I'm fairly young, and I really don't have anything (experience wise) to compare what I feel to. At this point in my life I'm an atheist who essentially places science on a large pedestal to replace the spot where I removed "god". I wouldn't call any views extremist, but I have quite a pessimistic view of humanity, but I find that kind of inspiring in the sense that I could make something out of my meager existence after being born in a cesspool (which I call society, not nature, as I have a very high respect for it). I love philosophy but get frustrated very easily as most of the ideas I don't come to me as swiftly as I'd like, and I get depressed/frustrated/disappointed (at myself) that I'm so ignorant when it comes to philosophical matters. I have a bad superiority complex although I can be highly critical of myself and (I don't know if it's desensitization) I have some apathy towards people in the sense that I'm really indifferent to their deaths (e.g., close relatives or just people in general). I'm 16. I really don't know if I posted this for anyone else to give their opinions or just to clarify who I am to myself, so if anyone has any comments or questions (which would be cool) then please post. Uhm, I realize that I have a lot of time to grow and by the time that I become an "Old Hippie" myself I'll probably have different viewpoints, but I feel proud of myself that I at least have a life philosophy in the process of being worked out at this age, as (at least in my area) because are relatively slow in that department. Thanks guys.
It's nice that you think so deeply about yourself and the world you live in. I think that's always a good first step As a change from your pessimism, try this: see if you can go 24 hours acknowledging only the good in things and in people. Refuse to accept the bad. That's not saying that bad doesn't exist, it's simply saying that you choose instead to respond to the good. Try that for 24 hours and see what happens. Don't give up so easily on God. God and science aren't enemies, you know. God didn't give you a brain only to say "sorry, you're not allowed to use it." Don't worry what the organized religions have to say. Maybe one of them will find a place in your heart, maybe not. But remember that religion is a human invention for the benefit of humans. Your relationship with God is your own business. I wish you the best
I'm assuming you're a guy because you express much of what I felt at your age. Wrote down my feelings at the time (perhaps poorly) but you can read them here: http://postpoems.com/cgi-bin/displaypoem.cgi?pid=652814 When I was in high school I too questioned the hypocrisy of our culture that all of a sudden I became aware of. Science was fascinating, exploring the physical world exciting and the religion of our culture seemed like so much mythology (it is actually structured on Greek mythology). I couldn’t understand how intelligent ppl actually believed that hocus-pocus and pronounced myself an Atheist. A very astute Social Studies teacher redefined my feelings as Anti-theist Agnostic. That worked for me. I have since gone thru Eastern Philosophy which makes sense and tho not Hindu or Buddhist, I follow a lot of those beliefs. As to god, I THINK it is more akin to The Force than a person. (Star Wars can be a religion ) I guess what I am saying is you appear to be on the right track. Don’t buy into something just because it has always been that way. Question why things are and sometimes your answers will bring you back to some former Truth that you rejected. To me life is a learning process. The answers are irrelevant to the process of deriving them – if that makes sense. Hope to hear from you more.
LLRL, you're experiencing the phenomenon of being 16. You would be unusual if you didn't feel the stuff you're expressing. A lot of kids try to hide the confusion of adolescence and/or emerging adulthood by trying to blend in; by being conformist. It's to your credit that you neither deny the feelings nor attempt to hide them. I would only offer that science is a poor god. It's the trial-and-error attempts of humans to understand our world and it's usually wrong several times before it's right. Science needs to be questioned every bit as much as any other aspect of our world. Question EVERYTHING.
What you say is true, but you should add that science questions itself, which is something that most other institutions never do, and is therefore self-correcting. It's not entirely correct to call it strictly trial-and-error, either. That's the monkeys with typewriters approach, and hopefully our university laboratories and whatnot are smarter than that!
I would maintain that science is strictly trial and error. The basis of science is to make educated guesses (theories) and then set out to prove or disprove them. Sometimes the theories are proven unequivically, but other times there is merely a "preponderance of evidence", such as in the theory of evolution. It is NOT a proven fact, but it is being taught as such in almost every school. Battles are fought over whether creationism (which is also just a theory) can be taught, as well. Why is one unproven theory so much better than another? The answer is that most people prefer to think of one of them as logical and the other as a fairy tale. Therein lies the pitfall for science. Believeing a theory to be fact, simply because it sounds more logical than the alternative, is every bit as much an act of faith as believing in a divine creator.
There are facts that support the theory of evolution (HIV, the constantly mutating flu virus and even higher forms of life such as insects that we have seen evolve to survive their changing environment) while there are no facts to support the myth of creationism. So, I'll side with evolution as the more logical choice and the one worthy of teaching in science class.
What we choose to believe is always a personal matter. Where we need to be wise is in being aware that one leap of faith is no different than any other. You have based your leap of faith on some facts that are believed to support evolution. If they undeniably supported evolution, then evolution would be a fact and not a theory. The evolution that occurs when species adapt to their environment may not be enough to turn a fish into a gopher, a gopher into a monkey, and a monkey into a human being. Possibly, all those creatures are unique, in and of themselves. However, human beings were undoubtedly primative at one point and did (and possibly continue to) evolve and refine themselves to the extent that they are capable within their species. Don't get me wrong. I'm not some fundamentalist nutjob, coming out here to try and convert the heathens. I'm not against teaching theories in science class, I'm against the gradual promotion and teaching of theories as fact. We must teach theories as theories and clearly present both what we know and what we don't know fairly. Unfortunately, we're still just people, and people will tend to present their beliefs as truth. This happens on both sides of the creation/evolution debate. That's my argument, in a nutshell: Question the supposed facts and never throw out the opposing argument without giving it an honest look. If you decide that something fits into your "belief system" then by all means, believe it - but keep an open mind and a healthy amount of skepticism. Science should never be adopted as a "religion."
Oh, but that's not how science works. You're missing the essential nature of science. It's far more than just logic. That's the approach the Greeks took, and it's fine for a beginning, but it's not enough. Science gathers physical evidence, and then rigorously tests the conclusions suggested by the evidence. Thousands of researchers around the world test the conclusions, trying their best to refute them. It is not an act of faith. Faith has nothing to do with it. Scientists are human, of course, and they make mistakes. No rational person would expect science to be perfect, or that it is always right. But as someone above pointed out, the process is self-examining, and therefore capable of correcting its own mistakes. Other institutions cannot say that. But as I mentioned earlier, that does necessarily leave God out of the picture. Lack of evidence is not evidence of lack. God and science are not enemies.
I would say that's the way science is supposed to work in it's purest form: Science comes up with a theory (based on whatever evidence is available) and then sets about to prove or disprove the theory. If the theory is still unproven, it would be incorrect to treat it as a fact. Anyone who currently believes in evolution as a fact has taken a leap of faith, based on a logical best-guess of science. Now, I'm not saying that it's wrong to take that leap; we're all allowed to believe whatever we want. I'm saying that when we do, we should be aware that we're practicing a faith-based understanding. It would be interesting to know how many researchers are working on proving the theory of evolution, as opposed to how many are working to disprove it. As my ol' daddy used to say, "If you believe a thing long enough, eventually it'll be true."
I believe you're still missing the point. Science doesn't prove things in the same irrefutable way that, say, mathematicians do. There are zillions of things in astronomy or biology, just to name two, that can probably never be "proven" in the sense that you seem to want them to be. But that doesn't change our belief in their essential correctness, nor of their usefulness in terms of being able to make further predictions and extensions. The reason we believe they are true is because they fit the facts, not because of "faith". It has nothing to do with faith. It has to do with gathering evidence and applying brainpower in order to try and explain the observations that get made. Perhaps the initial explanation isn't correct. Or perhaps it's correct enough as it stands, but isn't complete. If so, then it only awaits somebody to come along with a better idea. As I said earlier, this is different from most other entrenched human institutions, which deal in absolutes and require things to be 100% perfect and unchanging. Science doesn't work that way. The currency of science is uncertainty. It's never going to be perfect, and it changes all the time. You're never going to be able to "prove" what happened 65 million years ago, short of building a time machine and going back to watch. But you can gather physical evidence. Tons and tons and tons of it. Mountains of it. An overwhelming avalanche of it. You can have thousands of researchers around the world apply their best thinking to it over several decades, trying their level best to explain their findings some other way. Instead, what they arrive at is a conceptual framework that explains the evidence in the most consistent way. Does that "prove" it? No. Nobody says it does. But the process subjects the framework to rigorous confirmation. If there's a better idea out there, it will find the light of day. The framework wasn't coerced by so-called authorities who tell people they must believe one thing or another. It may sound as though I am anti-religion, but I'm not. I'm a very religious person, actually. But as I said earlier, I see no conflict at all between science and spirituality. Surely, God did not give us a brain just for the hell of it. He meant us to use it. I certainly mean no disrespect to your ol' daddy, but he was wrong. No amount of "belief" that the earth is flat will make it true. No amount of "belief" that rain dances can bring a downpour will make it true. No amount of "belief" that the Cubs will win the World Series will make it happen. Etc, etc.
Heh... well, he meant that as irony. It was his way of saying that if you want a thing bad enough, you'll find a way to have it. When future humans are as far removed from us as we are from Christopher Columbus or the Plains Indians, the things we believe now may seem just as foolish as the things that people in those times believed. One day, hypothetically, someone in the not too distant future could be having this same argument about some other scientific conjecture and one will say to the other, as a means to prove his point, "No amount of "belief" that man evolved from apes will make it true." There is no question but that a theory is still just a theory, regardless of the mountains of currently popular "evidence." There is a reason why we have the words "theory" and "fact". They are to separate that which we know from that which we suspect. It's all well and good to have educated suspicions, but they're not facts. If you believe something that has no basis in fact, there has to be, by definition, some kind of faith involved. If there is no way that we can currently know what happend 65 million years ago, why do we practice the mental masturbation of trying? The reason, of course, is that we constantly learn new and useful things as we do the research. This is a good thing, but to claim or even suggest that we know more than what has been accurately proven would be wrong. Extrapolating an ancient skeleton from a few ounces of bone fragements and then publishing that model as an accurate representation of early man is pretty misleading, in my opinion. There is no way that the entire skeleton of an unknown primate could be reconstructed from just a few bone fragments, unless you are trying to make it look like something familiar. Not so very long ago, people had some strong theories about dinosaurs, based on much more complete skeletons they had found. So convinced were they that their projections were accurate, they painstakingly created lifesized models of those dinosaurs and put them on display at a place called The Crystal Palace in London, England. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crystal_Palace_Dinosaurs It's fascinating to see how poorly they guessed. We may be a little smarter about the dinosaurs, these days, but we clearly haven't lost the arrogance of our certainty that we can accurately fill in no end of missing information. It only took another 100 years to put the skeletons together correctly, and another 40 years to figure out that they were probably more like birds and mammals than lizards. So, yes... we clearly DO make eventual progress with science, but we still haven't given up that old habit of trying to build Crystal Palaces out of the relatively few facts that we actually do possess.
