Really?

Frame57, give you 3 guesses who wrote those very words ;)

Whatever, Hitman. Do what you want, you neither need my blessing, nor must I be interested in or agree with your self-perception.

:up:

I've personally been closely on the page with Einstein. I think the lines above do not suggest that Einstein was an atheist - but they certainly recognize that religious dogma is what it is. I don't think the above position is neccesarily an atheistic one - but it definitely has a pretty strong position on creed and dogma. One which I agree with.

A lot of this is outside of my experience and training, but this one point is where I disagree, and where I think Descartes got it wrong. Just because I didn't create myself and don't keep myself from ceasing to exist doesn't mean that I was necessarily created by a rational supreme being, or that your "something external" is anything more than random chance. It could be more, but that doesn't mean it is, or has to be.

I also question those who look at the beauty in nature and say "there must be someone who created this." I think the possibility must be accepted that we see beauty and order because we are a part of them, and may well be conditioned to do so by the mere fact that our minds find wonder in anything we don't understand.

I don't deny the possibility that the opposite is true, and that we are conditioned to see beauty and order by the fact that a creator did indeed make us that way, but I don't think the evidence justifies insisting on that being the case.

Good points there CCIP.

I think Einstein took what you could describe as an Agnostic 'Deist' view of religon at best.

Steve, some excellent points there:up:

Nor do I pretend that. I just exposed my point of view and my reasons, open to critic and to learn from that critic, but it was never in my mind to try to convince you or get your blessings for anything. Instead I wanted to receive input from others and see if I wanted to modify something.

You are a bit touchy in these matters, you always seem feel as if people are trying to convince you of their ideas. Not my case, I do not pretend that.

The offer to share some beers if we ever meet is still on :up:

Touchy i am? No, i just see there is a line that better is not to cross.

I had written a reply to your last one, a point by point reply, but then had to read your final paragraphs, and then saw immediately that I wasted my time and immediately lost interest in you for you accuse me of what I perceive in splendid detail in your own position, and you do not want to see that quite some preassumptions you make in advance - then are given by you as the result of a "logic" process that follows after them, basing on them. In german that is called a "Zirkelschluß", i think that is circular argument in English. Also, some of the logic you claim to implement, I see as heavily flawed and erratic, not because of the - necessarily faulty then - outcome, but of the faulty method that leads you to conclusions that are more highly subjective assessements, not logically binding outcomes. You make too many preassumtpions in advance, do not question them anymore - and then bend logic so that it cannot touch them, but instead falls into the predetermined and pre-desired place. that is in principle the same critizism that Kant had against Descartes' "evidence" for God existing.

However, I do not want to fight over this with you, and I have no more interest to continue this debate with you. I said I think you are "too clever", and I meant by that that you are "head-heavy" and allow yourself to get blinded by intellectualism that simply is going beyond it's useful range, and mistakes conclusions and theoretical explanation with immidiate reality and direct experience. I really think that is your weak point. I did not wish to offend you by saying that, it was meant as a good-meant hint. maybe it is because you are a laywer, as i believe I recall, and keeping the focus less on idealistic justice per se and more on the benefitting implementation of the existing and available set of rules to maximise the positive outcome that is possible under the terms of situational Realpolitik is your job. however, too many "logic conclusions" of yours in fact are beliefs, preassumptions, only, and the more you use a network of intellectual labels and methods to defend these, the more you are hindered to become free. You probabaly wonder why I can say that, and why i do, and maybe you even are angry and think i am lecturing you - but it is not the first time I have seen people like you that came to me, in real life, for years, regularly. And many, very many were right like you: hopelessly "kopflastig" (head-heavy), and mistaking intellectual explanation with insight, reality, truth, freedom. Boy, how many books had some of them marked in their biography! but telling them just to sit and do no second thing simultaneously - already was demanded too much. :lol: Always drifting, off, their mind not where they were and what they are doing, gazing back into the past, looking to the horizon of the future, missing the present completely althoiugh only this is real. You said somewhere that an observation must not just be made, but must be explained, and you meant "explained" by what you called logic. By that you implied that the observed event is somewhat unreal if it does not get explained. But this is no courthouse! when you get shot with a poisenous arrow, you must not waste time with finding out who shoot, and from where, and why - and die over these attempts. What you must is to get the arrow out and clean the wound of the poison - and "stante pede". for that you observed the arrow in flight, has been real, and that you have been hit, also is real. No matter if oyu understand the situation, can explain it, and like or dislike it. It is the reality you are part of, and you won't get another one for any reason.

Do what you want. But do not mistake indirect explanation with direct experience - it will not serve you any good, really. Find that damn glass of water yourself, and then drink it. When you did, you know why it is useless to write a book about it in advance. If you don't do it, you will never know how it is - no matter how many books you read or write about drinking glasses of water. Start thinking about how to move on your legs and feet - and you stumble. Simply walk, and you're fine. That is no religion of mine. that is no cult. that is no ideology and no missionising. That simply is the realistic, simple, unhidden, most obvious truth, powerful enough to set you free - and more there is not, never was, and never will be than just this - no matter what books and sages, zealots and messiahs say.

And now Bon Voyage. If I carry on in this talking, I just do damage by hardening your resistance over your things - but since it is your voyage you need to do, not mine, i must not have any interest to assist you in resisting or not resisting - so sail on, as you will.

The student of history will find he had these views early on, but later in life he changed his view points to say these lines as recorded in "Eintein: His life and Universe".

"God who reveals himself in the harmony of all that exists..."

"There are people who say there is no God. But what makes me really angry is they quote me for support of such views"

"The fanatical atheists are like slaves who still feel the weight of their chains. they are creatures who in their grudge against traditional religion cannot hear the music of the sphere."

He may not have held to his Jewish faith by no means, however he certainy believed in a creator. Enjoy the book I referenced...

I don't think these contradict each other at all. Nowhere in the first quotes does it say Einstein didn't believe in god - and quite conversely, simply rejects scripture and religious organizations. Nor does he anywhere, in the 2nd set of quotes as above, say anything that reverses his view on this...

jeez guys,

you're all missing the point!

Anyone seen men in black?? the answer is in there guys!! right at the end!:rotfl:

In all honesty though, I'm almost convinced that our view of the universe and god and so on is all 100% wrong, no matter who we are or what we believe (yes, I'm aware of the irony in me saying that and subsequently saying I too am wrong:p ). Why? because we simply can't comprehend the enormity of it all. (for example, a universe which takes up absolutely everything but is still expanding - expanding into what, it already IS everything!)

Hell.. for all we know, the universe as we know it is actually inside the nucleus of a single celled organism on a whole other world. That would make us absolutely and completely insignificant. And we can't accept such a thing, its part of human nature.

We will never know, and people will debate ideas and die and those left behind will forever remain none the wiser.

I kind of thought I did, but all I remember of it is a flash of light. Was that important? What did I miss?

As to the rest of your statement, I tend to agree. A friend of mine dismissed all the arguments concerning creation and evolution with an observation about his granddaughter's second birthday. He said "She knows exactly when the world began - it began two years ago."

We're locked inside of our own skulls, and everything we see and do is a part of that. No matter how much we empathize, no matter how much we care, no matter how much we love, ultimately the only thing we know for sure is what we ourselves think. I can't even prove that what I did yesterday really happened, and I can't guarantee the sun will rise tomorrow. Based on everything I've learned I think it's safe to assume those conclusions are accurate, but how do I really know?

Kinda scary, huh?

In the end, whether Einstein believed in a god or not, does not prove anything. It simply was his most private and subjective affair: a belief. It is as much relevant for us as was the colour of his socks.

We know his letter from short before his death, a letter he wrote to a philosopher called Eric Gutkind, and MrBeast has already quoted from it. He leaves no doubt about his religious attitude at the end of his life: "The word god is for me nothing more than the expression and product of human weaknesses, the Bible a collection of honourable, but still primitive legends which are nevertheless pretty childish. No interpretation no matter how subtle can (for me) change this."
Etc. etc.

This were his conclusions at the end of his life, after he made his life experiences, and viewing back on it all. That it is a complete rejection of the idea of God as described by the established theistic religions, his formulation and wording leaves no dob t of.

Frame simply pictures it wrong when saying this were his views at the beginning of his life. It were his views at the end of his life in fact, 1954, one year before he died.

Right direction Steve, and no, no reason to be scared, really not! Although if I were mean I could drive your terror even to a steeper climax by reminding you that you are made of atoms that almost completely are made of just empty space, in it'S centre probability clouds for tendencies of movements to exist, or not. You are as solid as is the running propeller a solid disc. just that there are no solid blades inside atoms. The term "matter" is a tricky thing to be used in physics. It only makes sense in a certain part of the spectrum of existence - that part our senses are tuned for to form models of in a genetically predetermined way.

All world is music, in that all is waves, vibrations, freqeuncies, ampßlitudes. THAT is the matter we consider to be so solid. the world is sound.

"Absolute reality...?"

Bubbles in space, colours on soap-creamed fragile spheres that are not there, then are there, and then are not there again - the world of living, matter, and things. Outside the bubbles: a void. Insaide each bubble: a void. But is it really a different, separate void inside each bubbles? Or isn't it that it all is just one huge, all-embracing void in which the colourplay of the bubble-spheres unfold? The form may differ, but in the essence there is no difference between a man and a supernova.

This is my amateur translation from the german version of the book, Ken Wilber: Eros, Kosmos, Logos, a chapter where he refers to Ralp Waldo Emerson: Selected Prose and Poetry.

One has called Emerson’s work the intellectual declaration of independence of America. […] And what did this declaration of independence consist of? It is that soul is not bound to any individual, any culture, any tradition, but that it is newly created in every man, because it is beyond anything personal-related, an expression of an ultimate truth, and that it must bow to nothing and nobody in this world of time, location and history. We ‘must be our own light’, there is no other possibility. The soul is the same one soul in everyone of us.
And that sentence that shook all of America was this: ‘All what Adam had, all what Caesar could, all that you have yourself, and can do yourself.’ Why bowing to the heroes of the past, says Emerson, if by that we do nothing else than bowing to our own soul? ‘If they were virtuous, have they used up all virtue, then?’ The magnetic attraction of the great souls consists of nothing else than the calling of our own true self. Why this self-abasement in the face of the past, if it is the same one soul that now, and only now and always again, is shining?

And then Emerson straight out cuts all ropes and commits all man, not only the Americans, to the wonders and dangers of the open sea:
‘Trust yourself: each heart is swinging with this metal string. The magnetic power of all initial/natural acting finds its’ explanation when we ask for the final fundament of this self-confidence. Who is this person we confide in? What is this original, initial self, that you can put your trust in so all-embracing? This questioning leads us to the source and essence of the genius, the virtue, and life itself. In this deep strength, the final fact beyond which no analysis could reach, all things find their common origin.
Because the feeling of being, that in quiet hours raises all by itself, is not any different from things, space, light, time, or from man, it is one with them all, and it emanates from the same source like their life and their being. This is the origin of all acting and thinking. This is the lung of that inspiration that gives wisdom to man. We lay inside the bosom of an untold intelligence, that turns us into the receivers of it’s truth and that makes us to organs of it’s work. Where we find what is just, and where we see what is true, we do not do something by ourselves, but we just clear the path for it’s own bright shining.

The relation of soul to divine spirit is so pure that every bringing-in of helpers means a profanation. It must be like this: that whenever God speaks, he does not reveal only one thing, but communicates all, that His voice fills all world, that from the middle of the present thought He sprinkles light, nature, time and soul – and puts an end to it all, and creates it new again. Whenever a mind is simple-minded and receives divine wisdom, what is of old must fade and die – means, teachers, scriptures, temples fall; it lives now and let’s past and future going up in the present moment. All things become holy by getting touched by it – the single one thing as much as everything else. All things’ fundament melts all single things into their fundament, small, little wonders disappear in the one universal wonder.’ ”


Yes, this sceptic, realistic, evil atheist over here likes Emerson. Three small volumes of his texts rest on my shelves.

Oh come on, I know you are right in most of what you say, but I enjoy it much to sometimes wrestle a bit with you :lol:

You don't know to what extent this discussion is for me just a test or exercise of dialectics with a good and illustrated argumentator like you. Something like: "let's make a chess match with Skybird now, here is a chance"

My problem is that you end up taking this too seriously and becoming caustic.

These discussions (or better: dialogues) I have head seriously at school and at the university with teachers and I enjoyed them and learned what I was supposed to learn. Those and not a subsim forum are the places to make them seriously, else you risk dedicating too much time in the wrong environment for something that, like you said, has no definitive answer and in fact has consumed much more books and resources that it was worth it, given the results.

You unmasked well the faults in my reasoning as usual, but I apologize if you took this too seriously.

As a jurist I am used to appreciate and admire the dialectics and reasoning and not just the background, so I enjoy to watch you argue. No harm done :up: