Spider Star
The human colony on the planet Argo has long explored and exploited the technology left behind by an extinct alien race. But then an archaeology team accidentally activates a terrible weapon...
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"Seldom does a storytelling talent come along as potent and fully mature as Mike Brotherton. His complex characters take you on a voyage that is both fiercely credible and astonishingly imaginative. This is Science Fiction."
-- David Brin"Star Dragon is terrific fare, offering readers a fusion of hard science and grand adventure."
-- Locus Magazine"Star Dragon is steeped in cosmology, the physics of interstellar travel, exobiology, artificial intelligence, bioscience. Brotherton, author of many scientific articles in refereed journals, has written a dramatic, provocative, utterly convincing hard science sf novel that includes an ironic twist that fans will love."
-- Booklist starred review"Readers hungry for the thought-provoking extrapolation and rigorous technical detail of old-fashioned hard SF are sure to enjoy astronomer Brotherton's first novel."
-- Publishers Weekly"Mike Brotherton, himself a trained astrophysicist, combines the technical acuity and ingenuity of Robert Forward with the ironic, postmodern stance and style of M. John Harrison. In this, his debut novel, those twin talents unite to produce a work that is involving on any number of levels. It's just about all you could ask for in a hardcore SF adventure."
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Do Physicists Believe in God?
September 29th, 2010
We’re going to treat astronomers as a subset of physicists here.
Sure, some do. A lot don’t.
One time I went camping with a group of guys I didn’t know too well. They came from a wide range of backgrounds, and a lot of them were Christians of various fundamentalist stripes. One of these guys asked me what I did for a living. I told him I was an astronomer. He immediately asked me, first thing, “You don’t believe in God, do you?” No, I don’t, I told him. There’s not nearly enough evidence to convince a scientist who uses his methodology in his every day life. I wouldn’t say I’m sure that some entity “God” as defined by someone somewhere doesn’t exist, but I don’t see any compelling evidence for anything resembling the deity offered up by any organized religion. They won’t offer evidence either, and claim you need something called “faith” that means, as far as I can tell, the willingness to believe in something just because other people tell you to. That’s crap. Faith is not a virtue in my experience.
I can understand someone staying in a church to keep their family happy, or to keep their social connections and social life stable. I can’t see anyone with intellectual integrity swallowing all the things associated with any organized religion. For example, the body and blood of Christ, as the Catholic Church asks their followers to do. Why not have a blood test following transubstantiation? “That’s a question you shouldn’t ask.”
I came across an interesting video about this specific question and the broader one as well:
There’s a follow-up question asking “What is your favorite astronomical feature?” in the video. I’d have to be a little cheeky and abstract, and say that it’s one I can’t identify. Nature can’t abhor a vacuum and I can’t abhor something I can’t identify and am fascinated by such a puzzle and have to solve it. If the question was “object” or “image” I might say something different, but “feature” is pretty generous. I’ll take the puzzle. “Heavenly object” will get a different kind of response…
One final point. Religious and spiritual people sometimes like to redefine “God” to mean whatever they like, the way Margaret Atwood redefines science fiction (and doesn’t even stick to her own definition). Einstein got caught up in this, using the term too often when he didn’t mean what most people conventionally mean, although he would admit to it unlike Atwood. I know some people who try to redefine the Big Bang as “God” so…whatever. Not a very useful conversation a lot of the time.
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Mike, can I ask a follow up question?
When you say: [i]I wouldn’t say I’m sure that some entity “God†as defined by someone somewhere doesn’t exist, but I don’t see any compelling evidence for anything resembling the deity offered up by any organized religion.[/i] do you then mean it in the way of allowing for the possibility to keep some intellectual honesty, if that’s the right phrase?
I mean, my own stance is that I’m technically agnostic as I have to allow for the possibility, however slight, that I’m wrong, but for all intents and purposes I don’t believe in God/any kind of deity or supernatural power. It’s just that as long as I can’t be 100% certain it would be intellectually wrong to not consider that I may be wrong.
That seems to me to be the best way to go about it, even if it can be hellish hard to actually explain the subtleties to people who are cocksure that they are in the right.
I guess my question is just if you agree or if I’m reading you wrong?
Rasmus, yes, you basically got me. That I see no evidence for something is suggestive it doesn’t exist, but it doesn’t prove it. I would still consider this position atheist (without religious belief) as opposed to agnostic, which I think says something more like we can’t know, and therefore there’s no preference. Maybe we can’t know for 100.000000% sure, but a lack of evidence tilts the scales.
So, yeah, I agree with you. I used to consider myself agnostic before realizing that atheist is a better descriptor. To be nuanced, a weak atheist as opposed to a strong atheist who says God definitely doesn’t exist.
I was going to write a song called “I Believe in God, It’s Religion I don’t like.”
There is so much that we are learning as a the human race. And there is so much that we don’t know. As we learn more, mainly through scientific experiment, we get closer but never to the totality of all knowledge. How everything works. In my view, I call that God.
The problem is that modern religion does not have that definition. Their definition has many totally illogical things that most intelligent people would always reject.
I’ve been planning a post about the word “soul” and aliens in the near future and plan to address your point again in a different way.
Cheers for the follow up Mike!
I’m also glad you could follow my rambling. English is not my first language and I felt I kept tripping up and revising the question. Though to be fair, I might be hard pressed in Danish as well to explain just what my stance is. At least if it was to someone who didn’t catch the nuances.
I do agree with saying atheist instead of agnostic. I just lacked a better way of saying it.