This Straw Vulcan talk could be relevant.

Im just gonna point out that Atheists usually consider themselves smarter than Theists, for various reasons. Thus if a Theist invites Atheists to train their brains, it might not be the catchiest Catchphrase.

R.I.P.

I'd rather say atheists are focused on the fresh apple, not the rotten one.

Because You cant! Or because only your atoms can have that longer one as parts of another interesting structure when "lucky" (for as long as the universe persists).

Delusion is never a plus EV proposition, even if it feels that way in an unexamined existence that begs for help from fictitious expectations unable to recognize the miracle and opportunity this current one is eventually, even if short lived.

Science can have delusions too but they are never intentional and they are inevitably undermined by the persistent examination of their consistency. It is not afraid to question its premises.

I can discuss religion (as the search for a nonstandard origin for life or the universe through a higher agent say) scientifically anywhere and Zeno wont stop me. Only my inability to do it properly will which then should prompt Zeno to remind me of why its risky to discuss religion in SMP. However not only religion is a philosophical topic and as such belongs to the P of SMP but also a scientific one in terms of how its starts as a phenomenon in human brains or why it has universal properties or even in terms of potentially describing an intuitive truth science can uncover in future times (eg answer whether life on earth has an external origin by a higher intelligent agent interacting with the system. That is a valid question and until abiogenesis is settled it remains open). In fact i am not at all interested in discussing religion in RGT if a discussion about it cannot stand a scientific standard of doing it properly and takes a dogmatic arbitrary direction or the character of proselytism using very weak in terms of logic (or false even) arguments.

I am very eager to study religion scientifically because its the only way i can study it that is honest and satisfying. The question of how the universe starts is not a closed/settled one. The question of how life starts is also not a settled one. The character of physical law is not a settled issue (to understand why it is that way). What is more or less settled is that with the exception of a few initial points of interest the rest seems to be explained pretty rationally in testable ways by already known laws of nature and mathematics. Science have had no need to introduce the concept of God for example in its quest for the laws of nature and the origin of structure/life etc. It does remain open however to the possibility our past is not without an intelligent component shaping it or that the universe is very fine tuned (also an interesting scientific problem). However to this day no evidence (of such agents) that can prove such argument has existed that can survive scrutiny.

If we investigated in the future life in another system we would appear as Gods to that life if it was intelligent enough to notice nonstandard behavior in their nature due to our interference and technology. For a colony of bacteria we are experimenting with we are effective Golds but they do not understand it.

Also a more advanced society that has explored complexity at deeper levels can in principle be more ethical (more caring, more thoughtful, wiser, open minded etc). All those are properties that ancient people assigned to God over time as religions were refined from crude mythology to more elaborate structures. So the issue of plausibility exists for me. We would look like that to an extraterrestrial newly discovered system that has life or where we interfered.

Until more evidence however arises all i can choose as most likely explanation of religion is a natural ancient need of humans to explain nature, in the absence of intellectual power and scientific knowledge, in simplistic terms instead and their affection for thinking often that there is more to this life and that a higher ethical order or wisdom exists (left unsatisfied by their original ethical structure as society). I think we are the creators of God as brains instead of the opposite. However the possibility of an external higher agent is not yet completely removed even if science will never introduce it defacto and will only arrive to it logically if necessary. That probability may be very small but it is not yet 0.

I do not see why what i just said above is not of proper scientific merit to talk about and i think its a matter of science not theology.

I'll move this thread to RGT to give everyone a chance to chime on any wavelength they so choose. I knew this would eventually occur and it is no big deal. Masque's excellent post notwithstanding. Plus Spock just died so we have that in the news also. Should make for a lively thread.

Guess I have posted in RGT now.

Well it is a six-year old thread that was bumped for whatever reason (weasels are everywhere) and note before Spock (Leonard Nimoy) died.

Anyway, it was wise to move the thread, if only to make it so that Plaaynde has posted in RGT. Congratulations and many happy returns.

The bolded part is the classic non-scientist completely misunderstanding the scientific method.

Science does not purport to "know the truth." Science is the process of learning about the real world through constant experimentation and refinement. Science should have no "faith", only the willingness to keep testing its hypotheses and refining human knowledge.

You take God as a given, please show your work.

I'm not saying there is no such thing as God. I just think the proof is lacking.

So what rule did we break that brought us influenza?

The Holy Quran says that A'llah says no alcohol.

The Bible indicates Jesus thought wine was OK.

Which "God" do we heed?

A better question is why am I arguing with a closed mind?

The world has tested me for 64 years. I'm doing fine.

Instead of discussing rationally, you preach. Therefore you've earned this:

Take your mindless outdated mythology and have fun with it among those who do not have the brain power to recognize if for the fairy tale it is.

/participation

Leonard Nimoy explains here that he was the origin of the Vulcan hand signal, with the "live long and prosper" greeting. He got it from the Jewish letter shin, and he viewed it as a Jewish blessing.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DyiWkWcR86I

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/...g-and-prosper/

“This is the shape of the letter shin,” Nimoy said in the 2013 interview, making the famous “V” gesture. The Hebrew letter shin, he noted, is the first letter in several Hebrew words, including Shaddai (a name for God), Shalom (the word for hello, goodbye and peace) and Shekhinah, which he defined as “the feminine aspect of God who supposedly was created to live among humans.”


The Shekhinah, Nimoy has said, was also the name of the prayer he participated in as a boy that inspired the salute. The prayer, meant to bless the congregation, is named after the feminine aspect of God, Nimoy explained in a 2012 post on the “Star Trek” site. “The light from this Deity could be very damaging. So we are told to protect ourselves by closing our eyes,” he wrote in the blog.

“They get their tallits over their heads, and they start this chanting,” Nimoy says in the 2013 interview, “And my father said to me, ‘don’t look’.” At first he obliged, but what he could hear intrigued him. “I thought, ‘something major is happening here.’ So I peeked. . And I saw them with their hands stuck out from beneath the tallit like this,” Nimoy said, showing the “V” with both his hands. “I had no idea what was going on, but the sound of it and the look of it was magical.”

After witnessing the ritual all those years ago, Nimoy practiced making the “V” with his fingers as a child. He “never dreamed” he would one day make the gesture so publicly and repeatedly as an adult.

That was, he said, until a “Star Trek” script required his character Spock to go home to Vulcan. “It was the first time we’d seen other Vulcans, other people of my race, so I was hoping to find some touching that could help develop the Vulcan sociology,” Nimoy said.

“I think we should have some special greeting that Vulcans do,” Nimoy recalled saying. He suggested the prayer gesture from his childhood.

“Boy,” he said, “that just took off. It just touched a magic chord.

He noted that “most people to this day still don’t know” the history of the greeting, although he repeatedly and enthusiastically shared its origin.

Laughing, Nimoy revealed the best part of it all: “People don’t realize they’re blessing each other with this!”

I'm at least half Vulcan and also a Christian. I disagree with the concept that being Vulcan and being religious are mutually exclusive.