Nature as GOD

[InfiniteNow]

That's a false dichotomy. Those same people are a PART of nature.

[freeztar]

Ah... but it's not about "imposing," nor about "overarching authority." It's about teaching, and helping to form a respect in others for the importance of reasonableness and evidence.

 

So, to an extent, if we make that "overarching authority" the principles of the scientific method and an appreciation for rationality and reason, then I whole heartedly suggest that we "impose" it on others.

 

Unfortunately, all too often people wear their faith in the absence of evidence as a badge of honor, and we must first extinguish such a limiting mindset if we are ever to reach them on a level which is meaningful.

 

I agree, but still disagree with your teaching method.

If someone tells me that 2+2=5 I can either ridicule them for their absence of logic or I could tell them that they are incorrect and explain the logic of 2+2=4 (even if it takes a hundred tries). Two different philosophies on teaching. One is dismissive, the other is more empathetic.

[Mike C]

I believe you are mis-using the word "civilized" Mike.

 

This is the common definition of civilized.

as found here: civilized: Definition, Synonyms and Much More from Answers.com

 

1. Having a highly developed society and culture.

2. Showing evidence of moral and intellectual advancement; humane, ethical, and reasonable.

3. Marked by refinement in taste and manners; cultured; polished.

 

If anything, I'd say Nature is the very absence of "civilized".

 

The last part of #2 got a laugh out of me.

 

Mike C

[Mike C]

You are putting the cart before the horse, humans built all of these things and then compared them to the animals not the other way around.

 

The only reason they don't do these things is because they cannot, the reason we do is because we can (reminds me of a joke) :hihi:

 

Lets face it. We survive because of our handicaps like guns, drugs, home comforts and etc. I will admit that we do work harder than Nature although some animals are used in some cases.

However, Nature survives under much harsher conditions.

 

BS, these things are how animals survive in the wild, survival is what they do, it's also what we do. Saying they only do these horrific things to survive is like saying I am not a Murderer because I only did it so I could take his food to eat. An animal will take food from babies in an instant if they can. They don't care or worry about hurting any one or anything to get that they want. At least humans try to deal with the needs and urges in a manner that seeks to do as little harm to each other as possible. When was the last time you heard of a human male invading a home killing the husband and children and keeping the wife the home the the husbands job and no one doing anything about it? We don't allow such things but animals do these things as part of their life style. Animals will do what ever they need to do to make their lives easier. If catching and killing a small animals is easier than foraging for food an animal that can eat meat will. If an animals can tear down and kill an entire tree to get a few bites from the tops leaves they will! If animals can devastate an entire ecology they will. The only stops on them are other animals and their lack of ability to do what every they find to do. Animals are not some sort of noble superior being, they are not even as noble as we are, at least we try to stop such behaviors, animals don't and don't care or want to do so.

 

Greatly exagerated and distorted.

As far as environments are concerned, we are destroying their environments, not the other way around

 

Mike C

 

.

[Moontanman]

Lets face it. We survive because of our handicaps like guns, drugs, home comforts and etc. I will admit that we do work harder than Nature although some animals are used in some cases.

However, Nature survives under much harsher conditions.

 

 

 

Greatly exagerated and distorted.

As far as environments are concerned, we are destroying their environments, not the other way around

 

Mike C

 

.

 

Mike C your understanding is so far off the truth it's impossible to even explain the truth to you. Animals only avoid destroying the environment because they cannot, when ever an animal is put into a situation where they can destroy the environment they do, every time with out fail. Humans try to over come their animal natures, they don't always succeed but they do try. Try to get charity from an animal one time, do animals help each other when they are hurt or starving, no they don't. Humans do this, humans are the only really noble beings on this planet and we still fall short of this ideal. You are just deluding your self to have a reason to feel superior to every one who doesn't do what you do. Get over your self.

[InfiniteNow]

I agree, but still disagree with your teaching method.

If someone tells me that 2+2=5 I can either ridicule them for their absence of logic or I could tell them that they are incorrect and explain the logic of 2+2=4 (even if it takes a hundred tries). Two different philosophies on teaching. One is dismissive, the other is more empathetic.

 

Right, I agree with that, but I also think that I must be doing a poor job of conveying my own teaching method/philosophy if you think that all I'm doing is being dismissive.

 

When someone comes here and claims that 2+2=5, my first step is to ask why they think this. After all, science is not closed minded, and neither am I. My approach is an open willingness to consider any well supported proposition.

 

So, the person responds to my request for reasoning. The vast majority of the time, they say something like, "It just is."

 

I respond again, informing them that's not good enough. At this point, I will also begin to explain my position to show why a simple assertion of "It just is" is not acceptable.

 

During this exchange, I am continually working to discover the logic and reasoning the other person has used to reach their conclusions. Many times we simply misunderstand each other, and sincere attempts must be made to find the source of that misunderstanding. I don't want to discard good ideas just because I don't understand them at first.

 

So, I have now probed the other person more than once, being very open and accepting, and ready to find common ground. I am still being "empathetic" as you've described it.

 

But, this time, their third response is more of the same. Unfounded, illogical, faith based, biased, regurgitated, brainwashed, unsubstantiated opinions, assertions and strong convictions of fairty tale based nonsense.

 

It's only after that third time that I begin to openly call it nonsense, as two attempts should be more than enough to move a conversation forward and improve the understanding others have of our statements. It should not take more than 2 or 3 attempts to say something fresh, give new information and reasoning, and support one's position instead of simply repeating it.

 

 

While the above is idealized, and not necessarily a 100% accurate description of every single one of my encounters with a new person, it is a fair representation of my philosophy, and I suggest that it is far from dismissive.

 

When I do become dismissive, it's generally only after all other attempts at finding middle ground have failed.

 

 

Further, once those attempts at finding their logic and reason have failed, once the other person has proven their unwillingness to either support their claims with evidence or respond intelligently to criticisms of them, that is when I suggest there is little more that we can do but to ostracize them.

 

Let me try to restate all of the above another way (please do, though, refer primarily to the above, and not my weak analogy below)...

 

We are pack animals. When one of the group gets challenged, they must respond. If their response fails in the face of challenge, you challenge them again. If they fail again, you challenge them again. If the response to all challenges is failure, you shun them from the group and dismiss them... They are ostracized for the greater good of the pack.

 

 

 

 

 

Also, after having gone for a motorcycle ride and thought about your question, I've decided that I find the abrahamic god more offensive. All concepts of god are equally ridiculous, but abrahamic gods are arrogant and childish, whereas nature as god is just stupid and unnecessary. :hihi:

[Mike C]

Mike C your understanding is so far off the truth it's impossible to even explain the truth to you. Animals only avoid destroying the environment because they cannot, when ever an animal is put into a situation where they can destroy the environment they do, every time with out fail. Humans try to over come their animal natures, they don't always succeed but they do try. Try to get charity from an animal one time, do animals help each other when they are hurt or starving, no they don't. Humans do this, humans are the only really noble beings on this planet and we still fall short of this ideal. You are just deluding your self to have a reason to feel superior to every one who doesn't do what you do. Get over your self.

 

The only time I can think of where animals destroy the environment is when people complain about the way they 'fertilize' the soil in their environments.

This is unfortunate since when people feed the birds, they stay in that environment.

 

Mike C

[InfiniteNow]

People are part of nature, Mike, hence your approach is based on non-sequiturs, false dichotomies, invalid premises, and falls flat on its face.

[C1ay]

The only time I can think of where animals destroy the environment is when people complain about the way they 'fertilize' the soil in their environments.

This is unfortunate since when people feed the birds, they stay in that environment.

 

Would you consider the local ecology to be part of the environment? Is it not destructive when the migration of nonnative species into an environment upsets the local ecology of that environment?

[Overdog]

Originally Posted by Overdog

I believe you are mis-using the word "civilized" Mike.

 

This is the common definition of civilized.

as found here: civilized: Definition, Synonyms and Much More from Answers.com

 

1. Having a highly developed society and culture.

2. Showing evidence of moral and intellectual advancement; humane, ethical, and reasonable.

3. Marked by refinement in taste and manners; cultured; polished.

 

If anything, I'd say Nature is the very absence of "civilized".

 

The last part of #2 got a laugh out of me.

 

Mike C

 

I imagine it did, but laughter is not a response to my point, nor does it show much in they way of "reasonableness".

[Thunderbird]

Well said, REASON! :wink:

 

If god as nature is part of human evolution, then it's quite possible, that it would express itself less and less as its usefulness wanes, if it indeed wanes. Time will tell.

As our world changes our myths changes, You do not have to be religious.

We all participate in these mythological idealism's. Our collective Ideals of what it means to be alive.

 

These stories that convey what forms our live’s should take will evolve as the environment changes.

 

Yes the god of Abraham... the root of all Judo-Christian-Islamic faith is based will become more and more obsolete as we reach a global world, but it will be replaced by a more useful paradigms, And yes,.... mythologies are useful paradigms. This, I think is the crux of the debate.

 

Campbell Themes

 

But this is THE important idea in Campbell. He referred to the evolution of myth in the conclusion to The Hero with A Thousand Faces:

 

The descent of the Occidental sciences from the heavens to the earth (from seventeenth-century astronomy to nineteenth-century biology), and their concentration today, at last, on man himself (in twentieth-century anthropology and psychology), mark the path of a prodigious transfer of the focal point of human wonder. Not the animal world, not the plant world, not the miracle of the spheres, but man himself is now the crucial mystery. (Hero, p. 391)

 

That prodigious transfer has continued on into the twenty-first century now with brain study, DNA research, bio-feedback studies of meditators, and complex theories of consciousness (including, of course, the role of consciousness in determining the outcome of scientific experimentation). Ken Wilbur's work, by the way, is another example of this shift in the human experience toward greater and greater reflexivity and self-consciousness. To paraphase the last sentence in the quote from the Hero: Not the supernatural world of the gods of old, but consciousness itself in now the powerful image of the essence of existence. Not an external personality watching over the earth, but the spark of consciousness itself is the appropriate image for God today. God isn't "out-there"; God is "in here," in the sense that our own awareness of our being aware and creating images for ourselves of what our experience is the thing that inspires us to feel wonder and to sense a place within the cosmos.

 

Joseph Campbell, The Power of Myths with Bill Moyers. New York, Doubleday, 1988.

Moyers: Don't you think modern Americans have rejected the ancient idea of nature as a divinity because it would have kept us from achieving dominance over nature? How can you cut down trees and uproot the land and turn the rivers into real estate without killing God?

Cambell: Yes, but that's not simple a characteristic of modern Americans, that the biblical condemnation of nature which they inherited from their own religion and brought with them, mainly from England. God is separate from nature, and nature is condemned of God. It's right there in Genesis: we are to be the masters of the world. (p. 32)

Moyers: Take the creation story in Genesis, for example. How is it like other stories?

Campbell: Well, you read from Genesis, and I'll read from the creation stories in others cultures, and we'll see. (p. 42)

Moyers: Genesis 1: ''And God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good.''

Campbell: And from the Upanishads: ''Then he realized, I indeed, I am this creation, for I have poured it forth from myself. In that way he became this creation. Verily, he who knows this becomes in this creation a creator.''

That is the clincher there. When you know this, then you have identified with the creative principle, which is the God power in the world, which means in you. It is beautiful. (p. 45)

 

http://www.csulb.edu/~dsteiger/Adam%20and%20Eve%20(Campbell).pdf

[Overdog]

I think that people are born ignorant, abysmally so, and that only a single generation separates us from where we are today from where we were 100,000 years ago.

 

The struggle against ignorance is a never-ending struggle. People are born with a natural instinct to believe whatever they are taught. They are not born with a natural instinct to think logically. That is something that has to be learned, and even after you've learned it, it isn't natural or easy. This is why unsubstantiated beliefs florish in all cultures.

 

The myths and superstitions invented by our ancestors gain new life with every generation. It doesn't matter how illogical or unreasonable they are. These beliefs will not go away if we just wait. Some have said that the idea that man can ever rid himself of the superstious baggage passed down from generation to generation is a hopeless idea. That there are more people alive today whose lives are guided by unsubstantiated beliefs than at any other time in human history. This is probably true. But I am not willing to conceed that we cannot win this battle. It is a battle that we must win if humanity is to ever rise out of it's barbaric roots and conquer the stars.

[Cathryn]

Wow! OD has got it! The fact is that we all do what we think is right. Even Hitler was only doing what he thought needed to be done. Animals do only what they deem necessary. There is no evil, just misunderstanding. The problem here for most is their ideas of what God is. It's often a reaction to what other people have told them. It would benefit them to know that God doesn't care whether you beieved in God. We are all part of God, you don't have to believe this fact. Everyone will understand this, it's just a matter of time.

 

It's a benefit to know that we are all creators. Then we can get on a create with intention a world we like on all levels. We are 6 billion creators and the story we are creating is NOT sustainable.

 

We need to take responsibility for the things we create. We are the Gods. We have no-one to blame.

 

Does science take resonsibility for what it creates? The fact is science more often that not has no idea the extent of the effect of their 'science' once it leaves their lab. It seems once the cheque is cashed they don't care!

 

So science as well as God has had plenty of mis-representation. But they all are doing what they think is 'right'. Hitler went to heaven!

[Thunderbird]

I think that people are born ignorant, abysmally so, and that only a single generation separates us from where we are today from where we were 100,000 years ago.

 

The struggle against ignorance is a never-ending struggle. People are born with a natural instinct to believe whatever they are taught. They are not born with a natural instinct to think logically. That is something that has to be learned, and even after you've learned it, it isn't natural or easy. This is why unsubstantiated beliefs florish in all cultures.

 

The myths and superstitions invented by our ancestors gain new life with every generation. It doesn't matter how illogical or unreasonable they are. These beliefs will not go away if we just wait. Some have said that the idea that man can ever rid himself of the superstious baggage passed down from generation to generation is a hopeless idea. That there are more people alive today whose lives are guided by unsubstantiated beliefs than at any other time in human history. This is probably true. But I am not willing to conceed that we cannot win this battle. It is a battle that we must win if humanity is to ever rise out of it's barbaric roots and conquer the stars.

 

"guided by unsubstantiated beliefs"

What about the visionary’s :wink:

[C1ay]

Does science take resonsibility for what it creates?

 

Science doesn't create anything but knowledge.

[Cathryn]

What a steaming load of crap! There are man-made chemicals. Are you saying science is NOT responsible for those?

[Moontanman]

What a steaming load of crap! There are man-made chemicals. Are you saying science is NOT responsible for those?

 

Science is not responsible for how they are used, many man made chemicals are a boon to man kind some are neutral others are bad. Science doesn't say how they should be used, Humans make that call usually based on intelligence or in some cases ignorance but unsubstantiated beliefs like racism, patriotism, or religion still figure into how and why they are used :wink: