Not all of the ills of mankind, I saw that atheistic societies (like Soviet Russia, China) had the same cruelty and problems, hence I was aware of the human condition and the problem of group identities before exposure to AF. My dad too had realised blind nature was the problem and had taught me this. I thought that western atheism something different and more progressive, much of my early internet chat rooms clashes in the late 90s and early 2000s was clashing with Americans who saw atheism as linked to communism, which isn’t a mindset among westerm european atheists I have met.
I too had realised experientally what my dad said that it was our blind nature that was the problem, though I saw a solution through the love of creativity, increased learning and awareness.
Also, I felt spirituality and belief akin to imagination, people were just imagining an idea like a God and then feeling good about it. To me, they didn’t realise the imaginative capability that was making them feel good. To me faith was unconscious imagination.
I had already realised this too. Me and my friend who introduced me to AF had this idea that is seemed some people would get so invested in a hypothesis they would ignore any evidence that contradicted it. Also, that people wanted to say what the universe was rather than learn from the universe. I always seemed really good at discerning belief from fact, model from reality. I didn’t need the universe to be a particular way. If I learned new information, I could drop a theory, idea or knowledge I thought was true or a fact with the more up to date info. There was nothing invested for me. I noticed people around me family, friends and others struggled to do this. My group of friends from high school which included the friend who introduced me to AF had a similar mindset to me, the first people I met like that and we formed a very strong and open friendship. Many ex friends or girlfriends would think me a hypocrite but couldn’t understand an idea being changed or rejected, for belief based/religious based people couldn’t drop ideas so freely it seems, their beliefs were more concrete and harder to change.
I did a Physics degree so I got to see for myself the faith based mentality in science, but scientists are humans most brought up in religions or belief based societies so I was never surprised to find them still having a belief type thought mentality in science too. I haven’t met so many people raised with the same level of freedom I was given.
No, science is a process to discern facts based on models and hypotheses. There is no need to defend a fact, I saw that scientists would want to defend their hypotheses or models though but I saw through that too. If something was valid the evidence would show and be repeatable so there is no need to defend. Where things can’t be tested like Big Bang theory, I always had a problem with it. As I could see untestable model/hypothesis being pushed as fact.
For me, spirituality rejected those facts we had ascertained about this world and people. That animate matter arose from inanimate matter. That energy and matter are interchangeable and in constant flux, there is no special permanent, eternal and infinite type of energy or matter to be a soul.
But even before I fully rejected my soul belief, I had rejected normal spirituality and religion because I saw it as unconscious imagination and couldn’t see how that could save or help humanity other than wrap them in a deluded security blanket, God loves me, God protects me, I am infinite, I am eternal…etc etc. To me it was self delusion and rejection of this universe, which annoyed me. Whereas my imagination was aware and a celebration of what was possible in this universe, not seeking to contradict it or delude myself.
Of course there were still blind spots, beliefs and delusions within me which I discovered since being onboard with AF. Which was fascinating to realise, despite thinking I was so aware and had such good insight in to myself.
I have seen such data, results, papers and now some of the people I went to uni work on such things. Even for them, there are discoveries they weren’t quite expecting or new questions opening up from certain experiments which seems to show that there is some honesty in the process, learning from the universe rather than telling the universe what it should be. These projects have a lot of scientists from different countries and data is peer reviewed further from scientists from other countries too like India, China etc. It would be a lot for all the different belief sets to come to agreement on data all in a false belief method. Where there are questions or challenges then somebody will bring it up, as it gives them a chance to make a name for themselves too. But even without deception, honest mistakes are still possible too. Scientists and the scientific method is not free from error, error is a natural part of physics. Hence, the whole 5 sigma paradigm in having sufficiently low error as to be valid. See link,
https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/five-sigmawhats-that/
Yes, scientists can be wrong. Hence the need for something to be demonstrable and repeatable. A problem for science as it gets more niche or expensive is having people with sufficient knowledge and funds to also repeat and test. I know people who have worked on particle accelerators, some of my uni colleague’s went on to CERN. But the data and processes are shared with universities and other instutions across the world. There is transparency.
Yes, there has been a lot of evidence of corruption in science in the last 20 years, from false unicorn companies (Theranos again lol) to scientists lying for big corporations and governments. Again, the problem of big corporations to stifle or control science through their legal processes deters people from challenging these companies, all of which hurts the validity of the scientific process for lay people.
Exactly, and science and scientists are full of beliefs, it is difficult for the uninitiated to make heads or tails of science, hence I am not surprised by the growth of anti-science and misinformation.
But power and money can control and hinder the flow of knowledge and understanding, is also troublesome. For if AF ever became more than an obscurity it too would face attacks and challenges from those seeking to maintain the status quo of their power and influence.