Proof that consciousness lives outside the laws of physics

[The_Doc_Man]

Without trying to be mean about it, Isaac, I have to say that your reasons are a bit weak and maybe even incorrect.

For your point #1, we who are scientists know the limits of questions we can ask. (I think I qualify as a scientist because of having a physical science Ph.D.) We don't often make the mistake of saying that science is "everything." We instead treat the unanswered questions in two categories: Those questions we can't answer yet (because science develops over time and we just haven't gotten far enough for that unknown answer), and those questions that are in some way explicitly unanswerable due to any reason including flawed questions and flawed premises.

For your point #2, we have morals because (believe it or not) the "Golden Rule" precedes most current and quite a few former religions. Anthropology tells us that primitive tribes learned to live together by establishing behavioral rules. People who violated the rules got sent to live in the wilderness or else got skewered by a spear point. Or some such fate.

That 8-year-old is old enough to have learned good and bad behavior from parental example and admonition. In the tripartite model of the mind, an 8-year-old is capable of rote learning without detailed understanding. So if mommy and daddy say that it is bad to pee on Suzy's doll, the kid will know it was wrong - because mommy and daddy said so - but will have no inherent understanding of WHY they said it was wrong. Your "inherent knowledge of God" is incorrect. Ask anyone who believes in a God of a vastly different denomination than yours because "obviously you picked the wrong God." A child knows good treatment, love, sustenance, and many other things - but religion is based on LEARNED, not INHERENT, behavior. Religion is too specific to be inherent.

For me it is a matter of Occam's Razor, which cuts away extraneous assumptions.

Let's take it as a "given" that we have far more explanations now for what we see in the universe than what we had a century ago. We have lots of scientific explanations from cosmology and genetics and geology etc. The discoveries we have made seem to scientifically explain the current universe, though incompletely. The current explanations are less INcomplete and far more numerous than in prior times. I think you have to agree that my premise is correct. So: Which of these explanations is easier and requires less faith?

1. That the universe and everything in it were formed as the result of natural laws, not all of which we fully understand. It looks the way it looks because that was the way it was formed. It is consistent with all natural laws that we know.
2. That God used His power for Intelligent Design and guided the universe to LOOK LIKE everything was formed as the result of natural laws, not all of which we fully understand. But everything was guided to look consistent with a natural origin.
3. That God simply created everything using the "fiat lux" method about 6400 or so years ago and made everything LOOK LIKE the universe has been running for 14 bn years. Everything was CREATED to match the "natural origin" story.

In terms of faith, #2 and #3 require more faith, because they require you to not only accept that God made everything, but you have to accept that it is all CORRECT - that is, that it COULD have happened naturally because that is the way the evidence and experiments point. In other words, #2 and #3 require at least two actions - (a) divine intervention to generate a self-consistent universe that appears (b) to have formed strictly from natural forces. Or with #1, we don't need divine intervention at all in order to arrive at the same conclusion.

 

[jpl458]

I believe two things are paramount to explaining the resistance of some against the spiritual:

1. Confusing Science with Spiritual. Thinking that science can answer non-science questions, which begins with the mistaken belief that science is "everything". Science is just science. It is not everything. Another thing this crowd doesn't know or would like to ignore is the reality that even within science, there are things which are deemed "likely true", but not repeatable, and that don't lend themselves to experimentation. There are all kinds of Truths, on subjects like what happens when a person is given x-amount of heroin or meth to what people will do under torture (etc. etc), that science simply will not experiment on, or cannot experiment on, but that doesn't make them any less obvious or true, and it doesn't make the anecdotal evidence any less persuasive--it just means it cannot be easily repeated or organized into a study.
2. Strong bias against the supernatural, which works a person's entire life to devise means of self-deception. Inside of a man are two things: A knowledge of God, and a force working to deny God. The knowledge of God is evident the first time you are mean to someone when you are 8 years old, and realize what you did was wrong. In fact, the very existence of humankind's assumption that there IS 'right' and 'wrong' contains the intrinsic premise that some force external to himself must define 'right' and 'wrong'. If it didn't, then there couldn't be right or wrong - it's just impossible. And even the most progressive liberals on planet earth believe in Right and Wrong - they simply believe they have discovered the most recent (recent means accurate to a liberal) version of it. When you go a lifetime trying to deny something, it's very easy to find the evidence to do so. I see people trying harder to disprove God than it is to believe in God.

I believe in God because so many factors make it to where I would need far MORE faith to not believe in Him than to believe in Him.
I am a person of little faith, therefore I believe in God

I don't believe in ghosts, regular or holy. Where does that put me me on your belief scale?

 

[Isaac]

For your point #1, we who are scientists know the limits of questions we can ask. (I think I qualify as a scientist because of having a physical science Ph.D.) We don't often make the mistake of saying that science is "everything." We instead treat the unanswered questions in two categories: Those questions we can't answer yet (because science develops over time and we just haven't gotten far enough for that unknown answer), and those questions that are in some way explicitly unanswerable due to any reason including flawed questions and flawed premises.

That sounds good.

For your point #2, we have morals because (believe it or not) the "Golden Rule" precedes most current and quite a few former religions

You have mentioned this before, and I do not diminish the golden rule, unfortunately it is not a complete summary of God's love.
Once married, I quickly discovered that the Golden Rule was nowhere near adequate for a spouse to love his/her spouse. In many cases my wife is hurt by behavior that I might do, even though I am quite happy to have the behavior done to me - and vice versa. The golden rule is not a summary of all things spiritual - it is just one rule of thumb, which can be useful at times.

God has been actively in relationships with mankind long before Jesus came to the earth. The nature of the interaction was different prior to Jesus' sacrifice, however. And you are right - mankind has innately known about the existence of right from wrong since the beginning of Creation.

Taking everything as a whole - the almost indescribably miniscule chance that the Universe spawned itself from nothing (a chance far, far smaller than the chance of probability OR error that we commonly use to trust scientific studies, actually), versus the mountains of testimony from Christians who have been totally transformed by the power of God - it just feels like a lot more faith to believe that it is all imaginary compared to being real.

However, I admit this is subjective (of course). In fact, it is the most subjective thing in existence, just about.

The other day I was watching a Joyce Meyer broadcast and she had a testimony of a Muslim who converted to Christianity a few years ago - really an amazing story. All his life he had been waiting to be a soldier in a war that never happened so he could go to paradise. After a number of interactions with a loving Christian and the Bible, he got the revelation of God's love. That God loved him and freely invited him to salvation as a believer. The freedom and joy that began to saturate his life was really indescribable. It changed not only his life, but his family's and now he ministers to those seeped in the emotional hurt and emptiness and his one conversion has now lifted up 100's of families who can relate to his upbringing. Really incredible story! It challenged me as in, what am I doing to show God to others in my personal everyday life.

It's one of those things that has to be experienced to be understood, because the change that God works happens on the inside and transforms something no scientific study can measure - the Spirit.

I don't believe in ghosts, regular or holy. Where does that put me me on your belief scale?

It just put you on my list to pray for each morning for the next week. I pray that God's loving presence and plan for your life become evident as never before. Cheers

 

[The_Doc_Man]

In many cases my wife is hurt by behavior that I might do, even though I am quite happy to have the behavior done to me - and vice versa.

You've got to read that book, "Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus" to allow yourself to gender-shift the Golden Rule to correct for this unwise behavior.

And you are right - mankind has innately known about the existence of right from wrong since the beginning of Creation.

But that isn't what I said. Right vs. Wrong is a human concept that is not shared by the animals that exist in Nature. Animals know SURVIVAL and that is all that they know. Knowledge of Right vs. Wrong came from a time before religions, when people bashed each other on the head with a heavy stick after a stone-age transgression. Passing that knowledge to children (so they might live longer) took a bit longer to become a cultural thing, because first... there had to be a culture in which to have a rooted behavioral context. That "beginning of Creation" phrase depends on whether you are a Young Earth Creationist or an Intelligent Design Creationist. But if you are a YEC type, we have nothing to discuss anyway.

Taking everything as a whole - the almost indescribably miniscule chance that the Universe spawned itself from nothing (a chance far, far smaller than the chance of probability OR error that we commonly use to trust scientific studies, actually), versus the mountains of testimony from Christians who have been totally transformed by the power of God - it just feels like a lot more faith to believe that it is all imaginary compared to being real.

Non-commensurate comparison. Mountains of testimony from folks who could well have been operating out of an externally imposed delusion (imposed by childhood indoctrination into religion) is no evidence at all. The probability of the Universe spawning itself is not minuscule. For me, who believes in Natural Spontaneous Emergence of the Universe, I get a different answer. Since that universe exists, the probability was 100%. It happened. You can toss off all sorts of improbabilities, as many as you want. But when something actually happens, the probability is NOT at the low end of the scale.

In the end analysis, the REAL answer is the Zen answer. However the Earth and life got here, it IS here. Let us enjoy it while we can. (That's actually an answer along the lines of the advice given by the lizard footman from the live action "Cinderella" movie... Let's enjoy it while it lasts.)

Your story of the converted Muslim is yet another anecdotal story that suggests someone had a change of heart. Good for him that he saw something he liked better than Islam. If that is his belief, let him have it. At age 35, my beliefs were changed to my current disbelief during a family crisis where I questioned everything - and the Bible didn't hold up under careful examination.

I remember the statement of that great American author, Samuel L. Clemens (writing as Mark Twain), who said "The best cure for Christianity is reading the Bible." He also said, "Never tell the truth to those who are not worthy of it." That latter quote immediately reminds me of the Catholic rituals surrounding communion, because according to those rituals, we are not worthy.

 

[Isaac]

Knowledge of Right vs. Wrong came from a time before religions,

don't confuse religions with God

 

[Jon]

I think much of Right and Wrong came from evolution. Right was those behaviours that helped communities survive and prosper, whllst Wrong were those things that led to their downfall.

 

[jpl458]

I think much of Right and Wrong came from evolution. Right was those behaviours that helped communities survive and prosper, whllst Wrong were those things that led to their downfall.

Survival of the friendly.

 

[Isaac]

I think much of Right and Wrong came from evolution. Right was those behaviours that helped communities survive and prosper, whllst Wrong were those things that led to their downfall.

That sounds agreeable, except all the worst actions are actually the best ways for the fittest to survive, and probably exactly how earliest mankind lived - murder, ra**, who has the biggest club, etc etc

 

[The_Doc_Man]

don't confuse religions with God

That sounds agreeable, except all the worst actions are actually the best ways for the fittest to survive, and probably exactly how earliest mankind lived - murder, ra**, who has the biggest club, etc etc

First quote: I'm not confused. There are a few religions of interest here - like Theravada Buddhism, which doesn't require a deity. Jainism does not, and certain branches of Hinduism do not. Otherwise, a god and a religion are inextricably intertwined. AND, though there are adherents to these religions, most people who follow a deistic religion tend to downplay the non-theistic religions as being something they can dismiss or ignore. Beyond that, consider how many early religions didn't use your God but another one of their own. But those religions have been discarded, abandoned, canceled by people like you, Isaac. Well, it boils down to this: I have discarded one more religion than you have.

Second quote: Anthropology doesn't agree with you. Here is an anthropological definition of morality.

"Morality refers to the set of standards that enable people to live cooperatively in groups."

Note that it has NOTHING TO DO with religion. Your 2nd quote here describes how loners live. Not how cooperative groups live. Religion is ONE of the ways that people learned to live together, and in that sense, it did us a favor. BUT... now it has too many people in its grasp and doesn't want to give up and let us grow beyond primitive beliefs and standards.

Can you imagine how the Taliban might prosper if only they allowed the OTHER 50% of their population to attend school beyond 6th grade?

 

[Jon]

That sounds agreeable, except all the worst actions are actually the best ways for the fittest to survive, and probably exactly how earliest mankind lived - murder, ra**, who has the biggest club, etc etc

I have a slightly (massively) different view! It seems to revolve around what might be defined as the "worst" actions.

The book "The Selfish Gene" talked about some of the behaviours that helped genes survive. My favourite book on Evolutionary Psychology also talked about it.

Some examples:

If you were altruistic towards the group, it increased your chances of survival, since you assisted the groups survival. If you had behaviour that would lead to the groups downfall, then the genes that helped drive that behaviour go out of the gene pool since they all end up dead!

The dominant male had the most opportunities to procreate. If you had the weak and unhealthy being the biggest breeders, you decrease the groups chances of survival. You can argue that this is the worst action to happen, but nature is built around this entire principle. Species would not survive otherwise. Things were brutal back in those days (and for animals nowadays). If the lens you choose to use to judge this behaviour is a moral one, but that morality leads to their death, are you sure it is actually moral at all?

Murder - well, it all depends on the reason! If you murdered someone from another tribe that was going to attack you, is that the worst behaviour or the best? They probably had pre-emptive strikes back in those days too! If someone went around murdering members of the tribe willy nilly, then I am sure the tribe would either kill them or kick them out.

The one who had the biggest club showed intelligence! Intelligence is a survival trait. Having the biggest club improved your chances of survival. Are the actions that increase your chances of survival really the worst ones?

As for ra**, I do not really know what happened back in those days, or what happened to the ra*ists. But do remember, all animals (except humans) have not given verbal consent! Also, I think you have to be careful about applying todays standards and definitions of things back to cultures thousands of years ago. I personally have descended from the apes. So you can argue that my ancestors were serial ra*ists. But what about forced arranged marriages, where the bride did not have a choice. If the husband sleeps with their wife, is that considered ra** back in those days?

It is worth noting that the best behaviours back in those days may not be considered the best behaviours nowadays, since modern life has support mechanisms to help people survive and so do not need to rely on the old methods.

 

[Isaac]

I have a slightly (massively) different view! It seems to revolve around what might be defined as the "worst" actions.

The book "The Selfish Gene" talked about some of the behaviours that helped genes survive. My favourite book on Evolutionary Psychology also talked about it.

Some examples:

If you were altruistic towards the group, it increased your chances of survival, since you assisted the groups survival. If you had behaviour that would lead to the groups downfall, then the genes that helped drive that behaviour go out of the gene pool since they all end up dead!

The dominant male had the most opportunities to procreate. If you had the weak and unhealthy being the biggest breeders, you decrease the groups chances of survival. You can argue that this is the worst action to happen, but nature is built around this entire principle. Species would not survive otherwise. Things were brutal back in those days (and for animals nowadays). If the lens you choose to use to judge this behaviour is a moral one, but that morality leads to their death, are you sure it is actually moral at all?

Murder - well, it all depends on the reason! If you murdered someone from another tribe that was going to attack you, is that the worst behaviour or the best? They probably had pre-emptive strikes back in those days too! If someone went around murdering members of the tribe willy nilly, then I am sure the tribe would either kill them or kick them out.

The one who had the biggest club showed intelligence! Intelligence is a survival trait. Having the biggest club improved your chances of survival. Are the actions that increase your chances of survival really the worst ones?

As for ra**, I do not really know what happened back in those days, or what happened to the ra*ists. But do remember, all animals (except humans) have not given verbal consent! Also, I think you have to be careful about applying todays standards and definitions of things back to cultures thousands of years ago. I personally have descended from the apes. So you can argue that my ancestors were serial ra*ists. But what about forced arranged marriages, where the bride did not have a choice. If the husband sleeps with their wife, is that considered ra** back in those days?

It is worth noting that the best behaviours back in those days may not be considered the best behaviours nowadays, since modern life has support mechanisms to help people survive and so do not need to rely on the old methods.

I don't disagree with you on a number of specific points, but I think it is all a matter of perspective and what 'scale' you are looking at.
I can point to aggressive, criminal type behavior that helped people survive, you can point to altruistic behavior that helped people survive.

It all depends on which lens we are looking through.

Don't forget one of the possible lenses: One could say that the world has been largely shaped by wars, the vast majority of which were not very altruistic (even though a few may have been, but even those, mostly were altruistic through the eyes of the people who won).
The fittest won the war and survived.
Just one of the lenses we can look through.

And @The_Doc_Man , to me, there is a big difference between the personal surrender to God vs. any particular set of theological bookends, although I know for you it is easier to make your argument if you can peg what I am describing as one specific religion with a start date, and that's fine - just don't attribute it to me

 

[Isaac]

Can you imagine how the Taliban might prosper if only they allowed the OTHER 50% of their population to attend school beyond 6th grade?

You mean they might gain the many benefits and wonders that Feminism has afforded us?
Ok, I'll stop, that was uncalled for

 

[The_Doc_Man]

You mean they might gain the many benefits and wonders that Feminism has afforded us?
Ok, I'll stop, that was uncalled for

Marie Curie * (Physics and Chemistry); Ada Lovelace (Mathematics); Vera Rubin (Astronomy); Katherine Johnson (Mathematics); Jane Goodall (Zoology/Primatology); Maria Mayer * (Nuclear Physics); Rachel Carlson (Marine Biologist); Rosalind Franklin (Biophysicist); Barbara McClintok * (Cytogeneticist); Rita Levi-Matalcini * (Neurologist); Gertrude Elion * (Biochemist/Pharmacologist); Elizabeth Blackwell (Physician); Dorothy Hodgkin * (Chemistry/X-ray Crystallography); Mary Grace Hopper (Computer Science/Compilers); Chien-Shiung Wu (Physics)

* = Nobel Prize

Don't need to be a feminist to have a woman with an education do something really outstanding. I've listed a few but trust me, there are many more. EVERY ONE of these women would have been unable to make their singular contributions to the world of knowledge if they had been barred from gaining education beyond 6th-grade level. Some of these women even have been immortalized in documentaries or dramatized movies about their life, including Marie Curie, Katherine Johnson ("Hidden Figures"), Jane Goodall, Rachel Carlson, & Mary Grace Hopper. Plus I'm sure I don't know about some of the European movies and documentaries.

Isaac, I know you were trying to make a joke, but you were right when you corrected yourself. In that context, it was inappropriate.

 

[Jon]

I think the problem with the word "Feminism" is that the meaning has changed.

Original feminism does not equal modern day 3rd wave feminism. It is why only a minority of women in the UK identify as being a feminist.

I can point to aggressive, criminal type behavior that helped people survive, you can point to altruistic behavior that helped people survive.

I don't think this really negates the hypothesis that much of Right and Wrong comes from evolution. If something helps your genes survive, then I am sure that behaviour increases.

If you talk of criminal behaviour, it depends on what you define as criminal. What is considered criminal nowadays may not have been criminal back then.

I don't think you can say the fittest won the war. You could have a huge population of very unhealthy people who decimate a small number of highly organised I'm also not sure you can say the winners were viewing things altruistically, or the losers. Some circumstances are outside of your control, and so no matter what you do, you are doomed. These types of things will not shape moral behaviour over time, since the genes get lost in the process.

A psychopaths behaviour can improve their survival, but in general, only if move between tribes over time because once they have been found out, the tribe views them differently.

But let us look at war again. You can have two groups who go to war, with differing ideology. There is nothing saying that both are not operating from a moral structure shaped by evolution, where each group has Right and Wrongs. It is just that each group disagrees on what they are. Or they might agree largely on what is considered right or wrong, but have a different perspective on a particular situation.

I think one of the main things though is that if you are a Christian and believe the world started 4,000 years ago, then that is not enough time for evolution to sufficiently shape behaviour and therefore define what is Right or Wrong.

Here is what the Chimps think:

Chimpanzees may have a similar sense of right and wrong to humans, new

The apes were suggested to have concepts of morality that echoed those in humans

www.independent.co.uk

Edit: I agree it is helpful to look through different lenses.

Edit 2: I think religion has shaped morality by often crystallising what has already happened through evolution, wrapping it in a coat of meaning. I am sure they knew that murder was not a good thing back then, but defining it is a little bit like creating a new law about something. It adds weight.

 

[Isaac]

That's a decent point about the age of the world. (although I was raised to think along the lines of 10,000).
(I now feel it doesn't matter much, although there have been many archeological finds that disproved previously held evolutionary theories about layers of earth - many of them suppressed by the scientific community-at-large in much the same way Covid dissent was suppressed recently. Eventually, the dissenters were silenced to such a degree that the evidence isn't even known by most scientists any more, the same way any evidence study disappears if it is forcefully suppressed for long enough).

Regardless, I can admit that the age of the earth plays a BIG factor in BOTH sides' argument.

I feel that most rational people, if they were starting from a "blank slate", and when faced with someone explaining the almost-zero possibility of the improbable mutations, millions upon millions of extremely improbable (a chance so small it is incomprehensible), happening over and over, I feel any rational person--all else being equal--would respond "well of course, that didn't happen".

Then comes the response: "Oh, but it could have.....over billions and billions of years"

Student: "Oh. Well.................Okay. I suppose it could have"

Even as it may appear Christians' worldview of God being the source of right and wrong is helped by a young earth opinion, evolutionists also depend heavily on lengths of time so incomprehensibly long that they help to make up for what would otherwise be an obvious impossibility.

 

[Jon]

Eventually, the dissenters were silenced to such a degree that the evidence isn't even known by most scientists any more, the same way any evidence study disappears if it is forcefully suppressed for long enough).

I feel that most rational people, if they were starting from a "blank slate", and when faced with someone explaining the almost-zero possibility of the improbable mutations, millions upon millions of extremely improbable (a chance so small it is incomprehensible), happening over and over, I feel any rational person--all else being equal--would respond "well of course, that didn't happen".

I certainly agree that there is a lot of politics that goes on in science, and much research goes where the money is, and not necessarily where the most benefit is. Republicans will argue this point about grants being handed out for climate change research. You don't get the grant if your research is contrary to the political agenda. Consequently, you don't get to do the science to disprove the narrative. The tail is wagging the dog.

Remember also that a lot of politics goes on in religion too.

By the improbable mutations, I presume you mean the creation of life through the interaction of chemicals? I assume that is the case. So let me argue it.

Improbable is a very vague term, since it hasn't been quantified. It implies that something is unlikely to happen. However, given very large numbers, the aggregation of those improbabilities can become almost certain. It is improbable that you will break the house at the casino, yet it does happen. The more games that are played, and the more casinos there are, the more likely this event will happen.

It is important to not conflate an almost zero possibility of something happening in an isolated one off chemical reaction event, with trillions of opportunities for this reaction to occur. It is simple maths. If you cross the road occasionally, your risk of being run over is small. If you do it all day every day for the rest of your life, it becomes a little more certain!

In essence, the extremely improbable can become extremely probable given enough events, and there were rather a large number of events going on in the primordial soups. But once again, if you believe there were no pirmodial soups, or enough time (and therefore not enough events), then the argument will be discarded.

Most rational people don't know about quantum physics, which seems highly irrational but is a reality, as discovered by science. In fact, I believe most people are far from rational. If you are a Christian, then I presume you do no believe in the same God that the muslims believe in. There are 2 billion muslims on the planet. If they are believing in something that does not exist, is that rational? An atheist will say both the Chirstians + Muslims are being irrational, believing in something which they consider to be a figment of the imagination. That is over 4 billion people, or rather, the majority of the worlds population. If the majority of the worlds population is therefore irrational, it would suggest that most people are not rational, and therefore would not be a reliable source for answers about science without the imposition of a framework through which to analyse things objectively. Or in other words, science.

 

[Isaac]

Definitely a lot of good points.
Here is how I feel about the various major "competing" (?) religions.

A (perhaps barely? perhaps not quite?) majority of the world feels a pull toward God - whatever and whomever that may be.
Of course, everyone goes about it in a slightly different way.

A few things we seem to agree on:
- Childhood upbringing, parents' views, nation/group a person was raised in, others' expectations, obviously play some role
- Religious people who belong to religions seemingly with little to no personal conviction is a real phenomenon, (and perhaps even abounds)
- Religious people who appear to be failing to "live up to", or "look like", or "be benefitting from" their religion is a real thing.
- Religion has been a tool of evil throughout history
- Religion has been a tool for good throughout history
- "Religion" is an extremely broad term, almost nearly as broad as saying "Politics". Political-minded people can be devilish, political-minded people can be angelic.

A few things I believe that we probably don't mostly agree on:
- [My] Christianity is unique in its lack of focus on earning approval from God; it replaces that with an unconditional love from God to mankind, which still must be received and when/as/to the extent it's received & revealed, it tends to transform people's lives. Sin plays a part not in that we simply strive not to sin to please God, but because we recognize that Sin in all its forms was actually a bondage disguised as a freedom....a weight disguised as a lift...a darkness disguised as a light....a Master disguised as our "true self". To the extent that we understand and walk in our new identity as redeemed and reconciled to God, and learn to be aware of God's spirit as our spirit, we realize the new "us" does not wish to, or need to, be slaves to sin any more. The transformation of our lives ought to have mostly to do with enthusiasm for who we now are free to be - And less with a sense of "this is what I have to do / not do".
- I don't pretend to have all the answers to specific scenarios and "what-ifs" and "whys". What I feel certain of is more than enough to supremely value, whether all my questions during this lifetime will be answered or not
- Hundreds of millions of cases exist defined by a person previously identifying as a non-Christian faith, converting to a Christian faith, and finding something along the lines of what you might call ultimate fulfillment, purpose, life improvement, etc. etc. While it is certainly true that cases exist of Christians converting to other religions, the ratio of the two seems to be to be about a million to one. Generally the latter type will almost always fall under the umbrella of Christians who grew up in a strict Christian family but never developed a firm faith of their "own" -- That, combined with a heavy focus on their observations of hypocrisy or failings of Christians they knew, eventually brought them to the place of "disgruntled former Christian", "recovering Catholic", etc. etc. But taken as a whole, to anyone who has a lot of exposure to this whole thing, the general trend (by a long shot, not a little), is people finding other faiths lacking and ultimately becoming Christians. In fact, those converts are generally far more devout and fulfilled (by FAR) than people who grow up in Christian households, because their experience was highly personal and the transformation more obvious.
- After decades of seeing cases where people thought science had disproved the Bible, then later found out they were wrong, I think I see enough of a pattern to stop distrusting the Bible

On the subject of "how can I really think that out of all the many religions, each convinced of its rightness, that mine is the right one?"
... I'm actually pretty openminded about this subject.
I think the general story of the Bible, the Old Testament, the New Testament, Jesus' coming, (etc) is correct, but I also believe that in the afterlife, there will be *MANY* people of all kinds of 'faiths' whose heart/attitude God honored because they authentically did their best to surrender to God, whether that brought them to this religion or that religion, or absolutely nothing that looked like a religion.
So what is the value of preaching Christianity? I think the answer is, believing in the God of the Bible and Jesus' role in redeeming us to God brings major benefits to this present life and how we can walk in the promises and truth of God. However, I still think many people from many faiths are reconciled to God based on concepts like: "If you seek me, you will find me, if you seek me with all your heart", and "God rewards those who diligently seek Him", etc.

Of one thing I feel sure. Christians who put their whole heart into understanding who they are in Christ and what that means to their life, can be the best 'channel' of God's love to the world than anything. But that's a high standard. Most Christians in the United States are barely believers, having put virtually nothing into practice. I think I'm somewhere between 'nothing' and 'well done' ... Still cookin'

 

[The_Doc_Man]

I now feel it doesn't matter much, although there have been many archeological finds that disproved previously held evolutionary theories about layers of earth - many of them suppressed by the scientific community-at-large in much the same way Covid dissent was suppressed recently.

I have GOT to challenge that statement. Go to the Grand Canyon (I have done so) and look at the sedimentation deposit layers to see how many of them there are and start adding up the years for each. I also have seen the ludicrous arguments that ignorant people have made using religion to attempt to negate the laws of physics regarding evaporation and sedimentation. When a religious apologist tries to negate raw, testable physics, the only respect earned that way is that the apologist has a career in self-deprecating comedy.

That's a decent point about the age of the world. (although I was raised to think along the lines of 10,000).

If you follow Bishop Ussher, you get about 6,400 years (or is it 6,600 by now?) I forget, but it is in that range. If you ARE using 10,000, you are looking at the age of non-Christian civilizations such as are found in S.E. Asia. That isn't a Christian teaching.

Then comes the response: "Oh, but it could have.....over billions and billions of years"

(I trimmed that to keep this next part short.)

In one cubic centimeter of water, which is 1 milliliter, you have approximately 3.34 x 10^22 molecules of water. Let's say that you have approximately a 0.1% (one part per thousand) concentration of the other molecules required to start the formation of life. That means you have 3.34 x 10^19 molecules of your reactant. At any temperature supporting liquid water (273 to 373 Celsius) you have literally billions of molecular collisions per second. At 20 degr. Centigrade (293 C), water molecules travel at about 590 m/sec. In a milliliter, you have a cubic centimeter of space for movement so you get 59000 cm/sec. I will make that the rate of collisions (although that is probably low).

We have 59,000 collisions per second * 3.34 * 10^22 molecules colliding * 0.001 (allowing for concentration = 2200 x 10^22 collisions per second. I'm going to be generous here and say that only another 0.1% of the collisions are favorable. Which means 2.2 x 10 ^22 potentially interacting collisions. PER SECOND. Now, a year is 60 sec/min *60 min/hour * 24 hours/day * 365.2422 days/year. That is 31,556,926 seconds (rounded to the nearest second). So, in one year you have 31,556,826 * 2.2 x 10^22 potentially interacting collisions = 69,425,237.376 x 10^22 collisions. Normalizing that format, you get 6.94 x 10^29 collisions. IN ONE MILLITER of impure water in ONE YEAR. Now, let's say that we have about 1 billion years. That brings in another 10^9 to the mix, 6.94 x 10^38 collisions.

OK, let's do this for more than one milliliter. According to NOAA, the Earth's oceans contain 321,003,271 cubic miles of water. OK, that is about 4.16818183x10^12 liters per cubic mile = 1,338,000,011.18286406 x 10^12 liters or 1.338 x 10^21 liters or 1.338 x 10^24 ml. So that means that the earth's oceans would have had the potential for 1.338 x 10^24 ml * 6.96 x 10^38 collisions over a billion years, which is 9.312 * 10^62 potential collisions.

Now, let's be EXTRA generous and say that it took a quadrillion collisions to generate that first viable chemical that started the cascade to where we are now. One quadrillion (USA measure) is 10^15. SO.... that means Earth had 9.312 x 10^47 chances to get it right. You want to say that only the top liter of water would have enough light? Trickier, but let's say that is only the top one millionth of the oceans. Which is 10^6. Meaning we still had 9.312 x 10^41 chances to get it right.

OK, I was winging it a bit - but that number is 931,200,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 chances for life to start spontaneously in the primordial soup.

This is the problem with people who talk about the probability or improbability of some event. They don't comprehend the magnitude of probability and therefore should never argue fine points about it.

 

[Jon]

@Isaac My position has always been that while I may be an atheist, I do believe that religion has its place and benefits, but not for the same reasons the believers think. From my perspective, the regular assembling of a community brings social connections they may not otherwise have. There is much research that shows one factor that goes into human longevity is social connection. Those who are isolated and lonely die earlier. Also, those who are religious tend to live longer. Maybe the two things are because of that social connection.

As to the potential evil from religion, perhaps it is more about human nature than the particular doctrine of the religion itself. Individual interpretation of the religious texts can lead to different perspectives. Just look at what has been happening recently from within the Muslim community, with some taking radical steps. Granted, there are certain passages in religious doctrine that don't help matters, but on the whole, I feel the religious texts are there to corral people into acceptable behaviour that is good for society.

Edit: AWF's Watercooler is a church for Access zealots!

 

[NauticalGent]

From my perspective, the regular assembling of a community brings social connections they may not otherwise have. There is much research that shows one factor that goes into human longevity is social connection.

AWF's Watercooler is a church for Access zealots!

Amen!