Adamantium wrote:
To be precise, I am agnostic. But most of my views about the possibility of any sort of divinity are congruent with atheism.
Nevertheless, I think the spiritual side of human beings is important. Certainly the psychology of faith is something that one must take into account when considering the patterns of human cognitive and emotional development.
I have enormous respect for the physical and mental meditative techniques developed by Hindu, Buddhist and Taoist practitioners, while reviling the layers of hocus pocus that each of those traditions brings to it's core mental and physical exercise practices. Vipassana is great, but you can keep Ganesh, thanks all the same.
I find some cultural value in Judaism, Christianity and Islam, though as often as not in a cautionary way. I recognize the profound role that christianity played in the development of the European culture I am rooted in, and I enjoy the resonance between biblical language and the great works of my culture (e.g. Faulkner and Shakespeare.)
The bible was a special interest for a number of years and my experiences having been immersed in the study of that lead me to believe that the memes associated with those faiths pose an inherent danger to rational thinking, something would be rational apologists for those faiths generally fail to acknowledge.
In any case, I can't turn off my faculties of reason or critical thinking, so that kind of faith is not an option for me.
If I had a god, it would be identical with the underlying patterns of energy that form the universe and are currently best known to us through the Standard Model and General Relativity. It is in the interplay of forces described in these models that we live and breathe and have our being.
When I learn about cosmology or particle physics, I feel a sense of awe, delight and wonder that seems identical with the numinous perceptions described by religious people.
This seems to be pretty much exactly what Einstein's view of religion was. He was very critical of Orthodoxy in religion of any kind but also believed very much that physics was about understanding the workings of God and how God operated. He believed, in his words, that God does not play dice with the universe.
There is, to be sure, some debate over how his views on religion changed during the Holocaust. I think he never saw any conflict between science and the idea of an omnipresent God, however certainly think at times the Holocaust led him to question his faith in a benevolent God of any kind, much like it did for the vast majority of Jews who went through that (one Jewish prisoner said "If there is a God, He will have to beg for my forgiveness"). However, there is still ample proof that he was never a full blown atheist [http://www.bethinking.org/god/did-einstein-believe-in-god ]. It should also be noted that Christians who put everything on the line to come to the rescue of Jews were able to reshape some of his views of Christians as people as well.
11 Mar 2015, 12:53 pm
" so i think he pressed the wrong button.
