James Hamlin

This is all backwards. True, the universe exhibits order. True, humans, or should I say all human-like minds, exhibit the same tendency toward order. But what is the relationship between the two? I think it is more rational to assume that the order present in the universe caused the human tendency for order.

Philosoft

I don't think so. What is the causal mechanism? Seven hundred years ago, the "order" of the universe was virtually unknown. Were those humans less inclined to observe or prefer order to the point that their lives were chaotic?

I think psychology offers much stronger explanations for order-preference. The theories that the brain is a pattern-constructing apparatus that relies heavily on heuristics have considerable empirical support. They also suggest reasons why we do consider some parts of the universe "orderly" in the absence of "disorderly" analogues to compare.

By the way, as this is probably off-topic, feel free to start a thread anew in, perhaps Science and Skepticism if you wish to pursue this.

Conchobar

Originally posted by cydonia

The other day I was listening to the Larry Elder radio show, and he was interviewing old timey singer Pat Boone. The conversation turned to religion.

Old Timey? Is that a polite way of saying "cornball?"

Pat Boone revealed that since he had been all over the world and seen so many different cultures and faiths, and saw that people of other faiths were just as convinced they were right as he was convinced he was right, caused him to question his beliefs.

To bad that he failed.

The faith of someone lighting themselves on fire in a suicide ritual, for example, was a very strong faith he was envious of. He wish he had that kind of faith.

How about suicide bombers killing children in a crowded market? Does he admire that faith? Or does he recognise insanity and contribute to the WHO Mental Health Fund?

He knew the people of other faiths were going to hell and believed the wrong way, so he couldn't understand how they could be so convinced they had Truth. So Pat became a seeker of Truth, and asked some brave questions. He wanted to know that his beliefs were his and True, not just something he was parrotting from his childhood. He said he started with the basic question "IS there a God?".

He got off to a good start. But he had an irrational goal. He wanted to KNOW that his beliefs were ....True. That is not an unbiased inquiry into truth. He was looking for something, anything to reinforce his indoctrinated beliefs.

Well, we can put people on the moon and bring them back. We can send a camera to mars to take pictures. We know how the heavens will behave to a microsecond.

That would be a great surprise to all astrophysicists.

He looked up at the stars in the night sky and was blown away by the complexity of the universe, and how the universe operates in such a complex and perfect way that there's no way it was blind chance, there's got to be a creator involved.

So his ignorance led him to believe that the universe is perfect. It may indeed be complex but not really that orderly. The disorder and randomness in physics, chemistry, and biochemistry accounts for evolution. The fact that mutations occur in the millions, non-viable for every one that succeeds and addapts. That is not perfection, and is an argument against intelligent design. The fact that most animals die horribly by predators or packs of predators who rip them appart in grizzly bloody painful fashion. If there is a creator, he created viruses, bacteria, parasitic worms causing blindness and hear disease. He created brain tumours in children, degenerative paralytic diseases, birth defects resulting in much suffering of child and family. This is a brief sample of your hypothetical creator's design.

In fact, it's UNSCIENTIFIC to believe the universe is just a mistake.

No it is not unscientific. Randomness, quantum physics, and accidents are common, and well known to scientists. What is definitely unscientific is to postulate an invisible, undetectable, so well hidden undefined entity creator, as to be obviously non-existent to an observer.

That was enough to convince him there was a God, and that he wasn't just parrotting something he grew up with.

He is pretty gullible to postulate a god just because something looked complex. It seems he was indeed parrotting what was he was indoctrined (brain washed) into believing by the preacher or minister, or the Bible.


So since there's a God, how do we communicate with it? The Bible obviously.

The Bible is full of errors and contradictions. It is morally repugnant with atrocities, God killing millions of babies in the Mythical Flood. God ordered babies to be smashed against the rocks. God ordered Samarian pregnant women to be ripped open with swords. The Bible is an evil book full of technical errors and contradictions (flat earth, sun standing still.) It is seriously flawed to be a communication device with a creator. No other ways are known. God does not talk to us, write to us, appear to us (those of us not hallucinating.)

Again, he wanted to be sure he checked out the evidence and questioned it.

Unfortunately he didn't.

Fortunately, the bible is filled with prophecies that came true DOWN TO THE MICROSECOND, the bible is filled with internal evidence of its Truth.

Plus unfillfilled prophesies. Ezekiel and Jeremiah were the ones who actually were taken to Babylon and they prove their antiquity because of their mistakes on Tyre and Egypt. Daniel had accurate (seemingly) prophesies because he wrote it in 165 BC not 600 BC. It was a retrospective Jewish history molded into apocalyptical literature by pretending to be a David in Babylon 600 BC. Scholars have shown the anachronisms of David. David was right about Tyre because it wa past history to him. But Jeremiah and Ezekiel predicted the destructions that didn't happen because they predicted it before the time of the predicted events and they proved wrong.

Just read it and you'll see how true it is.

I did. And if you read it carefully you see the errors, mistakes, and contradictions. Jeremiah and Ezekiel were wrong and Daniel right only because Daniel made the prophesies after they already passed the times.

Jesus loves you and wants you to be with him forever in heaven, if you would just get with the program.

Jesus, whose existence cannot be proven, loves you which cannot be proven, but will happily send 80% of the human race to Hell because they didn't believe in him. Damn, I am glad he loves us. Wouldn't it be terrible if he disliked us?

So all in all, Boone respects people who went through the same grueling questioning experience he did. He thinks agnosticism is valid, it's ok to say, " I don't know if there's a God. Prove it to me".

I did that. I went to an Irish Catholic school run by nuns. I was taught the whole Christian story. I found it baffling and not making sense. So I read the Bible including the forbidden parts (Deuteronomy, I-II Samuel, Judges, Joshua, Hosea, Ezekiel, etc. That convinced me that Christianitity and its God were false. I now am an Agnostic. I don't know if there is a god or not. I am open to the possibility, but I MUST SEE EVIDENCE OF SOME KIND.

Anyway, i've been through something similar. And the complexity of the universe was my proof that God indeed existed.

I studied the Universe more extensively. I looked not only at its complexity but at its disorder mixed with pockets of seeming order. The Earth's order is deceptive. It is a world of predation, death, suffering, selection of mutations to fit climate, environmental, and predatory stresses. Hyenas in packs attack a Zebra. They snap steel trap jaws on its snout. They hold its tail, hamstring is hind legs, rip open its stomach, disembowel it. They being eating it alive while it is still standing up screaming in pain for as long as 30 minutes. It finally falls, and they continue to bite chunks of its flesh and incredibly it may still be weakly alive, weakly kicking and moaning an hour into the attack. Now a good creator made this system?????? The Universe made me question the existence of all gods currently defined by humans.

It took me a while to realize that the concept of a creator and Jesus Christ could in fact be two separate subjects, but I got there.

The Creator is hidden, unrevealing to humans. Claimed revelation is varied in thousands of sects. Most of them have killed dissenters. Jesus Christ was a plagiarised copy of Mithra. See this link: http://www.innvista.com/culture/reli...ies/mithra.htm

Originally I was trying to get over my fear of jesus and satan, now i don't know if i believe in a creator at all. And here I am at 26 years old, looking at the universe's complexity just like Pat Boone did. He KNOWS he's right. I'm not so sure, I'm more confused then when I started questioning Christ. Yes, the universe is complex. Therefore Jesus is lord?

You are thinking and that is what is important. You are not gullible in rejecting myths that made sense to stone age tribal beduoins but not to educated science literate people. Good luck in your search, and don't be afraid to find no evidence for something and saying "I don't know."

For mechanisms of God belief experiences try this site:
http://www.bio.utk.edu/Neils.nsf/b4f...5?OpenDocument

Conchobar

Biff the unclean

I think it odd that Mr Boone should look at the universe that is so complex and not realize that it in no way shape or form resembles the "universe" that the bible says that God created

Jackalope

Forbidden? I didn't go to catholic school, so some of the prohibitions must've sailed right past me. Though I suppose there wasn't a lot of stress put on those parts of the bible...

Geez, if they'd told me those sections were forbidden, I'd have been sure to look them up. If they'd told me the whole bible was forbidden, I would've read more of it before I got to college.

Wyz_sub10

It seems that Mr. Boone was simply trying to sound like a skeptic that had confirmed god after "intense scrutiny."

It's like playing devil's advocate (no pun intended) - he "proves" that even skeptics will find god, if they ask the right questions and accept the "evidence".

And to this comment:

I have a problem whenever someone criticizes a non-theist view of the universe by using words like 'mistake' or 'accident'.

Those two words have no realtionship to the formation of the universe or to anything random. They both imply "intent" and "purpose". To use these words in defended a designed universe begs the question.

Jet Grind

It seems to me he was only attempting to validate his priori assumtions. A lot of theists who claim to be questioning their beliefs are in reality doing the same thing as Pat has.

I can find many physicists out there, particularly Victor Stenger, who would disagree with him here. In fact many physical scientists think that the universe is about as simple as it can be.

Yeah, right. That's why 93% of the top scientists are either atheists or agnostics, it's SO unscientific. Yeah...rock on dude.


Only if one accepts priori that the Bible is the correct message containing God's word. Of course Muslims tell me that the Koran contains God's word, and much of what we know in modern history and science would tell any educated person that most of what's in the Bible is pure garbage.

NEWS FLASH! Most of us here have read the Bible, or at leaste understand the majority of it. Yup, we still think it's grabage. And would he mind giving us some of these prophecies that came true "down to the microsecond"?

Yeah right whatever.

Dr. Retard

David Hume, actually (Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion):

And so on.

James Hamlin

No, I'm not sure I have too much more to say on the topic. To conclude, though, I feel that regardless of the specific cause of the human tendency for order, whether it is learned or an inherent function of the brain, it was derived from the universe's apparent order by some causal relationship.

Conchobar

Perhaps the original story about Pat Boone should be in a "Psychology of Religion" thread or class of threads.

Conchobar