No religion and an end to war: how thinkers see the future

[Thruthheim]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/story/0,,1980978,00.html

People's fascination for religion and superstition will disappear within a few decades as television and the internet make it easier to get information, and scientists get closer to discovering a final theory of everything, leading thinkers argue today.


The web magazine Edge (www.edge.org (http://www.edge.org/)) asked more than 150 scientists and intellectuals: "What are you optimistic about?" Answers included hope for an extended human life span, a bright future for autistic children, and an end to violent conflicts around the world.

Philosopher Daniel Denett believes that within 25 years religion will command little of the awe it seems to instil today. The spread of information through the internet and mobile phones will "gently, irresistibly, undermine the mindsets requisite for religious fanaticism and intolerance".
Biologist Richard Dawkins said that physicists would give religion another problem: a theory of everything that would complete Albert Einstein's dream of unifying the fundamental laws of physics. "This final scientific enlightenment will deal an overdue death blow to religion and other juvenile superstitions."

[AlbionMP]

Biologist Richard Dawkins said that physicists would give religion another problem: a theory of everything that would complete Albert Einstein's dream of unifying the fundamental laws of physics.
LOL :roll

I wonder what would be more interesting:

The 'Theory of Everything'

or

Watching the 'juvenile' Richard Dawkins and his co Empiricists look for a 'Theory of Everything'.

:D

Reminds me of when I was a kid, when I spent many moments looking down the back of the couch for a 10 pence (that's two shillings).

[Moody]

The problem is, if [big If] a sure-fire scientific 'Theory of Everything' does become generally available, then we will need to have religions in order to re-introduce some mystery into a life thereby rendered tedious with everything being explained.

It's because God doesn't exist that we have to invent Him.

And similarly, war is an eternal riposte to universal peace.

[nicholas]

humankind is a long way from even being able to comprehend the Theory of Everything.
Course in my mind the Tarot is a Theory of Everything and yet the study of the Tarot can take lifetimes.
25 years? Not a chance. Even if the whole of africa, arabia, asia, etc were full of internet cafes and literate people the choice of what to read would still be theirs. Many would spend their time reading the regurgitated propoganda of their religious and political leaders. You'd still have nuts killing themselves for their religion because and abundance of knowledge doesn't include the ability of people to comprehend what they've seen or read.
Even then, you'll still have small enclaves of people who know nothing about the internet and want nthing to with it.
25 years? Not a chance. 250 years?...maybe. If we don't destroy civilization and plunge ourselves back into a new Dark Ages.

[AlbionMP]

Why re-invent the wheel ? :D

[Taras Bulba]

They've been making these predictions for the past 300 years. Religion isnt going anywhere.

[Γνώθι σεαυτόν]

Religion doesn't only exist because at all times answers have been missing but also because it seems to be a part of mankind's nature.
Why else should it be that even educated folks "combine" their knowledge of evolution and being descendents of Adam and Eve?

Religion isn't only science, it's also explaining humanity; which science does "explain" morals for example (not the biological part, i.e. where is which braincell) ?

Furthermore there are those already mentioned things like limited avalability, limited intellect and interest, etc.

[nätdeutsch]

I don't think humans can get rid of something which is so engrained in their blood as religion is; it just won't happen, and if it did, what a tragedy.

[AlbionMP]

Does anyone think, War is a Religion ?

[Thruthheim]

Does anyone recall the study that declared Men need war? Or the urge to fight is atleast engrained within us, due to fighting since Man was born.

[SuuT]

This has always been the 'vision' of the egg-head set: no war, no poverty, no disease, no spirituality, 'education' as cure, One Theory (TO RULE THEM ALL(!)), everyone - eventually - looks like Keanu Reeves...

If this were a calculation, I'd say it equals no reason to be.



This nonsense always makes me... sleepy.

[AlbionMP]

'Imagine all the people, living in harmony...oooh oo oooo'

I think not!:fnun:

[Janus]

If this were a calculation, I'd say it equals no reason to be.


Reason is just a word invented by the human mind - it cannot be found in a scientific world.

[Thruthheim]

Reason is just a word invented by the human mind - it cannot be find in a scientific world.

Every word is a word invented by the human mind, doesn't make them any less understandable ;)

[SuuT]

Reason is just a word invented by the human mind - it cannot be found in a scientific world.

Odd thing for a "rational lifeform" to say.

All scientific inquiry begins with reasoned hypothesis.


If reason is a fiction invented by the human mind; then so is the unreasonable. If not, you would have to propose a reason as to why.

What is your reason?

You must answer: "I haven't one; if I did, it would be a fiction" - which, itself, is a reason.

[Pro-Alpine]

Believes in deities and other superstition has been decreasing the last decades. People have started to dare to think for themselfs and that is where skepticism comes from.

[Airmanareiks]

Does anyone recall the study that declared Men need war? Or the urge to fight is atleast engrained within us, due to fighting since Man was born.

To be a man is to have an abundance of testosterone. (remember how hormone imbalances affect sexuality)

To have an abundance of testosterone is to want to kill (or subliminated into enjoying watching violence, imaging doing killing).

Sum:
To be a Man is to want to Kill (or do violence), seperation and hate.

This creates upward evolution when the Alpha male has more offspring then the losers.
Whereas estrogen is about "peace, unity".

[Janus]

Odd thing for a "rational lifeform" to say.

All scientific inquiry begins with reasoned hypothesis.


If reason is a fiction invented by the human mind; then so is the unreasonable. If not, you would have to propose a reason as to why.

What is your reason?

You must answer: "I haven't one; if I did, it would be a fiction" - which, itself, is a reason.

Reasoned hypothesis is just again playing with and using a word.
The concept we call reason of course applies for these hypothesis for our daily uses but there must be a reason for every reason and eventually there will be no reason for it. It's just that way. Of course, if reason is a fiction the opposit of it will be a fiction aswell.

And to your question, it isn't because I'm not neglecting reason for myself but reason in general (atleast if taking the absence of the transcendent as true)

[Klegutati]

They've been making these predictions for the past 300 years. Religion isnt going anywhere.

Religion is part of human nature, and it has been with us since the good times we spent in Africa.. I think it will stick around with us for another good 200 000 yrs..;)
http://www.archaeologyinfo.com/images/homoerectus.JPG

[Horagalles]

"This final scientific enlightenment will deal an overdue death blow to religion and other juvenile superstitions." http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/story/0,,1980978,00.html
Actually this is somehow a highly religious statement. I'm afraid to say, but I think those so called "scientists" are the ones being superstitious.

The other silly statement is that their will be an end of (violent) conflict. Sorry but this will exist as long as their is conflict of interest and at least one side able to strike.

[Deling]

No matter what the proponents of Scientism claim, it has always their world-view that has succumbed. First the mechanistic of Bacons and Lockes, then the materialistic of Einsteins and Darwins. The only reason Scientism has remained existent is because it has prostituted itself to the industrial complex, thus creating the material foundation for the modern world we see around us; mass distrubution, consumption and production of goods.

But the utopia of Scientism, since well before Enlightenment, that science would lead humanity to the "Kingdom of Good", is today totally refuted as a normative moral. Nuclear bombs, trench wars, pollution, obesity, metropolicism... the historicism of "progress" and science has failed, and states that have tried to universally create the "Kingdom of Good" on their territories, in their life-times, such as the USSR (but also Hitler's Germany, and America and Japan) has left only barbarism behind.

...how can some desktop scientists religiously believe that a "theory of everything" would restore belief in the scientific "Kingdom of Good"? Scientism and its utopian optimism is becoming obselete, and the ancient way of life is reemerging. Science will stop to be science, and become only technological tools, without any inherent moral value. Those scientists are ideologists, not philosophers, of a scientific-industrial complex, which in no way will become victorious.

The prime example of the decline of Scientism is the pessimistic belief in the Glass-House effect (is this the right English term?), the new ice ages, end of Gulf Streams and world-wide pollution clouds, glaciers melting, deserts expanding a.s.o, a.s.o... and it's the scientific world-view, modernity, which is responsible for this, and no impossible "theory of everything" can change the fact that people today only regard technology as tools, not as "progress" on the way to the "Kingdom of Good" as the Enlightenment and its many followers (a.e Socialists/Communists) promised - and people believed in.

If people don't believe that science is a universal progress marching towards the "Kingdom of Good", how can then its absolute peak (the hypothetical "theory of everything") cause an end to religion and to war?

[kharas]

War and Religion dissappears???

What did they smoke?

Science are not opposite to Religion. It is very juvenile, to maintain it Politically correct, to still think that they are rivals.

Science will advance, Religion too. Ein Gott, Ein Welt, Ein Wahrheit.

One truth, that includes science and religion. Only one thing can decay then, faith. Just as truth is knowed and true religion discovered and tested, "to believe" will be no faith but education on reality.

[Here]

humankind is a long way from even being able to comprehend the Theory of Everything.
Course in my mind the Tarot is a Theory of Everything and yet the study of the Tarot can take lifetimes.
25 years? Not a chance. Even if the whole of africa, arabia, asia, etc were full of internet cafes and literate people the choice of what to read would still be theirs. Many would spend their time reading the regurgitated propoganda of their religious and political leaders. You'd still have nuts killing themselves for their religion because and abundance of knowledge doesn't include the ability of people to comprehend what they've seen or read.


Maybe in the western world it can be true.

I mean, according to the last census (and it was in 2001, six years ago) in my country 90% say it's Christian (mostly cathohlic with a small percentage of Protestans and Eastern orthodox) but only less than 20% of this people has visit a church (for any reason) in the last year.

The 10% (Jews, Muslims and atheist), atheist and agnostics obviously has very few believes in religion. As for the muslims, i barely see a muslim here following the coran and dressing like muslims, the only way of seeing that is visiting a mesquite and i would say that even there you'll problems finding muslims with traditional outfits, and 2% of the population is muslim!. In fact our president during the 90s was Carlos Saul Menem (a muslim of Syrian family) and for most people it would unthinkable see him with a muslim outfit.

About the Jews, well many of them don't even celebrate hanukkah!!,as going to the sinagoge even if there are many in the city, i have jew friends that are in thir 20s and never visited a sinagoge!. While their parents and even more their grandparents are many ortodox jew they don't follow any jew tradition.

IMO, There is few doubt, that new generations are loosing the faith in religion that old generations had.

[Taras Bulba]

Maybe in the western world it can be true.
I mean, according to the last census (and it was in 2001, six years ago) in my country 90% say it's Christian (mostly cathohlic with a small percentage of Protestans and Eastern orthodox) but only less than 20% of this people has visit a church (for any reason) in the last year.....

...IMO, There is few doubt, that new generations are loosing the faith in religion that old generations had.

No, rather the religious faith they are expressing is taking different forms from their parents. This is especially true in regards to the "Emerging Church" movement, which is becomining widespread among European-based societies.

And btw, church attendence rates have been relatively stable for the past 100 years or so. Theres even evidence showing that church attendence rates during the Medieval period may not have been as high as we commonly perceive.

[sheriff skullface]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/story/0,,1980978,00.html

making all superstitious and questioning thought go away with a "scientific" theory of everything:|

I actually can't think of anything less reasonable and more anti-scientific, how in the world can one physics theory explain everything in the universe and everything that has ever happened, taking a look at these "scientists" and "intellucuals" I'd say they sound like a bunch of Humanist/closet christians who are trying to force their dogma down everyones mind just like the time of St.Olav in Norway

and I suppose they are going to help the autistic and stop all fighting and misgiving around the world by spreading their humanistic dogma(and using it as a brainwashing tool):D thats hilarious

[SineNomine]

Oh, now we are close to a Theory of Everything?

...

I wonder when the scientists will actually define "close" as meaning a period less than a few aeons from now.

[Siegfried]

Oh, now we are close to a Theory of Everything?
...
I wonder when the scientists will actually define "close" as meaning a period less than a few aeons from now.

Materialist science cannot achieve a theory of everything without ceasing to be materialist. Within the materialist framework, science cannot provide an adequate explanation of, for example, the mind - and therefore not of human beings. Any worldview that cannot account for human life is fundamentally incomplete.

[SineNomine]

Materialist science cannot achieve a theory of everything without ceasing to be materialist. Within the materialist framework, science cannot provide an adequate explanation of, for example, the mind - and therefore not of human beings. Any worldview that cannot account for human life is fundamentally incomplete.
Which is precisely why I question such a concept being anywhere near discovery.

[Moody]

Does anyone think, War is a Religion ?

Those who take the view that all wars are caused by religion then assume [naively] that the eradication of religion will mean the eradication of war.

It is then possible that, with all religion eradicated, and with universal peace ready to break out, war itself will become a religion, as you suggest!

Does anyone recall the study that declared Men need war? Or the urge to fight is atleast engrained within us, due to fighting since Man was born.

I don't doubt it; it is part of the very basis of our psyche, whether personal or tribal.
It is at root the Self/Other dichotomy.

And who has not been nourished by the pure springs of hate at least once in their life?

War has achieved much more in human culture than has peace.

Peace stinks of decay.

War is sweet.

Oh, now we are close to a Theory of Everything?
...
I wonder when the scientists will actually define "close" as meaning a period less than a few aeons from now.

We may have to first get to an understanding of "everything" before we can start to have a "theory" about it.
Why?
Because there is always something left-over when you think you have got everything.

[AlbionMP]

War is my Religion.

[Imperator X]

Biologist Richard Dawkins said that physicists would give religion another problem: a theory of everything that would complete Albert Einstein's dream of unifying the fundamental laws of physics. "This final scientific enlightenment will deal an overdue death blow to religion and other juvenile superstitions."

Little did he realize that Einstein was not an atheist.