The Scientist Takes No Position on God
Atheism is not a scientific position, just as belief in a God is not. Scientists find spiritual fulfillment in natural laws. It's interesting to note that the scientist taking no position on god bares a remarkable resemblance to not believing in god.
Folksonomies: science religion god
Memes
09 SEP 2014
Asimov: Rationalism VS Atheism
I prefer rationalism to atheism. The question of God and other objects-of-faith are outside reason and play no part in rationalism, thus you don't have to waste your time in either attacking or defending.Folksonomies: atheism rationalism
Folksonomies: atheism rationalism
1 
notes
notesNeed to find the source of this.
24 DEC 2013
The Universe Holds the Meaning we Give It
Things happen because the laws of nature say they will—because they are the consequences of the state of the universe and the path of its evolution. Life on Earth doesn’t arise in fulfillment of a grand scheme but as a by-product of the increase of entropy in an environment very far from equilibrium. Our impressive brains don’t develop because life is guided toward greater levels of complexity and intelligence but from the mechanical interactions between genes, organisms, and their surroundin...
Sean Carroll argues that our existence and our intelligence is the product of nature's algorithms. Life holds the meaning we give it.
27 APR 2013
You want a physicist to speak at your funeral
You want a physicist to speak at your funeral. You want the physicist to talk to your grieving family about the conservation of energy, so they will understand that your energy has not died. You want the physicist to remind your sobbing mother about the first law of thermodynamics; that no energy gets created in the universe, and none is destroyed. You want your mother to know that all your energy, every vibration, every Btu of heat, every wave of every particle that was her beloved child rem...Folksonomies: science spirituality
Folksonomies: science spirituality
Examples of how such a person can provide comfort and consolation.
08 JAN 2013
The Problem with the "Atheist"
As I've said, I've never believed in God, which technically makes me an atheist (since the prefix "a" means "not" or "without"). But I have problems with the word "atheism." It defines what someone is not rather than what someone is. It would be like calling me an a-instrumentalist for Bad Religion rather than the band's singer. Defining yourself as against something says very little about what you are for.
That's my biggest objection to the wave of atheist book^ks and Web sites that have c...Not only does it define someone by what they aren't, it also suffers from an incredible vagueness that tells people nothing about what a person thinks.
06 JAN 2013
The Question of God is Not Valid to Science
I don’t think you can refute creationism. Science only explores the natural world, not the supernatural world, and God is a supernatural question. Even creationists will admit that God is supernatural.
The question of God is not a question that’s answerable by science because you can’t create an experiment that shows God doesn’t exist. That’s what scientists do. They create experiments to prove the negative. In fact, most of science is failure—failure to prove your hypothesis. If you can’t p...You cannot prove God does or does not exist, and science is concerned with what is provable.
17 MAY 2012
Faith in this World Is Possible Without Faith in Another
Science, for me, gives a partial explanation of life. In so far as it goes, it is based on fact, experience and experiment. Your theories are those which you and many other people find easiest and pleasantest to believe, but, so far as I can see, they have no foundation other than they lead to a pleasant view of life ... I agree that faith is essential to success in life ... but I do not accept your definition of faith, i.e. belief in life after death. In my view, all that is necessary for fa...Quoting Rosalind Franklin.
28 APR 2012
Scientists have Faith
While it is true that scientific results are entirely independent from religious and moral considerations, those individuals to whom we owe the great creative achievements of science were all of them imbued with the truly religious conviction that this universe of ours is something perfect and susceptible to the rational striving for knowledge. If this conviction had not been a strongly emotional one and if those searching for knowledge had not been inspired by Spinoza's Amor Dei Intellectual...Folksonomies: rationality
Folksonomies: rationality
1 In the the rationality of the Universe.
28 JAN 2012
God of the Gaps
The man in the street will, therefore, twist the statement that the scientist has come to the end of meaning into the statement that the scientist has penetrated as far as he can with the tools at his command, and that there is something beyond the ken of the scientist. This imagined beyond, which the scientist has proved he cannot penetrate, will become the playground of the imagination of every mystic and dreamer. The existence of such a domain will be made the basis of an orgy of rationali...The gaps in what science knows gets filled with gods and ghosts, but the atheist also fills it with the idea that chance rules the universe.
12 SEP 2011
The Written Word Keeps Asimov Immortal
I'm gradually managing to cram my mind more and more full of things. I've got this beautiful mind and it's going to die, and it'll all be gone. And then I say, not in my case. Every idea I've ever had I've written down, and it's all there on paper. And I won't be gone; it'll be there.Because, after he dies, everything he knows will be written down.
09 JUN 2011
We are Drawn to the Supernatural
WE HAVE, it seems, a fierce attraction for spirits: auras, angels, poltergeists, disembodied souls, out-of-body experiences. Mostly, I think, we are drawn to these things because we intuit—correctly, it turns out—that there must be more to the world than meets the eye. We inherit the spirit world from a time when our ancestors huddled in dark shelters at night and let their imaginations draw up creatures more or less like ourselves although lacking corporeal substance. But why should we care ...But there is so much to wonder at around us in the natural.
04 JUN 2011
Atheism is on Par With Religious Belief
If you were to ask me, if I believed in god. Since I am a professional scientist, I would want to give you two answers. In my capacity as a professional scientist I would have to--I would be required to--be agnostic on the subject since I couldn't cite with scientific certainty say that there is a god and I couldn't with scientific certainty say that there isn't.
But if I were allowed to respond as just a regular non-scientist and if you allowed me to take the very same indulgences that all...Atheism is as unscientific as theism. Scientists are concerned with reality, when they take a position on theology, they are not acting within the bounds of science.
04 JUN 2011
Carl Sagan on the Belief in God
I think it's impossible to be a scientist and to confront, even occassionally, the grandure, subtlety, elegance and magnificience of the universe without feeling a sense of reverence and awe, but that's very different from concluding that there's a god who issues punishments and rewards after your dead or that prayer works or that the bible is written by anybody but fallible human beings.
[...]
The word god is used to cover so many different points of view... First of all, you can be religi...A very political commentary on the subject. Beautiful rhetorically.
02 JUN 2011
Einstein on Wonder
The finest emotion of which we are capable is the mystic emotion. Herein lies the germ of all art and all true science. Anyone to whom this feeling is alien, who is no longer capable of wonderment and lives in a state of fear is a dead man. To know that what is impenatrable for us really exists and manifests itself as the highest wisdom and the most radiant beauty, whose gross forms alone are intelligible to our poor faculties – this knowledge, this feeling … that is the core of the true reli...1 notes
notesGreat quote on the sense of wonder and the spiritual fulfillment that comes from it.
02 JUN 2011
The fairest thing we can experience is the mysterious
The fairest thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the fundamental emotion which stands at the cradle of true art and true science. He who knows it not and can no longer wonder, no longer feel amazement, is as good as dead, a snuffed-out candle. It was the experience of mystery — even if mixed with fear — that engendered religion. A knowledge of the existence of something we cannot penetrate, of the manifestations of the profoundest reason and the most radiant beauty, which are only...Einstein describes the spiritual wonder of exploring nature, compared to the idea of a personal god.
29 MAY 2011
The Personhood Associated with the Word "God"
In his Spiritual Exercises, the Greek novelist Nikos Kazantzakis writes:
We have seen the highest circle of spiraling powers. We have named this circle God. We might have given it any other name we wished: Abyss, Mystery, Absolute Darkness, Absolute Light, Matter, Spirit, Ultimate Hope, Ultimate Despair, Silence. But we have named it God because only this name, for primordial reasons, can stir the heart profoundly. And this deeply felt emotion is indispensable if we are to touch, body with...While deists and others use it to mean a spiritual force, the word is so infused with the idea of a consciousness similar to human beings that it seems irretrievably corrupted for use by spiritual naturalists.
29 MAY 2011
Spiritual Naturalist Definition of God
So this is my Credo. I am an atheist, if by God one means a transcendent Person who acts willfully within the creation. I am an agnostic in that I believe our knowledge of "what is" is partial and tentative-a tiny flickering flame in the overwhelming shadows of our ignorance. I am a pantheist in that I believe empirical knowledge of the sensate world is the surest revelation of whatever is worth being called divine. I am a Catholic by accident of birth.Not a personification, but a nebulous concept meant to be explored.
29 MAY 2011
Why "Spiritual Naturalism"?
Our response to the natural world is one of reverence and humility in the face of a mystery that transcends empirical knowing-now, certainly, and perhaps forever. "Agnostic" does not do justice to the celebratory aspect of our position. Nor does "pantheist" adequately express our sense of what nature hides. "Creation-based spirituality" has a respectable pedigree, although "creation" hints at an anthropomorphic Creator. "Religious naturalism" gets close to the mark.Because atheism and agnosticism don't convey they joy we take in the natural world.
19 MAY 2011
Prayer Should Validate Existence
Many films diminish us. They cheapen us, masturbate our senses, hammer us with shabby thrills, diminish the value of life. Some few films evoke the wonderment of life's experience, and those I consider a form of prayer. Not prayer "to" anyone or anything, but prayer "about" everyone and everything. I believe prayer that makes requests is pointless. What will be, will be. But I value the kind of prayer when you stand at the edge of the sea, or beneath a tree, or smell a flower, or love someone...Not ask for things.
23 MAR 2011
Albert Einstein Clarifies What He Means By "God"
It seems to me that the idea of a personal God is an anthropological concept which I cannot take seriously. I also cannot imagine some will or goal outside the human sphere.... Science has been charged with undermining morality, but the charge is unjust. A man's ethical behavior should be based effectually on sympathy, education, and social ties and needs; no religious basis is necessary. Man would indeed be in a poor way if he had to be restrained by fear of punishment and hope of reward aft...Einstein is not referring to a personal, anthropomorphic god when he uses the word.
References
19 DEC 2013
This Will Make You Smarter
Books, Brochures, and Chapters>Book: Brockman , John (2012-02-14), This Will Make You Smarter, HarperCollins, Retrieved on 2013-12-19Source Material [books.google.com]
Folksonomies: science
Folksonomies: science
52 
27 APR 2013
Planning Ahead Can Make a Difference in the End
Audiovisual Media>Audio Recording: Freeman, Aaron (June 01, 2005), Planning Ahead Can Make a Difference in the End, NPR, Retrieved on 2013-04-27Source Material [www.npr.org]
Folksonomies: science spirituality
Folksonomies: science spirituality
1
08 JAN 2013
Anarchy Evolution
Books, Brochures, and Chapters>Book: Graffin , Greg and Olson , Steve (2011-10-18), Anarchy Evolution, Harper Perennial, Retrieved on 2013-01-08Source Material [books.google.com]
12
06 JAN 2013
Truth, Deception, and the Myth of the One-Handed Scientist
Periodicals>Journal Article: Flatow, Ira (11/2012), Truth, Deception, and the Myth of the One-Handed Scientist, Humanist, November / December 2012 , Retrieved on 2013-01-06Source Material [thehumanist.org]
3
17 MAY 2012
Cambridge Women: Twelve Portraits
Books, Brochures, and Chapters>Book: Shils , Edward and Blacker , Carmen (1996-02-22), Cambridge Women: Twelve Portraits, Cambridge Univ Pr, Retrieved on 2012-05-17Source Material [books.google.com]
Folksonomies: social science
Folksonomies: social science
2
28 APR 2012
Ideas and opinions
Books, Brochures, and Chapters>Book: Einstein, Albert and Seelig , Carl (1995-06-06), Ideas and opinions, Three Rivers Press, Retrieved on 2012-04-28Source Material [books.google.com]
Folksonomies: political science
Folksonomies: political science
1
28 JAN 2012
Reflections of a Physicist
Books, Brochures, and Chapters>Book: Bridgman , P. W. (2010-09), Reflections of a Physicist, Kessinger Publishing, Retrieved on 2012-01-28Source Material [books.google.com]
Folksonomies: literary collections
Folksonomies: literary collections
4
12 SEP 2011
'Isaac Asimov Speaks' with Bill Moyers
Periodicals>Journal Article: Asimov, Isaac (1989), 'Isaac Asimov Speaks' with Bill Moyers, he Humanist, Jan/Feb 1989 49., Retrieved on 2011-09-12
Folksonomies: humanism
Folksonomies: humanism
2
08 JUN 2011
The Path: A One-Mile Walk Through the Universe
Books, Brochures, and Chapters>Book: Raymo , Chet (2003-03-01), The Path: A One-Mile Walk Through the Universe, Walker & Company, Retrieved on 2011-06-08
Folksonomies: science naturalism
Folksonomies: science naturalism
21
04 JUN 2011
Fresh Air Archive: Charles Haden and Carl Sagan
Audiovisual Media>Audio Recording: Sagan , Carl and Gross, Terry (12-16-1999), Fresh Air Archive: Charles Haden and Carl Sagan, NPR Fresh Air, Retrieved on 2011-06-04
3
04 JUN 2011
Science in Hollywood
Proceedings of Meetings and Symposia>Speech: Porco, Carolyn (2009), Science in Hollywood, Atheist Alliance International, AAI 2009, Retrieved on 2011-06-04Source Material [www.youtube.com]
2
02 JUN 2011
The World As I See It
Books, Brochures, and Chapters>Book: Einstein, Albert (2011-03-16), The World As I See It, Open Road / Philosophical Library, Retrieved on 2011-06-02
1
29 MAY 2011
When God Is Gone, Everything Is Holy: The Making of a Rel...
Books, Brochures, and Chapters>Book: Raymo , Chet (2008-09), When God Is Gone, Everything Is Holy: The Making of a Religious Naturalist, Sorin Books, Retrieved on 2011-05-29
Folksonomies: spiritual naturalism naturalism
Folksonomies: spiritual naturalism naturalism
8
19 MAY 2011
A prayer beneath the Tree of Life
Electronic/World Wide Web>Blog: Ebert, Roger (May 17, 2011), A prayer beneath the Tree of Life, Chicago Sun Times, Retrieved on 2011-05-19Source Material [blogs.suntimes.com]
1
