Best of Luck to All!

[frankdux]

one of the greatest intellects of the 20th century, Einstein, was a man of faith ("God doesn't play dice" ring a bell?).

einstein was a pantheist. he used the word "god" often as a synonym for nature as do many other physicists including stephen hawking.

for further proof:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Einstein#Religious_views

in particular, einstein is quoted saying, " I do not believe in a personal god and I have never denied this but have expressed it clearly. If something is in me which can be called religious then it is the unbounded admiration for the structure of the world so far as our science can reveal it."

also from the article:

In a letter to Eric Gutkind in 1954 Einstein said: "The word God is for me nothing more than the expression and product of human weaknesses, the Bible a collection of honorable, but still primitive legends which are nevertheless pretty childish."[65] In the same letter, Einstein rejected the idea that the Jews are God's chosen people: "For me the Jewish religion like all others is an incarnation of the most childish superstitions. And the Jewish people to whom I gladly belong and with whose mentality I have a deep affinity have no different quality for me than all other people. As far as my experience goes, they are no better than other human groups, although they are protected from the worst cancers by a lack of power. Otherwise I cannot see anything 'chosen' about them."

[UKbound]

Pantheism (Greek: ??? ( 'pan' ) = all and ???? ( 'theos' ) = God, it literally means "God is All" and "All is God") is the view that everything is part of an all-encompassing immanent abstract God; or that the Universe, or nature, and God are equivalent.

I'm pretty sure I didn't specify what sort of faith/belief/religion any of those men had, but I did look at your link and, provided anything in it is legitimate (it is Wikipedia after all), I think that first line sums things up quite nicely.

"The question of scientific determinism gave rise to questions about Einstein's position on theological determinism, and whether or not he believed in a God. In 1929, Einstein told Rabbi Herbert S. Goldstein "I believe in Spinoza's God, who reveals Himself in the lawful harmony of the world, not in a God Who concerns Himself with the fate and the doings of mankind."[55]"

Please note, he was talking to a rabbi. Anyway you cut it, that's faith. Oh and thanks for reminding us of yet another religious (albeit a bit unconventional) person..Spinoza. Spinoza was a pantheist as well. I suppose if I had to choose a camp, agnostic that I am, pantheism seems like a fairly good bet but I'm not even convinced there's a God " who reveals Himself in the lawful harmony of the world" at this point.

As far as chosen-ness goes, I think it's pretty clear that that is the most ridiculous idea of all. If the Jews were chosen for anything, it certainly wasn't anything good. Not even sure why you included it...but hey thanks for sharing.

[seunghwane]

Einstein a man of religion?

Someone doesn't know his religion.

[seunghwane]

What about those images of the blessed virgin in your toast?

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/4034787.stm

In all seriousness though, the claim that religious people are not intellectuals is patently ridiculous. In addition to Plato, St. Thomas Aquinas, Renee Descartes, Immanuel Kant, and William James who were all religious men, one of the greatest intellects of the 20th century, Einstein, was a man of faith ("God doesn't play dice" ring a bell?). For many, such as William Paley and Blaise Pascal (nevermind all the ID proponents) it is the "evidence" that leads them to God. I think you need to be very careful, and a bit more precise, with your use of the term evidence. For believers, it's all around them. As non-believers, we're really not in much of a position to dispute it. It just doesn't work for us. But to say religious people aren't intellectuals is ....ugh there's not even a moderately polite way to describe what a bigoted and misinformed position that is.

Also, where the heck did you come up with that definition of faith?? Faith is not

Are we supposed to simply take that definition on faith? If so, you've basically created a nice little Liar's Paradox for yourself. You certainly can't prove that that is what faith is. Faith is just the belief in ideas that may not be empirically 100% verifiable. Ironically, all of the empirical sciences, being based on induction (there's always the possibility that a purple/black/green swan may show up), rely on faith to some extent. I personally have a great deal of faith... in things like the theory of evolution, quantum mechanics (certainly need a great deal of faith with this one), and the existence of minds.

Plato? Immanuel Kant? St. Aquinas?

What do those people have in common?

They are people who lived CENTURIES ago.

It's funny that you forgot Newton though, which would've strengthened your point considerably.

Why these brilliant people from centuries ago believed in something so ludicrous probably has more to do with cultural indoctrination than anything else, but since you are supposedly trying to be "serious," in all seriousness, are you serious with Einstein being religious?

Any person equipped with google and wikipedia should know better than that.

Although it may not have been the case in 18th century, in the 21st century, which is a bit closer to now (I think), there is a very clear correlation between (science) education level and tendency to be irreligious in America.

For instance, the American public is something like 80% religious according to some polls, while that number drops to 10% among national academy of science members.

What is also clear is that most forms of monotheistic religions rely on suspension of reason and evidence. Believing in Bronze Age myths necessitates that one must either suspend reason completely at all times (Sarah Palin), or at least while one is at church/synagogue/temple/whatever, depending on evangelical faith, or "moderate" faith.

That is why, I believe, an overwhelming majority of the best scientists in the US has a hard time believing in a deity.

Whether you call that or something else faith is just trivial semantics, which would not make for a very interesting discussion unless you're going to be a lexicographer... I am not planning to compile a dictionary any time soon myself.

Clearly, depending on how you interpret the word, we can view it in less negative or less positive ways.

[seunghwane]

I disagree. I think the idea of faith undermines any attempt at being a genuine intellectual. Intellectuals base their conclusions on evidence, whereas faith is the systematic dismantling of systems of evidence and reason. The two are mutually exclusive. You cannot subject knowledge to belief and still consider yourself an intellectual.

The religious intellectual cannot, by definition, exist. More likely, we have a whole lot of misled intellectuals who claim to be religious and misled religious folks who claim to be intellectuals.

I don't like playing the devil's advocate (no pun intended), but I wouldn't be that harsh.

There are many examples, even in the 21st century, of brilliant intellectuals who are religious.

(But Francis Collins is not one of them. Any serious biologist would know that Francis Collins was just an administrative person, while Eric Lander was the one who truly spearheaded the human genome project).

However, as you noted, those misguided individuals are likely exceptions, rather than the rule.

[timuralp]

I personally have a great deal of faith... in things like the theory of evolution, quantum mechanics (certainly need a great deal of faith with this one), and the existence of minds.

Uuuuh, OK, so explain the photo-electric effect without QM, or nanodots, or compton scattering... After all, electronic microscopes, lasers, and most of the nanotechnology is only well described by/possible because of QM. While QM is a theory, its predictions have been shown to be true in a number of experiments. Does that mean it must be the absolute truth? No, but there is no other scientific explanation for these phenomena. Do you also have a hard time with relativity, magnetism, gravity?

[seunghwane]

Pssh.

Get out of here with your high sounding physics mumbo jumbo.

I says we teach the the creative theory of designed falling as an alternative to the theory of gravity.

[UKbound]

I, as in me, this non-physicist has faith in QM. I don't fully understand it and, more importantly, I don't need (or even want) to. I have faith in the science. That was the whole point of offering that list. There are many things that we non-scientists absolutely take on faith. I don't need to get into a lab and see the experiments to feel confident about the work that's being done. There's a distinct possibility that much of it will turn out to be rot...like the Ptolemaic system, flogiston, fixity of the species....blah, blah, blah...but for now it's good enough.

Oh, btw, Immanuel Kant lived a hundred and fifty or so years AFTER Newton. Moreover, he's widely credited with being the father of Logical Positivism. Also, Einstein was religious by his own account (see the groovy little Wiki article provided by a PP), not mine.

[seunghwane]

I, as in me, this non-physicist has faith in QM. I don't fully understand it and, more importantly, I don't need (or even want) to. I have faith in the science. That was the whole point of offering that list. There are many things that we non-scientists absolutely take on faith. I don't need to get into a lab and see the experiments to feel confident about the work that's being done. There's a distinct possibility that much of it will turn out to be rot...like the Ptolemaic system, flogiston, fixity of the species....blah, blah, blah...but for now it's good enough.

Oh, btw, Immanuel Kant lived a hundred and fifty or so years AFTER Newton. Moreover, he's widely credited with being the father of Logical Positivism. Also, Einstein was religious by his own account (see the groovy little Wiki article provided by a PP), not mine.

It is irrelevant what you think about QM; it is true as far as scientists are concerned. Whether you define that as faith or not is, once again, unimportant.

Please read the article you are referring to again.

What Einstein referred to as "God" was not the Yahweh of the Judeo Chrstian faith (e.g. a personal God) , but rather a philosophical/pantheistic metaphor.

This is a quote from Einstein:

It was, of course, a lie what you read about my religious convictions, a lie which is being systematically repeated. I do not believe in a personal god and I have never denied this but have expressed it clearly. If something is in me which can be called religious then it is the unbounded admiration for the structure of the world so far as our science can reveal it.

He denied being an atheist, which is obviously the scientifically sound thing to do, given the difficulties in proving that there is no God.

[UKbound]

It is irrelevant what you think about QM; it is true as far as scientists are concerned. Whether you define that as faith or not is, once again, unimportant.

It's irrelevant that you think what I think is irrelevant. You've officially moved yourself into a position of "completely missing the point." I am one of an overwhelming majority that has, basically no clue about the way this whole QM business works, but nevertheless is on board with it. I'm done quibbling about Einstein, you're clearly seeing exactly what you want to see in that article and further discussion would be futile. If you don't like the invocation of Einstein, fair enough. We'll go with your boy Newton. If you want contemporary, why don't we go with Murray Gell-Man, Franz Boas, Noam Chomsky, Richard Feynman, David Bohm, Saul Kripke or Noam Elkies? I can certainly provide several more if you've got a problem with that list, but I think it should suffice in establishing the fact that there have been many (self-described) religious persons both in the distant past and not-so-distant past who were intellectuals.

Shalom :wink:

[seunghwane]

It's irrelevant that you think what I think is irrelevant. You've officially moved yourself into a position of "completely missing the point." I am one of an overwhelming majority that has, basically no clue about the way this whole QM business works, but nevertheless is on board with it. I'm done quibbling about Einstein, you're clearly seeing exactly what you want to see in that article and further discussion would be futile. If you don't like the invocation of Einstein, fair enough. We'll go with your boy Newton. If you want contemporary, why don't we go with Murray Gell-Man, Franz Boas, Noam Chomsky, Richard Feynman, David Bohm, Saul Kripke or Noam Elkies? I can certainly provide several more if you've got a problem with that list, but I think it should suffice in establishing the fact that there have been many (self-described) religious persons both in the distant past and not-so-distant past who were intellectuals.

Shalom :wink:

Richard Feynman is religious?????

Now I've seen everything.

FYI, he has written many books, which I have read, and it is VERY clear that he was not a practicing Jew, but I'm sure that will go right over your head.

Obviously given your penchant for making up facts about scientists, I am going to go ahead and dismiss other names as well (Murray Gell-man in particular, which I find doubtful).

Please stick to philosophy and let the scientists discuss facts about scientists.

[UKbound]

Good grief, go read a book already. Talk about tunnel vision, sheesh!

[seunghwane]

Good grief, go read a book already. Talk about tunnel vision, sheesh!

I can only conclude that you're an idiot and that this is a total waste of time to debate, but I will give you the benefit of the doubt and give you some evidence on Feynman's religiosity, or lack thereof.

From one of his books:

My family was Jewish, and my father was an atheist. My mother-they-sent me to the temple on Saturdays and to Jewish Sunday school to learn a little Hebrew and so on, but I gave it up about the age of thirteen. I became an atheist because I didn't believe it.

God was invented to explain mystery. God is always invented to explain those things that you do not understand. Now, when you finally discover how something works, you get some laws which you're taking away from God; you don't need him anymore. But you need him for the other mysteries. So therefore you leave him to create the universe because we haven't figured that out yet; you need him for understanding those things which you don't believe the laws will explain, such as consciousness, or why you only live to a certain length of time -- life and death -- stuff like that. God is always associated with those things that you do not understand. Therefore I don't think that the laws can be considered to be like God because they have been figured out.

paraphrased from the video: http://video.google.com/videosearch?q=f ... =N&tab=wv#

One aspect of the God came to the earth, the earth, mind you.

... how do you find out whether one things' true? and if you have all these religions... and if you start doubting like you're supposed to... it gets a little harder to believe. I can live on doubt and uncertainty and not believe. I think it's much more interesting...

Finally, please take your own advice and read more books for facts, rather than conjuring them up in your mind.

Unlike your field, my field of study doesn't really require that I read many "books" per se, so you don't have to worry about my future, but I sincerely worry about yours given your tendency to make up facts.

[timuralp]

I can only conclude that you're an idiot and that this is a total waste of time to debate, but I will give you the benefit of the doubt and give you some evidence on Feynman's religiosity, or lack thereof.

[...]

Unlike your field, my field of study doesn't really require that I read many "books" per se, so you don't have to worry about my future, but I sincerely worry about yours given your tendency to make up facts.

Wait, this was worthwhile debating to begin with??? whoa! By the way, I sincerely worry about your future giving your tendency to call people idiots and their decisions idiotic. Make sure you don't step on the wrong foot

[seunghwane]

Wait, this was worthwhile debating to begin with??? whoa! By the way, I sincerely worry about your future giving your tendency to call people idiots and their decisions idiotic. Make sure you don't step on the wrong foot

Totally true. But I did apologize for the other faux pas, so perhaps you can excuse me on that one.

[dans595]

UKBound said:

We'll go with your boy Newton. If you want contemporary, why don't we go with Murray Gell-Man, Franz Boas, Noam Chomsky, Richard Feynman, David Bohm, Saul Kripke or Noam Elkies? I can certainly provide several more if you've got a problem with that list,...

UKBound gave at least a half-a-dozen examples, and you are nitpicking one? Don't waste your time arguing about Feynman, because even if you're right, you've still not compromised UKBound's position.

How about the others? The only one I looked into was Noam Elkies (since I am a mathematician, and also religious. Elkies is a name I am very familiar with). Seems religious to me!

[dowjonesindustrial]

Okay, I'm going to try and rally this discussion a little.

The opening contention that "no one has ever believed in god and been an intellectual" doesn't hold up, of course, if you allow equally for contextual interpretations of 'belief' and 'intellect' throughout the last thousand years.

The real Idea behind the Invective here seems to be the familiar assertion "religion interferes with rationality." Now you don't have to be 100% rational to be a genius. Nietzsche talked to a horse (then promptly went mad and died a syphilitic's death), and while NO one would call him a Believer, he is a perfect example of someone whose irrationality was sometimes a gift to his intellect.

And so, when the two sides meet in the middle, I think what we're coming to is a debate of "to what degree can belief/faith and intellectual pursuits coexist?" and the much more interesting corollary "how do they interfere and/or stimulate one another." The Kabbalists/Gnostics are a prime example of belief stimulating thought, even when the myths themselves will never be proven in a million years. They represent a method of thinking, one which has had bountiful results across the humanities.

Hope that helps.

[Minnesotan]

Okay, I'm going to try and rally this discussion a little.

The opening contention that "no one has ever believed in god and been an intellectual" doesn't hold up, of course, if you allow equally for contextual interpretations of 'belief' and 'intellect' throughout the last thousand years.

The real Idea behind the Invective here seems to be the familiar assertion "religion interferes with rationality." Now you don't have to be 100% rational to be a genius. Nietzsche talked to a horse (then promptly went mad and died a syphilitic's death), and while NO one would call him a Believer, he is a perfect example of someone whose irrationality was sometimes a gift to his intellect.

And so, when the two sides meet in the middle, I think what we're coming to is a debate of "to what degree can belief/faith and intellectual pursuits coexist?" and the much more interesting corollary "how do they interfere and/or stimulate one another." The Kabbalists/Gnostics are a prime example of belief stimulating thought, even when the myths themselves will never be proven in a million years. They represent a method of thinking, one which has had bountiful results across the humanities.

Hope that helps.

You're confusing intellect with creativity. Many creative people are completely nuts. You got me there. But to say you can believe in completely ludicrous things like people living in whales, talking bushes, magical transformations of bread into fish and the like, walking on water, a space zombie who fathered himself only to have himself killed to rectify the mistake he made when creating us (even though he's infallible -- it must be a test!), and vampiric blood rituals, while still being an intellectual is patently absurd!

You cannot be an intellectual child who believes in fairy tales and talks to invisible friends while still being an adult intellectual! Delude yourselves however you must to justify your faith, but don't try to cover me in your deluge of bullshit.

[seunghwane]

What? You don't like the talking snake either I assume?

[Minnesotan]

Only in "The Jungle Book." He was kinda cute.

[dowjonesindustrial]

You're confusing intellect with creativity.

No I'm afraid I'm not.

Moreover, the selectivity of your response aside, my continued point is that you are mistaking a contemporary argument for a historical one.

I am a vehement atheist, and I suspect you and I have the exact same gut reaction to when a classmate or wide receiver or whomever says "I'd just like to thank my buddy Jesus cuz he's the one who aced the exam/caught the ball...etc." I would argue that for anyone even remotely involved with a non-believing community in modern times, the sheer rational force of Not Knowing should be overwhelming.

However, denying -historically- that anyone holding some kind of faith or belief or even going to church on sundays could have been an intellectual is in fact to categorically deny all earlier times and peoples the possession of intellectual merit. That they did not have the choice of non-belief because of historical context is not an excuse, it is exactly the point. If you intend to exclude all thinkers before say the Renaissance, or Nz's Death of God, or whatever your mark is, as being non-intellectuals then your definition of intellectual itself is biased beyond repair, and so meager as to be useless.

We share like sentiment here. My post was intended to redirect the focus of the thread away from the bile of both sides, and so while I share with you the same view of "fossils are just clues to a wrong path! john smith ran around america with a three-story book made out of gold!", your refusal to acknowledge Plato, Thomas Aquinas, Descartes et al as thinkers of intellectual value is a tunnel vision of the same variety, if perhaps not nearly the same degree.

selah.

[rinneron]

It seems we're missing a middle ground here. For much of my life, I considered myself an atheist; recently, that has begun to change. It has nothing to do with any kind of religious conversion -- I was raised UU and will be my entire life -- but rather a gradual spiritual journey I seem to be walking down. I've realized that, for me, believing that I was of the highest intelligence in our known universe (being our world, I suppose) was narrow minded and selfish. Somedays I think Freud was kind of on target with Oceananic (spelling?) theory, but sometimes I think it's a lot more nuanced and complicated than that. In any case, I'm doubtful there isn't some sort of spiritual energy out there that I can't quite comprehend. I'm very willing to accept the fact that "There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, Than are dreamt of in your philosophy."

But anyway, that middle ground. Religion isn't just for wackjobs and screwups. It doesn't automatically have to be undying belief in walking on water and burning bushes -- it can be a careful consideration of how these stories (true or not) contribute to senses of communal and personal spirituality and peace. Religion involves so many, subtle layers of community, connection, generosity, kindness, and honesty that dismissing all of it out of hand seems unwise, reactionary, and foolish. God doesn't have to be some old man in the sky condemning or approving our every move, and awaiting his big musical finale on judgement day -- god can mean a lot of things, and assuming that everyone who believes in god lacks rationale because they ascribe to some aspect of a traditional Judeo-Christian-Islam concept of god is bizarre.

To you it may not seem rational to believe in god, or it may seem that religion and science are automatically antithetical, but to someone else that isn't necessarily the case, and their personal logic may allow for both religion and science. What did Wernher von Braun say? "Nature does not know extinction; all it knows is transformation. Everything science has taught me, and continues to teach me, strengthens my belief in the continuity of our spiritual existence after death." And he was one of the leading rocket scientists of the 20th century! Talk about a religious intellectual.

Fundamentalists are no good, and that means fundamentalists on both sides. Those who bomb school buses and persecute non-believers in the name of god, and those who do the same because there is no god. Insulting or attempting to dismiss/disprove someone's personal religion or atheism is childish and absurd, and only a few steps removed from the more inflammatory and physical acts. Not only does it immediately encounter argument of "why would it change your life if I believe in god or not?" but it seems to me that to be truly informed, curious, knowledgeable, and creative intellectuals, we must explore religion and its implications without this trendy, condescending contempt of religion that seems to be rearing its ugly head.

[grex]

Wow. I opened this thread not expecting a heated debate.

Anyway, I'll just quickly add a thought. And that is to say, if science explains everything, how does it explain free will and self-consciousness? Are we all products of external stimuli, atomic collisions, and quantum interactions? Are our decisions predetermined, or probabilistically determined (if you consider quantum physics)?

The most popular scientific theory that accommodates self-consciousness (but still doesn't explain free will) is something called Emergentism. Basically, it says, put a whole bunch of molecules together in a complicated enough fashion and it becomes self-aware. We don't know how, but it just does. Nor can we predict the arrangement of said molecules to produce such self-awareness. In fact, it doesn't even have to be molecules, it can be anything. Self-awareness just... happens.

This has been the inspiration for Jane (in the Ender's Game series) and rogue computer programs in various movies (i.e. Eagle Eye, I, Robot).

Can you really write software that can become self-aware, and undertake actions of free will?

So those who are religious believe in God (or some higher power). Those who are atheists most commonly believe in Emergentism (which I find harder to swallow). I believe that, more likely than not, there are things in this universe that no human can comprehend no matter how hard he/she thinks.

[coho]

So those who are religious believe in God (or some higher power). Those who are atheists most commonly believe in Emergentism (which I find harder to swallow). I believe that, more likely than not, there are things in this universe that no human can comprehend no matter how hard he/she thinks.

I believe in some higher power. I mean, graduate admissions committees definitely fit that bill. Nor do I (and from what it seems like, nor do most of the poster on this board), completely comprehend the intricacies of graduate admissions process, and I have thought hard about it.

So, to return to the theme of the original post, best of luck to all!

[edit for grammar]

[Astaroth]

Wow. I opened this thread not expecting a heated debate.

Anyway, I'll just quickly add a thought. And that is to say, if science explains everything, how does it explain free will and self-consciousness? Are we all products of external stimuli, atomic collisions, and quantum interactions? Are our decisions predetermined, or probabilistically determined (if you consider quantum physics)?

The most popular scientific theory that accommodates self-consciousness (but still doesn't explain free will) is something called Emergentism. Basically, it says, put a whole bunch of molecules together in a complicated enough fashion and it becomes self-aware. We don't know how, but it just does. Nor can we predict the arrangement of said molecules to produce such self-awareness. In fact, it doesn't even have to be molecules, it can be anything. Self-awareness just... happens.

This has been the inspiration for Jane (in the Ender's Game series) and rogue computer programs in various movies (i.e. Eagle Eye, I, Robot).

Can you really write software that can become self-aware, and undertake actions of free will?

So those who are religious believe in God (or some higher power). Those who are atheists most commonly believe in Emergentism (which I find harder to swallow). I believe that, more likely than not, there are things in this universe that no human can comprehend no matter how hard he/she thinks.

There's your answer.