I minored in physics while studying engineering.

Loved every minute of it.

My favorite was course in Relativity and Modern Physics. The text had entire chapters devoted to a single equation.

The professor would come in, write the equation on the board, and ask "any questions?"

Then he'd show how the answer to every question could be derived from the equation.

... and imagine me, a knuckle-dragging believer in the Guy-in-the-sky, able to handle all that math and deductive reasoning...

The professor was religious too...

... something about a little knowledge being a dangerous thing...

This looks amazing, Amy.

Key bits of his lecture come up as text as he speaks - they seem extremely well selected & timed so far - which is a huge help for some of us who find the subject hideously challenging.

Oddly enough Hans Bethe is one of my favorites, and was good friend of my father's. How strange to see him in this context.

Love, love, love quantum physics.

Amy:
Weird that you know how to reason yet do not, and believe
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Spare me the Mr. Spock shtick - you're too old for sophomoric Randian libertarianism. You know too much about how the world really works...

Most of us grownups have figured out that morality, ethics, and many other things we humans intuitively feel to be good and true cannot be justified empirically.

We don't value and uphold them because some egghead's mathematical model shows that it's theoretically advantageous according to "game theory".

I apply reason when it is suitable - and justice when it is suitable, and empathy when it is suitable, and mercy when it is suitable.

My engineering professor showed us the design drawings for the gas chambers. Engineers well versed in physics sat down and sketched this stuff out. Great "problem solving capabilities" eh?

Reason by itself is just one valence of truth. Uninformed by "irrational" truths it is insufficient - dangerous, even.

To believe their is a big man in the sky watching over you is arational. There is no evidence that I have seen to support there being or not being such a entity. Thus, reasoning is silent on the issue. To believe or not believe based on reasoning are the same in this case.

Formally, if A implies B and the value of A is unknown then nothing can be said about B without further knowledge.

"To believe their is a big man in the sky watching over you is arational."

How do you know that this is the God of the Bible, and not some mystification of an ancient text that couldn't have been further from the truth? How do you know that this "Big Man" was not a mystification of God that religions used as a means of controlling a population of people?

Believing in a big man in the sky is arational, but that doesn't mean that everyone believes this is what God is (notice I didn't say WHO).

The book has been translated over and over - and contexts and meanings of words change. The Bible was edited and many works of the same time and subject matter were left out for political purposes (History is written by the victors).

(In the 1980's, the word "bad" meant "cool" and not cool as in temperature...follow?).

Do I believe in a big man in the sky? No, and I never will. But I also don't believe that is what the early Jews and Christians were speaking about (*personal opinion*). The Churches have a lot to gain by profiting off of people's fears and using them as a means of controlling and taxing them. However, it also doesn't mean that there aren't a few really sage words of advice in the Bible about how to walk in life.

Many of our current laws were derived from cannonical laws, set in place by religious folks - but they didn't create them, just discovered and wrote about them.

"Most of us grownups have figured out that morality, ethics, and many other things we humans intuitively feel to be good and true cannot be justified empirically."

Plenty of people have found it to be within their god-given morals to tell me that I am damned to hell. They seemed to feel pretty good about it, too.

That many humans have ideas they call morals and ethics, believe them to be true, and feel good about having them does not suggest the existence of god. It may hint at a design common to the species.

I think my morality and ethics are hollow and I lack accountability if I hide behind "God" rather than admit to my own arrogance and human frailty.

"I think my morality and ethics are hollow and I lack accountability if I hide behind "God" rather than admit to my own arrogance and human frailty."

I whole-heartedly agree.

Michelle stuffs the straw man:
Plenty of people have found it to be within their god-given morals
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... a formulation which implies that all believers check their brains at the door, and just accept what they're told.

I accepted the Torah's morality after studying it, and after seeing how its teachings applied/played out in my community, and in the larger world.

I used all my intellectual and human capabilities during that evaluation.

And keeping the Torah is not a path that allows me to "hide behind God" - it leads directly to assessment of - and work on - my human failings.

Used to be called "growing up".

And without the religious commitment and clear yardstick of values provided by faith - I don't see very much of it among non-religious people in our narcissistic that's-just-the-way-I-am culture of unearned self-esteem and relationship-trashing selfishness.

And keeping the Torah is not a path that allows me to "hide behind God" - it leads directly to assessment of - and work on - my human failings. BenDavid

Ben, why work on your failings when you can heap them all on a goat and send it in the desert to die in accordance with your torah?

No straw men, B-D.

The efficacy of a morality does not establish proof of god, in the sense of arithmetic or in the sense of probative value.

It's a big leap from "many other things we humans intuitively feel to be good and true cannot be justified empirically" to "god".

In recent years, many things humans have not been able to "justify" empirically are now being observed, measured, and sometimes "justified" empirically thanks to human developments in technology and neuroscience. I don't see any value in putting "god" in that void.

I appreciate the focus on social justice, accountability, and a sense of being a part of something greater than one's self, that is emphasized in the readings our family shares on Passover. I view that insight as long-term thinking, empathy, and humility hard-earned throughout thousands of years of suffering that spans cultures, generations, and continents thanks to concerted efforts to generate/ preserve a common memory. Though, that said, the "memories" and interpretations vary, even within Jewish communities - but you knew that.

This capacity for "horizontal evolution" enhanced by our ability to read and write is a remarkable, powerful, unique feature in our design. But not proof of god.

On mirror neurons and horizontal evolution (7:44 minutes):

http://www.ted.com/talks/vs_ramachandran_the_neurons_that_shaped_civilization.html

~~~~~~~~
Allow me to edit a portion of my above post:

It's a big leap from "many other things we humans intuitively feel to be good and true cannot be justified empirically" to "god". I don't see any value in putting "god" in that void.

In recent years, many things humans have not been able to "justify" empirically are now being observed, measured, and sometimes "justified" empirically thanks to human developments in technology and neuroscience.
~~~~~~~~

...and now I'm heading out for the evening.

More straw from Michelle:
The efficacy of a morality does not establish proof of god
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That's not what I set out to do - is it?

It may be your personal burden/beef/baggage.

I did something else - something less easy for you to refute. Hence the straw man.

In the face of the oft-repeated atheist solipsism that lack of proof of God equals proof of lack - and in the face of implied dismissal of anything not scientifically proved - I reminded you all that many very important human *truths* are not subject to rational confirmation.

Including big ideas and concepts that make us uniquely human, moral beings.

So far no response to that - besides straw men, deliberate misreadings of religious teaching, and other sophomoric rhetorical stinkbombs.

This from folks who depend entirely on their own wit and reason! Good luck with that...

Ben, as you just now wrote down that there is no proof o god surley you can see why those of us who dont beleive are a little vexed at beleiver running around telling us how to live our lives

"I reminded you all that many very important human *truths* are not subject to rational confirmation."
B-D

...and I say, "not yet." And pointed out that with each passing year we develop technology with which we rationally confirm those things we once could not, which reveals deeper mysteries that we endeavor to understand. We develop hypotheses, develop technology to test those hypotheses, rationally confirm or disprove those hypotheses, and thus build our understanding.

To date, we have identified, quantified, and otherwise confirmed that part of the brain that the human species uses to create those big ideas and concepts.

Michelle:
with each passing year we develop technology with which we rationally confirm those things we once could not
- - - - - - - - - -
Irrelevant.

We can do a CT scan and see what neurons fire when a human does a math problem - but that is not where the truth of 2+2=4 resides.

Similarly, it doesn't matter if honesty, justice, loyalty, or altruism are caused by neurons or hormones, or artifacts of "early primate socialization". They have truth beyond theories of evolutionary utility.

Science has NOTHING to say about morality - beyond clarifying the factual reality.

An enormous effort has been expended to blur this distinction - to get you to think that science can determine - or explain away - moral judgments.

Primarily, this effort has been expended by Gramscians wrapping their agenda in junk science and pseudo-science.

So we have feminists and others telling us that men are "programmed" for infidelity, and can't be expected to be faithful.

And gays telling us that because they are "born that way" their promiscuous, destructive lifestyle is normal.

But none of this nonsense has quite obscured the reality that humans have free will, and can choose how they act.

(It's actually kinda fun to see Amy blithely see-saw between posts that emphasize human free will and responsibility and the "men are programmed to like small waists" stuff which is promoted to diminish choice and loosen the bonds of responsibility...)

In other words:
Science has nothing to say about moral judgment.

Whatever some anthropologist theorizes about men's "genetic programming" - we have not disproved the value of monogamy.

And as I've pointed out on the threads about homosexuality - there are stronger genetic indicators for schizophrenia and depression than there are for homosexuality, but we have not normalized these conditions.

Because science has nothing to say about moral judgment.

The Gramscians have obscured this truth because they seek to supplant received Western morality with their own moral code. And one good way do to this is to wrap the new code in the mantle of scientific certainty.

People have been so wowed by the achievements of science that they go along with this.

But it is false.

Science has NOTHING to say about morality.

So, once more:
There are very important ideas and concepts that MAKE US HUMAN which cannot be reduced to - or deduced by - scientific inquiry or rational discourse.

Can one of you progressive agnostics please address this - instead of swinging at the straw man of religious faith?

This ENTIRE POST does not once mention God or religion.

Can all you great thinkers please address the issue?

You know Ben David I'd be careful if I were you preaching about morailty.

Your religious texts endorses murder, infanticed, canibalism, incest, rape, slavery, sexual subjigation, the immediate execution of anyone caught worshiping a different god, and genocide as the 'moral' actions demanded by your deity.

And that goes for all you christians as well

In other words - I win.

None of the great Randian rationalists are willing to step up to the plate and discuss how morals, ethics, and values are established and upheld in a strictly rationalist scheme.

More straw men, sideways tap-dancing, and deliberate, childish misreading of religious teaching.

No Ben, you lose.

The striving for a strictly rational scheme is what prevents catholics from tortuing heritics to death as they once did.

It has lead to the end of slavery in most of the world, it has lead to the equal treatment for women in most of the world.

Your god commanded the jews to slaughter thousands of women and children.

There are no straw men here, just the passages of your religions text. Its not my fault that you worship an bloodthirsty sadistic asshole.

Amy:
You were born Jewish, and shut off that part of your brain that uses reason
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Yeah, everyone knows how stupid Jews are...

If this has been discussed over and over, just give me ONE link - on or off blog - that explains how morality works if all we go on his science and human reasoning.

When I look around, I see a lot of agnostics/atheists coasting on what remains of the "evolved morality" they've received from Jewish teaching.

Again: throughout the past century, high levels of scientific and intellectual/philosphical activity have not prevented inhuman atrocities - from the Holocaust, to the Gulag, to various re-education camps and killing fields.

Kindly address the issue instead of hurling insult.

Happy Passover!

... come to think of it - most of those atrocities were perpetrated by "progressives" like you, who had thrown of the mantle of received morality.

So's where's the brave new world we were supposed to be ushered into?

http://www.advicegoddess.com/archives/2010/03/15/the_savage_sava.html

Did you miss this particular post Ben?

People die in revolutions. When the peons rise up and force the high society types to scrounge in the dirt as they were once made to obviously they are going to die.

And no one ever claimed that intelectualism would end 'bad things'. Just their bogus justifications.

Incedentally the holocaust was motivated by religious ferver, I'd have thought you'd've realized that

"Science has NOTHING to say about morality."
~B-D

Wrong. Watch:

"Science can answer moral questions: Sam Harris on TED.com"

http://blog.ted.com/2010/03/science_can_ans.php#comments

Thanks! Weird timing.