"The most incomprehensible thing about the universe is that it is comprehensible" - Einstein
1 month ago · 👍 eph
@smokey My response remains the same: you'd do well to read a History of Christianity book. Many religious people don't just accept Scripture for its own sake (which only started with Luther's Sola Scriptura), and Subjectivity. Again, it seems like you're projecting Protestant Fundamentalist values onto all religious people, and it's wrong. People outside of Protestantism exist, and not all religions have Scripture.
The Catholic Church regards Tradition and Scripture as equal, and Eastern Orthodox and Catholicism recognizes the tradition in the interpretation and original construction of the canon. And both of them have a philosophical tradition that accepts both logic and faith. · 1 month ago
@smokey Also, learn some respect. You do not know me, so you do not get to tell me to "relax" or to call me "man". · 1 month ago
In other words, thank you for your time and good day. · 1 month ago
@krixano, Relax man. You've written a three paragraph essay already. you dont agree with me, Its okay. Im not really interested in having a full blown philosophical discussion with you when the first thing you say to me is more or less "you dont know what you're talking about" and then presume you know all about me and what I believe when I've never stated anything about myself. I said "most people in the STEM field are scientific realist" NOT myself. I agree with you on the limits of science and provability. I am a former athiest turned zen buddhist due to a long history of intense spiritual experiences through psychadellics. I believe in dualism and contradictory equals. · 1 month ago
@smokey You'd do well to read a book on the History of Christianity. Fundamentalist Christianity is not traditional Christianity. It was a reaction to modern methods of Biblical Criticism and Science that challenged literalist (word-for-word) readings of the Bible. Yet allegorical interpretation has been around since Philo and before. Challenged was literal readings of Genesis (by evolution), the people that wrote the Bible (by modern, and traditional, criticism of the Bible - questions that have been around for thousands of years), and the view on Human Nature (by optimism of human capabilities, which led to some of the bloodiest wars because people now lack a moral standard). · 1 month ago
@smokey The sources of theology and faith include Reason, Tradition, Scripture, and Experience (including mystical experiences).
It is true that Science involves logic and experimentation and falsifiability, but that is only within the material world. The science of the material world does not and *cannot* disprove anything outside of it, nor would Science have any application to the material world, because that's not what Science studies. You seem to go off of a presumption that anything outside must follow the same laws as the material world, but that is not necessarily true and is in no way suported by Science and its philosophy. It is just that, a presumption. · 1 month ago
@smokey That's pretty much a misrepresentation of both Science and Religion/Spirituality, as well as the people in the middle, and it sounds like something someone would say if they've only ever known Protestant Christians.
In fact, many Scientists believe that Science and Theology are separate domains and don't need to touch each other, even if they might have some overlap. And this also goes for most in theology, especially within Christian Tradition (Thomas Aquinas, who was very logical, also takes this approach and introduces Aristotelianism into the mix). · 1 month ago
@krixano It boils down to ones personal source of philosophical truth. Those in the STEM field tend to be fundemental scientific realist, whos bedrock of truth is the objective laws of nature tested by the scientific method and axioms of logic. For them most unfalsifyable metaphysical ideas like the existance of a God(s) are rejected on principle. To the fundementally religous, the bedrock of truth lies in subjective belief and the word of God(s) through scripture. In the middle are 'spiritual' people who are more into making their own interpretations towards the nature of the divine with an open mind while accepting the objective truth of universal logic and physical law. · 1 month ago
@smokey Nothing in science need contradict the *possibility* of God. Einstein certainly wasn't right about everything. But what he, among many other scientists, shows is that science and faith can be compatible. Whether one doesn't believe in God is not because the concept is incompatible with science, but is more likely because of suffering and other philosophical questions. · 1 month ago
@skyjake Thanks! · 1 month ago
What sort of praise can I give Thee? I have never heard the song of the Cherubim, a joy reserved for the spirits above. But I know the praises that nature sings to Thee. I have seen how the rising sun rejoices in Thee, how the song of the birds is a chorus of praise to Thee. I have heard the mysterious mutterings of the forests about Thee, and the winds singing Thy praise as they stir the waters. I have understood how the choirs of stars proclaim Thy glory as they move forever in the depths of infinite space. What is my poor worship! All nature obeys Thee, I do not. Yet while I live, I see Thy love, I long to thank Thee, and call upon Thy name. · 1 month ago
God, if he exists, definitely plays games (a game) and it strongly resembles astrology. For the Earth, there are only seven cruel rulers who play by the laws of the jungle (from the point of view of Earth's inhabitants). However, the rulers should not be deified, they rather resemble different parts of one, smoothly operating mechanism that someone once set in motion and... forgot. · 1 month ago
"Einstein was a smart dude but he wasn't right about everything. Remember when he got pissed with quantum mechanics and said 'God' doesnt play dice when, as it turns out, 'God' literally plays yatzee? Human beings are incredibly limited and narrow-minded creatures in an infinitely complex and mysterious universe, the fact we can even understand the basic parts of it with any certainty is a luxury. - Smokey · 1 month ago
According to [1], this is a rephrasing of what Einstein wrote in a 1936 article in the _Journal of the Franklin Institute_:
“The eternal mystery of the world is its comprehensibility … The fact that it is comprehensible is a miracle.”
[1]: https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-018-05004-4
This original quote has a more religious tone. I found it interesting to read about Einstein's views [2].
[2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religious_and_philosophical_views_of_Albert_Einstein#Pantheism_and_Spinoza's_God · 1 month ago