FINAL EXAMINATION IS NOW ONLINESCIENCE AND RELIGION: FINAL EXAMspring

REAL NAME: Travis Cheney
USER NAME: TravCheney
Website address: www.virtuososo.blogspot.com
Attendance: how many classes missed? how many classes tardy?
0 absences, 0 tardy. Only class I didn’t miss once this semester.
MIDTERM GRADE: what grade did you finally get on the midterm?

1. Did you read all of the required books for this class? Bespecific about how many pages for each book, etc.
Finished The God Delusion and Rational Mysticism, only made it half way through God’s Universe but skimmed the rest.

2. What was your favorite book and why? The God Delusion. I always knew I was an atheist but never really had the right arguments to explain myself when talking to friends

3. What does Nietzsche mean by the transvaluation of values and whatdoes this idea have to do with our concept of morality?
Nietzsche’s transvaluation of values takes a look at Christianity and discusses how it distorts one’s mind into doing evil, unnatural things then what ones stimuli would naturally cause one to do. Stating that the Christian religion is full of revenge, he analyzes how sex is the very fundamental affirmation of life, for it being the very process by which human life is created though the bible condemns it in many cases. Nietzsche is trying to show that christianity is trying to tell you to avoid anything thing that would lead to “sin” when in actuality humans behave more moral when acting on their organic notion. Nietszche explains his view of the transvaluation of values caused by christianity best in this quote “I call Christianity the one great curse, the one great intrinsic depravity, the one great instinct for revenge for which no expedient is sufficiently poisonous, secret, subterranean, petty -- I call it the one immortal blemish of mankind...
3a. Why is Nietzsche so critical of Christianity?”
Nietzsche believed that the teachings of Christianity influence one to act more immoral then one would without religion. He shows how Christianity instills hate, revenge, and greed into ones brainwashed head. He believed these values will “kill the human spirit” and “cause modern man to forget how to dance.” Christianity was not seen as life-affirming, but rather, life denying.

4. Give one specific example of what some may regard as morally
right or good and then argue how Nietzsche may argue the opposite.Be sure to pick an example that would correlate with Nietzsche's transvaluation ofvalues.
A strict Christian who takes the bible very seriously would find breaking the rule of the 10th commandment (Thou shall not covet) to be a sin. But when broken down “covet” basically means to desire. Nietzsche could argue how religion had flipped this meaning, and that it is natural for us to desire. I desire to own a house within the next 10 years, because of this I plan on getting my MBA and finding a job that pays well enough to afford my desires.

5. Why isn't Bertrand Russell a Chrisitian? Substantiate yourargument.
It seems that Bertrand Russell is not a Christian for the same reasons most as most non believers; he analyzed the religion too much. Bertrand went much deeper in explaining his argument than most people would. His first argument came after reading John Stuart Mills Autobiography where he started analyze “Who made me?” he then started to realize the fallacy of First Cause and the idea of if god created everything, who created god realizing the problems with this thinking he stated “There is no reason why the world could not have come into being without a cause; nor, on the other hand, is there any reason why it should not have always existed. There is no reason to suppose that the world had a beginning at all.” Bertrand then goes on to argue against design and show how there is statistical evidence for most things that are considered acts of god stating “The whole idea that natural laws imply a lawgiver is due to a confusion between natural and human laws.” He then goes on to break down the character of Christ and how his work is not so miraculous. Although Bertrand calls Jesus a good man he does not find him extraordinary and compares his style of teaching; of scaring people into belief by the thought of everlasting punishment to modern day preachers.


6. How would C.S. Lewis answer those who argue that there is noevidence for a God, particularly a Christian one?
Lewis tries to delicately provide skeptics that proof of a God does exist. Almost in the same way an atheist would argue how religion leaves out scientific facts, Lewis claims that skeptics fail to recognize the proofs out there that in fact there is a supreme being. He does this by starting broad by removing the intellectual barriers of a belief that there is no god, so he can eventually lay down the foundation for a belief in a Christian God. Lewis then almost tries to differentiate Christian believers from skeptics saying that a believers faith is a form of loyalty, trust, allegiance, and commitment which is not reducible to evidence. While all unbelievers have to rely on is scientific principle alone.

7. How does evolution help us to better understand WHY science arosein the first place? And why religion arose in the first place?
After Darwin released the theory of evolution it was no longer necessary to imagine that every kind of animal or plant had been specially created, or that there is any conscious purpose behind the evolutionary process. Darwins theory was so powerful that it made society realize that Man is not a finished product incapable of further progress and that the few thousand years of recorded history are nothing compared to the million years during which man has been on earth. Evolution can also give an explanation as how religion arose in the first place. Assuming that we evolved from primates our brains, and ability to reason became more and more powerful. As our brains continued to evolve we started to obtains feelings like, fear, anger, curiosity, and desire. From these emotions came the opportunity to think and reason. Religion then arose as a biologic reaction of mind in reaction to a curiosity of a higher power. And just as humans have evolved so has religion with new thoughts, ideas, and outlooks on the meaning of life.

8. Richard Feynman talked about cargo cult science and how sillynotions are often believed in without any evidence. Use threeexamples of your own choosing and demonstrate how Feynman wouldcritique such paranormal or supposed miraculous events.
Feynman talks about the difficulty of doing science well, and the temptation to take shortcuts and engage in things that look like science, but that don't advance the body of scientific knowledge. He names cargo cult scientists as people who conduct flawed research that fails to produce useful results. He stresses the need for scientist to conjures up possible flaws in their experiments and to test them. One of the best know examples is the Cult of John Frum where the people of the island of Tana experienced an influx of soldiers during WWII. During the soldiers stay they dramatically increased the standard of living for these people. After the troops had left they decided to proclaim the US Army as their messiah and have been waiting for their return for over half a century. Another example can be when scientists use computer models to predict global warming, they use these time lapsed progressions to show how the earth is now and how with the increasing temperature change how the planet will look 25 years from now. This research could be considered faulty because it does not take into account variables that could possibly change the earths climate. Another cargo cult could be peoples belief in magicians like David Blane, they see his stunts and magic in person and automatically believe that since they saw it with their own eyes it really happened when in actuality most of it can be explained by illusion.

9. What is science according to Feynman? How does his definitiondiffer from more normative explanations?
Feynman can be thought of as a purely scientistic scientist, ignoring or dismissing anything about life and the world that was not accessible to scientific method. Feynmans science is differentiated by his reliance on mathematics on explaining most everything, explaining that without the mathematics to back something up it can not be proved. He also states that scientific theories, because of the nature of scientific method, cannot specify the whole meaning of their concepts.

11. Why is agnosticism or even atheism so appealing to authors likeDawkins, Russell, and Nietzsche? What is the lure of non belief?
Darwin, Russell, and Nietzsche looked at the religious dominated society around them and realized there was something wrong with the mechanics behind all this belief. They all seem to share the same idea in religion is just a crutch to ease people minds of the depression that would come from the thought of no afterlife. This had motivated them to go deeper and break down these religions and test their teachings against science. They used their findings to show that it is not necessarily god who controls everything happening on the planet, all these things have a more logical explanation then just relying on that it was an act of god. Nietzsche seemed to explain societies reliance on religion best in this quote “Christianity was from the beginning, essentially and fundamentally, life's nausea and disgust with life, merely concealed behind, masked by, dressed up as, faith in "another" or "better" life.”

12. How can religion, according to your teacher (and the lecturethat dealt with this), survive the onslaught of reason? What doesreligion have to do to "win" the science-religion battle?
A good point was brought up that if and when the church will fall it will come from its members and not the people who criticize it. Meaning that it will be the people of the congregation that will someday realize that “hey something is not right here.” To avoid this the church needs to redirect its principles and style of teaching. Instead of interpreting religion strictly from the words of scripture it needs to interpret its meaning into the language of modern day society. Instead of battling science on every front, it needs to find areas that both science and religion can agree on such as evolution and extraterrestrial life.

13. Why does Christopher Hitchens argue that "god is not great."?(google research required)
Hitchens looks at religion and the negative effects it has had on civilization. He states religion is "violent, irrational, intolerant, allied to racism, tribalism, and bigotry, invested in ignorance and hostile to free inquiry, contemptuous of women and coercive toward children." He argues how religion demands unreasonable suppression of human nature, inclines people to violence and blind submission to authority and how we will continue to embrace this kind of behavior until we relieve ourselves from the fear of dying. Hitchens continues to argue on such fronts as how religion can even be physically hazardous as some condemn the use of pharmaceuticals to fight disease

14. Why is evolution such a contentious issue among certainfundamentalist religious groups. More precisely, what is the coreissue that upsets certain religious devotees?
Religious fundamentalists often attack evolution, but rarely from a positions of really understanding what evolution is and how it works. Their main argument is that we didn’t just evolve and adapt, but rather we were created. Because evolutionary theory posited a “nonbiblical” understanding of the origin of life, particularly human life. Creationist use creation science to argue against evolution, stating that something could not just come from nothing and that there has to be some sort of intelligent design behind our solar system, planet and how we came to live on it.

15. In your opinion, where can science help religion?
I believe science could help religion if religion decided to not be so strict on the teachings of its scripture. There is a lot of stuff in the bible that even some Christians do not agree with, that could possibly be because the bible was meant to be interpreted and not taken so literal. If religions could find ways to incorporate some laws of science into their teachings I think they would be a lot better off. The Catholic religion made a huge step forward in this way in just the last week when Monsignor Corrado Balducci, a theologian member of the Vatican Curia (governing body) announcing that extraterrestrial contacts are a real phenomenon, and stating that extraterrestrial encounters "are NOT demonic, they are NOT due to psychological impairment, they are NOT a case of entity attachment, but these encounters deserve to be studied carefully." He later goes on to state that there is no reason that god being almighty would only create life here on earth.

16. In your opinion, where can religion help science?
There is little room for religion to help science. I believe to only way religion helps science is for atheists to utilize more science to find more arguments to disprove religion. Because religion hates skepticism but on the other hand science loves skepticism, it thrives off it.

22. Are spiritual experiences reducible to neuroscience? If yes, doessuch an intertheoretic reduction eliminate the God Hypothesis? If no,what is science missing in its study of mystical states?
They most definitely are reducible to neuroscience, though sometimes I wish they weren’t. Because I had my best friend recently pass away, there are sometimes where I truly believe he is with me or communicating with me on some level. Though I wish this were true when I break it down I realize that these experiences are probably related to the deep emotional attachment I had with him, and the pleasure I get from remembering the good times we shared

26. Is Francis Crick correct that we will never find the soul becauseit doesn't exist?
Though Francis Crick was one of the co-discoverers of the molecular structure of the genetic molecule, DNA. His theory on the human soul is one for debate, Crick stated his view that the idea of a non-material soul that could enter a body and then persist after death is just that, an
imagined idea. I believe his search for the soul is somewhat of a parody and do not really understand what he is trying to prove in his studies. Both believers and non believers alike wiill agree that the soul is not a physical part of the body

29. In the future, how can we have a more fruitful and a more civilconversation on the subject of science and religion? What should bethe guidelines, if any?
A more fruitful conversation on the subject of science and religion could happen if the debaters could actually play a little devils advocate and actually take a Feynman approach and try to figure out the flaws they have in their own beliefs.


31. What was the most intersting thing you learned this semester?What was your favorite film? The most interesting thing I learned was to not worry so much. As being an atheist before I would always think about death and the state of nothing. But over the semester I have come to realize that I am spiritual though still no where close to religion. The Big Bang