Cliff added a fun comment to the discussion on consciousness (which has been interesting, to say the least, thanks to the fact that most of you seem to be stark raving mad :).
Something about the way it was phrased makes me want to speak up and explain myself. Basically, Cliff was wondering why some people are in such a hurry to discount any mystical/spiritual possibilities in the explanation of something like consciousness (or the universe (or the Chia Pet)).
I wanted to reply here because, according to the world almanac, there are a lot of you out there who think like Cliff (spiritually inclined). In fact, people like me who don’t believe in something (unless there isn’t an alternative) exist in very small numbers. As a minority, we’re probably about as common as gay one-legged Amazonian Indians who experience spontaneous bleeding from the navel every Tuesday (except after it rains).
I’m not looking for an argument, and I certainly don’t want to change your mind about what you believe. That’s your own business. It’s just that I feel like I have an understanding of why someone would want to believe, but I feel that most people don’t understand why some of us wouldn’t.
To get the message across, I’m going to quote from Cliff’s comments, and then respond...
It's interesting to see how people who reject all mystical, supernatural, theoligical, religion based, and/or magical explanations do so using evidence that itself is inconclusive.
I’m not worried about evidence being inconclusive because I don’t expect humans to figure out the universe in its totality anytime soon. I’m perfectly willing to accept limited answers based on our limited abilities.
I understand that a spiritual type will often be happy to make the leap and accept things on faith.
The difference here is that, although I’m willing to believe an explanation that might be lacking somehow, I’m not willing to have faith in an explanation, “faith” being defined as “belief without reason” (or some similar definition which uses slightly different words but basically gets the same meaning across). There has to be something there backing it up, and I’m not willing to settle for “The universe sure is impressive – I don’t see how anything but God could have created it.”
I have no problem with this point of view, but it doesn’t work for me.
For example, if the explanation is "we're just meat" then what is the meat made of?
Meat atoms :)
Particles.
Strings.
Midichlorians.
I don’t know, but, again, I’m not expecting a conclusive answer to this, and I don’t know that one will ever come along. In the meantime, I’m content to accept whatever I consider to be a reasonable explanation.
Who made the particals that compose the meat?
How did it suddenly become “Who”?
That’s a very leading question.
How did the particles arrive and from where?
By train? From Calgary? I don’t know.
In reality aren't all logical/scientific explanations derived from some sort of mystical theory or wizadry?
If we were to use the more popular definitions of “mysticism”, then, no. Most definitions of mysticism refer to a belief about the ability to communicate with the divine, and that’s clearly not compatible with most scientific explanations.
If, on the other hand, we were to choose one of the less popular meanings, leaning more toward something like “a speculative or nebulous idea,” then I would agree that some explanations are.
But give us some credit – mysticism is very, very old, and our scientific understanding of the universe, particularly with the aid of electricity and all it’s made possible, is very, very young. Given the complexity of the universe, I don’t have high expectations of anybody coming up with The Answers in my lifetime, my children’s lifetime (I don’t have any, but you know what I mean), or their children’s lifetime.
Humans are really pretty dumb, and it’s impressive that we’ve even managed to get far enough to create things like refrigerators and Coca-Cola without accidentally (or intentionally) blowing ourselves up.
We’ll slowly figure this universe/nature thing out, but it’s going to take time. It’s not microwave popcorn.
Many turn from spiritual knowledge because it reads more like a fairy tail than a truth. Because you can't draw a logical conclusion from it it becomes merely a tail. Doesn't every scientific or mathmatical explanation starts or ends in a tail?
No.
How much is infinity?
More than 50.
How small is a null?
Smaller than infinity.
What’s at the end of a black hole?
I small gnome named “Wilfred” who likes to take long walks on the beach and eat candlelight dinners alone while reading romance novels set in Abyssinia.
Why is it easier to accept the Big Bang than the man upstairs?
Background radiation. Gamma rays. Echoes of a huge, fiery explosion sometime in the distant past.
I strongly favor simple explanations. If I walk into my kitchen and see a broken glass on the floor, I’m more likely to believe that the glass was dropped by a friend than I am to believe that Wilfred the Gnome had stopped in for a drink, noticed that he was running late for the 9:00 PM space bus to the Andromedan black hole park, and lost his grip on the glass as he dematerialized for transport inside a hyperintelligent Cyborg-Ostrich taxi to the nearest intergalactic depot.
The Big Bang fits my requirement for a simple explanation – the “man upstairs” does not, as it requires that I not only come up with an explanation for the creation of the universe, but also for the creation of Him. Belief in a deity always results in at least one extra and unnecessary layer to the explanation. If the universe can be explained through the Big Bang, then inclusion of a god in the process is unnecessary.
While you could argue that Something Else had to be responsible for the Big Bang, I could argue that, while that may be true, there might eventually be an end to it all, and that my explanation will always be simpler than yours to the tune of one layer of abstraction because mine never adds the idea of a god.
I’m not saying that the Big Bang is right – just that I’m more inclined to believe it because there’s less scaffolding to support the notion.
Plus the evidence.
That stuff is good, too :)
How do you know the man upstairs isn’t responsible for the big bang?
I don’t.
Either concept is unexplainable and incomprehensible.
I disagree. The Big Bang explanation is quite understandable. Just to pick a religious text at random, look at The Bible. It’s a thick tome, often in spite of being printed on very thin paper with small fonts. Include the apocryphal books, and you’ve got some serious summer reading ahead of you.
That’s a lot of writing about God and His lessons in there. Much of it is written in a manner that makes it sound hallucinatory (I’m not being insulting – we don’t need to look further than books like Ezekiel and Revelations to see this), and the rest is vague and wide open to interpretation. “[U]nexplainable and incomprehensible” is absolutely right.
On the other side of the fence, we have a crippled theoretical physicist who, in one lifetime, and with Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis, typed out a perfectly reasonable set of explanations for the creation of the universe using one finger and a couple of blow tubes. All in a book that you could probably read in a few short hours if you wanted.
Hardly unexplainable or incomprehensible.
Now, taken to the next level, such as asking what preceded the Big Bang, you’ll hear a lot of strange speculation, but along with the understanding that there will be a level from which we can no longer regress. I’m happy to accept this, which is why the Big Bang makes sense to me.
I don't knock any atheist either. I see them as people who just don't believe entirely.
We don’t have faith (what spiritual types have), which is different from plain old belief, but I’ll let you continue…
It's like watching a movie from the middle or only paying attention to the action scenes.
Consider what this is like from my point of view, though. While I know that there are huge chunks of the movie (universe) that I’m missing out on, I like to think that I’ve at least been able to glimpse a few small, blurry bits of footage here and there (although it all seems to have been dubbed in a language I don’t understand).
If I were to turn this argument around and apply it to my perception of believers, I would say that you are adding scenes to the movie that were never there, or that you’re drifting off occasionally and daydreaming rather than paying attention to what’s on screen.
There's nothing wrong with that approach but you're severly limited in your understanding of the movie.
First of all, I agree with you – I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that, and have no problem with my almost total lack of comprehension.
However, given that you’ve added scenes and details to the movie (reality/universe/whatever) that weren’t previously there, you are also limited in your understanding of the movie, as your additional notions will alter what you believe about the movie. You’ll no longer be judging the movie as it is, but rather as it’s been changed in your eyes by what you believe.
Again, I’m not arguing any of this because I’d like to convert anybody. If you say that you want to believe in a race of furry, omnipotent squid that live in the center of every child’s soft, gooey, chocolicous heart, then I’m OK with that. It even sounds like fun.
I just wanted to honestly answer your questions. I feel that us atheist people are often misunderstood, and I’m hoping my answers can give you a little insight into what makes us (or at least me) tick.
The flippant responses (such as the answer to “How much is infinity?”) are just meant to show you that I don’t feel the need to have a complete view of the universe (don’t even want one, as a matter of fact). Not wanting or needing an explanation for everything makes it easier to content myself with little bit of knowledge there is out there about the true nature of the universe.
I’d also be happy to highlight some tendencies of mine for you:
I:
– Favor simplicity
– Am content not to have all the answers
– Am content to accept partial explanations, theories, or even just evidence, where there isn’t enough data or the proper processes in place to provide proof (provided the explanations are reasonable)
– Prefer one explanation to two – Some people, for example, believe in a god and in the Big Bang, and I’m not one of ‘em
– More goes here, but I’m going to be late for my appointment with my shrink, so it’ll just have to wait :)