Cenegenics.

For fuck's sake, Xyle - if you insist on being stupid, fine, but enough with the double posting already.

 

Around here there is only one sin greater than writing two successive posts, and it's inviting everyone to an imaginary barbeque.

 

Well, scientifically, I suppose the experiment would have to fail to disprove an hypothesis of God, one which fits within the context of current scientific understanding.

As you say, the simpler theory is that humans are hard-wired to experience God, even if only in their imaginations, for a given value of God.

My mind is only a pattern in my brain, but the patterns reflect universal constants. The folds of cortices in our brains follow the same fractal geometry as atoms and galaxies.

Science as a philosophy depends upon this same faith as mysticism, as Emerson wrote, "that our dim and fragmentary existence yet plumbs the utmost depths of reality".

 

One of the reasons that the God meme has survived for so long is that it is inherently impossible to disprove. It's like the darkness at the edge of space. You can shine a light there, but there will always be a bit more darkness just beyond it.

Any experiment invariably does disprove a hypothesis of God, such as "God answers prayers". But then the believers just change the hypothesis - "God answers prayers, but not in a way that is obvious, you small-minded scientist!"

You can't win, really.

I don't know what you meant by this, but it sounds like something I'll vehemently disagree with, once you explain it.

So really, for the sake of everyone else, it's probably best if you don't.

 

HEY! It's so on if you come!

 

Um, ok then.

I will point out that western cosmology has made a lot of bold decisions about invisible things over the last few millennia, while eastern culture has largely kept religion up for debate and analysis.

Therefore a term like "God" has eight thousand possible interpretations, but is best defined as "Not that, Not that either". It doesn't include the ontological dump of Abraham's neuroses or the hierarchy of the Catholic church.

The observations and experiments of eastern mystics were so sound that they are a valuable source for cognitive and social psychologists reinventing the science of the mind today.