On the burning of the Quran in Sweden

https://www.svt.se/nyheter/utrikes/utrikesbyran-dalig-stamning-carl-bildts-kritik-mot-polisen

I am probably against burning books in general and quite certainty against burning books that people put as much of their person in as the Quran.

However, I cannot undertand how Carl can propose that the police of Sweden should stop it because of national threat. So, we should be bullied to stop certain actions within the borders of Sweden. Of course not.

2023-07-23 Update

The spectacle continues. How can these leaders, like Ali Khamenei, complaint on the burning of a few books when they kill their own population in the thousands?!

And, several people are comparing this with the events that took place in Nazi Germany or the crusades when there was also book burning. Seriously? How can anyone take such a comparison serious? A single person burning a book and the expressed will to kill a complete people? If anything, we should compare what is going on when mobs storm an embassy to what happened during the Nazi crystal night.

Religion, Philosophy, Science

First there was religion; the belief in a magical non-understandable world with ad-hock explanations based on sentient, often supreme, beings - i.e. gods.
Next it occurred to some brilliant people that we can try to organize thought and thus Philosophy was born. It still consists more in understanding our selves than the world around us. It aims at grasping how we can deal with something. But now in a structures critically thinking way where nature is understood as existing outside of us and being structured without requiring a grand mover.
At some point, some master stroke realized some key point and turned a part of philosophy into science. It started with the most structured = easiest parts of human thinking; math. Then came physics, chemistry, and so on...
Now comes an interesting question. What is next? What comes after science? Is the something coming? I believe there is. Not completely shore about what though. I have two possible suggestions. It is either this (1):

or this (2):

 

1. If this is what is going to happen it is semi-depressing. What will happen is that the human population will split up in several sub-sets. The world will consist of people who know something in some area putting them in the science position (in that area), and in the religion position in others. Because the world outside of my special field is simply too complex.

2. If this happens, Something new might be something that resembles religion, or a synthesis of religion and science. Science and technology will create a world that is so complex that it is simply not comprehensible for someone outside of a very narrow niche area. But we will be enlightened and know that there is a rational explanation behind the phenomena we experience. That there is a fantastically complex machine behind it making it do the fantastic thing it is doing. This is enlightened religion with faith in other humans instead of a supernatural. But it is what will have to happen since it will simple not be possible to comprehend how things can be. This is already the case in many situations and is most obvious with how children perceive the wold.

Religion as a human activity

I think it is important to note that religious activity is a human activity. In that respect  it is no different than other activities performed by humans.
By noting this, claims and comparisons done on entities categorized to religion can be managed on the same footing as other claims and comparisons. It is really the argument the will win the religion vs. freedom of speech debate, to freedom of speed advantage.

On religion as a human activity and secularism

It is hard the argue against the fact that what is generally called religion is a human activity. What should be classified as religious activity can of course be dabated and which features of our society that should be attributed to religion is also so.
More fundamental activities, concepts and ideas can further be categorized to the activity of religion or not.
My proposition is then that the categorization of activities as religion is destructive. Religion is a very charged word. Further there are ideas claiming that religion and religious activity should be free from critique and the executor can often claim religion and be free of any responsibility for his/her actions.
It is slightly easier with culture and it us thus better to assiciate elements to a certain culture.

Why is God all mighty?

I just read an intriguing paper which discussed weather the Internet might become conscious. In connection to this it occurred to me that in the discussions about AI developing consciousness (C) and free will (FW) there are many people that point out that this emerging CFW might pose a danger to us humans. Embedded in the reasoning is usually an assumption that the CFW will be superior us, due to many different reasons.
Now. For this CFW, we are the creator. Maybe we could be considered Gods. On the other hand, our creation supersedes us. Can this be the case also with the humans - we supersede our creator. It is an interesting thought and actually compatible, I think, with standard physical models of the universe creation. However not quite compatible with the Christian God I guess.

About the structure of the transcend

Assume the human race has become what it is using evolution. Then that process should have optimized us as beings for the scenarios we encounter in our everyday lives. If we can conceive other processes, one can be inclined to believe that it is only a lucky coincidence that the structure of those processes is similar enough for us to grasp.

Thus, if we can assume that there is something that has a structure that has no resemblance what so ever with our reality. This will constitute the transcend and we will have no way to describe or understand that structure.

However, for this to have no resemblance with our reality, there can be no point of contact with our reality either. If there is, this point will have to have structure that is "compatible" with the reality we know of. And hence can be described.

With this kind of reasoning, if there is such a thing as the transcend, it is of no interest for us, since it does not interact with our reality at all.

This reasoning does not rule out that there are things in our reality that we can not understand, but it tell that if there is structure of the kind described above, it is of no interest for us. Hence, arguing that an entity such as god belongs to the transcend is only to argue that god is of no interest to us. Further, if it is claimed that god interact, or has done so in the past, with our reality, the god structure falls within the category of reality above.

On the limits of our knowledge, again.

By the way, I have to write another on. The talk I just discussed on limits of science. I have another interesting idea about the limits. There seems we are trapped within the big and the small. At large scales we are ultimately captured by the speed of light. On the small scale we are ultimately captured by quantum resolution. Now this to me looks like some tough limits on what we can know. Does it also indicate that someone trapped us...?

Non-equilibrium thermodynamics and areoplanes

It is funny that creationists and others refer the simile with humans coming from an evolutionary process with scrap metal in a junkyard coming together to an aeroplane when in fact reality is even better: put mere metal ore in a rock and you get lots of different aeroplanes from evolution just by waiting. We are an evolutionary product which produce areoplanes, thus in extension, aeroplanes are evolutionary products. Thus, evolution produce aeroplanes!

Reasons for believing or not in God

In this post I will try to list the reasons for believing in God, and the reasons for not. The matter is quite interesting, and I would love to hear comments about the list and other reasons for or against you might find worth mentioning. The post is sort of ongoing, so I guess the list will expand in time. The arguments are sort of semi-formal. I'm trying to keep a fairly formal reasoning tone, but of course; I'm dealing with one of the worst defined concepts there is, so there have to be some hand waving.

By the way, I will also make a list with reasons I have come across that I find are not proper arguments for either.

Pros

• Classical mechanics is much simpler that quantum mechanics. This could be an indication that the creator of this world chosed to make it as comprehend-able as possible by creating it such that the emerging mechanics is simpler than the basis. This is otherwise counter-intuitive, one would spontaneously guess that the emergence is more complex, eg. as the popular theory of life.
• We are trapped between the extremely small and the extremely large. This idea is related to the above argument. I am for sure no expert in cosmology or quantum field theory. But as I understand it, science seem to suggest that there are limits to what we can explore scientifically. And this holds both for the very small and the very large. Thus "we" (humans, intelligent beings...) are trapped, we are really enclosed in a world where our reasoning can not escape. To me this looks like "someone" has put these bounds there to keep us in place.

Cons

• The Theodicy problem. This is to me a really hard one to crack if one wants to believe in a God that wants good. However of course, it is no argument against the usual guy with power.
• If God exists, why can't we communicate with it/detect its presence? To me this is quite problematic. If there exists a creator of the world, and this creator did have the intention to create humans, why is there no interaction with us?
• What created God? This is a crucial problem with the idea of a God as I see it. If we put in the concept of God "the creator of the Universe" (everything in some sense), what created God? Over-God? Not helping, what created Over-God?

Non adequate

• It gives comfort to believe in God. This is not an argument for or against God, it is simply a way to still a psychological need.
• There are so much in the world that we are not able to explain, someone have to have designed it. Just because we are not able to explain it, there is no reason to believe it unexplainable - look at all the thing that once were unexplained that we understand today.
• Intelligent design, the state of the marvelous humans and the animals must have been created by an intelligent being. These kind of arguments, hinting that someone must have designed us, or the world to yield us via e.g. evolution, since we have appeared so great is not an argument at all. For all we know, the processes of the world might have created us the way we are. And the processes of the world seem quite self-contained, not requiring any God for its existence. On the other hand, it might well be that the world actually was designed. We seem not to find any strong indications saying it absolutely can not have been designed. Thus, The argument indicate either pro nor con.