Thank you for your input thus far. Captain colostomy, I must admit that I am very young and naive in my specifically philosophical aspects of my search, and it was rather late at night. I was admitably reaching for an analogous rhetoric to serve my point, and quite obviously now, it was flawed. That will likely be the last time that I use that example to demonstrate my ideology.
Aractus, thank you for your input as well. I have heard such a stance before. As with the handful of the leading American scientists, 83% of them are atheist or strongly agnostic, which leaves 17% of them with a personal god Of sorts. While I can appreciate freedom of religion, within my own search I have found absolutely no place for especially the Christian Bible's depiction of a God. Which leads me to pose the difficult question, not why 83% of leading physicists and biologists are atheist, but why 17% aren't, including your Australian fellow's example?
Now without a detailed personal background and psychological evaluation I can only infer a few theories. But I consider it largely to be a remnant of social tendency/cultural tradition. I mean of course there is the rather tired idea that if the gentleman were a physicist reigning from India, yet were still a leading astrophysicist, he would be incredibly likely to believe a quite seperate creed (and I've witnessed many leaders in feilds of science to be spiritual Hindus).
Now I appreciate the attempted connection between science and faith, but a lengthly scientific resume and great track record for producing leaders and their advisors does nothing to prove the faith based creed itself. Quite honestly to me it demonstrates what is wrong with our way of thinking perfectly. I've seen in History many examples of revolutionary physicists who discovered groundbreaking results in the ways of early astrology, biology and the like who at the ends of their knowledge and scientific ability quite invariably chalked the rest of their unknown variables up to "an element of the heavens" or something like that, only to be followed up by the next most ambitious gentleman who completed more in the field without having to use god at all (but the cycles tends to repeat quite a bit).
This becomes a sort of God of the gaps conclusion. While we know an increasing amount about the clockwork of the universe, and continue to ask better and better questions, many of us still find it necessary and quite reasonable to allow an ideology which has long since been disproven a hundred times over to continue to propigate in even some of our most scientific and cultured geniuses. Now I am in no place of authority to infallibly conclude that there is no such thing as an unseen embodiment of universal consciousness, or a relativistic deity of some sort, I disown almost entirely the popular creeds of modern belief. They all make mutually exclusive, evidence lacking claims about the nature of the earth and heavens which for some reason even our most intelligent fellow men continue to accept.
This may not be the best example but especially in American culture, belief in God is nearly ubiquitous in big politics, and there have been only a handful of presidents who have varied from the belief in a Christian God, this doesn't prove anything about the Christian faith when looked at simply by track record.
And lastly, Fidel_Castronaut, thank you for your contribution. I shall look into that ideology.
Aractus, thank you for your input as well. I have heard such a stance before. As with the handful of the leading American scientists, 83% of them are atheist or strongly agnostic, which leaves 17% of them with a personal god Of sorts. While I can appreciate freedom of religion, within my own search I have found absolutely no place for especially the Christian Bible's depiction of a God. Which leads me to pose the difficult question, not why 83% of leading physicists and biologists are atheist, but why 17% aren't, including your Australian fellow's example?
Now without a detailed personal background and psychological evaluation I can only infer a few theories. But I consider it largely to be a remnant of social tendency/cultural tradition. I mean of course there is the rather tired idea that if the gentleman were a physicist reigning from India, yet were still a leading astrophysicist, he would be incredibly likely to believe a quite seperate creed (and I've witnessed many leaders in feilds of science to be spiritual Hindus).
Now I appreciate the attempted connection between science and faith, but a lengthly scientific resume and great track record for producing leaders and their advisors does nothing to prove the faith based creed itself. Quite honestly to me it demonstrates what is wrong with our way of thinking perfectly. I've seen in History many examples of revolutionary physicists who discovered groundbreaking results in the ways of early astrology, biology and the like who at the ends of their knowledge and scientific ability quite invariably chalked the rest of their unknown variables up to "an element of the heavens" or something like that, only to be followed up by the next most ambitious gentleman who completed more in the field without having to use god at all (but the cycles tends to repeat quite a bit).
This becomes a sort of God of the gaps conclusion. While we know an increasing amount about the clockwork of the universe, and continue to ask better and better questions, many of us still find it necessary and quite reasonable to allow an ideology which has long since been disproven a hundred times over to continue to propigate in even some of our most scientific and cultured geniuses. Now I am in no place of authority to infallibly conclude that there is no such thing as an unseen embodiment of universal consciousness, or a relativistic deity of some sort, I disown almost entirely the popular creeds of modern belief. They all make mutually exclusive, evidence lacking claims about the nature of the earth and heavens which for some reason even our most intelligent fellow men continue to accept.
This may not be the best example but especially in American culture, belief in God is nearly ubiquitous in big politics, and there have been only a handful of presidents who have varied from the belief in a Christian God, this doesn't prove anything about the Christian faith when looked at simply by track record.
And lastly, Fidel_Castronaut, thank you for your contribution. I shall look into that ideology.
