Ridley Scott Does not think god created us

joylitt

Never liked how she had to fall back on the 'faith' of people after her journey as there are many scientific ways of assessing veracity.
Also, they could have merely checked her boots for sand/soil samples from where she was standing after getting out of the pod.

Afterlife, man that's always both bothered me and really aggravates me the way religion treats that topic.
Eg:
"If you're good and do as your told in THIS life...AFTER YOU DIE, you'll be Rewarded!"
Blows the concept of a Loving, Caring, Infinitely Compassionate and Understanding 'god' to dust, right there.
As any Omniscient deity would know what circumstances were involved in your 'disobedience', Understand them, and via Infinite Compassion, forgive you.
Then there's the 'qualifiers' about how the messiah sacrificed himself for all mankind...even then it seems 'god' plays pick-and-choose.

Frankly the whole 'You get rewards after you DIE' thing is less believable than a Nigerian wash-wash scam or other related nonsense meant to take advantage of people.

I've seen Scott talk about this idea before and if memory serves its called the "Ancient Astronaut Theory". I've read a little about and a co-worker subscribes to it so we have some fun and interesting discussions.

@BWW and a few others

Many of your criticisms or complaints about religion are a recent philosophical construct only found in the Western world. You should give Charles Taylor's book "A Secular Age" a read. I think you would find it very eye opening and interesting and the challenge you may be seeking.

BZ

joylitt

Slime Molds, they are one of the most intriguing critters. Right up there with Hydrovent extremophiles and jellyfish, as well as octopi!

Bubba Zanetti

Well, MY complaint with religion, and that of my People goes back about 500 years...
The whole Genocide thing conducted against us, yeah, religion-backed, religion-based, with lots of gold to smooth the wheels.

For some of us on this planet, it's not a 'recent philisophical problem', it's History, written in blood.

I wasn't challenging the history of what has happened to Native peoples, nor was I bringing motivations into the matter.

Your statement:

Two things I have never been able to accept and never will:

'God'

If you check out Taylor's book you will see what I am challenging and its not your heritage.

As David Foster Wallace said/ wrote is his famous commencement speech "In the day-to-day trenches of adult life, there is actually no such thing as atheism. There is no such thing as not worshipping. Everybody worships". 

BZ

@BWW - Popper is the late Professor Sir Karl Popper.

He developed the doctrine of falsification; that is that statements cannot be proven absolutely true , but can be exclusively falsified; statements not subject to falsification in principle are not scientific.

Use your favourite web search engine to find other enlightening details about him, but only if you want ;)

@BWW - God loves all his children', BUT, not the pagan red men.

He wasn't that keen on the pagan black men either ;) and when Christianity first came to Britain many years ago the indigenous white pagans were treated in a similar manner . . .

Surely though, that is one races' misinterpretation or abuse of religious ideas to justify their vile actions?  We see similar happening today within some sects of 'Islam'.

I'm not a Christian and again, in the main, agree with your points but I think separating true religious ideas, knowledge and wisdom from  the lunacy of ego and greed driven actions must be done.  They're not one and the same . . .

Would a 'true' Christian treat a brother or sister in such a cold way?  No.  Would a true Muslim kill another?  No.  Here in the UK not long ago people were killing each other due to a supposed religious conflict that was really all about land and perceived historical subjugation. (Ireland, UK and the IRA).  Thankfully this has quietened somewhat but I raise this as an example of what I refer to above.

'You might be noticing aspects of reality and life you didn't previously, but that's not Reality being altered.'

Well I kind of agree ;)  The question I'm getting at is, how can we be certain what reality is as it changes based on perception.  Physics tells us that at the smallest level we know nothing is solid - nothing - and matter can change from solid to waves.  Now, that contradicts everything our perception tells us.  Perception is relative and changeable.  That suggests to me that the world around us is as well - nothing is fixed.

A simple analogy but here goes - a dog has eyes, a brain, a body, a nose etc, but does it 'see' the same world we do?

Well on one hand, yes it does.  But on the other you could argue it actually lives in a different realm.  One where smell is king, not vision - add that to the differences in its nature, desires, needs etc and it's fair to say a dog's world is vastly different to ours, yet they are both the same!  It's a paradox.

I think a very human error though is to think that a dog is somehow lacking as it can't see the 'real' world like we can.  That is pure arrogance and narrow thinking from us . . .

In short, I think reality is a fluid thing that has no beginning and no end and no fixed points within it.  Beings that perceive are like a radio - some can pick up only FM, some AM some both and some can pick up things that aren't even on the dial!  

I could discuss these ideas all day, I really could :)  

@Joylitt - I will check it out, TY :) 

We have to wonder why throughout history in the whole world, many (at the time) unconnected civilisations worshipped some kind of higher power or God or Gods. Egyptians, Greeks, Pagans, Mayans (and all the meso-americans). Look at Easter Island, Stone Henge and maybe the oldest temple in the world, Gobekli Tepe in Turkey 12000 years old.  Everyone at these sites had some kind of religion. Now thru the miracle of my day job, Magnetic Resonance Imaging, science seems to show fundamental Neurological processes that are associated with "thinking there must be a God/Gods"

A 2016 study using functional MRI found "a recognizable feeling central to devotional practice was reproducibly associated with activation in nucleus accumbens, ventromedial prefrontal cortex, and frontal attentional regions. Nucleus accumbens activation preceded peak spiritual feelings by 1–3 s and was replicated in four separate tasks. ... The association of abstract ideas and brain reward circuitry may interact with frontal attentional and emotive salience processing, suggesting a mechanism whereby doctrinal concepts may come to be intrinsically rewarding and motivate behavior in religious individuals."

To be honest I KNOW evolution is how we got here and most of our features have come about by some evolutionary advantage.  So how in evolution does it seem to be an advantage to have religious feelings/ the idea that there is some higher power?

Is it to keep most of us relatively humble and not too arrogant like David?  Does this help humans thrive and evolve further?

Some think that God programmed our brain for religion, but I think it evolved that way, but I do think the neuro wiring seems to have grown to make some belief inevitable.... but why?

I am still hopeful we can eventually get some of the answers to our why's that Prometheus posed, when Sir Ridley comes back to address the question of the 'Big Guy in the Chair'!

@ CB - Yes, me too!

@ Quibism - good post!  I'm being a tad reductionist I suppose but perhaps a lot of the brain wave stuff is a product of our socialisation; which is very much a significant part of our evolution from ape like mammal(s) to the social animal we are today?  Just a thought.

Think it was Desmond Morris (or he quoted a study on this in Naked Ape) that suggests that our large brain, compared to primates, is due to our increased co-operation and socialisation rather than our commonly accepted, general intelligence.

But yes, perhaps we feel the need to create an apex/alpha creator.  Question is if apes could think/talk . . . I know, I know lol . . . would they create a God in their image?   

I am inclined to believe as well though that perhaps early man literally saw the world in a different way to modern man.  Mankind's encounters with less advanced societies/peoples seem to bear this out to some degree . . .

@BWW - 'Frankly the whole 'You get rewards after you DIE' thing is less believable than a Nigerian wash-wash scam or other related nonsense meant to take advantage of people.'

lol :) I totally agree.

Reincarnation, on the other hand, makes a lot of sense to me as does Karma.  At the risk of sounding even more pretentious though I must say that both of those concepts aren't what many western people think they are.

I do wonder how much, for e.g., a religion like Christianity actually contemplated those concepts at the onset?  As you say some cynical fellow once upon a time realised he could play on deep seated human fears and control populations by 'dirtying' such ideas . . . (cynicism & irony overload there lol ;) 

I once asked a Vicar his thoughts on life after death and reincarnation.  He gave the usual doctrin and stated he didn't believe in reincarnation.

When I asked him 'who goes to heaven then?' he seemed a bit stumped! ;) 

There is something very special about life - something that makes it stand out from all other matter. There is point and purpose to it - feeling and weight. We are atoms that are aware of ourselves - consciousness and emotion. I do not know what happens after the materials over which we temporarily hold stewardship have changed into new materials. However, I do know this: each of us existed somewhere before our birth - and we will exist somewhere after our physical death. The soul, whatever it is, is very real - and it demands existence.

This discussion reminds me of Tron Legacy when Flynn was talking about the ISOs...

"They Manifested, The conditions were right and they came into being"

"We are going to die, and that makes us the lucky ones. Most people are never going to die because they are never going to be born. The potential people who could have been here in my place but who will in fact never see the light of day outnumber the sand grains of Arabia. Certainly those unborn ghosts include greater poets than Keats, scientists greater than Newton. We know this because the set of possible people allowed by our DNA so massively exceeds the set of actual people. In the teeth of these stupefying odds it is you and I, in our ordinariness, that are here. We privileged few, who won the lottery of birth against all odds, how dare we whine at our inevitable return to that prior state from which the vast majority have never stirred?

- Richard Dawkins

I love this quote, its very profound. I'm aware I'm quoting a renowned atheist here but there is surely more to existence than simply existing. Yes Evolution through natural selection is a pure numbers game on an absolutely grand scale - the likelihood of us being here on an individual level is staggering!

Bubba Zanetti

I apologize, I misinterpretted what you said in your post.

Jim Pills

Re; Professor Sir Karl Popper

I'll have a look, he sounds like he had some interesting insights!

Deep Space

Religion, it always ends up being connected to more 'material' things, doesn't it?
Land, wealth, etc. It always makes a great justification to go to war and claim such 'in the name of 'god' ', as seen throughout history and including the historical modern-day events you refer to.
I find religion to be confusing, and very suspect, there's always some ulterior motive involved with it it seems to me, and is borne out by history.

The nature of Reality.
Perception does indeed change reality, strictly small-scale though. The universe has it's Rules. The Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle, where the act of measuring/observine a particle alters aspects of it is an example of Perception altering Reality.

Overall though, reality has a Stability. No it is not 'fixed' but Relative to assorted forces and influences, it is Relatively 'fixed', otherwise this entire universe would be random chaos with no structure.
Yes, matter is just 'solid energy', so to speak, and as we know matter and energy are interchangeable.

As to Perception again, if you put on some imaging systems that allow you to percieve, say, UV light, you are still within this reality-frame, merely able to percieve elements you couldn't before.
We all live in the same Reality, as no matter what our brains and perceptual systems, if a boulder falls on any of us lifeforms, it has the same effect.

Deep Space

Yeah, it can get Interesting when you stump a man-of-the-cloth!

Reincarnation, well, there's too much evidence to support it, and with Thanatological research slowly proceeding, hard science is showing that it's a reality and supports the Empitical and circumstantial evidences found in history.

Needless to say the abrahamic religions are scared spitless of this research.

IRaptus

EXCELLENT quote!!!!

Blackwinter-witch Thank you. It's great isn't it!! Definitely puts your own life into perspective. I look at life from a mostly evolutionary perspective, and this sums it very articulately.