Does God exist?

[Cathryn]

There is only one kind of science, lots of different religions, sects, and gods but only one science.

 

And which science is it? Science which is paid for? Or science which isn't?

 

Again you are getting religion and God confused! God is not religion!

[REASON]

Actually Modern physics has shown that many of the ancients were correct in that they saw matter and energy are really one in the same.

 

Many of the ancients? A bit vague don't you think? What's your point? Do you disagree with my post? Do you agree with Cathryn that science is lacking in it's understanding of energy and that energy is god?

 

If what you say is true, what method do you think these ancients used to arrive at such a conclusion?

[C1ay]

What KIND of science are you talking about?

 

Science[from Latin scientia from scire to know] refers to a system of acquiring knowledge based on the scientific method, as well as to the organized body of knowledge gained through such research.

[Thunderbird]

Many of the ancients? A bit vague don't you think? What's your point? Do you disagree with my post? Do you agree with Cathryn that science is lacking in it's understanding of energy and that energy is god?

 

If what you say is true, what method do you think these ancients used to arrive at such a conclusion?

 

After Newton and Descartes physical sciences developed along side the machine age. A view point emerged that nature was a machine thus began the age of reason and reductionism science. Then later on These views started to break down with Einstein's relativity, which shows the duality of space and time, and even more so with quantum mechanics. The key aspect of QM used here is Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle, which basically states that you can't observe a subatomic particle (or possibly any part of the universe) without interacting with it. It turns out that these new physical concepts of duality and interconnectedness. As in Niels Bohr view as holistic universe, would bring into focus many ancient teachings, Taoism, Zen for example. While a shock to widely held western mechanistic view points, there were right in line with what has been thought in the East for thousands of years. In fact, many modern theoretical physicists have become interested in Eastern mysticism to help interpret their seemingly strange, from a mechanistic view anyway, new findings.

This view of wholeness, the realization that nature is fundamentally connected, is in fact not a new concept, but more aptly being rediscovered in western science. This principle was known by the ancients simply because they lived in nature and studied it as any scientist does today, by observation. Instead of experimentation however, the knowledge was derived by the contemplation of the natural world.

[InfiniteNow]

The most interesting thing is that science itself is being looked at as 'proof'.

Actually, anyone who understands science would say the opposite. I suggest that your comment above is more a result of stupid people attempting to describe science. It has nothing whatsoever to do with "what science is."

 

 

 

Science and religion are equal as the are both opinions. Energy and God are both infailible. Both are pure and simple.

I can only conclude that you have absolutely no idea what science is, what the scientific method means, if you can say something above sincerely.

 

 

What KIND of science are you talking about?

 

Let's start here. You tell US what kind of science YOU are talking about, and we'll see if we can meet in the middle to overcome the confusion. Sound fair?

 

 

 

 

Unit Plan: Teaching the Nature of Science - What Science IS

[InfiniteNow]

I'm looking forward to this movie:

 

 

YouTube - Religulous (2008) Trailer http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kSa2j6UoU78

 

 

Doesn't come out until November, though (right around the election... what clever marketing!) :confused:

[REASON]

After Newton and Descartes physical sciences developed along side the machine age. A view point emerged that nature was a machine thus began the age of reason and reductionism science. Then later on These views started to break down with Einstein's relativity, which shows the duality of space and time, and even more so with quantum mechanics. The key aspect of QM used here is Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle, which basically states that you can't observe a subatomic particle (or possibly any part of the universe) without interacting with it. It turns out that these new physical concepts of duality and interconnectedness. As in Niels Bohr view as holistic universe, would bring into focus many ancient teachings, Taoism, Zen for example. While a shock to widely held western mechanistic view points, there were right in line with what has been thought in the East for thousands of years. In fact, many modern theoretical physicists have become interested in Eastern mysticism to help interpret their seemingly strange, from a mechanistic view anyway, new findings.

This view of wholeness, the realization that nature is fundamentally connected, is in fact not a new concept, but more aptly being rediscovered in western science. This principle was known by the ancients simply because they lived in nature and studied it as any scientist does today, by observation. Instead of experimentation however, the knowledge was derived by the contemplation of the natural world.

 

I think this is a good clarification to your previous post. I also think that it does not contradict anything I said in my reply to Cathryn regarding our understanding of energy through the scientific method.

 

As for your last statement, which I bolded, I'm curious how we know that they conducted no experiments. It would seem to me that they would have had to have collected data through some sort of testing in order to have information for which to contemplate.

 

But the relative question here is did the ancients describe energy as god?

[Thunderbird]

I think this is a good clarification to your previous post. I also think that it does not contradict anything I said in my reply to Cathryn regarding our understanding of energy through the scientific method.

 

As for your last statement, which I bolded, I'm curious how we know that they conducted no experiments. It would seem to me that they would have had to have collected data through some sort of testing in order to have information for which to contemplate.

 

But the relative question here is did the ancients describe energy as god?

I would have to say no . When you travel east of Suez, in the east the mind set is completely different than in the middle east, or the west. They dealt with the world as energies that manifested as properties of nature. They then assigned to these energies symbolic deities. We in the west would consider this idol worship, but to me it is just a systems view of not things but systems of energies that are assigning qualities.

Shiva for instance is the god of dance representing the flux of energy that moves though a multiplicity of patterns. Shiva's dance not only sustains the universe but in a way is the universe. The dance is the world, not the dancer. This is a profoundly significant difference, not only in religion from the west but in the mechanistic view of science in the west.

 

The difference in the Mono-theistic view is God is the source of these energies, in the east the source is the mystery an unknown. The deities represent the vehicles, or forms the energy can take, but not the source.

[Thunderbird]

I think this is a good clarification to your previous post. I also think that it does not contradict anything I said in my reply to Cathryn regarding our understanding of energy through the scientific method.

 

As for your last statement, which I bolded, I'm curious how we know that they conducted no experiments. It would seem to me that they would have had to have collected data through some sort of testing in order to have information for which to contemplate.

 

?

 

China in the 17th and 18th century where indeed doing scientific experiments, with chemistry and even developed an instrument to detect earth quakes., but the Taoist, yogi’s and Buddhist, and many other disciplines utilized the most sensitive instrument there is, the human body and mind.

[REASON]

It would seem to me that they would have had to have collected data through some sort of testing in order to have information for which to contemplate.

 

I'll admit, this statement is a bit awkward to say the least. :confused:

 

 

China in the 17th and 18th century where indeed doing scientific experiments, with chemistry and even developed an instrument to detect earth quakes., but the Taoist, yogi’s and Buddhist, and many other disciplines utilized the most sensitive instrument there is, the human body and mind.

 

Agreed.

[Thunderbird]

I'm looking forward to this movie:

 

 

 

 

 

Doesn't come out until November, though (right around the election... what clever marketing!) :confused:

 

This will be so funny, I’ve been wondering when this is coming out !

[Pyrotex]

...This view of wholeness, the realization that nature is fundamentally connected, is in fact not a new concept, but more aptly being rediscovered in western science. This principle was known by the ancients simply because they lived in nature and studied it as any scientist does today, by observation. Instead of experimentation however, the knowledge was derived by the contemplation of the natural world.

Subtle misinterpretations abound.

 

A key point to consider here is that IF you start from the Eastern concept of "wholeness", you CANNOT (and they DID NOT) deduce Quantum Mechanics, or anything else in Physics. They DID NOT deduce Newton's laws of motion, nor even a well-defined concept of "energy" that even remotely parallels what we use in Physics.

 

Their contemplation of the natural world DID NOT result in a deeper understanding of the physical world. What it DID was to generate philosophical metaphors.

 

Western Science DID NOT "prove" the Eastern approach to philosophy, or "rediscover" some essential core of physical understanding that the ancient Eastern mystics had known for centuries -- but rather -- Western Science selected several useful philosophical metaphors from Eastern thought as aids in explaining the insights that were discovered by Western Science.

 

Let us consider a small analogy. YOU write a poem entitled "Cosmic Wholesomeness". In it, you create a metaphor of Time as a Butterfly. A century later, I build upon Quantum Mechanics, by showing that Time has an unusual property at the subatomic level. There is no word or phrase that exactly describes this property. There is nothing else in the observable, tangible, material universe that is anything like this property. I search about for a new metaphor... and I find your poem in a dusty old book in my grandfather's attic.

 

I call this new property of Time at the subatomic level: "Butterfly Time".

 

NOW---

does this PROVE that YOU understood the quantum property of Time a century ago? NO.

Does my using YOUR metaphor to explain MY discovery validate YOUR metaphor or your poem? NO.

Does it PROVE that "Cosmic Wholesomeness" was not just a mystical poem, but a TRUE description of Reality? NO.

Does it PROVE that Eastern philosophy discovered things about the Cosmos and Time a century ago, that I am just now re-discovering? NO.

 

What it means is that I borrowed your metaphor.

 

Quantum Mechanics has borrowed many metaphors to aid in explaining a subject that is very, very confusing to the average mind. Some of these metaphors were borrowed from Eastern mysticism.

 

This does not validate Eastern mysticism.

[Moontanman]

Good metaphore Pyro, too many people take this type of thing to mean the source of the metaphore had some take on reality that is really not there in any way.

[Thunderbird]

 

This does not validate Eastern mysticism.

 

Zen Buddhism does not need validation from science it is in itself an experience brought about though the discipline of meditation by quieting the mind.

As for as borrowing metaphors you seemed to misrepresenting the point of the post. Turning it backwards, and upside down.

 

Its not about the metaphor’s, its about the disruptions of energy.

The point of the post was to show that western physics arrived at the same view as eastern mystics, only from two different directions. Both in the QM view, and the eastern view that the world is essentially energies that take different forms. These eastern metaphors Shiva ,Tao, chi are not borrowed by physicists. They just realized they were saying the same thing using different symbols. So I’m afraid you got it backward. Try again.:eek_big:

[Thunderbird]

Good metaphore Pyro, too many people take this type of thing to mean the source of the metaphore had some take on reality that is really not there in any way.

 

Do you even understand what your agreeing with,:eek_big: try reading more than one post before sucking up to the Mods and you might find yourself actually participating in a discussion instead of being the forum toady{sycophant}.

[Thunderbird]

The dance is the world, not the dancer. This is a profoundly significant difference, not only in religion from the west but in the mechanistic view of science in the west.

This in my own post not borrowed metaphor this is what your not addressing .

 

In the reductionist view an atom is a thing. In western religion God is a thing.

 

In QM an atom is a thing, and not a thing, depends on how you look at it.

 

In eastern thought energies are the only real thing. the world of objects are transitory.

[InfiniteNow]

I can see, Thunderbird, that your recent suspension and probation on the site have had zero impact on your tone.

 

What was that definition of insanity again? Something about doing the same thing and expecting different results. :eek_big: