STEPHEN FRY

I have recently posted my first offering although a fan of many years. My only reason for getting involved is that I have always held a deep respect for Stephen Fry and have rejoiced in his bristling intellect. I think we all have areas where we can hold our own in a debate but from football to science, religion to darts, whiskey to literature, I think we have our man for all seasons, in Stephen Fry.
I have posted of my catholic upbringing and utter rejection of all things religious but I am not going to berate anyone that gets comfort or solice from "otherworldly" beliefs. Its just not for me. Organised religion however, its leaders and fanatics? Oh, it makes me angry! Nothing riles me more than the fundamentalists.
We are all marked by childhood experience, for better or worse. Thankfully we have the likes of Stephen Fry to help us through adulthood.

Welcome

“I am not going to berate anyone that gets comfort or solice from "otherworldly" beliefs”

This comment here encapsulates a very specific issue with the world, and perhaps the US specifically.

You would NOT seek to attack someone who is using their faith for comfort and solace.

But there are many, both religious and atheist, who would.

In the US this year, we have seen two random acts of violence which become global news and were horrific acts which should never have been allowed to happen.

I saw many things happen as fallout of these specific attacks.

First, gun rights became a discussion at the forefront of many social media sites. Facebook and twitter were both ablaze with calls for something to be done.

Second, mental health gets a minor nod as a problem in the US – but clearly, solving mental health issues requires something as basic as a national health service and that, unfortunately, is simply buried in massive amounts of dollars. So we will not solve this problem, and those who suffer from easily controlled/monitored/treated mental illnesses will go untreated, and we will continue to make it easy for them to arm themselves.

Third, people reach out for God. America is, reportedly, a country where 90% of the populace believes in God.

I sigh inwardly at such comments. Prayers, and calls for answering the question of “why?” are predictable and, indeed if my own thoughts are correct, they are two of the very underpinning principles which drive humans to believe in a higher power. But these sentiments often deflect people from seeking real world answers, and rather than dealing with either the first or second point, they will attribute the act to the Will of God and leave it at that.

But this is an internal monologue for me. What I will certainly not do is post, as many hateful atheists will, under the guise of anonymity or a misplaced (and entirely inappropriate) “holier than thou” attitude, attack those offering their faith-based comments and well-wishes.

There is some irony to this. For atheists to take a position of “ascendancy” over a religious person on the issue of beliefs really strikes me as odd.

I think the question every atheist must ask before they interact is “what’s the harm?”

Consider the example of a child believing in Santa, or the tooth fairy or Easter Bunny. There is a specific form of mean spiritedness which is required to tell a 5-year old that none of them are real. As an atheist, you are faced with daily situations where you avoid that mean spiritedness.

Religion can cause untold harm. Recent rulings in England I believe by the Church of England to outlaw same-sex marriage is one such instance. Any time religion seeks to hinder or remove rights from individuals, then it becomes a force of harm (most of those religious wars are related to taking away the rights of someone).

As atheists, we should be very aware of when is and isn’t a good time to try to curb the impacts of religion.

Bah!

Teaching the "what" does nothing for inquisitive young minds. The only thing that matters is the how and why. Sounds like you had the perfect mind to embrace science since you were asking the right questions.

Scientists are claimed to have only a right-brain mentality. But the truth is, the best scientists are the ones with the best imaginations - otherwise we find nothing new.

Westboro is just a group of horrible, nasty, mean spirited, cruel people who seek only to make their controlling patriarch happy by trying to destroy people at their most vulnerable. That is all I have to say about that. The less people acknowledge their existence the better.

Climate change deniers benefit from another of my pet peeves which is the false balance attitude of the media. It's not acceptable to have talking heads from two sides of an issue and then present them as if they have equal weight and credibility.

Journalism is gone from the majority of the media because the 24-hour SKY News, or CNN, or Fox entertainment/propaganda machines need to feed the beast. Journalism requires fact checking, independent research and money and effort that you can avoid by putting pretty girls on with (as Stephen would call them) fulsome funbags and manufacturing balance by simply giving equal air time.

Rarely does an interviewer or moderator stop a lying politician and say "wait up... there is no evidence to support that." or better yet "that was a lie."

Sponsors, ownership, and political pressure controls the news, and that is a bad thing.

I think my only real response there is:

Religion provides comfort, and yes a certainty in belief, that there is something after death. I have written a number of times about what I believe are the foundations of all religions. Dealing with the unknown and death are certainly two situations with which religion and faith can deal with albeit in an intentionally intangible way.

I would say however, that many who have less or no religious faith to rely on for those situations can deal with life and death best by living their lives based on making the world better every day and leaving a permanent mark on those around them by doing everything they can to improve the lives of those who know them.

There are advantages and disadvantages of not having a "do over." There are just as many advantages and disadvantages of believing you do have a do over. I am not sure it's a good thing that you can live your life as the worst of "sinners" only to be completely forgiven at death and getting the perfect promised after life. Surely, not being an asshole in life is best regardless

"Is our moral compass completely our own? Passed on from parents, teachers and "heros"?"

Well, its interesting. There was a study recently that focused on children of various ages from very young to 10 or 11. It showed that the very young are highly selfish and willing to harm others for their own benefit.

This nature changes as the child grows older. Toddlers show some willingness to share and older children develop elements of self-sacrifice.

The study didn't really seek to explain the behaviour, but instead just document it.

I think there is some reason to think that education, social and peer pressure and other environmental interactions certainly guide the development, but there could easily be a natural drive also. Parenthood, the ultimate goal of human life from a purely biological perspective, requires that animals develop a sense of self sacrifice in order to propagate their gene and the species as a whole.

So becoming more and more self-sacrificing and generous as you advance towards having children could well be an actual biological imperative.

Certainly, selfishness and self-preservation are highly important tools to a infant of any kind.

"What says to us it's wrong to steal? The convention of manners and different levels of moral probity"

I have a simple answer to this, which like many theories certainly has a decent amount of testing to support.

If you steal, you risk repercussions. Most people won't steal out of fear of that repercussion. It's not a pretty answer, but it's a basic answer. Indeed, many of the basic tenets of religion are built on the core principles of not doing stuff that will get you killed.

Sleeping with another guy's wife. Eating pork in a desert. Coveting items that aren't yours. Common sense self-preservation is not a force to ignore. It's the underlying reason for many of our actions.

"...what is the meaning of life??? Please tell me you know!"

Meaning of life? As a true atheist I get to say "life means whatever you make it mean. Nothing more, nothing less."

Biological imperatives tell us that the meaning of life is to produce offspring. And while that as the very basic foundation is indeed the meaning, we have developed a sophistication which means we gain pleasure from any number of sources - I remember one scientist saying if he had one question he could ask an advanced alien race, he would ask how they provide pleasure to their various senses.

I forget who said it, but it is an interesting perspective from which to define a race and perhaps it is the best way since whatever you say, or think or believe, the true meaning of life is what you get from living it.

“I appreciate your contention but I would argue that your analysis is what is the purpose in a human life and not the meaning of life itself”

Only the conceit of humanity supposes that we have a greater meaning to our lives than the life of a fly, or a rat, or a fish or a dog. This same conceit also presumes that such animals are placed on this earth for our usage.

If you are looking for a metaphysical “meaning” to life, then I am afraid you won’t find such an answer from me.

Our brains only allow us to get more variety out of our lives, we certainly don’t appear to have any greater meaning. We are quite possible of destroying all life, if you wish to consider that a positive.

“Would you consider that the only real standpoint a scientist could take would be one of agnosticism? Is it important for scientists not to state an absolute when there is tecnically, no absolute proof? Is it incumbent on scientists to keep a very open mind? There have been many widely accepted beliefs debunked with further knowledge. Static Universe for example.”

Scientists are by definition required to have open minds. A theory is subject to constant testing and must be reimagined and recreated if a test proves the theory wrong. Einstein and Newton have their theories tested constantly – and our presumption than their theories are accurate is based on years and hundreds of tests reconfirming the predictions made based on those theories.

What a scientist does not do is create facts to fit our view of the world. We use the facts to define that view. If a fact arises that contravenes our current view point, then we adjust our viewpoint to correctly account for that fact.

That is the very definition of open-mindedness.

If God walks on the earth and provides sufficient evidence that they are indeed the supreme being, then scientists would have no reason, nor desire, to deny his/hers/its existence. Though we would likely continuously test the assertion that it is the higher power – but that is our nature.

The traditional, and perhaps correct, answer, when questioning the possible existence of life elsewhere in the universe is that it is “Highly improbable that there is life on another planet somewhere in this universe, it is equally improbable that there isn’t.”

Scientists don’t state anything in absolutes, they state things purely based on observations. Those observations lead to theorizing. And testing those theories outline our understanding. Science is an ever evolving entity that constantly adjusts to new observations.

What you are hinting at is that a scientist should be willing and able to support faith and science at the same time. There are scientists that do this – but I am not one, and I would hazard a guess that the underlying basic fears of humanity can impact a scientist just as deeply as any other human.

“Getting back to the morality question. When you know that something like smiling is universal and done from a very young age or the behaviour of twins raised by different families in different locations can be identical, is there a possibility that morality has developed as a genetic programme? Or that a fault in this programme results in sociopathies?”

Smiling is in no way universal. It’s not consistent even across our planet whether it be species to species or even race to race. There are races that consider smiling to be an indicator of dishonesty. Apes smile out of fear.

We anthropomorphise animals to give them human traits such as smiling. We see smiles in the front end designs of cars. I am not convinced that very young babies are smiling at all, but we certainly respond to them when that facial expression appears as if it is a good thing. That would appear to be reminiscent of a very successful training technique.

Dogs have learned that when we bare our teeth it’s a good thing, whereas dog to dog, it would be a significant act of aggression.

The twin thing is dubious at best. I consider it a case of selective sampling. I can think of at least a dozen sets of twins in my own personal experience who share nothing in common other than their appearance and parents. That does not ignore the strange coincidences, but the thing about coincidences is that we sure notice them a lot more when we are looking for them.

Genetic memory, or programming, is somewhat mysterious. We aren’t really in a position to create significant observable situations where the proposed hypothesis you are putting forth can be tested. Cloning certainly seems to be the field where this will end up being tested.

Does a cloned being directly reflect the parent if it is exposed to the same set of conditions? Does it vary when you change the environmental factors?

We do know that clones do NOT become physical duplicates. Recessive genes, and other factors cause them to vary drastically… or they don’t.

“As for biology. Is biology as we know it limited in itself because we have no other information beyond our earthly experience? Physics and chemistry can be tested beyond this planet.”

Biology isn’t nearly as limited as you might think. Our “earthly experience” has introduced us to creatures known as “extremophiles” with the suffix coming from the Greek word for love. So creatures that love extreme conditions.

These creatures are bizarre to a point of being truly alien. And indeed Astrobiology has been able to glean a huge amount from just studying these creatures, and exposing simple organisms to any other number of extreme conditions – discovering that the adaptation to those conditions is startlingly good.

This means that biologists have good reason to believe that our own solar system could be home to other life. The moons of Saturn offering us the most optimism.

Enceladus is a moon of Saturn that appears to be a frozen crust covering a liquid water ocean. And where there is water, there is – per our understanding – the chance of life. We have even seen plumes of water shooting through the surface. Gravity is a big deal, and stretching, distorting and otherwise moving this small moon’s “innards” around could definitely produce the heat necessary to keep the water liquid.

Titan, another moon of Saturn also has a few things going for it. While we are talking about temperatures cold enough to create lakes of methane, we are also talking about the only place we know of outside of earth where there are lakes of anything. And extremophiles might suggest that -180 degree temperatures and non-water lakes may not be enough to prevent life from forming and flourishing.

It’s highly unlikely, but Mars has always been a popular place for us to feel that life may now, or have previously, existed. We believed we saw methane on Mars, which is a byproduct of biological processes – but we aren’t finding it … yet.

Something else to remember about life, wherever it resides…

It is in the forges of the universe, things we call stars, that all building blocks of life are created. The death of massive stars is the reason we can exist. As Carl Sagan said, we truly are made of star stuff.

Never let it be said that science isn’t full of romance and imagination.

It is because of romance and imagination that I ask the questions. I finished schooling in my early teens and am now mid 50s. Anything that I know, I have learned from questioning and re-questioning. As far as I was aware up to now, the study that refuted Darwins theory on facial expressions was conducted on computer generated faces with Western caucasian expressions transposed to East Asian faces and a very small number of people asked to identify the expression. I was unaware as to whether it had progressed from there. As I had no expectation of any animals ability to smile, I used the word universal to describe my knowledge of smiling, which was human and on earth.
I again had assumed that the biological side of science by choice, limited itself and had very definate "specified or abstract" conditions and was unaware that these microbes had been discovered in space. I know that recently, micro-organisms have been found near freshwater springs at the bottom of the Dead Sea, unaffected by the high magnesium content. http://www.mpi-bremen.de/en/Springs_of_Life_in_the_Dead_Sea.html.
I am suspicious of cloning, mainly through ignorance. I don't know enough to comment.