Mod+ 249. TIM FREKE ON SOUL CRUSHING SCIENCE

Alex's question at the end of the podcast:

Should we be forgiving/understanding about science as we know it, or take a more critical stance?
 
Should we be forgiving/understanding about science as we know it, or take a more critical stance?

Take the critical stance, every time. Why? Because that's actually what true science is about, not the travesty that it has become. I think that's more down to the scientific establishment than individual scientists. The parallel is what happens to institutionalised spiritual traditions, which squeeze the life out of the very thing they're supposed to be nurturing. If there's a mystery, it's why our species always does this: takes a perfectly good and noble ideal and perverts it. And a further mystery is why the very intelligent people that scientists usually are fail to detect the problem for so long, or if they do detect it, elect to stay silent. I don't know about you, but it would piss me off no end if I had a job that I could see was severely constrained by dogma but had to keep on doing to put bread on the table. I couldn't stay silent even if it was a risk to speak up.

We have to fight against the travesty, and I think there's more and more people speaking up in light of high-profile excesses like those occurring in medicine, climate science, neo-Darwinism, cosmology and so on. It's becoming noticeable to many more people and I feel it's only a matter of time before the bubble bursts and there's the analogue of a Reformation in science.

I think I know where Freke is coming from: I was always amazed by my existence, going back as far as I can remember. Mind you, I wasn't 12 when I had an experience akin to the one he mentions: I was over 40. That raises the thought that our education system is defective: how nice it would be if kids could learn to experience Freke's kind of amazement alongside English and Maths.
 
So what exactly is Deep Science?

I felt that was never made clear.
 
I was really glad I listened to this interview. I had a bit of an epiphany when Tim was talking about the word "both." Right. The answer isn't in the absolute or in the relative. It's both. And then I started thinking about the words that we use to describe the unitary aspect of reality. We always use words like absolute, unlimited, transcendent, ultimate. We talk about the true nature of reality. But those words already carry so much baggage with them that they kind of loom over the relative. But they needn't. Both are what they are. Both feels dualistic, but I can work through that.

Best Skeptiko in a long while. I wish Jesus wouldn't have poked his ugly mug in at the end. But I gather from the discussion that Freke has written on that. That whole was Jesus real thing seems like such a waste of time and energy. Who cares? I guess a lot of people care, but it seems like the people that say they care have so much invested in Jesus. They are identified with Jesus to the point where any slight to Jesus becomes a personal slight to them. Step back from the Jesus!
 
Best Skeptiko in a long while. I wish Jesus wouldn't have poked his ugly mug in at the end.

I totally agree!

Interviews with skeptics nowadays, always seem to end up with them being unfamiliar with the evidence - which gets boring!

I enjoyed his take on Jesus too - that he is a mythical figure, and meant to be understood that way.

David
 
Alex's question at the end of the podcast:

Should we be forgiving/understanding about science as we know it, or take a more critical stance?
Critical stance. While one should not necessarily set themselves in a firm position like "evolution is BS, period", a little healthy doubt in everything is good. Blindly saying things like " evolution must be 100% true because scientists said so" is just appeal to authority, really. It pays to do a little of your own fact finding, and if it turns out that there's actually proof against some widely-held scientific principle, that's when you start going on the attack, not before.

Tl;dr question everything but don't take a rigid stance until you've done some research.
 
Critical stance. While one should not necessarily set themselves in a firm position like "evolution is BS, period", a little healthy doubt in everything is good. Blindly saying things like " evolution must be 100% true because scientists said so" is just appeal to authority, really. It pays to do a little of your own fact finding, and if it turns out that there's actually proof against some widely-held scientific principle, that's when you start going on the attack, not before.

Tl;dr question everything but don't take a rigid stance until you've done some research.

The problem with this view is the seeming impossibility of really knowing anything other than our direct experience. We have been around the horn on this forum with global warming, natural selection, UFOs, mediumship, and on and on. Take any well reported series of events like what happened in the Ukraine this last year and try to really understand what happened. Take global warming (although I hate to even use those words on the forum). So much data. Both sides are balls to the wall positive that they've got it right.

So I agree that we shouldn't take a rigid stance and we should doubt and do research. But how do we know when we really know something?
 
The problem with this view is the seeming impossibility of really knowing anything other than our direct experience. We have been around the horn on this forum with global warming, natural selection, UFOs, mediumship, and on and on. Take any well reported series of events like what happened in the Ukraine this last year and try to really understand what happened. Take global warming (although I hate to even use those words on the forum). So much data. Both sides are balls to the wall positive that they've got it right.

So I agree that we shouldn't take a rigid stance and we should doubt and do research. But how do we know when we really know something?

Here we go again...
 
249. TIM FREKE ON SOUL CRUSHING SCIENCE
Interview with consciousness philosopher and author, Tim Freke examines the absurdity of science-as-we-know-it.

Being forgiving/understanding about science as we know it, or take a more critical stance, IMO, do not have a have a mutually contextual reference? I could be forgiving/understanding from an emotional or empathetic position, because emotion is a vague nebulous grey area, dependent upon subjective interpretation, which is not just required, it's a default framework needed for forgiving/understanding. However, emotion is antithetical to science and this is not a bad thing, because science must be a neutral position that should guarantee impartiality, assure fairness, and a logic & reason all adhere to without bias a.k.a. the Scientific Method.

However, we can and should be critical of scientist, but scientist are just people, so we must also then be critical of ourselves. The problem, IMO, is that we, people, or the individual are typically the least honest with ourselves. So, being critical is important, but we must first question our own worldview and why is there a disconnect between the objective, the subjective, and by extension, society, and humanity.

Why are we being forced to ask these questions...why and how did we arrive here?

How long has this really been the state of being for humanity?

Is this Homo sapiens specific?

Is this paradoxical behavior a natural interactive process that a consciousness and sentient species must navigate? In other words, does this all feel right or wrong?

Are there alternatives?

Did we consciously or subconsciously choose this path or does it all feel like humanity is being and has been led down another and different very narrow path?

I would add that IMO, we are not only being dishonest with ourselves not considering the probability that Earth is part of a an immense, diverse, and ancient community, but that it would be intellectually bankrupt, anthropocentric (which replaced geocentric), and fear. That appears to be the general populace stance, but not all. The status quo would likely have those reasons, but their fear would be more from idea of no longer being in control, replaced, and dethroned.

Matt
 
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Most people need to be more critical of science and scientists, I, however, need to be more forgiving/understanding.

Okay, I am ready to be more understanding of Science, but not of scientists.

I just watched a video which made me realize the problem is not science, the problem is scientists. This video was about the scientific evidence for intelligent design. All this evidence comes from science, but, unfortunately, most scientists can't interpret it correctly because of their materialist bias. Science (astronomy, biology, and physics) has already solved the "problem", but scientists refuse to accept that solution. It says something really important about Science that even though the people carrying it out are totally confused and in denial, science still produces the truth.

The video is of Doug Ell giving a talk at MIT about his book Counting to God

The slide outlining the scientific evidence is:
1) Created Universe
2) Fine-Tuned Universe
3) Origin of LIfe
4) Technology of Life
5) Puzzles of Macroevolution
6) Special Earth
7) Universe is nonmaterial (quantum physics)

The talk is only 40 minutes and it covers a lot of ground, if you are interested in more information a good place to start is here:
http://ncu9nc.blogspot.com/p/62014-contents-evidence-for-afterlife.html#articles_by_subject_id

At the beginning of the talk, Ell says that the reason he is able to write on this subject is because he is not at a university... so I think when we try to understand the problems of science, we have to consider the university system as part of the problem.
 
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Very interesting interview, and I loved his starting point; looking at life, and asking what this really is.

When he started talking about Jesus, he made some clearly false statements however, so he lost some credibility there.

The most damning thing which no one I think can answer really is the earliest documents we have of any Christian documents of the authentic letters of Paul. Many are not authentic letters, but the authentic letters of Paul, or the ones that are judged to be. There the earliest documents that we have. None of them tell anything about Jesus.

Wow. All the letters of Paul in the NT (authentic or not) talk about Jesus.

Here are the letters he is referring to: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Authorship_of_the_Pauline_epistles#Undisputed_epistles
  • Romans: Jesus is mentioned on nearly every page, in a very non-gnostic way ("God presented Christ as a sacrifice of atonement, through the shedding of his blood" etc).
  • First Corinthians: Again, Jesus on every page
  • Second Corinthians: Same
  • Galatians: More than once per page
  • Philippians: Extremely Jesus focused
  • First Thessalonians: Jesus on every. single. page.
  • Philemon: Just a one pager, but still 8 mentions :)

When Tim says: ".. the authentic letters of Paul ... None of them tell anything about Jesus", he is at best being misleading.

Perhaps he meant to add FUNDAMENTALIST Jesus, but he didn't. Surely, those letters refer to Jesus as an historical figure.
 
The problem with this view is the seeming impossibility of really knowing anything other than our direct experience. We have been around the horn on this forum with global warming, natural selection, UFOs, mediumship, and on and on. Take any well reported series of events like what happened in the Ukraine this last year and try to really understand what happened. Take global warming (although I hate to even use those words on the forum). So much data. Both sides are balls to the wall positive that they've got it right.

So I agree that we shouldn't take a rigid stance and we should doubt and do research. But how do we know when we really know something?
This is a good question!

At least part of the answer is that we should doubt accounts that seem to be simplistic, or where it is obvious that one side has relied on presenting its version from on high as if it were the only version.

So in the Ukraine, it is a fact that the former president was elected, and was destabilised with the help of outside (Western) agencies. It is also clearly a fact that part of the population fears the new regime - with good reason - they are willing to use weapons against them. It is also clearly a fact that this part of the world has old scores to settle, and should not have been disturbed.

If Western politicians were to face a skeptical press to explain their actions regarding Ukraine in hindsight, I think they would have a very tough time - they get away by talking from on high.

The parallels with Global Warming are extraordinarily clear. If the proponents of this theory were to debate with their scientific opponents in public, I think support for this nonsense would vanish overnight.

Of course, in both cases there could be some secret reason why particular policies were followed - but I doubt it - was the secret reason that made attacking Iraq sensible?

David
 
I wish Jesus wouldn't have poked his ugly mug in at the end. But I gather from the discussion that Freke has written on that. That whole was Jesus real thing seems like such a waste of time and energy. Who cares? I guess a lot of people care, but it seems like the people that say they care have so much invested in Jesus. They are identified with Jesus to the point where any slight to Jesus becomes a personal slight to them. Step back from the Jesus!

As someone who, though not a Christian, nevertheless goes to church and is surrounded by Christians on a pretty regular basis, I have to say I was interested in that part of the show and actually would have liked Freke to go into more detail, especially about the earliest letters of Paul and their references to "Christ" rather than "Jesus." I don't care about "slights" to Jesus, but I am very interested in history, especially when so many people around me base their theology on a particular view of it. Guess I need to start checking out Freke's books!
 
So in the Ukraine, it is a fact that the former president was elected, and was destabilised with the help of outside (Western) agencies.
That is a point of view. But it isn't a complete one. There has been a prolonged media campaign, from many directions, both inside and outside Ukraine, which affects both the situation itself, as well as the many ways in which it can be assessed. It isn't realistic to think there is a single "correct" interpretation.
 
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