GeoTheo

So let us just say a person going from this starting point, builds a set of logical assumptions each based with the assumption that God is the first cause. This has the benefit of bring meaning to life and authenticating ones self. Is this irrational as opposed to living life assuming that the first cause is not God ?

Bill

In this hypothetical scenario, all you are doing is deifying the acts of man in building up "a set of logical assumptions each based with the assumption that God is the first cause." In other words, you are starting with nothing other than the ontological assumption of your own existence as the proof of God. That might be valid enough for those who are predisposed towards belief, but it would never pass muster under any sort of scientifically based epistemology.

Let me be more explicit here: all known human religions are man-made. Accordingly, if you extract "the meaning of life" from your religion, you are simply adopting a meaning that was PICKED FOR YOU by somebody else! If you are a Christian, you have adopted a meaning for your own life that was picked for you by the founding fathers of the Christian religion. Now, just what right do they have to pick the meaning of MY life?

My point here is that once we recognize that all "meaning" is a product of mankind's own thought processes, then we can easily dispense with the fiction that mankind needs to invent some sort of God-concept in order to give "real meaning" to the lives of mankind. The argument between theism and atheism isn't whether or not mankind would be better off believing than not believing. The argument is actually centered on whether or not theism is objectively true or false. Atheists (and here I do include myself in that category, at least with respect to the Christian God-concept) do assert that at least the most common (and best investigated/argued) God-concepts are clearly not true. (If we believed that they were true, we would not be atheists, now would we?)

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So, is it "irrational" (your word) to accept some ancient mystical person's idea of the "meaning of life" as opposed to creating some modern idea of the "meaning of life" on our own? I think that it is "irrational" because we know so much more about "reality" now as compared with even just a century ago. And with all the vastness of that difference over a single century, how can we justify living our lives based upon a worldview that is 20 times as old, and which was part of a culture with which we have no real "contact" (or "affinity")? I would not give my life for Caesar in modern times, so why should I give my life for Christ?

Can't I find some modern concept that is worth giving my life for? I certainly do think that I could, and it would not have any more relevance to either Caesar or Christ than their lives have for me.

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As for agnosticism, somewhat like Bertrand Russell, I see that as a philosophical stance that is virtually forced by the clear inability of any human (or even all humans taken together) to ever hope to fully know and understand "everything." In the absence of some experience, we cannot make an unqualified knowledge claim, and we can NEVER claim any degree of certainty about anything that has yet to transpire (a potential "future event" of some sort). We must admit of at least some degree of uncertainty about any "future event" because, even if that event were only a few moments away from happening, something like the Sun going nova could still prevent the event from occurring. All of this is fully developed in my essay <a href="http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/bill_schultz/justified.html" target="_blank">A Formal Justification of Agnosticism</a>.

But just because I'm a staunch agnostic does not mean that I would ever entertain the idea that Jesus Christ just might be God. That situation absolutely cannot pertain, for a plethora of reasons with which I'm personally familiar. Accordingly, from the point of view of a Christian, I'm as "hard core" of an atheist as there could conceivably be.

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And, of course, that is the problem when using words like "theist," "atheist," or "agnostic." Those terms are generally only used with respect to some believer's own particular point of view about God. To a strong "born again" fundamentalist Christian, some "liberal Christian" (like an Episcopalian) is also "an atheist" who is "Hellbound."

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Anyway, I do think that you haven't really thought through this whole business much yourself. This is a typical problem among those who come in here with a predigested worldview and just start parroting it out to the rest of us who have actually forced ourselves to think logically about these matter over a period of years.

== Bill

universatile

Bill-
I have thought illogically about it for years and have come to conclusions much the same as yours.

Keith Russell

Greetings:

Someone who is 'content to wait and see' whether or not there is a god, is not--as I understand both terms--an 'atheist', but is instead an 'agnostic'.

But, all of this depends greatly on what we mean when we say 'god'. Theists almost always want/believe 'god' to fit their own particular view of god, so that the 'god' we find will have exactly and only the precise features, qualities, 'personality', and history that they believe god to have.

Even if human beings eventually discover that some (currently indescribable) intelligence 'made/created' existence, that intelligence might not be infinite, might not be all-powerful, and certainly would not necessarily have to be omniscient.

And, even if it were all of those things, that would still not necessitate that each of us should 'worship' this thing--or that it would want us to. Nor would it mean that this thing came to earth as Jesus, and/or wrote the ten commandments, and/or visited Mohammud, Buddha, etc.

The questions of science must have both naturalistic and open-ended answers. Each fact must lead to an understanding of other facts--even of other facts which might not be discovered for years, decades, or centuries. If science should ever find that an intelligence 'made' the universe, to say that this intelligence was 'god'--in any religious/mystical/supernatural sense--would be to end the quest.

True science cannot, however, simply stop there--saying that the answer is 'god', and thus (as religion tells us) we need no other additional answers. We should still (I hope) want to know what this intelligence is, and how it accomplished 'creation'.

Then, even if we were satisfied with those answers, we should still want to know why.

There would be a great deal of scientific work to be done. To define this intelligence as 'god'--if 'god' is defined as the 'be-all, end-all, no more answers are needed'--would be a mistake. 'God' does not--and scientifically cannot--exist.

I am thus an atheist, not an agnostic.

Keith Russell.

Gooch's dad

Bill (and myself) aren't 'hoping there is no God' anymore than we are 'hoping there were no pandimensional aliens' that were involved in 'starting' the Big Bang.

The problem with saying 'God did it' is that you are simply saying 'some unknown undefined entity of dubitable origin did this'. This isn't a scientific explanation.

And here is why--if someone asked me 'how does electricity work to light up a light bulb?' then I might give a scientific reply:

"Electrons move through the wires when the circuit is closed, due to a voltage difference provided by a power supply. The electrons encounter resistance in the material, and this resistance is high right in the filament of the light bulb. This resistance means the electrons must do work, and this work creates heat. The heat causes the atoms of the filament to radiate photons, which is visible light to us".

On the other hand, if I were to say "the light bulb works because someone turns on the light switch' I haven't really said anything, have I?

That is the everyday equivalent of saying 'God did it'. You aren't explaining anything at all.

BigAl71350

One theory is matter is motion. The natural state of the universe is motion not rest. Matter arose from the non material side of the universe that we do not see and do not interact with directly. Light is pure wave motion in this medium, which is actually space itself; not the unreactive void we view it as.
See some more comments below:
As Dr. William Day says in the preface to his book, Bridge From Nowhere, every Age has had an explanation for the Universe and the order of Matter in it. Each has believed its account to be the final solution and resisted attempts to change it. Our Age is no different. Current theory whose premises date from about 360 years ago established the concept of motion as a condition and the change of motion as the property upon which everything exists: Dynamic Equilibrium. This a 17th Century Worldview whose principles (everything in the Universe is held together by forces) are still being applied (or trying to be applied) to a World that has accumulated centuries of Knowledge Newton and Galileo never knew. This 17th Century Worldview has splintered and lost its unity, when extended into diverse levels of the Atom, subatomic particle's and the wave nature of light. Relativity and Quantum Mechanics don' mix and there is no Unified Field Theory. Einstein defined reality as that which is witnessed by the Observer (Relativity) and thus severed Physics from a fundamental element of our logic system: That there is an objective reality apart from the observer. Quantum theory gives us the Copenhagen interpretation, which offers us the absurd conclusion that matter exists only when there is an observer. The properties of matter are only in the mind of the observer. Nature is absurd, irrational. There is no cause to phenomena. No Cause and Effect.
Lest we forget Science is founded on the principle that nature is rational. That there is an objective reality. There are causes and effects. And theories must be as free of irrationalities of logic as mathematics must be free of procedural errors. But there is an interpretation of Motion, which does lead to a simple Unified Theory. If we assume that matter's hierarchy, particles, atoms and gravitational systems follows a general pattern of lesser components orbiting a nuclear body then motion becomes a structural feature of matter. From this simple premise, everything can be integrated into all phenomena that stem from a single constant: Motion. And a New World View of extraordinary power, beauty and rationality emerges. The Universe left to itself does not degenerate into chaos but rather though selfgeneration organizes itself into stable systems, from particles to atoms to gravitational systems; and in my opinion to life itself. Dr. Days web site: URL: <a href="http://www.non-newtonianphysics.com/index.htm." target="_blank">http://www.non-newtonianphysics.com/index.htm.</a> contains a wealth of information. His books on this subject, The Bridge from Nowhere, The Bridge from Nowhere II, Holistic Physics, and A New Physics are incredible. Whether right or wrong his work is provocative and IMHO coherent and beautiful. D
Day’s theories explain the nature of matter and space and how the material universe came into existence. Not from a Big Bang but from the other 'half' of reality, a non-material medium (space) where matter evolved from a photonic source. Where Galaxies are the crucibles of creation of the material universe.
If you are interested read the material on Day's web site(s). Read the books. They are a revelation. And filled with wonderful vignettes about the men and women who wrote the theories and performed the experiments.Did you know that E=mc2 was discovered without relativity and published 2 years before Einstein included it as a footnote to his paper 1

One of proofs of relativity was the prediction of the advance of the perihelion of the orbit of Mercury. Sure enough the predicted difference matched Einstein’s prediction. The only problem, apparently overlooked, is that a German named Paul Gerber published a paper in 1898 (18 years prior to Einstein’s publication) that predicted the same results as Einstein Relativistic equations using Classical physics under the assumption that gravity was not instantaneously transmitted but rather propagated at the speed of light.
Sincerely,
Al Virgilio

Ventura, Ca
1 Umberto Bartocci, Albert Einstein ed Olinto De Pretto - La vera storia del-la formula piu famosa del mondo, Ultreja, Padova, 1998
2 Gerber, P.,"Die raumliche und zeitliche Ausbreitung der Gravitation"Zeitsch. f.Mathem. U. Physik 43, 93-104, 1898

Kharakov

Gerber's work doesn't jive with the fact that gravity does propagate instantaneously (or at least much faster than the speed of light).

Light from the sun reaches the earth at a point 20 arc seconds away from where the earth accelerates towards the sun. In other words we accelerate towards the position of the mass of the sun, but the light reaches us from the position the sun was at 9 minutes beforehand.

-k

BigAl71350

K
Are you suggesting that the speed of light varies relative to the motion of the earth? The Michelson-Morely experiments definitively showed this was not the case. Einstein accepted C as an absolute, though he did not explain why it is. Dr Day's theory does offer an explanation. I am not aware of any data that shows gravity moving faster than the absolute speed of light. Do you have any references?
Best Regards,
Al

Kharakov

No, just that the apparent point of origin for the light reaching the earth from the sun is not the same as the point of origin for the gravitational attraction of the sun.

The earth accelerates towards the suns mass, but the light from the sun appears to come from a different position than the sun's gravitation.

check out this article: <a href="http://www.ldolphin.org/vanFlandern/gravityspeed.html" target="_blank">http://www.ldolphin.org/vanFlandern/gravityspeed.html</a>

pretty awesome reading!

-k

[ July 18, 2002: Message edited by: Kharakov ]</p>

Kharakov

I think it was always here.

I also think that the universe is in a constant cycle where either the antimatter or regular matter forms most of the black holes. Eventually most of the matter enters the black holes and converts the antimatter into photons. These photons escape the black hole when the antimatter in the black hole reacts with enough matter to no longer have enough mass to hold the photons within the event horizon. After this happens we have a new period of galaxy formation when the photons spread out far enough that when they break into particle/antiparticle pairs they do not instantly annihilate eachother into photons again.

-k