Macroscopist
New member
I am a retired research scientist, actually a research microscopist, who spent over thirty years delving into the very small to find answers to medical problems and/or just understand how things work. I enjoyed my work but nearly everyone reaches a point where they wish to do something else before there is little else they can do.
As I said, I worked with microscopic things for most of my adult life, but I’d always had an interest in the macroscopic aspects of nature as well. I am fascinated by cosmology, geology and archeology — the history of the universe, as well as our planetary history and the history of our species.
I find that when one combines these views, the very small with the very big, eventually one must deal with questions of existence itself, the philosophy of being, if you will. In other words, the biggest questions of them all.
Why there is something rather than nothing? What is time? What is the Universe made from? What is our place as sentient beings? What is true and what isn’t?
All of these questions and more come to mind, and like many people before me, I search for answers.
But before I begin, I want to warn my readers that though I am pretty willing to entertain unprovable ideas and theories, I am at heart a scientist. Ultimately I believe in what is scientifically verifiable, and do use “Occam’s Razor” when necessary. Let me also say upfront I am a strong supporter of the process of Evolution, both biologically and in other usable settings. I believe in “bottom up” development, not “top down” design, because it is the only way I know of keeping out of logically infinite messes.
——
As some may have guessed from my small personal introduction, I am an atheist. This means I do not believe in the supernatural. I believe only nature, defined and entirely composed of matter, energy and their interactions, accounts for all there is.
To my mind, that leaves out the commonly held conceptions of the Judaic, Christian, Islamic god. In fact, it pretty much scotches any deity thought to direct or interfere with the natural processes we see in our universe. This is because I know scientific investigation has found no verifiable evidence for events or processes requiring such a being. As a scientist, I strongly believe everything in our Universe belongs to the same. And if there is an “outside” of our Universe, it will be physical in the same way our Universe is. God, gods, goddesses, and other spiritual entities (including souls) do not exist, and are no more than potent psychological delusions created by the human mind for its own reasons.
But my particular disagreement is with supposed gods like the monotheistic Biblical one, who I will now on refer to as God with a capital G, not because he/it are extraordinary but because he/it represents a certain type/class of conceived deity. I strongly feel this a particularly poisonous and corrupting conception which uses human weakness to survive, and does this by warping and destroying natural human curiosity and our desire to know the truth.
First, let’s start with the most commonly used arguments for God. I mentioned the Bible (I could have also included the Qur’an and the Book of Mormon). I did this because so much of the support for God resides in these ancient religious texts. It sometimes seems to me the older the text, the more interest and respect it generates for no other reason than its great age. Of course, Zoroastrianism and a few other very ancient religions are nearly non-existent today, but I must feel this is primarily because of competition from other more recent and potent religions, not due to fatal flaws in their dogma.
The Bible, of course, is the big one. The text by which others are all measured (at least until the advent of the Qur’an). Scholars of religion have studied the Bible texts for a long time (hundreds, if not thousands of years).
In recent times some have used scientific methods to date and analyze them. On dating, the conclusion drawn is the texts containing the oldest Judaic information are at best approximately 2700 years old, and most likely written by Judaic priests between ~700 BCE and ~500 BCE. The book of Law was “rediscovered” during a renovation of Jerusalem’s Temple ordered by King Josiah in 622 BCE. This text was what Biblical scholars recognize as the original version of the book of Deuteronomy containing the basic formulation of Judaism we know it. This produced a core, around which the Biblical texts (including the book of Deuteronomy) have been worked and reworked for at least hundreds of years and, except for certain additions made later than 622 BCE, often have little or no connection with other historical records and the archeological evidence found over the last 100 years in the Levant. Basically, the evidence indicates the Judaic Bible was created to anchor Judaism, provide a solid societal foundation for the Jewish people, and make it easier to control them political. For information on this I suggest reading the following book.
{The Bible Unearthed, Israel Finkelstein and Neil Asher Silberman; Touchstone, Simon and Shuster, 2002.}
The first Christian texts begin to appear in ~50 CE, and are attributed primarily to Paul, an apparently self-inspired “apostle” who never claims he physically met the man, Jesus, and hardly discusses Jesus’ life in his writing. The earliest of the New Testament Gospels does not appear before about 90 CE, and is attributed to a man who is called the “Apostle Mark”, even though the actual apostle with that name (if he really existed) was almost certainly dead at that time. The other three Gospels (Matthew, Luke and John) came somewhat later still and produced what are considered by many scholars to be reinterpretations of Mark’s gospel, plus additional material from an undiscovered text commonly known as “Q” (not to mention much later scribal additions not found in the earliest texts). These four books agree with each other only in the broadest sense, and contain many dissimilarities and contradictions. They are understandable only as distant interpretations of fragmentary information derived from verbally passed stories, legends, and extinct texts. It is in fact most likely the writers of the Gospels were simply trying to create stories about the life of Jesus to attract and fulfill the desires of (mostly) Paul’s followers.
Anyone who claims the Christian Bible is the entirely coherent and true word of God, hasn’t really investigated more than the cherry-picked portions commonly served up by the Christian clergy.
In bringing this information up I just want to point out the realistic difficulties in verifying the Bible. To completely support my last statement would require another book’s worth (at least), and has already been done many times by far more proficient scholars than myself. In this forum, I want to pursue a more limited number of points I find inescapable.
I think the principle problem with a Christian-style God is the belief in its personal interaction with its supporters and the natural world. Scientific investigation of “miracles” and other supposed human interactions with God have eventually and invariably resulted in natural explanations. Human beings who believe in God have often claimed their beliefs are only “common sense”, and science is somehow blind to the obvious (to them) actions of God. It appears to me they possess a strong emotional bias blinding their rational judgment. Unfortunately, common sense is often neither common nor sensible.
Take the religiously despised Theory of Evolution. And when I use the word theory it is the scientific sense of a well supported idea which, after much investigation, has yet to be disproved. Evolution is a natural process providing the only good explanation for the development of order from disorder, complexity from simplicity.
Basically, the Universe is commonly filled with random events. This is so because we apparently occupy a Universe in which whatever is allowed by its nature will happen eventually, somewhere, no matter how unlikely it is. Most of these events come and go without any real consequence, but occasionally one doesn’t because it finds support in its surroundings — its environment. The basic rule is survival matters, and our Universe collects survivors.
But what determines survival? Usually it is the event’s characteristics allow it to find an environmental fit, support from something else already there — often another survivor. Over time this builds something adapted to the environment which enhances the chance of further survival.
The idea has been demonstrated to work in laboratories within communities of bacteria, and other single cell organisms, as well as in viruses like those causing influenza, and observed in the adaptation of living organisms within a changing environment. The adaptation of living things was the first example of this process recognized and studied , but there are likely to be many others.
Religion disagrees with Evolution primarily because it provides support for bottom up development, not the top down design of a divine creator.
{Please my second posting - Evolution of Religion}
As I said, I worked with microscopic things for most of my adult life, but I’d always had an interest in the macroscopic aspects of nature as well. I am fascinated by cosmology, geology and archeology — the history of the universe, as well as our planetary history and the history of our species.
I find that when one combines these views, the very small with the very big, eventually one must deal with questions of existence itself, the philosophy of being, if you will. In other words, the biggest questions of them all.
Why there is something rather than nothing? What is time? What is the Universe made from? What is our place as sentient beings? What is true and what isn’t?
All of these questions and more come to mind, and like many people before me, I search for answers.
But before I begin, I want to warn my readers that though I am pretty willing to entertain unprovable ideas and theories, I am at heart a scientist. Ultimately I believe in what is scientifically verifiable, and do use “Occam’s Razor” when necessary. Let me also say upfront I am a strong supporter of the process of Evolution, both biologically and in other usable settings. I believe in “bottom up” development, not “top down” design, because it is the only way I know of keeping out of logically infinite messes.
——
As some may have guessed from my small personal introduction, I am an atheist. This means I do not believe in the supernatural. I believe only nature, defined and entirely composed of matter, energy and their interactions, accounts for all there is.
To my mind, that leaves out the commonly held conceptions of the Judaic, Christian, Islamic god. In fact, it pretty much scotches any deity thought to direct or interfere with the natural processes we see in our universe. This is because I know scientific investigation has found no verifiable evidence for events or processes requiring such a being. As a scientist, I strongly believe everything in our Universe belongs to the same. And if there is an “outside” of our Universe, it will be physical in the same way our Universe is. God, gods, goddesses, and other spiritual entities (including souls) do not exist, and are no more than potent psychological delusions created by the human mind for its own reasons.
But my particular disagreement is with supposed gods like the monotheistic Biblical one, who I will now on refer to as God with a capital G, not because he/it are extraordinary but because he/it represents a certain type/class of conceived deity. I strongly feel this a particularly poisonous and corrupting conception which uses human weakness to survive, and does this by warping and destroying natural human curiosity and our desire to know the truth.
First, let’s start with the most commonly used arguments for God. I mentioned the Bible (I could have also included the Qur’an and the Book of Mormon). I did this because so much of the support for God resides in these ancient religious texts. It sometimes seems to me the older the text, the more interest and respect it generates for no other reason than its great age. Of course, Zoroastrianism and a few other very ancient religions are nearly non-existent today, but I must feel this is primarily because of competition from other more recent and potent religions, not due to fatal flaws in their dogma.
The Bible, of course, is the big one. The text by which others are all measured (at least until the advent of the Qur’an). Scholars of religion have studied the Bible texts for a long time (hundreds, if not thousands of years).
In recent times some have used scientific methods to date and analyze them. On dating, the conclusion drawn is the texts containing the oldest Judaic information are at best approximately 2700 years old, and most likely written by Judaic priests between ~700 BCE and ~500 BCE. The book of Law was “rediscovered” during a renovation of Jerusalem’s Temple ordered by King Josiah in 622 BCE. This text was what Biblical scholars recognize as the original version of the book of Deuteronomy containing the basic formulation of Judaism we know it. This produced a core, around which the Biblical texts (including the book of Deuteronomy) have been worked and reworked for at least hundreds of years and, except for certain additions made later than 622 BCE, often have little or no connection with other historical records and the archeological evidence found over the last 100 years in the Levant. Basically, the evidence indicates the Judaic Bible was created to anchor Judaism, provide a solid societal foundation for the Jewish people, and make it easier to control them political. For information on this I suggest reading the following book.
{The Bible Unearthed, Israel Finkelstein and Neil Asher Silberman; Touchstone, Simon and Shuster, 2002.}
The first Christian texts begin to appear in ~50 CE, and are attributed primarily to Paul, an apparently self-inspired “apostle” who never claims he physically met the man, Jesus, and hardly discusses Jesus’ life in his writing. The earliest of the New Testament Gospels does not appear before about 90 CE, and is attributed to a man who is called the “Apostle Mark”, even though the actual apostle with that name (if he really existed) was almost certainly dead at that time. The other three Gospels (Matthew, Luke and John) came somewhat later still and produced what are considered by many scholars to be reinterpretations of Mark’s gospel, plus additional material from an undiscovered text commonly known as “Q” (not to mention much later scribal additions not found in the earliest texts). These four books agree with each other only in the broadest sense, and contain many dissimilarities and contradictions. They are understandable only as distant interpretations of fragmentary information derived from verbally passed stories, legends, and extinct texts. It is in fact most likely the writers of the Gospels were simply trying to create stories about the life of Jesus to attract and fulfill the desires of (mostly) Paul’s followers.
Anyone who claims the Christian Bible is the entirely coherent and true word of God, hasn’t really investigated more than the cherry-picked portions commonly served up by the Christian clergy.
In bringing this information up I just want to point out the realistic difficulties in verifying the Bible. To completely support my last statement would require another book’s worth (at least), and has already been done many times by far more proficient scholars than myself. In this forum, I want to pursue a more limited number of points I find inescapable.
I think the principle problem with a Christian-style God is the belief in its personal interaction with its supporters and the natural world. Scientific investigation of “miracles” and other supposed human interactions with God have eventually and invariably resulted in natural explanations. Human beings who believe in God have often claimed their beliefs are only “common sense”, and science is somehow blind to the obvious (to them) actions of God. It appears to me they possess a strong emotional bias blinding their rational judgment. Unfortunately, common sense is often neither common nor sensible.
Take the religiously despised Theory of Evolution. And when I use the word theory it is the scientific sense of a well supported idea which, after much investigation, has yet to be disproved. Evolution is a natural process providing the only good explanation for the development of order from disorder, complexity from simplicity.
Basically, the Universe is commonly filled with random events. This is so because we apparently occupy a Universe in which whatever is allowed by its nature will happen eventually, somewhere, no matter how unlikely it is. Most of these events come and go without any real consequence, but occasionally one doesn’t because it finds support in its surroundings — its environment. The basic rule is survival matters, and our Universe collects survivors.
But what determines survival? Usually it is the event’s characteristics allow it to find an environmental fit, support from something else already there — often another survivor. Over time this builds something adapted to the environment which enhances the chance of further survival.
The idea has been demonstrated to work in laboratories within communities of bacteria, and other single cell organisms, as well as in viruses like those causing influenza, and observed in the adaptation of living organisms within a changing environment. The adaptation of living things was the first example of this process recognized and studied , but there are likely to be many others.
Religion disagrees with Evolution primarily because it provides support for bottom up development, not the top down design of a divine creator.
{Please my second posting - Evolution of Religion}