David Mathews

Hello Theli,

David: God is not just as piece of the mystery, God is the ultimate mystery.

David: I didn't give the mystery a name, the mystery was names thousands, perhaps tens of thousands of years ago.

David: All descriptions of God and God's emotions are allegorical. Christians and Jews have known this for thousands of years.

David: The title "Christian" is a reference to my faith and obedience to Jesus Christ.

David: You never stub your toes against furniture at night?

David: A mystery with a name is still a mystery.

David: You are not aware of the questions which science forbids humans from every answering?

The mystery need not point to the Christian God. That is not the function of the mystery.

David: The problems with your argument:

1. Human increase is knowledge is trivial when compared to human ignorance. The relative proportion of human knowledge to human ignorance is similar to the average American's yearly income compared (Approx. $35,000) compared to the national debt (Approx. $4 trillion dollars). If you donated all of your income to paying off the national debt the debt would still remain well into the trillions of dollars.

2. As human knowledge increases the mysteries of nature increase. Several quoted scientists have said as much. The cosmos was a simple place before the advent of astronomy, after four centuries of astronomical investigation the cosmos has become more strange and mysterious than it ever was. Atoms were the simplest components of matter several centuries ago, physics has now revealed that the atom is composed of dozens of strange and mysterious particles behaving in irrational and unpredictable ways.

David: You are correct, theism is a popular and successful concept.

David: The mystery is described as possessing "terrifying magnificence." Human ignorance is just human human ignorance.

David: You have perfectly illustrated the humankind and its scientific endeavors. I don't imagine that creatures, such as ourselves, which have so recently fell from the trees could really understand the cosmos, anyway.

David: I love science.

Sincerely,

David Mathews

David Mathews

Hello Typhon,

David: Yes, my emphasis is different from Carl Sagan's. I can disagree Carl Sagan.

David: If I pick up a penny this morning I will be wealthier than I was when I woke up. The increase in wealth is trivial, nothing whatsoever to boast about.

David: Yes.

David: Yes.

David: This is news. Have you forgotten quantum mechanics, cosmology and physics? Seems like scientists have encountered the brick wall: There are questions that humans cannot answer.

David: The ineffable mystery must correspond to the bulk of human experience because so many cultures throughout time have spoken of its existence.

David: There are no guarantees that science will continue to increase throughout time, nor that science will answer all questions posed to it. If you really believe that science can resolve all of these questions you must consider science omniscient and omnipotent.

David: Perhaps you might want to explain why you believe that the human mind is capable of comprehending the Universe given that the human brain is only the product of random and purposeless evolution. It seems a mystery to me that humans can even wonder about the universe, and a much greater mystery that we can attempt to understand it. How is this possible?

David: If you live for 10,000 years you will witness the failure of human intellect.

David: Exactly how is that this race of curious, quarrelsome apes presumes to comprehend everything? This seems such a noble pursuit for creatures who are so firmly attached to the earth.

Sincerely,

David Mathews

Answerer

Well David, you spoke of science as though it was some kind of 'Human's worst mistake' and that science had created some of man's greatest killings or extremism. Furthermore, you also claimed that religions are the best method to spread loving kindness among humankind. However, this is obviously not the case, way before science was developed, during the dark ages, it had been known that christians started a series of 'holy' war and massacres on non-believers especially the Jews and the muslims, not to mention so-called witches,etc,(of course, there are other worse things) and yet, you claimed that religions had not meet its limit yet. Obviously, science had not caused man to be arrogance, neither is religions or whatever. Its man's nature to be egoistic which in turn, lead to arrogant, and science and religions are just tools for them to do so.
Therefore, if you claimed science is flawed, you should also claimed that religions are flawed too as the past actions of their fanatic followers had shown.
Furthermore, even though man had used science to further his ends in the previous century, now man had changed and used science for benefitical need and also to reject racism, facism , supersitition, etc, without needing the help of religions anymore.
If you asked what I think of the progress of religions in the future, I will tell you that they will become a mere shadow of the distant past which will eventually fade away.

David Mathews

Hello Sandlewood,

David: The mystery is not an argument for God. The mystery only serves to demonstrate the limitations upon humankind. Humans should become humble when they contemplate the mystery and therefore no longer presume to know enough to exclude God's existence or role in this Universe.

David: The "Why?" is an all-inclusive question so it does contain the two question, "What is the purpose of everything?" and "what is the cause of everything?"

David: If the question of purpose is consistent with theism, so much the better that we ask the question. Are you suggesting that the Universe has no purpose whatsoever? If that is the case, then doesn't it follow that humankind (the species) is also purposeless?

If that is the case, it appears most likely that humankind can not and will not comprehend the Universe in its totality, maybe not even in its particulars. In a purposeless universe, nothing is obligated to make sense to us.

David: For example, there may come a time when Archeologists have dug up every ancient artifact and there will be nothing left to discover. If any archeological questions are unanswered at that point, the probably never be answered.

Another example: Molecular biology might perform all possible origin of life experiments and still fail to originate life naturalistically. Whether they do or not, the origin of life is a matter of historical research and there are no physical remains from that most ancient time, therefore no historical record upon which to objectively and empirically solve the mystery of life's origin.

The origin of life is a mystery of this sort, beyond the reach of human scientific and paleontological investigation. Popular books which speak about the origin of life must resort to a sort of scientific mythology:

"To recapitulate the series of events that led to the first organisms on the earth: ultraviolet light, lightning, heat from volcanoes and other energy sources fire the primitive atmosphere's chemical cauldron, giving rise to organic molecules and some oxygen. The amount of ultraviolet radiation reaching the Eath's surface is gradually reduced as ozone accumulates in the upper atmosphere. Proto-organisms arise, finding shelter under the ozone umbrella. The most primitive organisms are then established and their growth and multiplication are sustained by the 'hote dilute soup' that has already accumulated in the ocean."
(Thread of Life: The Smithsonian Looks at Evolution by Roger Lewin).

Say what you will about such scenarios, they are scientific imagination rather than empirical fact. Science doesn't know and will never know what the early Earth looked like, nor what chemical reactions were occurring in the Earth's atmosphere, surface and oceans. Science will never know exactly how it occurred that life arose from this random mixture of chemicals.

David: It may not be arrogant but it does seem a unwarranted extrapolation to say that since we could answer some questions that means that we can answer all questions.

David: You are aware of spiritual mysteries as your response to the first question "Why?" indicates.

David: The evidence is presented above.

David: Christianity encountered its mystery at the beginning and is well aware of the boundary between the known and the unknown. The religions of the world have been aware of the wall for thousands of years.

The significance of science hitting the brick wall is that it will demolish science's arrogant presumption, that is the claim that science is humankind's only source of knowledge. I believe that secular humanists have already become acknowledged this truth, scientists are becoming aware of it, and eventually in the future even atheists will have to face it.

David: If science doesn't claim to have all of the answers and never did, then the ineffable mystery still remains. Science was never a legitimate threat to the ineffable mystery. Therefore, we are in agreement about the existence of the ineffable mystery and science's inability to resolve it.

David: When the humanists acknowledged the scientific method's imperfection they cast into doubt a fundamental principle of humanism contained in the Humanist Manifesto I:

"FIFTH: Humanism asserts that the nature of the universe depicted by modern science makes unacceptable any supernatural or cosmic guarantees of human values. Obviously humanism does not deny the possibility of realities as yet undiscovered, but it does insist that the way to determine the existence and value of any and all realities is by means of intelligent inquiry and by the assessment of their relations to human needs. Religion must formulate its hopes and plans in the light of the scientific spirit and method."
<a href="http://www.jcn.com/manifestos.html" target="_blank">Humanist Manifestos I & II</a>

Religion is not obligated to justify its existence before fallible and harmful science. The sins of religion are the sins of science.

David: Mystical claims are exempt from scientific investigation. Science is simply unqualified to judge mystical sources of knowledge. Science is also unqualified to resolve matters of philosophical dispute.

David: If that is all that science is then science doesn't challenge, refute or make irrelevant the beliefs and conclusions of religious thought.

Science is limited to only those questions that science is able to answer. Religion and philosophy concern themselves with questions which are outside the jurisdiction of science.

Sincerely,

David Mathews

Theli

David...

Pointless rhetoric.
It doesn't matter if "god" is the biggest, ultimate mystery he is still just a part of the mystery.

Then why did you adapt to that name?
Who has reffered to god as "mystery" before?
Could you give me an example?
Doesn't anyone have any knowledge (or even an idea) of god?

To wich degree?

You know, David. There is no way out of this position you have put yourself in.
On one side you have - "All christians are ignorant and their beliefs concerning god and his actions are based on lies and fantasies. They don't know anything even remotely factual about god."
And on the other side you have - Some facts are known about god, and he is not a complete mystery.
So, wich is it?

Obedience? But he's dead!
You cannot know that he is god's son as you don't know anything about god. God is the ultimate mystery, remember?
You cannot know that god created heaven either. No actions that are tied to god, can you know. They are in fact - a mystery.
I would think that it is required of you, if you wan't to call yourself a christian, that you believe in the divinity of christ. And how can you do that?

Actually, yes. It's a horrible pain.

If you have given the mystery a name, then you must know something about it. If not, then you don't have anything to name.

What questions?
Is science some big scary monster that controls everyone, and tell them not to question it?
I thought that was religion. Just kidding... sorry.

So why do you even think that it does point to god?
It could point to anything...
And BTW, whatever the mystery points at, that cannot be part of the mystery as the link between the 2 is known (and not a mystery in itself).

First of all, that is just an opinion. And I wouldn't excacly take your opinion on the matter as you "embrace ignorance" (your own words).
Secondly... I never said how much knowledge we have gained. I just said we had gained knowledge.
And it is pretty much, considering.

Thanks for the illustration. But you must remember that there is useless knowledge aswell. Knowledge that we don't need to persue.

No.
Take for instance the sun. A perfect example of a solved mystery. Why does the sun rise every morning?
So you are saying that the more knowledge we get, the less knowledge we get?

The mysteries has always been there. We just needed more knowledge to discover them.

Are you saying that the entire universe matches our knowledge of it? And is build up after our knowledge?
When did the earth become spherical?

The atoms behaved the same way before we even discovered them. So no, our ignorance didn't increase.

Ehhh... did you hust miss the premise? Didn't you understand the logic (or should I say, illogic) statement above?
Are you seriously claiming that the reason why so many people believe in god, is that they try to avoid believing in god?
You will probably not answer this, but instead spread some fairydust on my question.

But you said that the mystery is mankinds ignorance!

You have given up before you even tried, David. How can a monkey scratching his ass land on the moon?

Yeah, right!

Typhon

Hello David,

Thank you again for all your replies on this subject. I'm getting a better and interesting perspective on your views, though I continue to see some serious flaws in their reasoning.

Yes you may. I just wanted to stress that your interpretation of facts and the main thrust of the book differs from that of the author and myself.

I'm afraid this is a poor analogy on your part. If the increase in knowledge from the remote times of humanity's past to today is compared, it is more akin in your example of you picking up a gold brick whose value increases exponentially each morning from the dawn of human history.

I would like to see how the increase in knowledge which has transformed the globe, allowed the fledgling exploration of space, spawned the first few examples of artificially created life, eradicated natural enemies and countless diseases, extended our lifespans far beyond past expectations, pierced the veil of the very cosmos, exposed the workings of the atomic and subatomic universes, and brought us to the stage where we can communicate in real time, from virtually any point around the globe with one another, to name but a few of our practical advancements, is "trivial, nothing whatsoever to boast about." I and most others of our species would tend towards strong disagreement here.

If it is news, it is news only to you and perhaps others who have no current knowledge the continued progression and discoveries within these fields of study. I would remind you, if you are to make such bold assertions, you'd be well to support them. Otherwise it simply makes you look uneducated on the topic. I must be mistaken, because it sounds as if you were suggesting, despite ample evidence to the contrary, that the fields of quantum mechanics, cosmology, and physics are at a standstill, befuddled, and undergoing neither progress, new discoveries, or ongoing development. Of course, this is patently false. Whether or not there may be questions that humans cannot answer, we have not reached a point in any of those disciplines where this is likely, let alone certain. We have found answers to our questions in our past. We continue to discover new answers and even new questions in our present. Until we encounter this imaginary "wall to knowledge" somewhere in the yet-to-happen future, it is but the poorest and baseless of speculation to say that it definitively exists.

Do you wish to retract this statement, or do you actually have some support to put forward for this claim which will come as not only a surprise to this poster, but to the many scientists and experts working in the fields you have named, who would not at all agree with you that it "Seems like scientists have encountered the brick wall."

Should we believe in the existence of dragons as well, simply because "so many cultures throughout time have spoken of (their) existence?" I'm sorry David, but as much as any mystery has been talked about and worshiped, so has the pursuit of knowledge and the knowable quality of the universe been raised and ultimately, triumphed beside it. Truth is not a consensus of opinion, as can be demonstrated when at times the consensus of opinion has been woefully or even willfully ignorant of the truth.

Science could be halted in its tracks tomorrow. Anything is possible true, but not all things are equally probable. The fact remains that we have good reason to expect science to continue answering our questions for a long, long, long, long, long time. We haven't seen a failure yet, and it has produced excellent if imperfect results in the past. We thus have no reason to expect that it will not continue to do so, especially as science is a process not a static arrangement of facts nor an unchanging dogma about the universe. Humans use science and its techniques as tools. We expand, tinker, and modify those tools to fit the needs of our most recent attempts at problem solving. Again, you have nothing but your own speculation that these tools and their ongoing application to a universe that is currently, and has been in the past, perceivable and understandable, shall suddenly and fatally become inadequate. We may very well perish as a species, long before we run out of new areas of the universe to explore and new facts to add to our every growing body of knowledge.

The universe is merely the product of "random and purposeless" naturalism, or appears to be to the best of our knowledge. The small samplings we have undertaken have proved comprehensible to our human minds and efforts. There is no reason to suspect that the bulk of it will prove otherwise. The world is just a place, it has no mystery or ego which seeks to willfully block human reason. It doesn't cloak its secrets intentionally from the eyes of man. How can we gaze upon a single leaf and understand the dynamics of the cells within? We do so, because we have developed the tools and the outlook necessary to describe and observe these details which tell us so much about the nature of the object thus studied. The universe is no different, save perhaps in scale. We chip away, bit by bit, laying out the darkness under our light, a darkness which in the end is just what is not yet known, and not as you would have it, the unknowable. There is no good reason or evidence that the mind of man will not be able to comprehend the universe. So until such time, I have to say that the universe remains knowable and understandable. This is not purpose, it simply is, a distinction perhaps you fail or do not wish to see.

Please David, this is an dubious prediction at best. You have no proof, or none you have presented here, that human intellect or let alone even human science will hit some mythical, yet-to-be-seen, metaphysical wall, 10,000 years from now. If you have some data for this projected date, I'd love to see it, though I'm skeptical that this is anything but an off the cuff, unsupported speculation on your part.

Presume? You still are operating under some sort of fallacy that the universe either cares or is righteously offended by the fact some portion of it has developed sentience and is using said big brains to figure out how the cosmos ticks. Humans do not presume to anything David, they simply and for in as much base reasons as noble ones, proceed to uncover the pertinent facts of the knowable universe they have found themselves in and a vital part of. I would remind you that we are not so firmly attached to the earth any longer, provided we get past the gravity well and don't forget to pack a box lunch or two. The universe isn't shocked, or amazed, or applauds our pursuits. I don't for one believe the universe is aware or concerned about the matter. We comprehend things because we can, and we find it useful. That is enough, no nobility of purpose or cosmic presumption required.

The world is a fascinating place, and well worth the study. The fruits of human knowledge are mixed, but in general, we reach for them because they offer both knowledge and advantages which we would not possess otherwise. Again and again we see every reason to suspect that the quest and the discovery of knowledge, knowledge of self, knowledge of our world, knowledge of our very universe, will continue. We see nothing that points towards an approaching or even distant wall of "ineffable mystery." Perhaps one is there, somewhere, but until we have reason to think so, there is no reason to suspect your are right, based on both our past and our present.

The candle's flame burns brightly, for all the winds of change and for all the shadows still cast on the nursery walls, that once we took for gods and monsters in our early days of fear and ignorance.

.T.

[ July 13, 2002: Message edited by: Typhon ]</p>

ninja

David, I think you're being disingenuous here:

1) "David: The mystery is not an argument for God. The mystery only serves to demonstrate the limitations upon humankind. Humans should become humble when they contemplate the mystery and therefore no longer presume to know enough to exclude God's existence or role in this Universe."

2) "David: I consider the mystery itself a powerful and eloquent testimony on behalf of God's existence."

I realize you were trying to be merely slippery, not self-contradictory, but you can't have it both ways. It's clear to me that the second statement is more in line with your actual beliefs. Yet I believe in making the first statement you expressed your true motive here, which is to convince your audience that they should feel 'humility' when pondering all the things for which humans have yet to find a scientific explanation.

What purpose does this 'humility' serve, I ask? I was raised Catholic, so I'm quite familiar with the answer: it's to instill fear (or to use your word, awe) of the unknown, from which it is hoped will come greater acceptance of the idea that a more comforting answer is required, even if that answer is purely imaginary.

Which, I maintain, is pure, unadulterated horseshit.

Moreover, it's evil horseshit. I use the word evil here in a very literal, not a C.S.Lewis, sense: it is done with the aim of promoting the suffering of many in order to appease the base desire for power of the few. Encouraging people, especially young people, to turn off their brains and just 'trust the Lord', because intellect isn't a reliable way to confront the universe, is damaging to the greater good. For it is through the NON-humility of people brave enough to ask questions in a clear-minded, non-humble, yes even an arrogant way that all of our progress against disease and early death has been made. Yes, we have much farther to go, much still to figure out, and much suffering and ignorance still to address. But exhorting people to simply stop trying on the grounds that it is ultimately futile, simply so that those who make their living promoting a fictional alternative explanantion can gain more authority, is misanthropic.

David Mathews

Hello Answerer,

David: You are correct in pointing out the sins of religion. There is no doubt whatsoever that science has committed similar sins and other atrocities throughout history.

What does science and religion have in common? Both are tools of humankind. Therefore, the common thread of evil in both disciplines does not point out an intrinsic evil in either science or religion.

If science and religion are not intrinsically evil, what is the source of evil in science and religion?

Humankind.

Humans are evil, and that is why humans have used both science and religion in evil manners. The problem is an instrinsically human problem.

Sincerely,

David Mathews

David Mathews

Hello Theli,

David: The mystery of God is suggested by passages such as 1 Corinthians 2:11, "For what man knows the things of man except the spirit of the man which is in him? Even so no one knows the things of God except the Spirit of God." Also in verse 14, "For the natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; nor can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned."

David: All descriptions of God are allegories, but allegories are not lies and fantasies so much as the comprehensible shadow of the incomprehensible reality.

David: I do that by choice.

David: You are mistaken. You are aware of the mystery and that is why it has a name.

David: Science doesn't actually forbid humans from asking these questions, it merely forbids humans from finding the answer.

David: The mystery informs humanity of the limitations of human perception, human intellect and of the human tools of science, logic and reason.

David: In that case, we humans have gained a marginal, trivial amount of knowledge, the majority of which is useless relative to the struggles of our daily life. Science is merely a distraction, a form of entertainment for the intellectually inclined mind.

David: The sun is a great mystery. A boiling cauldron of superheated gases surround the raw power of a perpetual nuclear explosion in the core. Science has devoted considerable resources to comprehending the sun and those efforts are needed because there is so much that we presently do not understand about the nearest star to the earth.

The more knowledge we get the more knowledge we need. The physical universe is a lot more complicated than any scientist ever anticipated.

David: No, I am not saying that.

David: No, I am not making any such claim.

David: By definiting, mankind is ignorant of the mystery. The mystery is terrifying and magnificent because in thinking of the mystery we become acquainted with the wealth of knowledge which mankind will always lack.

Sincerely,

David Mathews

Answerer

Hold on a second, although both you and I had said that religions and science are tools used by man, nevertheless, I don't agree that humankind is evil by nature. As I had said before, mankind is egoistic by nature and egoistic doesn't necessary mean evil. Anyway, the term 'evil' is vague and general definition and shouldn't be so recklessly used.