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MineralMan

(147,576 posts)
Sat Apr 6, 2019, 01:26 PM Apr 2019

The Modern Evolution of Science and Static State of Religion

Before I was born, the best model science had for an individual atom was the Dalton Model. It looked like this, a featureless sphere:


Still before I was born, there was the Plum Pudding model:


And, then, the Rutherford Model:


In sixth grade, I was exposed to this model of the atom, the Bohr model:


In my high school physics class, we learned about the Schrodinger model:


Years later, we could actually look at individual atoms, something I had been taught we'd never be able to see. Here's a nanographene molecule, showing individual carbon atoms:


This has occurred in my lifetime. There's much more, of course. We know more now about subatomic particles, the structure, and environment of the atom. We're learning new stuff almost daily, as our knowledge base has grown exponentially in the past 100 years or so.

That is science. That is human beings learning about the universe around them, from the very smallest particle to the enormous scale of the universe. We learn more day after day and year after year.

Meanwhile, religion is still based on writing from the Bronze Age and even before, in some cases. Those writings are fixed knowledge, or lack of knowledge. They do not change. Religion is based on a lack of change. It is static. Science continues to explore, learn, and explain. That is why I am an atheist. My book has not been written. It is still in progress, and it gets longer every day and grows with each new piece of information. My understanding grows with it, although it cannot keep up.

Our human understanding continues to improve. Scripture remains static from a time when we understood nothing about the world around us. I choose to grow. I can choose nothing else.

37 replies = new reply since forum marked as read
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The Modern Evolution of Science and Static State of Religion (Original Post) MineralMan Apr 2019 OP
Here Is an Animated Film - Showing Actual Individual Atoms Being Moved Around MineralMan Apr 2019 #1
Wow. Watched the clip. Amazing. Thanks for sharing. NT SWBTATTReg Apr 2019 #3
That's a number of years old now. MineralMan Apr 2019 #5
Thanks! nt tblue37 Apr 2019 #24
Neat. I look forward to your best seller one day...take care, nt. SWBTATTReg Apr 2019 #2
Not a book I'm writing. One I'm looking forward to reading. MineralMan Apr 2019 #4
Ha ha heh...and a square has 5 sides!! nt SWBTATTReg Apr 2019 #6
Some day science will catch up on the giant fish thing, and marylandblue Apr 2019 #8
It already has at Disneyland, as you can see: MineralMan Apr 2019 #25
I was thinking more of a bioengineered whale with no stomach acid marylandblue Apr 2019 #26
What a great idea. I'd pay to visit that. MineralMan Apr 2019 #29
Theoretical entity? Galileo126 Apr 2019 #7
Great story! MineralMan Apr 2019 #9
Sure but you still can't edhopper Apr 2019 #10
True enough. MineralMan Apr 2019 #14
My understanding of my faith continues to develop. guillaumeb Apr 2019 #11
Christianity, for most Christians, has not Voltaire2 Apr 2019 #12
That's nice... MineralMan Apr 2019 #13
Right Lordquinton Apr 2019 #17
That's neat. trotsky Apr 2019 #18
"My understanding of my faith continues to develop" Act_of_Reparation Apr 2019 #19
My understanding of your tactics is fully developed. eom guillaumeb Apr 2019 #20
Then why do you keep losing these arguments? Act_of_Reparation Apr 2019 #21
... trotsky Apr 2019 #23
In your mind? guillaumeb Apr 2019 #33
You think you're performing well here? Act_of_Reparation Apr 2019 #34
Do you think that your own motives are not understood? guillaumeb Apr 2019 #35
I know you think they are. Act_of_Reparation Apr 2019 #36
Why don't you tell us what you think that poster's motives are? MineralMan Apr 2019 #37
But your understanding is not that. MineralMan Apr 2019 #22
picture of the Atom edhopper Apr 2019 #15
Small, but mighty! MineralMan Apr 2019 #16
Whole book about this zipplewrath Apr 2019 #27
Yes, I've read it. MineralMan Apr 2019 #28
Feynman talked about the unknowable zipplewrath Apr 2019 #30
I don't wonder what happens after I die. MineralMan Apr 2019 #31
Science issued a fact-based guess; that turned out to be true Bretton Garcia Apr 2019 #32

MineralMan

(147,576 posts)
1. Here Is an Animated Film - Showing Actual Individual Atoms Being Moved Around
Sat Apr 6, 2019, 01:47 PM
Apr 2019

IBM created this move to demonstrate the ability to see and to manipulate individual atoms however they wanted to. So, they created this little animation with those abilities. The dots are actual atoms:

MineralMan

(147,576 posts)
5. That's a number of years old now.
Sat Apr 6, 2019, 02:09 PM
Apr 2019

It was a breakthrough when IBM created it. Now, it's not as impressive.

MineralMan

(147,576 posts)
4. Not a book I'm writing. One I'm looking forward to reading.
Sat Apr 6, 2019, 02:08 PM
Apr 2019

I don't think it will ever be finished, though, and it just gets bigger and bigger. Even now, it fills entire libraries and spills out onto the Internet.

Meanwhile, the Bible is still the same old, long-outdated stuff. In the Bible, pi is equal to 3, and giant fish could transport humans without harm and then spit them out on the shore. No revision is in the works.

marylandblue

(12,344 posts)
26. I was thinking more of a bioengineered whale with no stomach acid
Tue Apr 9, 2019, 10:36 AM
Apr 2019

So you just walk into it's mouth and down the esophagus. The stomach will have see-through sides. It swims around a lake where you see at other bioengineered creatures based on fossil reconstructions.

MineralMan

(147,576 posts)
29. What a great idea. I'd pay to visit that.
Tue Apr 9, 2019, 11:43 AM
Apr 2019

We had an exhibit of the human colon you could walk through here at the Science Museum. It was sort of fun, really, in a shitty sort of way.

Galileo126

(2,016 posts)
7. Theoretical entity?
Sat Apr 6, 2019, 03:31 PM
Apr 2019

I remember taking a course in "The Philosophy of Science", an elective while an undergrad physics major.
We were on the subject of theoretical entities and our perception of their existence. The professor posited "how do we know atoms exist if we can't see them?" I knew where this discussion would lead, naturally. However, I decided to shut down this discussion immediately.

"Um, sir, we have images now of individual atoms. We CAN see them."

"Errrr...really? <long pause> I didn't hear this news."

"You're not a physics major." <smugly>

He smiled embarrassingly, and moved on to another example of theoretical entities.

(Some years later, I invited him to be on my Ph.D. committee. He was a good sport.)

guillaumeb

(42,649 posts)
11. My understanding of my faith continues to develop.
Sat Apr 6, 2019, 04:53 PM
Apr 2019

Growth can be found in many places, unless one is blind to the opportunities.

Voltaire2

(14,703 posts)
12. Christianity, for most Christians, has not
Sat Apr 6, 2019, 06:29 PM
Apr 2019

fundamentally changed the core beliefs written down 1800 years ago.

Your personal understanding of your faith is irrelevant.

trotsky

(49,533 posts)
18. That's neat.
Mon Apr 8, 2019, 07:42 AM
Apr 2019

How can you tell if it's developed toward a more correct version?

What if you've developed in the wrong direction, and have become less compassionate and more judgmental? Would you be able to detect this?

Act_of_Reparation

(9,116 posts)
36. I know you think they are.
Wed Apr 10, 2019, 10:37 AM
Apr 2019

But if you actually knew, you wouldn't be behaving the way you are.

The truth is I like watching you dig. It's amusing.

MineralMan

(147,576 posts)
37. Why don't you tell us what you think that poster's motives are?
Wed Apr 10, 2019, 11:48 AM
Apr 2019

That would be interesting, and I have no idea if any motives are involved or not. So, please hold forth on that. I'll wait right here.

zipplewrath

(16,692 posts)
27. Whole book about this
Tue Apr 9, 2019, 11:19 AM
Apr 2019

"Ideas: A History of Thought and Invention, from Fire to Freud" by Peter Watson

It is a real slog to get through, but in the end it is roughly one of his conclusions. We've advanced in many ways over the centuries and created alot of ideas that have grown and matured. The one idea that has remained relatively stagnant over that period is that of spirituality in all its forms. We keep re-inventing concepts over and over, regularly changing names, or merging ideas together in new combinations. But fundamentally each generation just co-opts the aspects they need or want and effectively "start over".

It's actually what leads to alot of people moving away from their various organized religions during their lives. At some point they are having the same discussions over and over, reading the same basic texts, and coming to the same conclusions. It is especially true with parents whose involvement is predominately for the purpose of raising children with some sense of a moral set of guidelines. Once the children are gone, the church has diminished purpose for them, and they often find themselves on the "outside" of the community as a new generation joins to raise their children.

Much of this phenomenon is because an awful lot of religion and spirituality is about the unknowable. Many religions and other spiritual concepts rely heavily upon the concept of faith of the unknowable. The nature of God, the after life (if there is such a thing), and other related concepts are often presented as unknowable or undetectable. Feynman would explain that in science, we don't spend alot of time thinking or working on concepts that can't be known. There's really no point. But people are fascinate by these questions, and have been for at least as long as there has been language. But because the answers are "unknowable", there will be this lack of growth because there is no knowledge upon which to build. Thus the static nature of spirituality over the millennia.

MineralMan

(147,576 posts)
28. Yes, I've read it.
Tue Apr 9, 2019, 11:41 AM
Apr 2019

For me, once I understood that deities and the supernatural were inventions of the mind, I stopped worrying about them. In my opinion, there are no "unknowable" things. There are things I don't know. There are things nobody knows, but they are not necessarily unknowable. We just don't know them yet.

Typically, those things are something we cannot investigate, really, so some make up stories about them. For me, not knowing is not a troublesome thing. There are more known things that I still have not explored thoroughly. I don't have time for things that are not possible to explore, frankly. Imaginary things are sometimes interesting, but only as entertainment for me.

Religious belief appears to be fading, in terms of the numbers of people who rely on it. We know more about real things over time, and that seems to coincide with less reliance on religious beliefs. Or so it seems to me.

zipplewrath

(16,692 posts)
30. Feynman talked about the unknowable
Tue Apr 9, 2019, 12:02 PM
Apr 2019

He usually couched it in terms of "if what we think we know is true, certain things will be unknowable.". Of course, we could always be wrong and then things will become knowable.

Religion and spirituality tend to rise and fall based upon numerous factors. Specific religions and deities often come and go, but the underlying concepts tend to endure. It frequently moves away from the "organized" model towards more ego centric versions. But peoples need for community and validation often cause them to get "organized" again. If nothing else, people will always wonder what happens after one dies.

MineralMan

(147,576 posts)
31. I don't wonder what happens after I die.
Tue Apr 9, 2019, 12:09 PM
Apr 2019

I never have. It ends. My individual persona will no longer exist. For me, that is simply the fact, and I'm fine with that. There is absolutely no evidence to the contrary of that position.

In the meantime, here I am. So, I'm exploring things as best I can. Feynman was a genius, of course. But, he was only a human being. Our knowledge is a collective thing - not the product of any single human being.

One thing's certain, though: We won't know everything while I'm still around, so it doesn't matter to me. We'll know what we know. We appear to know more every generation, so, someone will know things I can't imagine at some point, but I won't care, because there will be no me there.

Bretton Garcia

(970 posts)
32. Science issued a fact-based guess; that turned out to be true
Tue Apr 9, 2019, 03:26 PM
Apr 2019

Very different from faith-based predictions. That had no factual basis, and overwhelmingly did not come true, or "did not come to pass."

Science had predicted an atom that looked like a blue sphere. And after many iterations of atomic theory, it eventually came up with a picture of one.

Something religion has probably never done

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