The Thoery of everything, science and religion

JMB,
The question seems to be, what is scientific behavior and what is prayer? When you get on an elevator and push a button, then after a time the door opens and you get off without thinking or even checking, have you acted on faith or by science? If you are on the right floor, does it matter? Most of what we do is the result of habit because it saves energy, and perhaps habit is just another word for faith.

The hardest habit to change is the way one thought leads to the next. We can control to some extent how long we linger on a thought but the next one pops up seemingly on its own, not because we are in control of the process. When we pray, especially a memorized prayer, it puts a break in the thought process like meditation. It gives the thought train a rest, allowing other sensations to be recognized.

We act on what we believe but the history of science shows that scientific thinking, though the most logical way to make progress, does not bring humans to anything greater than a latest theory which will be changed. Most breakthroughs have been the result of intuitive insight bringing many disciplines together rather than the next logical step. Personality and poltical power have always had more effect on taught reality than science, whether it be Gallileo and the Church, or FTL gravity and Einstein's space-time.

What I am saying is that we need both, and more besides. Science by itself is nor concerned with what is best, but only with what works best. Personal religion is not about the nature of God or the structure of heaven, but about how we determine what is the best thing to do in the next five minutes. It is all we have and we should approach those next minutes with an attitude of thanks and praise for they are glorious and new and a gift that creation has given us: that's why we call it the present.

greg
and others,

When we really try to perceive tho whole of all existence we become very small in this reality and have to admit we are finite and there are things infinite that are ever belong beyond our comprehension

Alan


I feel as if I am a small boy holding but a teaspoon of knowledge standing before the Infinity Ocean of all knowledge

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"><i>Originally posted by greg87</i>
<br />JMB,
The question seems to be, what is scientific behavior and what is prayer? When you get on an elevator and push a button, then after a time the door opens and you get off without thinking or even checking, have you acted on faith or by science? If you are on the right floor, does it matter? Most of what we do is the result of habit because it saves energy, and perhaps habit is just another word for faith.<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">
When we push the button of an elevator, we know that an electric motor will turn, that a rope will transmit the rotation to a translation of the cabin, and so on.
Evidently everybody does not know the detail, but we know that they are written in data books and that all is verified so that the elevators, the cars, the planes, ... most human activities follow a well established process. It may be accidents, they generally allow to improve the reliability.
Did you try a pray to replace the elevator?
<blockquote id="quote"><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">

The hardest habit to change is the way one thought leads to the next. We can control to some extent how long we linger on a thought but the next one pops up seemingly on its own, not because we are in control of the process.<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">
Established science, which seems, at a certain time good, is applied with a wish of security. If it happens it fails, the science must be patched. Else, what would ber the work of research?
Science permanently improves while religions remain the same types of absurdities.

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"> When we pray, especially a memorized prayer, it puts a break in the thought process like meditation. It gives the thought train a rest, allowing other sensations to be recognized.<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">

Sleep. For many people, the paradoxal sleep is a good state to introduce some order in the thought of the previous day. It is clear that thinking too much leads to a confusion, a blocking, which must be shaked by a discussion with somebody else, or a sleep, or a walk looking at the birds. The need of finding and trying many ways to think does not show that the result does not correspond to logic.
<blockquote id="quote"><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">
We act on what we believe but the history of science shows that scientific thinking, though the most logical way to make progress, does not bring humans to anything greater than a latest theory which will be changed. Most breakthroughs have been the result of intuitive insight bringing many disciplines together rather than the next logical step. Personality and poltical power have always had more effect on taught reality than science, whether it be Gallileo and the Church, or FTL gravity and Einstein's space-time.
<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">
The aim of science is not politics: the relations between humans are too complicated to be studied by a serious, true science. But science may oblige to change laws of politics, showing for instance that the concept of race is not serious. Science showed that the concept of slavery could not be accepted; before it was not a trouble for the religions. The largest efficiency of religions is the religious wars (see India, middle East,...)
<blockquote id="quote"><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">
What I am saying is that we need both, and more besides.
<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">
Science shows that the humans are social animals, and social animals, in the average, help each other. Ethics is simply the rule of our society. The religions mix some ethics with absurdities (prays) or old rules made obsolete by science (no blood transfusions, less sex to avoid overpopulation in the middle ages, no pig meat...). The pope of christian kills an enormous number of people forbidding clean sex.
<blockquote id="quote"><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">
Science by itself is nor concerned with what is best, but only with what works best. Personal religion is not about the nature of God or the structure of heaven, but about how we determine what is the best thing to do in the next five minutes. It is all we have and we should approach those next minutes with an attitude of thanks and praise for they are glorious and new and a gift that creation has given us: that's why we call it the present.
<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">
You are probably Buddhist, because it seems that this religion supports the peace between humans. The peace promoted by this religion and maybe, at certain times, by others, is not real: all belligerents have God with them.

JMB,

I once had a weird vivid and frightening dream, In it everyone walked backwards an the arrow of time seemed to be reversed.

I saw as just one example a person reversing into an elevator with out looking and the door opening and synconising exactly with him stepping into it

I seemed to be a phantom I could start flowing a person and he would see me walking backward in step weird

Did this dream carry any message or meaning, I do not know

Alan



I feel as if I am a small boy holding but a teaspoon of knowledge standing before the Infinity Ocean of all knowledge

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"><i>Originally posted by Alan McDougall</i>
<br />JMB,

I once had a weird vivid and frightening dream, In it everyone walked backwards an the arrow of time seemed to be reversed.
...
Did this dream carry any message or meaning, I do not know
<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">
The message is: you remind an old movie.

Alan,

He walked backwards into the elevator and the door opened exactly on time? I've always felt that we get feedback from our surroundings in the form of timing. You know, when things work out because we were in the right place at the right time. It's the difference between thrashing around and being on track and it has happened to many times for me to ever disbelieve.