Religion
Related: About this forumReligion--just like the rest of life, rests on things that cannot be "proved.
There are many things whose existence can be taken into a laboratory and “proved.”
There are other things that cannot be thusly “proved,” and therefore are said by some not to exist. And yet we all live with trust that both categories are essential. The belief that only the first, scientific, category has validity, is the dark side of a “scientism” which flows from absolutizing the Enlightenment.
Here are a few of the things we all—or at least most of us—believe by faith.
Life—my life—has meaning.
There are those we admire who live beautiful lives.
Every human must have some purpose which is a guiding principle for action.
Occasionally we are encountered by some vision, experience, notion before which we bow in awe.
Most of the values which make life meaningful cannot be “proved” as existing.
To live without hope is to live in despair, therefore we must live in hope.
To trust anyone or anything is to live by faith.
The universe has a built-in struggle for refinement. In science we call it evolution. In philosophy we call it the élan vital.
A hunger to be accepted means we long for some human relationship.
There is a spiritual hunger build into most of our lives. There is that to which we can only point that gives meaning and hope.
We live by affirming that behind all value is that reality which has lured people in every culture and time.
Most of life involves believing things we cannot see, let alone prove.
This beyondness is the core and instigator of religion and thus the quest for God, whose existence—like all these other things—cannot be proved.
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Warpy
(111,332 posts)and ends at the surface of your skin.
You are constitutionally guaranteed the right to hold such opinion and to prefer magical thinking over science.
Just don't presume to speak for me or anyone else.
Thanks.
that opinions end at the surface of skin? These opinions seem to now exist between our eyes.
Warpy
(111,332 posts)Do think about that, please.
It's called having personal boundaries and can save you one hell of a lot of trouble.
I'm thinking about that, as asked. By thinking letting those thoughts "under my skin" and "personal boundary" and by this process of thinking also recreating the thoughts of "surface of skin" and "personal boundary".
Continuing this inquiry, I don't find those concepts anywhere else except as thought forms and opinions.
Thanks for sharing, this was fun excercise. 
Voice for Peace
(13,141 posts)and manufacturing new ones from the inside out.
My point of view is that everything in the perceivable universe
is in a constant state of change -- either evolution or disintegration,
but never fixed, never absolute.
Science is challenged to prove the existence of what is not fixed,
and constantly changing. Science can prove things now that were
not provable in recent past. The future will be similar.
Einstein purportedly said the subatomic particles appeared playful.
There is a force in life, behind all life, making everything come
into existence, animating, breathing everything. It isn't measurable
by science.
Religion is blind, science is limited. Truth is where they meet.
The connection between the mortal and the immortal.
Thats my opinion
(2,001 posts)That is where process theology intersects with the best scientific thinking.
Voice for Peace
(13,141 posts)of mortality and all the colours and vanities of human life
where the mortal intersects the immortal.
AlbertCat
(17,505 posts)Kindness and beauty are subjective. (stillness may be to a degree)
Reality isn't.
Voice for Peace
(13,141 posts)How do you define Reality?
AlbertCat
(17,505 posts)What is happening... despite what our senses tell us.
Thats my opinion
(2,001 posts)it is more than something that ends at the end of one's skin.
trotsky
(49,533 posts)Argumentum ad populum fallacy!
okasha
(11,573 posts)In the real world, what we have is common, repeatable, replicable experience through religion. If the scientific method were an appropriate means of evaluating relgion, this would be called "evidence." Since the scientific method isn't appropriate, what we have is a commonality that has the experience of relgion at its root, not an ultimately meaningless abstract debate.
cleanhippie
(19,705 posts)Seriously, read it. It not anti-religion in any way.
trotsky
(49,533 posts)Utter and complete hogwash. How repeatable and replicable is prayer? Millions of children have died of starvation while praying for food. How about a rain dance? A voodoo spell? Whenever anything religious is subjected to tests, it fails miserably and excuses are made by the true believers. You have given me a great laugh, kash. Thank you.
The commonalities in religion are very basic (belief in an outside power or agent, ritual, etc.) and have far more to do with evidence of how our brains work than anything external to them.
AlbertCat
(17,505 posts)Experience comes thru the brain... religion disappears without a brain. Atoms and energy, not so much.
So you are back to reality, however your brain interprets it. No religion required.
Voice for Peace
(13,141 posts)The brain organizes and prioritizes the information when it arrives & tries to make it useful.
AlbertCat
(17,505 posts)The only SENSE of "feeling" we have is in our nerve endings. The information arriving at the brain only comes from there. The rest is in our brains.
Voice for Peace
(13,141 posts)There are feeling receptors throughout our bodies, constantly
transmitting information to our brains. I'm sure they pick up
more than we generally notice or pay attention to.
Do you have no personal sense of something called instinct?
If not, do you consider instinct in humans to be unreliable?
Is instinct unreliable in animals? How do they know to
find water, seek shelter, build a nest?
We have come so far from our natural feeling selves and
that's at the heart of all the misery in the world.
When a person knows how to feel they are not easily
able to block out the suffering of others, or inflict harm
on another.
We learn not to feel when we are kids. But without feeling
the big important brains have made a big mess of the world.
cleanhippie
(19,705 posts)Really, it is all in your brain. And that "instinct" is nothing but a by-product of survival via evolution.
No one is saying that these "feelings" don't exist, it's just that they exist only in our brains. It is not some mysterious force that puts them there.
Voice for Peace
(13,141 posts)My personal experiences and perceptions, ones that don't need
outside verification, are more than adequate, and most reliable.
Many people have many theories and points of view, scientific
or not. None know; they postulate, ponder, calculate, pontificate.
trotsky
(49,533 posts)Voice for Peace
(13,141 posts)I imagine each person's point of view is valid to him/her.
trotsky
(49,533 posts)is valid to them. So there we are. Everyone is equally right (or wrong). Isn't that just swell? So much for making policy.
cleanhippie
(19,705 posts)However, it has been proven that personal experience and perception are far from adequate or reliable. Knowing HOW our brains effect our perceptions and experiences IS key.
One can attempt to dismiss the empirical approach as "just another theory" or approach, but that seems to be the cognitive dissonance at work that we all suffer from in some way. Recognizing it and understanding it is what moves us forward.
Voice for Peace
(13,141 posts)more substantial in way of proof.
But otherwise, personal experience and perception are adequate
and reliable, for me at least. If I am uncertain, I seek other points of
view to help me figure it out. I love learning and don't mind being wrong.
However I'm the only one who can judge my own experiences as
true or false, valid or invalid, relevant or not. And I'm not in a
position to measure or judge the experience of another, no matter
how skeptical I may be of them.
Empirical learning is purely experiential -- through observation,
through experimenting, through pondering and blundering,
we learn. It's the most natural kind of learning.
cleanhippie
(19,705 posts)Good luck to you.
Voice for Peace
(13,141 posts)and probably not enough time or a big enough brain. But
thanks for the rec.
cleanhippie
(19,705 posts)Voice for Peace
(13,141 posts)I do no harm and I treat others as I would like to be treated.
If on the planet we are 6 billion then there are 6 billion different
points of view. Some are very similar and some vastly dissimilar.
Who is to decide which point of view is the accurate one?
We learn not to trust ourselves when we are young -- whether
or not we are indoctrinated by religion. (It's possible to get
just as indoctrinated by atheists or public school teachers,
well-meaning people who care about us and want us to
succeed.)
The effect of the indoctrination is to accept answers and
beliefs of others, rather than find out for one's own self
what is real.
Crucial life skills are too often squelched when we're young.
To think for ourselves, come to our own conclusions, make
choices, experience the consequences, learn to trust
our own instincts and judgement, regardless of popular
or political correctness.
If you were the only person in the world with your perception,
would you own it?
edhopper
(33,606 posts)Some of the things you state come from our biological imperatives. Some are human constructs that we choose.
The meaning of your life, the love you have for others, do not exist outside you. Their is no physical force in the Universe that is Love. We trust that others love us when they say they do, but we know we may be wrong. We can only accept that they are feeling what the say they are. God on the other hand either exists or no. He is an entity that is purported to have an influence on the physical Universe. If you cannot show me one shred of evidence that God has ever had the slightest impact anywhere, then why should I consider him to be true.
To me people who tell me they "know" God exist only and solely because they "feel him" is no different to me than people who say they "feel" the presence of a ghost, or the poor sap who says that he "knows' that Scarlet Johanson loves him, though they have never met. His love is real and he trust her love is as well, do you tell him that it exists?
Thats my opinion
(2,001 posts)Your response is what I identified as scientism. A perfectly honest and rational perspective--albeit a limited one.
Knowing "him" because I feel him is not at all what I am talking about. It is easier to have a conversation if people only have a bit of a notion of the way the processes of the universe intersect with religious thought.
Nevertheless I hear and appreciate what you have to say. Wish it were mutual.
muriel_volestrangler
(101,358 posts)Why do you exclaim 'evolution!'? It seems to have nothing to do with the post you are replying to.
And while we're on the subject of 'meaning', why do people say 'my life has meaning'? "Meaning" implies a way of communicating something through some medium. Do most people really think they are living their lives in order to send a message to others? I'd say most people just live because they are alive already, and they enjoy it. They have ideas on how to do that best, which normally involve being nice to others, but that doesn't seem a 'meaning', to me.
We argue whether novels have 'meanings'. Ask the author, and many will say they do, but some say their novels don't have a meaning - they are just there to be enjoyed. Why, then, assume that lives, which, rather than being something that an intelligent being explicitly created for some reason (ie like a novel, which still might not have a 'meaning'), are just something that came about because 2 different people had sex, must have 'meaning'?
Thats my opinion
(2,001 posts)As you may realize, many of us define God as power with a purpose, and as the energy which impels everything.(not an old man in the sky) This is not a new idea. A poet spelled it out a hundred years ago.
Each in His Own Tongue (http://theotherpages.org/poems/carruth1.html)
by William Herbert Carruth
... A sense of law and beauty
And a face turned from the clod:
Some call it Evolution,
And others call it God.
Are you suggesting there is no impelling meaning behind life--that there are no purposes toward which all of life is lusting? Is there no driving force toward beauty, truth, wisdom, hope? Plato thought so, as have a steady procession since and before him. All of life is lured upward, and isn't that one definition of the drive behind evolution? We live by those things we cannot see, but to which the human spirit--and all nature--only points.
Certainly the word "meaning" can either be seen as just another pedestrian word, which I think is the way you construed it, or it has deep and profound significance. If nothing has deep and profound significance than perhaps there is no overarching meaning to life. I think otherwise.
muriel_volestrangler
(101,358 posts)That's a common misunderstanding of evolution. Natural selection isn't about anything that can be called 'up', and certainly not about beauty, truth, wisdom, or hope. It's about the forms of life that produce more offspring (or copies) that survive long enough to produce offspring or copies themselves. If you insist on a purpose for life, and call that a 'meaning', then it is 'reproduce'. This means that organisms with genetic changes that help them to adapt to their environment (or a changing environment) succeed; that may well mean more complexity, but it can also mean less (especially in things like parasites, or viruses).
Thats my opinion
(2,001 posts)muriel_volestrangler
(101,358 posts)What I just did there was explain an aspect of evolution to you, because you had misused the term. Teaching you something is not 'scientism'. 'Scientism' is about how you think knowledge can be gained:
Unlike the use of the scientific method as only one mode of reaching knowledge, scientism claims that science alone can render truth about the world and reality. Scientism's single-minded adherence to only the empirical, or testable, makes it a strictly scientifc worldview, in much the same way that a Protestant fundamentalism that rejects science can be seen as a strictly religious worldview. Scientism sees it necessary to do away with most, if not all, metaphysical, philosophical, and religious claims, as the truths they proclaim cannot be apprehended by the scientific method. In essence, scientism sees science as the absolute and only justifiable access to the truth.
http://www.pbs.org/faithandreason/gengloss/sciism-body.html
Notice my post was not about how we reach knowledge.
Thats my opinion
(2,001 posts)It is what I often find as an absolutist way to thwart any conversation. It is similar to the perspective held by religious fundamentalists.
muriel_volestrangler
(101,358 posts)I can see that does seem to be what the brusque reply #29 was, but I am surprised to find you admitting it.
Thats my opinion
(2,001 posts)is itself a type of fundamentalism. Your definition of scientism says it better than anything else I have seen. You make the point clearly.
skepticscott
(13,029 posts)that neither you nor anyone else here that spouts the "scientism" talking point can actually point to any real person who says that science and scientific inquiry are the only ways to look at and appreciate the world. Your so-called "fundamentalism" in this case is just a non-existent bogeyman, and another lame attempt to paint critical, rational thinking as a "religion".
AlbertCat
(17,505 posts)No it's not. It is a world view based on the scientific method, not "revelations" or ancient guesses like fundamentalism.
It is supported by the huge success of science. Religion only "helps" those who believe. Science helps everybody.... even fundamentalists.
Humanist_Activist
(7,670 posts)Voice for Peace
(13,141 posts)When I think of evolution I do think of an urge "upward" if
you will -- there is a force of life, something unchanging as
it animates everything coming into and going out of existence.
That force motivates evolution, it urges change, it restores
balance, it is everywhere, always.
In evolution I see the mad energy of creativity, gone wild,
purposeful, creating and recreating, trying new things*
discarding what doesn't work, doing more of what's working and
making it even cooler, and so on and so on and you know what
a crazy amazing world and universe we have. It's going to
keep going long after we're gone. You can dive into fascination
for the rest of your life and never come out, it's that bottomless.
* I don't mean this to sound like there's an external
Creator. I mean from within every particle of everything in
existence, this creative process is happening.
Voice for Peace
(13,141 posts)A beautiful story of that urge (further to my other post to you):
Underwater cameras showed that the artist was a small puffer fish who, using only his flapping fin, tirelessly worked day and night to carve the circular ridges. The unlikely artist – best known in Japan as a delicacy, albeit a potentially poisonous one – even takes small shells, cracks them, and lines the inner grooves of his sculpture as if decorating his piece. Further observation revealed that this “mysterious circle” was not just there to make the ocean floor look pretty. Attracted by the grooves and ridges, female puffer fish would find their way along the dark seabed to the male puffer fish where they would mate and lay eggs in the center of the circle. In fact, the scientists observed that the more ridges the circle contained, the more likely it was that the female would mate with the male. The little sea shells weren’t just in vain either. The observers believe that they serve as vital nutrients to the eggs as they hatch, and to the newborns.
edhopper
(33,606 posts)I just don't accept it to be true. What "processes" intersect with religious thought?
You call it limited, I call what you are doing is imagining things which have no evidence of their existence.
I challenged your premise that since we acknowledge things like love without evidence, why can't we accept God.
I tried to point out that it is a false analogy.
We may use the same language to talk about something, but it doesn't mean they are analogous.
When I say I believe in Democracy, it is an entirely different meaning that if I said I believe in the Loch Ness Monster.
Thats my opinion
(2,001 posts)Some time ago I offered a list of 40 books on the subject and hadn't even gotten through the Bs in the list of authors.
If you are really interested I could send you a couple of shorter essays. (by e-mail) Maybe "religion" is the wrong venue for such a conversation. The major emphasis here is an effort to prove that religion is BS. I no longer have any time for that discussion. But you ask some serious questions which deserve some response. But not in a couple of quick paragraphs.
Briefly--the processes of all of life are profoundly religious in that they describe the meaning underlying the universe. It suggests that everything is related to everything else. If there is no ultimate meaning than what is life all about beyond biological functions?
There is a purpose in all creation. It is continually on the move--and behind this impetus is the force which lures it on. It is the luring which is the activity of God. Most philosophic thought since Plato has been based on that premise.
We cannot equate this drive, this power with a purpose, that which lures us on as a person, let alone an old man in the sky. Thus I would suggest that the analogy which links the power behind every process and religious though is profound.
Are you saying that the things I listed in my original post don't exist?
edhopper
(33,606 posts)See my democracy/ Loch Ness Monster analogy.
As for meaning, I go along with T. E. Lawrence, at least as quoted in the film:
"Nothing is written, lest we write it."
The meaning of my life is that which I give it. Not granted or bestowed or ordained by any undetectable force in the Universe.
okasha
(11,573 posts)There are a lot of deserted or abused wives, husbands, parents, children who trusted that a significant other loved them--had faith that that other cared and would "get better." They were wrong. There is no process within science for proving that someone loves you, ie., that love exists in a particular relationship. Love either exists or it does not.
Here's a challenge for you. Choose an artistic work that's fairly well known to most of us, and prove scientifically that it's either a great work or a real stinker. Good luck, Mr. Phelps.
edhopper
(33,606 posts)If you tell me God is only an idea or a concept that has no reality other than what we are thinking or feeling, then he would be similar to the things you mention. But I think believers feel that God exist separate from the idea in some one's mind, or an emotion felt. I am told God has a presence in the Universe and he can have an effect on it.
The aesthetics of art are abstract ideas that we either agree on or don't. Like the meaning of life they only exist within the framework we give them.
Hence the false analogy. QED.
okasha
(11,573 posts)Disappointing, but not surprising, as it would have led directly to the obvious conclusion that there are subjects for which science and the scientific method are not appropriate means of evaluation. This is true of all the arts as well as most metaphyisical propositions. I am not talking about aesthetics here: I am talking about approaching art from the epistomological point of view that you espouse. It doesn't work, yet art is a part of our reality.
I hate to tell you this, edhopper, but science also exists only within the framework we give it. For most if not all on this forum, it is an appropriate means for investigating/describing the physical universe. Others construct a framework in which it has no meaning or meaning only insofar as it confirms/complies with what they consider superior forms of inquiry. Otherwise there would be no such thing as a Creation "Museum."
cleanhippie
(19,705 posts)Last edited Tue Sep 18, 2012, 06:24 PM - Edit history (1)
Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, but the art itself does exist, and that is provable. Perhaps the real challenge would be to prove that "god" actually exists in the first place, and then the debate can be moved on to more subjective criteria, such as that presented in your "challenge."
okasha
(11,573 posts)There's nothing pretty about Picasso's Guernica.
cleanhippie
(19,705 posts)And while those words may, in some cases, be synonymous, there are time when they are not.
Using your example of Guernica, it can be said that it is a beautiful work of art that is not pretty at all.
The point being, your "challenge" was not a challenge at all. It is a childish attempt at false equivalencies.
okasha
(11,573 posts)But since you've taken up the challenge that you say doesn't exist, show how you arrived at the conclusion that Guernica is a beautiful work of art. And while you're at it, show that "beautiful" also equals "great."
cleanhippie
(19,705 posts)Lets start over. I have no idea what you are talking about anymore.
edhopper
(33,606 posts)Beauty is something that we humans see in things. It is an arbitrary description of something based somewhat on our biological senses and the ways our brain works and somewhat on our cultural experiences. A group can agree on something being beautiful based on a shared set of concepts. It doesn't really exist, it is just a human construct. Obviously different people can disagree on what is beautiful or great art and there is no outside measurement (like in physics for instance) that can arrive at any factual truth.
So in that it is much like God. Completely originating from within the human psyche. With no evidence because it does not exist outside our own minds.
okasha
(11,573 posts)The assumption is basically the one put forth by 19th. Century romantics, that beauty is the ultimate aim of art, and that the most beautiful is the greatest. It's the same assumption that led to the conclusion that Elizabeth Browning was a better poet than Robert, something almost all scholars would dispute today.
There is currently a strong movement away from this assumption in contemporary art. It's perhaps most marked among Latin American artists, who have deliberately rejected the traditional aesthetic in favor of work that challenges the viewer and often does so through unsettling and violent images. To declare Guernica "beautiful" is to miss its point entirely.
edhopper
(33,606 posts)of my sarcastic comment that much?
You actually think I was making a serious remark about Art?
okasha
(11,573 posts)N/T
cleanhippie
(19,705 posts)When all you have, even after an attempt to start over, is to try and toss out a personal insult shows that you are just a disingenuous blowhard with no substance and who talks just to hear themselves speak.
edhopper
(33,606 posts)it wasn't a challenge at all.
But I guess you didn't understand anything I was saying or I did a poor job of explaining.
It seems that you are under the impression that some or most atheist think that the scientific method is the only way to look at things. As if they don't understand the areas of art and philosophy. You're wrong.
Thats my opinion
(2,001 posts)Can you list and explain the non-scientific areas you include. Would you include theology in that list?
edhopper
(33,606 posts)though atheist wouldn't see the need to study a subject based on an nonexistent entity.
Art, music, philosophy; these are some areas that deal with ideas that don't fall under scientific inquiry. Of course certain aspects of these fields do.
Oregonian
(209 posts)From an anthropological standpoint, the thousands of deities that man has created out of thin air to worship (or used by leader to control society) is fascinating.
AlbertCat
(17,505 posts)You mean on those rare occasions when ancient guesses about things are kinda right?
Voice for Peace
(13,141 posts)Do you ever make a choice based on a feeling?
The sense of touch -- to feel -- is not limited to the skin
and the external world. We can feel also within our own
bodies, and, more delicately, if we pay attention, we can
feel things inside and outside of us that are more subtle
than the intellect.
One of those subtle things is called "feelings" (also known
as emotions.) The words cause confusion. We are feeling
creatures, it is our nature to feel. We feel hot and cold,
we feel hungry and tired, we feel energized, we feel
soft silky cat fur, we feel satisfaction, we feel gratification,
we feel anger, we feel thorns on rosebushes, we feel sad,
we feel if things are sharp or dull, we feel the wind on
our skin, we feel an ache in our hearts, we feel longings.
These are all normal survival functions of the human physical
feeling machine.
If there happens to be a God it makes sense we
would be designed to be able to feel its existence and
our connection to it, even if it made little sense intellectually.
The problem I find with discussions of God is that there
needs to be a bottom-line definition of what God is, or
what people are even arguing about. Him, It, heaven,
hell, who knows. I don't know what others believe, but I
bet no two believers believe exactly the same things.
edhopper
(33,606 posts)tempered with reason.
Voice for Peace
(13,141 posts)On the other hand, when my feeling self is feeling an emotion,
using reason is crucial -- or at least patience, not making decision
based on emotional feeling but on gut feeling, which is a different
sort of information.
dimbear
(6,271 posts)Then came science.
edhopper
(33,606 posts)[img]
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Marrah_G
(28,581 posts)... I totally want them to look like THAT!!!!
Control-Z
(15,682 posts)It does not speak for me in the least.
Someone is messing with you, I think.
Thats my opinion
(2,001 posts)
rrneck
(17,671 posts)Without them we wouldn't get anything done.
cbayer
(146,218 posts)
Fortinbras Armstrong
(4,473 posts)The universe has a built-in struggle for refinement. In science we call it evolution. In philosophy we call it the élan vital.
In philosophy, it's called "teleology". In religion, its foremost recent advocate was Pierre Teilhard de Chardin.
Thats my opinion
(2,001 posts)Every serious progressive seminary is led by theologians and philosophers who take him as a seminal thinker, but have moved far beyond.
Correct--teleology is an effort to talk about purpose. All of life has ultimate meaning which is defined by its purpose..
Angry Dragon
(36,693 posts)These are things you believe
I was going to go through the list one by one and found that you bounced back and forth from things that were feelings and things that you left only half said.
Mankind has a thirst for knowledge, that is the only thing.
I can prove or disprove your whole list. So there is no faith involved.
mr blur
(7,753 posts)and I disagree that life "rests on things that cannot be proved".
Yet I see by your first sentence that you do, too.
Silent3
(15,259 posts)...is the presence of any semblance of sound logic, or even clear understandings of the meanings of common words, in that list.
I suspect that since once again his drippings of "wisdom" have been dissected and dismissed, he'll depart from this thread and start another one later to try and bash non-religious people anew.
Trajan
(19,089 posts)With any other kind of belief .... pure poppycock ...
I don't have to have 'faith' that I can buy gas at the gas station .... When I actually go there, they may or may not have gas .... I accept whatever reality actually exists ..... Faith buys me nothing, and needn't be invoked ....
Faith is a useless manner of reference, and needn't ever be utilized in our day to day existence .... There are simpler means of drawing conclusions than filtering thoughts through the lens of a belief system founded on the existence an invisible deity ...
orpupilofnature57
(15,472 posts)If there is a God or Gods our rational and verification serve only our Egocentrically driven need to know, or prove.
onager
(9,356 posts)And...what a surprise! There's always a spiritual junk-food salesman like yourself around, trying to take advantage of the marketing opportunity.
Or, as your buddy Christopher Hitchens said:
Many religions now come before us with ingratiating smirks and outspread hands, like an unctuous merchant in a bazaar. They offer consolation and solidarity and uplift, competing as they do in a marketplace. But we have a right to remember how barbarically they behaved when they were strong and were making an offer that people could not refuse.
If you're really interested in the meaning of life, the Science Channel just today (9/16) ran a Hawking-thon. A whole series of shows featuring Steven Hawking. One show dealt specificially with the meaning of life. And several people in here have already given the same answer as Hawking - we provide our own meaning of life.
Evoman
(8,040 posts)in the business of proving shit. That's math. You can say science is about collecting evidence to support hypothesis, or you can even say it's in the business of making observations on the natural world.
And the secret is it's ALL the natural world. It's just divided into things we have good evidence for and "know" and stuff we don't know yet. Despite the almost continual insistence by theists that god can not be proven (how the fuck do you even pretend to know that????) , there is nothing about the idea of god that makes it any more special than any other idea.
The only reason theists keep telling us we can't study god or "prove" god exists is because they can't accept that he/she/it doesn't exist. Something that big and all-encompassing? You'd think we would have at least some evidence if it's existence was real. But so far, most explanations are easier, simpler and make more sense without a god. And that's because god most likely doesn't exist anywhere but your brain.
okasha
(11,573 posts)How about E=mc squared? If you have any vacillation about the proof of that one, the people of Hiroshima and Nagasaki could halp you out.
Evoman
(8,040 posts)okasha
(11,573 posts)was fond of saying that the probability that a phenomenon would occur once in a trillion times did not mean that it would never occur. It meant, instead, that once in a trillion times it would occur. Do I take it, then, that one day you expect you could find yourself floating along above the sidewalk or Niagra Falls making like Old Faithful? If gravity is only a very, very, very, very-well supported hypothesis rather than a proven law, such reversals may be expected to happen on a regular if rare basis. Perhaps I should abandon my skepticism about the stories that St. Teresa of Avila frequently levitated?
Humanist_Activist
(7,670 posts)hell, physicists talk about them all the time, its one of the holes in the standard model, and its a force, that while fundamental to the universe, is too damn weak, and an outlier compared to the other forces.
Evidence supporting the current theory of gravity are rather weak, and it will need a lot of refinement, maybe as profound a shift as when Einstein came along.
okasha
(11,573 posts)please inform us when you find water flowing uphill.
SarahM32
(270 posts)I'm what I would call a New Deist -- not a Deist like many of the Founding Fathers were, but a Deist who can benefit from all that we have learned in the last two hundred years.
I believe in a description of God or Deity which, among other things, states that God is the Divine Light Energy-Source of our existence and the Essence of all life and form -- from the smallest nano particle to the atom to the galaxy to the universe -- and it is also known as the Cosmic Consciousness.
It's not some "Almighty Superman" in the sky, or any person or entity, or even a being as we know it. (For more information on this, read The Nature of God.)
Therefore, I disagree with you that "there is nothing about any idea of god that makes it any more special than any other idea." I believe in the idea or concept of God that is compatible with science.
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cleanhippie
(19,705 posts)Well done! That's some serious "progressive" musings you posted.
SarahM32
(270 posts)Last edited Mon Sep 17, 2012, 08:05 PM - Edit history (1)
" ... religions were established essentially to teach people that the human ego, the separate-self, can be tempted by self-interest, self-righteousness, self-importance, and greed, and that we should overcome such temptations and tendencies, seek the higher good, foster a sense of family, of kinship, of unity, cooperation and collaboration, and share the common wealth for the common good.
At the heart of religions was the realization that God (or the Higher Good) is above and beyond the material concerns of Man — beyond nations and their governments — and that the truth reflected and expressed by an actual witness and genuine chosen servant of God is relevant to all peoples and all nations and all governments. That is, God and the real truth are universal, and for the benefit of all humanity and the world.
However, because religions were developed or expanded by people who were only human, who tended toward ethnic and racial and nationalistic pride, religions became what they are today — some relatively good and beneficial to humanity because they focus on universal spiritual truths, and some relatively counterproductive because they focus on the material concerns of egocentric and ethnocentric Man."
That's an excerpt quoted from an article on The Nature of God.
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Thats my opinion
(2,001 posts)cleanhippie
(19,705 posts)In a world without religious values. It seems you are taking very contradictory positrons. Playing both sides, as the saying goes.
SarahM32
(270 posts)It just depends on one's definition of religious values.
For example, my values are spiritual but they are compatible with the essential, core religious values at the heart of most religions. But on the other hand, those on the Fundamentalist Christian Right hold rather opposite values but call them religious.
The highest value, to me, is the Universal Divine Imperative: Treat all others as you would want to be treated if you were them. It's also called the Golden Rule of Hillel the Elder and Jesus of Nazareth -- also called the law of reciprocity, karma, cause and effect, action and reaction, etc.
There is no higher value, no higher law, and if all people lived by it, the world would be a far different place.
cleanhippie
(19,705 posts)Read all of them from the beginning (there aren't that many) and see if you can see the contradiction and hypocrisy that the rest of us see.
SarahM32
(270 posts)I give him the benefit of the doubt, and I think he's trying just like the rest of us to get to the truth --- or as close as we can get. And I like some of the stuff he writes because it's thoughtful, not offensive (as far as I can tell), and in a spirit of good will.
trotsky
(49,533 posts)would best be demonstrated by TMO apologizing for the slam on all non-believers he made long ago by saying that no one would want to live in a society that did not have a religious ethical foundation. He has been asked to do this dozens of times by many different people, and has not only refused, but has doubled down on religious bigotry. The well is poisoned - the ball has been in TMO's court to change the tone, to listen and learn from each other. But he has demonstrated no interest in dialog - he is only interested in preaching from a soapbox and wants only adulation in return.
Thats my opinion
(2,001 posts)Almost three years ago I wrote that no one would want to live in a society that did not have a religious ethical foundation. Eight times I have answered critics of that statement--which I still stand behind. I'll try it again.
Neither would anyone want to live in a society without a solid scientific basis for understanding the world.
Neither would anyone want to live in a society without a serious representation and articulation of non-religious doubts.
Neither would anyone want to live in a society without secular educational institutions which did not rely on any religious doctrine or interpretation.
Neither would anyone want to live in a society with one controlling religion that knew it had the only truth, formed its politics thereby and condemned all others religious and non-religious persons and their perspectives to hell.
This has been my often articulated position from the beginning. There are those who have not wanted to hear it because they enjoy attacking what they want me to believe.
I want a full-throated dialogue among all those perspectives articulated above--and others as well.
I, however, will not get back into conversation with the five I have more recently refused to be a learned to ignore. I have posted hundreds of responses to critics of all kinds who are open to conversation.
trotsky
(49,533 posts)And you have the nerve to wonder why you don't get a warm reception from everyone.
Answer one question. One you have refused to answer every time this is brought up. WHY wouldn't we want to live in a society without a religious ethical foundation? What would be wrong in a society with a secular ethical foundation?
Careful, trotsky, I smell the victim card about to be played.
trotsky
(49,533 posts)I bring up uncomfortable questions that would cause him to have to revisit his "thoughtful" decrees on How Things Are, and that simply must not be done. I'm an evil disrepectful atheist for questioning him, therefore I deserve to be shunned.
mr blur
(7,753 posts)Who would have guessed it?
cleanhippie
(19,705 posts)but the rest of us have seem for ourselves that the only "truth" is that which he says is true. Dare to question him and you too will be branded as a trouble maker. Seems par for the course though, that is pretty much in line with christianity throughout the ages; question authority and be branded a heretic.
SarahM32
(270 posts)According to Westar Institute, "Charles Hedrick is Emeritus Professor of Religious Studies at Southwest Missouri State University. A retired U.S. Army Reserve Chaplain (Colonel) and Juvenile Probation Officer, Los Angeles County Probation Department; he has served as pastor of churches in Mississippi, California, and New York City. Hedrick was a member of the international team (UNESCO) of scholars who worked for several years in Cairo, Egypt, reconstructing and translating the Nag Hammadi Codices and later excavated at the site of the Nag Hammadi discovery. He is a distinguished author, translator, and teacher in the academic study of religion. He is the author of numerous books and articles."
The Westar Institute, formerly The Jesus Seminar, has many great fellow members. My favorite in Karen Armstrong, an ex Nun who has written some great books including The History of God and The Battle for God, which promotes understand among the Abrahamic religions. I also like John Dominic Crossan, Marcus Borg, and John Shelby Spong. They are all progressive Christians who don't take the Bible literally and question traditional doctrine and dogma.
I don't know much about Charles, but he was kind to me on my thread about the book of Isaiah. And I think it might help to consider that it's not easy sometimes on this board. I'm still here because I've only run into one person who was absolutely unreasonable and raised my ire (on that Isaiah thread). Most seem to me to be pretty damn smart and reasonable.
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Thats my opinion
(2,001 posts)As are many of the hundreds who are members of the Westar Institute. I have found many colleagues as a result of my membership ,
My advice is to ignore whomever it is who attacked you unreasonably on the Isaiah thread. Just don't respond ever! There is plenty of rational discourse in "religion." That way you will avoid high blood pressure generated by your ire.
trotsky
(49,533 posts)That would go a long way to show your commitment to rational, respectful discourse. Many people have told you your words were insulting, and you have never apologized. Try it.
AlbertCat
(17,505 posts).... as ancient government. To (falsely) bestow power to rule over others by some "divine" right and to make and enforce rules (like don't eat pork) on everyone so a society might "work". It worked pretty well and was important when the majority of populations were illiterate and ignorant. But now it is obsolete.
dimbear
(6,271 posts)He made a dreadful error when he included in the Book of Mormon some assertions that could be factually disproved. Even in the man's short life, archaeological discoveries showed that his original assumption, that the Mound Peoples were equivalent to some of the players in the Book of Mormon had been disproved by a chronological discrepancy of some several centuries.
He could hardly have imagined that nearly two centuries would pass before the complete separation of the Amerindian and Polynesian peoples from any Semitic peoples would be established by the new science of DNA. Smith's absurd assumption that any pre-Columbian Americans had employed camels and elephants was another boner.
Response to Thats my opinion (Original post)
Humanist_Activist This message was self-deleted by its author.
Humanist_Activist
(7,670 posts)First I want to break down your list:
Life—my life—has meaning. - OK, this is a statement of belief, uhm, good for you?
There are those we admire who live beautiful lives. - This is a statement of fact, not really profound, and common among humans as a social species.
Every human must have some purpose which is a guiding principle for action. - I don't like the wording of this one, mostly because it sounds like a directive, rather than a statement of fact. A better way to wording this is, "Every human creates a purpose for themselves." even this I have a problem with, because I can imagine people who don't have a purpose of their own, outside of existing. Depressing thought, but perhaps this is just opinion.
Occasionally we are encountered by some vision, experience, notion before which we bow in awe. - I don't know if I'd literally bow, but you are talking about experiencing awe, I don't understand how this is something to "prove".
Most of the values which make life meaningful cannot be “proved” as existing. - I would agree with this, except for that word "prove" you keep using. Much of the meaning humans attach to their lives have to do with finding love and reproducing, these are biological imperatives, part of what we are, so are supported by objective evidence. Others are more subjective, and hence outside of the purview of science, but are also meaningless to others people.
To live without hope is to live in despair, therefore we must live in hope. - Again I don't understand the theme here, or is the theme random thoughts?
To trust anyone or anything is to live by faith. - This I definitely don't agree with, you conflate two terms, as if they are equal, yet faith doesn't require evidence. I don't trust those who haven't demonstrated that they are trustworthy, and as far as concepts, they better have some evidence backing them up, unless they are completely subjective.
The universe has a built-in struggle for refinement. In science we call it evolution. In philosophy we call it the élan vital. - First off, no the universe doesn't, indeed its the opposite, the universe has built in entropy, the opposite of refinement. Also, it isn't called evolution, but entropy. Did you fail high school science?
A hunger to be accepted means we long for some human relationship. - Yes, this is well known and well studied, we may have even isolated the sections of the brain responsible for these feelings, and we even understand how such things come about through Evolution. What is your point in pointing out such obvious facts?
There is a spiritual hunger build into most of our lives. There is that to which we can only point that gives meaning and hope. - This sound like presumptuous twaddle, and what are you, a mind reader? Very arrogant to assume such things in others.
We live by affirming that behind all value is that reality which has lured people in every culture and time. - This sounds leading.
Most of life involves believing things we cannot see, let alone prove. - Really, can you provide specific examples?
This beyondness is the core and instigator of religion and thus the quest for God, whose existence—like all these other things—cannot be proved. - OK, you jumped from randomness to a deity? How does any of your train of thought lead to here?
Frankly this entire post of yours sounds like the worst of mental masturbation masquerading as profound philosophy. You combine ignorance of the scientific method, the worst of use of the word "prove" I ever saw, even among creationists, and then combine it with spirituality and theism in the worst way imaginable. Its incoherent.
Thats my opinion
(2,001 posts)bright mind.
I appreciate the time and effort you took to go through my list. Obviously we come at things from different perspectives. I do not rank them better or worse, just different. I see a highly multi-layered reality which includes the physical, the emotional, the spiritual. But beyond all of these realities I see a purposefully integrated substructure which lures them on. That which is underneath all these realities is what I call God.
From Plato on we have thought about that reality. Descarte proposed a single layer reality. That difference is what we are both talking about, albeit from widely differing presuppositions.
trotsky
(49,533 posts)You don't bother defending your claims (claims in which you are angrily belittling others and their beliefs), you just throw in your own little attacks and putdowns, and stomp off.
Here's a little helpful tip: discussion is a two-way street. You can't just post something and expect everyone to tell you how brilliant and correct you are. People are going to disagree. They're going to state why. So continue the discussion. Look at their thoughts. Defend your statements.
Since you won't do this, you get the same reaction every time. People are tired of your soapboax holier-than-thou preaching.
intaglio
(8,170 posts)Let us look at your contentions
"There are those I admire whose lives I find beautiful"Even in this restatement you ignore the way this contorts the meaning of the word beauty, which is a nebulous concept at best.
We long for human relationship which gives us a hunger to be accepted.This makes far more sense than your statement and is entirely understandable in terms of the evolution of a social species.
