Leonard Susskind - Are Science and Religion at War?

Lenard many people look at the world and they they see evidence of something beyond the physical people put different names on it God or whatever but people sense that even many scientists do you've called the remarkable coincidences that we see that we need to live you you call it an illusion of intelligent design why why it looks to me like the way the world has been put together by various physical principles that it's a rather accidental world and our own existence and it looks rather accidental to my scientific eye I don't see any either reason or possibility or evidence that any supernatural agent injects his thumb into our universe every night his I don't know if his or her or its thumb into our universe and manipulates things and change these things science seems to work I think I could stand in front of an accelerator for as long as I like and pray as hard as I can that the electrons go up instead of down they will go the way the electrons go no matter how hard I pray but what I would I would say I I don't very much enjoy the ideological battles about about religion I'm the person who is mostly driven by curiosity curiosity about why the world is the way it is there are two things which make me curious when I start hearing about religion the first is well maybe there may be God did make the universe or maybe some intelligent did med that did make the universe but then my curiosity gets the better of me I can't control it and I start thinking yeah but what made God or what has God made out of it's made out of atoms as he made out of molecules how many dimensions does God move around in does God satisfy the laws of quantum mechanics what agency allows God to poke is a thing into the laws of nature and by the time I'm finished I come to the conclusion that the number of questions the number of curiosity demanding questions that the hypothesis of God raises is more than the number of questions than it answers and so as a scientist I say okay I don't need that hypothesis or at least it doesn't help very much the other element of curiosity that always I am always provoked always is provoked within me by religion is an entirely different question not how the universe formed and so forth but why it is that human beings have such a strong need for the irrational a strong need for faith based irrational beliefs I believe that's a scientific question I believe it's a question that's rooted in our neural networks I believe it's a question that's rooted in Darwinian evolution and I am fascinated by it and extremely curious about it those I could talk about why but that is my own okay well those are the things that would hit me when I think about religion you've looked at the so called fine-tuning of the universe and have shown that between the possibilities of string theory the enormous number and the capacity of inflation creating multiple universes perhaps an infinite number between the two you can populate enough worlds with enough different possibilities that this apparent uniquenesses of our world are not so special requiring intelligent design however where we then end is the same curiosity to to how you develop the string theories and they and the multiple universes you have a very elegant system for doing it but how did that all come about who knows I I don't reject the possibility that there may have been in intelligence in some way or another it was involved in the creation of the universe I don't reject it not at all I simply ask if it's true how do you describe it what one of the rules how did it get there I just it just provokes more curiosity it provokes more curiosity and until I can answer or at least attempt to give her a hypothesis about that I lose interest I simply lose interest in the question I I lose interest in questions which seems so far beyond me that I am quite certain that I can't answer and this appears to me to be one of them on the other hand the question of why we tend to believe in religion seems to me to be within the bounds of things that can answer being and I think that is a a different kind of questions about human beings and all and all of that but if we look at the the most basic laws of string theory assuming that's the most or whatever if I'm using that as a surrogate for whatever is the most fundamental law and the way we generate universe is multiple or whatever those are very mathematical there are rich ideas maybe they're simpler than we think now but manure come how and and how do you take that back further is there a point is there a poem what point that we must stop in whether it's a limitation of our minds or just a point that beyond which we cannot go I don't know but you know this question has been phrased in various ways and it's always phrased as a question why is this something rather than nothing I don't know first they're skipped that way Stephen Hawking who or what breathes fire into the equations and made the world for them to describe or something like that it's always a question and I don't have an opinion I just feel that this is so far beyond me that it would be silly to have an opinion at this point well that is a scientist that is an opinion that is an opinion am ia am i a atheist no am i a religious believer no oh that must make me an agnostic no I'm not even that I just feel totally at sea totally at a loss for what the make out of the existence of the universe but that that's ass that's itself opinion because there are clearly people to all three of those answers who would who would give a strong affirmative yes I am an atheist and here's why or yes I believe there's an intelligence or you I'm I'm a confirmed aggressive agnostic in here's why and by not by putting yourself in a fourth category you are you are declaring a position right on the other hand if you were to ask me can I pray my way out of cancer I'd be pretty darn sure to tell you know the world doesn't worry that work that way can you pray your way out of the laws of gravity if you find yourself falling out a window no

Channel: Closer To Truth

Views: 126,338

Rating: 4.8205895 out of 5

Keywords: Leonard Susskind, Closer To Truth, Science, Religion, Theology, Philosophy, War, faith, Christianity, debate, lecture, University, education, college, teachers, learning, knowledge, school, controversial, God, atheism

Id: 0p-Sqo83GX0

Length: 7min 40sec (460 seconds)

Published: Wed Jan 27 2016

Reddit Comments

[u/Merari01]

No. Science has won the war.

It won it when churches started putting up lightning rods.