I'm going to skip parts where you didn't ask a question, such as in the beginning. If I miss something you feel you'd prefer answered, please ask me again and forgive me for missing it the first time. 
It's the sheer scale of it, and realizing that our entire solar system, from the sun to the planets to the tiniest atom of carbon in my body, was made by the process of nuclear fusion in a now-dead star system, many trillion miles away. It's a connection with the rest of the galaxy that our ancestors could only (at best) have guessed existed. I find most knowledge of this sort fascinating and awe-inspiring. It's why I studied science in the first place.
That's pretty much it, to be honest (except for the last paragraph). Not only are anger, joy, and happiness "just" chemical reactions (which can be seen in brain scans in predictable regions of the brain in all humans), but we're learning a lot more about the way the brain works in terms of us not having the degree of autonomous control over our instinctive reactions as we like to imagine we do. There's quite a lot of debate going on about to what degree we're in control of our own brains, so I'll leave that to the experts, but there's really no question that all of the things we once ascribed to the concept of a "soul" are in fact "simply" brain chemistry.
Of course, to whatever degree we have conscious control of ourselves, we should exercise that control in being better to one another, since we evolved as a social species capable of being moral actors (we also see moral actors in other intelligent, social species, as confirmed by scientific studies on that subject). The fact that it's "just" brain chemistry doesn't diminish the beauty or importance of our self-valuation of the products of these emotions and interactions with other humans, any more than knowing that the sun is just a fusion reaction at the heart of a huge ball of hydrogen diminishes the beauty of a sunset-- especially one viewed with your mate amid some hugs and tender kisses. We humans do and must assign values to the inanimate, the meaningless, but it doesn't diminish them because they have no innate value of their own. I have never understood why people think otherwise.
I even agree with your premise that (presuming God exists for the sake of argument) then "knowing how things function doesn't remove the fact that God is doing it", except that I don't think God has to use magic to make things happen, if the Creator set everything up (including our brain chemistry) to function naturally, from the very beginning.
Just because life is not inherently meaningful in some external, transcendental way does not make it utterly meaningless. A painting by a dead artist is 100% meaningless, in a literal sense: it's just smears of various-colored pigments, suspended in oil and scraped almost at random over a canvas. It has no value of its own... but human appreciation of that artwork is what gives it its value, and what gives the world a Picasso or a Van Gogh. It need not be things created by humans, either: the beauty of the Natural Bridge in the state park of the same name in Kentucky is awe-inspiring to see for yourself, but it was not made by anything other than time and erosion. And that's okay!
I can never figure out why people deny the human power to assign real meaning to things which do not possess meaning on their own. A rock by itself may have zero inherent meaning, but to a lonely child who makes it a "pet rock", it may have all the meaning in the world.
The interpretation is often wrong, at least a little. That's why we only believe things to the degree they have been proved/demonstrated. That's why science is a process of continually questioning old ideas with new data and new potential interpretations (models) to fit those data. That's why we reward those who overturn old ideas and replace them with better ones. That's why we feel confident (as much as possible) in what we have demonstrated to be a functional explanation of natural phenomena. It's about what means are used to eliminate the bias, and see if the truth can be arrived at by more objective means via consensus.
The difference is that the religious are a group with a unified explanation pre-sorted and pre-ordered as they are being presented to them in the Holy Scriptures, which are unquestionable (to them), and therefore constitute a uniform filter that the whole group employs at all time. The scientists, on the other hand, only come with their basic human filters and prejudices, scattered across the entire spectrum of humanity, and they have no uniform ideological dogma to protect. A scientist from communist China is not going to agree with a scientist who is a Jesuit monk from Italy, and neither of them are going to agree with a Buddhist from the US Midwest, et cetera. They will all approach the methodology of the published paper with skepticism and will accept the conclusions of new papers only to the degree warranted-- and they will writer their own counter-papers to show the Italian monk is wrong, for instance, and why.
What makes me angriest, as a scientist by training, is to see groups who don't have a real explanatory model, just a story that claims to explain by magical means, taking that story and holding it up as if it is a plausible counter-explanation of equal credibility to the scientific models carefully constructed by groups of scientists who have no reason to agree with one another. They manipulate their audiences by the use of scientific-sounding authorities which are in fact misrepresentations of either what a real scientist said, or some stuffed shirt with a bad degree who tries to pretend to be an authority in order to fool most of the people (who won't pay attention to what real scientists have to say, or notice that the Authority being quoted is out of step with everyone else in the field), just so they can keep people from "falling away" into scientific thinking about the world, as if that is contrary to God.
It IS contrary to God as they (and the Iron Age Israelites) imagined it to be, true... but if there is in fact a Creator, then science is the best method of finding out the actions of that Creator, not the best imaginings of Iron Age goat herder priests.
Think of it: if evolution is correct, and we are "just" animals like every other nipple-having mammal on the planet, then mankind is the first animal to rise up enough to recognize his Creator (and in some cases to deny the same, heh) and give worship to the source of all life, of which he is an integral part. It means we are both animal and a transcendent being, which made us worthy of the Creator's notice, and love. To accept evolution as the mechanism of Creation, and our relationship with the rest of life on earth, does not diminish God or man.
(May 17, 2016 at 7:38 am)Rekeisha Wrote: That is amazing. Other than what you just explained with the science, why do you find this to be neat? (don't mean this to be a cold or poking question I would like to know from your point of view why this excites you)
It's the sheer scale of it, and realizing that our entire solar system, from the sun to the planets to the tiniest atom of carbon in my body, was made by the process of nuclear fusion in a now-dead star system, many trillion miles away. It's a connection with the rest of the galaxy that our ancestors could only (at best) have guessed existed. I find most knowledge of this sort fascinating and awe-inspiring. It's why I studied science in the first place.
(May 17, 2016 at 7:38 am)Rekeisha Wrote: I know you don't think life is meaningless. Here is my train of thought of why I see a Godless universe as meaningless. Please point to were you disagree so that I can understand you better.
By some way or another matter and material exists and they react in predictable ways. Since that is true worlds/galaxies are here, including our planet is created. Then through some unknown process life exists. We humans are lucky and make it to the top of the world system through simi-directed changes of natural selection and chemistry. So then applying these statements to daily life now we can suppose several things. Emotions and thoughts are nothing more than chemical reactions that have evolved in the human species. The whole of life is a chemical reaction. This means that there is no right or wrong just chemical reactions. Your self ascribe "purpose" would also be the chemical reactions in your mind, one given you by the inner workings of natural selection, as is all or your thoughts and emotions. One day your body dies, because the right chemical reactions stop, and you end up decaying. People will have chemical reactions over your death and the cycle of chemical reactions will continue. Simple stoic strait forward premise.
My question is, "is that true?" Is your love, anger, joy, happiness just chemical reactions? Do you have any control over your life or are all of your life's decisions just how you have evolved. If it isn't just chemistry then what are emotions and what are thoughts?
I believe that God is still miraculous in the daily workings of life. Knowing how things function doesn't remove the fact that God is doing it. God has made us to be physical, emotional and spiritual beings. All aspects of our being affect the other and the spiritual realm can not be proved by the physical because it holds different properties. Although it points to God and the spiritual affects both the physical and the mind.
That's pretty much it, to be honest (except for the last paragraph). Not only are anger, joy, and happiness "just" chemical reactions (which can be seen in brain scans in predictable regions of the brain in all humans), but we're learning a lot more about the way the brain works in terms of us not having the degree of autonomous control over our instinctive reactions as we like to imagine we do. There's quite a lot of debate going on about to what degree we're in control of our own brains, so I'll leave that to the experts, but there's really no question that all of the things we once ascribed to the concept of a "soul" are in fact "simply" brain chemistry.
Of course, to whatever degree we have conscious control of ourselves, we should exercise that control in being better to one another, since we evolved as a social species capable of being moral actors (we also see moral actors in other intelligent, social species, as confirmed by scientific studies on that subject). The fact that it's "just" brain chemistry doesn't diminish the beauty or importance of our self-valuation of the products of these emotions and interactions with other humans, any more than knowing that the sun is just a fusion reaction at the heart of a huge ball of hydrogen diminishes the beauty of a sunset-- especially one viewed with your mate amid some hugs and tender kisses. We humans do and must assign values to the inanimate, the meaningless, but it doesn't diminish them because they have no innate value of their own. I have never understood why people think otherwise.
I even agree with your premise that (presuming God exists for the sake of argument) then "knowing how things function doesn't remove the fact that God is doing it", except that I don't think God has to use magic to make things happen, if the Creator set everything up (including our brain chemistry) to function naturally, from the very beginning.
Just because life is not inherently meaningful in some external, transcendental way does not make it utterly meaningless. A painting by a dead artist is 100% meaningless, in a literal sense: it's just smears of various-colored pigments, suspended in oil and scraped almost at random over a canvas. It has no value of its own... but human appreciation of that artwork is what gives it its value, and what gives the world a Picasso or a Van Gogh. It need not be things created by humans, either: the beauty of the Natural Bridge in the state park of the same name in Kentucky is awe-inspiring to see for yourself, but it was not made by anything other than time and erosion. And that's okay!
I can never figure out why people deny the human power to assign real meaning to things which do not possess meaning on their own. A rock by itself may have zero inherent meaning, but to a lonely child who makes it a "pet rock", it may have all the meaning in the world.
(May 17, 2016 at 7:38 am)Rekeisha Wrote: I believe that there is a need for peer review but the problem is what if the peers are wrong. Lets say all of the science is right but the interpretation is wrong. Your filters effect what you want to see or don't want to see. People don't like to be wrong and even if there is overwhelming evidence for the truth the fear of being rejected by peers may cause them to get in line instead of pushing against the system.
The interpretation is often wrong, at least a little. That's why we only believe things to the degree they have been proved/demonstrated. That's why science is a process of continually questioning old ideas with new data and new potential interpretations (models) to fit those data. That's why we reward those who overturn old ideas and replace them with better ones. That's why we feel confident (as much as possible) in what we have demonstrated to be a functional explanation of natural phenomena. It's about what means are used to eliminate the bias, and see if the truth can be arrived at by more objective means via consensus.
The difference is that the religious are a group with a unified explanation pre-sorted and pre-ordered as they are being presented to them in the Holy Scriptures, which are unquestionable (to them), and therefore constitute a uniform filter that the whole group employs at all time. The scientists, on the other hand, only come with their basic human filters and prejudices, scattered across the entire spectrum of humanity, and they have no uniform ideological dogma to protect. A scientist from communist China is not going to agree with a scientist who is a Jesuit monk from Italy, and neither of them are going to agree with a Buddhist from the US Midwest, et cetera. They will all approach the methodology of the published paper with skepticism and will accept the conclusions of new papers only to the degree warranted-- and they will writer their own counter-papers to show the Italian monk is wrong, for instance, and why.
What makes me angriest, as a scientist by training, is to see groups who don't have a real explanatory model, just a story that claims to explain by magical means, taking that story and holding it up as if it is a plausible counter-explanation of equal credibility to the scientific models carefully constructed by groups of scientists who have no reason to agree with one another. They manipulate their audiences by the use of scientific-sounding authorities which are in fact misrepresentations of either what a real scientist said, or some stuffed shirt with a bad degree who tries to pretend to be an authority in order to fool most of the people (who won't pay attention to what real scientists have to say, or notice that the Authority being quoted is out of step with everyone else in the field), just so they can keep people from "falling away" into scientific thinking about the world, as if that is contrary to God.
It IS contrary to God as they (and the Iron Age Israelites) imagined it to be, true... but if there is in fact a Creator, then science is the best method of finding out the actions of that Creator, not the best imaginings of Iron Age goat herder priests.
Think of it: if evolution is correct, and we are "just" animals like every other nipple-having mammal on the planet, then mankind is the first animal to rise up enough to recognize his Creator (and in some cases to deny the same, heh) and give worship to the source of all life, of which he is an integral part. It means we are both animal and a transcendent being, which made us worthy of the Creator's notice, and love. To accept evolution as the mechanism of Creation, and our relationship with the rest of life on earth, does not diminish God or man.
A Christian told me: if you were saved you cant lose your salvation. you're sealed with the Holy Ghost
I replied: Can I refuse? Because I find the entire concept of vicarious blood sacrifice atonement to be morally abhorrent, the concept of holding flawed creatures permanently accountable for social misbehaviors and thought crimes to be morally abhorrent, and the concept of calling something "free" when it comes with the strings of subjugation and obedience perhaps the most morally abhorrent of all... and that's without even going into the history of justifying genocide, slavery, rape, misogyny, religious intolerance, and suppression of free speech which has been attributed by your own scriptures to your deity. I want a refund. I would burn happily rather than serve the monster you profess to love.
I replied: Can I refuse? Because I find the entire concept of vicarious blood sacrifice atonement to be morally abhorrent, the concept of holding flawed creatures permanently accountable for social misbehaviors and thought crimes to be morally abhorrent, and the concept of calling something "free" when it comes with the strings of subjugation and obedience perhaps the most morally abhorrent of all... and that's without even going into the history of justifying genocide, slavery, rape, misogyny, religious intolerance, and suppression of free speech which has been attributed by your own scriptures to your deity. I want a refund. I would burn happily rather than serve the monster you profess to love.
