People who believe in god are broken

[iNow]

Suspecting that there might possibly be something greater or some type of broader mind concept may not be broken, but holding the belief that there actually is one, that you have knowledge of it's wants, desires, and demands all based on practically zero evidence and on faith alone IS broken. Considering one interesting concept as potentially possible [math]\ne[/math] pretending to know something you do not know.

[tar]

Inow,

 

Point taken. I have no argument. But its up to each of us, to make the determination of exactly which parts of reality are under our personal control, which parts of reality are under the collective control of our group, and which parts of reality could possibly fall under the control of the entire human race, ever. And even the conception of the last clause requires a bit of "pretending to know what you don't know".

 

That, I suppose, is my only point. That we should give each other a bit of latitude, because none of us can claim knowledge of what is on the other side of the pretence line. And it is difficult to tell, from the "outside" of somebody elses mind, exactly where they, on the "inside" of their mind, are drawing the pretence line. And what type of thing they are imagining or pretending is on the other side.

 

Regards, TAR2

Edited May 24, 2012 by tar

[iNow]

And even the conception of the last clause requires a bit of "pretending to know what you don't know".

I disagree. Pretending to know things we do not know is never justified. We should always be authentic about our state of knowledge, and be willing to concede when something is a guess, or contains uncertainty, or when further study is required in order to draw reasonable conclusions. However, it is never justified nor helpful to simply "pretend to know" something we do not.

 

That, I suppose, is my only point. That we should give each other a bit of latitude, because none of us can claim knowledge of what is on the other side of the pretence line.

Religion has been given enormous "latitude" for thousands of years. Really, what more do you think we should offer them?

 

No, latitude is not something I'm willing to offer any more of, especially given the absolute nature of the claims, the blind and unshakable certainty with which they are expressed despite the lack of adequate evidence, and the impact it this style of thinking is having on the society we all share.

 

Again... People can believe any damned silly thing they want, and that's their right, but I refuse to show these beliefs any special deference or to offer them a respect they have simply failed to earn. Latitude? Religious claims have enjoyed "latitude" for millenia, and yet a request is being made to offer more? Sorry, but no, TAR.

 

If people are tired of their religious claims being shown to be nonsense, of intelligent people poking fun of them for their childish nature, and of people not taking them seriously... then perhaps they should start supporting those claims with something more than nonsense or broken, baseless, unfounded arguments.

Edited May 24, 2012 by iNow

[MonDie]

Considering one interesting concept as potentially possible [math]\ne[/math] pretending to know something you do not know.

Furthermore, as with all imaginary concepts, each guess incorporated into the concept has its own chances of being true or false unless it's somehow impossible.

Imagine asking a psychic when you will meet your wife. The psychic has much better odds if they say, "sometime within the next three years," rather than, "five months from now on a steamboat on the Mississippi river." But the latter speculation is akin to what religion is doing.

I'll take up one particular issue. Religions might have seemed more plausible in the past because they crafted god to be human-like. This is part of the concept, and it justifies man's abuse of nature. What are the chances that both of the following are true; there is an origin for our universe, and that thing (origin of our universe) happens to be human-like? Consider that it took nearly four billion years for us to evolve, and that there are millions or hundreds of millions of species.

Actually, the chances become so small that one might even say we KNOW the christian god doesn't exist.

 

 

Immortal, if god gives us emotions, who gives god emotions?

Edited May 24, 2012 by Mondays Assignment: Die

[immortal]

Immortal, if god gives us emotions, who gives god emotions?

 

Mondays Assignment: Die, the arguments in my post #822 are not baseless assertions, I'm coming from the proto Indo-Iranian religions which was a branch of proto Indo-European religions and similarities can be seen in later periods of religions which predated Christianity, there are religions older than that.

 

According to these religions the pleroma of God exists in everyone and in these type of religions to have emotions like pride, anger, happiness etc was considered imperfect and God was seen as a perfect one whom we all should try to strive for. The imperfections are necessary and exists in the pleroma of God himself and god controls the nature(numinous) and not the other way around where the imperfections of the world causes varying emotions in him, No, he is not subjected to it. What is happiness to one might be sad to another, what is sweet to one might be bitter to someone else and hence its completely subjective and it hides many secrets of how consciousness works and that's what one can infer from reading these scholars.

[MonDie]

Mondays Assignment: Die, the arguments in my post #822 are not baseless assertions, I'm coming from the proto Indo-Iranian religions which was a branch of proto Indo-European religions and similarities can be seen in later periods of religions which predated Christianity, there are religions older than that.

I don't know about the Indo-European religions.

Such similarities between religions might be due to cultural diffusion, in which case, I wouldn't see those spiritual ideas as exceptions.

If you want to show that the better explanation is that the similarities are due to the reality of those spiritual beings, you need to show some evidence against the alternative explanations.

For example, you would have to show evidence against cultural diffusion determining their spiritual ideas. Lack of evidence for cultural diffusion would not be evidence, the evidence would have to show that the cultures couldn't have come into contact in a way that could have facilitated the similarities in spiritual ideas, e.g. a physical barrier.

EDIT: However, there might still be other explanations. For example, anthropologists can explain cultural similarities as adaptions to similar environments.

Edited May 24, 2012 by Mondays Assignment: Die

[tar]

I disagree. Pretending to know things we do not know is never justified. We should always be authentic about our state of knowledge, and be willing to concede when something is a guess, or contains uncertainty, or when further study is required in order to draw reasonable conclusions. However, it is never justified nor helpful to simply "pretend to know" something we do not.

 

 

Religion has been given enormous "latitude" for thousands of years. Really, what more do you think we should offer them?

 

No, latitude is not something I'm willing to offer any more of, especially given the absolute nature of the claims, the blind and unshakable certainty with which they are expressed despite the lack of adequate evidence, and the impact it this style of thinking is having on the society we all share.

 

Again... People can believe any damned silly thing they want, and that's their right, but I refuse to show these beliefs any special deference or to offer them a respect they have simply failed to earn. Latitude? Religious claims have enjoyed "latitude" for millenia, and yet a request is being made to offer more? Sorry, but no, TAR.

 

If people are tired of their religious claims being shown to be nonsense, of intelligent people poking fun of them for their childish nature, and of people not taking them seriously... then perhaps they should start supporting those claims with something more than nonsense or broken, baseless, unfounded arguments.

 

Ok, perhaps not MORE latitude, just some. As Athena mentions, we have to get our rules of behavior from somewhere. If some of us can take responsibility for our own actions and thoughts, and behave well, in the eyes of those around us, without the need for "hell and damnation" to be the principle thing we are avoiding in doing such, that is fine. But we can't let machines decide what is right and wrong for us, or formulae to determine when we are doing the appropriate thing, and when we are not. Cause someone has to build the machine, or write the formulae, and whatever the machine demanded or the formulae demanded would not be an "absolute" truth of any kind. It would be completely arbitrary, and serve only the purposes of the designer or mathematician.

 

So Moses and Jesus after him, and Mohammed after him, "pretended" to know something they did not know. They themselves were most likely convinced they were telling the truth. And for all we know there is a "real" connection each of us has with the greater reality, where it is not "pretence" to feel it. And not "pretence" to go by what it tells you.

 

When you, Inow, feel you are doing something for the good of society, you do it with little regard for how the members of society feel about your actions and thoughts. You are doing it "on your own" based on what you think is best for everyone. Where, scientifically speaking, are you getting this strength and certainty from? How do YOU know this thing? Is it a knowledge based on millenia of humans interacting with each other and developing rules of behavior together? No, you throw out anything that is over 200 years old, and anything that smells even a little like religion. So where do you get this "objective truth". Does it exist outside your head anywhere? Can it be tested? Can it be falsified? Where in the universe, do you find Scientific Method itself?

 

It seems to me that you only find it in the hearts and minds of those that hold it, as a belief. And only see the results of it being put into practice. Never does "Scientific Method" itself, ever pay us a visit. We can not find it under rocks. Well I don't know that for sure, but I have not found it under any rocks that I have ever picked up. And anyone that claims they can find it under rocks, is pretending that they know something they don't know. Because "Scientific Method" does not actually exist. Not as something real. It is supernatural in character and has no place in the mind of a rational man or women. Society would be so much better off, if we showed these foolish people who believe only in the superiority of their individual intellect, logic, consistency and mathematical prowess, how silly their belief in such things as real, existing things we should all let guide our existence, is, in reality.

 

The last two paragraphs are not entirely expressing my true feelings and beliefs. They are only meant as an "example" of true beliefs, held by one indivual, being misconstrued by another, as being "unfounded".

 

Regards, TAR2

 

(although I will take credit for anything in those two paragraphs that actually makes any sense, because there is some of what I think, feel and believe, in those two paragraphs.)

Edited May 25, 2012 by tar

[iNow]

I don't even know where to start with that one.

 

From the idea that anyone has claimed that we should let machines determine our morals...

 

To the idea that Jesus and Moses maybe sorta kinda thought they could possibly in some small way be right by claiming to know things they did not know... or how that has any relevance whatsoever to the exchanges we've been sharing...

 

To your sense that the scientific method cannot be found or observed anywhere in nature and that this is somehow equivalent to asserting there is a god that cannot be found through anything other than faith...

 

I'm awe-struck, really... but not in a good way, I'm sorry to say. Seriously, I appreciate that you're going for authenticity, but could you maybe try to go for coherence and on-topic comments instead next time?

[tar]

Knowledge is power. And power corrupts. Absolute power, corrupts absolutely.

[iNow]

Knowledge is power. And power corrupts. Absolute power, corrupts absolutely.

Okay, I guess on-topic comments and being more coherent in future posts was simply too much to ask. Oh well. I tried. Cheers.

[tar]

Sorry Inow. I will bow out. I gave it my best shot. And never, not even once, did I think I was even the littlest bit, off topic.

 

Thanks for the thread. I thought it was great.

 

Regards, TAR2

Edited May 25, 2012 by tar

[Moontanman]

Knowledge is power. And power corrupts. Absolute power, corrupts absolutely.

 

 

I understand exactly what you are saying, god is all knowing and all powerful so he is absolutely corrupt....

 

Ok, perhaps not MORE latitude, just some. As Athena mentions, we have to get our rules of behavior from somewhere. If some of us can take responsibility for our own actions and thoughts, and behave well, in the eyes of those around us, without the need for "hell and damnation" to be the principle thing we are avoiding in doing such, that is fine. But we can't let machines decide what is right and wrong for us, or formulae to determine when we are doing the appropriate thing, and when we are not. Cause someone has to build the machine, or write the formulae, and whatever the machine demanded or the formulae demanded would not be an "absolute" truth of any kind. It would be completely arbitrary, and serve only the purposes of the designer or mathematician.

 

Seriously Tar, our rules of behavior have to come from something so what ever that is has to be god? ( all hail the cap'n ) They can't be evolved behaviors like all other social animals?

 

So Moses and Jesus after him, and Mohammed after him, "pretended" to know something they did not know. They themselves were most likely convinced they were telling the truth. And for all we know there is a "real" connection each of us has with the greater reality, where it is not "pretence" to feel it. And not "pretence" to go by what it tells you.

 

So really really believing something makes it true?

 

When you, Inow, feel you are doing something for the good of society, you do it with little regard for how the members of society feel about your actions and thoughts. You are doing it "on your own" based on what you think is best for everyone. Where, scientifically speaking, are you getting this strength and certainty from? How do YOU know this thing? Is it a knowledge based on millenia of humans interacting with each other and developing rules of behavior together? No, you throw out anything that is over 200 years old, and anything that smells even a little like religion. So where do you get this "objective truth". Does it exist outside your head anywhere? Can it be tested? Can it be falsified? Where in the universe, do you find Scientific Method itself?

 

Pot Kettle Black

 

It seems to me that you only find it in the hearts and minds of those that hold it, as a belief. And only see the results of it being put into practice. Never does "Scientific Method" itself, ever pay us a visit. We can not find it under rocks. Well I don't know that for sure, but I have not found it under any rocks that I have ever picked up. And anyone that claims they can find it under rocks, is pretending that they know something they don't know. Because "Scientific Method" does not actually exist. Not as something real. It is supernatural in character and has no place in the mind of a rational man or women. Society would be so much better off, if we showed these foolish people who believe only in the superiority of their individual intellect, logic, consistency and mathematical prowess, how silly their belief in such things as real, existing things we should all let guide our existence, is, in reality.

 

How does anyone who feels that way explain how well the Scientific method works? Not to mention how poorly the religious method works...

 

The last two paragraphs are not entirely expressing my true feelings and beliefs. They are only meant as an "example" of true beliefs, held by one indivual, being misconstrued by another, as being "unfounded".

 

Regards, TAR2

 

(although I will take credit for anything in those two paragraphs that actually makes any sense, because there is some of what I think, feel and believe, in those two paragraphs.)

 

 

TAR2, you and everyone else have every right to a belief, I mean seriously, as long as it doesn't harm anyone else then go for broke has always been my plan, but you do not have the right to assert it as truth or to make others follow your "methods" I'm really surprised the very nature of religion doesn't give you pause, converting new believers, forcing your values on others, dehumanizing those who are "other" for no reason other than a notion, notions written down 2500 years ago or so, (depending of course on your belief system) as though anything they said makes sense in the modern world. if you want to believe do so but to assert it... as truth... is just broken...

 

I will admit there is some wisdom in the writings of the ancients, being ancient didn't make them stupid, they managed to get some profound insights, given the conditions they lived in possibly they were giants compared to us. but they weren't all knowing or all powerful and the beings they wrote about were nothing more than ideas borrowed from earlier religions and from nearby religions. Legends about god written in a society of people who's lives revolved around things we wouldn't even consider now days.

 

I see no correlation between god and reality.

Edited May 25, 2012 by Moontanman

[MonDie]

Knowledge is power. And power corrupts. Absolute power, corrupts absolutely.

Refutation: The United States had a president who not only did cocaine and got a DUI, but was a solid C student at Yale.

I think you need to more clearly define "knowledge" and "power" as they were used in that context.

 

 

When you, Inow, feel you are doing something for the good of society, you do it with little regard for how the members of society feel about your actions and thoughts. You are doing it "on your own" based on what you think is best for everyone. Where, scientifically speaking, are you getting this strength and certainty from? How do YOU know this thing? Is it a knowledge based on millenia of humans interacting with each other and developing rules of behavior together? No, you throw out anything that is over 200 years old, and anything that smells even a little like religion. So where do you get this "objective truth". Does it exist outside your head anywhere? Can it be tested? Can it be falsified? Where in the universe, do you find Scientific Method itself?

 

It seems to me that you only find it in the hearts and minds of those that hold it, as a belief. And only see the results of it being put into practice. Never does "Scientific Method" itself, ever pay us a visit. We can not find it under rocks. Well I don't know that for sure, but I have not found it under any rocks that I have ever picked up. And anyone that claims they can find it under rocks, is pretending that they know something they don't know. Because "Scientific Method" does not actually exist. Not as something real. It is supernatural in character and has no place in the mind of a rational man or women. Society would be so much better off, if we showed these foolish people who believe only in the superiority of their individual intellect, logic, consistency and mathematical prowess, how silly their belief in such things as real, existing things we should all let guide our existence, is, in reality.

If you truly don't believe in the scientific method, stop using it.

Next time you want to use your car, and your wife wonders "why isn't it starting," just respond, "I don't know if it will start because I haven't put the key in yet." When she asks, "Hasn't it reliably started at previous instances when you turned the key," you can respond, "Yes, but that doesn't mean it will start when I turn the key this time. I think I'll just walk today, honey."

While you're at it, stop pushing things with your hands with the expectation that they will move.

 

EDIT: The scientific method isn't something that people just imagined, it's a collection of rules that almost everyone begins deriving from their observations of the physical world when they're babies.

Edited May 25, 2012 by Mondays Assignment: Die

[iNow]

I've requested these posts be put into the existing thread on Morals that you have open, Athena. If the staff acts on it, you can throw a tantrum toward me instead of throwing a tantrum toward them. Cheers.

 

http://www.scienceforums.net/topic/66541-morals/page__pid__680095__st__20#entry680095

[MonDie]

I just thought of an interesting idea, thanks to Athena.

Obviously, humans have a genetic predisposition toward using the scientific method because there are other organisms with little or no capacity to think as we do. We could consider that humans also have a genetic predisposition toward believing in a god or gods, and it might have even been an adaption to environmental stresses. Evidence could be found by identifying individuals who inherit religious tendencies or by showing that religion developed even in isolated or prototype cultures.

 

EDIT: caffeine-induced speculations removed

Edited May 25, 2012 by Mondays Assignment: Die

[tar]

I have bowed out. In respect of Inow and the integrity of the thread. I might lurk around a bit, sitting on the fence, seeing myself in the words and thoughts of those on both sides of the issue.

[iNow]

Oh FFS... Quit playing a victim. Nobody asked you to leave the thread. I just asked that your posts at least be moderately coherent and on topic. Too much? Not really, no... but if you disagree, then by all means feel free to continue martyring yourself.

[MonDie]

Did I forget to utilize the emoticons again?

 

EDIT:

Edited May 26, 2012 by Mondays Assignment: Die

[tar]

Inow,

 

I am not playing the victim.

 

My attempts to think through, and argue through the implications and logic of the knowledge claims of those who believe in God and those who think believing in God is a "false" thing, have led me to certain insights, or conclusions about the grounds upon which both "sides" of this discussion are basing their claims of knowledge of objective reality. It is rather complicated to unravel and describe the subtle differences in the extent to which someone, myself for instance, believes they know something they do not know. And even more complicated to try to point out where I think someone else might be drawing the line between known things and things "greater than know". Especially if I am not granted any "real" ability to "know" what someone else is thinking.

 

I am not "playing the victim", as much as simply recognizing that my take, and what I am trying to "discuss" is not coming across very well.

 

My personal bullshit detector goes off when Mohammed has a talk with the angel Gabriel.

My personal bullshit detector goes off when a scientist/mathematician says they know how many molecules there are in the universe AND that we don't even know anything about what most of the mass and energy in the universe even consists of.

 

People believe they know things I don't believe they CAN know, all the time. Sometimes they actually DO know, what they claim to know. In fact, most of the time. My model of the world is limited to what I have been taught, or told, or learned of it, or experienced, or what of it, I contain in my body/heart/brain group, that evidently is made completely of reality, and is completely in reality. And what I claim to know is considerably huge in size and scope. I know there is this basement I am in, and this house, and this town, and route to work, and that building, and the cities I have visited, and the oceans and continents I have flown over, and the moon that astronauts from my country have visited, and planets and Suns beyond that. And upstairs is my family and in houses around, more families like mine, and in the cities I have visited and seen on TV and heard about and viewed on Google Earth, even more. More than I can concieve of, more than I can know. But I believe them to exist, and I believe them to KNOW the same reality I know. Same cities, same world, same Moon, same Sun, same worlds beyond. And I expect all the billions of people that currently exist on this planet, or ever existed on this planet, have some similar knowledge, and ability to know the truth, as I do.

 

So we have a discussion topic here, "People that believe in God, are broken".

 

I believe I know some of the ways they are, and some of the ways they are not. The people that believe in God don't want to hear how they are broken. The hard Atheists, do not want to hear how they are not.

 

I am not playing the victim in announcing my "bowing out" of the thread. Just facing the reality that people are not all that interested in giving each other the benefit of the doubt, and trying to figure out what might be the common things we are referring to. What is figurative, what is literal, and what power we each really do have, to KNOW what we do not know.

 

Regards, TAR

Edited May 26, 2012 by tar

[immortal]

I don't know about the Indo-European religions.

Such similarities between religions might be due to cultural diffusion, in which case, I wouldn't see those spiritual ideas as exceptions.

If you want to show that the better explanation is that the similarities are due to the reality of those spiritual beings, you need to show some evidence against the alternative explanations.

For example, you would have to show evidence against cultural diffusion determining their spiritual ideas. Lack of evidence for cultural diffusion would not be evidence, the evidence would have to show that the cultures couldn't have come into contact in a way that could have facilitated the similarities in spiritual ideas, e.g. a physical barrier.

EDIT: However, there might still be other explanations. For example, anthropologists can explain cultural similarities as adaptions to similar environments.

 

Topic split - http://www.scienceforums.net/topic/66663-mithras-liturgy/

[Iggy]

We could consider that humans also have a genetic predisposition toward believing in a god or gods, and it might have even been an adaption to environmental stresses. Evidence could be found by identifying individuals who inherit religious tendencies or by showing that religion developed even in isolated or prototype cultures.

and religion would be more widely considered broken if we knew on what it was based.

 

For example, birds collect straw for nests and squirrels bury nuts for winter. In a distant post-human future let's say birds and squirrels evolve an intelligence like ours.

 

Birds may not make nests anymore. They build nice homes and drive sports cars. But, they might have a religious obligation to weave totems out of straw and leave them in trees for the straw god. Squirrels could also evolve past the need to hide nuts for winter, and maybe they end up with religious leaders telling them to bury 20% of the gold coins they earn every year to satiate and ward off an underground demon.

 

The offerings to the straw god and the sacrifice to the underground demon would give the bird people and the squirrel people a positive instinctual emotional reaction. If they didn't know that their ancestors made nests and buried nuts they could easily think that the positive reaction they get from the tradition comes from religious truth. Knowing the basis of the tradition would make it all seem like hogwash.

 

If the religious parts of our human world view come from a useful part of the world view of our ancestors I wonder, working backwards, if we could figure out what it was. A million years ago, or perhaps five, what was it about the way they lived that required an instinctual basis in thought and is expressed today as religion?

 

That would be a fascinating discovery and it would answer the question of the thread. Belief in God could be the remnant of an instinct that is no longer functional... literally "broken".

[the asinine cretin]

[1.] My personal bullshit detector goes off when Mohammed has a talk with the angel Gabriel.

[2.] My personal bullshit detector goes off when a scientist/mathematician says they know how many molecules there are in the universe AND that we don't even know anything about what most of the mass and energy in the universe even consists of.

At least with #2 you can look up the basis of the claim, and it doesn't claim to be anything more than our best estimate given certain assumptions. On the other hand, #1 is something out of the fairy tale genre that asks for your assent, no questions asked. If you're born in the wrong place/time that could be "assent, or else."

 

P.S. I am aware of plausible estimates of the number of baryons in the observable universe. Such an estimate does not include dark matter or dark energy and I'm not so sure that your objection would be relevant.

 

As far as the thread topic is concerned, I think some forms of religiosity are "broken" in the sense that they require certitude where there is none. I'm hesitant to say religion must include dogma and confident supernatural beliefs. There are many distinctions that can and should be made. For example, the kind of religious experience described by mystics of various traditions is quite different from the doctrinaire fundamentalism many Americans seem to espouse and promote.

 

Love everyone, explore the depths of human consciousness, revere and in some sense worship the mystery of being, and so on. As opposed to, "the bible says the earth was created in six days, and by golly, if the king james bible was good enough for jeebus, it's good enough for me." Or the somewhat more sophisticated variant, "complexity, complexity, complexity, mouse traps, bacterial flagella, therefore, Jeebus."

 

P.P.S. It's very hard to imagine, but I am open to the possibility that some version of one of the traditional religions is true. I haven't ruled out the supernatural a priori, or the idea of an intervening personal God, or of a pantheon of "divine" beings (whatever that even means), or of supreme extraterrestrial beings beyond our comprehension. The issues, at least to me, are epistemological and psychological. I am unaware of a viable religious epistemology/criteria of truth that could sufficiently test and justify religious claims. Second, I think that the psychology of belief and the study of religion as a natural phenomena go a long way toward an adequate explanation of existing religions as purely human constructs.

[tar]

At least with #2 you can look up the basis of the claim, and it doesn't claim to be anything more than our best estimate given certain assumptions. On the other hand, #1 is something out of the fairy tale genre that asks for your assent, no questions asked. If you're born in the wrong place/time that could be "assent, or else."

 

P.S. I am aware of plausible estimates of the number of baryons in the observable universe. Such an estimate does not include dark matter or dark energy and I'm not so sure that your objection would be relevant.

 

As far as the thread topic is concerned, I think some forms of religiosity are "broken" in the sense that they require certitude where there is none. I'm hesitant to say religion must include dogma and confident supernatural beliefs. There are many distinctions that can and should be made. For example, the kind of religious experience described by mystics of various traditions is quite different from the doctrinaire fundamentalism many Americans seem to espouse and promote.

 

Love everyone, explore the depths of human consciousness, revere and in some sense worship the mystery of being, and so on. As opposed to, "the bible says the earth was created in six days, and by golly, if the king james bible was good enough for jeebus, it's good enough for me." Or the somewhat more sophisticated variant, "complexity, complexity, complexity, mouse traps, bacterial flagella, therefore, Jeebus."

 

the asinine cretin,

 

Ok, so I thought I could lurk, but I can't. Too many thoughts half expressed and too many objections unanswered.

 

I do not know the assumptions and figuring involved in the figure of how many molecules there are in the universe. You know which parts are left out, and which parts are included, and what facts are exptrapolated to arrive at a "plausable" number. And you know it is a guess, and an estimate, that given the starting assumptions the number cannot be greater than so and so, and must be at least so and so, so therefore there must be this many. You know what the definition of "observable" is, which leaves quite a chunk of the universe outside of the figure, and you leave out all the dark matter and energy that is "inside" the observable universe. These omissions that you make, allow you to claim to know something about the universe that I do not know, which you obviously do. But what if I don't know all your assumptions, or what if I don't agree with all your assumptions, or what if I don't know how you treated time in your figuring? Or how exactly you define the border between observable universe material and other than observable material? What if I thought you were talking about ALL the molecules in the UNIVERSE, as if you KNEW. As if you claimed to know something you do not know. Then I might figure you were making it up, and deluding yourself into thinking you had personal knowledge of the universe. That you had an objective certainty about the number of molecules in the universe. That you were making a claim that your model was fact...then my bullshit detector might go off.

 

Regards, TAR2

[the asinine cretin]

the asinine cretin,

 

Ok, so I thought I could lurk, but I can't. Too many thoughts half expressed and too many objections unanswered.

 

I do not know the assumptions and figuring involved in the figure of how many molecules there are in the universe. You know which parts are left out, and which parts are included, and what facts are exptrapolated to arrive at a "plausable" number. And you know it is a guess, and an estimate, that given the starting assumptions the number cannot be greater than so and so, and must be at least so and so, so therefore there must be this many. You know what the definition of "observable" is, which leaves quite a chunk of the universe outside of the figure, and you leave out all the dark matter and energy that is "inside" the observable universe. These omissions that you make, allow you to claim to know something about the universe that I do not know, which you obviously do. But what if I don't know all your assumptions, or what if I don't agree with all your assumptions, or what if I don't know how you treated time in your figuring? Or how exactly you define the border between observable universe material and other than observable material? What if I thought you were talking about ALL the molecules in the UNIVERSE, as if you KNEW. As if you claimed to know something you do not know. Then I might figure you were making it up, and deluding yourself into thinking you had personal knowledge of the universe. That you had an objective certainty about the number of molecules in the universe. That you were making a claim that your model was fact...then my bullshit detector might go off.

 

Regards, TAR2

I don't follow. Forgive me, but, is this sincere inquiry, disingenuous obscurantism, or something else?

Of course I don't "know" how many baryons there are. My understanding is that our best estimate indicates roughly 10^80 baryons in the observable universe. But who cares? What actual point are you trying to make with these rhetorical questions? Are you somehow trying to suggest that empirical estimates of this kind are comparable to belief in religious stories such as Mohammad talking to an angel or flying on the magic donkey? I must be misunderstanding your intent.

 

Thanks for the reply.

Edited May 26, 2012 by the asinine cretin

[Iggy]

If I may, Tar's point appears to be that the only thing separating the claims of science and the claims of religion are that scientific claims have been observed and religious claims have not. If Muhammad actually saw the angel Gabriel then it was true for him in the same way that the density of the universe is true for a modern astronomer with a telescope.

 

If that is the case then religious beliefs are no more broken then scientific beliefs -- it is just a matter of religious people having different experiences than people who have had no religious experiences.

 

If that is the point then it overlooks the actual distinction between science and religion. The difference isn't observability, it is falsifiability. Observations can prove wrong current predictions saying how much matter is in the universe. Scientists can think of simple observations that Tar could do to prove the estimate wrong.

 

Observations can't prove the existence of the archangel Gabriel wrong or the existence of Allah wrong. Dedicated, faithful, and smart religious people can't think of anything simple or otherwise I could do to prove religion wrong.

 

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My personal bullshit detector goes off when Mohammed has a talk with the angel Gabriel.

My personal bullshit detector goes off when a scientist/mathematician says they know how many molecules there are in the universe AND that we don't even know anything about what most of the mass and energy in the universe even consists of.

You can't prove the first one wrong. There are simple observations to prove the second one wrong. That is the litmus test your bullshit detector should be dialed into.