Which Is Best For Building Consensus Between People - Religion Or Science?

I read the whole article. It reminded me that I first encountered these issues in my early twenties, came to some conclusions, but have never discussed those conclusions with anyone.

I don't believe the cat paradox.The cat must be either alive or dead and can't exist in a floating state that is neither. Schrodinger's attempt to extend the rules of the micro, where things don't follow Newton's laws, into the macro, where they do, doesn't work for me. My forte was math and not physics and I'm not enough of a physicist to point out exactly why I think the cat is either alive or dead, I just do from my limited understanding of reality..

I also think the slit wave paradox is not really a paradox, but that is an involved issue and I won't extrapolate on it until I've clarified my thoughts further.
Anyway, very interesting stuff, guys. I'm glad to join the conversation.

 

Here you are saying some things that, if I defer, I'd be arguing about religion, and that's something I will not do. I had a girlfriend for two years who was a bible believing Christian. I was not but I was never tempted to try to believe what she believed to make the relationship closer and more permanent. Neither did I try to dissuade her from her beliefs. I don't know how we lasted so long together. In her mind she was sinning by sleeping with me and If I cared about her maybe I should have ended the relationship for that reason. I did care about her but I didn't end the relationship. She did.

Thanks for your reply, Bobby.

 

I disagree with the statement about atheists. Faith is based on beliefs, not knowledge. So an atheist simply doesn't "believe," and they absolutely can know what they do or do not believe.

 

That’s what I am trying to convey to him. All realities aren’t real until a person recognizes them as such which is indeed a part of personal knowledge.
Atheists believe the way they do because they believe the evidence or lack of evidence that leads them to believe that that reality is true. To them, it’s empirical but I can view the exact same evidence and extrapolate an entirely different reality with that evidence and to me, it’s empirical.

There are many quantum mechanics guys out there who will make the claim that there is No reality except that which we create for ourselves. What we believe to be, is our reality in which no one shares that exact same reality.

 

"they absolutely can know what they do or do not believe."

Knowing their own beliefs and knowing things about the universe are two different things. Maybe we are just not using the right terms. 'reality','atheist', 'agnostic', supernatural', 'God', 'religion', 'know', etc. seem to be different things to different people. i.I don't know how to solve that problem.

Bringing up a new topic; one concept I never could encompass was that of eternity. Both believers and non-believers have to deal with that. Whether the model of perpetual expansion and collapse of the universe is true or whether all the galaxies just drift apart and become detached from the universe at large, or whether God started it all, the idea of forever must be dealt with. Did God exist as a single, solitary consciousness in a timeless universe before he invented time, space and energy? Does an expanding and collapsing universe go back in time forever? I can't deal with all that ... makes my head hurt.

 

What about a parallel universe - holds fascination for me as it seems so plausible

 

"All realities aren’t real until a person recognizes them as such"

This is our basic disagreement. To me, the universe exists as it does whether being observed or not and the universe is unaffected by our beliefs about it. And I heartily.disagree with those quantum guys that there is no reality until we observe or interpret it. Are we really that important?

 

You're just making my head hurt more.If parallel universes existed we couldn't interact with them, so what does it matter if they exist or not?

 

The problem. So, you’re saying that all of our brains are entangled to such a degree that what one sees, tastes, touches, smells and hears, everyone will have virtually the same reaction to it.

The only thing I can think of whereby two people see things exactly the same is in the language of math and even it has some nasty little quirks.

 

@Dwight Ward

Suspect the word "parallel" is inadvertantly used incorrectly; "identical" or "proximate" might be better.

Frank

 

I'm not aware of any entanglement of brains. And if people have different reactions to the same phenomena, what does that prove? The phenomena stands by itself, unaffected by our reaction. My opinion.

 

Proposition 1. You do not understand the premise.
Proposition 2. You still do not understand the premise.

 

I don't absolutely know what I said about not being able to interact with them. I'm extrapolating from the fact that we can't interact with the far reaches of even our own universe. How would we interact with a parallel universe except through some of the more unlikely conjectures of science fiction?

I love science fiction, BTW... raised myself on it, almost. I just don't believe that things like warp speed or faster than light travel are possible. Einstein showed us pretty well that matter, time and energy maintain a kind of shifting equilibrium throughout the universe, changing according to what was before but not altering to something entirely independent of what was before. Jumping through broad expanses of space instantaneously or traveling through time (backwards or forwards great distances - we all travel forward in time a little. ) or visiting parallel universes just doesn't jibe with ( most ) physicists conceptions.

Gosh, I hope I'm making some kind of sense. I've never discussed these things in such depth with anyone.

 

Explain the premise further then, please. I acknowledge I don't understand it.