immortal

Perhaps you're not aware of the amount of literature that is available from various religious scholars across different cultures over centuries of time who dedicated their whole life to gain knowledge of god , there is so much to know about the pleroma of God, we hardly know a thing, god is one of the possible supernatural explanation to those phenomena which is based on a testable philosophy of religion of neutral monism which says the fundamental thing in the universe is neither matter nor mind. If you are thinking that theists just say "God did it" without giving an explanation of how god works then you're mistaken. Their scholarly works is itself enough to show that they are creative apart from the creative methods that they use to know God, as a scientist you keep ignoring such reports from various cultures at different timelines. May be we are not prepared enough to communicate with him even though he wants to communicate with us, so he is preparing us, religion teaches us that the tools required to communicate with him exists in each and everyone of us so there is nothing stopping you from communicating with God. There are projects going on to make you completely unaware of the empirical world and to experience only the virtual world if you don't have any prior memory of the real world then for you the real empirical world does not exist which is exactly what you have said for those who think that God does not exist there is no evidence of God and for those who step up to his realm and doubt his existence they might conquer that doubt with their agnostic faith and have absolute faith in God and for the God indeed exists but for us he does not exist.

Well talking of evidence... At times Teresa’s agonies and ecstasies were so violent that reports were that her room shook and the other nuns were frightened. The phenomenon of the subtle magnification of the aura of a saint and their dead bodies existing without decomposing for many days has parallels in many traditions. All traditions indicate that empirical reality is like a dream, there is an amazing common consensus among different traditions who claim to explain that almost 15 days would have passed away in the empirical world while they are in experience of a divine realm for just few minutes. Time might be relative to the state of the mind. These all are reality based claims, in fact they are empirical claims, which can be observed, the scientific community ignores such reports for some others it is enough evidence to investigate such experiences. Even evolutionary biology is not an exact science, many of the phenomena cannot be repeatable and we deduce and accept it to be true. Yes, religious beliefs and magical ideation are a sign of psychotic behaviors, they should have a mental defect because they are trying to produce cracks in empirical reality, cracks which forces us to doubt the very foundation of science and scientific realism. http://content.karger.com/ProdukteDB/produkte.asp?doi=10.1159/000108125 - Meditation leads to pyschopathology. Theists may be wrong, there might be other explanations for those phenomena, you might call them broken while I call them creative and intellectually open. http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0278262601914939 - Are creativity and schizotypy products of a right hemisphere bias? The conversion of Saul of Tarsus to Christianity after Jesus revealed himself to him is an another indirect evidence unless there is an alternative explanation as to why he converted at the time when Jewish Christians were prosecuted. Shankara of advaita left his home in search of God when he was 8 years old and an another theory says Jesus might have left his home when he was 13. Seeing this, it seems grown up adults look very immature and silly when they attack religion and faith. We need to learn a lot from children. We can criticize theistic claims without calling them childish and broken or mentally defective. If you can't see this simple thing then there is something wrong with you, you're mixing institutional religion which is more associated with politics with personal religion and attacking FAITH by putting all of them in the same bandwagon. To have faith in God is to doubt the existence of God.

God is beyond rationalism and empiricism, to know about God its inevitable that you need to believe in God, such a belief doesn't necessarily have to be an affirmative belief, its a position which one takes to actively participate in the possible ways to know God, it doesn't mean by default that they accept the existence of God as a fact.

How is a reasonable argument for disagreeing with a point of view is an act of double standards, religious scientists don't assert that God exists, they just think that its more likely that he exists while non-theists think its very unlikely that he exists and search for him with the same rigor and with the same consistent approach which they adopt to test any other hypothesis. http://www.peterrussell.com/pete.php I don't accept everything which he says and don't blindly believe in him without questioning his ideas but I don't have to go to such an extreme and call him broken when he explains why he become a theist from an atheist.

If you take the bible literally then those claims indeed turns out to be false but one of the reasons why I have a huge respect for religion is that the interpretations are made on some kind of psychology, when they say earth is flat I really don't think that they are talking about the planet earth, they are talking about a subjective aspect which has nothing to do with the observable world. If they were really talking about the planet earth then it is definitely ridiculous and I wouldn't have respect for such faith based beliefs. I really don't find the concept of God to be ridiculous just because you cannot see how such thing can be real doesn't mean that you can go about and say that God isn't real. Faith might lead to experiential knowledge, by minimizing faith you're suppressing a possible road to reality, what needs to be minimized is ignorance I wouldn't go about and call them broken and somehow make their life hard by showing intolerance towards their views instead we need to educate them and minimize their misconceptions and explain to them what science is and what religion is. A theist don't have to convince anyone, faith doesn't have to hinder scientific and critical thinking, there is nothing that prevents a theist to make an inquiry about God and there shouldn't be any conflicts, but some do stupid things in the name of God due to their misconceptions and with no education they are more easily vulnerable to be brain washed.

I would say that people who reject evolution by natural selection or people who say that the earth is flat in a literal sense etc. is broken which means that holding on to a belief in a literal sense even after showing a pile of evidence against that view is broken. So I would like to ask you what evidence do you have against the existence of God? If there are no evidence and if a theist just wants to have a personal belief in God without trying to convert or convince others based solely on his faith based beliefs then what is wrong with that?

Great post, the point is that students need to pre-read before the class and should have a small grip of the concepts beforehand, the only class where I used to follow such an approach was the biology classes because I had a great interest in biology, my interaction with the teachers and my preparation before the class did indeed helped me a lot to understand the concepts better and that showed up in my grades too and expanded my interests in other subjects. But how can we make students to come prepared for the class if they have no interests in the subject whatsoever? What new tricks and models that we might have to come up with?

Science is all about making models of the observable world which can be testified.

I think many of the students are not passionate about the real joy of learning science, they more want to learn science just for the sake of completing the homework or just for the sake of getting good grades in exams and are not interested in the research process of science. If you were part of an advisory committee to advice your government or the education minister how would you make students to get more attracted to science?

Not all theists hide their God in a Cave to keep him immune from criticism, there are Gods which are falsifiable, my God is falsifiable, one of the strong claims it makes is that it says strong AI is impossible. The default position for me is not to have a lack of belief in God and abandon our search for him instead theists keep looking for him.

Yes, true religious beliefs shouldn't harm others, not all faith based beliefs harm others and hence your attack on "FAITH" is flawed. There is a middle way that one can take, you were the one who raised that point again or am I not following this thread clearly?

Not all religious beliefs cause harm to others, religious beliefs are personal, it should in no way harm others, how does a humble theist's act of exploring the world outside of science to guide the journey of his soul has anything got to do with other people in the observable world. Religion transcends morals. 1. Religion teaches us that the light of God which exists in you is the same light of God which exists in every living thing, it teaches us that a violence to others is a violence to oneself. 2. Religion teaches us to be responsible in society and teaches us to go on with your works and not to destabilize society in anyway. Rigney is an agnostic so he should be left to have his view, persons who lash out and give disrespect to other's beliefs are the one's who are really causing harm to others and they are the one's who are broken.

If the real universe is a Penrose's non-computable toy universe then the universe is not a computer but that doesn't necessarily mean that we are not in a simulated immersive virtual reality, the real non-computable universe can be anything and perfectly deterministic yet non-computable. Its outside of science.

I agree that religious superstition and blind faith are the worse things that one can use to convince others, the merit of their position.

There is not much difference between a person who has a weak belief in God and a person who lack a belief in God. Even though Religion doesn't overlaps with science it does overlap in reality and in our social and political aspect of our lives. Religion is a way of life to many people. While I agree that one shouldn't base their important decisions of their lives on a Holy Book which is based on blind faith and I would never follow such practices blindly but what right do we have to show intolerance towards such beliefs and practices when I really don't know what the truth is. I don't think we have met the criteria to show intolerance towards such beliefs, I would never blindly fall into such beliefs and I would neither go on forcing people to abandon their faith. You seem to be of the opinion that we should abandon faith and think rationally but does that mean that theologians should abandon their search for God? Its like forcing scientists to abandon their hope of finding a fundamental theory and preventing them from investing money and time on building particle accelerators. Whenever someone posts a religious topic and wants to learn about God you are free to push them away by saying that "God probably don't exist so go and enjoy your life" and even theists are equally free to say that God probably exists, they have got their own reasons for their belief but somehow theists are looked down upon by those who lack a belief in God.

I think the real Universe is non-computable, there is a connection between mathematical truths and the way the human mind understands through intuition, a small glitch. Kurt Godel said "I don't believe in natural science" and also "Either mathematics is too big for the human mind or the human mind is more than a machine", he was really very doubtful about the external reality. Roger Penrose doesn't take the strong Platonist view of Godel but he makes similar arguments in his three books. It is highly inaccurate and inappropriate to speculate on the exact nature of the universe based on our common notions of computers while viewing the universe as a processing mechanistic computer. If we can simulate the creaking sounds of walking on frozen ice and the crumpling sounds of walking on snow, metals and wood on normal flat tiles then we can imagine how the exact nature of the universe might be completely different than what is being given to us in a simulated reality.

How is taking a particular point of view based on a reasonable argument parallely giving the benefit of the doubt to those who object that view whose arguments are equally reasonable a broken system? No one is more broken than an intellectually dishonest person who just can't tolerate a difference of opinion and wants to dismiss the opposite view.

Even the Mayan shamans used mushrooms which contained psilocybin, a variant of DMT (DiMethylTryptamine) which according to Rick Strassman's study causes hallucinations.

Virtual reality applications can be of two types. In non-immersive virtual reality such simulations are used to simulate destroyed cities or other things like Titanic etc where as in Immersive virtual reality individuals see the world through the eyes of a virtual body which exists in a virtual reality environment. See Immersion (virtual reality) With the kind of advancements that is taking place in developing new synthesizing haptic, visual and auditory physical models achieving realism which is indistinguishable from the actual reality we are not far away from having our own virtual bodies in cyberspace. Natural Interactive Walking Project- video clips. While such advancements are inevitable the question arises are we living in an Immersive virtual reality itself? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simulated_reality http://www.newscientist.com/blog/technology/2008/01/vr-hypothesis.html http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simulation_hypothesis The same hypothesis can be used as a God hypothesis since there are many religions who teach that we are living in an virtual reality. I think such a hypothesis is outside of science.

http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2011/06/child-brides/gorney-text

For Einstein there is no such thing as a gravitational force, he equated the effects of gravitation to an accelerated frame of reference Gravity and Acceleration and acceleration was a consequence of geometry or the curved surface of space-time From acceleration to geometry, his equations shows us how the curvature of space tells matter to move. Matter is not directly influencing the motion of other matter with a gravitational force or a field. Gravitational field theory is derived from the same Einstein's equations, so you want to accept only part of the solutions from those equations and dismiss those solutions which says how much space-time has curved just because it contradicts your pre-concieved metaphysical notions of space-time? In the absence of a better model to model reality the accepted consensus is what we know about nature of now, new models are accepted by testing those models and not solely based on logical reasons. That's not what I said. Read my post again. Its quite clear from this thread that irrespective of what your expertise is you need to know the Math in order to completely understand scientific concepts and to do some real science, sciences needs predictions to falsify certain claims and math provides it by quantifying it. Evolution by Natural Selection is blind, it has no purpose, the Lamarckian view that the conscious efforts of the organism is responsible for the novel changes in the body is wrong, there are prions, proteins which pass on certain traits for a short period of time when the environment changes and the same is for DNA methylation which go by non-Mendelian inheritance, these are all simply variations, natural selection is blind in deciding which traits will be passed on and which traits lead to an evolutionary dead end. It doesn't, but such discussions are important to understand how science works.

From the perspective of religion everyone is immortal.

Taking that as a hypothetical question, there are two ways of being immortal, one is technological immortality and the other is religious physical immortality, in the latter one you won't be aware of your body and you'll show disinterest in everything, I like both kinds of immortality and no, I don't hate it.

When I was in my pre-university my personal expenditure was mainly on books. I have sold back all my engineering books because they were boring and aren't much useful however I have kept my science books from my pre-university since they always come in handy while trying to understand a few basic concepts. I have other interesting books like cell and molecular biology, genes and evolution, mechanisms in organic chemistry, biotechnology etc. I rely on scientifc journals and articles for my knowledge now and I have stopped buying books. I used to keep one single book to write all my notes for the entire year.

One of the pioneers and Fathers of Information science Dr. Vannevar Bush had addressed this problem in the year 1945 itself, his idea of the memex, a machine analogous to the human mind which paved way for hypertext documents and predicted the compression of information. He outlined a series of views on what scientists should concentrate to achieve in future and one of his main tenets was that science should be more used to increase the power of human minds by sharing fast reliable and accessible knowledge rather than using it increase our physical power by producing weapons of mass destruction. Here is his interesting letter - As we may think - The Atlantic I just cannot imagine how much of modern science could be done without the computers, the huge amount of data that is being gathered in experiments of particle accelerators at CERN and accumulation of genomic data accumulated by molecular biologists worldwide needs to be pre-processed in order to test different hypothesis and theories in parallel under a software simulation and to interpret those data. Software simulations are what is being used to evaluate the null hypothesis. Software designers normally follow a set of Software design patterns through which they code programs, its not a necessity that all programmers should follow the same pattern and code things in the same way, different programmers arrive at solutions to problems using different techniques and their codes will be indeed different even though they give the same output. One of the advantages of using a particular pattern through out the project is the re-usability and readability of the code, if a different group of scientists want to repeat your experimental methods and analyze them to verify your works it would be much easier for them if you would give your source codes along with the report so that your code could be reused again rather than wasting our time to create new source codes which would hinder the progress of science and its research. Such a pattern gives good readability of the code so that anyone with enough basic knowledge with programming could easily understand how your model works and how you have got your results, in this way scientific reviewing would be much easier.