Re: A Spiraling Conversation
I have been following your discussion/debate with Rainman, and as far as I can see, neither of you have been able to "prove" your points.
Maybe not in an overall sense, but there are certain facts and figures of Rainman's that I've been able to disrpove - the idea that humans and DNA are both self-replicating (and, indeed, that that is the same thing as being "self-reproducing" or just "reproducing"), that Drake intended his equation to be a "real" equation, whether Drake had quanified it, whether this quantification would prove anything, the mathematical reasoning for the comparison of sizes of DNA and humans in my post before this one, two web-pages that dispute the siginificance of Phi (the fact that measurements of the human body don't really fit the number, as well as showing that points such as the navel and 'half way down the shoulders' are aritrary and inexact points, among many more)...and, if I had a mind, I have more that I could easily disprove.
The most easily disprovable would be the claim that a human embryo always forms in a "precise" golden spiral. All I'd need to disporve that one is a google picture search for a couple of pictures of human embryos and a diagram of a golden spiral and to put them next to each other. Rainman's given me the margain of error of deviation he'd find acceptable. It's a cliam that's patently false and very easily disprovable.
This may be pretty much a moot point now that Ray has left (both the conversation and the site), but I do think that those who may have been following the conversation should be in possession of all of the facts. Or, at the very least, I hope I can make those who might not be as assiduous as they could be think clearly about applying critical thinking to what they believe and what they are told.
I know this sounds somewhat like I'm "stroking" all of you, but I sincerely feel that I have been where you are at.
It doesn't sound like you're trying to do anything of the sort. I would expect most people to fall somewhere in between our viewpoints. I realsise that, despite CAT's claim to the contrary, my skeptisism of and disbelief in claims of the paranormal or the preternatural or the spiritual is highly unusual, and is not likely to win many converts. Similarly, Ray's claims and beliefs could also be somewhat accurately described as "fringe".
That you side with one of us on one issue and another on another is not surprise whatsoever. I wouldn't be surprised if you also disagreed with both of us on other issues.
When you take away all the mystical and "spiritualistic" properties that people have erroneously placed upon "the Book", what is left is a very rational discourse on human relations and how to get beyond these "passionate" roadblocks to a real understanding of each other.
With the undersatnding that it was written in a specific place and time, I will agree with you. I was actually talking to my stepnother yesterday about this very subject. Her father was studying to be a preist when she was a child. Without being a cad and disclosing the lady's age, it seems that 30 or 40 years ago, people believed in the Bible in a much less literal way than they do these days. Many of the actual miracles that people hold stock by were believed in mainstream religious teachings to be allegorical. As has been said in thsi thread (I think), often more like Aesop's fables than as historical fact.
Of course, this is just a theory, but I would say that part of this more literal approach to religion, as well as the recent re-emerging of spiritualism and numerology and things of this ilk are down to the insecurity and uncertainty of modern living. I woud say that the situation in Iraq, as well as the media attention of and the emphsising of terrorism by Western governments for their own agendas makes this period of time the most uncertain in people's minds sine the cuban Missile Crisis. More so, in fact because in the 50s the governments were (wrongly) trusted by the people. It really took the assasination of Kennedy and the subsequent revelations about him, as well as the discovery that the government had lied about Vietnem to destroy the faith in our leaders that had been prevalent. These days we are intensely cynical about those who make our descisions for us. In the 60s, it was the importing to the US of British newspapers where the casualty figures listed were 10 times higer than the ones the US apapers were publishing, and the atrocities were worse. These days almost everyone (in the western world, certainly) has the internet, and has instant access to reliable (or not so reliable) news sources from around the globe. We know our leaders lie and play semantic games to disguise their true meanings and intentions. "Spin Doctor" is an acknowledged and respected position in the government.
So we have access to more information than before, but we don't trust those we elect (and the apathetic turn outs to vote reflect this), and we feel less safe than we ever have done. Is it any surprise that people are invoking higher powers and setting new rules by which to order their lives?
It is what is in a person's heart that matters to me--not what comes out of their mouth.
Absolutely. It's not like I have prejudice against those who do have beliefs. That's 97.5% of the world. i'd be a pretty miserable guy if I were to dismiss anyone and everyone who fell outside of that 2.5%.
We both can be made to feel small in its simplicity and its utter complexity.
That's certainly true. I think that both belief in a higher power and atheism and skepticism lead to two contradictory ideas. First, that we are small and insignificant. And secondly that we are unique, beautiful and valuable.
Unfortunately, religion oftentimes does the opposite and clouds the simplicity with complexity that even they ultimately do not understand.
This last thing you say is, I think, an important one. It is easy for the skeptic to be precise and clear, I think. The person with beliefs, however, can find it difficult to articulate in precise terms what it actually is that they believe - to quantify it, if you like. This leads to statements concerning "faith" or "the proof that is the universe" or "you'll see when you die". These are all vague, and are rather unconvincing to one who doesn't already believe.
I hope your regained "clarity" does not lead you back to that point where you felt "less clear".
My moment of clarity has been more to do with the style of debate going on here than the debate itself. As I have said, I think that I've been giving too much leeway with regards to what I have let slide without questioning. Partly this can be to do with being a newbie, and wanting to establish myself before ruffling too many feathers. Also particlaly to do with not having had as many debates of this nature of late, and of having almost forgotton what it can be like. I've mainly been debating things such as politics and human rights and things of that ilk recently. A scientific (or pseudo-scientific) debate adheres to a differnet standard, and must be more rigourous. If someone makes a claim that purports to be scientific, then there is a certain standard of proof required. note how because Titor claimed a scientific basis for his claims that that has been what has been attacked.
We can all discuss the likelyhood of civil war in America in the immediate future and, while we can all make educated (or, in some cases, less-well-educated) guesses and formulate reasonable scenarios it is impossible to say with irrefutable certainty that this will not happen. With regards to a picture of the beam of a laser being bent due to high gravitational fields...well, there's real scientific principals that we can compare and contrast the picture against. So, while we cannot say that his vision of the future proves that Titor was a fake, we can say that his picture of the laser pointer beam bending does.
In the same way, I cannot disprove Ray's "tapestry" of evidence all as one homogenous block. But I can challenge the scientific and mathematic principals that he claims form the basis of individual strands of that tapestry. My moment of clarity has been that I should have been more vigilant in challenging the science, and less forgiving in accepting the strawmen. I should not have gone down the paths that the ad hominems, strawmen and other bad debating techniques lead me down. And, once it had become clear that Ray was not prepared to engage in debate on a purely rational basis, I should have left him to it.
I hope you can understand that we attempt to draw upon a source that, to some, is illogical and unreasonable.
You must understand how hard it is for me to accept the illogical or unreasonable. Again, this comes down to the question of faith. I would be being slightly misleading if I were to say that I don't have faith. Everybody has faith. If you want to take it to the extreme "Man In The Shack" level, then I have faith that the world around me exists. My "Mad Scientists with electrodes in my brain" example that I am fond of isn't just as silly as it may seen (and neither is my Hubert one). sure, it's a silly example, but the point is that we do not
know that it isn't true. All our brains know is what it interprets electrical impulses as (all our input is "second hand", you might say). And we only know that we respond to electrival impulses because some electrical impulses have been recieved that our brains have interpreted as hearing someone tell us, or reading a book which says so, or whatever. So the existence and state of the universe is, in itself, an act of faith.
However, the observational evidence of my 29 years so far has corroborrated this theory and justified this faith. I cannot say the same with any other kind of faith. If anything, any and all observational evidence presented to me by the universe so far has shown there to be no supernatural, no preternatural and no higher being(s), no matter what form they may or may not take. Some people claim that they have feelings of euphoria or bering loved, or something when they pray, or think about their deity, and this is proof for them. I, on the other hand, am well aware of phychological tricks that can be played on the mind, self-hypnosis, the power of suggestion, particularly self-suggestion, and so on and so forth. Sure, I can't prove that it's
not God (or whatever) that creates such feelings. However, I can prove that you can experience the same things without God (in as much as you can prove or disprove things of this nature).
A good example of the above, maybe, was shown on TV a couple of weeks back. I'm a big fan of mentallist Derren Brown. He describes himself as a "psychological illusionist", and has performed stunts such as playing Russian Roulette live on TV and, more recently, a televised seance designed to expose the trickery behind this particular form of spiritualism. Anyway, on his weekly show he took a young woman who was wiccan in to the woods. He discussed with her the belief in spells and the belief that objects have invested in them some of the spirit of the person that owns them. He then showed her a doll and took a ring off her finger, placed it into the inside of the doll, and wrapped some string around the doll's legs. The woman found herself unable to move her legs. He asked her why she couldn't move her legs, but she couldn't tell him more than that she just couldn't. He then asked her to count to ten while he wrapped more string around the doll's head. Her voice was muffled by the time she got to 2, and she couldn't even open her mouth to say 4.
He then sat down next to her (she was still standing still at this point) and spoke for a while about how we believe what we believe but that we maybe don't really think about our core beliefs with as much scrutiny as we should do. He told her that she could move and that she could speak, all she had to do was to decide that she could. She still couldn't. So, he got her to look at her hand. In actual fact, he had not even removerd her ring in the first place. When she saw that, the "spell" was broken.
Now that does not disprove wicca, or magic, or even voodoo. But it does show that you can achieve the exact same effects with psychological techniques. The choice is, given this evidence, do you believe that there are two seemingly identical ways of achieveing the exact same effect, one of which has a scientific explaination and one of which has a spiritual one, or do you begin to question the validity of all similar claims of a spiritual nature?
Nature can appear this way as well.
I think that the difference is, though, that when we encounter somethig in nature that seems illogical or unreasonable, we question why it is, and we look for a logical and reasonable explaination of it. The underlying reason for something in nature being the way it is is never accepted as being unreasonable or illogical. We do not always know what that explaination may be, but "having faith" is not enough. The explaination for things with a more spiritual bent, is often illogical and unreasonable. If the underlying explaination for something doesn't stand up to logic or reason, then why should I divest myself of the skills of logic and reason and arbitrarily embrace one of the many possible explainations which are presented, none of which can present more evidence than any of the others. Say I were to believe in a God, why should I believe in the Judeo-Christian God, rather than Allah? Why Zeus, rather than Wodin?
Oh, more on Derren Brown, including the clip I mentioned can be found
here.
[Edited to add]I've just re-watched the Voodoo clip, and I got a few of the minor details wrong. nothing significant, though. It's still an astounding peice of television, and in some ways sums up a lot of my feelings towards the more spiritual side of life.
