We've gotten off track here. My original point was that confidence = faith. I disputed that faith = blind faith. In the dictionary definition, confident is the first word of the first and most commonly used definition. The word blind, doesn't appear in the definition at all. You could argue lack of material evidence or mathematical logic equals blindness, but what about reasoning based on past experience. That isn't exactly blindness. I would argue that every assumption is based on past experience. There is no literal or metaphoric blindness in faith. Otherwise it wouldn't be faith. It would be a shot in the dark, hoping for luck.

The problem here is that science requires a degree of creativity that many scientists lack. Creativity is all about breaking the rules. It's hard to break the rules when you are the one who wrote them. Creation/ID is a blind spot for scientists (especially natural scientists) because they can't see past the limits of their own methodology. At minimum, it's a debate over semantics. There are rules that are destine to be broken. There are rules that have yet to be discovered. In the end, rules are man made, but nature doesn't live by the rules of man.

Well, why don't you come up with a way to give single-cells an IQ test?


Some other scientist beat you to the punch again, Bill:
http://beliefbook.com/page.php?id=23

"The saddest aspect of life right now is that science gathers knowledge faster than society gathers wisdom."

— Isaac Asimov

"Wisdom, being the BEST use of Knowledge, for the greatest good of all concerned!"

Deep understanding of the concept "greatest good" of all concerned (or affected) moves into philosophy. Because philosophy IS the study of wisdom.

Philosophy requires an understanding of Stories, Symbols, Myth in order to comprehend MEANING! "A God of the Gaps" is a MUST because a Myth must be FULL (no  gaps)!

A "chicken Ad" (parts is parts) "philosophy" is satisfying only to "meat puppets", not the human mind.

At the very least Science must be seen as a "QUEST" for KNOWLEDGE! Or it loses any meaning to US.

It didn't. The monotheistic God I defined is just one of the latest manifestation of the religious instinct.

Religion thus helps put a policeman inside your head.

No.  I said we had a religious instinct.

Read Persinger for more details on  what he's discovered. The religious instinct is a drive to trust authorities, especially ones introduced during childhood (like parents) and to reason badly and superstitiously. Part of that instinct is projecting ourselves, our own sense of consciousness and purpose onto the world when it's not appropriate. We were born to be part of a human world and we make the world around us seem as human as possible.

And what evidence do you have that you actually understand anything?

My understandings give me power. What do yours give you?

Hense the expression Arts and Sciences and hense the college of Arts and Sciences and hense the Prepatory Schools for the Colleges of Arts and Sciences. An average or better understanding of the scientific
theory of evolution doesn't disprove the existence of God but it makes
the concept of God unnecessary and in my personal opinion not
usefull for Self-in-situation Adaptation and the continued but slow improvement of society. I'm only refering to that part of the concept of God that is related to
religion--not that aspect that may be related to spirituality and love.

Hense the expression Arts and Sciences and hense the college of Arts and Sciences and hense the Prepatory Schools for the Colleges of Arts and Sciences. An average or better understanding of the scientific
theory of evolution doesn't disprove the existence of God but it makes
the concept of God unnecessary and in my personal opinion not
usefull for Self-in-situation Adaptation and the continued but slow improvement of society. I'm only refering to that part of the concept of God that is related to
religion--not that aspect that may be related to spirituality and love.

I think compassion is a good answer Gabrielle

man's spiritual evolution would be an interesting topic......I think we touched a bit on that in our discussion of myth and narrative...

I've got to get this book by Persinger.  Just received my first string theory/quantum physics books from Amazon.  Two by Brian Greene - "The Elegant Universe" and "The Fabric of the Cosmos."  Also got Bill Bryson's "A Short History of Nearly Everything." 

DWB04, I was thinking that knowledge yeilds power, while understanding results in wisdom.  Knowledge without understanding is reckless.

DWB04, I was thinking that knowledge yeilds power, while understanding results in wisdom.  Knowledge without understanding is reckless.

Norm, if there were no evolutionary benefits to the development of the religious instinct our brains would not have evolved in the way they have.

Monotheism, pantheism, etc. is a side issue.  Religious instinct, norm.  Why do we have structures for this?  Why did the God in the machine (evolution, physics, etc.) create a structural church in the brains of human beings?

I think compassion is a good answer Gabrielle

man's spiritual evolution would be an interesting topic......I think we touched a bit on that in our discussion of myth and narrative...

At the very least Science must be seen as a "QUEST" for KNOWLEDGE! Or it loses any meaning to US.

Religion thus helps put a policeman inside your head.

"The saddest aspect of life right now is that science gathers knowledge faster than society gathers wisdom."

— Isaac Asimov

I'm glad you made mention of "organized religion", which in my opinion, has been a source for much angst!

Yes, a reckless, meaningless "chicken part" phiosophy of science is self-defeating at making life better for all! Science becomes funded, and directed for the benifit of the relatively few (corporate, military interests)!

And while those directives CAN bring benifits inadvertently, they more often bring detriment.

Yes, a reckless, meaningless "chicken part" phiosophy of science is self-defeating at making life better for all! Science becomes funded, and directed for the benifit of the relatively few (corporate, military interests)!

And while those directives CAN bring benifits inadvertently, they more often bring detriment.

If the study of media was a widely accepted and high priority of the scientific community, the research funding for most sciences would come from everywhere else and everyone else.

If the study of media was a widely accepted and high priority of the scientific community, the research funding for most sciences would come from everywhere else and everyone else.

I have to differ on this point the benefits of science enrich all of our lives not just some bureaucracy or govermental agency.....however, I can't exclude the misuse of science and technology by those agencies

I would say FIRST a study of meaning, and THEN a study of media! But both are definitely needed today!

So, when we "construct" our own reality what we are really doing is "constructing a description" of what we perceive.  In group think a whole lot of us construct the same description.  The reality, apart from the description we construct of it, has it's own existence, including "perceptual reversals."

One of the problems I see, with all this analysis of evolution based on survival-only, is that it is oversimplifying human nature. People get tired of just surviving pretty quickly. People need entertainment, meaning and purpose. They want to play a role in building their universe for the better. They want to become masters of their own destiny. They want to know that they are justified in their purpose and methodology.

People need more than knowledge. People need PURPOSE. If science doesn't assign it's own meaning and purpose, other people will.

Religion is more than a policeman. If people only needed order, they would be satisfied with government. Religion assigns MEANING and PURPOSE.



We shouldn't confuse spirituality with religion. The angst comes from corrupt spirits. The more organized a religion is, the less spiritual it becomes. But the lack of spirituality alone doesn't corrupt the spirit. What corrupts the spirit is a self-defeating agenda or purpose.

One of the problems I see, with all this analysis of evolution based on survival-only, is that it is oversimplifying human nature. People get tired of just surviving pretty quickly. People need entertainment, meaning and purpose. They want to play a role in building their universe for the better. They want to become masters of their own destiny. They want to know that they are justified in their purpose and methodology.

People need more than knowledge. People need PURPOSE. If science doesn't assign it's own meaning and purpose, other people will.

Religion is more than a policeman. If people only needed order, they would be satisfied with government. Religion assigns MEANING and PURPOSE.

Science gathers knowledge faster than science gathers wisdom

We shouldn't confuse spirituality with religion. The angst comes from corrupt spirits. The more organized a religion is, the less spiritual it becomes. But the lack of spirituality alone doesn't corrupt the spirit. What corrupts the spirit is a self-defeating agenda or purpose.

What we call benefit is relative to need. My political counterbalance Mark (VMA2 on CGCS) likes to use toilet paper as an analogy for civilization. We didn't know we needed it before we got it.

I don't think of civilization and technology as good or bad. I just see it as irreversible and unstoppable. But I could find the downside of every technological advancement known to man, along with the upsides.

I don't recall who coined the term,"group think" but it has been used in social psychology to call attention to the function that culture and various sub-cultures
play in forming attitudes and beliefs. There are various theories of meaning and
one of the better substaniated ones is that of social validation. Persons have a
strong "need" to have their meanings validated by the group. Both what words and symbols mean and what explanatory truths one holds about reality. When
someone is talking in a group when their spouse or any significant other is
present. notice how often they look at and look to the other person to validate what they are saying. When "group think" is used to explain over-conformity
it is a negative thing. When it is used to explain group cohesiveness and
common cultures it is usually perceived as a positive thing.

I think the general lack of cultural awareness shows a major weakness in
our educational system and in the media. Because there is no Self except Self-in-situation each of our selves incorporates a big chunk of our culture. Just as
human organisms evolve, human selves involve and so human culture involve.
Because of mass transportation and mass communication people are more aware
of other cultures but not more aware of their own.

If the study of media was a widely accepted and high priority of the scientific community, the research funding for most sciences would come from everywhere else and everyone else.

I don't think there is any such thing as,"the scientific community" There are many
different networks of people pursueing various scientific interest. There are many loose confederations of such networks. Most people who do scientific work tend
to identify with particular profession or technology--not science as a generic
activity. It seems to me that the speciality that might be the most concerned about many of the issues we've been discussing is the Philosophy of Science. Most
large universities have such a department but I'm not much vamiliar with it.
Some of the better schools of education have speciality areas in instructional
design with multi-media collaboration that are begining to do some good work.
My major point is that talking abour science in general is probably not going
to get us very far.

Because of mass transportation and mass communication people are more aware of other cultures but not more aware of their own.

organized religion has been one of the most destructive forces in society science gathered the knowledge.....government used that knowledge in a destructive manner
I'm not......

Why do you have a double standard for religion and not science. Religion is just a tool as much as science. You keep blaming religion for evil above and beyond science. NEITHER IS THE MOTIVE FOR DESTRUCTION. You seem to want to acquit science but not religion.

Religions don't kill people. People kill people.

People don't mind putting other people under a microscope, but are afraid to put themselves under the same microscope for fear of what they might find.

We are afraid to analyze our own culture for a number of reasons:

1) We like to think we are above cultural and media influence.
2) We don't want to spoil the effect by peeking behind the curtain.
3) We are afraid we will find some self-condemning evidence of past injustice.

We look at cultural an media influence as a lesser source for gathering information and developing meaning. However, they are the only sources we have available. Science and Education is a part of culture and media, not above it.

As for spoiling the illusion, there is some truth in that. It's a question of how far down the rabbit hole we wish to go before we becomes satisfied with what we learn.

As for the self-condemning evidence of the past, we Americans love to examine moral lessons learned from Nazi Germany, but don't want to derive lessons from what we did to Native Americans or African Americans.

Because people don't understand the theory. They don't understand that at heart it's an algorithm that gives natural selection its power to design. They don't understand the algorithm is part of AI.

They should produce a few TV specials... Alas, the TV specials we get on major networks are more like "UFOs are here!" And they just recycle old info over and over.

Well, what  evolution "proves" has more to do with what you think "God" did than whether some undefined entity exists. If you think God wrote the genetic code for human beings and then slapped them down on Earth with no evolutionary history then you're wrong. If you think God planned and wrote our long strings of genetic codes after the first cells and mammals appeared using some supernatural tool and then inserted them at various stages then you're wrong. As slim as the evidence is, it very conclusively points to human beings emerging naturally, by evolutionary means, by natural selection, from pre-human primates that were also great-great-great-etc. grandfather and grandmother to the monkeys.

If you think God wrote the genetic codes for the first cells and then let them evolve, well, I can't prove you wrong in the way I can prove monkeys and humans are related but that proposition does violate Occam's razor for it seems some form of evolution from replicating molecules would account for that too. If complex organisms like humans evolve, then certainly simple molecules would be subject to the same principle.

If you want to say God kicked off the universe and made sure it would evolve life, then all I can say is that the God assumption is silly and unnecessary for explaining why there is a universe that evolves life in it. We may not know where matter, energy, time and the universe came from -- yet. But we know they're here and saying God did only raises the question -- where did God come from and how did he do it? As such the God-explanation is no explanation at all because nothing is really explained. All you've got is a "god-of-the-gaps."

I can't prove there's no God. But I can show that thinking in those terms is useless for science.

What is this, black-mail? You'll stop supporting evolution as  long as we don't step on the toes of your precious little illusion? Wouldn't you rather know the truth than continue to believe in a lie?

Well, tough "expletive deleted". The evidence is what the evidence is and in the end we're looking for some metaphysical truth which is beyond any kind of proving. You're free to assume you can know more than what can be indicated by science, but you can't falsely claim science supports your views. Your religious faith in this modern world has to be blind.

Yes, it would be -- but you can't teach "intelligent design" in a science class because it's not science. You also can't claim it's a competing theory with little stickers because ID is not a scientific theory.

I don't think there is any such thing as,"the scientific community" There are many different networks of people pursueing various scientific interest.

Not really; it was well understood and rapidly increased in popularity.  It was ridiculed OUTSIDE of the scientific community for a time but by the turn of the century it was widely accepted within the intellectual community.

Creationsim mostly arose as a response to social darwinism that that was in the early 1900's, I believe.

Thanks for input.

Question for you: Where are the borders of the scientific community?

For me the "scientific community" consists of those who are doing active, respective research in the relevant disciplines.

I. E., when it comes to, say biology, I would include the Ph. D.s at major research universities, laboratories and those publishing in the mainstream peer-reviewed research journals.

I don't include those with advanced degrees who are trying to make conclusions on topics that are out of their areas (e. g., an engineer trying to void evolution on thermodynamics grounds) unless their stuff is getting published in the mainstream, peer reviewed scientific press.

I don't count journals that have some sort of "religious test" (ICR journals).

There are many loose confederations of such networks. Most people who do scientific work tend to identify with particular profession or technology--not science as a generic activity. It seems to me that the speciality that might be the most concerned about many of the issues we've been discussing is the Philosophy of Science. Most large universities have such a department but I'm not much vamiliar with it. Some of the better schools of education have speciality areas in instructional design with multi-media collaboration that are begining to do some good work. My major point is that talking abour science in general is probably not going to get us very far.

I'm only speaking the language of CGCS.my last reply

This lack of a spokes person for science is precisely why we are left with no choice but to analyze the nature of science itself, just as science attempts to analyze the nature of religion. They both should be collaborating to analyze business and government.

it might be difficult to have just one spokesman in that regard, because there are so many fields of inquiry....there are experts in their respective fields and there is an interrelationship that crosses over or interrelates between modalities.......in essence it is a web.....

you misunderstand my meaning Bill, I said organized religion......

There is a lot I can agree with here especially with regard to Native Americans and Black Americans

Although,

I don't think the purpose of discussing science or education is to place it above all else......certainly there are many things that inform our culture and humanness.......I think it is merely a method to understand those functions in our world.....but I must say that education is vital to all of these things.

Again, it's not the organization that is the problem.

It's what it is organized around and the structural flaws. You can have a firmly constructed building on a weak foundation, or a poorly constructed building on as strong foundation. Either way, the building is coming down. But a firm building on a firm foundation will outlive the ancient pyramids.

Sounds a lot like the nature of religion.

Hmmmm

This IS true! However almost ALL organized religion IS organized around divisive dogma. A GOOD question for another thread perhaps is WHY?

Education is just a tool as well. It only echos meaning from science and philosophy (i.e. religion). It doesn't assign purpose either.

Education just so happens to be the most effective of the three tools mentioned for building consensus and community. But it's being torn apart by feuds between science and religion, instigated by business owning government.

 

Let me make myself clear on my own personal opinion of religion and what I have learned.....because I have studied many.....and I see the value in our mythic understanding of the world.  I am an artist and writer....so I would negate that understanding, if I negated the narrative evolution of our minds and how we humans expressed our understanding of the world, and how we interacted, and communicated  from our earliest times to our current modernity.

Maybe I just dislike the word.......I know it's an all encompassing explanation ..
and it is a category for everything of that nature....
that's probably why I define an organized religion in order to better define what I see are the destructive traits.......

it is perhaps also why I prefer the word spirit.....

I am not, however, here to ridicule someone elses belief

education is the foundation for learning any subject

Spirit is a good word.

But the medium of spiritual community is religion. There is no escaping that. That is why they failed to overthrow religion after overthrowing the monarchy in France. The architect of the revolution even tried to build his own religion after coming to the same conclusion.

As much as we like to have spiritual individuality, spiritual community is as important to spirituality and morality as civilization is to technology.

it could be, but not necessarily

people can find meaning and purpose in their lives and not subscribe to religion or a religious community

People can find technology and not subscribe to civilization also, but for how long?

not sure how you mean this to equate

I've got to get this book by Persinger. 

The short answer without opening another thread:

Most organize religions are OLD.

People can find technology and not subscribe to civilization also, but for how long?

Religions compete

I'm not as sure as you seem to be that just because someone is educated in science or technology that they are not part of or involved in civilization.....

In fact the positive aspects of these things do add to our concept of civilization.....