Eternal Life - Pros & Cons. If not, why not?

[Meadow337]

Alien abduction you're really scraping the bottom of the barrel now! Here's what logic dictates if an alien civilisation has travelled here to observe us then they must have technology that enables them to travel faster than the speed of light and can travel through time. If they are among us they are undetectable. They would not need to pick up idiots from the same small bit of the midwest or prance about in front of isolated travellers in the woods.

Do you deliberately misunderstand what I say or am I really this unclear?

 

[Meadow337]

Let me try another tactic - by 'scientific' reasoning religious texts and other ancient stories are just myths and fables and not to be taken seriously in any kind of light right? That is what has been said over and over in this thread and others. It is certainly my understanding of the prevailing attitude of science towards anything that can not be observed and measured, that does not conform to 'natural' laws of the universe.

However, astonishingly these 'myths' are astonishingly accurate when the 'myth' is removed from the fact. Troy, Ur, Jericho, just to name a few places that have been found following these 'myths'.

Albeit that there is still some debate about it (scientists are more boneheaded than usual when they are wrong) scientific evidence is proving a universal flood - another universally held 'myth' in all cultures with the exception of the Japanese (who use its absence to prove their creation myth that Japan was created first and therefore Japanese are superior).

There are also many other examples of scientific knowledge in various texts.

Don't take my word for it:

Category: The Scientific Miracles of the Holy Quran - The Religion of Islam - Science in the Koran

Biblical evidences for Science - Science in the Bible

Unfortunately there is less information on other belief systems, perhaps because they come under less attack than the 'big three'

I did find this article however which points out pretty much what I have been saying - there is a 'new breed of fanatics' (and they aren't the usual religious ones).

Gadadhara Pandit Dasa: Hinduism: Where Science and Spirituality Intersect

This popped out in particular:

Some would comment that faith is only necessary when it comes to matters of religion and that science is based on empirical evidence. Although this sounds nice, it's not 100 percent accurate.

So already we have numerous examples of real facts, real science within these texts and beliefs. How much else is also accurate but just couched in language that makes scientists scoff at it - to their detriment.

 

[Conscious Bob]

Do you deliberately misunderstand what I say or am I really this unclear?

I understand what you say the question is do you?

Alternatively consider a little fish scientist on the bottom of the ocean. Fish religion has spoken about a world beyond the limit of the top of the ocean but fish science has said nonsense 'air' is just a myth, lets just focus on what we can see and feel and measure.

All the fish who are caught and released speak about having had a mystical experience are dismissed as lunatics with stories of 'alien abductions'

while those fish who claim to have gone up into the air by themselves are regarded as saints by the religious. All the while fish scientists try to find explanations for things like where oxygen in the water comes from and while ocean plants and gases released from plate tectonics provide a partial answer the reason for the rest of the oxygen is never found. The religious fish keep saying 'its the air' which the science fish vehemently boohoo and ignore.

Looks pretty clear to me.

 

[Conscious Bob]

Let me try another tactic - by 'scientific' reasoning religious texts and other ancient stories are just myths and fables and not to be taken seriously in any kind of light right? That is what has been said over and over in this thread and others. It is certainly my understanding of the prevailing attitude of science towards anything that can not be observed and measured, that does not conform to 'natural' laws of the universe.

The discovery of ancient sites analagous to myths and legends has nothing to do with the natural laws of the universe. History not physics.

 

[Meadow337]

is it too hard to follow deductive reasoning? And not only that but you can't cherry pick what you think you can refute then assume that that will make everything I say wrong by association.

Either deal with the entire point I make or I must assume that you can not refute my logic and simply choose bits to nitpick on because accepting the logic of my argument isn't something certain people want to do.

 

[Dmitri Dmitriev]

Well, since you mentioned Islam, I feel like I have to mention these quotes, taken off good ol' Wikipedia.

Science is the pursuit of knowledge and understanding of the natural and social world following a systematic methodology based on evidence. It is a system of acquiring knowledge based on empiricism, experimentation and methodological naturalism, as well as to the organized body of knowledge human beings have gained by such research. Scientists maintain that scientific investigation needs to adhere to the scientific method, a process for evaluating empirical knowledge that explains observable events without recourse to supernatural notions. Islam, like all religions, believes in the supernatural that is accessible or interacts with man in this life.

...

At the beginning of the nineteenth century, modern science arrived in the Muslim world but it wasn't the science itself that affected Muslim scholars. Rather, it "was the transfer of various philosophical currents entangled with science that had a profound effect on the minds of Muslim scientists and intellectuals. Schools like Positivism and Darwinism penetrated the Muslim world and dominated its academic circles and had a noticeable impact on some Islamic theological doctrines." There were different responses to this among the Muslim scholars:
These reactions, in words of Professor Mehdi Golshani, were the following:

1. Some rejected modern science as corrupt foreign thought, considering it incompatible with Islamic teachings, and in their view, the only remedy for the stagnancy of Islamic societies would be the strict following of Islamic teachings.
2. Other thinkers in the Muslim world saw science as the only source of real enlightenment and advocated the complete adoption of modern science. In their view, the only remedy for the stagnation of Muslim societies would be the mastery of modern science and the replacement of the religious worldview by the scientific worldview.
3. The majority of faithful Muslim scientists tried to adapt Islam to the findings of modern science; they can be categorized in the following subgroups: (a) Some Muslim thinkers attempted to justify modern science on religious grounds. Their motivation was to encourage Muslim societies to acquire modern knowledge and to safeguard their societies from the criticism of Orientalists and Muslim intellectuals. (b) Others tried to show that all important scientific discoveries had been predicted in the Qur'an and Islamic tradition and appealed to modern science to explain various aspects of faith. (c) Yet other scholars advocated a re-interpretation of Islam. In their view, one must try to construct a new theology that can establish a viable relation between Islam and modern science. The Indian scholar, Sayyid Ahmad Khan, sought a theology of nature through which one could re-interpret the basic principles of Islam in the light of modern science. (d) Then there were some Muslim scholars who believed that empirical science had reached the same conclusions that prophets had been advocating several thousand years ago. The revelation had only the privilege of prophecy.
4. Finally, some Muslim philosophers separated the findings of modern science from its philosophical attachments. Thus, while they praised the attempts of Western scientists for the discovery of the secrets of nature, they warned against various empiricist and materialistic interpretations of scientific findings. Scientific knowledge can reveal certain aspects of the physical world, but it should not be identified with the alpha and omega of knowledge. Rather, it has to be integrated into a metaphysical framework—consistent with the Muslim worldview—in which higher levels of knowledge are recognized and the role of science in bringing us closer to God is fulfilled.

Well... hmm...
Supernatural phenomena can't be proven or observed. So, even if we may be curious, it can't included in scientific investigation... As soon as the supernatural can be observed, it stops being super, and is simply natural... and then we can study it.

Religious texts and philosophies make many claims (proven (by science!), disproven, or impossible to prove)... As science and society has advanced, many people have changed their mind about what religion says (either because science has disproven it, or because certain ideas aren't moral to live by in this society).
We find that the things religion has been wrong about makes us question what else is wrong... we end up taking the things religious philosophies say with a grain of salt.
While science isn't exactly fool-proof, it has earned it's credibility, so we end up putting the "things scientists say" up on a higher pedestal.

 

[Meadow337]

Impossible to prove is not the same as disproven a mistake many make

As science and society has advanced, many people have changed their mind about what religion says - as is their right, but this isn't about 'religion' in a broad context but about the possibility that in some things religion was the way in which man tried to explain what he observed in the world around him - it was, in a way, man's first attempt at science. SOME of the the things embedded within those early explanations may hold some veracity as facts when stripped of the religious language (as I have said repeatedly). And with the links I gave others have found scientific facts that are hard to just dismiss. Our ancestors weren't entirely stupid. If they could come up with an understanding of various natural forces by whatever mental process they did it that are not immediately obvious from just looking with your eyes, why can't they have deduced, or understood other things as well? It is frightfully arrogant to assume they couldn't.

Even if this isn't so, science still has built a box for itself, a box I believe limits it to too narrow a perspective and by doing so it has shot itself in the foot.

 

[Sparhawk]

Impossible to prove is not the same as disproven a mistake many make

As science and society has advanced, many people have changed their mind about what religion says - as is their right, but this isn't about 'religion' in a broad context but about the possibility that in some things religion was the way in which man tried to explain what he observed in the world around him - it was, in a way, man's first attempt at science. SOME of the the things embedded within those early explanations may hold some veracity as facts when stripped of the religious language (as I have said repeatedly). And with the links I gave others have found scientific facts that are hard to just dismiss. Our ancestors weren't entirely stupid. If they could come up with an understanding of various natural forces by whatever mental process they did it that are not immediately obvious from just looking with your eyes, why can't they have deduced, or understood other things as well? It is frightfully arrogant to assume they couldn't.

Even if this isn't so, science still has built a box for itself, a box I believe limits it to too narrow a perspective and by doing so it has shot itself in the foot.

Ah but you are forgetting that all of our ancestors were monkeys!

 

[Meadow337]

Ah but you are forgetting that all of our ancestors were monkeys!

ROFLMAO oh yeah no wonder science dismisses anything their ancestors say - shame really some of those monkeys weren't ... well monkeys.

 

[Conscious Bob]

is it too hard to follow deductive reasoning? And not only that but you can't cherry pick what you think you can refute then assume that that will make everything I say wrong by association.

Deductive reasoning is a powerful tool but you don't use it, your argument is based on faith which by definition has no evidence.

Either deal with the entire point I make or I must assume that you can not refute my logic and simply choose bits to nitpick on because accepting the logic of my argument isn't something certain people want to do.

Well let's summarise your point, science operates within a box, outside the box is God/Aliens/Fairies and God/Aliens/Fairies communicates with the believers through prayer/telepathy/magic to bestow knowledge through stone tablets/visions/magic fairy dust. Scientists can't find evidence for God/Aliens/Fairies but that's alright because they're stupid.

Anything I've missed?

 

[Meadow337]

Anything I've missed?

Yup, but I'm not repeating myself.


Edited for clarity.

 

[Conscious Bob]

Yup, but I'm not repeating myself.

Good, well as you accept my summary I shall now deal with your entire point.

Theory based on faith will always be superceded by theory based on evidence because evidence is reality and faith is imagination. Scientists don't know everything that's the whole point of being a scientist, to observe, to think and to discover.

 

[Meadow337]

Good, well as you accept my summary I shall now deal with your entire point.

Theory based on faith will always be superceded by theory based on evidence because evidence is reality and faith is imagination. Scientists don't know everything that's the whole point of being a scientist, to observe, to think and to discover.

That has to be the most amusingly presumptive deliberate misunderstanding you have made yet. Wait while I wipe the tears of laughter from my eyes.

Faith is belief in the unseen ... can we say anything smaller than an atom, black holes, the big bang and evolution?

 

[Dmitri Dmitriev]

Impossible to prove is not the same as disproven a mistake many make

As science and society has advanced, many people have changed their mind about what religion says - as is their right, but this isn't about 'religion' in a broad context but about the possibility that in some things religion was the way in which man tried to explain what he observed in the world around him - it was, in a way, man's first attempt at science. SOME of the the things embedded within those early explanations may hold some veracity as facts when stripped of the religious language (as I have said repeatedly). And with the links I gave others have found scientific facts that are hard to just dismiss. Our ancestors weren't entirely stupid. If they could come up with an understanding of various natural forces by whatever mental process they did it that are not immediately obvious from just looking with your eyes, why can't they have deduced, or understood other things as well? It is frightfully arrogant to assume they couldn't.

Even if this isn't so, science still has built a box for itself, a box I believe limits it to too narrow a perspective and by doing so it has shot itself in the foot.

Of course, there are many ways to pass down our nuggets of wisdom -- You make a good point. There are things we can learn from our ancestors... Whatever historical data or artefacts (religious or otherwise) that we have are studied more by historians and archaeologists (who are scientists!), than by the scientists that we think of today (who make progressive advancements in science and tech).
It's not as if we aren't looking at the people of the past... But the past doesn't speak to us directly, and we often don't know the why's and how's of the things people said/did (because it was common sense back then). If we don't know why or how people come up with such conclusions (for their way of thinking), how are we supposed to verify it's validity?
We end up making assumptions... and a lot of those assumptions are based on what we know to be true about the world through modern science.

Science hasn't built a box... it's building a box... or rather it's discovering pieces of the box (if it even is a box) that should encompass all that is natural.
This, in comparison to religious texts that are boxes carved from stone and claim they know all that is known and not known... Trying to fit the facts in this box is more like trying to shove a polychoron in a square-shaped hole.

Faith is belief in the unseen ... can we say anything smaller than an atom, black holes, the big bang and evolution?

Faith is complete confidence in something...
And while we can't see some things (tangible or not), we can observe their effects. Atoms explain interactions of matter and energy, black holes explain why so much mass is orbiting around (and being sucked towards) the centre of galaxies, the big bang (while still debated) explains the origins of the universe and why it is accelerating and expanding, and evolution (also debated) explains why we see a change in inherited characteristics among successive generations, why organisms of different species have remarkably similar characteristics, and why organisms of the same species can have some very different traits. We believe these things because they are the best explanation we can give for certain observable phenomena, and we rarely doubt them because we are rarely given reason to believe that it might not be true.

 

[Conscious Bob]

That has to be the most amusingly presumptive deliberate misunderstanding you have made yet. Wait while I wipe the tears of laughter from my eyes.

Faith is belief in the unseen ... can we say anything smaller than an atom, black holes, the big bang and evolution?

Hang on to your sides then laughing girl.

Black Holes - data from Space Telescope

Atoms - data from Scanning Tunnelling Microscope

Big Bang - data from Cosmic Microwave Background Analysis and Spectrometers

Evolution - Fossils and Gene Mapping

Would you trust a surgeon that relied on the naked eye and didn't refer to Xrays or MRI scanning?

 

[Meadow337]

hmm sunshine methinks you need to brush up on the old info there. Black holes are posited not proved or seen. Atoms have been seen - 1 sodium atom mentioned in a previous post. Anything smaller unseen, only that some things leave a light trail (or bubbles) after smooshing atoms to bits - the rest is theoretical assumptions and maths.

Big Bang - no also unseen, only extrapolated backwards from existing data on the expansion of the universe.

Evolution - not getting started on that again but no evolution is not seen to be happening at any given moment. You can't walk up to anything and say 'show me where you are evolving'.

Many surgeons do rely on the naked eye and I fail to see the relevence.

Anyway I have made my point more than amply.

Thanks for the lively debate everyone it was fun.

 

[Conscious Bob]

hmm sunshine methinks you need to brush up on the old info there. Black holes are posited not proved or seen. Atoms have been seen - 1 sodium atom mentioned in a previous post. Anything smaller unseen, only that some things leave a light trail (or bubbles) after smooshing atoms to bits - the rest is theoretical assumptions and maths.

The Hubble Space Telescope in 1994 found evidence in several galaxies, including our own, of the existence of Black Holes by studying the action of gas clouds orbiting regions of space that revealed the existence of unseen objects calculated to have a mass three billion times that of our own sun.

The Scanning Tunnelling Microscope is a nifty device that is routinely used for mapping atoms and as a result is a tool used in semiconductor physics and microelectronics. The tip of the microscope stylus is one single atom, the micro images the microscope forms are in 3D too...

Big Bang - no also unseen, only extrapolated backwards from existing data on the expansion of the universe.

Existing data... sometimes known as evidence which you use in your arguments when it suits you.

Evolution - not getting started on that again but no evolution is not seen to be happening at any given moment. You can't walk up to anything and say 'show me where you are evolving'.

You're certainly not evolving but I digress, fossils are evidence, the horse has an extremely complete fossil record showing it's early origins from a creature the size of a dog with paws to a much larger animal with hooves prior to domestication. There's also gene mapping which has proven the common ancestor theory by finding common genes in different species.

Many surgeons do rely on the naked eye and I fail to see the relevence.

Well the normal procedure for a patient requiring diagnosis before surgery is that the patient is X rayed or scanned. This is so the surgeon can see what the problem is, where the problem is and if there are side issues that may cause complications. The very obvious point is that the surgeon relies upon a machine for getting the data. If our science can be trusted for gathering data in hospital surgery it can also be trusted for gathering data about the universe around us.

"Thanks for the lively debate everyone it was fun.

I think you'll probably be back.

 

[Dmitri Dmitriev]

Hmm... well, we've certainly strayed from the topic at hand, which is eternal life.
If we assume it is possible, what would happen to our world and society if humans could live forever?

 

[Sparhawk]

Hmm... well, we've certainly strayed from the topic at hand, which is eternal life.
If we assume it is possible, what would happen to our world and society if humans could live forever?

Well I would hope that people would mature enough the say "hey instead of going to war let's talk about it", and put a stop to pointless wars.

 

[Sneezy]

Or endless, circular, never-ending arguments about supreme beings.