Fibrosa

Not this old inaccurate strawman.

First, the obligatory: Proofs are only for math and alcohol.

Second, you can indeed give evidence that love exists. You can in fact measure it through scientific means.

Furthermore you can describe where love comes from and what it entails.

You can not do that for "God", as witness to your inevitable stumbling over the next few questions:

Is God material or immaterial? How do you know?

Is God omniscient? How do you know? Where does God keep all this knowledge?

Describe God. Give some primary positive characteristics, not negative characteristics such as God is omnipotent, omniscient, and omnipresent, which all tell us what God is not limited by, but tells us exactly ZIP about God.

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D'oh!

martinguerre

"It's odd how you qualify a non-scientific argument with pseudo-scientific reasoning. I'm sure you know from experience that chaos does not only lead to more chaos, look around you. A complex, well-ordered organism can be grown from a seed or egg, and you can turn a few small lumps of rock into an Ipod."

He is actually right, you know. The second law of thermodynamics states that in a closed system entropy does increase overall. All the counter examples you state require the input of outside energy.

"Obviously all research that you do not immediately see the benefit of, is pointless."

I certainly don't think that. My point did not concern the utility of theoretical research in any way shape or form. My point was that science doesn't answer some kinds of questions.

__________________
For God so loved creation, that God sent God's only Son that whosoever believed should not perish, but have everlasting life.

-John 3:16

adysav

Yes, 'overall' being the important word there. Also most increases in entropy require an activation energy to start a reaction, which is why we don't all just instantly turn into a soup of warm particles.
Anyway, he said chaos only leads to more chaos.You'll never know whether or not it can answer them if you don't try. We could just pass up on research into how the physiology of the brain creates our emotions, but I don't think we should do that, especially just for the sake of retaining some of the mystery in the universe.

xepherys

Strangely enough, that's how many theories start, whether they are incorrect or quite on the dot.


I'm not sure that most Physicists would approve of Chaos Theory being classified as psuedo-science. In fact, chaos (entropy) DOES increase as time moves forward. A tree is much more chaotic in nature than an acorn, and iPod much more than it's elemental components, especially since the components are man made (unnatural) and the manufacturing process creates further chaos with byproducts being introduced. Things that are complex are very rarely "well-ordered". How is a tree, or a sunflower, or anything of that nature more ordered than the seed from which it was produced?


Hmmm... you use gravity, part of particle physics as an explanation, though you denote chaos theory as psuedo-science. Next, gravity is a device used in common science, but since we have no exact grasp on it's forces, we have no clue if gravity works the same or even exists at all elsewhere in the galaxy. We assume it does based on our observations, but observations alone are not factual science.

In the end, I agree... the lack of explanation does NOT prove the existance of God. However, at least refute it with reasonable evidence.

martinguerre

"You'll never know whether or not it can answer them if you don't try. We could just pass up on research into how the physiology of the brain creates our emotions, but I don't think we should do that, especially just for the sake of retaining some of the mystery in the universe."

Again. Just in case i wasn't clear. you can imagine this in all caps if you like, in fact, please do. I believe in theoretical research.

Rinse. Wash. Repeat.

Science does not answer some kinds of questions, becuase it is a tool with a range of specific and wonderful uses. I do not support any curtailment of science, especially in the fascinating realm of neuro-science. Learning the how will only help us ask the why. Ideas support questions. Some will be answered by science. Some will remain questions, at least for a while. And some may be addressed by religious and ethical systems. Awe and wonder do not cease with learning. They only increase.

The mystery of the universe is not that we don't have any idea what's going on...it's in the very operations and existance of it that makes it amazing. Even when we know every last bit about how systems work, we can still marvel at their ability to function and adapt. Even if we knew exactly how chemicals created emotions, we could still have awe and wonder that such a system was with in us, giving us that lens with which to view the world.

What you're driving at, i imagine, is that the world might be completely deterministic, and that if we properly understood it, that it would cease to have any wonder for us. Inputs go to outputs, reliably and with out change.

Well...i don't think it's so. Part of that is wishful thinking...it's much more interesting to live in a world that isn't deterministic. Part of it is my beleif in science. Reading Hawking, Feynman, Einstien, and others...i see the same awe and wonder that drives me to ask questions about the universe. And i see them explain the way in which the universe ceaselessly produces more layers of complexity for us to examine.

I think it was Feynman who wrote that "Nature abhors a vacuum." He was talking about the universe's tendancy to make something happen when absolutely nothing was happening otherwise. But i think of it poetically. Where there is no matter, no energy, no life, no change, no awe, nor wonder....that pure isolation will always be disturbed. With out that, there can be no story worth telling. Another writer puts it well.

"In the beginning..."

__________________
For God so loved creation, that God sent God's only Son that whosoever believed should not perish, but have everlasting life.

-John 3:16

Bionic Monkey

Whoever said I was an athiest? Regardless, what worked for Lewis will not work for everybody. The simple fact is, for every "Athiest turned Christian" you point out, I could point out another "Christian turned Athiest".

The truth is, this koan or blurb or whatever you want to call it is highly overused and easily dismissed by someone who can take an empiracle look at it.

Bionic Monkey

I just wanted to state, especially since this is so woefully misunderstood, that the Earth is not a closed system. It recieves massive amounts of energy every day from the sun alone. Nevermind the constant stream of debris and particles that are always entering our atmosphere.

martinguerre

*nods

I'm shaking my head...i don't know what the original poster had in mind for this thread, but i know i wouldn't try to prove anything this way. the utility of this idea is to be a rough approximation of the way your mind might have to bend a bit to accomodate the idea of God. You don't have to keep it that way, and you're welcome to have a different experience of what it might mean...

But don't think that bringing the question down to a level of strict determinism is an intellectual victory. It is the path with the very least thinking one could possibly choose.

__________________
For God so loved creation, that God sent God's only Son that whosoever believed should not perish, but have everlasting life.

-John 3:16

thriolith

Love is a feeling and I sure can't fell "God"...

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- Thriolith

yster

Even if a person doesn't believe in love, doesn't free them from its effects. Be it biochemical or spiritual, awareness of how one is being influenced does not free us =)
It might give us a better perspective, of course. I personally believe it is purely selfish (loving oneself through another) and biology, but isn't it great? =p

adysav

In the earlier post you said:
"We don't understand the brain very well at all...we have a basic working knowledge of the mechanisms...but very little concerning the way in which it functions on higher levels. in the end...i'd much rather give myself space to be surprised, by both God and nature."
To me that sounded like you didnt really approve of the research going any further. If I misunderstood then just ignore the previous posts.Most theories are not plucked out of the air willy-nilly but are based on some kind of observation. Newton gets knocked on the head with an apple and thinks "hey something looks to be pulling that down". If I lose my keys however, I don't put it down to the fact that the invisible beetles must have been in control of my body when I last had them. Similarly, blaming a being which is undetectable yet omnipresent doesn't do it for me.
I could tell you that I made the first mobile phone in my garage, and to a lot of you that would be less plausible than the existence of a universe-wide, all seeing, all-knowing invisible father figure who is conspicuous by his absence in everyday life, until we die.
It's thermodynamics, not chaos theory. I said pseudo-scientific because he was misquoting well known scientific laws to further his point.Yes the overall entropy increases, but an Ipod is not less ordered than it's elemental components (what has being man-made got to do with anything?). If you don't see that then I don't know what I can say to help you understand.
A tree is more chaotic than an acorn? Several tons of roaming simple molecules are brought together to form a well structured biological factory.
Complex objects are well ordered, that's why they're complex.

martinguerre

"in the end...i'd much rather give myself space to be surprised, by both God and nature."

Rather than assume that it all works out deterministically? Yeah, i do. The Evangelically Atheist often push towards this assumption, that if it involves matter, that there's nothing special going on, and that the human brain is a computer that deterministically produces output systematically obtained from input. (The regular Evangelic often says a very similar thing about history...that God's dominion is inexorably expressed in history and is working towards a preordained moment for the second coming. i just find the parallel interesting...)

I'd much rather step back from that, and assume for the time being that i'm going to be surprised. Also, given the current facts at hand...i see absolutely no rational basis for in insistance that anything is "just" an chemical reaction when it comes to the brain. It's like saying the Saturn V is "just" a way of burning things. When i first see a Saturn V, i don't know it can send something to the moon. I look around the outside, see some vague schematics...i might guess that, but i'm sure as hell going to guess that it does *something* important.

A person can try to assume that things are small, definite, deterministic, and limited. Or they can assume otherwise...

I know what i choose...i've been trying to talk about why that is.

PS. That being surprised by nature part? That was a reference to the study of the continuing work of science.


This analogy is not supposed to make you think "big grandfather in the sky." This analogy is one way of explaining how people move past that idea, and still claim a belief in God.

__________________
For God so loved creation, that God sent God's only Son that whosoever believed should not perish, but have everlasting life.

-John 3:16

adysav

Well yeah, it is. Granted it would probably be the most expensive barbeque in history, but that's not it's reason for being. The thing is, reason for being doesn't really matter in this point. Essentially the Saturn V is a complicated machine for burning things in a very controlled fashion.
The human brain is just a machine for interpreting the stimuli you come into contact with and making decisions based upon them. I don't see any rational basis for this being anything but "just" chemical reactions.

As far as determinism goes, it's not a given for an atheist to think like that. The laws which govern subatomic interactions are indeterministic as far as we know.

martinguerre

see, and this is where i know that the argument has hit a brick wall. of doom.

Let's parse what you're saying.

To state: "Essentially the Saturn V is a complicated machine for burning things in a very controlled fashion," you have to omit *vast* amount of information to the point of extreme distortion. It's purpose for being is surely known, one of the most memorable speeches ever recorded commissioned it's flight.

"We choose to go to the moon. We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept..."
Full text and audio, at http://vesuvius.jsc.nasa.gov/er/seh/ricetalk.htm

Okay. So you had to cut that out, and claim that it's irrelevant. But in the human experience...what mattered about at Saturn V? That it burned things? Ask anyone who can remember July 20th 1969. They will not tell you about an expensive barbaque.

Look...it's an analogy...if you don't want to get it...fine. Say its a costly matchstick. But honestly? That's a pretty silly answer, and i'd guess you know that.

__________________
For God so loved creation, that God sent God's only Son that whosoever believed should not perish, but have everlasting life.

-John 3:16

adysav

I know what you're saying and despite the fact that our brains are phenomenal in complexity and achieve so much during our lifetime, they are still just bags of meat run by electrical and chemical interactions.

planets

"Well yeah, it is. Granted it would probably be the most expensive barbeque in history, but that's not it's reason for being. The thing is, reason for being doesn't really matter in this point. Essentially the Saturn V is a complicated machine for burning things in a very controlled fashion.
The human brain is just a machine for interpreting the stimuli you come into contact with and making decisions based upon them. I don't see any rational basis for this being anything but "just" chemical reactions."

Well... any claim for measuring the extent to which our brains are disengaged calculating machines is lost in its purpose, for these calculations and rationalizations are performed by the very entity that is being studied.

Besides that, your observations and conclusions, which may or may not be deterministic, tempered by the most objective logic or just unreasonable, improbable or founded in reality, are still inextricably your observations. you cannot dispel or discount others' opinions based on ur perception of what a certain event means, because perception is founded upon axioms particular to you. Take that into account with the point made in the preceding paragraph, and you have an inalienable obligation to respect others opinion.

adysav

Well you could argue that there is no point in discussing anything because everyone's perception is unique to them, so effectively everyone is discussing different events.

planets

haha that's a nifty excuse for social recluses... but discussions were never a means towards finding a perfect answer. The socratic dialectic is "an exchange of propositions (theses) and counter-propositions (antitheses) resulting in a synthesis of the opposing assertions, or at least a qualitative transformation in the direction of the dialogue" (wikipedia). It is because we understand the impossibility of perfect sympathy towards others' points of view (due to the same brain thinking about brain argument), that debates and discussions must necessarily exist to arrive at a more coherent and socially accepted perception.
Of course then, anyone could argue that they were not really social animals (reducing the case to an excuse for social recluses), and are totally driven towards debates by the need to impose their views upon others. In which case they'd have to convince first why the heck their views are better than others', but that they'd never be able to achieve cos that requires disengaged consideration from others. Either way then, it's a lost cause and they'd probably be better off sitting at home telling their ideas to virtuagirl 2000. or something.

RedbeardUH

What do you guys think about this:

Pre 1500s or so, "love" didn't exist. Modern day love does not equal acienct idea of "love." How is this reconcilible?

Mantus

“Love” describes a state of being.

“God” describes a being.

The two terms are quite different in my opinion since the qualities of “love” are based on experience while some qualities of “God” are not.

hannukah harry

i think it's wrong and a pretty assinine statement.

/being honest

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shabbat shalom, mother fucker! - the hebrew hammer

planets

If love didn't exist in ancient times, we have no definition of love to compare our current definitions of love against, thus both the statement you make and consequently the question you ask are vacuous.

Aside from the logical arguments. Maybe love was present in those times, but our primitive minds weren't sophisticated enough to define it. Perhaps we expressed love by clubbing members of the opposite gender over their heads and dragging them back to our caves. God on the other hand, must surely have been treated with unreasonable amount of respect. If we can't put into words the magnificence of a sunrise now, almost a millenia ahead (most rely on muted reverence i guess), we can imagine how people of the past might have expressed their awe.
I made a naughty assumption here - the ability to reason removes fear. Just as procuring knowledge has been thought of as a successive removal of the relevance of God. Granted, I am not justified, but some priests in the christian order (or was it catholic i don't recall) did think that long long ago.

adysav

I was thinking about this again, and I'm not sure if I agree entirely.
Yes, perception is unique to the person, but opinions are not purely based on perception. Opinions are filtered through people's bias, desire, social conditioning, inexperience and occassionally rational processes. I have no obligation to respect someone's opinion if it's clearly a load of shit.

Locs

adysav,

I have to totally agree with all your posts in this thread. I wish I could meld my words together like that, because that is exactally how I feel.

Yes, I really like the way you explain things.