Despite my upbringing, I used to be an atheist. Now, like Mark Zuckerberg, I've had a rethink

[rug]

The Facebook founder revealed that he does not consider himself an an atheist and believes religion to be 'very important – and I agree

Sarah Graham
27 minutes ago

The festive period is always a bit of a weird time for non-religious people who, like me, were raised in religious families. I haven't attended Church regularly since I was 16, but I'm still enchanted by the magic of a Christmas Eve midnight service – the candlelight and the carols, and the chance to hug and kiss lifelong friends as the clock strikes midnight.

So I can understand how Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, who was brought up in a Jewish household, came to the conclusion, after “a period of questioning things”, that he does not consider himself an atheist. Like him, the older I get, the more I believe that religion really can be “very important”.

Of course, Zuckerberg has inevitably come in for questioning over his comments, and I can understand that too. Religion has a lot to answer for, from the spreading of discrimination and prejudice, to division, hatred and conflict. It was a combination of division and doubt that first drove me away from the Church as a teenager – but I've also seen first-hand how powerful religion can be as a source of love, support and strength.

In November I lost someone whose impact on my life has been far bigger than Carrie Fisher, George Michael or David Bowie. My Aunty Grace was a shining beacon of light in my childhood and teens, a woman of enormous warmth, strength, hospitality and, above all, faith. At her funeral, sat between my mother and grandmother, I was struck by how many people described her as “Christ-like”. The term made me cringe at first – until I thought more deeply about what it means.

http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/mark-zuckerbeg-not-an-atheist-christianity-judaism-a7502561.html

[ffr]

1. Being an atheist is a thought process, less of a position.

It's the questions of solving for synthetic a-priori, knowledge before the fact, that along with terms from our dictionary that are the problem.

Definition. How do natural and supernatural Worlds interact? By definition, there is one or the other. If you believe there are both, by definition they cannot interact in definition form, so everything would be supernatural in order to satisfy the supernatural interaction in the natural World.

So how could one know of anything supernatural while living in a natural World? More along that, how could you know without being told and if you weren't told, how could you come to the exact same conclusion about the supernatural World that others appear to have?

The answer is, you probably wouldn't come to the same conclusion, simply because we aren't endowed with knowledge before the fact of the supernatural. It is taught.

[rug]

2. This post is so much better than writing about "invisible sky daddies".

[guillaumeb]

3. Is it really a conflict between natural and supernatural,

because both could theoretically be present in the same universe.

Given that supernatural is defined as that which cannot be understood by science, that does not preclude both from existing simultaneously. It simply means that the tools of science cannot unlock the door of the supernatural.

And the fact that a desire to know about the supernatural seems to be present in every human society, both past and present, suggests that most societies do come to the conclusion that the universe was created by some entity. The names and the attributes may change, but the idea seems to be a constant. As if consciousness and sentience automatically lead to a supernatural conclusion.

[TreasonousBastard]

4. I keep thinking about dimensions...

We are unable to conceive of what a four dimensional universe would be like, although there is no reason to believe that four- five- and higher dimensional universes don't exist.

The supernatural would be simply the natural in a higher dimension.

And, well, God would simply be that being who owns our little part of their world.

[guillaumeb]

5. An interesting thought.

Like nesting dolls.

[AtheistCrusader]

7. Who says we can't conceive of a four-dimensional universe?

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/blogs/physics/2014/04/how-many-dimensions-does-the-universe-really-have/

Watch PBS more.

[TreasonousBastard]

16. OK, now draw me a picture of a four-dimensional structure...

Mathematics takes us into strange places, like the cube root of -6. Visualize that.

Or 3 beans -5 beans = -2 beans. Quite logical, but can you cook -2 beans?

Missed the PBS specials, but I read Flatland years ago, and Ouspensky's description of a plane universe, which lead directly to questions about higher dimensions. It's interesting that now we have Hadron colliders working on explaining dimensional concepts-- but we still haven't broken whatever boundaries exist between us and them.

I don't remember the name of the physicist who said he actually managed to visualize dimensions up to maybe 6 or so, but couldn't describe them so they made sense to the rest of us mortals.

[AtheistCrusader]

17. Let me google that for you.

http://www.gang.umass.edu/~lawrence/downloads/four-1.0.3.pdf
I like figure 30. Adding motion to a drawing isn't the easiest thing, but it can be done.

This is an animation of a four dimensional object.

It's called a tesseract.

Different visualization of a similar 4-d shape. it's not just a rotating gem if you look carefully.

[TreasonousBastard]

18. OK, I forgot about tesseracts. But, as useful as they are in computer networks...

where some other odd quantum things are going on, these are still simply 3D representations of 4D structures.

I've heard arguments that the final dimension is time, but as cute as that may be, it sounds too much like desperation.

We mere mortals simply cannot see into or consciously move around in higher dimensions.

[AtheistCrusader]

20. But your original claim was

"We are unable to conceive of what a four dimensional universe would be like"

To which I strenuously disagree. We may even eventually be able to peer into such a realm much the same way we use X-rays or magnetic fields to peer into solid matter.

[TreasonousBastard]

21. So? Can we really conceive of what it would be like to live in more dimensions? We might be...

able to imagine such things in science fiction, but this is going back to the God question asked here and there still is no answer to those possible higher dimensional beings who could be invisibly floating around up there.

Staying in the realm of sci-fi, Heaven, Nirvana and other states of grace could be opening our minds to see these things. "God" simply the owner of this particular toaster or table we are living in but can't experience at this point.

Just "could be". Mere speculation.

[AtheistCrusader]

22. Yeah, I saw the end of Men in Black as well.

Im not impressed. We couldn't fly 120 years ago. We have autonomous machines beyond the edges of the solar system gathering information for us and sending it back.

Information about forces no human eye can directly 'see' even if we hiked all the way out there.

I see no reason to think that if additional dimensions really exist and aren't just mathematical constructs, we won't be able to devise a way to identify their properties and maybe even explore them.

[Goblinmonger]

23. I immediately thought tesseract.

Someone needs to watch more Avengers movies before they claim we can't visualize these things. I know the Avengers are pretty obscure, though.

[AtheistCrusader]

6. I find that 'the tools of science cannot unlock the door of the supernatural' is merely a

defensive position of religious people who can't prove their claims of supernatural things that supposedly exist.

Merriam-Webster:
Definition of supernatural

1: of or relating to an order of existence beyond the visible observable universe; especially
: of or relating to God or a god, demigod, spirit, or devil

2a: departing from what is usual or normal especially so as to appear to transcend the laws of nature
b: attributed to an invisible agent (as a ghost or spirit)


Your 'given' definition of supernatural; isn't.

[guillaumeb]

8. Confusion?

What I said:

Given that supernatural is defined as that which cannot be understood by science, that does not preclude both from existing simultaneously. It simply means that the tools of science cannot unlock the door of the supernatural.

And your definition says:

1: of or relating to an order of existence beyond the visible observable universe; especially
: of or relating to God or a god, demigod, spirit, or devil

2a: departing from what is usual or normal especially so as to appear to transcend the laws of nature
b: attributed to an invisible agent (as a ghost or spirit)

A careful reading of what I said fits easily within the dictionary definition that you quoted. Yes, I used different words, but the idea that the supernatural cannot be understood by science is contained in number 1 and 2.

[AtheistCrusader]

9. How small your view of science.

Even if we cannot directly perceive a supposed supernatural being, if it really did have anything to do with 'creating the universe', that doesn't preclude our detecting its toolmarks upon our universe.

Identifying something that happened that cannot happen by random probability or natural process, would be a good way to establish an outside supernatural influence. Cosmologists are essentially working on that problem every day.


This is essentially the origins of the 'god of the gaps' argument, where everything we didn't understand was attributed to god, and evidence thereof. Problem is, the gaps keep getting smaller and so far we haven't found any that simply defy any/all explanation. They are simply large bodies of work that require more groundwork.

The only scenario science might not be able to detect, is a supernatural being that didn't create us, our universe or anything, and doesn't care about our universe and doesn't interact with it.

But even that's not a given.

[guillaumeb]

12. Let us examine your argument:

First,

that doesn't preclude our detecting its toolmarks upon our universe.

And what precisely would these tool marks look like?

Second,

Identifying something that happened that cannot happen by random probability or natural process, would be a good way to establish an outside supernatural influence. Cosmologists are essentially working on that problem every day.

And what is the random probability of a big bang explosion? What is the natural process that would culminate in such a big bang? What natural process caused existence to appear?

Last,

How does science explore what preceded the big bang?

[AtheistCrusader]

13. Creationists hypothesized some.

So far they've all been invalidated. One was the claim that we were created apart from the rest of the animals, special in some way. In this sense, a 'tool mark' would perhaps have been organized DNA that contained no legacy evolutionary data. unfortunately for them, our DNA does contain legacy data. They got all excited about the fact we have 23 chromosome pairs, and the rest of the great ape family has 24 pairs. Then the sequencing of human and chimp DNA was complete, and we could see that we have one fewer pair, because one ape chromosome pair fused head to head with another to produce human chromosome 2, with inactivated telomeres and one inactive centromere and a bunch of inactivated stuff that shows exactly what one would expect if we were evolved from a common ancestor along with the rest of the great ape family.

That doesn't rule out all aspects of all possible supernatural gods, but that's an opportunity where a 'toolmark' from a creator may have shown up, but it didn't. We could have pristine, non-legacy, non-evolved DNA as if a creator manufactured our genome whole, apart from the rest of creation, but we don't.

So, there's an example.

So far, our universe doesn't appear to bear any unexplainable toolmarks. We keep looking though.

"And what is the random probability of a big bang explosion? What is the natural process that would culminate in such a big bang? What natural process caused existence to appear?"

Insufficient information at this time to calculate probability. The probability could in fact, be one in one, looking at your second question. The natural process may be instability. Cosmologists and physicists currently suspect that true 'nothingness' is unstable. A universe may be the unavoidable consequence of nothingness. When I say nothingness, I don't mean empty space, I mean absent even a quantum foam. True nothing.

And if that probability is in fact, one, then the following is likely too:
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/physics/elegant-universe.html

[AtheistCrusader]

11. To put it another way

1. There's no reason to think we can't detect an order of existence beyond the visible observable universe. (Unless, contrary to the beliefs of most religious people, it doesn't interact with our universe at all)
2. There's no reason to think we can't detect things that transcend the laws of nature.


Shit, they're testing an EM drive for spaceships and we have NO idea how it works. Violates all *known* laws of physics.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/next/space/improbable-thruster-seems-work-violating-known-laws-physics/

Like TreasonousBastard, you should watch PBS more.

[ffr]

10. To some extent that is true, we cannot disprove that the supernatural does not exist

All we can do is reason and define based on what we can test and prove ourselves.

The leap your second paragraph takes however, is inconsistent with the scientific method. What societies choose to share amongst themselves is irrelevant to forming a conclusion. The question must be answered based on what you know, ONLY. How would you know of the existence of the supernatural while living in a natural World? Again, by definition, these Worlds do not and can not interact. So where is the leap to synthetic a-priori knowledge, knowledge before the fact about something you cannot know about? If you hold that you are unable to know, what difference does it make that others in society share attributes about supernatural deities of one form or another? You have not drawn the same conclusion as they have on your own. And if you put those other people to the same test, they will have failed to form their conclusions based on their own leap of synthetic a-priori knowledge as well.

The only reliable conclusion to be drawn about what others have concluded is that their reasoning is flawed, not scientific, and they were taught.

[jonno99]

14. "Again, by definition, these Worlds do not and can not interact"

The above definition is flawed.

It is reasonable to conclude that we cannot interact with the supernatural word. However, it is unreasonable to define the constraints of the supernatural world - should it exist.

[ffr]

15. Unreasonable, you say? We only have our dictionary of terms.

Seems simple and straightforward enough.

Natural.

Supernatural.

If you're implying the supernatural would, by its own recognition be undefinable, then we would have to assume that there is no natural World then and that there is only the supernatural World with which we all live; it is undefinable and it is there. If so, we should have evidence of the supernatural in testable form to prove theories. It's one or the other. One cannot dilute the other.

[jonno99]

19. I did not imply the following:

If you're implying the supernatural would, by its own recognition be undefinable

rather...

You stated:

...these Worlds do not and can not interact

My point is simply that there is no basis for determining what the supernatural world cannot do.