I <3 this woman.

[silentpalms]

Will physics ever be able to tacker the biggest questions - for instance, why does the universe even bother to exist?

Science is not religion. We're not going to be able to answer the "why" questions. [...]

This sounds like your formula for keeping science and religion from fighting with each other.A lot of scientists take the Stephen Jay Gould

Comments

[troglodyteking]

Although I think this is true enough in many cases, I find this too be too simplistic:

"This might earn me some enemies, but in some ways they may be even more moral. If you do something for a religious reason, you do it because you'll be rewarded in an afterlife or in this world. That's not quite as good as something you do for purely generous reasons."

Many people's religious conceptions are of the 'I do this because I want a good afterlife', a carrot-and-stick (heaven-and-hell) motivation. But many religious perspectives are more nuanced than that - they see the religiously ordained morality as simply a statement of truth, as what one should (in a categorical or 'this is how it is meant to be' rather than a 'mom says I should' sort of way) do as a human being / immortal soul / whatever. Or there is the concept of love of God - a perspective where heaven or hell is besides the point because one feel such love for God that one is compelled (or at least wants to, even if one fails a lot) to do good because he asks it. Or even there are views that heaven and hell are not so much places or modes of judgement (if you are good, heaven; if bad, hell), but precisely the same place, eternity/being-with-God, and that whether or not it is heaven or hell depends upon the person - can you stand, bear to be in eternity, to exist beyond time (possibly unchanging?) with yourself? If not, it is hell. If so, heaven.

Actually, I am recalling a bit from Nietzsche (maybe Beyond Good and Evil?) where he describes eternity as simply living through your life over and over again with no ability to change the decisions you make but with the knowledge of what will happen/has happened a thousand times before, to simply be a spectator through the ever rerunning show of you life. If you would be content in that existence, you lived a good life. If not, you did not. Interesting idea, no?

Anyway, there is also the cynical position that nobody does anything "for purely generous reasons". Why do good actions? There are many practical, very self-interested reasons: because people will by and large be good back to you; to feel good about yourself because you have been indoctrinated (probably well so) to think that moral (however that is defined) behavior is 'good' and so you feel uncomfortable when you fail such standards; to develop a good reputation; because if people were not society would crumble apart and you realize this and are working for the long-term; etc. Whether or not people consciously recognize it, there are very convincing possible explanations for pretty much any good actions, if you want to take that perspective.

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That being said, I pretty much have no beef with the rest of it.