[Science & Religion]God Created Human Brains to Believe in Him

all we need is love

all we need is love

all we need is love

 

No, I cannot do it, Max. After retiring from retiring replicants, I'm attempting to promote peace, love, and happiness.

 

This is a great great great post. Thank you.

 

"The man who knows there is no God has become God"

"Love is not God, God is love"

"God is not lost, but who's looking?"

"If you want to know how your heart fills with blood turn to science,
If you want to know how your heart fills with peace turn to God"

"Science-I believe before the dark matter and the big bang nothing existed
rhester- I believe before dark matter and the big bang God existed"



The Rockets are sad

 

This is not a scientific statement at all. In fact, it closely resembles religious statments.

 

That's exactly what I was thinking.
Whenever I read 'scientists believe' in a school science textbook I sometimes think that resembles a religious statement.

I'll go read a couple science textbooks and post a reference later.

 

There's a difference between "science believes" and "scientists believe".

Also, science doesn't make a determination of what was "before" the big bang because we can't observe anything from that time. Science is concerned only with the observable universe. That's why I said your statement was more of a religious one--it draws a conclusion without any evidence.

 

More importantly, the term is being misused (intentionally?). In the context of rherster's statement, the appropriate term would have been "theorize" or "believe data may indicate"...

 

Good point.

 

It is well known I am all about intentionally misusing words.

Have I snared you yet?

I will post later, I will post quoting a textbook and a scientist (with links)
Just give me some time or let the thread die waiting cause I don't get to ramble on here as much as I used to.

Thanks

 

If I say "I believe that T-Mac will not play in the next few games." is that a religious statement?

 

Actually there is some theorizing on what was before the Big Bang. This is mostly based upon mathematics since there is no way of getting any observances.

 

if you believe in clutch players, winning streaks, karma, luck, fate, or love, then no your brain is not malfunctioning. it's working as intended. what the article is talking about isn't manifest solely by organized religion but in all the defense mechanisms our brains use to externalize random events into a larger psychologically digestable fashion so we can deal with the fact that our lives have no meaning

human brains are rational organs that have an impulse to organize/explain all random events into a sequence that our brains can psychologically accept. it's hard to deal with something as mundane as a PLAYOFF loss after we emotionally committed to it over the course of a long season. so even for something as trivial as sports you have concepts like clutch, destiny, GOAT etc etc. why does every culture have games of chance? because even for something as objectively random as a coin flip or a roll of dice human brains have a fascination with sorting out/assigning larger meaning to random events via LUCK or FATE

simply put religion is a sort of "pressure value" in a our brains. most people simply cannot deal with an extreme set of unknowns and use religion, mysticism, and plain superstition to keep themselves from going insane. you see a lot of young punks take a sort of perverse pride in rejecting religion yet what then do they believe in??? evolution??? the laughable fact is that belief in evolution for 99% of the people out there is predicated on the EXACT same thing that 500 years ago religion would have been predicated on... an AUTHORITY FIGURE endorsing and exposing it.

it's not like the random person out there who accepts evolution has looked at chromosomes under a microscope and has personally scientifically come to a conclusion supporting evolution. most people dont even know exactly what the theory of evolution even is. most cant distinguish between the mechanism of natural selection and theory of evolution. most people think for example that evolution explains why giraffes have long necks to reach the higher branches. THEY DONT EVEN FREAKING KNOW EVOLUTION IS yet they believe in it

this is not to say that evolution has the same merit as some creation myth. but the REASON why people believe in either is identical... some authority figure (whether it be a rabbi in temple or the science writer for the new york times) spins you a story and if it passes the "gut check" you believe in it. that GUT CHECK is the exact thing that wires our brains for religion. whether it's science or religion the idea that SOMETHING out there explains why we are here. and for most people it doesnt actually MATTER what the belief is... only that they believe in it. whether it's based on science or mysticism it satisfies the same need and that in itself is good enough and 99% of them never question either.

sad to say that your belief is basically entirely based on the society in which you live and does not in fact illustrate one iota of independent thinking. the media and culture in the US is dramatically anti-Christian but to a lesser degree extremely hostile to any organized religion with any central authority figure. it takes either 1)an extremely strong will or 2)extremely strong faith to persist in the belief of Christianity or "mainstream religion" in that light when you see people mocking it all over TV and media. on the contrary a kind of politically amorphous touchy-feely (halfassed) sort of quasi-religion is unthreatening so it's encouraged

soft agnosticism where you feel superior to those with "mainstream religion" yet cant let go of your psychological needs IMO is the saddest state to be in. at least if you're a believer you have a strong faith and attempt to live piously according to the rules of your religion. media bombards you with messages that organized religion leads to inquisitions and jihads and racism and homophobia and wifebeating and puppy kicking but in truth religions only last through the centuries if they developed for the common good and all share ideals of humanitarianism, devotion, discipline and cohabitation. every major religion that has persisted has some variation of the Golden Rule and are basically interested in the preservation of society.

in truth soft agnostics who reject religion because it's mocked yet cant let go of the psychological need for it cling to this totally illogical middle ground. be serious... if GOD as the manifestation of LOVE and ORDER in the universe is crazy what's out there? star trek aliens? get a grip. agnosticism is not a sign of strength it's a sign of weakness for not being strong enough to hold onto your original beliefs in the face of criticism yet not being strong enough to accept the fact that:

The TRUTH is there's NO GOD. there is NOTHING ELSE.

 

TMac out? "It is blasphemy"



Scientists don't make religious statements unless they are religious.
Scientists, typically discuss the big bang in theory, basically trying to resolve Relativity, as an issue of energy, matter and time and reconcile it with quantum physics...at least it used to be that way years ago.


I was only posting some muses as I haven't been able to post much lately.

I wasn't looking for any debate between science and religion.

There is no debate in my view.

Science explains what religion doesn't need to explain and religion explains what science doesn't need to explain.

They are separate disciplines.

I have read in science textbooks when visiting public schools these words 'scientists believe' with regards to origins and I find it humorous- only because I am a very humorous person.

I know that science textbooks are not attempting to make religious statements at all, but they don't really know that much about origins -they probably run mathematical models on computers and build elaborate models of the universe.

I love science but not as much as I love God.

 

(bolding mine)

And you do?

 

I don't, at all.

I would like to get caught up on the latest science, used to love to ponder Einstein's work on time, space, etc but I never could handle the math.

I am a pastor and I believe the creation story, but I don't try to reconcile it with science because I don't think the bible is written as a science book.

I don't agree with people who try to make it a science book, but I also don't agree with people who try to use science to mock the creation account.

Origins is too un-observable, un-verifiable, and un-scientific for all of us IMHO. No disrespect to the physicists who work hard to understand origins, I'm just giving an opinion.

I mean I think it's cool we can detect back ground radiation in space, measure galaxies, motion in space and helium concentration and postulate about it, but the science of it is

long ago in a galaxy far far far away.....................(cue star wars theme)

 

Some excellent points. The tendency of humans to see purpose in things does extend beyond religion. I also agree that this is a function of our rationality in that as thinking beings we seek to put some rationality upon an irrational existence.

Some more great points and I completely agree that many people accept concepts like Evolution because authority figures endorse it rather than understanding and thinking it through. In a way acceptance of science has become almost like religion in the sense that many don't really understand it but take it from people with titles like "doctor" "principal investigator" and so on that those concepts must be true.

There is though one qualitative difference between the expounders of science and the expounders of religion is that the methodology of science has provided verifiable results whereas religions track record isn't quite so good. You might not go to wrong though in placing trust in something that you know was developed with the scientific method.

With all of that though I still think there is an appalling amount of ignorance out there about science and to the point that people take science on blind faith also causes a lot of problems in debates over scientific issues.

Certain segments of the media are hostile towards religion but I have a hard time buying that the US media or society as a whole is hostile to religion. As far as industrialized countries go we live in the most religious one and Christianity and Christian themes are often soft pedalled or outrightly pushed in various media. While there is a lot of mocking going on of Touched by an Angel and the The Passion of the Christ the fact that those get made and are very successful shows that our culture is far from being hostile to organized religion.

I think here you are falling victim to absolutist thought of your own. If you consider yourself to truly be a thinking logical being given how limited amount of knowledge we have there is no way of knowing any absolute truth.

God may or may not exist. There is no way you can empiracally prove that. You can rationally in your mind state that you see nothing that would prove God exists yet ultimately that is only based upon your own viewpoint which as a human is limited.

If there is a truth it is that we don't know what really is out there. You might see Agnosticism as an intellectual copout but given our extremely limited understanding of the Universe there is nothing to say it isn't any more correct than a belief in a personified God or a completely materialistic Universe.

 

Or we created him in ours.

 

Except that everything we actually do know about the universe is completely materialistic. Contrast that with the absolute lack of any evidence for even the most minor spiritual phenomena and the "maybe, maybe not" line of thought in regard to such things becomes unjustifiable.