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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: Purgatory: Final Straws - why do religious moderates keep the faith?
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Scot
Deck hand
# 2095
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by The Great Gumby:
That first cause, being outside the universe, isn't bound by the same constraints of time, cause and effect as the universe itself, so looking for a cause of the first cause is unnecessary. (If you argue that the universe just is, and always will be, you end up defining the universe in exactly the same terms as the prime mover you reject.)
I wouldn't argue that the universe just is, and always will be, because there is strong evidence for when, if not how, it began. The cause of the origin of the universe is outside of our current knowledge, but I don't see any reason to assume that it is necessarily beyond our potential knowledge. If you label that cause as "God", then you are either implying unsubstantiated things about that cause or you are setting up deism.
quote:
So liberals base their theological position in large part on their personal interpretation of experience, and place a lot of weight on that. I think the same may well be true of why they stay - they get a feeling of peace, they have a feeling that there's something in it, and suchlike. They have some sort of experience, and give that experience a lot of weight when attempting to interpret it and determine its significance. If they have no such feeling, on the other hand, there probably isn't much to keep them where they are.
That's pretty much what I meant. As I noted a few pages back, this explanation implies some rather uncomfortable things about the divine purpose for those people who lack such experiences or feelings.
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“Here, we are not afraid to follow truth wherever it may lead, nor tolerate any error so long as reason is left free to combat it.” - Thomas Jefferson
Posts: 9515 | From: Southern California | Registered: Jan 2002
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Scot
Deck hand
# 2095
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
Every thing is made of some substance.
Therefore, there is some substance (call it matter) that everything is made of.
The reasons that the above arguments are invalid is that they're treating 'every x' in the premise as the name of a singular. But that's not equivalent. 'Every thing' is just a way of summarising a whole lot of separate statements. 'Everything' takes all the subjects of all the separate statements as being a subject we can talk about in its own right. It is, without further premises, a logical mistake.
If you are using "matter" in its common sense, i.e., anything with both mass and volume, then you are arguing against a strawman. Nobody is claiming that everything is made of simple matter.
If you are using "matter" in its broader sense, then I see no meaningful distinction between "substance" and "matter". This is just a tautology.
quote:
Note, however, that as soon as we take materialism as a principle of operation, we're committing that logical error. So we need to justify the logical move from 'every thing' to 'everything' somehow. Note that the justification has to be logical, not empirical.
Can non-empirical arguments tell us anything about the real world? Apparently. We don't arrive at the rules of arithmetic or geometry by induction from repeatable experiments.
I'm not sure what point you are driving at. I haven't claimed that empiricism is the one true way. Logic, reason, and observation are not unrelated. Science could be said be a logical process of discovering the nature of the world by making rational predictions which are verfied (or not) by empirical observations.
It seems like you are just taking a long road to saying that we can't prove that there is no God who exists (in some sense of the word) beyond the natural world. That is true, but we also have no verifiable evidence or logical necessity causing us to believe in such a deity unless we define him in such a loose way that "God" really just means "unknown".
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“Here, we are not afraid to follow truth wherever it may lead, nor tolerate any error so long as reason is left free to combat it.” - Thomas Jefferson
Posts: 9515 | From: Southern California | Registered: Jan 2002
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Jengie jon
Semper Reformanda
# 273
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Scot:
I'm not sure what point you are driving at. I haven't claimed that empiricism is the one true way. Logic, reason, and observation are not unrelated. Science could be said be a logical process of discovering the nature of the world by making rational predictions which are verfied (or not) by empirical observations.
In my experience the normal place this is asserted is at the start of a philosophy of science book which then spends the rests of its pages debunking it or for a change a sociological approach to science (more empirical but less logical than that of the philosophy of science bods) which does the same.
Jengie
[ 24. June 2009, 20:20: Message edited by: Jengie Jon ]
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"To violate a persons ability to distinguish fact from fantasy is the epistemological equivalent of rape." Noretta Koertge
Back to my blog
Posts: 20894 | From: city of steel, butterflies and rainbows | Registered: May 2001
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RuthW
liberal "peace first" hankie squeezer
# 13
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Scot:
quote:
Originally posted by The Great Gumby:
So liberals base their theological position in large part on their personal interpretation of experience, and place a lot of weight on that. I think the same may well be true of why they stay - they get a feeling of peace, they have a feeling that there's something in it, and suchlike. They have some sort of experience, and give that experience a lot of weight when attempting to interpret it and determine its significance. If they have no such feeling, on the other hand, there probably isn't much to keep them where they are.
That's pretty much what I meant. As I noted a few pages back, this explanation implies some rather uncomfortable things about the divine purpose for those people who lack such experiences or feelings.
It does, and this is troubling. Available responses -- Try harder! or, How great is the faith of those who have not seen but still believe! -- seem incredibly inadequate.
At the same time, though, categorizing my relevant experiences as neurological phenomena is extremely unsatisfying. If I had a more scientific turn of mind, maybe I wouldn't feel that way. I suppose I'm less screwed in a scientific rationalism framework than a rationalist is in a religious framework -- I simply don't understand certain things, whereas in my framework the rationalist is really missing out -- but I do wonder what happens within scientific rationalism to my (and others') persistent feeling that there must be more to our experiences than the explanations neurology can or eventually will be able give. Is it explained or regarded at all? Just something left over from an inadequate worldview that has since been superseded?
And I'm wondering what folks here think about Einstein's thoughts about science and religion:
quote:
At first, then, instead of asking what religion is I should prefer to ask what characterizes the aspirations of a person who gives me the impression of being religious: a person who is religiously enlightened appears to me to be one who has, to the best of his ability, liberated himself from the fetters of his selfish desires and is preoccupied with thoughts, feelings, and aspirations to which he clings because of their superpersonalvalue. It seems to me that what is important is the force of this superpersonal content and the depth of the conviction concerning its overpowering meaningfulness, regardless of whether any attempt is made to unite this content with a divine Being, for otherwise it would not be possible to count Buddha and Spinoza as religious personalities. Accordingly, a religious person is devout in the sense that he has no doubt of the significance and loftiness of those superpersonal objects and goals which neither require nor are capable of rational foundation. They exist with the same necessity and matter-of-factness as he himself. In this sense religion is the age-old endeavor of mankind to become clearly and completely conscious of these values and goals and constantly to strengthen and extend their effect. If one conceives of religion and science according to these definitions then a conflict between them appears impossible. For science can only ascertain what is, but not what should be, and outside of its domain value judgments of all kinds remain necessary. Religion, on the other hand, deals only with evaluations of human thought and action: it cannot justifiably speak of facts and relationships between facts. According to this interpretation the well-known conflicts between religion and science in the past must all be ascribed to a misapprehension of the situation which has been described.
(Source)
Posts: 24453 | From: La La Land | Registered: Apr 2001
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Dave Marshall
Shipmate
# 7533
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by RuthW:
I do wonder what happens within scientific rationalism to my (and others') persistent feeling that there must be more to our experiences than the explanations neurology can or eventually will be able give. Is it explained or regarded at all? Just something left over from an inadequate worldview that has since been superseded?
I can't speak for scientific rationalism but isn't it the non-rational judgements that define our humanity? I likely walk where I do through fields by the river because it reminds me of where I used to fish growing up. No rational scientific judgement, just acting on a barely conscious impulse in a way that probably represents me more than any carefully considered thought.
The problem with rational-ism is that it focuses on one thing to the over-exclusion of others. It's the same kind of loss of perspective as emotional-ism or irrational-ism. What most often seems to go wrong is that someone assumes the balance in their personal perspective can be generalised into areas where either more appreciation of how people feel or a more rational analysis would be more appropriate.
There's nothing inadequate about me standing in the shade of some old tree watching the sunlight catch the river for half an hour just because I feel like it. But if it meant I missed a meeting I'd agreed to attend, a more rational approach to time management might have been better in that particular situation.
[ 25. June 2009, 00:57: Message edited by: Dave Marshall ]
Posts: 4763 | From: Derbyshire Dales | Registered: Jun 2004
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Scot
Deck hand
# 2095
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Posted
Einstein said and wrote many things about religion and God, things that on the surface are wildly contradictory. I don't believe that what he meant by "religion" or "God" is the same as what most Christians mean by those words.
Quotes like those below lead me to believe that although Einstein did not describe himself as an atheist, he did not believe in a supernatural deity.
quote:
I do not believe in a personal God and I have never denied this but have expressed it clearly. If something is in me which can be called religious then it is the unbounded admiration for the structure of the world so far as our science can reveal it.
(Einstein in Albert Einstein: The Human Side quoted here)
quote:
I am a deeply religious nonbeliever. This is a somewhat new kind of religion. I have never imputed to Nature a purpose or a goal, or anything that could be understood as anthropomorphic. What I see in Nature is a magnificent structure that we can comprehend only very imperfectly, and that must fill a thinking person with a feeling of humility. This is a genuinely religious feeling that has nothing to do with mysticism. The idea of a personal God is quite alien to me and seems even naive.
(Einstein in a 30 March 1954 letter to Hans Muehsam. A partial version of this quote with a citation is here. The longer version is widely quoted online, but without the source.
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“Here, we are not afraid to follow truth wherever it may lead, nor tolerate any error so long as reason is left free to combat it.” - Thomas Jefferson
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
It seems this thread has morphed from "why do moderates keep the faith" to "why moderates shouldn't keep the faith".
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This is the last sig I'll ever write for you...
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Evensong
Shipmate
# 14696
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
It seems this thread has morphed from "why do moderates keep the faith" to "why moderates shouldn't keep the faith".
No, I think its degenerated into "lets try prove or disprove God exists using our intellect".
Waste of time ![[Big Grin]](biggrin.gif)
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a theological scrapbook
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Barnabas62
Shipmate
# 9110
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by RuthW:
quote:
Originally posted by Scot:
As I noted a few pages back, this explanation implies some rather uncomfortable things about the divine purpose for those people who lack such experiences or feelings.
It does, and this is troubling. Available responses -- Try harder! or, How great is the faith of those who have not seen but still believe! -- seem incredibly inadequate.
I think that "Don't try so hard" is a pretty good response. The protestant work ethic has got a lot to answer for.
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Who is it that you seek? How then shall we live? How shall we sing the Lord's song in a strange land?
Posts: 21397 | From: Norfolk UK | Registered: Feb 2005
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Dave Marshall
Shipmate
# 7533
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
It seems this thread has morphed from "why do moderates keep the faith" to "why moderates shouldn't keep the faith".
Nah. More what does the faith look like if we lose the tradition-tinted glasses.
Posts: 4763 | From: Derbyshire Dales | Registered: Jun 2004
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Dafyd
Shipmate
# 5549
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Scot:
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
The idea that 'the' universe that either features a stable reality or an unstable reality already presupposes that there is such a thing as the universe. And that's the move that really needs justifying. You can produce all sorts of logical errors by treating 'everything' as the name of a logical singular: without further justification, 'the universe' is just such a logical error.
Would you prefer "a universe" or "this universe"? In any case, as far as we can observe the universe in which we exist does feature a stable reality.
Just to be clear here: 'stable reality' seems to imply to some of the people reading this things like apples never fly upwards. That's a much weaker constraint, and I quite concede that we don't observe that ever. Just to head off a straw man.
To reiterate: scientific method requires us to assume that not all observations are equal. We can never reach the conclusion that all observations are equal based on observation alone. We need to rationally justify claims about consistency that cannot be rationally justified from observation alone.
We've established that we can't invoke natural selection at this point to justify the claim about consistency.
You assert below that we observe that there is consistency. But we don't.
We observe a lot of consistency and quite a lot of inconsistency.
We only observe that there is consistency once we have discounted the inconsistency by explaining it away as cognitive bias, faults in memory, imperfect observation, etc.
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd in response to sanityman:
quote:
I'm also aware that I'm so far arguing only that there's a hole where something needs to be put, so that 'God' is just a label for what goes in that whole. I'm more arguing that classical theism thinks of God far more as what belongs under that kind of label rather than as the external designer of Paleyite thought or young-earth creationism.
How is this not just another "God of the gaps" argument?
quote:
I'll rephrase my statement to say that there is an open question to be explored, but we don't need to assert the presence of some unverifiable and untestable "other" outside of nature simply because science hasn't worked out a complete answer yet.
Rearranging your post to take the two points together.
I'm not happy with the phrase 'outside of nature', because the word 'nature' is multiply ambiguous, and 'outside of' seems incoherent as applied to it.
Do you find Platonism about mathematics comprehensible? That is the belief that there are mind-independent truths and matter about mathematics. e.g. does the description 'the smallest prime number greater than the number of particles in the universe' have a specific referent?
The question doesn't have a verifiable or testable answer. That doesn't mean that we can't use reason and logic to work out whether it has a coherent or incoherent answer.
If 'the smallest prime number greater than the number of particles in the universe' exists, it is presumably 'outside of nature'. (Although 'outside of nature' would seem to imply that it is some kind of thing that occupies a space, just not a space within nature, and whatever it is it's not a kind of thing.
A God in the gaps argument argues that a particular empirical question (e.g. irregularities in the orbits of the planets, or the origins of life) doesn't have any possible empirical solution.
What I'm arguing is not an empirical question at all. That doesn't mean it's not a question that can be answered. It can be answered by philosophical reason.
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we remain, thanks to original sin, much in love with talking about, rather than with, one another. Rowan Williams
Posts: 10567 | From: Edinburgh | Registered: Feb 2004
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Dafyd
Shipmate
# 5549
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Jason I. Am:
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
The process of making guesses and checking for consistency doesn't really make sense until we expect there to be consistency. And that doesn't really arise until we have generated the set of abstractions around a unified philosophical theology.
That seems like quite a causal jump. I haven't seen anything to make me doubt that expectation of consistency arose when people started noticing consistency around them. Which seems like a far simpler, more likely explanation than going the lonnnnnnnng way around to say it was because they came up with "unified philosophical theology" and that led to people expecting consistency in the natural world around them.
I'm referring to anthropological scholarship and to the history of science and philosophy. My scholarship might turn out to be dodgy and out of date, no doubt. I might retract it in favour of better scholarship. I'm really not going to retract it in favour of an assertion that there's a simpler explanation.
The whole point is that our intutions about what is simpler and more likely and what is looooong are not evidence. Scholarship is evidence. Intuitions are not. Especially when the scholarship explains them.
quote:
I think this is a uniquely theological problem, that you can't be concerned with the truth of anything if you're not concerned with the Truth of All Things. On the contrary, you can be very concerned about the truth of whether things fall to the ground when dropped without being too worried about the truth of whether ultimate reality is unified. I doubt it would have done much good if you had been there when Newton presented his findings to say, "That's all well and good, Isaac, but until we determine definitively whether or not ultimate reality is truly unified or not, your findings are just not that impressive or conclusive."
If I had said that to Newton, he would have said that unified reality was guaranteed by the goodness of God, seeing as he was a theologian of sorts.
So I'm pretty sure that, had the question ever been raised for him, he would have believed that 'reality is unified' is not merely a hypothesis but actually true. And I'm prepared to claim that that's one of the contributing factors to his success. Your rhetoric seems to be reducing Newton's achievement to the truth of 'whether things fall to the ground when dropped'. One of my points is that his ambitions were rather greater than that.
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we remain, thanks to original sin, much in love with talking about, rather than with, one another. Rowan Williams
Posts: 10567 | From: Edinburgh | Registered: Feb 2004
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Jason™
Host emeritus
# 9037
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
I'm referring to anthropological scholarship and to the history of science and philosophy. My scholarship might turn out to be dodgy and out of date, no doubt. I might retract it in favour of better scholarship. I'm really not going to retract it in favour of an assertion that there's a simpler explanation.
The whole point is that our intutions about what is simpler and more likely and what is looooong are not evidence. Scholarship is evidence. Intuitions are not. Especially when the scholarship explains them.
So far I've read a lot of words, but nothing that suggests that belief in unified-reality-theology is a necessary or even logical precursor to an interest in consistency and observation. In other words, I still don't understand what point you're trying to make, especially in the context of this thread.
The "I'm smarter so trust me and my scholarship" line isn't the strongest argument I've ever heard, either.
Posts: 4123 | From: Land of Mary | Registered: Feb 2005
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tclune
Shipmate
# 7959
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
I'm referring to anthropological scholarship and to the history of science and philosophy...The whole point is that our intutions about what is simpler and more likely and what is looooong are not evidence. Scholarship is evidence. Intuitions are not.
In the fields cited, my sense is that "scholarship" is just intuition with footnotes.
--Tom Clune
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Posts: 8013 | From: Western MA | Registered: Jul 2004
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Autenrieth Road
Shipmate
# 10509
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Posted
The thread appears to have moved to abstruse discussions which mostly make my head hurt. Here's my liberal doubting story...
I go to church because my life goes better when I do.
I call myself a Christian because I was baptized (as a young child).
During the 15 years I did not go to church, I didn't particularly think of myself as a Christian, though I didn't think myself as a non-Christian either. I just didn't think in those terms at all.
I think in those terms now because I'm engaged in seeking and trying to follow. So that makes the question "am I a Christian?" occur to me. But the fundamental reason why I say I'm a Christian is not because I seek or follow, but because I am baptised. (I happen not to have been baptized as an infant, but at four and a half it wasn't my seeking or affirming choice to be baptized either, much as I enjoyed it, and I am a firm believer in infant baptism.)
I became able to go back to church again as an answer to what I was seeking as a result of taking a Religion 101 course in which I was introduced to the concept of myth as "truths which are truer than fact." At that time I would have said I didn't think I believed in God, but that I believed completely in certain things for which I didn't have a better word than God.
My faith and understanding has developed and changed since then in some ways, though not entirely. It has included a crisis in which that bargain ("I don't really believe in God, but I don't have any other language for the things I do believe in") started to fail.
A catalytic start to my non-church-going 15 years was reading Walter Kaufmann's The Faith of a Heretic. That helped to give voice to a great many doubts I'd been having for a year already; let it be also said that the shock of going to college and trying to integrate into a new church community was also a huge blow to my ability to go to church and to my faith.
To what extent are the concerns raised in the OP relevant to my being either in or out of faith and practice at any point in time? Not much. I would say that those represent a particular take on Christianity, but there are many versions of Christianity, and not agreeing with one of them doesn't preclude one from being Christian.
A more relevant question for my own journey personally might be why, as a universalist (though not a unitarian), am I a Christian rather than some other faith, or pan-faith? And that would have several answers, including: it's how I was raised, and when I was hurting I returned to my childhood roots.
My faith is perhaps defined as much by practice as by belief.
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Truth
Posts: 9559 | From: starlight | Registered: Oct 2005
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sanityman
Shipmate
# 11598
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Jason I. Am:
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
I'm referring to anthropological scholarship and to the history of science and philosophy. My scholarship might turn out to be dodgy and out of date, no doubt. I might retract it in favour of better scholarship. I'm really not going to retract it in favour of an assertion that there's a simpler explanation.
The whole point is that our intutions about what is simpler and more likely and what is looooong are not evidence. Scholarship is evidence. Intuitions are not. Especially when the scholarship explains them.
So far I've read a lot of words, but nothing that suggests that belief in unified-reality-theology is a necessary or even logical precursor to an interest in consistency and observation. In other words, I still don't understand what point you're trying to make, especially in the context of this thread.
The "I'm smarter so trust me and my scholarship" line isn't the strongest argument I've ever heard, either.
I'm not sure I agree with Dafyd's point earlier, but I can see something here:
Science is a method for answering questions, but there are an infinite number of questions that could be asked. What questions are thought to be important or worthwhile can be influenced by sociological and cultural constraints.
If a society doesn't believe in X, then most people will not investigate questions of X, and if some do they are likely to be regarded as cranks or worse. If it is Dafyd's contention that historical studies show that evidence of empiricism is always preceded by evidence of "unified reality" beliefs (however defined), then that would be interesting.
Consistency is part of reality, and is there if you look for it - I think we all agree on this. Whether a certain set of beliefs have been a historical precursor is a matter for scholarship - although I would appreciate knowing what was actually found, rather than the bald assertion that "scholarship explains [our intuitions]." (I know, internet discussions longa, vita brevis).
Conceptually, I have no problem with empiricism arising independently of metaphysics. If it has never happened in history, I might have to change my view.
Whilst I'm here, Dafyd posted earlier: quote:
To reiterate: scientific method requires us to assume that not all observations are equal. We can never reach the conclusion that all observations are [not ?] equal based on observation alone. We need to rationally justify claims about consistency that cannot be rationally justified from observation alone.
We've established that we can't invoke natural selection at this point to justify the claim about consistency.
You assert below that we observe that there is consistency. But we don't.
We observe a lot of consistency and quite a lot of inconsistency.
We only observe that there is consistency once we have discounted the inconsistency by explaining it away as cognitive bias, faults in memory, imperfect observation, etc.
Did you mean the "not" I put in in square brackets, or did I misunderstand? In any case, you seem to be arguing that we need a certain type of metaphysic to privilege repeatable observations over non-repeatable ones. I can't honestly see that this is the case. Once one starts asking these sort of questions (see above), one soon sees that we are good at fooling ourselves, and that only rigour in the way that we observe things will lead to results that we can all agree on. At the very least, repeatability comes about when someone else tries to do the same experiment and can't get the same results - it doesn't have to be part of any one person's mindset.
Also, you mention "explaining away" cognitive biases. To me this makes it sound like you think this is the result of hand-waving rather than more observation, assuming that some data are correct and others must be "explained away" on the basis of external beliefs. In fact, cognitive biases and the like tend to evaporate when looked at closely. For example, take this great optical illusion. Initially your colour perception tells you there are green and cyan spirals. On looking closer, you discover that the colours are identical (scroll down). No metaphysics required?
- Chris.
PS: This was going to be a short post. Oh well, apologies ![[Frown]](frown.gif) .
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Prophesy to the wind, to the wind only for only the wind will listen - TS Eliot
Posts: 1453 | From: London, UK | Registered: Jun 2006
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tclune
Shipmate
# 7959
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by sanityman:
Science is a method for answering questions, but there are an infinite number of questions that could be asked. What questions are thought to be important or worthwhile can be influenced by sociological and cultural constraints.
One point about science that is often ignored is that it runs on grants. The questions that get asked are the questions that the person applying for the grant is confident can be answered within the timeframe required by the granting agency. And the grants that get funded -- the questions that get answered -- are the ones that the granting agency believes are within the grasp of the applicant to address within the granting timeframe.
In the popular imagination, science is an abstract enterprise cut free of practical considerations. Anyone who has worked in a lab is very much aware of the extent to which the question is conditioned by the pay check, just like in the rest of the world.
--Tom Clune
[ 25. June 2009, 15:11: Message edited by: tclune ]
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Posts: 8013 | From: Western MA | Registered: Jul 2004
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Chill
Shipmate
# 13643
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Jason I. Am:
So maybe this kind of belief/faith/trust is a product of natural selection (quite obviously so, I'd say), which speaks nothing of its truth but only of its usefulness. And who's to say when it will stop being useful?
Ah yes, point taken but for a belief to be useful one must believe it. Your contention that its veracity should be brought into question seems to be very, for wont of a better phrase ‘un-useful’. Making an argument which by your on terms of reference is ‘useless’ would seem somewhat ill advised and not at all useful.
![[Biased]](wink.gif)
If you are right then the most useful action (or inaction) would be to remain silent on the subject as the insight you hold is corrosive towards the usefulness you perceive. But then silence on a discussion board may in itself lack usefulness. Even if silence is not the way forward just be careful not to disappear in a puff of logic while you’re making those arguments.
![[Confused]](confused.gif)
Posts: 343 | From: England | Registered: Apr 2008
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Dafyd
Shipmate
# 5549
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Jason I. Am:
The "I'm smarter so trust me and my scholarship" line isn't the strongest argument I've ever heard, either.
You're right of course, and I shouldn't have written it.
I gave my reference to Clifford Geertz earlier in the thread, if you're interested in pursuing it.
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we remain, thanks to original sin, much in love with talking about, rather than with, one another. Rowan Williams
Posts: 10567 | From: Edinburgh | Registered: Feb 2004
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Dafyd
Shipmate
# 5549
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by sanityman:
Dafyd posted earlier: quote:
To reiterate: scientific method requires us to assume that not all observations are equal. We can never reach the conclusion that all observations are [not ?] equal based on observation alone. We need to rationally justify claims about consistency that cannot be rationally justified from observation alone.
We've established that we can't invoke natural selection at this point to justify the claim about consistency.
You assert below that we observe that there is consistency. But we don't.
We observe a lot of consistency and quite a lot of inconsistency.
We only observe that there is consistency once we have discounted the inconsistency by explaining it away as cognitive bias, faults in memory, imperfect observation, etc.
Did you mean the "not" I put in in square brackets, or did I misunderstand?
I did mean the 'not'. Thanks for the catch.
quote:
In any case, you seem to be arguing that we need a certain type of metaphysic to privilege repeatable observations over non-repeatable ones. I can't honestly see that this is the case. Once one starts asking these sort of questions (see above), one soon sees that we are good at fooling ourselves, and that only rigour in the way that we observe things will lead to results that we can all agree on. At the very least, repeatability comes about when someone else tries to do the same experiment and can't get the same results - it doesn't have to be part of any one person's mindset.
Try expanding on your points.
How does one see that 'we are good at fooling ourselves?' What steps does one have to go through?
Likewise, why does it matter whether you get results that we can all agree on? (Other than that disagreement leads to arguments, but why should it lead to arguments?)
Or why should it matter if somebody does the same experiment and not the same results? (And why do we take for granted that we can call a different event the same experiment if it's in a different laboratory at a different time using different items of apparatus?)
quote:
Also, you mention "explaining away" cognitive biases. To me this makes it sound like you think this is the result of hand-waving rather than more observation, assuming that some data are correct and others must be "explained away" on the basis of external beliefs.
No doubt some perceptual illusions go away when you look at them more closely, and I can't imagine a form of life in which looking at things more closely doesn't play a part. But not all perceptual misjudgements are resolved by focussing the same observation.
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we remain, thanks to original sin, much in love with talking about, rather than with, one another. Rowan Williams
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Yerevan
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# 10383
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Posted
quote:
quote:
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Originally posted by Yerevan:
Quite happily. It'll take a long, thought out post though and I don't have time to do write that for the next few days (IRL work deadline), so I'll get back to you on Monday. I've already given one example I know of a church thats growing (by nicking all the evangelicals' good ideas).
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Great. That would be refreshing and helpful.
I'm going to start from two assumptions. Firstly evangelism should be central to church life. We can't do without it anymore than we can without baptism or communion. Secondly liberal churches are almost invariably crap at evangelism, hence their steep decline. If liberal churches are going to turn things around they'll have to create a culture of individual and corporate evangelism. In my experience you just don't use the e-word in liberal churches. We love talking about outreach, but almost always reduce that to social action (which is more comfortable and social acceptable). The problem for liberal churches is that liberal theology is the main obstacle to a culture of evangelism. Our theology of salvation is all over the place. In practise most liberal churches teach a sort of vague universalism, underpinned by the idea that a) the important thing is being a good person b) almost all of us are good people really, so thats just fine. Given that we're implicitly and explicitly telling people that they don't need Jesus, its hardly surprising evangelism isn't our strong point. IMO we come up with all sorts of ways of dancing round this issue, because no one wants to admit that liberal Christianity may contain an inherent suicidal impulse. I recently read an interesting book on how political ideologies cope with inconvenient realities and liberal denial on this issus follows exactly the same pattern. IMO we either seriously question our theology or accept the status of a tiny urban, western minority.
What we are comfortable with is social justice outreach, which almost always ends up being about social work, because we find it more comfortable and its more social acceptable. Result – new Christians are as rare as hens teeth in our churches and we have no idea what to do with them (trust me on this). When we do grow our growth is often transfer growth. Why do we suck at evangelism? Two other points. First off: We are other uncritical of mainstream society – our criticisms are either blandly uncontentious (who isn’t against poverty?) or indistinguishable from secular left-liberal concerns (environmentalism etc etc).Second We are embarrassed to self-identify as Christians – my own experience – we ‘try to hard’. Third - We’re far too obsessed with not being evangelical. I’m sceptical of how much people care about intra-Christian navel gazing.
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tclune
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# 7959
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Posted
Yerevan, you have certainly managed to repeat a pretty standard riff about liberal churches. The problem is that it's false. In the 1960s, liberal churches were growing apace, not unlike evangelical churches were a few years back (neither seems to be growing much at the moment).
Why is that? Were liberals more evangelical in the 1960s? No. Rather, there is a time for every purpose under heaven, and the 60s was their time. A decade ago was the con-evo time.
Like all humans, when "our side" is on the rise, we claim that we are very cleaver. If only those dumb others would become like us, they would prosper too. But the wheel turns, and we are no longer on the rise. Have we gotten dumber? No, we were never very bright. We were just in the sweet spot of the zeitgeist.
It is always appropriate to offer our testimony of how the Lord has worked in our lives. But the notion that the real difference between success and stagnation is to be found in PowerPoints or best-selling Christian self-help guides is vanity, says the Lord.
I get the sense that the pendulum is swinging back toward a more liberal style. I have the sinking feeling that there is a corps of Church consultants ready to take credit for the rebirth as proof of the power of their seven point plan for Church renewal, available for only $49.95 at better bookstores everywhere. I don't doubt that, when the pendulum swings back our way, we will declare the newly-filled pews proof of Divine favor and of our own cleaverness. What I do doubt is that we will be any smarter or more blessed by God's grace than we were when we were a faithful remnant.
--Tom Clune
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Seeker963
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# 2066
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Posted
Yeravan- I was under the impression you were going start a new thread; I almost didn't look at this one.
As to your first point, which I read as 'Conservative churches have a compelling and easy-to-understand narrative that liberal churches don't have' I totally agree with that. The problem is that I don't believe the conservative narrative. There is simply no way around this and it won't do to lie about what our theology is. I don't believe it's as simple as the kind of sound-bite that Steve Chalke and Jeffrey John argue against; I'm with them. That is not to say that I don't believe that Jesus is Saviour and Lord.
I also agree that 'liberal' churches are embarrassed about spreading the Gospel but the best antidote to that is practice. I was once embarrassed to even admit that I was a Christian. Now I have no problem displaying my Christianity appropriately in public or praying with complete strangers in public. But it's because (mainstream!) brothers and sisters helped me learn to do that.
As I said on another thread, there is nothing wrong with telling people about our faith and what it constitutes, but it's a matter of the way you do it. People can tell instinctively when a person is trying to sell them something and when that person is more interested in 'making a sale' than that the 'product' should be of benefit to the 'buyer'. If we really believe that the Gospel is Good News, why wouldn't we want to share it with others? But we also have to respect the fact that they will make their own decisions. I actually think that liberal churches could be ideally placed for this as long as we had practice and got over our shyness.
My analysis is that we want 'our group' in our congregation to stay the same and we don't want strangers interfering with our group dynamics. Although we'd quite like younger people drifting in, accepting things as they are and not rocking the boat as long as we get to call the shots. And that's not something that's going to happen.
I accept that conservative churches are motivated to bring in newcomers by the fear of damnation but I still believe that fear is the wrong motivation for following Christ.
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"People waste so much of their lives on hate and fear." My friend JW-N: Chaplain and three-time cancer survivor. (Went to be with her Lord March 21, 2010. May she rest in peace and rise in glory.)
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Scot
Deck hand
# 2095
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Posted
One of the great scientists of the twentieth century, J.B.S Haldane was quoted in an opinion piece that appeared in the Wall Street Journal today.
quote:
My practice as a scientist is atheistic. That is to say, when I set up an experiment I assume that no god, angel or devil is going to interfere with its course; and this assumption has been justified by such success as I have achieved in my professional career. I should therefore be intellectually dishonest if I were not also atheistic in the affairs of the world.
-- J.B.S. Haldane
The ever-pithy Haldane expressed succinctly what I've nattered on about with far less eloquence and brevity.
I feel like we are getting wrapped up in arguing over the details of positions which are becoming ever more vague. Haldane prompts me to restate my position relative to the OP.
In the absence of a compelling reason to do otherwise, I am obliged to treat religious questions in a manner consistent with how I try to treat any other question. I remain open to reasons why I might treat religion differently, but I lack the sort of personal experience cited by so many of the moderate Christians on this thread.
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“Here, we are not afraid to follow truth wherever it may lead, nor tolerate any error so long as reason is left free to combat it.” - Thomas Jefferson
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Mad Geo
Ship's navel gazer
# 2939
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Posted
Awesome quote.
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Diax's Rake - "Never believe a thing simply because you want it to be true"
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Johnny S
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# 12581
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Scot:
One of the great scientists of the twentieth century, J.B.S Haldane was quoted in an opinion piece that appeared in the Wall Street Journal today.
quote:
My practice as a scientist is atheistic. That is to say, when I set up an experiment I assume that no god, angel or devil is going to interfere with its course; and this assumption has been justified by such success as I have achieved in my professional career. I should therefore be intellectually dishonest if I were not also atheistic in the affairs of the world.
-- J.B.S. Haldane
The ever-pithy Haldane expressed succinctly what I've nattered on about with far less eloquence and brevity.
I feel like we are getting wrapped up in arguing over the details of positions which are becoming ever more vague.
How does that quote bring any clarity?
Haldane just said that he assumed there is no God and acted accordingly.
His quote invites the question of what interference he expected from a god, angel or devil?
We could easily set up a hypothetical quote from, say, Polkinghorne to say:
quote:
My practice as a scientist is theistic. That is to say, when I set up an experiment I assume that there is a God; and this assumption has been justified by such success as I have achieved in my professional career. I should therefore be intellectually dishonest if I were not also theistic in the affairs of the world.
What does that prove?
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Scot
Deck hand
# 2095
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Posted
That your hypothetical scientist is going to have one hell of a time getting repeatable data.
More seriously, you changed the key phrase in the quote. Haldane didn't say there wasn't a God; he said that he assumed God, et al, wouldn't interfere with his experiments.
Where this bears on the discussion in this thread (or at least on my part in it) is that, like Haldane, I feel justified in discounting the potential existence of a God who has no observable interaction with the world as I experience it. YMMV.
[ 27. June 2009, 04:39: Message edited by: Scot ]
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“Here, we are not afraid to follow truth wherever it may lead, nor tolerate any error so long as reason is left free to combat it.” - Thomas Jefferson
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Johnny S
Shipmate
# 12581
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Scot:
That your hypothetical scientist is going to have one hell of a time getting repeatable data.
More seriously, you changed the key phrase in the quote. Haldane didn't say there wasn't a God; he said that he assumed God, et al, wouldn't interfere with his experiments.
Read my post again. I didn't make that change at all. I left it in and it still makes sense, and the Scientist can still have plenty of repeatable data.
quote:
Originally posted by Scot:
Where this bears on the discussion in this thread (or at least on my part in it) is that, like Haldane, I feel justified in discounting the potential existence of a God who has no observable interaction with the world as I experience it. YMMV.
This is a circular argument. You are saying that there is no observable evidence for God because you haven't experienced any and you discount anybody else's.
Maybe you are stuck in Newtonian physics - which 'works' most of the time - and something will happen that will enable that Quantum leap ... c'mon join the 20th century (never mind the 21st!)
[ 27. June 2009, 04:53: Message edited by: Johnny S ]
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W Hyatt
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# 14250
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Scot:
I feel justified in discounting the potential existence of a God who has no observable interaction with the world as I experience it.
I can see this position coming from one of two assumptions (or both): a) if God exists, then he would have observable interactions with the world or b) the physical world/universe is all that matters (i.e. you are just looking for the simplest possible explanation to cover what you observe or learn about in the world around you). Does either of these come close to describing how you approach the question? Or do you perhaps have a different starting point? I get the sense from your posts that your statement above does not represent a starting axiom for you, but rather a conclusion based on other assumptions and I'm curious about what those assumptions might be.
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A new church and a new earth, with Spiritual Insights for Everyday Life.
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Barnabas62
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# 9110
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Posted
Johnny S
I don't think it's as simple as that. Scientific exploration requires accurate consideration of natural phenomena. Patterns may be observed, thought about, hypotheses produced. As a result, natural phenomena become better understood. One can do that whether or not one believes that natural phenomena are all that there is. The validity of any scientific finding, and the conclusions drawn from findings, do not depend upon the beliefs or character of the scientist. Are the findings replicable? Is the conclusion consistent with findings? These things are testable by others. So I don't understand why Haldane brought atheism into his comment. I thought it was polemical.
But that is not the whole story. Traditional Christian beliefs include miraculous claims and posit a God who acts in time and space. How are these claims to be considered by someone who at present is not a believer? That's an underlying theme in this thread. How would you answer that theme? My goes up to now are personal witness statements, comments on community life, with a bit of Omar Khayyam thrown in for good measure! Maybe you can do better?
We were chatting at a Norwich Shipmeet last night and I remembered a quote from Dennis Nineham (I think) in the book "The Myth of God Incarnate" [IIRC]. The gist of it was that Christianity involves some sacrifice of intellect, but this should not be entered into lightly or ill-advisedly, but reverently and discreetly! Sitting reasonably comfortably on the four legged stool of tradition, reason, scripture and experience, I'm happy to acknowledge this. Actually I think what really gets sacrificed is ego rather than intellect. At its best (and the sociology of science is a given) scientific enquiry is ego free. It's the findings, not the funding or the ambition, that really matter. At its best (and the sociology of faith is a given) religious enquiry is also ego free. It's the Founder, not the funding nor the ambition, that really matters.
[ 27. June 2009, 06:08: Message edited by: Barnabas62 ]
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Who is it that you seek? How then shall we live? How shall we sing the Lord's song in a strange land?
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Johnny S
Shipmate
# 12581
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Barnabas62:
Johnny S
I don't think it's as simple as that. Scientific exploration requires accurate consideration of natural phenomena. Patterns may be observed, thought about, hypotheses produced. As a result, natural phenomena become better understood. One can do that whether or not one believes that natural phenomena are all that there is. The validity of any scientific finding, and the conclusions drawn from findings, do not depend upon the beliefs or character of the scientist. Are the findings replicable? Is the conclusion consistent with findings? These things are testable by others. So I don't understand why Haldane brought atheism into his comment. I thought it was polemical.
I obviously wasn't clear enough - I thought I said (the above) too.
quote:
Originally posted by Barnabas62:
But that is not the whole story. Traditional Christian beliefs include miraculous claims and posit a God who acts in time and space. How are these claims to be considered by someone who at present is not a believer? That's an underlying theme in this thread. How would you answer that theme? My goes up to now are personal witness statements, comments on community life, with a bit of Omar Khayyam thrown in for good measure! Maybe you can do better?
I'm not sure I can - because we're stuck with the fact that those who start with the assumption of materialism will only accept materialistic evidence.
I think it all comes down to the resurrection - either it happened or it didn't. It is a repeatable experiment - but only if you can re-create all the conditions (putting to death the son of God that sot of thing).
And then there's the question if there really is any such thing as a truly repeatable experiment? Variables such as time are always changing.
I'm not try to discredit the scientific method - I still hold to it - just wondering where this leads us on this particular thread.
quote:
Originally posted by Barnabas62:
We were chatting at a Norwich Shipmeet last night and I remembered a quote from Dennis Nineham (I think) in the book "The Myth of God Incarnate" [IIRC]. The gist of it was that Christianity involves some sacrifice of intellect, but this should not be entered into lightly or ill-advisedly, but reverently and discreetly! Sitting reasonably comfortably on the four legged stool of tradition, reason, scripture and experience, I'm happy to acknowledge this. Actually I think what really gets sacrificed is ego rather than intellect. At its best (and the sociology of science is a given) scientific enquiry is ego free. It's the findings, not the funding or the ambition, that really matter. At its best (and the sociology of faith is a given) religious enquiry is also ego free. It's the Founder, not the funding nor the ambition, that really matters.
I agree. And like you I think it is more to do with submission of intellect than sacrifice of it... does that make me a Muslim?
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Barnabas62
Shipmate
# 9110
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Posted
Sorry Johnny, the "not as simple as that" was explained in the second of my paras, not the first. Not my cleverest bit of posting.
I agreed that there were good grounds for criticising the Haldane statement (para 1), but was trying to look wider at the science/faith "divide" (para 2). There is tension there, not necessarily division. I'm just exploring middle ground as usual!
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Who is it that you seek? How then shall we live? How shall we sing the Lord's song in a strange land?
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Dave Marshall
Shipmate
# 7533
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Yerevan:
I'm going to start from two assumptions. Firstly evangelism should be central to church life. We can't do without it anymore than we can without baptism or communion. Secondly liberal churches are almost invariably crap at evangelism, hence their steep decline.
You're making more than two assumptions, though. For a start you're assuming that baptism and communion are somehow central. You also seem to think that church has to be about people getting together to 'worship'.
But far worse is that your understanding of liberal seems limited to being socially liberal, illustrating a major problem with using the word 'liberal' at all. What you describe (and are in my view rightly critical of) are theologically conservative churches who can no longer in good conscience live by the logical consequences of various strands of orthodox Christian belief.
Evangelism implies a church that thinks it knows what other people need to believe. It implies a gospel of salvation, a need to repent or convert. A theologically liberal church will hopefully not be unnecessarily dismissive of tradition, but will more likely understand itself as a community that does not have answers, only a commitment to certain values and a desire to live by them. It may see the gospel as 'what Jesus was about', without going on tell all and sundry how they must interpret that. It may prefer to promote 'living as Jesus lived' without having to mention Jesus at all, because the point is finding what is true and making consistent sense of reality rather that making new Christians.
Although I'm probably more willing than most to completely rethink church, I don't doubt that theologically liberal Christianity has the potential to reinvent itself in a way that would be entirely consistent with the teaching and values of the man from Nazareth. The 'theologically liberal worshipping community' does no longer looks viable, if it ever was, but we're already participating in one alternative. The problem is that in order for Ship-like community to be recognised as such, the de facto service mark holders of Christianity, the institutional churches, will need to break with some traditions, especially that of telling people what God requires and only valuing community they can control.
Jesus in effect said 'here I am, are you with me?' Most of institutional Christianity is still stuck in a 'there he was, do what we say' mentality. That's not a problem with anything specifically liberal.
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Johnny S
Shipmate
# 12581
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Barnabas62:
I'm just exploring middle ground as usual!
More Anglican than Free Church you mean?
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Jengie jon
Semper Reformanda
# 273
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Scot:
One of the great scientists of the twentieth century, J.B.S Haldane was quoted in an opinion piece that appeared in the Wall Street Journal today.
quote:
My practice as a scientist is atheistic. That is to say, when I set up an experiment I assume that no god, angel or devil is going to interfere with its course; and this assumption has been justified by such success as I have achieved in my professional career. I should therefore be intellectually dishonest if I were not also atheistic in the affairs of the world.
-- J.B.S. Haldane
The ever-pithy Haldane expressed succinctly what I've nattered on about with far less eloquence and brevity.
Except as my Supervisor, a sociologist of Religion has it "The uncanny* does happen". There is growing evidence in ethnography that that which does not fit with materialistic record of the world has been written out of the record. The same sort of thing that happened when women were written out of the Biblical record due to having a male dominated society.
That is ethnography, a methodology that if anything is "open" towards such events and not as strict on them as more scientific subjects. Compared with medicine it is science-lite.
We of course cannot put it back, just as we cannot write women back into the biblical account but having positive proof this does happen, undermines Haldane's whole quote. If there was something that showed evidence of angels as a scientist he would have discounted as being non-scientific.
Jengie
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"To violate a persons ability to distinguish fact from fantasy is the epistemological equivalent of rape." Noretta Koertge
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Posts: 20894 | From: city of steel, butterflies and rainbows | Registered: May 2001
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Jengie jon
Semper Reformanda
# 273
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Posted
Sorry forgot the footnote
*"uncanny" is not the word he uses, but it is word that is religiously neutral, but implies something that is outside the bounds of materialistic understanding. The things that "spook" observers.
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"To violate a persons ability to distinguish fact from fantasy is the epistemological equivalent of rape." Noretta Koertge
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tclune
Shipmate
# 7959
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Jengie Jon:
Except as my Supervisor, a sociologist of Religion has it "The uncanny* does happen". There is growing evidence in ethnography that that which does not fit with materialistic record of the world has been written out of the record.
I think that this is an unfortunate wording for an important fact. There is a lot of evidence that we don't see what we don't have language for. I think that is a less accusatory way of making the point that is at issue.
As I have mentioned in the past, psychology experiements show that teaching a person more words for colors increases their ability to see differences in color samples, for example.
One of my all-time favorite anecdotes is from Bernard Malinowski. He was staying with a tribe of Trobriand Islanders who were crazy about the island's birds. They would name each of them individually and gossip about what "John" and "Mary" were up to.
One day, when he was walking along the beach with one of the islanders, he saw a bird fly overhead. He asked the native what the name of that one was. The islander replied that it was a cloud. Malinowski said no, and pointing at the bird said, "That!" The islander replied, more skeptically, "The sky?" This continued for some time until finally Malinowski got the islander to see the bird. He exclaimed with surprise, "Why, it's a flying animal!"
The bird was not from the island, and the natives only had words for the birds on the island. Strikingly, even the "same" thing as that which obsessed them on their island was invisible to them when not on their island and lacking a name.
The point of all this is that science, like the rest of human endeavor, tends to observe what it has already codified. When one asks for a scientific explanation for phenomena outside the realm of science, one is making a very loaded request.
--Tom Clune
[ETA: We have all seen the woodcut of the Church fathers turning their backs on Galileo as he beckons them to look through the telescope. Isn't it odd that scientists can feel self-righteous about the historical Church while at the same time refusing to look through the Church's lens.]
[ 27. June 2009, 14:17: Message edited by: tclune ]
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Jengie jon
Semper Reformanda
# 273
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Posted
Not really, I am talking about things like the light Evans-Pritchard saw moving around one night when he went to relieve himself and finally settled in a hut. The next morning a person in that hut had died.
Or the description of the "spirit encounter"* by Edith Turner which describes her participation in an exorcism and what she physically saw. It is very much at odds with her husband's (Victor Turner) early materialistic description of a similar exorcism. My supervisor believed it to be the same exorcism but closer reading indicated that they were split by about thirty years.
I think you'd find others of them in the book "Being Changed by Cross Cultural Encounters" edited by D.E. Young and J.G. Goulet.
Jengie
*the spirit looked nothing like what we in the west imagine spirits to look like.
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"To violate a persons ability to distinguish fact from fantasy is the epistemological equivalent of rape." Noretta Koertge
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Posts: 20894 | From: city of steel, butterflies and rainbows | Registered: May 2001
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Laurie17
Shipmate
# 14889
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Posted
This is really interesting. thanks.
quote:
Originally posted by Scot:
Einstein said and wrote many things about religion and God, things that on the surface are wildly contradictory. I don't believe that what he meant by "religion" or "God" is the same as what most Christians mean by those words.
Quotes like those below lead me to believe that although Einstein did not describe himself as an atheist, he did not believe in a supernatural deity.
quote:
I do not believe in a personal God and I have never denied this but have expressed it clearly. If something is in me which can be called religious then it is the unbounded admiration for the structure of the world so far as our science can reveal it.
(Einstein in Albert Einstein: The Human Side quoted here)
quote:
I am a deeply religious nonbeliever. This is a somewhat new kind of religion. I have never imputed to Nature a purpose or a goal, or anything that could be understood as anthropomorphic. What I see in Nature is a magnificent structure that we can comprehend only very imperfectly, and that must fill a thinking person with a feeling of humility. This is a genuinely religious feeling that has nothing to do with mysticism. The idea of a personal God is quite alien to me and seems even naive.
(Einstein in a 30 March 1954 letter to Hans Muehsam. A partial version of this quote with a citation is here. The longer version is widely quoted online, but without the source.
I am new here and ahve a proble. How do I find / return to thereads I have enjoyd and want to continue to follow ? I can't see anyway of ear-marking them or of being notified by email (or wahtever when another mesage isa dded. Can any one eavise me on this ?m I mssing something ? What do otherd do to retrace theirs steps here and to other threads >
(So many sections as well as threads on SoF)
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when thee touched my heart
I were undone like dropped blossom
Daw'r ffordd yn glir yn araf deg.
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malik3000
Shipmate
# 11437
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Posted
Although, at one point, referring to quantum theory, with which he did not agree (at least initially), Einstein said, "God does not play dice."
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God = love.
Otherwise, things are not just black or white.
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Barnabas62
Shipmate
# 9110
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Johnny S:
quote:
Originally posted by Barnabas62:
I'm just exploring middle ground as usual!
More Anglican than Free Church you mean?
Some of my best friends are .... But it's a useful skill amongst the Free. Means I choose carefully before I exercise dissent.
[You have to do that every now and again, of course, to be true to the Tradition. Even Baptist ministers (pace elders and deacons) get to play ]
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Who is it that you seek? How then shall we live? How shall we sing the Lord's song in a strange land?
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Evensong
Shipmate
# 14696
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Jason I. Am:
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
Ah, an accusation of being patronizing. Finally.
Yeah, finally. It only took 340 posts and somebody actually being extremely patronizing, too.
quote:
Originally posted by Seb:
I didn't say that. I said once you follow faith for your OWN reasons, not anybody elses (or society or culture or fear), then it becomes real faith.
Yes, that's what you said. It's really quite magical how you can be so sure of something like that.
quote:
Yes, I often wonder this too. Is faith just a crutch?
But I've realized, its actually much harder to have faith in many ways, than not to. So its not a crutch.
Oh! Well that settles it then.
quote:
I also think abandoning faith altogether can sometimes be a good thing. Start again. Find god in a different way. This only works if you ask for God's help to lead you into a new journey of faith.
Well, asking for God's help to lead me anywhere isn't exactly what I would call "abandoning faith".
I gather you were rather upset by my post from your responses above.
I apologize. I did not mean to be patronizing. It's a great thread and has raised a lot of great issues to explore.
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a theological scrapbook
Posts: 9481 | From: Australia | Registered: Apr 2009
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RuthW
liberal "peace first" hankie squeezer
# 13
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Scot:
In the absence of a compelling reason to do otherwise, I am obliged to treat religious questions in a manner consistent with how I try to treat any other question. I remain open to reasons why I might treat religion differently, but I lack the sort of personal experience cited by so many of the moderate Christians on this thread.
OK, you don't have that personal experience, but loads of other people do. How is that treated by scientific rationalists?
Posts: 24453 | From: La La Land | Registered: Apr 2001
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Sir Pellinore
Quester Emeritus
# 12163
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Posted
The words 'personal experience' preceded by the possessive pronoun 'my', to gain real credibility, would depend on the person speaking.
Whilst most sane Christians would agree that, based on his own life & devotion to the cause after the event, Saul/Paul did have something remarkable happen on the Road to Damascus, many of them would be sceptical about empty words from armchair 'mystics'; 'visionaries'; 'born again' or other seemingly terminally deluded twats.
For every St John of the Cross or George Fox there are a hundred Brother Alcoholios O'Blather or Barry Burpingstream.
Talk is cheap. Demonstrated life change costs.
I wonder how many of us, socalled Christians, living in safe, prosperous countries like Australia, would do as 'witnesses' in Hitler's Germany or Stalin's Russia? ![[Cool]](cool.gif)
'By their fruits you shall know them'. Yoda? ![[Killing me]](graemlins/killingme.gif)
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Posts: 5108 | From: The Deep North, Oz | Registered: Dec 2006
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Luigi
Shipmate
# 4031
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Posted
Ruth _ not sure if I am a scientific rationalist but as someone who for over 30 years as looked for / been open to experiencing something / anything that might be termed spiritual and failed, here is my response.
1. Human experience seems fairly unreliable. There are spiritualists, druids, Islamists, Christian Fundies etc who all claim to have had experiences that are convincing. Do I believe them all?
2. If I went to a Mosque and experienced more than I have in church - would that mean that Islam is right?
3. I know quite a few people who had very powerful experiences within the Christian faith who now would claim to be atheists. How do I know those who presently claim to have had powerful experiences won't end up coming to similar conclusions.
4. I am totally convinced that as homo sapiens we are very prone to delusional thinking - why should I believe that the area of spiritual experiences isn't prone to this weakness.
I normally find myself in agreement with much of what you say but I don't understand why you, or others, find the spiritual experiences so trustworthy.
Finally if God can seemingly give other Christians (almost) experience on demand, why if he/she if interested in me can't God give me anything at all to cling on to. After all it seems to be the anchor for many people's faith.
Luigi
Posts: 752 | Registered: Feb 2003
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Mad Geo
Ship's navel gazer
# 2939
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Posted
I am coming in quite a bit late to the show, but was asked to wade in, so here’s my two cents:
I can answer a lot of these questions in the past tense. Meaning I went through them on my way out.
Hi my name is Mad Geo and I am a Nontheist.
quote:
Originally posted by Jason I. Am:
Why do you still stay a Christian at all?
I stayed a Christian for a long time while trying to sort out my new worldview. The reasons I did were justified for a lot of reasons along the way.
1. Habit
2. Group/Cultural/Familial Expectations
3. Fear of what happens at death
4. A feeling that maybe SOME Christians had a point. That it had its redeeming people if not qualities. Jesus was a good example in many ways.
My personal journey out of Christianity occurred when the fundie church I came out of started to be pummeled to death by self-education and my getting to know a New Testament Biblical Literature Expert that educated me on the finer points of biblical criticism and not a little actual history, amongst other things. The more I learned, the easier it was to realize that the dividing line of truth and mythology is thinner and thinner the more one reads ABOUT the bible, much less the bible itself. Eventually the bible is realized as not much more or less than some other religions texts and beliefs. Sure, one can make an argument that it has its moments, but it also has its awful concepts. Horrible, actually.
quote:
Originally posted by Jason I. Am:
Why not say "God exists" and leave it at that? Or, perhaps even more importantly, why believe God exists at all?
Bingo. Why indeed? As the famous atheist says “I only believe in one less god than you!” Much of the debate that I have seen on this thread seems to hinge on “Why not believe in god?” the answer for me is “Which ONE?” “Why THAT one?” Is the Christian god all that? Or is he just favored by his people out of habit?
quote:
Originally posted by Jason I. Am:
What other reasons are there for self-identifying as Christian, and for maintaining belief in God?
Fear of death.
Desiring something better than this life.
Using religion to improve ones cultural milieu.
Disowning by family.
Just to name a few. ;-)
I have been through all of that. Still am going through some of it. The problem is that I am pretty sure the genie has been let out of the bottle for all time for me.
I am pretty sure this run is all I’ve got, even though I wouldn’t mind if it were otherwise.
My morality is fine with or without religion (actually better now without it, go figure).
Family issues are what they are.
I tried being a religious moderate. I tried being a religious liberal. I even tried being with the religious while being a nontheist. I can't do it anymore, or at least not very often. I don't need to be told about sin, and I sure as heck don't need the bad ideas that religion often promulgates.
TClune:
We are pattern creating creatures. Why aren’t gods just another pattern, much like ghosts or dragons?
Your argument that scientists tend to observe what we have already codified seems to imply that scientists are missing something. Do we really want to fill that supposed hole in our knowledge with stories of ooglie booglies like demons, spirits (holy or otherwise), and other such mythological creatures? Or do we stick with what is observable/testable/verifiable with our senses regardless of where it takes us? If we can’t see the seagull and assume therefore that dragons are true, is that a good methodology?
Gods are NOT the only things that are unverifiable. If we don’t have language for ghosts does that mean they exist? Is astrology true because we can’t verify it due to language or whatever?
It seems to me that if open ourselves to things that are unverifiable due to inadequacies of language that we open ourselves up to EVERYTHING that is unverifiable. From Fung Shui to Flying Spaghetti Monsters.
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Diax's Rake - "Never believe a thing simply because you want it to be true"
Posts: 11730 | From: People's Republic of SoCal | Registered: Jun 2002
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tclune
Shipmate
# 7959
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Mad Geo:
TClune:
We are pattern creating creatures. Why aren’t gods just another pattern, much like ghosts or dragons?
Your argument that scientists tend to observe what we have already codified seems to imply that scientists are missing something.
Of course they are missing something. It would be an arrogant man indeed who would claim otherwise.
quote:
Originally posted by Mad Geo:
It seems to me that if open ourselves to things that are unverifiable due to inadequacies of language that we open ourselves up to EVERYTHING that is unverifiable. From Fung Shui to Flying Spaghetti Monsters.
Your point is an interesting one. But I think it is really the flip side of that awful fundie view that the Bible has to be inerrant and obvious, or else we are on a slippery slope to "anything goes."
I don't know anything about Fung Shui. It may be that there is some substance there. If enough serious people have examined it closely and insist that there is, it would be arrogant to dismiss it out of hand. One may choose not to pursue it (just as one may choose not to pursue physics -- that hardly suggests that one dismisses it as an endeavor without value).
If you believe that a substantial number of serious people have examined the Flying Spaghetti Monsters phenomenon and find it credibile, and if meds don't help, then by all means pursue their study.
It is strange to me, though, that people can think of themselves as serious, thoughtful humans and dismiss what is perhaps the most widely-attested experience in all of civilization and has persisted for thousands of years as a delusion based on their own inclinations.
Certainly, the experience of the Divine has been expressed in a variety of ways and through multiple traditions, which one could declare to be proof that it is illusary. But that seems to me to argue just the opposite. The robustness of the underlying experience through multiple cultures and contexts seems to argue for the validity of the experience. Or so ISTM.
--Tom Clune
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Posts: 8013 | From: Western MA | Registered: Jul 2004
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Mad Geo
Ship's navel gazer
# 2939
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by tclune:
.....It is strange to me, though, that people can think of themselves as serious, thoughtful humans and dismiss what is perhaps the most widely-attested experience in all of civilization and has persisted for thousands of years as a delusion based on their own inclinations.....
This is known as the "appeal to popularity". It does not logically follow that X is true because most people believe it. It also does not logically follow that because we occasionally fail to see seagulls, that dragons are therefore real.
Again by that rationale, astrology has experiential credibility, witchcraft, Sikhism, Hinduism, Buddhism, certainly ghosts, demons, any other god, or such things as Fung Shui, etc.
I can pick any belief system I happen to like, or be culturally raised on, apply the "Seagull Exemption" and there you go, Truth!
Doesn't seem very satisfying as a process. YMMV.
A lot of this really hinges, IMO, on process. How does one determine where the line between ooglie booglie and legitimate inquiry occurs?
My process has indicated that Christianity holds no more corner on truth than any number of other religions, or beliefs such as Fung Shui. It merely is more popular by vote in some areas, like pizza. And like pizza, it is not necessarily a satisfying meal every day or every week. In fact it's a pizza that occasionally has spoiled, and yet people seem to keep wanting to convince me it's all a matter of perspective, like seagulls.
<tangent>
If you ever want to see Fung Shui (or any number of other things for that matter) thoroughly debunked, I recommend the Penn and Teller television show "Bullshit".
Fung Shui is complete rubbish.
</tangent>
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Diax's Rake - "Never believe a thing simply because you want it to be true"
Posts: 11730 | From: People's Republic of SoCal | Registered: Jun 2002
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Scot
Deck hand
# 2095
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by RuthW:
quote:
Originally posted by Scot:
In the absence of a compelling reason to do otherwise, I am obliged to treat religious questions in a manner consistent with how I try to treat any other question. I remain open to reasons why I might treat religion differently, but I lack the sort of personal experience cited by so many of the moderate Christians on this thread.
OK, you don't have that personal experience, but loads of other people do. How is that treated by scientific rationalists?
I can't speak for scientific rationalists as a class, but I am concerned with other people's truth claims, not their personal experiences. If someone claims that something is true, I would look at whatever evidence is available to support or dismiss the claim. I wouldn't necessarily discount evidence because it is uncorroborated personal experience, but I would weigh such a report against what we know of how the world works.
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“Here, we are not afraid to follow truth wherever it may lead, nor tolerate any error so long as reason is left free to combat it.” - Thomas Jefferson
Posts: 9515 | From: Southern California | Registered: Jan 2002
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Dave Marshall
Shipmate
# 7533
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Mad Geo:
Much of the debate that I have seen on this thread seems to hinge on “Why not believe in god?” the answer for me is “Which ONE?” “Why THAT one?” Is the Christian god all that? Or is he just favored by his people out of habit?
I don't understand this. 'The Christian God' is not a description of one kind of god that happens to be chosen by Christians. 'The Christian God' is in essence one specific feature of scientific reality - the first cause - that by tradition has historically been referred to as God. That the same tradition often smothers the simple reality with uncritically evaluated interpretations of first or second hand experience is problematic. But we as individuals are free to ignore all that if we choose.
I happen to think that on balance there's still value and potential within the institutions of Christianity. Some time in the future I might come to a different conclusion, but the reality will remain. All I think authentic Christianity ever tries to do is incorporate this feature of ultimate reality, by definition beyond anything in our everyday reality, in a world view that makes sense of human experience. There's no choice of god involved, just lots of questions and a diversity of preferences about which story or theory works best.
Posts: 4763 | From: Derbyshire Dales | Registered: Jun 2004
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