disarray

RobbityRob1: Well, again, from a non-faith perspective, we can't assume that there was a divine, historical Jesus that actually existed to make such assumptions, but I take your point, and I think that scriptural writers in general truly believed that the miracles, angels, words from God, etc. actually happened, and indeed even a very high percentage of the population as well as theologians today take much if not all of the Bible as fact, even the "fables" which you mentioned. Indeed, the NT contains miracles as well a the OT, though perhaps not as 'fantastic'; and, as I have mentioned, Jefferson rewrote the NT with the miracles left out, to illustrate the Jesus (or perhaps any number of Jesuses of the time (by that or similar names) walked around saying wise things, but was persecuted in one way or another. But I take your point, and perhaps that of dimreepr, that it is a shame that many people reject or even scoff at the Bible because it does contain many stories that, by today's standard, are just considered to be unscientific "fairy tales" (particularly, as you say, in the OT) and thus they miss out on many valuable lessons about life. Of course, I tend to point out that the Bible contains many horrific stories of, for example, supposedly justifiable genocide or whatever, and to point out that the stories were composed and used for nefarious political purposes (e.g., a given group aggressively arrogating land to themselves) be it the Holy Lands by the Jews or, later on, by Spanish Catholics taking over the Americas. But I do agree that it is possible, as I think dimreepr is suggesting, to ignore the negative events as well as the shifting details of the events in an effort to take away what is positive by ignoring the chaff and digesting the grain or nugget of wisdom so to speak. We could say the same about Shakespeare's work....full of evil, conniving, backstabbing, etc. yet ultimately claiming that justice will be done. Also, the works of Faulkner seem to be filled with episodes involving all sorts of seedy and corrupt behavior, yet somehow we are supposed to see the glimmer of compassion and hope that always shines through the most squalid of conditions. Indeed, in his Nobel acceptance speech Faulkner says that, "The writer's ...privilege is to help man endure by lifting his heart, by reminding him of the courage and honor and hope and pride and compassion and pity and sacrifice which have been the glory of his past. "

ajb: Am not mathematically versed, so just try to find plausible metaphors. Was Shannon theory modified to fit quantum theory?. I gather that the issue of entropy may fit into all of this as well.

"All fundamental particles have a property called spin, which doesn’t really mean they’re spinning around, but it does mean they have an orientation in space and an angular momentum." I, as a lay person, was under the impression that "measuring" the spin of one particle then tells you what the various opposite "spins" of the other particle are, and that, moreover, though the entangled particles always have opposing spins in theory, the neither particle really has a definite spin (according to Bell's calculations about what logically would happen if they did) until one of them is "measured": "effectively, the two entangled particles don’t actually have a well-defined spin until you measure them. They're basically spin-less until the first one is measured - and that value then determines the spin of the second particle." The same article concludes that "new research also shows that the phenomenon won’t allow us to communicate faster than the speed of light, which means it doesn't violate the special theory of relativity" though no further explanation is given. I have read that every particle, or perhaps every electron, has its (symmetrical) twin, and that this is related to the idea that "because the total angular moment of the Universe must stay constant, you can then predict that if you measure one of these entangled particles and they have an up spin, then the other one in the pair must have a down spin - otherwise the laws of the Universe would be breached." Thus, when we apparently force a particle to "reveal its true colors" (for lack of a better metaphor), every particle is somehow affected in order to maintain the balance of various properties, (as if one is merely dropping one more coin into the carnival arcade coin pusher and every coin/particle shifts automatically), including the other particle in the pair of twins.

I think recent posts suggests that there is little actual evidence that information is transferred between entangled particles at a speed faster than light: "The transfer of state between Photon A and Photon B takes place at a speed of at least 10,000 times the speed of light, possibly even instantaneously, regardless of distance. A proposed experiment would send one photon of the entangled pair to the orbiting International Space Station, a distance of around 310 miles (500 kilometers). This would be the largest distance that has been experimentally tested." http://www.livescience.com/28550-how-quantum-entanglement-works-infographic.html Of course, I don't think anyone has a very clear idea as to what such quantum information really is... perhaps we cant say that it is as much of an existing thing as a photon,(though other 'entities such as "force," "energy," "time," "gravity" and "space" are all pretty nebulous animals themselves as well). Indeed, Bohr famously remarked that "whoever thinks that they understand quantum theory...doesn't" and I think that he had such things as what Einstein called "spooky action at a distance" in mind when he said it.

dimreepr: I don't think that suggesting that stories meant to make people content are therefore entertaining is putting words in your mouth. In any case, it seemed that you did not include the OT as being full of stories meant to make people content and, if so (and thus logically exclude Muslim and Jewish scriptures that are much more like the OT than the NT as well, as I mentioned before), particularly given that you stated that “the inclusion of the OT in the Christian bible seems political (maybe in order to confuse), let’s face it, how can one forgive unconditionally and, simultaneously, demand an eye for an eye?” But perhaps you do not consider that OT to be the litany of horrible (not contenting) stories that many people find it to be, and perhaps you were just trying to point out that the OT and NT are so dissimilar that as to only be together in one book in order to confuse readers (Though this is a rather bizarre and unlikely motive, I think). You also claimed that, “the bible we read today is not what was originally written and so impossible to fully understand, as I’ve explained, making any scholarly investigation pointless.” This is an odd claim....If that were the case, one might as well say that it is impossible to do scholarly work on the Iliad and the Odyssey because we are not sure exactly who wrote it and that, furthermore, our present day versions are based on a variety of fragments, redrafts, etc. In any case, I get 19,000,000 hits when I type in the words Biblical scholars in Google, so I don't think that the concept of Biblical scholarship is so bizarre as to justify your “lie” that you didn’t read any more of my last post. Indeed, though the God (and moral outlook) of the OT is significantly different from that of the OT, according to Harold Bloom (who actually labels himself as a Biblical scholar) from that of the NT, I see no reason for you to object to the commonplace claim that the OT and NT are meant in the minds of, I think, most Christians to represent an integrated whole: "When one studies the Scriptures, it becomes apparent there is a profound unity between the Old and New Testaments. For example, this unity is demonstrated by the fact that over one third of the New Testament is made up of quotes from the Old Testament. In truth, many Old Testament passages simply could not be understood without the New Testament." from an online article entitled 'The Unity of Scripture-The Old and New Testaments are deeply integrated, making up the complete, unified Word of God." https://www.cbcg.org/unity-of-scripture.html Here are few comments you have made that appear to me to be about the purpose of Biblical stories (OT as well as NT?): “I wouldn’t be at all surprised if all the prophets/sons-of-god/s were too, they just evoked a spiritual element to promote a contented populace.” “you should maybe read miracles as exaggeration, misdirection or just plain dishonesty” “Time strips the details whilst the truth remains, for instance, forgiveness matters because it stops the world going blind, who cares about the details?” “The “nuggets of truth” are the things that go towards helping a person achieve contentment; what makes a person content is the same now as it was two millennia ago, whatever the location or religion (the major ones).” Judging from your posts about contentment, it seems to me that you are suggesting that those who wrote the Bible probably didn't believe the stroies anyway (though I would suggest that this too is a very odd and unlikely generalization) and just meant to make the people feel content and/or teach moral lessons (e.g., to forgive). In contrast, I would suggest that the overall thrust of scriptures paints an ethnocentric picture of tribes and nations in conflict, e.g., multiple military conflicts of the OT and the Roman/Jewish/Christ conflict of the NT. But even the sort of contenting, spiritual virtues that one finds in various parables tend to apply to those to the in-group of believers and not to infidels, whether one examines the stories themselves or the manner in which the stories have been used throughout history, particularly, as I say, if one includes the OT, the Tanakh, and the Koran (e.g., salvation for believers, damnation for nonbelievers and infidels of other religions; land to those selected by God, mass slaughter for those already on the land). Indeed, it is controversial as to whether Jesus meant that one should have a sense of compassion for those who were not Jewish. So I have no objection to the idea that there are individual stories in the Bible that seem to be uplifting and instructive (in perhaps a Sunday School sort of way), though you haven’t really attempted to discuss any one in particular (for some reason that eludes me, as that seems to be a central claim of yours. Perhaps you make the effort to at least do that, rather than just saying that I am wrong and you were “right and can't be bothered to point out everything wrong"). However, I, like many readers, see a less luminous and numinous picture when looking at the overall narrative of the various scriptures of the major monotheistic religions (particular with reference to the Abrahamic narrative) than I do when just looking at a few select NT parables; and, judging from history and the conflicts that have arisen in connection with many of the less 'peaceful' stories over the centuries, I fail to see that the Bible narrative is as consistently beneficent, given an overall assessment of it from an anthropological, psychological, or literary point of view, as is often claimed.

Ten Oz: you state that "Every excuse/justification for the death penalty be a special exception is based in ethical relativism." Euthanasia is legal in other countries, such as the Netherlands, Belgium, Ireland, Colombia, and Luxembourg, and that assisted suicide is legal in Switzerland, Germany, Japan, Albania, Canada, and in the US states of Washington, Oregon, Vermont, Montana, and California.(As a related issued, abortion is or is not legal depending upon which state or country your are talking about and in what era), so I am not sure that your claim that there are negligible exceptions to your claim that only self-defense justified taking someone's life. More to the point is your assumption that what is legal (often based on a representative democracy, not a referendum, more pure democratic vote) in any give country is not a form of ethical relativism. Indeed, I don't know what else one would call it when things such as the legality of euthanasia vary from country to country. And who is to say how many states whose laws go against the national consensus as to what is legal it takes before we acknowledge that some ethical standpoint is not absolute. Bottom line is that we can't strictly equate what is legal, whether by partial or unanimous consensus, with what is "right." In any case, you seemed to have missed my point, which is that unless one brings in religious definitions, there will always be ethical relativism, so that the only thing one can do is to determine whether any given society is being reasonably consistent in its attitudes toward morality. A liberal, for example, might object to the thought that CEOs get away with tax evasion more easily than the janitor in one of his companies, or that a wolf of Wallstreet can fleece thousands of sweet old ladies of their lifelong earnings with impunity, while petty shopkeepers in some states have the book thrown at them. Similarly, a conservative might object to the thought that the government claims that it may not be able to pay out what they should to people who have worked to establish social security payments for their retirement, yet don't (supposedly) also threaten to reduce welfare to those who allegedly choose not to work. Indeed, Facebook is rife with people complaining of ethical inconsistencies in our society, e.g., I just read a meme that stated that " one can't preach that gay people are going to hell and then tween that your prayers are going out to Orlando." So my point wasn't at as much about what is absolute and what is relative, or what is right and what is wrong (or the difficulty of making such determinations), but rather that it is at least possible to attempt to make some sort of objective assessments as to whether people's (inevitably subjective) ethical claims are consistent. Such determinations often, I would suggest shed light on those areas in our justice system that, for example, are skewed against minority groups in favor of more advantaged ones who hold more power and pull more political and legal strings.

Ha! Well, I think that it would be contradictory by definition to say that an atheist believes, for example, that angels can reveal the existence of God to humans. Webster defines a theist as "someone who believes in the existence of a god or gods; specifically : belief in the existence of one God viewed as the creative source of the human race and the world who transcends yet is immanent in the world" More broadly, a god is defined as "a superhuman being or spirit worshiped as having power over nature or human fortunes." However, it is of course possible that an atheist can believe in supernatural entities/spirits that didn't create humans and the universe he or she doesn't worship don't have power over nature or human fortune So, it follows then, that an atheist can believe in angels if they don't imply the existence of God or even gods don't worship them don't have power over nature don't have power over human fortune which, I guess, would not be angels that are found in the scriptures of most monotheistic religions. And of course, I see no reason that an atheist couldn't believe in nonhuman or even supernatural beings such as sprites goblins fairies ghosts field, mountain, swamp, river, forest spirits night spirits vampire etc. in terms of the narrow definition of a God who created humans and the world, which is the definition relevant to monotheism in general, and Christianity in particular.

I do think that there needs to be more follow up regarding the reasons that people commit these atrocities in order to try to understand the mentality behind the crimes. Often what manifests itself as an individual aberration is merely the manifestation of dysfunctional cultural attitudes and beliefs. In general, I don't think that the fight terrorism with terrorism or the wipe them all out approach are very viable in today's world, though when under direct attack and/or resources are scarce in any given situation, that sometimes is the only option. But far too often, what is needed is a shift in attitudes...For example, not too many decades ago, it was seen as quite acceptable by mainstream society in many areas of the U.S. to kill disobedient, fleeing, or even sassy "Black" slaves in the most horrific ways. Owing largely to a paradigm shift in consciousness (aka attitude as to what is socially proper and acceptable and reasonable), slavery in general is now considered to be a barbarian and inhuman practice by the vast majority of Americans, and indeed, a few racist remarks from a comedian somewhere can create a firestorm of public protest on a national scale, as happened not too long ago. Similarly, it was only a few years back that homosexuals could be imprisoned simply for being homosexual in some parts of the U.S., while now, even the slightest slur against them by a well-known public figure such as an actor or politician can spark national outrage. But there is still much to be done in terms of changing attitudes...there are still far too many people being persecuted or even killed, directly or indirectly, for being homosexual, colored, or pagan (i.e., of a different religion) in a country which has written into its highest laws that one does not discriminate on the basis of race, color, religion, sex and national origin (Title Vii). Perhaps we could export a little more of this sort of attitude, rather than to be so focused on exporting our commercial products, our political regime preferences, our religious creeds regarding the conditions for salvation, or our military bases. Not to be flippant about a serious situation, but I think that far too often the knee jerk reaction is to try to beat um before you try to join them.

Perhaps we are on the same page when it comes to defining morality in terms of what a society collectively and subjectively believes is right or wrong, but as I said, I am more focused on whether any given society is being inconsistent in its application of its ethical/moral standards and thus being hypocritical; For example, one might argue that it is hypocritical for a society to say that it is wrong to kill by committing abortions, yet it is good to be able to take the life of certain prisoners a society to say that it is wrong to try to get revenge by taking thing the property of thieves, but it is okay to get revenge by taking the life of certain prisoners a society to say that it is wrong to consider a person innocent until proven guilty, while at the same time acknowledging that it takes the lives of certain prisoners who might conceivably be innocent a society to say that one of its religious tenets is not to kill (period), yet it is okay to take the lives of certain prisoners, a society to say that two wrongs never make a right, but it is okay to take the lives of certain prisoners, etc.

RobbityBob1: Judging from your last post, I think that the question makes more sense if you asked how those who claim to believe in God can actually believe in God if they don't believe in angels, who, are said to be the ones who give humans a reason to believe in God (by virtue of their revelations about his existence). Atheists, on the other hand, don't believe in God, so it is not contradictory for them to say they don't believe in angels....and certainly atheists can understand what a theist means when he/she describes what they mean by angels....e.g., have or don't have wings, are or are not visible, do or do not play harps, were or were not once human, are all or are not all good, etc. But of course there are thousands if not millions of Christians who don't take the Bible literally and who don't believe that angels exist, but rather think that the stories in the Bible are meant to be taken in a metaphorical sense, whether or not they believe that the Bible was divinely inspired. So no, if one believes in one God, one has the option, as many Christians claim, of believing or not believing that such things as angels, demons, etc. revealed this God to humans. After all, they might tell one, God is beyond anyone's comprehension, and the Bible is just a mythological way to get a handle on "him," as if to adumbrate his image and give him meaning. The spectrum of belief includes all sorts of possibilities....there are those who believe that the Bible is not inspired and that God never really talked to any human, and Jesus was just a wise philosopher, and angels don't really exist and never talked to humans, and even those who wrote the Bible were not inspired by God...yet, they still see the Bible as a valuable source of wisdom, and still believe that there is a God, and still consider themselves to be Christians.

Having read through the posts, my first reaction is that the main issue seems to be confounded with related, but essentially extraneous side issues, which makes it harder to address the thrust of the question of the thread. -Should we not just be considering the death penalty vs. some other corrective means, be it a life sentence or counseling or whatever, not suggesting that it is parallel to quite different questions such as whether one is justified in killing an intruder to ones home in the middle of the night, which is quite a complex enough issue in itself. (On the basis of relevancy) -Should we not exclude the matter of fact consideration as to whether some criminals escape and commit more murders? (A technicality, not an ethical criterion) We could still pose the question as to whether the death penalty is justified in a society where no criminal ever escaped, so why not just leave it at that. -Should we not exclude the economics of the death penalty, e.g., cost of lethal injections vs. cost of imprisonment? (Again, a technicality, not a main criterion.) -Should we not exclude personal faith as to what is ethical from the discussion? (For the usual reasons) -Should we not avoid ethical relativism...saying that what is right or wrong depends upon which society/culture one is looking at, or that right or wrong is determined by majority rule suggests that the answer is never anything more than a matter of opinion. The problem with that is that anything can be included under the umbrella of cultural relativism. I imagine that the majority of people in many European towns thought it quite ethical to burn suspected witches. Majority rule is not supposed to definitively determine what is right or wrong....I would suggest, but only to provide a working definition. Indeed, abortion, euthanasia, marijuana usage, gay marriage, etc., etc., can be seen to be right (by virtue of majority rule or at least representational majority rule via legislatures) in one state and wrong in another state, or right in one state in one year and wrong in another. Indeed, unless the person posing the question of this thread defines the ethical framework from which the question is to be judged, it seems so vague as to defy a direct answer. I would suggest breaking down the question into its several possible interpretations as to the effects of the death penalty, not whether it is "right" or "wrong" per se, e.g.: Does our society condone the death penalty on the basis of vengeance (as indeed it often does judging from what one hears in the news). Does the death penalty have a preventative effect, i.e., does it discourage others from committing murder or whatever? Is the death penalty as a form of punishment consistent with the religious and cultural values that a society normally espouses? If not, then why not...what makes the death penalty special? For example, does it constitute 'cruel and unusual' punishment? Indeed, I think that the last point of these three is the most crucial: Any given society can have any sort of ethics whatsoever. Unless one appeals to external authorities (i.e., religion), there are no absolutes per se, but only opinions. Whether the opinions of an elite (e.g., legislators, philosophers, or the wealthy) are meant to determine the ethics of a society, or whether we do a head count (e.g., as per the pure democracy of Athens at one point in history), or whether we have a combinaation of these two (representative democracy by those who supposedly know more about the law than the average person on the street), we still have no absolute ethical standards. Thus, I think all that we really can do is ask whether a society is being consistent in its ethical approach when it condones such things as a death penalty, torture of terrorists, imprisonment of homosexuals, testing cosmetics on animals, placing chickens in cages for life, or whatever situation that might appear to us at first glance or on a gut level to be a little bizarre.

MonDie I have reread your opening paragraph several times and fail to see a clear statement as to what you are talking about (aka a thesis statement or question), even if I just try to make a wild guess. Do you know? If so, could you state it in one sentence, please?

Robbitybob1. You state that "From an atheist's point of view the words "angels, demons, supernatural beings" can't really have any particular meaning." Ironically, I am not sure what your claim that these words have no meaning to an atheist actually means. One problem I have with this statement is that what an angel or demon means in one religion is typically not the same as it means in another. And certainly the word "supernatural" could apply to thousands of religions. Secondly, I have no idea what how you are defining "meaning." Are you suggesting that nonbelievers can't understand the concept of an angel or the concept of supernatural? Thirdly, I can only wonder if you are assuming in the discussion that angels actually exist. If not, I fail to see how your statement is any different from stating that a mother can't really understand the words "tooth fairy" because, unlike her child, she doesn't believe that they exist. .I think that a person who doesn't believe in UFOs, as commonly described in the media, can understand the word just as well as those who do believe in them. Fourthly, I am not sure how this statement relates to the origins of monotheism. Are you suggesting that nonbelievers or those who deny the existence of a single god can't really understand the concept because they don't believe in it? I fail to follow your logic... Perhaps you are you suggesting that angels didn't reveal themselves to atheists or that they similarly won't reveal themselves to a person who doesn't believe in them...? Fifthly, I am not sure what you mean by the "particular" meaning of these words. Is that somehow different from their general meaning?

String Junky: Yes, emergence is a possible explanation..one writer explained that emergence was the combined aroma of a Thanksgiving dinner which combined the aroma of all of the other dishes, but was not the aroma of any one particular dish. But again, there is no one Platonic reality for a piece of art, be it Finnegan's Wake or the Mona Lisa, so i don't think one is destroying the totality by looking at the parts, because there is no one single, definitive totality. That is, what the total Thanksgiving smells like to you is not going to the same for me. On the other hand, it is something of a cop out when an artist says he has nothing to say about his work because the work says it all. I think that art criticism is always useful even though we cannot ever capture the meaning of a work of art... but hey, neither can science perfectly capture the reality of the things it attempts to describe. Should we shut down all the art and literature classes that attempt to discuss and interpret works of art for fear of dispelling their mystery and aura?

String Junky said "If you know the state of the one you observe you know the other. Once you break the entanglement (collapse the wave function) by observing, there's no way to know, possibly change it and then restore the entanglement (restore the wave function)" Yes, I have heard that objection before and it makes some sense. One article making this claim says that the information is not exchanged faster than the speed of light, but rather that "Alice’s measurement changes the universe in a way that gives Bob’s particle a definite property to measure that it did not previously possess." But hey, to my mind that suggests that the information transaction is not only happening faster than the speed of light, but that it is done by reorganizing everything in the universe, much like, perhaps, the mousetrap/ping pong ball illustration of how a nuclear chain reaction takes place. Only instead of saying that there is a direct line between the first trap that goes off and the last, you say that it is more like filling an entire football field with traps and then saying that the last one to go off at the other end of the field goes off indirectly after virtually every other trap in the field goes off. https://www.sciencenews.org/blog/context/einstein-was-wrong-about-spooky-quantum-entanglement In any case, I am wondering why scientists are routinely claiming that they have shown that entangled particles affect each other at specific distances: "Einstein was so skeptical about quantum entanglement that he wrote a paper in 1935 titled “Can quantum-mechanical description of physical reality be considered complete?” He argued that it was not possible. In this, Einstein has been proven [to be] wrong. Researchers recently accessed entangled information over a distance of 15 miles." http://unreasonable.is/quantum-computing-is-about-to-overturn-cybersecuritys-balance-of-power/

Couple of random comments: Finnegan's Wake is the work of a great mind, and something of a grand cathedral made of cloying puns based upon Joyce's vast warehouse of knowledge...but not all that readable, and certainly not exactly suspenseful to say the least. Ulysses is less indulgent and more varied I think, but I think it overrated by those claiming it to be the best novel ever. Apparently Faulkner peered into a restaurant window at Joyce but felt so intimidated by his genius that he did not enter. But I personally see Faulkner's novels as having a greater ranger of artistic expression. I agree with those who say that there is no such think as art....this is essentialism at its worst, that is, we say that there is such a thing as art, but it is, as Wilde I think said, purely a matter of taste as to what is art and what is not art. I have spent a lot of time in art galleries, and I think a lot of artists with a bit of a reputation have passed off sloppy work as if it were great art and charged thousands more than they should have, imo. Whether a piece of art should stand on its own, as opposed to the artist's intention or the viewer's interpretations is the central dividing line between, say American 'New Criticism" and the post structuralist movement. Indeed, there is a whole list of 'fallacies' in this regard that suggest that when trying to understand and appreciate or put a value on a work of art, one should not take into account the writer's life, his intentions, his fame, his artistic earnings, the work's emotional affect on the viewer, its subject matter, the work's subject matter, the price that the artist put's on it, the price someone pays for it, the artistic value of other artistic works by the same artist, the moral content of the work of art, the affect that the work of art has had on culture or history, etc. But I think the more recent trend is that one can and should use every bit of information that one can find, particularly about the writers life, the conditions under which he created the work of art, and the purposes which he intentionally had, in an effort to appreciate and understand a work of art, including the interpretations of the critics. For example, the great Robert Lowell said that he had read a critic's interpretation of the meaning of his poem, "Skunk Hour" and said that what the critic had said was not really what he had in mind himself when he wrote it, but nevertheless, he thought that the critic's take on the poem was coherent, made sense, and provided a very interesting interpretative journey. Indeed, in some cases, a good critic's evaluation of a piece of art may be judged to be more artistic that than the art piece itself. So yes, I think, contrary to much that has been written about it through the centuries, "art," however one defines it, is always subjective, and any given work has many versions in the minds of the artist(s), the reader(s) and the critic(s). Indeed, one can write a poem in the morning, rewrite it at noon, and then reinterpret the poem written at noon in a quite different way in the evening over a glass of wine. Art is a protean vision that promises a glimpse of a higher reality, but elusively vanishes as soon as one tries to pin it down into a single descriptive thought or feeling.

ajb You stated that "using quantum entanglement does not allow faster than light communication." I am a layperson who is eager to discuss this topic with other lay people. I note that you are a professor of mathematics, so I am guessing that I may have misunderstood your statement. However, it is my understanding that the main reason that Einstein described entanglement as "spooky action at a distance" is that the information seemed to be converted almost instantaneously between particles (e.g., electrons), and certainly much much faster than the speed of light...thus the idea of entanglement seemed to go against both his theories as well as Newtons, and everybody elses for that matter. I have just started researching this topic and one thing I noticed is that some experts claim that acceleration is necessary for time dilation to take place, and some say not. Apparently, though, Einstein did not restrict the effect to just situations where acceleration happened when he first outlined it in the Theory of Special Relativity. Also, the simplified explanations that I have read about it in terms of the Lorenz Transformation do not seem to require it. Typical explanations use the example of a light beam that is going back and forth between two mirrors on a rocket ship....Because the rocket ship is moving, an observer on earth sees the light beam going in a zigzag fashion because it is going back and forth between two mirrors, say, horizontally to the earth observer, but also away from him. For the guy on the spaceship, the light is just going back and forth between the mirrors. The point is that the earth observer sees the light beam going further over a period of say, a second, than the guy on the spaceship, though the shorter distance that the light travels on the space ship is covering the space between the mirrors as fast as anything in the universe can go. The result is that, from the earth observers point of view, the light beam is going faster than the speed of light, but, in order for that to be possible, the light on the rocket ship must be in a time frame that is slower than that of earths time frame....and, since the space guy is on the same space ship as the mirrors, he too will be in that slowed down time frame. (There is also the related thing about space ship as well as the space between earth and, say, the nearest star to which the space ship is going, also being contracted.) Anyway, that's where I am at, at the moment, and I hope i got it reasonably right.

MonDie: You state that "I've wondered whether the angels make Christianity polytheistic in all but name." Of course, one of the major criticisms that Muslims have with Christianity is its idea of the Trinity, which Muslims claim proves that Christianity is not a true monotheism, but rather just another polytheistic religion. However, many Christians dispute this Islamic claim: See http://carm.org/does-the-trinity-really-teach-there-are-three-gods Ironically, Muslims also believe in angels: "Muslims do not believe that angels have free will -- they are incapable of disobedience. However, they are intelligent and can ask questions of God." I have never heard of a god who didn't supposedly have free will....but who can say? See the rest of the amazing description of Islamic angels at http://talktoislam.com/577/do-muslims-believe-in-angels But what is odd is that "The commonly portrayed image of angels being human like creations with wings instead of arms is something that Muslims cannot confirm nor deny as there has not been given a visual description of Angels in Islam and neither has anyone seen them in their original form" Muslims tend to acknowledge that other people can see them in their human form. But in any case, contrast this with recent Barna survey results that seven million teenagers (35 percent) claim to actually have encountered an angel, a demon, or some other supernatural being. http://www.ligonier.org/learn/articles/angels-and-demons-go-pop-culture/?mobile=on Angels were created by God/Jesus and thus might be described as nonhuman "creatures" (whatever that means) according to one source, though another relates that "Rev. Dr. Nugent has stated definitively that the biblical Elohim אלהים – a word meaning gods...representing the Canaanite pantheon – are “angels” and the gods of Mesopotamia and Egypt." I find it interesting that so many monotheists seem to resent the idea that there are polytheists. I am guessing that polytheists aren't as worried about the existence of monotheists in the world. I guess if you believe that there are a lot of gods, then you aren't as worried about whether someone just focuses on one, or even if they focus on others....as if there were plenty enough to go around for everyone.

Velocity_boy: I agree. The main problem with Gods is that they tend to be far too anthropomorphic to be taken seriously. I don't think that we need equate a belief in such Gods with a belief in an afterlife, as the jury is still out with regards to the nature of consciousness, even as far as top physicists are concerned, e.g., Davies and Penrose. On the other hand, I would agree that the desire to believe in life after death is, to one extent or another, a manifestation of the survival instinct. Pinker et al. note that women tend to be more religious as a whole than men because they are more in need of external protection from things that they fear (as per, for example, their more nurture-oriented nature), and, as Jung et al. point out, there is indeed some sort of innate religious impulse.

TenOz: I use "Churchgoers" rather loosely to include not only those who wrote scriptures but also those who attempted to follow them. Perhaps I should have used the words Christian, Muslim, and Jewish writers if you want to contain the discussion to them rather than their followers as well for some reason. In any case, my observations that you can't assume that they (and/or their followers) didn't actually believe what they wrote (or read) because else they would have behaved better still holds for the reasons I gave in my last post. It did seem to me that you were talking about those who claimed to believe in scriptures in general. If you are just talking about the writers, you might narrow the discussion down by mentioning the a particular writer whom you found to be hypocritical. dimreepr: I wonder whether you can find much scholarly support for your contention that the scriptures were written just to entertain and/or make people content with stories as you put it. Then you proceed to suggest that you are just talking about the NT, so if you are eliminating the OT from the discussion on the incredible grounds that it was included in order to "confuse" people, then that kind of leaves out Jews and Muslims from the discussion, not to mention the Abrahamic narrative, which is what I thought this thread was about. Indeed, the NT sort of completes the story of the OT (e.g., going back to Adam and Eve's sin) don't you think, so I don't know how you can so summarily dismiss it because writers just meant to confuse us, or for some political reason (which you don't specify). And good luck trying to separate stories that were meant to spread contentment (whatever you mean by that) from those meant to be taken literally. Perhaps you could actually single out a couple of stories for discussion in order that readers can tell what you are talking about....so far, as I have been saying, your remarks seem too vague to digest. Indeed, I think that it is pretty hard to sidestep the hegemonic intentions of the Bible, e.g., the Abrahamic claim that certain prime areas of land were given by God to one people or another, and the subsequent bloodshed that has resulted from conflicts about the interpretation of just to whom this promised gift was made that continue to this day. Finally, you seem to say that it is full of nice, pleasant stories meant to spread contentment on the one hand, but then don't want to bring the concept of hell into the discussion, or else, if it is brought into the discussion, you want to say that its okay for Christians, etc. to believe in it, because, after all, that was just a common way of spreading ones faith at the time. Yes, the OT is arguably more retributive (eye for an eye) than the OT, as if to suggest that the NT is more about compassion and forgiveness...though there is always that thorny passage about Jesus not coming to change the old laws. In any case, the NT warning that people will go to hell and/or not be saved just for not believing/following Jesus seems just as horrible (ie.., full of horrors), if not more so, as anything in the OT. At least in the OT one was typically punished for actually doing something bad, usually to someone else, while with the NT, one gets punished (forever!) just for not believing that one can be forgiven for doing bad things to others as long as one believes and tries to be nice after that. So really, not a big distinction, I don't think. I don't mean to be captious, but on the surface it seems that you are just being self-contradictory in quite a few ways....however, when I look more deeply, it seems to me that you are ultimately just trying to whitewash the Bible as a whole, and the NT in particular, any way you can. Perhaps it might help if we agree to focus on the Abrahamic tradition (and its stories) rather than on the NT as you apparently would prefer to focus on.

@dimreepr: Yes, there is no reason that we can’t read any version and just enjoy it as literature. But, most literature contains moral lessons of one sort of another, so I guess that is why those in social power (e.g., Vatican, Stalin, Mao, Hitler, conservative American leaders, etc.) make use of censorship. Even Shakespeare was, in effect partially banned: “In 1818, Bowdler published The Family Shakespeare, in Ten Volumes; in which nothing is added to the original text; but those words and expressions are omitted which cannot with propriety be read aloud in a family.” Indeed, the word “legend” by definition, suggests that the line between fact and fiction is often blurry, so that even if they take Abrahamic scriptures as just legendary stories, Jews will be still influenced to believe that the scriptures (e.g. Torah) suggest that they are the Chosen people entitled to certain lands, while Muslims will be influenced to believe that the scriptures (e.g., Koran) suggest that they are Chosen and entitled to virtually the same lands. Finally, there is the issue as to whether all of the moral lessons of the skeleton (aka, some basic “nugget” version) of scriptures are desirable (aka stoning for adultery or whatever), though I acknowledge that the character of Abraham had many admirable qualities. That may not be directly related to the question of the thread, perhaps, but it is certainly relevant in terms of whether one is supposed to presume that the events really happened, and therefore, should be seen as having been approved by God, e.g., the laws of Leviticus or the numerous mass killings in the OT, not to mention killing a family member if told to do so by God. So, I am not convinced that it is just a simple manner of reading about the basic Abrahamic tradition in the OT, Torah, or Koran and thinking that this will make one feel contented. (NT justice, for example, is more about retribution and stern obedience that it is about forgiveness and compassion that the OT). @tenoz: Judging from surveys, the belief/faith of a lot of churchgoers these days, as well as of clergy, is pretty shaky. Indeed, I suspect that many agnostics or even atheists go to church for side reasons such as looking like good citizens, seeing friends, joining in social activities, etc. However, I am not convinced that everyone would behave a great deal better if they did believe in, say, the promise of heaven (positive reinforcement) and the threat of hell (positive punishment). Behaviorism claims that people do not respond very well to promises and threats that aren’t concrete and immediate. Religion tends to be rather abstract. As for imminence (i.e., immediate punishment), I would agree that adolescents and adults behave better if they know for sure that their parent are watching from the next room, and speeders slow down when they can see a highway patrol car complete with radar is just up ahead. But, in most cases, punishment is not so certain and not so imminent. Hell and heaven are as remote as our own death, and even those who actually believe that Santa or God is watching all the time don’t really start getting worried and start repenting and behaving until Christmas or until their own death is around the corner. Even in those societies where belief is strong,promises are grand, and threats are strong, e.g., among English Victorians or American Puritans, good behavior is often either just a token or hypocritical effort (owing to the difference between the unrealistic and thus hard to internalize moral standards of conservative church dogma): See, for example: https://mises.org/library/coercing-morality-puritan-massachusetts In general, I would suggest that, when it comes to human desires and needs, punishments, whether they be divine or earthly, often just serve to drive misbehavior underground, e.g., drinking (think of the prohibition era), abortion laws, abstinence only programs, and social disapproval of adultery. Indeed, in many cases, fear of punishment often just tends to add to the excitement of misbehavior and actually increases it. And even after I have read your clarification in your last post, I still thnk that such defense mechanisms as 'rationalization' (aka making excuses) and denial are relevant, in even people who actually believe in God, and who actually believe that he, like children who really believe in Santa, is always watching, and who actually believe in hell, will still find ways to suppress their fears and justify misbehavior in their own minds, or else just misbehave and live with the guilt, though somewhat comforted by the the rationalization that there misbehavior is not so bad because most other people are misbehaving as well. So yes, I agree that a lot of churchgoers are and always have been hypocritical, either ostensibly in their behavior, or internally in their thoughts, and perhaps that fact has led you to be rather cynical. But I don’t agree that we can directly measure the sincerity of people’s religious belief by looking at their behavior, on the assumption that if they really believed in heaven and hell, or if they really loved and respected God, then they would automatically behave.

Tar: I don't see anything in your last post that I disagree with. If we take the evolution of life forms as a touchstone, nature seems to work largely (but not entirely judging from developments in epigenetics) on the basis of trial and error in something of an organic/creative manner. Any version of a static universe seems to contradict such a principle, not to mention that there doesn't seem to be any point for the universe to exist. As I recall from Stephen Hawking's book, A Brief History of Time, he believed at one stage that time would go forward as the universe expanded and that at some point the universe would stop expanding and then start contracting (and perhaps thereby create a cycle of contractions and expansions). What was weird, though, was that he claimed that time would go backward as it contracted, so that everything that people did when the universe was expanding (arrow of time going forward) would be done backwards when it contracted, though people wouldn't notice it because everything would be running smoothly...I guess an example would be that one might unsharpen a pencil so that, as time went backwards, the pencil would become blunt....kind of like pushing the reverse button to see a movie run backwards. At some stage physicists found that the data suggested that the universe is not slowing down, but gradually expanding slightly faster and faster, and that it is not going to eventually contract, but just keep expanding and expending energy (i.e., entropic "decaying") until all the stars eventually fizzle out. Bottom line is that Hawking had to change his mind about time being able to run backwards. Quantum physicists also used to entertain the idea that electrons could go backward in time (e.g., the double slit experiment), but that also seems to be a theory that is not holding water. I wonder if Hawking ever shook his head in disbelief when he recalls that he once thought everything in the universe might run backwards as the universe contracted....scientists don't always make the best philosophers. Just as Einstein suggested that space is not just an empty "nothingness" and just as some quantum physicists suggest that there is no pure nothingness out of which the universe sprang (as pure nothingness, so the argument goes, would not have something like a Higgs Boson field from which the universe could start up), so too it seems likely to me that consciousness is not just pure nothingness (as Sartre, for example, maintains), but rather some sort of je ne sais quoi substance that, like electrons, ultimately seems to be integrated with its surroundings in a mysterious way. Indeed, Bergson makes the same claim about consciousness as physicists seem to be claiming about the interconnectedess of subatomic particles such as electrons: 'From one moment to the next, each point in the material universe receives and transmits a "snapshot" of the entire universe, a type of pulse or flash of universal information through all the lines of force or influence that connect all of the images.' The quote is from a writer who is summarizing Bergson's view of consciousness, but if we substitute the word "electron" for "images" we could be reading right out of the latest book on quantum physics. Indeed, the fact that it takes time for these "snapshots" to be exchanged between particles explains why light can go no faster than a certain speed: each time light moves a certain distance, the entire universe has to rearrange these snapshots of information, and there is a limit to how quickly such rearranging can 'take place'. Living Consciousness: The Metaphysical Vision of Henri Bergson by G. William Barnard https://books.google.com/books?id=1JrlpzwhmV4C&pg=PA124&lpg=PA124&dq=bergson+consciousness+and+the+universe&source=bl&ots=ovVRO4ehnM&sig=ExU3H8TcM5od-W3UqRk1drI67vs&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwi86NDY5KDNAhVVO1IKHZ3-AKcQ6AEIMjAD#v=onepage&q=bergson%20consciousness%20and%20the%20universe&f=false So, no, I don't think that the universe was created, nor do I think that the universe is alone. The universe 'reflects' upon itself in a multitude of ways. For example, as physicist Lawrence Krauss, echoing the thoughts of Hegel, remarks, "How amazing is it that, out of nothing, a trillion finely tuned biological mechanisms came together to form your morality, your consciousness, the love you feel, and all that is good and pleasurable in the world? Everything you are is part and parcel of the mathematical fabric of reality. Just think: Right now, you are the universe reflecting on itself. To choose to see that as “nothing” would be the biggest travesty of all." http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rebecca-searles/universe-origins_b_1687559.html The universe is not alone.....it is one big house of mirrors, thereby continually providing company for itself.

Tar: Dopamine and serotonin are just chemicals that seem to affect consciousness. Consciousness does not rely upon the presence of dopamine or serotonin to exist, I would think. Comments to the effect that an expanded consciousness might swallow up the universe or other people, or that conscious models of the universe cannot themselves contain the universe fail to see that it is not a matter of one thing edging out or containing another, anymore than everyday consciousness edges out, excludes, contains, other people or other objects or whatever. This is all speculation of course, but based on my understanding of Buddhism, meditative experiences, etc., consciousness rather blends in with its surroudings on its own wave length (much as it usually does anyway) so that there is no conflict. Sartre made similar comments, as I perhaps mentioned elsewhere, that consciousness (pour soi) cannot blend with its surroundings (en soi), though, from a philosophical standpoint, Heidegger disagreed, and, not surprisingly, found that his philosophy was in line with Buddhistic thought when he started reading Eastern literature later on in life. So no, this is no personal pet theory of mine. Indeed, it is in line with continental (e.g., German) idealism in general, and Hegel and Fichte's thinking in particular. That consciousness is of a similar substance as ones surroundings (on whatever scale) is perhaps relevant to this thread, as the question addresses the fundamental notion of the existentialist movement about people's alienation (aka aloneness) not only from fellow human beings, but also from their environment. Buddhism merely extends the everyday sense that people have of being one with their environment when in certain relaxed moods, and takes it to the logical conclusion, if you will, that such a sensation could possibly be much more extensive after death. Whether or not that entails a conscious awareness of the entire universe is perhaps a more metaphorical notion than a literal one, so there is not much point in trying to refute it with logic, as Sartre has already made such an attempt at the end of his book, Being and Nothingness, and indeed, he famously quips that humans desire to become gods in terms of their awareness (aka knowledge) of the universe, but, given his definition that consciousness is completely non-"material", and thus the opposite of everything else in the universe, he claims that such a desire is impossible to fulfil...From there he makes the claim that it similarly impossible for God to exist, as "he" would have to be both immaterial and material at the same time, which, according to Sartre is impossible. But the truth of the matter that philosophers and scientists around the world do not really know what consciousness is, so such discussion really are purely speculative. As an aside, Sartres entire philosophy is built on the assumption that just because consciousness per se seems to be the absence of everything else, then that somehow suggests that people have free will. Critics are quick to point out that this is just verbal gymnastics and presumes a far greater understanding of the nature of consciousness than anyone really has. Memammal: We are back to the issue of verifiability/falsifiability. At present, there seems no way to get beyond idle speculation as to such things, and indeed, one wonders what difference any proof might make to our daily lives or even to scientific developments, though there would not doubt be some impact on philosophy and religion. More importantly, the block theory is not in line, apparently, with mainstream thought in physics, e.g., Big Bang, expansion, etc. Finally, the comments about free will are very ad hoc: "In Deutsch’s model, when the human comes to a fork in the road, the universe (and the person) splits into two different universes so the person is capable of travelling down both roads" or "a decision can only ever have one outcome, so only one road is travelled after the decision is made." As for the first, even quantum theories about 'many worlds' are metaphorical, not literal; as for the second possibility, the existence or nonexistence of free will makes no difference to the scenario. I have no problem with there being no universal "now" but arrow of time is forward for a reason that is compatible with the nature of an expanding universe and with entropy. As for free will, it seems that scientists from many disciplines are more and more considering it to be a useful illusion. Scientists and psychologists are painting this illusion into a corner, so that, it appears that before long they will have painted it out of the picture all together.

I guess the logical response to this question is to ask in turn how one defines God. Once one does that, I would suggest that many of the issues become scientific ones, e.g., can the universe come out of a background field spontaneously? Does evolution satisfactorily explain how life develops, etc.? Religious answers tend to rely on the previous assumption that everyone in the discussion agrees that the Bible is literally true, so that any arguments tend to become circular. What scientists tend to object to is that, without the scriptural assumptions, the term God (or whatever) is merely a three letter symbol that one might designate as some natural or, less likely, extra-natural (outside of nature and its laws) force that we don't really understand yet. The solution to this problem is that if there is some unknown force that, for example, agitates, say, the Higgs-Boson field, then we might as well use a term other than "God" that does not have the scriptural connotations and baggage, so to speak in order to simplify matters and avoid confusion (Occams Razor sort of thing). We might as well use some Greek symbol to designate such a force...but hey, that's what physicists tend to do anyway...Nobody really understands the basic forces in the universe, e.g., strong, weak, gravity, electromagnetic fields, etc. Indeed, this is pretty much what Einstein did with the word God with reference to the way laws of the universe work. But even then, we see that many people in the general public assume that Einstein is referring to the Christian God. So again, I would just use a letter of some alphabet to designate forces that we haven't identified yet. And when we do identify them, why we just rename them after the name of the person who discovered them (e.g., Higgs).

Philosophy as hobby. Psychology and history with emphasis upon religion as minors. Not studying or teaching this topic.