On Fri, Feb 10, 2017 at 8:11 PM, John Clark <johnkcl...@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Thu, Feb 9, 2017 at 10:26 PM, Telmo Menezes <te...@telmomenezes.com>
> wrote:
>
>> >
>> If we look back in scientific history, there always seems to be
>> something fundamental that humanity is blind to. The real scale of the
>> universe in space and time, the non-specialness of our solar system,
>> evolution, the big bang, also relativity, quantum mechanics, etc.
>> I find it a bit too convenient to believe that this trend stopped
>> here. That we now have it all mostly figured out, precisely at our
>> moment in history.
>
>
> Who claims we have? As of today we have no idea what 96% of the universe is
> made of,
>
> Dark Matter and Dark Energy remain complete mysteries.

As far as I can tell, what we have is a falsification of current
theories. They appear to be good enough approximations for many
things, but then they fail at predicting the expansion rate of the
universe right? Maybe it's dark matter, maybe it's something else, how
do we know?

>> Especially when there are huge mysteries remaining,
>> notably "what is consciousness?".
>
>
> I don't consider the study of consciousness to be very fruitful, it's
> produced nothing worthwhile for centuries and I see no reason why that is
> going to change.

If science failed so far at explaining something, then it doesn't
matter? I believe the exact opposite.

> The study of intelligence, now that's important!

That is a statement of faith. Gizmo worshiping. Yes, it's important in
a sense. I too am interested in having medical breakthroughs, freedom
from labour and all the nice things that AI can bring. But in the end
I am going to die (at least my current monkey will), and my experience
here as a monkey being is the most real and important thing I have.

>> I am not asking you to accept anything harder to believe than that
>> there are fundamental things that we do not know.
>
>
> Only a fool would disagree with that, but it's religious believers who claim
> to have all the answers.

And other religious believers ignore certain aspects of reality, even
the most fundamentally undeniable ones.

> I don't quite understand why an omnipotent being
> would "want" anything, He should already have it.  Nevertheless the
> religious say God does want certain things and they know exactly precisely
> what they are and they insist on telling us about it; and they also insist
> God can't get what He wants on His own, we have to help the poor fellow
> achieve His aims.

You are describing Abrahamic religions. I don't believe in them either.

>
>> >
>> This is the problem I have with militant atheists:
>
>
> It can't be much of a problem because militant atheists are so rare. In the
> USA there are 535 members of congress, most members of that body are
> militant christians but not one of them is a militant atheist, although
> before 2012 there was one apologetic atheist.

There are many impressive things about the USA, but in certain ways it
still has to catch up with the rest of the western world. Christian
puritanism is unusually strong in your culture, and I agree that that
is a big problem.

>> >
>> their inability to
>> consider certain ideas
>
>
> I've certainly considered it, I've had 13 years of formal religious
> instruction, kindergarten through High School, more than enough I think to
> be entitled to form an opinion on the subject.
>
>>
>> >
>> without trying to fit the opponent into a box
>
>
> And I feel confident in putting Christian and Islamic theology into the
> imbecile box,

Me too.

> and Bruno's
>  invisible amoral mindless metaphorical form of arithmetic
> into the silly box. I can't prove God doesn't exist but I can prove God is
> silly.

I think you are not interested in what Bruno has to say. There's
nothing wrong with that, but it's just a personal preference of yours.

Telmo.

> John K Clark
>
>>
>
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