posted February 11, 2005 10:24 AM            

quote:

---

There is absolutely no scientific base for evolution.

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posted February 11, 2005 11:29 AM            

quote:

---

Fondly do we hope—fervently do we pray—that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away. Yet, if God wills that it continue, until all the wealth piled by the bondman's two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash, shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said three thousand years ago, so still it must be said, 'the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether.'

---

posted February 12, 2005 02:49 PM            

Oh, mah Daddy was a preacher from north of Tennessee,
(They called his hometown Washington D.C.)
Never saw him with rattlers but he sho' wouldn't a shied from that,
Why, man, he'd handle krait or python or even wuss than that.
Amen!
Daddy, Mama, I love y'all.
He had the old time religion that's good enough for me,
So how's this for talkin' in tongues, boys --
Sooo-ooo--oo-wee
Brothers and sisters -- why not?
(Go, man, go)
Ow-oooooo
Cock-a-doodle-do

... well folks, from here on, you're own

But on the other hand, if you're a bookworm like me I do
strongly recommend to you William James' "Varieties of
religious experience". Don't go home without it.
www.questia.com/Index.jsp?CRID=william_james&OFFID=se1

By the way,there are no lies in the above. My father was
an educational missionary who was interested in almost
anything, but he said his favorite class of all was Biology.
Now don't that beat all?

posted February 14, 2005 03:56 AM            

More and more information is coming forth showing that our
capacity for belief is an important aspect of our biological
make up. This capacity for belief makes it possible to develop
some kind of "world view" or psychological map to navigate by
in our life. Thus the actual belief which you develop is
entirely dependent on where and when you live and on what you
learn from your parents, teachers and your society. The value
or applicability of your belief system depends entirely on
whether the map it provides accurately reflects the world you
live in.

If you are interested in this there are some relevant books
in these links:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/product-description/0465006965/1 04-3222964-3597518?%5Fencoding=UTF8&n=283155

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/product-description/0966036700/1 04-3222964-3597518?%5Fencoding=UTF8&n=283155

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0195149300/ ref=pd_sim_b_6/104-3222964-3597518?%5Fencoding=UTF8&v=glance

Best regards,

Erik

P.S.

Emil,

Thanks for the reference to William James' "Varieties of
religious experience". It seems he had similar thoughts about
100 years back.
------------------

posted February 14, 2005 11:49 AM            

Quite a few years ago I saw the first two lines on a lavatory
wall in my university. That was well before I saw them in any
official print. As an ex-professor I take the liberty of adding
the third line. Students & ex-students, fill in line #4 for
yourselves.

Everybody:
If my posts sound weird to you, you ain't seen nothin' yet.
Yesterday after church, as I shook hands with our pastor, I
thanked him for his excellent Lenten sermon, and dropped the
name of Jonathan Edwards (the still-famous American preacher
and scholar of yore, whose fiery sermons are often cited as
instrumental in starting up a long era of revivalism in the
USA, and a surge in missionary work.) I do not know much about
Edwards but 20+ years ago I ran across on of his writings on
Space, which I have always wanted to quote in one of my own
publications on that same topic. Very briefly, he was trying
to explain how Newton's concept of Space as infinite does not
really create any problem for theology. Of course only God is
infinite and eternal. Of course Space is both of the above, too. Why not?
Ergo: Space is God... Do not quote me on that; quote Edwards.

The other thing I knew about Edwards is that one of his most
famous sermons was titled, "Sinners in the hands of an angry
God". I have been meaning for years to read it but still
haven't. My preacher, Cary Speaker, shook his head and say,
"Don't bother, it's not very good... He even talks about
individual sinners as being spiders dangling on a web above
the fiery pit only by the hand of God."

Now -- read some of my other posts that mention the World Wide
Spider Web. I used that term first in an email to a zoologist
who is soliciting what he calls "strange nominations" -- i.e.,
papers describing a weird behavior or weird phenomenon in any
given species you choose. I wrote him that I nominate William
James's "Varieties...". The threads of my reasons for saying
are many and tangled, and it would be folly to claim that any
one spider-brain, such as mine, can get everything straight,
but here's a try.

Erik:
Ever since one of your first posts -- on linear regression -- I
suspected that we might be kindred souls, so it is a pleasure
to also chat more directly.

William James has often been accused of contradicting himself
time after time, especially by psychologists who are talking
about his classic (and massive) 1890 "Principles..." It was a
paper by Gerald Holton on Bohr, James, and the principle of
complementarity that set me straight. Holton said that Bohr
himself said repeatedly that what James called "pluralism"
was exactly what he (Bohr) meant by "complementarity"; also,
Bohr used to give his students James' famous chapter on "the
stream of consciousness" to read. Of course James was talking
in everyday discourse or even poetry and Bohr was a physicist.
Bohr was not confused on that score, and I hope that I am not,
either.

Unfortunately, Bohr did not, so far as Holton knew, spell this
out in print. You'll have to take Holton's word for it... or
start your own "quest for the historical Nils Bohr", to
paraphrase a famous theme in the academic domain to which this
whole thread ostensibly belongs.

James is often also characterized as gullible, because even
though he did not profess a firm belief in God, the power
of prayer, telepathy, etc. he did not dismiss them as absurd
either. There is, to be sure, plenty of absurdity to be found
when people begin to spout off on those topics. Martin Gardner,
among others will enlighten anyone on that, if they have eyes
to see and ears to hear. But the difference between agnosticism
an atheism is clear. I say that the bold claims on the cover of
the Richard Dawkins' "The blind watchmaker" are, shall we say,
pure baloney. I have in mind here the words "why the evidence
of evolution reveals a universe without design... By the author
of the selfish gene".

My ex-colleague, George C. Williams, said it in more Jamesian
terms (in "The pony fish's glow: and other clues to plan and
purpose in nature", Basic Books, 1977). If you choose to believe
in God, do so. It is silly to argue. Take your choice and see
where it leads you.

posted February 14, 2005 12:03 PM            

Thank you for the nomination. We are having fun with this series of
papers to discuss and may make an anthology out of them.
I will send you a list of references when more nominations come in.
Stan
--
Stan Braude
Biology Box 1137
Washington University
One Brookings Drive
St. Louis, MO 63130 USA

314-935-7352

============================================
Emil Menzel adds: I'm having a ball, to say the least.
I'm going to email him back & give him this PB forum address.

posted February 14, 2005 03:42 PM            

quote:

---

Newton's concept of Space as infinite does not
really create any problem for theology. Of course only God is
infinite and eternal. Of course Space is both of the above, too. Why not?
Ergo: Space is God...

---

To understand the Universe is to see the mind of God. God is the
universe, the Universe is God.

Does it not follow then, that the laws of the Universe are God's laws?

Could God have used Evolution as a tool in his experiments with "life?"
God, therefore, must be the ultimate Scientist. Was the creation of the
dinosours a colossal mistake? No, I believe that he clearly saw that the
dinosaurs were going nowhere, so He had to destroy them and start over.

God never intended the Bible (Torah) to be a basis for
scientific fact. He gave men and women beautiful minds to figure it out
themselves.

So the story goes:

Theoretical physicists are climbing the mountain of knowledge of scientific
fact. When they reach the pinnacle, they find there, the theologians saying
"See? We told you..."

posted February 14, 2005 10:07 PM            

Some of the greatest scientists, philosphers, poets and seers
of all times (at least in my ranking) have speculated along
those same lines. A few were declared heretics for so doing --
for example, Spinoza was expelled from his synagogue -- but that's
another matter. Spinoza was Einstein's hero, and Goethe's too.
The best account of Einstein's views on religion is Max Jammer,
"Einstein & religion", Princeton press, 1999.

posted February 15, 2005 05:27 AM            

quote:

---

No, I believe that he clearly saw that the dinosaurs were going nowhere,
so He had to destroy them and start over.

---

Oh dear, my faith in atheism is faltering. There was I thinking that "Too err is human".

quote:

---

To understand the Universe is to see the mind of God. God is the
universe, the Universe is God.

Does it not follow then, that the laws of the Universe are God's laws?

---

Yeah, it does - assuming, of course, that to understand the universe is to see the mind of God.

God is very lucky to exist then. Take any one of the physical constants and tweak them
slightly and the universe would have been still born.

------------------
David Roberts

posted February 15, 2005 01:18 PM            

The two single biggest problems in this domain are purpose and
design. That is true whether one is talking cosmology, biology,
psychology or theology. One of the best discussions of these
problems that I know of, for our present purposes, is the
final chapter in George C. William's "The pony fish's glow And
other clues to plan and purpose in nature" Basic Books, 1997.
As it happens, George, together with John Maynard Smith & Ernst
Mayr recently won a very prestigious world-wide prize in this
domain -- beating out a number of other outstanding authors whose
names I shall not drop, so as not to rub it in. (If you identify
philosophy of science with philosophy of physics, read Ernst
Mayr; e.g. "Toward a new philosophy of biology", Belknap Harvard,
1988.) As it also happens, George and I, for numerous years,
co-taught a course in animal behavior/comparative psychology.
And finally, it further happens that I made extensive marginal
notes on my copy of this book, most likely in the same year that
it was published. I really grieve that George and I did not stage
debates about these issues in front of our classes or even
really discuss them in all the years we knew each other. But
that is water over the dam. Here's thinking of you, old buddy!

The title of this chapter is "Philosophical implications" and
it commences by saying "I have attempted to show how the God-is-
smart and the God-is-good arguments are fallacious." I would say
"problematic, to be sure", not fallacious. As Niels Bohr is
reported to have said on hearing of Einstein's famous claim that
God does not play dice: Who is Einstein to judge God?

That applies equally to George's statement that "although the
biological creation is inherently evil, it also is abysmally
stupid". It sure looks or feels that way to me too, sometimes;
and I am (no joke) still struggling to forgive my own biological
father for one or more "unjustified" spankings that I received
about 70 years ago. But that is human psychology, not objective
biology or useful theology.

George is, according to his own statement, and I take him at his
word "not an atheist flaunting a caricature to offend people's
religious sensitivities. In any theological discussion, I prefer
to define atheism out of existence. Whatever entity or complex of
entities is responsible for the universe being as we find it,
rather than some other way, can be called God. With God the
Creator so defined, we can proceed to characterize and evaluate
Him using the one source of evidence we have: His creation. On
that basis I argued... that, contrary to the claims of Paley and
the natural theology school...etc. Functional design can arise
not just from intelligent planning but also from trial and
error."

As a long-time student of animal learning and intelligence I
would by all means concur with that last sentence. I would,
however, very strongly doubt that trial and error learning
explains ALL vestiges of intelligence, genius, inspiration, and
so forth at the level of individual or even group psychology.
If that be error and upon me proved, burn all of my own writings
and data as trash.

Another problem arises from this quote: Is it really so that
the ONLY evidence regarding God is Nature? No theologian, no
psychologist, and no parent would or should ascribe to that.
Besides external nature we have each other, & we have written &
other manifestations of culture -- not just "works" but "word".
"In the beginning was the Word..." if you are a Christian or
a Platonist.

As for William Paley, I would say that he made a poor choice in
picking the human eye as his prime example of a case for Design.
He was a mathematician, not a student of natural history. I
maintain that he should have picked a number as his example.
That, indeed, explains the topic that I posted on "Pi in the
sky," and that kicked me into really high gear
over the past week or so. Feedback from you other PB-ers on that
topic was not voluminous, but it functioned like a spark that
alights a whole string of firecrackers (in my brain, if not
more widely).

One of my marginal notes says, "Good point! Maybe George
doesn't always love the Lord his God with all his heart, but
he does seem to love his neighbor as himself." I could go on
about that for a goodly spell, but let's leave it at that.

------------------

posted February 16, 2005 05:25 AM            

In this interview he is asked about Buddhism and he says he
thinks it probably more compatible with science than are other
religions. Could be. Alternatively, Arthur Schopenhauer (see
especially "The world as will and representation", circa 1850,
2 vols) argued that the metaphysical core of Christianity,
Buddhism and Hinduism are basically the same; the differences
are in their mythologies. Schopenhauer was highly critical of
the mythologies, but highly sympathetic to the metaphysics,
which he called, somewhat inaccurately, denial of the will
to live.

posted February 17, 2005 05:50 PM            

Here is another link – quite funny:
http://www.alaska.net/~clund/e_djublonskopf/Flatearthsociety.htm

Take it from the humorous side.

Belief and religion are subjective matters. They are best kept
for oneself. Science is meant to be communicated to others. It
aims at creating a common framework and language to enable a
more precise and effective communication between people and
thereby promote a better general knowledge and understanding of
the world, so that its problems can be dealt with more effectively.

Best regards,

Erik

posted February 17, 2005 06:19 PM            

Bert Mercier

posted February 18, 2005 03:39 AM            

"frank" may be a better characteristic than harsh. I also agree
with the description given. But some may feel hurt by it, although
they should not be. I only wanted to prepare them for what to
find there.

Best regards,

Erik

------------------

posted February 18, 2005 06:53 AM            

To paraphrase John Donne (circa 1600):
No person is an "ism" entire of itself

See the last paragraph of: http://www.online-literature.com/donne/409/