Famous Scientists Who Believed in God

Originally posted by rvsakhadeo
So you have now resorted to name calling ? Well, I will answer that later on, let me first deal with my request to Sonhouse and your interjection on behalf of Sonhouse. I requested to Sonhouse to lay aside his scientific principles for a few moments. I then and now meant that he lay aside all his mental baggage as a follower of Science, which while very u ...[text shortened]... e " Stupid " ! I request you to stop this name calling and get into a healthy debate.

So where are the results of all this spiritual posturing? Are people better off now because of spirituality? Are there less wars? Are people getting healed because of spirituality? Show me the money.

Originally posted by rvsakhadeo
I appreciate and admire Science. We are talking to each other electronically because of that. I am a practicing structural Engineer by profession. I am 65 and will be completing 66 this August. At the same time I understand the limitations of Science. Science is a powerful tool to explore and understand the material world. However, Science is of no use i ith. Whatever they conveyed in these books, I am committed to follow, by my own choice. Thanks.

You are asking something ot the modern materialistic man that is very difficult
for him to do. Today, most people are taught that the physical universe is all
there is and the methods of science is the only way to understand it. Basically,
this is correct, looking from their point of view, so to ask them to put aside the
very thing that brings some meaning to their lives is like asking an addict to
stop supplying his addiction for a period of time. He is going to revolt. He does
not believe in visions or anything that can not be tested and explained by science,
with the exception of evolution, of course. So spiritual experiences must be the
imaginations caused by chemical brain activity alone and so there can not be a superior
intelligent being, like God. There can not be s soul, spirit, ghost, demon, devil,
angel, and definitely no being like Satan. These beliefs are a hinderance to your
attempt to bring any spiritual enlightenment their way. The prophet Daniel saw
visions and the messenger in the vision said to him, “But you, Daniel, shut up
the words, and seal the book until the time of the end; many shall run to and
fro, and knowledge shall increase.” (Daniel 12:4 NKJV)

Perhaps, the knowledge referred to was scientific knowledge which has increased
rapidly in these days as has our fast paced lives in which the working must run
to and fro.

Originally posted by RJHinds
The following is a quote taken directly from the article:

"Gallup based its study on the assumption that college graduates have a higher IQ than high school and grade school graduates."

They seem to have an agenda against religious belief and I think it is the
Christian belief in particular that they are concentrating on. For example,
they seem to a ...[text shortened]... .

P.S. Bill Gates never graduated from college but I would suspect he may have
a high IQ.

“...The following is a quote taken directly from the article:

"Gallup based its study on the assumption that college graduates have a higher IQ than high school and grade school graduates." ...”

lets see the quote in the actual context:

“....In 1972 a Gallup survey REVEALED 33 percent of college graduates are believers of creationism. Fifty-five percent of people who only graduated from high school believe in creation and 66 percent of people who only graduated from grade school believe in creationism. Gallup based its study on the assumption that college graduates have a higher IQ than high school and grade school graduates....” (my emphasis)

the assumption was not only reasonable given the stupidity of religious belief but was stated merely as the MOTIVE of that particular study thus could not have changed the facts that particular survey revealed. How could that assumption effect the statistics in this case?
Not only that, but other studies proved that assumption correct anyway!

“...They seem to have an agenda against religious belief ...”

-of course they have, and rightly so. I also have an agenda against religious belief. One absurd belief leads to others and that is dangerous for it can lead to such things as murdering Jews ( Hitler was a theist ) and flying aircraft into buildings. It is extremely immoral and irresponsible to propagate religion and it is our moral duty to do everything we can to put a stop to it.

“...and I think it is the
Christian belief in particular that they are concentrating on. ...”

I would guess that's probably because most of the religious extremists they meet are Christian.

“...For example,
they seem to assume that being a virgin is a bad thing when they say
virgins are more likely to have low IQs. ...”

-AND HIGH IQs!!! They discovered AND said they tend to have IQs that are more likely to deviate from the average and can be higher or lower. Here is what they said:

“...According to researchers at the University of North Carolina in 2007, people with an IQ of below 70 OR ABOVE 110 were much more likely to be virgins than people with an average IQ score ...” (my emphasis)
-so one thing they are saying here is that a virgin is MORE likely to have an IQ over 110 -they are NOT saying that the average IQ of a virgin is lower!

“...They also must assume that if
they were to check everyone in the world that the proportion will remain
the same as their sample group. ...”

that is true for any statistical study where it is impractical to sample every individual. Statisticians take this into account by making the sample groups relatively large and take several studies into account where possible and also make sure the sampling process is as fair as possible.
Presumably they did this as it is standard practice in which case the conclusions of the estimates would be valid.

“...P.S. Bill Gates never graduated from college but I would suspect he may have
a high IQ. ...”

so are you implying here that a one-person sample and one chosen by you with bias ( “bias” because you obviously tried to think of an intelligent person to select for your one-person sample that never graduated ) is representative of the whole population?

Originally posted by humy
“...The following is a quote taken directly from the article:

"Gallup based its study on the assumption that college graduates have a higher IQ than high school and grade school graduates." ...”

lets see the quote in the actual context:

“....In 1972 a Gallup survey REVEALED 33 percent of college graduates are believers of creationism. Fifty-five perce for your one-person sample that never graduated ) is representative of the whole population?

When there are 700 billion people in the world, my one person sample is no
more unprejudiced and inaccurate as there's is likely to be. I am sure some
polster that was just prejudiced in the other direction could come up with an
opposite conclusion. So the article is more worthless than a cow patty.

YouTube

Originally posted by RJHinds
When there are 700 billion people in the world, my one person sample is no
more unprejudiced and inaccurate as there's is likely to be. I am sure some
polster that was just prejudiced in the other direction could come up with an
opposite conclusion. So the article is more worthless than a cow patty.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NwkRz-aMiPE

“...When there are 700 billion people in the world, my one person sample is no
more unprejudiced and inaccurate as there's is likely to be ...”

false. You obviously know nothing about statistics and probability. Providing the sampling process is fair which I presume it was in the studies as there is no evidence to the contrary, the larger the sample, the more accurate it is likely to be. To understand why you need basic maths skills and only very basic understanding of probability. Your sample of just one person was not only vastly smaller than theirs but was deliberately selected to give the conclusion you wanted i.e. it was not a fair sampling process but biased selection.
Their sampling gives a much higher probability of giving a good estimate than yours.

Originally posted by sonhouse
So where are the results of all this spiritual posturing? Are people better off now because of spirituality? Are there less wars? Are people getting healed because of spirituality? Show me the money.

Please do clarify what you mean by " all this spiritual posturing " . Who is posturing ? Certainly, not me. I am a theistic Hindu and I want to write posts here so that interested people can get some idea about Hinduism and its theology. I am sincere in what I am doing. Theists all over the world believe in God for their individual reasons. Many among them, may be a vast majority, believe in God hoping for materialistic gains like better earning, better health, better luck in exams and so on. It is in human nature to try for maximum gain with minimum effort. Life is hard for most of us. We are also weak. Most certainly the existing formal religious set-ups are offering hopes to the vast majority of us for this worldly and other worldly rewards. So do most of the economic and social systems set up by Man,such as Capitalism,Communism,Free markets,controlled markets, free society, oppressed society and so on. So what is the record of these materialistic systems set up by Man for his betterment ? At least the religious systems are doing immense amount of charitable work in health and education areas and their psychological support system is in place for the believers. In any case, SPIRITUALISM is another area and a field meant for those who want to explore the answers to those questions which have perplexed the thinking man since long. Questions such as the Nature and Meaning of Reality, Nature and Meaning of an individual's existence, Whether this Universe has been somebody's creation or not and so on. There is as yet no IPO issued by God or any Mutual Fund set up by him. Neither I am in a position to audit God's acts of commission and omission. I am sure God will answer these questions that you have raised, if YOU ask him. But lay aside that " Oh, I am such a smart aleck atheist "ego, aside.

Originally posted by stellspalfie
my knowledge of hinduism is pretty poor i will admit, could you give me some examples of what can be found exploring spiritual space? what is their to find?

I am happy and thankful to you for expressing an interest in Hindu Theology/Spiritualism. I will get back to you, after I have organised my write-up. Kindly await a couple of days.

Originally posted by ThinkOfOne
Can you explain why you see the position of disbelief of the existence of God because there is no evidence of the existence of God as a product of ego? You have said that one needs to "surrender [ones] ego" and "gets one's ego out of the way", but still haven't said why you believe such a position is the product of ego. I'm truly interested. It wouldn't s ...[text shortened]... ir belief. In effect they are protecting that belief. It's still a product of ego.

By ego, I meant Hubris, Pride and not the Freudian Ego. So we are mistaking each other.

Originally posted by rvsakhadeo
By ego, I meant Hubris, Pride and not the Freudian Ego. So we are mistaking each other.

"Hubris" and "pride" don't really substitute well for "ego". "Hubris" and "pride" may be symptoms of "ego", but do not equate to it. That said, I'll rephrase the question:

"Can you explain why you see the position of disbelief of the existence of God because there is no evidence of the existence of God as a product of [pride]? You have said that one needs to "surrender [ones] [pride]" and "gets one's [pride] out of the way", but still haven't said why you believe such a position is the product of [pride]. I'm truly interested. It wouldn't seem to be the case. Specifically, how is the [pride] involved in the construction and maintenance of that position?"

Originally posted by RJHinds
When there are 700 billion people in the world, my one person sample is no
more unprejudiced and inaccurate as there's is likely to be. I am sure some
polster that was just prejudiced in the other direction could come up with an
opposite conclusion. So the article is more worthless than a cow patty.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NwkRz-aMiPE

“...When there are 700 billion people in the world ...”

not that this makes much difference to what I just said but just noticed that you got that wrong because there are about 7 billion people in the world and no where near 700 billion people in the world! -unless, of course, when you said “WHEN there are 700 billion people in the world” (my emphasis) you were talking about some distant future point in time when there will be 700 billion people in the world 😲

Originally posted by humy
“...When there are 700 billion people in the world ...”

not that this makes much difference to what I just said but just noticed that you got that wrong because there are about 7 billion people in the world and no where near 700 billion people in the world! -unless, of course, when you said “WHEN there are 700 billion people in the world” (my emphasis) you w ...[text shortened]... ng about some distant future point in time when there will be 700 billion people in the world 😲

Jay Leno had made a statement on TV the other night and I couldn't remember
for sure if he said the population of the world had went over 7 billion or not, so
I asked my wife, who usually has a much better memory. She said that she
thought he said 700 billion so that made my argument even better so I went
with that. Perhaps my memory was a little better this time. One up for the
old guy. HalleluYah !!! Praise the Lord ! 😏

Originally posted by RJHinds
Jay Leno had made a statement on TV the other night and I couldn't remember
for sure if he said the population of the world had went over 7 billion or not, so
I asked my wife, who usually has a much better memory. She said that she
thought he said 700 billion so that made my argument even better so I went
with that. Perhaps my memory was a little better this time. One up for the
old guy. HalleluYah !!! Praise the Lord ! 😏

I may be allowing any little mistake to colour my opinion of you and this may say more about me, but I was shocked that you could be quite so ignorant of the world population to take an estimate that was 2 orders of magnitude out without enough of a niggle of doubt to make you check it.

--- Penguin

Originally posted by Penguin
I may be allowing any little mistake to colour my opinion of you and this may say more about me, but I was shocked that you could be quite so ignorant of the world population to take an estimate that was 2 orders of magnitude out without enough of a niggle of doubt to make you check it.

--- Penguin

I think you should be even more shocked that he thought his sample of just ONE person which he personally chose with bias selection was statistically just as likely to approximately represent the whole human population than the samples of MANY people selected non-biasedly in several properly scientifically conducted surveys.
He just apparently does not understand the very basic concept of probability. One does not even have to be any good at maths to understand this basic concept.

Originally posted by humy
I think you should be even more shocked that he thought his sample of just ONE person which he personally chose with bias selection was statistically just as likely to approximately represent the whole human population than the samples of MANY people selected non-biasedly in several properly scientifically conducted surveys.
He just apparently does not unders ...[text shortened]... of probability. One does not even have to be any good at maths to understand this basic concept.

Oh yeah, that too!

Trouble with RJHinds is that the stupidities come so thick and fast that you don't have time to respond to one before the next one comes along.

--- Penguin.

Originally posted by Penguin
I may be allowing any little mistake to colour my opinion of you and this may say more about me, but I was shocked that you could be quite so ignorant of the world population to take an estimate that was 2 orders of magnitude out without enough of a niggle of doubt to make you check it.

--- Penguin

Well, I was right and my wife was wrong. So I did have a little doubt, but
I am not going to tell her she was wrong. That might make both of us
unhappy. But it did not matter much to my point that sampling a small
portion of the population is not enough for absolute proof and assuming
all college graduates have higher IQs than others is no way to conduct any
scientific studies. You probably already know what I think about ASSUME.

P.S. One can assume if it does not really matter, but not in science and law.