>> I think the problem lies in the definition of religion.  Ie
>> is it a belief in a higher power, or is it a rule system that
>> describes how one should behave?

> Very good point. I object to the former being discussed on the list. 
> The
> latter is generally fine.

> Exceptions include higher powers that can be
> proven to exist (e.g. In my Honda Civic, a Mac truck is a higher 
> power)

> If you can base your statements in broadly reproducible, very 
> reliable,
> easily measurable, proven fact, I don't care what you say.

Ah. That's OK then :-).
In my universe, something made it.

When I say "my" I generally also mean the universe that most 
scientists accept and which an even greater percentage of laymen 
accept both intuitively and if they think about it.

It is not possible in my universe for nothing to have made something 
on a net basis. Including the universe itself. On a transitory 
balanced basis maybe :-).

This is notwithstanding the apparent fact that 'things' make and 
unmake themselves at not too far above the minimum possibly measurable 
level all the time. They do this so as to not violate some fundamental 
rules which we assert "just are" based on observation. We don't know 
why the rules should be or how they came about or even if we have a 
complete rule set. We base the rules entirely on a set of best guesses 
which we then empirically refined by comparing them with experienced 
reality. A key rule that says things MUST make and unmake themselves 
all the time spontaneoilsy so that reality can exist as we (think we) 
know it is called something like "Henry's you don't really know what's 
happening principal". This is a great rule as it matches what we see 
very very well, even though it makes absolutely no rational sense at 
all. Another great rule is named something like "Einrichs you can't 
get there from here, or, at least, not for a while yet relatively 
speaking principle"  This asserts that nothing is as it seems if you 
are somewhere else instead. This makes no sense at all ogically but 
works very well in practice. Einrich says there's no way that anyone 
who dreamed all this up would be a gambler but Bell disagreed and said 
that two will get you one (or was that 'two are really one'?) and 
Einrich says that that's just spooky. The GREAT rule is the QM rule 
which says that if a tree falls in the forest then there is no tree 
and no forest and certainly no sound until you let the cat out of the 
box and find out what really happened whereupon everything collapses 
like a wave and we find out who really did it and if the cat is/was 
dead, but never in between.

The Danes from Copenhagen (and Elsinore?) wanted to add their bit 
about to being or not to being and said that it's meaningless to even 
ask the question about what happens in the middle. As an (il)logical 
offsping to all this it is utterly apparent to anyone who is willig to 
examine with rigour the reality that we think we see around us that 
more is happening that can possibly be not accounted for (let alone 
accounted for) within the system as we know it and that there MUST (if 
any of this is to make sense)(even though none of it does) an infinite 
regress of other systems which our divides into as we progress along 
the lines of dead/alive cats, get thee to a nunnery or no, to being 
and not to being and their ilk. This is of course the most extreme of 
science fiction or fantasy to most minds incoluding most scientists so 
we can easily ignore the beliefs of thos scientists who are most aware 
of what must be true if the rest of what we belief is true.

This all makes perfect sense to everyone and we accept it as fact, as 
iot obviously is, even though we have no ability to produce the 
slightest "proof" or "reaosn" for it all being other than it is, and 
any sane (wo)man can see it is so. Those who disagree are simply 
classed as heretics to be casts into outer darkness, which cannot 
exist as 'outer" has no meaning in the universe context.

Fortunately all thsi rubbish of phantasms that we build our fairy 
castle of realities on is hard science which we can measure and test 
and be confident about (Hookey Walker!) so we can be free from 
religion and all it's uncertainties. For those who are warm and cozy 
inside the testable reality we exist in - good luck - you'll need it 
:-).

Summary:    The hard reality we see around us is clearly seen to be 
cloud cuckoo land if we peer behind the props. We may decide to 
blinker ourselves and demand of ourselves that we believe it is all 
testable and hard science based. We may decide to simply ignore those 
who can demonstrate that we don't know squat, and that no matter what 
reality is, it ain't what we demand it is. In doing so we build a 
system so much more bizarre and so much more impossible than that of 
any religion while being totally unable to allow ourselves to apply an 
equal set of tests to our "reality" as we apply to them. Equal 
opportunity and equal thinking are jokes we make to hide from what we 
refuse to know.



        Russell 

-- 
http://www.piclist.com PIC/SX FAQ & list archive
View/change your membership options at
http://mailman.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/piclist