Science v. God

[mnaz]

Bible? Again, the Bible, like religion(s), is not what I'm on about here. The Bible is a Middle Eastern region's history, literature, and philosophical/religious (more than one religion) teaching, along with various rants/visions of "prophets"--portrayed as able to communicate directly with a supreme entity-- beginning with the Creation fables in Genesis and the long saga of the Jewish exodus and doomed kingdom, and finishing with the spread of a New church under Paul and whacked-out visions of apocalypse.

The Bible stands on its own as one of mankind's most remarkable works, but it is only theologians who specifically link the Bible to religious theology, who take the accounts and depictions of "God" and deistic/theologic phenomena such as the Ascension and Antichrist literally, concretely, where it is perfectly reasonable IMO to argue that such depictions and phenomena are more meaningfully taken metaphorically. Theologians make the Bible try to fit their theology and only theirs. True enough. But that's not what I'm getting at. I simply wonder about "God" as a kind of omnipresent, sub-sub-atomic junction of mystic/spiritual and scientific planes/dimensions. Even if one dismisses such a notion out of hand, it would still seem an interesting conception to wrap one's brain around.

Right now, I think I'm going to wrap my hands around a cold beer and maybe a shot o' wiskee. Just one, though. That's my religion for now.... ha!!

Ooops... spelled "cold" wrong...

[stilltrucking]

I think i am going to wrap jaws around a tomato and lettuce salad.

mnaz said consciousness is

like an overripe tomato, generally noted and tossed-- a continuum of sorts. Science will try to measure it, plot it, date it, erect it into some groundbreaking edifice. Who said anything about religion? Religion is particles.

it is a meaty tomato consciousness is.

cheers on your beers

[mnaz]

Sorry to kick this one back up, but I found another of Marksman's old related lk threads ('tho this still isn't the one I was thinking of)...


http://www.litkicks.com/msgArchive.php?message=390844

Carry on...

[Marksman45]

Okay, I haven't read this whole thing yet (damn, but there's a lot of it!) but I have a few thoughts to throw in.

Let's tackle the word "god" first. It comes from the Anglo-Saxon "god" (pronounced with a sort of long "O" sound), which means the following things:

1. good, as in skilled, powerful, competent
2. good, as in beneficial, satisfying, conducive to survival
3. god, as in one who is skilled, powerful, competent, to a degree far beyond humans (especially referring to the gods Wotan, Thunor, Logi, etc.)
4. (after the Anglo-Saxons converted) god, as in Jehovah, who matches all of the above (this is the usage you will find in Beowulf)

I get a lot of mileage out of semantics and etymology, so that up there is mind-blowing for me. "A god" is just something that is more powerful than humans, and "good" either means beneficial to humans or just plain powerful, and occasionally both.

Now, when you're talking about a god, it is impossible to excise the concept from the wider frame of magic (because, when the word was invented, magic was taken for granted). You can try, and all you get is a contradictive mish-mash (witness the majority of Christian dogma) because you've excised all the bits that resolve the paradoxes. It all becomes so much clearer when you look at it from a full-on magical worldview.

What exactly constitutes a magical worldview? Let me compare it to a rational worldview. If I hold in my hand a knife, the rational worldview says that in my hand I am holding an object that has been termed a knife. However, by a magical worldview, it's not "a knife" at all, and it's not even an object--there's no such thing. What I am holding in my hand (which is not even "my hand") is a symbol that represents the concept of KNIFE. The magician may still call it "a knife," but with the understanding that the name is shorthand for what is really going on (language does not equal communication).

Now, a symbol consists of two parts: the vehicle and the intent, or the agent and the will. In this case, the vehicle is simple: it is this thing in my hand that we perceive as having a handle and a blade. So what is the intent of KNIFE? In what way does KNIFE manifest/emanate/express (those three words are interchangeable in magical terms) power--which is to say, what is the virtue of a knife? Simple: the virtue of a knife is that it cuts.

This simple thought exercise illustrates the basis of the magical worldview: that all existence is just power and its expression, and that nothing happens unless it is willed to happen (everything has a will). Furthermore, it demonstrates that the vehicle and intent are in fact separable, and thus "a knife" could be endowed with other virtues; a knife can heal, detect, guide, etc. And other things can cut; a shard of glass, a beam of focused light, a hand, a thought, a word.

What am I getting at with this? Here's some hints:
What is the virtue of a car?
What is the virtue of a light switch?
What is the virtue of an atom?

See what I'm getting at now?
Magic vs. science is a false dichotomy.
In fact, science can be entirely subsumed into magic.

[mnaz]

Marksman. Thanks. I shall ponder your rational v. magical world view. I need to chew on that for awhile.

You know, I always found it ironic that many Christians found the "Harry Potter" series so distasteful and threatening, but then it's probably not because they disbelieve a "magical" dimension to their faith, but rather, magic or "miracles" should be the exclusive province of the one Almighty God, not of wizards and witches...

I appreciate you taking the time to read and share your thoughts.
Thanks again.

[Marksman45]

You know, I always found it ironic that many Christians found the "Harry Potter" series so distasteful and threatening, but then it's probably not because they disbelieve a "magical" dimension to their faith, but rather, magic or "miracles" should be the exclusive province of the one Almighty God, not of wizards and witches...

Funny thing is, magic's not actually forbidden by the Bible; that dogma results from mistranslations. Certain kinds of magic are forbidden, but not all occult arts. Which I find highly interesting.

Oh, and there's another non-rational worldview that I know of, the animistic worldview, but my understanding of it isn't as thorough. It's not about linear causality (like the rational worldview) or synchronous causality (like the magical worldview); it's about relative causality. That is, things happen to you based on your relationships with other things. The deer presents itself to be shot by your bow and arrow not because it walked to spot X and so did you (rational) or because you conquered its will (magical), but because of your relationship with that deer, and deer in general. In tracking the deer, you were not following the prints it left in order to deduce its current location (rational) or symbolically defeating its efforts to elude you (magical), but you were becoming the deer, which is to say, strengthening your relationship with it. Neat, huh?

Most "primitive" peoples, from the Native Americans to the Picts, had (or have, in a few cases) an animistic worldview (although a lot of their sorcerers would seem to have had a magical worldview); for the most part, the magical worldview seems to be limited mostly to Asia, the Arabian peninsula, and Europe; and the rational worldview seems to have started in Greece and gradually spread from there. (Of course, I am merely an armchair anthropologist)

There's probably worldviews that don't fit into any of those three categories as well; at least I hope there are. I would find it heartening.

[stilltrucking]

speaking of he bible
marksman on the bible
I like this one a lot
http://www.litkicks.com/msgArchive.php?message=496905

Read a review of a book called Cosmic Jackpot. Quantum physics. How the universe became just right for life, how the present changes the past all the way back to the big bang. Not sure where that fits on the magic to science scale. called the anthropic principle.