Scientists and Atheists have you lost your Spirit?

Question

The Nobel Prize Winning Physicist Richard Feynman wrote this, and certainly in his autobiographical writing he was very open to spiritual possibilities (although not so much to religion).

And I wonder..if some scientists have lost their will to explore, and to discover, and to open their minds to all lines of enquiry, to reclaim the renaissance and seek understanding.

Scientists and Atheists have you lost your Spirit?

Quote

"A poet once said, "The whole universe is in a glass of wine." We will probably never know in what sense he said that, for poets do not write to be understood. But it is true that if we look in glass of wine closely enough we see the entire universe.

There are the things of physics: the twisting liquid which evaporates depending on the wind and weather, the reflections in the glass, and our imagination adds the atoms. The glass is a distillation of the earth's rocks, and in its composition we see the secrets of the universe's age, and the evolution of the stars. What strange array of chemicals are in the wine? How did they come to be? There are the ferments, the enzymes, the substrates, and the products. There in wine is found the great generalization: all life is fermentation. Nobody can discover the chemistry of wine without discovering the cause of much disease. How vivid is the claret, pressing its existence into the consciousness that watches it!

If in our small minds, for some convenience, divide this glass of wine, this universe, into parts - physics, biology, geology, astronomy, psychology, and so on - remember that nature does not know it! So let us put it all back together, not forgetting ultimately what it is for. Let us give one more final pleasure: drink it and forget it all!

Answer 1

What Would Richard Feynman Do?
http://www.wellingtongrey.net/miscellanea/archive/2006-12-25-what-would-richard-feynman-do.html

Answer 2

I'm labeled an 'atheist', but your strawman doesn't apply to me. I drink and see the whole universe in a leaf, in the glint of my child's eye, in a moment that lasts an eternity.

But nice try anyhoo, and I likes the cut of your jib.

PS The people you were targeting are generally 'empirical reductionists'. Just a small point.

Answer 3

It's not that our minds aren't open to INQUIRY, it's that our minds are not open to blind *belief* in things that have NO evidence for existence.

There's a difference.

My mind is open to the possibility of anything. But I'm not going to just accept someone telling me that something is true, when first, it has NO evidence to show for it's truth, and second, it sounds completely illogical to me. And I'm certainly not going to devote my life to such a thing, and I'm not going to bow down and worship it, either.
If someone can show me some compelling evidence for the truth of such a claim, then I'll change my mind.

Answer 4

I am awe of the wonder and the mystery of the universe, the marvels of nature as revealed through scientific exploration.

It has nothing to do with a non-existent spirit or god.

Answer 5

Got to love this quote!..."I cannot imagine a God who rewards and punishes the objects of his creation, whose purposes are modeled after our own -- a God, in short, who is but a reflection of human frailty. Neither can I believe that the individual survives the death of his body, although feeble souls harbor such thoughts through fear or ridiculous egotisms." Albert Einstein

Answer 6

Yeah, it's around here somewhere....hang on, maybe it's in the clothes hamper...damn, it stinks in here, I gotta wash my friggin' socks....Nope, not there. Okay, the last time I had it was last week, I think, or maybe the week before that. If you give me a few hours, I think I can backtrack and figure out where I left it. Do you keep yours in a glass jar, or what? 'Cause I'm always misplacing mine.

Answer 7

Have you been hitting that wine jug again ? To answer your question , no I haven't lost any of my spirit . There are still a couple of bottles in the fridge .

Answer 8

nicely, all of us *could* redefine "skill" to be observed as "God", yet there's no reason to try this after the word "skill" works basically nice to describe what skill is. the suitable reason that we would in no way try this is by using the fact in spite of in case you want to curve the definition of "skill" to signify "God", it nonetheless does not point out that skill is a few form of wakeful, thinking, magical being that we could bow down and worship, and all of us rather be responsive to that that's what you're getting at, and you're basically enjoying semantics video games to attempt to get there.

Answer 9

I prefer to let the evidence speak for itself.

And sometimes, when there's no evidence, I just go to sleep rather than worrying about it.

Answer 10

Ohh-Kay.....

Atheists and scientists have not lost spirit. How you've come to such conclusion through your ramblings -- and very obvious misunderstanding of your original quote -- is beyond me.