RE: Black Hole eats sun (Full Version)

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Piwin -> RE: Black Hole eats sun (May 23 2017 2:12:28)

No I don't mean agnostics, which I consider in general as "functionally atheists" (i.e. they live their lives on the same assumptions as atheists would).
Is it possible you're confusing deism with theism? Because by definition, deists believe in a god that does not intervene directly in the world, and so by definition they would have no problem at all fitting their god into a world where that god was not needed.
Max Planck is a good example of a scientist who was also a deist, and I have no doubt he had a firm grasp on most of the fields you mentioned.
But I don't know, maybe he did have to do some intellectual cartwheels to reconcile all that. If he did, can't imagine the cartwheels that Francis Collins, head of the human genome project and evangelical Christian, must be doing... Most people dismiss it with the terms "cognitive dissonance", which really doesn't say much to me, except that he was human like the rest of us. Whether he was losing any more sleep than the rest of us, honestly don't know.
All of knowledge is hard work (though I'm not sure what's so difficult about fitting squares into circles (?) what's difficult, impossible if I understand correctly, is making a square that has the same area as a circle, but that's something else entirely). All of it is a fragile edifice built on human concepts and approximations of reality that help make sense of the world. Generaly relativity isn't any more "true" than Newtonian physics, it's just a better approximation. I guess the trick is to not look down. Because if you do, like Agrippa the Skeptic did back in the 1st century CE or like other thinkers did after him, eventually devising the Münchhausen trilemma, then you end up realizing how fragile the whole edifice is, and how it just might in fact be impossible to ever attain certain knowledge about anything.




Richard Jernigan -> RE: Black Hole eats sun (May 23 2017 2:40:03)

Having observed at close range my religious relatives and friends for the more than 60 years since I left religion, I find a variety of attitudes among them.

Some are quite well educated in science. Speaking for myself, the great goal of science throughout its existence has been to discover and understand the "laws of nature." The quest has been to understand the universe through the development of concepts, and the application of logical reasoning, including sizable doses of mathematics.

I am living proof of the fact that one can get along quite well without needing some overarching intelligence to have laid out the discoverable regularities of the universe. Others seem to need a "prime mover," to quote one of the arguments of the medieval scholastics. Many of these believers are able to view the universe in essentially the same way I do, but with an additional layer of divinity on top, who set it all going.

These believers are people of outstanding moral character, who have raised children and grandchildren of the highest intellectual and professional achievements--some religious and some not.

I don't think their religious beliefs have held them or their children back intellectually at all. And they don't try to impose their views on me.

Others among my relatives are more traditionally religious, finding justification for their social attitudes among scriptural prescriptions which, according to my recollection, Jesus himself said were outmoded and no longer in effect.

I find these people annoying at times, but I manage to hold my tongue and say, "Well if God is against it, so be it, but it is not up to me to judge those people, as long as they are not harming others"--a position I believe is itself justified by scripture. Much of the time they go ahead and judge anyhow. My take is that they would be judgmental whether they were Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist, Two-Peas-in-a-Pod Predestinarian Pentecostals, or atheists.

They are people who need to be certain, and at times need to tell others about it. But most of the time, they are generous, thoughtful, cheerful, nice to be around and of admirable moral character--when they are not being judgmental.

I don't think religion is going away any time soon. It seems to be an innate, or at least an almost inevitably acquired trait in a very large number of humans.

Perhaps there is an evolutionary explanation for this?

RNJ

Time to practice...




Richard Jernigan -> RE: Black Hole eats sun (May 23 2017 4:36:18)

quote:

ORIGINAL: Piwin
I guess the trick is to not look down. Because if you do, like Agrippa the Skeptic did back in the 1st century CE or like other thinkers did after him, eventually devising the Münchhausen trilemma, then you end up realizing how fragile the whole edifice is, and how it just might in fact be impossible to ever attain certain knowledge about anything.


The mathematician would quibble that one of the alternatives of the trilemma actually does provide truth, of the form: if the axioms are true, then so are the theorems. Many mathematicians would add that this is the only kind of truth we can know.

Hilbert, in the preface to "Grundlage der Geometrie," which cures some long overlooked solecisms in Euclid, observes that Euclid erred in attempting to define "point" and "line." Such an attempt leads inevitably to at least one of the alternatives of the trilemma, either infinite regress or circularity. Hilbert specifically leaves the terms undefined, their meanings limited only by the axioms incorporating them. Hilbert says it makes no difference whether the undefined terms "point" and "line" refer to beer mugs or bar stools; as long as they satisfy the axioms, then the theorems are true.

R. L. Moore, introducing axioms of topology in class, added the proviso that "the word 'point' means something. You might not think it is much to require of a word that it should mean something, but Mr. X, what is this?"

"It is a desk, sir."

Moore then mimes sawing off a corner, and asks, "What is it now, Mr. X."

"It is a desk, sir."

Moore removed the drawers, stacked them in a corner, and mimed sawing off parts the desk in gradual steps, querying Mr. X all along, until only half the desk remained. Eventually Mr. X confessed confusion. "Do you think the word 'desk' means something, Mr. X."

"I'm not sure, Dr. Moore."

"Thank you, Mr. X. In our discussions we specify that the word 'point' means something."

Since "point" was specifically left undefined, but the axioms make statements about the word, it remained for the student to ponder just what that meaning might be.

I observe that we know of no physical object that satisfies the axioms about "point", either in geometry or in topology, yet we employ the word, as prescribed by the axioms, to very powerful effect every day.

RNJ




Ricardo -> RE: Black Hole eats sun (May 23 2017 5:38:59)

quote:

Others seem to need a "prime mover," to quote one of the arguments of the medieval scholastics. Many of these believers are able to view the universe in essentially the same way I do, but with an additional layer of divinity on top, who set it all going.


That is how I feel most folks are dealing with their personal view of reality. If not even, than why look to a god at all?

About diest vs theist and MY confusion...it's quite clear that THEY are the confused ones, one foot in the door here or there and no good reason why except that they might question religious dogma from which they were raised. In other words, they are just bad christians [:D]




Richard Jernigan -> RE: Black Hole eats sun (May 23 2017 7:17:35)

I omitted an important part of the Christian experience. A Christian may view science in much the same light as the agnostic, but a large part of the Christian's reality can include a personal relationship with God and Jesus.

These personal relationships provide guidance and comfort where rationality can't do the whole job. How to respond to suffering? How to resist moral temptation in its manifold forms? How to carry out an unpleasant responsibility? How to deal with a wayward child or employee? Whether to invade Iraq? And so on...

The agnostic is on his own here, or he may rely upon friends, loved ones or other respected counselors. He is aware of the potential for taking a wrong turn, and the fact that crucial decisions often result more from emotion and intuition than from analysis and reflection. The Christian may receive divine guidance, and be confident that he is acting according to God's plan, even when he doesn't understand what that plan may be.

These religious experiences are as real to the believer as the inner life of the agnostic is to him, perhaps more.

A few years ago I visited a church in England to photograph paintings my 15th-century ancestor commissioned and paid for. During the last 50 years church attendance and the profession of religion have declined very steeply in England and the rest of northern Europe. Yet at my family's 700-year old church I met a well dressed, well educated woman (no known relation), with a bit of a posh accent, who spoke warmly of her love for God and support of religion.

Which religion someone practices, or whether they practice any, depends quite strongly on which one they were born into. But my impression is that the great majority of humans hold some religious belief. When the officially atheist ideology of the Soviet Union lost its grip on Russia, religion rebounded vey quickly.

The religious person will experience a relationship with the divine. The agnostic will marvel at the capabilities of the human brain.

The evolutionist puzzles over the question of how the human talent for religion confers an advantage for survival. I have read a few sketches of hypotheses, and entertained one or two myself, but I am unaware of much consensus on a theory.

RNJ




Piwin -> RE: Black Hole eats sun (May 23 2017 9:24:20)

Interesting. I suppose in many ways it makes practical sense to leave the terms largely undefined.
One most-likely unintended consequence of this approach is that it deals in one easy sweep with the issue of linguistic relativism, which, although not absolute, could pose a problem since there is a very real sense in which a chair is not a chaise, is not a Stuhl, is not a silla, etc. etc.

Let me ask you this though: does it bother "the mathematician" that the axiomatic approach almost by definition implies that we cannot prove everything? What I mean by that is this: assuming that the total body of knowledge is finite, then if human knowledge progressed to a point where we'd cover "all of it", then there would still be that final axiom that would just have to be accepted. To a lay person like myself, it seems like the axiomatic approach doesn't solve the problem of infinite regress, or the only way it "solves" it, is by arbitrarily choosing a turtle and then proving everything from that turtle upwards but disregarding whatever turtles there might be underneath. And if there was a final turtle at the bottom, then that's just it, we could never prove it. We'd have to say "if and only if the bottom turtle exists, etc."

@Ricardo
"and no reason why". Strongly disagree with that. And arguably this is part of the reason why there is so much tension over this issue. Though this is painting with a broad brush, for most those reasons are experiential. And those who are not prone to be contemplative, or spiritual, or whatever term you wish to use, just dismiss the experiential as if it did not matter. But here's the thing, that's pretty much all that matters to anyone. It's telling that most contemporary philosophers dismiss idealism and related schools of thought as mere parlor tricks. It might be an insoluble problem. But dismissing out of hand as if we had an answer to it is just running away from the hard questions. When we try and discuss the world in logical forms, there are quite a few assumptions that we must agree on first. And we have no reason to accept these assumptions except the practical reason that if we didn't accept them, we couldn't discuss the world at all. Granted, it's more efficiency to not start every sentence by "for the sake of argument", but from time to time it doesn't hurt to remind ourselves of the situation we're really in, and that should keep us at night. With all our knowledge, we still can't give a good answer to an idea that pretty much every teenager comes up with on his own at some point while daydreaming and that stoners contemplate when they're high as a kite. It's embarassing.

Oh and regarding the use of the term agnosticism, here is how it was defined by the great TH Huxley when he coined the term: "Agnosticism is of the essence of science, whether ancient or modern. It simply means that a man shall not say he knows or believes that which he has no scientific grounds for professing to know or believe". What has happened is that the meaning of the term "atheism" has evolved and now covers both what people would call "hard atheism" and what was traditionaly agnosticism. The agnostic rejects both claims "God exists" and "God does not exist" and that is perfectly tenable, it is merely sticking to the essence of the scientific process and not claiming to know what you cannot know since the burden of proof has not been met for either of these claims. Nowadays this is what most atheist do, so they are agnostics in the original sense of the term. Both the religious and the hard-atheists commit the same affront to reason by claiming that they can possibly know one of those two claims is true. And an even more widespread fallacy is the belief that if one doesn't accept one of those claims, then it necessarily means you accept the other one, which is probably why agnostics are considered "wishy-washy" even though it is a perfectly sound and logical position to have. But that applies to many other contexts as well, like people assuming that if you are not convinced someone is guilty, then that must mean you think they are innocent.




Ruphus -> RE: Black Hole eats sun (May 23 2017 13:42:22)

"... it seems like the axiomatic approach doesn't solve the problem of infinite regress, or the only way it "solves"it, is by arbitrarily choosing a turtle and then proving everything from that turtle upwards but disregarding whatever turtles there might be underneath."

Quite a description of the established subject of economics.
-

On another note:

Pedagogically false etiquette and misunderstanding of actual harmony produces a fragility that can´t recognize passionate invitation to gathering possible arguments and at best try making sense of it all mutually. Instead imposition will be perceived and delivering ground for shielding from so to say 'impertinent offence'.

It won´t allow challenge of true seeking.

-

There´s been a rhetoric question as to why folks would persistently be sticking to mysticism.

In anthropology ignorance is being considered an original means of overcoming setbacks through natural powers, in the millions of years that hominids used to be more or less consistently exposed to these. (Unlike in modern times, when to the opposite environment is being exposed to humans. Thus ignorance turning into destructive.)

To imagine a decoupling from own effects and envision a regime of metaphysical power and fate, also supports evasion from self-observation and from the burden of continuous efforts for improvement.

The latter, though certainly demanding indeed, being overly if not hysterically perceived as a dreaded challenge where natural upbringing and self-affirmation through surrounding are on decline. Which again, they tend to be the more irrational doctrines and traditions evolve in a culture.
An intensifying cycle of evasion and of manifesting fragility before the world.




BarkellWH -> RE: Black Hole eats sun (May 23 2017 15:35:15)

I do not consider myself religious at all, but I do consider myself an agnostic since, lacking proof (which is different than "evidence," which some use to bolster their position) of the existence or non-existence of God, I see no reason to categorically accept or reject the idea. And I do sleep well at night.

Nevertheless, of all the permutations of God discussed in a thousand and more books, including Bertrand Russell's excellent "A History of Western Philosophy" and "Why I am not a Christian," I find Deism the most interesting. The idea that God created the universe and set its laws in motion, and then bowed out and does not interfere with the universe has a certain symmetry to it. It fits in nicely with the Big Bang, beginning with the initial singularity, a point of zero volume and infinite density. And it harks back to the old scholastic argument of the unmoved (or "Prime") mover. It begins to be problematic, however, when we consider that "nothing" existed until the Big Bang. If "nothing" existed, how is it that God was present?

One thing I find interesting about all the nattering on from the Evangelicals and others of their ilk about America having always been a "Christian" nation is that many of the Founding Fathers, including most prominently Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, and James Madison, were either Deists themselves or were heavily influenced by Deism. Deism gained many adherents in Europe during the Enlightenment, and the American Founders were nothing if not followers of and believers in the Enlightenment.

Bill




Piwin -> RE: Black Hole eats sun (May 23 2017 16:30:17)

One interesting figure that religious and atheists alike seem to be fighting over is Albert Einstein.
Unfortunately for them, he doesn't seem to fit in either box. He viewed the concept of an anthromorphic god as childish, but he reserved some of his harshest words for vehement atheists, which he thought were motivated not by reason but by the resentment of having been indoctrinated as children.
In a nutshell, he seems to have thought that the belief in God as proposed in the major belief systems of the world was wrong but that it was still preferable to the absence of any transcendental view of the world. Unsurprisingly, he was interested in the concept of God proposed by Spinoza.

There was a time where it was important for me to identify as an atheist. As time goes by it seems less and less important. In a strict philosophical discussion, my position is that of an agnostic. In day-to-day conversations, people seem to consider me an atheist. The one term I do whole-heartedly embrace is that of apostate, because it does not define what my stance is, it merely defines what my life experience with regards to religion has been. It's a shame that outside of academia the word has such a pejorative connotation attached to it. I supposed in that sense I'm no different than the feminists who walk around with shirts that say "slut" on it.




Richard Jernigan -> RE: Black Hole eats sun (May 23 2017 18:00:12)

quote:

ORIGINAL: Piwin

Interesting. I suppose in many ways it makes practical sense to leave the terms largely undefined.

<snip>

Let me ask you this though: does it bother "the mathematician" that the axiomatic approach almost by definition implies that we cannot prove everything? What I mean by that is this: assuming that the total body of knowledge is finite, then if human knowledge progressed to a point where we'd cover "all of it", then there would still be that final axiom that would just have to be accepted. To a lay person like myself, it seems like the axiomatic approach doesn't solve the problem of infinite regress, or the only way it "solves" it, is by arbitrarily choosing a turtle and then proving everything from that turtle upwards but disregarding whatever turtles there might be underneath. And if there was a final turtle at the bottom, then that's just it, we could never prove it. We'd have to say "if and only if the bottom turtle exists, etc."

@Ricardo
<snip>


I would say that the adoption of the axiomatic approach acknowledges that we cannot define all the words we use without impaling ourselves upon one of the tines of the Münchausen trilemma: infinite regress--a never-ending stack of turtles upon turtles, or circularity--demonstrated in mathematics classes the world over by chasing one's tail through a dictionary.

Though the mathematician leaves "point" undefined in order to avoid these traps, it's still a fair question: If "point" means something, then what is a point? Of course trying to answer the question falls outside the bounds of mathematics itself.

A significant fraction of the theorems of geometry and topology contain the phrase, "...then there exists a point such that..." We know of no physical object that satisfies the axioms about "point." A point can have no diameter, no mass...So in what sense may a point exist?

Opinions vary. Plato would say that our representations of points, dots on paper or a computer screen, are imperfect images of things existing outside space and time. Many present day mathematicians describe themselves as Platonists. They say that the objects of mathematical study exist, just not in the physical world.

I claim that all working mathematicians are "practical Platonists." They feel like they are manipulating objects. When they solve a difficult problem they feel the exhilaration of discovery. I have felt the sensation of arriving at the top of a hill, to see a new vista spreading before me.

But I feel that it tortures the word "exist" to claim that we are all working with "things" that have some sort of supernatural existence.

My take on it is that "point" represents a human concept, an abstraction. A point has position, but no volume, etc., etc. People are pretty much OK with this idea. So mathematicians formulate axioms that allude to this concept, and just about everybody can say, "OK, I see what you mean. Got it," without discussing any further etceteras that may pertain to the concept.

We can think of something that "point" means, we can _feel_ (not prove) that the axioms are true about this something (while the axioms may not necessarily comprehend the concept fully), and get on with deducing theorems about the concept "point" which flesh out our intuitions and their implications. The theorems are true in the sense I mentioned before: they are implied by the axioms.

What is a concept? Stay tuned. The brain scientists are working on it.

Can we prove everything? I don't think so. I look at the view from the balcony of my practice room and see green trees, blue sky and a few fluffy clouds. I can analyze these sights according to the concepts provided by a lifetime of study. But at some point my analysis reaches a bedrock of belief. Though I would not undertake to define it, I know what a number is, I know what a force is. These things are concepts, my knowledge is intuition, not rationalization. I know I can communicate my analyses to the millions of others who share my conceptual vocabulary. But my world, like the religious person's is founded on faith. I just choose a different set of beliefs to start from.

Much of the time I insist upon reproducible evidence for my beliefs. But much of the time I rely upon culture, hearsay, the near-universal--but almost always forgotten--experiences of human infancy which formed my basic concepts of space, time, physical objects, minds other than my own.....

RNJ




BarkellWH -> RE: Black Hole eats sun (May 23 2017 18:03:40)

quote:

The one term I do whole-heartedly embrace is that of apostate, because it does not define what my stance is, it merely defines what my life experience with regards to religion has been.


Good thing you were not a Muslim. Although there are Muslim countries and societies that do not enforce it, Islam condones death as punishment for apostasy. That is precisely the charge Ayatollah Khomeini leveled at Salman Rushdie when he issued his infamous fatwa condemning Rushdie to death and stating that it was the duty of every good Muslim to carry out the execution.

When Khomeini's fatwa was in effect, I asked an Indonesian friend who was a moderate Muslim, as many Indonesians are, what he thought of Khomeini's fatwa. He did not answer for what seemed like an eternity, and he finally said, "I wish you had not asked me that question." I was astonished at his response. It indicated to me that he either agreed with Khomeini's fatwa and did not want to admit it to a Western friend, or he did not agree with it but could not bring himself to openly reject the fatwa issued by such a religious authority. Either way, I have often thought that his religion had imprisoned his mind. I have often seen evidence of the imprisoned Muslim mind, but never in such an intimate, direct way that involved someone I knew well. In a way, it was disheartening.

Bill




Ricardo -> RE: Black Hole eats sun (May 23 2017 18:30:19)

quote:

One thing I find interesting about all the nattering on from the Evangelicals and others of their ilk about America having always been a "Christian" nation is that many of the Founding Fathers, including most prominently Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, and James Madison, were either Deists themselves or were heavily influenced by Deism. Deism gained many adherents in Europe during the Enlightenment, and the American Fo


Yes, bad christians they were, as I said earlier. I see things more black and white. Folks can try to put whatever clever label on their personal leanings, but it's much more simple.

About Spinoza, he would have been better off going with the god=Mother Nature similar to Native American thought. He fought it, no doubt because of the "bad Christian" problem I keep referring too. Trying to say Mother Nature or god has an agenda and things must play out according to design....pretty much his god "died" thanks to quantum mechanics, and yes Einstein tried to fight the reality there as well. Feynmann said "nature, she is the way she is"...and that pretty much is a done deal.

So Mother Nature as a sort of intelligent entity is appealing, but I still see things more black and white. You either A. Brought up with belief that you attempt to reinforce through out your life despite evidence to the contrary, or B. Had some supernatural experience you refuse to accept natural explainations for, or C. Are Athiest. Pretty simple. I would like to add that a "prime mover" is not a god either, it is a natural entity, yet even there labeled by Man for the same reason religions do.




Richard Jernigan -> RE: Black Hole eats sun (May 23 2017 18:36:48)

quote:

ORIGINAL: BarkellWH

Either way, I have often thought that his religion had imprisoned his mind.

Bill


Of course I have witnessed the same among Christians and Hindus I know well, and whom I affectionately respect.

I have also read of physicists at least temporarily imprisoned by their beliefs.

To me the weakest point of Newtonian physics, from an intuitive standpoint, is the instantaneous action at a distance of gravity. But it never occurred to me to question causality or the universality of time, until I studied quantum mechanics and relativity.

Einstein, one of the greatest physicists ever produced by the human race, was extremely reluctant to accept the non-causality of quantum mechanics, if in fact he ever did accept it. He wrote several letters to Bohr and published formal papers objecting to it.

This from a mind so original, so formidable in his powers of analysis, that he showed that time, and as a consequence the perception of simultaneity, depends upon the motion of the observer.

We are all imprisoned by our beliefs to some extent. These days in the USA, people are so embroiled in political belief, perhaps the most tenuous and changeable form of faith, that they insult and ridicule their opponents with complete self-assurance on all sides.

Of course I think my political beliefs are right, but I'm quite aware that I've been wrong before. And if ridicule and insult were to have any effect on my opponents, it is likely only to be thickening and raising the walls of their imprisonment.

RNJ




Piwin -> RE: Black Hole eats sun (May 23 2017 18:57:30)

Thanks for your thorough reply. This has given me food for thought.
I suspect that the sentence "But my world, like the religious person's is founded on faith" would be rather unsettling to quite a few people today.

@BarkellWH
I'm keenly aware of the price that some have to pay for their apostasy. I think that's why I identify with the term so much. I've payed a price for it, for sure, but nothing compared to what others have endured. In fact, I often don't know what to tell friends and acquaintances that ask for advice on how to "come out". For some I'm not sure it's worth it. For many of the younger ones, I often wonder if they wouldn't be better off just waiting until their gone from the family house and established on their own, so that their family can only inflict emotional harm, and not physical or financial harm. I suppose I stand by that word as a sort of political statement, a sign of solidarity.
On a purely textual basis, Judaism, and by extension Christianity, also condone death for apostasy. The difference lie not so much in the text as how those texts are practiced. For modern-day Christians, it is part of that general game of cherry-picking which laws of the "Old covenant" they wish to uphold and which they wish to dismiss. Given that the New Testament provides grounds for both dismissing and upholding those laws, it's hard to know who's more consistent with the texts. There was a short-lived movement that trolled the Westboro Baptist Church. They used the fact that the Old Testamant says that what does not have "fins or scales in the water" is an abomination, i.e. just as a man lying with another man was deemed an abomination. So they made posters replacing "God hates fags" by "God hates shrimp". My favorite was: "pinch the tail, suck the head, burn in hell".[:)]

@Ricardo
quote:

Feynmann said "nature, she is the way she is"...and that pretty much is a done deal.

Out of context, if you just cited that quote it would be very hard to know whose "side" you were arguing for. That quote mirrors exactly one of the founding definitions of the Jewish and Christian God (I'm less sure about the importance Muslims grant to this particular story): "I am that I am". It's the exact same rhetorical ploy and they too thought that it was a done deal.




BarkellWH -> RE: Black Hole eats sun (May 23 2017 19:26:24)

quote:

Of course I have witnessed the same among Christians and Hindus I know well, and whom I affectionately respect.


I appreciate your attempt to establish a sort of equivalency among the religions, but in my opinion it is a false equivalency. Islam is different than either Christianity or Hinduism in its absolutist hold on the minds of whole populations. Yes, there are absolutist Evangelical Christians and the same holds true for Hindus. And of course there are exceptions to the imprisoned Muslim mind. But Islam is different. There is a reason for the difference one sees between India and Pakistan, although both are from the same ethnic stock and once comprised one country, and that difference is religion.

The decline of the Muslim World can be attributed primarily to Al-Ghazali and the Ashar’ites shutting down free inquiry in the 10th and 11th centuries. Prior to the ascendence of the Ashar'ites, Islam was very progressive and encouraged free enquiry in the sciences and philosophy. Al Ghazali's seminal work, "The Incoherence of the Philosophers," as well as the Ashar'ite School, completely negated free, rational enquiry, claiming that it was blasphemous, and that all knowledge was contained in the Qur'an. This had the unsurprising effect of cutting the Muslim World off from rational enquiry, while the West began to advance as a result of the pre-Renaissance re-discovery of philosophy and rational enquiry.

Moreover, Islam makes no distinction betweeen the sacred and the secular, and there has never been an Islamic equivalent of the Eighteenth Century European Enlightenment, separating rational enquiry from faith. That the 10th and 11th century movements, represented by Al Ghazali and the Ashar'ites, replaced rational inquiry with faith and revelation remains an obstacle to modernization in Islamic societies to this day. That Indonesia is a fairly tolerant and democratic country just reinforces my point. Islam came late to Indonesia, to Java in the fifteenth century, and was of the Sufi variety. Thus, Indonesians for the most part are the product of a milder form of Islam that came late and is grafted on to a much deeper Hindu-Buddhist culture, particularly in Java. Nevertheless, as my Indonesian friend demonstrated, as detailed in my comment above about his response to my query regarding Khomeini's fatwa, it still, at least in part, imprisoned his mind.

Bill




Richard Jernigan -> RE: Black Hole eats sun (May 23 2017 20:07:39)

quote:

ORIGINAL: Piwin

I suspect that the sentence "But my world, like the religious person's is founded on faith" would be rather unsettling to quite a few people today.



It is a slightly radical statement from some points of view, but my hope is that most of my asserted beliefs about reality would be accepted by a very great majority of people. I sometimes keep other ideas to myself, or discuss them only with people I think are fairly open minded.

RNJ




Escribano -> RE: Black Hole eats sun (May 23 2017 20:41:51)

quote:

That is precisely the charge Ayatollah Khomeini leveled at Salman Rushdie when he issued his infamous fatwa condemning Rushdie to death and stating that it was the duty of every good Muslim to carry out the execution.


I moved in with the copy-editor of "The Satanic Verses" for a few weeks, to give her some comfort, when that fatwa was announced. This involved turning the lights on and off a lot and walking around outside, checking the dustbins with some purpose.

England gave a Libyan couple asylum from Gaddafi, then last night their son blew our children to bits. Bunch of demented, hateful ****s.

Oh, and Feynman is THE man! My all-time hero (with one 'n' Ricardo)




Richard Jernigan -> RE: Black Hole eats sun (May 23 2017 20:42:04)

quote:

ORIGINAL: BarkellWH

I appreciate your attempt to establish a sort of equivalency among the religions, but in my opinion it is a false equivalency.



It was a failed attempt to establish an equivalency among people, not religions. It's why I brought up the case of Einstein vs the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics.

As far as religion goes though, the actions of the present government of the state of Texas has parallels to the descent of Islam into enforced ignorance and conformity. It has taken nearly eight years since retiring and moving back here for me finally to arrive at this conclusion.

If the majority had their way, Texas would be plunged into a dark age. The Legislature spends a sizable part of their time and effort in passing unconstitutional bills. When they are struck down by the courts, the executive branch tries to implement the same policies and actions through "rule making" and arbitrary actions that are again struck down in the courts, but have their ill effects while being litigated.

The politicians justify these actions by appealing to fundamentalist religion.

Yes, the effects in Texas are not yet nearly so severe as in Iran or Saudi Arabia, but the attempt to employ religion as a tool to enforce conformity is in exactly the same spirit.

Scientific knowledge is not only ignored, it is attacked as false.

Many religions are potentially subject to this abuse. Islam may have led the way, but the government of Texas is doing its best to follow suit.

The rule of law still holds, but the abuse of the courts to advance the absolutist agenda steadily goes ahead. The big cities largely remain liberal democracies. The politicians still mouth the platitudes of "local control" but the state government is very quick to override city ordinances and policies they don't like. The voting districts are gerrymandered to guarantee a reactionary state government.

People in the countryside are still polite, and may express their absolutist views with a friendly smile. In Baptist churches angry voices from the pulpit condemning sinners may be rarer than they were in my youth, but the attitude favoring forced conformity to fundamentalist religious principles is very much stronger at the ballot box than it was in the past.

RNJ




Piwin -> RE: Black Hole eats sun (May 23 2017 20:44:59)

quote:

I sometimes keep other ideas to myself, or discuss them only with people I think are fairly open minded.


A thoughtful approach that seems to be shared by most of your relatives, as you described earlier the type of discussions you have with them.
My family just bulldozes their way through everything, whether they realize they're stepping on other people's toes or not. Oh well, I've learned to be pretty good at curling up my toes under my feet when I'm around them.

@Escribano

I was very sorry to hear about that this morning. I hope you and your own are ok.
I had pretty much the same visceral reaction I had when a few years back a guy attacked a Jewish school in the South of France killing several children. I know we have laws for good reasons but I can't help but feel that there's just no punishment that is enough for someone who attacks a child.




BarkellWH -> RE: Black Hole eats sun (May 23 2017 21:29:13)

quote:

England gave a Libyan couple asylum from Gaddafi, then last night their son blew our children to bits. Bunch of demented, hateful ****s.


My condolences, Simon. Another horror committed by the imprisoned mind. Unfortunately, I think we are going to keep seeing this over the long haul. It is especially galling and disgusting when it is committed by those and their families who have been granted asylum with all of the freedoms and benefits of the West, and then the bastards turn against the very hand that helped them.

Bill




Richard Jernigan -> RE: Black Hole eats sun (May 23 2017 21:55:36)

Agnosticism is rare in my family, but it cannot easily be ignored.

My mother's father left Long Lake, Minnesota as a young man. He taught English on an Indian reservation in Idaho, he worked as a lumberjack, he was a chef in a San Francisco hotel before the 1906 earthquake.

Passing through the small town at the base of the Oklahoma panhandle where my grandmother, then a widow, owned the 160-acre homestead she inherited from her father, he decided he liked the place and settled down on the 160-acre tract next door. His neighbor on the other side, Pickens, was illiterate. My grandfather taught him to read.

Before long he and my grandmother married, combined their farms and prospered in the wheat boom of the early 20th century. My mother was the eldest of two daughters and three brothers. She told of lying awake one night and hearing her mother say to him, "Pickens tells me that the people in the town say you are an atheist."

He replied, "Pickens wouldn't know an atheist if he had one for a neighbor."

My grandfather had a lively sense of humor, and was generally liked and respected in the community. He died from injuries sustained in an accident when my mother was 11 years old. She, like her sisters and her mother became religious at a fairly early age. Her father had specifically expressed his desire that they be allowed to form their own ideas about religion.

Recently I Googled the town history of Long Lake. Many of my grandfather's relatives still live there and in nearby Minneapolis. They retain to some extent the Scottish traditions of my great-grandfather, who immigrated from Nova Scotia. I was interested to read about the Freethinkers' Society in Long Lake, established near the time the town was founded, and wondered whether it had been an influence on my grandfather.

Though I never knew him, my favorite photo of my grandfather was taken in the farmhouse in Oklahoma. He is seated at a table. Behind him the wall is completely covered by shelves packed with books. Through a window you can see the wheat fields waving in the breeze.

I know that his father was deeply interested in science, read the published works of Franklin, Gibbs, Faraday and Maxwell, and conducted experiments of his own in electromagnetism, out there on the plains of Minnesota. His ancestors were among the first English speaking people in Nova Scotia, strict Scotch Presbyterians, among the founders of the Commonwealth of Canada, but I don't know my great-grandfather's religious views.

My mother's brother whom I knew best was open but not confrontational about his agnosticism. I suspect that the other brothers were agnostic as well.

My mother had an older half brother and half sister from her mother's first marriage, and an younger half brother from the third husband her mother had to bury. From my point of view the unifying force in this diverse lot was my grandmother, and the necessity for mutual support and cooperation in running a family farm. Family solidarity was the most important value by far among this group.

I knew my grandmother quite well. She lived with us throughout WW II, while her five sons, my father, his brother and brothers-in-law were in combat. We listened to the news at noon and read the paper when it came in the evening. She never exhibited the least shade of anxiety, but remained warm, loving and thoughtful. She passed away 66 years ago. I still miss her.

In my parents' extended families and that of my generation, family solidarity was the supreme value. It trumped all others, including religion. Among the two generations younger than I, family solidarity has declined a little under the corrosive forces of modernity, but a wedding will still assemble a group from far flung parts of the world. I'm pretty sure the city of Jackson, Tennessee had never seen so many men in kilts, sporrans and dancing shoes as they did last summer. Agnosticism has reappeared in a few instances, among a largely religious group. Thankfully, civility has survived.

RNJ




Richard Jernigan -> RE: Black Hole eats sun (May 23 2017 22:05:07)

Simon, I am sickened by the reports from Manchester. Almost every day the news reminds me that the most dangerous animal on the planet is the human. But our better nature is reflected in efforts like the Foro.

Thank you.

RNJ




estebanana -> RE: Black Hole eats sun (May 23 2017 22:33:26)

quote:

One thing I find interesting about all the nattering on from the Evangelicals and others of their ilk about America having always been a "Christian" nation is that many of the Founding Fathers, including most prominently Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, and James Madison, were either Deists themselves or were heavily influenced by Deism. Deism gained many adherents in Europe during the Enlightenment, and the American Founders were nothing if not followers of and believers in the Enlightenment.

Bill



It was the deist Jefferson's and his enlightenment following peers who tried to keep safe the country from the oppressive yoke of the other contingent on the scene which were highly influenced by Calvinism.

Funny thing, in Jr. high and high school, the baddest most sexually aggressive young women came from religious homes. I've always wondered if this is some component of religion that manifests in the unconscious as a survival by breeding mechanism, or if the patriarchy of the religious class is just hentai. Or both.




Richard Jernigan -> RE: Black Hole eats sun (May 23 2017 23:31:04)

When we lived in Washington DC while I was in high school, after I got my driver's license at age 16 I was the tour guide for people who came to visit us. There were quite a few of them.

I would load them up into Dad's black Cadillac with Texas tags and the Air Force "star" sticker on the windshield, and violate traffic laws with impunity.

One of my favorite stops was Mount Vernon, but I always tried to make time for the Episcopal church in Alexandria that Washington attended every Sunday he was at home. I would point out that the Washingtons would occupy their pew, listen respectfully to the scripture readings and sermon, kneel for prayers, stand to sing and contribute to the offering, but the General would leave before communion.

"Why was that?" people would ask.

"Well, communion is specifically reserved for Christians, and General Washington was always a stickler for the rules."

RNJ




estebanana -> RE: Black Hole eats sun (May 23 2017 23:51:21)

quote:

When Khomeini's fatwa was in effect, I asked an Indonesian friend who was a moderate Muslim, as many Indonesians are, what he thought of Khomeini's fatwa. He did not answer for what seemed like an eternity, and he finally said, "I wish you had not asked me that question." I was astonished at his response. It indicated to me that he either agreed with Khomeini's fatwa and did not want to admit it to a Western friend, or he did not agree with it but could not bring himself to openly reject the fatwa issued by such a religious authority. Either way, I have often thought that his religion had imprisoned his mind. I have often seen evidence of the imprisoned Muslim mind, but never in such an intimate, direct way that involved someone I knew well. In a way, it was disheartening.

Bill


Simon I am sorry to hear about the event going wrong at the Manchester concert. I hope we all remember that the parents you spoke of who fled Libya are good people and if someone turns into a hateful person, the innocent from their societies are not to be hated in return.

In America about ten years ago a similar thing happened to an immigrant couple who raised a son in the US. The son walked into his college and killed several innocent students with a gun. The parents were Korean, the communities of Korean Americans around the country were shocked. I felt grief for the parents of the kids who were killed and also for the parents of the kid who went crazy and committed a horrible act.

On Bills point, a bit of levity. All the American Muslims I personally know well are in two groups, the ones who are sincere practitioners of a religion they see moves forward in peace. They are horrified by the violence of extremes. And the other group, those who laughingly refer to themselves as 'Recovering Muslims', as a joke riffing off of Catholics who say the same about themselves.

Most of my Muslim friends suffer from Catholic guilt.




Piwin -> RE: Black Hole eats sun (May 24 2017 0:11:53)

quote:

In my parents' extended families and that of my generation, family solidarity was the supreme value. It trumped all others, including religion


If only that had been the case in my own family. Religion trumped family hands down. What's tricky about it though is that they would not see it that way at all. When you believe that your child will literally burn in hell for an eternity if he doesn't change his ways, then almost any suffering you can inflict on him to attempt to make him change becomes justified in your own eyes. You're ruining his life here on earth, but out of love, in an attempt to save his soul for eternity. *sigh*
On my father's side, there are 7 generations of pastors before me. I don't know whether they were all this fundamentalist. The last 3 generations were, that much I know. Access to culture was strictly supervised in our household, especially television and music. That really is the only way to raise a fundamentalist child, by severing him from all the information that infirms what you're trying to teach him. They made one crucial mistake though: they let me read. Why they let me read without any kind of supervision still eludes me. I think some of it was just sheer ignorance of how many worlds litterature could open up for a person's mind, especially that of a child. Neither of my parents had any interest in litterature, nor any knowledge about any of it except for religious tracts, doctrinal manifestos and that sort of thing. That was my way out, through Jules Vernes (I think I just might have read every single line the man ever wrote), Rabelais the inventor of the quintuple-entendre, Voltaire the impertinent, that master of the craft Victor Hugo, Molière the witty, the deeply humane and empathic Leopold Sedar Senghor, and countless others. They were my door to the outside world.
I've since had to redefine family as something that has nothing to do with blood or genes, as I suspect many of us who have been disowned in that way end up doing.

@estabanana

one thing's for sure is that after a few centuries of puritanism people are bound to have a bit of sexual tension bottled up in there. Seriously, you guys in the US are NUTS when it comes to sex, and that's coming from a Frenchman. [8D]
one thing that saddens me a bit is that the American approach to romantic involment is being exported over here. Even less than a decade ago, French people would not have really understood the whole concept of dating as it is practiced in the US, this purely transactional approach where you size up your potential partner during a few dinners or activities. Nowadays they seem to be starting to do just that. I liked it better when it was messy and you had to meander your way through towards any romantic spark. I still refuse to go on anything anyone would call a date. I can't think of a more boring way to approach love and affection than that.




estebanana -> RE: Black Hole eats sun (May 24 2017 1:57:46)

Uggg, sounds terrible. I escaped the dating fiasco by first living in DC, where non political citizens are rare and exotic creatures who are chased by single women. I just stood against a wall with drink and waited for one to pull my pants down. After that I went to art school, and everyone screws everything 24 -7, then the two people who away from the party together naturally become a couple.

Before that I simply met a Swedish au pair girl and sat on couch when her friends came over and one of them eventually would get intoxicated enough to explain how dumb American dating is, the they raped you.

The best thing to do is be lazy, creative, almost feckless in terms of fidelity. And add some douchebag moves on top of that and women find you like a magnet to iron fillings. Either that or you become president and say VD was my Vietnam.




Piwin -> RE: Black Hole eats sun (May 24 2017 3:04:03)

If you favor quantity, I figure becoming a guru should work pretty well.
The only minor problem with that is when one of your lover-followers does something like poisoning all the salad bars in town with salmonella in an attempt to rig local elections in your favor.
But you wouldn't have to go on any dates. It's a wash, really.




estebanana -> RE: Black Hole eats sun (May 24 2017 3:13:50)

The guru thing is all wrong ethically, never mess with students. Cardinal rule. Of course the Cardinal may not play by the rules.


Never ever, the guru thing is just wrong. Sexuality is burdened on its own with special power issues that it does not need outside power un balancing.

I don't want to pull you away from your questions and speculations about God and science right now, but remind me someday to tell you the tale of Laura the Libertine and the 100 candy dildos.




Piwin -> RE: Black Hole eats sun (May 24 2017 3:20:18)

Well that's a tease.
But someone's calling your name in that "buying a first guitar" thread, so you'd better tend to business lest you get bored after building that canoe.
And I'd better make the best of the next three hours before I have to go to work to try and sleep.
And solve the ethical dilemma behind guru sex.




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