Stephen Hawking on Religion: Science Will Win
by ilene - June 9th, 2010 12:29 pm
Stephen Hawking on Religion: Science Will Win
Courtesy of Miss Trade, Trading for the Masses
World News Anchor, Diane Sawyer, asks physicist Stephen Hawking about the biggest mystery he’d like solved. He said, “I want to know why the universe exists, why there is something rather than nothing”.
Dear God, please confirm what I already believe
by ilene - November 30th, 2009 3:34 pm
None of this is a bit surprising, but in case you thought otherwise, the part of your brain you use to infer what God thinks is the same part of your brain you use to figure out what you think. – Ilene
Dear God, please confirm what I already believe
By Andy Coghlan, New Scientist
God may have created man in his image, but it seems we return the favour. Believers subconsciously endow God with their own beliefs on controversial issues.
"Intuiting God’s beliefs on important issues may not produce an independent guide, but may instead serve as an echo chamber to validate and justify one’s own beliefs," writes a team led by Nicholas Epley of the University of Chicago in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences…
"People may use religious agents as a moral compass, forming impressions and making decisions based on what they presume God as the ultimate moral authority would believe or want," the team write. "The central feature of a compass, however, is that it points north no matter what direction a person is facing. This research suggests that, unlike an actual compass, inferences about God’s beliefs may instead point people further in whatever direction they are already facing."