NOT Obama, but bring your popcorn.

[Skybird]

Creationism did exist at the time of the cold war, yes. What's the surprise? Today, it is rising even more in Polland, Russia, and especially - in the Islamic world. There it has been dressed in slightly different symbols to make it compatible with Islamic commandements and rules, but in principal it is the very same like amongst Christian fundamentlaists. It was copied from them, to be precisely. Some Turkish writer has made a fortune by writing according books and publish them in the Muslim world, but the phenomenon goes far beyond him.

Richard Dawkins makes a distinction between atheism and antitheism, which in ordinary language usually is ignored. The one means the conviction that gods do not exist, the other means to simply not be interested and not caring for whether gods exist or not.

If you are looking at religions precisely, you cannot say that Buddhism is just one religion amongst others - D.T. Suzuki for example would point out that indeed Buddhism and the attitude it teaches, should be seen as the inevitable basis of all true religion (and I agree). For just one simple reason: if you strip it of all folkloristic ballast and institutional distractions and rites and habits (Buddhism was not immune to get distorted by these things like for example Jesus' teachings as well), then what you are left with, is simply this "teaching": "see things yourself, decide yourself, do not believe becausue something is said, is hear-say, is written down on old pergaments, is said by older men. Examine things yourself, your mind, and how it works, the way you perceive the world and experience your life. What is it that is looking through your eyes, and thinks of what it sees as "me" ? " Buddhism, in it's essential form, is the most radical empirism you can get to. In principal, belief and traditonal teachings and books have no room in it. But I admit that many Buddhist schools and traditions and representatives seem to have forgotten that, allowing it to get covered and hidden by rites and rituals like in any other religion, and superstition and earthly interests of influential priest's hierarchies and church-like institutions. But this is not what Buddha has taught. It'S also not what Jesus has taught.

In principal, atheism's sceptical attitude and Buddhism's empirical attitude and the methodology of science all three go very well together. None of these three compares to religious traditions like Christianity, Judaism, Hinduism, or to political-religious systems like Islam, or economic-criminal systems like scientology, or purely political systems like facism or forms of democracy.

On the "competition" between science and religions, just this. Responsibly run science will never claim to know the last, the final, the ultimate answers. Science does not produce eternally lasting truths - only temporary theories. It does not explain the WHY of the universe, it focusses on examining and explaining the HOW, and it does so by principles that basically have not changed much since the ancient Greek have brought them up. Religion does not examine neither the WHY nor the HOW - it nevertheless just claims to have the uiltimate and final answer to the question of WHY, in modern days leaving the answer of the HOW to science (sometimes more sometimes less willingly). That's why from a standpoint of mental economy, for people like me believing in religions does not give us anything we think we need. It does nothing for us and does not help us a bit. If we stay within the realm of science, we will not know the WHY, and if we stay within the religions' realms, we still do not know the WHY - we just do not admit it and hide our lacking knowledge behind some arbitrary random fantasy that has not been checked, cannot be checked and never will be checked. But this unavailability of it for analytical examination does not make blind belief a virtue, nor does it turn it into more than what it is: just an arbitrary claim thought out by human minds, designed to take away a bit the horror humans feel in the face of their mortality and the big dark abyss at the end of our life. And what makes us think of it as darkness and an abyss that we fear, is not so much our knowledge about what manifestates that status as "darkness" and "abyss", but right our lack of knowledge about what it is.

Which brings us back, in a way, to the question of WHY.

[Sailor Steve]

Originally Posted by Skybird

Richard Dawkins makes a distinction between atheism and antitheism, which in ordinary language usually is ignored. The one means the conviction that gods do not exist, the other means to simply not be interested and not caring for whether gods exist or not.

That is an interesting choice of words. I would think an antitheist would be one who goes out of his way to attempt to prove that there is no god.

As for the bulk of your post, it's a good explanation of the realities of science, and the realities of religion.

[Diopos]

In physical sciences "theory" is just a "mind - game" until it is corroborated by empirical facts. A well developed theory not only points to to the "observables" that will corroborate it, but also states (explicitly or implicitly) the conditions under which it can be "falsified". No religion allows for its falsification. Science and religion therefore don't mix. Using principles of the former to consolidate a view within the context of the latter (or vica versa) can lead to only one of two things: poetry or bulls**t. In this case choose your words carefully and hope/pray you're a poet...


.

[DarkFish]

Originally Posted by The Third Man

Sorry if I confused. If you cannot observe the action directly the theory has no value. Einstien, and all real science depends on this. That which cannot be directly observed is not science,

For something to be science, you don't have to be able to directly observe it. Take Quantum Mechanics, nobody has ever seen electrons and such. Or maths. Ever "seen" a function? Nope, the most you see are some characters or a graph describing one.
Science is witnessing events, and then developing a theory behind it. It doesn't have to be able to be directly observed.

Whithout direct observation science fails. Thus atheism fails unless it is itsself a religion.

Of course not. Atheists witness the same events as believers. They only have different explanations for things. Believers think "I can't explain X so it must be caused by a god", whereas none-believers think "I can't explain X so I'll wait until I can".

Originally Posted by The Third Man

Sounds like religion. Christanity,Judaism, Muslim, Taoism, Hinduism, Buddhism, Wicca, Sihkism, Cao Dai , etc; are all statements about belief.

Nope, Atheism is a belief, not a religion. As an atheist you do belief something (namely that there are no gods), but atheism can't be a religion because it has no god.
To get things even more complicated, I consider myself a religious atheist (I'm a Germanic Paganist, but I don't belief the gods really exist as living beings).

[Takeda Shingen]

Originally Posted by DarkFish

Nope, Atheism is a belief, not a religion. As an atheist you do belief something (namely that there are no gods), but atheism can't be a religion because it has no god.
To get things even more complicated, I consider myself a religious atheist (I'm a Germanic Paganist, but I don't belief the gods really exist as living beings).

Technically, atheism is the lack of belief. Belief, as I had said earlier, is the reliance on existential claim for validity. Atheism, by definition, does not rely on such claims and as such is not belief. So, what you have said about atheism not being a religion is certainly true, but for different reasons according to philisophical taxonomy.

[geetrue]

The finite end of my camera lens (me) can not figure out infinite end of my lens (God)

[nikimcbee]

Originally Posted by TLAM Strike

I saw Pravda
...
I

Sweet free popcorn

oh yeah, pravda.

If you want a real laugh though, you need to listen to thr voice of Russia.

[Skybird]

In physical sciences "theory" is just a "mind - game" until it is corroborated by empirical facts. A well developed theory not only points to to the "observables" that will corroborate it, but also states (explicitly or implicitly) the conditions under which it can be "falsified". No religion allows for its falsification. Science and religion therefore don't mix. Using principles of the former to consolidate a view within the context of the latter (or vica versa) can lead to only one of two things: poetry or bulls**t. In this case choose your words carefully and hope/pray you're a poet...

Even a theory corroborated by empirical findings, remains to be that: a theory. You nprobably have heasred of what is just called "the black swan" nowadays: that one has never seen a black swan, does neithe rmean that all swasn are white and that no black swans exist. An empirically folunded theory, btw, is just natural - if it is not emporically founded, it more is a hypotheis than a theory. A theory can be a well-founded one, a dominant one, it can be a theory that can explain things more completely or more elegant ("easier"), maybe it even becomes a theoryso influential due to these factors that it lasts for long time and becomes a paradigm that influences how future theories are being formed or searched for. But still it is a theory, and it never is more than this. So-called nature's laws also are a form of theories only, wereason that these theories have a general validity in all nature. But it still is all our mental construction, our way to arrange observations in a way that it makes sense to us.

The real essence of things is hidden behind the veil of Maya. It is like mistaking matter with something "solid" although matter for the most, if not all, is just empty space, like a fast moving propeller gives the visual illusions of being a solid, transparent disc like made of grey glass. We do not discover a final, a real, a one-and-only reality - we invent it by the way we add meaning to it and by the way we approach it and by the way we add our system of ordering phenomenons to it. It is systemtical how we do it, yes. But it still is - our invention. Pragmatic in value and allowing us remarkable technical magic tricks - but still our own mindgame indeed.

Coincidence: today, this interview with a German cosmologist was published, in German. In what he says, the man could be me: http://www.focus.de/wissen/wissensch...id_548936.html

Nope, Atheism is a belief, not a religion. As an atheist you do belief something (namely that there are no gods), but atheism can't be a religion because it has no god.

Atheism is no belief in that being atheistic is the natural state in which we humans, and probbaly all anaimals, are being born. We humans then get fed with an artifical thought, that is describging the ecistence of somethging that before we have not heared of: a deity for example. This then is a belief. That does not make not sharing that belief, another belief. It is the absence of belief, and the returning to or the remaining in a natural state. We also are born naked. And if we do not wear clothes later on, our nakedness by that dpoes not become juist another form of dressing. It remains to be what it is: a natural state, a lack of dressing, an absence of clothes. Nudity is no special form of cloathes. It simply is what it is: nudity.

"Die Realität wird weniger von uns gefunden als vielmehr von uns erfunden." (Paul Watzlawick).

"What we see, never is nature, but only nature that is exposed to our way of asking questions about it." (Werner Heisenberg).

[Sailor Steve]

Originally Posted by geetrue

The finite end of my camera lens (me) can not figure out infinite end of my lens (God)

Which means that you don't really know that the infinite end is God, or even whether it's infinite. If we can't figure it out, then we're just guessing.

Originally Posted by Sailor Steve

Which means that you don't really know that the infinite end is God, or even whether it's infinite. If we can't figure it out, then we're just guessing.

It is called faith. Unfortunately many don't have it in their lives.

[Sailor Steve]

Originally Posted by The Third Man

It is called faith. Unfortunately many don't have it in their lives.

Though I no longer have it, I believe faith can be a wonderful thing. Unfortunately it's not proof, nor even evidence, so it's still guessing.

[Stealth Hunter]

Originally Posted by Diopos

In physical sciences "theory" is just a "mind - game" until it is corroborated by empirical facts. A well developed theory not only points to to the "observables" that will corroborate it, but also states (explicitly or implicitly) the conditions under which it can be "falsified". No religion allows for its falsification. Science and religion therefore don't mix. Using principles of the former to consolidate a view within the context of the latter (or vica versa) can lead to only one of two things: poetry or bulls**t. In this case choose your words carefully and hope/pray you're a poet...


.

Ultimately it comes down to being:

[Diopos]

In science you are judged by your peers.
In religion by God.
Having "suffered" the first I would easily settle for the second. At least He is forgiving.



.

[Skybird]

Originally Posted by Diopos

At least He is forgiving.

Who said I do? I'm Klingon.


Aldous Huxley's Island is one piece of writing that I read and since then never have forgotten. In it, a little tractate is "qoted", called "Notes on What'S What" by the "old Raja". There is much wisdom in it.

Originally Posted by Aldous Huxley - Island

Nobody needs to go anywhere else. We are all, if we only knew it, already there.
If I only knew who in fact I am, I should cease to behave as what I think I am; and if I stopped behaving as what I think I am, I should know who I am.
What in fact I am, if only the Manichee I think I am would allow me to know it, is the reconciliation of yes and no lived out in total acceptance and the blessed experience of Not-Two.
In religion all words are dirty words. Anyone who gets eloquent about Buddha, or God, or Christ, ought to have his mouth washed out with carbolic soap.
Because his aspiration to perpetuate only the "yes" in every pair of opposites can never, in the nature of things, be realized, the insulated Manichee I think I am condemns himself to endlessly repeated frustration, endlessly repeated conflicts with other aspiring and frustrated Manichees.
Conflicts and frustrations---the theme of all history and almost all biography. "I show you sorrow," said the Buddha realistically. But he also showed the ending of sorrow---self-knowledge, total acceptance, the blessed experience of Not-Two.

Knowing who in fact we are results in Good Being, and Good Being results in the most appropriate kind of good doing. But good doing does not of itself result in Good Being. We can be virtuous without knowing who in fact we are. The beings who are merely good are not Good Beings; they are just pillars of society.
Most pillars are their own Samsons. They hold up, but sooner or later they pull down. There has never been a society in which most good doing was the product of Good Being and therefore constantly appropriate. This does not mean that there will never be such a society or that we in Pala are fools for trying to call it into existence.

The Yogin and the Stoic---two righteous egos who achieve their very considerable results by pretending, systematically, to be somebody else. But it is not by pretending to be somebody else, even somebody supremely good and wise, that we can pass from insulated Manichee-hood to Good Being.
Good Being is knowing who in fact we are; and in order to know who in fact we are, we must first know, moment by moment, who we think we are and what that bad habit of thought compels us to feel and do. A moment of clear and complete knowledge of what we think we are, but in fact are not, puts a stop, for the moment, to the Manichean charade. If we renew, until they become a continuity, these moments of the knowledge of what we are not, we may find ourselves, all of a sudden, knowing who in fact we are.
Concentration, abstract thinking, spiritual exercises---systematic exclusions in the realm of thought. Asceticism and hedonism---systematic exclusions in the realms of sensation, feeling and action. But Good Being is in the knowledge of who in fact is in relation to all experiences. So be aware---aware in every context, at all times and whatever, creditable or discreditable, pleasant or unpleasant, you may be doing or suffering. This is the only genuine yoga, the only spiritual exercise worth practicing.
The more a man knows about individual objects, the more he knows about God. Translating Spinoza's language into ours, we can say: The more a man knows about himself in relation to every kind of experience, the greater his chance of suddenly, one fine morning, realizing who in fact he is---or rather Who (capital W) in Fact (capital F) "he" (between quotation marks) Is (capital I).
St. John was right. In a blessedly speechless universe, the Word was not only with God; it was God. As a something to be believed in. God is a projected symbol, a reified name. God = "God."
Faith is something very different from belief. Belief is the systematic taking of unanalyzed words much too seriously. Paul's words, Mohammed's words, Marx's words, Hitler's words---people take them too seriously, and what happens? What happens is the senseless ambivalence of history---sadism versus duty, or (incomparably worse) sadism as duty; devotion counterbalanced by organized paranoia; sisters of charity selflessly tending the victims of their own church's inquisitors and crusaders. Faith, on the contrary, can never be taken too seriously. For Faith is the empirically justified confidence in our capacity to know who in fact we are, to forget the belief-intoxicated Manichee in Good Being. Give us this day our daily Faith, but deliver us, dear God, from Belief.

Me as I think I am and me as I am in fact---sorrow, in other words, and the ending of sorrow. One third, more or less, of all the sorrow that the person I think I am must endure is unavoidable. it is the sorrow inherent in the human condition, the price we pay for being sentient and self-conscious organisms, aspirants to liberation, but subject to the laws of nature and under orders to keep on marching, through irreversible time, through a world entirely indifferent to our well-being, toward decrepitude and the certainty of death. The remaining two-thirds of sorrow is homemade and, so far as the universe is concerned, unnecessary.

"Patriotism is not enough." But neither is anything else. Science is not enough, religion is not enough, art is not enough, politics and economics are not enough, nor is love, nor is duty, nor is action however disinterested, nor, however sublime, is contemplation. Nothing short of everything will really do.

We cannot reason ourselves out of our basic irrationality. All we can do is learn the art of being irrational in a reasonable way. In Pala, after three generations of Reform, there are no sheeplike flocks and no ecclesiastical Good Shepherds to shear and castrate; there are no bovine or swinish herds and no licensed drovers, royal or military, capitalistic or revolutionary, to brand, confine and butcher. There are only voluntary associations of men and women on the road to full humanity.
Tunes or pebbles, processes or substantial things? "Tunes," answers Buddhism and modern science. "Pebbles," say the classical philosophers of the West. Buddhism and modern science think of the world in terms of music. The image that comes to mind when one reads the philosophers of the West is a Byzantine mosaic, rigid, symmetrical, made up of millions of little squares of some stony material and firmly cemented to the walls of a windowless basilica.
The dancer's grace and, forty years on, her arthritis---both are functions of the skeleton. It is thanks to an inflexible framework of bones that the girl is able to do her pirouettes, thanks to the same bones, grown a little rusty, that the grandmother is condemned to a wheelchair. Analogously, the firm support of a culture is the prime-condition of all individual originality and creativeness; it is also their principal enemy. The thing in whose absence we cannot possibly grow into a complete human being is, all too often, the thing that prevents us from growing.
A century of research on the moksha-medicine has clearly shown that quite ordinary people are perfectly capable of having visionary or even fully liberating experiences. In this respect the men and women who make and enjoy high culture are no better off than the low brows. High experience is perfectly compatible with low symbolic expression.
The expressive symbols created by Palanese artists are no better than the expressive symbols created by artists elsewhere. Being the products of happiness and a sense of fulfillment, they are probably less moving, perhaps less satisfying aesthetically, than the tragic or compensatory symbols created by victims of frustration and ignorance, of tyranny, war and guilt-fostering, crime-inciting superstitions. Palanese superiority does not lie in symbolic expression but in art which, though higher and far more valuable than all the rest, can yet be practiced by everyone--the art of adequately experiencing, the art of being more intimately acquainted with all the worlds that, as human beings, we find ourselves inhabiting. Palanese culture is not be judged as (for lack of any better criterion) we judge other cultures. It is not to be judged by the accomplishments of a few gifted manipulators of artistic or philosophic symbols. No, it is to be judged by what all the members of the community, the ordinary as well as the extraordinary, can and do experience in every contingency and at each successive intersection of time and eternity.

Dualism. . . Without it there can hardly be good literature. With it, there most certainly can be no good life.
"I" affirms a separate and abiding me-substance; "am" denies the fact that all existence is relationship and change. "I am." Two tiny words, but what an enormity of untruth! The religiously-minded dualist calls homemade spirits from the vasty deep; the nondualist calls the vasty deep into his spirit or, to be more accurate, he finds that the vasty deep is already there.

[TLAM Strike]

Originally Posted by Skybird

Who said I do? I'm Klingon.

But if you are one of the the Klingon Gods then you are dead, killed by your creation...