[FRIAM] God in Science and Religion (was Re: why some people hate cops)

[Prof David West]

2 cents on religion —

Pretty sure I have never hated any group, a couple of individuals have come close ...

Although every institution of religion. be it a three person cult or a global church, is, in my opinion a festering pit of purulence, there is no hate there, just a strong desire to stay upwind.

When it comes to both science and religion I cannot understand either: 1) the rush to promulgate a "definitive answer;" or the pronouncement that "those questions lead not to edification."

BTW: proselytization of any "Truth" should be a serious felony and conviction of same should result in permanent exile from the community.

davew


On Fri, Sep 25, 2020, at 5:25 PM, Gary Schiltz wrote:
> This isn't in response to Nick, just a convenient place to hit "Reply" in a thread in which I've already deleted most of the past messages. My own take on why to hate religion and/or religious people is based on my upbringing in and around a population of fairly uneducated, intolerant religious bigots in northeast Kansas. There was one, and only one, "true" way to believe, and that was a "fire and brimstone" authoritarian father figure as "God", and us poor mortals as worms whose only hope to escape painfully burning for eternity in hell, was to admit how much filth we are and beg humbly and fervently for forgiveness for being that way. I grew up believing all that crap. I loved nature, so I was drawn to biology. Unfortunately, my high school biology teacher was a deacon in the Baptist church and fervent creationist. I went to University to study biology, with a huge chip on my shoulder, determined to prove these evolution-believing numbskull professors of their folly. I basically wasted the first three years of my college education believing that creationist shit. Somehow I finally saw through it and became a "born-again atheist". My hero is Richard Dawkins. In my case, that was the only way I had been exposed to religion, and once I rejected it, I've found it much easier (maybe I'm lazy) to reject religion out of hand with the same fervor that those intolerant people of my childhood did, and continue to, embrace it.
> 
> On Fri, Sep 25, 2020 at 5:04 PM <thompnickson2 at gmail.com> wrote:
>> reiteration of evidence to Eric the deep disdain and hatred many in Science____

>> __ __

>> Yeah.  Richard Dawkins and three other loonies.  I was in a chatgroup with hard scientists, etc., from all over the world for about a year, and I was the only avowed non-religious person on the chat.  The european physicists were all dedicated cartesians seeking truth in the real world … I e, the world that god knows and we aspire to know.   Any belief in a world beyond experience is a religious belief.  ____

>> __ __

>> I persist in thinking the key word is “hate”, here.   The way you speak these “many”,  with their “deep distain and hatred” in such sweeping terms, it seems that you hate them.  So what exactly is hate.  I think it’s an attempt to recruit allies to expell the target from one’s universe, to exile them. But Frank is right:  There is an element of “*get thee behind me”* in hatred.  You cannot hate what you don’t feel in some degree attached to.  So the key to resolving hatred is to find the tie that binds one to the thing one hates, and snip it.  Once you have done that, one doesn’t need allies any more.   You just walk away. ____

>> __ __

>> So, Steve.  What do you find **attractive** in the scientistic denial of faith?  I am guessing that it has to do with their claim of certainty. But certainty is something that ony a religious person can have.    Or, to put it round the other way, Whenever we speak with  certainty, we are speaking from the religious side of ourselves. As I am doing right now. ____

>> __ __

>> Nick ____

>> Nicholas Thompson____

>> Emeritus Professor of Ethology and Psychology____

>> Clark University____

>> ThompNickSon2 at gmail.com____

>> https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/____

>> ____

>> __ __

>> __ __


>> *From:* Friam <friam-bounces at redfish.com> *On Behalf Of *Stephen Guerin
>> *Sent:* Friday, September 25, 2020 10:41 AM
>> *To:* The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <friam at redfish.com>
>> *Subject:* Re: [FRIAM] God in Science and Religion (was Re: why some people hate cops)____

>> __ __

>> __ __

>> On Fri, Sep 25, 2020 at 5:42 AM Marcus Daniels <marcus at snoutfarm.com> wrote:____

>>> I don’t, for example, recognize quantum mechanics as truth.  If it turns out there is a convincing explanation why nature has to be this way, then it has to be this way and the “divine” has been cornered.   If nature can be some other way, in regimes that are hard for today’s technology to observe, then those are interesting qualifications or alternative models.   It’s all just provisional. ____

>> __ __

>> I brought up Planck's views for two reasons:____

>>  * His views on religion and his rejection of its foundation of miracle and superstition ____
>>  * His challenge to the most sophisticated of scientists with "generalized world views" that an understanding/model of "God" is a worthy goal for a scientist.____
>> While I think Action and Bidirectional Path Tracing in Dual Fields is a potential model (Glen and Jon can unpack that in a steel man) I don't want to get distracted by the "How" the synthesis might happen. To borrow from Eric Smith in the Jim Rutt Podcast <https://jimruttshow.blubrry.net/the-jim-rutt-show-transcripts/transcript-of-episode-40-eric-smith-on-the-physics-of-living-systems/>: "we shouldn’t try to spin scenarios at this point". ____

>> __ __


>> And for full disclosure, upon reflection, my post was mostly targeted at Eric Smith after I saw his comment on Marcus's post. 
>> 
>> First was to use Marcus's post as a reiteration of evidence to Eric the deep disdain and hatred many in Science have for Religion which we've talked about in the past and second to potentially engage Eric as one of the few scientists I know with a sufficient "generalized world view" to see the most basic patterns in Science and attempt a synthesis. If not leading the synthesis, at least playing bullshit detector and helping in pointing out potential formalizations.____


>> 
>> FWIW,  Eric's close colleague, the late Harold Morowitz, expressed similar views as Max Planck. ____

>>      see: https://www.amazon.com/Cosmic-Joy-Local-Pain-Scientist/dp/0684184435 ____

>> __ __

>> I know Eric is resistant at the value or even the worthiness of this pursuit. I put this out as a public challenge to Eric and he can decline.  I think it could be one of the greatest scientific contributions of our time. ____

>> __ __

>> To Marcus, Glen and Jon, I will try to refrain from casting pearls ;-p  (meant in humor)____

>> -Stephen____

>> __ __

>> __ __

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