Atheism is reasonable, and Christianity is not

[variant]

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)!

What are you on about?

You were saying that there was good reason to think this stuff wasn't just in peoples imaginations.

Logically this impassioned defense of peoples "God sense" is an impassioned defense of Poseidon too no?

 

[2PhiloVoid]

What are you on about?

Nothing that a person who takes my meaning in a literal way will likely interpret correctly. It's always interesting how the encoding will not necessarily be decoded on the receiving end in the way the encoder hopes it will be.

You were saying that there was good reason to think this stuff wasn't just in peoples imaginations.

No, that's not quite what I was saying.

Logically this impassioned defense of peoples "God sense" is an impassioned defense of Poseidon too no?

Try to remember 'where' you are, Variant, and that where you are may play into the context of the meaning of a message as it is encoded and then presented to you for your own personal decoding.

 

[variant]

Try to remember 'where' you are, Variant, and that where you are may play into the context of the meaning of a message as it is encoded and then presented to you for your own personal decoding.

Ah so were supposed to pretend that this "god sense" is only valid for your preferred interpretations of Gods and not the ones that came before them which are clearly free to be delusions...

How convenient.

Also, it is quite possible that spirituality is a delusion that is a normal part of human psychology. If we are lacking actual Gods to support peoples spirituality, that is exactly what is going on.

The people who made up Poseidon might not have been as capable a pettifogger as our current religious folks, but they do serve as example of our rich human tradition of making stuff up and believing in it.

 

[2PhiloVoid]

Ah so were supposed to pretend that this "god sense" is only valid for your preferred interpretations of Gods and not the ones that came before them which are clearly free to be delusions...

Excuse my attempt to 're-contextual' your topical debate with Quid. My point with showing a photo of the present day statue of Prometheus is that someone, maybe many people whether assertively or passively, thought that erecting such an image was a meaningful act. And whether one takes Prometheus to be real or imagined, literal or representational, the presence of the image still shows that homage is made to this entity, and it's not uncommon to find it, or a reference to it, enshrining the basic sensibilities of a secular age that thinks knowledge is indeed there for the taking in this universe in which we find ourselves.

From a biblical, Christian point of view, this homage counts as 'worship,' whether the denizens of the City think it refers to something real or think it just sits there as a gleaming metaphor for the magnificence of their sprawling metropolis and its spectacle; I suppose for most in New York, it is the latter. But, it's still a from of worship. It's still idolatry. It's still Promethean. Personally, I think it'd be interesting to see them also establish an iron statue of Frankenstein's Monster right next to it ... just to help everyone keep some parity to their "foresight."

How convenient.

No, it's never really convenient, is it? Especially when we attempt to pin down the epistemology involved with faith in Jesus Christ, a pin that can never be big enough or strong enough.

Also, it is quite possible that spirituality is a delusion that is a normal part of human psychology. If we are lacking actual Gods to support peoples spirituality, that is exactly what is going on.

Sure, it's quite possible, but to propose that we could hash out the nature of Christian belief by deductive measure is a bit on the side of absurdity since the epistemic indicators within the Bible are such as they are. Surely by now, you know that faith won't come by using axiomatic thinking, or even inductive thinking for that matter, and it was not really intended to come about purely by a "method." Needless to say, it's probably a mistake to confuse Aristotle with Paul.

The people who made up Poseidon might not have been as capable a pettifogger as our current religious folks, but they do serve as example of our rich human tradition of making stuff up and believing in it.

Sure, but then do we want to say that Jesus, as a deity, is merely the same kind of entity as Poseidon, expressing the same kind of theological ideas, assumptions, concepts and historical presence? I don't think I'd equivocate on the two in this way, not by a long shot.

 

[Silmarien]

Needless to say, it's probably a mistake to confuse Aristotle with Paul.

...now you tell me!?!?

 

[2PhiloVoid]

...now you tell me!?!?

The good news is that Aristotle still has his uses ...

 

[variant]

Excuse my attempt to 're-contextual' your topical debate with Quid. My point with showing a photo of the present day statue of Prometheus is that someone, maybe many people whether assertively or passively, thought that erecting such an image was a meaningful act. And whether one takes Prometheus to be real or imagined, literal or representational, the presence of the image still shows that homage is made to this entity, and it's not uncommon to find it, or a reference to it, enshrining the basic sensibilities of a secular age that thinks knowledge is indeed there for the taking in this universe in which we find ourselves.

From a biblical, Christian point of view, this homage counts as 'worship,' whether the denizens of the City think it refers to something real or think it just sits there as a gleaming metaphor for the magnificence of their sprawling metropolis and its spectacle; I suppose for most in New York, it is the latter. But, it's still a from of worship. It's still idolatry. It's still Promethean. Personally, I think it'd be interesting to see them also establish an iron statue of Frankenstein's Monster right next to it ... just to help everyone keep some parity to their "foresight."

Finding the story of Prometheus meaningful and literally believing in Gods are fairly differn't ideas.

Thankfully as an atheist I don't spend my time in worry about the jealousy of the Gods. I have a hard time imagining a deity with the power ascribed to it being so petty.

No, it's never really convenient, is it? Especially when we attempt to pin down the epistemology involved with faith in Jesus Christ, a pin that can never be big enough or strong enough.

Sure, it's quite possible, but to propose that we could hash out the nature of Christian belief by deductive measure is a bit on the side of absurdity since the epistemic indicators within the Bible are such as they are. Surely by now, you know that faith won't come by using axiomatic thinking, or even inductive thinking for that matter, and it was not really intended to come about purely by a "method." Needless to say, it's probably a mistake to confuse Aristotle with Paul.

No need to pin down epistemologies since faith isn't a form of knoledge.

Sure, but then do we want to say that Jesus, as a deity, is merely the same kind of entity as Poseidon, expressing the same kind of theological ideas, assumptions, concepts and historical presence? I don't think I'd equivocate on the two in this way, not by a long shot.

I was already pointing out that the idea was more simplistic, but, complexity doesn't do us any favors when we're flying blind.

Where the comparison fits is the simplicity that the desire for a deity to fill some roll in our existence that we feel we need, lacks the implication that such an entity exists in any way shape or form.

Well that and humans make stuff up all the time.

 

[Silmarien]

Couple of thoughts having read through about half the thread:

So if a Christian cannot argue beyond the existence of potentially many generic deities, then - just like the atheist - the Christian would be unreasonable to positively assert that Zeus, Thor, and the countless other deities definitively do not exist. Yet, Christian creed demands that this declarative statement is made.

No, it doesn't. Read some Patristics; the early Christians generally took two different routes in regards to pagan religions. Some thought they were man-made and false, others argued instead that pagan gods were angels or demons. Usually demons.

You do not have to declare that all other gods do not exist. You just can't worship them. The existence or non-existence of Zeus and Thor is utterly irrelevant to me, though I certainly doubt that they ever existed.

For a 'gnostic-atheist' is basically an atheist; a 'agnostic-atheist' is an agnostic; an 'agnostic-agnostic' tautology; an 'gnostic agnostic' nonsense; a 'gnostic theist' a theist and an 'agnostic-theist' an agnostic again. This system is frank idiocy that just doubles meaning and gives you no further information, in fact makes it less clear.

Well, as someone who does use the "agnostic theist" label fairly regularly, I'd say that there are two types of people who fit into this category:

1. The agnostic who considers the question of God important and follows a theistic tradition. There are a couple Catholic philosophers out there who take such an approach and identify as agnostics rather than theists.

2. The fideist or religious existentialist for whom lack of knowledge is of utmost theological importance. We are most certainly theists, though given our relationship with concepts like "reason" and "knowledge," are at least as entitled to the agnostic label as the agnostic atheist. It actually has real ramifications for us.

I don't have a problem with this particular system, except in so far as people take refuge in it either for rhetorical value or to avoid having to say anything at all.

 

[Quid est Veritas?]

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.

That we dominate by conscious manipulation today, does not mean it arose for this end. This is retrospective bias, like saying the Magna Carta was to secure the people's freedom from monarchy or to label the Populares in Ancient Rome Democrats.

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.

Yes, it is a catch 22. This however is also the case for ascribing consciousness as for advantage, for without consciousness, we wouldn't be able to reach that conclusion also, and again, we have no way of determining if there is any substantive truth to our Sciences either. The position is not dissimilar, except that we have numerous examples of material advantage gained without the boon of consciousness. This is thus just a supposition. While fun to posit such Bernsteinian attempts at resolving Cartesian anxiety, we are going nowhere. As I said, it is highly dependant on which developmental model or evolutionary model and baseline metaphysics, you ascribe to.

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.

Yes, so people who live in glass houses should not throw stones as to 'validity'. As I explained earlier in the thread, Utility does not equal validity or correctness (It might have been to DogmaHunter though).

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.



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.



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



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



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.

We were talking of Spirituality, not gods per se. Hence I used spiritual systems like Buddhism as well, that are often non-theistic, as examples.
Gods usually become an important part of such systems, but as ways to explain and order the data they are pondering, their unexplainable Spiritual Experiences.
That development occured is obvious, as any religion would show you.

Let me explain: Ancient Greeks saw fire burning a stick and giving flame, smoke and ash. They hypothetised it existed of Fire, Earth as ash, and Air as smoke. Primitive data was being ordered. Over time the explanation of the data developed, as Greek Elements gave way to the Sciences, but this did not invalidate the initial observations the original was based on. You would agree these were 'real' observations.
So Spiritual experience occured likewise and it was ascribed to Jove or the Erinyes, and over time, Religious development occured. In the end, we got other Religions, new Hypotheses to describe these phenomena. The data is not non-existent because our ancestors got things wrong on occasion. That it supported Poseidon, no different than observations supported the Four Elements.

However, to assume people exposed to purely material data would invent a non-material one, seems strange. We are so used to the concepts, that we fail to realise how odd it actually is. The creation of spirits, unseen powers, fetishes, Animistic conceptions, etc. is a real leap if we assume only the material exists. That these were imbued with ideas from the material world is to be expected, as we are trying to describe things literally beyond our material existence. That anthropomorphisation occurred is likewise to be expected. To assume these preceded the peculiar Otherness, is a bit more shaky ground. Why if we are empiricists or driven by pattern recognition, would non-existent evidence be conjured up? Even if you say it is just a form of agenticity to patterns, why on earth make it immaterial and spiritual? It is a cognitive leap, therefore, and very odd if an ancient human delusion.

Theology stepped up to make sense of what spiritual experience was received. To order it. It is therefore akin to the Sciences' goal in methodological naturalism In its own sphere. It is no wonder that Science and Theology were brothers - with Aristotle writing on God, but acting as the grandfather of Science; Science invented by Churchmen and often advanced by clerics.

So yes, Spiritual experience was referred to Greek gods. This does not invalidate Spiritual experience any more than Greek physical observations are invalidated by ascribing to four elemental physics, or Galenic physiology, or Eleatic philosophy.
As Lewis elsewhere argues, Christianity brings other religious traditions into focus - crystalises the myth into actuality - as the 'dying and reborn god' or corn-king, becomes the historical Jesus of Nazareth, the Bread of Life.
This is the same we see in Paul's sermon on the altar to the unknown god in Athens; Jesus talking to the Samaritan woman at the pit; or in Lewis' Last Battle, the problem of Emeth. All attempts at God are somehow directed at Him, even if mistaken on elements thereof, perhaps. Regardless, I see no grounds to discount spiritual data received on physiological or philosophical grounds, since at heart, it is as well attested and as nearly inter-subjectively verifiable bearing in mind its personal nature and dearth of easy description, as any sense-data.

 

[Quid est Veritas?]

Well, as someone who does use the "agnostic theist" label fairly regularly, I'd say that there are two types of people who fit into this category:

1. The agnostic who considers the question of God important and follows a theistic tradition. There are a couple Catholic philosophers out there who take such an approach and identify as agnostics rather than theists.

2. The fideist or religious existentialist for whom lack of knowledge is of utmost theological importance. We are most certainly theists, though given our relationship with concepts like "reason" and "knowledge," are at least as entitled to the agnostic label as the agnostic atheist. It actually has real ramifications for us.

I don't have a problem with this particular system, except in so far as people take refuge in it either for rhetorical value or to avoid having to say anything at all.

In philosophical debates or such, both 1 and 2 still comfortably would use the moniker of agnostic. Theist is not a 'normal' term outside such debates, as people would describe themselves as Catholic or Christian or somesuch, usually.

To me, the existence of this additional system usually just muddies the water. It is mostly used as an exercise in rhetoric in my experience, or a method of rendering meaning ambivalent by using atheist in its usual sense, but then redefining it when pressed thereby. It basically assists Sophistry to my mind, without helping us tease out the meaning of what another is saying. Some may find it useful in specific contexts, where both parties are using the same underlying construct of lexical meaning, but I have always found it a hindrance to understanding in most cases, little more.

(Sorry, this is a bit of a pet peeve of mine)

 

[Silmarien]

In philosophical debates or such, both 1 and 2 still comfortably would use the moniker of agnostic. Theist is not a 'normal' term outside such debates, as people would describe themselves as Catholic or Christian or somesuch, usually.

That probably depends upon the argument in question. If I identify as a strong agnostic and then turn around and defend Neo-Aristotelian metaphysics and Aquinas's Five Ways, claiming that if reason gets us anywhere, it gets us to the edge of theism, I think an atheist would be entitled to complain that this doesn't become an argument from agnosticism simply because I consider the claim that reason gets us anywhere itself a faith claim.

To me, the existence of this additional system usually just muddies the water. It is mostly used as an exercise in rhetoric in my experience, or a method of rendering meaning ambivalent by using atheist in its usual sense, but then redefining it when pressed thereby. It basically assists Sophistry to my mind, without helping us tease out the meaning of what another is saying. Some may find it useful in specific contexts, where both parties are using the same underlying construct of lexical meaning, but I have always found it a hindrance to understanding in most cases, little more.

In theory, there's a lot of interesting stuff that could come up specifically in the context of agnosticism and justifying belief or disbelief when both sides reject knowledge claims. In my experience, however, the difficulty lies in the fact that the agnostic atheist seems to have implicitly rejected agnostic theism as a defensible position and is intent upon continuing to view the debate in terms of gnostic theism vs. agnostic atheism, despite their own rubric.

So yes, I see it as a hindrance too.

 

[KCfromNC]

We cannot show validity of any human knowledge from a purely materialist standpoint

Or from any other standpoint we've tried. Luckily the fields of inquiry we rely on to make sure our technology works have moved past such pointless exercises and have figured out a better way to actually make real progress.

 

[variant]

That we dominate by conscious manipulation today, does not mean it arose for this end. This is retrospective bias, like saying the Magna Carta was to secure the people's freedom from monarchy or to label the Populares in Ancient Rome Democrats.

You are very confused. When we did not do so we did not dominate.

Yes, it is a catch 22. This however is also the case for ascribing consciousness as for advantage, for without consciousness, we wouldn't be able to reach that conclusion also, and again, we have no way of determining if there is any substantive truth to our Sciences either. The position is not dissimilar, except that we have numerous examples of material advantage gained without the boon of consciousness. This is thus just a supposition. While fun to posit such Bernsteinian attempts at resolving Cartesian anxiety, we are going nowhere. As I said, it is highly dependant on which developmental model or evolutionary model and baseline metaphysics, you ascribe to.

No there is only a case for consciousness, the human population when writing was developed was minuscule by comparison and they were already building cities.

We only dominate our environment through conscious manipulation it is our thing.

When we were proposed to be specialized at long distance endurance running our population was not what I would term dominant.

Yes, so people who live in glass houses should not throw stones as to 'validity'. As I explained earlier in the thread, Utility does not equal validity or correctness (It might have been to DogmaHunter though).

Whatever. If the ability to accurately describe reality and further manipulate it is not part of the utility and validity of consciousness I have no idea where to begin with you. Your philosophy is a bunch of senseless mush.

We were talking of Spirituality, not gods per se. Hence I used spiritual systems like Buddhism as well, that are often non-theistic, as examples.

I was using Gods as an example of past attempts to get at what we're describing.

Do you deny that that is what they were? (later on you expand so OK, we're on the same page)

You were making the point that we should not expect religions such as christianity to be made up out of thin air, and I agree, we should not expect that.

It's not what we see either, the ideas of Gods and "spirituality" are concepts that have definitely evolved over time with many influences.

Gods usually become an important part of such systems, but as ways to explain and order the data they are pondering, their unexplainable Spiritual Experiences.
That development occured is obvious, as any religion would show you.

Emphasis on unexplainable.

Gods being indefinite don't actually explain them either.

Let me explain: Ancient Greeks saw fire burning a stick and giving flame, smoke and ash. They hypothetised it existed of Fire, Earth as ash, and Air as smoke. Primitive data was being ordered. Over time the explanation of the data developed, as Greek Elements gave way to the Sciences, but this did not invalidate the initial observations the original was based on. You would agree these were 'real' observations.

They were real observations, but so were the ones that overturned them.

The theory of the four elements had a key feature that Gods don't have, they can be shown to be false through further observation.

They contribute to the advancement of knowledge as their attempts to explain things fail and are replaced with better ideas.

No such process works for religion, it changes when people decide it does.

So Spiritual experience occured likewise and it was ascribed to Jove or the Erinyes, and over time, Religious development occured. In the end, we got other Religions, new Hypotheses to describe these phenomena. The data is not non-existent because our ancestors got things wrong on occasion. That it supported Poseidon, no different than observations supported the Four Elements.

Poseidon hasn't been demonstrated false, it just fell out of favor.

Where religions and spirituality make predictions that actually advance our knoledge they can sometimes be evaluated, but modern practitioners of religion like to make sure this rarely happens.

However, to assume people exposed to purely material data would invent a non-material one, seems strange. We are so used to the concepts, that we fail to realise how odd it actually is. The creation of spirits, unseen powers, fetishes, Animistic conceptions, etc. is a real leap if we assume only the material exists. That these were imbued with ideas from the material world is to be expected, as we are trying to describe things literally beyond our material existence. That anthropomorphisation occurred is likewise to be expected. To assume these preceded the peculiar Otherness, is a bit more shaky ground. Why if we are empiricists or driven by pattern recognition, would non-existent evidence be conjured up? Even if you say it is just a form of agenticity to patterns, why on earth make it immaterial and spiritual? It is a cognitive leap, therefore, and very odd if an ancient human delusion.

It seems like a natural reaction to the unknown to me, and it is a known part of human psychology. When we can't explain things we make stuff up to fill in the gaps.

The personification of the unknown is also well known, and it might even be particularly useful.

Your idea that any of this would be strange if the world were made of material things is just a strange and unsupported assumption.

Theology stepped up to make sense of what spiritual experience was received. To order it. It is therefore akin to the Sciences' goal in methodological naturalism In its own sphere. It is no wonder that Science and Theology were brothers - with Aristotle writing on God, but acting as the grandfather of Science; Science invented by Churchmen and often advanced by clerics.

Yes, people need to organize and control, so religion and theology are the natural outgrowth of spirituality and the unexplained.

Science isn't the enemy of theology, it's problem is self inflicted. When science started to encroach on religious ideas, it showed it's notes, and religion defends it's territory with philosophy, rhetoric, and feelings.

Hence arguments like yours.

So yes, Spiritual experience was referred to Greek gods. This does not invalidate Spiritual experience any more than Greek physical observations are invalidated by ascribing to four elemental physics, or Galenic physiology, or Eleatic philosophy.
As Lewis elsewhere argues, Christianity brings other religious traditions into focus - crystalises the myth into actuality - as the 'dying and reborn god' or corn-king, becomes the historical Jesus of Nazareth, the Bread of Life.

Oh no the problem is that the ancient myths aren't nessisarily false. Nothing is clearly false with religion. It is conglomeration of connected ideas that come into and fall out of favor.

The problem is that if there IS a God you have no reason to think that you are closer to it's truth than you are close to the Greeks describing Poseidon.

There are no real signposts here, no real evidence, no experts. We can't tell if the God you describe is real or a figment of the imagination that made humanity so successful but there are some clues.

I for one always thought it was unlikely that the unimaginably powerful loving creator of the universe was overly concerned with human sexual politics, but that's just me. Poseidon might have a trident or a more useful harpoon for all I know.

This is the same we see in Paul's sermon on the altar to the unknown god in Athens; Jesus talking to the Samaritan woman at the pit; or in Lewis' Last Battle, the problem of Emeth. All attempts at God are somehow directed at Him, even if mistaken on elements thereof, perhaps. Regardless, I see no grounds to discount spiritual data received on physiological or philosophical grounds, since at heart, it is as well attested and as nearly inter-subjectively verifiable bearing in mind its personal nature and dearth of easy description, as any sense-data.

I do have plenty of ground to dismiss peoples feelings, people are notoriously unreliable at getting at the truth with them.

 

[Quid est Veritas?]

You are very confused. When we did not do so we did not dominate.



No there is only a case for consciousness, the human population when writing was developed was minuscule by comparison and they were already building cities.

We only dominate our environment through conscious manipulation it is our thing.

When we were proposed to be specialized at long distance endurance running our population was not what I would term dominant.

Again, we seem to be talking of different things. I fully agree that consciousness plays a significant part in human dominance, but this does not mean it arose for that purpose. To me, the fact that so much of human endeavour is opposed to our 'dominance' or 'survival', like suicide or much of our culture or celibacy or religion on occasion, certainly shows something else is at play here also. You would write this off as byproduct, or a form of secondary selection or whatever, but this is just your preference, as it cannot be shown to be such, really.
We are going around in circles though, so I am not going to reply further on this point.

Whatever. If the ability to accurately describe reality and further manipulate it is not part of the utility and validity of consciousness I have no idea where to begin with you. Your philosophy is a bunch of senseless mush.

That is the whole point, that you cannot determine whether you are accurately describing reality. This is why it is just utility, as claims that it reflects reality are merely grounded on usefulness and predictive power - as I illustrated with Roman hydraulics and Galenic Physiology in this thread, neither of the latter necessarily equate to Reality as such. Even if we think we know how something works and our understanding renders positive results, it does not mean it was correct.

I was using Gods as an example of past attempts to get at what we're describing.

Do you deny that that is what they were? (later on you expand so OK, we're on the same page)

You were making the point that we should not expect religions such as christianity to be made up out of thin air, and I agree, we should not expect that.

It's not what we see either, the ideas of Gods and "spirituality" are concepts that have definitely evolved over time with many influences.



Emphasis on unexplainable.

Gods being indefinite don't actually explain them either.



They were real observations, but so were the ones that overturned them.

The theory of the four elements had a key feature that Gods don't have, they can be shown to be false through further observation.

They contribute to the advancement of knowledge as their attempts to explain things fail and are replaced with better ideas.

No such process works for religion, it changes when people decide it does.



Poseidon hasn't been demonstrated false, it just fell out of favor.

Where religions and spirituality make predictions that actually advance our knoledge they can sometimes be evaluated, but modern practitioners of religion like to make sure this rarely happens.

You are working from the bias where spirituality is written off as false data. If you do not, then the conclusion is very different.
Roman Paganism was dying out long before Christianity - that is why mystery religions and pseudo-religious philosophy was rife in the Empire. It no longer reflected the intellectual realm of the Empire, its developed ideas of existence and form. This was new data added to the equation, which Christianity fit into and explained - hence its growth and displacement of the previous systems.
Ongoing collection of Spiritual evidence leads to improvement of religion - this is why we get Theology being developed and discussed. On top of this we get revelation on occasion, in some form, with it being even more in tune with individual experience. While I have to take much of Science on authority as I will never be able to test the experiments or results obtained, I can measure my own spiritual qualia to what I am presented on Authority. From a personal perspective, I therefore have far more reason to trust this if in accord, as I can verify it myself - while theoretically I could do the same for the Sciences, this is practically impossible, except in very limited circumstances.
We are not going to agree, as you are working from the axioms that sense-data is fundamentally reliable and spirutual perception fundamentally not, which is just an unwarranted assumption.

It seems like a natural reaction to the unknown to me, and it is a known part of human psychology. When we can't explain things we make stuff up to fill in the gaps.

The personification of the unknown is also well known, and it might even be particularly useful.

Your idea that any of this would be strange if the world were made of material things is just a strange and unsupported assumption.

This is why I went to some effort to explain that such a view is retrospective bias. Make up a system for me that is neither Spiritual nor Material. That is decidedly hard, and would be sort of the same thing as our hypothetical materialists would need to have done when 'inventing' the spiritual.

Of course it is part of human psychology, because Spirituality is part of humanity, and this acts as the substrate, the example, for us to make such further allusions. To conceive such psychological concepts with no basis, from just material data, would be conceptually difficult.

It is fine though. This is difficult to grasp, as we see the world through our own cultural and contextual lense. Again, I do not think either of us will gain more here by continuing the discussion in this vein.

Yes, people need to organize and control, so religion and theology are the natural outgrowth of spirituality and the unexplained.

Science isn't the enemy of theology, it's problem is self inflicted. When science started to encroach on religious ideas, it showed it's notes, and religion defends it's territory with philosophy, rhetoric, and feelings.

Hence arguments like yours.

I don't consider Science the enemy of Religion. In fact, it seems to be its friend. Whenever Science advances, it seems to me to support the more developed religious ideas or at least be irrelevant to it. I find it odd, and poor philosophy, that people think otherwise. We see this in scientific investigation of consciousness or the things like Science eventually agreeing with ideas such as the universe having a beginning.
While some basic mythology falls by the wayside, like rotating heavenly spheres, this doesn't actually touch the religion itself. This is why such ideas were often conceived and advanced by devout men - many scientists were Churchmen afterall, and oddities like the persecution of Galileo are the exception that proves the rule - such often due to secular concerns, rather than the sacred.

Oh no the problem is that the ancient myths aren't nessisarily false. Nothing is clearly false with religion. It is conglomeration of connected ideas that come into and fall out of favor.

The problem is that if there IS a God you have no reason to think that you are closer to it's truth than you are close to the Greeks describing Poseidon.

There are no real signposts here, no real evidence, no experts. We can't tell if the God you describe is real or a figment of the imagination that made humanity so successful but there are some clues.

I for one always thought it was unlikely that the unimaginably powerful loving creator of the universe was overly concerned with human sexual politics, but that's just me. Poseidon might have a trident or a more useful harpoon for all I know.

Again this is the problem of Cartesian Anxiety. Fact is, we have no way of determining truth, hence we cannot determine if anything is closer or further from it. This is equally true for materialistic explanations as for religious ones. Both try and solve this by ideas like plausibility and probability, but these are just reframing the problem into a system. The fundamental inability to confirm everything, to anchor something as true, remains. I find the argument that all humans have mythology and that their ideas are best reflected in the form of the philosophical metaphysics as adopted by Christianity, very compelling. You will disagree, but neither of us can truly disprove the other; just as Science cannot disprove such metaphysics or its own axiomatic basis, which needs to be assumed; nor Buddhist Sunyata ideas, either. Our probabilities reflect where we assume the answer lies - essentially playing a game of soccer, but each drawing the lines in dramatically different ways and placing the goalposts at different places - so we shall disagree when or even if a goal is scored.

I do have plenty of ground to dismiss peoples feelings, people are notoriously unreliable at getting at the truth with them.

Luckily these aren't just feelings, but Spiritual experience with tons of inter-subjectivity from all corners of the globe and all human societies.

 

[variant]

Again, we seem to be talking of different things. I fully agree that consciousness plays a significant part in human dominance, but this does not mean it arose for that purpose. To me, the fact that so much of human endeavour is opposed to our 'dominance' or 'survival', like suicide or much of our culture or celibacy or religion on occasion, certainly shows something else is at play here also. You would write this off as byproduct, or a form of secondary selection or whatever, but this is just your preference, as it cannot be shown to be such, really.

I write it off as if consciousness is not always geared best toward survival, but rather that it tips the scales in that favor via the law of averages.

Suicides account for all of 13 people in 100,000, which is about on par with statistical noise. Meanwhile agriculture makes people massively more successful, which can be attributed almost entirely to conscious manipulation.

I am not also not saying that consciousness is FOR dominance, I am saying that we dominate because of consciousness. It is a cause and effect relationship.

We are going around in circles though, so I am not going to reply further on this point.

Feel free to concede it then.

That is the whole point, that you cannot determine whether you are accurately describing reality. This is why it is just utility, as claims that it reflects reality are merely grounded on usefulness and predictive power - as I illustrated with Roman hydraulics and Galenic Physiology in this thread, neither of the latter necessarily equate to Reality as such. Even if we think we know how something works and our understanding renders positive results, it does not mean it was correct.

Predictive power and utility equate to reality as much as anything can equate to it.

You are basically denying that crashing into a brick wall isn't adequate feedback from reality about your driving skill. Or avoiding such problems a demonstration of your driving skill.

You are working from the bias where spirituality is written off as false data. If you do not, then the conclusion is very different.

I do not work from that bias, I work from the position that we can't tell.

If we can't get feedback other than other feelings about feelings then we're free to be entirely deluded. The observations where your ideas are correct look exactly like the observations where they are false.

I can't tell you're not spiritually connecting with the divine just like I can't tell you aren't deluded.

Roman Paganism was dying out long before Christianity - that is why mystery religions and pseudo-religious philosophy was rife in the Empire. It no longer reflected the intellectual realm of the Empire, its developed ideas of existence and form. This was new data added to the equation, which Christianity fit into and explained - hence its growth and displacement of the previous systems.

And I can't really tell what you folks will be on about in 2000 years either.

I understand that religions die out over time and are replaced by others, but that's the point, the messages become stale to people and they fall by the wayside. Each new religion tries to buttress it's self against the folly of the past religions.

The point here was that I don't have any problem proposing that the believers in Neptune were deluded, but I can't say they weren't suffering from the same "feelings" as you are.

Ongoing collection of Spiritual evidence leads to improvement of religion - this is why we get Theology being developed and discussed. On top of this we get revelation on occasion, in some form, with it being even more in tune with individual experience. While I have to take much of Science on authority as I will never be able to test the experiments or results obtained, I can measure my own spiritual qualia to what I am presented on Authority. From a personal perspective, I therefore have far more reason to trust this if in accord, as I can verify it myself - while theoretically I could do the same for the Sciences, this is practically impossible, except in very limited circumstances.

You haven't really shown that it is possible at all.

We are not going to agree, as you are working from the axioms that sense-data is fundamentally reliable and spirutual perception fundamentally not, which is just an unwarranted assumption.

It is not an assumption, people simply can not demonstrate spiritual perception, you can go on and on about it forever though apparently.

I can demonstrate to you what is wrong with the four elements interpretation of material, I doubt you can demonstrate to me why there isn't any Poseidon.

That is the only real difference in the approaches that concerns me.

This is why I went to some effort to explain that such a view is retrospective bias. Make up a system for me that is neither Spiritual nor Material. That is decidedly hard, and would be sort of the same thing as our hypothetical materialists would need to have done when 'inventing' the spiritual.

You only need make stuff up, it's not hard at all

Who created the universe? A super powerful intelligence beyond our understanding.

Wow hard. You're saying this thought line is impossible in a material universe?

It's an odd point, I wouldn't expect people to buy it.

Of course it is part of human psychology, because Spirituality is part of humanity, and this acts as the substrate, the example, for us to make such further allusions. To conceive such psychological concepts with no basis, from just material data, would be conceptually difficult.

What is so difficult about it? Religion and spirituality are conceived to answer the unanswered and to provide coping mechanisms for reality. The multi thousand year process of refining these ideas is well documented.

I don't consider Science the enemy of Religion. In fact, it seems to be its friend. Whenever Science advances, it seems to me to support the more developed religious ideas or at least be irrelevant to it. I find it odd, and poor philosophy, that people think otherwise. We see this in scientific investigation of consciousness or the things like Science eventually agreeing with ideas such as the universe having a beginning.
While some basic mythology falls by the wayside, like rotating heavenly spheres, this doesn't actually touch the religion itself. This is why such ideas were often conceived and advanced by devout men - many scientists were Churchmen afterall, and oddities like the persecution of Galileo are the exception that proves the rule - such often due to secular concerns, rather than the sacred.

The problem is of course that science when working well demystifies the universe.

Religions purpose is to provide a metaphysical framework in to deal with mystery in the universe.

The conflict is over religions importance with less that is unexplained.

There will of course always be the unexplained though, and people will always have to cope with the universe, so I don't expect religion to go away.

Again this is the problem of Cartesian Anxiety. Fact is, we have no way of determining truth, hence we cannot determine if anything is closer or further from it. This is equally true for materialistic explanations as for religious ones.

Not really, I apply psychical explanations all the time to produce results. That I can doubt them at some abstract level isn't that important.

I can't tell that there is no Poseidon, I just think the idea is rather silly, you know, like the almighty creator of the universe getting really upset over human sexuality.

Luckily these aren't just feelings, but Spiritual experience with tons of inter-subjectivity from all corners of the globe and all human societies.

Feel free to demonstrate your God concepts any time.

 

[Quid est Veritas?]

I write it off as if consciousness is not always geared best toward survival, but rather that it tips the scales in that favor via the law of averages.

Suicides account for all of 13 people in 100,000, which is about on par with statistical noise. Meanwhile agriculture makes people massively more successful, which can be attributed almost entirely to conscious manipulation.

I am not also not saying that consciousness is FOR dominance, I am saying that we dominate because of consciousness. It is a cause and effect relationship.



Feel free to concede it then.

I don't understand what you are arguing about at all here then. I constantly agreed that we dominate on account of consciousness. I have never denied that. So what quite frankly, is your point here? For my whole argument was that consciousness might have arisen for another aim or on account of another process entirely, which you seemed strenuously to deny, as if it was open and shut to be on account of the dominance it imparts to us.

Predictive power and utility equate to reality as much as anything can equate to it.

You are basically denying that crashing into a brick wall isn't adequate feedback from reality about your driving skill. Or avoiding such problems a demonstration of your driving skill.

Exactly. They don't equate to reality though. It is just a short-cut, a work-around, an assumption of what ought to be true. For previous useful systems that yielded positive results, were false - it is thus hubris to assume we don't suffer from that same error, oftentimes systems that stood for millennia, long into the reign of Science, like Galen, were wrong.

Crashing or not crashing reflects my driving skill, but it doesn't mean that the reasoning behind the way I conceive one should drive, is valid. If I believe cars are drawn by an irresistible force to crash into walls when I approach them too closely, my driving will be better for it, but my skill therein, would not reflect the validity of my assumption.

I do not work from that bias, I work from the position that we can't tell.

If we can't get feedback other than other feelings about feelings then we're free to be entirely deluded. The observations where your ideas are correct look exactly like the observations where they are false.

I can't tell you're not spiritually connecting with the divine just like I can't tell you aren't deluded.

That is exactly the position Science would be in as well. The consequences where if perceived sense-data of man is true or false, are also the same. They are both types of qualia afterall, the perceived and those of the senses. We decide that we aren't being deluded by inter-subjectivity, as I explained with the Mentally ill, in either case. So this is hardly a criticism of religion, that it suffers from the exact same problems of all human thought systems and experience.

And I can't really tell what you folks will be on about in 2000 years either.

I understand that religions die out over time and are replaced by others, but that's the point, the messages become stale to people and they fall by the wayside. Each new religion tries to buttress it's self against the folly of the past religions.

The point here was that I don't have any problem proposing that the believers in Neptune were deluded, but I can't say they weren't suffering from the same "feelings" as you are.



You haven't really shown that it is possible at all.

Sorry? Obviously current religious conceptions better accord with the spirituality and theological development that preceded it. Otherwise it would not exist. You admit Religions change and 'buttress themselves against past folly', so you admit as much. So therefore, they are more in accord with our experiences and thought upon those experiences. Our conceptions are probably also flawed in some manner, human error afterall, but luckily, Religion's goal is not explanation of the mechanisms of the world, but worship.

It is not an assumption, people simply can not demonstrate spiritual perception, you can go on and on about it forever though apparently.

I can demonstrate to you what is wrong with the four elements interpretation of material, I doubt you can demonstrate to me why there isn't any Poseidon.

That is the only real difference in the approaches that concerns me.

If you accept the legitimacy of spiritual qualia, of course I can demonstrate what is wrong with Poseidon. The Greek gods were some of the first casualties of Philosophy, or why else do you think Socrates was condemned for disrespecting the city gods and corrupting the youth? The earliest philosophers began to conceive monistic unities, or The One, or Nature or Logos in Stoicism, as the obvious consequences of theological arguments pursuant to Forms and Ideas as insights, that an unreconstructed Poseidon would fail to account for. This is why even the conception of YHWH was developed by the likes of first Philo and the Rabbis, then the Church fathers.

You only need make stuff up, it's not hard at all

Who created the universe? A super powerful intelligence beyond our understanding.

Wow hard. You're saying this thought line is impossible in a material universe?

It's an odd point, I wouldn't expect people to buy it.

Yes, it would be odd in a world that had never conceived such an idea. I don't expect you to buy it; all are entitled to their own opinions. There are some speculative Science Fiction works that investigate the idea of worlds that had been non-theistic, such as a Case of Conscience by James Blish.

What is so difficult about it? Religion and spirituality are conceived to answer the unanswered and to provide coping mechanisms for reality. The multi thousand year process of refining these ideas is well documented.


The problem is of course that science when working well demystifies the universe.

Religions purpose is to provide a metaphysical framework in to deal with mystery in the universe.

The conflict is over religions importance with less that is unexplained.

There will of course always be the unexplained though, and people will always have to cope with the universe, so I don't expect religion to go away.

.

The purpose of Religion is not to "provide a metaphysical framework". That sounds more like Theology. Religion serves a more primary purpose, a communing with true Reality as Spiritually conceived. This is why it entails Divine Mysteries, Communion with the Godhead, Mysticism, Ritual. It need not be a solution of metaphysical problems. Earlier @Silmarien talked of Christian existentialists and Agnostic Christian philosophers. It is no less for them, because they fail to be able to model everything according to it. This strand of not-knowing is very strong in certain types of Christianity like Orthodoxy, or brands of Spirituality like Sufism or Zen.
Atheists like to frame Science as a tool of acquiring knowledge of the world in opposition to religion, but really, the aims of the two are quite different. Religion is not for the purpose of understanding our universe, but for worship of what is beyond understanding, and perceived as such.

 

[variant]

I don't understand what you are arguing about at all here then. I constantly agreed that we dominate on account of consciousness. I have never denied that. So what quite frankly, is your point here? For my whole argument was that consciousness might have arisen for another aim or on account of another process entirely, which you seemed strenuously to deny, as if it was open and shut to be on account of the dominance it imparts to us.

Obviously not.

It is not my problem that you don't read what I write.

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.

I am talking about the benefit of being self aware being conscious manipulation.

The benefit of conscious manipulation is obvious. That it may be psychologically difficult to be self aware is what I am calling a side effect, not detrimental enough to cause the conscious manipulation to go by the wayside, but still something we have to cope with. I think one implies the other.

Exactly. They don't equate to reality though. It is just a short-cut, a work-around, an assumption of what ought to be true. For previous useful systems that yielded positive results, were false - it is thus hubris to assume we don't suffer from that same error, oftentimes systems that stood for millennia, long into the reign of Science, like Galen, were wrong.

It's not a short cut it is the only cut.

We don't work with absolutes but we must derive our relationship with reality by relating to it.

Crashing or not crashing reflects my driving skill, but it doesn't mean that the reasoning behind the way I conceive one should drive, is valid. If I believe cars are drawn by an irresistible force to crash into walls when I approach them too closely, my driving will be better for it, but my skill therein, would not reflect the validity of my assumption.

That is exactly the position Science would be in as well. The consequences where if perceived sense-data of man is true or false, are also the same. They are both types of qualia afterall, the perceived and those of the senses. We decide that we aren't being deluded by inter-subjectivity, as I explained with the Mentally ill, in either case. So this is hardly a criticism of religion, that it suffers from the exact same problems of all human thought systems and experience.

No but poor assumptions can definitely be weeded out by further investigation. Otherwise I might keep thinking that wood is made out of fire water and earth.

The only way to refine our ability to understand reality is to interact with it. God is defined as something we can't interact with in any straight forward or controllable way (so we would be able to draw conclusions) so we're not going to understand it very well. Ideas that seem "intuitive", "spiritually fulfilling" or "aesthetic" are free to be entirely incorrect.

This always makes me wonder with people who understand the difficulty of dealing with reality, will then lapse into fanciful ideas like "spiritual sensations" as good ways of going about discovery of the truths of the universe.

If you don't believe you can come up with valid conclusions about reality by constantly interacting with it, then how do you suppose you can come up with valid conclusions by having much more nebulous spiritual experiences?

Sorry? Obviously current religious conceptions better accord with the spirituality and theological development that preceded it. Otherwise it would not exist. You admit Religions change and 'buttress themselves against past folly', so you admit as much. So therefore, they are more in accord with our experiences and thought upon those experiences. Our conceptions are probably also flawed in some manner, human error afterall, but luckily, Religion's goal is not explanation of the mechanisms of the world, but worship.

No, it's not obvious. The folly of the dead religion is in the a ability to convince people.

Religious ideas are pure appeals to popularity and thus are free to be at the mercy of human whims, psychology, social pressure ect none of which determines truth.

Again, I can tell you why we don't think trees are made of the elements of earth, water and fire because of how we have investigated them in the real world.

With religions only some of their claims can be investigated properly, while, for the most part, the deeper metaphysical stuff is not something we really know.

If you accept the legitimacy of spiritual qualia, of course I can demonstrate what is wrong with Poseidon. The Greek gods were some of the first casualties of Philosophy, or why else do you think Socrates was condemned for disrespecting the city gods and corrupting the youth? The earliest philosophers began to conceive monistic unities, or The One, or Nature or Logos in Stoicism, as the obvious consequences of theological arguments pursuant to Forms and Ideas as insights, that an unreconstructed Poseidon would fail to account for. This is why even the conception of YHWH was developed by the likes of first Philo and the Rabbis, then the Church fathers.

I'm not seeing a good reason why there can't be a sea God.

Please continue though.

Yes, it would be odd in a world that had never conceived such an idea. I don't expect you to buy it; all are entitled to their own opinions. There are some speculative Science Fiction works that investigate the idea of worlds that had been non-theistic, such as a Case of Conscience by James Blish.

I don't know. I find it rather obvious that conscious beings are going to reach out for explanations like Gods when they don't understand things. It's certainly possible that I am wrong on that but we've only got the one example.

I can't say though that the development of such an idea is an indication that it is true like some apologeticists claim though, which seems to simply not follow.

The purpose of Religion is not to "provide a metaphysical framework". That sounds more like Theology. Religion serves a more primary purpose, a communing with true Reality as Spiritually conceived. This is why it entails Divine Mysteries, Communion with the Godhead, Mysticism, Ritual. It need not be a solution of metaphysical problems. Earlier @Silmarien talked of Christian existentialists and Agnostic Christian philosophers. It is no less for them, because they fail to be able to model everything according to it. This strand of not-knowing is very strong in certain types of Christianity like Orthodoxy, or brands of Spirituality like Sufism or Zen.

Religion obviously tries to explain and shape reality in a way that is understandable, which is a metaphysical framework. It is the first thing every religion does. It answers basic questions about the world.

Where did the world come from. Why is there evil. Why are there people. ect. It provides the framework for these in the first chapter or so.

Atheists like to frame Science as a tool of acquiring knowledge of the world in opposition to religion, but really, the aims of the two are quite different. Religion is not for the purpose of understanding our universe, but for worship of what is beyond understanding, and perceived as such.

I doubt your ability to worship that which you can't even grasp on a cursory basis.

 

[KCfromNC]

Exactly. They don't equate to reality though.

Maybe, maybe not. Too bad philosophy has failed in its quest to be able to identify what's really real. Given that state, we're stuck with making the best of what we have.

Crashing or not crashing reflects my driving skill

Only if you assume a priori automotive realism. There's simply no reason for you to make this jump, at least if you're consistent with your claim above about consistent sense data not equating to reality.

That is exactly the position Science would be in as well. The consequences where if perceived sense-data of man is true or false, are also the same. They are both types of qualia afterall, the perceived and those of the senses. We decide that we aren't being deluded by inter-subjectivity, as I explained with the Mentally ill, in either case. So this is hardly a criticism of religion, that it suffers from the exact same problems of all human thought systems and experience.

Minus all the practical results that science provides, of course. But that would be arguing that something is useful because it works, and I think that's been a sticking point in the past.

If you accept the legitimacy of spiritual qualia, of course I can demonstrate what is wrong with Poseidon.

And if you accept the legitimacy of my super-spirtual qualia, of course I can demonstrate what is wrong with the Christian gods. Somehow I doubt that's going to be very convincing to you.

 

[DogmaHunter]

Sure, but then do we want to say that Jesus, as a deity, is merely the same kind of entity as Poseidon, expressing the same kind of theological ideas, assumptions, concepts and historical presence?

In essence: yes.
Or any other gods or otherwise 'supernatural' entities, for that matter.

I don't think I'd equivocate on the two in this way, not by a long shot.

I most certainly would. And I wouldn't be surprised that you throw all the religions that you don't happen to believe, on the same pile as well.

 

[2PhiloVoid]

Maybe, maybe not. Too bad philosophy has failed in its quest to be able to identify what's really real. Given that state, we're stuck with making the best of what we have.



Only if you assume a priori automotive realism. There's simply no reason for you to make this jump, at least if you're consistent with your claim above about consistent sense data not equating to reality.



Minus all the practical results that science provides, of course. But that would be arguing that something is useful because it works, and I think that's been a sticking point in the past.



And if you accept the legitimacy of my super-spirtual qualia, of course I can demonstrate what is wrong with the Christian gods. Somehow I doubt that's going to be very convincing to you.

It would be nice if, for once, you finally sat down and actually did read some kind of 'Introduction to Philosophy' book or website. Because from what I've seen of your ongong rhetoric, you almost make it sound that fields of study like Ethics and Morality, Business and Economic, Art, Education, Investigation & Analysis, among other things like Religion, not to mention 'science,' don't use any kind of philosophical evaluation (i.e. critical thinking).

So, just as I did a while back with that Nature of Science thread I made, I'll post this additional short video to get you going in the right direction...yet once again. It would be the LOGICAL thing to do: