Comments by "Beer_Dad" (@Beer_Dad1975) on "Stanford Professor Andrei Linde celebrates physics breakthrough" video.

What a great time to be alive, seeing all these amazing discoveries by amazing people. Scientists like this are the type of people I look up to instead of sports people and singers.
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Just to get this straight, you believe that a collection of a few hundred cells has a soul? Or because this is the official line of philosophy from the Vatican? Or is it the potential that concerns you? I'm not trying to troll you, I'm just genuinely curios as I've never discussed this with anyone so I don't understand the viewpoint. I was raised a catholic by the way so I have at least some understanding of catholic teaching even though I'm an atheist now I never understood any of the stuff on birth control being a sin, or all the guilt about original sin etc, but nobody would ever discuss that stuff, it was just preached to us and we were not to question why.
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Ian C. Thanks, interesting to hear a protestant viewpoint as my fathers side of the family were Anglican. My personal view is that the Bible was written by men for men, and that there is no compelling evidence for any kind of metaphysical intervention in the affairs of our universe yet - I know a few people who have similar thoughts about it being a "spiritual" ideal, but I guess I'm a materialist - I am inspired by the awesome reality of nature and don't feel a need to ascribe any personification to it.
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mavxr I don't think she's a troll, I think she is a genuine believer in the Catholic faith - but I totally don't understand how anyone could see a collection of 300 cells as anything other than a collection of 300 cells - the potential to be a person is there, but that isn't the same thing as actually being a person. Makes me curious as to how someone interested in science comes to that conclusion.
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Carmen McFarlin Absolutely, it's important to at least try to understand other peoples viewpoints even if you don't agree with them - at the very least it helps you to see where a large chunk of humanity is coming from.
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mavxr Yes, I do agree that much of Catholic dogma is very damaging to the world, including their views on embryonic stem cell research - and fundamentally believing that a really terribly written book of stories written thousands of years ago is the word of God is truly a disturbing way to live - but the psychology of the believer is still fascinating - and finding out why they think the way they do might even help to point out why their beliefs are irrational.
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***** That's the really odd thing though, one the best thinkers I know (as far as ability to absorb new information and analytical/problem solving skills) is a biblical literalist. This is a guy with two post graduate degrees who can solve complex calculus problems in his head and beat me at chess without even having to try - but he can't see that that Bible is totally fabricated. His father was a theologian, so I can only think that he is incapable of escaping the brainwashing of his upbringing, despite his impressive intellect. Anyway whilst it may be generally true that Theists are by some measures less intelligent than non theists (and there are studies that prove it) there are plenty of very smart theists who can somehow juggle this cognitive dissonance in a way I never could - maybe even as a direct result of being so smart?
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