There
is in YouTube a documentary on quantum mechanics, the Big Bang, the
absence of a God from creation, Darwin, and the dissaperance of
Christianity from Europe due to science called Testing God. This is the same theme
Jonathan Israel treated in his monumental study on Spinoza and the
Radical Enlightenment. It is an impressive documentary following the same line of the Enlightenment: how a culture uses reason as its guide to understand its world. Santayana said: value truth, but as there are limits to reason, do not forget to use imagination to enjoy life. Imagination is infinite. And the point of life is to enjoy it. Testing God has three parts: Part 1, “Killing the Creator”; Part 2, “Darwin and
the Divine”; and Part 3, “Credo Ergo Sum”. I am going to add some comments while I proceed with the rest. Take a look.
In the first part, Sir Roger Penrose says what I think itʼs the issue between science and religion today: God has retreated to a deeper place. I think this is the same answer Richard Dawkins gave once in one of his books. People want something great and powerful that can save them. Now that nature is empty of purpose and design made for us, God has been placed in a remote place, still there giving some people hope that everything will be explained.
In the second part, we see some theists saying that God is shown in the design of the universe, in our sense of wonder and our consciousness. On this, one can say that the real problem is not God (who no one knows nothing about), but the idea of the soul. And the soul is not immortal, but what we call spirit or consciousness. As Nicholas Humphrey says in his book Soul Dust, consciousness is an evolved adaptation of some animals on planet Earth, and its function (adapted function) is to give meaning to our lives. Religion is what one embraces when one ignores that our consciousness is a private theater, a virtual theater, whose function is to make us find meaning in life (to want to live).
There is the other question of design, which depends on stability. What one sees as design in the world is what one sees as adaptations in the world. And you will only see the right answer to the seemingly perfect design of the world when you study biology. As George C. Williams says in his 1966 book Adaptation and Natural Selection, evolution by natural (and sexual) selection is not about change, but about adaptations. If you see a complex organism doing something complex, chances are you are seeing an adaptation at work. Geoffrey Miller appears here too, saying that kin selection and reciprocity are not the right answers for altruism and kindness. He is saying that these moral actions are marketing features that work by sexual selection. I think that Hamilton and Trivers are right, but I think too that Millerʼs sexual selection idea explains art and conspicuous signals very well. The answer must be that the three of them are pointing in the same direction: the key in natural selection is to reproduce, sexual selection (Miller), but that you have to take care of your family and relatives (Hamilton) and acquaintances and friends (Trivers).
At min. 4:35 of the third part, a pastor interprets the “sign of Noah” saying as the real words of Jesus of Nazareth and he tells us what his interpretation is: the sign is about the resurrection of Jesus after three days. Now, that line is common to Matthew and Luke but absent in Mark. It is a Q2 saying (apocalyptic), and Matthew and Luke use different context to insert it within the Markian story: there was no context in the book of sayings Q, so Matthew and Luke created one for them, each after their own purposes and ideas, not taken from an historical context. This Q2 saying about the wicked generation waiting for a sign is not attributed to Jesus at all, as the figure Jesus speaks of the sign of Noah, not his sign. In other words, this was the original saying the sect of Q used to convince others of the imminent Parousia. When Matthew and Luke came (second century CE) to fill in the first anonymous gospel (ca. 90 CE, later on called Mark), they used the Q sayings within the narrative story of Mark to impart their directives to their communities. The Q sayings were then turned into “Jesus said” sayings, but the anomalies remained. A Messiah saying that the sign is not his, but of Noah (an Old Testament one). Cf. Jesus, Neither God nor Man, by Earl Doherty.
At min. 36:16 and 38:00 we see the astronomer talking of Heisenberg and the uncertainty principle, that nothing can be known absolutely. Well, that is true. But it is not because of Heisenberg, but of common sense. It was told by Thomas Hobbes already. No knowledge can be absolute knowledge of anything. Cf. Santayana. Then we see the cultural critic talking of Heidegger criticizing science because it has answers. Well, science has answers that work well, that have not been falsified so far; the answers are provisional, not definitive. That is the difference between science and religious dogmas. There is progress in science. The universal statements of science are not certain (not fully decidable), they cannot be definitely verified, but they can be falsified. But particular statements are fully decidable: they can be verified and falsified with an experiment. That is why we can improve upon the universal statements of science, its theories and discoveries: they are provisional and we subject them to constant criticism. Science is not definitely certain; science is provisionally in the right direction. Cf. Popper.
In the first part, Sir Roger Penrose says what I think itʼs the issue between science and religion today: God has retreated to a deeper place. I think this is the same answer Richard Dawkins gave once in one of his books. People want something great and powerful that can save them. Now that nature is empty of purpose and design made for us, God has been placed in a remote place, still there giving some people hope that everything will be explained.
In the second part, we see some theists saying that God is shown in the design of the universe, in our sense of wonder and our consciousness. On this, one can say that the real problem is not God (who no one knows nothing about), but the idea of the soul. And the soul is not immortal, but what we call spirit or consciousness. As Nicholas Humphrey says in his book Soul Dust, consciousness is an evolved adaptation of some animals on planet Earth, and its function (adapted function) is to give meaning to our lives. Religion is what one embraces when one ignores that our consciousness is a private theater, a virtual theater, whose function is to make us find meaning in life (to want to live).
There is the other question of design, which depends on stability. What one sees as design in the world is what one sees as adaptations in the world. And you will only see the right answer to the seemingly perfect design of the world when you study biology. As George C. Williams says in his 1966 book Adaptation and Natural Selection, evolution by natural (and sexual) selection is not about change, but about adaptations. If you see a complex organism doing something complex, chances are you are seeing an adaptation at work. Geoffrey Miller appears here too, saying that kin selection and reciprocity are not the right answers for altruism and kindness. He is saying that these moral actions are marketing features that work by sexual selection. I think that Hamilton and Trivers are right, but I think too that Millerʼs sexual selection idea explains art and conspicuous signals very well. The answer must be that the three of them are pointing in the same direction: the key in natural selection is to reproduce, sexual selection (Miller), but that you have to take care of your family and relatives (Hamilton) and acquaintances and friends (Trivers).
At min. 4:35 of the third part, a pastor interprets the “sign of Noah” saying as the real words of Jesus of Nazareth and he tells us what his interpretation is: the sign is about the resurrection of Jesus after three days. Now, that line is common to Matthew and Luke but absent in Mark. It is a Q2 saying (apocalyptic), and Matthew and Luke use different context to insert it within the Markian story: there was no context in the book of sayings Q, so Matthew and Luke created one for them, each after their own purposes and ideas, not taken from an historical context. This Q2 saying about the wicked generation waiting for a sign is not attributed to Jesus at all, as the figure Jesus speaks of the sign of Noah, not his sign. In other words, this was the original saying the sect of Q used to convince others of the imminent Parousia. When Matthew and Luke came (second century CE) to fill in the first anonymous gospel (ca. 90 CE, later on called Mark), they used the Q sayings within the narrative story of Mark to impart their directives to their communities. The Q sayings were then turned into “Jesus said” sayings, but the anomalies remained. A Messiah saying that the sign is not his, but of Noah (an Old Testament one). Cf. Jesus, Neither God nor Man, by Earl Doherty.
At min. 36:16 and 38:00 we see the astronomer talking of Heisenberg and the uncertainty principle, that nothing can be known absolutely. Well, that is true. But it is not because of Heisenberg, but of common sense. It was told by Thomas Hobbes already. No knowledge can be absolute knowledge of anything. Cf. Santayana. Then we see the cultural critic talking of Heidegger criticizing science because it has answers. Well, science has answers that work well, that have not been falsified so far; the answers are provisional, not definitive. That is the difference between science and religious dogmas. There is progress in science. The universal statements of science are not certain (not fully decidable), they cannot be definitely verified, but they can be falsified. But particular statements are fully decidable: they can be verified and falsified with an experiment. That is why we can improve upon the universal statements of science, its theories and discoveries: they are provisional and we subject them to constant criticism. Science is not definitely certain; science is provisionally in the right direction. Cf. Popper.
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