What should I tell a school boy very interested to follow a career in science when he hears that evolutionary science contradicts his faith and everything he has been taught by his parents, school and religious leaders? Why should there have to be a choice between science, being religious and faith?
These questions by a leading science communicator at last week’s first South African Reporting Science Communication Conference in Johannesburg, led to a very interesting and at times vehement debate during question time after I had delivered my paper on the theme Bridging the Divide: Why Scientists and Journalists Should Communicate Better.
Other speakers at the conference were Chris Smith from the popular BBC radio series The Naked Scientist, as well as the Deputy President of World Federation of Science Journalists, Diran Onifade, from Nigeria; Prof. Lee Berger, Head of Paleoanthropology, University of the Witwatersrand; Dr Mark Tadross, Climatologist, University of Cape Town; Dr Francois Venter, Clinical Director, Esselen Street Clinic & Reproductive Health & HIV Research Unit; and Christina Scott, Head of SAFSJ and a prominent South African science journalist.
A lecturer from the Tshwane University of Technology emphasised that Intelligent Design should be regarded as science and asked why children could not be given the choice in science classrooms to make up their own minds about what version of the origin of life, creationism or evolution, they can accept.
“Why not teach both, and let them decide for themselves whether God created the Universe, the Earth and all living beings, or whether the theory of evolution is indeed valid,” he argued.
In my paper I gave statistics of a recent national representative survey of South Africans on their views on the origin of humans and life. The survey showed for example that 86% of South Africans believe God or an Intelligent Designer created human beings more or less in their present form at one time within the last 10,000 years or so; that 2% believe human beings have developed over millions of years from less advanced forms of life, but God or an Intelligent Designer guided this process; and only 12% believe human beings have developed over millions of years from less advanced forms of life, but God or an Intelligent Designer had no part in this process.
From the survey it is clear that the strong creationist viewpoint and the Intelligent Design support – therefore the view that God created the earth and all life – are totally overwhelming (88%), whereas the scientific basis of evolutionary theory is accepted by only about 1 in 8 South Africans.
This is a frightening reality of South Africa and clearly shows science plays a very minor role in the knowledge of the country who wants to compete internationally. It really also means South Africans are scientifically illiterate when only 1 in 8 people accepts the scientific version of the development of life on Earth.
The fact is science and religion are not compatible, no matter how much compatibility is propagated by religious people who believe in miracles – against all laws of nature.
My answer to that school boy would be frank and clear: you have to make a choice between science and religion, you cannot have it both ways.
I agree with Richard Dawkins that religious instruction and indoctrination of young children is nothing less than child abuse, as he explained in The God Delusion. To tell children that there is a creator god who will guard over them, without giving them the evidence, is nothing less than a lie.
Rather tell them why so many scientists, the most knowledgable people I would trust when it comes to the laws of probability for the existence of a creator god, today do not in fact believe in such an Intelligent Designer.
In fact, statistics prove that scientists have become less and less religious as knowledge and scientific findings grow.
This is very clear from research studies, especially after modern genetics and genomics have at the beginning of the 20th century started to prove that Darwin was in fact right about natural selection in his theory of evolution. Today the theory has grown to a set of facts overwhelmingly accepted by the scientific community.
In two studies in 1914 and 1933 scientists of the British Royal Society – the most prestigeous scientific organisation in the world – were asked the following: Do you believe in a God that communicates with people and to whom you can pray and from whom you can expect an answer? Yes, No, and I do not know were the only possible answers. The studies were repeated in 1996 and 1998. Between 1914 and 1998 the percentage of scientists – it includes human scientists – who believe in God, remained constant at about 40%.
But among the natural sciences’ elite – winners of Nobel prizes, the Field medal for mathematics and other prestigeous prizes in the natural sciences – only 30% believed in God in 1914. By 1933 this figure had dwindled to only 20%.
In 1998, only 10% of the elite scientists of the American National Academy of Science (NAS), the Royal Society’s peer across the Atlantic, believed in God, where biologists were most represented, according to figures given by the British scientist Lewis Wolpert in his book Six Impossible Things Before Breakfast.
This is an important finding because the theory of evolution forms the basis of biological science.
Dawkins refers in The God Delusion to the Larson en Witham study of 1998 in which it was established that only a very small percentage of top scientists of the Royal Society believe in a God and an everlasting life. Only 3,3% of Britain’s top scientists agreed to the statement that a personal god does exist.
These vital figures should be given to every parent, teacher and science communicator who are asked by a child whether believe in a creator god and a career in science are compatible.
No, they are not. Be honest with your children about the findings of science. Do not continue with this abuse of young children’s minds and their future.
Science is the only way to ensure the survival of the human species on this planet, not religion. In fact, religion often stands in the way of science to create a better life. The choice is clear.
Religion has been, and will always be a tool to sujugate the masses, whether it be Christian dogma, as evidenced by the alarmists coming out against The Golden Compass movie- so what if its anti-God? The Narnia Chronicles are pro-God, I’m a non-believer and enjoyed them no less for that, what are they afraid of?
Or whether it be Islamic fundamentalism, with the accent on MENTAL- Witness the insanity surrounding the naming of a teddy bear Mohammed. I’ve been moved to write some verse about it in my blog
Comment by kevmoore — November 30, 2007 @ 2:41 pm |
George,
Cant agree more.
To present old people with the power of reason when their minds are filled with faith is near impossible and i think the focus must be on the youth.
We must allow the old people to die and religion with them.
The only way to do this is to deny people the right to indoctrinate children with mysticism – thus a petition to the minister of education (as much as i hate appealing to these assholes) to ban religion from public schools.
There must surely be a constitutional basis for such a petition?
Comment by Objective — November 30, 2007 @ 2:51 pm |
People have all sorts of belief systems even science. I’m sure you’ve heard people say do you believe in evolution or do you belive in gobal warming. Science evolves over time and often directly contradicts previously held truths. If you read Darwins work carefully, he is highly influenced by religion.
The blending of science and religion happens most in how you apply values and ethics in science. There are all sorts of ethical dilemmas as technology progresses and science really doesn’t have a mechanism for dealing with them.
Here’s one for you. If you believe in something that makes your life better and helps the people around you, should it be eliminated because the belief is either wrong or unprovable.
How about this, if you teach something about science that later proves to be wrong is that child abuse. Just talk a look at what science has done in the back and forth about breast feeding.
Comment by Steve Rosenbaum — November 30, 2007 @ 3:12 pm |
George, ek dink jy het ‘n punt beet hier, maar jy ekstrapoleer dit myns insiens ‘n bietjie te ver.
Ek besef jy appropriëer die begrip “child abuse” om by jou betoog te pas. Tog, hoewel jy dit nie sê nie, laat jou betoog dit klink asof godsdiens omtrent die enigste vorm van kindermishandeling is. Ek sou eerder wou aanvoer dat dit een van vele vorme kan wees en dat die verwydering van godsdiens (in elk geval ‘n nagenoeg onmoontlike taak) nie noodwendig ander vorme van kindermishandeling gaan stop nie.
Hoewel ek ook besef dat hierdie blog veral in die konteks van ‘n teenkanting teen Bible beltery (oooh…oulike term) fungeer, wil ek ook aanvoer dat jy die begrip “godsdiens” oorvereenvoudig tot juis daardie einste Bible beltery. Ek dink ‘n paar Boeddhiste mag jou standpunt dalk irrelevant vind.
Ewenwel. Prikkelende artikel.
Comment by Johan Swarts — November 30, 2007 @ 8:01 pm |
Steve Rosenbaum,
i wont comment on the rest of your post – it has been dealt with in depth elsewhere on this blog.
I will add that i agree re the konsept: belief.
It is increasingly being used in the place of *I know* mostly as a result of the work of people like Popper, Kant and others and recent criticism of induction. These philosophers succeeded essentially because there are none that could counter it intellectually and because most scientists worth their salt cant be bothered with philosophy and more specifically with epistemology.
“How about this, if you teach something about science that later proves to be wrong is that child abuse. ”
Not at all. If you teach a child science you teach him a method of reasoning. If you teach him religion yuou fuck up his mind because the brain is the most flexible of all organs in the body. But despite that it develops a basic structure early in life and all the rest of our knowledge is built upon this structure. To alter such a structure is near impossible in adult although it can be done.
I forget when it happened most probably in the later part of the middle ages. There was a group of people who took children and broke their bones of forced their feet into containers in order to deform them for the amusement of kings and the public in general. Such people were known as the Comprachicos. These people however left the mind to develop insomuch as it could when the body is tortured.
Our modern society is oh so concerned with the protection of the body but we have no qualms whatsoever about deforming the brain and the ultimate mind. We who care for that mind do not laugh at this cruelty – we get angry because it is allowed to happen. A person whose brain was filled with all sorts of mystical concepts as a child not only develop an inefficient brain in most critical respects but also an ineffective brain when it comes to having to solve problems in the course of their lives.
Comment by Objective — December 1, 2007 @ 6:01 am |
You have a very well written post that I couldn’t disagree with more. Stating that religion and science condtridict each other is a false dictomy. Indoctrinating children in religion is not child abuse. Instructing children in vitrues such as peace, love, joy, patience, hope, kindness and to love others as themselves is good thing. True there have been a lot of wrongs done in the name of religion. Christianity should not be about dogma and rules, but rather a realationship with God.
Comment by thedeezone — December 1, 2007 @ 3:07 pm |
I get the feeling that you view of religious education is a lot like the Manchurian candidate. Believe it or not, there are religions that actually promote discussion and agrument about doctorine and even the existence of a God.
Anyway, most of what we learn doesn’t come from the classroom. My proof of this is if you’ve ever watched an episode of “Are you smarter than a 5th grader?” Most people have forgotten that information, if they ever knew it, because it was either irrelavant or never used.
Comment by Steve Rosenbaum — December 1, 2007 @ 3:39 pm |
I fully support the teaching of evolution in schools. From my limited understanding, the scientific basis for this theory is overwhelming. I am struck, however, by the tenacity with which some evolutionary scientists (such as Dawkins) attempt to eradicate everything that even smells like religion from the classrooms. You may be right in this respect, Christians who cling to their dogma as fiercely as folks like Dawkins cling to his may well be committing a form of child abuse.
Comment by pistolpete — December 1, 2007 @ 3:59 pm |
Child abuse? What an overreaction! You, Dawkins and others of your elitist stripe seem to be running scared. Religion and science are two different things and, as such, cannot be mutually exclusive. To believe in a creator as the originator of life requires no more of a leap of faith than to believe in spontaneous generation. What are you afraid of? Every child eventually sorts through the information and makes a decision about faith. If they do not, then God bless ‘em, they probably didn’t need to.
How far do you think you will get by relegating everyone who disagrees with you to the stupid category? dwhitsett.wordpress.com
Comment by dwhitsett — December 1, 2007 @ 4:16 pm |
Burning a child with a ciggerate, or starving them to death, or even calling them stupid or worthless is child abuse. In the state (U.S.A.)that I live washing a child’s mouth out with soap is considered child abuse. Teaching Intelligent Design in schools (which I vehemently disagree with) IS NOT child abuse. I’m sure your an intelligent person, you seem to be well read (which isn’t the same as intellligent); but you cheapened your argument fatally. And also, by writing those words you’ve detracted from severity of child abuse. Shame on you.
Comment by leahwatson — December 1, 2007 @ 7:18 pm |
1) J. Bronowski argues that science is a creative activity. He says: “For no fact in the world is instant, infinitesimal and ultimate, a single mark…In the language of science, every fact is a field–a crisscross of implications,those that lead to it and those that lead from it.” (Bronowski, Science and Human Values, 1956)
2)I attended a Science and Religion Conference at St. Andrews Presbyterian College several years ago. The featured speakers were Dr. John Haught (Georgetown and the Metanexus Institute)and Dr. James Miller (Metanexus Institute). One of the most notable things I walked away with was a comment made by Dr. Haught in which he described what and how much we really know about the universe. Paraphrased, I recall the image of a book case with 25 ordered books, each volume having 1000 pages detailing the history and formation of the universe. What humankind knows is contained on one page of the last volume. (My apologies to Dr. Haught for the inaccuracies in my recollection.)
The point I’d like to make is that science is not an end in itself. It cannot explain the entire history and timeline of our world without acknowledging the “unknowns.” And to say that science trumps religion when it comes to the unknowns compromises “freedom of mind.” (Bronowski)
The creation dilemma does not have to be the point where a winner between science and religion is decided. Perhaps it should be the point of convergence where the relationship between science and human values is discussed positively, cooperatively, and progressively.
Comment by writemyline — December 1, 2007 @ 8:27 pm |
dwhitsett – I think the point that religion and science are two different things is exactly the point this post tries to make – it is the creationists who try to put intelligent design into a science classroom who are trying to pretend they are the same thing.
leahwatson – I worked in mental health services for 25 years and I can confirm without a doubt that religion can be child abuse for exactly the reason that pistolpete suggests – by binding a child’s mind and not allowing freedom of thought the most terrible abuse can be perpetrated. I have also seen how faith can be beneficial and comforting though – but don’t underestimate the power of indoctrination from an early age.
Comment by snowqueen — December 1, 2007 @ 10:01 pm |
It’s not about science, it’s about history. It’s not about what one swears is true. It is all about history. When you skip 300 years and go directly to the “The Christ” as a diety you do a great disservice to a man who tried to reform Judiasm and bring a greater good to his religion at that time. The Pagan roots of Christianity go back as far as Horus in 5000 BC and Mithras in 1200 BC. Christmas is the celebration of “The Christ’s” birthday in 312 AD set from the old pagan birthdate of the Sun God Helios. The Emperor Constantine’s worship of ancient paganism was absorbed into Christianity (including the halo around Helios’ head) to provide this gullible King with the promise from the Pope of becoming a deity at the right hand of God after death, at the Council of Nicea. The East and West then merged to one empire for a short time.
The Church never anticipated the arrival of the printing press and it’s effect on the educational standards of the general populace that rose above the common itinerant of the dark ages and found reason and logic from which to begin their own understanding of the history and how severely incomplete the codex called the Bible was pasted together by those bishops in 312 AD.
I am grateful that the founding fathers-the majority of whom were pantheists, deists, and other sects that are exclusive of organized religion, saw fit to allow all forms of belief in this country as well freedom from religion as well. Now if we can just get these misguided fanatics to understand that God printed on money is not Jesus, but the spirit of what man’s best belief is the eternal, the sooner these supposed innocuous sounding emails about the placement of the word God in the Constitution, the Declaration of Independence, and the currency is not a license to proclaim that proves their God exists and be willing to make others suffer, kill for or die for the concept of a belief system.
In the grand scheme of things whether one believes in a spiritual force that is called God or believes in the essence of life that permeates each living thing, doesn’t really matter. We will all return to the dust that is carbon-based and time will march on oblivious to silly human farcical notions of what IT is.
Comment by onlymoments — December 1, 2007 @ 10:47 pm |
Well, science can’t objectively prove that child abuse is “wrong”. Or that living in error is “bad” regardless of what objective facts are. So following the strict method of rejecting anything that I can’t prove in quantifiable terms, I refuse to accept that it matters that creationism is objectively incorrect. Oops, the uber-materialists defeat again any chance to make their agenda work.
Religion = child abuse? Ridiculous. I work with abused children, it’s not the same kids that are raised by loving religious parents that I encounter elsewhere. What a silly, small-minded approach to a very large question. You are just as bad and just as dangerous and religious fanatics. Religious fanatics are at least often driven by some positive ideal; anti-religious fanatics seem to be driven more by nihilism and a hatred of religion than any real worthwhile idea.
Comment by parallelsidewalk — December 2, 2007 @ 2:11 am |
Why do you not understand?
Why do you not listen?
The human, is religious.
Pick a religion.
Pick anything.
Science or Rationality or Love or Compassion or…
That is enough.
Comment by lousirr — December 2, 2007 @ 2:53 am |
We shall teach.
We shall teach science.
Let creationism live.
Do not attack.
Just teach.
Science.
Comment by lousirr — December 2, 2007 @ 2:56 am |
Science. The language of men.
Meh. The language of angels.
Learn to translate.
Or learn to accept.
Or prepare to die.
Comment by lousirr — December 2, 2007 @ 2:58 am |
I believe in creation because the idea of evolution just completely does not make sense to me.
With evolution, there’s no basis for truth, for right and wrong, for compassion, love, grace, mercy, gratitude. We’re merely animals. We don’t have any way to determine right and wrong, or good and bad. It’s just our nature.
Teaching evolution only is far more close-minded than teaching creation and evolution — in fact, it is more so. What if (just what if) evolution wasn’t true? Then we’ve taught the children lies.
I, for one, believe in the freedom of conscience — I can believe what I want to believe, and I have the right to act on that belief — to teach creation to my children, in this instance.
Comment by jessielynnr — December 2, 2007 @ 3:29 am |
Well, at least you were able to avoid any nasty ad hominem attacks! Thanks for keeping it all above the belt. When I first saw your title, I was skeptical, but your charity and fairness in dealing with boths sides of the discussion were evident throughout.
Huzzah to you, sir!
Comment by bigmikey — December 2, 2007 @ 5:33 am |
In response to Jessielynnr:
“With evolution, there’s no basis for truth, for right and wrong, for compassion, love, grace, mercy, gratitude. We’re merely animals.”
YES, we are animals, first and foremost. I suggest you get used to that idea. We are animals, which is why we feel sexual urges before marriage, why procreation has nothing to do with marriage, why we bleed every month, why we eat other animals, why we kill people who stand in our way, like any predatory animals would. The abstract concepts you’re talking about like truth, right, wrong, developed as we got more intelligent. But in our cores, we are nothing but animals.
Comment by Shumyla — December 2, 2007 @ 6:58 am |
Shumyla,
“YES, we are animals, first and foremost. I suggest you get used to that idea. ”
only up to a point. Biologically we function like certain animals – mammals.
Intellectually however we do not function like any other animal on earth.
We learn every single unit of knowledge – initially from the environment (objectively) and then we are fed the hogwash (subjective bullshit)by the people around us. It is against this subjective nonsens that we object.
It is precisely the subjective irrationality that leads to brain structures that output behaviour such as physical abuse of children and adults. Thus teaching children the imaginings of our sick brains is a form of abuse.
Comment by Objective — December 3, 2007 @ 5:37 am |
Dwhittsett,
“Religion and science are two different things and, as such, cannot be mutually exclusive.”
Uhmmm excuse me? Do you know what “mutually exclusive” means??
” To believe in a creator as the originator of life requires no more of a leap of faith than to believe in spontaneous generation.”
yah mass is not a property of matter – it had to be created. the hydrogen oxygen bond is not a spontaneous process – it gets created.
Who created your damn god?
“What are you afraid of? Every child eventually sorts through the information and makes a decision about faith. ”
You confuse our anger at your abuse of children with fear. What are YOU afraid of?
If they do not, then God bless ‘em, they probably didn’t need to.
“How far do you think you will get by relegating everyone who disagrees with you to the stupid category? dwhitsett.wordpress.com”
WE do not relegate anybody to that category. Religious believers relegate themselves to the stupid category.
Comment by Objective — December 3, 2007 @ 5:45 am |
Objective wrote: “The only way to do this is to deny people the right to indoctrinate children with mysticism – thus a petition to the minister of education (as much as i hate appealing to these assholes) to ban religion from public schools. There must surely be a constitutional basis for such a petition?”
I was wondering the same thing. The info I got hold of leads to the conclusion that “Religious Education” is permitted and that “Religious Instruction” is not constitutional and therefore frowned upon. However, it does appear that there is a lot of “Religious Instruction/Indoctrination” going on. Three years ago I had a run in with a teacher when she told my son that “All people who do not believe in Jesus are bad people”. It was not a public school though, still crèche level.
thedeezone wrote: “Indoctrinating children in religion is not child abuse. Instructing children in vitrues such as peace, love, joy, patience, hope, kindness and to love others as themselves is good thing.”
Teaching children that if they do not adhere to your dogma they will be tortured in hell forever is not child abuse? I know a lot of Christians reject the concept of hell but there are still a lot of Christians that do threaten their children with such eternal cruelty.
pistolpete wrote: “I am struck, however, by the tenacity with which some evolutionary scientists (such as Dawkins) attempt to eradicate everything that even smells like religion from the classrooms.”
The outrage has been an effort to keep religion out of science classes. However, why should Christians be allowed to preach religion in any public school? They have churches for that. But no, their target is not so much their own kids than everyone else’s kids. They want to indoctrinate the kids of Deists, Agnostics, Muslims, Buddhists, Atheists, Pagans, New Agers and other Christian groups with different views.
dwhitsett wrote: “Every child eventually sorts through the information and makes a decision about faith.”
Just the fact that the overwhelming majority of people keep to the religion of their childhood should surprise you then. If the virtue of doubt is suppressed from a very young age then it gets even worse. Garbage in, Garbage out.
leahwatson wrote: “Burning a child with a ciggerate, or starving them to death, or even calling them stupid or worthless is child abuse.”
Funny thing, I was under the impression that a lot of Christians teach their kids that without Jesus as personal savior you are dirty, sinful, useless, the Devils child, unrighteous, lustful, wicked etc etc.
parallelsidewalk wrote: “You are just as bad and just as dangerous and religious fanatics. Religious fanatics are at least often driven by some positive ideal; anti-religious fanatics seem to be driven more by nihilism and a hatred of religion than any real worthwhile idea.”
No. We are sick and tired of religious attacks on science, such as ID and creationism. We are sick and tired of people who think they have a God given right to indoctrinate kids in school. We are sick and tired of religion masquerading their lies as science. We are sick and tired of religious people who think Global Warming is a hoax and that Jesus is coming soon to fix it anyway. You whine about “anti-religious fanatics”. What are *you* doing to stop the threat of Christian fanatics in your own tent? We are driven by nihilism? How about we are a reaction to a very real threat?
jessielynnr wrote: ” I believe in creation because the idea of evolution just completely does not make sense to me.”
Classic argument from ignorance. I do not understand how a virus works so I believe it is demons that give people AIDS. You live in the computer age. If you do not understand evolution, educate yourself. http://www.talkorigins.org is where I started.
jessielynnr wrote: “With evolution, there’s no basis for truth, for right and wrong, for compassion, love, grace, mercy, gratitude. We’re merely animals. We don’t have any way to determine right and wrong, or good and bad. It’s just our nature.”
Uh, actually there are good explanations for things such as compassion and love, even considering selfish genes. Funny thing that mothers with no oxytocin (hormone- ) reject their children? If love, compassion and trust are regulated by a hormone (and others), then what is your problem with evolution? Could it be religious?
jessielynnr wrote: ” I, for one, believe in the freedom of conscience – I can believe what I want to believe, and I have the right to act on that belief – to teach creation to my children, in this instance.”
That’s great. Just stay away from my kids. mkay?
Shumyla at comment 20 – Yes.
Objective wrote: “It is precisely the subjective irrationality that leads to brain structures that output behavior such as physical abuse of children and adults. Thus teaching children the imaginings of our sick brains is a form of abuse.”
Teaching kids our imaginations is a good thing, like we do with stories etc. However, teaching them that to doubt the reality of our imaginations (or that our imaginations are divine truth), by punishment of eternal hellfire is child abuse, IMHO. The religious memes normally locks down on doubt. This prohibits a lot of children to question, test and discover and might affect other areas in their lives. There might be an evolutionary thing involved here. Kids need to trust their parents. “Don’t pull the saber tooth tail!”. The ones that did not listen did not pass on their genes. This almost blind trust might be the very thing religion abuses to propagate itself through generations. If follows that if one applies evolution (replicate with changes + Natural selection) that religious memes are a tough organism in itself and will exploit our humanity for it’s own replication. It is very successful.
Comment by Renier — December 3, 2007 @ 9:48 am |
Renier, if it bugs you folks so much to be living amongst us idiot Christians, why don’t you just move to a country where atheists are in charge? Try Cuba or China or Russia or even Zimbabwe, right next door.
Comment by Rooibaard — December 3, 2007 @ 10:40 am |
Rooibaard wrote: “Renier, if it bugs you folks so much to be living amongst us idiot Christians, why don’t you just move to a country where atheists are in charge? Try Cuba or China or Russia or even Zimbabwe, right next door.”
It’s ok. The NG Church is no longer in charge of SA…
Comment by Renier — December 3, 2007 @ 11:11 am |
“It’s ok. The NG Church is no longer in charge of SA…”
Which explains why murder and mayhem is at the order of the day.
Comment by Rooibaard — December 3, 2007 @ 11:42 am |
Rooibaard wrote (#26):
Actually, no. The real explanation™ is to be found in all of that seething, repressed biologically based racism engendered and scientifically supported by evolution. Of course, that bastion of moral rectitude, the NG church, has opposed these evils all along since, oh, forever…
Comment by Con-Tester — December 3, 2007 @ 12:39 pm |
eintlik dink ek het rooibaard ‘n punt beet.
Comment by Johan Swarts — December 3, 2007 @ 1:43 pm |
The real explanation™ is to be found in all of that seething, repressed biologically based racism engendered and scientifically supported by evolution.
Actually, the one explanation doesn’t preclude the other. They are interdependent in the sense that the purpose of religion is to overcome natural antipathy between genetically dissimilar groups, be they clans, tribes, nations or races.
Comment by Rooibaard — December 3, 2007 @ 1:45 pm |
Rooibaard wrote: “They are interdependent in the sense that the purpose of religion is to overcome natural antipathy between genetically dissimilar groups, be they clans, tribes, nations or races.”
Riiiiigggt. Th NG Church wanted to overcome “natural antipathy between genetically dissimilar groups” by using Apartheid? Just like the Isrealites in the old Testament? Oh wait, *they* friggin murdered other tribes, nations and clans. But Perhaps Rooibaard is here with no other intention but to hi-jack the thread with his racist views.
Comment by Renier — December 3, 2007 @ 2:02 pm |
Just like the Isrealites in the old Testament?
After I posted I realised that my statement is only strictly true of Christianity. You’re right that Judaism accords the Jews a special standing in relation to other nations.
Of course Apartheid was quite succesful in dissipating conflict between the races. Historian Hermann Giliomee notes that out of all civil conflicts in the world Apartheid had by far the lowest number of war casualties. It is also instructive that the conflict occurred almost exclusively around the urban centres of South Africa, whereas the ANC failed to instigate the homeland populations to any significant acts of violence.
Comment by Rooibaard — December 3, 2007 @ 2:15 pm |
Rooibaard,
“…why don’t you just move to a country where atheists are in charge? ”
Its an old argument: submit to our agression or move. the implication is that if we dont move we have to accept your agression (in this instance the insistence on teaching our children nonsens).
Comment by Objective — December 3, 2007 @ 2:41 pm |
Johan Swarts,
“eintlik dink ek het rooibaard ‘n punt beet.”
Dink jy werklik so? Is die idee van onderwys nie om kinders in staat te stel om te dink nie? Maw om hul te leer lees skryf en reken nie? Waarom daarop aandring om hul koppe vol nonsens te stop?
Dieselfde geld vir studente. Daar is uiters min graduandi wat in staat is om krities analities te dink en alternatiewe aan te bied vir wat hul nie mee saamstem nie.
Comment by Objective — December 3, 2007 @ 2:46 pm |
Rooibaard,
“Of course Apartheid was quite succesful in dissipating conflict between the races.”
Of course people like mandela and others who did time in jail will not agree with you.
That however is not the point: if it is illegal for a minority to rule a manjority then it is illegal for a majority to rule a minority. What cannot be conceded for the part cannot be conceded for the whole.
Since “all people are equal” according to the constitution nobody is supposed to rule anyone let alone make decisions about what my children are taught in school.
Let parents fill the brains of their children with ghosts and gremlins and insist that teachers stick to the principle that education is about teaching children the ability to think for themselves.
Comment by Objective — December 3, 2007 @ 2:50 pm |
Objective wrote (#32):
I think Rooibaard must have missed the last fourteen-or-so years of SA’s history. By its Constitution, the country is a secular state. That means his plan for evicting non-christians is, at the very least, seditious. Oh, and very, very moral it is too. Plus, it’s exemplary of the alleged “purpose of religion … to overcome natural antipathy between genetically dissimilar groups, be they clans, tribes, nations or races.” In a word, it’s illuminating.
Comment by Con-Tester — December 4, 2007 @ 7:49 am |
I would just like to say that y’all are all idiots. How can y’all actually believe in evolution? Is this a joke??? Evolution is the most ridiculous theory ever created and morons like y’all actually believe it! Ha! Well, have fun make-believing and maybe y’all should pick up a Bible every now and then. That is the only thing that makes sense.
Comment by Holly — December 4, 2007 @ 4:39 pm |
Holly s#1+, more evidence of child abuse! ;p
Comment by Con-Tester — December 4, 2007 @ 5:26 pm |
We sure as hell pissed off some Bible thumping morons!! No scientific arguments against evolution in particular and science in general, just abuse. Go forth, bretheren, you are doing your cause nothing but good and for all to see your intellectual bankruptcy.
Comment by Savage — December 4, 2007 @ 5:33 pm |
Rooibaard wrote: “After I posted I realised that my statement is only strictly true of Christianity. You’re right that Judaism accords the Jews a special standing in relation to other nations.”
I’m sorry then. I must have missed the memo that the god of the Isrealites are not the same as the god of the Christians.
Rooibaard opined: “Of course Apartheid was quite succesful in dissipating conflict between the races blah blah blah blah…”
Dude. Apartheid is gone for good. Get used to it. And please, don’t hijack this thread with your usual rantings about race etc. There is an older thread that you can go and play in.
Holly wrote: ” I would just like to say that y’all are all idiots. How can y’all actually believe in evolution? Is this a joke??? Evolution is the most ridiculous theory ever created and morons like y’all actually believe it! Ha! Well, have fun make-believing and maybe y’all should pick up a Bible every now and then. That is the only thing that makes sense.”
We have all read the Bible and found it is just mythology like the Iliad, Elder Edda and Gilgamesh. However, since you are hollering about evolution, perhaps you need to pick up a few science books. You claim it is the most ridiculous theory but have you done any effort to find out why it is an accepted theory in science? It makes a lot more sense that that drivel in Genesis about talking snakes.
Con-Tester wrote: ” Holly s#1+, more evidence of child abuse! ;p”
Yes, it is quite telling when the godbots appear to defend their imaginary friend from that evilution.
Comment by Renier — December 5, 2007 @ 7:46 am |
By its Constitution, the country is a secular state.
Which is to say it guarantees religious freedom in the spirit of Christian democracy. (The few democracies in the East owe their existence to having been at some stage colonized or vanquished by Christian powers.) Secularism isn’t very good for promoting atheism – for that you need theocracy or dictatorship. On the other hand, the more secular a country’s constitution, the more likely are its people to be religious. Compare the religiosity of the US, where there is a strict separation between Church and State, with the apostasy of northern Europe, where people are by law required to pay for the churches’ upkeep.
Comment by Rooibaard — December 5, 2007 @ 8:10 am |
“I must have missed the memo that the god of the Isrealites are not the same as the god of the Christians.”
According to the Jews, so have all of us.
“Apartheid is gone for good. Get used to it. And please, don’t hijack this thread with your usual rantings about race etc.”
You’re the one who broached the subject. I wasn’t ranting, just pointing out your misconception about apartheid. The violence and strife happened precisely because the policy was watered down by Verwoerd’s successors.
Comment by Rooibaard — December 5, 2007 @ 8:17 am |
“Its an old argument: submit to our agression or move. the implication is that if we dont move we have to accept your agression (in this instance the insistence on teaching our children nonsens).”
No, my concern is rather with your psychological well-being. Why share the country with people the majority of whom you despise if you could just move to a country where the state is run according to atheist principles? On the other hand, why should atheists want to cause distress to the devout?
Comment by Rooibaard — December 5, 2007 @ 8:42 am |
Rooibaard wrote (#40):
Yes, we have a lot to thank christianity for, including secularism…
Rooibaard wrote (#40):
Who here said that that’s its purpose?
Rooibaard wrote (#40):
This must be one of the conclusions from your innumerable published articles in political studies. By way of corollary, the less religious a country’s people are, the more likely the country’s constitution is to be pious. Saudi Arabia is a brilliant example of this…
Comment by Con-Tester — December 5, 2007 @ 10:23 am |
CT, it should be obvious from the context that I meant the Christian faith. Islamic countries forbid apostasy on pain of death, so it is impossible to draw any conclusions about people’s real feelings.
Comment by Rooibaard — December 5, 2007 @ 10:45 am |
“so it is impossible to draw any conclusions about people’s real feelings.”
Actually, come to think of it, the pattern does show up for Islam as well. It is often observed that the first genertion of Muslim immigrants to Europe integrated quite well with many of them actually becoming completely secularised. The opposite actually holds for their children who voluntarily opt for observance of Islamic strictures which their parents were happy to leave behind in their countries of origin.
Comment by Rooibaard — December 5, 2007 @ 10:55 am |
The only thing that’s obvious from the context, Rooibaard, is the truly remarkable lengths you repeatedly show yourself willing to go to in order to preserve a superficial sheen of profundity and erudition. I suspect that you’ve gotten away with for so long now that you’re not even aware of doing it anymore. In short, you don’t discuss or debate; you pontificate via rhetoric and then try to con your way past valid objection.
Personally, I find your slimy tactics repugnant.
Comment by Con-Tester — December 5, 2007 @ 11:32 am |
Well, CT, if your objection is valid, can you explain why the Saudis and many other Islamist regimes actually forbid conversion on pain of death? Obviously they don’t have as much faith in their people as their people are supposed to have faith.
Comment by Rooibaard — December 5, 2007 @ 1:52 pm |
If you’ve ever wondered what humans would have been like if we’ve never invented religion and abstract thinking, wonder no more. There is actually a tribe in the Amazon who has managed to stay pure empiricists during all these millennia. See
http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2007/04/16/070416fa_fact_colapinto?printable=true
Comment by Rooibaard — December 5, 2007 @ 2:12 pm |
Rooibaard wrote (#47):
My objection was to this bit of wisdom you manufactured: “the more secular a country’s constitution, the more likely are its people to be religious.” So here you’re talking in non sequiturs once again.
But I’ll bite. For the same reasons that the Inquisition happened: megalomania, intolerance and the suppression of “heresy”. For the same reason that christian fundamentalists the likes of Pat Robertson would no doubt take a similar tack if they were to gain an autocratic governing hand in a secular country. Fortunately, the USA’s founding fathers were astute enough to anticipate the abuses a theocracy – read “christian government” – would be capable of and expressly excluded such a possibility, thus arriving at the archetype on which all other secular states have modelled themselves. Your special pleadings for christianity are a wretched farce.
Rooibaard wrote (#47):
No different from christian fundamentalists, then.
Comment by Con-Tester — December 5, 2007 @ 2:47 pm |
My observation wasn’t in the form of argument, merely as a statement of fact – therefore the non sequitur accusation is irrelevant.
Your understanding of the Inquisition is also faulty. It was established as a supreme court of law because the Church tried to stem the wave of superstitious witch-burning which was sweeping Europe at the time. Yes, the Inquisition did execute some people for witchcraft, but those were the extreme cases where the accused themselves insisted that they were, in fact, witches.
I did not question the motives of the founding fathers, but if they intended the abolition of religion they clearly accomplished the opposite. Be that as it may, it is unthinkable that the founders could have succeeded were it not for the fact that the citizenry were by and large Christian folk.
Comment by Rooibaard — December 5, 2007 @ 4:27 pm |
Rooibaard wrote (#50):
Yeah, right, whatever you say.
Rooibaard wrote (#50):
Total baloney:
(Emphasis added.)
Rooibaard wrote (#50):
It was their intention to eliminate as far as possible any form of oppression, whether religious or otherwise, not to eliminate religion itself.
Rooibaard wrote (#50):
Yes, and it’s equally unthinkable that you would succeed in producing a cogent argument.
Comment by Con-Tester — December 5, 2007 @ 5:16 pm |
[...] A favorite ploy is to question the intelligence of anyone who believes in God. Recently, one blogger following he lead of Dawkins, even accused parents who taught religion to their children of [...]
Pingback by HERE I STAND « Whitticisms — December 5, 2007 @ 5:22 pm |
Rooibaard,
“No, my concern is rather with your psychological well-being.”
LOL – my psychological wellbeing?
“Why share the country with people the majority of whom you despise if you could just move to a country where the state is run according to atheist principles?”
Are there any atheist political principles? if there are they surely promote freedom instead of coercion or the threat thereof. As i have said before: atheism is a conclusion as is religion. It is a conclusion re the nature of existence. It isnt a premise. If there are atheists principles they are rational principles. That is the argument Rooibaard. Your religious ‘principles’ are mystical and therefor a threat to everyone because no man and no god can live according to mysticism.
” On the other hand, why should atheists want to cause distress to the devout?”
hahahahahah MY psychological well being??? If we stress you so much Rooies why come here? You have no argument to present to support your premises and it is obvious that YOU are the stressed out one.
Comment by Objective — December 6, 2007 @ 4:52 am |
Rooibaard wrote: “Which explains why murder and mayhem is at the order of the day.”
Let’s just get a clear understanding of your position. Do you desire a government like the old Apartheid regime in bed with the NG Church back in charge of the country? Yes or no?
Do you desire the right to teach your religion to the kids of other people who do not share you faith, yes or no?
Comment by Renier — December 6, 2007 @ 7:09 am |
Because of its objective, combating heresy,… Also, most of the witch trials were held by secular courts.
The heresy being paganism and related belief in witchcraft, which led to the burning of witches. The fact is that the Inquisition saved countless thousands of people from condemnation by the royal courts. Royalty itself is of course a holdover from paganism, which suggests that the “secular” courts might have acted more as instigators of witch hysteria rather than to stem it.
It was their intention to eliminate as far as possible any form of oppression, whether religious or otherwise,
Methinks the idea was more to circumvent the strife between Protestants and Catholics. The constitution itself rather leans on the idea of a God-ordained equality between all men. (This of course did not preclude the practise of slavery, for it did not occur to the founders to include negroes into their definition of “man”.)
Objective asks: “Are there any atheist political principles?”
You’re right, atheism is essentially an unprincipled stance. That is exactly why we reject the idea that it should form the basis for our children’s education.
Comment by Rooibaard — December 6, 2007 @ 7:20 am |
Let’s just get a clear understanding of your position. Do you desire a government like the old Apartheid regime in bed with the NG Church back in charge of the country? Yes or no?
Yes. They did a better job than the current bunch who manages to fornicate with the Anglican church, the communists and big business all at the same time. AT least the NG Church only gave doctrinal support to apartheid. I’m not aware of an NG dominee ever absolving a corrupt politician of his sins like an Anglican priest did a few weeks back for the so-called Health Minister.
Do you desire the right to teach your religion to the kids of other people who do not share you faith, yes or no?
No, but I do desire that my own kids be taught in a school where the Christian faith is professed and taught.
Comment by Rooibaard — December 6, 2007 @ 11:48 am |
#55 above:
Objective asks: “Are there any atheist political principles?”
Rooibaard responds: “You’re right, atheism is essentially an unprincipled stance. That is exactly why we reject the idea that it should form the basis for our children’s education.”
Rooibaard, you really are a piece of work! Or maybe you actually missed the word POLITICAL – which begs the question what else you miss when you attempt to ingest information.
Comment by Hendrik — December 6, 2007 @ 2:16 pm |
Rooibaard wrote (#55):
The “heresy” they themselves bootstrapped on their own terms, and then proceeded to prosecute with much ardour. The RCC’s inquisitors even wrote a manual, Malleus Maleficarum (“The Hammer of the Witches”), a thinly disguised study in misogynist zealotry, which condemned any questioning of the reality of witches itself a heresy. The witch hunts, even if many were carried out by laity, were predicated on RCC dogma that laity held to be true. Thus, your claim that “the Inquisition saved countless thousands of people from condemnation by the royal courts” is an obvious self-serving delusion and a blatant lie.
Rooibaard wrote (#55):
Actually, the origins of the US Constitution are much more prosaic than any such lofty notions as keeping the peace between two rival sects. The Constitution was a rewrite of the Articles of Confederation, said rewrite aiming to establish a federal government more amenable to trade and commerce among the original thirteen States. In other words, it was prompted by business needs.
Rooibaard wrote (#55):
“God-ordained”, eh? I guess that would explain why the word “god” appears not once in the text of either the Constitution or the Bill of Rights, why the latter includes the Establishment clause as the First Amendment and why Article Six of the Constitution expressly forbids any religious tests having to be undertaken by someone aiming for any public office, a requirement that is usually met in the letter but not the spirit.
Rooibaard wrote (#55):
While evidence absolutely abounds that good god-fearing christians obviously and vociferously objected that the founding fathers were wrong on this point. It’s curious, then, to say the least, that the States that prepared the uncompromisingly secular Constitution were the very same ones who started agitating against slavery, and why the 13th, 14th and 15th Amendments were added the very same year that the American Civil War, fought mainly over the issue of slavery, came to an end.
Comment by Con-Tester — December 6, 2007 @ 4:26 pm |
Objective asks: “Are there any atheist political principles?”
You’re right, atheism is essentially an unprincipled stance. That is exactly why we reject the idea that it should form the basis for our children’s education.
Comment by Rooibaard
I was going to make the point made by Hendrik in #57.
You specifically choose to ignore the word POLITICAL. you also choose to ignore my note that IF there are atheist principles they are RATIONAL principles.
NOW the reason you choose to ignore both the words political and rational is that you obviously would rather have your children taught mysticism than reason. Thus you support the premise of this post namely that religion is a form of child abuse.
My psychological wellbeing??? Haha – you need to go see a shrink boet and while youre at it perhaps take a basic course in reading and comprehension skills.
Comment by Objective — December 7, 2007 @ 4:41 am |
The RCC’s inquisitors even wrote a manual, Malleus Maleficarum (“The Hammer of the Witches”), a thinly disguised study in misogynist zealotry, which condemned any questioning of the reality of witches itself a heresy.
” The Malleus Maleficarum was written by Heinrich Kramer and Jacob Sprenger in 1486. Both men were members of the Dominican Order and Inquisitors for the Catholic Church. They submitted the Malleus Maleficarum to the University of Cologne�s Faculty of Theology on May 9, 1487, seeking its endorsement. Instead the faculty condemned the work as unethical and illegal. However, Kramer still inserted an endorsement from the University into subsequent editions.
The Catholic Church banned the book in 1490, placing it on the Index Librorum Prohibitorum.”
http://www.malleusmaleficarum.org/
Thus, your claim that “the Inquisition saved countless thousands of people from condemnation by the royal courts” is an obvious self-serving delusion and a blatant lie.
The catholic church actually released a study of some 2000 pages a few years back which came to this conclusion. It is also still a very hot research topic in Germany, since it were the Nazis who gave this long-forgotten Protestant propaganda dating from the wars of religion new life. The latest scientific estimates of the highest possible number of witch burnings are a few hundred, although the number of actual confirmed burnings are less than a hundred.
See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Witch-hunt
“Early Middle Ages, the Church did not conduct witch trials. Canon law, in Canon Episcopi, followed the views of the church father Augustine of Hippo (AD 400) that belief in the existence of witchcraft was heresy, since according to Augustine “a heretic is one who either devises or follows false and new opinions, for the sake of some temporal profit”. The Council of Paderborn in 785 explicitly outlawed the very belief in witches, and Charlemagne later confirmed the law. The first medieval trials against witches date to the 13th century with the institution of the Inquisition, but they were a side issue, as the Church was concentrating on the persecution of heresy, and witchcraft, alleged or real, was treated as any other sort of heresy.
There were still secular laws against witchcraft, such as that promulgated by King Athelstan (924-999)
And we have ordained respecting witch-crafts, and lybacs, and morthdaeds: if any one should be thereby killed, and he could not deny it, that he be liable in his life. But if he will deny it, and at threefold ordeal shall be guilty; that he be 120 days in prison: and after that let kindred take him out, and give to the king 120 shillings, and pay the wer to his kindred, and enter into borh for him, that he evermore desist from the like.[3] …”
Actually, the origins of the US Constitution are much more prosaic than any such lofty notions as keeping the peace between two rival sects.
That is why the establishment clause was added as an ammendment. Obviously it was an oversight which had to be rectified once the question of a state religion was raised. It seems to be rather an act of consistency and Christian conscience that, having come to America precisely to escape persecution for their religion, the Protestants of America did not wish to become persecutors in turn. But it is a commonly known fact that the founding fathers were greatly influenced by the very lofty notions of Enlightenment philosophy, particularly Deism, which viewed religious differences as merely culturally determined interpretations of God. Some of them were even adherents of Freemasonry, which was an attempt at a synthesis of all religions.
“God-ordained”, eh? I guess that would explain why the word “god” appears not once in the text of either the Constitution or the Bill of Rights,
The Decalaration of Independence actually justifies the American secession by explicit reference to God-ordained rights. During the negotiations for the constitution, with the oratory degenerating into threats and accusations, Benjamin Franklin appealed for daily prayers. James Madison, the chief archtiect of the constitution, its amendments and the bill of rights were an Episcopalian with Unitarian and Deist views.
While evidence absolutely abounds that good god-fearing christians obviously and vociferously objected that the founding fathers were wrong on this point.
Actually the abolitionist movement in the US was a strictly Christian affair. The constitution was even rejected at the time by the more zealous Christians, like Congregationalist minister and abolitionist Samuel Hopkins of Connecticut, “[who] charged that the convention had sold out: ‘How does it appear . . . that these States, who have been fighting for liberty and consider themselves as the highest and most noble example of zeal for it, cannot agree in any political Constitution, unless it indulge and authorize them to enslave their fellow men . . . Ah! these unclean spirits, like frogs, they, like the Furies of the poets are spreading discord, and exciting men to contention and war.’ Hopkins considered the Constitution a document fit for the flames.”
It is true that the Civil War was in a sense fought over the issue of slavery, but the motives of the Northern states weren’t necessarily very humane. The more industrialised north have realized that a free labour market was needed to provide the cheap and mobile labour that industry needed, whereas an Abraham Lincoln was more concerned about the growing black population and wished to send them back to Africa.
Comment by Rooibaard — December 7, 2007 @ 7:46 am |
“You specifically choose to ignore the word POLITICAL. you also choose to ignore my note that IF there are atheist principles they are RATIONAL principles.”
You seem not to realize that rationalism as a philosophy holds that there is a Supreme Being whose rational nature is reflected in Creation. Atheism and rationalism are therefore mutually exclusive.
If you are making political prescriptions on the grounds of your atheist convictions, then I am only giving you the benefit of the doubt that there do exist, in fact, atheist political principles. If not, I don’t see why atheists should be in the business of forcing government to be run according to their preferences.
Comment by Rooibaard — December 7, 2007 @ 8:00 am |
Rooibaard,
A quick lesson in the history of philosophy – ill keep it brief lest I should strain your reading and cognitive abilities.
Plato was not an original thinker. He wrote down the dominant doctrines of his time and of course some arguments that he attributed to Socrates – he did contribute his own form of rationalism. (This of course is not the rationalism you are referring to: ill get to that) Plato, however, more than any other, fixed the idea in the minds of generations to come that there exists in man a duality, a line where the other-worldly meets the this wordly- where mind and matter meets or where the world of the spirit meets the world of the material. This idea was readily embraced by an uneducated population who believed in ghosts, spirits, devils, gods, witches and witchdoctors as it is today. The new religious dogma of Christianity introduced from the east found in it a ready rationale for its own vague ideas. The Neo Platonists (Plotinus et al) but more specficially Augustine (who admits to its influence in his Confessions) adapted it to suit the new religion.
Plato asserted that ‘to refer everything to the senses and to be incapable of turning away from them is the greatest impediment to truth.” Thus truth was in the other world, created in the mind and had no resemblance to this world. If one accepts this (and most people of his time – primarily the uneducated accepted this argument) anything may be claimed. It was thus a necessary element of the doctrine that truth was elusive because how could one demonstrate this other worldliness except by means of faith?
Both prior to the Christian era and after the belief in good and evil spirits (gods and ghouls) were used to explain that which wasn’t understood and couldn’t be explained. As a result of this belief in the supernatural as the source of good and evil there existed already both in Greece and Rome laws that allowed for the execution of people who were supposed to function as mediums for the evil spirits – witches and sorcerers. Augustine notes that all the philosophical schools (except the Epicurians) readily admitted to this ‘truth”. Demosthenes relates how the “witch” Lamia was executed.
While this process of prosecution obviously often had political motives, as they do today, it was readily embraced by the newly established Christian church to persecute those who did not accept its doctrines. The following 1200 years (*im being kind) were dominated by the worst evils imaginable – all conjured up in the minds of priests, bishops and officials appointed by the church – all as a result of the idea of the supernatural world and its attending gods and devils. Thus assures Tertullian his readers (2nd century) that the world was full of devils and evil spirits . Thousands if not hundreds of thousands of people have died over the ages simply because it was BELIEVED that they were possessed by devils or because they didn’t believe the dominant church doctrine.
The twelve century is generally accepted to represent a turning point in this state of affairs in Europe. It was during this period that European scholars were re-introduced to the works of Aristotle, primarily through the work of the Arab scholars Avicenna (Ibn Sina ) and Averroes (Ibn-Rushd). This turning point however, was only the start of attempts to introduce reason into the arguments of the church – see the work of Abelard (1079 – 1142) and later (1225) Aquinas. These however were feeble attempts at reason that consisted essentially of attempting to prove church dogma by means of reason. The Church resisted this process with its might. It did after all have as its primary premise the evil of the human intellect and cursed it and it consequently cursed the uncertainties associated with the rational attempts to prove is tenets. “Fear”, says the Jewish god “is the beginning of wisdom.” The church was a terrorist organization and its emblems ( a corpse on a cross and a very abstract daddy god) were the source of all its terror.
But alas, there is no god, and if there was to be a change in the status quo it wasn’t going to be achieved in a day of even 7 days – man must discover reason and logic and the scientific method – both conceptually and existentially- on his own, by his own effort. None of it sprung from the brain of any individual fully formed and gathered into print by some supernatural force!!! The development of reason and the discovery of methods to prove hypothesis and theories was a slow process – it took almost 800 years since the first glimmerings of reason appeared in the work of Abelard for man to overcome the speculations of Plato and his predecessors, and the firm establishment of reason and method in the process of knowledge acquisition.
The so-called “loving doctrine of Christ” only came into being 1700 years after he was stoned to death (according to Gal. 5). Not even the reformation led to a reduction in the influence of the church over life and death of people who disagreed with it. This power was only withdrawn from the church in England in 1677. Even then, it was only done (by King James) to protect the believers in his own religion and not because there was some fundamental discovery of reason or principle of Christian love and toleration.
The first ‘rational’ voices were Mohammedan. Western thinkers like Aquinas, Bacon and even the later ones such as Montaigne, Voltaire, Hume, Hobbes, Descartes, Locke, Copernicus, Galileo, Newton, Beccaria, Kepler, Montesquieu, Rosseau, Rabelais and others accepted the premises of the church. The primary purpose of reason during these ages was to develop and expand the premises furnished by the church to a lesser or greater extent. At the same time there were those such as Gerson and Bodin who gave their all to support and protect the status quo. Faith was not regarded as an opposite of reason but rather as one of its manifestations as it often is today.
Very few thinkers in the history of mankind has been consistent in their arguments because nobody, including the vast majority living today, can explain phenomena such as mind and consciousness and fewer even begin to understand the process of knowledge acquisition in humans.
The kinds of devils may vary between different tribes (of mystics) given their specific doctrine and each may regard the other’s as primitive but that “good devils” and “evil devils” form part of a specific belief system is now and has always been the source of all the evil perpetrated by men upon men. (See for example the termination of some guys contract at Rapport for speaking up for the right to believe in the devil.) LOL.
If you have any trouble comprehending any of the above or if you require clarification on some of the terminology used please do not hesitate to contact the author.
Comment by Objective — December 8, 2007 @ 11:12 am |
“If you have any trouble comprehending any of the above or if you require clarification on some of the terminology used please do not hesitate to contact the author.”
Not at all, since you merely confirm my assertion that rationalism and atheism are mutually exclusive since the former comes from and belongs to the religious world view.
By the way, Tertullian was regarded as an heretic by the Church. And what evidence do you have that “[t]housands if not hundreds of thousands of people [who] have died over the ages simply because it was BELIEVED that they were possessed by devils or because they didn’t believe the dominant church doctrine”?
Comment by Rooibaard — December 8, 2007 @ 1:23 pm |
Rooibaard wrote, “Not at all, since you merely confirm my assertion that rationalism and atheism are mutually exclusive since the former comes from and belongs to the religious world view.“
I am not a clever man when it comes to philosophical arguments, but how rationalism “comes from and belongs to the religious world view”, even I can see is nonsense. I cannot think of a more irrational dogma than religion. Religion is nothing but irrational. Nothing about religion makes sense.
Rooibaard wrote, ‘And what evidence do you have that “[t]housands if not hundreds of thousands of people [who] have died over the ages simply because it was BELIEVED that they were possessed by devils or because they didn’t believe the dominant church doctrine”?’
Here is another man who does not read. Or remembers only what he wants to. The irrationality of religion gets one to colour in the facts with a dyslectic eye.
Rooibaard, you and Bernhard Ficker are soul brothers. No matter how concrete the arguments, you both have well developed ways to totally evade the issues under discussion. No scientific discoveries or historical facts get you off course. But this is not surprising. The god meme makes for some very predictable behaviour.
Comment by Savage — December 9, 2007 @ 5:16 am |
Rooibaard,
I can only reassert the comments by Savage.
“Not at all, since you merely confirm my assertion that rationalism and atheism are mutually exclusive since the former comes from and belongs to the religious world view. ”
Do you know what “mutually exclusive” means?
Rationalism was a movement that evolved as a product of increasing knowledge of the world (once people started thinking outside the paradigm of church doctrine aided by the re-introduction of Aristotelian logic via the arab scholars.) AS such it didnt spring from one brain but was a slow process – since knowledge must be acquired by effort and very critical thinking.
As i have pointed out to you before: Atheism is a conclusion NOT a premise just as religion is a conclusion NOT a premise. Such CONCLUSIONS are products of thinking rationally and therefor rationalism is not exclusive from reason. Neither is religion exclusive from some rational process. Reason is a method of adding together – LOGIC is the process that guides the process of reason. Logic means: NON_CONTRADICTORY integration of facts. If you premise is false your CONCLUSION must be false. That is the principle of inductive reasoning.
That is also the reason why there is such resistance recently against that method of reasoning and why people promote deductive reasoning – they do not have to prove their premises in the latter method. See Popper and falsification while keeping in mind that Popper himself was a dualist who believed in mysterious forces.
Religion uses a claim for the prior existence of GOD as a premise – they use a conclusion (false as it is) to argue against facts demonstrated by legitimate premise – a conclusion they cannot prove and streneously avoid having to face.
Science discover and prove the facts of existence by discovering valid premises and uses reason AND LOGIC to arrive at conclusion that are both valid and true. In the case of Atheism.
Comment by Objective — December 10, 2007 @ 4:43 am |
Rooibaard wrote:”You seem not to realize that rationalism as a philosophy holds that there is a Supreme Being whose rational nature is reflected in Creation. Atheism and rationalism are therefore mutually exclusive.”
You seem not to realise that there is no evidence for your “Supreme Being”. Yet you make another assumption that such a being’s nature is reflected in “Creation”. Even if this was true, it leads to some conclusions on the nature of your imaginary being. The universe is full of destructive forces. It is in essence hostile to life when we observe super hot planets, poisonous planets, super cold planets, super nova, neutron stars, black holes, dangerous radiation, comets, meteors etc. One could conclude that this universe was not “made” to be life friendly, but that life does exist in spite of it all. The permian extinction alone falsifies any notion that you “Supreme Being” is friendly to life. Humanity is like the water in a pothole, wondering why the pothole was made so precicely to hold water in such volume, shape and dimension. Indeed, people fail to see that the water fits the pothole, not the other way around.
Something else bothers me a bit. Rooibaard wrote: “Renier, if it bugs you folks so much to be living amongst us idiot Christians, why don’t you just move to a country where atheists are in charge? ”
This, in essence, is the same argument as: “The majority are Christian and happy with it, therefore, shut up or leave.”
And yet, we see Rooibaard not being willing to extend his “generosity” to himself. When Rooibaard was asked if he wants Apartheid back in charge of this country, his reply was: “Yes. They did a better job than the current bunch who manages to fornicate with the Anglican church, the communists and big business all at the same time…”
I wonder if it occurred to Rooibaard that the majority of the people in this country do not fantasize about having Apartheid back in charge. One has to wonder how Rooibaard would react if his own logic was applied to him, i.e. : “Rooibaard, if it bugs you folks so much to be living amongst us idiot anti-apartheid people, why don’t you just move to a country where racists are in charge?”
Yet, Rooibaard is not alone in his desire to see Apartheid restored. The AWB and BWB shares Rooibaard’s desire. Even in Europe, the Neo-Nazis and White Supremacists have all spoken in favor of Apartheid. With all the flair of a seasoned politician Rooibaard gets to express his Apartheid desire in pseudo-rational terms when everyone knows what the real motivation behind it is. And, like the politicians, Rooibaard appears unaware of the fact that he can rationalise his racism all he wants to without convincing other people that he really is no racist. No, for this reason the NG Church and Apartheid are extolled as fair and virtues systems, as long as it cuddles up to the racist and religious. Since the NG Church has admitted they made an error in supporting racism (Apartheid) it leaves me wondering if Rooibaard is arguing that the church was wrong in admitting they were wrong. One should hardly be picking on Rooibaard for this stupidity. After all, there is ample evidence that the religious are most fearful and hostile to change.
It is true that many people use the Bible as a source for quotes to undermine racism just as it is true that people has (and always have) used the Bible to support racism (and slavery). Christian sects have been willing to murder for their interpretations and opinions ever since the religion of Christianity arose.
The question to Rooibaard: “Do you desire the right to teach your religion to the kids of other people who do not share you faith, yes or no?” was answered: “No, but I do desire that my own kids be taught in a school where the Christian faith is professed and taught.”
That’s great Rooibaard. I support that right of yours in private schools with no public funding. However, public schools where kids come from various religious backgrounds (and even non-religious) should be kept clear of the indoctrination you desire for your own kids. It extends to me where I would be really angry if adherence to Atheism was taught in public schools. Due to religious diversity in this country it is unfair if any public school gets into bed and fornicates with a specific religion.
Comment by Renier — December 10, 2007 @ 10:46 am |
Rooibaard,
“If you’ve ever wondered what humans would have been like if we’ve never invented religion and abstract thinking, wonder no more. There is actually a tribe in the Amazon who has managed to stay pure empiricists during all these millennia. ”
Glad you finally admit that humans invented religion. Your reading skills however still require some work because the article (interesting as it is) states quite clearly that these people wear a gum to ward off evil spirits….
(sorva..)
pure empiricists? i doubt it.
Wonder if he ever heard of the SAn and Bleek and Lloyd…the language of the Xam or Huhansi.
Comment by Objective — December 11, 2007 @ 7:28 am |
Savage: A main impulse of rationalism was the desire to find proof for God’s existence. St Augustine can be described as a rationalist, whereas the rationalist philosopher who has had the greatest impact on science, Descartes, similarly sought to advance deductive (intellectual) proof of God’s existence. Kant was the first philosopher in the rationalist tradition who criticized “pure reason” as a means to derive a proof for the existence of God and thereby staked a claim on reason as belonging to the empirical world alone.
I read a lot, but I’ve never encountered any proof for a claim such as that made by Objective. Do you know of any?
Objective: you rightly point out that both Theism and Atheism are conclusions rather than premises. I would say it is more reasonable to conclude, from the mere fact that something exists, that mind and consciousness exist, that there is a God rather than not.
Renier: It is true that many people use the Bible as a source for quotes to undermine racism just as it is true that people has (and always have) used the Bible to support racism (and slavery).
The latter always do so in response to the former. The impulse to exploit others is natural and the advantages concrete, whereas the ideas of fairness and equity are difficult to justify and against people’s perceptions of self-interest.
Comment by Rooibaard — December 11, 2007 @ 9:47 am |
Rooibaard,
“I would say it is more reasonable to conclude, from the mere fact that something exists, that mind and consciousness exist, that there is a God rather than not.”
hmmm… the mere fact that existence exists is the premise from which you rationally (sic) conclude that gods and devils exist? You cannot prove your premise and therefor your conclusion is false.
Shall i ask where god comes from? was she made by another god who was made by another ad infinitum? if everything requires a creator who created god? If god doesnt need a god to create it then the argument fails.
Secondly: every single concept that you hold – either those you learnt from your parents/teachers etc are derived via some sense organ. The concept god is acquired via the ears
– even the attributes that you associate with the concept entered your brain through your ears. Who first generated this concept? Someone who couldnt explain the nature nor the reason for existence and who erroneously thought that no thing comes into being lest it is created. It was erroneous for the reason i mention above.
Comment by Objective — December 12, 2007 @ 4:48 am |
Rooibaard,
“Savage: A main impulse of rationalism was the desire to find proof for God’s existence…”
Not true – the rediscovery of reason (more specifically aristotelian logic)led not only to people such as aquinas and augustine kant et al to attempt to prove the existence of god but also to the work of kepler, galileo and others in the fields of the empirical sciences. In fact it culminated not in power for the church but rather in power for science –
The rennaissance was the REBIRTH of reason – that reason was used inter alia in attempts to prove the existence of ghosts was a default of people who believed in god to start with. Not one of those arguments have withstood the test of time: neither Kant nor Descartes, augustine, aquinas nor luther or calvin Anselm etc in their attmpts to prove the existence of god by means of reason ever suicceeded and nobody ever will.
Reason means to add together –
you start the process by starting with 1 (a unit of existence).
yah reading a lot, may help – but ultimately you have to learn to think because most of what you read is loaded with mysticism.
Comment by Objective — December 12, 2007 @ 4:58 am |
“hmmm… the mere fact that existence exists is the premise from which you rationally (sic) conclude that gods and devils exist? You cannot prove your premise and therefor your conclusion is false…”
According to Descartes the only thing that cannot be doubted, is that there is thought. Descartes concludes from this that something has to exist that is doing the thinking, but according to Nietzsche this is neither a causal nor a logical necessity. The idea that everything is substanceless thought rather undermines the scientism of atheistic evolutionists.
“Not one of those arguments have withstood the test of time: neither Kant nor Descartes, augustine, aquinas nor luther or calvin Anselm etc in their attmpts to prove the existence of god by means of reason ever suicceeded and nobody ever will.”
I am not aware that Kant ever tried to prove the existence of God by means of reason. He rather argued that the domain of reason is the purely physical and practical (i.e. moral) aspects of existence – which is why he is considered more an empiricist than a rationalist philosopher. I am not aware of any rationalist philosopher who have ever advanced an argument against the existence of God.
Comment by Rooibaard — December 12, 2007 @ 7:42 am |
Rooibaard,
“..but according to Nietzsche this is neither a causal nor a logical necessity. The idea that everything is substanceless thought rather undermines the scientism of atheistic evolutionists. ”
the idea that everything is substanceless thoughtthen also undermines the idea of gods….as i said to Nietzsche at the time:his regurgitations sound like the utterances of a syphillis ridden brain in a madhouse. Of course Descartes contribution to philosophy and most of science was wild speculation based on easily refuted assumptions.
Rooibaard: “I am not aware that Kant ever tried to prove the existence of God by means of reason. He rather argued that the domain of reason is the purely physical and practical..”
Sigh…i do not have the time nor the inclination to give you a lesson in Kantian philosophy. Kant was a christian apologist and his “critique of pure reason” (pure reason being analytical truths” was an attempt to establish the existence of a priori knowledge in the brain that includes concepts such as god.
everu conception must be reduced to some general idea, the idea again reduced to some still more general idea and so on untill we arrive at an ultimate and unconditional principle such as god.
ala kant: god, soul andf the world are the three ideas of reason, the laws of its operation, the pure forms of existence. They are to reason what time and space are to sensibility and what the categories are to understanding.
the ideas however are regulative- they operate on conceptions as understanding operates upon sensations; they are discursive, not intuitive, never face to face with their objects. reason is therefor powerless when employed on things beyond understanding.
Kants critique was a laaborious demonstration of ideas not derived from experience and cannot be resolved into experience. Thus there is no objective truth…only subjectivity. Our ideas are essentially subjective says kant because while there are noumena in the world we are only aware of the phenomena – their appearance in the mind. thus we are doomed to know only the appearance of things (like those shadows in plato’s cave) and the true nature of that which exists (dinge an sich) remains forever unknown. Thus: the world is not known by us per se but only as it is to us.
Now kant sufferes from the same criticism as i would direct at plato: if the above is true how does he know that there is a *thing in itself* a nature not knowable??
AS i have argued before: the fact that someone does not understand biology or the process of knowledge acquisition is not evidence of a speculative claim.
To simply claim that we have ideas independent of experience does not make the claim true.
Kant does argue: that any attempt to demonstrate the existence of god is doomed because reason is incompetent to accomplish that task since it is impossible to know noumena..BUT that god exists and the world exists are irresistable convictions. His claim rests on the fact that people hold the ideas of noumena in their heads…kant didnt bother to investigate how these convictions get there…he merely assumed like descartes did his thoughts, that they are self evident..that they arrive in the head by some process of osmosis in an exchange of ideas and the ether.
Comment by Objective — December 13, 2007 @ 5:14 am |
Objective, ek is bevrees jy skiet jouself heeltemal in die voet met jou oningeligte opinies oor die grootste figure in die westerse intellektuele geskiedenis. Descartes word allerweë beskou as die vader van moderne wiskunde. Sonder sy analitiese geometrie sou calculus nie moontlik gewees het nie en sou jy nie vandag voor ‘n rekenaar kon sit en strooi kwytraak nie. Wat jou opmerking oor N. betref, ek neem aan jy is vertroud met die term argumentum ad hominem?
Jou opinie oor Kant is eweneens oningelig. Dat hy ‘n apologeet vir die Christendom was is dalk waar van sy voor-kritiese periode, maar in sy Kritik der Reinen Vernunft meen hy die rasionaliste se ontologiese argumente te verslaan. Hier is wat die SEP oor Kant se bydrae tot die filosofie van religie te sê het:
Kant’s criticisms of the arguments for the existence of God typically used in rationalist metaphysics remain among the most influential elements of his heritage. This influence extends not merely to later discussions of these arguments in philosophy of religion but also enters into views of the history of philosophy that see these criticisms as an important marker of “the end of metaphysics.” Kant’s criticisms are frequently aligned with other arguments against the possibility of articulating a valid theoretical proof for the existence of God—e.g., those that issue from skeptical positions such as David Hume’s.
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/kant-religion/supplement.html
Maar jy ontmasker jou self as ‘n blote beterweter deurdat jy beide Nietzsche se standpunt dat substansie (ding-an-sich) ‘n onbewese aanname is en Kant se teorie van die noumenon (ding-an-sich) verwerp. Jou weergawe van die epistemologiese probleemstelling waarmee die filosofie nog steeds worstel is, om die minste te sê, kinderlik naïef alhoewel gangbaar vir die woekerende sciëntisme van ‘n Ayn Rand of ‘n Richard Dawkins.
Comment by Rooibaard — December 13, 2007 @ 7:10 am |
Rooibaard,
Jy is korrek tov Descartes se wiskundige bydrae – no contest.
“Maar jy ontmasker jou self as ‘n blote beterweter deurdat jy beide Nietzsche se standpunt dat substansie (ding-an-sich) ‘n onbewese aanname is en Kant se teorie van die noumenon (ding-an-sich) verwerp. Jou weergawe van die epistemologiese probleemstelling waarmee die filosofie nog steeds worstel is, om die minste te sê, kinderlik naïef alhoewel gangbaar vir die woekerende sciëntisme van ‘n Ayn Rand of ‘n Richard Dawkins.”
AS daar ‘n substansie is wat nie sintuiglik toeganklik is nie – hoe weet Kant of Nietzsche dit? Hoe weet jy dit? Kant het daarop aangedring dat ons nie die uiterlike wereld kan ken nie – die bestaan daarvan word bloot geimpliseer deurdat ons die phenomena ken en die impliseer die bestaan van noumena.
Dit is hoegenaamd nie ‘n epistemologiese argument nie maar ‘n mistieke argument. Kant dring daarop aan dat al ons idees subjektief is en dat objektiewe kennis daarom nie bestaan nie.
Wat beteken dit dat ons idees subjektief is? Beteken dit nie dat dit in ons brein bestaan en deur elke individuele brein geproduseer word nie? En beteken dit dan nie dat dit geen verhouding met die werklikheid het nie? Beteken enige van sy duisende aannames enigiets indien dit bloot produkte is van sy brein en ’slegs vae beelde” van die werklikheid is? Indien die phenomena nie die werklikheid verteenwoordig nie – hoe weet Kant dit? Hoe weet hy hoe die werklike werklikheid lyk??? Hoe weet hy dat elke ding ‘n substansie het wat soos Plato se forms in ‘n ander wereld as perfekte eenhede bestaan?
STanford aanhaling ‘n beroep op gesag? komaan rooibaard..ek is seker jy kan beter doen…byvoorbeeld deur net een keer te bewys dat jy vir jouself kan dink en nie op die internet hoef staat te maak nie!
Comment by Objective — December 13, 2007 @ 4:43 pm |
Rooibaard wrote, “Descartes word allerweë beskou as die vader van moderne wiskunde. Sonder sy analitiese geometrie sou calculus nie moontlik gewees het nie en sou jy nie vandag voor ‘n rekenaar kon sit en strooi kwytraak nie.”
It is true that Descartes created modern geometry. But to say calculus would not have been possible and the computer not in operation today if not for him, is nonsense. Almost for any discovery in science, if it had not been A at time t1, B would have discovered it at time t2. (Except for Einstein’s General Relativity). I would rather say if Gauss had not discover non-Euclidian geometry and Riemann’s geometry was not developed to put Einstein on the road to General Relativity, we would not “sit voor ‘n rekenaar en strooi kwytraak nie.”
Comment by Savage — December 13, 2007 @ 6:44 pm |
Savage,
Amen.
Daar is egter beweer dat as Einstein nie relatiwiteit beskryf het toe hy dit gedoen het nie, sou iemand anders dit binne die opvolgende tydperk gedoen het.
Dit neem niks weg van die feit dat hy dit wel gedoen het nie.
Die grootste probleem is dat die wetenskap tov die sg. menswetenskappe steeds met Rooibaard se probleem sit wat voortspruit uit die die filosofiese nalatenskap van Plato, Descartes, Kant en andere.
Moderne neurologie is egter vinnig op pad om bewussyn te verduidelik asook die biologiese onderbou van kennis en hopelik sal sodanige verduidelikings bydrae om die drogredes wat steeds deur onkundiges soos Rooibaard voorgehou word uit die weg te ruim.
Comment by Objective — December 14, 2007 @ 4:55 am |
Objective, die SEP is bloot ‘n bronverwysing ter ondersteuning van my eie waarnemings aangaande Kant se bydrae tot die filosofie. Jou skimpe oor sy status as Christelike apologeet word deur die feite – nie deur argumente nie – weerlê.
“AS daar ‘n substansie is wat nie sintuiglik toeganklik is nie – hoe weet Kant of Nietzsche dit?”
Ek dink nie filosowe gee voor om enigiets te “weet” nie. Die filosofiese metode is by uitstek diskursief en deduktief. Jou vraag kan net beantwoord word as jy bereid is om self deur hulle werke te ploeg en elke argument stap vir stap na te gaan. In elk geval, jou oppervlakkige opsomming en inskatting van Kant wys maar net dat jy die klok hoor lui het maar nie weet waar die bel hang nie.
Savage, the point is that it required a person like Descartes to make that contribution. Up to and even including Einstein science was advanced by men who were consumed with a passion for Truth which they closely identified with God or the godly at least.
“Die grootste probleem is dat die wetenskap tov die sg. menswetenskappe steeds met Rooibaard se probleem sit wat voortspruit uit die die filosofiese nalatenskap van Plato, Descartes, Kant en andere.”
Al was hulle verkeerd gewees, sou die wetenskap nooit bestaan het sonder hierdie groot geeste se begeerte om te *weet* nie. Hulle het ‘n begeerte na ‘n goue waarheid ontbrand wat die wetenskap tot vandag toe aanvuur. Sonder die veronderstelling dat daar iets soos waarheid is en dat dit kosbaar is nie, sal daar ook nie teoretiese fisika en hoër wiskunde beoefen word nie.
Comment by Rooibaard — December 14, 2007 @ 7:01 am |
Objective wrote, “Daar is egter beweer dat as Einstein nie relatiwiteit beskryf het toe hy dit gedoen het nie, sou iemand anders dit binne die opvolgende tydperk gedoen het.’
Absolutely true with the special theory. If you look at the maths of this theory it is very surprising that it had not been formulated long before Einstein. I think the belief that light propagated through the ether and that light’s velocity followed the well accepted (and proven) concept of relative speeds of slower objects, might have delayed the formulation of the theory. The Michelson-Morley experiment showed that the relative speed of light is the speed of light, but Einstein maintains he never new about the experiment’s result when he wrote down the STR. Be as it may, but surprising is that many physicists could not accept the theory because it was counter-intuitive to normal visualized life.
The general theory might be another matter, I don’t know. Feynman said he could not visualize how a man sitting in an office could have this insight how gravity was not a force working at a distance, but that mass was gripping space-time, resulting in its curvature, and space-time gripping mass, resulting in its movement,(To quote John Archibald Wheeler). And having this insight after the well tested laws of Newton must have been engraved in scientists brains. But you are right; it would have had to come sometime.
Rooibaard wrote, “Up to and even including Einstein science was advanced by men who were consumed with a passion for Truth which they closely identified with God or the godly at least.”
Poor Einstein. No matter how many times he said he did not believe in any god, he is still being forced to be religious.
Comment by Savage — December 14, 2007 @ 1:10 pm |
Rooibaard is the epitome of the human scientist-cum-philosopher about whom Einstein, Dawkins and numerous other natural scientists complained.
Stephen Jay Gould summarised this very well in The Hedgehog, the Fox, and the Magister’s Pox: Mending the Gap between Science and the Humanities. As well as Alan Sokal and Jean Bricmont when they exposed the philosophers and postmodern thinkers in Sokal’s brilliant falsified article on philosophical physics – which was accepted in a peer reviewed humanities journal Social Text!
The poor editors did not have the knowledge of physics to see that Sokal was taking them for a ride.
Rooibaard, you ask about proof of rational thinking. The scientific method is the basis of rational thinking: experimentation, testing, observation, independent verification to come to the same conclusions.
By the way, you can read why James Watson was so wrong when he said blacks were less intelligent than whites. A recent article by Robert J. Sternberg, dean of the School of Arts and Sciences and professor of psychology at Tufts University in Massachusetts in New Scientists shows the findings of science on intelligence. Watson was wrong, even though racists like you have gleefully accepted his views as the truth. See the article at http://www.newscientist.com/channel/being-human/mg19626275.900-race-and-intelligence-not-a-case-of-black-and-white.html.
Comment by prometheusongebonde — December 14, 2007 @ 1:30 pm |
“Poor Einstein. No matter how many times he said he did not believe in any god, he is still being forced to be religious.”
Einstein named Spinoza as the philosopher who exerted the most influence on his world view. Spinoza equated God (infinite substance) with Nature, consistent with Einstein’s belief in an impersonal deity. When Einstein was asked whether he believed in God, he responded “I believe in Spinoza’s God who reveals himself in the orderly harmony of what exists, not in a God who concerns himself with the fates and actions of human beings.” He also famously quipped that “God doesn’t play dice”. That doesn’t sound too different from the God of the great rationalist philosophers. True, intellectuals’ conception of God is often at odds with that of religious dogma (even the great Descartes was excomunicated from the RCC because he dared to question the Aristotelian metaphysics), but an apostate does not necessarily an atheist make.
George skryf:”Rooibaard, you ask about proof of rational thinking. The scientific method is the basis of rational thinking: experimentation, testing, observation, independent verification to come to the same conclusions.”
Hmm, dit sê nog nie wat rasionele denke is nie. Het jy dit nie dalk omgekeerd nie – is dit nie denke wat lei tot eksperimentering ens. nie?
Oor Sternberg: Dit maak sin dat iemand wat die waarde van IK-toetse betwyfel en gediskrediteerde, onmeetbare en dus onwetenskaplike konsepte soos “kreatiewe” en “praktiese” intelligensie aanhang teen Watson te velde sal trek. Die idee dat swartes intelligenter as wittes sou wees omdat hulle kwansuis beter kan onderskei tussen verskillende soorte muskiete val my op as ‘n veel erger graad van rassisme – alhoewel onbedoeld – as waaraan Watson hom skuldig gemaak het.
Comment by Rooibaard — December 14, 2007 @ 2:23 pm |
Ek het so ‘n bietjie gaan oplees oor Sternberg. Dat sy werk ideologies gemotiveer is blyk duidelik uit die feit dat hy sy universiteit oorreed het om studente toe te laat op grond van sge kreatiwiteitstoetse, met die eksplisiete doel om meer swart studente toegelaat te kry. Hy noem dit gepas genoeg die “Rainbow Project”. Ek wonder of hy ook deur UNISA nadergehark is. Gister sien ek ‘n advertensie met die belofte: “If you can read this you can get a degree”. Ek vermoed die slagspreuk is uitgedink deur iemand met ‘n sin vir ironie wat voornemende universiteitsmateriaal probeer waarsku…
Comment by Rooibaard — December 14, 2007 @ 2:45 pm |
Rooibaard, Tufts University is one of America’s top universities. To be dean there, takes some doing. And to be asked by New Scientist to write an article for them, ditto.
It’s easy to discredit anyone who wants to give blacks better opportunities coming from broken, single-parent homes. Nurture has a lot to do with intelligence. Let me put it like this: if you had grown up in a squatter camp or ghetto or baneuil with a single mother who could not afford to pay for the books you wanted to read, to send you to a proper school, unable to afford the university fees to give you a good education. Would you have had the privileged “intelligence” you purport to have?
Unfortunately the more I read you, the more I think Bertrand Russell was right when he said many people are made stupid by their education. Yours made you a racist and someone who still questions the validity of the scientific method of rational thinking based on evidence.
Or do you really think a black getting the same chances you have had would not at least have the ability to also be a racist like you?! (That was meant ironically, in case you have not caught up).
Comment by prometheusongebonde — December 14, 2007 @ 2:59 pm |
I suggest you take some time reading the life stories of many of America’s most successful people. You’d be surprised how many of them came from the worst backgrounds and how many of them dropped out of high school or college.
Here’s two examples:
Larry Ellison founder of Oracle. He’s born to a 19 year old unwed mother. He ends up raised by his great aunt. He drops out of school and ends up in silocone valley, broke and living in his car.
Andy Grove founder of Intel. He flees Hungary in 1956 in the middle of the night during the Hungrian revolution. Comes to this country with nothing.
Sam Walton founder of Walmart. Born on a small farm in Oklahoma. Leaves the farm because he can’t make enough money to raise a family.
Jack Welch, former CEO of GE. Father was a railroad conductor.
Go through most of the Forbes 500 and you see most of the stories are like this.
Comment by Steve Rosenbaum — December 14, 2007 @ 4:26 pm |
“It’s easy to discredit anyone who wants to give blacks better opportunities coming from broken, single-parent homes. Nurture has a lot to do with intelligence.”
True, the best estimates of nurture’s contribution to IQ range between 20 and 40%. Unfortunately, the genetic component of the gap between blacks and whites is so large that studies in the US have found that white children from the lowest income group outperform black children from the highest income group on IQ tests. Anyway, the likes of Sternberg, realising its futility have moved way beyond the nurture objection. The approach is rather to deny the utility of IQ and debase the concept of intelligence by dreaming up other types of “intelligence”. At this rate every person on the planet will soon be declared a genius, including my cat Spotty, seeing as he is so excellent at doing things that Spotty excell at.
Comment by Rooibaard — December 18, 2007 @ 12:09 pm |
“The fact is science and religion are not compatible, no matter how much compatibility is propagated by religious people who believe in miracles – against all laws of nature.
My answer to that school boy would be frank and clear: you have to make a choice between science and religion, you cannot have it both ways.”
I can’t imagine a more inane or wrongheaded statement.
I am deeply religious. I can’t think of a single scientific generally accepted percept that I reject or would want to reject. The author and logic deficiencies.
Comment by Snow — December 25, 2007 @ 6:26 pm |
Snow, do you believe in the theory of evolution? If you do, religion and science seem to be compatible with your way of thinking.
Comment by Savage — December 26, 2007 @ 8:50 am |
“Snow, do you believe in the theory of evolution? If you do, religion and science seem to be compatible with your way of thinking.”
The theory of evolution does not explain how life began… but I have no good reason to not believe it, therefore I accept it as the best model we have to explain how the specifies became what they are.
Comment by Snow — December 29, 2007 @ 12:01 pm |
Snow, you are a breath of fresh air amongst some very dogmatic and ignorant religious people. I am not religious but I know that science tries to explain Nature, and have always maintained that if someone truly believes, why not see God’s hand behind Nature. Why do so many religious persons reject the findings of science, do you know?
Comment by Savage — December 29, 2007 @ 3:15 pm |
Liewe George
Dis jou neef uit Jerusalem!
Die nuutste bevindinge in teoretiese fisika, deur Dr George Ryazanov, Joodse teoretiese fisikus van Landau Instituut wat nou in Jerusalem woon, staaf absoluut die bestaan van die GOD beskryf in die Bybel (beide ou en nuwe Testament).
Die oplossing het gekom deur sy navorsing oor die beweging van deeltjies en golwe in beide rigtings van tyd en dis totaal verklaarbaar mbt evolusie omdat ons te doen het met symmetry breaking toe die materiele wereld uit die geestelike geskep is.
Ek kan vir jou dokumente oot sy navorsing stuur
Comment by Daniel le Roux — December 30, 2007 @ 8:38 pm |
Neef Danie
Goed om van jou te hoor, maar ongelukkig gryp jy nou na strooihalms. Ek ken die navorsing van die verwarde professor. Hy is ‘n fisikus wat totaal ‘n gek van homself maak!
Feit is, daar is geen enkele bewys vir die bestaan van God nie. En om dit nogal deur fisika te probeer bewys, is vergesog.
Hy is nie die eerste desperate wetenskaplike wat dit probeer doen nie. Lees gerus Francis Collins se The Language of God. Dit is ook deur wetenskaplikes uitmekaar gehaal.
Danie, hoop is al wat julle gelowiges het. Bewyse nie. En soos die wetenskap se bewyse van die mites van die Bybel toeneem, so neem die nonsens wat monoteïstiese godsdienste verkondig drasties toe in ‘n poging om die onvermydelike bewyse van die wetenskap te probeer omseil.
Ongelukkig pleeg gelowige wetenskaplike elke moontlike foefie en bedrog om net nie van hul geloof hoef afstand te doen nie. Gaan lees maar regter John Jones se uitspraak in die Kitzmiller v Dover School Board-saak in Harrisburg in 2005. Wat jou Joodse teoretikus hier aanvang, is doodgewoon bedrog.
Danie, begin gerus lees oor wat die wetenskap bevind. Jy kan nie meer in enige skepper-god glo as jy behoorlik die feite opweeg teen die mites van godsdiens nie. Jammer, vriend!
Comment by George Claassen — January 2, 2008 @ 1:45 pm |
Amongst page after page of utter mumbo-jumbo, below is an excerpt from the writings of George Ryazanov “The divine state of consciousness” from chapter 6, “From new physics to God”.
“Now I can answer the ancient question: “Where are in physics
life?
Consciousness?
God?”
“The answer: In above multiplicity.
“You may ask: “What is the proof?”
“The answer: This multiplicity can be seen in natural systems
and in the best known natural system – ourselves.
“Our life, our thoughts, our image of God are manifestations of this multiplicity.
“We can assume a concrete form of this multiplicity
and prove it through the picture of natural and cultural evolution.
“You may object: “Physics study the dynamics of structures
but life, consciousness, image of God are in the first place
the living emotions,
the religious emotions,
the mystical emotions”
“My answer: Yes, but why not take a dynamics of emotions instead of dynamics of structures?”
So this is just the same old story: “God lives because I so believe. That is the proof.”
I could not find one mathematical or physics equation in any of the pages of the book attempting to prove the existence of God. {The book is available from Ryazanov’s web site.)
No, Danie le Roux, you will have to try better than relying on Ryazanov to convince the sceptics that there is a God.
.
Comment by Savage — January 2, 2008 @ 2:50 pm |
George Ryazanov writings.
All I can say is “Huh?”
Why would anyone choose clear concise writing when circular, muddled writing will do. It’s unconvincing because it so poorly written. I bet you could say the entire thing in one well written sentence.
Comment by Steve Rosenbaum — January 2, 2008 @ 3:21 pm |
Danie skryf : “Die nuutste bevindinge in teoretiese fisika, deur Dr George Ryazanov…”
Al te oulik. In watter fisika joernaal is dit gepubliseer? Ek verkies die “peer-review” tradisie om te verseker ander fisika boffins stem saam met sy werk. Sonder die joernaal publikasie gaan jy my nie oorreed nie.
Comment by Renier — January 3, 2008 @ 7:18 am |
Dis hard om teen die prikkels te skop!
Die wiskundige wette van fisika skryf voor dat deeltjies en golwe in beide rigtings van tyd moet beweeg. Weet nie eers of die basiese boeke van wetenskap in SA julle dit geleer het nie? Waarom sien ons net een rigting van beweging? Omdat daar ‘n ander onsienlike wereld is!!! Einstein, Wheeler en vele ander fisikuste het jare na hierdie oplossing gesoek. En dit is nou gevind. Die oplossing hiervan bewys die bestaan van ‘n onsienlike wereld. Ek dink nie julle ouens besef die kwaliteit van fisici afkomstig uit die Landau instituut nie. Ook nie van fisici soos Einstein nie! Dink julle dis verniet dat hy gese het: Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind. Of iemand soos Isaac Newton diep gelowig was, dink bietjie, hoekom? Hoekom? Ek kan julle in kontak met George Ryazanov persoonlik bring maar julle sal julle wetenskap moet ken vriende…
Comment by Daniel le Roux — January 3, 2008 @ 7:29 am |
Danie le Roux writes, “Ek kan julle in kontak met George Ryazanov persoonlik bring maar julle sal julle wetenskap moet ken vriende…”
The only problem is that Ryazanov is not busy with science. “In Ryazanov’s version, two worlds, one reaching backwards in time from the future, and the other reaching forwards from the past, shake hands together and co-evolve the present moment. Welcome to your future self.” From American Chronicle, June 30, 2006 by Gary S. Bekkum.
This is absolute nonsense. Where is Ryazanov’s proof? What does he mean? When Einstein formulated the special theory there were math equations explaining what he meant. So with his general theory. And he was proved correct when his insights were used by physicists and engineers in numerous applications. How do you apply Ryazanov when there are no tools for scientists to apply his hypothesis?
String theorists have been talking about the universe as a member of an infinite set of all possible worlds known as the multiverse. String theorist Leonard Susskind has now “created” a megaverse which are those worlds in the multiverse which are actualized.
Now is this not also nonsense? How do you test it? No wonder string theorists have been blundering forth for more than 20 years now and have not proven a single thing yet. That is why the anthropic principle has been resurrected in an attempt to cope with the seemingly dead end physics finds itself in.
Danie, if you are a physicist and believe this nonsense, you are as lost as the string theorists and Ryazanov. If you are not a physicist, read “The Character of Physical Law” by Richard Feynman to see what physics is all about. You will quickly realize Ryazanov is delusional as a scientist. Maybe as a religious fanatic his is acceptable?
Comment by Savage — January 3, 2008 @ 3:49 pm |
After reading some of Ryazanov’s writings I did some reading on these “mutiverse” publications. (Other than the normal stuff in Scientific American and such). I am alarmed. I am not a scientist but something tells me things are not all there. For instance, read the article “Does God so love the Multiverse”, by Don S Page at arXiv.org>physics>arXiv: 0801.0246.
Here is an excerpt:
“Different multiverse theories were invented for different reasons, and there are intelligent reasons for investigating them. Furthermore, while I agree with Weinberg that multiverse theories would not require that the ‘constants’ of nature be fine tuned, I would also insist that they do not preclude the possibility that the entire multiverse was designed at a higher level, say by a benevolent Creator.”
And:
“A third more specifically Christian objection might be that if the multiverse
(or even just our single part of the universe) is large enough for other civilizations
to have sinned and needed Christ to come redeem them by something similar to
His death on the Cross here on earth for our sins, then His death may not sound so unique as the Bible says in Romans 6:10: “For the death that He died, He died to sin once for all; but the life that He lives, He lives to God.” But the Bible was written for us humans here on earth, so it seems unreasonable to require it to describe what God may or may not do with other creatures He may have created elsewhere. We could just interpret the Bible to mean that Christ’s death here on earth is unique for our human civilization.”
And Page is “indebted to discussions with” persons like John Barrow, Sean Carroll, Paul Davies (who also, of late, supports the anthropic principle), Richard Dawkins (which, I am sure, will totally disagree with Page), William Dembsky (which will surely totally agree with Page), Alan Guth, James Hartle, Stephen Hawking (now I ask you!), (I must stop now because it is getting absurd).
What on earth is going on! How does a thing like this gets published!
That is why we can never relax. We have to promote science wherever we go. If you let these guys loose our kids will come and tell us not about the beauty of flowers and the stars, but about the multiverse and nonsense like this.
Comment by Savage — January 3, 2008 @ 8:31 pm |
Daniel le Roux again, like all creationists, misquotes Einstein about religion and belief in a creator god. This is what Einstein repeatedly wrote and said, in anger at the distortions by religious people like Daniel (why are religious people always distorting facts and telling lies about what scientists said? Isn’t it against their religion to tell lies??):
Quoted in Richard Dawkins’s The Devil’s Chaplain, this is what Einstein wrote in The New York Times Magazine as far back as 1931:
“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 science can reveal it.”
Einstein also wrote in the NY Times article about the “cosmic religious sense … which recognizes neither dogmas nor God made in man’s image. I assert that the cosmic religious experience is the strongest and noblest driving force behind scientific research … the only deeply religious people of our largely materialistic age are the earnest men of research.”
As Savage says, Ryazanov is a good example of a deluded “scientist”.
Daniel, rather creep out of the shell of ignorance you have built around you sitting in Israel trying to convert Jews to Christianity. You are really wasting your life and time. That an intelligent person like you can waste his life on such nonsense for which there is not one shred of evidence, is very sad.
Maybe you can start reading Carl Sagan’s The demon-haunted world: Science as a candle in the dark. He wrote: Extraordinary claims need extraordinary evidence.
Daniel, where is the evidence of the god you are praying to? If you bring it, you will be on the front page of every newspaper in the world. Larry King would invite you on his show. Please! What utter nonsense.
Comment by George Claassen — January 4, 2008 @ 3:06 pm |
I am not interested in Larry King or the front pages of the media. I am interested in eternity and God, from Whom all things come.
An eternity we see as in a glass very darkly because of our humble human existence here on earth faced with a massive universe out there and what is even beyond that. We know very little. In fact Isaac Newton wrote this at the end of his life:
I don’t know what I may seem to the world. But as to myself I seem to have been only like a boy playing on the seashore and diverting myself now and then finding a smoother pebble or a prettier shell than the ordinary, whilst the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me.
Einstein said the following: The most beautiful and deepest experience a man can have is the sense of the mysterious. It is the underlying principle of religion as well as all serious endeavors in art and science. He who never had this experience seems to me, if not dead, then at least blind. To sense that behind anything that can be experienced there is a something that our mind cannot grasp and whose beauty and sublimity reaches us only indirectly and as a feeble reflection, this is religiousness. In this sense I am religious. To me it suffices to wonder at these secrets and to attempt humbly to grasp with my mind a mere image of the lofty structure of all that there is.”
(Einstein’s speech ‘My Credo’ to the German League of Human Rights, Berlin, autumn 1932, Einstein: A Life in Science, Michael White and John Gribbin, Page 262.)
Indien jy die evolusie van wetenskap dophou sien jy ‘n opvallende beweging:
1. Isaac Newton se wette en ontdekkings was geweldig op die vlak van materiele eksperimente gegrond
2. Einstein se ontdekkings was op die vlak van die onderskeidende en skeppende brein, en interpretasie daarvan. Hy was nie geinteresseerd in materiele eksperimente nie, hoewel sy teoriee reg bewys is.
3. Die kwantumfisika het die bisarre lewe van die mikrowereld blootgestel, wat bewys het dat bg alleen nie genoeg is om die hele wereld van die fisika te verklaar nie.
4. Van hierdie punt af is daar is net twee wee uit: of jy verval totaal in die siellose mundane wereld van materie of jy vind die oplossing vir die vereniging van die mikro- en die makro fisika soos wat dit met tyd, dimensies en wiskunde saamhang.
5. Die laaste deurbraak van die fisika het te doen die bonatuurlike, geestelike realm vanwaar wiskunde en fisika aan die mens gegee is. Wetenskap moet terugkeer na sy Gewer. Dit het te make met die vereniging van die wette van die kwantumwereld en die makrowereld en hoe dit sou opereeer. Dis hierdie probleem waaraan Einstein die laaste 26 jaar van sy lewe gewerk het. Dis die oplossing waarop Ryazanov afgekom het. ‘n onsienlike wereld waarin golwe en deeltjies terug beweeg in tyd, soos die basiese wette van wiskunde en fisika dikteer, wat slegs aanmekaargehou word deur GOD.En onthou, Ryzanov kom uit ‘n navorsingsagtergrond van ‘n materiele siellose sisteem van Kommunisme.
Comment by Daniel le Roux — January 5, 2008 @ 7:16 am |
“Dis die oplossing waarop Ryazanov afgekom het. ‘n onsienlike wereld waarin golwe en deeltjies terug beweeg in tyd, soos die basiese wette van wiskunde en fisika dikteer, wat slegs aanmekaargehou word deur GOD.”
Daniel, Ryazanov het op niks afgekom nie. Read his works and please point out to me where he explains, in scientific terms, “‘n onsienlike wereld waarin golwe en deeltjies terug beweeg in tyd, soos die basiese wette van wiskunde en fisika dikteer, …”. Furthermore, mathematics and physics do not demand such nonsense.
From where you get the idea that God keeps the unknown or unseen world or universe together only you will know. No, Daniel, I suspect you are just as delusional as Ryazanov.
Comment by Savage — January 5, 2008 @ 7:56 am |
George, kyk bietjie of julle George Ryazanov se wiskundige vergelykings kan volg onder seksies 3,4,5,6,7,8 ens. onder die volgende link:
http://george-ryazanov.com/book4/book4.htm
Indien nie, gaan na ‘n begaafde fisikus in SA en vra die persoon om dit stap vir stap te verduidelik en wat dit beteken. Op die oppervlak (seksies 1 & 2) mag dit wat hy oor God skryf snaaks klink. Kyk egter dieper. Onthou dat sy ontdekkings in die fisika-wereld ‘n geweldige deurbraak is mbt die fisikawette, die kosmos en tyd; en hy is deur die werklikheid van die ewigheid en God se bestaan onomwonde gekonfronteer. (Onthou, Newton was ook obsessed met God!) Hy het egter ook vir my gese dat hy sy hele aanbieding verander het. Maar dis nog nie in Engels beskikbaar nie, sy moedertong is Russies.
Probeer net eers die werklikheid van die vergelykings mbt die beweging buite die materiele in te sien (escape from matter).Hy is ‘n uitstaande teoretiese fisikus. Hy is byvoorbeeld destyds al uitgenooi deur persone soos Andre Sacharov om die beginsels van sy ontdekkings te verduidelik. Jy kan ook lees wie Lev Landau is en die Instituut waaruit George kom. Slegs 43 van Landau se studente kon ooit toelating kry.*** Kyk na die volgende link:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lev_Davidovich_Landau
***The Landau school
Landau developed a comprehensive exam called the “Theoretical Minimum” which students were expected to pass before admission to the school. The exam covered all aspects of theoretical physics, and only 43 candidates ever passed. In this way his students became proper physicists, rather than narrow specialists.
It was also in Kharkov that, with his friend and former student, E.M. Lifshitz, he started to write the well-known Course of Theoretical Physics, ten volumes that together span the whole of the subject and are still widely used as graduate-level physics te
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Comment by Daniel le Roux — January 6, 2008 @ 3:15 pm |
Daniel le Roux: For the purposes of reviewing the mathematics, which you seem to feel proves god’s existence, I have tried to access the Ryazanov pages but so far without any success. I will continue to try.
What intrigues me is that there is no Wikipedia entry for any “George Ryazanov.” More yet, it is suspicious and revealing that, by way of contrast, even a full-blown crank like Ricardo Carezani (whose Autodynamics “derivations” I dismembered on a Yahoo! Group several years ago) enjoys a small entry amidst such luminaries as Alan Guth, Steven Weinberg, Michio Kaku, etc. Surely as eminent a physicist as you would have us believe Ryazanov to be would have his or her own entry. On this ground alone, the credibility of what you’re proposing is dismissible as wishful thinking.
However, and more substantially, any claimed “mathematical proof” of god is immediately suspect. Why? Because all mathematics as well as its sub-branches are so-called “axiomatic formal systems,” which suffer from two grave logico-philosophical problems: (1) all mathematical theorems are tautological in the context of the axiomatic formal system in which they were derived (in other words, all theorems are already latent in the axioms – it’s just a question of combining them in a suitable fashion), and (2) any axiomatic formal system sufficiently complex to encompass arithmetic cannot be both consistent and complete at the same time (a.k.a. Gödel’s Incompleteness Theorem).
Problem (1), which might aptly be termed a “content conservation law” for formal systems, means that you cannot “prove” god mathematically unless s/he’s already been smuggled in via the axioms or assumptions that are used. Problem (2) means that a “proof” of god would make him/her subject to, or a product of, an axiomatic formal system in which other theorems exist that are true (or false) but which cannot be proved so, and therefore s/he must lose, variously, his/her status as the source of all things, as well as the all-encompassing attributes s/he supposedly possesses.
Comment by Con-Tester — January 7, 2008 @ 9:48 am |
Daniel le Roux, the more you open your mouth about science and its findings, the more you expose your ignorance. You have not answered Savage’s question: where does George Ryazanov bring the evidence for a creator god?
Daniel, I think you should start reading about evolution, about the real findings of science, not by reading 2nd hand filtrated and misinterpreted distortions of creationists and wishful thinkers who dearly want it that there should be a god and then distort science to fit their wishes.
Your way of thinking and that of these wishful thinkers remind me of the words of that great American novelist Saul Bellow who wrote that a large part of intelligence is spent on ignorance when the need for illusion is deep. Your need for illusion is very deep: you left your promising career as an economist at the University of Pretoria to go to Israel to preach to the Jews. What you should have done, is to start reading on science. Instead you are subscribing everything you do not understand to God (as Ryazanov is in fact doing through the nonsense he is writing about the “proof” for god’s existence.
The great American geneticist Jerry Coyne emphasised it in the following way: “… the real war is between rationality and superstition. Science is but one form of rationality, while religion is the most common form of superstition… If the history of science shows us anything, it is that we get nowhere by calling our ignorance ‘God’.”
Daniel, you are spending your life on superstition. It is as simple as that.
Comment by George Claassen — January 7, 2008 @ 3:38 pm |
From where you get the idea that God keeps the unknown or unseen world or universe together only you will know. No, Daniel, I suspect you are just as delusional as Ryazanov.
God does not just keep the unseen world together, He also keeps the visible world together. The unseen and seen are in fact connected by and through Him. This has been proven by the new physics and it agrees with His holy Word: Col 1:16 For by Him were all things created, that are in heaven, and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers: all things were created by him, and for him: 17 And He is before all things, and by him all things consist.
I will be elsewhere in Israel for about 2 weeks but look forward to communicating again. God bless you guys!!!
Comment by Daniel le Roux — January 7, 2008 @ 4:08 pm |
Daniel le Roux, the more you open your mouth about science and its findings, the more you expose your ignorance. You have not answered Savage’s question: where does George Ryazanov bring the evidence for a creator god?
Neither have you done what I asked you. I repeat what I said earlier on (comment 100):
George, kyk bietjie of julle George Ryazanov se wiskundige vergelykings kan volg onder seksies 3,4,5,6,7,8 ens. onder die volgende link:
http://george-ryazanov.com/book4/book4.htm
Indien nie, gaan na ‘n begaafde fisikus in SA en vra die persoon om dit stap vir stap te verduidelik en wat dit beteken.
Greetings and love from Jerusalem!
Comment by Daniel le Roux — January 7, 2008 @ 4:16 pm |
Daniel le Roux I will go through Ryazanov’s (R’s) book and comment as I go.
Chapter 1.
“Hence in today’s physics the ascent from observation to equation is not completed – only now we have this ascent in all its beauty.
The correct physics turns out to have two-level structure:
heavenly physics – symmetric in relation to two signs of time,
mundane physics – the result of breaking of this symmetry.”
Where has this been published in a renowned science publication? This is just R’s opinion and does not pass muster.
“The first Revelation is the general algorithm of ascent.
Through this algorithm any leave of grass, any galaxy is moving to God.”
“The fourth Revelation is about your function in the universe.
You were created in order to read the Message that is written in configurations of matter. The end of this reading will be the end of evolution of your world, the end of times, and the return to God.”
Good lord, but this is a lot of nonsense. How can you waste your time with such crap?
Daniel, we live in different worlds seeing that you find R’s writings true.
Comment by Savage — January 7, 2008 @ 6:29 pm |
Ryazanov’s book chapter 2.
“Waves are radiated by a moving electron, and after the scattering on other electrons of the universe they are returned to the initial electron. Hence any electron is moving in its own field. This self-action is similar to the action of a human being paying much attention to the opinions of other beings of this society.”
This is incoherent nonsense in my opinion. What is R actually saying? That people are like electrons?
“But the actual electron is wandering along different cosmological models! That is the main idea of this text, that idea was revealed to me by God through some miracle.
Just this summing over different cosmologies generates physics where we see the way out of the power of matter – the first step of returning to God.”
Ah, now we get to the heart of the matter. God revealed the new physics to R. And God demands the return of all matter to Him. The New Physics (read Scripture) according to Ryazanov!
I think this is enough bullshit from chapter 2 and I’ve hardly begun reading it.
Comment by Savage — January 7, 2008 @ 6:55 pm |
Ryazanov chapter 3
Here R gets into physics and math equations that I cannot comment on. It is clear however that God sits behind these derivations.
“Here God Himself decided to interfere……..It means not I but all today’s physics is mistaken.”
We better be careful, the next space mission could go terribly wrong.
“We are living under the power of matter…….We can also change the sign of masses. In those cases we would have a complete new physics. We shall liberate ourselves from the power of matter!”
I am convinced R is a crackpot. I will not waste anymore time reading his crap.
My advice to R is to publish his book by a renowned publisher and let us see the comments he gets from other physicists. That is, if he can find a publisher.
Comment by Savage — January 8, 2008 @ 5:49 am |
Daniel le Roux: For the purposes of reviewing the mathematics, which you seem to feel proves god’s existence, I have tried to access the Ryazanov pages but so far without any success. I will continue to try.
What intrigues me is that there is no Wikipedia entry for any “George Ryazanov.” More yet, it is revealingly suspicious that, by way of contrast, even a full-blown crank like Ricardo Carezani (whose Autodynamics “derivations” I dismembered on a Yahoo! Group some years ago) enjoys a small entry amidst such luminaries as Alan Guth, Steven Weinberg, Michio Kaku, etc. Surely as eminent a physicist as you would have us believe Ryazanov to be would have his or her own entry. Or is orthodox science conspiring against the poor man? On this ground alone, the credibility of what you’re proposing is largely dismissible as wishful thinking.
However, and more substantially, any claimed “mathematical proof” of god is immediately suspect. Why? Because all mathematics as well as its sub-branches are so-called “axiomatic formal systems,” which suffer from two grave logico-philosophical problems: (1) all mathematical theorems are tautological in the context of the axiomatic formal system in which they were derived (in other words, all theorems are already latent in the axioms – it’s just a question of combining them in a suitable fashion), and (2) any axiomatic formal system sufficiently complex to encompass arithmetic cannot be both consistent and complete at the same time (a.k.a. Gödel’s Incompleteness Theorem).
Problem (1), which might aptly be termed a “content conservation law” for formal systems, means that you cannot “prove” god mathematically unless s/he’s already been smuggled in via the axioms or assumptions that are used. Problem (2) means that a “proof” of god would make him/her subject to, or a product of, an axiomatic formal system in which other theorems exist that are true (or false) but which cannot be proved so, and therefore s/he must lose, variously, his/her status as the source of all things, as well as the all-encompassing attributes such as omniscience s/he supposedly possesses.
Comment by Con-Tester — January 8, 2008 @ 7:11 am |
Daniel le Roux, praying for our souls won’t help you and us, and will not open your obvious closed eyes to the reality around you.
The basic question here is whether George Ryazanov has allowed the mathematical equations – you want us to put to an South African physicist to prove your point that Ryazanov is right about the existence of god – to be tested by independent scientists. Has Ryazanov followed the procedure all scientists must follow when making claims of discovery: has he allowed it to be peer-reviewed, has his “findings” about god been published in a peer-reviewed journal or publication? I would think no.
Well, my information is that Ryazanov is the laughing stock among physicists worldwide. I have asked three South African physicists of international repute and standing about Ryazanov. One called him deluded and a crank, the other was rather more unkind: he compared him to the Messiah and Mohamed wandering into the desert and hallucinating about the revelations of God. The 3rd one said Ryazanov is regarded by the scientific community as a non-scientist who should not be taken seriously.
Please also ask the American Physical Association representing more than 46 000 physicists what they think about Ryazanov’s standing in science after his “discovery” of god.
There you have it: in his own community he is not taken seriously. Yet, you Daniel, thinks he has proven god exists. Shouldn’t we leave it to the scientists to make the final judgment about the quality of his “research”? And they have spoken!
And that this man was a former student of the great Andrei Sakharov! No wonder the director of the American Skeptics, Michael Shermer, refers in his book Why people believe weird things (Daniel, get hold of the book, it might open your eyes to the twaddle you believe in) to the former USSR as one of the places where superstition and pseudoscience is most rife in the world. For so many years they have been repressed to only think what the communist party told them. Now, after the repression has been lifted, they are bombarded by shysters telling them to believe anything!
Ryazanov is clearly delusional. Now we know, because the moment someone tells you God revealed something to him in a miracle, you must know he is far far far away from being a scientist.
And Daniel le Roux, such an intelligent man, believes him. The Dutch Reformed and Calvinist meme of Brits is still uppermost in your mental processes, Daniel. But your way of thinking is not science.
Rather stick to religion then, but stay away from dragging religious nuts such as Ryazanov into science. And may you be converted to a scientific way of thinking.
Comment by George Claassen — January 8, 2008 @ 10:13 am |
As I read this aritcle, Wolpert does not explain to the boy why he must choose one or the other.
I agree with Wolpert; nevertheless, Wolpert simply tells the student, “follow me, I know better.”
So does the Army General, so does the Priest.
No argument can helpfully be framed in the terms of “either/or”.
Comment by rodney hickman — January 19, 2008 @ 7:46 pm |
My dear cousin , greetings to you! I am back in Jerusalem. I have checked your letters since my request that you investigate the mathematical equations of the new physics in both directions of time. It is good to hear from you but I am so sorry that you have not done what I have asked you; but rather have believed strange reports and judgments concerning theoretical physicist, George Ryazanov. To slander someone’s name is not a hard thing to do, you can get this from any roadside fool, you know. You do not have to go to a physicist to do that. Especially not 3 nameless “tops” who cannot even point out mathematically where Ryazanov is wrong! No, my cousin! We are dealing here with science and facts and not mind sets. In science and mathematics you never just make a statement without proving the facts.
If you do want to work on hearsay I can offer you several world class physicists that would say the very opposite of what you wrote to me. And I will name them too! People such as Andre Sakharov, who was so impressed with Ryazanov’s findings that he invited him to present them at a conference that he hosted. Others that I can mention are brilliant world class physicists such as Evgeny Livshitz and Lev Landau, one of which had memorized parts of Ryazanov’s physical solution by heart for the sheer brilliance of them! You can check out these people on the Wikipedia if you want to.
And the reason why Ryazanov himself is not listed on the Wikipedia is possibly that he is less interested in fame than in truth, for that matter! Who did your write-up for the Wikipedia? There are many scientists that would not hear about his findings simply because of God. But there still has to come one that will show me the error of his thinking and findings with regards to his discoveries on the physics in both directions of time. As for the slander: I have been a friend of Ryazanov for years and I know what kind of intelligence, integrity and humility we are dealing with here. You do not have to tell me about the character of a brilliant and moral man through some people that have never met him. Please my dear cousin, let us rather stick with truth and scientific fact and get to the heart of the matter!
What is involved here is TRUTH and I trust that you and your readers would be interested in that too. With regards to physics we have have mathematics and scientific reasoning and with regards to the spirit world we have the Word of God. We are now dealing with the question of where the two meet. At this point of our discussion, please do not forget that if God exists, the mundane world you see all around you actually originated from the spirit world. God is spirit, according to the Bible. Modern science also point in that direction. If you would simply look at the big bang for instance: what caused it? What was there before this infinitisimally small point that science cannot explain. Yet the Word of God clearly says in Hebrews 11:3 Through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear. Spirit came before matter and it is now discovered that it is through a type of symmetry breaking of that that we have this mundane universe. Think of it in the following way: it is only when you go below a certain degree of heat, that a metal would have its polarity.
Just the very word TRUTH tells one that we are passing from a point of simply the mundane into a world of unseen qualities. Think of love, joy and peace. Or faith and integrity. These qualities cannot be seen yet they exist and as a matter of fact rule people’s lives! Most leading scientists over the years have strongly believed in them. On a lighter side: when you married Hannetjie or begot your children, were you driven by scientific fact or did it pass that line into the qualities of the unseen?
But simply on the level of the mundane: eternity, which is actually outside of time is also hinted at when we consider the immense level of the micro and macro worlds we can probe. What did man know about the micro world before the invention of the microscope and the discovery of quantum mechanics? What did we know about the macro world before the advances in astrophysics and the exploration of our universe? These worlds could not be seen and yet they very well existed. Does not nature itself teach us that man’s own natural ability of sight is so much limited if we simply consider his natural perception in the electromagnetic spectrum alone. (The area that he can observe with his eyes). What worlds lie beyond and how short sighted to to make assumptions on the little we know as human beings, as if all is open and clear to us. I have already quoted Isaac Newton some time ago, the great Christian Scientist who said:
“I don’t know what I may seem to the world. But as to myself I seem to have been only like a boy playing on the seashore and diverting myself now and then finding a smoother pebble or a prettier shell than the ordinary, whilst the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me.
Think about this: In one day we may find new discoveries that set back our knowledge light years from the day before! As an example: what do you think did Saul Perlmutter’s research on supernovas and the outcome of the universe prove? They discovered the almost unbelievable fine tuning of the cosmological constant and the speeding up of the universe by a power that is utterly unknown! Check up the accelerating expansion of the universe under his findings.
Interestingly enough, mathematics too hints at infinity when we consider infinity and numbers. But to take it one step further: What do we know about the existence of things in other dimensions? And yet mathematics and physics dictate that these dimensions exist!
For these reasons we cannot simply stand in foolish judgment of a competent 73 year old physicist who has devoted his life of scientific research to the question of two signs of time in the laws of physics! Nor can we disregard his laws on the liberation of matter, without truly looking at his findings. For this reason I want to present in very simple terms to you the whole question of two signs of time in physics and what it is that Ryazanov really discovered. I ask you to please investigate this matter with an eager heart for the truth.
OUR CAPTIVITY TO THE MUNDANE
With the demise of science to the purely mundane, the major crisis of our civilization is very evident. A crisis that was actually predicted by Einstein when he wrote:
Religion without science is lame,
Science without religion is blind.
In the world at large, the sense of meaningfulness that existed during the golden ages of Judaism and Christianity, and the years marking the advent of the science, are absent now. As a result mankind has strayed dangerously into the void of the mundane. This is a situation actually so opposite to the life and nature of creation itself and to the living organism we call the Universe!
ESCAPE FROM THE MUNDANE
In the light of all this, the question that is hanging over the scientific community at least, is the following: If God is real and if we really do live in a universe that was created by Him, why does He not interfere?
The answer to this question is the following: He has already done so, in more than one way, and He is pointing us to a science that must return to HIM!
This science is very different from today’s. Our science was developed originally from the seventeenth century as a leading spiritual movement of the time. The creators of science were moved by highly idealistic motives. However, since then science has very much experienced a descent into the purely mundane, as its focus became centered on the material side of matter only. The result is that science today is mainly appreciated as a source of technological, biological and economic growth, military power and so on.
HEAVENLY SCIENCE
If science and mathematics was conceived by GOD it has to return to HIM if it really is to face the truth and enter its fullness!
The problem is that science also had another source – that sprang out of something completely dissimilar and mundane – and it is exactly this dissimilarity that eventually captured and enslaved it, as we see all around us today. It has become like a blackhole that has turned in on itself, swallowing everything around it, especially light!
It is only a major breakthrough in the realm of matter that can return science to GOD. This breakthrough must be similar, in a sense, to the great breakthroughs in the spiritual world of Judaism and Christianity and their massive effect in history and society.
The next breakthrough we are waiting for here on earth is the return of creation itself to its Creator. The advent of this is clear all around us. The signs are irrevocably there! And we find ourselves right in the middle of this. For science at least, it touches on the dilemma of the purely mundane and the release of our world from matter itself. This is in line with the sacred texts that tells us:
ROMANS 8-19 The creation waits in eager expectation for the sons of God to be revealed.
20 For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope
21 that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay*** and brought into the glorious freedom of the children of God.
22 We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time.
But it also is in line with one major advance in modern physics:
CORRECTING THE MISTAKE OF FUNDAMENTAL PHYSICS
How can we look at this breakthrough from a scientific point of view? It may seem very strange, but at first glance it appears to be something very simple and very innocent. But it is also very serious. Innocent in the fact that we simply correct a basic mistake in today’s physics. Actually in the method that we solve the basic equations of physics. But then serious in the consequences that we are dealing with!
To get to the point: The basic equations of physics does in fact give us a perfect symmetry with regards to particles and waves moving in both directions of time: from the past to the future and from the future to the past! Not only this, they actually dictate this!
However, we are used to only particles and waves that move from the past to the future here on earth, but not the opposite! This has had the result that class room physics has thrown out the symmetry that the basic equations of physics point to and has concentrated only on the A-symmetry that we find when we are dealing with one direction of time only.
This manner of action has turned out to be THE great mistake in modern physics today. However, this mistake cannot really be understood within the pragmatic paradigm of science only. The same type of idealism that motivated scientists such as Newton and Einstein is needed to give us the correct vision.
Remember that we are dealing with a major paradigm shift into a higher level of existence of which we form only a lower dimensional part.
“REALITY” THAT CONTRADICTS THE BASIC LAWS OF PHYSICS? SYMMETRY, CONSCIOUSNESS AND TIME
So the question that poses itself:
WHY IS CREATION CAUGHT UP IN AN EXISTENCE THAT SEEMS TO CONTRADICT THE BASIC EQUATIONS OF THE LAWS OF PHYSICS?
This question tortured all the pioneers of physics from the middle of the 19th Century on. There was a common feeling that there is a great mystery hidden behind this question. Today we discover that their intuition was totally correct! The solution to the problem that haunted them for ages is found in the fact that we are indeed dealing with a world that is symmetric in two directions of time, but only the one direction is obvious and the other not!
However, both of these do perfectly exist and actually give us the key to how we relate to the Creator and how creation will return to HIM. It is exactly the broken symmetry of the mundane world in relation to the harmonious Symmetry of Creation – which unlocks the mystery of the relationship between creation and its Creator. And for man in particular – the key to the operation of his consciousness in relation to that of the eternal.
It also unravels the mystery of time itself and the way it operates with regards to the eternal. Remember that GOD is outside of time and He knows the end from the beginning! It is written:
Isaiah 46:9 Remember the former things of old: for I am God, and there is none else; I am God, and there is none like me,
10 Declaring the end from the beginning, and from ancient times the things that are not yet done, saying, My counsel shall stand, and I will do all my pleasure
THE DIVINE MISTAKE
If we accept the equations of physics running in both directions of time as the more correct and true reality of science, it implies a hidden unseen world that we basically know nothing of. Knowing that this inverse world originated from God (whose visible creation we can observe) we can correctly assume that a total harmony should exist (or have existed) between these worlds that we are not altogether aware of. This is obvious when we observe the immaculate harmony and perfect design of things relating to the created universe and especially the biological world around us.
The reason why we are unaware of this other world with inverse time could very well trace back to the act of creation when there had to be a symmetry braking when the Divine (utterly spiritual) had to be manifested in a natural world of material substance. Our natural world appeared after the breaking of this symmetry.
Einstein (according to Wheeler) assumed the symmetry of equations relating to both sides of time to be a trace of a “heavenly world” with this symmetry. Einstein thus saw this approach as a solution to the problem of two signs of time.
But here lies the evident hindrance too: the heavenly dynamics is unknown to us. It can only be spiritually “sensed” by that essential substance imparted to creation that bares the resemblance of the living God. In other words, the substance in creation (and especially in man – created uniquely in God’s Image) that enables it to return to and communicate with the Eternal One.
WHEELER & FEYNMAN
A scientific way of approach was pointed out by Wheeler and Feynman. They had put forward a new rule instead of the usual one solving the Maxwell equation for Electromagnetic potential A (where only waves going into the future is taken into account) to accommodate waves going from the future to the past!
As the output of such a dynamic and revolutionary step we have on an observable level the usual classical electrodynamics – a strange result!
This result was obtained by them for a static cosmological model. Later on many physicists repeated the Wheeler Feynman calculations with the rule for an inverse time for an expanding universe. The results turned out to be the same but actually is utterly incomplete:
It is here that I want to pick up the Ryazanov story of escaping the one direction of time limitation through a mistake!
THE DIVINE MISTAKE AND THE BIRTH OF THE HEAVENLY SCIENCE
This story took place in the country side outside of Moscow where Dr Ryazanov was living without scientific books or journals. Let me explain: As a member of the Landau Institute for Theoretical Physics, he was not expected to report for work every day. As a gifted and prominent physicist he was given total liberty as to the setting and place of his choice for his research.
Because he had discovered that the intensity of brainwork, concentration and problem solving demanded by the work he was doing, would make him sick within the limits and confounds of a normal room or office, he instead chose nature and the country side as his “office”. While he was in this type of setting in 1968 he wanted to make a reference in one of his articles to the already mentioned work of Wheeler and Feynman. To remind himself of the content of this work he decided to calculate the Force of Radiation Reaction for an Accelerating Atom. But instead of a static universe he took the real expanding universe.
Because of two directions of time we now have LOOPS IN TIME. Through these loops any electron interacts with any other electron in the universe. After taking these loops into account we find the output of calculation to be the same as in usual electrodynamics, though now the whole universe turns out to be involved in any act of local interaction!
The expression for radiating reaction has the form of an integral over the whole universe. It is a complex expression where loops in time are calculated at the background of an expanding universe. This calculation was done many times by different theoretical physicists. The result was the same usual electrodynamics.
But unexpectedly Ryazanov got something different from the usual electrodynamics. Some additional forces! He first thought he had made a mistake but the form of these forces seemed strangely familiar. After more attentive inspection he discovered three additions:
1. The inertial force with the correct value of mass
2. The gravitational interaction with environment – with a constant near to the its known value
3. Some auto-oscillations with a frequency near to the Compton frequency
He started to look for the cause of all that and found: he erroneously took the advanced field not in our universe but in a universe with an opposing arrow of time!
But what is the real meaning of this amazing output of the error? The meaning is evident:
RYAZANOV’S CALCULATION WAS NOT THE ERRONEOUS ONE BUT THE UNIVERSAL SETTING OF PHYSICS AS A WHOLE AS WE HAVE IT TODAY!!!
The correct rule for solving the Maxwell equations is neither the model for advanced waves and particles, nor the one for the retarded waves and particles put forward by Wheeler and Feynman, but in fact a whole new Cosmological Model for each of these two stumbled on by Ryazanov (through this divine mistake!). A totally different universe for each!
This model is actually above any logic or imagination. How do these two worlds interact? Where is the observer in relation to them? And other questions.
THE NEW IMAGE OF OUR UNIVERSE
To make a long story short, what does the new physics teach us? We have some important new features:
1.Loops in time for fields:
Through these particle can interact with any other particle in the universe
2.Trajectories with turning points in time
Through them we have at any moment of time an (whole image) of copies of the same electron
The ground state of such an ensemble is a dynamic entity: it radiates and absorbs electromagnetic waves. These waves fill the whole universe. Any electron is in the state of equilibrium in relation to these waves and because of this the waves radiated and absorbed by ground states turn out to be unobservable directly. Hence these waves form a true vacuum that is completely different from the usual vacuum of quantum field theory.
THE IDEAL AND THE REALITY
Let me explain all the above once again, but in more simple terms: In the universe of a Symmetry we have a unity of oppositions. Because of this certain pioneers in physics such as Einstein – in his interaction with Wheeler, told him that he was inclined to a more romantic and idealistic reality, suggesting the following: to take on equal footing particles and waves both from the past and from the future. To look at all symmetry breaking that may take place in this system. One of the results of this symmetry breaking will then be our world.
This suggestion seemed to be simple and beautiful but nobody could find a model fitting these qualities. Until a certain day in 1968 when Dr Ryazanov unexpectedly obtained such a model as a result, strange as it may sound, from a mistake in his calculations! The seemingly mistake turned out to be an amazing accurate solution to the problem that prevented the new physics in both directions of time to be birthed!
He also understood why this model was working in contrast to the one that physicists such as Einstein and Wheeler were looking for: the solution revealed not only the symmetry of two signs of time in one universe, but also, without Ryazanov being conscious of the fact at the time of the mistake, two arrows of time in two different cosmoses! In other words, the model turned out to be one in which time was moving forward in our universe, and backwards in another universe of which we are not aware!!! But both belong to one another and can only be connected only through God the Creator! We thus have two opposing models of our world which are spiritually connected.
THE MODEL OF TWO OPPOSING WORLDS
This model of unity of two opposing worlds is far above any human imagination. For example, with regards to the point of observation it is not clear where is the observer is. But this model is in accord with the idea of two signs of time and turns out to work much better than today’s model with only one world.
Because of this and because of the great religious meaning of the consequences of this discovery, Ryazanov (who had grown up in a godless Soviet system) considered his mistake rather as a revelation than a logical derivation! Why would a seemingly foolish mistake of the mind be the solution to something as profound as this? It had to be an intervention from the same GOD who created the Universe and had given us the Law and the Prophets, the New Testament and science of course.
Once this model is applied, we then find an avalanche of solutions for different problems regarding today’s physics. A union of different realms of physics, calculation of physical constants and so on. In fact through this new model of the universe Ryazanov could theoretically derive the other laws of physics without experiment.
And this is how it should be! We do not uphold the spirit world, the spirit world upholds us! Matter came from spirit and not the other way around. It is important that the derivation and accuracy of these laws are NOT based on experiment, but rather on a non-material wisdom and Essence by which the true universe is held together. Einstein too, had already advanced in the world of physics to such a level of mental discernment and creative probing that he did not need any experiments to validate his findings, even though experiments did so!
Normal scientific experiments deal only with our mundane universe moving in one direction of time. It thus is incapable of deriving full scientific reality.
We have here many new effects but actually also the promise of an apparatus that can enable man to move outside the power of matter.
Comment by Daniel le Roux — January 24, 2008 @ 11:02 am |
Dear friends!
Daniel have given a brilliant exposition of my starting point.
It is not yet the proof but it is a hint to the very important circumstance: we are not alone in the universe.
I name those events “gleams of eternity” because they have no logic but their cosequences are extraordinary great.
Now I have 20 such events.
Any of them is a proven wonder but the more wnderous thing is the evident deep meaning of the whole configuration of those events.
It is a dialogue of humanity with God through a simple algorithm
(a hypothesis).
This configuration depend on time and with above algorithm I can extend it and would recieve the next gleams of eternity if my preposed extention is correct.
The cosequence of this new gleam turns out to be extraordinary great.
And so on – that is my dialogue with God.
George
P.S. Do not read my unfortunate site.
Comment by George Ryazanov — January 24, 2008 @ 7:46 pm |
George Ryazanov and Daniel le Roux, I do not know what you are busy with. One thing is for certain though, it is not science. Religion maybe, crack-potting for sure. There is not one single proof of the existence of God and you surely do not attempt to supply that proof.
“It had to be an intervention from the same GOD who created the Universe and had given us the Law and the Prophets, the New Testament and science of course.”
This statement (regarding the so called ‘Model of Two Opposing Worlds’) is just your opinion, gentlemen, nothing more. It is not science.
“If science and mathematics was conceived by GOD it has to return to HIM if it really is to face the truth and enter its fullness!”
What utter nonsense. Again, where is your proof? You have NO scientific experimental proof of all your claims. Are you really so far gone that you expect rational people to take you seriously?
Comment by Savage — January 25, 2008 @ 6:14 am |
These guys (assuming the one isn’t the other’s sock puppet) obviously haven’t seriously considered the foundational objections I raised in comment #108. Until these are properly addressed, it is safe to dismiss their contentions as “conjuring up god from nothing at all” because mathematically one cannot arrive at something that wasn’t already implicitly contained in the constructs used for the derivations.
And, for some unknown reason, I still can’t access Ryazanov’s page.
Comment by Con-Tester — January 25, 2008 @ 7:36 am |
Long post warning.
Daniel wrote: “My dear cousin, greetings to you! I am back in Jerusalem. I have checked your letters since my request that you investigate the mathematical equations of the new physics in both directions of time. It is good to hear from you but I am so sorry that you have not done what I have asked you; but rather have believed strange reports and judgments concerning theoretical physicist, George Ryazanov. To slander someone’s name is not a hard thing to do, you can get this from any roadside fool, you know.”
You can get pseudo-science for any roadside fool too. Are you assuming we are capable of examining the math behind Ryazanov’s wishful thinking? Are you capable of examining the math behind string theory? For this reason we stated that unless his “work” is reviewed AND accepted by his peers, the educated people who are able to analyze it in context, we will not accept it. It appears to be rejected by his peers, albeit informal. Sorry if you don’t like it. Let him submit his work for proper review.
Daniel wrote: “But there still has to come one that will show me the error of his thinking and findings with regards to his discoveries on the physics in both directions of time.”
Then get him to submit his divine revelation for peer review. Why does he not? Why should we accept it as sound science if his work is not peer reviewed?
Daniel wrote: “Others that I can mention are brilliant world class physicists such as Evgeny Livshitz and Lev Landau, one of which had memorized parts of Ryazanov’s physical solution by heart for the sheer brilliance of them!”
Citation please. You are dealing with skeptics here who unfortunately will not just take your word for it. Sorry about that, we are not good on the whole “faith” thing.
Daniel wrote: “There are many scientists that would not hear about his findings simply because of God.”
Citation please, or should we assume it is just your opinion?
Daniel wrote: “As for the slander: I have been a friend of Ryazanov for years and I know what kind of intelligence, integrity and humility we are dealing with here.”
Ah, things are becoming a bit clearer to me now.
Daniel wrote: “What is involved here is TRUTH and I trust that you and your readers would be interested in that too. With regards to physics we have have mathematics and scientific reasoning and with regards to the spirit world we have the Word of God.”
Which god? Odin? Zeus? Vishnu? Allah? If you are referring to the Christian god, that would be the one where zombies rose from their graves when the father god martyred his son on the cross, no? I am not that hot on math, but does Ryazanov perhaps have mathematical proof that zombies can rise from the grave too?
Spirit world… hmmm. Is that like ghosts and stuff, holy ones and unholy ones? Do you have proof of this “spirit world” of would you prefer us to take you on faith?
Daniel wrote: “At this point of our discussion, please do not forget that if God exists, the mundane world you see all around you actually originated from the spirit world.”
At this point of our discussion, please do not forget you are not dealing with fellow believers of magic. We are skeptics and will not assume God (or the spirit world) exists, just because you ask us to. Sorry.
Daniel wrote: “We are now dealing with the question of where the two meet.”
Uh… no. We are still dealing with why your good and faithful friend has not submitted his “sheer brilliance – your description” for peer review, as is required before acceptance of his “sheer brilliance”. Without this central process of science we are not just going to take your, or Ryazanov’s word for it. I am sure the scientific community eagerly awaits Ryazanov’s “sheer brilliance”. I also have a suspicion that should Ryazanov’s work be accepted by the peer review process, there might just be a Nobel Prize waiting for him. That alone should be motivation enough for him to submit his work at once! Think of all those nasty atheist scientists that will be one their knees, seeking god, all due to your good friend’s “sheer brilliance”. Saving souls is after all a very important matter.
Daniel wrote: “God is spirit, according to the Bible. Modern science also point in that direction. If you would simply look at the big bang for instance: what caused it? What was there before this infinitisimally small point that science cannot explain. Yet the Word of God clearly says in Hebrews 11:3 Through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear.”
God is spirit, according to the Bible. Yes, that is true, just like according to the Bible donkeys can talk. We don’t know what caused the Big Bang yet. M-Theory, quantum fluctuations etc are all offered up as possibilities. Assuming magic words from some super deity tends to stifle scientific investigation. Of course, the magic word explanation also poses a more complex question of where this super duper almighty deity came from. Occam’s old remora blade just itches to cut something at this stage of the reasoning.
Daniel wrote: “What did man know about the micro world before the invention of the microscope and the discovery of quantum mechanics?”
A very good point. Before the invention of the microscope, people used to believe weird stuff; like that demons are the cause of illness. I kid you not! I mean, even Jesus went about curing illness by casting out them nasty demons. The poor pigs got the worst of it though, but then again, the Judeo-Christian God really had a phobia for pigs. Who can blame him? The critters really make a stink. But why make something you abhor so much in the first place? Why make bacon when you can’t stand the taste or even contact with it? God sure does move in mysterious ways. Undetectable ways but still very mysterious.
Daniel wrote: “What did we know about the macro world before the advances in astrophysics and the exploration of our universe?”
Another good point. People believed some old books and stories about the Earth being the centre of the universe, that the Sun could stop orbiting the world for a few hours while some savage tribes battled. They even begged some deity for more daylight to complete their god sanctioned slaughter of other tribes. But you are right. We have learned a lot since then. Thank god, I mean science, for astrophysics that cured a lot of our stupidity and ignorance.
Daniel wrote: “Just the very word TRUTH tells one that we are passing from a point of simply the mundane into a world of unseen qualities.”
What are you talking about? Perhaps the word truth does not mean what you think it means. However, I am sure a quick dictionary lookup could assist you. Or is this another one of those “faith” things that I just do not understand?
Daniel wrote: “They discovered the almost unbelievable fine tuning of the cosmological constant and the speeding up of the universe by a power that is utterly unknown! Check up the accelerating expansion of the universe under his findings.”
Ah, cosmological ID. The arrogant water puddle in the middle of the road wondering why the pothole was made to fit the dimensions of the puddle so perfectly. Very cute. Take into consideration that this universe is “hostile” to life and that life sort of exists in spite of it. As for this “unknown power” you speak of, I think there are some very good *natural* explanations for inflation. Perhaps you could go and do a bit of research yourself. Try this as a starting point. http://science.hq.nasa.gov/universe/science/dark_energy.html
Daniel wrote: “For these reasons we cannot simply stand in foolish judgment of a competent 73 year old physicist who has devoted his life of scientific research to the question of two signs of time in the laws of physics! Nor can we disregard his laws on the liberation of matter, without truly looking at his findings.”
Agreed. Let’s do this. Let his peers look at his findings and accept, modify or reject it. Or do you expect *us* to accept it without the scientific process of peer review?
Daniel wrote: “With the demise of science to the purely mundane, the major crisis of our civilization is very evident. A crisis that was actually predicted by Einstein when he wrote:
Religion without science is lame,
Science without religion is blind.”
What a pity Einstein rejected the idea of a personal god, i.e., such as the god in the Bible eh? Are you going to do the same and rename *nature* to *god* and *religion* to scientific enquiry and wonder? If you want to define *nature* as *god*, then call me religious.
Daniel wrote: “In the world at large, the sense of meaningfulness that existed during the golden ages of Judaism and Christianity, and the years marking the advent of the science, are absent now. As a result mankind has strayed dangerously into the void of the mundane. This is a situation actually so opposite to the life and nature of creation itself and to the living organism we call the Universe!”
Oh, I don’t know about that. I mean, we no longer accept the myth in the bible that the Earth is 6000 years old and that God made us from clay. My observation is that science has made great process since God was no longer accepted as an answer for everything we did not understand.
Daniel wrote: “In the light of all this, the question that is hanging over the scientific community at least, is the following: If God is real and if we really do live in a universe that was created by Him, why does He not interfere?”
Uh, I thought your crowd claimed he does interfere? Answering prayers, breaking his own laws with miracles, impregnating virgins, speaking from clouds, killing the godless etc?
Daniel wrote: “The answer to this question is the following: He has already done so, in more than one way, and He is pointing us to a science that must return to HIM!”
Nonsense. How do you make this stuff up? Can God not just come down to Earth, boom his almighty, all-persuasive voice from the heavens (or use spam tactics and email) and sort this all out? Is your friend the new prophet to reveal God’s will? How many more times do we have to hear claims such as this? It seems like a fairly incompetent God that has battled for thousands of years to get his message across, and still only left chaos and confusion regarding the matter of his existence, never mind his will. Perhaps you believers need to reach a consensus about God first before you try and convince the rest of us to just take your word (faith) for it.
Daniel wrote: “It is only a major breakthrough in the realm of matter that can return science to GOD. This breakthrough must be similar, in a sense, to the great breakthroughs in the spiritual world of Judaism and Christianity and their massive effect in history and society.”
Christianity and Judaism were great breakthroughs in the spiritual word? The crusades, Judah Macabee? Perhaps the Israelites murdering many other tribes on God’s command? Angry deity drowning men, woman, children, babies, as well as animals? How about the idea of torturing people over an eternal fire for ever? How about a snake talking? A ghost impregnating another person’s fiancée perhaps? Please, this breakthrough was not spiritual, but an amazing viral meme, enslaving people with fear, teaching them they are all born evil and needs to accept that he tortured his own son on a cross in order to prevent him from torturing everyone else by default. The very fact that this “god” has human attributes, such as jealousy, hatred, anger, love, patience, changing his mind, desire for vengeance and pettiness pretty much leads to a different conclusion from the one that you are cuddling up to. Have you read anything about the old Sumerian civilization yet? Strange that it appears as if the Judeo-Christian god appears to have evolved from older concepts of gods eh?
Daniel wrote: “The next breakthrough we are waiting for here on earth is the return of creation itself to its Creator. The advent of this is clear all around us. The signs are irrevocably there! And we find ourselves right in the middle of this.”
I thought Jesus’ death was supposed to reconcile the creator and the creation? What signs are you talking about? The decline of Christianity in Europe and America perhaps?
Daniel wrote: “But it also is in line with one major advance in modern physics: [...] To get to the point: The basic equations of physics does in fact give us a perfect symmetry with regards to particles and waves moving in both directions of time: from the past to the future and from the future to the past! Not only this, they actually dictate this!”
So your God is time confused? Some people get like that when they smoke certain plants. Jokes aside, I really do not understand what you are trying to say. It is probably a handicap on my side, but you appear to be rambling on and on about time. If a wave, for instance, a probability wave, does travel back in time, then how on earth does this prove that a god (*your* god) created everything and are going to destroy it again because the things he made, like people, turned out to be imperfect? Your argument is sounding more and more like a “God of the Gaps” argument every time you attempt to explain your revelation.
Daniel wrote: “However, we are used to only particles and waves that move from the past to the future here on earth, but not the opposite! This has had the result that class room physics has thrown out the symmetry that the basic equations of physics point to and has concentrated only on the A-symmetry that we find when we are dealing with one direction of time only.”
No. I read a book about a year and a half ago (Quantum Mechanics topic) that discussed probability waves moving back in time, interfering with itself etc. It was an attempt to explain the collapse of the wave function on observation. However, nowhere was god offered up as an explanation for anything. It does appear that science has no problem with things moving back in time… if it can be proven
Daniel wrote: “This manner of action has turned out to be THE great mistake in modern physics today. However, this mistake cannot really be understood within the pragmatic paradigm of science only. The same type of idealism that motivated scientists such as Newton and Einstein is needed to give us the correct vision.”
You really want to place your friend in the same playground as Newton en Einstein eh? That’s very noble of you. Fortunately Newton and Einstein’s work got proven by observation and experiments. Once again, peer review… peer review… peer review…
Daniel wrote: “We have here many new effects but actually also the promise of an apparatus that can enable man to move outside the power of matter.”
I thought the whole soul/ghost myth held by the religious pretty much claims the same thing, where the apparatus could be a simple little virus or bears that appear because of the taunting a bald prophet?
I read the rest of you post Daniel but since you seem to think quoting the Bible will convince us, I have to decline on further comment on your post. Two Jehovah Witnesses was at my house over the weekend and I had an overdose of silly quotes for an old incoherent “holy” book as if it was scientific evidence for weird religious concepts. Let you friend submit his work for peer review or stop trying to convince us to take it on faith. Faith is a handicap.
Comment by Renier — January 25, 2008 @ 9:54 am |
Ryazanov wrote: “Daniel have given a brilliant exposition of my starting point.”
I am sure he is glad that it made an impression on someone. Is this whole “brilliant” and “sheer brilliance” the new lingo over there?
Ryazanov wrote: “It is not yet the proof but it is a hint to the very important circumstance: we are not alone in the universe.”
Yeah, some people are claiming there are little green men abducting humans and doing… never mind. But I do appreciate your honesty when you say you not have proof yet. I does however appear some *other* people (nudge nudge wink wink) did not get the memo. Perhaps you could talk to them and explain the concept of proof? There appears to be some, eh… minor misunderstanding regarding the meaning of proof in a scientific sense.
Ryazanov wrote: “I name those events “gleams of eternity” because they have no logic but their cosequences are extraordinary great. Now I have 20 such events.”
Oh man, that is just awesome. You just made my day. I have a smile from ear to ear. Thanks. And you now have 20 such events, with no logic? I am a bit confused now. How could we discuss this in a rational way when logic has no part in this? Does your math regarding these wondrous events also contain no logic?
Ryazanov wrote: “It is a dialogue of humanity with God through a simple algorithm”
Awesome. This whole prayer thing as a means to have a dialogue with god is not working anyway. Then of course, the New Age nutters’ claims dialogue with god through quantum effects that occurs in certain special crystals. Some tribes in South America prefer certain plants to allow them a dialogue with god. I dare say an algorithm does not pose such a health threat at all.
Ryazanov wrote: “Any of them is a proven wonder but the more wnderous thing is the evident deep meaning of the whole configuration of those events.”
I thought you said there is no proof? And there is that word “evident” also. Dear Sir, please, submit your work to a good science journal. Would it not be better to have your work scrutinized by other educated people instead of wondering why we refuse to accept your work and conclusions? I mean, I am no physicist. I do not have the technical knowledge to accept your work. How dishonest would I be if I proclaimed your work to be true based on my own ignorance? Are you not curious as to whether you might have made any errors, false assumptions etc? Your friend Daniel claimed your work proves the existence of a god (send that memo about the lack of proof, he missed it!). Are you not eager to find out if you are correct or not? Perhaps they will reject it and you can work on the errors? Everyone makes mistakes, most of all me. Perhaps they will accept it and you will do humanity (and god) a great service? It’s just that we have heard this whole thing so many times before. Someone claiming they have mathematical proof for god. Surely you cannot blame us for feeling quite a bit skeptical towards such claims and insisting that you peers review your work?
Ryazanov wrote: “The cosequence of this new gleam turns out to be extraordinary great.”
There is someone you should perhaps meet. Your work and his work have something in common. His name is John A. Davison. You will find him on the net. I think you guys have a lot to talk about.
Ryazanov wrote: “P.S. Do not read my unfortunate site.”
Have no fear. I heard a rumour it was not accessible. Perhaps it is traveling back in time into the immaterial spirit world where god awaits it as the solution to clear communication with the stubborn human race. But, once again, joking aside, please note all the various requests for peer review of your work.
Comment by Renier — January 25, 2008 @ 11:14 am |
Daniel le Roux and George Ryazanov should just reply to one basic question: has R.’s theory about the proof of God been peer reviewed? Where? And by whom?
If not, why not? Until he does that, this posturing by Daniel and Ryazanov is just wishful thinking. As all religious belief is. Hiding behind obscure words and ideas won’t replace the power of evidence, independently reviewed and verified. BRING the evidence, Daniel and George Ryazanov. That’s how science determines the truth and tests outrageous claims.
Comment by George Claassen — January 25, 2008 @ 11:29 am |
They do seem very silent on the peer review topic, do they not?
Comment by Renier — January 25, 2008 @ 1:18 pm |
Dear friends!
What peer review?
Where did you seen “God” in any scientific journals?
It is only a good news for people who are glad to hear it.
Those people may have questions and objections and we will try to answer them.
But only if they understood the meaning of our message.
Without this understanding any dialogue is futile.
George.
Comment by George Ryazanov — January 25, 2008 @ 8:12 pm |
Dear George
You ask: what peer review? The answer: review of your work by physicists and mathematicians who can analyse your hypotheses for truth or false doctrine. You are a physicist and you therefore know the scientific method in getting a hypothesis accepted as a theory. Your conjectures are only hypotheses at present and need to be tested by observation and experiment. Try to get your work published in a scientific journal and let us see what happens.
The reason you don’t see “God” in scientific journals is simply because science has nothing to say about God. That is for religious journals. Perhaps your hypotheses fit in with the ideology of the religious.
Comment by Savage — January 27, 2008 @ 5:10 am |
George Ryazanov wrote: “What peer review? Where did you seen “God” in any scientific journals?”
Let’s get one thing straight here. We were not the ones who claimed your work on “proving God” is science. You dear friend Daniel did that. Why are you surprised that we ask your work to be peer reviewed *before* any claims to scientific legitimacy are made? Do you perhaps think it *might* be dishonest to claim your proof of God (as Daniel stated) before the scientific process (such as peer review) is followed?
George Ryazanov wrote: “It is only a good news for people who are glad to hear it.”
Without any proof I would not call it *news*, unless it is in religious journals as Savage stated. But it leaves me wondering why on Earth Daniel barged in here with lofty claims of proof for God’s existence. I might be wrong, but is seems a tad dishonest to me. It’s like saying you found a 1000 carat diamond but don’t know where it is yet.
George Ryazanov wrote: “Those people may have questions and objections and we will try to answer them. But only if they understood the meaning of our message.”
So, we have to believe God exists before we can accept your work? You fail to realise that we are doubters. We do not think blind belief is a virtue, but a severe handicap. Therefore, if you fail to provide proof for your claims then you are being unreasonable when you expect people to except it. Without this much glorified belief request of yours, how do *you* know your work is correct or of value? Do you just assume or believe it is correct and has great value, as you claim?
I can’t get the Laurel and Hardy tune out of my head, don’t know why.
Comment by Renier — January 28, 2008 @ 8:19 am |
My dear cousin, I believe you and your friends are really intelligent enough to do any “peer review” yourselves! You are supposed to be the guardians of the holy grail of science and you cannot even investigate a matter like this yourselves. My goodness. If you have problems, just do what I told you much earlier on: go to an able scientist and let him take you step by step through the maths and let him prove Ryazanov wrong mathematically! But please no nameless mud casting as if you were some moralists in stead of scientists. As for George’s math ability: Feynman quoted him in his book on statistical science, no joking, but I leave the searching part up to you my cousin if you doubt me
Comment by Daniel le Roux — January 28, 2008 @ 2:06 pm |
Having a great knowledge of mathematics does not mean what you postulate is reality. Look at what is happening in String Theory: the mathematics are beautiful without predicting a shred of observational truth.
Comment by Savage — January 28, 2008 @ 5:57 pm |
Dear friends, you have made your world so small and so boxed in. Where is the ability to soar in imagination and where is the excitement of mystery and discovery that leads to the understanding of reality. Do you know that Einstein took in imagination from a totally unseen world, never experienced by people up to that point and brought it into reality. You are only interested in observational reality, how narrow minded and boxed in can you get. This is not reality, I am sorry. The truth of the matter is not so much what we can see but what is seen of us and what is out there to be discovered as reality. There is so much out there that we know nothing of, at least science has proved that to us over the years. The whole world of theoretical physics is based on the unobserved being pulled into reality mathematically. God bless you!
Comment by Daniel le Roux — January 28, 2008 @ 8:21 pm |
“Where is the ability to soar in imagination and where is the excitement of mystery and discovery that leads to the understanding of reality.”
Smoking pot might do the first part for you but it surely would not lead to the understanding of reality. Or perhaps the religious’ reality is not unlike a drug addict’s illusory world.
Comment by Savage — January 29, 2008 @ 5:39 am |
My dear Savage, did you ever hear about a man by the name of Richard Wurmbrand, a Jewish Romanian pastor that was imprisoned and tortured for his faith for 14 long years during Communism. When he was eventually released to the west the UN medical body that examined him found it impossible for such a man to still be alive. But I actually want to quote what he said in on of his underground sermons: “There is a foolishness in God, and a corresponding foolishness in the saints. My reason stops short at theism. But Einstein demanded that we relinquish convictions which we have held for so long that they have become synonymous with common sense. I will give up common sense in religion too. If Einstein consigned to the flames the classic laws of physics, we must do the same with the classic notion of love. God loves in a sense of this world which is different from our use of it. And as for me, my foolish love will not stop where my reason stops. God loved us without any deserving on our part. I will love him, and believe in him and in his plan of redemption, without any reasonable cause, simply because it pleases him.” This is the madness of God towards us, Savage, my blog friend, towards every human being ever born. And the unexpected ways of advance in science underscores that. And I will humbly and thankfully take that as for myself. Whatever people may call me in their seemingly logic, which may be here today and revised utterly tomorrow. I sincerely hope you as well.
Comment by Daniel le Roux — January 29, 2008 @ 12:06 pm |
Lau.. I mean Daniel said: “I will give up common sense in religion too.”
Enjoy!
My “dear” friends. Submit the so called work of “sheer brilliance” to a good journal for review or expect us to reject your wild claims. C’mon, don’t be scared. Live on the wild side!
Comment by Renier — January 29, 2008 @ 12:39 pm |
“But Einstein demanded that we relinquish convictions which we have held for so long that they have become synonymous with common sense.”
Daniel, do you believe this man. Where did he get this from? Einstein only showed that Newton’s laws were incomplete. So he went wider. We still use Newton when the speed of an object is not remotely close to the speed of light. And we use integral calculus, etc., etc. Gravity works very well with Newton but getting to neutron stars and black holes we need Einstein.
“If Einstein consigned to the flames the classic laws of physics, we must do the same with the classic notion of love.”
Daniel, was this man on this magic “fruit”, or did his rambling come from a sober state?
“God loved us without any deserving on our part. I will love him, and believe in him and in his plan of redemption, without any reasonable cause, simply because it pleases him.” ‘This is the madness of God towards us, Savage, my blog friend, towards every human being ever born. And the unexpected ways of advance in science underscores that.’
Amen, brother, I give up, Con-Tester and Renier are much better seeing through this fog than I am.
Comment by Savage — January 29, 2008 @ 1:45 pm |
It ain’t fog. There is a good Afrikaans word for it: “Mis”. Oh… wait… hehehehehe.
Comment by Renier — January 29, 2008 @ 1:58 pm |
The thing is, Laurel and Hardy here wants us to play in their sandpit. As George Claassen noted, we have no interest unless they bring their ball over to the big play field of science and see how they score on the peer-review. Their request for *us* to peer review their work speaks volumes on this madness about god and foolishness. How does one argue with someone with thoughts like this: “And as for me, my foolish love will not stop where my reason stops.” and “This is the madness of God towards us, Savage, my blog friend”
A mad god? Yeah, I think he might be right. Made in his image and all that I think I see some resemblance in our dear friends. But I choose life! Say no to da foolishadamfruit mahn.
Anyway, they are doing the typical religious thing. No evidence, so start preaching. Cue a warning about hell in 5…4…3…
Comment by Renier — January 29, 2008 @ 2:08 pm |
Actually, Daniel le Roux and George Ryazanov must first agree on what they’re actually proposing because it’s not at all clear what that might be. It seems that their schtick is a “mathematical proof” of god’s existence. If so, peer review isn’t required because there is no in-principle difference between a “mathematical proof” of god and one of an elusive pink-hooved, lime-green unicorn that causes peaches to ripen.
Apart from my prior objections (#101), which have yet to be addressed, there’s this: if an omnipotent god made everything, s/he surely made mathematics. If mathematics are sufficient to circumscribe god (as would be necessary for any “mathematical proof” to succeed) then (1) logically god created something more powerful than him/herself, and (2) that more powerful thing is, according to Daniel le Roux and George Ryazanov, within our grasp.
The upshot is that we will have conquered god, and thus such a claim of a “proof” is self-defeating.
Comment by Con-Tester — January 29, 2008 @ 3:05 pm |
What is so amazing is the very fact that it is not only the Word of God that testifies to GOD’s existence. No, creation and science actually itself testifies to that too! For what may be known of the invisible God has been clear since the creation, His eternal power and divine Being, being understood from the things that were made. The Bible says it in Romans 1:20 and science which in itself is nothing but the study of creation, testifies to this too. And I am not referring only to the discoveries of George Ryazanov on the question of two signs of time and the cosmos. There are numerous others!
First of all, the development of science has proven to us that we are step by step moving into realms that we practically know nothing of. Galileo, Newton, Maxwell, Einstein, Quantum Physics. Einstein for the last 26 years of his life was working on the Unified Field Theory, an attempt to unify the seemingly contradictory laws of the macro cosmos with quantum mechanics.
Einstein himself struggled so much with the idea of an expanding universe that he introduced the cosmological constant into his work to achieve a stationary universe. He only abandoned it after the proofs of Hubble’s red shift. Today this cosmological constant has been rediscovered through the unexpected findings of the pioneering work of Saul Perlmutter and other teams of researchers into the phenomenon of supernovae and the outcome of the universe. They have proven that in fact that the expansion is speeding up (not slowing down as they had expected) by an unknown power working against gravity! This constant is so fine tuned in fact, that it boggles the imagination to what extent the universe has to be fine tuned for existence!
Einstein also said “God does not play dice with the universe!” in sheer disbelief of the display of quantum mechanics. He found himself in profound disagreement with many of the most outstanding and influential physicists of his time: physicists like Neils Bohr, Werner Heisenberg and Max Born who had adopted what came to be known as the “Copenhagen interpretation” of the then-new field of quantum mechanics.
But the advance of science will not stop until it has come to grips with eternity and the eternal One from whom it came and where it will be at peace. And not all the will and work of any so called rationalist will stop that! No short sighted guardian of an outdated mode of physics, who is hanging desperately in there trying to prevent discovery from going ahead, will undo that. Because you deny the very heart of the imaginative process of thing you try to protect! The very process by which it actually moves ahead.
To be honest, the very people whose laws you try to defend (after the facts had been proven!) you would have crucified personally on this blog! I have already mentioned that almost all the great pioneers in physics were deep believers God. Newton, Wheeler, Maxwell, Einstein and so on. Yes, Einstein, was not an outright believer in a personal God but that did not stop him from believing in eternity and embracing religious acquaintance with Christians, Hindus and so on.
No boxed in “con detector” will put any limits on the brilliance of God given imagination which he himself cannot even begin to fathom. I say, no ways…. And whether physics makes short halts at string theory or multiple universes, let it do so! It does not matter, for the truth will be laid bare for all to see anyway one day. And I would rather be on that side than the other. I want to know that truth, even as I am known by it!
The Bible says: The fool has said in his heart there is no God. Because it is not so much what we is see, but what we do not see! And at least, with this science agrees!
The following were some of Einstein’s words:
“The significant problems we face cannot be solved at the same level of thinking we were at when we created them.”
“Any fool can make things bigger, more complex, and more violent. It takes a touch of genius — and a lot of courage — to move in the opposite direction.”
“If we knew what it was we were doing, it would not be called research, would it?”
“Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I’m not sure about the former.”
Comment by Daniel le Roux — January 30, 2008 @ 7:17 am |
Nice, emotive sermon. Pity that it’s totally devoid of scientific content. Even bigger pity that it’s wasted here because this isn’t a church.
Comment by Con-Tester — January 30, 2008 @ 7:52 am |
Daniel wrote: “I have already mentioned that almost all the great pioneers in physics were deep believers God. Newton, Wheeler, Maxwell, Einstein and so on. Yes, Einstein, was not an outright believer in a personal God but that did not stop him from believing in eternity and embracing religious acquaintance with Christians, Hindus and so on.”
So, since Einstein was clear that he thought the idea of a personal (Christian) god is nuttier than squirel poop, and you Daniel appear to put some major trust in Einstein, perhaps you should heed his advice?
Con-Tester, I disagree. That was pretty crap as sermons go :-p
Comment by Renier — January 30, 2008 @ 11:07 am |
Greetings you guys!
Yes I know you are not a church.
The problem though is that you act like one. The church of the outdated morals of atheism.
Also the following: of course mathematics cannot prove God! But the mathematical findings of a person such as George Ryazanov is a strong argument for His existence: because they deal with a hitherto unseen universe and the unexpected derivation of the known laws of physics as a consequence of this cosmological change. This is why I very much want you to have a look at them
Comment by Daniel le Roux — January 31, 2008 @ 12:39 pm |
Renier wrote (#134):
Okay, I won’t contest your verdict. I must be a bit out of touch with these things since it’s been a while when last I attended a sermon…
Daniel le Roux wrote (#135):
You’ll have to be a bit clearer, seeing as the bible thumpers are always going on about how atheism is synonymous with amorality.
Daniel le Roux wrote (#135):
I’m glad we’re agreed and have gotten that out the way.
Daniel le Roux wrote (#135):
How so? Even granting the reality of this “hitherto unseen universe”, what prevents all of this being accounted for by natural forces? Note also that Hugh Everett’s “Many-Worlds Interpretation” of QM posits a whole multitude of “hitherto unseen universes” without any god’s fiddlings being necessary.
Comment by Con-Tester — January 31, 2008 @ 1:11 pm |
Daniel. Why do you not encourage your buddy to submit it for peer-review? Or is your friggen god alergic to it?
Comment by Renier — February 1, 2008 @ 8:45 am |
Dear Renier and Con Tester, friends, George clearly stated earlier on this blog: “”"where in the world have you heard about God in scientific journals?” This is the bias you deal with here. To what extent would any of them be willing to investigate his findings if they pre-judge him about God as was the case on this blog. And it make s no sense whatsoever, He is a brilliant, sober doctor in math and physics, but when the question of God comes up, many people run from him.
Secondly, your question about the hitherto unseen universe and how natural it is. This is indeed a very good question. it actually turns out that the other universe out there exists in the very imigination of God Himself! We are created in God’s image and thus He too must have an imagination. Where He would move things forward and backwards in time before bringing into existence. Just as we do move in all directions in the creative process before eventually bringing the output. God is outside of time and knows the end from the beginning and can in fact interefere where He wishes.
About the church: Any church that God intended is supposed to be a fellowship of indvfiduals with the living Person the Messiah and GOD. Our fellowship is with one another and with the Father and the Son. This is A LIVING GODHEAD!!!! We have been built for relationships, to know one another and to know God. If we love our wife or our friend, this in itself is much higher than the laws of mundane physics. And make no mistake our FATHER IN HEAVEN LOVES us! You probably have read the account of the prodigal son.
This is our highest function in life. However the church has regressed to such a miserable state of legalism that they have become in a sense like the pharisees. All they are good for is to be the rigid defenders of codes of morals, which they pull from the Bible somewhere, whereas Christ came that we might have life and have it more abundantly! There is a vast difference between right and wrong and the living Word of Christ (LIFE). The Parisees said stone the udulteress. Jesus said : who is without sin cast the first stone.
What has happened in the church was never what God intended. He loves us. As one of the worst sinners I can attest to that, at least. And He wants us to commune with Him through the ransom of YESHUA, JESUS, the Lamb of GOD. So what most churches peddle today is a load of rules, utterly too high to live by without the the real substance of Christ’s Spirit. When I was a child (because of the sin in my heart) I had a big battle with God on Sundays… for the sinner I am. Then when I later was in university I left church all together for about 7 years before I had a mercifull revelation of living God in Namibia. During this time the love for Israel and their people started to came and God called me here. It was a country and a people I did not love or was interested in in whatsoever. This was sovereignly God!
So when I read your blog I notice that you throw all kinds of moral statemets around in favor of atheism or against God and I think to myself, listen, these have nothing, but utterly nothing to do with the creative substance or process of science. Then you are defenders of dogmas that can utterly change tomorrow. When uncle George and I discuss science we share on physics and God in a true setting of love and soon we are caught up into the higher world of the Spirit where phyics come from: God. But here are you guys, the defenders of science, hating God, hating us, hating one of science’s brightest prodigees….and in the mean time God loves you deeply, deeply friends…my hear feels it every day….words cannot describe it. Each one of you. God in his very nature is love.
Comment by Daniel le Roux — February 2, 2008 @ 1:05 pm |
Daniel le Roux wrote (#138):
In other words, we have to presuppose that god exists so that we can then locate this unproven and hidden mirror universe in his/her imagination. But the claim was that George Ryazanov had proof of god’s existence from principles of physics, was it not? It is hard to see how one can take that which you describe as any kind of proof for anything cogent or palpable.
I’m also afraid that most of your comment consists of little more than emotive sermonising, so I can find little to respond to besides the following few outrageous statements:
Daniel le Roux wrote (#138):
“[M]uch higher”? Presumably, you mean “more important in god’s view” or something like it. But without the “laws of mundane physics” there’d be no you, no wife, no friend and no love.
Daniel le Roux wrote (#138):
First, I’m not sure the terms “moral statements” and “dogmas” actually apply. Second, no-one claimed that atheism or faith had something to do with “the creative substance or process of science” or anything similar. Third, “change tomorrow” is ambiguous: are you saying (a) that today’s science can affect the course of tomorrow, or (b) that today’s science may be found to be not true tomorrow? Option (a) is trivially true as an observable fact, and it requires neither belief nor non-belief. Option (b) would show that you don’t understand the way science progresses and how knowledge accumulates because you expect science to be an eternally true, never-changing body of knowledge, which is the domain of religious dogma. In point of fact, science actually thrives on error, revising earlier theories and ideas whenever conflicting evidence becomes sufficiently compelling.
Daniel le Roux wrote (#138):
“[H]ating”? I can’t, of course, speak for anyone else, but “hating” is the wrong word. More correct terms would be “remaining totally unconvinced”, “unimpressed”, “dubious” or even “deeply sceptical”. What I personally find objectionable about religions is the smoothly deceitful, crafty and completely untrustworthy answers it pretends to give to life’s big questions, and then, by means of affected and self-professed superiority, they abdicate responsibility for establishing the veracity of their claims.
The other wholly unacceptable face of religion is the browbeating that children receive in its name, as suggested by the title of this blog entry.
Comment by Con-Tester — February 4, 2008 @ 9:27 am |
Daniel wrote: “But here are you guys, the defenders of science, hating God, hating us, hating one of science’s brightest prodigees….”
Let’s just get one thing straight here. I don’t hate you. I have no reason to hate you. I don’t agree with your fantasies and I *do* find you preaching funny, but I do not hate you. Ok? Did you get that?
Secondly, this thin mask of “friendship” that you keep going on and on about. Perhaps you should heed your own book? After all, it is you that claim the book is your god’s divine word.
2 John 1:7 For many deceivers are entered into the world, who confess not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh. This is a deceiver and an antichrist.
2 John 1:10 If there come any unto you, and bring not this doctrine, receive him not into your house, neither bid him God speed: (1:11) For he that biddeth him God speed is partaker of his evil deeds.
2 Corinthians 6:14 Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers: for what fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness? and what communion hath light with darkness? (6:15) And what concord hath Christ with Belial? or what part hath he that believeth with an infidel?
Ah yes, the religion of “love”.
Daniel quoted Ryazanov and wrote: “”where in the world have you heard about God in scientific journals?” This is the bias you deal with here. To what extent would any of them be willing to investigate his findings if they pre-judge him about God as was the case on this blog.”
Oh, I see. Sniffle sob boohoo. Those evil atheists’ journals are just going to reject the brilliance of Ryazanov! Persecution! Perhaps Ryazanov should submit his brilliant work to see if it means *anything* at all or if it has *errors* in it. How else would he know? Faith? And if it does get rejected then perhaps he should try and understand why. But is seems crystal clear that his persecution complex is already patting his head, and yours.
Daniel wrote: “God in his very nature is love.”
Oh really? Why? Because you say so? Because your Bible says so? If God is love, then perhaps God is oxytocin? After all, without oxytocin it appears the capacity for love is gone. Perhaps your god lost her oxytocin during the Old Testament period. It will explain a lot, don’t you think?
You do realize you are preaching with all this “lamb of god” and “god is love” and “sin” and “god loves you”. This is not a church and I assure you everyone here already heard the sermon you are preaching, a gazillion times. Thanks for the effort but we heard it all before. I poke fun at sermons. Heck, somebody has to smile! I mean, what’s all this preaching about anyway? Does every Xian fancy himself standing on a pulpit in a batman suit wailing about god, begging people to believe his words?
But what the heck, let’s play your silly little game. Science likes testing, no? And since George Ryazanov’s god appears to be allergic to peer-review, let’s try something simple.
George Ryazanov wrote: “It is not yet the proof but it is a hint to the very important circumstance: we are not alone in the universe.
I name those events “gleams of eternity” because they have no logic but their cosequences are extraordinary great.
Now I have 20 such events.
Any of them is a proven wonder but the more wnderous thing is the evident deep meaning of the whole configuration of those events.
It is a dialogue of humanity with God through a simple algorithm
(a hypothesis).
This configuration depend on time and with above algorithm I can extend it and would recieve the next gleams of eternity if my preposed extention is correct.
The cosequence of this new gleam turns out to be extraordinary great.
And so on – that is my dialogue with God.”
Apart from your error Daniel, that even George Ryazanov admits it is not proof and yet you Daniel think it is (and tells people with a straight face it is), let’s take this thing a bit further. Ryazanov claims: “It is a dialogue of humanity with God through a simple algorithm”. Ok, I think we can work with this. A dialogue is a conversation between parties. Agreed? So let’s ask Ryazanov’s god something. What input parameters can his algorithm take? What questions has he asked so far to make this dialogue with his god possible? Or is he simply seeing numbers and imagining it as god’s words? Could you ask him what next weeks lotto numbers would be? Oh… wait, greed and all that. Let’s ask something that will benefit humankind. Could you ask your god what the cure for aids is? Hmmm. Perhaps too hard a question, I mean, a good god would never allow people to suffer like that, and he would have cured it with a wave of his wand a long time ago. Perhaps he does not know the cure. Fair enough. Let’s try something really really simple. Does your god know what I had for lunch? That should be easy. Go ask him and post the answer here. Oh, and please, post the answer, not another sermon. Does this sound reasonable to you? If not, why not? If George Ryazanov divine algorithm cannot answer such simple (for God!) questions, what can it answer then?
Comment by Renier — February 4, 2008 @ 11:48 am |
Dear Renier, greetings to you. I haven’t been on the site a few days. I hope the following will help to answer your questions. It is from a purely secular point of view. Seeing that you have so much trouble with me and George! The presenter is a famous and able scientist, Sir Martin Rees. In the modern progress of science we are faced to such an extent with the existence a creator God that the scientific world has been stunned to its senses over it. The only ways out is of this dilemma if one refuses God:
1. if you close your eye, ears and mouth like the 3 monkeys.
2. Or if you find an alternative for God and his creation through the multiverse, a term coined by Rees. Problem is it takes an even greater step of faith than the Bible and man becomes a puppet in a computer simulation of other worlds!
This situation has basically forced the scientific communion to consider the Creator as never before….a fascinating journey to follow with astronomer royal, Martin Rees. I hope you enjoy it.
What we still don’t know,
1. The Question Posed
All life on Earth is nothing more than an elaborate facade created by super-intelligent beings. Humans now exist in a computerized version of the world – a simulation that keeps us happy, while our powers are drained by our creators for use as fuel in their campaign for dominance in the ‘real’ world. This is the premise of the cult sci-fi thriller The Matrix.
‘The simulation hypothesis, that we are currently living in a computer simulation, should be understood literally, it’s not just in a metaphorical sense whereby one could view the universe as a simulation, but literally we would be living in a simulation created by some advanced civilization in a computer they built in their universe. And everything we see and our brains themselves would just be parts of this simulation.’ Oxford University philosopher Dr Nick Bostrom echoes the thoughts of sci-fi writers and scientists alike. The simulation hypothesis is not sci-fi, it’s serious academic thought.
In Are We Real? Martin Rees navigates the extraordinary territory between science fact and science fiction. He reveals the logical steps that have led cosmologists and philosophers to the shocking conclusion that The Matrix scenario cannot be safely relegated to our storybooks. Whether it’s true or not, and it might be, here is a story that is altogether more serious and more deeply disturbing than any sci-fi fantasy could ever be.
Cosmologist Professor Max Tegmark from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology warns us that ‘We humans have undergone a series of demotions, a series of blows to our ego.’ Prepare yourself for another.
2. God’s or Nature’s Laws
For forever and a day, humans have attributed their existence to the work of an intelligent designer, a godhead who created all life. All religions tell some sort of creation story that addresses the question of why we are here. Scientists, on the other hand, have traditionally been concerned with the ‘how’ rather than the ‘why’ of things. They might ask, not why we were created, but how we came to be. That is an altogether easier question for science to tackle.
According to the scientists’ version of creation, we ultimately owe our existence to the fundamental laws of nature. In many ways, cosmologists see this as rather a simple affair. From a few natural laws and an inert gas, comes all the diversity and complexity of life, the universe and everything.
Indeed, Professor John Conway of Princeton University showed beyond doubt that simple rules can create complex patterns. He invented a simple mathematical game consisting of a grid of squares, which he called Life. Some squares are filled with counters, whose fate is determined by three basic rules that correspond to birth, life and death. When this game is run on a computer, what transpires is a pattern that looks as though it were purposeful enough to have been designed.
‘My little Life game is surprising because from the simple rules one wouldn’t expect to find things that move in a sort of purposeful manner. It mimics life to that tiny extent. Like a little mini universe,’ says Conway.
The notion that the universe was created with purpose begins to disintegrate in the face of a greater understanding about how complex systems can emerge from randomness. And they do so with no further input than a few simple rules.
3. Too Fine-tuned for Chance
There is a general view amongst physicists that the laws of nature that have allowed our creation are accidental. They are simply a property of mathematical principles that have nothing to do with our existence, or the existence of anything else for that matter. Life, the universe and everything exists by pure accident.
Another view emerged as the laws of nature came under increasingly detailed mathematical scrutiny and it became apparent that tinkering with them just slightly could make life impossible. It looked as though the laws of nature had been accurately set purposely to encourage the evolution of life.
The laws of nature can be defined by a set of numbers that provide the parameters for the evolution of the universe as we know it. One of these numbers in particular, the so-called cosmological constant has to be very tiny if the universe is to grow old enough and big enough to contain stars, and life.
The cosmological constant can be considered as the intrinsic mass and volume of empty space, which Einstein had suggested was not zero. It turns out that this number needs to be set to an accuracy of one part in a trillion, trillion trillion, trillion trillion, trillion trillion, trillion trillion, trillion. Any minuscule variation and life is a non-starter.
This raises all kinds of dilemmas for physicists who understandably shrank from the conclusion that pointed toward Intelligent Design. Martin Rees has remained steadfast: ‘Some people are satisfied with a religious explanation, whereas I think it is a scientific question, which deserves to be addressed by cosmologists.’
4. Multiverse
It seems that the numerical parameters that have set the universe on its course to make stars and hence life are so accurately set that it’s difficult to imagine they got that way by chance. But if they didn’t get there by chance, how did they get there, by design? No. Cosmologists have come up with an elegantly simple way around the invocation of a Designer.
How about the suggestion that the universe we inhabit is only one of many? If there are many universes, then there must have been many Big Bangs creating them and each could have resulted in a universe with a different set of natural laws. So we would be existing in a universe that is one of many, each with its own peculiar set of laws to define it. If this were the case then it wouldn’t be at all surprising to find that one of the many universes was finely tuned enough for the evolution of life.
Martin Rees explains: ‘If you go into a clothes shop and there’s a large stock, you’re not surprised to find one suit that fits you, whereas if there’s only one suit in stock, then you are surprised to find it fits. So, many universes governed by different laws would remove any reason for surprise at the apparent fine-tuning in our universe.’
In one bountiful leap of imagination, the problem of Intelligent Design is swept aside. Martin Rees has coined the term ‘multiverse’ to describe the whole ensemble of universes. The next leap of imagination takes us even further into the outreaches of sci-fi, or is it sci-fact?
5. Intelligence – Ours and Others’
Cosmologists who subscribe to the multiverse idea have followed the next logical line of questioning. If we are only one universe of many, and such complexity as our own intelligence can arise from simple rules, what other intelligences might be out there? And what can we learn about other intelligences by extrapolating from our own?
At present, our brains are the most complex thing that we know of in the universe. It has taken nearly four billion years of evolution to get from simple single-celled life to humans. Our Sun has another six billion years before it dies in a flare-up that promises to engulf all the planets around it, including Earth. That’s another six billion years of evolution – how much bigger could our brains possibly get and how much more intelligent would that make us?
Neuroscientist Dr Michael Hofman of the Netherlands Institute for Brain Research has compared the brain structures of primates to try and understand what would happen if our brains were to become much bigger. According to Hofman, we humans have hit the limits of our intelligence – if our brains got any bigger, they’d actually get slower: ‘After a particular brain size, something strange happens. There is some maximum in intelligence, in processing power, in cognitive abilities, but beyond that point you find a decrease.’
If we have reached a glass ceiling in brain power, could we or other life forms in the universe ever become more intelligent? Philosopher Dr Nick Bostrom from Oxford University thinks so: ‘It’s not evolution any longer, but it’s our cultural development that has taken over … Scientific and technological and medical development, that’s where the action is right now. If we become more intelligent it is because we will learn to use technology or maybe medicine, to enhance our intellectual capacities.’
6. The Matrix in a Multiverse
Dr Nick Bostrom believes that we are about to enter the trans-human phase of our development. In decades to come, technology will take us into the realms of super-intelligence, perhaps by taking drugs, perhaps by surgical replacement of brain parts with silicon. The detail doesn’t matter, the principle does: life probably can supercede biological evolution and enhance its own intelligence.
‘We obviously can’t conceive of what a super-intelligence might be able to achieve any more than a dog can appreciate quantum mechanics,’ Martin Rees notes. But we can envisage that in a multiverse that contains an infinite ensemble of universes, there would almost certainly be intelligences that have evolved beyond are own, whether they have evolved biologically or technologically.
And if they are so very intelligent, these intelligences are bound to have asked themselves what the outcome would be if they could tinker with the laws of nature. They might have done some equations on paper first, but if their intelligence goes way beyond our own, they are also likely to have computers that go way beyond our own too – computers that could be used to discover the underlying law that allowed the laws of nature to be so precisely set as to create an exquisitely crafted home for life.
To test whether their discoveries are correct and their fine tuning is fine enough, they could use their super-computers to simulate a universe as complex as our own. Then they really have created The Matrix. And we really could be the inhabitants of a computer simulation. What this means is that we are just an elaborate experiment. We are not real.
But, let’s face it, that is what we still don’t know.
From Daniel: Again: what to say in the light of all this?
Science is being confronted as never before with the question from where do we actually originate?
Discoveries such as the cosmological constant teaches us that there is a intelligent design behind our universe that boggles the imagination. From this point further: there are only two possibilities: a creator GOD that is deeply involved with the fate of mankind on earth (having predestined it as such); or a a series of multiverses, in which our universe is nothing special, BUT we then are the slaves of a greater simulation of things from a more advanced universe out there. As I have said, we then are puppet players in a computer game of higher universes.
Because of the way I know the One that Created me, and His Word, which was here long before science and whose prophetic content is absolutely accurate and involved with modern history today, I would be a fool not to go for this option. Without any shadow of a doubt a fool! For He not only knew me but also had compassion on me as a human being. And in the greatest love ever displayed gave His only begotten SON to take on our human identity at the cross. So that we can become whole and know the most exciting BEING personally. This is far better than computer games around the ping pong parlour, not so?
Comment by Daniel le Roux — February 6, 2008 @ 12:25 pm |
Daniel, I have not read your post; it’s too long. Just give us the name of the book or aticle you are (probably) misquoting from. Is it from Martin Rees’ “Just Six Numbers”? Have you read the book? I read it many years ago and I did not read any “God did it all” in the book.
Comment by Savage — February 6, 2008 @ 4:56 pm |
Maybe that is why the anthropic priciple is so popular these days. Physics has run into some problems with discovering new things and falls back on God. Are we really free of some or other god or will we always be hunted?
Comment by Savage — February 6, 2008 @ 5:13 pm |
Hunted down and thrown into hell to suffer forever. Just because you got a brain and want to think for yourself. But that thinking is not allowed; because God said: “NO! You either think my way or into hell you go! By the way, I’m sorry I gave you a brain. You are causing one hell of a lot of trouble.”
Comment by Savage — February 6, 2008 @ 7:17 pm |
Oh sorry you guys, I skipped the last part of the previous question when I looked at the blog today! The cure for aids. That really is simple. How did aids spread in the first place and what did God say about the sin that caused its spread? You do the studying. So stop the copulating and you stop the pestilence! What can be simpler than that? As for why God would allow the suffering….well he warned in the first place didn’t He? As for a medical cure: Jesus prophecied about the pestilences of the latter days. He warned about it. So if it is a judgment on all that is taking place in the world today, He is not going to give anyone the answer. Neither George nor me! The only solution is a miracle from above for one that contracted it. That involves miracles and the Gospel….and because you do not believe, there is no way out, is there? There is a lot of soap in the world, but not everyone is clean you know. So it is with the Gospel too.
The Lottery: God is not really into that. He actually warns against spreading the table for the god of luck. So don’t expect an answer here. As for your lunch Renier, heck man, I don’t know. But I am sure God does and I hope you still have it in
As for George’s algorythm. You will have to ask him about that, but he walked off the blog so quickly when he saw where you oaks were coming from! He has a full life as a theoretical physicist you know.
As for the name of your blog: It seems to me you guys come from a background of religion and that you were abused by it as children. Please note that we do not stand for religion but for a personal relationship with God. As we have seen and know, religion kills. We have seen it in dead Judaism (the Pharisees as an example), we’ve seen it in Islam with its suicide bombs, and none the least in dead Christianity with all its rules rituals and regulations. We know what happened with the crusades and so forth. So with regards to your blog title, I agree with you, that religion, if it is rule and regulation, instead of a living relationship which brings life, can certainly do that what you say.
In our work we have discovered that mankind’s big struggle is with their identity. The main identity comes from male authority figures and especially fathers. God is the ultimate authority that there is. It is vitally important to understand where He really stands with the religion of your title.
Comment by Daniel le Roux — February 6, 2008 @ 7:51 pm |
Dear Savage, no it is not a book. It was a TV series shown here on Israel’s Channel 8 (Discovery Channel) – presented by Martin Rees. The Title: What we still don’t know
As for the thinking: think as much as you like! But please give this a thought too: God loves you very much Savage and hell was never intended for you!!!!!
Comment by Daniel le Roux — February 6, 2008 @ 8:03 pm |
“It seems to me you guys come from a background of religion and that you were abused by it as children.”
Not abused (for me), but just one hell of a bore. My mind was never in church but on the golf course or the rugby field. That is why my kids never went to church. They were swimming somewhere or playing other sport. And they actually thank their parents today allowing them to make up their own minds. Their minds, I must say, are far removed from any religious thoughts.
Comment by Savage — February 6, 2008 @ 8:12 pm |
Yes, Savage, I agree, religion can be one hell of a bore! And scary too. As the title of this blog goes.
However, I don’t think that knowing a person is such a bore. Especially not if He is the One that created the universe. If I look at the complexity and amazing content of it, I would say He is worthwhile meeting. What do you think?
Comment by Daniel le Roux — February 6, 2008 @ 8:55 pm |
It is not possible to meet someone who does not exist. God only exists in your mind and not in mine. If you show him to me, I will admit I was wrong. But you cannot do that. So keep up the hallucination if it so pleases you but don’t expect me do join you. And please don’t use the old arguments: The Bible says God exists; I see God in Nature; He listened to my prayers; etc., etc., using the regular unsubstantiated arguments.
Comment by Savage — February 7, 2008 @ 3:27 am |
You are right, I cannot do that. He must show Himself to you, as He has done to everyone that truly believes in Him! In this you are right, I can only point you to eternity, whether by His Word, what I experienced or where science is at. Shalom Savage!
Comment by Daniel le Roux — February 7, 2008 @ 7:47 am |
Daniel. I did not want *your* opinion/fantasy on the aids issue. Another *friend* who thinks he is the appointed spokesman ™ for God. What makes your opinion on god any more valid than mine, Savage’s or my neighbour’s?
I stated clearly in my post I would like to know what use Ryazanov’s algorithm is. *He* claimed it was like a dialogue with god. I wanted proof, not *your* opinion, nor sermons.
As for *your* opinion on Aids. Daniel wrote: “As for why God would allow the suffering….well he warned in the first place didn’t He? As for a medical cure: Jesus prophecied about the pestilences of the latter days. He warned about it. So if it is a judgment on all that is taking place in the world today, He is not going to give anyone the answer.”
Well then, science is thwarting your god, because it is now able to extend the lives of those suffering from HIV. Futhermore, it is a bad god that let’s children suffer. If you god engineered/willed the virus, then it is clear he had no care for the mother-to-child transmission issue.No, science once again has to help your fumbling god. Heck, if he is perfect then he engineered/willed it in such a way to make sure that new-born children are at risk. Futhermore, your *god* presumably made humans with libido, then punishes them for it. WTF? He has always been obsessed by it. He sure can be glad Mary did not have aids.
Daniel wrote: “As for your lunch Renier, heck man, I don’t know. But I am sure God does and I hope you still have it in
”
Well then, ask him. I mean, *you* claim a personal relationship with him, get some simple answers from the old man in the sky already. God answers your prayers, right? So, here is your chance to convince me. If you have no trust in your, eh, prayer relationship, ask Ryazanov to use his algorithm, you know, the one that allows him dialogue with god, then answer my simple question!
Comment by Renier — February 7, 2008 @ 9:56 am |
He hasn’t told me a thing! And that will not disprove Him. I am not God! A child of His, yes, but He is much bigger than I and can do whatever he pleases. Maybe He will tell me tonight. What makes my opinion more valid than yours you ask, well this too is simple. The eternal Word of God, His appearance to many believers over the ages, scientific evidence which you deny, and so forth. Scientific evidence yes, which you keep beating around the bush with so as to defend your utterly outdated atheist dogma. So I will bring you back to science and my “secular sermon” of Martin Rees
There is a general view amongst physicists that the laws of nature that have allowed our creation are accidental. They are simply a property of mathematical principles that have nothing to do with our existence, or the existence of anything else for that matter. Life, the universe and everything exists by pure accident.
Another view emerged as the laws of nature came under increasingly detailed mathematical scrutiny and it became apparent that tinkering with them just slightly could make life impossible. It looked as though the laws of nature had been accurately set purposely to encourage the evolution of life.
The laws of nature can be defined by a set of numbers that provide the parameters for the evolution of the universe as we know it. One of these numbers in particular, the so-called cosmological constant has to be very tiny if the universe is to grow old enough and big enough to contain stars, and life.
The cosmological constant can be considered as the intrinsic mass and volume of empty space, which Einstein had suggested was not zero. It turns out that this number needs to be set to an accuracy of one part in a trillion, trillion trillion, trillion trillion, trillion trillion, trillion trillion, trillion. Any minuscule variation and life is a non-starter.
This raises all kinds of dilemmas for physicists who understandably shrank from the conclusion that pointed toward Intelligent Design. Martin Rees has remained steadfast: ‘Some people are satisfied with a religious explanation, whereas I think it is a scientific question, which deserves to be addressed by cosmologists.’
As for the issue about AIDS: the extension of life is not yet the cure.
About the suffering of the innocent due to the sins of others: this Renier is the power and effect of the sins of authority on the lives of others. God did not for nothing warned our great grandfather and mother Adam and Eve not to eat from the forbidden fruit (however you want to look at it). As a consequence of that one deed all of mankind sits with the mess that it is in. But God also sent us the anti-dote, His Son, JESUS. But as I said before, there is a lot of soap in the world but not everyone uses it.
Comment by Daniel le Roux — February 7, 2008 @ 3:29 pm |
From Daniel: “I can only point you to eternity, whether by His Word, what I experienced or where science is at.”
You can not point me anywhere, Daniel. It is all fabrications from the hallucination in your mind. And science is not at where you want it to be. Science is the explanation of Nature and religion is not part of Nature, so don’t try to hijack science for your doctrine.
Comment by Savage — February 8, 2008 @ 6:00 am |
Fabrications of the hallucinations of my mind? Savage, Renier and Con Detector, even if, at the end of the day, there were no strong scientific arguments that there were a God (and truly, there are enough for us, which you keep dodging) I will still believe in Him. Because I do not want to live without His love or His Peace that surpasses all understanding. I have tasted these. I do not want to live without His Joy, or His goodness, or His Beauty, or His faithfulness. I have also tasted these, and my heart has been filled. I am not talking about knowledge or the seen world. Nor am I talking about the rules of right and wrong. I am talking about a living, fascinating, awesome Being that fills my heart with these! I know what it is to be without a relationship with Him and to have one with Him. If this is hallucinations of my mind I would call them rather miraculous and divine! I do not want to live without these wonders that fill our daily lives.
Neither do I want to live without the masterpieces of great composers such as Bach, Mozart, Händel and many more which were written to the glory of God and stand in denial of the very words they sing. I do not want to live without the art of many generations that glorified the Son of God, be it Leonardo da Vinci, or whoever.
I also do not want to live without Israel and Jerusalem. Literally hundreds of scriptures deal with the latter day return of the ancient people to their land and the restoration of Jerusalem. We are living in these amazing, prophetic times. Even Jerusalem is the Capital of Israel again after being under the authority of Gentile nations for thousands of years!
Did you know that Jesus said these words before He went to the cross: Luke 21: 24 And they (the Jews) shall fall by the edge of the sword, and shall be led away captive into all nations: and Jerusalem shall be trodden down of the Gentiles, until the times of the Gentiles be fulfilled. This all happened. The dispersion of the Jews (so called diaspora) and the destruction of Jerusalem. When the Romans destroyed the Jerusalem in 70AD and banned the Jewish people from it they changed the name of Jerusalem to Aelia Capitolino and the country to Philistia. To obliterate all traces of the Jews. But Israel is alive today. And the city of Jerusalem unified again under Jewish authority in 1967 with the Six Day War. Not even in the time of Jesus was Jerusalem under Jewish authority. It was Roman.
I live in this country and in this city. I see this miracle all around me. A people that came out of the ashes of the Holocaust, six million of them. A nation reborn. A City reborn. A language reborn. Hebrew is spoken again. A professor once wrote that Hebrew is a dead language like Latin. It will never be spoken again. This language is now alive again. All over the streets of Israel. The only instance of such a phenomenon in the history of mankind. And you want to tell me there is no God? Or that I am dealing with hallucinations of the mind….come again!
Modern Israel is only 69 years old, but it really is ancient, thousands of years old! Why? Because there is a living God. Who made a covenant with Abraham years ago and promised his descendants this land.
What, at the end of the day, with all respect to you as human beings, is there that you can offer me, Renier or Con Detector? A cold, lifeless set of atheistic rules, that even science disproves? A world as bitter as your letters? A life without hope, without faith, without a tomorrow? When you’re dead you’re dead. What life is there that you can offer……..? Tell me.
What future do you have? An asteroid can hit the earth tomorrow and what do you have left? Astronomers Shoemaker and Levy proved this with Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 . It is not a matter of if, but simply when. And with this the ancient words of the Bible agrees:
Revelations 8: 8 And the second angel sounded, and as it were a great mountain burning with fire was cast into the sea: and the third part of the sea became blood; 9 And the third part of the creatures which were in the sea, and had life, died; and the third part of the ships were destroyed. 10 And the third angel sounded, and there fell a great star from heaven, burning as it were a lamp, and it fell upon the third part of the rivers, and upon the fountains of waters; 11 And the name of the star is called Wormwood: and the third part of the waters became wormwood; and many men died of the waters, because they were made bitter.
I will not even go into global warming and others. What future is there that you can offer…. what vision for mankind?
Comment by Daniel le Roux — February 8, 2008 @ 11:24 am |
Daniel wrote: “I will still believe in Him. Because I do not want to live without His love or His Peace that surpasses all understanding. I have tasted these.”
Does it taste like Chicken? Well Daniel, you do truly seem fascinated by Isreal and the brand new god ordained hebrew culture you live in. Leave a tip on your next visit.
Futhermore Daniel, you keep on claiming “Savage, Renier and Con Detector, even if, at the end of the day, there were no strong scientific arguments that there were a God (and truly, there are enough for us, which you keep dodging) I will still believe in Him.”
Show us the “strong scientific arguments” and bring proof to the table. Futhermore, notice you buddy denied that *his* work was proof, well, proof of anything really. Stop imagining this vast amount of evidence end tell us, without all the serom and scripture quoting crap you seem to love so much.
Daniel asked: “What, at the end of the day, with all respect to you as human beings, is there that you can offer me, Renier or Con Detector? A cold, lifeless set of atheistic rules, that even science disproves? A world as bitter as your letters? A life without hope, without faith, without a tomorrow? When you’re dead you’re dead. What life is there that you can offer……..? Tell me.”
If your life has no meaning or morality without god, then stay religious. Meanwhile, I will enjoy life
Daniel wrote: “A cold, lifeless set of atheistic rules, that even science disproves?”
Science disproves atheism? How interesting. You are going to have to provide some proof to that claim or admit you are a liar that pulls godly *facts* out of your ass as it suits you. Your opinion and perception is just that Daniel, *your* opinion and perception. Dubbing it it religious language does no make it divine, it is still just fantasies your are dreaming up in your religious malfunctioning head.
As for the fine-tuning argument. The water in the pothole sits and wonders that *god* made the pothole so well, to fit the water’s shape of course.
Comment by Renier — February 8, 2008 @ 12:24 pm |
Daniel, the Bible is just a story. So stop quoting from it when you talk about science. So many times said here on this blog: science shows proof of observation. Your observation about science is a mystical story in your head and doesn’t jell with reality. I can not think for you but if your imagination is very sincere, Jesus just might come down on the clouds while you are still on this earth. But I will not bet on it.
Comment by Savage — February 8, 2008 @ 3:53 pm |
Just a story Savage?
In fact, what does the science of probability make of the fulfilled prophecies in Jesus Christ? Jesus being an utterly historical figure. Prophecies written thousands of years before He appeared on the earth. How does science deal with the fact that Jesus of Nazareth had about 456 identifying characteristics well in advance, and fulfilled them all?
The science of probability attempts to determine the chance that a given event will occur. The value and accuracy of the science of probability has been well established beyond doubt – for example, insurance rates are fixed according to statistical probabilities.
Professor Emeritus of Science at Westmont College, Peter Stoner, has calculated the probability of one man fulfilling the major prophecies made concerning the Messiah. The estimates were worked out by twelve different classes representing some 600 university students.
The students carefully weighed all the factors, discussed each prophecy at length, and examined the various circumstances which might indicate that men had conspired together to fulfill a particular prophecy. They made their estimates conservative enough so that there was finally unanimous agreement even among the most skeptical students.
However Professor Stoner then took their estimates, and made them even more conservative. He also encouraged other skeptics or scientists to make their own estimates to see if his conclusions were more than fair. Finally, he submitted his figures for review to a committee of the American Scientific Affiliation. Upon examination, they verified that his calculations were dependable and accurate in regard to the scientific material presented (Peter Stoner, Science Speaks, Chicago: Moody Press, 1969, 4).
For example, concerning Micah 5:2, where it states the Messiah would be born in Bethlehem Ephrathah, Stoner and his students determined the average population of BETHLEHEM from the time of Micah to the present; then they divided it by the average population of the earth during the same period.
They concluded that the chance of one man being born in Bethlehem was one in 300,000, (or one in 2.8 x 10^5 – rounded),
After examining only eight different prophecies (Idem, 106), they conservatively estimated that the chance of one man fulfilling all eight prophecies was one in 10^17.
To illustrate how large the number 10^17 IS (a figure with 17 zeros), Stoner gave this illustration :
If you mark one of ten tickets, and place all the tickets in a hat, and thoroughly stir them, and then ask a blindfolded man to draw one, his chance of getting the right ticket is one in ten. Suppose that we take 10^17 silver dollars and lay them on the face of Texas. They’ll cover all of the state two feet deep. Now mark one of these silver dollars and stir the whole mass thoroughly, all over the state. Blindfold a man and tell him that he can travel as far as he wishes, but he must pick up one silver dollar and say that this is the right one. What chance would he have of getting the right one? Just the same chance that the prophets would’ve had of writing these eight prophecies and having them all come true in any one man, from their day to the present time, providing they wrote them in their own wisdom (Idem, 106-107).
In financial terms, is there anyone who would not invest in a financial venture if the chance of failure were only one in 10^17? This is the kind of sure investment we’re offered by God for faith in His Messiah.
From these figures, Professor Stoner, concludes the fulfillment of these eight prophecies alone proves that God inspired the writing of the prophecies (Idem, 107) – the likelihood of mere chance is only one in 10^17!
Another way of saying this is that any person who minimizes or ignores the significance of the biblical identifying signs concerning the Messiah would be foolish.
But, of course, there are many more than eight prophecies. In another calculation, Stoner used 48 prophecies (Idem, 109) (even though he could have used Edersheim’s 456), and arrived at the extremely conservative estimate that the probability of 48 prophecies being fulfilled in one person is the incredible number 10^157. In fact, if anybody can find someone, living or dead, other than Jesus, who can fulfill only half of the predictions concerning the Messiah given in the book “Messiah in Both Testaments” by Fred J. Meldau, the Christian Victory Publishing Company is ready to give a ONE thousand dollar reward! As apologist Josh McDowell says, “There are a lot of men in the universities that could use some extra cash!” (Josh McDowell, Evidence that Demands a Verdict, California: Campus Crusade for Christ, 175).
How large is the number one in 10^157? 10^157 contains 157 zeros! Stoner gives an illustration of this number using electrons. Electrons are very small objects. They’re smaller than atoms. It would take 2.5 TIMES 10^15 of them, laid side by side, to make one inch. Even if we counted 250 of these electrons each minute, and counted day and night, it would still take 19 million years just to count a line of electrons one-inch long (Stoner, op. cit, 109).
With this introduction, let’s go back to our chance of one in 10^157. Let’s suppose that we’re taking this number of electrons, marking one, and thoroughly stirring it into the whole mass, then blindfolding a man and letting him try to find the right one. What chance has he of finding the right one? What kind of a pile will this number of electrons make? They make an inconceivably large volume.
This is the result from considering a mere 48 prophecies. Obviously, the probability that 456 prophecies would be fulfilled in one man by chance is vastly smaller. According to Emile Borel, once one goes past one chance in 10^50, the probabilities are so small that it is impossible to think that they will ever occur (Ankerberg et. al., op. cit., 21).
As Stoner concludes, ‘Any man who rejects Christ as the Son of God is rejecting a fact, proved perhaps more absolutely than any other fact in the world (Stoner, op. cit., 112).’
God so thoroughly vindicated Jesus Christ that even mathematicians and statisticians, who were without faith, had to acknowledge that it is scientifically impossible to deny that Jesus is the Christ. our thanks to David Williams, a mathematician who believes in the Lord Jesus Christ.
Comment by Daniel le Roux — February 10, 2008 @ 5:55 pm |
Daniel wrote: “For example, concerning Micah 5:2, where it states the Messiah would be born in Bethlehem Ephrathah”
Bethlehem Ephrathah was a person, not a place. Go check it out. In addition to this, the fact that the Roman census you book fabricates never took place at the time of Jesus’s birth, not to mention the stupidity of thinking all people had to go to their “home towns” to be counted. Stories Daniel, just stories. But hey, if you think these falsehoods are proof, be my guest.
Comment by Renier — February 11, 2008 @ 5:42 am |
Daniel, science observes and postulates. One postulate being tested now is dark matter. How was it possible for galaxies to form with the Big Bang theory’s expansion rate being too slow and homogeneous to allow galaxies to form? Inflation was postulated. Postulate on postulate, you might ask. And rightly so. But at least scientists ask and search for answers through the scientific method. Perhaps a new Einstein arrives and science will take another jump forward. But it is a slow and tedious (but very exciting) process.
What is your process? Still believing in an ancient book written more than 2000 years ago? The only new thing in your “science” is the interpretation of the Bible resulting in new churches each with its own interpretation. Just remember that your understanding of science is not that of the scientists. And you will never be allowed to make it yours, no matter what your hallucinations tell you. Is that why Rayzamov is your soul friend? The blind in science leading the lost theology? The crutched leaning the on crutched. What a world to live in!
As far as your “statistical proof” is concerned; jargon in, jargon out. You use statistics like a drunken man uses lampposts: for support instead of illumination. The premise you work from are all fables; Stories Daniel, just stories, as Renier correctly said.
Comment by Savage — February 11, 2008 @ 7:39 am |
An ancient book full of stories Savage? Please click on the following links or put them in your explorer. They have some films of the most up to date archeological findings in Israel validating the Bible.
Discoveries at City of David (Zion), 2007:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3MbPXjO0guk
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QDw-Ndxn8Yg&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=69PosVzhotM&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=npTujdhS1B8&feature=related
Discoveries at Temple Mount:
Comment by Daniel le Roux — February 11, 2008 @ 11:17 am |
Savage, you get that same Deja Vu feeling, like with Brendon? I know I do…
Comment by Renier — February 12, 2008 @ 5:44 am |
Daniel. Are you going to answer my objections at 158 or not?
Comment by Renier — February 15, 2008 @ 7:57 am |
Renier, you are right. Al I can say is “die wind waai wes”.
Comment by Savage — February 15, 2008 @ 3:44 pm |
George Klaassen is a fascinating guy. According to his brilliant analytical mind, there exists not a single proof of an existing God.
Georgy my son: let me tell you. One believer in God is a miracle. A person who believed for more than 7 decades, suffered in the extreme, at a point in his life altered his views to be in accordance with the Bible, was isolated, under house arrets, faced enormous difficulties, had his biggest opponents among people who created their own types of Christianity, endured (more than one can say about you and your atheist friends with your middle class and affluent lifestyles), suffered but stuck to his guns until the end. With the support of his gentle hearted, but strong principled wife who stood buy him and on more than occasion supported him in not forsaken his God and his beliefs. And his family.
I am talking about one miracle, a human being, who according to your views should never have been able to survive on Christian beliefs and values.
According to you Beyers Naude should never have been. But, then again, oom Bey was a fighter for the oppressed (whose sufferings you, fortunately were spared) and we believed in him. He fought for us on biblical principles. With your background it is no surprise that you belittle the beliefs of great persons like oom Bey. His suffering was also for you to recognise that the power of Christianity can destroy the seemingly undestructible apartheid.
Since you are Afrikaans speaking, I would suggest you take note of at least one truth in the Bible:
Math 11 verse 25: Ek prys u Vader, Here van die hemel en aarde dat u hierdie dinge vir slim en geleerde mense verberg het en dit aan die eenvoudiges bekend gemaak het.
If you want to see faith in action, go to the poorest of the poor, go to the informal settlements, to the illeterate. And also read, the works of Mother Theresa.
My God is not meant for people like you, sir. But you still have a chance. Go on and explore all avenues. But do not forget: don’t stop with Dawkins and Nathan Bond.
They might just have had the same experiences then yourself which leaves you and company embittered old men trying destroy the indestructible.
Try to get 60 000 atheists together and see if you can deliver the same spiritual conversion to atheism than the mighty men from Buchnan.
Does God exist? Of course. I, at the age of 60, coming from a very poor background have experienced Him everyday in my life. I want to thank God and my single parent domestic servant mom who guided me to belief in her simple, but real beliefs. I also were, by God’s grace able to go to University and obtain a Science degree.
Thanks mom. Thanks Lizbeth, my wife. Thanks oom Bey. Thanks Mother Theresa. Thanks Archbishop Tutu. Thanks every sincere Christian. Thanks God. You made me what I am today.
Good luck and God bless Georgy.
Comment by PATRICK METTLER — May 4, 2008 @ 6:22 pm |
Kunst og bolig indretning…
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Trackback by Kunst og bolig indretning — July 5, 2008 @ 1:11 pm |
He-he, Patrick Mettler, just another fundie fitting perfectly into the caveman mold. These guys sound like a broken record.
Anyway Patrick, mother Theresa was a money grabbing cunt who made the poor suffer so that they could be closer to christ. God did not make you what you are today. If there was a god he would have done a better job than that. You are delusional. And your messiah mister Buchnan is nothing but a fraud.
Why do you idiots always put your god and suffering in the same category? He must be an evil prick if he enjoys seeing you all suffer so much. And you are always persecuted. Poor bastards. Nice selective memory to forget about all the persecution you and your christian buddies did for so many centuries to others. Murdering them and selling them into slavery, raping the women and killing the men. Read it up, it starts in your own holy book, your bible.
And since you like to quote your holy book so much, how come you guys never know or comment on the bad stuff written there? And that old book was not written by god. If it was he is the dumbest most evil mother fucker anyone can invent. That old book was written by a bunch of ignorant nomadic goat herders thousands of years ago.
Wake up! You are worshiping a ghost, a spook, a figment of your imagination.
Leave the free thinking people alone and go and howl at the moon by yourself with your other cave buddies.
Comment by McBrolloks — September 11, 2008 @ 12:20 am |
My answer to people who want to teach intelligent design in schools…
I tell them to read this: http://www.venganza.org/about/open-letter/
Comment by E — January 19, 2009 @ 7:30 am |
well the first half of this discussion -comments- was interesting, regarding philosophy. and i learned something about the inquisitions and the piraha.
Comment by dude — April 22, 2009 @ 8:44 pm |
the first half of the comments was real interesting. i really thought rooibaard was wrong about the inquisitions.
Comment by dude — April 22, 2009 @ 8:53 pm |
the last half reminds of ct’s argument about ridicule being a good answer to irrational attitudes.
still it is embarrassing to see the powers that be resort to ridicule when they get their behinds handed to them for attacking the less pc statements rooibaard makes.
Comment by dude — April 22, 2009 @ 9:07 pm |
the fact that his statements are not pc does not make them any less true. the man obviously knows vastly more than most and argues both more coherently and honourably than most here.
Comment by dude — April 22, 2009 @ 9:11 pm |