The Role of Religion in Space Travel

My point was that you just commited a logical fallacy. You can't say that 'it is unlikely that there is a god, because God wouldn't make a god'. You are negating the premise.

Without the axiom there is no reason to expect things to be simple or rational. I am not arguing for God here, I am just saying you can't use Occam's razor against Him.

There are reasons - or at least one reason - why science and religion can't be distinguished or separated any simple way if at all.

Western science is based on logics and causal logics. But have a look into the roots of logics. Logics are a set of three axioms set by the ancient Greek Parmenides - Aristotle applied them and this way western/occidental science was created or born.

Parmenides simply set the axioms - he never read them from nature, he never proved them. He only teached them like they have been fallen from the sky as far as I am informed. Parmenides said "What exists exists and what doesn't exist doesn't exist" (cited and translated as I remember this axiom) I don't have in mind his words describing the other two axioms and will have to reread sources.

The circumstance that he simply teached the axioms means nothing else than that someone can believe in the axioms or that he can doubt or deny them - so it's a kind of belief or faith.

The austrian professor of Physics Pietschmann wrote an interesting book titled "Die Wahrheit liegt nicht in der Mitte" about all this. There he also tells the history of thinking, philophics etc. That time when Parmenides teached the three axioms of logics all people were full of fear regarding all the phenomenons impacting their lifes, threatening them and being unexplainable, ununderstandable and unhandleble. The three axioms of Parmenides removed some of the fears and offered an understanding.

As Pietschmann explains and describes further that one "thing" people feared most was the Nothing ("das Nichts") - also called Chaos. Parmenides' logics, Parmenides' axioms removed the Nothing. But this is valid for the Europeans only, the occidental people, the western people. In contrary to the Europeans the asian people, the oriental people beared the fears for the Chaos, the Nothing instead of "defining" (Parmenides' logics only allow for defining) the Nothing away. And this caused them to believe in God or in multiple gods and godesses.

In principle that what I said up to now causes incompatability of western science with the religions - but it doesn't mean no way that only western science is correct. Pietschmann is talking about "Denkrahmen" - these are that fundamental that a western human must give up the complete western thinking to be able to understand and follow non-western thinkings.

Pietschman is experienced with Quantum Physics - and says that Quantum Physics mean that western science alone never can be completely correct, never be complete and it never can explain the world and the universe entirely correct and never completely. Nobody can understand the world and the universe without religion, belief or faith.
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I voted "yes" for a lot of reasons.



Dipl.-Volkswirt (bdvb) Augustin (Political Economist)

"It's unlikely that there is a god, because where did the god come from"

If you just create a god by using another god, you're into one evil circle.

The question of "where did the god come from" implies that the god is internal to the universe like humans are - that does NOT fit into christian, jewish or muslim religion because these religions consider "the" god to have created the universe and birth, "coming from", logics and causal logics are internal to the universe.

Because of this the question of "where did the god come from" seems to be NO valid argument.

Roger Penrose illustrated a similar problem by the example of a circle. A circle doesn't have NO beginning and no termination - it is infinite. But of course to draw a circle a human must begin to draw it at some point. Nothing internal to the circle can prove that the circle has been created by someone - the creating human is external to the circle.

Of course "the" god can be just at the borders of the universe like a creating human can be just at the borders of a circle by touching it or the like.

Another problem might be that "coming from" implies an order things go on by. This may mean that time is involved - but I have read an article saying that time might be an illusion (may be seen by Physics simply or only though). Precisely it means that there is an order of how things go on or follow each other which doesn't mean time yet. But at least space is required - and cosmology tells that space was created. "The" God may have created it - which agains means that the question of "coming from" is invalid regarding religion or belief in God.

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Dipl.-Volkswirt (bdvb) Augustin (Political Economist)

What is the rationality for the 'unlikely'?

I'd like to second the vote for axioms. Fundamentally both science and religion are based on set of irreducible and unproovable axioms. True, scientific axioms are more sophisticated and derived from observable universe, but due to incompletness theorem, science is ultimately incapable of understanding the physical universe without evoking causes from outside the universe. To understand what this means just imagine that universe around you is just an elaborate computer simulation aka "The Matrix". While you might after a time learn how to manipulate software of this "Matrix" at will, you won't be able to explain it without refering to the computer that this software is run on.

An interesting observation that I made is that while most religious people become that way through indoctrication, there is a significant proportion of people who undergone what I term as "religious experiences". Thus I do not think that meme theory alone can explain religion. Even the strongest faith cannot survive forever without at least occassional reaffirmation though "experience".

In any case back to the topic at hand, I think a lot of astronaught reported something akin to "religious experience" when they went into orbit. I can easily understand them, and while the cause may well proove to be biological, I predict that future space habbittats will have strong religious tendencies if for no other reason that the view is breathtaking.

That 'religious experience' is nothing more then an overwhelming feeling. Ever been into a cave with a giant 'hall' carved out? That's pretty big if you see that with the eyes of a 10 year old. Imagine that feeling only a hundred or thousand times more powerfull. You don't really have a good perspective in space. Yes, and that is simply talking in dimensions. You know it is enormous, but yet it's so small.

Religion is something you believe, science corrects itself all the time if evidence and proof comes out. Religion simply does not.

As a popular saying goes scientific revolutions happen not because a New Theory wins new converts but because the Old Guard dies out. There is much truth in that saying. Academia likes to claim that it is open minded and based on evidence 'cause it makes 'em feel good about themselves. Yet there many phenomena that were "unscientific" had been conviniently brushed under the carpet. Meteorites and ball lightning are but two examples. There are many phenomena that resist "scientific method" for one reason or another, but it does't mean they don't exist. I've been around long enough to know that there is more to the Universe than "our philosophers have ever dreamt of". To me blind faith in "scientific method" is just another form of religion.
Regardless with the view you get from space coupled with unknown effects of magnetic fields and variety of atmo mixtures on the brain, plus unavoidable Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome, plus cosmic scale isolation, I wouldn't be surpised if more than a few sqrews will get loose and join some new cosmic religion. Plus never underestimate the ability of conventional faiths to adapt to new enviroments.

Facinating discussion

First my Biases:

I am a cradle catholic born and raised. I attended catholic schools all the way through my engineering/math degree. So yes I am quite religious. But as an engineer quite rational

My biggest problem comes from people from within the church that assume science has nothing to say about real important truth. If a thing can be verified through science then it is simply, no doubt true. Many many are guilty of this. I challenge folks to read Fides et Ratio (faith and reason) to see what John Paul II had to say about that.

However There are provable logical limits on what can be known. Much of science deals with probabilities. (A very powerful tool) It allows us to say how much 'faith' we have that a hypothesis is in fact true. Most of science is a systematic method of deciding what to believe since some truths cannot be absolutely 'known'.

IF God were to exist. He COULD be an alternate method of knowing that which cannot be known. I do not profess to have received such knowledge. But it is impossible for me to say that others have not as well. This knowledge + Pascal's wager is enough to give me a "reasonable faith". A choice to believe because it allows me possible access to truth science cannot touch.

I am interested to see (as a catholic) how church organizational structure will be affected by profound distances. Contrary to an above post. Organized religion does not disregard science. It does however take its time evaluating and Ideas worth. This is an effective buffer from Illogic as well. It is just a slower, but I believe more reliable process.

~Daniel

"Religion" may mean this (actions guided by beliefs without evidence), but many Christians do not practice this, and the New Testament does not teach them to.

John 14:11-14 says "Believe me ...; or at least believe on the evidence of the miracles themselves. I tell you the truth, anyone who has faith in me will do what I have been doing. ...". "ACTS" records exactly this in the following years.

Millions of Christians, including myself, can testify to this reality today.
BIBLICAL Christianity does not require "faith" without evidence. But it does require that people recognize the evidence and have the integrity to believe because of it.

In THEORY, this is exactly what science is supposed to teach us to do.

My biff with religion is that when a "miracle" happens they jump to conclusions and say God/Angels/Demons did it and leave it at that. My issue with conventional science is that academia denies that the "miracle" happened in the first place. As an amateur engeneer I know that there are plenty of paradoxes and mysteries that scientists have conviniently brushed under the carpet. At the heart of physics general relativity and quantum theory are mutually exclusive. We have no idea how plasma can stay stable in ball lightning. ESP is denied but I did a coin tossing experiment myself and found statistical evidence for ESP and mind "over matter"- experimental evidence, according to scientific method that should prove the existance of ESP beyond any reasonable doubt yet academia doesn't even bother to look at it. When we find tech artifacts in coal deposits, human-like footprints squashing trilobite and bullet holes in dinosaur skulls what do we do- we file them away in some meseum and forget about it. Me had a frigging UFO wing fly over the White House for God's sake and yet the goverment denies that UFO even exists.
As we set out to explore the Solar System we are sure to come across many new mysteries and terrors- a fertile ground for new ideologies to spring up.

What evidence exist?

A miracle is not a 2 year old child surviving a bad car accident, were the parents died. If a god had anything to do with that, it was just plain evil to let a child lose its parents!

Hi,

Religion is an important subject that mustn't be neglected.

God or Gods are what we can't understand.There's maybe thousands or more manners to express is love but one thing is sure:we never understand nothing.

The difference between Sience and Religion can be resumed as follows:
Science says "we don't know",whereas Religion says "we know all".
Religions fix the destiny of millions or more people sometimes in the way of hope,and sometimes in the bad way.

Religion is like drugs or alcohol permits to forget yourself and to do things that you'll never do if you had consumed nothing.

Instead of Religion take whisky in the shuttle,hoping that you can find peace of mind far away from your past.

adkomans

I will outline the “Evidenceâ€

I can think of a religion that doesn't require any blind faith (faith based upon anything but reason)
Judaism!
The fundamental tenents of Jewish faith require that belief in Judaism must be based on empirical proof, not blind faith. This is what seperates Judaism from other religions.
Judaism doesn't see the spiritual/religious and the physical as being seperate, but rather requires that they be connected. This is why the Land of Israel is so central to Judaism, with the ultimate place of Holiness being the Temple mount, and the place where Heaven connects to Earth being the Holy Temple.

So on what empirical basis does Judaism lie?

One can bring proof for God's existance from the fact that the universe could not exist without a creator (Big Bang theory) and there are other proofs of Judaism, but those proofs are not essential to Jewish faith.

The proof for Jewish faith is the existance of the Jewish nation, as a nation.

This does not refer to the existance of the Jewish nation despite persecutions, but rather the existance of the Jewish nations as witnesses to God's existance. More in my next post.