Science is Fun and You Learn (True) Stuff Too

Lecture by Sean Carroll about what happens when you die.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=40eiycH077A


Goes very well with beer and friends.

If I have to sit through this after I die "Hell" is a somewhat accurate way to describe it.

I'm not hardcore religious by any means but this is just painful to watch. It seems modern atheism is well on its way to becoming a parody of itself. This is little more than a session of smug atheists patting each other on the back and stating the notions everybody in the room agrees with. Because a lack of physical evidence aligns with their pre-determined conclusions on all "religious" matters it is somehow scientific? I don't see anything to learn here, there is a lot to observe however. Despite all of the degrees and education of the people speaking this is the same sort of behavior you can watch from clueless Hollywood celebrities during their beloved award shows.

Certainly the world of science can do a lot better to promote itself as "fun" than to serve as some sort of soapbox for atheists to preach views which in most instances cannot be proven one way or another. I know this wouldn't have gotten my attention as a kid, or now for that matter.

Also I find the name of this foundation irksome. Speaking as an American an individual has no more right to freedom from religion than they do freedom from the free speech of others. Until their actions start infringing on your own rights you're out of luck.

Excuse the rant.

Colonial-Marine said:

Certainly the world of science can do a lot better to promote itself as "fun"...

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Here ya go:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lpmRiupbOgI

Colonial-Marine said:

If I have to sit through this after I die "Hell" is a somewhat accurate way to describe it.

I'm not hardcore religious by any means but this is just painful to watch. It seems modern atheism is well on its way to becoming a parody of itself. This is little more than a session of smug atheists patting each other on the back and stating the notions everybody in the room agrees with. Because a lack of physical evidence aligns with their pre-determined conclusions on all "religious" matters it is somehow scientific? I don't see anything to learn here, there is a lot to observe however. Despite all of the degrees and education of the people speaking this is the same sort of behavior you can watch from clueless Hollywood celebrities during their beloved award shows.

Certainly the world of science can do a lot better to promote itself as "fun" than to serve as some sort of soapbox for atheists to preach views which in most instances cannot be proven one way or another. I know this wouldn't have gotten my attention as a kid, or now for that matter.

Click to expand...

I couldn’t imagine a more opposite view to what I took from this speech. Firstly I agree that there is a very strong vein of irksomeness in modern atheism. The hipster type or Richard Dawkins looking down on the religious faith of others. But I saw none of that in this speech. Criticising someone for having faith in something did not happen in the video above. What did happen is the destruction of the arguments of some that their religion has a scientific or factual basis.

There may be people who don’t believe in science and who see people discussing well established scientific facts as “sharing notions” en par with the discussion in a religious centre of the nature of some miracle written in some old text. But if so they are deluding themselves. Sean Carroll mentioned at the start of his speech that he didn’t have three hours to elaborate the underpinning facts of the data he presented. But that doesn’t mean they aren’t there. Everything about the universe, the mind, atoms and so on he detailed can be verified, experimented and understood based on the principles of observable, objective logic. As opposed to the claims of those who propose religion is factually based who only have reference to old texts and observances that were made during a state of dreaming, hallucination or sensory deprivation. All well-known physical states when the mind unconsciously makes things up.

Colonial-Marine said:

Also I find the name of this foundation irksome. Speaking as an American an individual has no more right to freedom from religion than they do freedom from the free speech of others. Until their actions start infringing on your own rights you're out of luck.

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I think you will find there is a very big difference between your ability to not to have to hear the ranting of your local Nazi on the internet about aliens and the ability for most humans to have their life free of religious indoctrination. The name Freedom From Religion recognises this difference. If all humans were brought up from birth to adulthood without any exposure to religion until the age of consent how many people would be religious in this world today? 10%? 5%?

Interesting link, but I can't see much future for this topic on this forum without major problems.