Previous Fallacies on Art and Religion and Science
July 14th, 2006
Oh God. Ive been invited to go onto channel U for some teens and sex talk show, AGAIN. Dont these people get it? Dont they get how ignorant and supid it all is. You cant just generalize all people under 20 to be teenagers with similar levels of maturity, and you cant just generalize sex as sex. But anyway, Ill go on it, just because its TV. Im working on my ability to be more coherent and stright to the point, but its just so difficult when youre trying to get stright to the point with people that seem to think its important for them to know how many sexual partners youve slept with in order to identify how morally authoritative you are, when you give your opinion on human sexuality. (An example of failed logic- because Ive slept with many people, Im no where near authoritative and people should not listen to what I say. Because Im morally corrupt) I mean, how fucked up is that? (No insult to the people producing the show, they are clearly being forced to think along those lines because a greater part of their audience thinks along those lines).
I was reading some back entries and Im really surprised at how wrong I was on certain things. There were such huge holes in some bits of my logic. But I will still say that I was more right than all of the conservative crackheads that tried to give me advice.
Firstly, theres this whole art being the dream of order out of chaos quote. Did I get that out of Neil Gaiman? I cant remember. I never really understood it until today. I always thought art was necessary for us to understand a world in which we can not understand. In a way it is, but Id say it was more like, art being the result of reaching a conclusion for things we cannot understand, for manifesting emotions and feelings that we cannot describe in pure lingusitic terms that produce concrete factual reasons. (That is, I feel this way because this part of my brain is activated, but it doesnt work very well because I am PMS-ing, for exmaple.) Idols, superstitious fictions, myths, they are all art, created because people dont understand a great deal of things. Like life after death, the presence of pain and destruction, desire, cause and effect, the inevitability of certain things. Art is the immedeate expression of things we have yet to understand, or are trying to understand, or want other people to understand. That is what is meant by dream. I dont think theres an concrete answer, but I used to quote it only because it sounded romantic, and now I understand it a little better.
The other bit is Einsteins often mis-understood quote of Science without Religion is lame, Religion without Science is blind. What most people think when they come across it (which was what I used to think) is that Science without Religion is incomplete.
This statement has been abused to no end by people who imagine that there is some kind of intelligent designer out there. In Darwins Black Box, which is the book that was the foundation for the ID movement, the author seems to be saying that because there is no concrete scientific evidence that can acocunt for -say- the specialization of the cells of multi-celled organisms- this proves that there must be an intelligent designer. (Everyone knows that your genetic code is in every single cell of your body, but the reason why cells develop and operate differently is due to different pieces of DNA within the code that are swithced on or off). God here is like the defendant that is guilty until proven innocent.
The funny thing is, the only reason why the reason for the specialization of cells in an individuals cannot yet be ascertained is because the current puritanical US government has stunted developement into Stem Cell research -because it kills embryos!- And they have slammed down any other society/scientific body that has attempted to proceed with such research. If you think about it, the whole point of Stem Cell research is about coaxing zygots into becoming other parts of an individuals body, instead of babies. If this is possible, then that would lead to progress in understanding how the switches in each individual cell works, and how the body sets about turning them on, and thus differentiating itself into its component parts.
So conservatives are preventing research into this field, and using the lack of available knowledge to claim the existence of an Intelligent designer. Round about, self-fulfilling logic never seems to know any bounds (but of course it knows no bounds, it is round-a-bout is it not? Ha-ha.)
So no, Einstein did not mean that there is an Intelligent Designer out there that props up our Science. A belief in that would mean that everytime he encountered a particularly difficult problem, he will simply say, Eureka! That is proof of God! And never come up with anything new. And we all know that that is just untrue. Science without Religion is lame because without the human need to seek for things beyond ourselves, to realize that there is a power beyond the everyday existence, a magic in the smallest things, in the dimensions we cannot see, the universe outside what our technology can grasp, we would not have scientific inquiry. It is this need to find out the unknown, a desire to seek God that propels a great part of this field. (You only have to read this months DISCOVER interview of Lisa Randall to see what I mean).
The reason why this meathod of approaching the quote makes more sense is because this is what were taught in literature as a higher level analysis. Simply quoting it as proof of Gods existence is as good as saying, I believe God exists because Einstein believed that God exsisted.
July 14th, 2006
Oh God. Ive been invited to go onto channel U for some teens and sex talk show, AGAIN. Dont these people get it? Dont they get how ignorant and supid it all is. You cant just generalize all people under 20 to be teenagers with similar levels of maturity, and you cant just generalize sex as sex. But anyway, Ill go on it, just because its TV. Im working on my ability to be more coherent and stright to the point, but its just so difficult when youre trying to get stright to the point with people that seem to think its important for them to know how many sexual partners youve slept with in order to identify how morally authoritative you are, when you give your opinion on human sexuality. (An example of failed logic- because Ive slept with many people, Im no where near authoritative and people should not listen to what I say. Because Im morally corrupt) I mean, how fucked up is that? (No insult to the people producing the show, they are clearly being forced to think along those lines because a greater part of their audience thinks along those lines).
I was reading some back entries and Im really surprised at how wrong I was on certain things. There were such huge holes in some bits of my logic. But I will still say that I was more right than all of the conservative crackheads that tried to give me advice.
Firstly, theres this whole art being the dream of order out of chaos quote. Did I get that out of Neil Gaiman? I cant remember. I never really understood it until today. I always thought art was necessary for us to understand a world in which we can not understand. In a way it is, but Id say it was more like, art being the result of reaching a conclusion for things we cannot understand, for manifesting emotions and feelings that we cannot describe in pure lingusitic terms that produce concrete factual reasons. (That is, I feel this way because this part of my brain is activated, but it doesnt work very well because I am PMS-ing, for exmaple.) Idols, superstitious fictions, myths, they are all art, created because people dont understand a great deal of things. Like life after death, the presence of pain and destruction, desire, cause and effect, the inevitability of certain things. Art is the immedeate expression of things we have yet to understand, or are trying to understand, or want other people to understand. That is what is meant by dream. I dont think theres an concrete answer, but I used to quote it only because it sounded romantic, and now I understand it a little better.
The other bit is Einsteins often mis-understood quote of Science without Religion is lame, Religion without Science is blind. What most people think when they come across it (which was what I used to think) is that Science without Religion is incomplete.
This statement has been abused to no end by people who imagine that there is some kind of intelligent designer out there. In Darwins Black Box, which is the book that was the foundation for the ID movement, the author seems to be saying that because there is no concrete scientific evidence that can acocunt for -say- the specialization of the cells of multi-celled organisms- this proves that there must be an intelligent designer. (Everyone knows that your genetic code is in every single cell of your body, but the reason why cells develop and operate differently is due to different pieces of DNA within the code that are swithced on or off). God here is like the defendant that is guilty until proven innocent.
The funny thing is, the only reason why the reason for the specialization of cells in an individuals cannot yet be ascertained is because the current puritanical US government has stunted developement into Stem Cell research -because it kills embryos!- And they have slammed down any other society/scientific body that has attempted to proceed with such research. If you think about it, the whole point of Stem Cell research is about coaxing zygots into becoming other parts of an individuals body, instead of babies. If this is possible, then that would lead to progress in understanding how the switches in each individual cell works, and how the body sets about turning them on, and thus differentiating itself into its component parts.
So conservatives are preventing research into this field, and using the lack of available knowledge to claim the existence of an Intelligent designer. Round about, self-fulfilling logic never seems to know any bounds (but of course it knows no bounds, it is round-a-bout is it not? Ha-ha.)
So no, Einstein did not mean that there is an Intelligent Designer out there that props up our Science. A belief in that would mean that everytime he encountered a particularly difficult problem, he will simply say, Eureka! That is proof of God! And never come up with anything new. And we all know that that is just untrue. Science without Religion is lame because without the human need to seek for things beyond ourselves, to realize that there is a power beyond the everyday existence, a magic in the smallest things, in the dimensions we cannot see, the universe outside what our technology can grasp, we would not have scientific inquiry. It is this need to find out the unknown, a desire to seek God that propels a great part of this field. (You only have to read this months DISCOVER interview of Lisa Randall to see what I mean).
The reason why this meathod of approaching the quote makes more sense is because this is what were taught in literature as a higher level analysis. Simply quoting it as proof of Gods existence is as good as saying, I believe God exists because Einstein believed that God exsisted.
VIEW 3 of 3 COMMENTS
I commend you for being willing to put yourself out there so publicly... from past entries I'm of the impression you do this in order to be an influence for change & growth in your society. But you have been misquoted, had phrases edited out of context & publicly denegrated... is it worth it? How do the potential benefits wiegh against consequences of public purtiritanical scrutiny? Is there another way... a way you can be a discreet influnce in your culture & still remain true to your nature... live the life of your choosing, free from harrassment?
What religion & science have in common is that they are both human attempts to decipher Life's mysteries... science through experimentation, religion through myth. Religion is less about exploring the nature of spirituality, but more an indicator as to the evolution (or lack of same) of human thought & culture. What I find interesting is that Christianity's attempts to repress the works of Coperincus, Galileo & DaVinci etc... were to enforce views based not on Biblical Canon, but on the teachings of Aristotle (a pagan) & his cosmological views (which were completely wrong by the way). While science (in general) seeks to gather new knowledge to expand on current understandings... religion (again in general) simply seeks to reaffirm it's already preconceive conclusions, disregarding & sometimes viciously repressing all that contradicts established dogma.
But one of the great failings of science had been its attempts to reduce the universe to discernable immutable laws as demonstrated by the works of Newton... this tendancy was remedied with the advent of Quantum Physics. QP recognizes that we can only interpet probabilities & possibilies & that the results to our inquiries are conditioned by our relative perspective & intent. I love the works of Einstein & I am intrigued with the current developements in String Theory... what is inherent in both is the awe & wonder in the intricate & magestic workings of the universe (or omniverse). Einstein was in as much in awe of his own ability to explore the Quantum Universe as he was the Universe itself. He was like a child frolicing in the "quantum playground"... a playground filled with infinite possibilities!
This is what religion has lost...