Once upon a time when people didn't know better they believed what an ancient cult told them about nature.
They believed the Earth to be the center of the universe but then, in 1543 Copernicus published a book that revolutionized the world view. It took the church until 1757 to accept his heliocentric worldview, but today nobody would argue for a sun circling around the Earth.
They believed in a mysterious force respnsible for all organic matter called vis vitalis but 1828 Friedrich Wöhler synthezised urea from anorganic chemicals. Later Stanley Miller made his famous experiment in which he showed that even complex organic molecules can be synthesized from inorganic precursors.
In the 20th century T.H.Morgan, Barbara McClintock, Arber et al. and N. Perimon (just to name a few) made discoveries that allow us to change the DNA and thus the attributes of plants and animals, probably including humans.
On July 25th 1978 the first baby was born that was conceived outside the human body
Since 2003 we know the complete sequence of the human genome. The genomes of other species are following in a nearly monthly pace.
What do we need god for?
God as the creator of the universe is retreating everytime science discovers something new. The Earth is just a tiny little rock in an endless universe, not created as its center. God doesn't need to give life to every organic molecule. Humans can change the attributes of plants and animals, offspring can come out of tubes and the origin of materia might be to complicated for my uneducated brain but physicists know a lot more about it than I do (just an example)
We don't understand everything about the origin of the universe but even if something supernatural should be necessary at the very beginning, his duty is restricted to the far sub-atomar level. Everything else can happen perfectly within natural limits. That's extremely far away from a god that created every star, every flower, every animal personally. Did god became less divine during the last 3000 years? I really think it's close to blasphemy to put god into the shrinking box of "we don't know".
Science and religion can co-exist, but only as long as god is kept out of science. Otherwise science will always be a threat.
Is there really nothing more to this Christian god than a shrinking box?
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The pebble at the bottom of the well. Don't you dare touch the water, it's holy.
ReplyDeleteTilia, this is an excellent, excellent post. Bravo!
ReplyDeleteWhat do we need god for?
ReplyDeleteBananas, of course.
;-)
Very nicely done, Tilia, thank you.
I'm glad that you like it =D
ReplyDeletefelix,
there is no such thing as holy water. At least not here...
Actually I know some Christians who would agree with this post.
What do we need god for?
ReplyDeleteWhy to give us knowledge through revelation in a way that we can be certain of it! :-P
G.E.
Nice post Tillia. The god of the gaps is a constant source of amusement for me.
ReplyDeleteNow I'm going to use this post to segue into a discussion about strong and weak atheism that Alphgeek and Whateverman were having over at Ray's place.
WEM - I consider myself to be a strong atheist with regard to any of the named gods of religions exiting today. This includes YHWH/El/Allah. I find no compelling evidence that they exist, and very compelling evidence that they are figments of human imagination. As for some deistic god/s? I am open to the possibility but, based on current evidence, consider myself a weak atheist.
As a scientist I would be interested in how we could determine whether such an out of space out of time entity/consciousness exists, but struggle to think how this could be done at present. To that end, given that it doesn't appear to interfere in the non-centrepiece of its creation, it remains an interesting but largely irrelevant philosophical discussion (along the lines of how many angels can dance on a pin head, and to what music would they be dancing).
"As a scientist I would be interested in how we could determine whether such an out of space out of time entity/consciousness exists, but struggle to think how this could be done at present."
ReplyDeleteLogical deduction my friend
"Why to give us knowledge through revelation in a way that we can be certain of it!"
Spot on my friend. I would hate to be a naturalist
You forgot the emoticon MFT! Do not ever forget the emoticon. It is an essential part of the presup discourse! ;-)
ReplyDelete(What kind of presup school did you attend? ;-D )
What do we need god for?
ReplyDeleteThe best excuse humans have come up with for anything and everything.
Second best? Satan.
MFT - I belong to the reality based community. Divine revelation is wishful thinking.
ReplyDeleteI would hate to be a fantasist.
Tilia,
ReplyDeleteYou said,
"there is no such thing as holy water."
Yes there is. And furthermore, I can tell you how to make it. I have the recipe.
Ingedients:
1 Liter tap water
Utensils:
2 Liter pot
Put the water in the pot and boil the hell out of it.
Viola!
God as the creator of the universe is retreating everytime science discovers something new.
ReplyDelete{...}
Is there really nothing more to this Christian god than a shrinking box?
So, we can agree that you're really only referring to the Christian God in your title and in the sentence at the top of my/this post?
Ray won't let me post at his site anymore but YHWH (God) is a space monster that His Son Jesus is trying to protect us from.
ReplyDeleteHe uses advanced technology that looks like magic to us.
I hear that small Japanese children are particularly effective...
ReplyDeleteKiwiinoz said:
ReplyDelete"As a scientist I would be interested in how we could determine whether such an out of space out of time entity/consciousness exists, but struggle to think how this could be done at present."
I hadn't really ever considered how evidence of a entity of that type could be proven rationally. I have to be honest and admit that I'm not sure that whatever 'came before' the universe can ever really be known. I would hope so though. Maybe the LHC will help cast some light on the problem.
This is another little chink in weak atheism that caused me to gain faith.
This might sound tantamount to me admitting that the existence of Yahweh is as likely as a naturalistic start of the cosmos but - fortunately - Occam's Razor comes to my rescue. No need for me to invoke a great father creation to explain it away. And limited, angry, mean, murderous and stupid Yahweh would be fairly low down the list of possible creators even if I were to posit one. There's no way that chump could pull off something as amazing as the universe.
Strangely enough, I find that it feels to me that it's less of a stretch to a deist viewpoint from here in strong atheism than it was from weak atheism! I'm not quite sure why that is the case, I need to think about it a little more.
whateverman,
ReplyDeleteI refer to all "gods of gaps". Not only the Christian one. If you need a god to explain everything in nature that you don't understand you have to fight knowledge just to keep his divinity.
That's extremely poor, isn't it?
froggie,
ReplyDeleteI did that and got something that smelled like burned steel and a little copper and tasted somewhat salty. Must have made a mistake, though (maybe wrong pot size?) because it wasn't liquid at all and I always thought water is supposed to be liquid. I mean, nobody talks about holy ice or holy steam...
Tilia wrote I refer to all "gods of gaps". Not only the Christian one.
ReplyDeleteI strive to make a clear distinction between "God" as a general concept, and th theistic deities we spend most of our time here discussing.
It seems to me that many of the Raytractors' arguments conflate the latter with the former...
As far as the God of the gaps, I agree with you 100%. Religion conflicts with science only when it tries to assert its authority in scientific matters.
whateverman,
ReplyDeleteyou have a point there.
I happen to be an atheist, and probably a quite strong one, but that is just my personal truth.
There might be something divine out there even if it doesn't feel right for me.
But what ever might be there, I'm sure it isn't the god of the Bible or the Q'ran or the Edda.
Faith is how people feel about the world, not how they should explain science.
Tilia said There might be something divine out there even if it doesn't feel right for me.
ReplyDeleteBut what ever might be there, I'm sure it isn't the god of the Bible or the Q'ran or the Edda.
I hope it's clear, but I'm honestly not trying to get you (or anyone here) to accept the possibility that some God might exist. I don't know enough to completely convince myself, let alone try to convince someone else.
I agree completely with your last statement above. I think it's fair to say that I have an extreme amount of faith that such deities do not exist
whateverman,
ReplyDeleteI never thought so. But accepting a possibility is still far from believing it to be possible...
there is no such thing as holy water.
ReplyDeleteThat's the point. The authoritarian idea is that you can't know if the metaphorical water is holy by investigating it. Since the investigation itself is misguided, sinful or unholy, ther's no way to get to the pebble.
The idea is that you can't properly understand the holiness without 'spiritual knowledge'. Since this 'knowledge' only comes with faith, which tells you that the water is holy, it's completely unfalsifiable.
To refine the metaphor, the water is only holy when the pebble is at the bottom of the well, and the pebble can only be there if the water is holy.
In case you have not noticed guys, presup is actually a god of the gaps thing. The basic idea is that, since atheists cannot "justify" logic (logic is the most common issue), it follows that god exists (being the only possible justification according to their diatribe).
ReplyDeleteSo, a very artificial gap (justification of logic), thus god.
G.E.