Sam Harris: OnFaith

I guess this is a series of articles he's been publishing. This one is interesting, all though it seems kind of obvious, considering what we've been discussing here already. But it does include this gem. (I just love list)

How to Believe in God
Six Easy Steps

1. First, you must want to believe in God.
2. Next, understand that believing in God in the absence of evidence is especially noble.
3. Then, realize that the human ability to believe in God in the absence of evidence might itself constitute evidence for the existence of God.
4. Now consider any need for further evidence (both in yourself and in others) to be a form of temptation, spiritually unhealthy, or a corruption of the intellect.
5. Refer to steps 2-4 as acts of “faith.”
6. Return to 2.

One thing I'm starting to notice and get a bit annoyed by with these guys (Sam Harris, Richard Dawkins, etc.) is the fact that they have to say the same stuff over and over again. I'm pretty sure it annoys them as well but sometimes I just wish we could move on and talk about stuff that matters. But then again maybe this is the stuff that matters?

Doubts are natural

I think doubting your faith is natural, stagnation allows no view point to thrive. I don't know how compleately I agree with Rev. Honey, but he has some great, well put points. This is from the TED coference a while ago. There are newer videos on tons of subjects, and I'm sure Jeph will direct you to the Richard Dawkins stuff. Enjoy.


http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/view/id/112

Also...

This subject seems real interesting to me. The Singularity. A culmination of technology and science to some kind of new stage of living? I'm going to look into it some more and make a comment.

Here's a concept...

Black Sun Journal, has a nice piece on a pastor who "understands" atheist.

Books!

I was thinking it would be a good idea to put together a reading list. Just a list of books that you have read that have personally helped shape your belief. They can be classics or niche books doesn't matter, but I know I would be interested in broadening my perspectives. So I'll start with a few of my favorites and you can respond in the comments and I'll try and put something together.

So I going to list the books that I feel have been really instrumental in shaping the way I think, and then I'll throw in a few I just like.

The Bible - God(?)
The Dhammapada - Buddha(?)
Tao Te Ching - Lao Tzu
Siddhartha - Herman Hesse
Damien - Herman Hesse
Moses and Monotheism - Sigmund Freud
The Fountainhead - Ayn Rand
Timeline - Michael Crichton (Long story, you probably shouldn't read this book just ask my why its on the list)
Red Mars, Green Mars, Blue Mars - Kim Stanley Robinson (again sounds weird but I have my reasons)

That's a short list, I'm sure there are more I just don't have my bookshelf in front of me. I'll amend this later.

Blog Doubble Header: Game 2 Rant about science.

This one will probably be a little shorter. Want I want to comment on is the fact that I dont think science has it all together, or is infaliable. I am going to start this by stating that I am not a scientist, and have had limited knowledge on this subject, limited but related to what I'm going to talk about. Please comment on this, and hold me accountable for my ignorance.

Science is the tower athiest tend to stand on (maybe a tower the size of a soapbox). This is their ace in the hole. Science is changing, but always right. And for some people points to no god. In previous blogs there has been mentioned the fact that if you dont know something you shouldn't make stuff up about it.

Here comes my opinion. When it comes to science out side of observation, it looks more like a faith. Faith is the ace in the hole for religion, but I think science becomes a faith at certain levels. Observation is the best method of science, you see something, make a hypothesis, test it, and there comes some answers( over simplyfied, I know, but work with me). So then there are things we can not observe, like the creation of the universe. I'm still with science right now, dont get me wrong.

As science is pushing to discover what happened, they have to rely on formulas, and theories based on things observed now, but they can not observe it then. Even the idea of half-life is based on a uniform deterioration, which has no evidence for or against.(don't get me wrong here, i trust half-lifeing, but it is not iron clad).

In a very secular physics class I took we talked a lot about universe formation, and let me tell you, it takes some faith for that. To boil it down, we weren't there, so all we have are guesses, and they are well informed, but again this seems to contradict the "only talk about what we know" type idea. In addition, I listened to a lecture about string theory. I can't even beging to talk about it, other than it is a guess that makes formulas make more sense, but there is no way to prove it. This is very faith-like.

I know I may sound ignorant, but please, challenge me on this. My main point is that science is not perfect, scientist will tell you that. When it comes down to it there is a faith leap you have to take with science too. Even the big bang brings mater to a 1 ccm highly dense space. Scientist will say that mater was always there. This sounds a lot like the always there claims of a god. If mater is eternal, then why is it crazy to have an eternal god? This is not a large leap. I know I may sound small minded, but listen, I trust science, but there are some things I think we need to question. Skepticism is key to getting a greater undrstanding of our universe.

Blog Doubble Header: Game 1 Evolution and God sittining in a tree...

Well, I think I should introduce some of my beleifs. As most people know, the hottest button to push for an athiest or a christian is the creation button. I personally do not have that button, or at least it does not ellicit a strong reaction from me.

In trying to find a "title" or "classification" for what I beleive I guess the clossest thing is theistic evolution. I see no condratiction between scriptures (the Judeo-Christian in my case) and Science ( evolution and natural selection in this case).

Dobzhansky, a Russian Orthodox, wrote a famous 1973 essay entitled Nothing in Biology Makes Sense Except in the Light of Evolution espousing evolutionary creationism:
"I am a creationist and an evolutionist. Evolution is God's, or Nature's, method of creation. Creation is not an event that happened in 4004 BC; it is a process that began some 10 billion years ago and is still under way... Does the evolutionary doctrine clash with religious faith? It does not. It is a blunder to mistake the Holy Scriptures for elementary textbooks of astronomy, geology, biology, and anthropology. Only if symbols are construed to mean what they are not intended to mean can there arise imaginary, insoluble conflicts... the blunder leads to blasphemy: the Creator is accused of systematic deceitfulness."

I think this sums up my views pretty well. I am coming from spending two years in a private Christian college and two years in two different public Universities. I think science is true (at least what hasn't been proven wrong yet) and I love trying to figure out the intricacies of our world. I think we hear a lot about why evolution makes sense, so I will make a small comment on the scriptural basis of what I think.

We can start in Genesis. It is widely thought that there are multiple authors to this first book. There is a stylistic difference between the creation account and the rest of the book. This automatically sets it appart as different. In addition this is written with a poetry style, like a song. Genesis does speak of a 6 day creation, but one must always put a text in context. The context of the begining of Genesis is the first written beleifs of a new, mono-theistic religion. Around that time there was reigonal poly-theistic religions, worshiping a sun god or a water god. This book starts with a radically different idea. It shows an all powerful God who controls water, sun, sky, everything. It is a God that puts mater into order from chaos.

To focus on this as a "literal" story shortchanges the reader from the meaning. The God in Genesis is a creator god, that is fact, but it is a God that is not like what was out there, an all powerful God. This was different for the time, we may take it for granted, but this was radical. Genesis shows a God that knows the intricacies of this world. I could probably go into more detail about what this shows about the character of God, but I shall save that for another time.

The point I am trying to make is that Genesis was written as a religious doccument to a poly-theistic audience. This is not a book about how the world really came to be, but who is behind it. Science excites me, and has many other Christian Scientist(Scientist who are Christian that is, ones that take both serisously, and seperate). The more we find out about the world, the more powerful and detail focused God appears.

I know there are many arguements that can be started, justifying a God in general, but all I am trying to say is that Science does not disprove God, and God does not push out science. These are two different things that can both be true.