"No matter what happens, Enmos gets eaten first!"
-Mr. Hamtastic circa 2009
write it down people.
-Mr. Hamtastic circa 2009
write it down people.
A God We Know Nothing About
- Thread starter PsychoticEpisode
- Start date
Oli,
There's no reason to believe anything on sight.
I don't use the term "God" in a religious sense.
He used the terms "God" and "create" in the same
sentence in praise of the BG. If you are really that confused
as to what he actually meant, i suggest you study BG.
That's good.
Dictionary?
You're awaiting instructions from me? :bugeye:
jan.
There's no reason to believe anything on sight.
I don't use the term "God" in a religious sense.
He used the terms "God" and "create" in the same
sentence in praise of the BG. If you are really that confused
as to what he actually meant, i suggest you study BG.
That's good.
Dictionary?
You're awaiting instructions from me? :bugeye:
jan.
Correct.
Neither did Einstein: ever.
But did he really?He used the terms "God" and "create" in the same sentence in praise of the BG. If you are really that confused as to what he actually meant, i suggest you study BG.
Or is it another fabricated quote?
http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Talk:Albert_Einstein#Bhagavad_Gita_quote
Er,
Number 2 - doesn't apply.
Number 3 - assumes god exists.
Number 3 - I try not to be pretentious and I know I'm not magnificent.
"Who" is a good question.
"Why" would be for the same reason that so many woo woos "quote" Oppenheimer on the nuclear bomb - "this is the first time an atomic explosion has been seen by humans... in modern history".
I haven't come across that in any of the Oppenheimer books I've read, but once something gets loose on the internet...
It's a fabricated "support" for a point of view, relying on its untraceability for credence.
Ol,.
He believed in God (theist), but he wasn't religious.
That proves nothing.
As far as I am concerned it is his quote
Why complicate the matter?
So you can give a good account of yourself, heh?
You don't need anyone telling you what they think?
You still haven't answered my question.
Are all the other quotes fabricated too?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n8H7Jibx-c0
jan.
He believed in God (theist), but he wasn't religious.
That proves nothing.
As far as I am concerned it is his quote
Why complicate the matter?
So you can give a good account of yourself, heh?
You don't need anyone telling you what they think?
You still haven't answered my question.
Are all the other quotes fabricated too?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n8H7Jibx-c0
jan.
He believed in the universe, in nature.
Um, okay.
What about this quote?
Albert Einstein: "McDonalds' sucks big time, if there really was a God they would never have made it as a business".
It's dishonest to use fabricated quotes from an "authority figure" to support any point of view.
I can't give any one else's account of me: I'm not them.
I'm open to others' views: bearing in mind they don't know my motivations, haven't been through my life etc, and vice versa.
The who (as shown in the Wiki quote) is unknown.
The why has been answered.
Without thoroughly checking I couldn't say, but unsourced quotes tend to be suspect.
Quite: but that's not the quote from Oppenheimer that's in dispute.
Oli,
What do you mean by "believed in nature"?
That quote suggests he believes in God.
Why is the quote definately fabricated?
It seems you dissatisfied with the subject of the quote, more than the quote itself.
Do you think the quote could possibly be genuine?
If not, why not?
Okay, they put quotes from these great thinkers to give credence.
That is understandable. But why would they lie about Albert Einstein in particular? What would be the point.
It is a great book, with a philosophy that can only be described as the top-banana.
What you seem to fail to realise is, that the BG is brilliant.
You mean quotes that reveal things like Albert Einstein believed in God?
I'm not aware of that one.
I don't suppose you could point me in a direction.
jan.
What do you mean by "believed in nature"?
That quote suggests he believes in God.
Why is the quote definately fabricated?
It seems you dissatisfied with the subject of the quote, more than the quote itself.
Do you think the quote could possibly be genuine?
If not, why not?
Okay, they put quotes from these great thinkers to give credence.
That is understandable. But why would they lie about Albert Einstein in particular? What would be the point.
It is a great book, with a philosophy that can only be described as the top-banana.
What you seem to fail to realise is, that the BG is brilliant.
You mean quotes that reveal things like Albert Einstein believed in God?
I'm not aware of that one.
I don't suppose you could point me in a direction.
jan.
Einstein "believed" that the universe itself AS the universe(plus nature within the universe) was worthy of reverence, not worship.
And he didn't believe that there was any "guiding principle" other than the laws of nature (in particular physics).
And that's one reason to dislike the quote: it was fabricated to give a false view.
I didn't say definitely, but it seems more than likely.
The source for the quote appears to be an anonymous internet site.
Nothing I've read in or of Einstein tends to corroborate the quote.
No, I'm dissatisfied at the quote itself: it lends credence to something using a very famous figure to support a view he did not hold.
It is used to justify something the alleged source did not believe in order to support a particular view point - blatant dishonesty.
If someone has to make up supporting evidence how solid is there case in the first place (or how solid do they feel it to be)?
Maybe because Einstein as possibly the single most recognisable scientist on Earth supporting a given view lends a great deal of weight.
If they can say "Ooh look EINSTEIN the genius believed what we do so we MUST be right".
Top banana?It is a great book, with a philosophy that can only be described as the top-banana.
Official religious term?
I don't doubt it for a second, really.
But making up false testimonials isn't cricket.
There are several quotes (correctly sourced) from Einstein that use the word god.
And a several more (which tend not be used so often) where he explains what he means by "god".
Much like Hawking with the oft-used "and then we shall know the mind of God".
The woo woos in pseudoscience use it fairly regularly when they want to "prove" that Atlantis or someone else had nuclear weapons 2,000 or 10,000 years ago.I'm not aware of that one.
I don't suppose you could point me in a direction.
I couldn't point to a specific post - it's a month or two since it was last used.
Only three... must be a weekend!
Yes, shame the MWT hasn't caught on more! However, even that doesn't go into HOW observers come to exist. Physics purview, would you agree, is to model and explain reality - and that includes the existence of observers? Big hole, right in our blind spot!
Hmmm, internal? Internal to what? Inside the synaptic gap? Where is internal in a physical system?
LOL.. Yes! It puts one in a very powerful and secure position, (until some smart-arse rocks the boat).Ah, arrogance
We know everything there is to know...
I think that experiment would be difficult to design... :bugeye:
The personalisation of an anthropomorphised form of 'Hyper-Good(s)' may be a powerful catalyst for positive psychological change. It may be a way of tapping into deep sources of psychological energy (activating Jungian archetypes etc.). It's one explanation of 'God/gods.
However, I also think there is more to it - something relating to our previous discussion of God being 'the whole of reality' (which includes consciousness) of which we are finite expressions. It would be hard to test that objectively though, it's more of a poetic truth than a scientific one. If God exists, we must be able to communicate - that is only testable individually and subjectively, until He decides to pick up the Megaphone.
Hmmm... well, perhaps so is 'God' as in 'a God we know nothing about'. :shrug:
OK, hormonal, physiological and behavioural changes too... however, these are only correlates of conscious states. We can't reliably measure those states directly, otherwise we could do away with criminal courts, and just have polygraphs instead.
I think consciousness is the 'black body problem' for the 21st century, and will open a canning factory of worms! That's rather exciting (unless you like neat endings)!
Last edited:
Theists who lie to promote their religions. Know of anyone like that, Jan?
Slow day: maybe they executed a paradigm or two
Plus more than MWT...
Only in a roundabout way: physics deals with what and how, not why.
The overall origin (i.e. what caused the big bang, is pretty much left to one side as being (probably) unanswerable).
As in "purely subjective" (As afar as we can tell).
Smart-arses.
We either have too few or too many.
I'm still undecided on that one.
Yup, but "god" adds one more (un-necessary?) level.
You get the benefit from "feeling good about something"", but to ascribe reality/ attributes to the subject of that belief... :shrug:
Poetic truths are one thing - persecution etc in pursuit of those truths is another.
God as a place holder is okay: but again, the idea of god is being used to do more than just "hold place" it's assigned to the entirety of creation and codes of behaviour - and is used to justify/ enforce certain views.
Not quite the same as "god started it off, the rest science explains".
I'll see if I can find the links, ISTR something fairly recently about measuring "happiness" etc directly from the brain.
Like I said: I doubt I'll live to see the answer found.
Which is, um, annoying.
While on the subject of Einstein's view of god and religion:
Not quite sure how you reconcile your statement with these (legitimate) quotes of Einstein, Jan. But have fun
But he also said;
He explains what he means by "a personal god".
There are plenty of theists who do not believe in "a personal god".
In the Bhagavad Gita, Lord Vishnu instructs Arjuna to "abandon all varieties of religion, and surrender unto him."
Einstein would have understood that.
It's real easy to reconsile my statements, because it is obvious what he means.
You're probably so much against the institite of Christianity, you see that as the only representative of religion, treating all other philosophies as the same.
I don't think Einstein followed any particular path or religion. I think he used science as a tool to understand the mind of God. I doubt he had a particular idea of "God", but he realised that God is the source. He could identify with spinoza's god, because it expressed God in a way Einstein knew, and he did say he was closer to spinozas god, not that he believed in it.
He could also understand God through the teaching of Jesus, who himself was not a religious person. In fact he chastised the religion at that time.
jan.
If god exists then there is no need to believe. If god isn't then belief is just insane self delusion.
Its so amusing that you have definitions concerning something you have no actual knowledge of.
Actually it is by and far the weakest because it assumes you know what you do not and it prevents further inquiry. In other words belief in god is the choice of ignorance instead of inquiry.
The same way we know anything: observation, interaction and analysis, verification and concensus with others.
You wondering around 'believing" isn't knowing god any more than the atheist knows god. You just have more self delusion concerning the matter.
If I drop a rock on your foot you jump about, the rock and your foot are concretely manifest.
If I imagine dropping a rock on your foot, I can only imagine you jumping about because nothing actually happens. The "rock" in this case is not concretely manifest.
Shush! I'm imagining you jumping about. God is pointing at you and laughing.
At a guess, hari krishnas. Why? Once you buy the big lie of god it's turtles all the way down.
Last edited:
Actually he was a Pantheist like Spinoza and was hacked off at pious theists who tried to coop him like in that quote.
Unless the person is famous enough to be cooped, theists usually dump Pantheists with the atheists, like they did to Spinoza. Of course they aren't atheists any more than Deists are and in fact I would say they are more closely related to Deists than theists except they see their impersonal god within nature instead of without it. They are also close to naturalist atheists, except they still think there is a god involved for some inexplicable reason. I also find them close to animists except they think its one big god instead of lots of little ones.
I believe in Spinoza's God who reveals himself in the orderly harmony of what exists, not in a God who concerns himself with the fates and actions of human beings.
-- Albert Einstein, following his wife's advice in responding to Rabbi Herbert Goldstein of the International Synagogue in New York, who had sent Einstein a cablegram bluntly demanding "Do you believe in God?" Quoted from and citation notes derived from Victor J Stenger, Has Science Found God? (draft: 2001), chapter 3
The word god is for me nothing more than the expression and product of human weaknesses, the Bible a collection of honourable, but still primitive legends which are nevertheless pretty childish. No interpretation no matter how subtle can (for me) change this.
-- Albert Einstein, in a letter responding to philosopher Eric Gutkind, who had sent him a copy of his book Choose Life: The Biblical Call to Revolt; quoted from James Randerson, "Childish Superstition: Einstein's Letter Makes View of Religion Relatively Clear: Scientist's Reply to Sell for up to £8,000, and Stoke Debate over His Beliefs" The Guardian, (13 May 2008)
For me the Jewish religion like all others is an incarnation of the most childish superstitions. And the Jewish people to whom I gladly belong and with whose mentality I have a deep affinity have no different quality for me than all other people. As far as my experience goes, they are no better than other human groups, although they are protected from the worst cancers by a lack of power. Otherwise I cannot see anything "chosen" about them.
-- Albert Einstein, in a letter responding to philosopher Eric Gutkind, who had sent him a copy of his book Choose Life: The Biblical Call to Revolt; quoted from James Randerson, "Childish Superstition: Einstein's Letter Makes View of Religion Relatively Clear: Scientist's Reply to Sell for up to £8,000, and Stoke Debate over His Beliefs" The Guardian, (13 May 2008)
I cannot imagine a God who rewards and punishes the objects of his creation, whose purposes are modeled after our own -- a God, in short, who is but a reflection of human frailty. Neither can I believe that the individual survives the death of his body, although feeble souls harbor such thoughts through fear or ridiculous egotisms.
-- Albert Einstein, obituary in New York Times, 19 April 1955, quoted from James A Haught, "Breaking the Last Taboo" (1996)
A man's ethical behavior should be based effectually on sympathy, education, and social ties and needs; no religious basis is necessary. Man would indeed be in a poor way if he had to be restrained by fear of punishment and hope of reward after death.
-- Albert Einstein, "Religion and Science," New York Times Magazine, 9 November 1930
more at: http://www.positiveatheism.org/hist/quotes/einstein.htm
Fun with quotes....
Krisna (in Bhagavad Gita): "I am the game of dice."
Einstein: "God does not play at dice with the Universe."
Last edited: