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I never mentioned religion.

Very well, let me rewrite my post. It has a purpose unto itself, not a broader sense as ascribed by us humans, i.e. there is no 'plan', there is no 'unity', or 'greater meaning'.

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Originally posted by venomX Very well, let me rewrite my post. It has a purpose unto itself, not a broader sense as ascribed by us humans, i.e. there is no 'plan', there is no 'unity', or 'greater meaning'.

Most of the world would agree to disagree. The simple fact that most people in this world subscribe to some form of religion attests to a universal belief of a greater purpose in this universe.

All I'm saying is that purpose is definately present throughout universe. What that implies is certainly open to interpretation.

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Originally posted by Krypton Most of the world would agree to disagree. The simple fact that most people in this world subscribe to some form of religion attests to a universal belief of a greater purpose in this universe. All I'm saying is that purpose is definately present throughout universe. What that implies is certainly open to interpretation.

Fair enough. I do personally believe that there is no more purpose in the universe than there is in a any other system. That is, that all its part have been fined tuned by a process of selection to make it highly efficient. That this process is ongoing, and that if disrupted it would adapt in some way. This is in my opinion a more rational explanation of the 'purpose' of systems, the universe included. The only reason we humans ascribe to some greater meaning is because it provides comfort, direction and sense of worth. If we didn't exist, the universe wouldn't implode, suggesting that after all there might not be a 'greater design' that involved us humans.

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Originally posted by Krypton Most of the world would agree to disagree. The simple fact that most people in this world subscribe to some form of religion attests to a universal belief of a greater purpose in this universe.

You are making a leap in reasoning based on what you find religion to be about.

Not everyone follows a religion because ot the idea of "things needing a purpose". Many people follow a religion because it is all they have been exposed to, or because it gives them "clear" answers about the world around them.


MrS

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Originally posted by MrSquirrel You are making a leap in reasoning based on what you find religion to be about. Not everyone follows a religion because ot the idea of "things needing a purpose". Many people follow a religion because it is all they have been exposed to, or because it gives them "clear" answers about the world around them. MrS

My only premise was that the universe has purpose. You can't deny it.

In my opinion, to have a purpose, is to have been designed. Call me the ID, creationist nutcase, whatever name you want, but sorry if I don't agree that the universe is just some random event in which inter-connected laws of nature exist out of chance.

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Originally posted by Krypton My only premise was that the universe has purpose. You can't deny it. In my opinion, to have a purpose, is to have been designed. Call me the ID, creationist nutcase, whatever name you want, but sorry if I don't agree that the universe is just some random event in which inter-connected laws of nature exist out of chance.

What can't I deny, the idea that the universe MUST have a purpose? Or that that was your only premise on your post?

Because I can actually deny both.

I see no reason why the universe has to have a purpose at all. I don't personally see the universe as having to have any purpose other than to be. Which really cannot be considered a purpose.

And your post was not solely trying to say that the universe has a purpose, it was saying that everyone who is religious has to believe that there is a purpose, because that is what every religious person's religion is about : giving a purpose to the universe. I deny that is the reason why ALL people of faith have faith.

MrS

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Originally posted by MrSquirrel What can't I deny, the idea that the universe MUST have a purpose? Or that that was your only premise on your post? Because I can actually deny both. I see no reason why the universe has to have a purpose at all. I don't personally see the universe as having to have any purpose other than to be. Which really cannot be considered a purpose. And your post was not solely trying to say that the universe has a purpose, it was saying that everyone who is religious has to believe that there is a purpose, because that is what every religious person's religion is about : giving a purpose to the universe. I deny that is the reason why ALL people of faith have faith. MrS

If something serves a function of some kind, it has a purpose. What are your eyes for if they have no purpose? Oh, I guess they exist just to exist right?

I actually never mentioned religion in any part of my basic arguement, but if we're going to talk about it then ok.

I don't think religion gives the universe a purpose. It already has a purpose. The function religion serves is to find what that purpose is. Now you believe there is no purpose, and that's fine, but I'll agree to disagree on that one. The main difference in our thinking is simply my belief in the inherent purpose of the universe not dictated by religion, but observed by it.

The purpose of this universe is to evolve and create us so that we can look back and start arguing whether it has a purpose in the first place.

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Originally posted by Omega_M The purpose of this universe is to evolve and create us so that we can look back and start arguing whether it has a purpose in the first place.

As I said, the purpose is completely open to interpretation, so by all means INTERPRET!! As I stated in my previous post, religion serves as a tool of interpretation to the universal purpose.

The greatest scientists ever known mostly believed in a supreme purpose of the universe. Issac Newton spent his entire life trying to discover what that was, and in the process, he was able to interpret the laws of gravity into a tangible mathematic form.

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Originally posted by Krypton If something serves a function of some kind, it has a purpose. What are your eyes for if they have no purpose? Oh, I guess they exist just to exist right? I actually never mentioned religion in any part of my basic arguement, but if we're going to talk about it then ok. I don't think religion gives the universe a purpose. It already has a purpose. The function religion serves is to find what that purpose is. Now you believe there is no purpose, and that's fine, but I'll agree to disagree on that one. The main difference in our thinking is simply my belief in the inherent purpose of the universe not dictated by religion, but observed by it.

For religion to observe the purpose of the universe it would have to be founded on assumptions regarding the functioning of the universe. Close to none of the religions currently flourishing are founded on any of the plausible assumptions explored by science. Therefore, most religions do not observe the purpose of the universe as connected to its actual functioning, but more contemplate on anthropocentric whims established thousands of years ago.

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Originally posted by venomX For religion to observe the purpose of the universe it would have to be founded on assumptions regarding the functioning of the universe. Close to none of the religions currently flourishing are founded on any of the plausible assumptions explored by science. Therefore, most religions do not observe the purpose of the universe as connected to its actual functioning, but more contemplate on anthropocentric whims established thousands of years ago.

The only assumption ancient peoples could have about the universe was the simple fact of its purposefulness. That was all they had. That WAS the assumption to begin with. Science has served us in making it very clear about the purposeful functions of the universe.

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Originally posted by Krypton If something serves a function of some kind, it has a purpose. What are your eyes for if they have no purpose? Oh, I guess they exist just to exist right?

that's illogical circular reasoning: there is existance thus purpose, there is purpose because things exist. and because an eye's "purpose" is to see does not mean it was designed. i think ascribing "purpose" to random events (the sun's purpose being to warm our solar system for instance) needs are LOT more argument and evidence than your say-so.

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Originally posted by Krypton As I said, the purpose is completely open to interpretation, so by all means INTERPRET!! As I stated in my previous post, religion serves as a tool of interpretation to the universal purpose.

more nonsense. religion serves as a form of social control. a bunch of fairy tales to illogically explain the world around us, to equate that as a reliable tool of interpretation is a leap of colossal irrationality. a tool is something useful that can bare fruit when applied to a specific problem. religion does not provide anything even remotely similar.

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Originally posted by Krypton The greatest scientists ever known mostly believed in a supreme purpose of the universe. Issac Newton spent his entire life trying to discover what that was, and in the process, he was able to interpret the laws of gravity into a tangible mathematic form.

yeah, and he was wrong wasnt he? i think you are drawing a pretty long bow when arguing the greatest scientists believed in purpose, and to equate that with a rough explanation of a deity of some kind. certainly the greatest scientists in the last 100 years have been atheists in all but name.

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Originally posted by pkcRAISTLIN that's illogical circular reasoning: there is existance thus purpose, there is purpose because things exist. and because an eye's "purpose" is to see does not mean it was designed. i think ascribing "purpose" to random events (the sun's purpose being to warm our solar system for instance) needs are LOT more argument and evidence than your say-so. more nonsense. religion serves as a form of social control. a bunch of fairy tales to illogically explain the world around us, to equate that as a reliable tool of interpretation is a leap of colossal irrationality. a tool is something useful that can bare fruit when applied to a specific problem. religion does not provide anything even remotely similar. yeah, and he was wrong wasnt he? i think you are drawing a pretty long bow when arguing the greatest scientists believed in purpose, and to equate that with a rough explanation of a deity of some kind. certainly the greatest scientists in the last 100 years have been atheists in all but name.

I'll answer according to each paragraph.

1. Purpose exists because things exist? How so? Why wouldn't forces such as magnetism and gravity have any purpose. It obviously serves us in keeping us alive here on Earth don't it? I guess we're bound to our assumptions of randomness vs nonrandomness.

2. Again, open your mind. I am not saying religion is THE tool to interpret the universe and its purpose. I said A A A A tool you TOOl! I know you hate religion, but nowhere in my posts am I implying religion is the only mode if interpretation.

3. Yes, Isaac Newton was right. Laws of motion ring a bell? Optics? Calculus? He spent a lot of time studying theology. You've obviously havn't read anything on the beliefs about god/religion from the greatest of scientists. I'm not talking about that same old liberal atheist biology professor at the university. I'm talking about Einstein, Newton, Boyle. The scientific genius's of their time. You'll find some interesting reads

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Originally posted by Krypton 1. Purpose exists because things exist? How so? Why wouldn't forces such as magnetism and gravity have any purpose. It obviously serves us in keeping us alive here on Earth don't it? I guess we're bound to our assumptions of randomness vs nonrandomness.

again, its circular reasoning. we can only question these things because they have functioned in such a way to provide a suitable environment for our existence. why this means things have "purpose" is beyond me. a universe like ours could only be observable if it had the right forces at work. this does not equate with purpose.

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Originally posted by Krypton 2. Again, open your mind. I am not saying religion is THE tool to interpret the universe and its purpose. I said A A A A tool you TOOl! I know you hate religion, but nowhere in my posts am I implying religion is the only mode if interpretation.

you are merely repeating yourself, not undermining what i have said. no, religion is not a tool for anything of the sort. what you are essentially arguing, is that a unsubstantiated belief system(s), without any proofs whatsoever, devoid of any method of enquiry or testing, is somehow a tool for understanding the universe? that's simply not true. indeed its impossible. please- could you give us one example of what religion has specifically added to our understanding of anything regarding the universe?

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Originally posted by Krypton 3. Yes, Isaac Newton was right. Laws of motion ring a bell? Optics? Calculus? He spent a lot of time studying theology. You've obviously havn't read anything on the beliefs about god/religion from the greatest of scientists. I'm not talking about that same old liberal atheist biology professor at the university. I'm talking about Einstein, Newton, Boyle. The scientific genius's of their time. You'll find some interesting reads

i was actually referring to newton's laws of motion when applied to the heavens, which were quite wrong and yes, i have read the odd bit of text, and i can guarantee you, that despite what theists have taken out of context, einstein certainly wasn't a believer in god:

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"it was, of course, a lie what you read about my religious convictions, a liw which is systematically repeated. i do not believe in a personal god and i have never denied this but have expressed it clearly. if something is in me which can be called religious then it is the unbounded admiration for the structure of the world so far as our science can reveal it." dawkins r, the god delusion, p15.

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"i am a deeply religious nonbeliever. this is a somewhat new kind of religion. i have never imputed to nature a purpose or goal, or anything that could be understood as anthropomorphic. what i see in nature is a magnificent structure that we can comprehend only very imperfectly, and that must fill a thikning person with a feeling of humility. this is a genuinely religious feeling that has nothing to do with mysticism. the idea of a personal god is quite alien to me and seems even naive." ibid, p15.

that sounds pretty cut & dried to me.

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Originally posted by pkcRAISTLIN again, its circular reasoning. we can only question these things because they have functioned in such a way to provide a suitable environment for our existence. why this means things have "purpose" is beyond me. a universe like ours could only be observable if it had the right forces at work. this does not equate with purpose. you are merely repeating yourself, not undermining what i have said. no, religion is not a tool for anything of the sort. what you are essentially arguing, is that a unsubstantiated belief system(s), without any proofs whatsoever, devoid of any method of enquiry or testing, is somehow a tool for understanding the universe? that's simply not true. indeed its impossible. please- could you give us one example of what religion has specifically added to our understanding of anything regarding the universe? i was actually referring to newton's laws of motion when applied to the heavens, which were quite wrong and yes, i have read the odd bit of text, and i can guarantee you, that despite what theists have taken out of context, einstein certainly wasn't a believer in god: that sounds pretty cut & dried to me.

1. What does it equate to if not to serve a purpose?

2. Nope, you're implying an arguement to me I never made. So I will answer to that misinterpretation. You can rant all you want about how religion is bad, but that really isn't the issue.

It starts with a basic assumption. Purpose or no purpose. I totally understand how religion is nothing but fairy tales IF one were to believe that there is no purpose in the universe. But your personal decision is not the standard. Multitudes of people believe there is purpose in the universe, and this may infur the existence of a god. I would also not expect to find any 'proof' of god because such a being would not be held down by our physical laws of space and time. We can't even observe our entire universe, but you want to observe god in some scientific way? Existence can't ubiquetously be held inside a box to be looked at, sorry m8.

3. I find your quote on EInstein taken out of context. He did not believe in a Judeo-Christian god, but that does not he didn't believe in nothing.

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In 1929, Einstein told Rabbi Herbert S. Goldstein "I believe in Spinoza's God, who reveals Himself in the lawful harmony of the world, not in a God Who concerns Himself with the fate and the doings of mankind."(Brian 1996, p. 127)

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This most beautiful system of the sun, planets, and comets, could only proceed from the counsel and dominion of an intelligent Being. -Newton

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Originally posted by Omega_M In that case, creationists and evolutionists do not seem to cross path at the fundamental level. If science only explains how things work and not why, then the creationists have an answer to the why (or the purpose) - God !!! There's more to this line of argument ofcourse. As one tries to answer more and more fundamental questions, these issues of how and why overlap and that's where the problem starts. science does not want a divine intervention to explain the cause of the universe which otherwise seems to run perfectly on physical laws. The creationists on the other hand, do not want to let go the divine cause (because of their belief) and want to see this universe unfolding on God's direction. You cannot disprove creationists until you explain the primordial cause within a scientific framework.

It does not matter why or how you are created or what your purpose in life is or what you're all about.

What's important is whether you accept Jesus as your savior. Because regardless of how you were created, if you didn't accept Jesus you'll burn in painful agonizing hell for all eternity. Even if you were mother Theresa herself (of different faith denomination). Jesus is the bouncer to the doors of Heaven. Accept him and all your wildest dreams will come true.

Otherwise, your destiny is to burn in hell. for all eternity. no appeals. no exceptions. the end.

Stop! Don't do another good deed without accepting Jesus first. Otherwise it won't count. And if you're planning to rob, cheat, rape, murder, or do other bad things - that's cool. As long as you accept Jesus and TRULLY repent. You're forgiven. After all - he died for your sins. Except the sin of you being not Christian. That one doesn't get an exemption status. You have to accept Him and then - all is forgiven!

You've been warned! Convert or be judged and sentenced to hell. And don't forget - God Loves You!

Creationists fight back with a "museum"!

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Creationist museum brings dinosaurs on board Noah�s Ark Tom Baldwin in Washington A vegetarian Tyrannosaurus rex frolicked alongside human beings only a few thousand years ago in the Garden of Eden until Eve decided to munch on that apple, according to the Creation Museum, which opens in Kentucky today. The $27 million (�14 million) exhibition is funded by evangelical Christians, who apparently believe that by reclaiming dinosaurs and fossils for their literal biblical interpretation of natural history, teenagers are less likely to look at internet pornography or get pregnant out of wedlock. This sprawling 50-acre (20hectare) site is the latest effort to counter the evolutionary science taught in state schools that Answers in Genesis, the religious group behind the museum, claims has chipped away at the nation�s moral fabric. It uses much of the same technology seen in mainstream museums. There are realistic moving, roaring dinosaurs and a lifesized model of a ship being built by animatronic craftsmen. In this corner of northern Kentucky the dinosaurs get to go on the ship, which happens to be none other than Noah�s Ark. Inevitably the museum, which hopes to receive 250,000 visitors a year, has attracted criticism from members of the scientific community, who plan to stage a �rally for reason� outside the entrance today. Two petitions are in circulation among university lecturers complaining about the inaccuracies of the exhibits and efforts by the �Religious Right to inject creationist teachings into science education�. Although attempts to reintroduce an element of creationism � rebranded as �intelligent design� � into science lessons have foundered, three of ten Republican presidential candidates said in a recent debate that they did not believe in evolution. Opinion polls show consistently that half of Americans believe that humans did not evolve but were created, along with all living creatures, by God 6,000 to 10,000 years ago. The museum has a series of rooms depicting the darkening of a world that abandons a literal interpretation of the Bible. Two teenagers, apparently indoctrinated with evolutionary teaching, are shown at home. The girl is talking to Planned Parenthood and the boy is looking at pornography on a computer. These images culminate in a wrecking ball, labelled with the words �millions of years�, smashing down a church. Ken Ham, the Australian-born founder of Answers in Genesis, believes that the battle for minds should be fought among the very young because of children�s fascination with dinosaurs. These creatures have long since posed a �test of faith� for creationists because of fossils suggesting that T.rex and suchlike walked the Earth � and then disappeared � millions of years before the Book of Genesis says that God spent six days making everything. �Dinosaurs are one of the icons of evolution, but we believe they lived at the same time as people,� Mr Ham said. �The Bible talks about dragons. We believe dragon legends had a basis in truth . . . We like to say, �You�ve captured them for evolution, and we�re going to take them back.� � All those fossils, some of which are exhibited in the museum, were created not millions of years ago but by the biblical floods. In one exhibit two palaeontologists � a light-skinned creationist and a dark-skinned evolutionist � are shown digging up a dinosaur skeleton and, of course, reach different interpretations. The message is that it is OK, even scientific, to defy evolution. Eugenie Scott, director of the National Centre for Science Education, calls the museum �the creationist Disneyland�. Lawrence Krauss, a theoretical physicist at Case Western Reserve University, accuses it of spreading �documented lies�. Mr Hams says: �Why do they worry about my little museum? They�ve got museums all over the world.� Literal truth � The basis of creationism is belief in the Bible�s literal truth. Most creationists believe the Earth is only a few thousand years old � They believe that life did not evolve gradually through natural processes but was formed supernaturally by God � The only changes possible in plants and animals are negative ones of degradation or extinction � Natural processes are seen not as self-sustaining but as maintained daily by God. Miracles are thus seen as God's choice to do something differently http://entertainment.timesonline.co...icle1848419.ece

I wish I could go. The museum sounds hilarious.

Sounds like a roadtrip plan to me!!! I am gonna grab my wife and kids and hit the bible belt entertainment strip, followed by some hard praying along the way.

Yeeeeeeeahaaaw! Praise the lord and pass the ammunition!

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Originally posted by occrider Creationists fight back with a "museum"! I wish I could go. The museum sounds hilarious.

I have seen video of the inside from a BBC interview.

There is literally a pond with clean little caveman kiddies and docile velociraptors watching over them like babysitters.

And they were interviewing a mother and daughter who were talking about how "evolution doesn't make sense, the bible does". Both had a lisp which made them sound about as devolved as some of us believe they are.

This kind of indoctrination by theatricality is part of why I left the scenic construction business. Having to build stuff like a Veggie Tales set to building play areas for children's wings of these giant evangelical mega churches in Indiana made me sick to my stomach at times.


MrS

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Originally posted by Krypton 2. Nope, you're implying an arguement to me I never made. So I will answer to that misinterpretation. You can rant all you want about how religion is bad, but that really isn't the issue.

well, its not my fault if YOU can't realise that's actually the argument you ARE making, if you are going to argue that religion serves as some kind of tool for understanding the universe.

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Originally posted by Krypton It starts with a basic assumption. Purpose or no purpose. I totally understand how religion is nothing but fairy tales IF one were to believe that there is no purpose in the universe. But your personal decision is not the standard. Multitudes of people believe there is purpose in the universe, and this may infur the existence of a god. I would also not expect to find any 'proof' of god because such a being would not be held down by our physical laws of space and time. We can't even observe our entire universe, but you want to observe god in some scientific way? Existence can't ubiquetously be held inside a box to be looked at, sorry m8.

the simple fact is, until religion actually has some fact to draw upon, it is impossible for it to be used as an enquiry into anything asides from religion. without having any standard for proof or capability for illustrating truths about the universe, then its absolutely useless. you simply can't make up a bunch of text, call it religious, and then refer to it as some form of enquiry into the universe. again, its fallacious logic in circular reasoning. whether there are a multitude of people that believe in purpose is completely irrelevant.

again, im still waiting for which facets of the universe we have a greater knowledge of due to religion. *crickets chirp*

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Originally posted by Krypton 3. I find your quote on EInstein taken out of context. He did not believe in a Judeo-Christian god, but that does not he didn't believe in nothing.

well an IDer like yourself WOULD think that wouldn't he?

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Einstein himself, it turns out, was a pantheist. In his own words: A knowledge of the existence of something we cannot penetrate, of the manifestation of the profoundest reason and the most radiant beauty - it is this knowledge and this emotion that constitute the truly religious attitude; in this sense, and in this sense alone, I am a deeply religious man. Moreover, Einstein strongly resented having his religious convictions misrepresented: It was, of course, a lie what you read about my religious convictions, a lie which is being systematically repeated. I do not believe in a personal God and I have never denied this but have expressed it clearly. If something is in me which can be called religious then it is the unbounded admiration for the structure of the world so far as our science can reveal it. Clearly, Einstein's "God" is not at all like the God that most people think of when they hear the word. Neither is the "God" of the famous cosmologist and mathematician, Stephen Hawking, whose talk of "the mind of God" has given comfort to many religious believers. Hawking also is a pantheist. When asked by CNN's Larry King whether he believed in God, Hawking answered: Yes, if by God is meant the embodiment of the laws of the universe. We began by asking "Did Einstein believe in God?" The answer, as Hawking pointed out, depends on what you mean by "God". In one sense (the Pantheist sense), Einstein did believe in God. But in another sense he didn't. Indeed, except for his deciding to use the term "God" in a way that is unfamiliar to most people, his views are indistinguishable from those of someone who is an unabashed atheist.

http://www.eequalsmcsquared.aucklan...instein_god.cfm

it is interesting to note though, how strongly believers will cling to the notion that our great inquiring minds adhere to some form of religious belief.

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Originally posted by Krypton Most of the world would agree to disagree. The simple fact that most people in this world subscribe to some form of religion attests to a universal belief of a greater purpose in this universe.

But that sense "of a greater purpose" is a figment of the mind, not a quality of the universe. You believe that there is purpose to the universe because you are reifying what Daniel Dennet calls the "intentionalist stance" - the perception that all objects in the universe behave the way they do due to some inherent, volitional essense. The point is that no object in the universe has such a purposeful essence: that is an illusion created by the mind to make the behaviour of objects easier to apprehend.

Consider the psychology of children:

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The main source of resistance to scientific ideas concerns what children know prior to their exposure to science. The last several decades of developmental psychology has made it abundantly clear that humans do not start off as "blank slates." Rather, even one year-olds possess a rich understanding of both the physical world (a "na�ve physics") and the social world (a "na�ve psychology"). Babies know that objects are solid, that they persist over time even when they are out of sight, that they fall to the ground if unsupported, and that they do not move unless acted upon. They also understand that people move autonomously in response to social and physical events, that they act and react in accord with their goals, and that they respond with appropriate emotions to different situations. These intuitions give children a head start when it comes to understanding and learning about objects and people [but] intuitive psychology also contributes to resistance to science. One significant bias is that children naturally see the world in terms of design and purpose. For instance, four year-olds insist that everything has a purpose, including lions ("to go in the zoo") and clouds ("for raining"), a propensity that Deborah Kelemen has dubbed "promiscuous teleology." Additionally, when asked about the origin of animals and people, children spontaneously tend to provide and to prefer creationist explanations. Just as children's intuitions about the physical world make it difficult for them to accept that the Earth is a sphere, their psychological intuitions about agency and design make it difficult for them to accept the processes of evolution.

http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/blo...om07_index.html

Essentially (according to the book I'm reading at the moment, at least), most of the higher mental processes have their genesis in social and emotional cognition in our early years of development. The capacity to apprehend and communicate basic emotions in a social context allows for the capacity for language, which allows for the capacity for logical thought, which allows for the capacity for complex, abstract thought of the scientific and philosophical variety. The point is that most thought - conditioned as we are to imagine that the "logical mind" and the "emotional mind" are separate entities - is shaped by our history as a "social" animal. As a result, we are conditioned to attribute emotional and/or behavioural qualities to inanimate objects that of course possess neither.

None of us really grow out of this way of seeing the world, but many of us do learn to distinguish between where the mind ends and where the world begins. If you ask me, this is the only real difference between the mind of the the theist and the mind of the scientist.

Both the theist and the scientist attribute conscious or purposeful behaviour to inanimate objects, for instance. Both the theist and the scientist can talk of the "order" of the solar system, the gravitational "attraction" of the bodies within it, or how "perfectly situated" one of these planets is to sustain life. The difference is that the scientist recognises that the concepts of "order", "attraction" and "perfect situation" are contrivances of the mind rather than properties of the universe. The theist, on the other hand, presumes that these concepts must actually be properties of the universe: afterall, how could the human mind perceive "order" unless it were an inherent property of the universe?

The failure of the theistic mind, then, is the inability to decouple empirical observations from the emotional states that inexorably frame them. The next time you look out into the universe and find purpose there, Krypton, you can answer me this question: on what basis do you presume this "purpose" to be a product of the universe, rather than your own mind?

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Originally posted by occrider I wish I could go. The museum sounds hilarious.

Comprehensive review of it here:

http://studentweb.eku.edu/zachary_l...seum/index.html

I especially like this image:



The one on the right looks like a parody of creationist thought, but that is actually how they think unfortunately. While one of "monkey kind" can evolve into every species of primate we see today (from monkeys, to apes, to lemurs) - as well as every extinct type of primate (indcluding our nearly-human ancestors) - apparently humans, in the same time frame with nearly exactly the same genome, didn't evolve at all.

There is something just a bit retarded about how they think that such rapid and diverse speciation can occur in primates within 6,000 years and yet still believe that "macroevolution" ( ) is impossible.

OH TO LIVE FOR A DAY AS A CREATIONIST!

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Originally posted by Renegade But that sense "of a greater purpose" is a figment of the mind, not a quality of the universe. You believe that there is purpose to the universe because you are reifying what Daniel Dennet calls the "intentionalist stance" - the perception that all objects in the universe behave the way they do due to some inherent, volitional essense. The point is that no object in the universe has such a purposeful essence: that is an illusion created by the mind to make the behaviour of objects easier to apprehend. Consider the psychology of children: http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/blo...om07_index.html Essentially (according to the book I'm reading at the moment, at least), most of the higher mental processes have their genesis in social and emotional cognition in our early years of development. The capacity to apprehend and communicate basic emotions in a social context allows for the capacity for language, which allows for the capacity for logical thought, which allows for the capacity for complex, abstract thought of the scientific and philosophical variety. The point is that most thought - conditioned as we are to imagine that the "logical mind" and the "emotional mind" are separate entities - is shaped by our history as a "social" animal. As a result, we are conditioned to attribute emotional and/or behavioural qualities to inanimate objects that of course possess neither. None of us really grow out of this way of seeing the world, but many of us do learn to distinguish between where the mind ends and where the world begins. If you ask me, this is the only real difference between the mind of the the theist and the mind of the scientist. Both the theist and the scientist attribute conscious or purposeful behaviour to inanimate objects, for instance. Both the theist and the scientist can talk of the "order" of the solar system, the gravitational "attraction" of the bodies within it, or how "perfectly situated" one of these planets is to sustain life. The difference is that the scientist recognises that the concepts of "order", "attraction" and "perfect situation" are contrivances of the mind rather than properties of the universe. The theist, on the other hand, presumes that these concepts must actually be properties of the universe: afterall, how could the human mind perceive "order" unless it were an inherent property of the universe? The failure of the theistic mind, then, is the inability to decouple empirical observations from the emotional states that inexorably frame them. The next time you look out into the universe and find purpose there, Krypton, you can answer me this question: on what basis do you presume this "purpose" to be a product of the universe, rather than your own mind?

Thank you for that very interesting view. I had never heard of this childlike psychology.

Wouldn't the simple existence of order imply a purpose? And with order, an 'orderer'? Order cannot just spontaneously happen.

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Originally posted by Krypton Thank you for that very interesting view. I had never heard of this childlike psychology. Wouldn't the simple existence of order imply a purpose? And with order, an 'orderer'? Order cannot just spontaneously happen.

Order does not imply purpose. Where is the logical connection?

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