Credibility

How is the credibility of scientists hurt by them not claiming to know the answer, when they don't know the answer? Are they to be blamed because there are things that remain undiscovered? It may, in fact, be impossible to ever be certain about the origins of the first self-replicating molecules on earth due to lack of evidence. It's not a question of credibility.

Really?

Rafe, you of so little faith!

"It really looks as if scientific reason, not faith, has the world by the tail and on a downhill pull. Except for one thing. It can explain how it happened and why it happened but it cannot explain what made it happen."

Who is say that we will not be able to recreate in the lab that chemical soup and spark of energy that created life? That we will not be able to deduce the type and source of that energy? The human race has made discoveries that seemed out of the range of possibility at many points in our timeline. Why assume we are incapable of this one? My assumption is that you, along with many other believers, don't want the question to be pursued at all. How lacking of spiritiality a discovery that shows how it all began would be.

I have "faith" in humankind to discover that which looks impossible to know today. While I accept that I will probably be long gone before this discovery, humans have proven their quest for knowledge in concrete terms. This quest continues to make more and more religious doctrine irrelevant. Why should we assume that's going to change?

The meaning of God

Historically, atheists and fundamentalists are dance partners. Atheism is a reaction to the failures of an age of religion. In turn, fundamentalists contest the domination of godless science.

The scientific method is not the issue. The scientific mind does not draw an inference beyond conclusions that are supported by hard data. Therefore, agnostic science has no definitive opinion on the ‘first cause’ or ‘first mover’. Nor, does it need one!

One compromise has been the idea that there is a difference between the unknown and the unknowable. There is no incompatibility between the facts of life and the mystery of existence.

Many atheists commit one crucial mistake. Their disbelief is based on refuting the claims of institutional religion. That is, the God of fundamentalist Christians does not exist because the facts don’t agree with the claim that the world is only 6,000 years old.

You cannot prove that the Christian God does not exist merely from the errors of God’s agents.

On the other side, fundamentalists feel the need for certainty. They tout the bible (which version?) as the absolute truth.

This is a truly grievous error. One crucial aspect of Christianity is the matter of redemption. In the process of redemption, there must be choice. Removing any doubt removes choice.

In the Garden of Eden, God did not hide or protect The Fruit. He gave an instruction, and free will was born.

Quote:A nominal Anglican, I

The fundament of Christianity? The Oxford English Reference Dictionary indicates that fundament means buttocks or anus (from the Latin fundamentum).

The Immaculate Conception is not an Anglican doctrine. It is a Roman Catholic doctrine that was officially defined by Pope Pius IX in 1854. The Orthodox Church of Greece never accepted this doctrine. It has never subscribed to the Augustininan view of inherited guilt with respect to original sin. Adam was guilty of his own sin.

Time did not exist before the creation of creation. There was no before or after. And the idea of a causal effect assumes the existence of time which only exists within space-time. Creation is a one-way function and God is an encryption algorithm.

Rafe needs research

Rafe's columns are usually well researched, but this time he has made some serious errors of fact.

"... the evolutionists, have a problem with credibility as well. There is no doubt that they can trace the evolution of plants and animals but while they can demonstrate what happened they cannot explain the catalyst that made it happen."

That catalyst is natural selection. Variation in organisms means that some will survive to produce more offspring, and others don't. However, perhaps Rafe meant something else by "catalyst".

"When the amoeba split, what made that happen? One assumes that this amoeba had no DNA, being the first. If it didn't, how did it pass on characteristics which would lead to its descendants to go ashore, some to crawl and walk, others to fly? If this amoeba did have such catalystic genes, where did they come from?"

It is now clear that proteins and nucleic acids must have existed BEFORE the first truly living organisms. The first cells would have come into being in a liquid environment where there was already DNA, RNA, proteins, and other organic molecules. Some of these molecules would have had the ability to catalyze their own formation, and so there would have been a kind of "chemical natural selection" already operating, prior to the protection of these molecules inside cells.

Although organisms and organic molecules often show features of exquisite "design", they also have the most peculiar "kludges", or features that have been cobbled together from pre-existing parts. Consider the human appendix, or the way in which the digestive system crosses the airway. Such kludges also occur at the level of organic molecules. God, if you believe in him, is not so much a perfect designer, as a home handyman, re-using components in novel, but imperfect ways.

Rafe almost redeems his earlier errors in his concluding paragraphs. I agree that science ends at the Big Bang: before the Big Bang is, by definition, outside of our universe and not available for examination. But then he goes and demonstrates his ignorance by the following:

"Just as the religious leader can't explain where God came from neither can the scientist explain where the golf ball came from, what caused the explosion, where the oxygen needed for an explosion came from, nor can he tell us what was there before the universe."

The Big Bang was NOT a chemical explosion that would require oxygen, not even a nuclear explosion that wouldn't, but an explosion/expansion of space itself. All of existence rushed outwards from the initial "golf ball", finally spreading out to distances that allowed matter to be distinguished from energy.

So, Rafe, please do a little more research before you write your next piece on this subject.

Peter R

Peter R., that was an excellent,

clear-headed statement, showing that you have a real understanding of the issues.

Google my manifesto on irreducible complexity on Larry Moran's science blog for a continuation of your idea. Google this: 'truman green sandwalk,' then scroll down a bit. It's too long to recite here, eh.

I think, as you'll see why, that the existence of the genetic code and the creativity of the human immune system are obvious signals that there's some kind as yet unknown 'awareness' going on that has been in existence since the beginning.

Your explanation of the 'big bang' was fairly bang on, too.

Yet another spin....

...on the venerable Cosmological Argument.

Pointing out that atheists of varying stripes can't account for a prime-mover/first cause/creator-of-god etc. is all well and good. But first, take a crack at proving something like the following:

--All events have causes.
--Nothing can stand as a cause of itself.
--A causal chain cannot be of infinite length.

Without some proof or arguments towards these points, Rafe's implied argument suffers in the same way as countless others before it.

More metaphysics Rafe! Tell us why everything must have a cause....

deeby, the correct thought progression:

Universe are comprised of things within themselves; therefore nothing within the universe can be said to be caused by something outside of the universe except that which caused the universe itself.

Which means, I'm afraid, that the universe and everything inside of it was caused by something outside of the universe. Know what I mean?

Therefore something outside of the universe caused what we charmingly refer to as "the big bang," which was, as Peter R. says, our creative singularity before which not even chemicals existed.

Anything we say about the nature of that which exists outside of our universe (or other universes) must then, be purely speculation and religion, because our thought processes depend wholly upon contingencies which exist inside of the universe.

See what we're up against?

oxygen and Conservatives

"can the scientist explain where the golf ball came from, what caused the explosion, where the oxygen needed for an explosion"

Oxygen was not needed for the explosion.

"established the first day of creation as Sunday, 23 October, 4004 BC; that Adam and Eve were driven from Paradise on Monday, 10 November, 4004 BC; and that the ark touched down on Mt. Ararat on 5 May, 2348 BC, on a Wednesday "

90% of our Conservative members of parliament believe in addition that man walked with dinosaurs. That's why Harper keeps them closeted and a complacent press so fearful of religious rights lets him get away with it. Can anyone seriously expect somebody so simple minded as to believe this tripe to be of any use in governing the country.

Are you sure about that?

seth: "90% of our Conservative members of parliament believe in addition that man walked with dinosaurs."

We know that Stockwell Day believes that, but where do you get the 90% figure? During a recent Republican presidential debate they were asked to raise their hand if they didn't believe in evolution, and only two did.

In Canada, many consider these religious belief questions to be very personal and off limits unless the candidate makes it an issue themselves. I'm much more interested in what policies candidates are intending to bring to the country than their personal religious beliefs. I don't mind politicians keeping their religious beliefs "closeted". I wish more did.

God and Rafe vs those who know everything

PeterR

It matters little that Rafe may have some of it wrong; it matters that he is humble enough to ask the question. And for my part, I'd take a man who diligently seeks the truth, than one who believes s/he knows it all.

Although my parents seem not to have gone to church except to be married, my brother and I went to Sunday school and church most Sundays. Like Rafe, I no longer attend but still firmly believe in a superior being. Why? Because, when one sees the mess that homo sapiens is making of the job, it's the only thing that makes any sense.

Whether that superior being is "God", or merely a "better half" that each of us wishes we were, really doesn't matter, does it? So long as there exists a conscience, or a being that persuades us to strive to be better than the best that we are - isn't that worthwhile - whether or not oxygen is required for an explosion?

And talking of superior beings - despite the fact that we seem to have a surfeit of them around, 'skinda funny they haven't found solutions to all the problems that have plagued mankind since the beginning of time.

Rafe m'boy, you just keep on asking the questions, because somewhere out there lies an answer. And just because, as a little kid lying in bed at night looking at the the stars, when I could only make my mind go as far as the very, very, very edge of the black beyond, doesn't mean that, one day, I won't see what - or who - is on the other side.

If there is a God, we're in luck - because she/he won't hold it against us for making mistakes. And, if there is not, well by then it won't be a problem for us anymore, will it?

No problem, that is, until our evolved energy returns to find out just what kind of a mess the experts have made of this Earth while we've been away!

Flowers?

I agree, more flowers would be great. More sunshine? Uh-huh, down with that, too. Although there's no apostrophe in "moonbats".

But to get back on topic, although it's clear that Rafe Mair needs to do more research on this, we should not forget how true that is for most of us. We tend to hold forth on this issue from varying degrees of ignorance, so I commend even a relatively half-assed column if it provokes an already well-informed readership to dig even deeper, as many of the comments here reflect.

Why I love in evolutionary theory.

When I was a young boy I went to church with a friend several times. I was at an age where I didn't know about the controversy regarding God's existence, but I was old enough to question the doctrines and instructions that were conveyed to me by adults. While going to church for that brief period, I knew that in order to believe in God, I would have to lie to myself so excessively that I would eventually believe it myself. I didn't have the "faith" to do that. Over the past several years I have learned the theories and fundamentals of evolution. Quite unlike my experience with Christianity, I did not have to force myself to believe in evolution, because it makes sense in such a beautiful and all-encompassing way. Looking at some organisms and their adaptations to certain ways of life provides me with a feeling not unlike that one feels when completing a jigsaw puzzle and seeing the final picture. Evolutionary theory can be applied even to the existence of life to show that structures conducive to the formation of living organisms would be retained as favourable adaptations. I think that religion has clung tenaciously to Western civilization for an unreasonably long time for two reasons. Religious parents indoctrinate their children with religous teachings at a young age such that the child is developmentally unable to question the teachings. I know I trusted my parents without question about the existence of Santa Claus, the Tooth Fairy and the Easter Bunny. The second reason is that it is much easier to read and understand the Bible than the web of biological research and evolutionary theory needed to see the true basis of evolution. The author of this column evidently has a flawed understanding of the fundamentals of evolution and cell biology, which is unfortunately very similar to the understanding possessed by the majority of our population.

maybe it is mission impossible

http://www.karmadude.com/?m=20051126

has it that:

“Who really knows? Who will here proclaim it? Whence was it produced? Whence is this creation? The gods came afterwards, with the creation of the universe. Who then knows whence it has arisen?
Whence this creation has arisen - perhaps it formed itself, or perhaps it did not - the one who looks down on it, in the highest heaven, only he knows - or perhaps he does not know.”
Rigveda, 10. 129.
English translation by Wendy Doniger O’Flaherty
in The Rig Veda: An Anthology

Hedging Your Bets, Rafe?

Hedging your bets, Rafe? Why else would you refer to yourself as a nominal Anglican or say that you still believe in Jesus' teachings?

Read a red-letter Bible (one with the supposed words of Jesus in red type) and you'll see that Jesus taught he was the ONLY way to God. He also taught that if you didn't accept and believe him you would burn in hell. Do you really believe in all of Jesus' teachings or do you, like so many, cherry-pick only those you are comfortable with.

So you believe in a superior power? What does that mean, anyway?

On demanding answers

While many potential responses ocurred to me while reading Raif's essay and the responses above, I think I'll just contribute a story attributed to the Buddha. I don't have the exact text in front of me just now, but it was something like this...

A passionate mystic who had joined the Buddha's following suddenly demanded that the Buddha give his own enlightened explanation to resolve a long list of ancient cosmological/metaphysical questions or else the mystic would reject the Buddha's teachings and leave the following.

After first clarifying that the mystic understood that the Buddha had never promised to clarify these questions, he began to talk about a person who had just been shot with a poison arrow. In his rhetorical manner, the buddha asked if it would be sensible for the victim to restrain anyone from helping him until the victim understood various things, such as:
what kind of wood was the arrow made from? Was the bowstring that shot the arrow made from catgut or hemp? Did the archer come from a well-to-do family? Was the arrow shot from a short hunting bow, or some other kind? These were not his exact questions, but his point was that the sensible thing wasn't to demand to know, there and then, the answer to those questions. Rather, the sensible thing would be to draw out the arrow and poison and treat the wound.

Do you want answers, or do you want a method?

JoeU

For the hundred of thousands of years that humans have existed on Earth, it is curious that God has only revealed himself to us in the last few thousand years. Which makes me believe that god has only existed for as long as people have said he exists - which isn't much of an existance at all.

I am that I am

JoeU wrote:

Some would call this an incorrect translation of the Hebrew.

Many translations render it as "I am that I am".

This reading of the phrase has been the source of arguments that God is his own 'sufficient reason', i.e. he causes himself to exist.

This dodges some of the issues lurking in Rafe's implicit cosmological argument, e.g. it avoids an infinite regress of cause/effect, and affirms that one thing can indeed be 'self-caused'.

The problem with the whole enterprise, in my opinion, is that it seems to torture the conventional meaning of the terms 'cause' and 'effect' a bit, so I find it no more convincing than various other attempts to argue God into existence.

That said, I see a legitimate role for faith here. If you're lucky enough to have it, treasure it....

Not power - powers

So you believe in a superior power? What does that mean, anyway?
- That would be what the people in Banda Aceh and in New Orleans met with.

Which came first?

Which came first the chicken or the egg?

What if there is a God and a heaven?

What if this present life (right now) is actually heaven?

In a war, which side is God on? The one that asks for his blessing the most?

If so, God bless all of us, not just America!

People made Gods

Gods gave people confidence in life and helped them win battles.
A godless person has nothing really to fight for. A god delusion is an atribute in a darwinian world.
The Fitter Gods prospered with their people makers.

Open versus shut

If anyone is to find answers to the questions of ultimate meaning, it can only be someone who still believes in asking questions, not someone who believes they have all the answers already.

The basic message of religious certainty -- and fundamentalist Christians are not alone in this -- is that we already have all the answers. The basic message of scientific enquiry is that we do not and we should keep on searching.

For all science's regrettable hubris -- and the terrible mechanistic worldview that has brought us the ecological crisis is a prime example -- it pales compared to the vanity of those religious zealots who tell us all truth is already revealed.

This is about two kinds of minds: open and closed.

I don't know is ok

There is no doubt that they can trace the evolution of plants and animals but while they can demonstrate what happened they cannot explain the catalyst that made it happen.

I agree with booker.

There are lots of things science can't explain. Does this mean that supernatural forces are the only other possibility? I don't understand the notion that if science can't explain something, there only other possible explanation is god.

There have been plenty of things that we didn't understand 200 years ago but now do. Yes, it is posible that we may never completely know the catalyst. I don't know is a perfectly acceptable answer. The creationist idea seems to be, if in doubt make something up.

Anyone Curious Enough.......

.....about what DIDN'T go into the Bible? There were more scrolls and texts that didn't than did.

Maybe Rafe's answer is in the stuff the RC Church supressed:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cathar

religion arose to explain the unexplainable

ergo,... today we cannot explain the BIG BANG, so we are doing like humans did in the past and attribute this to a divinity or several gods (as the case may be).

But, to come back to what some poster mentioned about the imperfections of the religious doers here on Earth (to explain all the anomalies and the evil events). Assuming God is till around (if s/he is shouldn't s/he?), wouldn't it get rid of the Bush and PolPot of this world? And, why would I follow a religion which is imperfectly transmitted/communicated by mortals? If this is not right, then this might not be right? Why bother?

Religion makes the rich very happy and the poor quietly hoping a better day will come.

Too bad so many get suckered into it and so many commit crimes for it.

what if there was no god, no heaven, nothing,...

I mean the evidence that there might be a god, a heaven is so poor that you wonder why people would believe this.

But, the wealthy and the powerful control the poor giving them the hope that they will (ya ... sure) have better days! Like so, the poor can stay poor and the rich can stay rich!

It is so sad!

Boney

Religion is what keeps the poor from murdering the rich.

Napoleon Bonaparte

Religion is the opium of the people ... Marx

And we did legalize it ... and, paradoxically, that's the only "drug" we shouldn't have (oranized religion more specifically). We are free to believe what we want, but organized religions infiltrated cultures, controlling the masses who ... believed, faithfully, that a better day would come. They are still waiting, much to the relief of the rich and the powerful (the Vatican and the multitude of sect-like American Protestant religion groups included).

Not that simple

"Religion is what keeps the poor from murdering the rich."

Don't cut all religions with one knife here. This is only true for the Abrahamic religions, which have the idea of sin and mea culpa built in. Many pre-christian religions do not forbid you to murder anyone, and what in those cultures would keep the poor from murdering the rich would be a pragmatic evaluation that being rich isn't everything it's cracked up to be, that you cannot take it with you, and that true wealth in this world is what is inside your head, and what you managed to do in putting your bit of a stamp on this world before you left it.

Here is a sample of writ of a religious nature, which would certainly put the striving for material wealth in its place...

74.
He that learns nought will never know
how one is the fool of another,
for if one be rich another is poor
and for that should bear no blame.

75.
Cattle die and kinsmen die,
thyself too soon must die,
but one thing never, I ween, will die, --
fair fame of one who has earned.

76.
Cattle die and kinsmen die,
thyself too soon must die,
but one thing never, I ween, will die, --
the doom on each one dead.

77.
Full-stocked folds had the Fatling's sons,
who bear now a beggar's staff:
brief is wealth, as the winking of an eye,
most faithless ever of friends.

78.
If haply a fool should find for himself
wealth or a woman's love,
pride waxes in him but wisdom never
and onward he fares in his folly.

The above is an excerpt of the Havamal (old Norse for 'speech of the high one'.)

I am a little sick and tired of the assumption everywhere and held by almost everyone, that if wealth was available to people who do not have it now, everyone would grab it no questions asked. Some of us have understood better than that, what is important in this life. Many times, though, because money is all that is between us, it becomes the only translation for that parameter, which is far more important, but much harder to elucidate, namely respect. If there is an overarching social ill in our community, it is the profound disrespect we have the nerve to show each other. We have, to some extent, done it to ourselves by making ourselves a far too cheap commodity. If one relationship, workwise or personal, does not 'pan out', we can go shopping for another one. There is no village which knows our track record. Some people see that as 'endless possibilities' and freedom. I see it as a wandering in the desert. True social change would be, if we started seeing each other as irreplaceable. ZPG if that's what it takes. That would really be revolutionary.

re not that simple ... indeed ...

Good point that indeed not all religions are the same,...

And, sure, money isn't everything, as long as one has enough for one's basic needs and one is not working like a mad dog to keep up with the Jones, exploiting everyone in one's path and the Earth.

The issue though is more about the exploitation of the weak (aided by most religions) for the benefit of the rich who have a stress free life as a result. Now, ok, there are some rich people who have worked hard, have made huge sacrifices, and deserve a little more, but many poor and average earners could claim the same kinds of sacrifices and work ethic without the accompanying benefits! I think this is the crux of the problem and the problem of most religion (and caste systems [linguistic or socially based]).

For those rich folks (and those are the majority) who have inherited money or networks or their parent'factory/house(s),... due to some illegal or exploitative deeds (or chance), religion is great (and so is monarch, BTW). Just like the caste system in India or the linguistic castes (whereby your accent or use of words determines the type of people you can or cannot mingle with) or the social casts (nobility names, names, and race, gender,...), these folks are given virtual protection for not redistributing this money to the masses. These folks do not have to work and can play most of their lives. The Marcos of the Phillipines are a great example of that anomaly.

It is also the exploitation of the Earth with the great impacts it has on other species and on ourselves.

So, until all the rich folks share their extra BMWs, their extra cottage by the sea, their superfluous jet, and their extra mistress(es), I will keep stating that religion is indeed a convenient way for the rich and powerful to control the poor.

PS: I have other issues with religion, such as their sin-based dogma, their heaven/hell fake reward/punishment system, their control of sex and marriages, but I must keep my comments to a minimum! :)

Thou art

I suppose I have to weigh in here. Sigh. I just can't resist this kind of stuff.

The reason the answer is so hard to come by is that the question is just silly.

All language is metaphor. It gives no particular access to ultimate reality. If any such access is available, it won't be in a book. Or in an argument.

You wanna know how it started? Why would you care? What do you think starting is, anyway? Is it supposed to be a real thing? What would it look like, if you saw it?

It occurs to me I've never seen a starting. Or an ending either, for that matter. A lot of transformations, though.

God. No God. Time. No time. Truth. Please. Who do you think you are?

Or better, who do you think we are?

Eh?

“So, until all the rich folks share their extra BMWs, their extra cottage by the sea, their superfluous jet, and their extra mistress(es), I will keep stating that religion is indeed a convenient way for the rich and powerful to control the poor.”

So, do I read this correctly? Not sharing all their superfluous junk is a way of controlling what you do with your life? Personally, I do not know what I would do with their stuff, as it wouldn’t even remotely serve to address what I think of as my mission in this life. Rather, it would be a liability to be lumbered with someone else’s choice in hardware, real estate and electronics, not to mention flesh.

If these people put themselves up as captains of something, industry or whatever, we can hold their feet to the fire in regard to living up to a set of standards in how they deal with the environment, their politically rationalized choices in atrocities and so on, but as far as the material stuff go, they’re really just suckers on a bigger scale. Make no mistake about it.

Hail johnny Appleseed!