http://www.nytimes.com/2003/10/13/international/europe/13CHUR.html?8bl

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/10/14/international/africa/14CHUR.html?hp

Also:

http://www.theatlantic.com/issues/2002/10/jenkins.htm

I'll venture the first comment. I find the trends somewhat disturbing. While I don't think there is any direct comparison between fundamentalist Islam and fundamentalist Christianity, the expansion of both does not bode well for critical knowledge. Both resist important aspects of modern scientific models of the universe and resist naturalistic interpretations of events. They are also not compatible with each other.

OMG Kerry ;) you talk like we're gonna fall into the dark ages again! We won't! Religion and science can go hand in hand. I don't see the incompatiblity, and even if they were incompatible, I don't see a contradiction! Isaac Newton, Rene Descartes, Albert Einstein, were very devout men and were responsible for monumental gains in science. I just don't see what you see.

Good timing on this topic.....

Last night was our first class. I'm taking "Christian Encounters with World Religions", through Emory University's Evening at Emory courses.

Here's the link......

http://www.cll.emory.edu/eate/history.htm

Originally posted by Botnst
You're at Emory? Cool. My Dad earned his PhD there uh, forty years ago. I have great memories of growing up in that area. Don't suppose its changed much since then.

Botnst


We must be about the same age (38), as my father earned his Phd in Political Science from Syracuse about the same time as your dad finished his at Emory.

I attended school in Colorado (UNC) back in the mid-80's, though most of my family went to school in Virginia (I grew up in Fairfax Co.)

As for my current affiliation with Emory, my g/f got her undergrad and Masters there and we just like to take evening courses to 'broaden our minds' and benefit from a nice meal out before class (Doc Chey's).

It's another nice reason to get the heck out of the office a little early one night per week. Plus, It beats watching the boob-tube any time :)

Looks like Emory has some interesting courses.

I too think that religion and science are compatible. I just dont think that science and these kinds of religion are compatible. It's not that they can't live side by side with each other in a kind of truce. It's that this fundamentalist religion does not give rise to scientific minds. It's explanations of reality are supernaturalistic so that inquiries about how and why things happen beyond that are unnecessary.

My experience of working in a University environment is that scientists (and I'm one) are very far from the idealistic model of noble thinkers courageously seeking after 'truth'. If anything, I have found professional scientists more prey to distorting the truth than laymen. If you look at scientific papers, you will see a one-sided advocacy of thier 'argument'. We are supposed to be impartial recorders and interpretors of results, and our own strongest critics, but that no longer happens. Try publishing a paper that is completely honest and balanced and you'll have it rejected. It's depressing.

I have never found any evidence of a religious-based thought police in academia. However, personally I find strongly-held religious beliefs often if not always incompatible with our scientific understanding of the world. Being harsh about this, these people want their cake etc. They want the cosy life-after-death, god-is-looking-after-you stuff, and also the clarity of scientific understanding. This is plain greedy and intellectually dishonest. Have some courage, you snivelling ****'s and face the darkness (oops). I find it bizarre that someone can study cosmology, for example, yet argue that some human being created the universe. What are they on?

Hoo boy. I'm not even going there.
Lessee.....how many times thru the centuries have scientific "truths" been disproven, changed, adjusted........
My .02, and that's all. :p Have fun.:D

Oh come on guys, haven't I been provocative enough here? At least tell me I'm a moron ;)

Originally posted by jjl
Oh come on guys, haven't I been provocative enough here? At least tell me I'm a moron ;)
OK. You're a moron.
Was I good? Did I cut you to the bone?;) :D

That's it. I'm leaving for ever :D

Right, then..are you going to split hairs about the trinity? (not The Matrix for all you godless lot).

Uh-oh. More of that 'baiting ('bating?):p

Oh, I see now, it's my mistake for thinking we humans are, well, just humans, when I should be open to the idea that in the utterly gigantic vastness of the blah blah occasionaly the creator pops in a doppelganger to show us what's what & change coke to pepsi..

Creating anything comes back to free will..Kerry might think this is fundamentally unknowable, but I have had some very interesting conversations with a cosmologist colleague on quantum physics that suggests the door is not firmly shut.

PS I humbly apologise if this is offensive to anyone..but hey, it's my soul!

I've been out in the trenches, fighting the battles against ignorance so haven't had a chance to return.
I think jjl should be a product of Presbyterianism but he sounds like he has studied at the feet of that other Scot, David Hume.

While it may be counterintuitive, I think that we might find lots of fundamentalists in scientific and technical fields. When the child of a fundamentalist goes to university (particularly a secular university) the choices are clear if their religious beliefs are to remain intact. They can't major in the Humanities, such as Philosophy History or Religious Studies because their beliefs would not survive either the methodology or critical thinking of those fields. Same with Sociology, Anthropology etc. So, they are safest in fields where the content of their religious beliefs never come up. Obviously, Biology or Geology won't work but other scientific fields or Math, are ideal places. So are engineering or business.
So, at universities, one is likely to find fundamentalists in those kinds of departments and never in the Humanities and Social Sciences. As an example, one of the more famous Creationists around is Henry Morris of the Creation Research Institute in San Diego (?). He has a PH.D. in hydrology or some such thing.

I was reading someone the other day (Daniel Dennet maybe?) who was arguing that the idea of a Creator is just another way of believing that human consciousness is free and fundamentally important to the universe. In other words, to believe in God, is just a disguised self-deception and the importance of consciousness.
If that is true, then in a round about sense, a human did create the universe.

I'm not sure I said that free will is unknowable. I think it said it was much more difficult to know about it.

What was your cosmologist quantum physicist saying? Was it the argument from indeterminacy and the room it makes for freedom

Yep, it was about the nature of matter at the small scale, how it is fundamentally stochastic (and downright weird). And the role of the conscious observer in 'objective' reality..the Shrodinger's cat concept. He was telling me about faster than light 'action at a distance' involving collapsing wave functions, a bit over my head frankly.

Anyway, the difficulty we have in grasping such unfamiliar but nonetheless (apparently) very 'real' aspects of the world suggest that there is room for progress in broad-brush thinking about the nature of things (although the stuff I've read recently on consciousness has been dissappointing). Have you come across anything (accessible) on the argument that quantum events in the brain are a means of generating free will?

btw I was raised a Catholic. Nothing worse than a lapsed Catholic. Oh, and I have come across a few very religious biologists..truly puzzling.

Can't think of anything about quantum events in the brain. The last I read on this topic was John Wheeler and light coming from vast distances and having its course determined by how we decide to view it. Bizzare indeed. How can 'the past' be changed by how we decide to view the present?

Facing the darkness together.

Kerry

Moderator!! He said "solipsism" again!!:eek:

It's definitely Berkleyanism, I'm not sure about solipsism since more than one person looks at the same starlight.
I thought that what Wheeler was getting at was once we 'determine' the path of the starlight by seeing it, that the past became what we determined it to be.

In reference to an earlier post: It's regrettable that your colleague had to remain silent about his liberal religious ideas but it seems to be a pattern in academia and perhaps general intellectual life: Not much open discussion about the connections between religion and modern knowledge. The result is that outspoken conservative religious voices seem to carry the day.
It is all odd to me since I was trained in philosophy of religion and theology.

Earlier you made a fair generalization concerning religion and the various choices of advanced curricula pursued by religious people. I think religion is twice difficult for biologists since their colleagues have faced that seemingly endless creationism battle and are very sensitive to having to face it again, with all the charges of bigotry, etc attendent with that. I have rarely heard a biologist mention religion except as an adversary. Thus, when faced with a colleague applying for tenure, it would seem not unusual to exclude that particular battle from one's life. I have known several respected biologists who are absolutely bigots in that regard. But most are just tired of perpetually fighting what they firmly believe is a stupid fight. Can't blame them, considering the pseudo-science tripe some creationists try to bamboozle susceptible innocents with.

I can understand why scientists respond that way. The downside is that it more or less concedes the religious ground to mindless ignorant biblical literalists and leaves little room for engaging serious religious intellectuals like one of our locals who won the Templeton prize last year.

http://www.templetonprize.org/news.html

Originally posted by jjl
btw I was raised a Catholic. Nothing worse than a lapsed Catholic. Oh, and I have come across a few very religious biologists..truly puzzling.

A jacobite by name! Golly, your country has seen it all.

This is my own belief, don't mean to be offensive in any way. Wish all of you guys believed the same, though.

We wander through life wondering who we are.

W are conscious; completely aware of our own surroundings. Each one of us is unique. Not just our DNA makes up our existence, but we have SOULS! They cannot be physically described.

Scientists may form many theories of our own existence, but they are just false perceptions.

God created the universe (and humans in His image), and there is so little we understand. We must further extend our knowledge of the cosmos. I, for one, wish I lived in an era which wasn't so primitive. There is so little we know about our universe. Or even our own solar system for crying out loud!

All I'm saying guys is that if I was an athiest, I would probably kill myself. Why not? I would only cease to exist, and that would happen sooner or later anyway. I could step in front of a bus tomorrow, and, GONZO:eek::p

Sorry. I dont see where science and religion are compatible at all.
They can co-exist as long as religion stays out of science's face. But compatible. No way. Not until religion accepts self investigation the way science does can it be considered compatible.

Science doesn't have the answers for everything. But then it doesn't claim to have those answers and never will as long as scientific theories are subject to investigation, alteration and replacement.

- Peter.

Why do you think religion is incapable of critical self-investigation? There are lots of religious thinkers over the centuries who have engaged in thoughtful and critical examination of religious ideas. There are many today. See the link to Holmes Rolston and his ideas about the relationship of science and religion.
Sure, conservative and fundamentalist religion is incompatible with science but so is conservative and fundementalist science. In other words, the problem is that science is associated with constant questioning of its claims and religion is associated with refusal to examine its claims but neither connection is completely true and both can do the opposite.

Self investigation is fundamental to science. It is at heart the antithesis of religion.

No matter how many individuals question various tenets of faiths ultimately at the heart of religious belief is a contention that is not subject to any kind of investigation (the God hypothesis) and thus inherently incompatible with science.

- Peter.

Just reading and Thinking!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Why Has DR. Hubble (yes, The Hubble Telescope Hubble) .written that He has concluded that THERE IS A CREATOR This HAS not Happend by chance.ETC ETC Quote Unqoute ....After putting His Telescope into orbit years ago He Saw things,. and Being a agnostic and athiest he believed that sience was the only answer ..Well He now states that ,even science cannot elplain what we are seeing "There Has to be a Creator That is in charge of THIS" What is He seeing and what Has changed His Mind set? Something to think about! Just my Opinion...........................

I did see some program on the idiot box(Discovery channel?) awhile ago, and they were discussing the science-religion thing. It seems that there is a quiet movement happening within some scientific circles, where they are accepting the concept of a "superior being". Wish I could remember more details now. But it was a surprise to me.
I belong to a very conservative religion(some of you know which one). There are, and have beem, some very prominent scientists within our faith. I don't think the incompatability is as great as some of you seem to think. I'm not one of these "brainiacs", but I have no problems accepting both my beliefs and science. The areas where the incompatability exists, seems to be growing narrower instead of wider.
Most of you guys are way above me in all this theory/philosophy stuff. But I don't see why religion and science can't co-exist. What one can't answer, the other does, and visa-versa.
Hmmmm......I'm rambling here.

In reply to Pete Galbiati...

The Hubble space telescope was named after Edwin Hubble who had been dead for many years when it was launched. I have no idea who the individual you were referencing is but Edwin Hubble he aint...

- Peter.

I'll be honest I have a tough time believing in God and the Messiah. I'm always wondering what will happen to us afterwards. And I cannot help but to be curious at the vastness and complexity that the universe contains. How large is the universe, and is there an end to it? What is beyond that boundary? I want to know!

Like I said, I wish we knew so much more. Maybe then we could conclude the precise truth of it all.

I struggle with faith everyday. I think about death all the time.

Maybe this Bible refers to only us. Maybe there are other extra terrestrial civilizations outside our own. Why not? It seems like an awful waste of space if not.

Faith is a gift. I'm afraid I lack much of it. But I keep trying.:( :o

My guess is that show was about the 'Intelligent Design Theory", a philosophical idea that is gaining social prominence, not because it is raging through the intellectual community, but because there is a lot of money from conservative business people behind its promotion.(It's associated with a couple of thinkers by the names of Phillip Johnson and Dombrowski) It is a version of the old 'Teleological Argument for God's Existence' which has been quite popular but has a long history of being challenged for its coherence. David Hume was one of the more important critics of its logic.

I think the movement is lightweight, but I don't think the religion has to be antithetical to science.

Rickg...

If you are referring to the Intelligent Design hypothosis. I have to dissagree. While there are some scientists who espouse it it's not a scientific theory but merely another philosophy. And the vast majority of scientists reject it. Dont make the mistake of assuming that becuase some scientists espouse it (on the Discovery channel for example) it has any validity. Programmers seek out controversy because most of the grunt work in science is not sufficiently controversial to provide enough "meat" for a viewing audience. But that doesnt make it real.

- Peter.

Originally posted by kerry edwards
I think the movement is lightweight, but I don't think the religion has to be antithetical to science.

My aplogies if I get some of this wrong, but its worth pursuing to those who are interested. Probably the best defense of teleogical theory that I've read (admittedly, I haven't read much in a decade or so) was some stuff by Jesuit/scientist Teilhard de Chardin, I think was his name. He got in trouble with the Vatican and had an official silence of some sort put on him, I think, concerning evolution. Recently the current Pope decided that there is no incompatibility between Catholicism and the theory of organic evolution. I haven't read that particular document.

However, the Pope also wrote an excellent analysis of the general problem available in several languages entitled, "Fides et Ratio". Obviously, it is written from a particular point of view, but it is very, very good reasoning. If you want to argue with a Christian who knows his stuff, start there.

I am not now nor ever have been a Catholic ("Are you now or have you ever been a communist?"). But I deeply appreciate and admire honest, reasoned argument. Open minds are easily filled.

Botnst

Yes, Teilhard De Chardin is a teleological thinker in the Aristotelian tradition with some twists.
He doesn't follow the traditional 'Teleological Argument for God' to my knowledge.
Aristotle thought that in order to explain the behavior of the universe, there had to be some perfect reality that it was trying to imitate.

The teleological argument for God says that the material universe shows evidence of a preconceived intelligent order that can only be explained by the existence of an intelligent all powerful Creator. The current version I believe is referred to as the 'Fine Tuning' theory. Certain constants had to be fine tuned shortly after the Big Bang in order for intelligent life to evolve.

Since St. Thomas Aquinas was declared the official philosopher of Catholicism at the end of the 19th century, Catholic philosophical theology has to follow his lead. He held that there is no conflict between reason and faith. That translates into the current Catholic idea of a congruity between science and religion.
Protestants are much less likely to hold this view having been much more influenced by Augustine who has less confidence in the power of human reason which he considers to be part of our sinful selves.

The Intelligent Design concept is just Paley's watch again, with some bogus particle physics and 'isn't this physical constant just-so' window-dressing.

Kerry, which religions are compatible with science? I'd like to try one of those.

And another point, that I've avoided making because it will be lept on by the 'science can't explain everything' brigade..in the end, science is a children's story. We will never really answer things that really matter, because our intellects are too small. Had we a brain the size of the room you are sitting in just now, I suggest things might be different. However, as it stands we have as much chance of understanding consciousness, god, etc. as my cat has of reading Shakespeare. Perhaps we should just go fix our MB's?

btw, if science is a children's story, religion is a 'tale told by an idiot...'

jjl:
Good summary of intelligent design. I would hope that a first semester philosophy student should be able to see the problems with it. Hume saw through the argument quite clearly. I visited his grave in Edinburgh last year.

I think there are any number of religions which can be compatible with science. For instance, Methodists who use the philosophy of Whitehead to develop their views seem quite compatible with science in my mind. Also Buddhists, Confucians, etc.

Given your metaphysical skepticism, you would seem to be ripe for a Buddhist meditative enlightenment. Religion doesn't have to tell unbelievable stories.

Fixing my MB is often a religious experience for me if my ejaculations during the process are any indication.

I'm having lunch tomorrow with my Mother and that retire anglican archbishop I mentioned earlier this weak.

What subject would you have me bring with me for lunch? During the previous visit he wanted to know my views on science and existence. Lets not be rude, he's a rational gentleman who enjoys a challenge and doesn't mind long arguments. He and Mother are both bright (ol' Mom's a Phi Beta Kappa and he's a Fulbright Scholar), and energetic and in their eighties. No time for a lot of foolishness between them.

Guidance/suggestions, please.

Botnst

PS Yeah, I'm bragging. Wouldn't you?

I'd be curious about his best argument for God's existence and his views on how much we can know about the historical Jesus.

By the way, I wrote my Master's thesis on Paul Tillich's concept of God at an Anglican seminary in Toronto.

Again, you guys are way over my head here. But I appreciate your kind rebutals(sp?).
One thing I find interesting is all the evidence for some kind of evolution. There is definately enough evidence for it, I don't see how anybody can totally disregard it's possibility. My way of merging it with religion, is that it just seems too far fetched to match what we are, with any kind of random accident of nature. I tend to see it as something that has had a guiding hand, and engineered it into lifeforms. I really haven't gotten to the point of having any kind of theory that would ever hold up to any kind of real debate, but it works for me.
I think Kerry is talking about the program and theory I'm talking about. No, I really don't know just how widespread it is, but the fact that some die-hard scientists are leaning that way, must mean something.
The problem with religion in relation to "logical-thinking" types, is it's not something that can be put in a test tube and run through a series of experiments. It is based on faith, a nasty word to alot of people. But I do feel that it is something we all have the ability to eventually arrive at, and accept. But you need to at first set aside what you consider "logic", and think in a different plane. I didn't always accept completely what my church teaches. But through lots of study, and some life experiences that just simply can't be explained away by science, I've arrived to where I am today. I believe it whole heartedly. It does "make sense". And it answers so many more questions that science can't even come close to. Some may see this as just a way to explain the unexplainable, but I firmly believe it's more than that.
Anyway, it would take alot more of discussion than could be approached here to really explore this. I've just tried to condense where I'm at.

I guess where we differ is on the question of evidence. I think all theories need to be related to some set of evidence. Whether a given theory is far fetched or not, I think that whether we believe it or not should be determined by the evidence.

For instance, I find it farfetched that our act of observing a light beam has the effect of determining which route the photons took to my eye. However there is evidence to support it. On the other hand, I don't see any evidence that the universe was designed by an intelligent mind.

How was the universe designed? How could it be formed out of nothing? Something had to have made the Big Bang, so what could it have been?

If there was nothing before the universe then why is there something now?

"How was the universe designed? How could it be formed out of nothing? Something had to have made the Big Bang, so what could it have been?

If there was nothing before the universe then why is there something now?"

Those are all excellent questions. They are influenced heavily by what one understands by "universe". If for example one means all of physical space and the matter in it that we can see then, not only is the evidence for a sudden significant expansion at a long distant time overwhelming... but that description of it pretty much suffices for what we can understand about "universe".

If however we wish to include the more esoteric theories of cosmology and quantum physics. Endless cycles of universes, ultimate causes etc. Then we have a problem. Frankly I dont think any of our languages are capable of translating the math involved into concepts that make sense as languages evolved for communication about a rather limited world that was immediately obvious to our senses.

With reference to the concepts Rickg introduced above. Science has a pretty good handle on the theory that the "big bang" occurred. Neither science nor religion has any handle on the rest of those concepts.

Because we've always believed that religion had the answers (which in my opinion it never did) we expect science to be able to provide them all in turn. But no only does it not do so, it's showing us that not only do we not know the answers, in many instances we dont even have meaningfull questions.

- Peter.

Originally posted by pj67coll
"How was the universe designed? How could it be formed out of nothing? Something had to have made the Big Bang, so what could it have been?

If there was nothing before the universe then why is there something now?"

Those are all excellent questions.
- Peter.

I don't think that any physics can define what happened until some billionths or so of a second, post "Big Bang". Everything before that is up for grabs. As I understand it (poorly!) there are three exclusive models. One postulates that the universe will expand infinitely; another that it will expand to some limit; and a third that it will collapse upon itself. The solution depends upon how much matter there is and how fast everything is expanding. The expansion part is pretty widely understood and accepted. The amount of stuff, the mass of stuff, and the distribution of stuff is open for argument.

Some folks believe in the existence of massive amounts of unseen, undetectible matter that is distributed throughout the universe. The last time scientists postulated this they called it, "ether." (That theory disappeared with some elegant physics during the previous century or so, and then Einstein coup'd it's gras.) There is ambiguous evidence of this stuff. If there's enough of it then the universe will collapse into a "Big Crunch"--a blackhole that consumes everything and all energy. Some people like this because it gives a sort of continuity--some propose that a "Big Crunch" begets a "Big Bang" and the universe is thus a sort of flashing light. This has a sort of Hindu symmetry, IMO. Infinite incarnations, etc.

The equilibrium theory sound silly--how could something so big just balance-out?

The infinite expansion theory allows the universe to expand and expand and grow dimmer and dimmer until every particle and every wave of energy degrade into infinitely still, absolute coldness. This is an Abrahamic monotheists view, IMO. One creation, etc.

It is very likely that we will know the answer to this question within a decade. That's cool, because apparently, the Aztec Calendar is coming to an end too and also there may be a big-ass-teroid hurtling toward us at about the same time.

Now's the time to float a huge loan with a balloon payment due in about 15 years.

Botnst

I did see a lecture on the U of Washington channel about the big bang thing. it seems they have used the dopler-shift thing to check the speed of the universe's expansion. They actually expected to see evidence of a slowing (somehow), indicating that the big bang is cyclical. But what they found is it is not slowing down. It appeared constant.

We can only speculate about the fate of the universe. I do not believe our questions will ever be answered fully as when one of them is answered, several more will arise.

Besides; who cares about the universe if you're not going to exist anymore once you die? Once you're dead, you're dead! Since you cannot avoid the inevitable, why not have fun with your life? Act in impure and boorish ways; steal, lie, cheat, kill, have immoral sex aplenty. Live life the way you want to, as there is nothing left after death. Just go crazy and act upon your wildest desires! At least, if I didn't believe in anything, I would do that stuff. Why not?:p

Since I am reverent with the Lord, I do not act in that manner.

As far as the Bible being far-fetched and religion being incompatible with science, what about the book of Revelations? The environment described about the earth's end is VERY similar as to what would happen if the sun went nova. And it will someday. We all know that.

Originally posted by DslBnz
Besides; who cares about the universe if you're not going to exist anymore once you die? Once you're dead, you're dead! Since you cannot avoid the inevitable, why not have fun with your life?

Gosh DslBnz, for a moment there I thought you were going to parody, "Ecclesiates". To me, that and Noah's lament (and God's response) are philosophically the best questions asked in the Bible.

What do you think, Kerry?

Botnst

I was with him up to that point, but the subsequent logic lost me.

I'm assuming that once DslBnz gets to heaven he will turn into one nasty bastard since the threat of hell will then be removed.;)

It strikes me that the afterlife is no solution either to the question of the meaning of existence or reasons to be moral. In the afterlife (should there be one--an unlikely possibilty in my opinion) we will still have questions about the meaning of our lives and the reasons we might find compelling to be decent people.

He said have fun. Why not bondage?

Originally posted by kerry edwards
I was with him up to that point, but the subsequent logic lost me.

I'm assuming that once DslBnz gets to heaven he will turn into one nasty bastard since the threat of hell will then be removed.;)


Sorry, I already am one!:D


[/B]It strikes me that the afterlife is no solution either to the question of the meaning of existence or reasons to be moral. In the afterlife (should there be one--an unlikely possibilty in my opinion) we will still have questions about the meaning of our lives and the reasons we might find compelling to be decent people. [/B]

Heck, though. If there was no afterlife, why care about anybody else but yourself? Who cares about discovering answers to questions when we're going to end up in darkness, anyway. Live your life to the fullest, I say. Chances are, you will never discover anything of great importance. Your effect over the next millenium of which billions of years have already passed since the creation of earth will have less of an equivalence then a dust speck accumulating on a W140 dashboard, no matter how great you may be. Unless of course you were Christ.

As far as I have observed, morality is based on Christian principles. Mainly the incorporation of the ten commandments. Just look at a Godless country like China. See how corrupt they are? It is because they have no beliefs, and as such they are an immoral, erratic society of poor people.

In the afterlife, many of our questions will be answered. We will be able to understand His plan for us, and the universe. Our minds in their current state cannot comprehend the great omniscence of God. It is impossible.

Good night, and let the thread roll on.:o ;)

Originally posted by kerry edwards
IIt strikes me that the afterlife is no solution either to the question of the meaning of existence or reasons to be moral. In the afterlife (should there be one--an unlikely possibilty in my opinion) we will still have questions about the meaning of our lives and the reasons we might find compelling to be decent people.

Hmmmm.
I guess all I can do, is fall back on the beliefs on my particular faith, since this gets into an area where there are as many concepts of the afterlife as there are religions.
We believe the whole point of this life is to achieve the highest reward in heaven. There will be differing levels of that reward depending on what we do with what we know as truths. Ok. That's a good summery there.
When we die, yes, we'll still have questions. But one that will obviously be answered right off, is the one we're talking about......Is there an afterlife?
We believe however, that our growth and learning will not come to a screaching halt at death. We believe in a concept we call "Eternal progression", meaning we will continue to learn and grow, ect. But It gets really difficult to make a brief synopsis of this at this point, so I'll leave it there.
So, that gets back to "why worry"? Ok. Say I "believe", and do my utmost to live agood life, blah, blah. I die, and oops! Kerry was right!:eek: What have I lost? Well, not a darn thing. it won't matter either way. But, I had a good life, and in turn helped those around me to have a good life, ect, ect.
Ok. I don't believe. I die. There's nothing. What have I lost? At that point, nothing. It doesn't matter anymore. Except to those I leave behind. If I did a decent job in life great. If I was an asshole, no biggie to me, but bad for those whose toes I stepped on.
Ok. I die. Hey! There is a light to go towards after all:cool: Awesome!! What have I lost by living as good a life as I could? Nothing. What have I gained? Everything! But say I belonged to the wrong church, and my particular beliefs were wrong? Well, we believe that everyone, in this life or the next, will have the chance to grab onto the correct principles. The catch is, if you had that chance in this life, and walked away from it, well, hey, that was your chance. Bad for you.
This is a very condensed version of our beliefs, but good enough for here.

Originally posted by kerry edwards
I guess where we differ is on the question of evidence. I think all theories need to be related to some set of evidence. Whether a given theory is far fetched or not, I think that whether we believe it or not should be determined by the evidence.

For instance, I find it farfetched that our act of observing a light beam has the effect of determining which route the photons took to my eye. However there is evidence to support it. On the other hand, I don't see any evidence that the universe was designed by an intelligent mind.

kerry edwards wrote:


For instance, I find it farfetched that our act of observing a light beam has the effect of determining which route the photons took to my eye. However there is evidence to support it. On the other hand, I don't see any evidence that the universe was designed by an intelligent mind.

MATERIALISM!

The inconsistency of the modern mechanist is: If this were merely a material universe and man only a machine, such a man would be wholly unable to recognize himself as such a machine, and likewise would such a machine-man be wholly unconscious of the fact of the existence of such a material universe. The materialistic dismay and despair of a mechanistic science has failed to recognize the fact of the spirit-indwelt mind of the scientist whose very supermaterial insight formulates these mistaken and self-contradictory concepts of a materialistic universe.


Materialism reduces man to a soulless automaton and constitutes him merely an arithmetical symbol finding a helpless place in the mathematical formula of an unromantic and mechanistic universe. But whence comes all this vast universe of mathematics without a Master Mathematician? Science may expatiate on the conservation of matter, but religion validates the conservation of men's souls -- it concerns their experience with spiritual realities and eternal values.

To say that mind "emerged" from matter explains nothing. If the universe were merely a mechanism and mind were unapart from matter, we would never have two differing interpretations of any observed phenomenon. The concepts of truth, beauty, and goodness are not inherent in either physics or chemistry. A machine cannot know, much less know truth, hunger for righteousness, and cherish goodness.

Science may be physical, but the mind of the truth-discerning scientist is at once supermaterial. Matter knows not truth, neither can it love mercy nor delight in spiritual realities. Moral convictions based on spiritual enlightenment and rooted in human experience are just as real and certain as mathematical deductions based on physical observations, but on another and higher level. If men were only machines, they would react more or less uniformly to a material universe. Individuality, much less personality, would be nonexistent.

How foolish it is for material-minded man to allow such vulnerable theories as those of a mechanistic universe to deprive him of the vast spiritual resources of the personal experience of his true Self. Facts never quarrel with real spiritual faith; theories may. Better that science should be devoted to the destruction of superstition rather than attempting the overthrow of spiritual faith -- human belief in spiritual realities and divine values.

Science should do for man materially what spirituality does for him spiritually: extend the horizon of life and enlarge his personality. True science can have no lasting quarrel with true spirituality. The "scientific method" is merely an intellectual yardstick wherewith to measure material adventures and physical achievements. But being material and wholly intellectual, it is utterly useless in the evaluation of spiritual realities and experiences.

That's an interesting piece, but seems like an odd response to my comment.
When I said that we should connect our beliefs to the evidence even if they seem farfetched, I meant that it is hard to believe that our consciousness produces a universe and has an apparent effect on events millions of years ago. So, I was not arguing in favor of a mechanistic universe but in connecting belief with evidence.

Your argument seems to presume that there is Truth, Beauty and Goodness. I take the question of God to be whether there are such things not just whether some people think there are such things.

Originally posted by DslBnz
Just look at a Godless country like China. See how corrupt they are? It is because they have no beliefs, and as such they are an immoral, erratic society of poor people.


That's terrible. Nation full of rapists and thugs. Such barbarians, and poor as well which makes it worse because the only way they know how to live is by force. You know they had to hijack a spacecraft to send the first Chinese into space.

Confucius established the most long lasting non-theistic ethical system known to humanity. How anyone could imagine that a Confucian society was immoral is beyond me.

Confucius! The much misunderstood protaganist in every joke which starts with "Confucius says..."

This must be where the Chinese developed their love of heurisms. I never really thought of Confucius as a moral philosopher, but more as a person who could bring out, in one sentence, profound and simple truths about how to live life.

Kuan:
Are you suggesting there is a difference between a moral philosopher and someone who can provide simple truths about how to live life!

I recall reading a book by CS Lewis about 25 years ago about ethics and human nature. I believe there was an appendix devoted to Confucian humanism.

I once saw a Confucian church in Tucson. I did not have a chance to visit it but I have never seen another. There are a number of American pragmatists drawn to Confucious because of his non-metaphyscial moral philosophy.

Kuan:
Are you suggesting there is a difference between a moral philosopher and someone who can provide simple truths about how to live life!

I either am, or am not. ;)

Okay, perhaps that answer lacked profundity, but at least it's true. But so is Ayn Rand when she says A=A, and even GW's speechwriters get it right once in awhile.

Life would be so much easier if it could be condensed into a book of one liners. Some books have been written in this style, "The Canoeists Little Book of Wisdom" being one of them. Full of truisms but lacking in detail.

This is where I show my biases. Being raised in the Eastern Tradition meant being exposed to these "truisms." But our family adopted a look west policy, no doubt a hangover delevoped during western imperialistic years. We were taught that western academics was better, period, and that we should save Eastern philosophy for when we were drunk.

Perhaps you're right Kerry. There may not be a distinction.

Something happened.

A person you trust to be rational tells you what he saw. How do you know whether his account is accurate?

Probably you go through a series of thoughts like, "Have I ever had a similar observation?" "Have other people whom I trust seen anything similar?" "Is there physical evidence of the thing having happened as described?" Eventually you build a model for what you think happened. Perhaps its at variance with the initial report. You then ask if there's a way to frame the observation so that it can be repeated.

But if its a one-shot event, what do you do? Assume it didn't happen? Assume that because your model and the observer's model fail to conform, the observer must be in error?

Oh, how about rejecting observations that don't conform to your expectations?

Botnst

Originally posted by Botnst
Something happened.

A person you trust to be rational tells you what he saw. How do you know whether his account is accurate?

Probably you go through a series of thoughts like, "Have I ever had a similar observation?" "Have other people whom I trust seen anything similar?" "Is there physical evidence of the thing having happened as described?" Eventually you build a model for what you think happened. Perhaps its at variance with the initial report. You then ask if there's a way to frame the observation so that it can be repeated.

But if its a one-shot event, what do you do? Assume it didn't happen? Assume that because your model and the observer's model fail to conform, the observer must be in error?

Oh, how about rejecting observations that don't conform to your expectations?

Botnst

Sounds like a visit to the Mercedes dealer. In this case, you call the regional rep.

Originally posted by Rasputin
MATERIALISM!

The inconsistency of the modern mechanist is: If this were merely a material universe and man only a machine, such a man would be wholly unable to recognize himself as such a machine, and likewise would such a machine-man be wholly unconscious of the fact of the existence of such a material universe.

Rasputin, have you met "Bard ii"? I think you share a vision of life.

Kerry, I think Rasputin has offered an interesting perspective that challenges both of us (Kerry and Botnst),...assuming we're both materialists of some sort or other.

There was a mathematician named Von Neuman who proposed a model for a self-replicating machine. I wish I could remember the name of the little book he wrote about it. Anyway, his machine carried in itself the instruction for its own replication. His model didn't address self-awareness. I wonder if it could. There seems to be evidence that self-awareness is partially taught and partically learned.

For example, a normal baby if properly nurtured becomes self-aware after a few months, after delivery. But a child reared in extreme sensory deprivation, after a certain amount of time, may never develop a functional personality. But is that child self-aware? I don't know.

What do you think, Rasputin?

Botnst

Botnst:
Yes, Rasputin has brought Plato into the discussion. Daniel Dennett's 'Consciousness Explained' is a response to Rasputin's metaphysical speculations. I believe we need more than just the assertion that a materialist universe would not result in self-awareness. We are self aware but that simple fact in and of itself is no disproof of materialism.
There was also the claim to spiritual realities. Empirical realities seem fairly obvious to most people but spiritual realities need a reason to believe beyond the simple assertions that they are there.

Was Rasputin quoting someone in that post?

Originally posted by kerry edwards
I believe we need more than just the assertion that a materialist universe would not result in self-awareness.

Was Rasputin quoting someone in that post?

I don't know about Rasputin's thought processes or origins of ideas, but I find his observations intriguing. Thanks for the pointer to Dennett's book--I'll get a loan from my library (as a challenge to myself and Mikemover, how does a loaner from a library differ from "temporarily" downloading music--say, "Doubledrive's" latest...?)

Anyway, I think Rasputin would use the evidence of present-day machine intelligence (none) as an argument against machine self-awareness. I think the question is this: "is it reasonable to assume that a machine of indefinite complexity could become self-aware, or is self awareness dependent upon some ineffable quality of life?" My proposition is that the baby model may be an answer: a baby brought-up in an appropriately stimulating environment develops self awareness whilst a baby raised in a deprived environment does not. What sort of environment would stimulate a mchine "baby" into self-awareness?

Isn't there a prima facie case that highly evolved animals do develop self awareness on their own since it 'naturally' happens? I have not noticed any divine being adding self-awareness to what happens in the normal course of events.

A challenging book, and even more challenging for the diehard dualist. The chapters where he tackles Intentionality and where he walks you through the phenomenological garden were very interesting, but I still don't think his overall analogy between brain and computer quite correct. Something doesn't sit right, smacks of functionalism in a different guise.

As far as I have observed, morality is based on Christian principles. Mainly the incorporation of the ten commandments. Just look at a Godless country like China. See how corrupt they are? It is because they have no beliefs, and as such they are an immoral, erratic society of poor people.

Now that makes sense!

Originally posted by kerry edwards
Isn't there a prima facie case that highly evolved animals do develop self awareness on their own since it 'naturally' happens? I have not noticed any divine being adding self-awareness to what happens in the normal course of events.

Okay, lets talk hairy apes. We have a huge DNA similarity with them and there is evidence to suggest that great apes can be taught language to some degree. Folks argue about whether this is a form of self-awareness (ape self-awareness seems like an analogue to the perpetual retreat of religion from science...). I believe that eventually we will deduce some presently unknown combination that unlocks great ape sentience--a method similar to, but different from human cognitive development.

In other words, I believe that human self-awareness is hard-wired potentiality but requires just exactly the right sequence, form, and timing of stimulation to realize that potentiality. I suppose that a unique set of combinations exists for each species of great apes.

If my proposition is wrong, then despite a high degree of genetic similarity no stimulation could develop great ape self-awareness, would that say anything about us?

At the very least it support a claim of human uniqueness.

Botnst

Originally posted by kerry edwards
Isn't there a prima facie case that highly evolved animals do develop self awareness on their own since it 'naturally' happens? I have not noticed any divine being adding self-awareness to what happens in the normal course of events.

If DD were correct in saying that we can we can describe ape behaviour in Intentional (capital I) terms, then chess playing machines would be self aware.

Our problem then is not how apes develop self awareness, but whether they develop self awareness of the same kind that humans do. I doubt that apes experience the same kind of "me-ness" for the lack of a better word, or personal identity as humans. In fact, adopting an Intentional explanation for ape behaviour would be tantamount to asking if humans had minds! We're pretty much too anthropocentric to deny it so off we go in search of simian minds.

Originally posted by Kuan
....Our problem then is not how apes develop self awareness, but whether they develop self awareness of the same kind that humans do. ....

I doubt that apes experience the same kind of "me-ness" for the lack of a better word, or personal identity as humans.

Dang Kuan! I thought I'd boxed-in a testable hypothesis and you point-out a problem in less time than it took to build the model.

How's this: According to evolution theory, we're all derived by of the same stuff and by the same processes. Therefore, we should have developed common perceptions of the environment. This degree of commonality should result in common perception of things like physical principle (ie, items drop when released; hot things are dangerous, etc). As evidence, I offer a dog pursuing a frisbee and a snake avoiding fire. Etc.

Thus, we may not share emotional responses to cultural stimuli but we should share physical perceptions. If that's so, then we have a basis for comunication.

Will Jane Goodall please chime in? :)

That's pretty close to what's called the paradigm case argument in philosophy. Normally called upon when debating the existence of other minds, but not so often in trying to determine whether apes have minds :)

First of all, we're not the same, and the processes which led to our current evolutionary status aren't either. If they were then apes would be able to work a calculator. This leads to the notion of similiarity. How similiar are we and what criteria do we use to determine similiarity? Have we accounted for every trait, emergent or otherwise?

I'm willing to grant that we can communicate with apes, but in a purely behavioral sense. There's no indication that Koko or her peers could put two and two together and come up with four, or five, as some humans seem to be able to do. If communication is just no more than a physical reaction, then yes. I do believe that we can communicate with apes. But I actually believe that communication is much more than that.

Food for thought: How would you communicate with a "superior" intelligence?

I gotta eat, I just grilled a two inch steak.

How about birds instead of apes?

http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/pepperberg03/pepperberg_index.html

Dang that steak was good.

From Koko to birdbrains. If a that "damn bird" were able to somehow achieve hierarchal knowledge, why can it not then achive even more? OK so it doesn't have a Broca's area of the brain, but if there are built in rules then why can't the silly bird, or birds in general, come up with 2x2=4?

I don't believe it one bit.

Did you hear about the horse which could do all kinds of mathematics? It was finally revealed that the horse couldn't do coordinate geometry. Proof that you can't put Descartes before DeHorse.

Rasputin stated...

"Science should do for man materially what spirituality does for him spiritually: extend the horizon of life and enlarge his personality."

Science is not constrained to do anything for man at all. It is simply a way of thinking which enables us to discover the truth about physical reality.

"True science can have no lasting quarrel with true spirituality."

Define what you mean by "true spirituality". If by that you mean a supernatural existance outside the realm of the physical reality of science, then science not only can but does quarrel with that most forcefully. And with good reason as there is not only no evidence for said supernatural world in the physical reality revealed to us by science but, every confrontation between science and such spiritulity has resulted in science's triumph.

"The "scientific method" is merely an intellectual yardstick wherewith to measure material adventures and physical achievements."

The scientific method is the only way we have to discover the reality of the physical universe. It is rooted in experiment and observation and as such is fundamentally different than any form of philosophy or theology.

"But being material and wholly intellectual, it is utterly useless in the evaluation of spiritual realities and experiences.""

Once again I challenge you to define "spiritual reality". If by that you mean being moved to deep emotion on experiencing a beautiful piece of music or art work or such, you are merely speaking about human emotions. These are no less moving for being a product purely of our physical selves interacting with the material universe, and by some definitions could be considered "spiritual". But there is not a shred of evidence to suggest they are connected to an invisible supernatural world.

If by "spiritiual reality" you mean the exisitance of said supernatural world you are simply stating a religious belief that has no basis in the physical universe and thus is utterly irellivant to science which has no interest in attempting to evaluate it.

- Peter.

Soooooo.....

Have you guys solved all the world's problems yet? :p

I had to take a breather and get outside for some sunshine and fellowship with fellow car nuts! :D I returned last evening from the Euro 2003 Auto Festival with a 2nd Place finish in the MB coupes class for my CLK :cool:

I steered a few folks to this site.....hopefully, they will find as much entertaining and thought-provoking discussion as I have :D

To Kerry, pj67coll{Peter), Botnst and all others who have so much contributed to this important, transcendental and exceedingly interesting post:-

To Kerry: " That's an interesting piece, but seems like an odd response to my comment."

Yes, the response would seem, in isolation, as and "odd" response to your comment. I validate fully your perception on this point. But my response was initially to address the various and multifarious comments of all other contributants to this fascinating post, and, your post served as the catalytic that triggered my response, by your comment :
" On the other hand, I don't see any evidence that the universe was designed by an intelligent mind." would imply by default that the universe is a purely material and mechanistic event. Likewise, the following response also intends to address other's comments, attitudes and stances.





Personal, spiritual experience is an efficient solvent for most of man's difficulties; it is an effective sorter, evaluator, and adjuster of all human problems. Spiritual consciousness does not remove or destroy human troubles, but it does dissolve, absorb, illuminate, and transcend them. True spirituality unifies the personality for effective adjustment to all human requirements. Spiritual faith -- the positive leading of the indwelling divine presence -- unfailingly enables the God-knowing man to bridge that gulf existing between the intellectual logic which recognizes the Universal First Cause as It and those positive affirmations of the soul which aver this First Cause

There are just three elements in universal reality as I see it: fact, idea, and relation. The spiritual consciousness identifies these realities as science, philosophy, and truth. Philosophy would be inclined to view these activities as reason, wisdom, and faith -- physical reality, intellectual reality, and spiritual reality. We are in the habit of designating these realities as thing, meaning, and value.

The progressive comprehension of reality is the equivalent of approaching God. The finding of God, the consciousness of identity with reality, is the equivalent of the experiencing of self-completion -- self-entirety, self-totality. The experiencing of total reality is the full realization of God, the finality of the God-knowing experience.

The full summation of human life is the knowledge that man is educated by fact, ennobled by wisdom, and saved -- justified -- by spiritual faith.
Physical certainty consists in the logic of science; moral certainty, in the wisdom of philosophy; spiritual certainty, in the truth of genuine experience. The mind of man can attain high levels of spiritual insight and corresponding spheres of divinity of values because it is not wholly material. There is a spirit nucleus in the mind of man -- the spark of the divine presence.

There are three separate evidences of this spirit indwelling of the human mind:
Humanitarian fellowship -- love. The purely animal mind may be gregarious for self-protection, but only the spirit-indwelt intellect is unselfishly altruistic and unconditionally loving. Interpretation of the universe -- wisdom. Only the spirit-indwelt mind can comprehend that the universe is friendly to the individual. Spiritual evaluation of life -- worship. Only the spirit-indwelt man can realize the divine presence and seek to attain a fuller experience in and with this foretaste of divinity.

The human mind does not create real values; human experience does not yield universe insight. Concerning insight, the recognition of moral values and the discernment of spiritual meanings, all that the human mind can do is to discover, recognize, interpret, and choose.
The moral values of the universe become intellectual possessions by the exercise of the three basic judgments, or choices, of the mortal mind: Self-judgment -- moral choice. Social-judgment -- ethical choice. God-judgment -- spiritual choice.

Unless a divine lover lived in man, he could not unselfishly and spiritually love. Unless an interpreter lived in the mind, man could not truly realize the unity of the universe. Unless an evaluator dwelt with man, he could not possibly appraise moral values and recognize spiritual meanings. And this lover hails from the very source of infinite love; this interpreter is a part of Universal Unity; this evaluator is the child of the Center and Source of all absolute values of divine and eternal reality.

Moral evaluation with a religious meaning -- spiritual insight -- connotes the individual's choice between good and evil, truth and error, material and spiritual, human and divine, time and eternity. Human survival is in great measure dependent on consecrating the human will to the choosing of those values selected by this spirit-value sorter -- the indwelling interpreter and unifier.

Personal spiritual experience consists in two phases: discovery in the human mind and revelation by the indwelling divine spirit. Through oversophistication or as a result of the irreligious conduct of professed religionists, a man, or even a generation of men, may elect to suspend their efforts to discover the God who indwells them; they may fail to progress in and attain the divine self revelation. But such attitudes of spiritual non-progression cannot long persist because of the presence and influence of the indwelling spirit.

This profound experience of the reality of the divine indwelling forever transcends the crude materialistic technique of the physical sciences. You cannot put spiritual joy under a microscope; you cannot weigh love in a balance; you cannot measure moral values; neither can you estimate the quality of spiritual worship.

Every time man makes a reflective moral choice, he immediately experiences a new divine invasion of his soul. Moral choosing constitutes spirituality as the motive of inner response to outer conditions. But such a real spirit is not a purely subjective experience. It signifies the whole of the subjectivity of the individual engaged in a meaningful and intelligent response to total objectivity -- the universe and its Maker.

The exquisite and transcendent experience of loving and being loved is not just a psychic illusion because it is so purely subjective. The one truly divine and objective reality that is associated with self-aware beings, the soul, functions to human observation apparently as an exclusively subjective phenomenon. Man's contact with the highest objective reality, God, is only through the purely subjective experience of realizing his origin and destiny. True spiritual awareness is not a futile monologue of self-deception. This awareness is a personal communion with that which is divinely real, with that which is the very source of reality. Man aspires by this consciousness to be better and thereby eventually attains the best.

Psychology and idealism are not the equivalent of spiritual reality. The projections of the human intellect may indeed originate false gods -- gods in man's image -- but the true God-consciousness does not have such an origin. The God-consciousness is resident in the indwelling spirit. Many of the religious systems of man come from the formulations of the human intellect, but the God-consciousness is not necessarily a part of these grotesque systems of religious slavery.

God is not the mere invention of man's idealism; he is the very source of all such superanimal insights and values. God is not a hypothesis formulated to unify the human concepts of truth, beauty, and goodness; he is the personality of love from whom all of these universe manifestations are derived. The truth, beauty, and goodness of man's world are unified by the increasing spirituality of the experience of man ascending toward spiritual realitiy. The unity of truth, beauty, and goodness can only be realized in the spiritual experience of the God-knowing personality.

It'll take me a while to digest your post so I can't construct a coherent reply at the moment. I can however, make a quick response to one of your early paragraphs.
To state that there is no evidence of an intelligent designer, is not to state that the universe is mechanistic and material. The third option is agnosticism concerning the universe's ultimate source. The universe is 'just there', just like God who be 'just there' if there were such a thing.

Rasputin, just so I wont feel totally inadequate...please tell me you didn't sit down and write that argument off the top of your head as you sipped a shaken, not stirred vodka martini.

I'm going back to "Classic Comics" and learn some more literature now.

:eek:
So, like, is this what I missed by not going to college? Or are you guys just really that deep? Man, am I out classed here.:o But keep at it. I'm joining Botnst at the comic book section:D

Class number two was last night. Our 'crash course' in Hinduism.....taught by our Christain professor from India. Really interesting perspective :)

Next week....Buddhism.

Originally posted by rickg
:eek:
So, like, is this what I missed by not going to college? Or are you guys just really that deep? Man, am I out classed here.:o But keep at it. I'm joining Botnst at the comic book section:D

Uh, actually be glad you missed some of this stuff in college :)

Originally posted by Kuan
Uh, actually be glad you missed some of this stuff in college :)
Yeah. No wonder people have a hard time accepting religion. This kind of overly-deep philosophy stuff has to totally mess up your way of thinking. Reminds me of the Bible verse "ever learning, but never able to come to a knowledge of the truth"
Now, where's that Spiderman comic:D

Gotta be careful with that thinking stuff. It can get way outta hand.

Look what happened to Socrates.

Anyway, I think Rasputin would use the evidence of present-day machine intelligence (none) as an argument against machine self-awareness. I think the question is this: "is it reasonable to assume that a machine of indefinite complexity could become self-aware, or is self awareness dependent upon some ineffable quality of life?" My proposition is that the baby model may be an answer: a baby brought-up in an appropriately stimulating environment develops self awareness whilst a baby raised in a deprived environment does not. What sort of environment would stimulate a mchine "baby" into self-awareness?

For example, a normal baby if properly nurtured becomes self-aware after a few months, after delivery. But a child reared in extreme sensory deprivation, after a certain amount of time, may never develop a functional personality. But is that child self-aware? I don't know.

What do you think, Rasputin?
Botnst




In all concepts of selfhood, Botnst, it should be recognized that the fact of life comes first, its evaluation or interpretation later. The human child first lives and subsequently thinks about his living. In the cosmic economy insight precedes foresight. Parts of the self may function in numerous ways -- thinking, feeling, wishing -- but only the co-ordinated attributes of the whole personality are focused in intelligent action; and all of these powers are associated with the spiritual endowment of the mortal mind when a human being sincerely and unselfishly loves another being, human or divine.

All of man's concepts of reality are based on the assumption of the actuality of human personality; Everything nonspiritual in human experience, excepting personality, is a means to an end. Every true relationship of man with other persons is an end in itself.
The possession of personality identifies man as a spiritual being since the unity of selfhood and the self-consciousness of personality are endowments of the supermaterial world. The very fact that a materialist can deny the existence of supermaterial realities in and of itself demonstrates the presence, and indicates the working, of spirit synthesis and cosmic consciousness in his human mind.

There exists a great cosmic gulf between matter and thought, and this gulf is immeasurably greater between material mind and spiritual love. Consciousness, much less self-consciousness, cannot be explained by any theory of mechanistic electronic association or materialistic energy phenomena.

As mind pursues reality to its ultimate analysis, matter vanishes to the material senses but may still remain real to mind. When spiritual insight pursues that reality which remains after the disappearance of matter and pursues it to an ultimate analysis, it vanishes to mind, but the insight of spirit can still perceive cosmic realities and supreme values of a spiritual nature. Accordingly does science give way to philosophy, while philosophy must surrender to the conclusions inherent in genuine spiritual experience. Thinking surrenders to wisdom, and wisdom is lost in enlightened and reflective spiritual insight.
In science the human self observes the material world; philosophy is the observation of this observation of the material world; true spiritual experience, is the experiential realization of the cosmic reality of the observation of the observation of all this relative synthesis of the energy materials of time and space. To build a philosophy of the universe on an exclusive materialism is to ignore the fact that all things material are initially conceived as real in the experience of human consciousness. The observer cannot be the thing observed; evaluation demands some degree of transcendence of the thing which is evaluated.

In time, thinking leads to wisdom and wisdom leads to spiritual insight; in eternity, spiritual insight leads to wisdom, and wisdom eventuates in the finality of thought.

The possibility of the unification of the evolving self is inherent in the qualities of its constitutive factors: the basic energies, the master tissues, the fundamental chemical overcontrol, the supreme ideas, the supreme motives, the supreme goals, and the spiritual Source -- the secret of the self-consciousness of man's spiritual nature.

The purpose of cosmic evolution is to achieve unity of personality through increasing spirit dominance, volitional response to the teaching and leading of spiritual insight. Human personality is characterized by an inherent cosmic quality which may be called "the evolution of dominance," the expansion of the control of both itself and its environment.

Rasputin, just so I wont feel totally inadequate...please tell me you didn't sit down and write that argument off the top of your head as you sipped a shaken, not stirred vodka martini.


This time, Botsnt, the thing that "stirred" me (but not shaken) to sit down and write the above argument was your challenging mind, your articulated expressions, your subtle perceptivity and your candid attempt to adjudicate to your good-self a feeling of inadequacy, that I know it is not genuine. You Botsnt, in particular, are amongst those in this forum with the least claim to those feelings!…. Thank you for being Yourself.

Originally posted by rickg
Yeah. No wonder people have a hard time accepting religion. This kind of overly-deep philosophy stuff has to totally mess up your way of thinking. Reminds me of the Bible verse "ever learning, but never able to come to a knowledge of the truth"
Now, where's that Spiderman comic:D



Rick, I love your wits!. You have unwittingly put your finger in a very deep truth;-
-Is faith (the supreme assertion of human thought) desirable?. Then must the human mind find itself in the troublesome predicament where it ever knows less than it can believe.

People have a hard time accepting religion because we're all taught that truth requires proof. Most of us cling to that proposition and live our lives by that maxim, or some variation theroff. But it is my contention that faith requires no proof, and that a fulfilling religious life can be had withouth appeal to science. Faith, by definition, has nothing to do with proof.

An often used analogy about the nature of faith is a young child's faith in his father. The child has absolute confidence that his father can do anything, and the father can, but only up to the point of the child's basic comprehension of the world around him. For most of us, our dad could do no wrong. If dad said they could do it no proof was needed. Eventually, at some point in our lives we find out that dad isn't so super after all, and at some times we find ourselves at odds with him. But we don't stop loving our parents, even if they're not superhuman anymore.

If you accept that explanation of faith, then you must conclude that faith requires no proof.

On to truth. If faith requires no proof, then what is truth? To take it a step farther, does faith imply truth? Are these just things that best left to science? I think the latter to be the case. If faith requires no proof, then it is safe to say that faith operates with different "rules" that does science; because science requires proof. To even say that there are rules to faith is antithetical to faith, as saying so implies that the language of faith is the same as that of science. We can't ask for faith to have the same criteria as science, and we can't ask for my faith to have the same criteria as yours. (sound Wittgensteinian yet?)

To sum it up, faith require no proof, and truth should be left to science. Two different worlds which can exist peacefully together.

The 'two truths' idea seems common when there is a conflict between traditional ideas and new discoveries. It existed in medieval Europe. It certainly allows for an individual to accomodate conflicting ideas. However, one problem I see is that for many religious people, religious beliefs are the equivalent of scientific beliefs despite the fact that they are not supported by critical test and examination. As a practical matter, this means that many religious people want their beliefs to rule in the public realm even though they are only justifiable by faith. Fundamentalist Islam in our world is a good example of this.

But if religion is going to function in the public sphere it has to engage in open public debate and consideration. Can you elaborate on how this is possible if religion functions according to different rules than the public rules of science?

To say that religion cannot be put in a test tube, and run a series of tests on it, is not entirely true. I'm not a great at quoting scripture (lucky you;) ), but there is a verse where Jesus is teaching, and is asked if what he is teaching his own philosophy, or that of God. His answer goes something like "if ye shall know my will (meaning if Jesus's will is his own, or Gods), live my words, and ye shall know if it is my will, or God's" That's a real bad quote, but the general idea is there.
Anyway, the proof is in the pudding, so to speak. There's is only one way to "prove" theology. You have to study it, and try it out. That's how I did it. It will start to work in your life, if you start out with just a hint of hope(faith). It'll be it's own proof. Now, will this be proof to others? Some, yes, some, no. Each must run his/her own experiments. Ok, you say youu were raised Catholic(for instance) and it didn't work for you. Does that disprove all the others? I think not.
(I do find it interesting that most all agnostics I've ever met were raised Catholic however. Strange.)

You anticipate my next move Kerry. In otherwords, how do two different paradigms with two different modes of explanation exist in the same world and even "make sense" when brought together under the same roof? How does meaningful discourse occur when both systems use such seemingly different methods of discovery?

We're back to square one. I think we've talked about this before. I maintain that we if we can speak meaningfully about fiction, we can speak meaningfully about religion and science in the same sentence. I think this is essentially the anti-realist position which cuts away the need for an external world in order for us to have communicate. It's not that there isn't an external world, it's just that we don't need it.

However, one problem I see is that for many religious people, religious beliefs are the equivalent of scientific beliefs despite the fact that they are not supported by critical test and examination.

I don't know what to say. ;) I'm right, You're right. The truths of science and religion are neither equipotent nor equivalent. Some may say that the religious truths are in fact more potent... capable of effecting more social change than the unmoved mover himself. Your concerns are social, my answer is epistemological.

In response to Kuan and Kerry on the certainty of religious faith:-


The relation between the creature and the Creator is a living experience, a dynamic religious faith, which is not subject to precise definition as Kuan rightly stated. To isolate part of life and call it religion is to disintegrate life and to distort religion.

The religionist of philosophic attainment has faith in a personal God of personal salvation, something more than a reality, a value, a level of achievement, an exalted process, a transmutation, the ultimate of time-space, an idealization, the personalization of energy, the entity of gravity, a human projection, the idealization of self, nature's upthrust, the inclination to goodness, the forward impulse of evolution, or a sublime hypothesis.


Faith transforms the philosophic God of probability into the saving God of certainty in the personal religious experience. Skepticism may challenge the theories of theology, but confidence in the dependability of personal experience affirms the truth of that belief which has grown into faith.


Convictions about God may be arrived at through wise reasoning, but the individual becomes God-knowing only by faith, through personal experience. In much that pertains to life, probability must be reckoned with, but when contacting with cosmic reality, certainty may be experienced when such meanings and values are approached by living faith. The God-knowing soul dares to say, "I know," even when this knowledge of God is questioned by the unbeliever who denies such certitude because it is not wholly supported by intellectual logic. To every such doubter the believer only replies, "How do you know that I do not know?"


Though reason can always question faith, faith can always supplement both reason and logic. Reason creates the probability which faith can transform into a moral certainty, even a spiritual experience. God is the first truth and the last fact; therefore does all truth take origin in him, while all facts exist relative to him. God is absolute truth. As truth one may know God, but to understand -- to explain -- God, one must explore the fact of the universe of universes. The vast gulf between the experience of the truth of God and ignorance as to the fact of God can be bridged only by living faith. Reason alone cannot achieve harmony between infinite truth and universal fact.


Belief may not be able to resist doubt and withstand fear, but faith is always triumphant over doubting, for faith is both positive and living. The positive always has the advantage over the negative, truth over error, experience over theory, spiritual realities over the isolated facts of time and space. The convincing evidence of this spiritual certainty consists in the social fruits of the spirit which such believers, faithers, yield as a result of this genuine spiritual experience.


To science God is a possibility, to psychology a desirability, to philosophy a probability, to religion a certainty, an actuality of religious experience. Reason demands that a philosophy which cannot find the God of probability should be very respectful of that religious faith which can and does find the God of certitude. Neither should science discount religious experience on grounds of credulity, not so long as it persists in the assumption that man's intellectual and philosophic endowments emerged from increasingly lesser intelligences the further back they go, finally taking origin in primitive life which was utterly devoid of all thinking and feeling.


The facts of evolution must not be arrayed against the truth of the reality of the certainty of the spiritual experience of the religious living of the God-knowing person. Intelligent men should cease to reason like children and should attempt to use the consistent logic of adulthood, logic which tolerates the concept of truth alongside the observation of fact. Scientific materialism has gone bankrupt when it persists, in the face of each recurring universe phenomenon, in refunding its current objections by referring what is admittedly higher back into that which is admittedly lower. Consistency demands the recognition of the activities of a purposive Creator.


Organic evolution is a fact; purposive or progressive evolution is a truth which makes consistent the otherwise contradictory phenomena of the ever-ascending achievements of evolution. The higher any scientist progresses in his chosen science, the more will he abandon the theories of materialistic fact in favor of the cosmic truth of the dominance of the Supreme Mind. Materialism cheapens human life; the spiritual insights tremendously enhances and supernally exalts every person. Mortal existence must be visualized as consisting in the intriguing and fascinating experience of the realization of the reality of the meeting of the human upreach and the divine and saving downreach.

Seriously, I'm in awe of you're way of explaining things.:)

Looks like I'll have to dispute Rasputin. I agree on a number of points but disagree substantially on others.

The question of whether the religious life involves a personal God with personal salvation is a highly contentious issue amongst religious people. Certain Hindus, and Buddhists would disagree completely. So the leap of faith can lead in lots of different directions. In which direction should we leap? Allah? Jahweh? Brahman? Nirvana?

Faith, unless it is simply self-deception, can never be a simple certainty. Faith always lives alongside doubt.

I don't see how any personal experience of 'God' by itself can be convincing. We can have delusions, misinterpret events, and create mental realities. All this can be happening with God. Faith might involve the choice to reject these alternative interpretations of personal experience but they can't be proven false by an act of the will.

There are lots of fruits that result from lots of different philosophies religious and irreligious.
Good science never discounts experience. Good science is interested in the causes of experiences. The issue is whether a supernatural source is necessary to account for the experience.

Consistency does not require the recognition of a purposive Creator. There is always the answer: I have no idea whether the universe was created or not.

Life can be rich, complex, and rewarding under the banners of atheism and agnosticism as well as under the banners of theism.

We all know how hard the real Rasputin was to kill so I expect a rejuvinated Rasputin to rebut in the near future.

Seems to me that Kerry and Kuan are making the argument that science is somehow different than faith.

I know you guys will rip me up on this one, but to a certain extent we have faith in science. Many of the rules and theories can never be conclusively proven but we have faith in the scientific method and the results derived from it. I'm not even trying to say there's no difference but I believe in many scientific principles that I have never personally tested but I have faith in:
-the professionalism of the scientists that conducted it
-that the scientific method will bear out "truths"
-that the experiment was conducted properly
-that the proper assumptions were applied

and so on. My contention is that without faith there would be no science. Flame on.

Originally posted by That Guy
Flame on.
So far, they've kept the flames pretty low in this thread.:D Kudos to all involved.:cool:

No flames from me. I think science does require faith of a sort, but not the same kind of faith as religion. Science does not require belief in non-physical personal beings that do not occupy time and space. It also does not require the belief that all will work out well in the end. Science deals with 'things' that are relatively easily experienced by most people with their senses. Religion for the most part deals with the metaphysical.
There also are no Bibles or Q'ran's in science.

To Kuan:
I was probably more concered with the psychological than the social. How is it possible to hold two contradictory ideas comfortably in one mind?

I can see where the anti-realist position solves the problem almost completely. I have a lot of sympathies with anti-realism. But it has to face the fact that the diesel fires up every time it is compressed in the cylinder so nowadays I am disinclined to go all the way with anti-realism.

Kerry,

Do you accept both empirical and rational truths? Both different approaches working toward the same goal.

Enough variation exists between different cultures such that we can never be sure of what we are communicating. (Quine's gavagai example) But unlike Quine, I believe that we still can have a meaningful conversation, which brings me to my next point.

If Quine's thesis of indeterminacy of translation is correct, and there exist people who speak more than one language fluently, then it follows that people can hold two antithetical beliefs, even paradoxical ones, only caveat being that they're in different languages.

Originally posted by kerry edwards
I'd be curious about his best argument for God's existence and his views on how much we can know about the historical Jesus.

By the way, I wrote my Master's thesis on Paul Tillich's concept of God at an Anglican seminary in Toronto.

I urge you to read "The case for Christ" by Lee Strobel. Its a great read and he touches on many of the question I've seen in this post. You may be surprised what you find out. The Author, a graduate of yale and devout atheist was a christian by the time he finished his research.

No flames That Guy.

I see your point, but I think your faith in science is a result of your not having enough time to "do the things that science does." We have practical reasons to divide labor. Scientists are like plumbers and electricians in that sense. There's a reason why they get paid the big bucks. Scientists' bucks being a little smaller that plumbers' of course.

While religious faith is accompanied with doubt but rarely questioned, scientific truth is. Always.

Originally posted by Kuan
While religious faith is accompanied with doubt but rarely questioned.
I don't doubt. Not even a little bit. Did before, but don't now.:)

I am reading and rereading the posts to this thread.

When I was a little boy, 3-4, my parents taught me to swim. I recall swimming in the Caribbean at the Club Naval, near Cartegena Columbia. The water was clear and as I looked down into the depths I could see fish scooting against the varied hues of corals, algae, brilliant sand and anemones. I could dangle my hands and feet, all blurry and bright toward the deep, but couldn't possibly reach into it. Knowing it was beyond reach, but reaching, nonetheless.

Methinks the Botnst been cleansing his doors of perception with some halucinogenic mushrooms.

One pill makes you smaller..............:D

Brandon;
I looked up Strobel's book on Amazon. I think the investigation into the question of who Jesus was is an absolutely fascinating historical quest. But it doesn't look to me as if Sobel is doing justice to all the scholarship that has come out on this topic in the last 25 years or so. It looks to me (I may be mistaken) that he is taking the NT gosepels at face value. I think a serious look at who Jesus was requires analyzing the sources behind the NT and all the other interesting gospels found in the Dead Sea Scrolls and the Nag Hamadi texts. The work from the Jesus Seminar group seems much more interesting to me.

Kerry,

He covers much of that in his book as well and also tests the validity of the Bible. He also explores outside sources. From the sounds of it you would definately enjoy this book.

Food for thought:

"There is more evidence to prove that Jesus lived and is who he claimed than there is to support that Julius Caesar lived and was who he claimed to be." Dr. Kennedy

Originally posted by rickg
One pill makes you smaller..............:D

Smar**ss! Here's one for you too, Kerry.

I think that was a long time ago, but I don't remember for sure.

Was it Robin Williams who said something like, "If you can remember the sixties, you probably weren't part of it."

Botnst

Link to the Jesus seminar:

http://westarinstitute.org/Jesus_Seminar/jesus_seminar.html

I guess how a person views Dr. Kennedy's quote depends on what a person thinks Jesus actually said about himself.

- Peter. pj67coll
Incompatible
Sorry. I dont see where science and religion are compatible at all.
They can co-exist as long as religion stays out of science's face. But compatible. No way. Not until religion accepts self investigation the way science does can it be considered compatible.

Peter, consider the Greeks, who had a science without religion, while the Jews had a religion without science.


The great weakness of religious activity is that it is unable to profit from open religious criticism and thereby attain to profitable levels of self-correction. It is a fact that religion does not grow unless it is disciplined by constructive criticism, amplified by philosophy, purified by science, and nourished by loyal fellowship.


Religion has falsified its trust when it presumes to deny realities and to confer upon its devotees assumed knowledge. Religion is a traitor when it fosters betrayal of intellectual integrity and belittles loyalty to supreme values and divine ideals. Faith never shuns the problem-solving duty of living. Living faith does not foster bigotry, persecution, or intolerance.


True religion does not shackle the creative imagination, neither does it maintain an unreasoning prejudice toward the discoveries of scientific investigation. Faith vitalizes religion and constrains the religionist heroically to live the golden rule. The zeal of faith is according to knowledge, and its strivings are the preludes to sublime peace.




[quote]
SP0CK

He's not been "blinded by science," lol. I agree totally with rick. However, it is only the humble who will inheret the gift of faith. Intellectuals have the hardest time grasping it. Why? They think too hard and too deep in general. Being a borderline int. myself, I can tell you the analogy is simple. Too many times we are over-reving the mental engine. We don't go any faster than someone less perceptive in many cases. We just rev higher and don't really get anywhere. In faCt, the lower reving engine will pass us if we stay there too long. Faith in God is not tied to mental or physical boundaries. Science IS. That's just the way it is but of course, someone will want to over-analyze that too, lol.{/quote]

This is very true Spock. It requires flexibility. We ought to be flexible in our outlook on life. Be prepared to accept that the human mind is incapable of comprehending the full dimensions of truth. Truth in one set of circumstances may be different when considered from another level. Be prepared to accept that a so-called mystery may have either a simple explanation, or one quite beyond our understanding.

Mental study in books alone does not lead to wisdom. It always needs to be chastened by experience. In fact too much study strengthens the intellect, giving it a dominant position leading to imbalance. Wisdom arises in a harmonius blend of all parts of being.

Intuitive grasp, opening one's mind to inspiration and creative play with ideas have always been hallmarks of genius. Yet these qualities cannot be manipulated by man's intellect.

Originally posted by Botnst
Smar**ss! Here's one for you too, Kerry.

I think that was a long time ago, but I don't remember for sure.

Was it Robin Williams who said something like, "If you can remember the sixties, you probably weren't part of it."

Botnst

Hope you know I was just ribbin' ya. Actually your analogy was pretty good. It did bring a picture to mind of what it sometimes feels like trying to grasp such seeming ethereal concepts as faith in a diety.

Originally posted by rickg
Hope you know I was just ribbin' ya. Actually your analogy was pretty good. It did bring a picture to mind of what it sometimes feels like trying to grasp such seeming ethereal concepts as faith in a diety.

Don't worry, Rick. And I knew that you and Kerry were with me in both understanding an the gentle shots.

Cool:cool:
Funny thing is, I'm kinda losing track of who is a "believer", and who is not here. This has been such an interesting discussion. Seems even Kerry has presented some "for" arguements;)

Kerry's a smart guy and can speak for himself.

I think the two polar perspectives offered in this discussion are playing-out in my own mind. Its like mental ping-pong zinging a "yes, but..." ball back and forth.

So far the most challenging responses for me to grasp have been from Rasputin. His style is so rich with meaning and dense with thought that I have to re-read them several times. I haven't felt competent to offer a critique.

I'll need to reread them some more, probably with a gin martini shaken and stirred and chugged. Like "A Fish Called Wanda" with Kevin Cline stuck in the cement with a steamroller bearing down.

By Kerry:-
Looks like I'll have to dispute Rasputin. I agree on a number of points but disagree substantially on others.

It's a joy Kerry, and a privilege to be considered for a dispute of this nature. But more importantly, it is a source of personal gratification the fact that you agree on a number of points and that your disagreement on others are substantial but not total.


I don't see how any personal experience of 'God' by itself can be convincing. We can have delusions, misinterpret events, and create mental realities. All this can be happening with God. Faith might involve the choice to reject these alternative interpretations of personal experience but they can't be proven false by an act of the will.


A personal experience or the existence of God can never be convincingly proved by scientific experiment or by the pure reason of logical deduction. God can be realized only in the realms of human experience; nevertheless, the true concept of the reality of God is reasonable to logic, plausible to philosophy, essential to religion, and indispensable to any hope of personality survival.

Those who know God have experienced the fact of his presence; such God-knowing persons hold in their personal experience the only positive proof of the existence of the living God which one human being can offer to another. The existence of God is utterly beyond all possibility of demonstration except for the contact between the God-consciousness of the human mind and the God-presence that indwells man's intellect and is bestowed upon man as the free gift of the Supreme Being.



The question of whether the religious life involves a personal God with personal salvation is a highly contentious issue amongst religious people. Certain Hindus, and Buddhists would disagree completely. So the leap of faith can lead in lots of different directions. In which direction should we leap? Allah? Jahweh? Brahman? Nirvana?

Whichever direction a leap of faith make take, it is always in the direction of something higher and greater than man. Among the Hindus the trinitarian concept took root as Being, Intelligence, and Joy. (A later Indian conception was Brahma, Siva, and Vishnu.) While the earlier Trinity portrayals were brought to India by the Sethite priests, the later ideas of the Trinity were imported by the Salem missionaries and were developed by the native intellects of India through a compounding of these doctrines with the evolutionary triad conceptions.

The Buddhist faith developed two doctrines of a trinitarian nature: The earlier was Teacher, Law, and Brotherhood; that was the presentation made by Gautama Siddhartha. The later idea, developing among the northern branch of the followers of Buddha, embraced Supreme Lord, Holy Spirit, and Incarnate Savior.
And these ideas of the Hindus and Buddhists were real trinitarian postulates, that is, the idea of a threefold manifestation of a monotheistic God. A true trinity conception is not just a grouping together of three separate gods.

The Hebrews knew about the Trinity from the Kenite traditions of the days of Melchizedek, but their monotheistic zeal for the one God, Yahweh, so eclipsed all such teachings that the Elohim doctrine had been practically eradicated from Jewish theology. The Hebrew mind could not reconcile the trinitarian concept with the monotheistic belief in the One Lord, the God of Israel.

The followers of the Islamic faith likewise failed to grasp the idea of the Trinity. It is always difficult for an emerging monotheism to tolerate trinitarianism when confronted by polytheism. The trinity idea takes best hold of those religions which have a firm monotheistic tradition coupled with doctrinal elasticity. The great monotheists, the Hebrews and Mohammedans, found it difficult to distinguish between worshiping three gods, polytheism, and trinitarianism, the worship of one Deity existing in a triune manifestation of divinity and personality.



Good science never discounts experience. Good science is interested in the causes of experiences. The issue is whether a supernatural source is necessary to account for the experience.

Consistency does not require the recognition of a purposive Creator. There is always the answer: I have no idea whether the universe was created or not.

Life can be rich, complex, and rewarding under the banners of atheism and agnosticism as well as under the banners of theism.


The higher minds of the scientific world are no longer wholly materialistic in their philosophy, but the rank and file of the people still lean in that direction as a result of former teachings. But this age of physical realism is only a passing episode in man's life on earth. Modern science has left true religion untouched. All science has done is to destroy the childlike illusions of the misinterpretations of life.

Science is a quantitative experience, religion a qualitative experience, as regards man's life on earth. Science deals with phenomena; religion, with origins, values, and goals. To assign causes as an explanation of physical phenomena is to confess ignorance of ultimates and in the end only leads the scientist straight back to the first great cause -- the First Source and Centre.

The violent swing from an age of miracles to an age of machines has proved altogether upsetting to man. The cleverness and dexterity of the false philosophies of mechanism belie their very mechanistic contentions. The fatalistic agility of the mind of a materialist forever disproves his assertions that the universe is a blind and purposeless energy phenomenon.

The mechanistic naturalism of some supposedly educated men and the thoughtless secularism of the man in the street are both exclusively concerned with things; they are barren of all real values, sanctions, and satisfactions of a spiritual nature, as well as being devoid of faith, hope, and eternal assurances. One of the great troubles with modern life is that man thinks he is too busy to find time for spiritual meditation and religious devotion.



We all know how hard the real Rasputin was to kill so I expect a rejuvinated Rasputin to rebut in the near future.

I substantially agree with you and with your foresight!.

My disagreements with Rasputin are looking more and more substantial.

Even personal experiences of 'God' seem necessarily dubitable. How can anyone be absolutely certain that they have encountered something outside of their own mind? In addition how can a person know that they experience cannot be described adequately in a manner other than reference to 'God'. So any argument for the existence of God based on personal experience runs into this problem. A person may refuse by an act of will to think these thoughts, but there is no logical reason why they cannot and should not be thought.

The Buddha is no metaphysical theist. He may speak of things in groups of three but this doesn't have anything to do with Trinitarian views of God.

I wasn't suggesting that science was necessarily materialistic. I think that science cannot resort to supernatural explanations. Consciousness may be part of scientific explanations but when it is, it is a completely natural consciousness.

Yes, indeed science is mainly about quantitative issues. It can also be about qualitative issues. In either case, science is the only way we can know about origins. We might speculate about origins beyond the scientific evidence. Such speculation is interesting but it isn't knowledge.

Religion is not necessarily about ultimate origins. Theism usually is about ultimate origins. It's why it has run into problems once modern science gained the ability to look into origins empirically. The Buddha refused to answer the question of origins. All philosophical arguments for the First Cause are fundamentally flawed.


Materialism can be the basis of a rich and satisfying existence. Epicurus is a great example of a rich, insightful materialist philosopher. He and other materialists were decried by religious philosophers, but the fact that they think life can be lived on grounds other than religious ones does not make their lives less meaningful. It may be an existence without ultimate origins and with no ultimate destiny but that does not make life not worthwhile. A life devoid of faith, hope and eternal assurances can be a good life.

My first attempt at poisoning didn't work so now I'm having to resort to a bullet.

Just for the fun of it, let me throw in another one of my rather simpleton ideas here.
To our faith, the whole point of being here on this earth, is to be tested. We are given our finite minds, and a set of rules, a book of theology, and a world full of variations on many themes in which to live. It's ours to search out the truth, and "find God". For us, it wouldn't be much of a test if God were someone that we could physically walk and talk with, and have Him show us all the answers to all the questions. Hence, faith. And the more you venture down the path, the greater your faith grows, ect, ect.
To the scientist, this faith thing is something less than the test-tube method. It's low on the great totem pole of knowledge, because it can't be touched, felt, smelled, and looked at.
To us, it's a on the very top of the great totem pole of knowledge, for these very reasons. It takes a higher level of thought and reason to achieve it.
Hmmm....let's see how well that goes over;)

At the risk of putting words in Kerry's mouth, I think one of the arguments he was suggesting was that in order to differentiate madness from religious revelation, one needs an independent frame of reference.

Faith is the substitute for certainty. What is this "faith" about which folks make such a fuss?

Discussions about Religion and Politics. Seem to me to be Very Intresting and differ from man to man .No matter if they are of the same faith etc..etc.... .An Old Man once told me a story that was told to him when he was in the old country..Many years ago. It seems that the same things that we all are thinking about and discussing. Have been the same questions that have been on MANS little brain since the begining...About the old mans story...He told me to go to the beach and take up with both hands a scoop of sand. Now put it on the table...pick out one grain of it and put it aside.....This represents EARTH..all the rest of the remaining sand is the rest of the universe.. every grain being a seperate planet..or body or whatever you want to call them.The Question Is.....Do we think that we are the only Speck of sand or (planet that is Inhabited by Life)?? or Man as we call ourselfs. This is greater than anyone of us can imagine. Yes I believe there is a (GOD) but he is a Universal God In charge of all of this .Wether we are Christians or Jews or Buddasts or whatever earthly rerligion we belong to. We or they all talk about a superior being..and pray or worship Him or It. He has many Names But all being said . He is the( One and only). The Science world cannot explain it nor can Religions...IT IS Mans nature to ask WHY WHERE WHEN Etc....(Apes etc. will never be able to reason and question their Creation or Existance) Simply because they are ANIMALS NOT HUMANS.......Where did we all come from? More Later...

Botnst makes a good point, but it wasn't the one I had in mind. In my opinion, in some cases there is little difference between madness and religious genius. This is not bad. Some religious geniuses seem to have symptoms which in other circumstances would probably be diagnosed as madess.

The point I was making, was there is always room for doubt in any belief. Specifically, the possibility of solipsism always lies behind any belief about things external to our consciousness.

The reason I brought it up was that I think one of the great virtues of science is that it is always uncertain. Hypothesis can be falsified and excluded but the ones not falsified are never proven as absoultely true. So, scientists learn to live with a significant amount of doubt and uncertainty.

One of the great vices of religion, is the quest for certainty. It seems to me that if often arises from people wanting a psychological reassurance that they will continue to exist in an afterlife. I don't think that the quest for certainty is a necessary component of religion. When religion adopts the tenative attitude of science it is much more credible.

Originally posted by pete galbiati
Discussions about Religion and Politics. Seem to me to be Very Intresting and differ from man to man .No matter if they are of the same faith etc..etc.... .An Old Man once told me a story that was told to him when he was in the old country..Many years ago. It seems that the same things that we all are thinking about and discussing. Have been the same questions that have been on MANS little brain since the begining...About the old mans story...He told me to go to the beach and take up with both hands a scoop of sand. Now put it on the table...pick out one grain of it and put it aside.....This represents EARTH..all the rest of the remaining sand is the rest of the universe.. every grain being a seperate planet..or body or whatever you want to call them.The Question Is.....Do we think that we are the only Speck of sand or (planet that is Inhabited by Life)?? or Man as we call ourselfs. This is greater than anyone of us can imagine. Yes I believe there is a (GOD) but he is a Universal God In charge of all of this .Wether we are Christians or Jews or Buddasts or whatever earthly rerligion we belong to. We or they all talk about a superior being..and pray or worship Him or It. He has many Names But all being said . He is the( One and only). The Science world cannot explain it nor can Religions...IT IS Mans nature to ask WHY WHERE WHEN Etc....(Apes etc. will never be able to reason and question their Creation or Existance) Simply because they are ANIMALS NOT HUMANS.......Where did we all come from? More Later...


Gabby. Wow, an answer of depth from a study in depth! You have said so much in so little space, and we have both referred to ideas that have had great importance to me, but that, right now, I will need time to ponder what you have said as this topic is a familiar one.

Contemplation of the future can be an exciting and adventurous part of life, an activity that is as useful as it is natural, useful in making decisions and natural in attempting to satisfy curiosity. Also, futuristic thinking, in the broadest and highest sense, is a unique pursuit of human personality. In making a decision, an animal's selective response is limited to the motor level of behavior. However, man is able to exercise scientific, moral, and spiritual insight prior to all exploration or experimentation. Only a personality can know that it is doing before it does it; only personalities possess insight in advance of experience. A personality can look before it leaps and can therefore learn from looking as well as from leapin

In striving for some understanding about our origin, nature, and destiny, we attempt to evaluate the past and to forecast the future. Utilization of the mind to probe the mysteries of future time and space certainly seems appropriate. However, my own experience has led me to be aware of some distinctions between contemplation and anticipation. Actions based upon overly serious anticipation or misdirected expectations may impede a natural flow of events and affect the future adversely. By contrast, careful contemplation may lead to some degree of wisdom concerning dynamic growth and the potentialities for expanding knowledge and truth. I am persuaded that life and evolution are progressive rather than cyclic and that some near-future transitions are more likely to be quantum jumps than gradual developments. We should manifest an openness that permits us to gracefully incorporate changes as they occur rather than always attempting to anticipate and manipulate them.

As truth-seekers investigating both traditional and nontraditional sources, we should not overlook the possibility of divine revelation. Actually, I believe that such revelation as a personal human experience is occurring continuously. Further, on a broader scale, Revelation as an epochal phenomenon is periodic. However, for either the individual insight or the major breakthrough of expanding truth, certain levels of awareness and cosmic consciousness are required. Unfortunately, it is more often the case that error is so great that its rectification by revelation would be fatal to those slowly emerging truths which are essential to its experiential overthrow. In other words, our revelations will ever await our preparation.

Perhaps we should, both individually and collectively, develop some patterns of future thought consistent with these realizations. I observe that some of the most crucial as well as fertile areas of exploration along these lines are lying dormant and almost unrecognized. It seems appropriate to issue a challenge, a call to all who can hear, to devote time and energy to matters of an eternal and consistent nature; to values and meanings; to ideals concerned with the unification of body, mind, and spirit; and to the integration of science, philosophy, and religion in the highest and purest sense. In particular, the overstressed and isolated morality of modern religion, which fails to hold the devotion and loyalty of many men, would rehabilitate itself if, in addition to its moral mandates, it would give equal consideration to the truths of science, philosophy, and spiritual experience, and to the beauties of the physical creation, the charm of intellectual art, and the grandeur of genuine character achievement.

Rather than becoming stalled on philosophical and theological debates over the existence of God and of a creative scheme of life and cosmology, all persons of intelligence and good will should consider assuming these basic matters and proceed to study the consequences of their assumptions. Further, these investigations must break free of the constraints that have plagued religionists throughout history. The religious challenge of this age is to those farseeing and forward-looking men and women of spiritual insight who will dare to construct a new and appealing philosophy of living out of the enlarged and exquisitely integrated modern concepts of cosmic truth, universe beauty and divine goodness. Such a new and righteous vision of morality will attract all that is good in the mind of man and challenge that which is best in the human soul.


I am convinced that there are scientific, philosophic, and religious unifications in almost endless profusion simply awaiting discovery. These discoveries have the power to alter the course of history and the nature of life for every human being on the face of the earth.. But there are signs of a gradual lifting of this curtain of forced isolation, and the glimpses afford majestic patterns and living truths heretofore only approximated by shadowy visions. Furthermore, these potentialities of which I speak transcend even the time-fettered concept of the future and contain sequentiality as only a useful but limited aspect of expanded reality.

The domain of time and space, together with the finite nature of our earth-bound capabilities, provide the setting within which we must live and grow and work; but any investigations of deity, divinity, and eternal life cannot accept such boundary conditions. Also, we must recognize that religious experience, being essentially spiritual, can never be fully understood by the material mind. The difficulties and paradoxes of religion are inherent in the fact that the realities of religion are utterly beyond the mortal capacity for intellectual comprehension. Nevertheless, within the confines of these realizations, there is still much to be discovered, both intellectually and experientially; and, in fact, there are no ultimate limitations except our own self-imposed timidity.

It sounds as if Gabby and Rasputin are about to embark on an interesting adventure. I have pursued such quests myself. A word of caution: Just because we can ask the questions does not mean that we can find the answers or that there are any answers.

Owwwllll....my head hurts. I just read ( well skimmed) these pages, and it makes my head hurt.
One observation--to make a distinction between faith and truth is a false step. It leads to a faith that does not have any truth, or is divorced from truth. It leads to that so-called "leap of faith". kierkegarrd was wrong; faith is not a leap into the darkness. An illustration I once heard: I am walking in the mountains and the fog closes in, hypothermea is a real problem, I need to find shelter. I can hope there is a ledge below me with a cabin and leap off the side of the mountain. Or while in the same situation, I hear a voice from a man who has lived in the mountains for 40 years and knows every inch of the mountain. This man tells me there is shelter just below me and he tells me to leap and I will land on a secure ledge with shelter. This, second example is what I would call true faith as opposed to the first, Kierkegarrdian type which is simply wishful thinking.

Faith must relate to the world as it really exists or it is simply childish. --

Well then what is faith? If you ask that faith be tied to worldly experience then in fact you're asking for physical proof of God! OK fine. The world around you may lead you to believe that there is a God, but faith is a different thing altogether. You can believe in God, and you can believe that God exists. Belief that God exists does not necessarily imply that you believe in God either. It's a believe that, not in. Belief in God is may imply belief that God exists, but since belief in is prior to belief that, it's a non-issue for the believer-in.

Back to your analogy. The voice of a man. What you're doing is not having faith in the man's knowledge. Rather I maintain that what you're doing is verifying his account that there's a ledge with shelter. Take away the adverse conditions for awhile and let's assume you and this man are standing on the edge of a cliff. He tells you to step out into the void, but really you're stepping onto a ledge you can't see. Would you?

I wouldn't. I believe that the man exists, but I don't believe in the man.

I really like that story. It is deceptively simple. It allows folks to argue from polar conclusions that appear to point to opposing premises. But I'm not so sure that the premises are in opposition.

In both cases, there is some sort of a leap of faith involved. For example, who is that guy who says there's a ledge, and why believe what he says?

More importantly, I think the argument presents a false dichotomy. I don't think that faith asks the faithful to leap into an unknown darkness on the baseless hope that there is safety within. That is superstition, not faith.

"Okay wiseguy", you say, "That leads to an interesting question: what differentiates superstition from faith?"

I would argue that there must be some reasonableness present in faith that is not present in superstition.

Originally posted by jjl
I'm going to stick my spanner in the works yet again..

This is fundamentally wrong.

It makes me laugh when I hear this 'our understanding is unbounded' stuff.

Let's face it, guys, we are just arrogant apes who have mistaken our tool making ability for 'understanding' of the universe.

We can't even understand ourselves (e.g. qualia/consciousness) let alone the rest of the universe ..

How would toolmakin' spanner stickin' apes communicate with humans? Last year Michael Shermer of Skeptic Magazine fame proposed a new law. It was published in Scientific American a while back. It's based on Arthur C. Clarke's Third law.

Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic

Shermer's law, he named it with his tongue firmly planted in his cheek, goes like this:

Any sufficiently advanced extraterrestial intelligence is indistinguishable from God.

He comes to this conclusion based on the following:

1) Since we're 75,000 years away from the nearest star system, chances that we encounter an extraterrestial intelligence (ETI) only slightly superior than ours is nil.

2) Moore's law of computer power doubling every 18 months. In the year 2050, computational power will appear infinite.

Look forward a million years and imagine how omniscient we may appear to our current selves. So my question to believers is, how can we tell the difference between God and a very smart EPI?

Originally posted by Rasputin
.. and, in fact, there are no ultimate limitations except our own self-imposed timidity.

I'm going to stick my spanner in the works yet again..

This is fundamentally wrong.

It makes me laugh when I hear this 'our understanding is unbounded' stuff.

Let's face it, guys, we are just arrogant apes who have mistaken our tool making ability for 'understanding' of the universe.

We can't even understand ourselves (e.g. qualia/consciousness) let alone the rest of the universe ..

The old man on the mountain is an interesting story, but I think it still leaves us with problems. It seems reasonable to have faith in the old man because he's been on the mountain a long time and seen places we have not so he should be trusted. In other words, we know that we could know what he claims to know if we had been in his shoes. But the question of God is different because there is no agreed upon method of checking our knowledge of God. We all agree that if a group of us don't see a cabin on the ledge, it's not there. This doesn't happen with God. So, it would only be reasonable to believe an old man telling us about God if we knew whether he was following a reasonable method of coming to his conclusions. After all, if we knew the old man on the mountain was given to believing delusions, we wouldn't have faith in him. How do we draw the line between delusions and truth in religion?

Is a non-Kierkegaardian leap of faith any better than the Kierkegaardian leap?

re: the story of the man on the mountain--
I told it rather poorly, and left out some details that were in the original, but I think the main idea was OK. You all seem to have at least understood the point, in spite of my failures.

As to faith and fact, and the relationship between them....
At least for Christians, the Apostle Paul settled that issue rather firmly by writing, in answer to some people who claimed that there was no resurrection, to the effect that if Christ is not raised from the dead, then were are still in our sins, we are liars because we have claimed that Christ was raised from the dead, and our faith is without foundation and false.
The historical Christian faith is forever bound with historical fact--if you remove the fact, the faith crumbles. If you can disprove the ( actual, space-time ) resurrection of Jesus, I would encourage you to do so, because you would be preventing people from believing a lie.

Disproving the existence of Jesus would be impossible, not because it is technically difficult, but because no matter what evidence you presented you would be considered a misguided fool or a liar by those who 'have faith'. As an example of a case where these is overwhelming evidence for somthing that many people refuse to believe you just have to look at Evolution.

Kuan - good point re technology. The difference between god and advanced technology is one of those themes that keeps cropping up in science fiction (star trek amongst others!).

Here's another related analogy - if 'reason' itself is an evolutionary-generated adaptation, when have no grounds for believing that it is not fundamentally flawed in some way we cannot grasp, in the same way that we have no grounds for believing that we can fly, yet we know some species can fly. Perhaps there are ETI's which have a version of reason that 'can fly', and so many of the fundamental things we struggle to understand are crystal-clear to them.

Originally posted by kerry edwards
It sounds as if Gabby and Rasputin are about to embark on an interesting adventure. I have pursued such quests myself. A word of caution: Just because we can ask the questions does not mean that we can find the answers or that there are any answers.


In a war of words none can defeat an eloquent man who never succumbs to fear or confusion. Upon finding men whose forceful speech is couched in cogent and enchanting ways, the world swiftly gathers around unaware of the artful use of a few flawless words, men become enamored with excessive syllables. Men who cannot communicate their knowledge to others resemble a bouquet of unfragrant flowers in full bloom. I would rather spend my life searching for the truth than live one day, in the comfort of a lie.


P.S. I've heard the ricochet of bullet falling harmlessly by the wayside......

Originally posted by kerry edwards
Is a non-Kierkegaardian leap of faith any better than the Kierkegaardian leap?

Kierkegaardian leap of faith will be henceforth known as KLOP.

The difference is that a KLOP faith is, or entails, a belief in, an non-KLOP is, or entails, a belief that. One is caused by external events, one caused by internal. The experience (qualia, whatever) is internal.

In a sense, a non-K LOP is the weaker as it requires constant verification. Verification is not a question in a KLOP by definition. Doesn't make anything better or worse though. Our problems arise when we confuse one for the other.

Rasputin,

Not a critique or anything, more like an observation. I've enjoyed reading your posts. Your writing style is hardly seen these days... not to mention correct use of a semicolon! :)

Regards,

Has Rasputin just committed suicide by admitting it is just a matter of words? The choice is not between truths and lies but between dubious truths and agnosticism.

MSFowler:
Doesn't it seem dangerous to base a decision whether or not to accept a religious tradition on an historical fact which is extremely difficult to prove? All historical facts seem to lie on the epistemological edge since they are not repeatable. In the case of Jesus' death and alleged resurrection the sources are so old and written so long after the alleged event which is so unusual that it seems to require a level of skepticism that can never be overcome.

Kuan:
Ok, I like the distinction. What does the person who has just committed a KLOP tell themselves when they ponder the question of self-delusion? Or, does a KLOP require that a person never ask that question?

What happened to the Botnst's post on the Anthropic Principle which mistakenly ended up on the environmentalism thread?

I see no rational alternative to basing faith on historical fact. Otherwise, you may have any faith you choose. And if you believe that, what is it but simply believing yourself. Besides, of what purpose is a faith that is not true? What good is a belief in a life-after-death, if in fact, there is no life after this life? Why belive in reincarnation, if there is no reincarnation? Why believe that there are no consequences of the choices you make, if the fact of the matter is that there are no consequences. Perhaps I am not educated enough to see, but it seems folly to me.

I am not threatened in the least by any attacks on historic Chistian faith--all the while I intellectually entertain that if the historic faith were "disproved" it would be worthless. I just think that is a possibility too remote to worry about.

Originally posted by MS Fowler
What good is a belief in a life-after-death, if in fact, there is no life after this life? Why belive in reincarnation, if there is no reincarnation? Why believe that there are no consequences of the choices you make, if the fact of the matter is that there are no consequences.

The obvious answer to this is that it is psychologically appealing. And if in fact none of these things are true, you will not be around to experience them. So perhaps it really does make sense to believe, because your life will be more pleasant if you do? And for those simpletons who need a threat of punishment in the afterlife to stop them behaving badly, it could also provide a check on selfish behaviour. I often wish I could believe some of this stuff, but I guess it is difficult to unlearn things...

Originally posted by jjl
And for those simpletons who need a threat of punishment in the afterlife to stop them behaving badly, it could also provide a check on selfish behaviour. I often wish I could believe some of this stuff, but I guess it is difficult to unlearn things...
Aw, c'mon jji. You don't have to be a "simpleton" to believe. No need for hitting low like that. There are people way above you and your knowledge level that believe in an afterlife. If you choose not to, fine. That's your loss.

Before the flames start, lets be clear on who jjl called simpletons. It wasn't believers. It was people who needed a threat of punishment in order not to behave badly. There is a significant difference between those two groups. There are lots of believers who consider people like that simpletons.

I once had a large group of Middle Eastern Muslim males in an Intro to Philosophy class. To a man, they insisted that there would be no reason to be moral if there was no threat of punishment in the afterlife.

Originally posted by kerry edwards
Before the flames start, lets be clear on who jjl called simpletons. It wasn't believers. It was people who needed a threat of punishment in order not to behave badly. There is a significant difference between those two groups.
Ah. Point taken. Thanks for clearing that up.:)
Yeah, I wasn't going for a flame war. I've just seen him refer to to "simpletons" more than once in this thread. But yes, that title does fit some I've known.
Onward.:cool:

Rick, sorry if that offended you. As Kerry said, I had in mind those who need a big stick to behave reasonably.

I agree it's my loss in one way, but not in others. I remeber when I had the certainty of relgion (I was raised a Catholic) and it was good. But I found it incompatable with my experience as I grew up. One particular thing that did it for me was 'the problem of pain' - why should innocents suffer in the world, children die & the like.

No problem. I understand where you were going with that now. As I mentioned somewhere earlier, I have noticed all the agnostics I've know were raised Catholic. You bring up a point that may help explain it some, this obsession with the punishment aspect of religion. Not all of us use the same perspective. Yes, we do believe there will be punishment for our sins, but we emphasise the rewards for NOT sinning. More of the glass is half full, not half empty. I'm better motivated by knowing I can get a cheese burger for mowing the lawn, than a whipping for not.
I guess my point (if there is one) would be for you to maybe give it a second chance and look outside the realm you were raised in. There's alot of good in the Catholic faith, but maybe a different flavor would fit your needs better. Just a thought.:cool:

Rick wrote:-

I guess my point (if there is one) would be for you to maybe give it a second chance and look outside the realm you were raised in. There's alot of good in the Catholic faith, but maybe a different flavor would fit your needs better. Just a thought.


This a very valid and relevant point Rick. For while one's religion is a matter of personal experience, it is most important that we should be exposed to the knowledge of a vast number of other religious experiences (the diverse interpretations of other and diverse people) to the end that we may prevent our religious life from becoming egocentric -- circumscribed, selfish, and unsocial.


Jjl wrote:-

I agree it's my loss in one way, but not in others. I remeber when I had the certainty of relgion (I was raised a Catholic) and it was good. But I found it incompatable with my experience as I grew up. One particular thing that did it for me was 'the problem of pain' - why should innocents suffer in the world, children die & the like.


Jjl, one should learn to teach all would-be believers that those who enter the realms of faith are not thereby rendered immune to the accidents of time or to the ordinary catastrophes of nature. You learn to accept that sometimes bad things happen to good people and that these things are not an act of God... but merely a random act of fate.

Believing in a gospel will not prevent getting into trouble, but it will insure that you shall be unafraid when trouble does overtake you. If you dare to believe and wholeheartedly proceed to follow your faith, you shall most certainly by so doing enter upon the sure pathway to trouble. There is not promise to deliver you from the waters of adversity, but you can rely on your faith to go with you through all of them.

Consider the following:

The uncertainties of life and the vicissitudes of existence do not in any manner contradict the concept of the sovereignty of choice. All evolutionary creature life is beset by certain inevitabilities.

Is courage (strength of character) desirable?. Then we must be reared in an environment which necessitates grappling with hardships and reacting to disappointments.

Is altruism (service of one's fellows) desirable?. Then must life experience provide for encountering situations of social inequality.

Is hope (the grandeur of trust) desirable?. Then human existence must constantly be confronted with insecurities and recurrent uncertainties.

Is the love of truth and the willingness to go wherever it leads, desirable?. Then we must grow up in a world where error is present and falsehood always possible.

Is idealism (the approaching concept of wisdom) desirable?. Then we must struggle in an environment of relative goodness and beauty, surroundings stimulative of the irrepressible reach for better things.

Is loyalty (devotion to highest duty) desirable?. Then we must carry on amid the possibilities of betrayal and desertion. The valor of devotion to duty consists in the implied danger of default.

Is unselfishness (the spirit of self-forgetfulness) desirable? Then we must live face to face with the incessant clamoring of an inescapable self for recognition and honor. We could not dynamically choose the wisdom in life if there were no self-values to forsake. We could never lay saving hold on righteousness if there were no potential evil to exalt and differentiate the good by contrast.

Is pleasure (the satisfaction of happiness) desirable?. Then we must live in a world where the alternative of pain and the likelihood of suffering are ever-present experiential possibilities.

If man is to have free will, then the choices of one affects the destiny of others.
All choices have effects and consequences on the individual and the collectivity.

You know, its not a lack of evidence that prevents people from believing. Faith is more a matter of the will than anything else. The modern, autonomous man takes great pride in his self-reliance. Giving up that faith in "me" for a faith in something outside of "me" is difficult, if not impossible.

I disagree completely, at least when it comes to Christianity. For many people, (myself included) the issue is strictly a matter of evidence. If I am going to believe that some highly unusual miraculous event occurred upon which my eternal destiny is to depend, I want very good reasons to believe it. The New Testament is just not adequate evidence to believe that somebody was resurrected.

As jjl points out, there are other fundamental philosophical problems like evil which are challenges to theism in general, but for standard Protestant and Catholic theology, the historical evidence issue is crucial.

How can anyone decide whether an historical event occurred by an act of will? It is the believer who is failing to look outside their own minds for evidence.

Originally posted by kerry edwards
I disagree completely, at least when it comes to Christianity. For many people, (myself included) the issue is strictly a matter of evidence.

Why would anyone who was content in his faith all of a sudden demand evidence? It seems to me like demand for evidence comes after one discovers that there's something wrong with their KLOF. (I know, I mistakenly abbreviated it KLOP before)

It was MS who claimed that faith was based on historical fact. I was responding to that issue and its connections with the claim that people don't believe because they willfully choose not to believe in the face of good evidence.

I do think that KLOP or KLOF is possible without reference to historical fact. In fact, Christian New Testament scholars like Bultmann took just this path because they knew that historical facts were too easily dubitable. But for someone who doesn't feel any burden to be religious, once the historical questions become clear, it seems equally possible to simply walk away from the religion and be agnostic.

What reason is there to take the KLOP or KLOF apart from the psychological comfort or to keep a tradition going? What is the difference between KLOP or KLOF and self-delusion?

Originally posted by kerry edwards
What is the difference between KLOP or KLOF and self-delusion?

I don't know. Tough question.

Originally posted by Rasputin
....
Consider the following:
Is courage (strength of character) desirable?. Then we must be reared in an environment which necessitates grappling with hardships and reacting to disappointments.

Is altruism (service of one's fellows) desirable?
....
if there were no potential evil to exalt and differentiate the good by contrast.
...

If man is to have free will, then the choices of one affects the destiny of others.
All choices have effects and consequences on the individual and the collectivity.

These qualities are only desireable when necessary, the rest of the time they're useless and perhaps serve no more than to clutter-up one's life with inconsequentials. In a world of plenty, generosity is cheap; in a world without fear, courage is easy;....etc.

Thus, virtue is a vestigial behavior firmly attached to the past, to a time of physical trials and deprivations. Of what use, value, or good are they now?

Botnst

Originally posted by kerry edwards
What is the difference between KLOP or KLOF and self-delusion?

Yahoo!, we're back to my question a few pages ago!

I doubt a person could tell, of himself, whether he was delusional or anointed with the holy spirit. I think that's one of St Paul's things, wasn't it--don't go talking in unknown tongues without a translator or some such.

If the person who is experiencing a religious ecstasy doesn't know whether it is godly or a moment awash in seratonin, how could an observer determine it? Is there a spirit-o-meter of some sort?

I have heard that asylums are full of people claiming to be Jesus, Satan, Patton, etc. Society uses its normative function to separate wheat from chaff. It isn't foolproof, but its adequate most of the time. Of course, it failed Pilate, didn't it?

Botnst

The topic of Intelligent Design came up recently, perhaps even on this thread. Botnst posted a piece on the Anthropic principle on the environmentalism thread so I couldn't resist posting this:

http://www.spectator.co.uk/article.php3?table=old&section=current&issue=2003-10-25&id=3647


The connection with Christian Reconstructionism could really get the discussion going. I have a vague recollection that the group was arguing in favor of capital punishment for homsexuals.

Botnst:
Now you are into territory with which I have a lot of experience. I used to speak in tongues as a Pentecostal and I can still speak in tongues today as an agnostic. It's not ecstatic at all. It is just a very odd ability to produce meaningless sentences constructed with everyday phonemes and an apparant grammar but no content. I ffind it a very useful technique for overcoming insomnia. It also seems very similar to the techniques utilized in Buddhist meditation.
So, there's no reason to try to draw the line between speaking in tongues and lunacy. (No wiseass comments at this point) It can be understand and praticed in totally naturalistic terms although it almost never happens because most non-believers aren't interested in learning how to do it.

When I talk to my Pentecostal friends about my continued ability to use this 'spiritual' skill while being a heathen, it really throws a wrench into their theological works. (The standard answer is that it's of the devil)

Hearing voices would be another issue.

Originally posted by kerry edwards
Now you are into territory with which I have a lot of experience. I used to speak in tongues as a Pentecostal ...

When I was in high school I had a brief romantic interest in a sweet girl named Juanita Gorum. She was a Pentacostalist. I asked her out one time (senior year) and she said she couldn't date but invited me to church to meet her family. Now my family wasn't a big church-going outfit, though my Mother, an Anglican, has been a very faithful exception. So my religious experiences didn't extend into the realm of overt displays of religious expression, aside from an occasional genuflection or sign of the crossing and such.

Well, I met Juanita and her family, nice clean-cut boys and girls and parents. Everybody at the church was vibrant with anticipation for church to start. Tension mounted very quickly until the preacher cut-loose and everybody started amening and prasing the lord and stuff. When they got cranked-up, it blew my young mind! I survived about 15 minutes and I had to leave. Goodbye Juanita!

As an outsider, I recall two things about those people--they were mostly lower middle-income blue collar, and very emotionally honest. Reserved, but honest.

Botnst

Boy, did you miss out. If Juanita was so expressive in Church, imagine what she would have been like in bed. Remember Jessica Hahn?

You're right about the social class. Pentecostalism began amongst the poor working classes around the turn of the 20th century. Almost the classic Marxist kind of religion. It has since moved up thru the classes as subsequent generations have engaged in social mobility. Nowadays, it is possible to find it amongst the rich. It really blossomed into the business classes with the growth of the Charismatic movement in the 1960's in a variety of denominations (including Anglicanism) and the Full Gospel Businessman's International Association. For instance, John Ashcroft is a Pentecostal. He's right at home with Pat Robertson.

While I am no longer at home in a Pentecostal ritual, I am not afraid. But what really scares me is Pentecostals in politics. (James Watt was also a Pentecostal)

I haven't been following this thread, recently. But I will tell you guys this. You can debate on, and on, and on, but noone will be convinced otherwise without some major physical evidence of either side's opinions. Believe what you want, and I'll believe what I want. Its a free country, we have freedom of religion.

This mystery'll never be completely solved until our bodies die, and we find out through either sudden death, or Heaven and Hell, what will happen. If we are indeed soulless organic machines, actions bounded by genetic makeup, then none of us have a real purpose in life. There is no purpose.

Its just plain and simple. Nothing to spell out, here.

DslBnz said it pretty well, and ties it back to the earlier discussion on evolution.
If we live in a chance universe then there is no meaning to be found. If life began as a chance happening of molecules, the result can never be more than that. Life is without meaning. It is but a vapor, a tale told by idiots.....
Vanity, vanity, all is vanity.

On the other hand....."In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.....and God said, "It is good".

Botnst wrote:-

These qualities are only desireable when necessary, the rest of the time they're useless and perhaps serve no more than to clutter-up one's life with inconsequentials. In a world of plenty, generosity is cheap; in a world without fear, courage is easy;....etc.

Thus, virtue is a vestigial behavior firmly attached to the past, to a time of physical trials and deprivations. Of what use, value, or good are they now?

Botnst,
We have not truly acquired any virtue until our acts make us worthy of it.
Virtue is volitional with personality; righteousness is not automatic in freewill creatures. Intelligence alone cannot explain the moral nature. Morality, virtue, is indigenous to human personality.

Virtue is righteousness -- conformity with the cosmos. To name virtues is not to define them, but to live them is to know them. Virtue is not mere knowledge nor yet wisdom but rather the reality of progressive experience in the attainment of ascending levels of personal achievement. In the day-by-day life of a person, virtue is realized by the consistent choosing of good rather than evil, and such choosing ability is evidence of the possession of a moral nature.

Man's choosing between good and evil is influenced, not only by the keenness of his moral nature, but also by such influences as ignorance, immaturity, and delusion. A sense of proportion is also concerned in the exercise of virtue because evil may be perpetrated when the lesser is chosen in the place of the greater as a result of distortion or deception. The art of relative estimation or comparative measurement enters into the practice of the virtues of the moral realm.

Man's moral nature would be impotent without the art of measurement, the discrimination embodied in his ability to scrutinize meanings. Likewise would moral choosing be futile without that cosmic insight which yields the consciousness of spiritual values. From the standpoint of intelligence, man ascends to the level of a moral being because he is endowed with personality.

Morality and virtue can never be advanced by law or by force. It is a personal and freewill matter and must be disseminated by the contagion of the contact of morally fragrant persons with those who are less morally responsive, but who are also in some measure desirous of doing good instead of evil. Moral acts are those human performances which are characterized by the highest intelligence, directed by selective discrimination in the choice of superior ends as well as in the selection of moral means to attain these ends. Such conduct is virtuous. It is wholeheartedly to choose to do that which is morally rewarding.

Originally posted by Rasputin



Jjl, one should learn to teach all would-be believers that those who enter the realms of faith are not thereby rendered immune to the accidents of time or to the ordinary catastrophes of nature. You learn to accept that sometimes bad things happen to good people and that these things are not an act of God... but merely a random act of fate.



Perhaps we can deduce something about the nature of a deity from the properties of the world we see. Let's go back to the problem of pain. I argue that the above quote is problematical if god is all-loving, etc. Why would an all-loving deity make a universe that has random causes of sufferring in it? This is an old argument amongst theologians and philosophers, yet I have never seen a satsifactory answer. The free-will answer seems to me to be particularly stupid.

And another thing: If we can deduce anything about the world and ourselves, I look to the process that created us *that we know about* - Evolution. Evolution is thoroughly nasty. Why would a deity choose to use a mechanism to create us that seems very much like the work of the devil? (some of you might know I have done research in evolutionary genetics, so I know a little bit about how it works).

I'm genuinely intested in finding out how you guys deal with this problem, not in point-scoring.

Originally posted by jjl
...Why would an all-loving deity make a universe that has random causes of sufferring in it? This is an old argument amongst theologians and philosophers, yet I have never seen a satsifactory answer. The free-will answer seems to me to be particularly stupid.

And another thing: If we can deduce anything about the world and ourselves, I look to the process that created us *that we know about* - Evolution. Evolution is thoroughly nasty. ...

I'm genuinely intested in finding out how you guys deal with this problem, not in point-scoring.

Hell, jjl, I'm into points. So let me see if I can make any off of you.

From the evolutionary side, the point of life is more of the same. All of these admirable traits of humanity wouldn't exist without some fitness benefit accruing to the individual and subsequently, the gene pool.

1. Why would God set such a meaningless system in operation? 2. Why not create a bunch of beings that live in eternal ecstasy? 3. Why create anything at all?

To me, #3 is the most difficult. I cannot think of a good reason why omnisicent, omnipotent God would have a need for a giant vacuum with ittsy-bittsy bits of hot grit floating about. Cosmic paint removal? I suspect that there is no answer that would appeal to a rational argument.

For #1, the abrahamic God requires free-will development of virtue, the most important of which are to love Him and love each other. The mechanism of development, evolution, requires that every organism make some form of choice about life at every moment. What choices has a tree or Pneumococcus? I guess that's a matter of perspective or definition as to what we mean by choice. At the lowest level of choice would be decisions related directly to functional response to the environment. This would not be choice in the sense of awareness, but the result of natural selection dumping a bag of tricks into a particular organism at a particular time. Response to nutrient agar in a petri is not a choice of awareness but a choice, through selection.

At the upper levels of awareness we still have the organic bag derived from natural selection. Over top of that, smeared like thin butter on crust is self-awareness, time-sense, and the derivative free-will choice.

Thus God would endow every creature with some input into the system by which increasingly self-aware, time-sensing decisions may be made.

I think this is sort of the idea advanced by Tielhard de Chardin (I googled-up this: http://www.kheper.net/topics/Teilhard/Teilhard-evolution.htm). Chardin was a Gaiaist before Gaiaism was cool. To me, Gaia is a rational attempt at pantheism. That's probably why the Vatican told Chardin, a scientist/Jesuit, to stop fooling around.

#2 is another way of asking why would God make a world where people suffer meaningless pain and evil. What's the deal with Saddam, Adolf, Josef, etc? Why childhood onset leukemia? Misery, death...

I think its related to the natural selection argument. We have choices to make about dealing with misery and evil and death. We are enobled or degraded by the choices we make when confronted by them.

Okay, I mucked around with that one, allowing you to escape, points intact. Too bad we don't have Chardin around for this, or a competent surrogate. Anybody else want to take a shot at this? Pionts off of jjl are really cool to get.

Jjl wrote:-

Perhaps we can deduce something about the nature of a deity from the properties of the world we see. Let's go back to the problem of pain. I argue that the above quote is problematical if god is all-loving, etc. Why would an all-loving deity make a universe that has random causes of sufferring in it? This is an old argument amongst theologians and philosophers, yet I have never seen a satsifactory answer. The free-will answer seems to me to be particularly stupid.


And another thing: If we can deduce anything about the world and ourselves, I look to the process that created us *that we know about* - Evolution. Evolution is thoroughly nasty. Why would a deity choose to use a mechanism to create us that seems very much like the work of the devil? (some of you might know I have done research in evolutionary genetics, so I know a little bit about how it works).



This is the problem: If freewill man is endowed with the powers of creativity in the inner man, then must we recognize that freewill creativity embraces the potential of freewill destructivity. And when creativity is turned to destructivity, you are face to face with the devastation of evil and sin -- oppression, war, and destruction. Evil is a partiality of creativity which tends toward disintegration and eventual destruction.

All conflict is evil in that it inhibits the creative function of the inner life -- it is a species of civil war in the personality. Inner creativity contributes to ennoblement of character through personality integration and selfhood unification. It is forever true: The past is unchangeable; only the future can be changed by the ministry of the present creativity of the inner self.


Jjl, ituations do arise in which it appears that emergency rulings have been made, that natural laws have been suspended, that misadaptations have been recognized, and that an effort is being made to rectify the situation; but such is not the case. Such concepts of God have their origin in the limited range of our viewpoint, in the finiteness of our comprehension, and in the circumscribed scope of our survey; such misunderstanding of God is due to the profound ignorance we enjoy regarding the existence of the higher laws of the realm, the magnitude of God's character, the infinity of his attributes, and the fact of his free-willness.

Therefore jjl, to us the creatures, many of the acts of the all-powerful Creator seem to be arbitrary, detached, and not infrequently heartless and cruel. But again this is not true. God's doings are all purposeful, intelligent, wise, kind, and eternally considerate of the best good, not always of an individual being, an individual race, an individual planet, or even an individual universe; but they are for the welfare and best good of all concerned, from the lowest to the highest. In the epochs of time the welfare of the part may sometimes appear to differ from the welfare of the whole; in the circle of eternity such apparent differences are nonexistent.

Thus it is that our detached, sectional, finite, gross, and highly materialistic viewpoint and the limitations inherent in the nature of our being constitute such a handicap that we are unable to see, comprehend, or know the wisdom and kindness of many of the divine acts which to you seem fraught with such crushing cruelty, and which seem to be characterized by such utter indifference to the comfort and welfare, to the happiness and personal prosperity, of our fellow creatures. It is because of the limits of human vision, it is because of our circumscribed understanding and finite comprehension, that we misunderstand the motives, and pervert the purposes, of God. But many things occur on the evolutionary worlds which are not the personal doings of God.

Omnipotence does not imply the power to do the nondoable, the ungodlike act. Neither does omniscience imply the knowing of the unknowable. We can hardly understand the range and limitations of the will of the Creator.

I'm surprised Botnst didn't deal with #3. There's along standing answer to this question traceable back to at least St. Augustine. It is usually referred to as the 'plentitude of being'. It claims that a universe constitued solely by infinite perfection (ie--only God exists) is not as beautiful as a universe filled with infinite perfection and all grades of finite perfection. Therefore, God creates a finite perfect universe. This of course, requires further argumentation to explain how this universe is perfect. Augustine is particularly bad on this point because he had never heard of evolution and thought the universe began in a better state than it currently is. But the argument can be tweaked to look at the universe as moving towards finite perfection. Irenaeus, an early Christian theologian who was not as influential as Augustine held a view like this. De Chardin is expanding upon it. There are others who develop similar themes. John Hick, Charles Hartshorne and John Cobb all use(d) theodicies that run on the same track. Hick wrote a book: Evil and the God of Love. It's a very good summary of the history of the problem.

Most Christian philosophers who have used the idea of 'free will' used it in an unusual sense. Their use is entirely compatible with the idea that God has predetermined every event that will happen in the universe. By 'free will', they don't mean that our decisions have a decisive role in the outcome. What they mean is that we are not automatons. We have to have self-conscious mental process to act in some cases. This is freedom. It's not as if we could have done something else.

In response to Rasputin:
If anything happens in the universe that God did not cause or did not want, then God is not omnipotent. It was just this problem that led so many Christian philosophers develop the theory of free will I outlined above. The result is that God turns into a sadistic bastard who uses people to gain certain results. In my opinion, it is a much superior solution to the problem to modify the idea of divine omnipotence. God might be powerful, but not able to control the behavior of things with free will. It is also useful to think of God molding pre-existent 'stuff' rather than creating out of nothing. Both of these modifications run against the grain of traditional Christian theology but make more sense.

Of course, the problem still remains, why would God create a universe to gain beauty if it comes at the expense of things like the Holocaust? It would seem that it would be better for God to leave well enough alone and just stick with 'nothing'.

Originally posted by kerry edwards
Of course, the problem still remains, why would God create a universe to gain beauty if it comes at the expense of things like the Holocaust? It would seem that it would be better for God to leave well enough alone and just stick with 'nothing'.

Vanity

Tracy:
Exactly. I don't see how that conclusion is avoidable given orthodox theodicies. But why would anyone be interested in worshipping such a God when God's behavior goes against almost all moral sensibilities.

"The fact that there are souls which ought to be miserable because they willed to be sinful contributes to the perfection of the universe." St. Augustine

Originally posted by kerry edwards
Tracy:
Exactly. I don't see how that conclusion is avoidable given orthodox theodicies. But why would anyone be interested in worshipping such a God when God's behavior goes against almost all moral sensibilities.

Freud nailed it when he developed the idea of the Oedipus complex, based loosely on Sophocles allegory “Oedipus the King.”

Originally posted by kerry edwards
I'm surprised Botnst didn't deal with #3.

I know who Augustine or Ireneus were, sort-of, but have never read anything by them. Weren't they sort of philosophically conflicted with each other? Not knowing much about their thoughts is my loss. It dooms me to stumble through boulders already mapped by them and others.

If your summarization of Augustine's argument does his argument justice, then I find his argument wholly unsatisfactory.

The problem is, beauty. Can Perfection perceive gradations of beauty? I'm not sure, but I think only flawed perception or cognition allows one to categorize in that fashion. I suppose I'm promoting a form of Rasputin's argument for duality--without a contrast, all is gray.

Kerry, I think that arguing the nonesistence of the Abrahamic deity based upon contradictions perceived by a human is way, way too presumptuous. That God must obey our rules of fairness limits God to human values rather than vice-versa.

So.....who won the debate?:confused: ;)

Originally posted by rickg
So.....who won the debate?:confused: ;)

Confusion reigns supreme.

Originally posted by rickg
So.....who won the debate?:confused: ;)

God only knows.

Still trying to get past definition of faith. :)

Originally posted by kerry edwards
If anything happens in the universe that God did not cause or did not want, then God is not omnipotent....

... It would seem that it

Kerry, I don't follow the first paragraph, above.

Just because one possesses omnipotence doesn't compel one to act, else, its not truly omnipotent, ie being refused the ability to decide whether or not to act limits one's powers and limited omnipotence is sensless.

Originally posted by Kuan
God only knows.


BINGO!!:D

If God has all power (omnipotent) then nothing else can have any power. This means that humans have no independent power or causal influence. Whatever we choose, God causes. Humans can't cause anything to happen that God does not will (according to the orthodox tradition). So when people in this tradition speak of 'free will', they mean we are not automatons. They mean that we have to engage in a conscious thought process to make a decision. They do not mean that we can do things that God does not want.

There are contemporary theologians who redefine omnipotence to mean 'having the maximum amount of power possible consistent with other agents in the universe having some independent power of their own." They don't like the orthodox tradition because of the incredible theodicies that it generates.

Kuan:
Faith--believing in something you know isn't true???

Originally posted by kerry edwards
If God has all power (omnipotent) then nothing else can have any power.
Omnipotence is only omni potent if choice is part of the "potency", too.

If God has all the power, then he has the power whether (or not) to exersize that power. If He cannot make that choice then he is not omnipotent.

Thus, God may grant whatever degree of independence he chooses to grant any aspect of his creation.

By this argument, it is not necessary to postulate a deity circumscribed by physical law. Rather, physical law is a potential outcome of omnipotence.

If god has omnipotent powers, yet chooses not to exercise those powers, then he/she is clearly a voyeuristic sadist... Not sure I want to invest much 'faith' in an entity with these characterstics...

"By this argument, it is not necessary to postulate a deity circumscribed by physical law. Rather, physical law is a potential outcome of omnipotence"

I don't understand the significance of this. Who holds (held?) that God is circumscribed by physical laws? I believe God is usually thought to be the creator of physical laws.

If God grants independence but doesn't 'have to', then God is still responsible for the evil deeds of the independent people and Zeitgeist is right. If God could stop Hitler, God should have.

Sooner or later most discussions on omnipotence get to the absurd i.e. can God make a rock so big He can't pick it up?
Remember omnipotence has to do with power, or ability, and those things where power is applicable; not logical, or philological tricks/ absurdities.
God's omnipotence is seperate from His will. It certainly does not deprive creatures from freedom of action.

Here's something to chew upon: If the Creator is omnipotent, and all-good, as well as omniscient ( all-knowing), could the creation have been different than it is? Is what exists, of necessity the way it is, or is it thru Divine choice?

Michael

Originally posted by kerry edwards

I don't understand the significance of this. Who holds (held?) that God is circumscribed by physical laws? I believe God is usually thought to be the creator of physical laws.

If God grants independence but doesn't 'have to', then God is still responsible for the evil deeds of the independent people and Zeitgeist is right. If God could stop Hitler, God should have.

I'm gonna get in trouble here because I'm going to try to argue a position in which I have always had difficulty believing. But I think it is not unreasonable. I guess I'll find out.

My first paragraph was in response to your previous, " There are contemporary theologians who redefine omnipotence to mean 'having the maximum amount of power possible consistent with other agents in the universe having some independent power of their own."

If I allow my child to make a mistake of her own free will, I am responsible for allowing that choice but it is not evil that I allow the choice. Nor does evil accrue to me because of choices she makes. She is not an instrument for me to manipulate, but a free-will being making her own decisions.

Hitler's choices were his to make.

Providing freedom is never evil, always good. Freedom is the wildcard of life--it has no promise of reward other than itself. Whether God-blessed or a fabrication of the human mind, free will is the finest aspiration of man, after biological imperatives. It is more dangerous than any device created.

Botnst

I think it is evil to allow evil choices to be made.

An omnipotent god could, by definition, construct a universe where the *potential* for evil choices is non-existent. E.g. you simply cannot murder children etc., etc. Or, at the very least, less than we have just now.

I'm with K. on this one. I'd rather a deity responsible for this didn't exist..I don't want to meet it.

...these "how many angels on the head of a pin" arguments continue to leave me feeling snuggly, safe and warm in my firm 'belief' in agnosticism.

Speculation built upon speculation is fun to contemplate, but in the end its still just that--speculation.

May God bless the heathens among us...

Providing freedom is never evil, always good.
That's quite a statement Botnst--spoken like a true Libertarian 'believer'.

Botnst:
Freedom is not an unlimited good. If a child gets angry at a friend and picks up a baseball bat to hit the friend in the head, the parent who stands by and lets it happen on the grounds that 'freedom is good' when they could have intervened and stopped it, is morally insensitive at best.

Besides, if a good God created good free creatures out of nothing, then why would they ever choose to do something that was not good? How could temptation arise in such a world?

Michael:
It seems to me that omnipotence has everything to do with logic. Why do people believe God is omnipotent? It is a logical outcome of believing in the supremacy of God. If God were not omnipotent and had to depend for her/his existence on some other power, God would not be supreme. It's not as if divine omnipotence is the quality of God verified by observation.

If God is going to be good, then I think creation had to have had the potential to be otherwise. The only possible justification for God creating a world like this with so much evil and suffering in it, is that if God did not do what God did, things would be worse. In other words, 'creatio ex nihilo' is not a good idea and should be substituted with some other idea.

For Kuan:


faith [ fayth ] (plural faiths)

noun

1. belief or trust: belief in, devotion to, or trust in somebody or something, especially without logical proof


2. religion religion or religious group: a system of religious belief, or the group of people who adhere to it


3. religion trust in God: belief in and devotion to God
Her faith is unwavering.


4. set of beliefs: a strongly held set of beliefs or principles
people of different political faiths


5. loyalty: allegiance or loyalty to somebody or something


[13th century. Via Old French feid from Latin fides “trust, belief” (source of English confide and fealty). Ultimately from an Indo-European word that is also the ancestor of English federal.]


keep faith with somebody or something to be loyal or true to a person or promise on faith without demanding proof

Originally posted by kerry edwards
Botnst:
Freedom is not an unlimited good. If a child gets angry at a friend and picks up a baseball bat to hit the friend in the head, the parent who stands by and lets it happen on the grounds that 'freedom is good' when they could have intervened and stopped it, is morally insensitive at best.

Besides, if a good God created good free creatures out of nothing, then why would they ever choose to do something that was not good? How could temptation arise in such a world?


When freedom is limited by the self for a perceived greater good accruing to society, that is liberty. Nobody can give anybody liberty--that is self-created out of free-will.

I'm sure some smart guy Christian somewhere has asked and answered the question of evil. I have tried to the best of my ability and failed us both. I wish I had a dial-a-Pope phone to get a better argument.

If I have free will, and I do, I will admit to you (pssst, don't tell anyone) that I have, on occasion, chosen to do what I knew was wrong. What a foolish thing. I'll bet that I'll do it again, too. That is the very nature of choice. A moral man will choose wisely more often than not and will help others to learn to do the same. A weaker man, like myself, will fall to temptation's alluring fragrance time and again. Eventually, hopefully, I will do better.

The Rev'd Botnst

Botnst throwing in the towel? It must be a ruse to get the heathen off guard while the reinforcements haul up the philosophical howitzers. We'd better call up the French for assistance.

Originally posted by kerry edwards
...We'd better call up the French for assistance.

Hey cowboy, gonna Rousseau-up some podnahs? Oh, you Kant?

I'm with Zeitgeist on this one.....speculation can be fun, but it really gets nowhere. The real danger is that it can lead to pride and arrogance which are the very things ( according to the Bible) that God hates.

As for any problems with "ex nihlo" creation..., Again, those are the words used in the Bible to describe creation. For Biblically-submissive Christians there is no argument, God created " out of nothing". We may not like it, we may think there are problems, but if it is the Word of God, then it must be accapted because it is true.
It does no good for us to create a god that we like, if that god does not really exist. Truly, the God who is there is the One with which we must relate.

Nothing in the Bible about 'creatio ex nihilo' to my knowledge. It's a wide open question as to whether God used any existing 'matter' to create in the Genesis story. My vote's with Prometheus or Job. If God creates rational people, God's going to have to deal with them on a rational level.

I agree the issue is speculative, but that doesn't mean there aren't any rules of thought or criteria of consistency at work. There just isn't the possibility of empirical testing. On some issues there's no other way to think about it unless we don't think about it at all.

I also agree that made up God are no God's at all. I believe that's what Nietzsche meant when he said 'God is dead.'

Religions have evolved right along with culture. Perhaps god is just not quite as perfect a god as some would like. Perhaps as example, god, makes model revisions. Along a given experimental development path, the subject (us) needs to experience what happens with the ability for evil. Naturally we idealize or even stylize this trait in our perception of god, and in society. Perhaps even refer to evil vaguely as the difference between the flesh and the spirit....when after all, we're just someone’s lab rats working through a maize.

What comprises a human extends backward millions of years to what some consider to be a relative of the Tree Shrew. Our idea of god is as comparatively developed as we are. Perhaps we are not to understand the nature of god until we are at a stage of development represented by some distant and only vaguely related progeny.

What we do with religion is akin to what you get at a Burger King drive through - an “I want it now” kind of solution that fits our desires.

In the end it is a vain conceit to expect that we know enough about god to even begin to understand what is a god like nature.

In the end it is a vain conceit to expect that we know enough about god to even begin to understand what is a god like nature.

...and this is why I'm comfortable with agnosticism, but of course your statement operates on the premise that a god exists in the first place...

To clarify my statement on speculation....I think it's perfectly useful and instructive to consider the existence of a Godhead, and imagine its role within and beyond our world. BUT I find it to be a bit tedious when folks start loading up their arguments with subjective pronouncements of their god's hypothetical powers and judgements. The arguments start to look like a dog chasing its tail -- humorous, but ultimately pointless.

Originally posted by Zeitgeist
...and this is why I'm comfortable with agnosticism, but of course your statement operates on the premise that a god exists in the first place...

To clarify my statement on speculation....I think it's perfectly useful and instructive to consider the existence of a Godhead, and imagine its role within and beyond our world. BUT I find it to be a bit tedious when folks start loading up their arguments with subjective pronouncements of their god's hypothetical powers and judgements. The arguments start to look like a dog chasing its tail -- humorous, but ultimately pointless.

The desire to believe in god is built-in to the speeces. That's the premise. The nature of what a god "is" and "does" has changed vastly over merely the last 6000 years or so.....

It's very odd isn't it. Why does the species have the propensity to believe in God? Apes apparantly don't. Is it just a product of egoism and the tendency to project our values and consciousness onto the universe or is it something else? What survival value does it add? I was thinkin the other day about the whole tradition of innate ideas and Chomsky's theory of a universal grammer. Is the something about deep grammar that contains within it the implicit idea of God? Does the comparative 'good, better best' lie within this grammar and does it naturally result in the idea of perfection which we project onto an imaginary being--God?

Originally posted by kerry edwards
It's very odd isn't it. Why does the species have the propensity to believe in God? Apes apparantly don't. Is it just a product of egoism and the tendency to project our values and consciousness onto the universe or is it something else? What survival value does it add? I was thinkin the other day about the whole tradition of innate ideas and Chomsky's theory of a universal grammer. Is the something about deep grammar that contains within it the implicit idea of God? Does the comparative 'good, better best' lie within this grammar and does it naturally result in the idea of perfection which we project onto an imaginary being--God?

I just knew that in one form or another, collective consciousness would creep into the conversation once the built-in element was dragged out. The idea of surface structures/deep structures didn’t begin with Chomsky, BTW. Anyway, I remember long ago reading something by Paul Ricoeur on this topic. Ricoeur, is (at least I think he’s still alive) one of the great and highly regarded integrators thought of current times, or at least recently past times. I don’t remember if it was in his “The Philosophy of Paul R...” or his “Essays on Biblical Interpretation” or maybe the “Symbolism of Evil” somewhere else. Ug. A failing memory is painful! Anyway the approach was to study representations of evil in classic literature and show the relation between the representations of evil and how religion sought to counter it through text, over time. Or something like that. Kerry have you looked into Ricoeur’s works? I'll see if I can find some of my dusty books and look through them this weekend....anyway the observation is that the symbols and arguments have continuity simply because they were always taught in the same way. Which is to say that there were no times when snakes weren’t feared. By extension, religion takes commonly accepted norms and codifies them. The outside the box point being that naturally, no one could have guessed that snake venom can save lives.....

That's a really fascinating concept Kerry. Humans have always built our domiciles under the strictures of the laws gravity, hence we build from the ground up. A firm foundation is required to establish this linear construction process.

I suspect that human intelligence has an internal feedback loop constantly demanding an assurance that as we acquire more and more info, we are building upon a firm foundation that positively explains how this info 'rationally' relates together.

Constructing a godhead helps to fill the rationality-voids.

It's been 20 years since I read any of Ricoeur and I didn't read that much then,so I'm going to claim ignorance. Yes, I think you can trace Chomsky's insight back to Descartes and perhaps even Socrates.
What does Ricoeur say about why the symbols are there to begin with? I can see where teaching the symbols keeps them alive but I'm wondering if a quasi-Chomskian view might explain them in terms of the pre-programmed linguistic software we are stuck with. I'm thinking explicity about the ontological argument for God's existence. It seems to get at a necessity of thinking about God.

Has Rasputin been pulling a fast one on us? Read his earlier post about materialism and then check out this link:

http://www.urantiabook.org/newbook/ppr195_7.html

My research wasn’t successful. Ricoeur’s book "The Symbolism of Evil" isn’t part of my library, and I can’t find any good on-web sources. But I did come across some interesting notes.

Freud: Very simply stated, Freud suggested that people experience conflicts between what we want to do (represented by our Id) and what we are told by society and parents that we should do (represented by the Superego). This conflict is resolved, to a greater or lesser degree, by the Ego. Freud viewed religion as originating in the child's relationship to the father; hence in many cultures God is viewed as a Heavenly Father. In this way, religion reflects an attempt to fulfill our wishes, and is an illusion.

So according to Freud, who wrote during the late 19th century, religion reflects wish fulfillment.

Alder: Our ideas about God are important indicators of how we view the world. According to Adler how we view the world has changed over time. Consider this example that Adler offers: the traditional belief that people were placed deliberately on earth as God's ultimate creation, is being replaced with the idea that people have evolved by natural selection. This coincides with a view of God not as a real being, but as an abstract representation of nature's forces. In this way, our view of God has changed from one that was concrete and specific to one that is more general. From Adler's vantage point, this is a relatively ineffective perception of God because it is so general that it fails to convey a strong sense of direction and purpose.

Alder: One folks viewed themselves as god’s ultimate creation. Religion substantiated that supposition. Now, due in part to perceptions of natural selection, and the education system that brought it to us, god represents an abstraction of nature’s abilities, which is usually idealized. Still wish fulfillment....

Jung: For a time Jung was Freud's pupil, but left Freud's following when they disagreed over the importance of sexuality and spirituality to one's psychological development. (Freud emphasized sexuality over spirituality; Jung disagreed.)

Jung was concerned with the interplay between conscious and unconscious forces (as was Freud). Jung proposed two kinds of unconscious: personal and collective. Personal unconscious (or "shadow") includes those things about ourselves that we would like to forget. The collective unconscious refers to events that we all share, by virtue of having a common heritage (humanity). For example, the image (archetype) of a mythic hero is something that is present in all cultures. Archetypes such as these might be viewed as Gods, because they are outside the individual's ego.

Jung: duality of consciousness and tension between the personal consciousness, or unconsciousness and a collective consciousness, or unconsciousness. Further, a “collective” represents a heroic person who is stylized and therefore becomes an archetype. This archetype is akin to a god. Which roughly equates to religion as objective wish fulfillment, or at least wish fulfillment by committee.

Ricoeur was a contemporary of Jung. During the 60s Ricoeur concluded that Jung didn’t do enough hair splitting, so Ricoeur suggested that to properly study human reality one had to combine a phenomenological description (archetype, albeit explained objectively) with hermeneutic interpretation (consciousness/unconscious). As far as hermeneutics, whatever is intelligible is accessible to us in and through language. All deployments of language call for interpretation. Accordingly, “there is no self-understanding that is not mediated by signs, symbols, and texts; in the final analysis self-understanding coincides with the interpretation given to these mediating terms.”

For Ricoeur, as language changes in meaning over time, the same symbolic representations will shift in their meaning. In other words, as the perception of religion changes so does the meaning. Again, self-fulfilling interpretation. Not quite a wish, more like dream fulfillment.

Tracy, thanks a lot for having gone to that effort.

To do it justice, I have to re-read everything on this thread with that context.

Originally posted by kerry edwards
It's very odd isn't it. Why does the species have the propensity to believe in God? Apes apparantly don't. Is it just a product of egoism and the tendency to project our values and consciousness onto the universe or is it something else? What survival value does it add? I was thinkin the other day about the whole tradition of innate ideas and Chomsky's theory of a universal grammer. Is the something about deep grammar that contains within it the implicit idea of God? Does the comparative 'good, better best' lie within this grammar and does it naturally result in the idea of perfection which we project onto an imaginary being--God?


So....tell me about Chomsky's theory of universal grammer....?

He thinks that empircally based explanations of language acquisition are inadequate to account for the ways in which humans learn and manipulate languages. He thinks there must be a 'pre-programmed language software' (my terms) in the brain at birth. (some similarity to Descartes's innate ideas). So his school of linguistics (which I believe is the dominant one at the moment--I may be wrong) looks for these 'deep grammatical' rules or 'universal grammar' that underlie all human languages.

It is my speculation that these rules include the comparatives good, better and best and might account for the ontological argument for God's existence. In other words, the concept of 'perfection' might be found in our linguistic software so could be expected to emerge in many languages and cultures. Of course it doesn't prove that God has anything more than a necessary linguistic existence but it would account for the prevalence of the idea. Aquinas has an argument essentially along these lines although he thinks it proves God's 'real' existence.

Virus synthesised in a fortnight


12:31 14 November 03

NewScientist.com news service

Genome maverick Craig Venter has taken a significant step towards his ambitious goal of building a living organism from scratch.

His team has developed a new technique to assemble large pieces of DNA with relative ease and unprecedented speed. The technique, which will not be patented, allowed the complete genome of a small virus to be synthesised in just 14 days, the scientists revealed on Thursday.

The ultimate aim of the project, funded by the US Department of Energy, is to create microbes with special properties, such as the ability to sequester carbon dioxide or consume toxic waste. The speed of the technique means it could also help accelerate any research in which large sections of DNA are used, for example gene therapy, vaccine research or agricultural biotechnology.

But the method equally makes it much simpler to manufacture a deadly virus for use as a bioweapon. The simple precursors needed would be impossible for governments to keep out of the hands of would-be biowarriors.

The new results are published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, which in February joined other leading journals in agreeing to exercise self-censorship on weapons-sensitive work. But that was not felt necessary in this case. "After a lot of consideration and a lot of discussion, we ultimately decided this was an important advance," says Bridget Coughlin, PNAS managing editor.


Painstakingly pasted

Venter's team used their new technique to synthesise the genome of a bacteriophage, a harmless virus that only infects bacteria. It is not the first time a virus has been made from scratch - the poliovirus was synthesized in 2002 by Eckard Wimmer and colleagues at the State University of New York at Stony Brook.

The SUNY team mail-ordered small DNA chains, called oligonucleotides, to match the sequence of the virus. They then painstakingly pasted them in the right order to reproduce its genome. The process took several years, although Wimmer says he could now do it in several months.

In contrast, Venter and his colleagues at the Institute for Biological Energy Alternatives (IBEA) in Rockville, Maryland, were able to synthesise the bacteriophage's genome in a fortnight and with far fewer steps.

The bacteriophage's genome, at about 6000 DNA bases, is roughly the same size as the polio virus. "I'm impressed," says Wimmer. "If I had to do it again I'd use their method."


Self assembly

Venter's team modified a common laboratory technique known as PCR so they could paste together hundreds of oligonucleotides in one test tube. The molecules then self-assembled into the right sequence. The resulting DNA was placed into bacterial cells where it replicated, creating new and infectious viral particles.

"It's an exciting breakthrough, but it's an enabling step for the next level of what we're doing," says Venter. He wants to manufacture, completely from scratch, a single-celled organism with the minimum number of genes to sustain life (see previous story).

This will require an artificial chromosome with about 300 genes, and Venter is going to use the new technique to create it. His team will have to paste together about 60 pieces of DNA the size of the bacteriophage, he says.

However, the method is not yet suitable to make the artificial chromosome, the team concedes, as the viruses produced were not perfect, it turns out. They had mutations most probably introduced by initial errors in the original oligonucleotides, so the technique will have to be coupled with others designed to correct those errors.

Journal reference: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2237126100)

Botnist: "Genome maverick Craig Venter has taken a significant step towards his ambitious goal of building a living organism from scratch."

Supports the theory that we are someone's lab rats.....

Kerry Edwards: "He thinks that empircally based explanations of language acquisition are inadequate to account for the ways in which humans learn and manipulate languages"

Okay, so any references for this topic you'd care to share?

Originally posted by Lebenz
Botnist: "Genome maverick Craig Venter has taken a significant step towards his ambitious goal of building a living organism from scratch."

Supports the theory that we are someone's lab rats.....

The CIA did a recent assessment of bio-terror and mentioned this type of research as a rich source of mischief.

We're not far from designer kids. I'd like a couple of kids striped like a barber pole and also, genetically coded for solving integrals.

Here's a news summary of the report.

cientists Fear Bioweapons Horror
VOA News
15 Nov 2003, 01:33 UTC

_
Scientists are telling the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency that advances in biotechnology could be used to create biological weapons worse than any disease known to humans.

A CIA report released Friday, entitled "The Darker Bioweapons Future," details the fears of respected, independent scientists who met at a conference in January.

The report says new genetic engineering technology being used to create cures for disease could also create horrific diseases with no cure. Such weapons could include a "stealth" virus that would lie dormant in a victim for a specific amount of time, or until triggered by the introduction of another, non-lethal substance.

Another biotechnology weapon might only attack people who already have a common malady, such as arthritis, thus crippling a nation with an overwhelming medical emergency.

The report says traditional methods for guarding against weapons of mass destruction may fail against such threats because they could be virtually impossible to trace to their source.

The report does not say which countries or groups might use such bioweapons to threaten the United States.

Some information for this report provided by AP and Reuters.

Wow, this has been a great read. I have not ventured over to the open discussion thread before, and after combing through the girly thread links and pictures and lists of cars people have owned it's nice to see a "forum" functioning the way the word intends.

I've seen a lot of names thrown around, and have most of these old guys thoughts in well worn volumes on my shelves. I'm not sure I saw Huxley though. The true deep agnosticism that I tend towards is not so much an assertion that issues of God/cosmos are unknowable and that I don't care, but rather that I really DO care, and am honest enough to know that I dont know.

assuming that generalizations, in general, are generally wrong...:rolleyes: , I think it's tough to get in anybody's business for their beliefs on spirituality. Pragmatically, if it makes you feel safe, warm, protected, or rather alone, scared, and singular... whatever floats your boat. My sensibilities begin to boil when any individual or group decides that their way is THE way, and that others must die, or will go to hell, or must be converted, etc.

My parents, for example, take comfort in the idea of a creator who is actively involved in their lives. Prayers are listened to, answered, etc. Miracles happen. These things occur without correlation to devotion, but through grace alone. (at least this is what I can gather from our conversations)

My godlessness is a concern to them... I find it more compelling to think that through my own efforts, and without the help of any outside greater entity, I can achieve whatever I put forth the effort to accomplish. I find no need for the 'comfort' of an all powerfull anything. I've also no evidence for this being? either. Birth, Life, Death are all pretty easy to observe in other living creatures- natural- and while potentially psycologically paralyzing at times- there is no intrinsic (read simply: non-instrumental) value which requires any fleeting vapor of us to persist beyond the beating heart.

It's the ability to craft stories that separates us from the other inhabitants of the planet. Stories that quell fears... stories that comfort us and tell us what a wonderful place awaits us when we depart this squalid world. Stories that attempt to control our actions and instill a morality grounded in nothing more than something which must be taken neccessarily for granted. These stories become hard to see beyond, especially in the western world.

Some buddhists practice focusing on the impermanence of life. When tempted by, say, the pretty girl thread, the individual will strive to imagine her a faded corpse; as that is indeed where we are all headed- nothing more. The focus becomes internal- a dedication to use one's time to master one's own mind. The idea is basically: suffering happens. suffering has a cause. the cause is ignorance. so, eliminating the ignorance will relase you from suffering. Buddha on his deathbed is said to have spoken to his followers something like this: Go seek your own salvation. He saw, in his completly organic (and decidedly non-bewitched) enlightenment, that only through one's own hard efforts could they find true inner peace. That message speaks to me. Noone else to depend upon/believe in but myself, and I've got the potential to think things out for as long as I am coherent and alive.

This draws to the crux of every conversation/class/argument I've ever had regarding judeo-christian conceptions of God and my agnosticism. At some point, the believer sidesteps critical academic rigor and accepts God on faith alone. Brain chemistry can explain any/all of the feelings associated with this belief (and alien abductions and near-death experiences), and so I remain a skeptic in that regard.

I've known many brilliant people (scientists, judges, professors)who I've felt "ought to know better" who were churchgoers. I'm sure they felt the same way about me. The reality is that if there is a God, he/she/it is not stupid enough to think we're all going to be compelled by the same stories. If there is no God, then we still are not going to be compelled by the same stories. What speaks to me will not neccessarily speak to you. People are looking for different things, and just like you need penicillin for your strep throat and I need erythromyacin because of an alergy, the same prescription will just not cut it for one and all.

With best Thanksgiving wishes to those of all spiritual persuasions, and apologies to any I may have offended without realizing it... Good Night!

Cheers,
Kevin

I enjoyed reading that Kevin, thanks.

As a boring, supposedly logical scientific type, in my youth (after rejecting catholicism) I thought materialism explained everything. Maybe it does, but my problem now is that I can no longer see that it does.

The basic problem for me is conciousness, something we are so familiar with I find that people often don't know what you're getting at when you talk about it. By this I mean, for example, the sensations such as the blueness of the sky etc. Why is this a problem? Well, because we have NO IDEA how atoms bumping together can create 'blueness' or 'pain' or any other subjective quality.

From what I have read - the neurophysiologists and brain scientists, the philosphers - no one has the SLIGHTEST idea that is coherent. Some even write books on the subject (e.g. Daniel Dennet) and then deny that consciusness exists.

I guess I'm stuck with dualism. Is this anything to do with religion etc? Not sure, but it reminds me that things are probably weirder than we can grasp.

Originally posted by jjl
... but it reminds me that things are probably weirder than we can grasp.

Amen, brother.

Botnst

Nice to see the thread resurrected with a thoughtful piece. Buddhism is definitely an interesting option. But I was reading a student response to a question I had posed about Buddhism on Monday. She was insistent that Buddhism does not so much solve the problems of suffering as deny them. The solution to the pretty girl temptation is an example. We can imagine that she will be a rotting maggot ridden corpse in the not too distant future. This may (or may not depending on how degenerate one its) turn her into a repulsive object. But what it doesn't do is deal with the fact that she is a hot, attractive sexual person right now. Similarly, pain and suffering can be overcome by meditation but it is still there.

JJL:
Yes, I think consciousness is the issue. I was reading a piece on Arts and Letters Daily a few weeks ago that was analyzing traditional arguments for God's existence. The author presumed that belief in God was really just a disguise for the claim that human consciousness is not an accident but at the core of what is real.
But positing an orthodox God does not really get too far because while we may be puzzled as to the source of our consciousness, the possibility of consciousness without matter has no other examples to make it credible.
It seems to me that we have to suppose that matter contains within it at least the potential for consciousness, if not rudimentary consciousness itself. This fact attracts me to panpsychist philosophers like Whitehead who pushes down consciousness even into the smallest particles. While our consciousness 'apprehends' the world, he says that everything 'prehends' in some way. He then ends up being a pantheist (or to be more accurate, a panentheist) in which God is something like the sum total of the consciousness of the universe, but not some extra-sensible being with no material existence.

I think that as with most 'religious' or 'faith' traditions (into which buddhists are by turns correctly and inappropriately grouped) there is a broad spectrum of rigor in the pursuit of ultimate reality. Some are unforgiving in the inquiry, and some find something and stick with it. That problem has plagued smarter men than me for all of history, and I'm sure that even if someone published and answer that corresponded exactly with the true state of affairs, it would not come into broad acceptance.

As far as the modernist materialism v. dualism issue, I agree that it is difficult. A major revelation occurred a bit later with Wittgenstein in the demystification of language; Thoughts are not things. Descartes and others had raised all sorts of difficult questions regarding where thoughts 'come from'. The questions presupposed a noun to search for, as though one might, with the appropriate technology, open up a brain and be able to extract separate thoughts from the head. Round and round they all went, and ended up with a variety of theories, but noone really got far with the false premise.

Berkeley, whose name I think I saw on like page 2 or 3 of this thread, doesn't get much press, but his idea was basically to deny matter completely. (warning: liberal and forgiving read of berkeley ahead) This supposes only thoughts, which can give rise to the feelings, understandings, interactions, that define our existence. Matter is not neccessary to explain the things that go on around us. ??? A big leap for most to grasp.

In college, this struck a chord with me. Indeed, this would mean that we're little more than sensors bobbing about. Even what we look like is completely dependent upon a perception filter. Sight does not occur in our eyes, but that is where the sensors for vision are located (or so we believe) and so we assume that the eyes are the be-all end-all of vision. However, Descartes does a good job of calling into question these sense perceptions. And, if you eat or drink certain prescription (or various prohibited compounds/plants/) medications, you will find out that your reality does not have to concur with that of others visually as you greet the small trolls who have come to visit you in your hospital bed. Maybe the parents were right, "It's just a dream, dear... It's all in your head."... Do you have enough evidence to believe in the 'other minds' with whom you interract? or is your immediate existence the only believeable true state of affairs?

Now, for the philosophers-come-lately of the 'Matrix' movie variety (who, with all apologies to the tamer of them, tend to annoy me with their 'new' ideas about the nature of reality that is just meerly philo 101 with special effects... damn good special effects!), some of these ideas are a bit easier to grasp. The Cartesian 'evil genius' seems to be present, and only the self-concept of the people in the matrix colors their appearance. But, none of it is ultimately real- indeed, it is nothing more than 1s and 0s. The same is true of this computer page. Os and 1s make up the entire visual picture, but put together we take it as something else, and take it for granted that what we see is how it is, and that what we see is the ultimate reality. If you write any HTML, think of the code as the actual reality, the browser as your perceptive filter, and the displayed page as what we'd see.

Everything is not as it seems.

I think that makes things much more interesting, and allows for a rich diversity of thought. As long as we are not killing each other over the differences, I say it's all for the best.

cheers,
Kevin

The pansychism idea is attractive, in a new-age kind of way, but I found Searle's scathing attack on it pretty persuasive (he was pretty hard on Dennett too). He thinks the idea that just because an object responds to its environment we should not infer potential consciousness, otherwise we get backed into a corner of admitting that thermostats may be conscious by virtue of their behaviour, for example. He says we know what produces consciousness - brains, and we should focus our attention there. Whatdya think?

Originally posted by djugurba


Now, for the philosophers-come-lately of the 'Matrix' movie variety (who, with all apologies to the tamer of them, tend to annoy me with their 'new' ideas about the nature of reality that is just meerly philo 101 with special effects... damn good special effects!), some of these ideas are a bit easier to grasp. The Cartesian 'evil genius' seems to be present, and only the self-concept of the people in the matrix colors their appearance. But, none of it is ultimately real- indeed, it is nothing more than 1s and 0s. The same is true of this computer page. Os and 1s make up the entire visual picture, but put together we take it as something else, and take it for granted that what we see is how it is, and that what we see is the ultimate reality. If you write any HTML, think of the code as the actual reality, the browser as your perceptive filter, and the displayed page as what we'd see.


I'm reasonably convinced by the argument that 'information' lies in the beholder i.e. the 1's and 0's contain no information without an observer. Not sure what the consequences are..

I didn't intend it in a 'new age' kind of way. Most 'new age' thinking seems a little fuzzy to me.
Panpsychism does not make sense if it implies that molecules have consciousness. It only makes sense in the way that complex organism are constructed on the basis of proteins. Same way with consciousness. It's built up from more basic elements of thought found in smaller particles. I'm inclined to think that thermostats do think in a rudimentary kind of way. If we don't infer that large complex organisms gain their ability to think from the parts which make them up, we seem to end up with Descartes sharp distinction between mind and matter. Which brings us back to Kevin's introduction of Berekley. Every time I read him, I think he makes more sense. I suppose one way of looking at his analysis is that he looked at the mind/matter dualism which people were beginning to resolve in his day by reducing all to matter, and argued that the evidence pointed to a reduction of the two to mind instead of matter. I tend to think that at least part of that problem was generated by the theology of orthodox Christianity which had put god outside of the material world. Get rid of that underlying issue and mind/matter become two different ways to talking about the same thing.

While I agree that binning everything in the 'mind' box disposes of the issue, its uncomfortable. Doesn't it imply solipsism? (Kinda think I would have thunk of something better than *this* world!). Did Berkeley deal with this (its been some time since I read him)?

A proposition: The answer to the question of 'how does the brain do it' (if possible) must lie in the development of a science of 'interactions' and 'connectedness' and the emergent properties thereof. This is what some of the more enlightened brain scientists are trying to do (Edelmann, perhaps). Lost cause? Should I go to church?

Berkeley did side-step solipsism by allowing the language bewitchment to confuse him.. I can't remember the exact line of logic unfortunately. I'll dig him out and see if I can find it. I do know that when I bring him up, most (even academics) tend to roll their eyes as if to suggest that of course he is wrong: just touch something!

I always find it funny when philosophers come to that block. Its like the reverse of accepting something on faith: solipsism or nihlism cannot be the right answer, because we say it is so. I still have trouble getting away from it. However, on some level, the more recent thinkers who dispense with the metaphysics as less than relevant have a bit of a point: what is it going to change if you figgure it out? So, focus on what we deal with on a daily basis... interactions, connectedness, etc. Do we have duties to each other that do not depend on religious grounds? Can actions be altruistic? Do we have a duty to prevent starving in other countries? and the like...

Garrett Thompson has a great series of books that get to the root of the modern philosophers and shows the little slips they make in a clear way for the casual but serious lay student of philosophy. When reading Berkeley, I usually think about how the basic idea behind it makes good sense, but the line of logic he used to get to his conclusions had some flaws. That means that his method was wrong- not neccessarily his original thought.

My family is wondering why I am on the computer while they are watching football... I best tend to the in-laws.

Cheers,
Kevin

Berkeley's argument out of solipsism concerned the way the world seems to continue to exist when he is not 'watching' it. His example is his fire in the fireplace which appears to continue to burn when he leaves the room and no one else is there to perceive it. He concluded that God must constantly be perceiving the natural world in order for it to exist.
I'm not sure this argument has to be developed in explicitly theistic terms. The key insight is that there must be something or someone or some molecule perceiving something in order for anything to exist. He did not explore the non-theistic possibilities of his insight to my knowledge.
So, when you're doing biology or botany, and you understand things correctly, you are getting direct insight into God's perceptions according to Berkeley. So, rather than going to church, I think Berkeley would prefer you go to a science lab.

But why not a mosque?

Brains are not all that's needed for consciousness: a person may have a living brain and no consciousness. To me, that's a silly argument.

I think consciousness is an emergent property of information processing complexity. In this definition, intelligence is a quality of consciousness. So are those faculties that we think of as virtues--justice, love, etc.

For this reason, I think that consciousness will arise nearly spontaneously in a machine. say, "nearly" because just as a human being needs more than simply organic potentiality to produce consciousness, so a machine will need some sort of external nurturing stimulus to encorage it into self-awareness.

Now that I've taken-off my foil hat and put on my scifi hat, I propose that God-awareness is also emergent from the same consciousness process from which intelligence and such arise. Therefore, a machine intelligence would also have that same longing built-in as do we organic guis (gooey's).

too much turkey, I guess.

Botnst

too much turkey, I guess.
...shall we call this tryptophan sophistry then?

Kevin,
I think you may being doing a disservice to your folks and others who believe as they do. You project your reasons onto their faith---they "need" to believe. Many agnostics do that and it seems a bit arrogant---You truly believe you are right and they are confused and that they are "weak", needing to believe, while you are "strong", rising proundly above the need for faith. Don't you see that you are just like the proselytizing born again believers, just on the other side of the issue?
If you truly wanted to be "fair" in your assessment of believers, you would understand that their belief and your unbelief were exactly equal.
I am a believer in the historic Christian faith, not because I want it to be true, but because I honestly believe it IS true. I can accept that you honestly do not believe in that same faith. Thats OK with me; I do not need your acceptance to strengthen my belief. The truth of the tenants of the historic Christian faith are either true, or false by themselves. My ( or your ) belief, or disbelief, has no effect on their truth. I do not need your permission ( or condescension) to believe, nor should you need mine.

Michael

Fair enough, Michael. Faith in the God of Abraham , Isaac, and Joseph has resulted in some pretty remarkable people and societies. It is probably not too great an overstatement to assert that the social world as we know it is shaped by that faith, even in societies dominated by other religions.

What is faith and belief to you? What I mean is, how do you explain its effect on you and society? Where does it come from, why is it real to you? Why is it not real to others?

These are fair questions for anybody to ask, whether St. Paul or Satan (after all, Satan believes in God). How each of us answers these questions speaks of things greater than ourselves. Often the questions and answers are difficult and generate descension, even among faithful believers (were that not the case, Christianity and every other religion would be monolithic).

Work with us in understanding the questions and the answers.

Earlier, I asserted that consciousness is an emergent property of complexity. I then opined that intelligence and virtues are qualities of consciousness. This inlcudes a longing for understanding ultimate purposes--God. Is this is what Pascal said the soul is, a God-shaped vacuum in the human heart?

What do you think?

Botnst

I think that belief and unbelief are not equals. Unbelief is metaphysically simpler than belief. The unbeliever usually thinks the universe is populated with material brains/minds whereas the theistic believer adds at least one more mind--God's. On the basis of Ockham's razor, I think the burden of proof lies with the believer.
I also think that there is more of a psychological tendency to 'want' to believe in many forms of theism like traditional Christianity since they promise a continued existence in an afterlife. In my experience, it is a challenge for people to conceive of their own non-existence.
In addition, the reasons to believe in traditional Christianity seem more dubitable than the appeal to direct experience that most non-believers make. Not to mention the sociological pressure in favor of theism in the USA.
Of course, there are some psychological reasons why unbelief is attractive. Freedom and autonomy seem more associated with unbelief than belief. And in some social classes theism is not acceptable.

Have at me. I'd like to hear the reasons why they are equals.

Botnst:
Is it panpsychism that you think is silly??

Hmm. I think belief/non belief is a false dichotomy. There is belief in what is learned, and then there is whatever natural state of affairs that exists without having learned it. That seems the better line in the sand, as non-belief can be taken as a denial of the the belief, incorrectly.

As an agnostic, I can tell you most assuredly that I dont know. Again, I DO care, deeply. Someday I might have a vision in a dream and wake up feeling as though I don't need any more evidence that God is real. However, without such evidence, I'm not sure. I err on the side of natural economy and say (without evidence for..) no. Those who do believe are perfectly entitled to their beliefs, and are no more deserving of my condesending remarks than I am of being visited by missionaries. True enough!

I try my best to be respectful. I engage believers in conversation so I can understand better how the faith thing works. I celebrate the pragmatic benefits of community fellowship, simplicity of world-view, and theologically grounded morality. They all make things good for the believer, and deliver real fulfillment regardless of whether or not an actual God is involved. Now, I don't think they are confused and that I am correct. However, I do think that I am on firmer ground in terms of critical inquiry than ANY person who accepts God on faith. Is that wrong? I think that one ought to have good grounds to support his or her beliefs. I don't think less of people who worship in any tradition. Often, I am jealous. Common causes, common meals, weekly support meetings, singing, prayers, and a message of hope. I want all of that, but I want the underlying unifying belief to make good sense first, and I just don't see it.

Like it or not, faith is nothing more than accepting something without evidence. But for the historical lineage of the major religious traditions, it would be no more rediculous to believe that the earth and solar system are actually the nucleus of an atom of an enormous cell that is one of millions of cells that make up a liver of an enormous sheep on some ranch in a positively humungous larger world that is in turn just as small as we are in relation to it to the world in which it is part of the same progression of parts... and that we have millions of solar systems complete with thinkers and mercedes boards contained within the nucleii of our cells; we just can't see them yet.

I agree that the propositions that folks choose to take or leave are true or false independent of the believer. However, it is important to note that the natural state of affairs does not mention anything about God, rather, people have made these assertions through the years... and written them down, and passed them to their children. The default belief is to have no concept of God. shouldn't that be a bit instructive? If we put a baby in the woods and watch by hidden cameras, at age 18, I'd be willing to bet that God is not part of the story.

To be fair, I think scientism is much more impressed with itself than are most theologes, and both ought to be subject to the same rigor. Science often has a superiority complex; I had a class in college called presumptuously, "History of Life" It was given as a series of facts... geologic time, dinosaurs, cosmos, human development. What a joke. Most of the class was really theory. Some theories had good evidence, some not so much. But, it was almost all theory. It was self-righteously taught as fact. It is a trap many (and I) find hard to escape.

So, Michael, if I've offended you I appologise. I only wish to hear the good grounds that I think one ought to demand of any belief held. In the absence of these, I don't know what to say, as the conversation is almost pointless to continue.



:confused:

*As far as we know*, brains are a necessary but not sufficient condition for consciousness. Brains are a machine..made of material 'stuff'. That seems reasonably clear to me. If we can figure out neural correlates (sensu Crick) of consciousness, then we might be able to begin to identify the kind of systems that may have consciousness, and ones that are unlikely to have it.

I don't think machines like computers can be conscious simply by running a complex program. They can simulate the superficial, complex behaviour associated with it, but this is no more consciousness than a simulation of an explosion is itself and explosion.

I'll put the cat amongst the pigeons and say that some belief systems are more coherent than others. I'd define coherence as a willingness to weigh evidence for hypotheses impartially. Theologically, agnosticism is more humble position than belief.

I find it physically impossible to believe something for which there is no evidence, I don't understand how it is done. I understand *hope*, but not blind belief. Maybe I'm kidding myself.

Kevin, et al,
No offense taken.
As far as faith being accepting something as true without facts to back it up--thats a foreign concept to me. Many others, ( no doubt more intelligent than I) agree with you. However, I base my knowledge of faith on what I consider to be the Word of God, normally called the Bible of both old and new testaments. The Greek langauge of the new testament does not acknowledge sucha faith as you describe. Faith, at least in the NT sense is a strong confidence based on knowledge.
I believe western thought made a serious mistake from Hegel on. Most people accept a dichotomy between nature and Grace, or secular/ sacred, or religious belief/ scientific fact. I believe all these divisions are false. There is a unified filed of knowledge.
As far as I see my Christian duty, it is simply to tell what I know. The results are not up to me; I will not argue anyone into salvation; its not my job. In this I know I am at odds with many Christians who feel compelled to make converts. I believe that is Gods job, and it is presumptuous of man to do that job. As a result, I do not take this discussion personally. I am willing to answer as best as I am able for the hope that is in me. Somethings ( many actually) I do not know. But as much as I understand, I will try to explain.

Michael

You guys are ahead of me on panpsychism: I hadn't heard of it until you two wrote it down. I assume from the etymological roots that it is a belief that consciousness infuses everything. Is that different from Gaiaism, a more comfy way of embracing pantheism? Anyway, I think its silly because experience has never let me commune with a batholith--a massive structure from which I would love to learn of the comings and goings of the thin greasy slime that has lately covered the globe.

JJL, I think Crick is not too far afield. His writing style is arrogant, leaving me wishing I hadn't found his argument interesting.

I don't think a mass of living brain tissue alone makes a conscious mind, else a room full of caged rats should spontaneously burst into splendid creativity. Why does it not happen?

I think because the tiny rat brains, complex though they are, do not scale-up when two rats are in a cage. The interconnections between the two rat brains just aren't sufficiently speedy nor sufficiently complex to transfer massively parallel rat-brain symbology between the two. It would be interesting if one could fully graft the corpus callosum of several rats. By my hypothesis, at some point the megaratbrain would begin developing emergent qualities of complexity--rat intelligence, rat justice, etc.

This same argument extends to humans. Committees are not nX (n is number of committee members, X is some intelligent entity) . Rather, a committee is more like log(n+1)X, at best, and at some small number of n shifts to something like (log(n+1)/n)X. In other words, a committee quickly becomes too top-heavy. We know when the switch happens--whenever we think we need subcommitees.

We also know from experience that committees that have excellent communication skills perform better than than those with poor skills. A committee that had nearly perfect communication would probably perform more nearly like a superbrain, allowing the number of members to become quite large. This would be best approximated by zygotic twins nurtured to sentience in a commune, perhaps. Or perhaps exemplified by a beehive or ant nest.

During the process of self-assembly, higher organism require an interactive developmental template--mommy. Animals come hard-wired for mommy-ness and will often guide unrelated conspecific (in rare cases, interspecific) larvae to adulthood.

This is where my machine argument takes hold--a machine of sufficient processing complexity will self-assemble consciousness. Without mommy guidance the self-assembly will produce machine insanity. We do not recognize the machine symptoms of potential consciousness. What does a baby do to signal readiness for development of consciousness? Weird noises, uncoordinated (sometimes self-destructive) limb movements, etc.

What would a machine do? Random errors, etc....

What would a machine operator do when faced with an infantile machine searching for a mommy-template? Shut it down and repair it.

Botnst

I,v been told that this (earth) the planet which we call our home.......Has been Inhabited several times..over the last (lets say 1million or so years) Think about it...civilizations have come and gone and we don,t know a dam thing about where they went to.or why they left.or how they got from place to place." Recent" history tells us of civilizations and there ways of life and there "Religious" beliefs etc.etc. But looking at the history of the PLANET ..It has Had Ice Ages come and go several times and now they are saying that the Magnetic Poles have reversed themselves .It happens every 100 Thousand or so years. It Is on the declining side of the reversal (as we speak)This is the reason for global warming trend ...Mt. Kilamanjaro is showing bare areas on its peak that have NEVER been see by modern man;.At some time during these CHANGES this planet becomes un inhabitable and man has left (not the animals we are finding their remains but we aren,t finding MANS) ......To be asking if this is all Happening by chance is somewhat ignoring the BIG PICTURE .To the Agnostic I say Look around yourself and ask Questions ..Like How can this all be in sinc.with the Universe.?Someone alot greater than we can ever imagine has to be in control of this........My thoughts are That(MODERN) Science and Religion more or less feed on each other and cannot exist without each other. IN RECENT TIMES Was There an ATLANTIS?????? Where did the Ancents come up with the words Like (FIREBIRD) THUNDERBIRD) dont tell me that they are names of Modern Automobiles.. These Names are engraved in ancent tombs and on ceremonial scripts of the Incas and also the Chinese mention such (MEANS OF TRANSPORTATION)???????????????Think About it!!!!!!

Ever seen those mayan stone carvings with guys wearing elaborate spacesuit-like headgear? They are so delicately carved that they look like they're made from aluminum foil. Where did they get that technology?

Where did they get that technology?
Ask and ye shall receive my brother. This dude is the undisputed master of tinfoil telepathy. Clearly he's also unfamiliar with shameless hyperbole...

For over 30 years, Erich von Däniken has pursued the theory which postulates that Earth might have been visited by extraterrestrials in the remote past. Erich von Däniken, the world's most successful non-fiction writer of all time, has written 26 books on the topic and has sold over 60 million copies worldwide. His books have been translated into 32 languages. In the United States Erich von Däniken won instant fame as a result of the television special "In Search of Ancient Astronauts," based upon his first book Chariots of the Gods.
http://www.daniken.com/e/index.html
http://www.aas-ra.org/pictures/evdcdrom/B283S.GIF http://www.aas-ra.org/pictures/evdcdrom/B067S.GIF

Yeah, I read that crap in the late '70's or so. Well, the first book, anyway, to which my above-mentioning of bas-reliefs refers.

Or reefers.

Whatever,

Botnst

Sorry for the delay .I have a comment or two.......Von D.was not the first to ask and seek answers about such Mystries.of our little planet........He was the one whom capitolized and made a ton of money ,Jerking our chain and sorting out some questions we all have about our world.....But recently a younger scientist .has proven that the Sphinx was there thousands of years BEFORE the Pyramids. Who was there before the Egyptians????? who were they and where did they come from and where did they GO?????? I have several Thousands of Hours of flight time inside of the so called DEVILS TRIANGLE . Some of the Formations around the BIMINI area are very Unique and believe me.they were made by someone .The questions keep coming.who when why for what???????????????? Some of the things happening inside of this vast area .weather wise and otherwise still puzzle me .How did this happen ??? What was that????? Yes I could probably write a book on some of the Un explained things that have happened to me in that area,But we,ll save that for another day. Pete

History is full of things that were misunderstood and so taken as something in a then modern context. It is also full of intentional mythology that was concrete cosmology at the time.

Ancient Glyphs that look like space shuttles certainly must be from future american exploreres who find a wormhole, etc. So, we can safely assume that these future geniuses either have 100% moral courage to not inform the 'future' of anything, cure any diseases, etc. for fear of changing the path of history and creating Back to the Future-ish paradoxes, or we can glean that it's pretty unlikely this would be possible.

But,
We don't KNOW. We know that crop circles are bogus. We know that alien abduction/ UFO sighting reports spike dramatically following movies about either one. We know that humans have amazing imaginations and are unsatisfied until they think that they have a reasonable explanation for things. We know that people like to believe that they have a greater meaning.

Somethings, maybe we don't have the technology or spirituality or range of visual light and audible sound spectrum to understand. But, that won't stop people from putting forth their theories. Take them that way... theories.

God and Science- both theories with holes. Physics we depend on depends on a consistency that can be proven not to be present under certain conditions. Both sides of UFO debate tend towards ultimate yes/no distinctions. When will people learn to admit that it is ok to say you care about the truth and have not seen it yet? Our own jury system is close to this... Prove beyond a reasonable doubt. This may leave some unconvinced of justice in some circumstances (OJ) BUT, to deny resonable doubt in some of the above questions is to take the cartoon ostrich's method of problem solving. Put your head in the sand.

K

Just a short reply...In my business I have been tought to rely on what I see and not what I feel.Being a realist I sometimes like to venture off and (dream ). Afterall us Humans have that Trate or part of our Freewill.More so than mice rats gorillas etc etc etc. Yes crop circles were found to be bogus . Does that mean that all are??? How did the civilizations of Americas Northern europe China Egypt all share the same Technologies Example: Pyrimid Buildings that almost look alike but so far from each other and were built to almost the same alighnment as each other .Did they communicate ? or was this just another (theroy)? They sure as heck didn,thave transportation devices Like Cars , Telephones as we know them were not ..Airplanes??? How in the world did they all Have this Info? All about the same time (give or take a few thousand years..) And why did all these cultures all look only like themselves.: Northerners (Blue bloods), Mongols/chinese , africans, Incas/myans/aztecs.???? It seems to me that maybe these Tribes or Races were deposited in different parts of the (GLOBE)By some one .....It wasen,t till these groups of people started to move around that we start to see Inter racial (mixing)populations taking hold in different parts of the Globe...(Indians ..Eskimoes..Arabs..etc etc etc ) I,m not buying into this "THEROY" about we all came out of africa..and we all share the same Myrocondina(spelling) DNA.. Science proved that there was a missing link in that Theroy too..Some races even experimented with animals Thats why (some )not all Africans resemble The great apes.So I,ve been told..... Just some Ideas to knock around ..after all .since we don,t know all the answers its nice to think about these things.... Albert Einstein talked about the( other side ) was he talking about one of the 11 demensions of which we only know of 3 right now? How about "THREADS" and "STRINGS" The things that Einstein Talked about and studied Before He passed on, ALL Theroys..BUT WE ARE Getting closer to the answer!! Aren,t WE?????????????????????? Pete

I may be wrong, but it seems to me that non-theists borrow concepts from the theists to which they have no claim.__
In any non-Creationist system the root of the matter, at some point, must be mere Chance. That is simply Chance allowed the right circumstances to produce life, and all that is material. How then can you lay any claim to rationality, or logic. If it is simply because you observe it in the universe, I say that is insufficient grounds--what is rational today, may, at any time, due to Chance, become irrational. Furthermore, the Law of Entropy is against you--things do not naturally become more complex with time. The universe is running down, and drawing toward a lower state.

This is not intended to "bait" anyone; I just want an honest answer from a non Theist that explains how you can assume that rationality will continue to exist.

Rationality is a problem in any system, theist or otherwise. The theist has a problem correlating reason and God. If God has to be rational, then reason is a more powerful absolute than Godself. If God does not have to be rational, then rationality and the universe rely on the arbitrary choices of God.
I think rationality is just a useful tool we adopt to adapt to the world and manipulate it to our interests. There's no need to think that the universe is following some grand rational plan. "Chance" is just a way of denying any ultimate metaphysical purpose to the universe.

The theist has this same irrationality at the basis of the universe but doesn't think much about it. It's rooted in the problem of 'where does God come from'. God is the ultimate irrationality if the universe isn't.

Wow! You guys still debating this? Hasn't one of you been convinced you're wrong yet?;)

Originally posted by rickg
Wow! You guys still debating this? Hasn't one of you been convinced you're wrong yet?;)

Till the end of time, mate ;)

You cannot deduce conclusively from past experience, future events. (or something the like) -David Hume.

So the question was how can non-theists assume that rationality will continue to exist.

The answer is that rationality is a human construct. As is theism. Both will 'continue to exist' for as long as humans and whatever intelligent progeny we create are available to participate. We look around and devise methods to communicate what we see/smell/etc. and over time these constructs become social norms.

I remember reading a question once that wondered if there was ever one dinosaur. The answer is no. At no time were there ever any dinosaurs, let alone numbers with which to count them. There were no translateable means for these concepts/designations to have any sense at all. The reason is, there were no people; no people means none of the conventions we assume backwards in history (so we can understand it in our own contexts and communicate clearly). Rationality did not exist.

We use words today in ways that trick us into thinking we've discovered the deep-rooted and perpetual mechanics of the universe. Perhaps we have stumbled on some things... but it's just contextual relationships we've observed that we're describing so we can understand each other. Ultimately, none of the things we agree to call something actually ARE what we've called them outside of our own context. See the dinosaurs above...

I think that a false dichotomy has been proposed between rationality and chance. I would like to suggest that both of these only have meaning within our human context, and no referant entity or process outside. Rationality is not the same as whatever you wish to call the phenomenon of cell division, reproduction, etc. These things clearly do not require rational intellect to perpetuate. Consider a virus or bacteria. Do they reproduce and spread by chance? by rationality? the two don't seem opposites here do they? No, they are not.

Soooo, I can safely assume that 'rationality' will continue to 'exist' as long as it is a convention of language sharing thinking things. Certainly not one minute longer...

k

Amen brother, preach it!

Your argument has some merit, IF and ONLY if, as you maintain, " religion is a human construct". If religion is "revealed" as in given to man by God then, it is not a human construct and your analogy fails. If however, man invented religion as a means to explain things he did not know, or in order to control "the masses", then you are right as that kind of religion is evil.

As for how long will this debate continue, I can't say. I am complelled by the God Who is there only to be ready to explain to anyone the reason for the hope that is within me. Whether anyone is convinced is not in my control, nor is there any reason for me to respond in anger to people who do not believe as I do. Our differences are real and profound; we cannot both be right. ( How un PC is that!), but our argument does not need to be personal.

Originally posted by djugurba

Soooo, I can safely assume that 'rationality' will continue to 'exist' as long as it is a convention of language sharing thinking things. Certainly not one minute longer...

k

Wait a second, did the tree make a sound? I'm confused now. Oh, I get it....

A tree falling in the woods without a human doesn't make a noise, ... but it does make sound. Noise is a human interpretation of sound -- an aesthetic quality of sound whilst sound is a product of some physical interactions.

Darn, rather than simplify things I just made a big ol' dualistic universe. One which is observed and one which is not observed.

Rationality, a derived function of observation, is thus at least twice removed from an event. But since we are part of nature, subject to natural selection, then the organs with which we observe and reason are themselves subject to change by nature's whimsy. Thus, rationality itself is just a net with ever-shifting interstices heuristically trapping whatever chanced event flutters through time into its grasp.

Whether God or chance is ultimately important, but neither can be caught in its completeness by our nets. One eludes us with a continuous stream of plausible alternative explanations and the other by dancing inside and outside of the net's grasp with equal ease. Which is which and how can we know?

There was a heresy in Lyon during Roman times, I believe. In this heresy the selection for preaching and celebrating the mass was done by a game of chance. God, almighty and all-knowing, would select the celebrant by influencing a tossed fair die.

Botnst

Ha ha! Thats funny. Just as funny as modern protestant churches banning liquor, most of which was invented and perfected by christian monks in the first place!

I don't think the observation matters so much- just the simultaneous existence of relevant context. I'm not sure how possible it is to sidestep our own contextual frame of reference to note that which is independent of our grasping of it. Our net is indeed limited yes?

On the tree in the woods, since we're around to question it, meditate on it, etc., I don't have a problem trusting consistency and believing that its fall does indeed make a sound and/or noise.

On the dinosaurs- I'm not suggesting that massive reptiles are figments of the imagination- just that while they were around they were most certainly not dinosaurs.

As for God, yes, if things are being revealed then indeed it would pass the test of escaping the bounds of meerly human in context. I tend to think that while indeed the greatest set of stories ever told, religions dont pass that test. If they did, I'm not sure how we would be able to tell- short of a visit from a deity or something?

"we cannot both be right" I wonder? ;)
Would an all-knowing, all-powerful creator make people and screw up so bad that far less than 1/2 of them believe he exists?
I'd rather give more credit: People are different, and need to hear different things to find peace. In the same way that two medical patients might need different medicine to be cured, two people need to hear different messages to reach happiness. So, ultra-smart God feeds me some Bachelor and Huxley and Nagarajuna and Berkeley and Dalai Lama and Buddha, and feeds Muslims some Koran, and Christians some Bible, and so on. Most find something compelling enough to proceed through the day. Mission accomplished. THAT is all-knowing! We'd be equally happy with our beliefs, but neither one of us would be clued in to the ultimate reality. certainty is bliss??? In this model, we'd be right to hold our ultimately false beliefs, and our contextual contradictions would prove only ultimately important in stimulating dialogue like this.

naaaaaaah...

Plato would have loved THIS forum!

cheers!
Kevin

Kevin,
So you've assumed that the reason God exists is to make us happy....
How utterly typical of Man; to assume that his well being is all God cares about....and how arrogant ( at least from God's perspective ( I think)).
Maybe the correct perspective is that man exists to make God happy, or that man exists to bring praise and honor to God.

I disagree that things would be different if there is/was a revelation. There is no assurance that a divine being can communicate a revelation directly to us. We read, listen, and think. All of these things require interpretive action on our part. There is no way that any divine truth can be directly imparted to us without our free minds having our way with it.

The most obvious example is the problem of the NT. Many Christians claim it is an authoritative divine revelation. However, it is written mostly in Koine Greek which no on speaks anymore. So what turns out that the authoritative divine revelation is not the NT itself but Kittle's Theological Dictionary of New Testament Greek. Whatever the dictionary states is the meaning of God's word, is now God's word!
The problem is most obvious in translation but even if God spoke in English (to us), someone still has to decide what the words mean. No amount of revelation can overcome this problem.

I agree with MS that there is nothing personal about debating these issues. What tools do we have for sorting out our experience other than thinking hard and talking to others?

I also agree with MS that if there is a God, it is very hard to imagine that God would care about us at all, let alone be trying to make us happy. On he other hand, if God created us to praise Him then God is a misguided egotist.

Is God less important if meerly a human construct to make people happy than if actually underlying reality? I'm not sure how we'd know...

My point was not that God exists only to make men happy, but that the God most describe with all the omni- words is inconsistent with a God who can't seem to get everyone on the same page of belief. Is there neccessarily a 'why' we (or God) exists? Why should there be?

I happen to have never come across a compelling consistent argument for the existence of God outside of the human context. These must always must depend on faith at some level. I'd love to find one that did not!

I can show that concepts of God exist within the human context, can it be shown to be otherwise?

If you think about it, the set of all knowledge known, all things seen, etc. is close to the omni- God description. Is panpsychism back to rear it's ugly head? :D

I have a lot of sympathy with that position. Feuerbach claimed that God was nothing more than humans self-alienated. All the qualities ascribed to God are really qualities of the human species. By ascribing them to God we lose our own dignity and integrity. The only question I have about his position is whether one can believe in a different kind of God which does not have human qualities and maintain the dignity of the species while also believing in God.

That's the claim of Genesis turned inside-out.

Kerry,
When I was learing my Koine, I was often wondering if we were learning the langauge, or simply words. There is more to translating than simple word-for-word substitution--even for those of us who believe that the actual words are significant.

As for God being an egotist--well that depends. If there is someone greater, then that being should be deferred to. But if God truly is the only self existant One, then to whom is he to defer? For the truly self existant One to prefer to honor someone else would be a lie as that being would not be as worthy as God Himself.

From our human perspective that sounds very wrong, but from God's perspective it really is mere honesty.

Yes, that art of translation is exactly why I think revelation is impossible. Ultimately what I think is that the reader is the one who decides what the revelation is, whether they are translating or not.

If God is the greatest, why would it be important, or why would God care if we worshipped God or not?
I think that view of God is rooted in a culture in which children are always supposed to respect their parents and do what their parents want. Such children lack their own dignity and typically have their spouses chosen for them by their parents.
When culture changes and children are recognized as dignified and rational in their own right, the old idea of God does not fit any more. No one in the US thinks anymore that they should always obey their parents (even as adults) just because they are your parents. In such a society, new ideas of God are needed.

So I think the question becomes, what image of God is compatible with a democratic society? (if Feuerbach is not right when he think that a democratic society necessitates atheism)

Dunno Fuerbach, but if I understand your sentence correctly, it sounds as though he would stand in opposition to the founders of the American experiment, including Ben Franklin, probably the enarest of the founders to being an atheist.

In truth, most of those guys were pragmatic rather than pious. They saw strong religious convictions as a moral glue from which the common good would arise. I suppose that a secular common morality is possible in a free society. Certainly Europe seems Hell-bent (!) in that direction. Interesting how we seem increasingly divergent (in the USA) compared to Europe. I'll bet there is a connection betwen that divergence and our comparative faithfulness.

At the risk of flames, I believe this is one of the slams that radical Islamists have against western society. They see the seamy-side of freedom's gifts as indication of immorality and increasing moral decay.

Botnst

Yes, Feuerbach sees the death of god as a precursor to a free society.

I don't understand why you think you will be flamed. Sure some Muslims think the immorality of the US is terrible. We let women walk around the streets without headcoverings, we let men and women touch each other in public, we give legal standing to homosexuals, allow unmarried people to have sex, and let children choose their own spouses. Bring on the immorality!

By the way, you can blame us immoral Coloradans for this reputation. Sayeed Qutb, founder of the very influential Muslim Brotherhood, executed by the State in Egypt in the 50's went to school at the University of Northern Colorado. He attended a church social event to get the flavor of American religion and was horrified to find men and women dancing at the church.

The way you phrased that description, "...men and women, dancing together..." reminds me of that scene in "Ghost Busters" in which Bill Murray & co try to explain to the mayor what releasing the demons would mean to the city. Something like, "dogs and cats, sleeping together..."

The reason for flames is this: whenever folks suggest that Al Queda may have something to say of value it is understood to mean that Al Queda is justified. I do not in any way, shape or form believe their intentional butchery of noncombatants is justified. But it certainly is useful to understand them and their concerns. Understanding doesn't necessarily mean embracing.

For example, you understand free market capitalism but embrace communism. Your understanding of capitalist market economies makes you more persuasive. In the same sense, understanding radical Islam is the best way to redirect its energies to a more productive course.

Hope I dodged the flamethrowers.

Botnst

It is possible to ground morality in something besides truths revealed by a higher power. That is a subject that many have written about. "A Grounding for the Metaphysics of Morals" is one fairly standard account. Some buddhists do this via the concept of dependent origination.

It is also a subject that many debate. All around the country there is a battle between those who want the 10 commandments displayed in government public places and those who think this to be inappropriate. You are right that it is a devisive topic! Here in GA, the individual who complained about this in one county has had to appeal to have the case go forward with his or her name as annonymous, due to fear for his/her life.

I find it amazing that we still have to debate this. Were Hamilton and the federalists right?

NONE of the organized religions look even remotely like the faiths that originated them. Christianity has arguably been changed the most. The Orthodox churches of eastern europe are closer to the practice and belief structure of the first christians than any of the Catholic or Protestant offerings. Just trace the history of the church- it's all there to discover. Even if God exists, noone has even claimed to have spoken with him/her/it in hundreds of years. The message has undoubtedly become polluted over time. Remember the game 'telephone chain' you played in kindergarten. Its the same phenomenon.

I demand consistency from the positions that I take on to formulate the way I lead my life. This involves good, defensible grounds for my beliefs. With those requirements, I've put aside the organized religions. I'm very open to new ideas and new teachings regarding the old ideas. I'm quite uninterested in dogmatic preaching. Simple grounds and well-considered consistent systems seem much more realistic. I do not hold anyone's beliefs against them until they try to put theirs upon me. I deserve the same respect, but in the USA today, this is ABSOLUTELY not given. If I am a white male with no foreign accent, I am assumed to be a child of God. I am 'blessed' daily, wished merry christmas, happy easter, etc., told God Bless You, preyed for by my politicians, made to stand for prayer at NFL football games?, pressured to say the pledge of alegiance to the flag UNDER GOD, and generally pressured to conform to this norm. If I assert that I do not wish to have this pressure, my opinion is taken not as another one to be respected, but as an attack on the one I reject. That should not be the case. If challenged, I feel good about my grounds. When I suggest that "The Bible says,".. is not good grounds, that's where most conversations end.

I don't think that a democratic society necessitates atheism. But I wish ours had a bit more breathing room for agnostics. MUCH good has come from both believers and non-believers. but I am tired of being told that "Do-gooders go to hell everyday" by those who assume they have God's backing and that I am a heathen without Him. PROVE SOMETHING. oh, wait, you haven't even tried to. You just believe what you were told to believe. This is not my answer to all believers, but many who are actively out there trying to convert.

Certainly the folks on this board who respectfully dig at these ideas do not fall into this category. Engaging in the discourse is meritous, and each of you have my respect as you lend your thoughts to the fray. I appreciate the forum to exhange ideas, as this is a debate that I think should be happening in the larger public eye rather than primarily in philosophy classrooms.

cheers,
Kevin

Al Queda is justified. I do not in any way, shape or form believe their intentional butchery of noncombatants is justified.
Al Qaeda has many legitimate complaints against the West in general, and the U.S. in specific, but I don't think anyone participating on this forum believes their actions were/are justified. Of course, we could extend this point to U.S. actions abroad but that's for another thread...

Learning and understanding the root causes of conflict, failure or success is always in your strategic best interest. Honestly accepting those answers may require access to a higher power...