[X] My Assistant

[ljk4-1]

I wonder what it means that so many Red States got hit by the most hurricanes recorded in one season this year?

And don't forget the just-after-Christmas 2004 tsunami that wiped out just a few lives from Africa to Indonesia, or the recent earthquake that left 80,000 dead and 200,000 homeless in Pakistan.

Conclusions: Everyone's a sinner, God doesn't discriminate, or maybe we just happen to live on a planet with an active geology and climate.

God reports - we decide.

[mike]

Yeah, but see, God works in mysterious ways and He never Tells you what exactly He Wants, so You Just Have To Guess All The Time. So what God wants is for You to be Worried all the Time that You might be Pissing Him Off, and He Hopes that You Die of Anxiety long Before you meet an Angel or see Jesus create More Bread from Nowhere. Then, once You go to Heaven, He Will Laugh at You because It was Obvious what He Wanted the Whole Time, and You will Probably Burn in Hell for all Eternity.

Praise God, or Else He Will Destroy You, which He might Do Anyway, because He is one Wacky Dude.

[Guest_Richard Trigaux_*]

I wonder what it means that so many Red States got hit by the most hurricanes recorded in one season this year?

This is because climate change is worsening hurricanes, as predicted for already more than ten years by mainstream meteorologists. In a way, it is a punishment for our sins, but do not seek for God's hand in there, it is a self-inflicted punishment.

Unintelligent Design...

[Guest_Richard Trigaux_*]

Yeah, but see, God works in mysterious ways and He never Tells you what exactly He Wants, so You Just Have To Guess All The Time.  So what God wants is for You to be Worried all the Time that You might be Pissing Him Off, and He Hopes that You Die of Anxiety long Before you meet an Angel or see Jesus create More Bread from Nowhere.  Then, once You go to Heaven, He Will Laugh at You because It was Obvious what He Wanted the Whole Time, and You will Probably Burn in Hell for all Eternity.

Praise God, or Else He Will Destroy You, which He might Do Anyway, because He is one Wacky Dude.

mike,

what I think is, if there is something like God who exists, it is very likely some metaphysical entity, or very evolved being, to be able to master space and time. You consider or not this hypothesis, but I think it is anyway awkward to impute Him a psyche of reality-show and petty bourgeois motives. He is surely not a guy like us. The question "why he tolerates evil" is complex and has no definitive response today. The best guess I think is that he tolerates evil because we tolerate it too. Or that we must learn by ourself, in place of paying indulgences to priests in hope to be saved and not the others.

A bit of reply is perhaps that about 3 percent of NDE experiencers report very unpleasant experiences, including strong disconfort, pain or terror, and also invariably the feeling of being mocked at. But afterward they realise that only their fear or mind limitation made their experience unpleasant, and feel that they were taugh a lesson by beings who laughed at them as we laugh at a child who is scared to climb on a bicycle for the first time.

[helvick]

The question "why he tolerates evil" is complex and has no definitive response today. The best guess I think is that he tolerates evil because we tolerate it too. Or that we must learn by ourself, in place of paying indulgences to priests in hope to be saved and not the others. 

The concept of "evil" is an odd one in many ways. Ecosystems tend to be pretty evil if you look at them closely - prey\predator relationships, parasites and even innocent seeming herbivores can be agents of mass (and totally arbitrary) destruction.

Any higher (if he\it\they exist(s)) being would certainly pay as little attention to our "evil" as we do to a parasitic wasp injecting it's eggs into a paralysed victim.

Levels of Intelligence might alter that. I am more upset for example by my cats arbitrary cruelty than I am when I come across a spider slowly sucking the life out of its prey.

Evolution is a pretty evil process much of the time if you choose to look at it that way - it simply rewards success and pays no attention to morality. In the long term it may be that non-evil attributes\behaviors will be more successful for a species or ecosystems as a whole but for our ecosystem right now success at all costs is what gets rewarded. I have at the back of my mind a groundless concern that at the galactic scale if there is a lot of life then evolution could create some truly terrible predators.

[Guest_Richard Trigaux_*]

The concept of "evil" is an odd one in many ways. Ecosystems tend to be pretty evil if you look at them closely - prey\predator relationships, parasites and even innocent seeming herbivores can be agents of mass (and totally arbitrary) destruction.

Evil certainly existed before us (if we understand evil as what produces suffering and destruction of conscious beings) and this is perhaps the worse argument after a creation which was closely orchestrated by God. The less than we can say is that it was not so closely watched, or that something nicely cocked up. And that it was certainly not the fault of men (and no more the faul of women, as some male chauvinists say)

If we look at what says paleontology, it says that predation appeared first, consciousness after, and what we call intelligence only in last. Theologists much reflected about why such a situation, or how to do with. Atheists in the Sade style took it as a justification for their refusal of morality. What I think is that we must find a solution by ourselves, so that OUR consciousness and OUR happiness can win over crude material forces. We can do many, if we want. Maybe God will help us.

I have at the back of my mind a groundless concern that at the galactic scale if there is a lot of life then evolution could create some truly terrible predators.

Interstellar predators, like in Holywood movies? Which may fall on us one day, and destroy everything, save a young american who will etc etc. At first, it is obvious that in four billion years we received no visit of such predators until now (otherwise we should not be here). That makes such predators relatively rare.
But what I think is that such a planetary predation is useless. Why? because, to be able to colonize another planet, a race must develop technologies such as automatons (self-replicating machines, which, from this, can exist in nearby infinite quantities and thus can perform the hugest tasks you can imagine, including completelly engineering whole planets), harnessing asteroids as a material source, fusion as an energy source... With this in hand, any race could colonise any planed it wants (even if it takes thousand years to travel to the next star, only some million years are required to colonise a whole galaxy). But, from this, they have no need to attack inhabited planets, like in the movies. Worse, any inhabited planet is infested with indigenous bacteria, which makes colonizing an inhabited planed much more dangerous than a planet with a toxic atmosphere. So attackers of our system would better terraform Mars of Venus that send no crewed ship on Earth. And indeed this never happened, as Mars and Venus bear no trace of past colonization.

Evolution is a pretty evil process much of the time if you choose to look at it that way - it simply rewards success and pays no attention to morality. In the long term it may be that non-evil attributes\behaviors will be more successful for a species or ecosystems as a whole but for our ecosystem right now success at all costs is what gets rewarded.

"success at all costs is what gets rewarded" in our past evolution, because it is what worked. In our today society too, it is still too often what works, alas. But if we want to develop a moralistic happiness-fostering society, we shall have to develop means to protect it against any attack by non-moral beings.
It is what we did when we developped laws and morals, to protect against crimes and nasty behaviours. It is clear that it is not enough today, as there are still crimes, wars, pollution etc. which call for a much more profound understanding of society and human psyche, in order to avoid that some children develop an evil soul. The question is not "if we shall success", it is if we do what is necessary, we shall success. If we do not, we shall be eliminated. Not by intelligent design, but by blind selection.

We must understand than mankind is not "the apex of the development of intelligence for which all was orchestrated". It is just an attempt to develop intelligence and understanding of life. One attempt. If it fails, some other attempts may come in ten or fifty million years, at times where even our nuclear wastes will be only memories. If we consider that Earth still has one billion years to live before burning with the sun heating, that makes room for twenty such attempts. Up to us to be the first to success.

[Jeff7]

If we consider that Earth still has one billion years to live before burning with the sun heating, that makes room for twenty such attempts. Up to us to be the first to success.

The estimate I recall is that we have 5 billion years until the Sun goes red giant on us.

[Guest_Richard Trigaux_*]

The estimate I recall is that we have 5 billion years until the Sun goes red giant on us.

Yes but Earth regulates its temperature with natural greenhouse effect. But when greenhouse gasses will be at a concentration near zero, this mechanism will be unable to work, allowing the temperature to rise, eventually at a level incompatible with life. When? I heard once this figure of one billion years.

[Tom Ames]

On the issue of science education: the reason ID chould not be allowed to be taught in US public schools is not because it is wrong (it hasn't even risen to that level yet). It's not because it is not science (ditto).

ID, like "creation science" before it is religiously motivated, and therefore violates the Establichment Clause of the US Constitution.

There's actually no law against teaching bad science or pseudoscience in science classes. (There's not even a law against teaching revisionist history, for that matter.)

[Guest_Richard Trigaux_*]

On the issue of science education: the reason ID chould not be allowed to be taught in US public schools is not because it is wrong (it hasn't even risen to that level yet). It's not because it is not science (ditto).

ID, like "creation science" before it is religiously motivated, and therefore violates the Establichment Clause of the US Constitution.

There's actually no law against teaching bad science or pseudoscience in science classes. (There's not even a law against teaching revisionist history, for that matter.)

Intelligent Design is, at best, an hypothesis. So with my opinion, it could be mentioned as an hypothesis, no more. Together with the pro and con arguments. To be strict, any science theory is an hypothesis too, but a theory such as evolution of life is supported by much more facts so that it can be presented as the accepted theory.

In France, there was, some years ago, in History or Geography courses at school, some presentation of the main religions. I do not know if this is still the case (the tendency now being more against religions) but I found this interesting, so that everybody can make his opinion and base it on facts, not on prejudices and ready-made statements.


Most scientists will say they reject Intelligent Design because it is not supported by facts. It is a good reason. But I am afraid that, in some cases, they reject it because it involves a metaphysical entity. This is not a good reason. I think that, even in science, we are not allowed to reject a-priori such explanations. Simply, until today, there is no physical evidence of any such entities, so that it is still largely speculative to invoke them. A possibility is that we shall NEVER have any physical evidence of the existence of God or other metaphysical/spiritual entities, because these evidences exist, but are not in the domain of physics. In this case physical science will have to admit that it cannot explain everything.

[Jeff7]

What I find interesting too is that proponents of ID say that it's not religiously motivated in any way at all, but then you have people like Pat Robertson saying that rejecting ID is rejecting God.
But wait, I thought they were separate issues?
Some proponent elsewhere, on a school board, said that he would not keep the Lord out of schools - again, clear evidence that ID is religiously motivated.

[deglr6328]

.......Most scientists will say they reject Intelligent Design because it is not supported by facts. It is a good reason. But I am afraid that, in some cases, they reject it because it involves a metaphysical entity. This is not a good reason. I think that, even in science, we are not allowed to reject a-priori such explanations. Simply, until today, there is no physical evidence of any such entities, so that it is still largely speculative to invoke them. A possibility is that we shall NEVER have any physical evidence of the existence of God or other metaphysical/spiritual entities, because these evidences exist, but are not in the domain of physics. In this case physical science will have to admit that it cannot explain everything.

I would like to very strongly, but respectfully disagree on this point. I think it is not only ok and an equally good reason to reject it; but it is in fact necessary to reject things like ID from the realm of scientific inquiry precisely because it involves a metaphysical entity. It is an idea that by definition belongs fully and completely within the supernatural realm. It is an idea whose precepts lie outside of the natural world and therefore cannot be examined and tested by our science.

If you accept the idea that there actually is a supernatural world then yes, it would follow that "science would have to admit that it cannot explain everything". However, I (for instance) remain completely unconvinced that there needs to be any supernatural counterpart to our natural world, and therefore I am apt to think that all of this ID talk is just so much bollocks.



If I might, I would like to revisit ljk4's mention of Carl sagan's thoughts about us and our place in the universe. When I first read his idea that "we are the universe experiencing itself" (can't remember if it was in Cosmos or The Demon Haunted World) it immediately struck me as one of the most intensely beautiful ideas I had ever considered.

At first, it is an idea that sounds rather akin to any other of the many "new agey"-feelgood but ultimately nonsensical and subjective ideas of the fuzzyheaded Deepak Chopra type gurus. But on further examination, it is an idea that reveals itself to be the exact opposite of that sort of thing. Its real. We really are living conscious beings that evolved over millions of years on a planet borne of billions of years of stellar elemental transformation. It's an idea that just gets better and truer the more you learn about how the universe works and how the evolution of life and finally self-aware intelligence fits so perfectly within the universe. It is a thought so deeply mysterious and wonderful that I think it is the closest I have ever come, or ever will come to experiencing a feeling that might be called "spiritual".

[mike]

Some people like to believe that they can just wish for things to happen and they will happen. That's religion.

[Tom Ames]

The problems I see with ID:

1. It invokes a supernatural cause and simultaneously insists that it be considered science. Supernatural causation is verboten in scientific inquiry, not because the atheists say so, but because it makes rigor and universality impossible.

2. ID is primarily (in the US) a political-cultural movement, and not a scientific one. Efforts to teach it are no more than propaganda for a particular brand of religious conservatism.

3. Why stop at evolution? Should we mandate that students be taught to doubt the big bang model simply because it offends someone's religious sensibilities? If evolution is allowed to succumb to this movement, all other sciences will be vulnerable to politically motivated manipulations of the curriculum (from the left as well as the right).

4. ID has put forward no theory to criticize. It commits to no test, and admits any outcome. Completely non-falsifiable. In this regard, ID is less scientific than its progenitor, "Creation Science".

[Guest_Richard Trigaux_*]

... or ever will come to experiencing a feeling that might be called "spiritual".

Yes it is. What I say is tha THIS kind of feeling can be called spiritual. That is no all the spirituality of course, but great masters encourage us toward such feelings.



The idea that there may exist "supernatural" entities is another matter. But can really science positively state there are not, only because it cannot check? Remember the famous Popper epistemological point: if we cannot do a test for an hypothesis, so we cannot state that this hypothesis is true (or even probable). But, would be said, it does not PROVE that it is false. It can be true. Simply we do not know, and therefore we cannot built any knowledge or line of conduct on it. (for instance we cannot teach ID as an "alternative science hypothesis", just mention it as a speculation)

And if science today accepts only MATERIAL evidences, it cannot prove/disprove any hypothesis of an IMMATERIAL nature. To be able to positively state the existence/inexistence of other domains will obviously require OTHER TYPES of evidences.

Things goes so far that some fundamentalist scientists denegate the existence of consciousness itself (a very practical stance to also denegate any morals or responsibility toward society) because it is not materially observable!! Of course we cannot weight consciousness, but however you can do the test very easily: we can observe our own consciousness (at least this one), more preciselly the fact that we are conscious, and it is even the very first thing we are aware of, when we wake up in the morning.

There is even a whole domain of today science which deals with "metaphysical" entities which existence cannot be materially observed. They even go so far than rigorously rejecting any material evidence. I let guess what, you and Tom Ames.