jcmmanuel

But it would seem that you agree that there are some who believe in creation and evolution?

Creation is not the same as creationism. Creationism is this weird mix of science and the religious concept of creation, not distinguishing the different characteristics of both realms. Creation however is, generally speaking, the concept that we are here for a reason (and purpose). It stems from a human experience, this sensing that there is more to us than just being carbon robots. We want to create meaning (most if not all of us do so) - but this is not a materialistic requirement of course (matter doesn't imply 'meaning'). It is a human thing to create meaning, and this 'creativity' is behind the idea of creation, and also behind the monotheistic concept of an ultimate creator. Yet, I know at least 2 atheist friends who believe in a creator (they do not associate 'him' or 'it' with the god of monotheism of course, but still). So the picture is quite diverse, certainly not monolithic. Creation is a broader concept.

Evolution conflicts with creationism / ID but not necessarily with the idea of creation. Eevolution explains the 'wiring' of things including us, but it doesn't dictate us to stop hoping, believing, or loving in a way that is not identical to having sex, and all that stuff - this is what it means to be human, for many if not all of us. I believe in a creator of some kind even while I'm not sure about it, nor do I know exactly what 'kind' of God we have here. The God-idea certainly doesn't exclude science, as science was not designed to say anything about gods or God, nor to deny it - it isn't in the scope of the scientific discipline at all. Cookery isn't about God either - it's about preparing food. All things have a place.

But creationism is weird. If I want to understand something about science, I read a good science book, not creationist. To learn something about religion, I don't read Dawkins either, I read a good book from someone who studied religion, or - also - someone who approaches religion as a scientist (but not as an atheist - because that's something like a creationist telling us what to do with science).

"Supposedly the term, "gay" comes from the fact that men having sex with men didn't have to worry about pregnancy. Maybe this lack of worry also contributed to the enjoyment of sexual pleasure."

Just a small remark: technically the presumption about no worrying about pregnancy is incorrect I think. Or at least it depends what exactly you mean. My argument is from heterosexual relationships though. According to scientific reports that appeared quite some time ago, it seems that the possibility of pregnancy, in heterosexual relationships, adds to the pleasure or 'momentum' in a specific way which relates to the cognitive experience of 'connectedness'. It is a mental experience in a broader way than often thought. This has also been advanced as a psychological explanation for the many pregnancies that could or would easily have been prevented in many cases. In other words, women in normal situations get pregnant not just because they are careless (as was often thought) and also not only because of a intensified pleasure (mostly in the male partner, presumably) but because the sexual experience is, for many couples, not purely physical. While this offers an argument that abortion is not just the result of negligence, I think it also speaks against your suggestion in a certain way.

Kind regards.

In the Philosophy / Religion forum an interesting link to a quiz was posted, you can find it here:

http://www.scienceforums.net/topic/53853-god-game/

and the link to the quiz is here: http://www.philosophersnet.com/games/god.php

I cannot yet post anything in on this forum, which is a bit frustrating (and I do not want to hurry to make up for 50 posts either) so I post it here, with my own reaction. I'm curious how atheists defend their "rational position", because it seems to me that an atheist can always bend the idea of rationalism to his advantage if he wants. I am also well aware that not all atheists do that - it is more common among strong atheists as far as I know.

Here is a report on this quiz, especially the 4 questions (2 x 2) that delivered me some "injuries".

A/ I answered True to question 10 and 14, which made me take a hit on Q14.

Quotation Q10: "If, despite years of trying, no strong evidence or argument has been presented to show that there is a Loch Ness monster, it is rational to believe that such a monster does not exist."

Quotation Q14: "As long as there are no compelling arguments or evidence that show that God does not exist, atheism is a matter of faith, not rationality".

The argument offered to me by the questioner after Q14 was as follows:

"Earlier you agreed that it is rational to believe that the Loch Ness monster does not exist if there is an absence of strong evidence or argument that it does. No strong evidence or argument was required to show that the monster does not exist - absence of evidence or argument was enough. But now you claim that the atheist needs to be able to provide strong arguments or evidence if their belief in the non-existence of God is to be rational rather than a matter of faith. The contradiction is that on the first ocassion (Loch Ness monster) you agreed that the absence of evidence or argument is enough to rationally justify belief in the non-existence of the Loch Ness monster, but on this occasion (God), you do not."

My reaction:

In philosophy (which I regard as knowledge gathering in a wider, but still rational & scientific sense - just not according to the rules of what we usually call the 'exact sciences'), rationality is not usually taken to the extremes of reductionism. Rationalism is not the same thing as taking a reductionist point of view as being all there is. Reason is more than just applying logic thought to an object or idea.

I can rationally believe that no Loch Ness monster is expected to be witnessed in that particular area, because it is by no means logical that such an animal would not yet have been detected and recorded (in some detail) by serious observers during all that time. The 'monster' of Loch Ness is also not reported to be a spirit or a conceptual conjecture of some kind, rather is it supposed to belong to the animal kingdom (the Animalia). The God-idea however belongs to a totally different category of thought.

While Q10 posited "regardless of the external evidence, or lack of it", it totally ignores the nature of the object subject to this "lack of evidence" observation. One could just as well compare the lack of evidence for pink unicorns with the lack of evidence for love. There's something seriously wrong with the way 'logic' is being applied here.

- - -

B/ I answered False to Question 7 and True to Question 17 (and this time I expected to be hit on Q17 as the questioner would otherwise contradict his own methodology).

Quotation Q7: "It is justifiable to base one's beliefs about the external world on a firm, inner conviction, regardless of the external evidence, or lack of it, for the truth or falsity of these convictions."

Quotation Q17: "It is justifiable to believe in God if one has a firm, inner conviction that God exists, regardless of the external evidence, or lack of it, for the truth or falsity of the conviction that God exists."

The argument of the questioner: "Earlier you said that it is not justifiable to base one's beliefs about the external world on a firm, inner conviction, paying no regard to the external evidence, or lack of it, for the truth or falsity of this conviction, but now you say it's justifiable to believe in God on just these grounds. That's a flagrant contradiction!"

My reaction:

Similar to the previous case, I posit that there is a fundamental qualitative difference between basing a belief on a ridiculous assuption and doing so on the basis of a reasonable conjecture. The fallacy hidden behind those 2 questions are two anisochronous juxtapositions, the first being the juxtaposition of the expression "the external world" & "God", the second being the juxtaposition of "beliefs about" & "to believe in".

The idea that there is something (god) which might be the cause behind the origin of all things does not simply belong to "the external world", it is a thing of the past to begin with, and then we have to look at history and to the development of humanism and religion - none of these have simply to do with the "external world". Also, a deep inner "belief in" God is not the same thing as "beliefs about" things vagualy attributed to an "external world" - exactly because the character of such a belief is 'internal' and therefore subjective. Subjective thought is not invalid, irrational or illogical only because it falls outside the domain of, say, the natural sciences. These things simply do not compare this way. This is the same mistake as the popularized habit to compare God with unicorns, myths, fairies or Santa Claus - those belong to different categories.

More than 2 categories by the way. Myths do for instance rely upon a true historical origin on one way or another, while fairies do not (but they may have mythical connotations); Santa Claus is a mythologized historical figure, unicorns are either real (the Rhinoceros as observed from aside) or mythical, and God may appear in mythology but also in human experience in a great variety of ways (including but certainly not limited to religious fundamentalism) and is also a conceptual idea of origin, which is often seen as in competition with religion but not by everyone.

Any other ideas about this - or a rebuttal - in the "Lounge"?

J.

With respect to Random's point, some historians of ideas would argue that romantic love for a partner is itself a cultural invention which first appeared in the songs of the Medieval Minnesaengers with their concept of the 'love-sick knight' in service of some noble Lady. Before that time, marriage was considered largely a matter of dynastic alliance between families, so concentration on the plan to have your son marry the daughter of the farmer who owned the fields next to yours to form a more profitable marriage-alliance simply displaced any possibility of romantic feelings. Other historians trace the origin of romantic love to Christianity's invention of the idea that the relationship between the Deity and mankind was one of love rather than primarily one of obedience, loyalty, etc.

Yes, historically it seems that we can trace romantic love from what was called "courtly love", a phenomenon traceable in literature to the middle ages. This courtly love was then also based on the intent of sacrifice, not just what we now understand by "romantic" love, in other words there was more 'value' in it than just 'feelings'. One could also observe that the Christian environment where this seems to have originated, there was always the availability of the Jewish book Song of Songs (as this book had always been incorporated in the bible, as part of the old testament), and this book too may have helped to pave the way, because it is not only erotic in nature, but also to a certain extent 'proto-romantic'. It is also well known in theology that Song of Songs has been connected to the relationship between the Church (the 'bride') and Christ (the 'Bridegroom'), and this picture of bride / bridegroom began to emerge as a real prototype or example for the man / wife relationship precisely during the Middle Ages.

But, generally speaking, I would suggest that there was a more common human endeavor in this direction. I mean, even while a significant number of improvements have been emerging within 'Christian' cultures (or: among 'cultural Christians', as others may prefer to say), it doesn't mean that Christians invented this. Those of you who are familiar with the writings of C.S. Lewis will know that already Lewis observed that not everything in Christianity is uniquely Christian, or even uniquely Jewish. Even this powerful Christian apologist did NOT think that the God of monotheism was only active within these monotheist religions - a real God must necessarily have been much bigger than any written account about Him. But Christianity has at least asserted or amplified a number of good ideas and practices. As even Nietzsche endorsed.

"This suggests to me that love can be learned."

It's strange that you put it this way - or maybe rather fascinating. Because we also do not (yet) understand how the human species got its capability of learning. (There's a short tread on that one here, Why is the human-being the only animal which developed learning skill?). Depending on what you mean by "can be learned", the emotional part may of course be a candidate for the word learned too, but if we look at it from the emergence of "courtly love" as an ongoing, more intellectual aspect of love (mixed with such human qualities as respect, interest, curiosity, sacrifice, all of which require a level of education), the question still remains how science may explain that part - just as the learning skills itself are left for explanation so far. And the general problem with the natural sciences is that at this point they may offer insights on the necessary 'wiring' of homo sapiens - allowing these feelings or this intelligence to be 'carried' - but this wiring does not in itself offer a explanation for the richness and dynamics of ideas and learning. For instance science discovers aspects of attraction (the mechanism of body scent, for instance), but while that explains something about nature's biological protection mechanism, it doesn't explain love. No more than the physical laws for hertz frequencies explain a Bach sonata.

Even if we would think, at some point, that science explains love, all the 100 per cent of it, this will always remain the scientific side of the story - and we know that in this way of looking at things, reductionism was built-in by design. Those who invented science wanted to understand the generalities - but love cannot be captured in terms of generalities, it makes very particular / private choices, for one thing.

Therefore, it seems that we can only admit that at some point we learned to educate ourselves. But that, of course, is not a scientific statement - it is the other way round: it is the statement that explains why we invented science. That is what humans did. We "jumped out of the box of explanation", so to speak. This suggestion is of course a philosophical position, not a scientific one.

I'm a late reader here, but this is an interesting topic.

This is a essentially a philosophical question.

Science can, as always, inspect the underlaying biological / physical strata, the "wiring" of homo sapiens sapiens. But science is not meant to reduce our epistemology to the scientific method, it does not claim an authority on defining the essence of the human being in all its intricacies (and such a position would place us on dangerous grounds - we have been there, in Europe as well as the U.S.) One may describe the human being as 'technically' a carbon robot, but this cannot be the functional category by the means of which a scientist can identify, on the acount of his 'neighbor', who he 'is' and whether his neighbor's life is meaningful or meaningless, lovable or not. (If such opinion would have to be expressed, it would rather be up to jurisdiction, not science).

The word "spiritual" in this context is well chosen I think. Spirituality seems to foray into the domain of the mind. While the natural sciences find their gist mostly in (methodologial) naturalism, in other domains of science, neuroscientists and even astrophysicists have expressed a strong conjecture that the universe may be explicable as 'mind' rather than 'matter'. It is clear that today, answers from an ontological naturalism point of view are not the only acceptable answers anymore in the scientific world.

Human experience is not quantifiable. Science has never been developed with the aim to identify the very 'essense' of objects, let alone subjects, living beings. Science simply does not go there - reason why it took a while for parapsychology to be an accepted branch of science (by the AAAS) and we know it can't be approached in the same way as the 'exact' sciences. The same applies to sociology for instance (remember the 'fights' between natural scientists and sociologists - a thing of the past). Also, think humanities: will science replace it? There have been propositions. There were even propositions to eliminate psychology (Francis Crick's "molecular revolution" in psychology and neuroscience) - such plans are entirely off the table today as far as I know.

Science basically offers its methodology 'for free' to everyone who is curious - but 'curious' is already not a scientific statement - it is what caused us to invent science to begin with. Curiosity is also an aspect of love by the way - so there you go.

Life is an experience, not an experiment. The reason why we do NOT treat living beings as just objects in some field of study is some sort of 'faith' (not religious faith, but 'humanistic faith' in our own identity, our meaningfulness). We do not 'experiment' with humans (except for voluntary partaking in certain experiments) because we believe in the human experience as being a human right, we believe that creating meaning is a honorable human endeavor, we believe in love being more than its physical / biological substrate (certainly do most of us live their lives that way). If we wouldn't believe such things, it would be hard to argue how anyone would want to do science except for being in power or something along those lines. Fortunately the picture is not that bleak.

We know that love makes a big difference in most things we do, including science. Philosophically speaking it already follows that the science that we do (because we love it) cannot really 'explain' why we love or what love is - no more than the process of conception and birth can explain why 2 people love each other or what their love signifies. Science by the way does not try to explain particularities, it is aiming at generalities, and love cannot really fit within this plan. (In fact not a single aspect of 'humanism' fits within that plan - mankind is a "the sum is more than its parts" case). Yet, within the boundaries of our humanity, we may understand the birth process biologically, and parental love psychologically and socially.

Is it 90% wiring / 10% spirituality? It could be 99% wiring - but the 1% spirituality may still be what defines the essense of our human experience. If the proportional share of the spiritual aspect wouldn't be so very significant, we wouldn't have all those paintings and compositions - all this artistry, all thet poetry and proza portraying love and its effects in different ways. It seems that there's more love in the world than science - but even if this is not true, there will certainly be no science without love, although clearly there has been love before there was science.

This is actually a rather good post, touching on some difficult concepts. I agree with most of it. A unique characteristic of a human is that (s)he asks questions and tries to come up with the answers.

Thank you. I'm honored to hear this from someone with your degree of education (I just saw your wikipedia page).

You have emphasized the question / answer issue, and this is indeed interesting. This seems to be demonstrated in our philosophical activity as human beings. Philosophy, not in the (old) sense of philosophical systems, but in the (modern) definition of systematic knowledge gathering. In this sense, philosophy is science without an established methodology and set of rules (for the simple reason that these rules could not yet be agreed upon for this or that particular domain of research). It is comparable with the less 'exact' rules in other sciences such as sociology, or history - where it doesn't work as in the exact sciences.

By the same token could we posit that a good scientist will always keep an eye on the philosophy behind almost everything (including their own discipline), not least with regard to the perennial question of existence and all questions directly related to it. Scientists normally do realize that science is not to be confounded with someone's mindset. It is a toolbox and our differences (e.g. theist vs. atheist state of mind) will use this toolbox in interesting, divergent ways. Our state of mind (or mindset, or worldview) may be less open than is good for us, so the toolbox may be ignored too much, or it may be overused (taking it for an 'explanation' of who we are altogether, for instance). In all these cases we clearly fail to be the questioning beings that we normally are. We invented the toolbox in the very first place because we wanted to improve our questioning.

Of course, this IS a 'philosophical position'. The word question relates our word quest, and a lot of people (including scientists) would agree with a statement like: "life is a quest (by very definition)".Of course, I would be very interested too, to understand the underlying 'wiring' for this behavior, and how this came to be. But the very nature of science, and how science came about historically, predicts that those answers will cause new questions. The paradox of us as meaning-creating beings is that the more we understand our "building blocks" (or wiring, our natural and physical constitution, even our astrophysical past as 'star stuff' and so on), the more we marvel and the more we tend to be on a quest for the meaning of it all. And this we will always express through arts such as music, or through spirituality and/or religion, and philosophical world view prototypes. And that, in turn, makes us again want to dig a little deeper into the 'how' of it all - which is how science came to exist in the first place.

I sometimes suspect that the writers of Genesis 1 were better philosophers than we tend to think. The ancients had their good philosophers too. They knew the Babylonians and Sumerians were very ancient cultures already - not just 6000 years old. Genesis 1 has a focus on the human being as unique being, it is ancient philosophy, not modern science. The 6000 years would be laughable even 4000 years ago - if to be taken literally. But of course, the ancients may not have been aware that we might have been here for, say, 30,000 years (first signs of real 'objects', not just stone axe-alike materials).

Less so could they know we were here already for some 140,000 years (back to our mitochondrial Eve). But even knowing that would not have been enough to answer your own question. Because we separated from the Great Apes for far longer, some 10 or 15 million years. No one can really understand what 10 million years means in terms of our own 'humanology' - this is far beyond our mental grasp. Let alone 4,5 billion years (planet earth), or the meaning of 13,7 billion years. But our mental understanding of meaning may not even go back 11,000 years. And if Julian Jaynes would be right, a "bicameral mind" would have lasted until some 3,500 years ago - which would not be very helpful in terms of understanding the "learning skill" of mankind you are looking after here.

I'm not a fan of Jaynes, but it could well be that the key to understanding the human learning skills may rather be found in close relationship to research on human consciousness, not in terms of, for instance, our DNA. And that, in turn, means that at some point, we happened to learn our self to become people capable to research 'their own story'. Now if that is true, then the answer to your question would be something like finding out who wrote the first intelligible 'book'...

Maybe Chomsky's language theory would give an indication of very strong, solid processes available for complex tasks to be achieved. But of course, it doesn't explain why it was available to humans alone this way. Fact is that in human beings the brain is extremely dynamic - its one hundred trillion synapses in the brain are not static connections. They change when it is required so (see, for instance, Andrew Neuberg & Mark R. Waldman's "How God Changes your Brain" (a book written by scientists and not from a religious point of view by the way). The thalamus for instance gives emotional meaning to our concepts as we learn them - including but not limited to concepts of God. This offers a capacity to come to a holistic sense of the world - clearly animals show no signs of having any such capacity available. It is easy to see - although it is not yet fully understood - that at some point humans became capable to make major leaps towards real learning.

This in turn may not have been just a matter of how brains evolved, but a matter of how the human mind (whatever *that* may be) sort of *required* from the brains to change this way. In stead of the (ugly) term "intelligent design" that ID-proponents advocate, we could think of an almost predestined urge to leap forward towards intelligence. But at the same time we also got upon us these responsibilities related to norms, values (also not known to other 'animals' as we are familiar with it). How this happened, technically? We know that natural selection isn't random, it rather selects for successful phenotypes, characteristics that may actually work, and it is very successful in doing so.

As a Christian I can only marvel about all of this. The more we discover, the more we may marvel about how ingenious we have been 'made' - and the word 'making', or 'creating' of you want, is just that: this sense of creativity that we have as human beings. From there on, we always discover that we want to 'make sense' of things that would otherwise be 'meaningless'. This is our great human faculty, we simply create meaning. And 'meaning' is exactly what supports our 'learning process' in a magnificant, brilliant way - because we want to understand all the bits and bytes in the grand scheme of things. The 'bit' and the 'it' (Weinberg). The meaning of be-ing. We learn because we 'are' who we are.

So the answer is, as it were, only possible by means of retrospection. We know that it happened in some way along those lines. But we only know it because this is how we make sense of it.