Evolution vs Religion- two directions on the same line
« on: 2005-05-08 13:51:00 »
Science- inductive reasoning- evolution from cells to people to societies, dna to memes to God. Thats right, we are evolving God.
Religion- deductive reasoning- God made memes (same as he made angels) then came humans.
It may be pretty obvious once you realize, but I never realized the two were so opposite since scinece doenst make the conculusion that we will evolve into God, or that we create angels. But we do!
Perhaps one of the most 'eureka!' moments ive had recently was when i made a connection that brought science and religion closer together than I had ever thought of before. And some of the crazy other conclusions that go along with it actually make sense.
Does anyone here agree with me on this? Hopefully this will open up a very large discussion
it means that humans then created everything else by deductive logic- and in a way we do: language constructs reality. If a tree falls in the forest and i dont hear it, or through language hear of it, then it relatively does not exist, and thats one invisibilty to religion. you cant prove the specific with the general. And as far as science goes, its almost impossible to prove the general with the specific- the most general being God.
I think mematics is a pretty general form of science that has the potential of forming a bridge between the two more than anything else- that was my own idea before I even found this church. Can you imagine my lack of surprise and excitement when i actually came across this church of virus? It seems though you all might have gotten into it without even knowing how right you are. You are all as excited as I am but sometimes you seem to make this business into a game. I think this church is right on the money.
Re:Evolution vs Religion- two directions on the same line
« Reply #1 on: 2005-05-09 00:35:48 »
I think I see what you're getting at, but I don't quite understand why you associate them with inductive and deductive logic. Could you elaborate on that part?
Re:Evolution vs Religion- two directions on the same line
« Reply #2 on: 2005-05-09 01:14:55 »
the idea of evolution was derived from inductive reasoning. Inductive reasoning is when the self observes a specific instance through perception and uses specific observations to build up to a generalization. That is how science works.
Religion comes out of deductive reasoning, in which you take a generalization and make conclusions about specific situations based on those generalizations. The following article explains pretty well about the two types of reasoning, and gives examples: http://www.christianlogic.com/articles/logic_comes_in_two_flavors.htm
I know this crowd will be very aprehensive to reading "christian logic" but it really does explain it pretty well.
Its my view, as well as everyone else here it seems, that inductive reasoning is very important, and we seem to have a consensus that scientific method is a very good thing. I think that if you want to make the best sense of a situation then you have to look at all the minute specifics of it, and that often times generalizations do not apply. I also think we can agree that one can not have the generalization before looking at the specifics first.
However sometimes once these generalizations are made they can help us figure out things about our specific situation we would not have already known. If the beekeeper doesnt realize that mites are causing the deaths, then referncing his beekeeping doctrine will show him the light. Its in Church doctrine that deductive reasoning is at its best. And church doctrine and memes spread best through their ability to be applied to life deductively. It takes a lot of the work out of making some decisions.
The thing about our church is that we are more than others dedicated to our inductive logic. I was reading an article earlier in which someone critisized us for ironically dogmatising the making of dogma a sin. To make the topic more general than dogma being a sin, the fact is that we are going to have to adress the issue indepth between inductive and deductive and explain it, because getting down that issue is a cornerstone to building this church.
We are going the opposite direction as most churches. God did not create us, for to believe that would be to believe we created everything around us. everything around us created us, and it is now OUR job to create God. Let us create God, the metameme, by taking the next step in evolution. No longer are we living for the selfish gene. No, we are living for the meme! and Not just one meme, not just the church meme, but memes everywhere. Just as cells survive whos genes allow the survival of the cells the best, our church will be the home to the meta-meme, our God, who lives for us, us who live for our genes, who live for the cells, who live for their amino acides. The line goes both ways. We live for the meta-meme God, and the meta meme God lives for us. We Create Him, He creates us.
I think it makes perfect sense that we are creating God. Thus far, God has evolved as a memeplex out of our ability to understand. But now, with the emerging theory / worldview of memetics, gods (as specific executive memes of religion memeplexes) themselves have been brought within the pale of human understanding - and therefore manipulation.
Just as the development of our physical science has given us immense power over our physical world (think Industrial revolution, powered by the evolution from classical to modern physics), so I think will the evolution of memetics and psychology give us immense power over our mental world - including our religious tendencies and the memes we call gods.
Christianity, for example, is a selfish memeplex. It has done immeasurable damage to humanity, but has also provided us with the basis for our current system of western science. God itself, because of its dependence on humanity as its host, has a strong interest in preserving our power and our evolutionary line, hence has a strong interest in preventing WWIII and developing renewable energy sources. It seems the good comes with the bad, until now.
Now that we have a true understanding of how and why Christianity captures the minds of our fellow humans, we need not take the bad with the good at random. Because we know its nature, its manner of existence, we can control it. We must not try to make it extinct, instead we must allow it to survive, and nudge its evolution in a direction that is ultimately beneficial to all of humanity.
Perhaps I'll start a discussion thread specifically on the Christianity meme, but I thought this was at least marginally relevant here.
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