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 toastdth
strangest
Registered: 12/12/06
Posts: 138
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 Organized Religion Vs. Gauge Bosons and the Lorentz Transform? 
#6714866 - 03/26/07 09:57 PM (5 years, 2 months ago) |
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I'm an atheist. Not out of any strong personal belief, but rather lack of conclusive proof for one religion over any other. I've been reading a ton of the posts in this forum, and I've been wondering something.
How do you who follow organized religions or have a spirituality that relies on metaphysical occurrences account for modern physics and science?
Neuroscience, discovering areas of the brain directly responsible for religion and religious experience? How do you reconcile faith with the ability science has to re-create religious experiences in the faithful, to the point where they cannot determine what is real and what is electrical stimulation? With a bit of electricity in the right spot, we can make a Christian see Jesus, and a Muslim see Allah. Or high energy particle physics, quantum field theory, and general relativity? A modern physics degree involving any of those areas precludes any but a peripheral belief in a creator, such as Einstein's. To the point where the faithful drop either the degree program, or the religion.
This is not a personal attack on anyone, nor any religion: I'd like to hear how someone with a firm grasp on modern science reconciles faith with their discipline.
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redgreenvines
irregular verb
Registered: 04/08/04
Posts: 13,625
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no offence meant [Re: toastdth]
#6715693 - 03/27/07 04:24 AM (5 years, 2 months ago) |
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toadstdth,
generally the infantry are not capable of thinking for themselves except about the most mundane issues, like how to wash, how to eat, when and if to jerk off (etc).
members of rigidly organized religions are usually stationed on guard against attack, and they come heavily armed with ignorance and dogma.
some of the more clever ones have special kits such as "anti-evolution force fields" and they periodically go on raids creating very odd disturbances.
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 aryah
Stranger
Registered: 03/11/07
Posts: 102
Last seen: 5 years, 1 month
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Re: Organized Religion Vs. Gauge Bosons and the Lorentz Transform? [Re: toastdth]
#6715739 - 03/27/07 05:31 AM (5 years, 2 months ago) |
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Quote:
toastdth said:
I'm an atheist. Not out of any strong personal belief, but rather lack of conclusive proof for one religion over any other. I've been reading a ton of the posts in this forum, and I've been wondering something.
How do you who follow organized religions or have a spirituality that relies on metaphysical occurrences account for modern physics and science?
Neuroscience, discovering areas of the brain directly responsible for religion and religious experience? How do you reconcile faith with the ability science has to re-create religious experiences in the faithful, to the point where they cannot determine what is real and what is electrical stimulation? With a bit of electricity in the right spot, we can make a Christian see Jesus, and a Muslim see Allah. Or high energy particle physics, quantum field theory, and general relativity? A modern physics degree involving any of those areas precludes any but a peripheral belief in a creator, such as Einstein's. To the point where the faithful drop either the degree program, or the religion.
This is not a personal attack on anyone, nor any religion: I'd like to hear how someone with a firm grasp on modern science reconciles faith with their discipline.
Pramana considers observable fact a valid source of knowledge, as much as inference is, hence, if theres a direct contradiction of reasonably proven empirical fact (and I see no reason not to accept common scientific near-consensus as such) and any other beliefs (that in my case expicitly exclude a creator or God) i cannot but accept empirical fact as true.
As to their metaphysical interpretations, be they positivist or platonist, i dont particularly care for either.
Sometimes it happens that proclamed atheists imo overcompensate for rightly percieved dogmatism of religious institutions and religious war against science waged in some countries of the world by simply buying into its mere mirror image philosophical position (demonstrating a kind of thinking
called logocentrism by Derrida) typically unconsciously, even when its not necessarely implied by the scientific facts themselves, and even when more carefull scientists and philosophers of science avoid such pitfalls wery carefully. On this, Id suggest readong Lakatos, Feyerabend, and perhaps Rorty and Derrida. 'Proof and refutation' by Lakatos is a particularly entertaining read on epistemological conflicts on nature of mathematical knowledge in that science itself.
Id expect the same stance to scientific truth to be more or less the case in those monotheisms with strong hellenistic element, like catholicism also, for they believe in congruency of reason and faith, and have a long history of logical study - though less so of empirical analysis, demonstrating a platonic bias not foreign to some strains of mathematicians (Goedel was strongly platonicly inclinded for instance).
As to your specific example, many billions of believers on this planet dont believe in a strict mind-matter dualism (less so than most scientist raised in a cartesian mentality), so it would come as no more suprise that an electrical or chemical stimulation of the brain can cause profound experiences than that mechanical stimulation of the body can induce it, as they allready know. If you choose to interpret this as evidence in favor of materialism, this simply demonstrates an epistemological bias on your part; for materialism is an ontological position, and hence has little place in scientific thinking.
As has been states so many times, religion in the modern restricted sense are generally not about empirical fact, but of existential and psychological experience. So certainly, seeking conclusive proof about them is as sensible as seeking historical fact in poetry (which regardless if, as sometimes is the case, is present in poetry has only peripheral relevance to its validity)
Through history, religion is an integral concept including what we term today as science and art and philosophy and custom and even law. So clearly, far from contradiction with religon as such, science is an integral historic part of it. One may better see contradictions that do occur as intrareligious conflict and religious reform movements, than something external to religion - for historically it never was. History of scientific institutions in all cultures demonstrates this clearly as well.
Edited by aryah (03/27/07 05:35 AM)
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redgreenvines
irregular verb
Registered: 04/08/04
Posts: 13,625
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Re: Organized Religion Vs. Gauge Bosons and the Lorentz Transform? [Re: aryah]
#6716124 - 03/27/07 09:55 AM (5 years, 2 months ago) |
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through history a dualism between science and religion reflects more about power than ideation.
the idea of spirit or pneuma or prana requires no separation from materiality.
the more magnificent choreography of materiality is the domain of spirit.
who needs to see it as separate (spirit and material), probably cannot see it at all, or is trying too hard, or is looking at confusing or erroneous prerequisites.
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MarkostheGnostic
Elder
Registered: 12/09/99
Posts: 8,634
Loc: South Florida
Last seen: 1 day, 23 hours
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Re: Organized Religion Vs. Gauge Bosons and the Lorentz Transform? [Re: toastdth]
#6716753 - 03/27/07 01:48 PM (5 years, 2 months ago) |
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You are comparing proverbial apples to oranges. Reason and faith are not incompatible, but the 'whys' of religion are incompatible with the 'hows' of science. Science is nature, 'physis' in the Greek. Spirituality is metaphysi[c]s
which is ontologically prior to nature. Metaphysics harkens back to ontological and cosmological origination, to say, 'That' which was Present prior to 10 to the minus 43 seconds ago - prior to the emergent singularity whence the 'Big Bang' occurred.
The mystical core of world religions, in general, is the psychospiritual involution back to That which has always been. It is involution versus evolution - a reduction in complexity, through simplicity to one-pointedness which arrives at the Ground of Being (variously named in various religions).
BTW, electrical stimulations of certain cortical areas may induce discharges of light, but contrary to materialistic and very unimaginative theorists, simple neural stimulation does not replicate mystical experience which is replete with ecstatic emotion, a corresponding sense of "metaphysical significance" (to quote William James), a sense of meaning, and perhaps most significantly, an inner change which positively effects one entire life. All experiences undoubtedly have physiological as well as psychological correlates, but correlation is not equivalent to causality. Saint Paul's Light eexperience on the road to Damascus was not the spontaneous discharge of a lesion on his occipital lobe! This is materialism at its most dismal, unimaginative, nihilistic worse IMO.
You are simply missing one thing in your current inquiry: The Transcendental.
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γνῶθι σαὐτόν - Gnothi Sauton - Know Thyself
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