EEVblog + The Signal Path Discussion

[mtdoc]

Check your reference. Einstein did in fact believe in God, just not the anthropomorphic god promoted by many religions.

Nope.

Unfortunately you've chosen the dishonest path of selectively quoting your own chosen reference which, if read in it's entirety does a decent job of abtracting Einstein's views which, while complex, show that:

1) He believed in the idea of god such as defined by Spinoza and other philosophers. Though at times he expressesd a dislike for the term pantheism, if you read one of his biographies you'll see that he was in fact a pantheist. You are mistaken if you think that belief in God = belief in a personal god of the type expoused by many religions. That is only one form of belief in God.

2) He despised strident atheism..

3) Because he was asked this question so often he sometimes resorted to using the term "agnostic" just to avoid having to explain to the many shallow thinkers the subtleties of his beliefs which seem to elude those who are unable to grasp that one can believe in God without believing in an anthropomorphic god. He did not really like the term agnostic either since many, like you chose to define it narrowly. It simply served a purpose.

It's a fundamental error to conflate science with the existence or non existence of God.

Nope. Everybody who is stating, that there is something like a god has to bring proof.

Says who? One could just as easily say "Everybody who is stating that there is no god has to bring proof". Both are childish statements since existence or non-existence are both non-testable. Science only deals with testable hypotheses.

Many excellent scientists believe in God and many do not. They are not mutually exclusuve. The existence or non-existence of God is not a testable hypothesis and therefore not in the realm of science.

Wrong.

Which part? Both are factually correct statements.

I'm not choosing sides here in the God versus no god debate. That debate is futile and I find both religious zealotry and atheist zealotry offensive.  But it's poor form to misrepresent Einstein's (admittedly complex) views on the topic or the non-role for science in the debate in an attempt to further your side of the argument.

[TheAmmoniacal]

May be a stupid question but what is a default state if there is no possible comparison ?

Empty space is unstable and will inevitably spawn a universe. That's what it looks like.

[ggchab]

I believed space was related to dimensions and dimensions were related to universe.
So, there was something before the universe ? Where does it really start ?
Sorry to insist, but these questions have always puzzled me ...

[Fungus]

As long as religion (or anything else) is a personal belief that makes you happy and does not (negatively) influence your interaction with other people, is there any reason to debunk it?

Sure, but it isn't like that.

ALL mass religions create power structures that have an effect on governments and therefore on the non-participants. They must therefore be debunked. Vigorously.

And that's without going into the specific evils of: Islamic terrorists, Catholic pedophiles, machete-wielding witch hunters in Africa, Sharia stoning of women for being raped, Baptists trying to 'cure' Gay man with electric shocks, abortion clinic bombers, Nuns obstructing WHO vaccination programs, Aum Shinrikyo filling Japanese subways with poison gas, The Ku Klux Klan, Christians killing each other Northern Ireland, institutionalized misogyny, genital mutilation ...

It bears repeating: “Good people will do good things, and bad people will do bad things. But for good people to do bad things—that takes religion.”

[Fungus]

3) Because he was asked this question so often he sometimes resorted to using the term "agnostic" just to avoid having to explain to the many shallow thinkers the subtleties of his beliefs which seem to elude those who are unable to grasp that one can believe in God without believing in an anthropomorphic god.

This is getting closer to the truth. Many people thought he was trying to disprove god. He wanted to avoid that argument and focus on the science instead. He chose "agnostic" as a neutral label.

He did not really like the term agnostic either since many, like you chose to define it narrowly. It simply served a purpose.

Yep. We don't know exactly what he believed but we know that he wasn't religious and that "agnostic" was only a carefully chosen label.

[Fungus]

I believed space was related to dimensions and dimensions were related to universe.
So, there was something before the universe ? Where does it really start ?
Sorry to insist, but these questions have always puzzled me ...

Time is also a dimension. As we go backwards the dimensions of space collapse to a singularity and so does time. Asking what was "before" the universe is like asking what's to the north of the North Pole. It makes no sense and that's where your puzzlement comes from - asking the wrong question.

If we accept that time is a dimension that collapses to a singularity at the big bang we can change the question from "what was before the universe" to "what's outside the universe".

The answer is, "we don't know", but at least you're looking in the right direction now - outwards instead of backwards.

(ie. you can't go 'north' of the North Pole but you can travel upwards towards Polaris.  )

[ggchab]

ALL mass religions create power structures that have an effect on governments and therefore on the non-participants. They must therefore be debunked. Vigorously.

This is a sad human behavior and I fully agree we must fight against it.

If we accept that time is a dimension that collapses to a singularity at the big bang we can change the question from "what was before the universe" to "what's outside the universe".
The answer is, "we don't know"

So, that's the right question. Thank you for the explanations.

[mtdoc]

ALL mass religions create power structures that have an effect on governments and therefore on the non-participants. They must therefore be debunked. Vigorously.

I agree with the premise though I don't think "debunking vigorously" is really the best approach. While it's historically accurate that toture, death and destruction has been waged in the name of religion throughout history, strident anti-religion crusades run the same risk. Beliefs (or non-beliefs) tend to be very personal things which can illicit strong emotions and lead to the worst aspects of human tribalism.

I would say that vigorously opposing the destructive actions intead of attacking a persons beliefs is a better approach.

[yym]

I have read:
The blind watchmaker
Selfish gene
The greatest show on earth
On the origin of species

As well as many other studies which have been references in these books. After a few years it all makes sense.

Thanks for the books, I never heard of them, I will try to read some of them, I think I can agree with some of the things it says, like church and politics/government should be kept separate, church/organized religion can do bad things...

So I went to check out these books and I’ve found that all of them except the last one, are from the same author, who is a known atheist, some say that he is the atheist counterpart of the religious fundamentalists he criticizes.

The fact that all the books you mentioned have the same author surprised me a little bit. Would you call these book science? How this compares with the idea of science should not be authority based? How I see it, this is all one persons opinion on things. Isn't this a little bit one sided? Is it possible that a little bit of confirmation bias is at play here? In any case I would say that my impression of you was pretty spot on.

Here is some of the things Dawkins says:
“…Life is just bytes and bytes and bytes of digital information… On the bank of the Oxford canal...is a large willow tree, and it is pumping downy seeds into the air...It is raining instructions out there; it's raining programs; it's raining tree-growing, fluff-spreading algorithms. That is not a metaphor, it is the plain truth…”
Huh? Whatta?

[TheAmmoniacal]

Richard Dawkins is a professor of animal behaviour (ethologist) that spent the latter half of his life popularizing and promoting the theory of evolution while combating religion. His books are all great and well-written.

Dawkins has a very gene-centric view of evolution, which I believe is essentially true, but he rarely discuss the more complicated nuances - which is my only criticism.

The Selfish Gene is the book that got me into science.

“…Life is just bytes and bytes and bytes of digital information… On the bank of the Oxford canal...is a large willow tree, and it is pumping downy seeds into the air...It is raining instructions out there; it's raining programs; it's raining tree-growing, fluff-spreading algorithms. That is not a metaphor, it is the plain truth…”

Do you have a problem with the reductionism? He's talking about DNA as digital information (A-T, C-G), which when expressed in an organism executes like a series of instructions; a program. It's metaphor.

[yym]

“…Life is just bytes and bytes and bytes of digital information… On the bank of the Oxford canal...is a large willow tree, and it is pumping downy seeds into the air...It is raining instructions out there; it's raining programs; it's raining tree-growing, fluff-spreading algorithms. That is not a metaphor, it is the plain truth…”

Do you have a problem with the reductionism? He's talking about DNA as digital information (A-T, C-G), which when expressed in an organism executes like a series of instructions; a program. It's metaphor.

No, not necessarily, but it is a little bit unexpected, and he explicitly says that it is not a metaphor, so 

[yym]

So much crap - so little time.

I wasn't going to get involved in this absurd little rant, but seeing you have put in such an effort....

Thank you for getting involved and don’t worry I’m not offended.

I’m sorry I was in the hurry and misquoted you, not that it changes the meaning too much. In any case, this was not meant as an insult to you. I used ‘you’ as a general ‘you’ like ‘one’, not personally to refer to you.
Anyway what I wanted to quote was “…they will never publicly recant any point or even listen to sound argument”. It is impossible for you to know that…that is not a statement, that is more of an attitude towards something (in this case religion), and my response was a ridicule of attitudes like that.

Ah ... here is your greatest fail.  The (I need to get the upper hand) character assassination.

Not that you deserve it - but I'll clear this up for you... Yes, I have an opinion and I will air it on occasions.  But here is a little fact that you have not bothered researching ... if I have been wrong about something - whether by being shown or having discovered myself - I have freely admitted it AND apologised.  You can even find examples here on the EEVblog forum.


I would like to suggest that you save yourself further embarrassment - but I would be rather surprised if you did.

The fact that you admit when you are wrong, is admirable, I was not trying to imply that you don’t do that. Kudos to you for doing that.

Could you please point out where I’ve embarrassed myself. I am really curios.
We all make small mistakes that we don’t even realize, but one doesn’t need to feel embarrassed about it.

Let me give you an example.  You say “..a little fact that you have not bothered researching..”, you see that was not the best choice of words, it sounds like you think that you and facts about you are a topic of research, it gives the impression that you are feeling all self important, superior, you see what I mean?
But you don’t need to be embarrassed about it, I’m sure it was just a poor choice of words, I’ll assume English is not your first language (as I would assume for many of us is not)

So, I’m not offended, I’m sorry if I’ve offended you, feel free to contribute to the discussion if you have more to say besides ‘much crap’.

[joeqsmith]

Watched all three.  I thought they both did a decent job putting it together.  Thank you for taking the time and making it available to the public.   

[Brumby]

We all make small mistakes that we don’t even realize, but one doesn’t need to feel embarrassed about it.

Let me give you an example.  You say “..a little fact that you have not bothered researching..”, you see that was not the best choice of words, it sounds like you think that you and facts about you are a topic of research, it gives the impression that you are feeling all self important, superior, you see what I mean?
But you don’t need to be embarrassed about it, I’m sure it was just a poor choice of words, I’ll assume English is not your first language (as I would assume for many of us is not)

So, I’m not offended, I’m sorry if I’ve offended you, feel free to contribute to the discussion if you have more to say besides ‘much crap’.

Could you please point out where I’ve embarrassed myself. I am really curios.

Q.E.D.

[yym]

Q.E.D.

I don't see your point, care to elaborate?
It doesn't look like anything to me..

[Brumby]

I don't see your point

That is the point.


Time to move on.  You've been fed more than enough.

[yym]

I don't see your point

That is the point.


Time to move on.  You've been fed more than enough.

If anything, this only serves to prove my point, here I am ... listening... and you have nothing to say.

[nctnico]

From the tone of your postings it is very clear you are not listening at all. Your mind is already set and you're just trying the read what you like. You can lead a horse to water but it has to drink by itself.

[daqq]

I don’t like or understand why you have to discuss topics like religion, this is electronics channel, so please keep to electronics, you will offend people regardless of your beliefs.

Why not discuss it? It's an interesting topic. Is there a list of not safe topics that people should not mention?

In the end science cannot prove or disprove God. Everyone is free to believe what they want.

Yes. Please try to explain this to religious organizations/individuals pushing pamphlets, public financing of little fantasy clubs, laws and nutjobs bearing explosives down non-believers throats.

[GeorgeOfTheJungle]

Oh my God!

[Brumby]

Time to move on.  You've been fed more than enough.

If anything, this only serves to prove my point, here I am ... listening... and you have nothing to say.

Oh, I have plenty to say - but I will save it for those worth the effort.

You can claim my silence as a victory - something you have already done (which, by the way was as predictable as the sunset) - but that exists only in your mind.

I have little doubt you will try and save face - but that is going to be a hollow effort.  You have outed yourself by the nature of your posts ... and I'm not the only one who has noticed.

[rx8pilot]

So disappointed to see such a dysfunctional conversation.

[nctnico]

Debating with religious people is like debating with audiophools as Dave so neatly explained in one of the videos at the top of this thread.  It will go nowhere.

[Bud]

Do not bother arguing with user yym. If you go and check this individual's forum profile, the user technical contribution to this forum is zero. All the user does is bashing the forum owner. Interestingly enough, that started from Batteriser. Move on and do not feed the troll.

[Brumby]

I'm a bit disappointed with myself in having engaged with them as much as I did.

The pity of it is that they .....


You know, it's just not worth even finishing that sentence.