Because religion is superstitious nonsense.
At 20:59 31/07/99 -0500, you wrote:
>Apologies for extensive cross-posting!
>
>Readers who have the motivation and can find the time are cordially
>invited to let me know (off-list if thought preferable) WHY (for what
>reasons) they disagree with the statements they disagree with. Replies
>in English, French, or German are equally welcome.
>
>Thanks and greetings! Rudi Borth ([log in to unmask]>
>
>
>* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
>* *
>* NOTES ON A WORLDVIEW *
>* thought to be plausible, consistent, and consistent with reality; *
>* not thought to be original. *
>* *
>* The fact that there exist books advocating similar views *
>* does not by itself validate this one. *
>* *
>* The fact that there exist books advocating other views, *
>* whether philosophical or religious, *
>* does not by itself invalidate this one; *
>* only contrary evidence found in reality *
>* or the demonstration of internal inconsistency *
>* could become valid bases for doubt. *
>* *
>* People who disagree with rational worldviews *
>* might wish to clarify *
>* the dividing line or zone separating the area *
>* where their every-day fact-based rational behaviour is applicable *
>* from their philosophical or religious ideas about the world. *
>* *
>* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
>
>
> PART I: SOME FUNDAMENTALS
>
>Somewhere at <http://www.zyworld.com/gibb/The-Philosopher.htm>, I
>found this list of "the big questions of philosophy." My current
>answers are given after each question.
>
>
>1) How did we get here?
>
> Through evolution, probably from pre-bacterial biochemical
> beginnings.
>
>2) Why are we here?
>
> 'Why' questions ask for (a) purpose, or (b) logical reasons, or
> (c) causes, and the intended meaning should always be made clear.
>
> (a) No purpose known or likely, unless self-preservation built
> into all living things fits this label.
> (b) Meaningless in this context.
> (c) See 1).
>
>3) Is there a God?
>
> No. "There is no need for this hypothesis", and no evidence
> supporting it.
>
>4) What happens after death?
>
> Self-preservation having stopped, the worms and bacteria and
> funeral rites recycle the material.
>
>5) Have we separate souls?
>
> No. There is no evidence for brain activity separate from living
> brains.
>
>6) What about eternity and infinity?
>
> Words defined as concepts opposite to, or as extensions of, the
> familiar every-day experiences of limited duration, space, number.
> They have no certain area of applicability, except as mathematical
> constructs.
>
>7) How did it all start?
>
> A question asking for speculation and interpretation of sparse
> evidence.
>
>8) Why did it all start?
>
> Unanswerable, or meaningless on all three counts (see 2abc).
>
>
>
> PART II: SOME SPECIFICS
>
>
>1. We are here as part of nature and results of evolution. The
>selection pressure from trying to survive and improve comfort resulted
>in the development of brains and the urge to understand our
>environment, in order to better use its regularities for our purposes
>(shared in varying degree by all living, i.e. homeostatic or
>self-preserving, organisms). Consistency, logic, mathematics were not
>invented but discovered as inescapable traits of nature. Perhaps these
>views fit those of abandoned 'schools' with historical labels such as
>'naive realism' or 'logical positivism'; this fact by itself would not
>constitute refutation.
>
>2. The same urge to find explanations is the root of religion and some
>branches of philosophy (in the case of most religions, seconded by the
>hankering for a powerful protector from the risks of living, or for
>rewards or some continuation after death), both increasingly
>restricted to the shrinking areas where there is no or little
>compelling evidence.
>
>3. Atheism is the only religious view made plausible, not to say
>justified, by the _whole_ body (rather than selected traits) of human
>experience of reality. "It is undesirable to believe a proposition
>when there is no ground whatever for supposing it true." (Bertrand
>Russell)
>
>4. There is nothing wrong with scientists' efforts to discover and
>describe the constituent elements of nature and the ways in which they
>interact, and it does not matter whether they turn out to be mental or
>material or stochastic or whatever, or whether there is only one kind
>or whether there are two or two dozen different kinds of elements.
>That there are fewer kinds than the total number of things we see is
>an uncontrovertible and undisputed fact.
>
>5. I continue to be amazed by the absence of the notion of structure
>and of the forces of nature from debates on reductionism. No scientist
>in his/her right mind would try to reduce all features of a complex
>thing to the properties of its constituents, disregarding its
>structure and relevant forces. The properties of the bricks making up
>a building don't allow to predict the existence of walls, rooms,
>stairs etc., and features like floors and ceilings have no meaning in
>the absence of gravitation. This is such an obvious point that I am
>sure I am missing something, but what?
>
>6. It is claimed by some that the training they require makes
>scientists members of an exclusive or even secret society. To the
>extent this is true, it applies just as well to any other profession
>or trade (plumbers, lawyers, farmers, philosophers ...), many of them
>no less influential.
>
>7. I find an incredible amount of 'word fetishism' (Mauthner, 1911) in
>some philosophical texts. As language developed and changed, it
>enabled people to put labels on things and thoughts to help us
>communicate and survive better. It is pointless to probe for the deep
>or 'real' meaning of a word just because the word exists. It is the
>other way around: a word is invented or redefined to refer to a new
>thing, phenomenon, or thought. The approximate nature of language, its
>feature of 'meaning in context', the established use of many words in
>a variety of meanings, the role of intonation, even gesture, in spoken
>language, the fact that its rules require only grammatical, not
>factual, correctness -- the combined effects of these features make it
>mandatory to take great care in rational communication to reduce
>misunderstandings and nonsensical statements as much as possible. In
>some evocative poetry, however, these same features are used to great
>advantage.
>
>8. All questions (and Notes like this one) presuppose some background
>facts or views, often unstated or tacitly assumed to be obvious or
>generally agreed. Much debate is about clarifying background
>differences. Some questions -- even some of the famous oldies in
>philosophy (see Part I) -- may be meaningless, and lack of meaning is
>often not easy to demonstrate.
>
>9. Individual variation does not exclude family resemblance. All
>events are multifactorial (not just in agriculture where the field of
>experimental design originated), there are (almost) no causal 'chains'
>-- only causal 'nets'. The more complex a system is, the more
>'indeterminate' it will look. The unpredictability of changes in
>systems describable by the tools of chaos theory is no argument
>against determinism. Variation, interaction of factors, and the
>existence of uncontrolled or unknown factors don't disprove causality,
>determinism or unity. Is it really necessary to argue for these home
>truths, or to defend the view that they were discovered, not invented?
>
>10. Why should one care about a range of 'possible metaphysical
>positions' for which no foundations or even hints are detectable in
>the real world? More detailed, and jargon-free, analysis of these and
>related subjects can be found, for example, in the transscript of a
>Dawkins-Pinker dialogue available at
>
> <http://www.edge.org/documents/archive/edge53.html>,
>
>or in some articles at the Principia Cybernetica web site
>
> <http://pespmc1.vub.ac.be/TOC.html>,
>
>or in the book
>
> _101 Philosophy Problems_ by Martin Cohen (ISBN 0-415-19127-0).
>
>
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