The Idea of God.
Evidence of the Being of God.
Can physics prove if God exists?
If there is a God, would they be bound by
the laws of physics?
I still believed in God (I am now an
atheist) when I heard the following question at a seminar, first posed by
Einstein, and was stunned by its elegance and depth: "If there is a God
who created the entire universe and ALL of its laws of physics, does God follow
God's own laws? Or can God supersede his own laws, such as travelling faster
than the speed of light and thus being able to be in two different places at
the same time?" Could the answer help us prove whether or not God exists
or is this where scientific empiricism and religious faith intersect, with NO
true answer? David Frost, 67, Los Angeles.
I was in lockdown when I received this
question and was instantly intrigued. It's no wonder about the timing – tragic
events, such as pandemics, often cause us to question the existence of God: if
there is a merciful God, why is a catastrophe like this happening? The idea
that God might be "bound" by the laws of physics – which also govern
chemistry and biology and thus the limits of medical science – was an
interesting one to explore.
If God wasn't able to break the laws of
physics, she arguably wouldn't be as powerful as you'd expect a supreme being
to be. But if she could, why haven't we seen any evidence of the laws of
physics ever being broken in the Universe?
To tackle the question, let's break it
down a bit. First, can God travel faster than light? Let's just take the
question at face value. Light travels at an approximate speed of 3 x 10 to the
power of 5 kilometres every second, or 186,000 miles per second (299,500km/s).
We learn at school that nothing can travel faster than the speed of light – not
even the USS Enterprise in Star Trek when its dilithium crystals are set to
max.
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But is it true? A few years ago, a group
of physicists posited that particles called tachyons travelled above light speed. Fortunately,
their existence as real particles is deemed highly unlikely. If they did exist,
they would have an imaginary mass and the fabric of space and time would become
distorted – leading to violations of causality (and possibly a headache for
God).
It seems, so far, that no object has been
observed that can travel faster than the speed of light. This in itself does
not say anything at all about God. It merely reinforces the knowledge that
light travels very fast indeed.
Things get a bit more interesting when you
consider how far light has travelled since the beginning. Assuming a
traditional big bang cosmology and a light speed of 300,000km/s, then we can
calculate that light has travelled roughly 1.3 x 10 x 23 (1.3 times 10 to the
power 23) km in the 13.8 billion years of the Universe's existence. Or rather,
the observable Universe's existence.
The Universe is expanding at a rate of
approximately 70km/s per Mpc (1 Mpc = 1 Megaparsec or roughly 30 billion
billion kilometres), so current estimates suggest that the distance to the edge
of the universe is 46 billion light years. As time goes on, the volume of space
increases, and light has to travel for longer to reach us.
There is a lot more universe out there
than we can view, but the most distant object that we have seen is a galaxy,
GN-z11, observed by the Hubble Space Telescope. This
is approximately 1.2 x 10 x 23 km or 13.4 billion light years away, meaning
that it has taken 13.4 billion years for light from the galaxy to reach us. But
when the light "set off", the galaxy was only about three billion
light years away from our galaxy, the Milky Way.
Many cosmologists believe that the
Universe may be part of a more extended cosmos, a multiverse
We cannot observe or see across the
entirety of the Universe that has grown since the Big Bang because insufficient
time has passed for light from the first fractions of a second to reach us.
Some argue that we therefore cannot be sure whether the laws of physics could
be broken in other cosmic regions – perhaps they are just
local, accidental laws. And that leads us on to something even bigger than the
Universe.
The multiverse
Many cosmologists believe that the
Universe may be part of a more extended cosmos, a multiverse, where many different universes
co-exist but don't interact. The idea of the multiverse is backed by the theory of inflation – the idea that the
universe expanded hugely before it was 10^-32 seconds old. Inflation is an
important theory because it can explain why the Universe has the shape and
structure that we see around us.
But if inflation could happen once, why
not many times? We know from experiments that quantum fluctuations can give
rise to pairs of particles suddenly coming into existence, only to disappear
moments later. And if such fluctuations can produce particles, why not entire
atoms or universes? It's been suggested that, during the period of
chaotic inflation, not everything was happening at the same rate – quantum
fluctuations in the expansion could have produced bubbles that blew up to
become universes in their own right.
But how does God fit into the multiverse?
One headache for cosmologists has been the fact that our Universe seems fine-tuned
for life to exist. The fundamental particles created in the Big
Bang had the correct properties to enable the formation of hydrogen and
deuterium – substances which produced the first stars.
The physical laws governing nuclear
reactions in these stars then produced the stuff that life's made of – carbon,
nitrogen and oxygen. How come all the physical laws and parameters in the
universe happen to have the values that allowed stars, planets and ultimately
life to develop?
Some argue it's just a lucky coincidence.
Others say we shouldn't be surprised to see biofriendly physical laws – they
after all produced us, so what else would we see? Some theists, however, argue
it points to the existence of a God creating
favourable conditions.
But God isn't a valid scientific
explanation. The theory of the multiverse, instead, solves the mystery because
it allows different universes to have different physical laws. So, it's not
surprising that we should happen to see ourselves in one of the few universes
that could support life. Of course, you can't disprove the idea that a God may
have created the multiverse.
If two particles are entangled, you
automatically manipulate its partner when you manipulate it
This is all very hypothetical, and one of
the biggest criticisms of theories of the multiverse is that because there seem
to have been no interactions between our Universe and other universes, then the
notion of the multiverse cannot be directly tested.
Quantum weirdness
Now let's consider whether God can be in
more than one place at the same time. Much of the science and technology we use
in space science is based on the counter-intuitive theory of the tiny world of
atoms and particles known as quantum mechanics.
The theory enables something called quantum entanglement: spookily connected
particles. If two particles are entangled, you automatically manipulate its
partner when you manipulate it, even if they are very far apart and without the
two interacting. There are better descriptions of entanglement than the one I
give here – but this is simple enough that I can follow it.
Imagine a particle that decays into two
sub-particles, A and B. The properties of the sub-particles must add up to the
properties of the original particle – this is the principle of conservation.
For example, all particles have a quantum property called "spin" –
roughly, they move as if they were tiny compass needles. If the original
particle has a "spin" of zero, one of the two sub-particles must have
a positive spin and the other a negative spin, which means that each of A and B
has a 50% chance of having a positive or a negative spin. (According to quantum
mechanics, particles are by definition in a mix of different states until you
actually measure them.)
The properties of A and B are not
independent of each other – they are entangled – even if located in separate
laboratories on separate planets. If you measure the spin of A and you find it
to be positive, then imagine a friend measured the spin of B at exactly the
same time that you measured A. In order for the principle of conservation to
work, she must find the spin of B to be negative.
But – and this is where things become
murky – like sub-particle A, B had a 50:50 chance of being positive, so its
spin state "became" negative at the time that the spin state of A was
measured as positive. In other words, information about spin state was
transferred between the two sub-particles instantly. Such transfer of quantum
information apparently happens faster than the speed of light. Given that
Einstein himself described quantum entanglement as "spooky action at a
distance", I think all of us can be forgiven for finding this a rather
bizarre effect.
So, there is something faster than the
speed of light after all: quantum information. This doesn't prove or disprove
God, but it can help us think of God in physical terms – maybe as a shower of
entangled particles, transferring quantum information back and forth, and so
occupying many places at the same time? Even many universes at the same time?
Science requires proof, religious belief
requires faith
I have this image of God keeping
galaxy-sized plates spinning while juggling planet-sized balls – tossing bits
of information from one teetering universe to another, to keep everything in
motion. Fortunately, God can multitask – keeping the fabric of space and time
in operation. All that is required is a little faith.
Has this essay come close to answering the
questions posed? I suspect not: if you believe in God (as I do), then the idea
of God being bound by the laws of physics is nonsense, because God can do
everything, even travel faster than light. If you don't believe in God, then
the question is equally nonsensical, because there isn't a God and nothing can
travel faster than light. Perhaps the question is really one for agnostics, who
don't know whether there is a God.
This is indeed where science and religion
differ. Science requires proof, religious belief requires faith. Scientists
don't try to prove or disprove God's existence because they know there isn't an
experiment that can ever detect God. And if you believe in God, it doesn't
matter what scientists discover about the Universe – any cosmos can be thought
of as being consistent with God.
Our views of God, physics or anything else
ultimately depends on perspective. But let's end with a quotation from a truly
authoritative source. No, it isn't the Bible. Nor is it a cosmology textbook.
It's from Reaper Man by Terry Pratchett:
"Light thinks it travels faster than
anything but it is wrong. No matter how fast light travels, it finds the
darkness has always got there first, and is waiting for it."
* Monica Grady is professor of
planetary and space science at The Open University
MICHAEL EGNOR
JULY 31,
2022
In a recent
post, atheist biologist Jerry Coyne takes
issue with a commenter who asserts that God exists in the same sort of way
mathematics exists. Here’s the analogy the commenter offered, as
quoted by Coyne:
Think of numbers for
example, or mathematical equations, these are metaphysical things, that have
not been created, however were discovered. The number 7 was the number 7 before
anything at all came into existence. This is also true concerning the nature of
God. He is not some material being that has come into existence, he is like a
number that has always existed, (and by the way nobody will deny this logic
with the number, however when someone mentions God a problem occurs).
God Is Watching You: How the Fear of God Makes Us
Human
God Is Watching You is an exploration of this belief as it has developed over
time and how it has shaped the course of human evolution. Dominic Johnson
explores such questions as: Was a belief in supernatural consequences
instrumental in the origins of human societies? How has it affected the way human
society has changed, how we live today, and how we will live in the future?
Does it expand or limit the potential for local, regional and global
cooperation? How will the current decline in religious belief (at least in many
western countries) affect our ability to live together? And what, if anything,
will temper self-interest and promote cooperation if religion declines? In
short, do we still need God?
Drawing on new research from anthropology, evolutionary biology, experimental
psychology, and neuroscience, Johnson presents a new theory of supernatural
punishment that offers fresh insight into the origins and evolution of not only
religion, but also human cooperation and society. He shows that belief in
supernatural reward and punishment is no quirk of western or Christian culture,
but a ubiquitous part of human nature that spans geographical regions,
cultures, and human history.
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/25838474-god-is-watching-you
One of the World’s Most Powerful Scientists, NIH director Francis Collins, winner of the
2020 Templeton Prize, answers questions about God, free will,
evil, altruism and his Christian faith in a 2006 interview
Francis Collins: “We may understand a lot about biology, we may understand
a lot about how to prevent illness, and we may understand the life span. But I
don’t think we will figure out how to stop humans from doing bad things to each
other.” Credit: Andrew Harrer Getty Images
When I talk to my students about the tempestuous relationship between science and religion,
I like to bring up the case of Francis Collins. Early in his career, Collins
was a successful gene-hunter, who helped identify genes associated with cystic
fibrosis and other disorders. He went on to become one of the world’s most
powerful scientists. Since 2009, he has directed the National Institutes of
Health, which this year has a budget of over $40 billion. Before that he
oversaw the Human Genome Project, one of history’s biggest research projects.
Collins was an atheist until 1978, when he underwent a conversion experience
while hiking in the mountains and became a devout Christian. In his 2006
bestselling book The Language of God, Collins declares that he sees
no incompatibility between science and religion. “The God of the Bible is also
the God of the genome,” he wrote. “He can be worshipped in the cathedral or in
the laboratory.” Collins just won the $1.3 million Templeton Prize, created in 1972 to
promote reconciliation of science and spirituality. (See my posts on the
Templeton Foundation here and here). This news gives me an excuse to post an
interview I carried out with Collins for National Geographic in
2006, a time when Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett and others were
vigorously attacking religion. Below is an edited transcript of my conversation
with Collins, which took place in Washington, D.C. I liked Collins, whom I
found to be surprisingly unassuming for a man of such high stature. But I was
disturbed by our final exchanges, in which he revealed a fatalistic outlook on
humanity’s future. Collins, it seems, has lots of faith in God but not
much in humanity. – John Horgan
Horgan: How does it feel to be at the white-hot center of the current debate
between science and religion?
Collins: This increasing polarization between extremists on both ends of the
atheism and belief spectrum has been heartbreaking to me. If my suggestion that
there is a harmonious middle ground puts me at the white-hot center of
debate--Hooray! It’s maybe a bit overdue.
Horgan: The danger in trying to appeal to people on both sides of a polarized
debate is--
Collins: Bombs thrown at you from both directions!
Horgan: Has that happened?
Collins [sighs]: The majority have responded in very encouraging ways. But
some of my scientific colleagues argue that it’s totally inappropriate for a
scientist to write about religion, and we already have too much faith in public
life in this country. And then I get some very strongly worded
messages from fundamentalists who feel that I have compromised the literal
interpretation of Genesis 1 and call me a false prophet. I’m diluting the truth
and doing damage to the faith.
Horgan: Why do you think the debate has become so polarized?
Collins: It starts with an extreme articulation of a viewpoint on one side of
the issue and that then results in a response that is also a little bit too
extreme, and the whole thing escalates. Every action demands an equal and
opposite reaction. This is one of Newton’s laws playing out in an unfortunate
public scenario.
Horgan: I must admit that I’ve become more concerned lately about the harmful
effects of religion because of religious terrorism like 9/11 and the growing
power of the religious right in the United States.
Collins: What faith has not been used by demagogues as a club
over somebody’s head? Whether it was the Inquisition or the Crusades on the one
hand or the World Trade Center on the other? But we shouldn’t judge the pure
truths of faith by the way they are applied any more than we should judge the
pure truth of love by an abusive marriage. We as children of God have been
given by God this knowledge of right and wrong, this “Moral Law,” which I see
as a particularly compelling signpost to His existence. But we also have this
thing called free will which we exercise all the time to break that law. We
shouldn’t blame faith for the ways people distort it and misuse it.
Horgan: Isn’t the problem when religions say, This is the
only way to truth? Isn’t that what turns religious faith from something
beautiful into something intolerant and hateful?
Collins: There is a sad truth there. I think we Christians have been way too
ready to define ourselves as members of an exclusive club. I found truth, I
found joy, I found peace in that particular conclusion, but I am not in any way
suggesting that that is the conclusion everybody else should find. To have
anyone say, “My truth is purer than yours,” that is both inconsistent with what
I see in the person of Christ and incredibly off-putting. And
quick to start arguments and fights and even wars! Look at the story of the
Good Samaritan, which is a parable from Jesus himself. Jews would have
considered the Samaritan to be a heretic, and yet clearly Christ’s message
is: That is the person who did right and was justified in
God’s eyes.
Horgan: How can you, as a scientist who looks for natural explanations of
things and demands evidence, also believe in miracles, like the resurrection?
Collins: My first struggle was to believe in God. Not a pantheist God who is
entirely enclosed within nature, or a Deist God who started the whole thing and
then just lost interest, but a supernatural God who is interested in what is
happening in our world and might at times choose to intervene. My second
struggle was to believe that Christ was divine as He claimed to be. As soon as
I got there, the idea that He might rise from the dead became a non-problem. I
don’t have a problem with the concept that miracles might occasionally occur at
moments of greatsignificance where there is a message being
transmitted to us by God Almighty. But as a scientist I set my standards for
miracles very high. And I don’t think we should try to convince agnostics or
atheists about the reality of faith with claims about miracles that they can
easily poke holes in.
Horgan: The problem I have with miracles is not just that they violate what
science tells us about how the world works. They also make God seem too
capricious. For example, many people believe that if they pray hard enough God
will intercede to heal them or a loved one. But does that mean that all those
who don’t get better aren’t worthy?
Collins: In my own experience as a physician, I have not seen a miraculous
healing, and I don’t expect to see one. Also, prayer for me is not a way to
manipulate God into doing what we want Him to do. Prayer for me is much more a
sense of trying to get into fellowship with God. I’m trying to figure out what
I should be doing rather than telling Almighty God what He should
be doing. Look at the Lord’s Prayer. It says, “Thy will be done.”
It wasn’t, “Our Father who are in Heaven, please get me a parking space.”
Horgan: Many people have a hard time believing in God because of the problem
of evil. If God loves us, why is life filled with so much suffering?
Collins: That is the most fundamental question that all
seekers have to wrestle with. First of all, if our ultimate goal is to grow,
learn, discover things about ourselves and things about God, then unfortunately
a life of ease is probably not the way to get there. I know I have learned very
little about myself or God when everything is going well. Also, a lot of the
pain and suffering in the world we cannot lay at God’s feet. God gave us free
will, and we may choose to exercise it in ways that end up hurting other
people.
Horgan: The physicist Steven Weinberg, who is an atheist, has written about
this topic. He asks why six million Jews, including his relatives, had to die
in the Holocaust so that the Nazis could exercise their free will.
Collins: If God had to intervene miraculously every time one of us chose to do
something evil, it would be a very strange, chaotic, unpredictable world. Free
will leads to people doing terrible things to each other. Innocent people die
as a result. You can’t blame anyone except the evildoers for that. So that’s
not God’s fault. The harder question is when suffering seems to have come about
through no human ill action. A child with cancer, a natural disaster, a tornado
or tsunami. Why would God not prevent those things from happening?
Horgan: Some theologians, such as Charles Hartshorne, have suggested that
maybe God isn’t fully in control of His creation. The poet Annie Dillard
expresses this idea in her phrase “God the semi-competent.”
Collins: That’s delightful--and probably blasphemous! An alternative is the
notion of God being outside of nature and of time and having a perspective of
our blink-of-an-eye existence that goes both far back and far forward. In some
admittedly metaphysical way, that allows me to say that the meaning of
suffering may not always be apparent to me. There can be reasons for terrible
things happening that I cannot know.
Horgan: I think you’re an agnostic.
Collins: No!
Horgan: You say that, to a certain extent, God’s ways are inscrutable. That
sounds like agnosticism.
Collins: I’m agnostic about God’s ways. I’m not agnostic about God Himself.
Thomas Huxley defined agnosticism as not knowing whether God exists or not. I’m
a believer! I have doubts. As I quote Paul Tillich: “Doubt is not the opposite
of faith. It’s a part of faith.” But my fundamental stance is that God is real,
God is true.
Horgan: I’m an agnostic, and I was bothered when in your book you called
agnosticism a “copout.” Agnosticism doesn’t mean you’re lazy or don’t care. It
means you aren’t satisfied with any answers for what after all are ultimate
mysteries.
Collins: That was a putdown that should not apply to earnest agnostics who
have considered the evidence and still don’t find an answer. I was reacting to
the agnosticism I see in the scientific community, which has not been arrived
at by a careful examination of the evidence. I went through a phase when I was
a casual agnostic, and I am perhaps too quick to assume that others have no
more depth than I did.
Horgan: Free will is a very important concept to me, as it is to you. It’s
the basis for our morality and search for meaning. Don’t you worry that science
in general and genetics in particular—and your work as head of the Genome
Project--are undermining belief in free will?
Collins: You’re talking about genetic determinism, which implies that we are
helpless marionettes being controlled by strings made of double helices. That
is so far away from what we know scientifically! Heredity does have an
influence not only over medical risks but also over certain behaviors and
personality traits. But look at identical twins, who have exactly the same DNA
but often don’t behave alike or think alike. They show the importance of
learning and experience--and free will. I think we all, whether we are
religious or not, recognize that free will is a reality. There are some fringe
elements that say, “No, it’s all an illusion, we’re just pawns in some computer
model.” But I don’t think that carries you very far.
Horgan: What do you think of Darwinian explanations of altruism, or what you
call agape, totally selfless love and compassion for someone not
directly related to you?
Collins: It’s been a little of a just-so story so far. Many would argue that
altruism has been supported by evolution because it helps the group survive.
But some people sacrifically give of themselves to those who are outside their
group and with whom they have absolutely nothing in common. Like Mother Teresa,
Oscar Schindler, many others. That is the nobility of humankind in its purist
form. That doesn’t seem like it can be explained by a Darwinian model, but I’m
not hanging my faith on this.
Horgan: If only selflessness were more common.
Collins: Well, there you get free will again. It gets in the way.
Horgan: What do you think about the field of neurotheology, which attempts to
identify the neural basis of religious experiences?
Collins: I think it’s fascinating but not particularly surprising. We humans
are flesh and blood. So it wouldn’t trouble me--if I were to have some mystical
experience myself--to discover that my temporal lobe was lit up. I’d say, “Wow!
That’s okay!” That doesn’t mean that this doesn’t have genuine spiritual
significance. Those who come at this issue with the presumption that there is
nothing outside the natural world will look at this data and say, “Ya see?”
Whereas those who come with the presumption that we are spiritual creatures
will go, “Cool! There is a natural correlate to this mystical experience! How
about that!” I think our spiritual nature is truly God-given, and may not be
completely limited by natural descriptors.
Horgan: What if this research leads to drugs or devices for artificially
inducing religious experiences? Would you consider those experiences to be
authentic? You probably heard about the recent report from Johns Hopkins that
the psychedelic drug psilocybin triggered spiritual experiences.
Collins: Yes. If you are talking about the ingestion of an exogenous
psychoactive substance or some kind of brain-stimulating contraption, that
would smack of not being an authentic, justifiable, trust-worthy experience. So
that would be a boundary I would want to establish between the authentic and
the counterfeit.
Horgan: Some scientists have predicted that genetic engineering may give us
superhuman intelligence and greatly extended life spans, and possibly even
immortality. We might even engineer our brains so that we don’t fear pain or
grief anymore. These are possible long-term consequences of the Human Genome
Project and other lines of research. If these things happen, what do you think
would be the consequences for religious traditions?
Collins: That outcome would trouble me. But we’re so far away from that
reality that it’s hard to spend a lot of time worrying about it when you
consider all the truly benevolent things we could do in the near term. If you
get too hung up on the hypotheticals of what night happen in the next several
hundred years, then you become paralyzed and you fail to live up to the
opportunities to reach out and help people now. That seems to be the most
unethical stance we could take.
Horgan: I’m really asking, Does religion requires suffering? Could we reduce
suffering to the point where we just won’t need religion?
Collins: In spite of the fact that we have achieved all of these wonderful
medical advances and made it possible to live longer and eradicate diseases, we
will probably still figure out ways to argue with each other and sometimes to
kill each other, out of our self-righteousness and our determination that we
have to be on top. So the death rate will continue to be one per person by one
means or another. We may understand a lot about biology, we may understand a
lot about how to prevent illness, and we may understand the life span. But I
don’t think we will figure out how to stop humans from doing bad things to each
other. That will always be our greatest and most distressing experience here on
this planet, and that will make us long the most, perhaps, for something more.
https://www.scientificamerican.com/store/subscribe/scientific-american-digital-full-archive/
Further Reading:
In Defense of Disbelief: An Anti-Creed
Can Faith and Science Coexist?
Richard Dawkins Offers Advice for Donald Trump, and Other
Wisdom
What Should We Do With Our Visions of Heaven and Hell?
Mind-Body Problems (free online book, also available as Kindle e-book and paperback).
Who experiences miracles? The answer might surprise you
Hoping for a miracle? Consider your demographics. A new study from Baylor University shows that
perceived miracles are the domain of people facing mortal danger.
Edwin Eschler, a PhD candidate in sociology at Baylor University, looked at
a survey of 15,4000 respondents from 16 countries in Latin America by the Pew
Research Center. He defined a “miracle” as an experience in which a person
believes that an event or outcome was influenced by supernatural agents.
Surprisingly, he found no correlation between education level and
likelihood of experiencing a miracle. “Respondents with no formal
education were just as likely to experience a miracle as those with a college
degree,” said Eschler in a statement.
Instead, miracles were strongly tied to threats to survival, particularly
instability such as not being able to afford food, clothing, and
medicine—meaning that people become more spiritual when their existence is
under siege. Though all groups, across classes, experience what they believe
are miracles, “the richest and most well educated are still more likely to
experience miracles if their life becomes uncertain or is threatened,” Eschler
added.
This is a pivotal understanding for organizations aiming to help people
impacted by instability, war, and disease, showing that even in science-driven
contexts, suffering people may well attribute control to divine intervention.
Protestants, by the way, have more “divine encounters” than
Catholics—suggesting that underlying religious culture also plays a role.
Many adults worldwide believe they have experienced one, says Eschler, but
data in developed countries is limited, because researchers tend to not ask the
question in countries like the U.S. The Pew survey found that 57% of
respondents believed they had experienced a miracle of some kind.
fastcompany.com/90541725/who-experiences-miracles
A radical quantum hypothesis casts doubt on objective reality
by John Horgan
…A newish
interpretation of quantum mechanics called QBism (pronounced “Cubism,” like the
art movement) makes subjective experience the bedrock of knowledge and reality
itself. David Mermin, a prominent theorist, says QBism can dispel the
“confusion at the foundations of quantum mechanics.” You just have to accept
that all knowledge begins with “individual personal experience.”…: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/does-quantum-mechanics-reveal-that-life-is
What Is Spacetime Really Made Of?
By Adam Becker
Spacetime may emerge
from a more fundamental reality. Figuring out how could unlock the most urgent
goal in physics—a quantum theory of gravity…: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/what-is-spacetime-really-made-of/
Abstract
Self-reported religious service attendance has been linked with longevity.
However, previous work has largely relied on self-report data and volunteer
samples. Here, mention of a religious affiliation in obituaries was analyzed as
an alternative measure of religiosity. In two samples (N = 505 from
Des Moines, IA, and N = 1,096 from 42 U.S. cities), the
religiously affiliated lived 9.45 and 5.64 years longer, respectively, than the
nonreligiously affiliated. Additionally, social integration and volunteerism
partially mediated the religion–longevity relation. In Study 2, exploratory
analyses suggested that the religion–longevity association was moderated by
city-level religiosity and city-level personality. In cities with low levels of
trait openness, the nonreligiously affiliated had reduced longevity in highly
religious cities relative to less religious cities, consistent with the
religion-as-social-value hypothesis. Conversely, in cities with high levels of
openness, the opposite trend was observed, suggesting a spillover effect of
religion. The religiously affiliated were less influenced by these cultural
factors.
Theories that
try to explain these big metaphysical mysteries fall short, making agnosticism
the only sensible stance
- By John Horgan on August
14, 2021
In
my 20s, I had a friend who was brilliant, charming, Ivy-educated and rich, heir
to a family fortune. I’ll call him Gallagher. He could do anything he wanted.
He experimented, dabbling in neuroscience, law, philosophy and other fields.
But he was so critical, so picky, that he never settled on a
career. Nothing was good enough for him. He never found love for the same
reason. He also disparaged his friends’ choices, so much so that he alienated
us. He ended up bitter and alone. At least that’s my guess. I haven’t spoken to
Gallagher in decades.
There
is such a thing as being too picky, especially when it comes to things like
work, love and nourishment (even the pickiest eater has to eat something).
That’s the lesson I gleaned from Gallagher. But when it comes to answers to big
mysteries, most of us aren’t picky enough. We settle on answers for bad
reasons, for example, because our parents, priests or professors believe it. We
think we need to believe something, but actually we don’t. We
can, and should, decide that no answers are good enough. We should be
agnostics.
Some
people confuse agnosticism (not knowing) with apathy (not caring). Take Francis
Collins, a geneticist who directs the National Institutes of Health. He is a
devout Christian, who believes that Jesus performed miracles, died for our sins
and rose from the dead. In his 2006 bestseller The
Language of God, Collins calls agnosticism a
“cop-out.” When
I interviewed him, I told him I am an agnostic and objected to
“cop-out.”
Collins
apologized. “That was a put-down that should not apply to earnest agnostics who
have considered the evidence and still don’t find an answer,” he said. “I was
reacting to the agnosticism I see in the scientific community, which has not
been arrived at by a careful examination of the evidence.” I have examined the
evidence for Christianity, and I find it unconvincing. I’m not convinced by any
scientific creation stories, either, such as those that depict our cosmos as
a bubble
in an oceanic “multiverse.”
People
I admire fault me for being too skeptical. One is the late religious
philosopher Huston Smith, who called me “convictionally impaired.”
Another is megapundit Robert Wright, an old friend, with whom I’ve often argued
about evolutionary psychology and
Buddhism. Wright once asked me in exasperation, “Don’t you
believe anything?” Actually, I believe lots of things, for example,
that war
is bad and should be abolished.
But
when it comes to theories about ultimate reality, I’m with Voltaire. “Doubt is
not a pleasant condition,” Voltaire said, “but certainty is an absurd one.”
Doubt protects
us from dogmatism, which can easily morph into fanaticism and what
William James calls a “premature closing of our accounts with reality.” Below I
defend agnosticism as a stance toward the existence of God, interpretations of
quantum mechanics and theories of consciousness. When considering alleged
answers to these three riddles, we should be as picky as my old friend
Gallagher.
THE PROBLEM OF
EVIL
Why
do we exist? The answer, according to the major monotheistic religions,
including the Catholic faith in which I was raised, is that an all-powerful,
supernatural entity created us. This deity loves us, as a human father loves
his children, and wants us to behave in a certain way. If we’re good, He’ll
reward us. If we’re bad, He’ll punish us. (I use the pronoun “He” because most
scriptures describe God as male.)
My
main objection to this explanation of reality is the
problem of evil. A casual glance at human history, and at the world
today, reveals enormous suffering and injustice. If God loves us and is
omnipotent, why is life so horrific for so many people? A standard response to
this question is that God gave us free
will; we can choose to be bad as well as good.
The
late, great physicist Steven
Weinberg, an atheist, who
died in July, slaps down the free will argument in his book Dreams
of a Final Theory. Noting that Nazis killed many of his relatives in the Holocaust,
Weinberg asks: Did millions of Jews have to die so the Nazis could exercise
their free will? That doesn’t seem fair. And what about kids who get cancer?
Are we supposed to think that cancer cells have free will?
On
the other hand, life isn’t always hellish. We experience love, friendship,
adventure and heartbreaking beauty. Could all this really come from random
collisions of particles? Even Weinberg concedes that life sometimes seems “more
beautiful than strictly necessary.” If the problem of evil prevents me from
believing in a loving God, then the
problem of beauty keeps me from being an atheist like
Weinberg. Hence,
agnosticism.
Quantum
mechanics is science’s most precise, powerful theory of reality. It has
predicted countless experiments, spawned countless applications. The trouble
is, physicists and philosophers disagree
over what it means, that is, what it says about how the world works.
Many physicists—most, probably—adhere to the Copenhagen interpretation,
advanced by Danish physicist Niels Bohr. But that is a kind of
anti-interpretation, which says physicists should not try to make sense of quantum
mechanics; they should “shut up and calculate,” as physicist David Mermin once
put it.
Philosopher
Tim Maudlin deplores this situation. In his 2019 book Philosophy of
Physics: Quantum Theory, he points out that several interpretations of
quantum mechanics describe in detail how the world works. These include
the GRW
model proposed by Ghirardi, Rimini and Weber; the pilot-wave
theory of David Bohm; and the many-worlds
hypothesis of Hugh Everett. But here’s the irony: Maudlin is so
scrupulous in pointing out the flaws of these interpretations that he
reinforces my skepticism. They all seem hopelessly kludgy and preposterous.
Maudlin
does not examine interpretations that recast quantum mechanics as a theory
about information. For positive perspectives on information-based interpretations,
check out Beyond Weird by journalist Philip Ball and The
Ascent of Information by astrobiologist
Caleb Scharf. But to my mind, information-based takes on quantum
mechanics are even less plausible than the interpretations that Maudlin
scrutinizes. The concept
of information makes no sense without conscious beings to send,
receive and act upon the information.
Introducing
consciousness into physics undermines its claim to objectivity. Moreover, as
far as we know, consciousness arises only in certain organisms that have
existed for a brief period here on Earth. So how can quantum mechanics, if it’s
a theory of information rather than matter and energy, apply to the entire
cosmos since the big bang? Information-based theories of physics seem
like a
throwback to geocentrism, which assumed the universe revolves around
us. Given the problems with all interpretations of quantum mechanics,
agnosticism, again, strikes
me as a sensible stance.
MIND-BODY
PROBLEMS
The
debate over consciousness is even more fractious than the debate over quantum
mechanics. How does matter make a mind? A few decades ago, a consensus seemed
to be emerging. Philosopher
Daniel Dennett, in his cockily titled Consciousness
Explained, asserted that consciousness clearly emerges from neural
processes, such as electrochemical pulses in the brain. Francis Crick and
Christof Koch proposed that consciousness is generated by networks of neurons
oscillating in synchrony.
Gradually,
this consensus collapsed, as empirical evidence for neural theories of
consciousness failed to materialize. As I point out in my recent book Mind-Body
Problems, there are now a dizzying variety of
theories of consciousness. Christof Koch has
thrown his weight behind integrated
information theory, which holds that consciousness might be a
property of all matter, not just brains. This theory suffers from the same
problems as information-based theories of quantum mechanics. Theorists such as
Roger Penrose, who won last year’s Nobel Prize in Physics, have conjectured
that quantum effects underpin consciousness, but this theory is even more
lacking in evidence than integrated information theory.
Researchers
cannot even agree on what form a theory of consciousness should take. Should it
be a philosophical treatise? A purely mathematical model? A gigantic algorithm,
perhaps based on Bayesian
computation? Should it borrow concepts from Buddhism, such as
anatta, the doctrine of no self? All of the above? None of the above? Consensus
seems farther away than ever. And that’s a good thing. We should be open-minded
about our minds.
So,
what’s the difference, if any, between me and Gallagher, my former friend? I
like to think it’s a matter of style. Gallagher scorned the choices of others.
He resembled one of those mean-spirited
atheists who revile the faithful for their beliefs. I try not
to be dogmatic in my disbelief, and to be sympathetic toward those who, like
Francis Collins, have found answers that work for them. Also, I get a kick out
of inventive
theories of everything, such as John
Wheeler’s “it from bit” and Freeman Dyson’s principle
of maximum diversity, even if I can’t embrace them.
I’m
definitely a skeptic. I doubt we’ll ever know whether God exists, what quantum
mechanics means, how matter makes mind. These three puzzles, I suspect, are
different aspects of a single,
impenetrable mystery at the heart of things. But one of the
pleasures of agnosticism—perhaps the greatest pleasure—is that I can keep
looking for answers and hoping that a
revelation awaits just over the horizon.
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/what-god-quantum-mechanics-and-consciousness
Does Quantum Mechanics Rule Out Free Will?
Superdeterminism, a radical quantum hypothesis, says our “choices” are illusory
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/does-quantum-mechanics-rule-out-free-will
Some mathematicians have
sought a logical proof for the existence of God. Here’s what they discovered
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/can-god-be-proved-mathematically/
Bullies and
Saints: An Honest Look at the Good and Evil of Christian History
(Негодяи
и ангелы: честный взгляд на добро и зло в христианской истории)
by John Dickson
Is religion a
pernicious force in the world? Does it poison everything? Would we be better
off without religion in general and Christianity in particular? Many skeptics
certainly think so.
John Dickson has spent much of the last ten years reflecting on these difficult
questions and on why so many doubters see Christianity as a major cause of harm
not blessing. The skeptics, he concludes, are right: even a cursory look at the
history of Christians reveals dark things therein--violence, bigotry, genocide,
war, inquisition, oppression, imperialism, racism, corruption, greed, power,
abuse. For centuries and even today, Christians have been among the worst bullies
you could ever imagine.
But these skeptics are only partly right: this is not what Christianity was
meant to be. When Christians do evil they are out of tune with the teachings of
their Lord. Jesus gave the world a beautiful melody--of love, grace, charity,
humility, non-violence, equality, human dignity--to which, tragically, his
followers have more often than not been tone-deaf. Denying the evils of church
history does not do. John Dickson gives an honest account of the mixed history
of Christianity, the evil and the good. He concedes the Christians' complicity
for centuries of bullying but also shows the myriad ways the beautiful melody
of Christ has enriched our world and the lives of countless individuals. This
book asks contemporary skeptics of religion to listen again to the melody of
Jesus, despite the discord produced by too many Christians through history and
today. It also leads contemporary believers into sober reflection on and
repentance for their own participation in the tragic inconsistencies of
Christendom and seeks to inspire them to live in tune with Christ.:
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/55918296-bullies-and-saints
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