Faith and Reason.

[Neosutra]

I dont want to reply? Which question did I not answer? You are the only person here avoiding questions.

And entropy has nothing to do with morals.

Entropy defines the baseline for the cause of chemicals to form into more efficient packets of distributive energy (amino acids -> protiens).

When you start talking about morality, you need to start looking at social science, psychology and philosophy. Morality is relative, but it is essentially the composite of any specific culture's societal imperitives (the things it has deemed needed to continue to be a benefitual society). We can get into a long tangent on moral relativism, hence why we shouldnt base our laws solely on what any given person finds to be "moral". We should base our laws on what we find to be universally and testably in detriment to the society or the people (i.e. killing your neighbor hurts the community by reducing the number of contributors, stealing from him reduces the resources and violates his trust, etc).

Surely you dont think science is limited to chemistry?

[thatwasnifty]

Incoming "THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS AGNOSTICISM" to keep this going for another 20 pages despite the fact that once again it's just another 30 pages of regurgitation from the exact same people who've already written the exact same things twenty times over already. I really feel like people are trying to start some sort of anti-religion movement on an MMO board. Perhaps you guys should hit up some WoW boards to get a bigger audience.

A little late, but ironically Richard Dawkins argues in The God Delusion that there's actually no such thing as atheism because its declarations are unfalsifiable. Rather, he's an agnostic with a strong degree of confidence in his conclusions.

[Tristam]

Because Neosutra doesn't want to reply, I will ask you the question instead. Do you think it's possible to have a moral guideline based strictly on entropy, or it require additional beliefs that are not defined within science?

Lol? Never heard this argument in bioethics, but please, elaborate.

[Tristam]

He was religious, tho no one knows if it was for show. He also openly spoke out against evolution. However he was in favor of a competing theory that was similar, the the mechanism was suggested to be different.

This might be true. However, until I can say a prayer to help me break the speed of sound, I'm going to have to rely on the scientific method.

P.S. No time for huge rebuttals *sadface*

He may or may not have been religious, but he was expert at using it to foster his ideology. His scientific views as it applies were partially based on a perversion of genetics and science in general.

Now as it applies to the thread, scientists were able to show empirically not only that this research was an incorrect methodology and practice, it wasn't even science. The repercussions on genetics research in Europe were disastrous enough, but there were unimaginable humanitarian consequences as well.

[Melchiah]

I figured this much, I don't understand why you are explaining his post. Trying to avoid perfectly fine question using poor attempt at sarcasm is what Neo do all the time, I simply chose to ignore them, especially when they are unrelated with the point I'm trying to make.


Because Neosutra doesn't want to reply, I will ask you the question instead. Do you think it's possible to have a moral guideline based strictly on entropy, or it require additional beliefs that are not defined within science?

No, you cannot delineate a moral code with entropy. It's my observation that part of our sentience includes an inherent sense of right and wrong. In baser creatures, it's a biological imperative to refrain from killing each other. In our species, this biological imperative is at times superceded by other impulses. However, we do have the capacity to reason out that if we do something to another person, and it hurts them, it is reasonable to conclude that the same thing would hurt us as well. From that standpoint, we derive morality based upon putting ourselves in the shoes of another.

The correct moral decision can always be arrived at by placing one's self in the position of both parties being considered. If you wouldn't want someone to do something to you, then you shouldn't do this thing to someone else. Also, there is a moral decision to be made in punishing immorality with regard to severity of infraction versus severity of punishment. Again, the correct decision can be arrived at by placing oneself in the position of victim and offender.

These arguments are not entropic in nature, rather they fall under the realm of philosophy and other social sciences. While not exactly mathematically quantifiable, there are standards and observations and studies that qualify as evidence to support hypotheses. Social sciences are fuzzy, and I'm sure that any psychologist worth his diploma will admit that the field is far from absolute because not all minds/societies/cultures are created/developed the same.

[Max™]

First, equating my distaste for religion to some sophmoric perspective that you have shed for a more enlightened view is insulting and completely inaccurate. It seems to me that you are confusing the difference between the 'humanity isnt the center of everything' aspect of copernican principle as a justification for specified and unique existance (i.e. if there are many universes, then this one is unique), but the relativistic or modern use of the copernican principle leads us to quite an opposite conclusion. That in fact our existance is trivial in the extent that not only is our planet not the center of everything, but our universe may not even be uniquely special or independent.

The fact that you derived a manifold theory (a -highly- overly simplistic view of some of the concepts of string theory) and then wrapped it arround some theistic ideas you apperantly adapted afterwards doesnt show some amazing innovation or new perspective of our universe, but rather yet another person with an incomplete picture of the universe, wrapping what little physics they know of higher dimensions around the concept they want to be true of "god". Your perspective is absolutely no different than a person that states "well god did it" when asked where the universe comes from, you just add a few more scientific words to make it sound more complex.

I know the last paragraph may have sounded insulting, but take a second and think about what I said. I dont expect you to be an expert of string theory (im not), and i've yet to meet a true expert on the subject. There is just a simple fact that while some concepts may seem neat at this stage in your education, taking your limited perception of them and wrapping them around theistic hypothesis is reckless and serves to only make yourself feel like you have a good grasp of things (kind of how the concept of god makes common theists feel they have a grasp of things).

I did the same thing with religion that you did, as you yourself described your path from religion to reason. That's why I wrote that how I did.

I actually said that was my view of the extension of the Copernican principle, that our Universe is not unique or special, you must have missed it. T.T

I've long discarded string theory as a viable model. I found it interesting that string theory pointed to something I innately reasoned must be true, but I'm not some layman who just picked up a physics book and thought it sounded cool, I've been studying this stuff literally all of my life, the last 20+ years have been devoted to studying the universe, and trying to resolve the problem with physics (GR and QM not meshing).

I posited that some facets of the manifold structure could fit with theism, I didn't say it was absolute fact, nor anywhere near obvious, you're assuming I said more than I did.

I merely said it was possible, and would be an interesting coincidence.

[Neosutra]

I guess I misunderstood why you brought up the copernican principle then, as it would reduce the likeliness of any higher dimensions having theistic qualities, as they are equally as irrelevant and insignificant. Still not sure where you got the hypothesis of intelligent entities controlling higher dimensions that you cant quite quantify but "feel right" about. Seems exactly like a theist just saying "I feel god is above this reality some how".

[Max™]

You're using dimensions weirdly, a dimension is a direction within a universe.

Exterior dimensions would be too disordered until you reached another Universe, but I digress.

I only mentioned that I feel intuitively that the Copernican principle should continue beyond the Universe, and separately posited that IF there is some intelligent deity of whatever sort, it would likely manifest in the structure of that manifold somehow, as it clearly is not present within this Universe.

[Neosutra]

Ill continue the manifold deist conversation elsewhere, as I apparently minunderstood you and thought you were stating your personal beleifs revolved around a theistic intellect that is or controls the higher "manifolds" of this specific universe (in which we could get into a long discussion on what you are even defining as a manifold).

I would however like to address this following quote:

There is no reason for life to develop beyond simple replicators, there is no reason for systems to form feedback loops that naturally stabilize themselves, there is no reason for circles to be so round they break our sense of mathematics, yet they are.

This is your line of logic that is bugging me the most. Nothing in the above paragraph is even remotely scientifically true. More complex life develops in any place that a more complex system can more efficienty distribute the energy (base chemicals form compounds not because they "feel like it" or because they are "directed too it", they form compounds due to their attemps to find energetic equilibrium in their local systems. These compounds form into amino acids, and then protiens for the same reason. This isnt some supernatural event beyond explaination, it isnt magic. None of this happened over night, our current evolutionary path took BILLIONS of years to move into the complex states they are in today.

As for your circles argument, "so round circles" is very vague, so Im not sure what you are referring too? The shape of the planet? (Gravitational forces are radial forces, so it isnt suprising mass colects together and distributes along the axis of least resistance). If you are talking about waves, then circles is just a resultant plot of oscillation, in which we are again observing systems move between states of equilibrium.

You need to get this theistic approach to seeing the world as magically advanced out of your head and start realizing that systems of advanced order are very testable in their formation, and typically a results from a great deal of time.

[Eratosthenes]

Faith vs. Reason in Brazil. Reason won, thankfully.

[Denchi]

The "Treat others how you would like to be treated" simply doesn't stand up to scrutiny. There are plenty of people in the world with different ideals and prerogatives than you.

In general, it sounds nice, but you do realize how many people are on this planet who aren't you, right?

[Eratosthenes]

Faith vs. Reason in Brazil. Reason won, thankfully.

Additional information.

[Linliel]

See that sort of sheer bloodymindedness is just awful. As much as I'd like to say the doctors/mum will be better off without the church, it's probably a big part of the community where they live so doing something like that is even worse.

Seriously, what sort of God would put a 9 year old girl in that sort of situation, and then punish her and her family for making a decision he knew would come to pass? An omipotent, omniscient, and omnipresent God, it seems. And if it's a matter of "religous order != God", what the hell sort of all-powerful God would let that sort of crazy represent them?!

[Kuya]

As a pro-abortionist, that disgusts me, as someone who argues against the majority in this thread, i comment that there are a lot of people who oppose abortion for reasons completely unrelated to a religion. It surprised me when i stopped being confrontational about it and actually stopped demonizing those who did not agree with my abortion stance.

[Vail]

Seriously, what sort of God would put a 9 year old girl in that sort of situation?

Human Free-will... I never understood why people try to blame god for all the wrong things in the world.

and it's mostly non-religious people that ask this, as if they almost want to believe in god, but want to believe he's responsible for everything good and bad?

I'm Pro-Abortion because of my religious beliefs oddly enough: I still stand feel that until a child takes it's first breath of air it's not "alive". So I can't swallow ever calling it "murder". But then again, I understand and agree with laws that of course limit the time-frame abortions can happen. Having an abortion late in term just doesn't seem like a good thing.

[Kuya]

A little late, but ironically Richard Dawkins argues in The God Delusion that there's actually no such thing as atheism because its declarations are unfalsifiable. Rather, he's an agnostic with a strong degree of confidence in his conclusions.

Wow, that is both hilarious and reassuring.

[Linliel]

Human Free-will... I never understood why people try to blame god for all the wrong things in the world.

and it's mostly non-religious people that ask this, as if they almost want to believe in god, but want to believe he's responsible for everything good and bad?

I'm Pro-Abortion because of my religious beliefs oddly enough: I still stand feel that until a child takes it's first breath of air it's not "alive". So I can't swallow ever calling it "murder". But then again, I understand and agree with laws that of course limit the time-frame abortions can happen. Having an abortion late in term just doesn't seem like a good thing.

But there logically can't be human free will if God is omniscient, omnipresent, and omnipotent. It means he can see and has control over the future, and if he can see the future and has control over it, he knows what you are going to do, and what's worse is that he set you on the path to do it.

If you can work out how free will fits in with the omni-s then I'm all for hearing it, but as it stands that seems completely logically impossible.

[Vail]

because all the omni-s doesn't mean he's required to act on them?

I can choke a bitch: doesn't mean I should or will.

[Denchi]

I remember reading something by G.W. Leibniz that addressed the "Ever-knowing but also free will" argument.

"The complete or perfect notion of an individual substance contains all of its predicates, past, present, and future. For certainly it is now true that a future predicate will be, and so it is contained in the notion of a thing. And thus everything that will happen to Peter or Judas, considered in the realm of possibility by withdrawing the mind from the divine decree for creating him, and is seen there by God. And from that it is obvious that God chose from an infinite number of possible individuals those he thought most in accord with the supreme and hidden ends of his wisdom. Properly speaking, he did not decide that Peter sin or that Judas be damned, but only that Peter who would sin with certainty, though not with necessity, but freely, and Judas who would suffer damnation would attain existence rather than other possible things; that is, he decreed that the possible notion become actual. And, although the future salvation of Peter is also contained in his eternal possible notion, it is, however, not without the concurrence of grace, for in the same perfect notion of that possible Peter, even the aid of divine grace to be given him is found, under the notion of possibility."

[Tristam]

Human Free-will... I never understood why people try to blame god for all the wrong things in the world.

and it's mostly non-religious people that ask this, as if they almost want to believe in god, but want to believe he's responsible for everything good and bad?

I'm Pro-Abortion because of my religious beliefs oddly enough: I still stand feel that until a child takes it's first breath of air it's not "alive". So I can't swallow ever calling it "murder". But then again, I understand and agree with laws that of course limit the time-frame abortions can happen. Having an abortion late in term just doesn't seem like a good thing.

It's just grating on many non-religious types that people heap all this praise on god for good things that happen, yet blame human free will for the bad things. Give credit where it's due. If good things happen, it's because human beings made it happen. If bad things happen, again, it's humans.