Questions of Truth and Quantum Theory (Religion)

by dhw, Saturday, March 07, 2009, 10:38 (5535 days ago) @ Mark

Mark has kindly explained what he meant and what he didn't mean by his post of 3 March at 08.54: "I don't know what Hewish meant, and I think he should have elaborated. But I am suggesting that he could have meant that we should not dismiss Christian doctrine simply because it contains the paradoxical and mysterious." - Hewish's exact words were "we should be prepared to accept religious mysteries etc.", which seems to me to go a step further than not dismissing them. As an agnostic I am not prepared to accept the theory of abiogenesis, but I certainly won't dismiss it. If you substitute "abiogenesis", or "godlessly self-organizing physical matter" for "Christian doctrine / religious mysteries", you will see why I found this particular argument more conducive to atheism than to theism. One mystery is less mysterious than two. But unless Hewish joins in our discussion, we can't take it any further, and I appreciate the comprehensiveness and clarity of your response. Incidentally, here is another Feynman quote: "If you think you understand quantum theory...you don't understand quantum theory." - David Turell wrote: "It appears to me that agnosticism will not accept any sense of wonder." Not true, David, and since I'm in quoting mood, let's try this one: "The evolution of complex life, indeed its very existence in a universe obeying physical laws, is wonderfully surprising. [...] Think about it. On one planet, and possibly only one planet in the entire universe, molecules that would normally make nothing more complicated than a chunk of rock, gather themselves together into chunks of rock-sized matter of such staggering complexity that they are capable of running, jumping, swimming, flying, seeing, hearing, capturing and eating other such animated chunks of complexity; capable in some cases of thinking and feeling, and falling in love with yet other chunks of complex matter." - I share this sense of wonderment, and partly because I cannot conceive of the molecules gathering themselves together spontaneously to create these astonishing faculties, I am an agnostic and not an atheist. The author of the above also quotes another source: "Live life with a sense of joy and wonder." I do, and so evidently do you, and Mark and George and our author. I disagree with much of what he writes, but absolutely not in this case. His name is Richard Dawkins.