THE FAILED "US VERSUS THEM" TEAMS' ACTIVE MEASURES
PROPAGANDA MEANT TO DIVIDE AND CONQUER
In the modern era, there seems to be a great deal of polarizing "us against them" team propaganda, when it comes to the philosophies or world views of those who define themselves as "people of faith" or "people of science". But are these two faith, world views, or philosophies mutually exclusive? Can only one exist and not the other? Why can't we respect the world view or personal philosophy of others? Do we force our world view onto others in a desperate or vain attempt to justify our own world views?
As philosophy professor Graham Hunter taught students at the University of Ottawa in the early 1990s -- the philosophy of world views, or existentialism, is often based on how each of us is taught and/or learns how to rank each of the three realms -- specifically ranking the physical world, the mental world, and the spiritual world -- in a which-came-first dilemma, the chicken or the egg?
THE PARADIGM OF THE FAITHFUL
Hunter's students were taught that the "faithful" -- those who believe in God(s), spirit(s), and the like -- first rank the spiritual world, or God(s), from which they believe the mental world, or mind and/or soul were born, which is more or less locked into the physical world and/or our bodies, and when the body dies, the spirit or soul is released, and then free to join another body, place, or world, or not, thereafter.
THE PARADIGM OF PURE SCIENTISTS
Similarly, Hunter's students were taught that pure scientists (to differentiate from scientists who are also religious) -- who believe that the "true" ranking of the origins and nature of everything ranks the physical world first -- in a scenario where massive clouds of hydrogen (composed of rights and strings of vibrating energy) in outer space compress due gravity, to the point of generating such excessive pressure and temperature as to ignite the clouds of hydrogen, forming stars (and where the Sun is the closest star to the Earth), and some of these stars are so massive and generate such enormous temperatures as to fuse hydrogen into most to all of the other known elements on the periodic table of atoms, which can eventually be cast off by supernovas into space, to form planets, moons, asteroids, meteorites, and comets -- all bound by gravity -- but only if the stars are large enough to supernova.
Then over a period of time, all of the same cools, and creates the building blocks of life, chains of water, chains of fats, chains, of amino acids, chains of sugars, and chains of other molecules, much like dropping magnets into a tin can, will cause the magnets to self-organize.
From this physical world, conscious life is thought by pure scientists to arise from unconscious life, from the likes of the chemotaxis of cells, to the increasingly conscious (mental world) likes of jellyfish, able to navigate objects, to more complex organisms capable of more intentional loving, thinking, and creating -- from which the spiritual world is thought to have been derived, under this world view.
THE PARADIGM OF RENE DESCARTES
Last, Hunter's students were taught that others, like Rene Descartes, ranked the mental world first, because Descartes could not rely on the physical world, because things like dreams seemed real but weren't, and where it could be argued that dreams were real, and that when we wake up, what we experienced wasn't real.
Similarly, Descartes could not rely on God being all-seeing, all-powerful, and all-loving, in a world regularly dominated by evil, for if God was all seeing, God would not have allowed evil to exist, and if God was all powerful, God would immediately end all evil, especially if God was all loving.
Accordingly, Descartes referred to God as a "malevolent genius", and could not trust the truth of the physical world, nor the spiritual world enough to rank them first, resulting in his famous conclusion, "I think, therefore I am", where because he could acknowledge that he existed using the mental world, then regardless if he was dreaming, in heaven, or not, he existed somewhere, and that this was a fundamental truth.
FLAWS IN LOGIC, REASONING, AND CRITICAL THINKING AND SCALE
AFFECT OUR UNDERSTANDING OF WHAT IS REAL
Studying philosophy teaches students logic, reasoning, and critical thinking about what is real or not real, and what is true and what is false, but where philosophy, and Graham Hunter, also taught us that inherent flaws in logic, or fallacies, could be used to deceive us.
A great example of this is Nietzsche's lion and lamb moral relativism scenario, where when asked if a bird of prey (or human) kills a lamb (human, animal, or any other life), then is it "true" or "false" that the act of killing is "good" or "bad"?
More specifically, “There is nothing very odd about lambs disliking birds of prey, but this is no reason for holding it against large birds of prey that they carry off lambs. And when the lambs whisper among themselves, 'These birds of prey are evil, and does this not give us a right to say that whatever of the opposite of a bird of prey must be good?', there is nothing intrinsically wrong with such an argument - though the birds of prey will look somewhat quizzically and say, 'We have nothing against these good lambs; in fact, we love them; nothing tastes better than a tender lamb”, said Nietzsche.
Instinctively, some of us would argue that any life being killed is bad, and that this is true from the perspective of the lamb.
However, it is also true at the same time that it is good for the lion to kill the lamb, because it is good for the bird of prey, regardless if it is good for the lamb, because killing the lamb allows the bird(s) of prey to survive and grow.
Accordingly, it is true that it is good for the bird of prey to kill the lamb, and at the same time, it is false that it is good for the bird of prey to kill the lamb, from the perspective of the lamb, who also wants to survive and grow.
Similarly, it is true that it is bad for the bird of prey to kill the lamb, and at the same time, it is false that it is bad for the bird of prey to kill the lamb.
Herein lies the conflict inherent in ethics, where judgement concerning the conduct of others towards themselves and/or others can both bad and good at the same time and where the same can be true and false at the same time.
Applied to all human conduct, we quickly see why there are perceptions of good and evil in the world, because what is good for some, is at the same time bad for others.
To help resolve or make sense of some of the same, philosophy students try and learn the difference between objective reality, what is real, and subjective reality, what we and others believe is real.
More simply, everything that exists is real, and everything that doesn't exist isn't real -- and where because we humans as individuals and as a species are finite relative to relatively much greater or infinite geological, astronomical, and/or God's time -- we couldn't possibly learn, nor know, everything there is to learn or know across all time and across all space, and where everything constantly changes, including space and time.
If the universe is an infinite video made in three, four, eleven, twenty-six, or other dimensions, then the best we can hope to understand are still frames or snapshots within that enormous video.
Accordingly, as no human is able to know everything there is to know, no human can accurately know the objective reality or what is real, and so each of us can only make best guesses as to what is real based on our subjective reality and the subjective reality of others shared with us.
THE SHARED LEAPS OF FAITH OF BOTH SCIENCE AND RELIGION ARE
ASSUMPTIONS THAT THEIR TEACHINGS ARE REAL
Returning to the original compound question of this article -- "Do God and science have to be incompatible, or are God and science two different faith-based approaches to describe where we come from, what we are part of, and where we are headed?" -- each science and God (but not limited to the same, per Descartes) are each faith-based, as each have faith in the "truth" of the works they reference, and where this "truth" is "good" for them.
For example, but not limited to the same -- despite over 100 discrepancies in the Bible, and allegedly over 50 discrepancies in the Torah, and despite knowing that the same were written by humans -- the Abrahamic religions of Christianity and related Judaism maintain that it is "true" that each respective work is the "word of God".
Similarly, those who believe in science believe in their measured observations, mathematical "constants", and equations that build on other equations -- much like Christianity is built on previous religions like Judaism, Zoroastrianism, Paganism, Imperial Cults, and/or other religions -- and where scientists believe that this faith in science is the "truth", and where this is "good" for them.
However, "absolute" and "objective" measurements fail when the size of the measuring instrument is considered.
For example, if a person was to measure the perimeter of Australia using a measurement system based on a kilometer, the final perimeter would be much smaller, than if the perimeter of Australia was measured using a system of measurement based on a centimeter, because a centimeter unit of measure would be able to measure more nooks and crannies or space, otherwise not more accurately measured by a kilometer unit of measure, and yet a centimeter and kilometer can be converted into one another, and so there should only be a single absolute or objective perimeter of Australia.
Complicating the matter even further, every conceivable unit of measurement can be further divided by at least two in an infinite manner, and so as the unit of measurement used to measure Australia decreases towards negative infinity, that unit of measure can measure more and more perimeter towards positive infinity.
More simply, there is no single absolute value for the perimeter of Australia, but an infinite number of perimeters, and even if there were, then that perimeter would change over time, with the tide, glaciation, the movement of tectonic plates, volcanic activity, collisions between galaxies, and/or other ways we haven't considered. As a result, standard units of measurement have been developed in order to measure the physical world, so that relative measurements can be properly compared to one another.
As Heraclitus the Greek observed, the only thing constant is that everything will change, and yet in math and physics their is a leap of faith regarding "constants", and where prior to the hypothetical superstring theory, which requires 11 to 26 dimensions in the universe in order for the math to work, scientists have struggled to develop a Grand Unified Theory of physics, unable to unite the field equations for each of the four forces of nature in a manner that could properly explain phase transitions of matter, or how an ice cube is expected to melt into water, and how water is expected to form vapor, and how vapor is expected to form plasma, as energy applied to all of the same increases.
However, biology is based on chemistry, and chemistry is based on physics, and physics is based on math, and math is based on the philosophical principles of logic, reasoning, and critical thinking, which are known to be inherently flawed in an inescapable manner, as illustrated with Nietzsche's lion and birds of prey quote, where the same scenario can be judged to be true and false, and good and bad at the same time.
Remember that scientists also believed that the world was once flat, and that it was the center of the solar system, both of which have since been proven false by other observations. Similarly, there were things like black holes that scientists struggled to observe, but knew were there, based on their ability to exert forces on nearby celestial objects.
Accordingly, scientists, like the faithful, take a "leap of faith" in assuming that what they assume to be true is actually true, often because someone they respect or fear has implied or expressed these assumptions are true, succumbing to Cialdini's principles of influence.
As the original question for this article was a compound question, and returning to whether or not science and religion are compatible, is there any way that science and religion can be compatible -- despite the ranking of three realms, which creates a hierarchy of existence and evolution between the physical, mental, and spiritual worlds?
More simply, is there a different way to see the world, or a different theory, which unites science and religion into a central theory, where each is simply a different way of explaining the same thing, and where the thing they respectively and collectively explain is everything?
Consider the following as a candidate solution.
BOTH SCIENCE AND RELIGION AGREE THAT WE COME FROM,
POSSESS, AND RETURN TO, SOURCES OF CHANGING POWER
The faithful believe that God is infinite, omnipotent, or all-powerful, and that we come from, are more or less part of, and/or return to God.
Next, consider the scientific perspective that each of us, and the observable universe, are made of infinitely changing rings and strings of vibrating energy, which cannot be created nor destroyed, only transferred or changed, per the laws of thermodynamics -- and where anything that cannot be created nor destroyed has always existed and will always exist, or exists infinitely, but changes.
Consider that the useful life of every cell, organism, universe, and asset divided into the energy comprising every cell, organism, universe, and asset posses, is the inherent power of every cell's, organism's, universe's, and asset's ability to do work, or to affect how other things will change -- and where the equation for Power = Energy/Time.
Now take all of the energy everywhere, and divide the same by the useful lifetime of any particular object that has existed, exists, and/or will exist, and what results is infinitely changing energy over time, or infinite power, from which everything was and will be created, from which everything existed, exists, and/or will exist, and to which everything will return.
Here, by examining what science and religion have in common, and not how they can be different, a central theory that both can agree to is at least a possibility, more specifically, that we come from, are a part of, and return to infinitely changing power.
Applied as power has the ability to do work, or to affect how other things change, and as an asset is an object composed of energy over its useful life, every asset has an inherent amount of power to affect how something will change. Accordingly, the more assets anyone has, the more power anyone has to affect how other things will change.
AN INTRODUCTION TO HOW AND WHY EMPIRICAL CULTS
SEEK FULL-SPECTRUM DOMINANCE OVER THE THREE REALMS
Impirical cults or the I-am-king-therefore-I-am-more-divine-than-you-are style of government often seeks full-spectrum dominance over the three realms, where they dominate the physical world with armies and law enforcement who choose, who are deceived, and/or who are coerced into enforcing the laws of monarchs, emperors, and/or their oligarch friends, and where these self-proclaimed monarchs and emperors dominate the mental world through constant propaganda and by controlling education curriculum, and art, and where these self-proclaimed monarchs and emperors dominate the spiritual world by either naming themselves and/or their family members God(s), divine, worshipful masters, defenders of the faith, and the like.
This I-am-king-therefore-my-family-friends-and-or-I-am-divine dates back to the Egyptians, the Greeks (Philip II of Macedon and his son Alexander the Great), and/or the Romans (Augustus), but where animal behavior studies propose that this is just a version of the alpha animal or dominance hierarchy found in some but not all social animal groups, often where the most vicious animal in a particular territory terrorizes the animals around them, until they age and are replaced by a younger vicious animal, or not.
Primate studies in both chimpanzees and apes have examined groups of primates in captivity and in the wild that have no prominent dominance hierarchy, and where in these groups of primates, there was general cooperation and harmony relative to groups that had aggressive alpha animals in the group.
Different variables contribute to this hostile behavior, including natural and/or engineered scarcity mentality, when access to the resources required to survive are inaccessible or difficult to access, and/or due to individual and/or networked mental illness, resulting from and/or resulting in psychopathy, sociopathy, narcissism, sadism, obsessive hoarding disorder, and/or other mental illnesses, which sometimes are caused by environmental factors, and/or genetic mutations, for example caused by, but not limited to, excessive inbreeding, and double recessive disorders.
ADDITIONAL ATTRIBUTES
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Spas_vsederzhitel_sinay.jpg
https://www.ocf.berkeley.edu/~wwu/YaBBAttachments/101_Contradictions_In_The_Bible.pdf
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australia#/media/File:Australia_with_AAT_(orthographic_projection).svg
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