Comments below....
---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, <punditster@...> wrote: On 2/6/2014 7:13 AM, salyavin808 wrote: The idea that there is a vast intelligence behind nature is ridiculous. > You are going to have to put a lot of effort into refuting the philosophers like Kant and Shankara. There is every reason to believe, based on logic that the physical universe can never be known by the mind of the human intellect. Quite easy actually. Kant lived long before quantum physics and our current understanding of cosmology and evolution. Shankara I wouldn't even include in a conversation about philosophy. I put him in the "wild and hopeful speculation" group with Marshy. But I can be kinder and put them in a group that confuses old ideas about cosmology with experiences they have in their heads. A common mistake but as we all know, the difference between science and religion is that science changes when new evidence comes to light. Not only does the TMO still sell astrology it still practises a form of astrology based on an incomplete number of planets! But they can't change it because they would have to add new names to the vedic scriptures. And they can't do that because the scriptures are apparently perfect. LOL. This the trouble with received knowledge - it's only as good as the person that receives it. So given that, we postulate, based on inference, that there is a certain order in the universe. Everywhere we see order in the world. We observe with the senses that everything is based on causation - there is a reason that things happen. So, based on this observation, we INFER that there must be a causative agent. And, since we are possessed of consciousness, we further infer that the causative agent is an intelligent agent. We do this so as to avoid the regressus ad infinitum -- infinite regress: if there is nothing, then there's nothing to discuss. If there is causation there must have been a First Cause. Well, there's your mistake right there. It's wrong to assume that intelligent things must have had an intelligent creator. Darwin showed us this, in fact it's a fine encapsulation of his real achievement - that complexity arises from simplicity, and it does it without outside help. See what I mean about staying up to date? It's just that dialoging about the spirit world that is beyond the senses is much more interesting than talking about mundane events - for that, you can go to your nearest pub or bowling alley. FFL is all about the transcendental spirit world. Go figure. So you'd rather just sit about speculating wildly? Fair enough, but it always worries me that these beliefs about this spirit world get rated as more important than actual hard discoveries. I've known many a TMer who will sit and watch John Hagelin bullshitting for hours but when I suggest they read an actual book about actual physics they dismiss it as boring because it isn't spiritual! Go figure.
