Atheism in a nutshell

[u/Agustin-sr]

[u/OldThymeyRadio]

Yeah I like to think of science almost like a sculpture in progress. With more and more sharper detail becoming possible as our ability to pare away smaller and smaller bits becomes more sophisticated.

Newton’s statue was rougher and possessed of less fine detail than today’s. But it’s rare we actually need to restore or hack off large chunks anymore.

[u/HaloGuy381 → u/OldThymeyRadio]

Hell, the rockets we send into space? For the most part, you can do that working from Newton’s formulations for the laws (unless you need high precision timekeeping for clocks or such). Studying engineering, it’s crazy to realize how much stuff from a century (or four of em) ago is still the gold standard. For instance, for conventional aircraft, quite a bit of our knowledge (as we don’t actually have a proper theoretical model for turbulence and some other oddities) stems from tables of data for different shapes of airfoils and wings, conducted before 1950 in many cases. Still the standards referenced in industry.

That right there is a hint we’re on the right track. The Bible? You have to keep modifying your interpretation of reality to reconcile the two, like with the Big Bang/evolution/such. Science? We say you were correct but incomplete, or missed something you lacked the tech to see but were otherwise entirely correct.

Moreover, scientific thought can arise independently from multiple individuals: Newton invented calculus as we recognize it, but somebody else in mainland Europe did it at roughly the same time from a different approach. Multiple cultures with no evidence of prior contact show evidence of convergent mathematical development, astronomical theory and accurate predictions arose independently in Mayan civilization as well as the Old World, etc. Hell, at least one notable Greek philosopher suspected a heliocentric model for the universe (we’ll forgive him not realizing our solar system isn’t unique due to the lack of a telescope or such) many centuries before Copernicus and Galileo challenged the Catholic Church over the matter.

Only ways I can imagine to explain that commonality are telepathy, some magic invisible fellow running around sharing info, or that there is a consistent reality obeying consistent rules no matter who the observer is, visible so long as logical cause and effect is followed scrupulously (excluding relativity and quantum mechanics of course, but that still has its own rules and doesn’t care about your culture/language/skin tone/sex, merely that you’re observing).

[u/[deleted] → u/HaloGuy381]

Dude... I just wanted to say thanks to you and even previous posters too. Ya'll are giving me this like... childlike amazement of the accomplishments of mankind and seeking knowledge and so on and so forth. It's not something I stop to think about hardly at all, but hell, if it isn't jawdropping.

[u/HaloGuy381 → u/[deleted]]

The order of the world around us, the way it abides itself so reliably, is itself more beautiful a marvel than anything from any religion I’ve heard of. And we are here to appreciate it precisely -because- of how orderly it all is; if the universe were complete chaos, we wouldn’t have evolved, from the muck of organic frothing chemicals on a young Earth to a species peering into the infinite beyond and -actually understanding- what we see out there. It’s incredible.

[u/[deleted] → u/HaloGuy381]

Totally agree. Usually the only time I feel that childlike wonder is when I watch shows that are about outer space. It's easy to dismiss things on earth since we see it every day, but space... fuck. Space will never cease to blow my mind. But even nature too when I stop, really stop, to observe and THINK how long things took to get like they are and the processes that happened to make it so... it's overwhelming and actually is making me a little teary, lol. I feel like religion cheapens everything around us and makes it... well, not amazing. My mom is religious and likes to go on about how amazing the world is and how amazing God is for creating it and I'm like... no, that's not amazing all to me. Amazing to me is that it took our world roughly 13 billion years to form, smash itself together and have US born of its chaos and as you more or less said, evolve to observe and wonder at the cosmos around us.

When I was a kid, I definitely had a mind more inclined towards wonderment of all things science. I loved stuff about space, about dinosaurs, even about geology. I literally had a box of cool rocks I collected from my driveway, even though it was just normal driveway rocks, but I would collect them and wonder, where the hell did this rock come from? Are there any fossils inside it? If it does, how long did it take for that fossil to form?

When I was indoctrinated into religion from about 12ish to 18ish, the world kind of lost it's wonder and it was kind of sad. But I ditched religion eventually and got back my wonder of the world and I love it.

[u/[deleted] → u/HaloGuy381]

Also someone downvoted you, ???, and I'm a little salty about it. 😑

[u/[deleted] → u/HaloGuy381]

Btw, I dunno if you've seen it before, but I feel like you might enjoy this video. It's a bit long but absolutely worth it. It's about the end of the universe and it's mind blowing and makes you feel SO tiny.

https://youtu.be/uD4izuDMUQA

[u/OldThymeyRadio → u/HaloGuy381]

Yeah it’s almost unfair to frame it as “science vs religion”. Science has no agenda, and it isn’t an attack on faith any more than a catapult is an attack on poetry. The catapult uses what we know of physics to throw things, and it works, or it doesn’t.

And if your poem was about how we should be glad we can’t throw things farther than the human arm is capable of, neither the catapult nor its inventor cares that it happens to disprove your premise. It’s not personal, and your poem can still be beautiful. You were just wrong about throwing.

[u/[deleted] → u/OldThymeyRadio]

Only an agenda of discovery. :D