Do You Believe in God?

'empty space is not empty at all but it is a boiling brew of virtual particles'

At 1:32 Mr. Kraus states 'it could be...' that is when he starts telling you what he believes.

Nothing is nothing like it was 2000 yrs ago but nothing could be something that isn't nothing so empty could possibly not be nothing and one day it will be empty again but not nothing but something did come from nothing

- I listened several times so I could follow that reasoning.

Mr. Kraus doesn't know absolutely where the universe came from, he doesn't even know what is going to happen when he dies. He doesn't even know why there is a universe and why he is going to die. On those points which I believe are very important he is clueless.

I felt sorry for him.

 

Steam is coming out of my ears.

DOES NOT COMPUTE

 

Caring about people is not a malady, it is love, and you don't ever want to 'recover' from it.

It would please me greatly to talk to Mr. Kraus about his beliefs. Encourage him as a human being and give him a different perspective on how to add value to other people's lives.

I respect his zeal for knowledge, but I do feel sad that such a gifted man is so focused on proving a point as to redefine the word 'nothing'; and to do it poorly.

You're very intelligent, what great truth did you get out of his video?

Thanks for the concern for my mother, she is 82 and we love each other a lot. When I was in jail for drugs I broke her heart, I used to be in jail so much she cried many tears for her oldest son. She thought I wasted my life graduating at the top of my class only to become a drug dealing alcoholic.

 

I don't get why. There is absolutely nothing wrong by saying "I don't know". Although you can think a lot of negative things that come out of people who claim they know and yet can't provide a single iota of evidence.

If u don't know, just say so rather trying to invent an answer. That is how logic and reason works.

 

Simply for the record.

Yes.

That is all.

 

The difference between the two of you is that he admits he doesn't know.

 

You really think I know where the universe came from?

And do you also think I know specifically what happens to the human soul after death?

Be reasonable, my faith doesn't give me some kind of super knowledge.

 

I agree, and I think Mr. Kraus should have titled his book "I don't know"

 

So I pressume u read the whole book? Or you just made that conclusion based on a video?

 

Newton did not know everything, Einstein did not know everything. Should they also write they don't know? These scientists know more than all the people that came before them because human knowledge is increasing every year.That is how we advance as a race.

We can believe in Gods , but as far as I know, believing in God have not advanced human race through the ages.

 

No. It isn't.

First, let's begin by asking a question which science cannot answer, and which has been my argument all along: what do you mean by "good"? You didn't scientifically determine that science is good. You made a value judgment. Science has saved people from suffering, so it is good, or something like that. But of course that comes with another value judgment that suffering is inherently bad, which is not necessarily so. Plato talked about justice and injustice, and arrived at an answer. Are his ideas invalid because he didn't use the scientific method to determine them, but rather through dialogue and questioning that is used in the Republic? Forget religion for a moment. Schopenhauer, Nietzche, Aristotle, Marx, none of them used "science" to come to their conclusions. What are you to make of their values, the beliefs that they arrived at? If your response is "they used 'reason'", what are you to make of those who attacked reason, who found man to be irrational?

Now that that's out of the way, let's ask another question. What is "science?" One definition is that science is "systematic knowledge of the physical or material world gained through observation and experimentation." In short, science discovers the laws of the universe. That's all well and all, but does that make science good? No one calls economics good, or philosophy good, or other disciples which seek out how things work. Because they aren't. They are just a way to finding answers, and finding answers in and of itself is not inherently good, even if you could somehow define what good is.

Now, ignoring the fact that "good" is not something easy to define like you think it is, science can be used for good. And I'm also not saying that since science is not good, that it is evil. That is an incredibly simplistic, black and white narrative which you like to use. Science is not good, nor is it evil. It is a tool to understanding the laws of the universe, nothing more and nothing less. It can be used for good, but it can also be used for great evil.

So how do we determine which uses of science are good and evil? Value judgments, arrived at not through scientific processes, but through long centuries of traditions, mores, ethics, and the like, much of which is derived from our ancestors - like I said earlier, Aristotle's science is obsolete, but Aristotle's ethics are not. Now frequently said value judgments appears in the form of religion, and one can argue over whether one religion which represents one set of ethics is better than another value systems which represents another - we have been doing that since the dawn of man itself. But to wipe them all out, and instead wave the banner of SCIENCE instead, as if science alone can tell us proper morals and ethics? That is worse than any one system of ethics.

 

Kojirou, the ability to reason and seek out truth (which is what science is used for) is essential to being a moral being, in my view. Can you point out moral values for which a proper application does not require one to be able to reason and seek out truth?

Edit: And even if we consider that morality and science are on separate spheres (the generic ability to reason is still essential for morality, I'd maintain), grand questions on the origins of the universe and our place within it should be rightly approach with the available scientific methods and knowledge we have at our disposal.

 

Don't bother. He's been making the "people would be lost without religion" argument over and over throughout this entire thread no matter how many times people bring up the point that morality does not necessarily require a religious source.

 

If I believed in God, I'd have a hard time believing he doesn't hate us.

 

Without religion? No, not necessarily. I'm not really religious myself.

Without values and ethics? Yes, people would be lost as a community is fundamentally an idea of various ethics. And while you are right that morality does not necessarily require a religious source, the fact is that morality in modern society is heavily derived off of religion even as we are more secular than we were in the past - I really don't like Christianity and Christian ethics, but I'm not going to dismiss its influence on the West and by extent the world. And while I don't really care for religion as the source of said morals and ethics, preferring philosophy myself, I argue that religion can be a source, and that science can't be a source of morals any more than say, economics could.

I disagree on your definition, to begin with. Truth is not to me inherently good - if it was, then a world where no one could lie to another would be a perfect world, but even a child could instantly realize how horrible that would really be. A moral being to me, is well one who does the moral thing, not one who has to sit around analyzing what the moral thing is. When a cop refuses a bribe, does he somehow become more moral because he spent time sitting around thinking about why accepting the bribe is bad? No. And you don't necessarily need to understand why something is bad to know that it is bad - it's not necessarily a moral example, but I have no idea exactly how drinking bleach would kill me, but I know it will. Now, technically, it's possible that bleach is not bad for me, and I should go through the scientific process or reason it out. If I had infinite time, I suppose I could reason out everything in my life and determine why it is good or bad.

I don't have infinite time. No one does. Which means that we accept things on faith, or trust. We have to, in order for society to function.

 

The physical universe screams genius. As a small child, I became aware and fascinated with nature; the beauty of it, the mechanics of it, the intricacies of it. I have never lost that sense of wonder and mystery. Through my enthrallment with plants, animals, the stars, planets, universe, the human body, intelligence, and human invention, I came to believe that God existed. When I came to know about Christ I realized He was the connection, the link, the prototypical image of God. I challenge you to read the written accounts of His life, to listen to his Words and see what He did. There is no historical figure like Him. Put yourself in a "Star Wars" state of mind, and you can begin to see the big picture: the origin of evil, the angelic conflict, the Fall, the Plan of Redemption, the Substitute, the Recovery, All Things Made New. It's all wonderful.

 

Your definition of moral being appears to simply be one who follows a code. Blindly following a set of rules without reflection does not make one moral, in my view.

I will grant that there would be a set of core moral principles that one accepts a priori, or "on faith" if you prefer. But these should be core principles, and preferably small in number to assure consistency and lack of arbitrariness. You certainly can't have a rule explicitly spelled out for every situation. Taking the small set of core principles and knowing how to apply them in a given situation to make a "good" decision requires a combination of thoughtfulness and worldly experience/knowledge. To me, that's what makes one a moral person.

 

Where did I claim that religion hasn't been a major source of morality for many people? Earlier in the thread I admitted as such and stated that where people choose to draw their inspiration is none of my business so long as they don't impose on me.

I was simply pointing out that it is theoretically possible for the world to be moral without religion. I also don't agree that one could not draw morals from science or economics. In each of these fields, there are central tenets from which broad morals concepts can be drawn. For instance, in economics, efficiency is highly valued, so someone who drew their inspiration from economic theory would place more emphasis on efficiency in making choices. Another example is the utility concept.