God in Science and Religion (was Re: why some people hate cops)

[Prof David West]

2 cents ———

I cannot think of a single institution, including the GOP, that would support Trump  if he loses the electoral vote or the House vote it if came to that. He is a political outsider, not a member of any of the "clubs" and none of those 'clubs" would ever offer him membership. This includes all those sources of "dark money" — none of them like him either. Even if Coney Barret was appointed Justice in October, I would bet that both her and Kavanaugh would recuse themselves, putting their own long term interests ahead of his, in any relevant case/decision. He commands the loyalty of a mere handful of individuals.

The real problem is long term. A huge, but still minority (maybe 40-45%), segment of the population will cease to hold any vestige of trust in the political system or the Government. It may take a few years and a couple of elections, but someone equally evil, but competent and charismatic, will "speak to them" and ascend to power.

Of course, before the "Fascist Right" can complete this process, the "Socialist Left" will have turned the country to Venezuela so who cares.  :)

davew

On Fri, Sep 25, 2020, at 5:11 PM, jon zingale wrote:

> Thank you for your thoughts. The organizations mentioned in my earlier thread

> were mostly thought up off-the-cuff because each evoked something for me at

> the moment, humorous or otherwise. I feel disappointed that the pentagon

> would use the 1 Billion dollars, earmarked for COVID relief, as they did. It

> doesn't give me much faith that the "subtle and strategic" actors making

> decisions for the pentagon are competent or compassionate. If I wished to

> make predictions that are grounded in the facts of past actions, to justify

> my faith in that institution, where would I look? To be clear, I do not

> intend *dandy* as an insult. Rather, I wanted a label to juxtapose against

> the at-times awkward and vulgar struggles of a thinking person doing the

> work.

> 

> 

> 

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[Prof David West]

2 cents on religion —

Pretty sure I have never hated any group, a couple of individuals have come close ...

Although every institution of religion. be it a three person cult or a global church, is, in my opinion a festering pit of purulence, there is no hate there, just a strong desire to stay upwind.

When it comes to both science and religion I cannot understand either: 1) the rush to promulgate a "definitive answer;" or the pronouncement that "those questions lead not to edification."

BTW: proselytization of any "Truth" should be a serious felony and conviction of same should result in permanent exile from the community.

davew

On Fri, Sep 25, 2020, at 5:25 PM, Gary Schiltz wrote:

This isn't in response to Nick, just a convenient place to hit "Reply" in a thread in which I've already deleted most of the past messages. My own take on why to hate religion and/or religious people is based on my upbringing in and around a population of fairly uneducated, intolerant religious bigots in northeast Kansas. There was one, and only one, "true" way to believe, and that was a "fire and brimstone" authoritarian father figure as "God", and us poor mortals as worms whose only hope to escape painfully burning for eternity in hell, was to admit how much filth we are and beg humbly and fervently for forgiveness for being that way. I grew up believing all that crap. I loved nature, so I was drawn to biology. Unfortunately, my high school biology teacher was a deacon in the Baptist church and fervent creationist. I went to University to study biology, with a huge chip on my shoulder, determined to prove these evolution-believing numbskull professors of their folly. I basically wasted the first three years of my college education believing that creationist shit. Somehow I finally saw through it and became a "born-again atheist". My hero is Richard Dawkins. In my case, that was the only way I had been exposed to religion, and once I rejected it, I've found it much easier (maybe I'm lazy) to reject religion out of hand with the same fervor that those intolerant people of my childhood did, and continue to, embrace it.

On Fri, Sep 25, 2020 at 5:04 PM <[hidden email]> wrote:

reiteration of evidence to Eric the deep disdain and hatred many in Science

 

Yeah.  Richard Dawkins and three other loonies.  I was in a chatgroup with hard scientists, etc., from all over the world for about a year, and I was the only avowed non-religious person on the chat.  The european physicists were all dedicated cartesians seeking truth in the real world … I e, the world that god knows and we aspire to know.   Any belief in a world beyond experience is a religious belief. 

 

I persist in thinking the key word is “hate”, here.   The way you speak these “many”,  with their “deep distain and hatred” in such sweeping terms, it seems that you hate them.  So what exactly is hate.  I think it’s an attempt to recruit allies to expell the target from one’s universe, to exile them. But Frank is right:  There is an element of “get thee behind me” in hatred.  You cannot hate what you don’t feel in some degree attached to.  So the key to resolving hatred is to find the tie that binds one to the thing one hates, and snip it.  Once you have done that, one doesn’t need allies any more.   You just walk away.

 

So, Steve.  What do you find attractive in the scientistic denial of faith?  I am guessing that it has to do with their claim of certainty. But certainty is something that ony a religious person can have.    Or, to put it round the other way, Whenever we speak with  certainty, we are speaking from the religious side of ourselves. As I am doing right now.

 

Nick

Nicholas Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Ethology and Psychology

Clark University

[hidden email]

https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/

 

 

From: Friam <[hidden email]> On Behalf Of Stephen Guerin

Sent: Friday, September 25, 2020 10:41 AM

To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <[hidden email]>

Subject: Re: [FRIAM] God in Science and Religion (was Re: why some people hate cops)

 

 

On Fri, Sep 25, 2020 at 5:42 AM Marcus Daniels <[hidden email]> wrote:

I don’t, for example, recognize quantum mechanics as truth.  If it turns out there is a convincing explanation why nature has to be this way, then it has to be this way and the “divine” has been cornered.   If nature can be some other way, in regimes that are hard for today’s technology to observe, then those are interesting qualifications or alternative models.   It’s all just provisional. 

 

I brought up Planck's views for two reasons:

• His views on religion and his rejection of its foundation of miracle and superstition 
  
• His challenge to the most sophisticated of scientists with "generalized world views" that an understanding/model of "God" is a worthy goal for a scientist.
  

While I think Action and Bidirectional Path Tracing in Dual Fields is a potential model (Glen and Jon can unpack that in a steel man) I don't want to get distracted by the "How" the synthesis might happen. To borrow from Eric Smith in the Jim Rutt Podcast: "we shouldn’t try to spin scenarios at this point". 

 

And for full disclosure, upon reflection, my post was mostly targeted at Eric Smith after I saw his comment on Marcus's post.

First was to use Marcus's post as a reiteration of evidence to Eric the deep disdain and hatred many in Science have for Religion which we've talked about in the past and second to potentially engage Eric as one of the few scientists I know with a sufficient "generalized world view" to see the most basic patterns in Science and attempt a synthesis. If not leading the synthesis, at least playing bullshit detector and helping in pointing out potential formalizations.

FWIW,  Eric's close colleague, the late Harold Morowitz, expressed similar views as Max Planck. 

     see: https://www.amazon.com/Cosmic-Joy-Local-Pain-Scientist/dp/0684184435 

 

I know Eric is resistant at the value or even the worthiness of this pursuit. I put this out as a public challenge to Eric and he can decline.  I think it could be one of the greatest scientific contributions of our time. 

 

To Marcus, Glen and Jon, I will try to refrain from casting pearls ;-p  (meant in humor)

-Stephen

 

 

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[David Eric Smith]

Steve, probably I should have responded the first time to the main line in your post, which Nick automatically highlighted.

> On Sep 25, 2020, at 12:41 PM, Stephen Guerin <[hidden email]> wrote:
>
> First was to use Marcus's post as a reiteration of evidence to Eric the deep disdain and hatred many in Science have for Religion

I’m not sure I see that very much.

Among people I like who aren’t much for religion, many of them don’t like to be pushed around, and religion has been one of the larger edifices for pushing people around.  The proselytizing ones in particular, since they aren’t allowed to leave people in peace.

I know for myself that one of the reasons I went into the recreation of trying to figure things out is that I didn’t like pushy people, but didn’t want to become one to keep them at bay.  It seemed there was a third way, which was to be right about things, or to see things coming, and let the others run aground on their own errors without my participation.  Hence I project a similar motive on many people I get along with.  I don’t know if they would say that of themselves.

But that’s not hatred.  It’s not liking to be pushed around, and disliking people who won’t stop it.  That seems well within the mode of normal good health, and a certain degree of standing up for oneself.


The other kinds, like the flamboyant atheists, are not generally people I have much affinity for, but they seem to me to just be competitors with the religious for followers or the vanity of thinking they are influencers.  

I guess there must be many other categories too.

Anyway,

Eric



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[jon zingale]

Thank you, again. Somehow this post put my mind at ease, for now.



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[Marcus G. Daniels]

Eric writes:

< I know for myself that one of the reasons I went into the recreation of trying to figure things out is that I didn’t like pushy people, but didn’t want to become one to keep them at bay.  It seemed there was a third way, which was to be right about things, or to see things coming, and let the others run aground on their own errors without my participation. >

It would be nice if a standard feature of a car horn would be to deliver to the user a mild electric shock -- just to discourage needless use.

Now after four years of a being tailgated by honking lunatics that have limbs hanging from their metaphorical grilles, I see the value in tightening my seat belt and dropping it into reverse.  Hanlon's razor seems kind of sentimental by today's standards.   Incompetence can be an accelerant of the conflagration of malice:  "We've run aground..  So NOW we rape and pillage!"

Marcus
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