I suppose it comes down an argument that your infinite invisible man in the sky who works magic is true while the other guy's (Muslims etc) infinite invisible man in the sky who works magic is false.

God is a nice idea in a way, just as Santa Claus is a nice idea. That does not provide an argument for God's existence, but is just a special pleading. Special pleading is a classic flaw of syllogism and argumentation.

World population around the time of Moses was about 50 million. By the time of the Caesers or Jesus around 250 million, by the high middle ages around 500 million and prior to the industrial revolution close to a billion. The surge of population was ongoing long before the scientific revolution. Malthus argued there would be a population crash from starvation, but the industrial revolution provided positive feedbacks that avoided that.

Will we avoid a population die-off or collapse indefinitely? I can't say. I think this has ultimately more to do with the nature of the human species than the fact we know things about quantum mechanics.

Cheers LC

Jews, Christians, and Muslims obey the ruLe: Be fertile, get more, and fill the Earth. Mulugeta's attachment demonstrates the problem:

There live already about ten times more people than responsible.

Not just their number is growing rapidly. Global advertizing makes the poor too desiring a life in luxurity. However, this is not feasible due to limited recources, increasing amount of waste and pollution, and many other problems that were not yet envisioned by Malthus and Marx, not to mention the fathers of Bible. That's why I support Kadin's way out. Naively I hope for minimal resposibility evem among Catholics and Muslims. Science provided the option of contraception.

The attachment shows a declining number between 1600 and 1650. In Middle Europe, a 30 years lasting war "fortunately" decimated the population more than did the plague. From the perspective of irresponsible growth of population, the largely peaceful era after 1950 did split the world into those who got richer with less children and those who will go on getting precarious with a "treasure" of too many children.

Don't blame science for a quite natural evolution toward more human obligation. Blame the outdated irresponsive interpretation of the notion humanism.

Dear Mr. Jack Hamilton James,

God's first instruction to man in Genesis is to stay away from the knowledge tree (science). God told man that the fruit from the knowledge tree leads to death because the fruit is tempting and would seduce man to vie for godhood and to compete against God. What science did to earth is exactly as God said it would. Adam and Eve were banished from the Garden of Eden for eating from the knowledge tree. What is this Garden? It is a metaphor. In the midst of a vast desert of space of lands, moons and stars, the Lord God planted a beautiful garden - earth - and furnished it with animated habitat teeming with life sustained by a puzzling circuitry of measured diversity that maintains abiding vigor.

The supply circuitry or the cycles of natural supply of the garden is furnished for fair consumption to maintain strength and not for the excesses of drunkenness or mindless draining. For many days man lived with adequate consumption of furnished amenities and the moderation allowed the stock of furniture, which are the fruits of the earth, to be refilled by the endowed glory of replenishment (replenishment is a miraculous gift from God). This life of delightful security changed after the Black Death event that swept Western Europe in the fourteenth century Anno Domini. Out of the bubonic Black Death event arose an invigorated counter-purpose known as the renaissance movement and it imbued the Western European person with an unbridled fancy for the devouring of the whole earth. The Western European person, for the ruthless extraction of resources, fashioned a doctrine of counterfeit knowledge he named 'science' and pressed ahead and unfairly ravaged the earth. Adam and Eve lost the Garden and we now have that metaphor unfolding before our eyes. We are losing the earth because it is dying. You don't see it, do you?

I don't know what message of mine you are arguing against in your discussion of cause and purpose. I provided an experimental summary in the essay that proved Mr. Darwin's evolution idea wrong. Whether Mr. Darwin tried to show that there is cause rather than purpose is meaningless since Mr. Darwin's elaborate discussion on 'decent' was elaborately wrong.

Regards,

Mulugeta

Dear Mulugeta,

Writing is what men do. Therefore Genesis, its metaphors, is a product of men, not God. These are men of history who have used science to understand human nature, these are men who have causally understood the mind ( in particular our emotions, and how we respond to what we don't know) and then using this causal information have then applied their purposes as a method of seduction, control and power.

Religion is the sum exercise of this control.

Of course, religion has and had many benefits, chiefly it creates order within a population (of one religion) and a moral structure. I can understand the point of your story and agree with its sentiment about where the world is heading, but we dont, in my view, need a God to see that and nor can we blame causal information (for that is all science is).

A better future lies in a more moral future, perhaps realised by a religion of sorts, but underlying purpose is always a best guess, so its very hard to say what value should be at its core.

Dear Eckard Blumschein,

In many a science man, in whom the antipathy seed was planted in early childhood, I see the feeling of aversion to God already. But I was hoping to encounter amenability to the persuasion of reason, however intense the dislike maybe. I provided data that can be verified very easily and I did so with clarity, without complicating anything. I can't invest time and energy to entertain vague insinuations and cold declarations. Please, let us reason - point by point. 'Be fruitful and multiply' is consistent with the pre-industrial revolution population growth. The industrial revolution messed up the earth in irreversible many ways. The data is there. The earth is here. You can't hide it. The calamity striking the earth is much more devastating than the little perceptional snit you are trying to avoid. The remedy, if it is not too late already, is to stop the root cause.

By greed, the scientific west destroyed the once vibrant earth that God furnished. God furnished the earth for the "poor" too. The poor who are feared to be "too desiring a life in luxury" by way of "global advertisement" did not benefit one iota in the course of the earth's destruction. Now the western man of science says he likes the idea of eliminating, himself as god deciding who to eliminate. There is no consideration of reason in all this, is there? There is only projection of might.

Regards,

Mulugeta

It is curious to see how this thread goes.

From a Jewish perspective, and the Jews invented the monotheist God, the mythic narrative of the garden in Genesis is about growing up. Remember that after eating the apple Adam and Eve's eyes were opened. This is not that different from the myth of Narcissis, where after seeing his image he knew himself deeper. He fell into the trap of loving his image. The Genesis myth this similar, and Adam and EVe were no longer the same and life was no longer the same. Children in growing up go through passages of such change. The symbolic idea can be applied to humanity at large, and in some ways the scientific revolution could be seen as a sort of eating of the fruit.

The narrative is about a set up. The forbidden fruit was set up in the middle of the garden and YHWH then says "Don't eat that." That is what I call a set up. Adonai or God would have been disappointed in his human creation if they had not eaten it.

Cheers LC

Greed belongs to competition among animals including men. Was there really a "once vibrant earth"? History and natural sciences provide ample evidence for cruel gorrecting limitations to population growth in nature.

Since I was baptized and have still the bible at hand, I am open to your arguments and anything but arrogant. When I was a child, I experienced a horrible war, hunger and other "natural", in the sense of godgiven, corrections to the imbalance of population.

Well, we humans are greedy animals, with or without science, with or without God. However, science may provide the option to steer our evolution in a responsible manner that does no longer require wars, hunger, etc.

What about your attachment, the alarming red data are perhaps close to reality. Aren't the green ones just guesswork? Please give your reference.

Dear Mulugeta Wudu,

Please excuse me for I do not wish to be too critical of your fine essay and I do hope that it fairs well in the competition.

You are absolutely correct about the implausibility of science.

Only nature could produce a reality so simple, a single cell amoeba could deal with it.

One real visible Universe must have only one reality. Simple natural reality has nothing to do with any abstract complex musings about any imaginary "universal purpose of the universe by an invisible God." The real Universe must consist only of one unified visible infinite physical surface occurring in one infinite dimension, that am always illuminated by infinite non-surface light.

A more detailed explanation of natural reality can be found in my essay, SCORE ONE FOR SIMPLICITY. I do hope that you will read my essay and comment on its merit.

Joe Fisher, Realist

    Dear Mulugeta Wudu:

    There may be a relevant thought experiment--

    Say that the only information you have about an object are some pictures of it which you are given.

    In every picture the object is always perfectly still.

    Do you believe the thought: "The object IS moving"?

    Or, do you believe the thought: "The object IS NOT moving"?

    Next-- there seems to be a back and a front to the object. And, the front of the object is always facing to the right.

    At this point in the story would you tell someone who believes the thought that the object is NOT moving to "Stand in front of the object"?

    Next add one more piece of information:

    This object is, in actuality, a disguised kind of arrow.

    In which case-- the idea you believe in no longer matters. You know that you shouldn't stand in front of a moving arrow.

    It's an adaptation of Zeno's "paradox" of the arrow. Zeno was trying to help Parmenides make a point about the difference between believing and knowing. And in those days, everyone had seen many (many, many) animals killed by arrows. Because in those days it was how they got food.

    Moral: If you care about yourself, you know that you don't stand in front of an arrow.

    You make some interesting points... Not sure why you want to live in a dictatorship where everything is restricted. To me God is about gaining experience to know that it is real. So if you are going to limit that to only a few things and mostly praising the Lord... you will be in a boring hell...

      Look into a resource based economy... this is a world where we can have the best of both (science / God)... it was designed by a man named Jacque Fresco... this is the balance the world needs.

      Having read Wudu's essay, I will give 3 scores to it.

      I am definitely not the only defender of science who doesn't agree with his attitude: "an act of murder is committed on earth by men of science". My essay argues for almost the opposite: more reasonable evolution instead.

      However, Wudu's cry for help deserves, as Crowell correctly remarked, more attention than e.g. quantum mechanics, and it is written in excellent English.

      Science haram (= it is a sin)? It surely is irresponsibly oriented so far.

      Semmelweis endangered mankind when he saved the mothers. Ethis needs correction.

      Dear Mr. Jack Hamilton James,

      Science - so called "modern science" - was conceived and hatched in willful antagonism specifically to the Christian belief. Science then waged its war against the faith on all fronts. Almost every subject of science conducts that war in its own realm. Early in school, children are subjected to a grueling competition of reading witchcraft and mystery books particularly designed to remove them from Christian way of life. With handsome payment, a legion of forces are assigned to go around shopping for stories in old idolatries that resembled stories in the Christian faith. Then specialized story tellers publish mystery books where they allege the Christian narrative to have been borrowed from some early beliefs. To this end, all other idolatries and beliefs are companions to science. In the "natural" sciences domain, the strategy of science instructions is creating senseless folk. In the "natural" science front considerable resources (earth's precious resources) are spent to ensure the Christian faith is defeated in every person's mind. The "natural" sciences instruct students to shut-off their natural senses and to follow the procedures of the science doctrine alone. A rigorous recital of the procedures create, out of children and out of college graduates, indoctrinated "zombies" fanatically hostile to Christianity. Also, since fostering competing identities are vital to diminishing the Christian faith, the science religion brings all other beliefs and idolatries to the same platform as Christianity. In fact, one of the first steps of the renaissance movement was to intervene in the Christian scripture and to declare that interpretation is personal. Then a multiplicity of feuding "christianities" emerged immediately relegating authentic Christianity to the mire of contention where science enthrones itself as the adjudicating authority hovering over the mire. The goal is, for the western science man to acquire godlike powers over earth and over all its inhabitants. It is science's standard trick to create competing identities to defeat an identity. If, for example, science wants to get rid of Mr. Jack Hamilton James, it manufactures dolls, many dolls, and calls them each "Mr. Jack Hamilton James "and it starts to elevate the "Mr. Jack Hamilton James" dolls to a platform of celebrity. Then it gradually starts to bring dishonor to them. When, by spectators, unanimity is reached as to the vileness of the many "Mr. Jack Hamilton James" attributes, science proceeds to eliminate all that is "Mr. Jack Hamilton James" and it starts doing so from the honorable authentic Mr. Jack Hamilton James since, by reason of the competing dolls, Mr. Jack Hamilton James has become just one of them. So, your expression: "...we don't, in my view, need a God to see that and nor can we blame causal information ..." is a simple derivative of the science motif. God is everything and we need Him in everything, everywhere.

      In all its history, the earth has seen nothing more beautiful than Christianity. It is compassion, it is humility, it is fairness, it is love, it is peace and it is tranquility. Two major evidences distinguish Christianity from any other in authenticity. While many watched, our Lord Jesus Christ was Crucified and Buried, and He rose up in Resurrection on the Third Day and Ascended to Heaven on the fortieth day. The second is the prophecies of scripture that unfolded with remarkable truthfulness. Writing that men do that you have in mind isn't capable of prophecy. Nothing, absolutely nothing compares to Christianity. It is as much vital to us as water is to earth. It is the only hope there is that we have. On the other hand, science is an institution of subjugation and of class and of contempt and of derision. Overbearing pride and presumption drive science institutions. Hubris is the hallmark of the science culture. Humility, love and compassion are objects of ridicule in science quarters. The man of science rejects God and the morality God gave us because he wants to be god himself and intends to provide his version of morality, which he calls "ethics" to the inhabitants of the earth. When it is declared "there is no God" moral codes are given by the powerful - by the coercive force. That is what is happening now. The science capitals, America and England, are imposing on the dwellers of earth what is their version of the moral code that needs to be obeyed. So, in brief, the purpose of the "no God" science journey is to replace it with a new god.

      As for who the new "god" is, we can look at one example. In his book: "The Grand Design" Mr. Stephen Hawking (along with co-author Mr. Leonard Mlodinow), citing some conjectures of Mr. Richard Feynman, which, in science quarters is known by a physics term "sum over histories," stated: "... In cosmology, in other words, one shouldn't follow the history of the universe from the bottom up because that assumes there's a single history, with a well-defined starting point and evolution. Instead, one should trace the histories from the top down, backward from the present time. Some histories will be more probable than others, and the sum will normally be dominated by a single history that starts with the creation of the universe and culminates in the state under consideration. But there will be different histories for different possible states of the universe at the present time. This leads to a radically different view of cosmology, and the relation between cause and effect. The histories that contribute to the Feynman sum don't have an independent existence, but depend on what is being measured. We create history by our observation, rather than history creating us."

      By measurement and observation, Mr. Hawking and his assistant are referring to their own theorems of physics which they themselves forge. So the English and the American men of science are already openly declaring themselves "gods" who created the universe and its history by their mathematical observations. Their statements implicitly demand all tongues and tribes of the world bow down to them. In the same book Mr. Hawking also writes: "because there is a law such as gravity, the universe can and will create itself from nothing." Since he is the god (subject matter authority is the code word for it) he doesn't have to reason. His mere declaration is enough. Inspired by this god, many science minions wrote ridiculous books on how the universe created itself from nothing. The mind of man is under an awful tyranny of the science doctrine and the cruelty of it is that food and amenities are denied for failing to submit to it.

      Regards,

      Mulugeta

      Dear Mr. Joe Fisher,

      You talk of a "visible universe of infinite physical surface and infinite non-surface light" and you start from it as given. If someone takes you to the wilderness and there he provides you with a beautiful home furnished with beds, chairs, tables, light, water, food etc, would you just ignore everything and assume that such furniture is given, that it is there by itself without anyone preparing it? You don't sense some naivety in that, do you? It takes an extraordinary plunge in pretension to be rid of the overwhelming natural perception of creation and replace it with a philosophy that impresses an artificial notion such as that something happens without someone making it happen. It takes an extraordinary ritual in delusion to consider that a dull, unconscious, dead matter starts to move around without an input or instruction and begins to construct itself into sophistication of dazzling regularity and into patterns of perceptible beauty. In everything that you touch, that you see, that you smell, that you taste, that you feel, you see God. The stone that you touch is bound together as a solid unit and it doesn't have to be so. The timber shouldn't be the way it is. Any why are they side by side? Water shouldn't be liquid and all the diverse state and nature of things shouldn't be there, much less to benefit other things. It is an encouragement to dullness that science drives many to be blind and assume things as given. I advise you to think a little more.

      As for science, it is a dangerous thing. The saying: 'little knowledge is dangerous' (which was modified from Mr. Alexander Pope's cliché "a little learning is a dangerous thing") impressively befits science. Any individual person is always of little knowledge and the danger that one person can cause is minimal to nothing. So 'little knowledge is dangerous' does not make sense to attribute to individual persons. But science, which commands kingdoms and nations and powerful institutions, causes immediate or delayed peril of significant scale by its evident little knowledge. With insufficient knowledge science has been, for many years now, taking disastrous steps the sum total of which has now brought the earth to serious trouble. The Fukushima nuclear disaster is a product of science's little knowledge adventure. The building of atomic and neuron bombs is a little knowledge step. You don't build bombs that you are not going to use. The toasting of the earth with fuel is a little knowledge thing and the areas of harm such little knowledge steps affect are too many to count. Science's little knowledge packages that translated into massive operations have made the earth desolate already. The problem is not that it is always wrong, but that it always acts based on little knowledge.

      Regards,

      Mulugeta

      Dear Mulugeta ! Science has become a tool of the economic production line and most scientists are working at this tech-know-logically perfected assembly line, i.e. contemporary science is definitely not an intellectual beauty contest. About 60% of new arable land (resources) on this globe is situated in your continent and 'the economic machinery' knows this fact, i.e. science has additionally become a tool of political supremacy. The ethical corruption of science is indeed an issue; all prophets of humankind have taught us to practice an earth sharing economy.However, I will not follow your appeal, because I am applying the scientific method with an other intention and goal. Best wishes: stephen i. ternyik

      I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use.

      Galileo

      This most beautiful system of the sun, planets and comets, could only proceed from the counsel and dominion of an intelligent and powerful Being.

      Newton

      The infinite God can not by us, in the present limitation of our faculties, be comprehended or conceived.

      Hamilton

      A knowledge of the existence of something we cannot penetrate, of the manifestations of the profoundest reason and the most radiant beauty - it is this knowledge and this emotion that constitute the truly religious attitude; in this sense, and in this alone, I am a deeply religious man.

      Einstein

      The first gulp from the glass of natural sciences will turn you into an atheist, but at the bottom of the glass God is waiting for you.

      Heisenberg

      God used beautiful mathematics in creating the world.

      Dirac

      I do not believe that science can disprove the existence of God; I think that is impossible. And if it is impossible, is not a belief in science and in a God -- an ordinary God of religion -- a consistent possibility?

      Yes, it is consistent. Despite the fact that I said that more than half of the scientists don't believe in God, many scientists do believe in both science and God, in a perfectly consistent way. But this consistency, although possible, is not easy to attain, and I would like to try to discuss two things: Why it is not easy to attain, and whether it is worth attempting to attain it.

      Feynman

      hi all,wowww the discussion,

      Mr Wudu,the personali faith is like a personal sphere of thoughts.I am persuaded that the goods are more numerous that the unconscious and that in all religions, countries.The freedom, the democracy,the tolerance is a torch of truth, a foundamental.I am persuded that a christian, a muslim, a jewish and a buddhist can discuss in dining around a table in respecting what are this universal love,this humility in front of thjis infinite entropy and altruistuic universalism.This planet Mr Wugu is not perfect.If this planet is in this state, it is not due to this or that but simply due to unconscious in all countries implying bad governances and acts of evil.In USA and in ethiopia it is the same problem, it exists good and bad persons.The capitalism or the socialism or the facts that we line in occident are not thez problem, the systems are not really thje problem.If africa is in this state it is due to a lack of security and governments, strong and laws.So the weakest persons are obliged to accept the crazzy line of reasonings of some crazzy politicians liking opulences and power.I am suggesting that africa makes its quiet governemental révolutions in sorting these persons simply.Because the firsts who pay the prize of this crazzyness is the people.Have you seen in syria ,irak...Is it a joke,??? The hormons ,the vanity ,the power,the bad like always Mr Wugu.I live in belgium here also we have these problems and don't imagine that it is easy to live here you know, it is difficult for example psychologically speaking here in wallonia.Always these bad governances in all countries.They are criminals simply and they destroy what we have created in the past.In France and in many countries Mr Wugu we have made our révolutions to stop the bad governances and change the laws for the well of people simply.I beleive that africa must make the same with the help of this ONU G20.Too much of persons suffer and it is not acceptable simply.7,3 billions Mr Mugu and the majority are good persons, a minority implies this chaos and this everwhere.I know that in ethiopia you have suffered a lot, it is a difficult country considering the water and food and jobs I am knowing.But it is complex in fact, it isn not easy to solve all our major problems.Africa needs helps quickly indeed and ONU must take its responsabilities.You imagine the psychology of children of africa ? They have forgotten the hope due to these adults having destroyed these hopes.The religions and the ideologies and systems are not really the problem.These hormonal unconscious comportments yes.the tolerance ,the democracy, the humanism,the universalism,the universal love are our foundamentals.I am personally christian and I respect all others cultures and religions with tolerance.It is not complicated in fact this universal altruistic love.

      Dear Mr. William Walker,

      Being from Ethiopia I can tell you firsthand that a social life of praising the Lord is a society you can't have enough of. There is love, compassion and humility and boredom has no habitation in it. The problem now around the world is that societies are polluted, living a decadent, immoral and pleasure-seeking life. So a person already shaped by a spoiled society may not be able to imagine life that doesn't have the immodesty he or she is accustomed to, the same way as a drug dealer who makes a lot of money from drug-dealing won't like a modest life as an employee of some sort.

      A life of praising the Lord is not a dictatorship. The world is under a dictatorship now already. You are not aware of it maybe because you are the privileged beneficiary of the dictatorship. A new world order was established about seventy years ago when European colonialism crumbled. The new world order replaced the colonial system but the new system was just a sophisticated copy of the old. New tools like the World Bank, the IMF etc were also put in place to advance the new order. As the former World Bank President James Wolfensohn once remarked in a Stanford talk, the new world order was setup with an eighty-twenty rule, meaning eighty percent of the world's resources or wealth would be for the west and twenty percent would be for the rest of the world. To maintain this order, heavy yokes were laid on the so called "third world" countries and the focus was to ensure that these "third world" nations are incapable of extracting resources underneath the territories they occupy. The yoke on African nations was particularly cumbersome. Intelligence forces were deployed inciting upheavals and these forces were particularly effective sowing discord between brothers and they racked the continent with civil wars, disease and famine. In the hands of the west Ethiopia received the most wicked of the afflictions. If by any chance any of the "third world" nations slipped from the yoke like China did, then "all hell would break loose." China is now asserting itself in many ways and vying to extract resources not just in China but also in Africa. China is about to eat the west's "entitlement" breakfast and lunch and dinner. The west may choose to overlook China and decide to squeeze more from the Africans but the Africans are not getting any of their resources at all, therefore there is no point in that. So, America and China will have to 'duke' it out among themselves to darwin survive it. When they do, you will no longer have the delicious living that you are used to.

      As for the "resource based economy" you directed me to, I want to point out to you that the world's resources are finite and speedily dwindling as we speak. The rich want those resources, not some resources but all of them. I can understand economics as an instrument of resource robbery. Other than that I don't see it making much sense.

      Regards,

      Mulugeta

      We are after all in the same boat.The solutions exist Mr Wugu ,it is just that the global system and the unconsciousness have implied chaotical systems.We are soon 10 billions.And we have problems in many centers of interests.The poverty, the criminilaties, the food, the water, the energy, the jobs,the climate.....all these parameters are a reality indeed.It is due to many paramters if we are in this global situation.The global system has simply reached its limits.We have planted seeds ,so we have now the fruits.It is a question of quick adaptation now Mr Wugu for the well of all without exception.The climate ,it is too late, it is the adaptation now the most important.We are obliged to change this global system.It is not a question of capitalism or communism or religions or this or that in fact.It is justy that we must all accept now that we must really change the system.The richest, the persons the highest placed in governments,ONU G20 World bank must understand that if we do not change quickly,we are going to be in the chaotical exponentials.And all looses in this case, all without exception.If we want to reach the points of equilibrium,we must liberate these funds and open our earth and humanity to our universe, first this solar system.We had a problem of limits and numbers on earth, not when we see this solar system,mars, Wheel in space with an artificial gravitation due to rotation reaching g....The potential is infinite and in this case all children of africa also are educated, and their parents them have a job to live simply and hope.We have the potential to solve this planet Mr Wugu and permit to all to live with dignity and in the universalism.It is possible, all wins without exception, the richest like the poorest simply.It lacks money, space, matter,jobs...on earth, the limits and the numbers always....but not when we open our humanity to this universe.Regards and universally and altruistically...