We got scared
 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ela3ChTzFcA

I like the message it delivers, it makes you think.

HunterICX

The religiously devout amongst us will probably disagree in all possible terms.

Indeed, I can foresee this thread going all different kinds of bad places, which is a shame because that is a very well put together video.

Extremely powerful video, Hunter. :up:

Too bad there are those who will never change their view even little bit.
Humanity, IMHO, will always be divided because of religion.

IMHO, it's good to have these discussions every once in awhile, it's just that no side are prepare to give in and it
turns to name calling.

Kind of sums it up. An intro statement into a description of a human

Name calling? On subsim? Surely not you ferret faced finnish bastid!:O:

At the same time the study of science, what the creator of this video refers to as 'enlightenment' has only resulted in more death and misery. Man went to the moon because he had to get there before his enemy. Man developed supersonic flight in order to attack his enemies at greater speed. Man developed clocks, navigation and methods of travel in order to edge his enemies out of the resource market. Nearly every technology or new science that we have to our credit has it's roots in the exploitation and desire of outright death to our enemies. I have no issue with the role that religion has played in mankind's misery, but to lay human nature at the foot of religion is a dishonest argument at best and smacks of an atheist with an axe to grind.

Pius XII didn't push for the development of the atomic bomb. It was Albert Einstein, who the video's author placed at the center of his collage of the enlightened, who pleaded with the US government to proceed with it's creation.

Indeed, and let's not forget that our path to enlightenment has not been free, and in many cases the economic prosperity and scientific progress came to us by means of colonialism, exploitation of labour and environmental destruction. Modern science has often been an accessory in those things, and not a passive one either. It has, in some cases, made injustices easier by putting them into reliably scientific categories and black boxes.

One of the biggest faults of modern civilization is that many have taken enlightenment for granted, forgetting both its price and its occasional bouts of cold cynicism. And in many ways, it has become for many just as much of a religion as any before it.

Takeda,

Einstein was misled into believing that scientists who worked for the Nazis were using his formula to build a bomb. At that time they were already on the first rung of the ladder, having recorded fissions in uranium. Einstein never contributed anything more to the project than his formula, which was inevitable anyway. The project went on under Max Groves and Robert Oppenheimer and they eventually found a way to achieve the supercritical chain reaction required.

When the tide turned against the Nazis and it became apparent they no longer had the means nor will to complete their bomb (and weren't even working on it anyway) Max Groves realised that the $2 Billion spent on the project would all be for nothing. He would be ruined. Days later Japan attacked Pearl Harbor.

Max Groves saw in that moment a way to save his career and reputation with the US military, and convinced Oppenheimer to rally the scientists who were by now thinking, we don't need it anymore. A petition was created, signed by roughly half the scientists involved in the project, begging the US government to invite Japanese observers to the initial test. Groves and Oppenheimer convinced the president not to.

It is a sad history, and I make no speculation. But I will say, A.Einstein was absolutely opposed to the detonation of the weapon using a peopled city as its target. He cannot be assigned blame for that attrocity, and neither can science. Military authority and Government are the only things deserving of that blame.

Regards,
Sam.

edit: Loved the video by the way, thanks for sharing.

@AKE, you got Steam account? Don't use MSN anymore, so.

If you got one, PM me with the details and I'll add you. :up:

I don't think Takeda meant to outright attack Einstein, but it's good to keep in mind that like most of us, he is a complicated personality. You can't look at his legacy with rose-tinted glasses and not connect his achievements to the bomb. That's one of the prices we've paid for progress.

And I also think the video is excellent, but I would rather people take the 2nd half of it with a grain of salt. It is a good example of looking at progress through those very rose-tinted glasses, whereas the truth is a lot more complex and impossible to separate from injustice and opaque motivations. People are strange creatures, and simplifying our drives down to fear and curiosity is really not enough to get at the nature of things.

What I noticed was all the movies he ripped without credit.

CCIP,

I agree. Greed should be in there also, then it would be complete.

Regards , Sam.

So, when it comes down to it, Einstein also got scared. More or less in line with my remarks, yes?

But fear is such a powerful tool to control people. Does anyone really think those in power would give up such an effective tool?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6oxTMUTOz0w :yeah:

Right...now that I'm not getting ready to head out the door to work I can actually give a slightly longer viewpoint on this.

You were warned :O:

I am a man of science, I believe that humanity descended from apes which in turn spawned from a primeval swamp, which in turn was formed by a random meteor impact on a planet which was already teeming with bacterial life from other random meteor impacts.
I believe that we are as much a part of the universe as everything around us, the plants, the animals, the sky, the earth, it is all connected.
I believe that we are little different to the animals that surround us, when it all boils down to it, we act in similar ways, we fight over territory, we have strong mating instincts (some stronger than others :O:), we seek the best we can in a mate and we all seek to protect our young so that our species can continue. We may put a fancy society around it, but there are so many similarities that it's hard for me to deny it.

I am a man of belief, I believe that there is a spiritual side to mankind which is formed more of energy than it is of any big man in a beard. I believe that this Big Bang was caused by the Big Crunch of a previous universe...but what started the first universe?

Does this make me scared? Sometimes, yes, I am scared...I look out of the window and I see wars that are not caused by religion, religion is just a thin icing on top of a cake composed of standard human emotion. Greed, is a strong component of our daily lives, bigger is better, everyone wants a pay rise, everyone wants that oil field, everyone wants a successful market, even at the expense of someone elses market, someone elses job, someone elses life. Religions put humanities flaws down to an evil entity, some call him Satan, some Lucifer, some Velnias, but it is in essence a simple display of what is in every single one of us. There's a quote from Star Trek Deep Space Nine that I always come back to when I think of humanity, and it is just so true, and it's from a very powerful episode, 'The Siege of AR-558':

Quark: "Let me tell you something about Hew-mons, nephew. They're a wonderful, friendly people – as long as their bellies are full and their holosuites are working. But take away their creature comforts... deprive them of food, sleep, sonic showers... put their lives in jeopardy over an extended period of time... and those same friendly, intelligent, wonderful people will become as nasty and violent as the most bloodthirsty Klingon. You don't believe me? Look at those faces, look at their eyes..."

That Satan, that evil is just a simple part of the complex machine of emotions which make up a human being. Do other animals have that same machine? Some cat owners would certainly attest to the darker side of feline emotions, however since we still have trouble bridging the gap between our form of language and theirs it is something that we can only guess at.

Science has inflicted some terrible pain upon our animal brethren, and it still does in laboratories around the world. Somewhere up in orbit, or more likely in small microns scattered across the planet is a dog which was sacrificed for science...she had no say in the matter, and she died a lonely, horrible death, for science. So Science isn't quite the magical cure for all the evils of mankind, if anything it gives us more evil ways to kill each other and to make each others lives a misery. Yesterday it was the rack, today it's water-boarding, tomorrow perhaps it will be false memories implanted directly into the brain.
Religion and science are the ying and yang of mankind. Where did morality come from? Our societies grew up from the Medieval era of god-fearing citizens (although some haven't quite grown up yet...) which instilled in them a strict code of right and wrong which was punished harshly, and as we emerged from under the umbrella of that fear, what has happened? The London riots, fueled by nothing more than greed and a disregard for the morality of the event. If those youths knew that they would be punished by having their hands removed, would they have still done it? Not that I'm advocating such treatment, but merely highlighting the fact that science needs religion to curb its excesses as much as religion needs science to keep it from growing beyond its place in society. Right now, and throughout history, neither have managed to keep that perfect balance, and we have swung from one extreme to the other.

Are all scientists automatically atheists? An interesting question to ponder. Does religion have a place in science? I think it does, and science has a place in religion. Just because the Bible is just a book it does not mean that the underlying principles of the things that Jesus supposedly taught are null and void. Even the bible states that Politics and Religion do not mix, it is humanity which has merged the two into a horrible mess.

We are a flawed species, nothing is perfect, and religion and indeed science, are just two parts of this flawed gem that is humanity.

Maybe one day there will be a conscious change in society towards a more peaceful coexistence...but it will take a collosal event to have something like that happen on a global scale. Until then we just have to make the best of what we can, but at the end of the day, we have to try to live in peace with each other on this ball of dirt and water the best we can in order to face the challenges that await us in this century...and boy do we have some doozies. :damn:

We sort of had this discussion when talking about Frankenstein, the Romantic movement, science and the noble savage in class today.

My comment was basically the Romantics got it wrong, that without science we would be just beating each other over the heads with sticks. Science gave us bigger and better sticks; the good side? Occasionally someone uses that bigger and better stick to make a lever that moves the world.

Takeda,

First let me assure you of my personal respect for you, as a balanced and reasonable moderator here, I mean no offense.

Yes I think Einstein was scared. After all he was human, with all the weakness that entails. Someone who was not scared under those circumstances would be a fool at the very least, or somehow above said weakness, no?

The problem I have with your first post is this; the study of science has only led to more death and misery (your words) Now please correct me if I have mistaken your meaning, but this seems to me to be taking the effect, and linking causality to the tool, rather than the one who wields it. To analogize with the 2001 scene, it is like blaming the bone being grasped by the ape, for the murder that is done later with it. To elaborate, the ape has an agenda, to compete for resource, to survive. This is what quickly leads him to the realization that the bone tool can aid him in his endeavor. I assert that Einstein had no comparable agenda in 1905 (I think?) when he first penned his famous equation, and realized the incredible amount of energy that is locked away in all matter. He cannot be held responsible for the inferior agendas of others who took one of his greatest works and created an abhorrent weapon, and nor can his curiosity and studies that brought him to his discovery. The climate of fear that compelled him to lend his work to the military was certainly not of his making after all, he was acutely aware of the vast energies that might now threaten the allies. I firmly disagree with your notion that all science is rooted in conflict, we are not measuring the speed of neutrinos with the aim to build a weapon, and we are not searching for a force carrying gravity particle to enable us take resource from our enemies. We are uncovering reality layer by layer, because we are curious.

I do not intend to preach to you about the benefits of science, of which you are doubtless aware as you read this reply on your screen, though in your statement you use the word 'only' which I assume is simply a slightly careless use of words, as you later state 'I have no issue with the role that religion has played in mankind's misery' now I am sure this is not quite your meaning, but I do sir. Very much so and on a personal level. But my intent is not to preach to you of the harm that has been done, is still being done in the name of 'religion' either, I am happy to disagree. I lay none of this at your feet, like I said, honestly, you have my respect. As you say, it is wrong to place all humanities faults on religion, but you are equally wrong to place them on the study of science.

Regards, Sam.