tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10178279.post116524936262678540..comments2024-03-28T05:13:13.921-04:00Comments on Books, Inq. — The Epilogue: Mark this date on your calendar ....Frank Wilsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18410473158808750903noreply@blogger.comBlogger59125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10178279.post-15661388781752838442022-03-10T02:55:00.177-05:002022-03-10T02:55:00.177-05:00I think your website has a lot of useful knowledge...I think your website has a lot of useful knowledge. I'm so thankful for this website.<br />I hope that you continue to share a lot of knowledge.<br />This is my website.<br /><a href="https://woorimoney.com" rel="nofollow">넷파블머니상</a>moneyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13678124209286229191noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10178279.post-80869679605130823962022-01-23T15:37:23.477-05:002022-01-23T15:37:23.477-05:00You absolutely come with really good articles and ...You absolutely come with really good articles and reviews. Regards for sharing with us your blog. <br /><a href="https://www.pachinkosite.info/" title="파칭코사이트인포" rel="nofollow">파칭코사이트인포</a>pachinkosite.infohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07594794832127661675noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10178279.post-27685810652753484332022-01-23T10:43:45.445-05:002022-01-23T10:43:45.445-05:00"Excellent blog you have here.. It’s difficul..."Excellent blog you have here.. It’s difficult to find quality writing like yours nowadays. I really appreciate individuals like you! Take care!!<br /><a href="https://www.roulettesite.top" title="온라인카지노" rel="nofollow">온라인카지노</a><br /><a href="https://www.casinositewiki.com/" title="카지노" rel="nofollow">카지노</a><br /><a href="https://www.sportstototop.com" title="스포츠토토탑" rel="nofollow">스포츠토토탑</a><br /><br />roulettesitetophttps://www.blogger.com/profile/18156187942368896708noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10178279.post-42189573988565344732022-01-22T12:59:57.774-05:002022-01-22T12:59:57.774-05:00Hi, this weekend is fastidious designed for me, si...Hi, this weekend is fastidious designed for me, since this<br />occasion i am reading this impressive educational piece<br />of writing here at my home <a href="https://www.baccaratsite.top" title="온라인카지노" rel="nofollow">온라인카지노</a><br />baccaratsite.tophttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09422017001891737046noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10178279.post-72047757294095494252022-01-22T12:58:16.252-05:002022-01-22T12:58:16.252-05:00Great blog article. Really looking forward to read...Great blog article. Really looking forward to read more. <a href="https://www.casinosite777.info" title="온라인카지노" rel="nofollow">온라인카지노</a> <br /><br />casinosite24.comhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06280409799520078432noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10178279.post-1166186904914404772006-12-15T07:48:00.000-05:002006-12-15T07:48:00.000-05:00Hi Noel,It is so difficult to respond to you, beca...Hi Noel,<BR/><BR/>It is so difficult to respond to you, because you misunderstand most everything, but yet you seem to be trying to think things through. I suspect a little devil's advocacy going on when you don't admit you have been wrong, or pull back from where you have.<BR/><BR/>You say:<BR/><BR/><I>I do not agree that because something is currently unknown means it "cannot be known" for the reasons I've given (more than once). </I><BR/><BR/>I don't know who you would be agreeing with, if you agreed with such a thing. Nobody I have spoken with in my life thinks "that because something is currently unknown means it 'cannot be known.'"<BR/><BR/>You say:<BR/><BR/><I>Rus, you haven't really explained anything.</I><BR/><BR/>Oh, yes, I have explained far far more than you have. You just refuse to accept explanations for what they are: explanations. I already told you I would not give "proof," something you cannot provide for evolution either.<BR/><BR/>Do you see how you are having difficulty with disussion? You cannot accept what I am saying for what it is.<BR/><BR/>You say:<BR/><BR/><I>There is no evidence to support mystical beliefs.</I><BR/><BR/>"Eyewitness" accounts throughout history. I have mentioned William James's article, but I can also mention many holy books. You can go to church on Sunday and talk to the believers as well. Keep in mind too, that if such a believer goes beyond personal experience to cite scripture, that just as you make many errors on your judgment while interpreting what scientists mean to prove something, many people of faith will also misinterpret these mystically inspired writings.<BR/><BR/>You quote Dawkins:<BR/><BR/><I>"In the history of ideas, there are examples of questions being answered that had earlier been judged forever out of science's reach. In 1835 the celebrated French philosopher Auguste Comte wrote, of the stars: 'We shall never be able to study, by any method, their chemical composition or ther mineralogical structure.'</I><BR/><BR/>Yes, of course, and I have not made such an error.<BR/><BR/>And then you say:<BR/><BR/><I>The idea that God exists or does not exist are not equal questions. You cannot ignore probability, well you can, but I call that willful ignorance.</I><BR/><BR/>You have probability statistics? Show them.<BR/><BR/>Okay here, we get to what is at least part of the problem you are having with the proof of evolution, something I addressed in my last post above:<BR/><BR/><I>I've given you the dictionary definition of proven. Reject it if you like, but that's what it is. I've already agreed that the aim of science with its hypotheses, models and theories is to explain and understand, not prove.</I><BR/><BR/>You are trying to refute what it means to have proven the theory of evolution, by citing a dictionary definition of what it means to bring "some proof". You don't see the difference. <BR/><BR/>All I can think to do for you here, is now show you that you are misusing the term "proof". Before you had said:<BR/><BR/><I>Proven means to "demonstrate the truth or existence of somethng by evidence or argument." I did not concede that evolution wasn't proven.</I><BR/><BR/>This is incorrect. I'm not sure how else to explain it to you. If you bring supportive proof, DNA evidence for instance, that a crime had been committed in a certain way, you will probably not have proven it in total. The defense would then come up with their supporting evidence that the crime was not committed, by alibi, for instance.<BR/><BR/>To have proven a theory, such as the theory of evolution, means to have proven it so totally, that it is obvious within the proof that it will never be, and no aspect of it will ever be refuted.<BR/><BR/><I>In my opinion it's fair to take evidence, particularly when it's massive, as proof, even if that's not what scientists do.</I><BR/><BR/>The problem with your use of the term is that here you use the term "proof" to mean "supporting evidence." Your sentence then becomes:<BR/><BR/><I>In my opinion it's fair to take evidence, particularly when it's massive, as supporting evidence, even if that's not what scientists do.</I><BR/><BR/>So your sentence becomes either a near-meaningless statement, that now the word "evidence" can be exchanged for anything, such as "cement":<BR/><BR/><I>In my opinion it's fair to take cement, particularly when it's massive, as supporting cement, even if that's not what scientists do.</I><BR/><BR/>Yours,<BR/>RusRus Bowdenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08412920154921512774noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10178279.post-1166172532113070762006-12-15T03:48:00.000-05:002006-12-15T03:48:00.000-05:00Rus, you haven't really explained anything. I agre...Rus, you haven't really explained anything. <BR/><BR/>I agree there are things that are unknown. I do not agree that because something is currently unknown means it "cannot be known" for the reasons I've given (more than once). <BR/><BR/>Here's something Richard Dawkins said that you might find interesting:<BR/><BR/>"In the history of ideas, there are examples of questions being answered that had earlier been judged forever out of science's reach. In 1835 the celebrated French philosopher Auguste Comte wrote, of the stars: 'We shall never be able to study, by any method, their chemical composition or ther mineralogical structure.' Yet even before Comte had set down these words, Fraunhofer had began using his spectroscope to analyze the chemical composition of the sun. Now spectroscopists daily confound Comte's agnosticism with their long-distance analyses of the precise chemical composition of even distant stars."<BR/><BR/>I've given you the dictionary definition of proven. Reject it if you like, but that's what it is. I've already agreed that the aim of science with its hypotheses, models and theories is to explain and understand, not prove. <BR/><BR/>In my opinion it's fair to take evidence, particularly when it's massive, as proof, even if that's not what scientists do. It is what all of us do in our daily lives when we're not wearing our amateur philosophical hats. It's a waste of time to try writing the evidence off just because it is subject to change or philosophically 'unproven'. See how far a philosopher accused of a crime gets when he tries to dispute he was at the scene of the crime with the evasion: "well, it all depends on what sense you mean 'there.'" <BR/><BR/>The idea that God exists or does not exist are not equal questions. You cannot ignore probability, well you can, but I call that willful ignorance.<BR/><BR/>There is no evidence to support mystical beliefs. There is plenty supporting evolution.<BR/><BR/>I've said a couple of times that it comes down to what you think is true and why you think it. <BR/><BR/>And now I'm off on Christmas holiday. In case I don't speak with you before you know who mysteriously makes His annual appearance ... Merry Christmas!Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10178279.post-1166140035659240462006-12-14T18:47:00.000-05:002006-12-14T18:47:00.000-05:00I am going to insert here an extended quote from t...I am going to insert here an extended quote from the "models" section in <A HREF="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory#Theories_as_.22models.22" REL="nofollow">a good reference article on "Theory" out of Wikipedia</A>, that quickly addresses the problem you are having with theories and proving them:<BR/><BR/><I>Humans construct theories in order to explain, predict and master phenomena (e.g. inanimate things, events, or the behaviour of animals). In many instances we are constructing models of reality. A theory makes generalizations about observations and consists of an interrelated, coherent set of ideas and models.<BR/><BR/>According to Stephen Hawking in A Brief History of Time, "a theory is a good theory if it satisfies two requirements: It must accurately describe a large class of observations on the basis of a model that contains only a few arbitrary elements, and it must make definite predictions about the results of future observations." He goes on to state, "any physical theory is always provisional, in the sense that it is only a hypothesis; you can never prove it. No matter how many times the results of experiments agree with some theory, you can never be sure that the next time the result will not contradict the theory. On the other hand, you can disprove a theory by finding even a single repeatable observation that disagrees with the predictions of the theory."<BR/><BR/>This is a view shared by Isaac Asimov. In Understanding Physics, Asimov spoke of theories as "arguments" where one deduces a "scheme" or model. Arguments or theories always begin with some premises - "arbitrary elements" as Hawking calls them (see above), which are here described as "assumptions". An assumption according to Asimov is "something accepted without proof, and it is incorrect to speak of an assumption as either true or false, since there is no way of proving it to be either. (If there were, it would no longer be an assumption.) It is better to consider assumptions as either useful or useless, depending on whether deductions made from them corresponded to reality.... On the other hand, it seems obvious that assumptions are the weak points in any argument, as they have to be accepted on faith in a philosophy of science that prides itself on its rationalism. Since we must start somewhere, we must have assumptions, but at least let us have as few assumptions as possible." (See Ockham's razor)</I> . . . .Rus Bowdenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08412920154921512774noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10178279.post-1166139066870822932006-12-14T18:31:00.000-05:002006-12-14T18:31:00.000-05:00Hi Noel,You must mean that you don't know what to ...Hi Noel,<BR/><BR/>You must mean that you don't know what to make of your evolutionary evidence, not that I don't know what to make of mystical experiences, after I have explained it very clearly and from many different angles. This is a projection on your part. You cannot prove evolutionary theory, because no one ever will.<BR/><BR/>This takes the cake:<BR/><BR/><I>There are things we don't know, but this doesn't have to mean we will never know them.</I><BR/><BR/>What did I just say above, that we are each year discovering new things. So, you are catching up with me here, not making an argument that I have to think about.<BR/><BR/>Now, here:<BR/><BR/><I>I think you are misunderstanding what I am saying which is simply that no one knows what cannot be known.</I><BR/><BR/>Would you like to take that statement back? Are you now agreeing with me that there are things that cannot be known?<BR/><BR/>Should I now give you a lecture on thinking positive and not giving up? Or do you now see, how puny humankind is in intellect in relation to the vastness that is not only encountered each moment, but that will never be encountered or surmised? Yes, surmised, Noel, in and of itself, not as being in a set of things that will never be surmised.<BR/><BR/>If I say there are people I will never meet, I am not thinking negatively. I meet new people most every day. Even though there are many people in the world who I cannot know, I know that they are there.<BR/><BR/>"Proven" does not mean <I> to "demonstrate the truth or existence of somethng by evidence or argument."</I><BR/><BR/>To bring evidence and/or argument, is to bring "some proof". It does not "prove it" in the sense that a theory (as you erroneously assert with evolution) becomes "proven." What you're talking about is not "proving" something, but "supporting" it with evidence and argument.<BR/><BR/>RusRus Bowdenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08412920154921512774noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10178279.post-1166131985483141082006-12-14T16:33:00.000-05:002006-12-14T16:33:00.000-05:00Rus, the truth is that you don't know that "the ea...Rus, the truth is that you don't know that "the earth will come to its end, and we will not have discovered nearly a fraction of even that that was right in front of us all the time", just like you don't know what to make of your mystical experiences. If you are honest with yourself, I think that is the conclusion that has to be drawn at this moment in time.<BR/><BR/>Proven means to "demonstrate the truth or existence of somethng by evidence or argument." I did not concede that evolution wasn't proven. I conceded only that the purpose of science is not to prove but to explain and help us understand, therefore to have claimed science has proven something is wrong. My personal opinion is that the evidence supporting evolution proves it occurs, and please note that this personal opinion of mine is based on the evidence supporting evolution that I have personally seen and studied. To deny it is in my opinion to deny life itself.<BR/><BR/>And I am not saying that what "cannot be known cannot exist." I think you are misunderstanding what I am saying which is simply that no one knows what cannot be known. Please think about it. There are things we don't know, but this doesn't have to mean we will never know them. It seems impossible that we will ever come to explain and understand everything about life. One thing is guaranteed: we never will if we give up trying.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10178279.post-1166108913091580372006-12-14T10:08:00.000-05:002006-12-14T10:08:00.000-05:00Hi Noel, Because I think you are arguing in earnes...Hi Noel, <BR/><BR/>Because I think you are arguing in earnest, and not purposely dealing in tautology and such, I will go a step further to say that I have told you of some of my evidence of mystical experience. I have had them, as many others have.<BR/><BR/>Can you prove belief exists? Where is your evidence that love exists, or faith? Or consciousness?<BR/><BR/>So I don't require what you require for belief: physical evidence. There are those who take what I know of on faith. I certainly can no longer argue with them, as I did when I was an atheist. I told you before, that I am not an evangelist, so I will not accept a role of trying to prove anything to you, or convince you.<BR/><BR/>I have been showing places when you have been fallacious, such as your saying that evolutionary theory had been proven. It has not, and cannot. Indeed, the proof of evolutionary theory is itself under the category of what humankind is incapable of knowing.<BR/><BR/>And now, for instance, you're seeming to say that what cannot be known, cannot exist.<BR/><BR/>This is an error you made before, and I mentioned how it is like you are a room, saying that no other rooms could possibly exist--and now, apparewntly, that they cannot exist because they cannot be known?<BR/><BR/>No, most things cannot be known. We have enough to discover year after year, of what can be known. Ultimately, the earth will come to its end, and we will not have discovered nearly a fraction of even that that was right in front of us all the time.<BR/><BR/>RusRus Bowdenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08412920154921512774noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10178279.post-1166101045657723482006-12-14T07:57:00.000-05:002006-12-14T07:57:00.000-05:00Hi Noel,You are incorrect. It is not a logical fa...Hi Noel,<BR/><BR/>You are incorrect. It is not a logical fallacy to assume that there are things that will never be known.<BR/><BR/>Yours,<BR/>RusRus Bowdenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08412920154921512774noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10178279.post-1166094984790710682006-12-14T06:16:00.000-05:002006-12-14T06:16:00.000-05:00By the way, I enjoyed the story of Freddy and Harr...By the way, I enjoyed the story of Freddy and Harry, and find it curious that you used so many physical terms to describe heaven - "landing", "laughing", "ushered into a line" "waiting at a desk", talking to "Peter."<BR/><BR/>Most curious of all is that they've got mathematics in heaven!Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10178279.post-1166093849874326612006-12-14T05:57:00.000-05:002006-12-14T05:57:00.000-05:00Rus, you say you can offer all sorts of explanatio...Rus, you say you can offer all sorts of explanations, but you're still essentially offering none. It could be this and it could be that is not really explaining anything. The truth is that you have no evidence to support your beliefs and apparently no explanations either, at least nothing we could call an explanation.<BR/><BR/><I>The vastness that you would agree to, would be a vastness that cannot be known.</I><BR/><BR/>No. That something is currently unknown does not mean it <I>cannot</I> be known. Terming it "cannot be known" is a logical fallacy because to claim that something cannot be known, one must first know not only that it exists but have enough knowledge of it to justify the assertion. The assertion and the justification are then in contradiction. <BR/><BR/>Aside from it beng a fallacy, terming something "cannot be known" is also in my opinion giving up. <BR/><BR/>That's the difference between science and faith. Science holds out hope and encourages us to keep trying; faith holds out no hope and encourages us to give up, publicly declare failure and surrender our mind to mysteries we are not 'meant' to understand.<BR/><BR/>Take your pick. I know which I prefer.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10178279.post-1166063955866787682006-12-13T21:39:00.000-05:002006-12-13T21:39:00.000-05:00Two guys are on a park bench arguing about whether...Two guys are on a park bench arguing about whether God exists. Harry says there's no God, that when you die, you get zilched. Freddy says when you die, you go to God in heaven. <BR/><BR/>A lightning bolt strikes and takes them both, one at a time, in what can be described as an upwards luge of white, like snow only more fun. It's a blast, in fact.<BR/><BR/>They get to the landing laughing, and are ushered into a line, waiting to get to a desk. Harry admits he was wrong. Freddy gloats.<BR/><BR/>They get to the desk, and sure enough, the guy's name there is Peter. Peter's sending Harry back with a message of peace and love to the world. <BR/><BR/>Freddy asks Peter, "So, when do I meet God?" Peter explains that, there in heaven, there are far more and better philodophers and scientists than there are on Earth, the greatest who ever lived, in fact, and they're pretty much in agreement that the possibility of their being a God is zero.Rus Bowdenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08412920154921512774noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10178279.post-1166060163235597572006-12-13T20:36:00.000-05:002006-12-13T20:36:00.000-05:00Hi Noel,Nice sidestepping, or you truly do not und...Hi Noel,<BR/><BR/>Nice sidestepping, or you truly do not understand? The vastness that you would agree to, would be a vastness that cannot be known.<BR/><BR/>Do you agree that there is a vastness that will never be known by humankind? Simple question.<BR/><BR/>And now that you answer it, you say how could you know that there is something that cannot be known.<BR/><BR/>This philosophy, then, comes under a solipsist belief, that the only thing that exists is what you know anyway. Okay, that's possible. That's a model.<BR/><BR/><I>Rus, I ask for your explanations for your mystical experiences after you'd given us an indication that you might have some and you respond by saying that you don't really have any and then ask me for mine, as though I had somewhere indicated having mystical experiences I could explain. Telling us what categories your explanations could potentially fit into is not telling us what your explanations are.</I><BR/><BR/>I can give all sorts of explanations. They were God-given, God being of the same nature as the presences that seemt to be in the experiences. This would be very possible.<BR/><BR/>It could be that I have a neaural allergic reaction to nuts, and don't know it. Whenever I eat cashews ro something, a "religious" experience occurs. There's an explanation as well.<BR/><BR/>In fact, something like the God explanation and the cashew explanation could be true together.<BR/><BR/>Thing is, I don't need an explanation. This is why I quoted Williams James. He has the best. most comprehensive study that I know of, and it's a hundred years old. His descriptions of the mystical coincide with my own experiences. Each will vary to a degree, because each is personal, but based on my experiences, what he brings forth makes sense to me. <BR/><BR/>My belief is that these experiences will not be fully explained in all their aspects for some time. On the other hand, let's say that someone looks into them, and realizes that they have a complex of survival aspects to them. Let's say on one hand, they give, not only the experiencer of them, but the community she shares the experiences with, hope. Let's also say it is found that during mystical experiences of mosts kinds, healing hormones are released that lessen heart attacks, and decrease susceptibility to diabetes, say. And a bunch of other benefits, making mystics that much more fit to survive. Great!<BR/><BR/>But, I don't need any explanation--even though I may find them interesting. That's a difference between us.<BR/><BR/>When I ask about vastness that we will never know, I mean that I don't need to know. I already died, flatlined, twice, and was gone for a good period of time. I'm all set with explanations. I'm more loving life, back in, and taking care of what I see I can take care of.<BR/><BR/>RusRus Bowdenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08412920154921512774noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10178279.post-1166052057646389532006-12-13T18:20:00.000-05:002006-12-13T18:20:00.000-05:00perhaps you are aware that "in fact" is a figure o...<I>perhaps you are aware that "in fact" is a figure of speech roughly equivalent to "actually." There's no contradiction; it's just rhetoric.</I><BR/><BR/>Art, fair enough, but since you offer no evidence to support mysticism, I think it's also fair to say that mysticism itself is "just rhetoric".<BR/><BR/>You were invited to tell us what you think about the best science being inspired by "a poetic sense of wonder" and in response you tell me you think I like to argue for the sake of arguing. Not much of a response, at least not to the question you were asked. Accusing someone of arguing for the sake of arguing while then proceeding to continue the argument with them reads to me like a cheap technique employed by argumentative people who are having difficulty arguing. I think it's what the psychologists call Personality Projection. I call it floundering. ;)<BR/><BR/>You've offered several interesting quotations from Einstein to support your view that Einstein had religious or mystical beliefs. I appreciate Richard Dawkins is not exactly flavor of the month here, but in the first chapter of his book, <I>The God Delusion</I>, most of which which can be read online <A HREF="http://richarddawkins.net/godDelusion#firstChapter" REL="nofollow">here</A>, he writes,<BR/><BR/>"Much unfortunate confusion is caused by failure to distinguish what can be called Einsteinian religion from supernatural religion. Einstein sometimes invoked the name of God (and he is not the only atheistic scientist to do so), inviting misunderstanding by supernaturalists eager to misunderstand and claim so illustrious a thinker as their own. The dramatic (or was it mischievous?) ending of Stephen Hawking's <I>A Brief History of Time</I>, 'For then we should know the mind of God', is notoriously misconstrued. It has led people to believe, mistakenly of course, that Hawking is a religious man.<BR/><BR/>... One of Einstein's most eagerly quoted remarks is 'Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind.' But Einstein also said,<BR/><BR/>'It was, of course, a lie what you read about my religious convictions, a lie which is being systematically repeated. I do not believe in a personal God and I have never denied this but have expressed it clearly. If something is in me which can be called religious then it is the unbounded admiration for the structure of the world so far as our science can reveal it.'<BR/><BR/>Does it seem that Einstein contradicted himself? That his words can be cherry-picked for quotes to support both sides of an argument? No. By 'religion' Einstein meant something entirely different from what is conventionally meant. As I continue to clarify the distinction between supernatural religion on the one hand and Einsteinian religion on the other, bear in mind that I am calling only supernatural gods delusional. <BR/><BR/>Here are some more quotations from Einstein, to give a flavor of Einsteinian religion. <BR/><BR/>'I am a deeply religious nonbeliever. This is a somewhat new kind of religion.' <BR/><BR/>'I have never imputed to Nature a purpose or a goal, or anything that could be understood as anthropomorphic. What I see in Nature is a magnificent structure that we can comprehend only very imperfectly, and that must fill a thinking person with a feeling of humility. This is a genuinely religious feeling that has nothing to do with mysticism.'<BR/><BR/>'The idea of a personal God is quite alien to me and seems even naive.'<BR/><BR/>In greater numbers since his death, religious apologists understandably try to claim Einstein as one of their own. Some of his religious contemporaries saw him very differently. In 1940 Einstein wrote a famous paper justifying his statement 'I do not believe in a personal God.' This and similar statements provoked a storm of letters from the religiously orthodox, many of them alluding to Einstein's Jewish origins. The extracts that follow are taken from Max Jammer's book Einstein and Religion (which is also my main source of quotations from Einstein himself on religious matters). The Roman Catholic Bishop of Kansas City said: 'It is sad to see a man, who comes from the race of the Old Testament and its teaching, deny the great tradition of that race.' Other Catholic clergymen chimed in: 'There is no other God but a personal God ... Einstein does not know what he is talking about. He is all wrong. Some men think that because they have achieved a high degree of learning in some field, they are qualified to express opinions in all.' The notion that religion is a proper field, in which one might claim expertise, is one that should not go unquestioned. That clergyman presumably would not have deferred to the expertise of a claimed 'fairyologist' on the exact shape and colour of fairy wings. Both he and the bishop thought that Einstein, being theologically untrained, had misunderstood the nature of God. On the contrary, Einstein understood very well exactly what he was denying. <BR/><BR/>An American Roman Catholic lawyer, working on behalf of an ecumenical coalition, wrote to Einstein:<BR/><BR/>'We deeply regret that you made your statement ... in which you ridicule the idea of a personal God. In the past ten years nothing has been so calculated to make people think that Hitler had some reason to expel the Jews from Germany as your statement. Conceding your right to free speech, I still say that your statement constitutes you as one of the greatest sources of discord in America.'<BR/><BR/>A New York rabbi said: 'Einstein is unquestionably a great scientist, but his religious views are diametrically opposed to Judaism.' <BR/><BR/>'But'? 'But'? Why not 'and'? <BR/><BR/>The president of a historical society in New Jersey wrote a letter that so damningly exposes the weakness of the religious mind, it is worth reading twice: <BR/><BR/>'We respect your learning, Dr Einstein; but there is one thing you do not seem to have learned: that God is a spirit and cannot be found through the telescope or microscope, no more than human thought or emotion can be found by analyzing the brain. As everyone knows, religion is based on Faith, not knowledge. Every thinking person, perhaps, is assailed at times with religious doubt. My own faith has wavered many a time. But I never told anyone of my spiritual aberrations for two reasons: (1) I feared that I might, by mere suggestion, disturb and damage the life and hopes of some fellow being; (2) because I agree with the writer who said, 'There is a mean streak in anyone who will destroy another's faith.' ... I hope, Dr Einstein, that you were misquoted and that you will yet say something more pleasing to the vast number of the American people who delight to do you honor.'<BR/><BR/>What a devastatingly revealing letter! Every sentence drips with intellectual and moral cowardice.<BR/><BR/>... The one thing all his theistic critics got right was that Einstein was not one of them. He was repeatedly indignant at the suggestion that he was a theist. So, was he a deist, like Voltaire and Diderot? Or a pantheist, like Spinoza, whose philosophy he admired: 'I believe in Spinoza's God who reveals himself in the orderly harmony of what exists, not in a God who concerns himself with fates and actions of human beings'? <BR/><BR/>Let's remind ourselves of the terminology. A theist believes in a supernatural intelligence who, in addition to his main work of creating the universe in the first place, is still around to oversee and influence the subsequent fate of his initial creation. In many theistic belief systems, the deity is intimately involved in human affairs. He answers prayers; forgives or punishes sins; intervenes in the world by performing miracles; frets about good and bad deeds, and knows when we do them (or even think of doing them). A deist, too, believes in a supernatural intelligence, but one whose activities were confined to setting up the laws that govern the universe in the first place. The deist God never intervenes thereafter, and certainly has no specific interest in human affairs. Pantheists don't believe in a supernatural God at all, but use the word God as a non-supernatural synonym for Nature, or for the Universe, or for the lawfulness that governs its workings. Deists differ from theists in that their God does not answer prayers, is not interested in sins or confessions, does not read our thoughts and does not intervene with capricious miracles. Deists differ from pantheists in that the deist God is some kind of cosmic intelligence, rather than the pantheist's metaphoric or poetic synonym for the laws of the universe. Pantheism is sexed-up atheism. Deism is watered-down theism. <BR/><BR/>There is every reason to think that famous Einsteinisms like 'God is subtle but he is not malicious' or 'He does not play dice' or 'Did God have a choice in creating the Universe?' are pantheistic, not deistic, and certainly not theistic. 'God does not play dice' should be translated as 'Randomness does not lie at the heart of all things.' 'Did God have a choice in creating the Universe?' means 'Could the universe have begun in any other way?' Einstein was using 'God' in a purely metaphorical, poetic sense. So is Stephen Hawking, and so are most of those physicists who occasionally slip into the language of religious metaphor.<BR/><BR/>...Let me sum up Einsteinian religion in one more quotation from Einstein himself: 'To sense that behind anything that can be experienced there is a something that our mind canot grasp and whose beauty and sublimity reaches us only indirectly and as a feeble reflection, this is religiousness. In this sense I am religious.' In this sense I too am religious, with the reservation that 'cannot grasp' does not have to mean 'forever ungraspable'. But I prefer not to call myself religious because it is misleading. It is destructively misleading because, for the vast majority of people, 'religion' implies 'supernatural'. Carl Sagan put it well: "... if by "God" one means the set of physical laws that govern the universe, then clearly there is such a God. This God is emotionally unsatisfying ... it does not make much sense to pray to the law of gravity."<BR/><BR/>... The metaphorical or pantheistic God of the physicists is light years away from the interventionist, miracle-wreaking, thought-reading, sin-punishing, prayer-answering God of the Bible, of priests, mullahs and rabbis, and of ordinary language. Deliberately to confuse the two is, in my opinion, an act of intellectual high treason."<BR/><BR/>So I don't think your point about Einstein being religious, that is, believing in and worshiping a superhuman controlling power or powers, has been as well made as you might think. In fact, I think Dawkins demolishes it.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10178279.post-1166051608525402762006-12-13T18:13:00.000-05:002006-12-13T18:13:00.000-05:00How many explanations can you come up with for you...<I>How many explanations can you come up with for your own mystical experiences?</I><BR/><BR/>Rus, I ask for your explanations for your mystical experiences after you'd given us an indication that you might have some and you respond by saying that you don't really have any and then ask me for mine, as though I had somewhere indicated having mystical experiences I could explain. Telling us what categories your explanations could potentially fit into is not telling us what your explanations are.<BR/><BR/><I>By the way, you had not answered that vastness question before.</I><BR/><BR/>I answered it <A HREF="http://booksinq.blogspot.com/2006/11/amen-brother_12.html#comments" REL="nofollow">here</A> when you asked if there was "a vastness that we as human beings will never know?" I responded:<BR/><BR/><I>No one can say what "cannot be known." Whether it is vast, small or somewhere in between is irrelevant if it "cannot be known." Think about it, Rus. To claim something unknowable, one must first know not only that it exists but have enough knowledge of it to justify the assertion. The assertion and the justification are then in contradiction. At best, your argument is a logical fallacy.</I><BR/><BR/>You insisted that I "prove there is no vastness or admit there is." Here's my response:<BR/><BR/><I>You ask me to "Prove there is no vastness, or admit there is," as though I had suggested somewhere that there was no vastness. How will gaining my agreement that there is a vastness support your assertion that it "cannot be known"?</I><BR/><BR/>I think it is obvious that I accepted there is a vastness, but I objected to you terming it "cannot be known".<BR/><BR/><I>you have been insistent that I do not know about evolutionary theory.</I><BR/><BR/>Yes, and it is based on what you said about how you loved the "Oh God" movie and how George Burns, to prove his Godship in court, "pulled out a deck of cards, and fanned some before the judge in a card trick. Every mystic gets it. That's all there is. That's all I can give you, or you me. We're insane if we think otherwise."<BR/><BR/>I replied by saying that "evolution isn't a game of chance. Evolution works according to Darwinian principles of Natural Selection which is not the same thing at all as chance. You would know the difference between a game of chance and evolution, if you understood evolution."<BR/><BR/>This war between us is becoming tiresome. I don't think anyone else is interested in it except us, and I lost interest some time ago. The truth is that I think you are a clever bloke and a decent person. A man has his pride and I've trampled all over yours so in a spirit of goodwill l would like to make an attempt to bury the hatchet. I admit I was wrong to claim evolution was proven since the purpose of science is not really to 'prove' anything, but to explain and help us understand and it does this by providing evidence for what it claims which I think is worth a hell of a lot. I am impressed by your tenaciousness in keeping after me, even if at times I found it maddening, as I'm sure you've found me to be too. <BR/><BR/>I'm sorry if you feel I have insulted you. My mother-in-law, a canny Sicilian, once told me that there is no such thing as an insult. Something is either true or it isn't and if it isn't true, it isn't an insult. It's false. Her logic has saved me from taking offense more than once and for this (among many other things), I am grateful to her. It was very hard work being offended.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10178279.post-1166023153773819552006-12-13T10:19:00.000-05:002006-12-13T10:19:00.000-05:00Hi Noel,Well, what are your explanations for mysti...Hi Noel,<BR/><BR/><I>Well, what are your explanations for mystical experiences, explanation being a "statement or account that makes something clear"?</I><BR/><BR/>This is a problem, that you would ask this question. Let's say there are most likely, like with everything else we experience in this life, several.<BR/><BR/>Dickens had Scrooge ask if the ghosts he saw were from an underdone bit of potato. Let's agree that there is such an explanation for mystical experiences, something physical like an epileptic episode, or a reaction to food, some odd misfiring of neurons, a gland not working quite right.<BR/><BR/>We need to be careful, though, that we don't get too grounded in the physical. Why, for instance, am I responding to you. One explanation is that electrons and such are entering my neural system, causing a chain reaction resulting in my fingers typing on a keyboard, the pressure which, through the internet, is causing neural patterns to develop in your own system.<BR/><BR/>But, that explanation does not answer the question. Another explanation might have something to do with depth psychology, that I am still trying to resolve issues from my childhood, or maybe behavioral psychology, that I have received reinforcement from social groups important to me for entering into such discussions in the past.<BR/><BR/>How many explanations can you come up with for your own mystical experiences, Noel? There must be many. What we select to explain such matters is personal to us, having either to do with our backgrounds, our personalities, our physical capacities, and so forth.<BR/><BR/>By the way, you had not answered that vastness question before.<BR/><BR/>Also, it is not a military stance to insist that you treat me for who I am. You seem to have wanted to lump me in with people, or imaginary people, who think much differently than I do. For instance, you have been insistent that I do not know about evolutionary theory. As this discussion has furthered between us, and you have lost ground on not being able to prove the evolutionary theory that you said could be proved, and now you back down and admit there is a vastness humankind will never know of, your challenges to me have all weakened.<BR/><BR/>Therefore, I will say two things to you again, because you have insulted me:<BR/><BR/>1. Do not assert any limits on my knowledge of evolution or anything. This is an assumption that has not served you, and has insulted me. In fact, at one point you asked me for credentials, and after I gave you mine, I asked for yours, and you said they did not matter. Get straight, Noel.<BR/><BR/>2. Do not assume you know what my beliefs are concerning spirituality. You have been repeated wrong about them. <BR/><BR/>And guess what? I get to call you to task for these prejudicial errors.<BR/><BR/>Yours,<BR/>RusRus Bowdenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08412920154921512774noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10178279.post-1165995558954936802006-12-13T02:39:00.000-05:002006-12-13T02:39:00.000-05:00I think you like to argue simply for the sake of a...I think you like to argue simply for the sake of argument. :)<BR/><BR/>In the spirit of everyone who selectively quotes scripture to bolster their own argument, I would simply point out that Einstein also said:<BR/><BR/>"All religions, arts and sciences are branches of the same tree."<BR/><BR/>"As far as the laws of mathematics refer to reality, they are not certain, and as far as they are certain, they do not refer to reality."<BR/><BR/>"Before God we are all equally wise - and equally foolish."<BR/><BR/>"Science without religion is lame. Religion without science is blind."<BR/><BR/>"My religion consists of a humble admiration of the illimitable superior spirit who reveals himself in the slight details we are able to perceive with our frail and feeble mind."<BR/><BR/>"The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and all science. He to whom this emotion is a stranger, who can no longer pause to wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead: his eyes are closed."<BR/><BR/>Gee, sounds a lot like some of the mystical literature to me.<BR/><BR/>Einstein also used the term "God" frequently, and not always to deny his belief in some "superior spirit," as stated above. His most famous use of the word is in his reply to Niels Bohr, "God does not play dice."<BR/><BR/>"I want to know God's thoughts; the rest are details."<BR/><BR/>"God does not care about our mathematical difficulties. He integrates empirically."<BR/><BR/>One could go on, throwing paint-splatters at the wall, but I trust the point has been made.<BR/><BR/>Also, perhaps you are aware that "in fact" is a figure of speech roughly equivalent to "actually." There's no contradiction; it's just rhetoric.Art Durkeehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07463180236975988432noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10178279.post-1165949173936307392006-12-12T13:46:00.000-05:002006-12-12T13:46:00.000-05:00Mysticism in fact ...Art, isn't that an oxymoron? ...<I>Mysticism in fact ...</I><BR/><BR/>Art, isn't that an oxymoron? I ask because my understanding of 'fact' is "a thing that is indisputably the case." If you claim "mysticism in fact" isn't an oxymoron, then I think it's fair to ask for some evidence to support it. At the risk of beating a dead horse, you haven't got any, have you?<BR/><BR/>You go on to say mysticism "is nothing more or less than the pursuit of direct contact with and direct experience of the Divine, by whatever name one wants to call it."<BR/><BR/>I understand what the word Divine means - of, from or like God or gods - and I also understand that there are lots of names for the Divine, but beyond what the dictionary tells me, I don't know who or what the Divine is or who or what is responsible for designing the Divine. You don't know, do you?<BR/><BR/>It's not so surprising that many great scientists, like lots of people everywhere, express personal opinions, but show me a scientist who has put forward some evidence to justify mystical beliefs. Are there any?<BR/><BR/>You've referenced Einstein as having "addressed the issues of mysticism." Einstein said: <BR/><BR/>"It was, of course, a lie what you read about my religious convictions, a lie which is systematically repeated. I do not believe in a personal God and I have never denied this but have expressed it clearly. If something is in me which can be called religious then it is the unbounded admiration for the structure of the world so far as our science can reveal it."<BR/><BR/>He also wrote:<BR/><BR/>"I have never inputed to Nature a purpose or a goal, or anything that could be understood as anthropomorphic. What I see in Nature is a magnificent structure that we can comprehend only very imperfectly, and that must fill a thinking person with a feeling of humility. This is a genuinely religious feeling that has nothing to do with mysticism."<BR/><BR/>I think you might be missing the point I was making in my previous post which is that "the best science is inspired by a poetic sense of wonder." What do you think of that?Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10178279.post-1165948987827512772006-12-12T13:43:00.000-05:002006-12-12T13:43:00.000-05:00Again, from here on in, consider mystics as varied...<I>Again, from here on in, consider mystics as varied people.</I><BR/><BR/>Yessir, captain sir!<BR/><BR/>Rus, by any chance, did you spend time in the military? I ask only because of your tendency to bark orders. Most mystics I know are not in the least bit militant, even when you disagree with them. They are gentle souls, more like Art. <BR/><BR/><I>is there a vastness that humankind will never know, a vastness far far greater than what we will ever know?</I><BR/><BR/><I>Yes or no.</I><BR/><BR/>We've been through this <A HREF="http://booksinq.blogspot.com/2006/11/amen-brother_12.html#comments" REL="nofollow">before</A>: while I agree there is a vastness, who can say what humankind will never (or ever) come to know about it? When you take a "flight of the alone into the alone", as Andrew termed it, are you always expecting to have the same experience in your mind? No possibility that you might go farther, cover more 'ground', or experience and 'understand' more than you did before? <BR/><BR/><I>are you ready to explain everything?</I><BR/><BR/>Yes, for only $5.85 a minute, billed in six second increments. Of course the answer is no and I have never said I or science could at the minute, but who's to say that will always be the case? I think there's an explanation for everything, a physical explanation, even if there's a hell of a long way to go to discover all of it. Calling it magic or 'God' explains nothing. It invites explanations for who or what 'God' is and who or what is responsible for 'God'. It's raises more questions than it answers.<BR/><BR/><I>Explanations are very fine indeed. Loved, even. Welcomed. Sought after. Yes.</I><BR/><BR/>Well, what are your explanations for mystical experiences, explanation being a "statement or account that makes something clear"?<BR/><BR/>And please, no more barking. Disagree me with me all you like, but try to resist the urge to give me orders or try to tell me the ways in which I am allowed to answer. If this request seems unreasonable, you're free to pay me no attention.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10178279.post-1165880731327515482006-12-11T18:45:00.000-05:002006-12-11T18:45:00.000-05:00Mysticism isn't a rejection of explanation, as you...Mysticism isn't a rejection of explanation, as you imply: that mystics "don't want to know" and would somehow go out of their way to remain ignorant.<BR/><BR/>Mysticism in fact (and this is repeated in all the world's great spiritual traditions) is nothing more or less than the pursuit of direct contact with and direct experience of the Divine, by whatever name one wants to call it.<BR/><BR/>Many great scientists have been admitted mystics and inner explorers. Wolfgang Pauli was a client of C.G. Jung's, and their correspondence is quiet interesting reading. It touches on the connection of inner reality and quantum reality.<BR/><BR/>Einstein, Schrodinger, and several other great minds present at the founding of the quantum theory all addressed the issues of mysticism, and also discussed the relationship of spirituality and science. Many of these ur-texts are available online, with a little searching.<BR/><BR/>BTW, let's also be clear about one other thing: spirituality and mysticism are not sub-categories of religion. It is quite possible to be devoutly religious and steer entirely clear of mysticism—many Protestant groups do exactly that. It is also possibly to be profoundly spiritual, and a practicing mystic, and not be affiliated with any established, institutional religion, sect, or faith.<BR/><BR/>So, again, to make a sweeping comment that mystics defy explanations shows only ignorance of what mysticism is about, and also that many great scientists were themselves mystics.Art Durkeehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07463180236975988432noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10178279.post-1165880258974658912006-12-11T18:37:00.000-05:002006-12-11T18:37:00.000-05:00Blake didn't "hate science." He hated the depredat...Blake didn't "hate science." He hated the depredations of the early industrail Revolution on the people and land of England. He did dissent against that, and against the rational mind when held up over all other values. But he actually respected the scientific method as a method of thinking. He just hated what it had become used FOR.<BR/><BR/>But anyway.Art Durkeehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07463180236975988432noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10178279.post-1165878985664165032006-12-11T18:16:00.000-05:002006-12-11T18:16:00.000-05:00Hi Noel,You said:While the mystic is happy to reve...Hi Noel,<BR/><BR/>You said:<BR/><BR/><I>While the mystic is happy to revel in mysteries he doesn't want explained and despises it when they are . . .</I><BR/><BR/>Explanations are fine. A mystic does not qualify to be a mystic by not wanting mysteries explained. you seem to have misunderstood this. Again, from here on in, consider mystics as varied people. Explanations are very fine indeed. Loved, even. Welcomed. Sought after. Yes.<BR/><BR/>However, are you ready to explain everything? <BR/><BR/>You have led yourself once again into the second question that I have asked of you repeatedly, but that you refuse to give a yes or no answer to:<BR/><BR/><B>Noel, is there a vastness that humankind will never know, a vastness far far greater than what we will ever know?</B><BR/><BR/>Yes, or no.<BR/><BR/>RusRus Bowdenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08412920154921512774noreply@blogger.com