The function of religion ?

[grondilu]

I once had a dream, a dream where us humans were in outer space building a mind. A mind that contained all knowledge and all possibilities. We were building an omnipotent being, a god. Maybe we never came from god, we came to build god. We may just as well succeed . Succeed in making our own god.

I wonder if you know how close this is from some hard science fiction concepts.

[foggyb]

Information does not need a conscious mind to exist, yet I understand this is a tricky philosophical question.

Not a human mind, no.

The tree falling in the forest is indeed a tricky philosophical question. A logical contradiction, is not a philosophical idea at all. Its a true or false law. Philosophy typically has no bearing to the physical world.

Just try to occupy the same space as someone else, and you'll quickly understand the physical reality of the problem.  

[yrtrnc]

As for the function of religion....

We as humans choose to believe in what we believe for one reason or another. We may believe that our beliefs are based on cold hard facts and we may even find others who believe in what we believe. And even though 99% of people may be on our side, we can always give the 1% the benefit of the doubt and respect their beliefs and choices. Because we as humans know very well that if we were to be 100% about everything then we would have nothing.

Im grateful and thankful to everyone for sharing and believing.

Pls keep it friendly

[yrtrnc]

Sorry, did you mean that what I wrote is science fiction?

I once had a dream, a dream where us humans were in outer space building a mind. A mind that contained all knowledge and all possibilities. We were building an omnipotent being, a god. Maybe we never came from god, we came to build god. We may just as well succeed . Succeed in making our own god.

I wonder if you know how close this is from some hard science fiction concepts.

[byronbb]

It depends on what you mean by "function". For humans it serves a spiritual need. This of course can be abused by power structures to further their interests.

[Rassah]

Information is only information if there is something to understand it, record it, and recognize it.

That sentence is correct! That 'something' is a supreme creator God.

Information cannot exist without being created first.

We create information. Are we supreme creator Gods because of it?
But there doesn't need to be someone to create information, either. What I meant was that information is a concept that is meaningless without something to interpret it. Doesn't matter who created it, and without an interpreter, it is just noise. The sun creates photons, which race down to earth, and some of which get blocked by trees to cause shadow. The mess of photons and shadows is just noise. However, someone can interpret that noise to find out what time of day it is. No supreme creator needed for creating that information, or to interpret it. Ditto for earth's magnetic fields and warm/cold climates supposedly interpreted by birds.
If you wish to believe that some divine being is needed for that, feel free to. I don't see any reason or evidence for it.

[grondilu]

Not a human mind, no.

I thought you meant that information requires consciousness to exist.  Whether this consciousness comes from a human, an inhabitant of the Alpha Centauri system or a God-like being does not matter.  Consciousness is consciousness.

Information has quite an accurate scientific definition nowadays.  It even has a mathematical formulation.  It's one of the basic concepts of thermodynamics, which means that it is used to analyze matter on molecular level and thereby define notions such as temperature.  And I assure you, to do so physicists do not need to assume that anyone has a full awareness of the exact position and momentum of all existing particles.   It even goes beyond than that if you want to talk about quantum mechanics, but this is probably off topic.

[grondilu]

It depends on what you mean by "function". For humans it serves a spiritual need.

I'm going to make it probably too simplistic, but to me it just fills the gaps of our knowledge and understanding of the World.  When something happens and we don't know why, this makes us uneasy.  To feel better, we sometimes just say "it happened because someone did it, somehow".  "God" is just one of the many words we created to call it.

[johnyj]

Science and Math has become the new religion, people just switch from one religion to another religion depends on their utility

[grondilu]

Science and Math has become the new religion

Unfortunately, I must admit there is some truth in this.  I believe in a lot of scientific concepts, and yet I don't understand them all.  At some point to believe in science you have to put some faith in scientists.

On the other hand, does that mean that science is nothing but a modern kind of religion?  I don't think so.  At least with science, you have the theoretical possibility to learn how to understand or experience things you did not understand nor see by yourself.

For instance, I've never seen Jupiter through a telescope.  So to me it just looks like a very bright point in the sky (I've watch it several times).  But if one day people suddenly start questioning the fact that it looks like what we currently know it looks like (i.e., a huge cloudy planet with a big red storm on the south hemisphere), at least I could buy a telescope and figure it out by myself.   That's a big difference:  no religion provides any practical procedure to test its truth.

[Bitware]

Education and science has been bastardized, bought and sold many times over.

[myrkul]

 no religion provides any practical procedure to test its truth.

Well, technically, they all do: die, and see for yourself. Of course, that means anyone wishing to test the validity of a religion is forever removed from the pool of doubters, so any test of the religion automatically increases the perceived validity (measured as a percentage of the population who believe it to be true) of the religion. It's a pretty sweet con, if you ask me.

So to your above statement, I would add: "and prove the results to others."

[Atlas]

Well, there are people who have been clinically dead and came back.

Common reports: Floating above dead body and surrounding environment. Tunnel of light.

[grondilu]

Common reports: Floating above dead body and surrounding environment. Tunnel of light.

It has been witnessed, but nobody has ever been able to reproduce the experience at will.   It's like cryptozoology:  some people say they have seen weird animals, but when we go to the place and have a look, no matter how hard we try, we never see anything.  So you just can't believe those witnesses blindly.  On the opposite, when someone wants to check if Jupiter exists, I've never heard of anyone claiming it doesn't.  It's quite reliable.

[Atlas]

Common reports: Floating above dead body and surrounding environment. Tunnel of light.

It has been witnessed, but nobody has ever been able to reproduce the experience at will.   It's like cryptozoology:  some people say they have seen weird animals, but when we go to the place and have a look, no matter how hard we try, we never see anything.  So you just can't believe those witnesses blindly.

Well, if something is reported enough under consistent circumstance, can it be reasonable to think it is likely?

[grondilu]

Well, if something is reported enough under consistent circumstance, can it be reasonable to think it is likely?

It makes it an interesting subject of study, but unless you can reproduce those circumstances and observe the claimed effect, skepticism is natural.

These phenomenons can turn into myths, by the way.  They are related facts that are plausible (I don't think near death experiences are actually post-mortem or surnatural, but other topics might have some plausibility), but for whom we do not have any way to test the truth.  The modern form is the urban legend, I guess.

[Atlas]

Well, if something is reported enough under consistent circumstance, can it be reasonable to think it is likely?

It makes it an interesting subject of study, but unless you can reproduce those circumstances and observe the claimed effect, skepticism is natural.

Hm, here's an experiment:

Kill men, have clear activities surrounding their body then bring them back to life. Ask them what they saw. All we need is a resurrection method and we're good.

[Atlas]

Now, this site looks sketchy as hell but it illustrates my premise:

http://www.nderf.org/NDERF/NDE_Experiences/anna_w_nde.htm

[grondilu]

Kill men, have clear activities surrounding their body then bring them back to life. Ask them what they saw. All we need is a resurrection method and we're good.

Indeed it's important to mention that the subject should be capable of describing what happened in the room if he claims that he was actually floating outside of his body.

I suggest we write a word on his front-head and we make sure there is no mirror in the room when he wakes up.

[Atlas]

Kill men, have clear activities surrounding their body then bring them back to life. Ask them what they saw. All we need is a resurrection method and we're good.

Indeed it's important to mention that the subject should be capable of describing what happened in the room if he claims that he was actually floating outside of his body.

I suggest we write a word on his front-head and we make sure there is no mirror in the room when he wakes up.

Genius! Now all we need is to form a test lab with willing subjects in some lawless slum in Africa! Right after we find a Resurrection method! Haha.