Atheism is reasonable, and Christianity is not

[DogmaHunter]

What are you talking about? Have you ever heard of Relativity Theory? Length Contraction? Science doesn't even teach that two individuals can measure the same length exactly equivalently, as movement alters the perception thereof, and we are all constantly in movement, even moving with respect to what we are measuring the length of, when we measure. Granted it is assumed to be minute when not approaching the speed of light, but it really isn't objective. Same goes for temperature.

LOL!
First, "relative" isn't the same as "subjective".
Second, the fact that you even know about relativity, just goes to show how contextually precise our measurements can be, independently of the person who reads the outcome.

Such ideas weren't developped in orde to accomodate people's "personal experience of measurement". They were developped to have more accurate measurements in context of actual reality, in context of how reality actually works - regardless of human experience.

So when you go online and order the following:
- A crate of 2 cubic meters
- A rope of exactly 10 meters
- 5 liters of water
- 20 nails
- 250 grams of salt

What do you expect to get? What you actually ordered, or completely different amounts, lengths, weights,...?

250 grams of salt in Belgium, isn't the same amount of salt in Turkey?
A 10m rope in the US, isn't the same as a 10m rope in China?
20 nails in Pakistan, could be 25 nails in Japan?

Also, they are highly cultural. Ever heard of the Metric system? Imperial Measurements? Feet and El?

I didn't specify any measurement units and did so on purpose. I did not explicitly say why I didn't include them, because I didn't want to insult your intelligence by implying that you aren't aware of the formula's you can use to convert inches into centimeters or fahrenheit into celsius.

Was I giving you to much credit?

Not to mention the assumptions that need to be made of consistency and that something actual is being measured.

Uhu, right, right...

I'm measuring the dimensions of my physical desk here, but hey.... maybe the desk isn't actually real!! Maybe nothing is and we are all brains in vats! Whaaaa!

It's becoming harder to take you seriously.

Also, I just gave examples where religious activity showed the same type of experience in common, such as Sufis, Trapist Monks and Zen Buddhists, which you just ignore.

I'm not ignoring anything.
All I'm saying is that I see thousands upon thousands, if not millions, of humans having very very different "spiritual experiences" which they can not demonstrate and only claim to have had. While there seems to be quite a bit of consensus of more physical experiences, like speed, weight, temperature, etc.

In fact, these physical things are even such that we can create mechanical tools that do the measuring for us and all we have to do is read the number that pops out.

This is why we get speeding tickets. This is how we can calculate the amount of fuel a rocket requires in order to achieve escape velocity.

If you build these devices based on empirical data, which I would call objective, then they work. If you don't, then they don't work.

What a decidedly odd way of looking at it. Tell me, do you measure your burger-making abilities by how good you are at bathing? Or do we test a mathematical proposition by the rules of Rugby?
Nothing is juxtaposed to anything else or taken down or up. It is apples vs rocks. Metaphysics against methodologic naturalism.

It's the only thing I can conclude. You seem incapable of lifting up your "religious reasoning", so as an alternative you seem to be downgrading science alltogether. In some sort of "well, science is just as bad!" argument.

It's curious.

Anthropomorphisation at its finest, not to mention begging the question. Citation?

Just google "superstition pigeons".
Here's the first link that pops out:
How Superstition Affects Us And What We Can Learn From Skinner's Pigeon Experiment

This is just supposition. There is really no support for these statements beyond conjecture.

Besides the experiments which all validate this idea.

You can even easily test it yourself.
Make an unexpected innocent noise in the presence of say... a cat.
The very first reaction of the cat will be one of "alert, alert! danger, danger!". It's survival instinct. We humans do it too.

Quite disingenuous, as if the great complexities of human religion, from Neoplatonists down to Buddhists to Christianity, could all be boiled down to sussurations.

I completely disagree that religion is of such "great complexity".
The religions themselves, their content, might be complex - sure. I wouldn't expect otherwise from stories that developped over the course of centuries, even millenia.

Take a look at scientology, which isn't even a century old. I'll go ahead and assume that you'll agree that this was pretty much invented out of thin air.
In only a couple of years, the entire "story" and extremely complex lore and hierarchy was established. And by only a handfull of people at most. It is said that it was even all the work of 1 man: Hubbart.

Again, begging the question to write it off as false positives without any real reason to do so.

I provide the reason. Basic survival instinct on the one hand and the tendency of seeing patterns where there aren't any.

In the case of the pigeon experiment... the pigeons started engaging in extremely weird behavior.

The setup was a bunch of pigeons in a cage. Some had a button which, when pressed, gave them food. The others had no button and food was given at random times.
Those without the button started being "superstitious" about what triggered the giving of food. Some started flapping their right wing. Some started making circles. Others engaged in scratching a specific spot.

They came to believe that that behaviour triggered the thing giving food. They "forgot" about the times it failed and "remembered" the times that it appeared succesful.

This is literally "finding" patterns where there aren't any.
That is what superstition is. Thinking A and B are interconnected, while they are not.
Couple that with a tendency to infuse agency, being aware of your own morality and developing into a species with too much free time on its hands - freeing up time to "think" and boom....

Sounds perfectly sensible to me.
At the very least, it seems INCREDIBLY more likely to be the case, then that 1 of the hundreds, thousands, of religions is actually correct...

I could say Empiricism is a structure of false positives by equal measure

You could not.
Because your computer actually boots.
If the technology by which it was build was based on a structure of mistaken believes and "fales positives", then it would not boot.

But it does boot.
And nukes explode.
And planes fly.

as all activity derived therefrom, I could just call "centuries of developing lore" thereof.

You could not either. Lore is a bunch of stories.
But empirical investigation didn't result in stories. It resulted in working technology.

 

[variant]

Please read what I write. I did not establish any form of causality based on human desires. What I did say was that Religion is inference drawn from human spiritual experience, spiritual qualia. Likewise, other things humans believe, other inferences, are drawn based on other qualia, such as our perceived sense-data - again not really substantiated beyond intersubjectivity. None of these inferences inherently have to be true. Thus to assume one reflects reality and exclude another, is not entirely sound, based merely on these inferences themselves. Human desires have nothing to with anything here, for I can argue Naturalistic views are built merely on human desire for consistency and mechanistic explanation. The situation is really not so different as you seem to think.

I did read what you read, it simply dosen't follow.

If you are directly comparing "spiritual qualia" to "sense data" you are simply making a catagory error.

This is kind of like saying people who "feel" that there is a higher power is a lot like how I "felt" falling down the steps the other week.

Why are they a byproduct and not consciousness the byproduct? This is merely a set of confirmation bias based ideas. Why is a conscious and self-aware brain of 'obvious benefit' - how do you establish that? You are assuming because we are self-aware, it is of benefit, but simple response systems work perfectly well for most life. You are assuming that because it is there, it must have evolved, and is therefore of benefit - and then arbitrarily assigning teleological purpose to it that we haven't really established, and then excluding related phenomena on fairly specious grounds. I see no fundamental reason why it has to be seen in this manner, and based on the parsimony of natural systems elsewhere, every reason why it need not be.

I am saying the benefit of being self aware is obvious. I feel no need to demonstrate that the ability to understand and manipulate the environment is not the main and obvious benefit of this.

The problem is that it comes with another obvious consequence, that people start to understand other things like, that they are going to die, that they can contemplate concepts like "meaning" and "gods" and posit ideas like "souls".

I can verify the self awareness, but the other "awareness" beyond that is not something we know.

 

[Quid est Veritas?]

I did read what you read, it simply dosen't follow.

If you are directly comparing "spiritual qualia" to "sense data" you are simply making a catagory error.

This is kind of like saying people who "feel" that there is a higher power is a lot like how I "felt" falling down the steps the other week.

From a Materialist or Neurological view, they are identical. Both would be depolarisation accross membrane potentials in the neurons. Whether I perceive an entity with me or another person, on purely physiological grounds the effect in the brain would be similar. This is where the whole concept of qualia comes in, that fundamentally, both philosophically and scientifically, we cannot demonstrate the perception of sense-data to be more existent then any other human experience.
This is why people always say: "I swear it was real, as real as you standing in ftont of me" - yes, very much so.

I am saying the benefit of being self aware is obvious. I feel no need to demonstrate that the ability to understand and manipulate the environment is not the main and obvious benefit of this.

The problem is that it comes with another obvious consequence, that people start to understand other things like, that they are going to die, that they can contemplate concepts like "meaning" and "gods" and posit ideas like "souls".

I can verify the self awareness, but the other "awareness" beyond that is not something we know.

You are just grasping at straws with your "obvious". It is not a good argument to call one consequence of a process as its purpose and just write off another, merely on preferred assumption. No, it is not "obvious", my friend, which is why we cannot even properly describe what consciousness even is.

To illustrate: Ants manipulate the environment quite well, building massive colonies, defoliating large woodlands, etc. Are they self-aware? Are they not gaining these vaunted benefits without it?
Bacteria or multicellular organism react as well with the environment as we do, without it. Granted, we are one of the most succesful organisms, probably due to our abilities at problem solving, but how do you determine that religion itself is not one of those problems of our existence? That it is not an attempt to grapple with real effects in our world? It is merely assumption that this set of behaviours respond to 'real' things and those do not. As I said, Nature is not in the practice of the superfluous, so I would need a far better argument that this is 'byproduct' then a few facile, unsupported assumptions and an appeal to what you perceive as 'obvious'. As you said, we are not aware of anything beyond our fundamental self-awareness - where both religious and empiric experience essentially lies in equal measure.

 

[Quid est Veritas?]

LOL!
First, "relative" isn't the same as "subjective".
Second, the fact that you even know about relativity, just goes to show how contextually precise our measurements can be, independently of the person who reads the outcome.

Such ideas weren't developped in orde to accomodate people's "personal experience of measurement". They were developped to have more accurate measurements in context of actual reality, in context of how reality actually works - regardless of human experience.

So when you go online and order the following:
- A crate of 2 cubic meters
- A rope of exactly 10 meters
- 5 liters of water
- 20 nails
- 250 grams of salt

What do you expect to get? What you actually ordered, or completely different amounts, lengths, weights,...?

250 grams of salt in Belgium, isn't the same amount of salt in Turkey?
A 10m rope in the US, isn't the same as a 10m rope in China?
20 nails in Pakistan, could be 25 nails in Japan?

If something changes depending on the person observing it, that is the very definition of Subjective. Current Science therefore denies objective measurement exists, but accepts the erroneous ones we get as approximations of theoretical absolute ones, by necessity. So no, 10m of rope next to 10m of rope cannot be shown the same, but assumed to tend toward it. Don't confuse the practical work-around with the theoretical basis.

Again though, this was not what I was talking about, but that on a fundamental level, our observation-derived sense-data is equivalent to other qualia. Or do you deny Neurology? That our perceptions are done on neural architecture via the depolarisation of membranes in the brain? Is this not how a materialist would denote religious experience as well?

I didn't specify any measurement units and did so on purpose. I did not explicitly say why I didn't include them, because I didn't want to insult your intelligence by implying that you aren't aware of the formula's you can use to convert inches into centimeters or fahrenheit into celsius.

Was I giving you to much credit?

I don't see how that is insulting. It merely shows the highly cultural context of measurements. That one set of cultural constructs can be converted to another, is neither here nor there. I can translate Roman Numerals to Hindu-Arabic, I can even attempt mathematics therein, but they are fundamentally different things. They are different abstracts drawn. Kelvin or Celsius are defined differently, by different parameters. That both can be applied to the same thing merely shows type, that they were designed to solve the same problem.
It is like a gun and a atl-atl and a bow: We can juxtapose their rates of fire, their penetrative power, label them all weapons, they'll all kill - they are however not all the same thing therefore.

Uhu, right, right...

I'm measuring the dimensions of my physical desk here, but hey.... maybe the desk isn't actually real!! Maybe nothing is and we are all brains in vats! Whaaaa!

I don't like brains in vats. It seems to presuppose Materialism, that something need fundamentally exist and must be material as such. I see no reason why this need be the case.

It's becoming harder taking you seriously.

Good. I have long since stopped taking you seriously as well. The impenetrable view that the shadows on the wall Must be fundamental reality, I find hilarious. I just keep venturing into the Cave and watch the flames dancing around my imprisoned compatriots - knowing full well that I may be imprisoned likewise, perhaps with more leeway to my chain.

I'm not ignoring anything.
All I'm saying is that I see thousands upon thousands, if not millions, of humans having very very different "spiritual experiences" which they can not demonstrate and only claim to have had. While there seems to be quite a bit of consensus of more physical experiences, like speed, weight, temperature, etc.

In fact, these physical things are even such that we can create mechanical tools that do the measuring for us and all we have to do is read the number that pops out.

This is why we get speeding tickets. This is how we can calculate the amount of fuel a rocket requires in order to achieve escape velocity.

If you build these devices based on empirical data, which I would call objective, then they work. If you don't, then they don't work.

Ok? I don't see why you think this such an important point. Yes, we can measure material existence. What of it? Methodological Naturalism says nothing on Metaphysics.

It's the only thing I can conclude. You seem incapable of lifting up your "religious reasoning", so as an alternative you seem to be downgrading science alltogether. In some sort of "well, science is just as bad!" argument.

It's curious.

Or you could just read what I repeatedly said, that I believe they are just responses to different facets of human experience. It isn't 'either/or' here.

Just google "superstition pigeons".
Here's the first link that pops out:
How Superstition Affects Us And What We Can Learn From Skinner's Pigeon Experiment

You must have missed my edit of my previous post. I apologise on that count.
This does not show superstition, but attempts at problem solving, of pattern recognition. This is exactly what Science does as well, so tell me: Is Science a specific form of Superstition? To label it the latter is just anthropomorphisation, as everyone agrees here; it is just shorthand to call it thus, to explain the concept easily.

Besides the experiments which all validate this idea.

Really? Citation? What expetiments validate animal superstition or that show religion is derived by such means? As I said, Skinner didn't. It is just conjecture of other phenomena juxtaposed to religion and the implicit biases of Atheists that see connections - that's it.

I completely disagree that religion is of such "great complexity".
The religions themselves, their content, might be complex - sure. I wouldn't expect otherwise from stories that developped over the course of centuries, even millenia.

Take a look at scientology, which isn't even a century old. I'll go ahead and assume that you'll agree that this was pretty much invented out of thin air.
In only a couple of years, the entire "story" and extremely complex lore and hierarchy was established. And by only a handfull of people at most. It is said that it was even all the work of 1 man: Hubbart.

All ideas are fundamentally simple. Empiricism boils down to what I see must be there and if I do the same thing multiple times and remains the same, that it always will. I fail to see the point you are trying to make. My whole argument is that the form of religion we see, does not fit the simplistic origins ascribed to it. I don't expect to convince you, so I'll just agree to disagree.

I provide the reason. Basic survival instinct on the one hand and the tendency of seeing patterns where there aren't any.

In the case of the pigeon experiment... the pigeons started engaging in extremely weird behavior.

The setup was a bunch of pigeons in a cage. Some had a button which, when pressed, gave them food. The others had no button and food was given at random times.
Those without the button started being "superstitious" about what triggered the giving of food. Some started flapping their right wing. Some started making circles. Others engaged in scratching a specific spot.

They came to believe that that behaviour triggered the thing giving food. They "forgot" about the times it failed and "remembered" the times that it appeared succesful.

This is literally "finding" patterns where there aren't any.
That is what superstition is. Thinking A and B are interconnected, while they are not.
Couple that with a tendency to infuse agency, being aware of your own morality and developing into a species with too much free time on its hands - freeing up time to "think" and boom....

Sounds perfectly sensible to me.
At the very least, it seems INCREDIBLY more likely to be the case, then that 1 of the hundreds, thousands, of religions is actually correct...

As I said, begging the question. You are assuming they are false positives, as we have no real reason to say they aren't. It is just metaphysical assumptions on one hand vs. metaphysical assumptions on the other.
The one says Religious Experience is inherently Real and religion developed to account for it, the other that it is a false positive. You have not explicitly shown it to be one as such.

But tell me, of the hundreds of thousands of theories to account for physical events we experience, do you not acknowledge that one is possibly true? So the atomists vs proceduralists vs monists vs elementals - you ascribe to Atomism like most moderns, I assume. Why do you think it so strange that one religion might be more correct than another, when that principle is applied throughout Science as well. By that reasoning, because there are so many different hypotheses to account for various phenomena, this casts doubt on all science. A bit silly, no?

You could not.
Because your computer actually boots.
If the technology by which it was build was based on a structure of mistaken believes and "fales positives", then it would not boot.

But it does boot.
And nukes explode.
And planes fly.

I don't think you fully grasp the concept here. A false positive is called a 'positive' because it was based on results obtained, it just happens to be wrong. This would be that nukes explode, and we take this as corroborating to our theory, but that it might be wrong if it is a false positive. Nukes might explode for other reasons entirely.

Have you heard of Galenic Physiology? It held Medicine in thrall for a 1000 years and was based on examination of patients and dissection. It was all wrong.
It taught that blood ebbed and flowed, not circulated. Now, Galenic physiology explains the nature of the arterial waveform BETTER then modern physiology - it just happens to be wrong (we think the changes in the pulse form from its being ejected from the heart may be due to compliance or lack thereof of the aorta, but we aren't really 100% sure).
It successfully treated certain illnesses, even being used as the basis for suggesting treatments - which then worked: A good example here is Haemosiderosis, an excess of Iron deposition, which Galenic physiology suggested needed to be bled, based on excess of splenetic humours. We still do venepuncture today for this condition.
That is a false positive, in fact a whole system built on it, that was reinforced by other false positives thereafter.

Simply because planes fly or nukes explode, shows nothing about the fumdamental veracity of the thing. I don't think Empiricism is giving us false results, but it might be for all intents and purposes, so such anti-religion arguments are utterly moot.

You could not either. Lore is a bunch of stories.
But empirical investigation didn't result in stories. It resulted in working technology.

See above on Galenic Physiology.
Empirical investigation resulted in stories. Just So stories in fact. Whether they are accurate, is another matter entirely. Their veridicality isn't strengthened by adding to the corpus.
Conquistadors went to "India" based on stories of their wealth like John de Mandeville. That they found wealth, does not necessarily validate the stories - as they did not in this case.
That technology can be built based on our understanding of physics, supports but does not prove our physics. The Romans built aquaducts that stood for thousands of years and continue to work, based on erroneous conceptions of pressure and flow. We built ships and roads on Newtonian physics, which we know to be flawed today. Utility doesn't prove veracity.

 

[variant]

From a Materialist or Neurological view, they are identical. Both would be depolarisation accross membrane potentials in the neurons. Whether I perceive an entity with me or another person, on purely physiological grounds the effect in the brain would be similar. This is where the whole concept of qualia comes in, that fundamentally, both philosophically and scientifically, we cannot demonstrate the perception of sense-data to be more existent then any other human experience.

Oh my, don't ever change.

Seriously my day was pretty bad, this deserved a good gut chuckle.

 

[variant]

You are just grasping at straws with your "obvious". It is not a good argument to call one consequence of a process as its purpose and just write off another, merely on preferred assumption. No, it is not "obvious", my friend, which is why we cannot even properly describe what consciousness even is.

Straws you say?

Yeah I think the species that builds these:

Has an obvious competitive advantage derived from their conscious manipulation of the environment.

You would literally have to be from a differn't planet to think otherwise.

 

[variant]

Granted, we are one of the most succesful organisms, probably due to our abilities at problem solving, but how do you determine that religion itself is not one of those problems of our existence? That it is not an attempt to grapple with real effects in our world?

It is one of those problems in my opinion, and yes, one that is created by being self aware. Which makes it a side effect of that.

We don't know that it has any benefit of actually sensing anything though, because we can't tell in the usual way we are able to know things.

The supposition that because some people think the idea of God helps them with their existential meaning and the crisis of being a conscious being, that we should therefore conclude that there must be a God proper like C.S. Lewis suggests is simply unsupported. Such an idea is quite capable of being either true or false without us being able to tell which.

There doesn't need to be a inborn resolution to this problem in the universe because it would help humanity. The suggestion is odd.

 

[Quid est Veritas?]

Oh my, don't ever change.

Seriously my day was pretty bad, this deserved a good gut chuckle.

Glad I could be of service. At least you got something from our exchange.

Straws you say?

Yeah I think the species that builds these:

Has an obvious competitive advantage derived from their conscious manipulation of the environment.

You would literally have to be from a differn't planet to think otherwise.

I agree, we do have a competitive advantage.This is neither here nor there though. This still doesn't mean this is the chief reason for it. As I said, Ants build great citadels without it. Increased competitive advantage may just be a 'byproduct' of something that is teleologically there for a completely different reason. Nature has a great tendency to repurpose things that developed for other reasons on occasion. As we don't even have much of an inkling how consciousness arises, I think it presumptious to assume one to be the goal and the other a 'byproduct'. Based on its relative lack in nature otherwise, with organisms that are perfectly capable of manipulating their environments to astonishing degrees without it, this is perhaps even hubris.

It is one of those problems in my opinion, and yes, one that is created by being self aware. Which makes it a side effect of that.

We don't know that it has any benefit of actually sensing anything though, because we can't tell in the usual way we are able to know things.

The supposition that because some people think the idea of God helps them with their existential meaning and the crisis of being a conscious being, that we should therefore conclude that there must be a God proper like C.S. Lewis suggests is simply unsupported. Such an idea is quite capable of being either true or false without us being able to tell which.

There doesn't need to be a inborn resolution to this problem in the universe because it would help humanity. The suggestion is odd.

That is not really CS Lewis' argument. Lewis' decisive one in his mind against Naturalism, is the Argument from Reason. He thinks it strange, from a materialist perspective, to have a desire incapable of being filled though.

The fact is that we do, in fact, sense something. That sense is as real as any other. Whether this sense corresponds to something Real out there, is as much a problem as if our normal senses do so. So to embrace our one set of senses and discount the other, is thus merely preference with little real basis. Either all human experience corresponds to something actual or none of it can be shown to; any other position is a tad hypocritical.

 

[2PhiloVoid]

Has an obvious competitive advantage derived from their conscious manipulation of the environment.

You would literally have to be from a differn't planet to think otherwise.

...yeah, that's why the buildings in the picture you've pasted in your post are all built--and are continuing to be built there--on what is essentially a coastline. And what with all of the impending effects of Global Warming on the horizon, is the term 'brilliant' the word I'm looking for?

Let's hope they're brilliant enough to erect some kind of effective barriers against the encroaching ocean waters.

???

 

[variant]

I agree, we do have a competitive advantage.This is neither here nor there though. This still doesn't mean this is the chief reason for it. As I said, Ants build great citadels without it.

Ants build them without consciousness, but they also don't have religions as far as I know. They don't need them.

We also have more competitive advantage than ants though through near complete understanding and manipulation of our environment and quite a bit more adaptability. Little of which can be explained by our physical ability.

Your example is a better evidence of my point than yours.

Increased competitive advantage may just be a 'byproduct' of something that is teleologically there for a completely different reason. Nature has a great tendency to repurpose things that developed for other reasons on occasion. As we don't even have much of an inkling how consciousness arises, I think it presumptious to assume one to be the goal and the other a 'byproduct'. Based on its relative lack in nature otherwise, with organisms that are perfectly capable of manipulating their environments to astonishing degrees without it, this is perhaps even hubris.

We can't tell the objective purpose of "spirituality" because we can't tell if it is in any way shape or form valid. We know that consciousness was part of our advantage because we don't build structures on autopilot like ants.

Spirituality we can tell is a byproduct of consciousness because it addresses the problems come from being conscious beings. What we can't tell is if it does so in any valid way.

That is not really CS Lewis' argument. Lewis' decisive one in his mind against Naturalism, is the Argument from Reason. He thinks it strange, from a materialist perspective, to have a desire incapable of being filled though.

What's so strange about it? I have unfulfilled desires all the time. It comes from being able to imagine things that don't exist.

The guy wrote fiction, it's amazing that he lacked perspective here.

The fact is that we do, in fact, sense something. That sense is as real as any other. Whether this sense corresponds to something Real out there, is as much a problem as if our normal senses do so. So to embrace our one set of senses and discount the other, is thus merely preference with little real basis. Either all human experience corresponds to something actual or none of it can be shown to; any other position is a tad hypocritical.

It's a problem to describe the sensation as real or even a real sensation, that's what makes it differn't than your sensation of the hardness of steps or the gravity pulling you down it.

You are quite capable of imagining it, and humanity has a long and rich tradition of making stuff up to fill in the gaps of what they know. And, also, we have a rich tradition of simply making stuff up in general.

 

[variant]

...yeah, that's why the buildings in the picture you've pasted in your post are all built--and are continuing to be built there--on what is essentially a coastline. And what with all of the impending effects of Global Warming on the horizon, is the term 'brilliant' the word I'm looking for?

Let's hope they're brilliant enough to erect some kind of effective barriers against the encroaching ocean waters.

Now you're off topic. The point that humanity has the ability to build the thing because of stuff like abstract thought, consciousness, language and planning is not removed by the criticism of them being bad at very long term planning or lacking the ability to organize effectively to control other humans (things religion has not in fact sorted out for us).

 

[2PhiloVoid]

Ants build them without consciousness, but they also don't have religions as far as I know. They don't need them.

We also have more competitive advantage than ants though through near complete understanding and manipulation of our environment and quite a bit more adaptability. Little of which can be explained by our physical ability.

Your example is a better evidence of my point than yours.



We can't tell the objective purpose of "spirituality" because we can't tell if it is in any way shape or form valid. We know that consciousness was part of our advantage because we don't build structures on autopilot like ants.

Spirituality we can tell is a byproduct of consciousness because it addresses the problems come from being conscious beings. What we can't tell is if it does so in any valid way.



What's so strange about it? I have unfulfilled desires all the time. It comes from being able to imagine things that don't exist.

The guy wrote fiction, it's amazing that he lacked perspective here.



It's a problem to describe the sensation as real or even a real sensation, that's what makes it differn't than your sensation of the hardness of steps or the gravity pulling you down it.

You are quite capable of imagining it, and humanity has a long and rich tradition of making stuff up to fill in the gaps of what they know. And, also, we have a rich tradition of simply making stuff up in general.

Actually, my insinuation in saying all of this the way I do is to make a distinction between those of us whose thinking reflects confluences of multifaceted contexts leading to coherence VS those whose thinking requires empirical testing and exacting correspondences through processes of verification. All of which gets even more complex and complicated if a God plays an important part in the epistemic construction of human thought.

Moreover, if no single human point of view is unproblematic epistemologically, then there is yet even one more layer of complication that will mediate any of our attempts to define, test, or prove some notion any of us may have about God.

So, from my point of view, all we have are human descriptions--and NEVER proofs--of God. Not ever, unless God Himself either faces us Himself or sovereignly imparts the missing bits to our individual knowledge, regardless of how scrupulous and wise we think we may be.

....and that's it.

 

[variant]

Actually, my insinuation in saying all of this the way I do is to make a distinction between those of us whose thinking reflects confluences of multifaceted contexts leading to coherence VS those whose thinking requires empirical testing and exacting correspondences through processes of verification. All of which gets even more complex and complicated if a God plays an important part in the epistemic construction of human thought.

Yes, you've chosen to over-complicate the matter because you believe in God.

Which would be great if you had reason to do that.

I know verification would be too much for you to handle but, we're not even defining Gods in a way that we could grasp them intellectually.

Moreover, if no single human point of view is unproblematic epistemologically, then there is yet even one more layer of complication that will mediate any of our attempts to define, test, or prove some notion any of us may have about God.

The sensation of falling down the stairs is much less problematic than the one the person I was speaking with was trying to equate it to, again, unnecessarily, because they want to support your theistic claims as somehow valid.

Simply put, you are in no position to throw stones because of epistemology. To do so is to play the extreme skeptic because you want to say your unsupported ideas are just as valid as anything else.

In a word, no.

So, from my point of view, all we have are human descriptions--and NEVER proofs--of God. Not ever, unless God Himself either faces us Himself or sovereignly imparts the missing bits to our individual knowledge, regardless of how scrupulous and wise we think we may be.

....and that's it.

We can't demonstrate God because it is beyond us to do so. It is beyond us because God has been defined in an untestable way.

 

[cloudyday2]

We can't demonstrate God because it is beyond us to do so. It is beyond us because God has been defined in an untestable way.

Do you think we could hypothesize properties of God that could be tested without having a God that is overly constrained for a divine being? I think we could, because God often makes promises. Christians expect that their beliefs and practices will improve them for example.

 

[variant]

Do you think we could hypothesize properties of God that could be tested without having a God that is overly constrained for a divine being? I think we could, because God often makes promises. Christians expect that their beliefs and practices will improve them for example.

To test them as properties of God, you generally need to be making predictions that would only be true if the underlying God exists. Scientologists could for instance demonstrate that people's lives improved under their care, but that would not demonstrate that thetan engrams are real and that Xenu exists.

You absolutely can test whether or not christian teachings lead to XY or Z results.

 

[2PhiloVoid]

Yes, you've chosen to over-complicate the matter because you believe in God.

Un NO! Here's how it works: You don't get to TELL ME that you know better as to how and why I think what I do about God, and I don't get to TELL YOU how and why you don't believe in God. I didn't 'choose' anything, my epistemology emerged in the process of schooling and in time. And your assertion that I've somehow "over-thought" the matter sounds a lot light the ad hoc evaluations I've heard from various Fundamentalist Christians.

Which would be great if you had reason to do that.

I do have reason to do that, but having reason isn't also to say the my conclusions will automatically be seen by you as being appropriate simply because they involve a process of real reasoning.

Furthermore, it would be great if you'd stop talking to me as if I'm just pulling ideas from my behind, all by my little lonesome somewhere in a darkened, lonely corner of life. I am educated, and I in no way feel that kowtowing to others with mere niceties and a resistance to admitting my own educational attainment is somehow... a genuine mark of Christian humility.

Likewise, if you have a degree in science or something related, I'd not only like to know that, but its admission by you to me would be conducive in my taking you seriously.

I know verification would be too much for you to handle but, we're not even defining Gods in a way that we could grasp them intellectually.

Verification would be too much for me to handle? And you "know" this by verifying it how?

You do know that the point which underlies everything I'm saying as it relates to how we each conceptual God, whether He exists or not, is tied to my acceptance of the idea that atheists many times aren't at fault, or at least not fully at fault, for not finding within themselves the ability to believe and have faith.

The sensation of falling down the stairs is much less problematic than the one the person I was speaking with was trying to equate it to, again, unnecessarily, because they want to support your theistic claims as somehow valid.

Simply put, you are in no position to throw stones because of epistemology. To do so is to play the extreme skeptic because you want to say your unsupported ideas are just as valid as anything else.

Throwing stones? How am I throwing stones?

In a word, no.

Just asserting a denial doesn't therefore make my view suddenly become null and void.

We can't demonstrate God because it is beyond us to do so. It is beyond us because God has been defined in an untestable way.

So, how do you propose to "test" the traditional, religiously oriented Jewish epistemology that reflects knowing God by experience (mystical or social, or through the collective experiences of cultural testimonies or narratives) versus epistemology that demands rational verification and/or proofs, or through mere existential assent?

If it's so clear to you as to how to test the ancient Hebrew concept of God, and thereby also discount what many mainstream scientists like Eugenie C. Scott would assert about the nature of testing, even as it can be done through science, or discounting what other previous philosophers like Blaise Pascal have averred about the limited nature of rational means, then I'd love to hear it.

2PhiloVoid

 

[variant]

Un NO! Here's how it works: You don't get to TELL ME that you know better as to how and why I think what I do about God, and I don't get to TELL YOU how and why you don't believe in God. I didn't 'choose' anything, my epistemology emerged in the process of schooling and in time. And your assertion that I've somehow "over-thought" the matter sounds a lot light the ad hoc evaluations I've heard from various Fundamentalist Christians.

Your epistemology is stilted and complex because you are a theist. It is both overly complex and difficult for that reason.

I do have reason to do that, but having reason isn't also to say the my conclusions will automatically be seen by you as being appropriate simply because they involve a process of real reasoning.

I get to see the fruit of the argument. However much of the "real reasoning" that has gotten you here up to you to display if you so desire.

Furthermore, it would be great if you'd stop talking to me as if I'm just pulling ideas from my behind, all by my little lonesome somewhere in a darkened, lonely corner of life. I am educated, and I in no way feel that kowtowing to others with mere niceties and a resistance to admitting my own educational attainment is somehow... a genuine mark of Christian humility.

I'm quite familiar with most of the arguments you are using, and it doesn't matter to me personally where you got them.

Likewise, if you have a degree in science or something related, I'd not only like to know that, but its admission by you to me would be conducive in my taking you seriously.

My degrees are in biology, chemistry and philosophy.

Verification would be too much for me to handle? And you "know" this by verifying it how?

My assumption rests on the likelihood that you would have done so already.

You do know that the point which underlies everything I'm saying as it relates to how we each conceptual God, whether He exists or not, is tied to my acceptance of the idea that atheists many times aren't at fault, or at least not fully at fault, for not finding within themselves the ability to believe and have faith.

Well then, you've avoided at least one bad argument, but I am happy to be "at fault" for not believing in that which is presented to me as religion has.

The point that underlies everything that I am saying is that God as a concept lacks enough definition in the way we sense and demonstrate concepts to argue about in the first place.

Throwing stones? How am I throwing stones?

The stones would be in general false equivalencies like "if no single human point of view is unproblematic epistemologically".

Just asserting a denial doesn't therefore doesn't make my view suddenly become null and void.

I can defend the idea that the theist dosen't get to be the extreme skeptic if you like.

So, how do you propose to "test" the traditional, religiously oriented Jewish epistemology that reflects knowing God by experience (mystical or social, or through the collective experiences of cultural testimonies or narratives) versus epistemology that demands rational verification and/or proofs, or through mere existential assent?

If it's so clear to you as to how to test the ancient Hebrew concept of God, and thereby also discount what many mainstream scientists like Eugenie C. Scott would assert about the nature of testing, even as it can be done through science, or discounting what other previous philosophers like Blaise Pascal have averred about the limited nature of rational means, then I'd love to hear it.

2PhiloVoid

My point is that these concepts are not testable because they don't make any testable statements. They therefore don't tell us anything objectively about how well our concepts of God work.

That God is known to us through storytelling for instance, might be "true" but that dosen't tell me that such stories tell us anything about God.

I test such concepts by reviewing them for ideas that can expand our understanding in these areas.

 

[Quid est Veritas?]

Ants build them without consciousness, but they also don't have religions as far as I know. They don't need them.

We also have more competitive advantage than ants though through near complete understanding and manipulation of our environment and quite a bit more adaptability. Little of which can be explained by our physical ability.

Your example is a better evidence of my point than yours.

You are really confused here, or trying to obfuscate my point. What I am saying, is that manipulation of our environments to astonishing degrees, is quite possible without consciousness. There is therefore no reason to assume that consciousness arose to that purpose; increased competitive advantage might just as well have been a lucky side-effect, but consciousness developed for another reason entirely. The very fact that we have religion and ants do not, suggests that perhaps consciousness' primary aim is not to facilitate construction or manipulation of environments. A lot of our consciousness seems geared towards what is not competitively advantageous, in fact often deleterious towards it. This is of course a debatable point, with our teleological or metaphysical underpinnings greatly influencing what we view as "obvious" here, so we are perhaps at cross-purposes.

We can't tell the objective purpose of "spirituality" because we can't tell if it is in any way shape or form valid. We know that consciousness was part of our advantage because we don't build structures on autopilot like ants.

Spirituality we can tell is a byproduct of consciousness because it addresses the problems come from being conscious beings. What we can't tell is if it does so in any valid way.

We cannot show validity of any human knowledge from a purely materialist standpoint, as we cannot determine the validity of any inference if solely materially derived. I think we have been through this before in a previous thread. We cannot tell Spirituality to be a byproduct of consciousness, this is a supposition on what is very much a catch-22.

What's so strange about it? I have unfulfilled desires all the time. It comes from being able to imagine things that don't exist.

The guy wrote fiction, it's amazing that he lacked perspective here.

To imagine something completely beyond cognitive existence from scratch is highly dubious. We imagine walking through walls or flying or such, cognitively possible ideas, as they are just relaxation of the normal rules of existence. Try to conceive colour in a world where everyone is blind - that would be the equivalent of imaging spirituality, especially in its more mystical forms.

I would wager that writing fiction, Lewis understood exactly how abnormal spirituality would have to be, in a purely materialist existence. It is a bit of a leap, for we would have to conceive a world without it, to appreciate just how strange its 'invention' would have to have been. It is such a normal part of human existence, that it is taken as if an obvious thing that could have arisen.
A good illustration here, to a lesser degree, is Heron of Alexandria's steam engine. Almost all technology for constructing trains was present in Hellenistic times, just never conceived as such. Or Darwin's trying to figure out hereditability, adopting a silly system like pangenesis, but never conceiving Mendellian forms, even though in retrospect it seems obvious from the data. We have difficulty conceiving how they could not have seen it.
Spirituality could not have been invented from materially derived desires as an imagined unfulfillable one, or if so, the only such example extent of man doing so - which renders the possibility very much miraculous, and thus to be treated with much scepticism.

It's a problem to describe the sensation as real or even a real sensation, that's what makes it differn't than your sensation of the hardness of steps or the gravity pulling you down it.

You are quite capable of imagining it, and humanity has a long and rich tradition of making stuff up to fill in the gaps of what they know. And, also, we have a rich tradition of simply making stuff up in general.

It is not imagination here though, as people are aware if they are imagining something. You are being disingenuous. Spirituality is conceived as perception of an Other, not an imaginative exercise. What you would be describing would be delusion, where false data is perceived as real. How do we determine delusion though, but by inter-subjective means between our perceived world, assumed sane, and the mentally ill? This is how we determine our sense-data existent, while discounting the sense-data of the Schizophrenic, even when we have shared delusions between certain patients in some cases. With Spirituality, inter-subjectivity is very much in favour of its existence, since human societies universally, and the vast majority of humans, acknowledge this facet of human existence to be. In Psychiatry you could have culturally excessive religiousity as symptom, but spirituality is very much normal human behaviour - a form of normal human perception if you will.

 

[variant]

You are really confused here, or trying to obfuscate my point. What I am saying, is that manipulation of our environments to astonishing degrees, is quite possible without consciousness. There is therefore no reason to assume that consciousness arose to that purpose; increased competitive advantage might just as well have been a lucky side-effect, but consciousness developed for another reason entirely.

No you are confused. We do dominate our environment via conscious manipulation, we can observe that is how humanity does it. If it were incidental our entire approach would be differn't.

The very fact that we have religion and ants do not, suggests that perhaps consciousness' primary aim is not to facilitate construction or manipulation of environments. A lot of our consciousness seems geared towards what is not competitively advantageous, in fact often deleterious towards it. This is of course a debatable point, with our teleological or metaphysical underpinnings greatly influencing what we view as "obvious" here, so we are perhaps at cross-purposes.

Except the evidence shows us that consciousness is how we manipulate environments. The idea that both us and ants do this to some effect is incidental because we do it in differn't ways.

We know religion comes along with consciousness because it would absolutely be required to try to posit it, but we can't say that consciousness is FOR facilitating religion because we don't know that religion has any substantive truth to it.

We cannot show validity of any human knowledge from a purely materialist standpoint, as we cannot determine the validity of any inference if solely materially derived. I think we have been through this before in a previous thread.

Yeah that is just a bad argument from another time feel free to continue it there.

Religion deals with the problems presented to us by being conscious. Consciousness has evidenced and obvious utility.

To imagine something completely beyond cognitive existence from scratch is highly dubious. We imagine walking through walls or flying or such, cognitively possible ideas, as they are just relaxation of the normal rules of existence. Try to conceive colour in a world where everyone is blind - that would be the equivalent of imaging spirituality, especially in its more mystical forms.

Gods are men with superpowers. Or, Gods are personified observations about the universe. They started out very crude and the humans worked them up to ineffable, invisible, omnipotent and untestable by working the concept for a few thousand years.

I would wager that writing fiction, Lewis understood exactly how abnormal spirituality would have to be, in a purely materialist existence. It is a bit of a leap, for we would have to conceive a world without it, to appreciate just how strange its 'invention' would have to have been. It is such a normal part of human existence, that it is taken as if an obvious thing that could have arisen.

The needs that religion attempts to fill are obvious.

Ego, that we do not just die and disappear.
Metaphysical, that the universe has an explanation.
Meaning, that all this has a purpose, a direction and a plan.
Ethical, that there is a right way for humans to act and that the universe has a sense of justice that the evil doers will be punished.

These are of course a direct set of appeals to some of the problems of consciousness.

They are not hard to explain from a materialist perspective, the answers just aren't as appealing as the answers that religions have made up over the years.

A good illustration here, to a lesser degree, is Heron of Alexandria's steam engine. Almost all technology for constructing trains was present in Hellenistic times, just never conceived as such. Or Darwin's trying to figure out hereditability, adopting a silly system like pangenesis, but never conceiving Mendellian forms, even though in retrospect it seems obvious from the data. We have difficulty conceiving how they could not have seen it.

Gods were proposed step-wise though, like all other concepts. I am saying the problems are there when you start to be conscious.

Spirituality could not have been invented from materially derived desires as an imagined unfulfillable one, or if so, the only such example extent of man doing so - which renders the possibility very much miraculous, and thus to be treated with much scepticism.

The desires are already there, and the process religious thinking attempting to fill them has a history as long as humanity.

It is not imagination here though, as people are aware if they are imagining something. You are being disingenuous. Spirituality is conceived as perception of an Other, not an imaginative exercise. What you would be describing would be delusion, where false data is perceived as real. How do we determine delusion though, but by inter-subjective means between our perceived world, assumed sane, and the mentally ill? This is how we determine our sense-data existent, while discounting the sense-data of the Schizophrenic, even when we have shared delusions between certain patients in some cases. With Spirituality, inter-subjectivity is very much in favour of its existence, since human societies universally, and the vast majority of humans, acknowledge this facet of human existence to be. In Psychiatry you could have culturally excessive religiousity as symptom, but spirituality is very much normal human behaviour - a form of normal human perception if you will.

Yes people were sensing Poseidon back in the day rather than making stuff up.

I suppose we'll just have to disagree on that one.

 

[2PhiloVoid]

Yes people were sensing Poseidon back in the day rather than making stuff up.

I suppose we'll just have to disagree on that one.

Yeah, people were all 'fired-up' to sense all kinds of gods ... but only back in "the day." Riiiiiiiiiiiiiight ???? (Anyone else like liver? I like liver. Mmmm, mmmmm)!