h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

No you don't.

Clearly you suspect there's a difference or you wouldn't have cited those two examples.

F

Name: mitabubble

Chair title: Spectrographic Resolution of Liquid Surface Tension Under Influence of Exhalation.

Any beliefs you'd like to list so we can make fun- er... discuss them:
I believe that bubbles can lighten a heavy mood, look pretty under lights, can show what air currents are doing and are an aid to meditation. If you look closely you can see yin and yang in a bubble. I believe the universe is so amazing that it does't even need a god to create or direct it. Like the Chinaman in "Even Cowgirls Get The Blues" I believe in nothing, everything is sacred, I believe in everything, nothing is sacred. I also believe that atheism is a knowledge not a belief.

i think you should look at some of the work of Baroness Susan Greenfield on the human brain.
I find particularly interesting her work on how we grow the neural networks in our brain. We literally construct our own brains as we grow based on how we process the information, experience, in our lives. Like finger prints no two nueral networks are the same. DNA and genes do not do our thinking anymore than the atoms that make up our bodies are conscious. Genes express chemicals that allow signals across synapses and make up the material of the brain cells, isolated neuronal circuits make up larger neuronal assemblies that form brain regions that perform subfunctions (colour, form, motion processing etc) these perform functions (and for that matter disfunctions) memory, vision, etc. that makeup what we understand to be consciosness. We have approx 1,000,000 genes in our bodies but there are 1000,000,000,000,000 connections in our brains. Even if every gene in your body dictated one brain connection, you'd still be out by 1,000,000,000. It is far more our interaction with the world that builds our consciousness than any function of DNA.

Yes...I've mentioned Greenfield.

How presumptious of Fathom to tell me what I think! What I'm trying to express is that our autonomic systems involve exavtly the same processes as we call 'consciousness'. The former stimulate our sweat glamds and the like, the latter our sensory memories.

Can we get back to first principles here?
A question to all those who claim the existance of god.
What does god do?
Is there anything that is best explained by the existence of god?
Personally, I find Sun worship the most plausible.
The Sun gives warmth light, sustains life on this planet.
Its a bit scary the way it disappears each night but then its born again the next day (can we spot a theme here?)
At least there are no claims that the Sun actually cares for us.

Of course the sun cares for us! Gives us all that lovely light and heat, helps us to grow crops...

And unlike god, the sun can't be held responsible for inconvenient things like diseases and tsunamis. Only the occasional malanoma - but that's our fault for not wearing sunscreen, as the sacred texts demand.

Jesus wants me for a sunbeam...

Malanoma? A Freudian slip in Latin, already. Melanoma.

<>

At the level of process this is very probably true (I'm certainly not arguing), but while it is easy to see what is meant by stimulation of the sweat glands, a measurable phenomenon external to the brain, I'm not sure that "stimulation of our sensory memories" is quite the same.

Noggin

Hi MB, and welcome!



I *believe* in the existence of God. I make no 'claim', in the sense that I will happily say what I believe, for your consideration, but I do not ask you to believe it. That's your part.



What do you do? God is a sentient being, just as you are.



'Best' explained by God? For some people, yes, for others, no.

Pattern-chaser

"Who cares, wins"

Just thought I'd throw this excellent page the way of the FFFF:

Faith = Illness.
Why I've had it with religious tolerance.
http://www.rushkoff.com/2006/04/faith-illness-why-ive-had-it-with.php

Cheers,
Ste

An amusing perspective from a man who has no serious religious belief, as I understand it. His POV is no surprise, but certainly is not the only POV available. Does anyone think this piece raises any *significant* questions?

Pattern-chaser

"Who cares, wins"

The priece does raise the interesting point that having some kind of distance (whether from a faith position or otherwise) may enable people to see more meaning in one or other religious tale than people who consider literal belief is the way to go, and that Fundamentalism can blind people even to the deep and the good within their own religion.

Yes, though I try to be tolerant of other people's beliefs, I have great difficulty with literalists....

Pattern-chaser

"Who cares, wins"

I have to say...I found the article somewhat mundane. He's coming from a USAnian point of view and attacking easy targets.

I myself, though, happily confess to religious intolerance (no surprise there) - and will extend this to the harder target of the pleasant, fluffy end of religiosity. Contrary to what P-C says, religion is *not* a valid point of view. It falls down through complete lack of an evidential basis. To accept that the pleasant fluffies have a worthwile point of view is to set a standard which the nasties also pass.

Isn't it interesting that people who have a form of religion feel an urge to pass it on to other people instead of using it as a pattern for their own life?

Religion is a personal belief system . . . it's not meant to be REAL, is it???


az

Surely this is to be expected? Anyone who sincerely believes they have something of worth will wish to pass it on to their peers? And I think (hope! ) that they would do the 'passing-on' *as well as* using it in their own lives, not "instead of"....

Pattern-chaser

"Who cares, wins"

Maybe pass it on, but to force it on people?

You didn't say that before! No, forcing one's beliefs on another must surely be wrong?

Pattern-chaser

"Who cares, wins"

<> (P-c)

No, what he said was people having "an urge to pass it on to other people instead of using it as a pattern for their own life"

Which smacks of a rather aggressive sort of behaviour to me.

The two key words being *instead of*.


az