On 12/01/2021 19:52, Charlie Gibbs wrote:
> On 2021-01-12, TimS  wrote:
>
>> On 12 Jan 2021 at 04:50:12 GMT, The Natural Philosopher

>> wrote:
>>
>>> On 11/01/2021 22:04, Charlie Gibbs wrote:
>>>
>>>>   That nicely takes care of creation science...
>>>
>>> Well no.
>>>
>>> In the end conventional science versus creation science is about what
>>> you find the most inconceivable - a Big Bang N billion years ago in
>>> which a broken symmetry started time in the exact way it appears, or a
>>> supernal Being who dreamed it all up a few thousand years ago and faked
>>> it to *look like* it was N billion years old. Or whatever the current
>>> figure is.
>>
>> If you're one of those who is going to accept that it all started  in 4004
BC,
>> then it would be equally valid to accept that it all started 2 seconds ago,
no
>> I mean 3, sorry, no hold on, 4 secs ago.

Perhaps it did. As I am trying to point out, its purely a question of
which *narrative* you *choose to believe*. And the consequences  of that
particular belief.

The reason the creationists believe what they do - and I spent an
interesting dinner party finding out, is that there is, for them, only
One True Word, and that's in the King James Bible. All else is delusion
inspired by the devil


>>
>> And so on.
>>
>> But then such people would probably be unable to answer *why* the Supremem
>> Being bothered to fake it up to look like billyuns.

To test mankind, allegedly. So there's the bible, which takes you to
heaven, and all this other stuff that goes to the Hot Place. Your
choice, don't say you weren't warned, they are really only trying to
*help mankind*. Just like Greta Thunderpants. And the Orange Jesus. We
are overwhelmed with Good People carrying infallible moral compasses all
trying to Help Mankind

>
> They've probably been following too many politicians.
>


I think you should make the effort to try to understand the
non-technical mind. And metaphysics.

The fact is that there is no fact that is not interpreted in terms of
some underlying world-view.

That is what is really meant, when people say 'truth is relative to
culture' (without usually understanding what it means)

You are a techie. We like stuff to be reliable predictable and physical.
The materialist world-view gives us a physical world ruled by natural
law. That means we can do science. Our world-view allows us a great
power. In many ways we can predict the future.

But it -  is as Kant would say - *a-priori* to our understanding.
Although the idea of a material world is supported by the evidence that
science works, it is not *proved* by it.

Those of a religious or spiritual persuasion that argue on favour of
belief in a sentient Creator who actually gives a shit, would argue that
this gives life a purpose and a moral dimension that it otherwise
totally lacks. And that is as *useful* as science is, in terms of
species survival. A most sustaining and comforting _lie_, if you like.

You are looking for the One True Stick. dude, it ain't there. Plenty of
people will try and sell it to you, but is it the real one?

All we can do if we are intellectually acute enough is to note the
problem. And the problem is we have to assume something in order to
proceed at all, and we have no way other than our progress, to establish
whether what we assumed was true or not.

Think Matrix. The material world is one humongous glorious act of faith,
that we assume to be true, because it *works for us*.

God concepts are one humongous glorious act of faith, that they assume
to be true, because it *works for them*.

You see my dilemma?



--
“Those who can make you believe absurdities, can make you commit
atrocities.”

― Voltaire, Questions sur les Miracles à M. Claparede, Professeur de
Théologie à Genève, par un Proposant: Ou Extrait de Diverses Lettres de
M. de Voltaire

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05