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| Discussion: Charles Darwin Sanvean I have a love for the ancients myself, and find it ineresting how both so little and so much has changed in the last few thousand years, let alone what we know of the the last several billion. But we should always be mindful of how little detail has survived and that our knowledge has developed immeasurably in so many different ways. Some of us are concerned about loss (innocence? the "ignorous is bliss" school? deep ecologists? fundamentalism of any shade?) while others are excited about what knowledge brings. I would never like to limit my world view to be limited or blinkered by the views of any single person (not even Charles Darwin). I 've never read anyone of value to me that even suggested that I should do. For me the 'Origin of the Species' opened up another world view. I must admit it was quite a long time ago and that I've tended to move onto more contemporary developments in the same stream. There is still something of value in the source though. I guess the difference between my belief system and other more faith-based views of the world is that my view is always contingent on what is known or believed at the time (not forgetting the past, of course). I can see that some people are fearful of the implications that complexity brings and yearn for certainty but i don 't think that certainty ever existed in the first place. >>By Sarcophilus Certainty is a quite subjective matter, and i agree with you that real certainty haven't ever existed. I believe it will stay out of reach for us as long we'll be seeking for truth. We indeed should be mindful of how little detail has survived. We even should be mindful that it is the little detail, the little change, that caused the big changes and developments on the paths of evolution. And it is to see all around us : the way life/nature reacts, moves and behaves. Or in music, marketingstrategy and in science...the way change behaves and why it adapts or rejects to achieve on what it's given on (still mysterious) 'instinct' to develop, while it doesn't recognize development at all. I find it all very fascinating. >>By Sanvean Certainty may out of our grasp forever, yes, so in light of that we must decide which method of inquiry is best suited to give us reliable knowledge of the world in which we find ourselves. i have been reading Harris' book, "The end of Faith," in which he describes the various forms of information gathering and analysis that humans have developed in our history, and he wisely concludes that scientific inquiry is to date the best approach to this problem. It is not that theologians or religious people care not for the truth, but quite the opposite, for it is the truth that they most aspire to know, but it is merely the way in which it is reached (or more often missed) that makes all the difference. Science is the only method which. in its very structure, contains a self-correcting device, ever reminding its adherents that knowledge is progressive, not static, and that onlookers are asked to require verification and ample evidence to all propositions. I cannot think of any religion, current or forever discarded into the realm of mythology, that allows and thrives on criticism of this kind, as it would undoubtably unravel the fabric of claims on which it stands. This doesn't imply that religions do not change over time, as we know they do, mostly in light of modern discoveries and common acceptance of undeniable truths. Instead of admitting to having once been in the wrong, they attempt to slither through the change and reword the old ideas to fit the new data via the highly reinforced concept of "interpretation." My question is this...If god delivered those words and ideas to us humans, and is so wise and intelligent, then why couldn't he/she have spoken in a manner that transcends era and context, allowing the claims to withstand the test of time and discovery? isn't the alternative view, that humans in their own time and place, created such notions, without the faintest idea of future developments and insights? Isn't that so dead obvious that it shouldn't even merit real discussion from here on out? The rhetoric of this question scares me, as the obviousness is all but that to most who live on this planet today. i suppose that logic and reason, although apparent in most human minds of every day living, seizes to be valued when it comes to the more fundamental questions of our existence and place in this universe. but I ask this...Would it be reasonable to demand evidence for my claim that there is a certain plant that, when eaten, makes a man grow five feet, and allows him to peer though the clothing of anyone within twenty yards? Of course it would demand evidence, for we all know that such is claim is far outside the world of observation and common sense. But if this claim were submitted into ancient texts, and delivered from generation to generation into the minds of the young, reinforced throughout society and culture, then our demand for evidence might become a form of heresy. Case and point...The resurrection of jesus, the parting of the red sea, the deliverence of the commandments, etc...Do these claims deserve, for some special reason, our faith alone, and the complete rejection of verification or proof? what is that reason? >>By Hume Ungus We've always been searching for reason, ever since we've been able to think further than the native ways fromout our instincts. For example: at first everything was like it was. When the sun shone, she shone without a single motivation for askings as 'why'. The same counts for heavy forces and destructions elements could give with rain, storm and for example earthquakes. But at a certain point we became smarter by some (more or less coincidental) inventions and we made ourselves weapons and tools. I believe that from this point our brain for the first time began to get stimulated to think in reason. Stimulated but still incapable by absence of experience to find it. Now when the sun shone maybe we were able to think in first (yet small) awareness that it was good, and when a heavy storm took someone's life we longed for reason and gave the interpretation in a way we experienced this aggression that felt like anger or wrath, and in longing for cause we attributed this wrath to a force that was able to feel this given, that in latter stadia we named as God. And there are many forces in nature. Maybe it's an explanation for the amount of Gods we had in the beginning. Anyway, at some point Mozes came with his Exodus, 'met' God at the mountain and declared a one and only God for all the people. Don't know what is true ot not, i believe the story i a result from a tradition that developed the myth(s) parellel to religion (Christianity in this one), melted in longing for belief fromout the longing for (the once so elusive) reason and made concrete after the death of Jezus, when tradition lived on, and after two ages completed and compiled in several books called the Bible. Is this provable? If i do have evidence to verify my statement? Nope. I try to understand life, nature and people and the behaviours. For example why we are able to fall in love, what is the reason, what happens in the brain why we can experience this incredible euforic feeling? I don't have the anwer on that one (yet), but is it really necessary to know all the why's and how's of this emotional state to feel or even get aware of it? Then i come to the point in which i think that just like religion science is just not everything. To me these are additions to our lives to make it more rich, not to depend on. Then i come to the point of religion again. If you give yourself to a religion, you're asked to give yourself intirely, the whole of yourself, your identity. I think it's one of the reasons why it's hard to to admit, even when it would be proved some (Bible-)facts would be not that true as we thought. 'Cause you not only say facts in Bible are not real, you also thread the identity of a Christian. He might experience this thread as if his identity, his personality, even his existence would be a lie, his life would be a lie. No one wants to get in a horror like that, neither does he. With all the power he got he would defend his religion and belief. Just like everyone else would do, he will react fromout the most native will, defending himself, his instinct to survive. >>By Sanvean One can and most often does experience "love" without having a scientific explanation for such a phenomena. I myself am an example, at least in the sense that to date I lack a solid understanding of the human brain. However, there is indeed an explanation that awaits, if only we were to seek it out. I do not wish to live in a world that depends entirely on science, as i would inevitably find myself waiting for answers that we are not yet prepared to encounter. Most of life is lived in the "fly by the seat of the pants" mode, rarely patient enough to allow critical inquiry to take place. But in the pursuit of fundamental knowledge, some methods are simply better than others at uncovering the truth. Your account of how our ancestors attached reason to natural events seems likely and in fact reasonable, given the context of their conditions. The early methods, as seen from today's eye, appear primitive, simple, and inaccurate. That doesn't imply that our ancestors were stupid. Without their answer-seeking tendencies, we may never have reached the critical methods of science or even philosophy that we have today. My point is merely that we do live in the today, and most of us have been given at least a touch of science in our education and upbringing. this includes the devout religious people. whereas at one time religion and personal identity were essentially one, and religion held the reins on reason, today the pilot of reason is a more refined and respectable character. Why must the religious feel completely threatened when one of their dogmas comes under scrutiny in a world that can get to the actual cause of natural events? Is their mindset that it is better to be blissful and wrong than it is to admit falsity and change? Cannot this admission and subsequent change also be followed by happiness. or must it be devastating to one's identity all the time no matter what? Is it virtuous to stick to your guns in the face of the truth? I for one would never wish to be a part of that, and am glad that there are humans on this planet who are comfortable enough to know when they are wrong and work for progress and who are repelled by ignorant stagnation. though I will probably never contribute to our growing body of scientific knowledge, I have promised to myself that I will always try to update my mind with such new discoveries, and to forever change my worldview so that it reflects our gains in science and not superstition. The lieklyhood is that in my life i will have failures and shortcomings in such a lofty goal, abd will, like most humans, come to believe in some notions that will eventually be shown to be wrong or incomplete. this seems inevitable. But the mindset I have now ensures that if ever I discover these shortcomings, instead of holding on to them as some precious stone or out of respect for tradition, I will banish them and replace them with the truth as it comes. >>By Hume Ungus Having an open mind, to yourself and to other people('s critics) and criteria. Being able to change and adapt ideas to learn and develop in science, philiosofy and ofcourse in life. Otherwise we would still live in a time simular to the middle-ages. So, yes, i do agree with the fact not to always stick tightly to own dogmas, thoughts, opinions and so on. The danger of it all can be the ignorance of what is actually going on, or worse: total ognorance of the 'Self', own identity. But you know, when someone's identical weakened by depression, insecurity and grieve it is mighty easy to convince him with something that makes him feel better. Ofcourse this is a wellknown fact aswell a lucrative source for drugabuse. But it is 'lucrative' for church too. 'Cause being in such a kind of misere every helping hand is welcome. And then someone tells him that he can be saved in promise of even a fullfilled life. The only thing needed is for him to give is life to (in this one) Jesus, intirely. And when he does, he will become a part of the religion. And as said Jesus is truth, THE truth. The man's identity becomes a part of that truth, and will be highly motivated to secure his life in Jesus because of the experience of mighty strong love that can be achieved by the strong belief in this so called truth. And that makes him a part of it. He not only believes, but he even has become a part of it. So if you get to him and start a discussion/debate about, for example, the walk of Jesus on the water, that you doubt the existance of a living God cause of the impossibility of it , then in his (subconscious) way of 'being' you not only doubt his opinion, but the way he (unluckely really) infact interpretates he feels it in a way as if you just said to him straight in the face you doubt his life, his identity. And that makes him feeling (and still subconcious) threatened. It is as if you say that the belief he gave his life to is a lie. Well, then it can be hard to be still open and convince him of a truth different than the Bible. Yep, different priotities: you focus in life to grow in it, while 'his' only goal is to keep save his world, his life, his security and only to grow in his life with Jesus......he doesn't belief in the evolutional aspects of life....no dinosaurs have ever existed. But how's he to blame? For somehow reason he's life got f***** up and there was no-one to give him the helping hand or able to open his eyes to reality. Not science not politics not the people nor the country he once believed in could help him, no-one but Jesus........It is just one of the reasons, i think, why religion was able to survive two whole millennia. But on the other hand: how can it be that after a twothousand years of proclaiming Truth religion still not has conquered the world in the free will of mankind? We've had the middle-ages, a time nobody tried or dared to despite the Bible/Jesus. But it was not fromout belief but by the power of the church. The reason i took 'first man' as an example was just to give the reason i believe how religion started, with the desire of knowing by disability to explain by being subconscious aware of responsibility giving a reason for rain, and not finding it (but still in unrecognised desire) to ascribe it to a higher power. Like all the tangibility on Earth i believe also the human mind is subject to evolution. So this basical believing was on the way to religion. And from religion to (names as) Darwin, Descartes, Freud and Einstein, from the nineteenth century to now. And i think our mind is still evoluating, and that this confusional time of so many spiritual, social and psychological directions are part of the fase for the new step in development of the human mind. + >>By Sanvean Concerning the origin of religions...A heavily supported theory today holds that religion is actually a by-product of human evolution, and not in and of itself an inevitable locus for higher order thinking. Anthropologists and evolutionary biologists suggest that religious ideas, and the subsequent persistence and spreading of said ideas, stems from primitive man's psychological need to believe wholeheartedly in exactly what our parents and tribal authorities tell us, in order to survive. When they teach us that fire is hot, we had better believe it. When they tell us that running over the cliff's edge will lead to death, then no fisrt-hand experiment will leave us alive to disagree. Consequently, when children are instructed in more abstract modes, like those of religious dogma, the same adherence is applied. It is only natural for the young, developing mind to believe, and then eventually perpetuate, the accumulation of information it has gathered from its very beginning. That evidence to the contrary seems to some overwhelming and all-important, it may face the problem of not being able to undo the deepest, most firmly rooted indoctrination of childhood. Considering that in prehistoric times, what we understand as solid evidence today, did not exist at all, it is no wonder that seemingly irrational ideas flourished without resistance. It is really a very recent development in human history that religious indoctrination is not necessarily the chosen basis for a child's understanding of the world. I, for example, was raised in a household that could best be described as "secular" and very much agnostic. My education consisted of literature, science, history, mathematics, and the like. I have never been instructed on the Bible, the Old Testament, or the Qu'ran. My identity in this world is purely humanistic, when it comes to morality. I'd like to think that to date this has been the best ethics humans have devised. Of course it isn't perfect, but it seems to be more condusive to rationality and compassion than traditional experiments. I do fear the state of America today in reference to this topic. It appears that evangelical christianity is on the rise again, perhaps in a backlash to the semi-progressive decades beginning in the 60's. In a country that on the one hand values and thrives on scientific understanding and discovery, it is ironic that the debate surrounding evolution is as tense and crucial as it now is. Cleary most theologians with an ounce of integrity won't get behind the theory of creationism that holds the Earth to be 6,000 years old. They will also acknowledge the roundness of the planet. But these are issues that can make a person look absolutely rediculous. Why isn't the refutation of natural selection in the same category? It is just as well founded a theory, and yet a growing number of people have managed to position their minds against the evidence. I wonder exactly what is at stake...What do they feel they have to lose by accepting this part of science in the same way that they support the science that ensures them that the plane they are flying on will function properly? Surely if they doubted the science underlying flight, they would fear to get aboard. The picking and choosing of what science they want to acknowledge is not only intellectually flawed, but it is becoming destructive to our culture. The tricky and dishonest campaign dubbed "intelligent design" is the old creationism plot disguised to appear more scientific and independent-attempting to gain credibility by saying that they have no religious interests. But when you look at the proponents, a majority are in fact practicing christians with alterior motives. In a nutshell, these so-called scientist are severely lacking in imagination and as a result always default any phenomena of complexity to be explained by god. Is that science? Where in the accepted methodology does it say-when you cannot find a natural explanation, simply give up and say that some god creature made it so? Science is supposed to reach fundamental, and simple explanations, and avoid explanations that take you several steps backwards. For example: If the universe is soooo complex that only a god could have created it, then mustn't the god be just as complex, if not more? Could a simple, unorganized, and mentally stupid god do all that work? If you don't think so, then the question arises-how did god get that complex? Isn't he also in need of explanation, just like the masterpiece he was said ot have created? Does the god theory answer a question, or merely postpone it? Have we advanced our understanding whatsoever? NOT AT ALL! >>By Hume Ungus You are not logged in. To access all functionality, you can log in via Flork. Flork is a worldwide community of people who are interested in music, movies and books. As a Flork-User, you can participate in this and other discussions, meet new people and exchange messages with other members directly: www.flork.com |