Sounds painful. Is that what Bill Clinton had?
How about just continuing on as we have done? Let people express themselves and let each person decide how to react. That's worked out well so far.
Posted on 01/01/2012 5:02:18 PM PST by grey_whiskers
I am not sure what you stance is. Whether or not you lack belief in God or whether you do believe there is No-God. That is an important difference, at least to me. Perhaps you see no difference. Is it atheism or agnosticism?
You often refer to logic for your reasoning and anti-logic for ours. We see more logic in what we believe than in what you believe and that seems to lead back to the beginning - Creation. I see no validity in assuming a Big Bang was the beginning because that leads inextricably to the beginning of the beginning - what banged? Yet, it is from that that the rest unfolds. So, I suppose that should be the starting point of these discussions and it often is.
The relevance of gravity, which metmom, brought up, is we know that gravity itself exists, but we don't yet know what it really is, and that is science, not religion. So, scientists and logicians do believe in things they can't see and can't fully explain. They can only observe it and make other calculations about it. The same is true of Christianity but on a different plane. Science deals with concreteness, with numbers and physical experiments, etc. Christianity deals with the abstracts like love, truth, life, beauty, etc. Yes, truth is an abstract. So, aren't we simply talking about in what we have faith? Is it science or is it religion?
Christians have the best of both worlds. We have faith in both. Non-believers are stuck with just science. Do you believe man has a spiritual nature? Do you believe there are recorded and observable phenomena that we cannot explain? I believe that for those who can make that "leap of faith" the Bible has explanations for it all. God is the Big Picture in which science is only a component. Science deals with things. Christianity deals with values.
Does that explain anything of importance?
Well, I'm not so sure about that dear Mind-numbed Robot. It seems to me that Truth apperceived by the human mind can be described, at the cognitive level, as an "abstraction." But an abstraction from what? Well, it seems all abstractions are finally prompted by Nature (Reality) itself. That is, they are descriptions or models of Nature, not Nature itself.
Yet as A. N. Whitehead has pointed out, what people often lose sight of (in my words, FWIW) is the distinction between source and image in Reality. Science — because it is unavoidably abstract, so much so that its business can largely be conveyed in the universal language of mathematics — falls into the image category. At the same time, science is supposed to be in the business of exploring the source category.
Of course, the immediately foregoing assumes the reader accepts the natural law tradition as "true." Not all people do, nowadays. :^)
In short, I do not believe that "truth is an abstract." I believe Truth is the very foundation of, and plan for Reality itself.
To my mind, Reality is an "abstraction" from Truth, and not the other way around.
Whitehead was addressing a problem which he identified as "the fallacy of misplaced concreteness." Scientific theories are "abstractions" from Reality, not Reality itself. The fallacy consists of "reducing" the latter to the former, to the point where the generating Reality is entirely eclipsed by its image, or abstraction.
Well, I'm sure that's just as clear as mud....
Anyhoot, other than that one tiny quibble, please let me congratulate you, dear Mind-numbed Robot, for your outstanding essay/post! Excellent insights!
Could you add me to your ping list.
Oh so true, A_perfect_lady! If logic is the road, then, as they say down Maine, "Yuh cain't get they-ah from hee-yah." Translation: "You can't get 'there' from 'here'" on the basis of logic alone.
But then, why should you expect to in the first place?
I sense a little frustration on your part at this point. Perfectly understandable, but I wouldn't worry about it too much if I were you.
If you keep an open mind, and an open heart, the answers you need will come. Even if you're not entirely clear on the questions right now.
It has been said that, in the life of every incarnate soul, at least one experience of divine transcendence will occur during its lifetime. This is the gift of God to every soul. What the soul then does with the experience is up to the soul.
God does not "compel." He LOVES. (And I do believe that He wants us to love Him back.... )
Thank you so very much, A_perfect_lady, for sharing your thoughts with me.
But that's the thing: I don't have any questions. Seriously, I don't. I understand the world. I understand why things happen.
Done.
Yes, it's an important difference to me too. That's why I keep saying, "It's not that I believe there is No God. It's that I do not believe there is God." It's a very important difference (at least when it comes to debate.)
You often refer to logic for your reasoning and anti-logic for ours. We see more logic in what we believe than in what you believe and that seems to lead back to the beginning - Creation. I see no validity in assuming a Big Bang was the beginning because that leads inextricably to the beginning of the beginning - what banged? Yet, it is from that that the rest unfolds. So, I suppose that should be the starting point of these discussions and it often is.
Are you sure I refer to logic often for my reasoning? Look back, because I don't think I do. I'm not particularly philosophical and I don't rely heavily on logic.
All I rely on is
1.) the fact that the world makes sense even without a God.
2.) I don't remember being conscious before I was born
3.) I was under anesthesia once and it was non-existence.
That's actually it. Oh... and I don't care how the universe began. I just don't. I don't know why people keep going back to that.
The relevance of gravity, which metmom, brought up, is we know that gravity itself exists,
My only point is that we don't have "faith" in gravity. We've found it to be reliable, so we take it for granted. That's not really the same as Faith in God. I think she brought it up to try and convince me that I'm "a believer" too, and we just differ in the details. But I'm not, and we don't.
Do you believe man has a spiritual nature?
No.
Do you believe there are recorded and observable phenomena that we cannot explain?
Well, there's Bigfoot.
I believe that for those who can make that "leap of faith" the Bible has explanations for it all.
Bible explains Bigfoot? Look, anything we can't explain yet simply means we need more information.
AMAZING.
Good luck, A_perfect_lady!
Just to annoy you (though if I cock my head in just the right way, I can perceive it the way you said)...
I suggest rather that Truth is the Master Class, and our "Reality" is an instantiation of a particular sub-class. /object-oriented gobbledygook>
Whitehead was addressing a problem which he identified as "the fallacy of misplaced concreteness." Scientific theories are "abstractions" from Reality, not Reality itself. The fallacy consists of "reducing" the latter to the former, to the point where the generating Reality is entirely eclipsed by its image, or abstraction.
And just to stir the pot some more, isn't it odd how much anthropomorphism goes into scientific explanations?
Listen to how many times we talk about what nature "wants" to do, or how elegant the "design" of an enzymatic binding site is, or the "purpose" of a particular adaptation (that last one is confusing the word "purpose" with "function"; and the two so often overlap in human experience, it is at least excusable as mere carelessness).
What makes it all the more jolly is that anthropomorphism is supposed to be the death-knell for any hope of veriferousness within theology, but quite understandable when explaining science. Given that God is held to be sentient, and with desires quite distinct from ours ("neither are my ways your ways, O House of Israel"), and humans are the most advanced conscious beings with whom we all agree we have dealings, shouldn't the discrediting be the other way around? (stir, stir, the pot)
(The use of abstractions and models is because they are the most *compact* representation, and the most reproducible, without worrying as much over any multicultural interpretations, and assurance that the ratio of a circle's circumference to its diameter really is PI, regardless of what language is spoken by the person with the tape measure; allowing, of course, for significant figures and assuming the experimental template is not out of round, and doesn't taper like a bowl.)
Cheers!
Thank you for clarifying your thinking. It is all perfectly reasonable, as I see it. You are also right that no one can sell God to another who has no interest in the subject.
In my early thinking on the subject I concluded that unless a person is perfectly content with there being no God and that when we die that is the end, period, that person has a difficult time reaching a sincere and honest belief. Otherwise, the fear of death, that most basic thing which our DNA imbues us with (fear) and instructs us to avoid (death), will encourage us toward a belief because we want it to be true rather than really believing it. I imagine you are content with death. That is what our observations and reasoning would tell us. I also imagine that you are honestly not concerned with alternatives.
For me, belief also has many practical benefits. Believing that God has a plan for my life is comforting and it encourages positive thinking. Believing that I have been forgiven for my sins eliminates guilt and depression and encourages and strengthens me to continually seek the ideal. Loving God and my fellow man feels good and it energizes me. Giving thanks and praise instead of asking for things and seeking my selfish desires also has a salutary effect. In short, most of my human foibles and the problems I face are addressed by Christianity and that helps me lead a more satisfying life.
Perhaps you do the same with mental discipline and understanding and perhaps I could have, too, but frankly, this is easier and I have more trust in it. There are also the feelings that occur within me that I cannot explain nor easily describe, things like the smile that comes to my face when prayers seem to have been answered; simple ambient moods and feelings of goodwill; peace for no reason; and more. Those I doubt I could achieve on my own.
This exchange has been enjoyable.
To my mind, Reality is an "abstraction" from Truth, and not the other way around.
That is close to what I am attempting to say and that is what leads me to call Truth an abstract. We can know truth well enough to get along in our everyday lives but do we really know the rest of the story? I see truth to be the ideal, an abstract, and an ideal we can't really know or describe. We simply keep looking as one theory gets replaced by another and some facts turn out to be something else altogether.
All of what you say is true for the practical purpose of logical discussion, for our everyday use, but it is all based on assumptions of what is supposedly apparent.
I see truth as interchangeable with essence and ideal and I posit that we cannot yet know essence, and may never be able to. Therefore, truth is an abstraction.
Yes. I'm in no hurry, but I've thought about it all my life. They say that when you're young, you don't, but it varies from person to person. I remember being very young (as in, so short my feet were only about three feet away) and knowing I would die someday.
I also imagine that you are honestly not concerned with alternatives.
I'm really not. A big event for me was having surgery when I was about 32. They put the mask over my face and told me to count backwards... a few seconds later, they were calling my name to wake me up. I woke up and thought "What's wrong, why are they stopping?" But of course, they weren't stopping; they were finished. It was three hours later. During that three hours, I did not exist, as far as I can tell. It wasn't like sleep. It wasn't even darkness. That was time that I did not exist. I pondered it for a very long time. I realized that before I was born, I also did not exist. And I rarely quote sages, books, or movies, but there's one line from The Matrix I do find true: Everything that has a beginning, has an end. Including us. It's hard to conceive, I know. But there you have it.
For me, belief also has many practical benefits. Believing that God has a plan for my life is comforting and it encourages positive thinking. Believing that I have been forgiven for my sins eliminates guilt and depression and encourages and strengthens me to continually seek the ideal. Loving God and my fellow man feels good and it energizes me. Giving thanks and praise instead of asking for things and seeking my selfish desires also has a salutary effect. In short, most of my human foibles and the problems I face are addressed by Christianity and that helps me lead a more satisfying life.
Again, I really think personality type plays into this a lot. For instance: I'm simply not prone to depression or lethargy. I'm one of these who always has projects they are interested in, ideas to put into action, something to research, something to collect, a list of things to accomplish, and I buzz around like a quiet, busy, introverted little squirrel whose only real issues are "don't-get-hit-by-car" and "where'd-I-put-those-nuts." I'm also very good at bucking myself up if I am at all down. My favorite way to wait for the bus to work in the morning is to play "30 Things I'm Glad About" and make a list. Anything I'm glad about that morning (good hair day... my cats are happy... my step-dad recovered from surgery... it's not Monday... nice weather out... house is clean...)
I also have very little guilt about anything I've done in my life. There are some mistakes, but I look back and think that I acted as reasonably as I could at the time, given what little I knew. I can only think of one incident I feel really horrible about. I've apologized to the person I hurt, but I'll never really stop feeling guilty about it. And honestly, I don't think I SHOULD stop. I mean, I don't dwell on it, but it's definitely a don't-ever-do-THAT-again sort of blemish. My only other painful memories are more about embarrassing social gaffes I've made over the years (oh, thousands.)
Again, I think it's a personality type. To be honest, I really do operate like a very articulate and organized animal. I don't have a spiritual side at all. I like to figure things out, I like to do things, and I have a few emotions, but I truly suspect I don't have as many as most people, and the ones I have are not complex. Things that people say often baffle me (like "there's a thin line between love and hate." Say what??? That's nuts.) My friends often chide me by saying that I see everything in black and white, and no shades of gray. They're right, too. I ain't into gray, baby. It's black or white, and life is simple. But this isn't a stance I created to infuriate Christians on Free Republic. It really is just my personality and always has been. Even my mother thinks I'm a bit odd.
Sounds painful. Is that what Bill Clinton had?
How about just continuing on as we have done? Let people express themselves and let each person decide how to react. That's worked out well so far.
Well jeepers, what on earth could you expect otherwise? There would be no science at all were there not human minds to "mediate it."
To me, disparagement of the "anthropic principle" is totally jejune.... Not to mention pointless: The only world human beings know is the one reflected through human minds.
How's that for "stirring the pot?" LOLOL!!!
Thanks so much for writing, dear grey_whiskers!
Talk about your Occam's razor violations! (needlessly multiplying *universes* not just entities); and it prompts the counterquestion of how they have any proof of the various underlying theories which are supposed to make multiverses possible : hint -- the word so-beloved of those who hate God and are willing to do ANYTHING to deny knowledge of him is called "fal-si-fi-a-bil-ity".
I have yet to see any of them suggest a feasible experiment which would be able to unambiguously falsify these cosmologies.
oist, meet petard, or something.
(The usual response is a blistering, frothing-at-the-mouth ad hominem.)
Cheers!
bttt
Gagdad Bob (Robert Godwin) said...
Darwinians can’t help anthropomorphizing the theory, being that the dullest of them are still anthropomorphs.
8/18/2010
Gagdad Bob said...
“........For the materialist to place an arbitrary limit with regard to what the human being may know and experience is purely arbitrary and incoherent, for what is the principle that says we may only know this truth but not that truth, or this reality but not that?”
8/18/2010
In the comment section here:
Creation Myths of the Tenured http://onecosmos.blogspot.com/2010/08/creation-myths-of-tenured.html
p.s.: But if you don't ask questions, how can you possibly learn anything new?
You say you "understand the world" and "why things happen." Are you suggesting that you already possess all possible knowledge of the world?
That would be a pretty tall claim, A_perfect_lady.
Be well and prosper.
No, I mean the kinds of questions people ask God. You know, “Why is there evil in the world, why is there pain and suffering?” That sort of thing.
But these are the most human questions in the world. Man has been asking them since the dawn of time, universally. It's almost as if man had been "programmed" to ask them....
But you exempt yourself from "that sort of thing." Why?
I've watched my cats for years and noticed that they are just like little humans. They'll take food from each other if they can. They'll pick on each other sometimes just out of boredom. They're mean to each other when they are strangers, but if they develop affection, it lessens. Adult cats will attack strange kittens. Cats will kill small rodents for fun even if they are not hungry. It goes on and on, this is just how creatures are. Even trees crowd out smaller trees and hog the sunlight. Parasitic organisms feast on their hosts even unto death. It's just the nature of creatures trying to survive, and the more advanced ones trying to attain pleasure.
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