A no-arguing thread: your views in 75 words or less

[Martin]

In that other thread, post #23, Blike stated very clearly and concisely his views on religion in 75 words or less. I thought that was great. An open and generous contribution to our understanding of each other.

 

I would like to hear what anyone else here can say, like that, in < 75 words.

 

It can be what you think real religion is, or what your view is of the organized established, or what things are of ultimate concern to you--your beliefs about ultimately what you think matters most, or you can talk about your affiliation to this or that religious community.

 

Nobody can say it all in 75 words, but I am curious to know what you choose to say in the space available.

================

 

AND LET'S NOT ARGUE with each other's say. Everybody gets his or her say.

 

OK, to start off, here is what Blike said:

 

"I'm a Christian and I rather agree with Dawkins attitudes and disdain for organized religion in modern society. Religion was a powerful tool for ancient societies in that it provided means for leaders to control the masses while simultaneously lending powerful explanatory power which satisfied human curiosity. In modern times religion has become largely irrelevant and even detrimental to society on the whole.

 

An interesting dichotomy, I suppose, but a position I hold nonetheless."

 

bravo! I guess I have to go too just to show I'm not chicken, but I am going to wait a little. maybe someone else will take the plunge.

 

if anyone is curious, here is the link to Blike's post

http://www.scienceforums.net/showpost.php?p=305064&postcount=23

and here is the thread context

http://www.scienceforums.net/showthread.php?p=305064#post305064

[In My Memory]

My views in exactly 75 words::

 

For the sheer number of beings affected (10s of billions every year), no topic is more important than animals rights. The arguments justifying animal cruelty are superstitious and false, and animals are entitled to a right to life and freedom from harm just like any of their mentally similar human counterparts. All the religions of the world are anthropocentric manmade fictions, which provide no basis for morality. There is no God, no afterlife. Miniskirts rock!

[Mokele]

Mine's fairly simple:

 

I haven't seen anything or heard reliable reports of anything that, to me, gives sufficient evidence for any spirituality, divinity, etc. I see religions, modern and ancient, as interesting and often containing potent symbolism (I have a particular affinity for the Hindu Trimurti), but the same can be said of comic books. Faith, to me, is little more than an admission to giving in to wishful thinking in spite of a total lack of empirical support.

 

77 words, but close enough.

 

Mokele

[Martin]

Delighted with you both!

I guess those of us who aren't quite ready yet to confess our faith can at least cheer.

thx IMM and Mokele

for some reason I especially liked your reference to comic books, they get you at an early age and afterwards what could possibly be realer than Captain Marvel and Donald Duck?

[Bluenoise]

Fairy tales are for children. They may even have some nice moral lessons in them. But they're still fairy tales.

 

Ha! 20 words.

[herme3]

I was a Christian until I noticed obvious scientific errors in The Bible. Since the religion states that everything written in The Bible came directly from God through the Holy Spirit, and also that God knows everything, I realized the Biblical version of Christianity can't be true. I still attend church because they help poor people, and they also teach good moral issues. If there is a God, I believe he is hidden from us.

[Callipygous]

religion is used to control populations and explain things that arent easily understood. most come with a lot of wisdom as far as how to live your life. religion still helps millions of people on a daily basis, but has also caused more human suffering than any single other source in the world. ive yet to decide if the good outweighs the bad, but for myself, god is essentially an adult santa clause.

 

73.

[-Demosthenes-]

There are two reasons an individual will be religious: faith, or the need to belong. These who do not actually have faith, merely need to belong and defend a belief because it is part of a social construct that they value. These individuals are close minded, argumentative, intolerant of other beliefs, and sometimes violent. It is these people who destroy the credibility and the beauty of the idea of Religion.

[Martin]

Fairy tales are for children. They may even have some nice moral lessons in them. But they're still fairy tales.

 

Ha! 20 words.

I hear, Bluenoise. but I'm looking for more than your skepticism. We should try to be a little serious, and positive. I want your belief. about the most important things.

 

for me (now that I've thought some) it is the

---start counting here---

completeness and reliability of physical law.

 

but that's not all. I think mankind has a mission to take life to the stars (really, it would be shameful to fall short there)

 

and I believe in the transcendent value of high civilization----the architecture, the music, the polite manners----I believe that our cities and our planet should be beautiful: something to marvel at and be proud of.

 

organized religions have helped with that in the past---thinking of the great cathedrals and mosques--and the Mozart Cminor mass---but like Blike I see their highest contribution as behind them.

 

---------rats that's just under 100, I will have to boil it down when I have time later-----

[bascule]

I believe there is an absolute progress metric, advancement towards which is an epiphenomenon of universal change. I reject existentialism; I see humans as structural components of the universe whose collective action furthers the evolution of the universe towards this absolute progress metric. I believe we will transcend all limits of biology, infuse the universe with life, and achieve, as Tesla put it, 'the complete mastery of mind over the material world'

[blackhole123]

I believe in science, not religion. I think that religion has been used as an excuse for intolerance and has oppresed science for too long. I am a believer in evolution and I think that religion has no place in our schools. I also think people have a right express to what what they believe including religion, but they also have an obligation to be open minded, and accept what others think without passing jusdgement on them or trying to force their beliefs on others.

 

ugh 85 words

 

o well i guess im just that complex

[Martin]

I believe there is an absolute progress metric, advancement towards which is an epiphenomenon of universal change. I reject existentialism; I see humans as structural components of the universe whose collective action furthers the evolution of the universe towards this absolute progress metric. I believe we will transcend all limits of biology, infuse the universe with life, and achieve, as Tesla put it, 'the complete mastery of mind over the material world'

 

in this connection people might enjoy looking at the 2 October entry of John Baez diary

http://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/diary/index.html#now

which has links to what may be related viewpoints and refers to a

new book by Vernor Vinge called Rainbow's End

[ecoli]

I believe in science, not religion. I think that religion has been used as an excuse for intolerance and has oppresed science for too long. I am a believer in evolution and I think that religion has no place in our schools. I also think people have a right express to what what they believe including religion, but they also have an obligation to be open minded, and accept what others think without passing jusdgement on them or trying to force their beliefs on others.

 

I don't think anyone can believe in science anymore than we can prove that God exists. Religion and science are two separate domains of thinking that can be completely compatable. However, Anybody who blames either of religion or science of being the cause of some huge social problem probably isn't seeing the big picture and probably should try not being so intolerant.

 

64 words.. bo yah.

[Sisyphus]

64 words, but it was all arguing!

 

I'm not certain about anything. I don't subscribe to any religions for lack of evidence and for simpler explanations for their existence. In everyday life I choose to believe that what I perceive corresponds somehow to what is real. I'm a naturalist. Logic forbids absolute free will, but experience gives it subjective existence. As for the "biggest" questions, I say simply that they're the wrong questions, and as such have no answers.

[ecoli]

nicely said Sisyphus.

 

Yeah, my post may have been in response to what somebody else said, but I don't think I was arguing because I was mostly stating my position.

[Glider]

I don’t believe in a God. I don’t believe God is an explanation for anything nor is necessary as such. In daily life, I don’t need the promise of paradise to make me a good person, or the threat of damnation to stop me being a bad one. As a scientist I see no evidence for the existence of God and I don’t expect to see any for the non-existence of God. Thus, I despair of the endless and futile debate.

[bascule]

in this connection people might enjoy looking at the 2 October entry of John Baez diary

http://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/diary/index.html#now

which has links to what may be related viewpoints and refers to a

new book by Vernor Vinge called Rainbow's End

 

Well, of course I'm SFN's self-appointed Singularity zealot, and I've certainly contributed quite a bit towards the linked Wikipedia article.

 

Unfortunately I've stopped reading fiction, and the last of Vernor Vinge's books I read was A Fire Upon the Deep (I heard bad things about A Deepness in the Sky, the sequel) Right now I'm deeply immersed in Jeff Hawkins' On Intelligence which is the most comprehensive book on the operation of the brain I have ever read.

 

But, always great to see the meme spreading, particularly into the LQG community. I think Smolin in particular is onto ideas the Singularity people would really love (I certainly do!) and I'm glad to see the attraction between the groups is mutual, at least to a certain extent.

 

In the end both groups seek a more complete understanding of the material world, because in that understanding lies the confirmation or refutation of assumptions each group has made.

 

I believe ideas evolved as life evolved as the universe evolved, and in this pattern the absolute progress metric I described is exhibited. The mechanisms are different but the end result is the same.

 

And well, sorry to expound upon my ideas and break the 75 word rule, but... hopefully this thread is also intended for the constructive discussion of ideas as long as we can put argument aside.

[bascule]

And holy crap, a memeology!

 

[GutZ]

I am not perfect, so I can't possibly say what is, because there is always a chance that there is something beyond it. For all I know tommorrow the law of physics could change, or we could find a repeating pattern in Pi. Religion in my view is just one way of dealing with uncertianity.

[Martin]

Hi GutZ, your statement struck me as being the closest to a short poem. (that is not a requirement for statements of religious belief:-) but it is an interesting side-aspect---see Psalms of the Bible and Indian literature etc)

 

To see what would happen, I took the liberty of tightening your prose (removing unnecessary words to heighten impact) and breaking into lines. Hope you don't mind. I don't necessarily share your viewpoint but find it appealing.

 

I am not perfect, so I can't possibly say what is, because there is always a chance that there is something beyond it. For all I know tomorrow the law of physics could change, or we could find a repeating pattern in Pi. Religion in my view is just one way of dealing with uncertainty.

 

I am not perfect,

so I can't possibly say what is.

 

There is always a chance of something beyond it:

tomorrow the law of physics could change,

 

or we could find a repeating pattern in Pi.

Religion is a way of dealing with uncertainty.

[Royston]

I'm agnostic, but I believe in the principles of cosmology, I also believe religion never intended on having an agenda. I believe we should accept other worldviews, and realise the fragmentation of society and cultures has caused misrepresentations of our beliefs.

 

Cosmology has to account for the universe as a whole, until we understand the whole (the mind of God) then religion won't budge, so better to accept and understand our differences. <end of statement> 71 words

 

Heh, why can't we all just...get along.

[Martin]

And holy crap, a memeology!

 

Smolin is also a Gauss descendant---or belongs to a closely related lineage IIRC. I will get a link and start a "family tree" thread elsewhere, since it is off-topic here, in case anyone's interested

[GutZ]

To Martin:

 

Nice job lol.

 

I am horrible with words, I can write something down, come back 5 minutes later and realize that it's not exactly what I meant, and I don't know why. I think it's condensing thoughts into words while thinking of it at the same time and leaving out parts.

 

Thanks though.

[Martin]

Nice job lol.

 

my pleasure! It was a nice statement already before editing:-)

 

=====================

 

Bascule, you gave John Baez family tree or doctoral thesis bloodline and it goes back to Gauss and math-physics gods like that.

 

Smolin shares that distinguished bloodline. A poster named Arivero was impressed enough by his PhD lineage to start a thread about it. here is the O.P.

http://www.physicsforums.com/archive/index.php/t-59360.html

 

==quote==

Holy Blood, Holy Grail: Lee Smolin

 

arivero

01-11-2005, 12:52 AM

 

Lee Smolin's advisor was

Sydney Coleman, whose advisor was

Murray Gell-Mann, whose advisor was

Victor Friedrich Weisskopf, whose advisor was

Max Born, whose advisor was

Carl Runge, whose advisors were

two, Karl Weierstrass (waw Gudermann, waw Gauss)

& Ernst Kummer, whose advisor was

Heinrich Scherk, whose advisors were

two, Heinrich Brandes (waw Lichtenberg (waw Kaestner) & Kaestner)

& Friedrich Bessel, whose advisor was

Carl Gauss, whose advisor was

Johann Pfaff, whose advisor was

Abraham Kaestner, whose advisor was

Christian Hausen, whose advisor was

Johann Wichmannshausen, whose advisor was

Otto Mencke, whose thesis was

"Thomae Hobbesii Epicureismum historice delineatum sistit", around 1668.

 

 

 

(Well, The lineage of Mencke covers 27991 descendants, about one third of the total of the mathematics genealogy project (http://www.genealogy.math.ndsu.nodak.edu/html/search.phtml))

==endquote==

 

please note that the title's "religious" language was intended humorously:-)

[Severian]

Bascule, you gave John Baez family tree or doctoral thesis bloodline and it goes back to Gauss and math-physics gods like that.

 

My advisor's advisor was also the Brian Greene's advisor's advisor (so we are academic cousins).

 

Also my advisor's advisor's advisor's advisor was the advisor of Paul Dirac.