning stretching back through infinite stretches of time, then the state of Heat Death would have been reached long ago, many times over, and we would not be here. It then follows that if the universe had a finite beginning, it must have a prime cause. God, as not being limited to the four dimensional existence that we are, cannot fall within this subset of a finite universe. It is not a paradox to say that God is the prime cause of the universe, because no one ever claimed that God was limited to, within, or part of this universe. God, as a concept, is so clearly outside of existence in only four dimensions that it is nothing more than a party-trick to ask "well then, who created God?". It demands a complete understanding of this universe before one can categorically state that creation of this universe demands that there was "Nothing" before. Nothing, in terms of what we can detect or describe with the four dimensions we know, yes. But that is as far as it goes. We have six or seven other dimensions to contend with now. Obviously this is no explanation of anything to you unless you are willing to do the leg work to understand at the mathematical level, the principles I am referring to, so I won't elaborate. But I mention it to you so that I can introduce you to the idea that there are highly knowledgeable scientists who feel that a belief in God is not, as you suggest, obsolescent or irrational, but more and more likely the only possible explanation for the universe as we know it. I should point out, just to throw a wrench into the works, that String Theory has opened a whole new world of contemplation with regards to explaining even the "miraculous" characteristics of God. For example, the idea that there might be 10 or even 11 dimensions (which have absolutely nothing to do with parallel universes or multiple planes of existence, which remain in the realms of science fantasy) leaves 6 or 7 unknown dimensions currently unperceived and untestable as we stand. Since none of these dimensions is the dimension of time, which is already accounted for in the 4th dimension, it leaves one to ponder the possibility that "Where God Comes From" or "Where God Currently Exists" might be answered by any one or combination of these dimensions. Since they are outside of time, then the idea of existance in one of those dimensions makes it quite easy to understand how "prophecy" or the ability to see events in future time could happen. Future time only exists for those of us trapped within these 4 dimensions. It has no relevance in any of the others. At any rate, with that I will conclude by saying that it is by no means as clear cut as you suggest that there is some kind of absolute divide between Science and Religion, and that there are scientists who believe wholeheartedly in God precisely because of our very priviliged position of being in an occupation that exposes us to the most amazing miracles of all. --tension ps. I'm curious why you posted on a cardiology group? > Does science make belief in God obsolete? > > In truth, belief in God is at an all-time high right now Science does not make the belief obsolete, what it does is to explain many things that in the past were do to an act of a God, or in older times, Gods. What science has done to is make it reasonable that a God is not needed. The concept of a God can be comforting - God is called Father and a father is someone who protects his chilcren. With all that is going on in the world now, it would not be unexpected for more people to look to a God/Father. We like to think that we, mankind, have a special meaning, when compared to other life on the planet. We have learned that Earth is not the center, but a planet revolving around a minor star in the corner of a somewaht minor galaxy. Putting aside our egos, why does our existence have to be significant? >> Does science make belief in God obsolete? >> [quoted text clipped - 322 lines] > > ps. I'm curious why you posted on a cardiology group? Well done. I set the followup-to header to alt.christnet.theology and crossposted this to several other newsgroups. Signaturemonkfish * alt.atheism is removed from the header because atheists there consider quoting the Bible proselytizing and as such it is prohibited by their undebatable policy. -- The best way to handle spams is to ignore them. But if you must reply to them, you should at least set the followup-to header to something other than your own newsgroup. It seems to me I heard somewhere that tension_on_the_wire wrote in article <fc4d54a0-1d4c-4a74-966c-29e491d80aed@k1g2000prb.googlegroups.com>: >> Does science make belief in God obsolete? >In truth, belief in God is at an all-time high right now as noticeable >trends in cultures and countries around the world including the USA >are showing a return to religious life in the last couple of decades >by people who were at best nominal members of their religions. By >definition, this is not obsolescence. But that all-time high (and I suspect it's actually pretty much restricted to the Americas, especially the US, and some spots in Europe and Asia--Korea, for instance) may well be the flip side of a clear change in how people define God. The early church spent a lot of time and thought trying to define God, building much of its thought on Platonic and Aristotelian models. The God that so many believe in now is a fuzzied up provider of feel-good warm feelings; not that many believers could begin to discuss their understanding of God beyond Sunday-school platitudes and greeting card theology. > It seems to me I heard somewhere that tension_on_the_wire wrote in article > <fc4d54a0-1d4c-4a74-966c-29e491d80...@k1g2000prb.googlegroups.com>: [quoted text clipped - 14 lines] > many believers could begin to discuss their understanding of God beyond > Sunday-school platitudes and greeting card theology. You are referring to God as defined (or not defined, more accurately) in many protestant Christian churches. The "fuzzied-up provider" you are mentioning is not the concept of God as defined by at least three- quarters of the world's population which practices some other religion, and in truth, does not describe God as conceived even in certain churches such as the Catholic Church or the Episcopalian (church of England). The concept of God you are referring to is uniquely American, and there is a very interesting history in the development of the protestant sects in the US that is behind that change. Televangelism had a lot to do with popularizing it. I agree with you entirely about the fact that it is only a very small percentage of believers (and this is true of every religion right now) who actually are familiar with and understand the true basis of their own theology. But that only serves to stress that the human population is not really ready to use intellectual critical appraisal techniques to assess whether their need for God or religion has been made obsolete by science. They certainly shouldn't take that on trust, or that would just be another form of faith, wouldn't it? Changing one's religion to science...how many people did that instead of the true analysis necessary? One needs, at the very least, a mind familiar with scientific method and study design at the ground prinicples level, to assess the science, and a fairly deep understanding of one's own theology in order to set them side by side and make the comparison. One also needs, and this is most important, to have eliminated any mental blocks that have been instilled by society which seems to be absolutely sure that science and religion are mutually exclusive and that one must pick one or the other. That is a very small population, and since many of them have actually come to strengthen, not lose, their faith as a result of that comparison, it doesn't actually leave very many people who do think that science makes God obsolete. The ones who are equipped to make that comparison and come up with that result are almost all of them immersed in the scientific academic environment or work in an industry supplied by people from that same environment. I would point out that the social upshot of that is not good, however, as that environment, which is the only place I know other than Hollywood where atheism is treated universally as a given, is formative to the young minds coming in at an undergraduate level and who are quickly indoctrinated, by the silence on the topic of religion, in the axiom that if you want to be considered seriously as a scientist in this faculty, do not dare to mention God. The unfortunate undergrad learns quickly of the mockery and scorn heaped on his "provincial and naive" point of view that it doesn't take long to drum it out, long before he has gotten to the senior courses which show the miraculous nature of this universe and the amazing interconnectedness of all the disciplines he/she is studying. This creates a vicious cycle, of course, since these undergraduates will ultimately provide for the future faculties of these same universities and will reinforce the fallacy and that is why you have such a preponderance of people in the field of science who claim that science and religion are mutually exclusive. Time to bust that myth, I think. --tension > > It seems to me I heard somewhere that tension_on_the_wire wrote in article= > [quoted text clipped - 75 lines] > preponderance of people in the field of science who claim that science > and religion are mutually exclusive. Time to bust that myth, I think. Um, that may be overstating the situation a bit: http://www.physorg.com/news102700045.html -- cary > In article <dec0e37e-a053-4f4b-8596-b952726a2...@b9g2000prh.googlegroups.com> tension_on_the_wire <tension_at_h...@yahoo.com> writes: > [quoted text clipped - 85 lines] > > - Show quoted text - Well, it may have sounded a bit more categorical than I intended it, but I do think these are important factors. Thank you very much for that excellent link, by the way...it certainly does add other factors to think about, although it should be noted that as the study was done by self-reporting, it's possible that certain influences would be missing in that data if it were not easily identified at the time it was happening. The most interesting statement to me was at the end: "RAAS data reveal that younger scientists are more likely to believe in God than older scientists, and more likely to report attending religious services over the past year. "If this holds throughout the career life-course for this cohort of academic scientists," Ecklund says, "it could indicate an overall shift in attitudes toward religion among those in the academy." Times they are a'changin. --tension > > In article <dec0e37e-a053-4f4b-8596-b952726a2...@b9g2000prh.googlegroups.c= > om> tension_on_the_wire <tension_at_h...@yahoo.com> writes: [quoted text clipped - 119 lines] > > --tension I didn't notice that. Interesting. A recent study -- or more properly, a recent repeat of a classic study -- seems to show belief in God among scientists remarkably stable over time: http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1374/is_/ai_19582381 (see table towards the end of the page), and the same study, when querying members of the National Academy of Sciences -- presumably our creme de la creme -- found much lower levels of belief in God: http://www.stephenjaygould.org/ctrl/news/file002.html (interesting to notice that, for all the carping these days about evolution, biologists were not the lowest in belief) -- cary > In article <e98ae65b-8da1-43a2-b63d-e618bbb7b...@j9g2000prn.googlegroups.com> tension_on_the_wire <tension_at_h...@yahoo.com> writes: > [quoted text clipped - 142 lines] > > - Show quoted text - Thanks for your post. And the links, again. Very interesting indeed. The data unfortunately leaves one more confused than ever because I think there is room for a great deal of sampling bias there in that "greaters" vs. "lessers" stuff. I mean, there are a number of factors that will all have some commonality in those two groups since NAS members and the like are almost certainly going to be tenured professors, more than likely a significantly older group and quite possibly also from a completely different ethnic background too when one takes into account the typical origins of a new professor in a faculty thirty or forty years ago vs. a newcomer now. Now which, of any of those factors, could affect the predominance of a religious or non-religious lifestyle? The second link, the letter from Nature, would have us believe that it must be that the "greaters" are less religious because of their intellectual superiority and knowledge of science but that is an amazing leap of logic, to say the least. And not a sound assumption either since any Department Head in a Science Faculty will tell you that if you want the skinny on a very narrow topic, go to the tenured professor who has been researching the topic, but if you want the state of the art on everything...you ask the graduate student, or the new post-doc. So how much of the increased religious attitude by the "lessers" might be sparked by their advanced knowledge of the latest and greatest developments at the leading edge? How much of it is that they haven't had time to be made cynical by long years in academia? How much of it is the unspoken pressure I alluded to earlier? How much of it is from the different ethnic or wildly more variant religions that the younger generation come from? There's no way to spell it out with these data. As an aside, though, as a little demonstration of that pressure I spoke about....did you notice how Nature chose to publish a letter that elected to present only half the data? The half that corresponds to the opinion of the silent majority, naturally (no pun intended). There is no mention of the "lessers" in that letter or the conflicting data it represents which alludes to the same last sentence I pointed out in your first link. The younger, newer scientists are not so convinced about a Godless world as their elders in the field. But Nature did not insist on mentioning it, even in the interests of good academic science. Ironic, that. Thanks for the links. --tension It seems to me I heard somewhere that Cary Kittrell wrote in article <fvfumq$3e$1@onion.ccit.arizona.edu>: >> I would point out that the social upshot of that is not good, however, >> as that environment, which is the only place I know other than [quoted text clipped - 13 lines] >> preponderance of people in the field of science who claim that science >> and religion are mutually exclusive. Time to bust that myth, I think. >Um, that may be overstating the situation a bit: > http://www.physorg.com/news102700045.html And that also ignores that many scientists are avowedly religious; I've been very struck by the view taken by Stephen Jay Gould that God and science operate in separate realms, and the tenets of one realm of no consequence in the other. > long before he has gotten to the senior courses which > show the miraculous nature of this universe Why is it "miraculous" - your use of the term implies there is a God. The Universe is what it turned out to be and if it were completely different you could say the very same thing. The fact of the matter is that there does not need to be a God for us to exist at this time and place. > On Fri, 2 May 2008 15:40:30 -0500, tension_on_the_wire wrote > (in message [quoted text clipped - 10 lines] > The fact of the matter is that there does not need to be a God for us to > exist at this time and place. Please don't misunderstand me, I should have clarified given the topic. My use of the word miraculous there was purely as an aesthetic term of praise, nothing else. Science and mathematics are both inordinately beautiful when one comes to a point where the odds of happening by chance appear to decrease. It is, not to provoke you, but it is awe-inspiring. There are certain Universal constants which, if any one of them were even slightly different at a miniscule level, would make it impossible for us to exist in a 3-dimensional universe with a uni-directional timeline. So no, you would not be able to say the very same thing. This is the only universe in which we could possibly have existed as we currently understand existence. Anything else is science fantasy, not science. Your statement of the "fact of the matter" is pointless. You cannot possibly know enough of this universe to state that there does not need to be a God. We don't even have the imagination or materials to project a possible way to test String Theory yet, but you already know that we will find a universe that doesn't need a God? I'm sorry, that is not fact, that is a belief. It sounds like a creed, believed without proof. As I understand it, that is a religion. --tension >> On Fri, 2 May 2008 15:40:30 -0500, tension_on_the_wire wrote >> (in message [quoted text clipped - 35 lines] > > --tension Well said. But atheism is not quite a religion; just a cult. Signaturemonkfish * alt.atheism is removed from the header because atheists there consider quoting the Bible proselytizing and as such it is prohibited by their undebatable policy. -- The best way to handle spams is to ignore them. But if you must reply to them, you should at least set the followup-to header to something other than your own newsgroup. > There are certain Universal constants which, if any one of them were > even slightly different at a miniscule level, would make it impossible [quoted text clipped - 3 lines] > we currently understand existence. Anything else is science fantasy, > not science. We do not know if there were other universes which failed or if a universs could be based on other laws of science or even if there are other universes which exist. > Your statement of the "fact of the matter" is pointless. You cannot > possibly know enough of this universe to state that there does not > need to be a God. But, likewise, there does not need to be a God so why believe, to the extent that many do, in a "God" who may not exist - yes I am aware of Pascal's Wager. I have no problem if people want to beileve in a God or not and if those who believe want to follow a religion or not, but it should be a personal matter and not one where people try to impose their religions/beliefs/non-beliefs on others. >> There are certain Universal constants which, if any one of them were >> even slightly different at a miniscule level, would make it impossible [quoted text clipped - 19 lines] > matter and not one where people try to impose their > religions/beliefs/non-beliefs on others. Is that why so many atheist cult members are screaming obscenities in Christian newsgroups? Signaturemonkfish * alt.atheism is removed from the header because atheists there consider quoting the Bible proselytizing and as such it is prohibited by their undebatable policy. -- The best way to handle spams is to ignore them. But if you must reply to them, you should at least set the followup-to header to something other than your own newsgroup. > We do not know if there were other universes which failed or if a universs > could be based on other laws of science or even if there are other universes > which exist. In India there are those who believe in an oscillating universe which expands and collapses and then expands and collapses and expands again over and over every certain number of billions of years, and that at each expansion the laws of nature and everything changes. > On Fri, 2 May 2008 18:03:48 -0500, tension_on_the_wire wrote > (in message > <4001dcd1-9b73-4865-8fc1-9b3e6deeb...@i36g2000prf.googlegroups.com>): > > Your statement of the "fact of the matter" is pointless. You cannot > > possibly know enough of this universe to state that there does not [quoted text clipped - 3 lines] > that many do, in a "God" who may not exist - yes I am aware of Pascal's > Wager. Pascal's Wager has no place in a serious conversation about God, in my humble opinion, and is the chicken's way out. To recommend a belief based on choosing personal safety over the courage of ones convictions is farcical since such a credo implies that one can fool God about one's belief. If one believes in God, then one knows that there is no fooling God. If one does not believe, then stating a belief out loud for the sake of hedging one's bets is hypocrisy and if God exists after all, then one is instantly found out and that's all she wrote. But, again, I question your statement that there does not need to be a God. This has not been demonstrated. In fact I think I demonstrated quite well that humanity clearly does have a deep and abiding psychological and emotional need of a God, and in addition not a few humans exist with an intellectual need of a God. Where is the justification that there is no need for a God? You may need to define just how you are using the word need. If you mean logical need to explain things as they are, well I mentioned previously that this conclusion is premature since we do not know all the things that need explanations yet. --tension > I have no problem if people want to beileve in a God or not and if those who > believe want to follow a religion or not, but it should be a personal matter > and not one where people try to impose their religions/beliefs/non-beliefs on > others. I agree wholeheartedly with you on this point. Religion or belief imposed on others can never result in sincere belief anyway and so is pointless even from the vantage of an ardent evangelist. But imposition should never be confused with information. Evangelical behaviour is supposed to be generated by a compassion for society such that one wants to make sure that those who choose against belief do so with full, informed consent. The idea of people out there who don't even know about the belief one has, or have not been made aware of the true theology behind it, is galling to someone who wants everyone to have their chance. As long as the recipient of the evangelical effort is willing to listen to a point of view, without feeling the need to prove it wrong, no harm is done to anyone. If one feels the need to prove it wrong, that's okay too, but then it is a reciprocity of evangelism which should be received equally graciously by the originator. It's all a question of simple common courtesy and the willingness to exchange views, rather than the typical reaction of anger and other strong emotions that so often get in the way of a good hard knock-em-down argument about God. --tension > But, again, I question your statement that there does not need to be a > God. This has not been demonstrated. Has it been demonstrated that there needs to be a God? > In fact I think I demonstrated > quite well that humanity clearly does have a deep and abiding > psychological and emotional need of a God, and in addition not a few > humans exist with an intellectual need of a God. A psychological and emotional need of a God, no matter how great and common, does not show that a God does actually exists. >> But, again, I question your statement that there does not need to be a >> God. This has not been demonstrated. [quoted text clipped - 8 lines] > A psychological and emotional need of a God, no matter how great and > common, does not show that a God does actually exists. What does it mean for God to exist in your scheme of things? Does freedom of speech exist in your scheme of things? If so, what would you call its mode of existence? Signaturemonkfish * alt.atheism is removed from the header because trying to prove the existence of God is prohibited by their undebatable policy. ** Atheists have blind faith in their ability to know of all actual or possible modes of existence. Such hubris cannot be good for science. > On Sat, 3 May 2008 1:57:00 -0500, tension_on_the_wire wrote > (in message [quoted text clipped - 12 lines] > A psychological and emotional need of a God, no matter how great and common, > does not show that a God does actually exists. We are not discussing whether God actually exists and please don't mistake my post as an attempt to prove that. I'm simply addressing your claim that there is no need for a God. Even if there is no God, it can be demonstrated that humans do feel the need for one. I have done so already in an earlier post. You are attempting to read something into my posts which I am not saying. I do not claim that because there is a need for God, therefore there must be a God. My only argument for God lies in the very nature of the science that we do understand and the humble recognition that there is a lot more that we don't understand than our scientific hubris is currently willing to admit, as I mentioned previously. --tension --tension > I'm simply addressing > your claim that there is no need for a God. Why do people feel the need for a God? >> I'm simply addressing >> your claim that there is no need for a God. > > Why do people feel the need for a God? Because they are human; unlike some clueless people here. Signaturemonkfish * alt.atheism is removed from the header because trying to prove the existence of God is prohibited by their undebatable policy. ** Atheists have blind faith in their ability to know of all actual or possible modes of existence. Such hubris cannot be good for science. To me, I think it's because some question why they exist. I think it's a search for the "meaning of life and existence", an answer to which cannot be found by some in the "natural" universe. >Why do people feel the need for a God? > To me, I think it's because some question why they exist. > I think it's a search for the "meaning of life and existence", an > answer to which cannot be found by some in the "natural" universe. We like to think there is some reason and importance for our existence and that when we die, out spirit/soul "lives" on or as in some beliefs, are reincarnated. But there is a lot of interesting studies going on - here is one reported on CNN Are humans hard-wired for faith? Story Highlights > Scientist working to track how the human brain processes religion, spirituality > New field called neurotheology > Similar areas of the brain are affected during prayer and meditation By A. Chris Gajilan CNN NEW YORK (CNN) -- "I just know God is with me. I can feel Him always," a young Haitian woman once told me. "I've meditated and gone to another place I can't describe. Hours felt like mere minutes. It was an indescribable feeling of peace," recalled a CNN colleague. "I've spoken in languages I've never learned. It was God speaking through me," confided a relative. The accounts of intense religious and spiritual experiences are topics of fascination for people around the world. It's a mere glimpse into someone's faith and belief system. It's a hint at a person's intense connection with God, an omniscient being or higher plane. Most people would agree the experience of faith is immeasurable. Dr. Andrew Newberg, neuroscientist and author of "Why We Believe What We Believe," wants to change all that. He's working on ways to track how the human brain processes religion and spirituality. It's all part of new field called neurotheology. After spending his early medical career studying how the brain works in neurological and psychiatric conditions such as Alzheimer's and Parkinson's disease, depression and anxiety, Newberg took that brain-scanning technology and turned it toward the spiritual: Franciscan nuns, Tibetan Buddhists, and Pentecostal Christians speaking in tongues. His team members at the University of Pennsylvania were surprised by what they found. "When we think of religious and spiritual beliefs and practices, we see a tremendous similarity across practices and across traditions." The frontal lobe, the area right behind our foreheads, helps us focus our attention in prayer and meditation. The parietal lobe, located near the backs of our skulls, is the seat of our sensory information. Newberg says it's involved in that feeling of becoming part of something greater than oneself. The limbic system, nestled deep in the center, regulates our emotions and is responsible for feelings of awe and joy. Newberg calls religion the great equalizer and points out that similar areas of the brain are affected during prayer and meditation. Newberg suggests that these brain scans may provide proof that our brains are built to believe in God. He says there may be universal features of the human mind that actually make it easier for us to believe in a higher power. Interestingly enough, devout believers and atheists alike point to the brain scans as proof of their own ideas. Some nuns and other believers champion the brain scans as proof of an innate, physical conduit between human beings and God. According to them, it would only make sense that God would give humans a way to communicate with the Almighty through their brain functions. Some atheists saw these brain scans as proof that the emotions attached to religion and God are nothing more than manifestations of brain circuitry. Scott Atran doesn't consider himself an atheist, but he says the brain scans offer little in terms of understanding why humans believe in God. He is an anthropologist and author of "In Gods We Trust: The Evolutionary Landscape of Religion." Instead of viewing religion and spirituality as an innate quality hardwired by God in the human brain, he sees religion as a mere byproduct of evolution and Darwinian adaptation. "Just like we're not hardwired for boats, but humans in all cultures make boats in pretty much the same way, Atran explains. "Now, that's a result both of the way the brain works and of the needs of the world, and of trying to traverse a liquid medium and so I think religion is very much like that." Atran points to the palms of his hands as another example of evolutionary coincidence. He says the creases formed there are a mere byproduct of human beings working with our hands -- stretching back to the ages of striking the first fires, hunting the first prey to building early shelter. Although, the patterns in our palms were coincidentally formed by eons of evolution and survival, he points out that cultures around the world try to find meaning in them through different forms of palm reading. Anthropologists like Atran say, "Religion is a byproduct of many different evolutionary functions that organized our brains for day-to-day activity." To be sure, religion has the unparalleled power to bring people into groups. Religion has helped humans survive, adapt and evolve in groups over the ages. It's also helped us learn to cope with death, identify danger and finding mating partners. Today, scientific images can track our thoughts on God, but it would take a long leap of faith to identify why we think of God in the first place. A. Chris Gajilan is a senior producer with CNN Medical News. Find this article at: http://www.cnn.com/2007/HEALTH/04/04/neurotheology More ......... God on the Brain - programme summary From the BBC Rudi Affolter and Gwen Tighe have both experienced strong religious visions. He is an atheist; she a Christian. He thought he had died; she thought she had given birth to Jesus. Both have temporal lobe epilepsy. Like other forms of epilepsy, the condition causes fitting but it is also associated with religious hallucinations. Research into why people like Rudi and Gwen saw what they did has opened up a whole field of brain science: neurotheology. The connection between the temporal lobes of the brain and religious feeling has led one Canadian scientist to try stimulating them. (They are near your ears.) 80% of Dr Michael Persinger's experimental subjects report that an artificial magnetic field focused on those brain areas gives them a feeling of 'not being alone'. Some of them describe it as a religious sensation. His work raises the prospect that we are programmed to believe in god, that faith is a mental ability humans have developed or been given. And temporal lobe epilepsy (TLE) could help unlock the mystery. Religious leaders History is full of charismatic religious figures. Could any of them have been epileptics? The visions seen by Bible characters like Moses or Saint Paul are consistent with Rudi's and Gwen's, but there is no way to diagnose TLE in people who lived so long ago. There are, though, more recent examples, like one of the founders of the Seventh Day Adventist Movement, Ellen White. Born in 1827, she suffered a brain injury aged 9 that totally changed her personality. She also began to have powerful religious visions. Representatives of the Movement doubt that Ellen White suffered from TLE, saying her injury and visions are inconsistent with the condition, but neurologist Gregory Holmes believes this explains her condition. Better than sex The first clinical evidence to link the temporal lobes with religious sensations came from monitoring how TLE patients responded to sets of words. In an experiment where people were shown either neutral words (table), erotic words (sex) or religious words (god), the control group was most excited by the sexually loaded words. This was picked up as a sweat response on the skin. People with temporal lobe epilepsy did not share this apparent sense of priorities. For them, religious words generated the greatest reaction. Sexual words were less exciting than neutral ones. Make believe If the abnormal brain activity of TLE patients alters their response to religious concepts, could altering brain patterns artificially do the same for people with no such medical condition? This is the question that Michael Persinger set out to explore, using a wired-up helmet designed to concentrate magnetic fields on the temporal lobes of the wearer. His subjects were not told the precise purpose of the test; just that the experiment looked into relaxation. 80% of participants reported feeling something when the magnetic fields were applied. Persinger calls one of the common sensations a 'sensed presence', as if someone else is in the room with you, when there is none. Horizon introduced Dr Persinger to one of Britain's most renowned atheists, Prof Richard Dawkins. He agreed to try his techniques on Dawkins to see if he could give him a moment of religious feeling. During a session that lasted 40 minutes, Dawkins found that the magnetic fields around his temporal lobes affected his breathing and his limbs. He did not find god. Persinger was not disheartened by Dawkins' immunity to the helmet's magnetic powers. He believes that the sensitivity of our temporal lobes to magnetism varies from person to person. People with TLE may be especially sensitive to magnetic fields; Prof Dawkins is well below average, it seems. It's a concept that clerics like Bishop Stephen Sykes give some credence as well: could there be such a thing as a talent for religion? Brain imaging Sykes does, though, see a great difference between a 'sensed presence' and a genuine religious experience. Scientists like Andrew Newberg want to see just what does happen during moments of faith. He worked with Buddhist, Michael Baime, to study the brain during meditation. By injecting radioactive tracers into Michael's bloodstream as he reached the height of a meditative trance, Newberg could use a brain scanner to image the brain at a religious climax. The bloodflow patterns showed that the temporal lobes were certainly involved but also that the brain's parietal lobes appeared almost completely to shut down. The parietal lobes give us our sense of time and place. Without them, we may lose our sense of self. Adherants to many of the world's faiths regard a sense of personal insignificance and oneness with a deity as something to strive for. Newberg's work suggests a neurological basis for what religion tries to generate. Religious evolution If brain function offers insight into how we experience religion, does it say anything about why we do? There is evidence that people with religious faith have longer, healthier lives. This hints at a survival benefit for religious people. Could we have evolved religious belief? Prof Dawkins (who subscribes to evolution to explain human development) thinks there could be an evolutionary advantage, not to believing in god, but to having a brain with the capacity to believe in god. That such faith exists is a by-product of enhanced intelligence. Prof Ramachandran denies that |
Enable EMail Alerts
Start New Thread
Reply to this Message