I grew up without religion. By the time I attended my performing arts high school I was affirmed in that because all teachers and students loudly professed that religion was for the unthinking, non intellectuals. But I was ravaged with sorrow and the pain of the world. In a desperate attempt to find relief, I said a prayer. It changed my life and my worldview entirely. My simple plea to God was that I might find joy in my life, true joy. And I immediately received an answer that (had it not been so powerful an experience) I would have scoffed at: go to church. I laugh at this answer now too sometimes as many Christians attempt to separate their belief in Him from the church they attend, but my learning to attend church first before believing taught me the value of our sacred rituals and practices. It’s almost as if it has its own science. Or that it was all related all along.
In my early 20’s I was an atheist studying string theory, quantum mechanics, and computer science.
One night I had a dream where I said to a crowd of people, “I believe in God because we live in an objective world that permits subjectivity.”
In the dream, the crowd of people looked at me and nodded affirmatively.
I woke up and thought, “Do I really believe that?”
I had to admit it passed my filter of reason.
It would be years before I investigated the western tradition, but I did so with a logical basis, an admission that of all possible universes, the one we live in is astonishingly good.
I once posited that you could not attend college and not question your faith. And that was basically true in the early 80s, before I ever heard of Cellmark’s “DNA Fingerprinting.” Now, knowing how much information is encoded in DNA, my observation from 40+ years ago is completely false.
The more we know of ourselves and the universe, the more we seem to know God.
We are a stiff necked people. Many of our thinkers, whether we followthat thinking or not, have substituted a new prejudice for the old. Our thoughts cange and grow, they evolve over time. God is still there, from the beginning He charged us with questioning, discovering, and seeking truth. That there are detours along the way should hardly be surprising. We find, over time, that the truth was there all along and that we arrive at that clarity in different ways.
Strange, isn’t it, how the atheist scientists who said religion was for the unintelligent, never quite realized how they were the dwarves and their predecessors were the giants, upon whose shoulders they stood (to paraphrase William of Conches).
I grew up religious but I also grew up as physics fanboy during the early 60s. I found every discovery of every new particle fascinating. Like many, in my teens, I drifted away from my family becoming interested in the world's religions as well as science. I found some success in computer science, but it was unexplainable (by materialism and probability) scientific discoveries that brought me back to traditional Christianity. Modern physics finds itself having to put its faith in an eternal, all powerful force that they currently call the "multi-verse" instead of "God" in order to explain the evidence. However, they insist that this force must be unconscious and random. They explain their own consciousness as "an illusion" (of what?) to escape from the contradictions involved. Academia drives people insane.
(One Mans opinion freely given and worth ALMOST that much)
Its (pick a year) 1874. Based on what was known through Science, a good argument could be made for Materialism/Atheism/Whatever. Thing is as we have learned through Science those arguments have gotten weaker and weaker. Until today I REALLY don't see how they hold any weight.
Language, words chosen, indicate attitudes that are imposed on us. As a teacher, I fought to prevent the trend to refer to History as Social Science. "Social Studies" was ok but not "Science". Use of the word science implies absolute accuracy, which is impossible with human nature. The study of history cannot ignore human nature, nor can science. The trend today is to attach a label by which a final, "true" identity is imposed; people are shunted into categories and assumed to possess characteristics and beliefs. The voice said, "I am". But the modern trend is to say "you are", you have been defined by "science". Bah.
"Nowhere was the division between intelligence and religion more clear than in science class. And science was, in turn, the essence of truth. Only what could be measured, charted, and calculated could be known for sure."
A Question I have lately been asking. What is The Atomic Weight of Beauty?
Is “ intellectually vigorous faith” something different from knowledge? Is there a spectrum? Blind faith, informed faith, intellectually vigorous faith, tentative knowledge, . . . ?
I grew up without religion. By the time I attended my performing arts high school I was affirmed in that because all teachers and students loudly professed that religion was for the unthinking, non intellectuals. But I was ravaged with sorrow and the pain of the world. In a desperate attempt to find relief, I said a prayer. It changed my life and my worldview entirely. My simple plea to God was that I might find joy in my life, true joy. And I immediately received an answer that (had it not been so powerful an experience) I would have scoffed at: go to church. I laugh at this answer now too sometimes as many Christians attempt to separate their belief in Him from the church they attend, but my learning to attend church first before believing taught me the value of our sacred rituals and practices. It’s almost as if it has its own science. Or that it was all related all along.
In my early 20’s I was an atheist studying string theory, quantum mechanics, and computer science.
One night I had a dream where I said to a crowd of people, “I believe in God because we live in an objective world that permits subjectivity.”
In the dream, the crowd of people looked at me and nodded affirmatively.
I woke up and thought, “Do I really believe that?”
I had to admit it passed my filter of reason.
It would be years before I investigated the western tradition, but I did so with a logical basis, an admission that of all possible universes, the one we live in is astonishingly good.
I once posited that you could not attend college and not question your faith. And that was basically true in the early 80s, before I ever heard of Cellmark’s “DNA Fingerprinting.” Now, knowing how much information is encoded in DNA, my observation from 40+ years ago is completely false.
The more we know of ourselves and the universe, the more we seem to know God.
We are a stiff necked people. Many of our thinkers, whether we followthat thinking or not, have substituted a new prejudice for the old. Our thoughts cange and grow, they evolve over time. God is still there, from the beginning He charged us with questioning, discovering, and seeking truth. That there are detours along the way should hardly be surprising. We find, over time, that the truth was there all along and that we arrive at that clarity in different ways.
Strange, isn’t it, how the atheist scientists who said religion was for the unintelligent, never quite realized how they were the dwarves and their predecessors were the giants, upon whose shoulders they stood (to paraphrase William of Conches).
I grew up religious but I also grew up as physics fanboy during the early 60s. I found every discovery of every new particle fascinating. Like many, in my teens, I drifted away from my family becoming interested in the world's religions as well as science. I found some success in computer science, but it was unexplainable (by materialism and probability) scientific discoveries that brought me back to traditional Christianity. Modern physics finds itself having to put its faith in an eternal, all powerful force that they currently call the "multi-verse" instead of "God" in order to explain the evidence. However, they insist that this force must be unconscious and random. They explain their own consciousness as "an illusion" (of what?) to escape from the contradictions involved. Academia drives people insane.
I can’t wait to read your book!
(One Mans opinion freely given and worth ALMOST that much)
Its (pick a year) 1874. Based on what was known through Science, a good argument could be made for Materialism/Atheism/Whatever. Thing is as we have learned through Science those arguments have gotten weaker and weaker. Until today I REALLY don't see how they hold any weight.
Language, words chosen, indicate attitudes that are imposed on us. As a teacher, I fought to prevent the trend to refer to History as Social Science. "Social Studies" was ok but not "Science". Use of the word science implies absolute accuracy, which is impossible with human nature. The study of history cannot ignore human nature, nor can science. The trend today is to attach a label by which a final, "true" identity is imposed; people are shunted into categories and assumed to possess characteristics and beliefs. The voice said, "I am". But the modern trend is to say "you are", you have been defined by "science". Bah.
"Nowhere was the division between intelligence and religion more clear than in science class. And science was, in turn, the essence of truth. Only what could be measured, charted, and calculated could be known for sure."
A Question I have lately been asking. What is The Atomic Weight of Beauty?
https://img.freepik.com/premium-photo/beautiful-sunset-sky-clouds_692702-7740.jpg
Sunset
Is “ intellectually vigorous faith” something different from knowledge? Is there a spectrum? Blind faith, informed faith, intellectually vigorous faith, tentative knowledge, . . . ?
I never liked Laplace transform anyway. Fast Fourier transform is far more useful.