I lifted this off another thread, but it intrigued me to question the actual "science" of what we know... God/Devil exists? Are we not fooled in science to believe that there is either a multi-universe or a symmetrical universe with multiple dimensions? How would a minded person of an ancient era explain what he could not understand? To simply put our current understanding of what is truly an improbability of our universe down to a simplistic understanding of "life" or "death"... living or inanimate... is in no greater explanation than putting angels and demons, heaven or hell, as a definition. Our understanding of our current reality is very bleak... The research at the LHC gives us an insight that we have yet scratched the surface of our state of reality... even Einstein equated our universe as a too well organized library to be of an accidental creation... "I'm not an atheist, and I don't think I can call my self a pantheist. We are in the position of a little child entering a huge library filled with books in many languages. The child knows someone must have written those books. It does not know how. It does not understand the languages in which they are written. The child dimly suspects a mysterious order in the arrangement of the books but doesn't know what it is. That , it seems to me, is the attitude of even the most intelligent human being toward God. We see the universe marvelously arranged and obeying certain laws but only dimly understand these laws. Our limited minds grasp the mysterious force that moves the constellations." ...so I'm just not sure how a "scientifically-minded person" could easily dismiss the possibilities of different realities... different states of consciousness... different platforms of being... e^{i \pi} + 1 = 0
IMO, a 'scientifically minded person' cannot summarily dismiss other possible explanations for the mysteries in the universe. That is for dogmatists.
The significant difference is between dismissing possibilities and dismissing very specifically defined certainties asserted with zero concrete evidence.
How do you 'specifically define certainties with zero concrete evidence?' Would that not make them 'uncertainties', if there was no evidence? Are you just redefining 'some' beliefs as 'certainties' without evidence? Your ideological counterpart (whomever it may be) could make the same claim about THEIR 'specifically defined certainties'. Why would yours be certainties, but the other guy's myths?
You misunderstand me. The claims for the existence of specific entities (such as the Devil as per the OP quote) are proposed as certainties. The people who believe them treat them as definitive facts, not possibilities and largely on the basis of faith, not conclusive evidence. Dismissing these specific definitive claims is not the same as dismissing the possibility of there being things we don't (yet) understand. If anything, it's the faith based definitive answers that are dismissing the possibility of anything else.
Religion exists for the sol purpose of controlling the population. Don't do certain things or you will burn in hell. Government's really love the give onto Caesar which is Caesar's (taxes) It is a ruse. I am not denying that a God exists it is at least probable, but man's interpretation i.e. Bible, Koran, Torah are scripts to live exactly how the establishment wants you to live. Be a weak, tax paying, turn the other cheek docile citizens.
I don't think anyone really reduces the Universe to "life and death." Naturalism is far more nuanced than that, if that's what you're referring to. You're essentially making the teleological argument here, which is full of holes. The bottom line is, the Universe is not nearly as "well-organised" as it seems (just look at the amount of destruction, inhospitability and waste which goes on) and even if it were, since humans are adapted to the Universe and never knew anything else, so it's natural that we should find it "well-organised" for our purposes. [QUOTE"I'm not an atheist, and I don't think I can call my self a pantheist. We are in the position of a little child entering a huge library filled with books in many languages. The child knows someone must have written those books. It does not know how. It does not understand the languages in which they are written. The child dimly suspects a mysterious order in the arrangement of the books but doesn't know what it is. That , it seems to me, is the attitude of even the most intelligent human being toward God. We see the universe marvelously arranged and obeying certain laws but only dimly understand these laws. Our limited minds grasp the mysterious force that moves the constellations." ...so I'm just not sure how a "scientifically-minded person" could easily dismiss the possibilities of different realities... different states of consciousness... different platforms of being... e^{i \pi} + 1 = 0[/QUOTE] No one, really, is dismissing such possibilities. But probability is a thing. Given what we know of and can deduce from science, some possibilities are likelier than others.
I think [MENTION=58029]usfan[/MENTION] hit it on the head with the distinction between the scientifically minded and the scientific dogmatists. Religious and scientific dogmatists both live totally within the framework of their own paradigms, assuming certain premises to be true a priori and judging all other paradigms through the lens of said premises. Whether it's a Bible or General Relativity, the process is the same, and conflicting perspectives will be "proven" false in light of their conflict with those supposed incontrovertible premises. Those you might label 'scientifically minded' understand that the foundational premises of the current scientific paradigm are not TRULY concrete and proven. They're accepted as hypothetically true, because doing so allows for a system of further observations, analyses, and conclusions to be made which grant us the most practical control and predictability of our perceived environment. When a system comes along that allows for more control and predictability, the old foundational premises are switched for the new, and paradigm shift occurs. Classical mechanics work really well for most things, but we also use quantum mechanics because it allows for a greater degree of control and predictability on applications to which Newtonian physics don't apply. This is in spite of the fact that the two theories seemingly conflict, and despite the fact that quantum mechanics are far from "figured out". The very idea of randomness is a codeword for "we don't know how this works yet, but we'll ignore it because the rest of this stuff is so practical". When a new theory comes along that can combine both fields of physics conveniently, both will be thrown out, and we'll be talking about our current paradigm the same way people talk about Aristotelian physics now. True science doesn't concern itself with higher realities or different platforms of being because - until it's proven useful to do so - such things are absolutely irrelevant.
Isn't it wonderful that the universe and our life exists on such a point of improbability that the probabilities of it not existing far out weigh the prior by all the sands on earth, and all the stars in our cosmos. As unorganized as we imagine it to be, every part of it, to the smallest particle, has a mathematical pattern. Such a construct like our universe has been liken to a highly sophisticated hologram, a virtual world within a means to which the material universe around us is fabricated. As inhospitable as our universe is, our spec of life and consciousness still exists... but is it just output from an input we yet understand?
