Science isn't in conflict with gods, but in conflict with religions...

[Humanist_Activist]

This post is inspired by this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r6w2M50_Xdk

I remember my first Bible, it was given to me by the Church during my first communion, and I remember, one of the first pages of that Bible had an image similar to this:


Look at this, this is the universe as portrayed in the Bible, and it was completely wrong. Sure my church taught me that it was metaphorical, but an honest examination of the text would make people realize that all the prophets, from Abraham to Jesus, all holy men, and the God of the Bible, all thought of it as reality.

And they were and are wrong, period.

This is the conflict between religions and science, religions make claims that have been disproven, repeatedly and often. And of course, to keep themselves relevant, when the evidence became overwhelming the religions adapted, and tried to expand their parochial and limited deities to fit any new discoveries about the universe. Yet it becomes similar to trying to fit a square peg in a round hole.

And this is but one cosmological claim shared by 3 religions in the world, there are others, and they are just as wrong, all of them.

What's interesting is how religions sometimes encouraged observing the world, because they thought it was a way to glorify the gods. Both Christianity and Islam did this for many centuries, up to a point. Their reactions to discoveries that did contradict their holy texts were either attempting to suppress it, or attempting to reconcile it with increasingly irrelevant holy books.

This leads us to today, and this is what we find:


Every light present here isn't just a galaxy of billions of suns, but clusters of galaxies, and we are a small part of it. A mote of dust suspended around one sun in but one galaxy among billions, with billions of trillions of suns that have their own motes of dust orbiting them.

If a god or gods exist, it or they created that, and yet what how do the religions react? By putting their gods in a box, given them attributes that are woefully inadequate to explain how they could possibly have created the universe. Indeed, in many cases, they fail to define them at all, and instead claim it is beyond human understanding, and that may be true, but they still fall victim of relying on outdated and irrelevant holy books that describe their gods as petty and small beings that require worship and fealty.

Its certainly possible that a god or gods did create this universe, but these beings aren't present in any church or temple, and they certainly aren't the same beings as described in any holy book that humans have written. I also strongly doubt that such beings would demand we are on our knees and would rather we looked up at the sky in wonder at what it or they achieved, and to study and understand it, rather than clench our teeth and close our eyes to what is plainly around us. To look at reality for what it is, at this fantastical universe and not look to magic charlatans and old books.

You want to worship a god? Look through a telescope, or a microscope. Go to a science museum rather than a church.

Read this:


Instead of this:


Worship on your feet, go to a forest, enjoy the beauty of wildlife, enjoy the company of other people, love, live, raise children, and all without the shackles of religion. Enjoy the life we have right here, because it is precious, and no matter how small reality makes you feel, know that you are an individual with a mind of your own, you are unique. We were born of the stars, of the universe, and we are special in that we can understand this.

We ask big questions, what is our place in the universe? What is our purpose? And the questions cannot be found through prophets and temples, but rather through living our lives the best way we know how.

[libinnyandia]

1. Religion is based on faith, science is based on facts.

[roguevalley]

17. whatever. I love science and have no problem believing in God.

I don't believe in religious limitations. I agree with the OP and find it easy and even in some ways necessary to have the spiritual and the scientific coincide. One only has to think how easy it was for Hitler to industrialize murder to consider the potential consequences of divorcing the spirit from the intellect. Either alone is only half the picture to me.

And if you think I am including 'religion' into this, think again. there is a WORLD of difference between the two.

[libinnyandia]

22. There are no contradictions; some things can be proven through

the scientific method. Some things can't. The Creator is beyond out attempts to define Him or Her. We put it in human terms but all attempts only approximate the Truth. Some people use religions to justify evil, others use religions to promote good.

[MarkCharles]

2. Excellent! n/t

[jeepnstein]

3. It's not religion so much as it is religious people...

who give God a black eye to non-believers. The very types you write about "putting God in a box" are a huge part of the problem. They like to argue with the godless because both sides know they are right and will make up all sorts of reasons to prove it. I won't even get into all the self hating and guilt that some religious types try to shovel onto their flocks.

Scientists? They just put out the data and let it speak for itself. Sure some of them use their data to push a philosophical agenda but that's just human. As far as I can tell right now the body of scientific data points to a universe that is seemingly infinite and somehow originated in one little finite speck. That's pretty confusing and more than a bit daunting. I can either stick my head in the sand and shout "Six Days!" repeatedly or I can just quote David...


Psalm 8:1-4

1 LORD, our Lord,
how majestic is your name in all the earth!
You have set your glory
in the heavens.
2 Through the praise of children and infants
you have established a stronghold against your enemies,
to silence the foe and the avenger.
3 When I consider your heavens,
the work of your fingers,
the moon and the stars,
which you have set in place,
4 what is mankind that you are mindful of them,
human beings that you care for them?

For us religious types our God is either big enough to do the job, or we stuff him into a box and make him play by our rules.

[Humanist_Activist]

13. Actually your post illustrates my point in the Bible passage you quoted...

which mentions he "set in place" the moon and stars, a classic example of the incorrect Biblical cosmology I illustrated in my OP, where this god(and/or gods) set the stars in the firmament to light the night and the Moon was set there to rule the night.

You are free to claim this is poetic license, but the authors of the text obviously didn't think so.

[jeepnstein]

21. How else does one describe it?

If, as a believer, one accepts that God has the ultimate authority to arrange the universe as He sees fit then the language makes perfect sense. The worldly notion of the cosmos as described in your illustration is obviously wrong and I don't know anyone with a lick of sense who would argue otherwise. Even with the advance of scientific knowledge the Psalm is still applicable to the life of a believer. You'll never catch me calling the Bible a science text book because it clearly is not now nor was it ever intended to be one.

Don't get me started on six day flat earthers. They really enjoy making God comply with their rules.

[struggle4progress]

4. Claudius Ptolemy's Almagest, from the second century, was regarded as the authoritative

astronomical text in the West throughout the Middle Ages. Here is the Almagest, Book I, Chapter 2:

... And so, in general, we have to state that the heavens are spherical and move spherically; that the earth, in figure, is sensibly spherical also when taken as a whole; in position, lies right in the middle of the heavens, like a geometrical centre; in magnitude and distance, has the ratio of a point with respect to the sphere of the fixed stars, having itself no local motion at all ... http://www.cs.xu.edu/math/math147/02f/ptolemy/ptolemytext.html

So Ptolemy was a geocentrist, but knew the earth was more or less spherical; and although he thought the so-called fixed stars were attached to another sphere, he knew their distance was simply enormous compared to the size of the earth ("a point with respect to the sphere of the fixed stars")

Flattening the Earth
Sep-Oct 2002, Mercury Magazine, pp. 34-38.
by Jeffrey Burton Russell

Contrary to popular folklore, medieval Europeans knew Earth was a sphere ...

In fact, virtually no educated person in the Middle Ages (roughly defined as 500-1500 AD.) believed Earth was fiat. The evidence is as overwhelming as historical evidence can be. German historian Reinhard Krueger and other modern scholars have identified about 100 medieval writings dealing with Earth's shape. Five seem to assert flatness, and two are ambiguous. The rest take the globe for granted ...

... As for Earth, the medieval term for "the world:' in the sense of "the entire Earth," was orbis terrarum ("the globe of lands"). Three-dimensional artworks indicate that Earth is round. For example, paintings depict medieval rulers carrying orbs (symbols of power) surmounted by crosses. Medieval astronomers and geographers are not known for the breakthroughs characteristic of the 17th century, but they refined and improved the Greek and Roman view of Earth as a globe, a view completely dominant after the 4th century BCE ...

... They knew that boats disappeared from sight behind the horizon as they sailed outward and appeared at the horizon when returning. They knew that different stars were visible at different latitudes. They had calculated latitudes, as opposed to the much more difficult longitudes. They had also observed Earth's curved shadow on the Moon during lunar eclipses ...

http://lawrencehallofscience.org/pass/passv10/flat-earth.html

It would be interesting to know the exact source of the silly picture in the OP

[struggle4progress]

8. Here's an image of the cosmos from the 15th century Zoudenbalch bible:

http://www.socialhistoryofart.com.nyud.net:8090/photos/Art-for-Essays/DutchGodEnthronedCosmosBibleEvertVanSoudenbalchC1460Web.jpg
http://www.socialhistoryofart.com/apps/photos/photo?photoid=69962406

The round earth is surrounded by the moon, planets, and sun, with the zodiacal sphere at greater distance

[rrneck]

9. Cool link. nt

[Humanist_Activist]

10. You do realize that your post is has no bearing on mine, right?

I mean, the first picture was about Biblical cosmology, NOT medieval or Ptolemaic. The Greeks figured out the circumference of a spherical Earth at the same time that Old Testament writers were insisting it is a flat circle.

As far as sources, I got the image for the first image from this website: http://www.aarweb.org/syllabus/syllabi/g/gier/306/commoncosmos.htm

t explains the biblical view of the universe in more detail.

The second picture, is a picture of the large scale universe, with dark matter highlighted, got it from this website: http://www.lowbird.com/all/view/2011/01/z0m813-4

Its actually a two dimensional representation of data collected from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey.

I scaled both pictures down to be more convenient in a forum post, otherwise they are unmodified.
As far as calling either one "silly" I don't see why you even said that.

[trotsky]

12. That's never stopped him before. n/t

[struggle4progress]

14. Actually, I asked in my post for the source of that silly picture in your OP. I have some guess

where it might have come from, and so perhaps some idea of its date -- and it isn't from an ancient Hebrew source, so far as I can tell

There are, I expect, interesting comments to be made about the worldviews, that can be attributed Abraham or Jesus (whether or not one regards them as historical figures) -- but I can't see any way at all to claim the figure, that you posted, reflects a cosmology we should ascribe to either, nor is such a figure associated in any significant manner with the later historical development of Judaic, Christian, or Islamic culture

[Humanist_Activist]

15. Actually, from what I can tell, that picture, and many others like it...

are generally reconstructions of a relatively common cosmology of middle eastern cultures at the time of the Sumerians to Babylonians and even Israelite that were derived from archeology and studying the creation stories of these cultures.

Generally, these various stories, mostly copied from each other, agree on the overall construction and structure of their universe, flat disc of the Earth, supported by pillars and adrift in a primeval ocean, with a dome over it to separate it from the heavens. With all the celestial bodies embedded within it.

I didn't illustrate when the acceptance of Ptolemaic cosmology came in as too obvious, perhaps an oversight on my part, but again, its an example of adaptation by religion which attempts to assimilate new information into their paradigm.

[struggle4progress]

24. so -- where DID the figure come from?

the sumerians were in their glory about a millennium and a half before the hebrew bible was first collated; everyone had completely forgotten about them when the hebrew bible took shape; and their language seems to be unrelated to any of the semitic languages

we know almost nothing about babylonian cosmology

[Humanist_Activist]

26. Sorry, meant Assyrian, that's what I get for rushing things...

Sorry, here's a link that can explain things better than me:

http://www.mukto-mona.com/new_site/mukto-mona/Articles/brent_meeker/cosmology.htm

What I find fascinating is that you have yet to even address my post, but instead question veracity of something that is even found in some copies of the Bible.

[struggle4progress]

28. Your source is almost certainly flat-out wrong in its description of the Mesopotamian cosmos, which

it claims involved a firmament above, resting at its edges on the Earth, as your source illustrates with various modern graphics, such as this:

http://www.mukto-mona.com.nyud.net:8090/new_site/mukto-mona/Articles/brent_meeker/cosmology_files/image005.jpg

BUT SUCH A COSMOLOGY IS ENTIRELY INCONSISTENT WITH OUR CULTURAL HERITAGE FROM THE REGION

I refer, of course, (1) to the invention of the sexagesimal positional notation, which still partly survives in our sexagesimal minutes and seconds and (2) to the practice of dividing a circle in 360 parts

Various schemes for numerical notation existed in the ancient world. The Mesopotamians invented a sexagesimal positional notation, that they used for a number of purposes, including astronomy. When the Greeks began to collate the knowledge of other ancient cultures, and attempted to bring some rational order to what was known, the Greek astronomers adopted sexagesimal calculation -- which indicates that the Mesopotamian astronomers had observations and calculational schemes, that the Greeks wanted to learn and use. Ptolemy's astronomy, hundreds of years later, continued to use sexagesimal calculation

Time-keeping, from the beginning, has had an astronomical side. So perhaps it is not surprising that the ancient sexagesimal notation survives in the minutes and seconds of our modern time-keeping

... In 1000, the Persian scholar al-Biruni gave the times of the new moons of specific weeks as a number of days, hours, minutes, seconds, thirds, and fourths after noon Sunday. In 1267, the medieval scientist Roger Bacon stated the times of full moons as a number of hours, minutes, seconds, thirds, and fourths (horae, minuta, secunda, tertia, and quarta) after noon on specified calendar dates. A... third for 1/60 of a second remains in some languages, for example Polish (tercja) and Turkish (salise) ... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second

The attempt to reckon a lunar year as 12 months of 30 days for a total of 360 days is ancient. But the Mesopotamians used this number also for dividing the circle; and that continues until today, with a further division of circular arcs into minutes and seconds once again retaining the ancient sexagesimal notation

This division of the circle, into about the number of days in a lunar year, was no mere coincidence. Those people clearly recognized that in the course of a year, the sun strolls along the ecliptic, and they grouped stars near the ecliptic into various zodiacal constellations for the purpose of tracking the sun's periodic position. Moreover, they actually diagrammed some astronomical facts in circular form:

http://www.astro.uu.nl.nyud.net:8090/~vgent/babylon/images/k_8538_sm.jpg
K 8538 <= CT 33, 10>. Assyrian star planisphere found in the library of the Assyrian king Ashurbanipal (Aššur-bāni-apli – reigned 668-627 BCE) at Nineveh. The function of this unique 13-cm diameter clay tablet, in which the principal constellations are positioned in eight sectors, is disputed but the texts and drawings appear to be astro-magical in nature. Kuyunjik Collection, British Museum, London
Bibliography of Mesopotamian Astronomy and Astrology
http://www.astro.uu.nl/~vgent/babylon/babybibl.htm

Since they knew that this progression could be represented by circular diagrams, it is rather implausible that they regarded the sky as some half-dome attached, along its edges, to the earth. The bottom line is: these people, viewed in the context of their time, were smashingly good astronomers and mathematicians. They calculated tables of sides of right triangles and baked their tables into clay tablets for posterity. They figured out how to estimate square roots and they baked that knowledge into clay tablets for posterity, too

And I'm similarly skeptical of your supposed diagram of biblical cosmology. There's actually nothing like that in the old Hebrew texts. What you've got is a picture, probably from the Victorian era. Perhaps it was constructed by lifting a half-sentence from here, and a half-sentence from there, and a half-sentence from somewhere else, using some translation of a disparate collection of ancient texts, written by various different authors over many hundreds of years -- and then drawing a picture, piecing together these odd bits, and claiming the result is "the bible's cosmology." Or perhaps, equivalently, it is pure fantasy. Where, by the way, did THAT picture come from?

[cleanhippie]

5. Excellent post! K&R.

:applause:

[trotsky]

6. It conflicts with gods, too.

Only the gods that are postulated to have an active, day-to-day role in the universe, but those happen to be the ones the vast majority of theists believe in.

[Humanist_Activist]

11. You are correct of course, but my post discounts those types of dieties...

just not as blatantly as your post.

[rrneck]

7. K&R Well said.

"An unexamined life is not worth living." -- Socrates

I don't think religion will ever be expurgated though. If people are willing to gather together and share the experience if watching other people bang into each other, religion in some form is here to stay.

[rug]

16. On what scientific basis do you state this?

"Its certainly possible that a god or gods did create this universe"

[laconicsax]

18. You're kidding, right?

Name the scientific model that requires a god.

[rug]

19. He said it. If science is the only means of knowledge he should be able to back it up.

Maybe you want to take a crack at it.

[laconicsax]

20. The laws of physics allow for the universe to have self-started.

Under the current cosmological model, everything could have self-started. We don't know if that's what happened, but it's possible.

[rug]

23. Not bad.

[Humanist_Activist]

25. I don't discount possibilities, just consider them increasingly unlikely...

based on evidence or lack of evidence. Its called keeping an open mind.

[Nihil]

27. Excellent post but sadly too late to recommend it ...

I especially liked these comments:

> You want to worship a god? Look through a telescope, or a microscope.
> Go to a science museum rather than a church.

> Worship on your feet, go to a forest, enjoy the beauty of wildlife,
> enjoy the company of other people, love, live, raise children, and
> all without the shackles of religion. Enjoy the life we have right here,
> because it is precious, and no matter how small reality makes you feel,
> know that you are an individual with a mind of your own, you are unique.
> We were born of the stars, of the universe, and we are special in that
> we can understand this.

> We ask big questions, what is our place in the universe? What is our purpose?
> And the questions cannot be found through prophets and temples, but rather
> through living our lives the best way we know how.

Your image of the myriad galaxies becomes breaktaking when you realise what it
means, what scale is involved. The Hubble Deep Field image series causes the
same feeling of awe in me. Yet so does holding the fossil of an ammonite or
a trilobite in my hand or seeing the wonder that is a growing leaf.

"Beauty shines through the whole of the creation in symmetry and order."

Your suggestion of using a telescope or a microscope (or even just the naked
eye in a moment of peace) is a far more powerful & (IMO) productive message
than any amount of blather about turning up to a particular building on a
particular time in a week whilst keeping ones senses closed to beauty for
the rest of the week.

Thanks for that!

:toast: