Danny Mayes writes:
>I haven't participated in the list in a while, but I try to keep up with
>the discussion here and there as time permits. I personally was raised a
>fundamentalist Baptist, but lost most of my interest in that religion when
>I was taught at 9 years old that all the little kids in Africa that are
>never told about Jesus Christ go to Hell. Even at 9, I knew that wasn't
>something I was going to be buying. Who wants to believe in a God that
>cruel? Even without the problematic cruel creator, I have always been to
>oriented toward logic and proof to just accept stuff on faith.
I sympathise with the conclusions of the young Danny, but there is a
philosophical non sequitur here. The fact that I would like something to be
true, or not to be true, has no bearing on whether it is in fact true. I
don't like what happened in Germany under the Nazis, but that doesn't mean I
should believe the Nazis did not exist, so why should my revulsion at the
thought of infidels burning in Hell lead me to believe that God and Hell do
not exist? It might make me reluctant to worship such a God, but that is not
the same as believing he does not exist.
>I started redeveloping religious belief, ironically, when I picked up a
>book on quantum physics 6 or so years ago. I was at a legal seminar and
>needed something to read during the boring sessions, and the author ran
>through a number of experiments of QM and concluded that the MWI was the
>most logical interpretation of these experiments. I had read all the Sci
>Fi strories of alternate realities and whatnot, but this was my first
>exposure to the concept that reality is created in such a way to allow all
>things to exist (that also actually appeared to be supported by some real
>science). I still remember my excitement in contemplating this
>explanation, in that it seems to explain so many questions.
>
>I guess I could go into a long explanation as to why I now believe
>intelligence plays a key role in understanding the nature of our reality
>and how it came to be, but I probably wouldn't be able to say much that
>almost anyone on this board has not already heard. For me it boils down to
>this: I see absolutely no reason to believe our experiences are not
>emulable. I strongly suspect it is possible to create a quantum computer.
>I strongly suspect technology will continue to evolve and computer
>processing will get more and more powerful. Finally, even if we are
>somehow precluded from creating new universes in the future (i.e. universes
>implented on the same level of reality as our universe, virtual universes
>are obviously possible), the one we are in will last for trillions of
>years. Final conclusion? Well, I'll let you do the math...
But if it's scientific, it's not religion, is it? Religion means believing
something in the absence of sufficient evidence.
Stathis Papaioannou
_________________________________________________________________
Express yourself instantly with MSN Messenger! Download today - it's FREE!
http://messenger.msn.click-url.com/go/onm00200471ave/direct/01/
Received on Thu Jan 12 2006 - 23:15:38 PST