Reason vs. Religion

If I take my existence as an axiom and reason as the basis for living as a human being, then

LogicWings, That's a really huge "IF". And you've got such a whole lot riding on it. You have no principle by which you can "guarantee" rights for yourself, let alone extend them to anybody else. You are living in an total abstraction....

My existence is not an abstraction. That 'if' isn't an 'if I exist' since it is axiomatic for me to exist to be able to make the assertion. Even that old fool Decartes at least got that one right. That 'if' is a logical predicate upon which a universal rule can be founded.

You make me laugh. You would predicate morality upon a Supernatural being for which there is no evidence, that cannot be found or experienced, by the very definition of the term, of which there is very little agreement about the true nature of and meaning of, even within any given religion purporting to understand this Supernatural Being (or all Christians would be Catholics, for example) and you accuse me of living in a total abstraction. Your seeing a forest where there are no trees.

Yours is a floating abstraction that has absolutely no basis. Mine based is loosely based upon the Lockean view of natural rights based upon the fact of existence. You have absolutely no 'reasons' for your foundation, only faith, and I only have 'reason' for mine.

Every one gets all hung up on the word guarantee. The fact of my existence, that I know I exist, and that I know that I want to live that life in freedom, not slavery, is not "no principle" but is in fact a very real principle that requires reason to conclude. You don't see the principle because you abandon reason when it conflicts with faith, thus depriving yourself of the full range of your intellectual potential. This is why it is so difficult to have this kind of discussion with people such as yourself. You can conveniently slip through any contradiction when convenient by claiming faith in favor of reason. There is no answer, just a dangling contradiction. But I do not have to take your argument seriously beyond that point. You have proven one cannot 'reason' with you.

You are taking yourself as the standard against which God must be measured.

I exist. The decision on God is still pending. I live in reality, God doesn't, He's off somewhere Out There and doesn't concern Himself with protecting my rights, so I must do so myself. That religion of yours was responsible for millenia of slavery of all kinds, it didn't bring freedom. It was logic, reason, the scientific method and some real erudite education on the part of the founding fathers that led to the idea of rights and democracy. Those men were far more educated on a wider number of topics than anyone I know of today. They melded the best of the Greek government, the Roman Government and the common law of England into a secular document creating a government in exactly the same fashion that my principle is based upon. The Bill of Rights is exactly the same principle created for exactly the same reasons. They just didn't state it obliquely there, but if you go back and read what they all wrote at the time, it becomes clear.

Finally, I don't measure God against myself because God isn't in the equation. That is what you are doing. You are measuring human life against a floating abstraction for which you have no evidence at all, other than your own belief, and attempting to insist that it be used as a standard for everyone. All that is, is a suckers game used to keep the slaves docile by defining morality as that which doesn't disturb the status quo. The Pope is a King who lives in grand style, at what price for the followers? When does the Catholic Church 'sell all it has and give it to the poor?'

Can you spell S-O-P-H-I-S-T?

I'm not the one who has Descarte before dehorse, dear. And I would have thought you were above such insinuations, but maybe I'm giving you more credit than you deserve.

Except for this assertion? For a guy who doesn't know anything you seem have some strong opinions.

All too true. There is a clear distinction between what we can know, and what we don't. All depends where your axioms are. i've lost the context but I think I was ridiculing those at the time. If your axioms for existence are rooted in a fantasy, what can you really know?

I will grant that existence is ultimately mysterious, although the acceptance of mystery does not necessarily entail the acceptance of universal skepticism.

Depends upon what 'you' mean by skepticism. There is the actual classic definition and then there is a common, 'don't believe anything' that most people, wrongly, think it means. In the true sense of the word there are many who assert exactly that. And that is probably very close to where I'm coming from. But I find that most people are afraid of the idea of the Universe as ultimately a Mystery. They will believe anything rather than face this. The other thing is, since people so rarely actually think, they don't chase down to see where all the evidence we have at hand actually does lead, what conclusions we can draw from what we know.

Don't give up so fast. True, we cannot know God in His essence, but we can know that God exists from His effects.

I chased down your links. If you've seen anything of what I've written then you must know I am profoundly anti-Kantian. The 'effects' link relies upon 'a priori' reasoning and I argue there is no such thing.

The other links are fine but the 'evidence' is all begging the question as to what the 'source' of all the those 'effects' or 'knowing' are, without which there is no such 'cause.'

Every single argument made there can also be used to support the idea that the 'intelligence' behind the cause is not separate from the Universe itself. There is one line from the Bible somewhere that I do agree with, although the author probably means it in a different way than I do, but maybe not. That is part of what is wrong with the religion today, what people think the writers were talking about is not what they were talking about, just what we think they meant today. But I intend to get into that subject another time, I just mention it in passing. Anyway, close as I can remember, the line is:

In Him we Breathe, move, and have our being.

Maybe only "little children" can understand such things.

And maybe only little children believe them.

I like it. But I don't know what to do with it.

This is one of those ideas I ran across somewhere that put me in a state for days. Another one was trying to see very clearly, like you were from another planet, that we don't really know what we are. It can create a moment of insight that lingers for days and takes the place of many days thinking or reading. Thinking in such a state is an entirely different experience.

It can create a moment of insight that lingers for days and takes the place of many days thinking or reading.

I donno ... I like to keep my wits about me.

Don, you are yapping about things about which you are ignorant. Let it go while you are not too far behind.

If we can’t “conceive” or “conceptualize” something, then natural reason and logic have nothing to do at all. The only traction that they have is with objects that can properly be intended. But God does not lie within the field of “intendable objects.”

Yes, exactly.

An “intendable” object is something that can be held or “possessed” in consciousness long enough and "solidly" enough that the operations of reason and logic have something that can be cognitively "worked on." But what finite, mortal consciousness can comprehend St. Anselm’s “incomprehensible” so as to be able to intend it?

Yes, exactly. It cannot be.

From our own lived experience, we know – or ought to know – that certain “things” (for lack of a better word) can only be seen in their effects. Examples would include such “things” as goodness, justice, beauty – even truth itself. Because we never get the opportunity to say “howdy-do” to such “things” walking down the street on any given day, does that mean that we really believe they are superstitious fictions?

I disagree with you here. If you want me to I will drag you through the cognitive process by which we epistemologically come to define such abstractions such as truth, beauty and goodness. Just because they are abstractions doesn't mean they aren't ultimately rooted in experience.

This is central to this discussion. If people don't understand the process of abstraction, and how higher levels of abstraction encompass lower level abstractions, and that the process can go on indefinitely, then they quickly get lost. Just as you have here. Justice is a fairly high level abstract concept but that doesn't mean the word isn't ultimately rooted in actions taken, or to be taken by men, that we know about because we experience those actions.

Because they are rooted in experience, they aren't superstitions.

And if you think they do not have a common Source, then I’d be very glad to entertain your speculation as to why they do not; and assuming God is not the common source, if you could please designate any other source.

The 'source' is the human mind. Such abstractions are products of the process of the mind, which is why 'beauty is in the eye of the beholder.' If it had one source all would agree on what was beautiful and what was not. This is where you are a Platonist and I am not. The source isn't 'out there.'

If you were to say that all these “things” – goodness, justice, beauty, truth – can be explained purely on the basis of, say, natural evolution, then I need to see your evidence in order to understand your position.

I could probably make an argument based on evolution but I'm not big on evolution either so I'm not going to. When you say something like 'explained' you are using a word that means very little to me in that context.

Human beings have lived without 'justice' for so much of existence that to come up with how we think we have it now would be a long, long post. I will undertake it if you wish, but not now. Suffice to say I think we would disagree on the ultimate definition.

Truth is when concepts and thoughts are coherent with reality. A glass of water is beautiful to a person dying of thirst, beauty is that which furthers or enhances one's life. Goodness is taking those actions that will result in enhancing one's life. This will bring howls of protest, but at root this is true. The element that has been lacking, has always been lacking, is the logical extension of the rights I naturally want for myself, in 'my own best interest' I had better recognize apply to everyone else as individuals for exactly the same reason. 'Goodness' is a concept that requires far more thought than most people are willing to undertake, which it is why it is an ideal that has yet never really been practiced. I'm getting into another offshoot here but the 'source' isn't some mystical 'thing' but a very practical issue.

It seems to me that God has been extraordinarily generous with the “effects” made available to us by which to understand Him, not to mention the spiritual and intellectual “equipment” vested in us by virtue of our (created) humanity. I can name three basic classes of such “effects”: Holy scripture, the natural world (creation), and the responsiveness of the soul to its divine source and ground.

You are simply making an assumption, for which you have no evidence, and simply attributing it to that assumption. Your 'effects' are only 'effects' because you think they are, in reality they aren't 'effects' for the most part they are floating abstractions.

'Holy' scripture Begs the Question that there is such a thing as 'holy.' Circular reasoning.
The natural isn't proof of anything but itself. Calling it 'Creation' is, once again, Begging the Question it was 'created' and not, simply is.
The idea you have a soul, that it is responsive to anything other than suggestion and that there is a such a thing as 'divine' source is just more of the same. They are only 'effects' because you view them so. In reality, you haven't said anything here, these are just words running around in circles, each chasing each others tails. God is Holy, so the Scriptures are Holy because they come from God, which proves that God exists because the Scriptures are Holy.

There used to be an old saying in Japan:

Japan is the divine country because if another country were then divine country, then Japan couldn't be the divine country, therefore Japan is the divine country.

All these assertions have just this flavor.

You wrote that I implied “there is something other than ‘natural reasoning’ but I see no reason to think this.” I do more than imply. On this question, I assert.

On what basis?

When it comes to divine things, to the most essential things of the human spirit, natural reasoning doesn’t have very much to do at all.

Exactly my point. There is no 'reason' to this sentence! And everything you say after this point is most pointedly outside reason, so on what basis do you make your argument? Upon irrationality? Upon insanity? No, faith.

Which puts us at loggerheads, LogicWings. (Well, I already knew that!!!) For you put your faith in “natural reasoning,” and I put my faith in God. A God who, from the purely human perspective of intramundane existence, may appear both unreasonable and illogical. (Just goes to show how useless these tools really are in grappling with putative “cognitive objects” which are not truly “cognitive objects,” and for which the tools are therefore totally unsuited.)

And this is exactly the point. What is the purpose of reason? To help us survive in reality. What is the opposite of reason? That which opposes life. You are saying God is beyond logic, but you got here by reasoning that must be the case since God doesn't stand to logic. But logic and reason are the very means to our survival in life, (which you call the intramundane!) so we must reject the tools that support our very lives to believe in this irrationality! I see no 'reason' to believe any of this.

You make another mistake here. I do not put my 'faith' in 'natural reasoning.' There is no 'unnatural reasoning' that's a contradiction in terms. There is no faith involved. It has been a long hard journey to understand just how these tools work and why, as a human being, I must use them in the pursuit it living. Faith involves believing in things for which there is no evidence.

What you are saying here is you have no 'reasons' you just believe anyway. Ok, loggerheads. But I don't have to take your assertions seriously, anymore than I have to believe in Unicorns. You have just admitted that those assertions don't make sense. I agree.

But it seems you place your faith in what you can “see.” And that is the lot of all of us humans. But there is seeing, and then there is seeing. The principal difference consists in whether the seeing is being done through the eye, or through the soul.

I don't place 'faith' in what I can see, and it is wrong to characterize it as such. Reality is that which you cannot evade. You cannot evade breathing. You cannot evade eating. You cannot evade what will happen if you sit on the railroad tracks when the train comes. This is not faith.

What you see when you look through the eyes of your 'soul' is whatever you want it to be, since it isn't based upon anything other than what you believe. At the risk of sounding redundundundant saying you see through the 'soul' Begs the Question you have one. More floating abstractions with no ultimate referents.

In putting the allurements of purely human knowledge before what you owe to God, possibly you repeat the same “mistake” that Adam made.

The very language here is prejudicial. The 'allurements of purely human knowledge' are what have given humanity every advance that has lifted us from savagery to modern civilization. See, this is where the opposition to reason goes beyond merely irrational. If it were up to the church we would still be living in feudal Europe, slaves to kings and church, thinking the sun went around the earth. If only those people who rejected the fruits of the 'allurement of purely human knowledge' had to live without those same benefits.

I am making no mistake. I am only thinking. I am only being consistent with what reality has demanded I be consistent with if I want to go on living. To equate knowledge with 'mistake' is to wish to go back to being an unthinking animal. No thank you.

I gather you think Adam was “scum” – though God has let us know He was pleased with His Creation. But Adam chose possession of knowledge over fidelity to his God. (He apparently did this to please his wife. But Satan got the whole benefit from the transaction.)

I don't think Adam existed so I don't think he was scum. Adam didn't 'chose' anything, even within the contexts of the Myth. This is another of those contradictions inherent in the scenario. Adam couldn't have known it was wrong to disobey God because he had no knowledge of right or wrong, obeying or disobeying. That only came 'after' he had eaten the fruit, and he had no 'freewill' up until that point because he couldn't know there was such a thing as a 'choice' without the knowledge gained. God punished Adam for something God knew Adam had no way of knowing was wrong, was going to do 'before' He created him, yet tempted him anyway. If God didn't want there to be evil in the world He could have prevented it at any point. Or, as I said before, He could have created Adam with the character to withstand the temptation in the first place. This whole thing is a pack of absurdities that one can only embrace by rejecting reason, rejecting thought, and just believing. Don't think, don't reason, just obey.

Worse, you have made this choice – and it is fundamentally a choice that can only be made in faith – even though a divine blood price has already been paid in the fullest to redeem and atone for Adam’s “error.”

And now to the other half of the equation. I made no such choice. I wasn't responsible for Original Sin and now I'm not responsible for the atonement either. No choice in any of this. No choice for sin, and no choice for how the Redemption comes about. Just believe this and do this or else!!

Bottom line, I think it’s probably a fairly perilous enterprise in terms of our deepest well-being to consider human knowledge as superior to divine wisdom.

There isn't one thing you have said that demonstrates there IS divine wisdom. All you have are unsupported opinions, beliefs, none of which 'makes sense.' You have given no 'reason' to think there is anything other than 'natural reason' available to human beings. The rest is all fantasy.

I can smell the sulphur of Satan’s “non serviam” in his construction of the choice that faces human free will at every time, place, and juncture: “It is better to reign in Hell than to serve in Heaven.”

See, now I not only have to believe in Jehovah, I have to believe in this guy too!!! So, you can smell with your soul as well as see?

All frivolity aside, the serving here isn't designed for the afterlife. This is a means of keeping you, here and now, a willing slave. This is the greatest con game ever devised. Every time I see some smug little TV preacher or other self appointed expert ever-so-condescendingly explaining to the enraptured multitudes the minute details of what they should think, what they should believe, how they should live, what their 'world view' should be, all with the aim of, 'and please pass the collection plate' it just makes the point. This is about power in the here and now, not eternity. I don't think so poorly of God that I think He would create this racket.

IMHO, this is the situation most to be avoided: You really don’t want to go there.

And in the final analysis all we have is this ancient Voodoo curse. If you don't believe, 'Everlasting Torment!' And I'm supposed to worship this guy? He creates this horrible scenario, provides man with reason as the only means to survive and then requires that man reject that very reason as the basis of an eternal choice. This is so irrational it hurts. I reject the very concept that a 'loving God' could create such a warped movie. Which is what I said at the beginning, I reject the concept, not the Being, if He exists.

To do so is not only to cut yourself off from God; but also to cut yourself off from yourself. At some deeply mysterious level, God and Man are One.

Once again, Christian Apologetics says that an 'unredeemed' person is cut off from God. So at that point, man and God are not one. But it is true, at some deeply Mysterious level, Man and God are one. But not in the way you mean.

I donno ... I like to keep my wits about me.

Begs the question you have some about you in the first place. (sorry, i couldn't resist. i'm awful, i know)

But I think you misread me. Stone cold sober, no chemical or other artificial enhancements. The mind can go some incredible places just as it is. Then again, I've gone many place most people don't choose to go. Maybe just as well.

I've gone many place most people don't choose to go.

I can see that. It makes you interesting.

Dear LogicWings, have gotten your several last. Some parts of which seemed a tad “over the top.” But really I am glad to find you are thinking this stuff over and through.

You self-characterize as “a corrupt old logician.” Well, I don’t find any problem with your logic. And I don’t see any evidence that could convict you of being “corrupt” – or even old for that matter.

This is where you are a Platonist and I am not. The source isn't 'out there.'

And this constitutes evidence, let alone proof – why??? What is the ground for your belief that the “source isn’t ‘out there?’” Do you argue that human insight is useless to human existence?

You write: “Human beings have lived without 'justice' for so much of existence that to come up with how we think we have it now would be a long, long post. I will undertake it if you wish, but not now. Suffice to say I think we would disagree on the ultimate definition.”

Why do you say that we would disagree, LogicWings? What evidence do you have in support of that allegation?

You continue: “Truth is when concepts and thoughts are coherent with reality.... Goodness is taking those actions that will result in enhancing one's life. This will bring howls of protest, but at root this is true.”

No howls of protest from me, LogicWings; for you have basically defined the entire idea of goodness – as divinely intended – in the foregoing statement.

Then you say another thing I agree with, at least in part: Truth “is an ideal that has yet never really been practiced. I'm getting into another offshoot here but the 'source' isn't some mystical 'thing' but a very practical issue.”

Have you ever considered the possibility that the reason that truth is a “practical issue” is because it has a divine (or “mystical,” in your words) source? If this is not so, then why would innumerable generations of human beings by now continue to be interested in problems of truth? Do you suppose this is something “captured” by “Darwinian memory?” Or could the source be “located” somewhere outside the materialist explanation?

You say: “'Holy' scripture Begs the Question that there is such a thing as 'holy.' Circular reasoning.”

Circular reasoning???? Yegads, man! If you want circular reasoning, go check out Georg Hegel. God’s “reasoning” – made manifest in the world through the incarnation and sacrifice of His Son – was designed to be the very prescription for release from the “circularity” of purely human, purely earthly, experience. This is probably the hardest part for a skeptical secularist like yourself to entertain, let alone credit as to having any good purpose. Yet it is precisely this point that I would invite you to try in your meditations.

The natural isn't proof of anything but itself. Calling it 'Creation' is, once again, Begging the Question it was 'created' and not, simply is.

Well, if something “simply is,” that suggests to me it didn’t get there “out of its own powers.” It seems that most of the things that man can do by himself cost him seriously in terms of time, effort, and confusion. So if man was the creator, then the resulting creation probably wouldn't be "simple."

Then again, I think Aristotle was right when he said effects have causes; thus creatures have creators. Just stands to reason, I say.

Snipping a bit, you continue thusly: “And this is exactly the point. What is the purpose of reason? To help us survive in reality. What is the opposite of reason? That which opposes life. You are saying God is beyond logic, but you got here by reasoning that must be the case since God doesn't stand to logic. But logic and reason are the very means to our survival in life, (which you call the intramundane!) so we must reject the tools that support our very lives to believe in this irrationality! I see no 'reason' to believe any of this.”

God is “beyond logic” in the precise sense that He is the Source and Standard of logic. Also Source and Standard of such a thing as “natural reason,” not to mention human free will. Being the Maker, He Makes the Standard: He is the Maker of all standards of Truth in this world – and the next, whether you believe in a “next world” or not. The “potter” and the “vessel he fashions out of clay” are TWO DIFFERENT THINGS.

And if you were to ask me, the vessel, finally, isn’t in much of a position to argue or quibble with the Potter.

* * * * * * *

I must stop for now, LogicWings. Though there is so much else in your last worthy of thoughtful consideration, the hour is grown so late, and I’m feeling so sleepy right now, that I hope you will forgive me if I just “sleep on it,” and (hopefully) I may get the chance to speak with you again tomorrow.

Good night!

Thank you for your reply!

There is nothing further for me to say. There was something in your reply - unspoken but very strong - which informs me to lay aside our differences altogether and instead, simply care about you - which I do.

I'm very glad to have read your comments, donh. You speak from the heart and that is how it should be.

You continue: “Truth is when concepts and thoughts are coherent with reality.... Goodness is taking those actions that will result in enhancing one's life. This will bring howls of protest, but at root this is true.”

No howls of protest from me, LogicWings; for you have basically defined the entire idea of goodness – as divinely intended – in the foregoing statement.

For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? -Mark 8:36

Looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith; who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God. -Hebrews 12:2

Apparently, transcendental morality isn't much a safeguard even just here on this planet.

The transcendental morality of Scripture will be used to judge the actions taken here on this planet. Justice will be done. No one is getting away with anything, they're just abusing God's mercy.

"Because sentence against an evil work is not executed speedily, therefore the heart of the sons of men is fully set in them to do evil." -Ecclesiastes 8:11

Thank you for taking the time to discuss this topic. I hope you have benefited as much as I have.

You self-characterize as “a corrupt old logician.” Well, I don’t find any problem with your logic. And I don’t see any evidence that could convict you of being “corrupt” – or even old for that matter.

According to the world view you adhere to I am either 'saved' or I am 'corrupt.' There is no middle ground. My humour is often lost on others. This was a self deprecating joke that conforms to your beliefs. I must be this 'corrupt old logician' if I don't believe as you do. There is no other possibility allowed.

This is why I wish you were teaching Sunday school rather than arguing with me here. I would much rather philosophically wrestle with some male counterpart than deal with a beautiful bright female spirit like yours or Alamo Girl. It doesn't seem fair somehow, but the guys are all wimps hiding behind ideas they can't defend and you ladies are letting it all hang out there. I have to admire both of you for that. I love you both in a way you will never know.

And this constitutes evidence, let alone proof – why??? What is the ground for your belief that the “source isn’t ‘out there?’” Do you argue that human insight is useless to human existence?

There is insight, and then, there is insight. There is your insight that it is 'out there' and then there is the Zen insight that there is no 'out there.' Which insight do I believe? You cannot give any evidence of an 'out there' but I have only evidence of a 'here-now.' No matter where you go, you are here-now. All else is deduction, and subsequent, induction. Give me evidence, other than insight which can be contradicted by other insight, that there is an 'out there.'

Why do you say that we would disagree, LogicWings? What evidence do you have in support of that allegation?

Touche' my dear. It is a deduction. From what I have learned of your beliefs, I have concluded so. I could be wrong. Care to define justice? Or do I have to go first?

No howls of protest from me, LogicWings; for you have basically defined the entire idea of goodness – as divinely intended – in the foregoing statement.

Thank you, by your statement I am, at least, not so far 'off the mark.' But my definition of goodness has no 'divine intention' in it. It is pure reason.

Have you ever considered the possibility that the reason that truth is a “practical issue” is because it has a divine (or “mystical,” in your words) source?

Of course, I started there. That is the whole point. That idea doesn't hold up to close scrutiny. The inclusion of 'reason' and 'divine' in the same sentence is a contradiction in terms. I wish it wasn't so, but it is. This is my point. You hold your position in contradiction to reason, but keep trying to use 'reason' to make your point. You can't have it both ways. Either embrace 'reason' or give it up and say, 'I believe this because I want to' and stop trying to find reasons for faith. There aren't any.

If this is not so, then why would innumerable generations of human beings by now continue to be interested in problems of truth?

Because 'truth' is what we survive by. "Truth" is concepts and thoughts that are coherent, are in line, represent, describe, explain, and help a person live, in REALITY !!!

Not Jesus on the cross, not Adam and Eve, not Original Sin, - - - - eating enough tomorrow to survive until the next day. Not being killed by Saddaam. Going to work and earning enough that I don't have to beg at the trough of the public dole to feed my kid. Reality. Reality. Reality. That which you cannot evade, or in doing so, you will die. And as I said before, there is truth and there is truth and there is truth. The Zen Buddhist (which I studied for a long time) believes he knows 'truth' just as much as you do. But somebody is right and somebody is wrong, you cannot both be right at the same time. And then there is Hindus and,God I could go on for hours. I WANTED to know, I been through all this stuff. What if you are all wrong? What if the answer is under your very nose but you are all just too blinded by your beliefs to see?

Circular reasoning???? Yegads, man! If you want circular reasoning, go check out Georg Hegel.

Been there,done that. Mediocre at best.

This is probably the hardest part for a skeptical secularist like yourself to entertain, let alone credit as to having any good purpose. Yet it is precisely this point that I would invite you to try in your meditations.

Don't be so quick to judge me, little girl. I am not a 'skeptical humanist', as if those words have any meaning. You don't know me that well. I have had many years thinking 'out of the box' and you are still inside one of the many boxes that I left years ago.

Well, if something “simply is,” that suggests to me it didn’t get there “out of its own powers.”

Suggestion to you is not evidence to me.

Then again, I think Aristotle was right when he said effects have causes; thus creatures have creators. Just stands to reason, I say.

So now you want to use reason, which you rejected as insufficient to understand deity, to prove deity? So which is it? Reason vs Religion? The name of this thread. You, because you reject reason, can stand on either side of the issue whenever you wish. You can reject reason when it doesn't support your cause and embrace it when it does. Will you be my attorney when I go into court and plead that I didn't steal anything because stealing is a concept based upon evidence and no one can prove that anything that ever happened is true because we don't know the mind of God? There is no where to go from here. Other than, if you believe God will heal your son from diabetes and He doesn't and the child dies, you didn't conform to the laws of reality. Happens every day.

God is “beyond logic” in the precise sense that He is the Source and Standard of logic.

Then God is the source of the very means against Him. Funny, because you are at the point of the founding fathers in their understanding of God.

Reason, the only oracle of man. Reason was considered the ultimate gift from God.

How far we have come.

I must stop for now, LogicWings.

But it is late for me too. And I have more too say, But I will relent. Until tomorrow.

Did you have something to say? If i quoted the Upanishad, would it mean anything to you? It is older than your bible. And makes more sense

I get so tired of going over this with you over and over--specific morals are not built in. The sentimental prediliction for morals built into humans can be easily accounted for by evolutionary forces, quite similar to those that produced familial love, as tribal altruism, which is common in large social mammals, and has obvious acute survival value for our DNA.

Well, the problem I have with that explanation is that conscience does not seem to me to be anything like a sentiment. The bonding between mother and child has no doubt some physical support. However conscience is entirely a thought process. It also seems to get 'turned on' and off even by the same individuals at different times. Does not seem to me that if it was a material imperative that it could be done this way.

Did you have something to say?

Yes. Howls of protest over appeals to self-interest are not consistent with Christian Scripture.

Don, you are yapping about things about which you are ignorant. Let it go while you are not too far behind.

I've heard that argument before: "Shut up! he said in refutation.". Burying his head under a pillow.

Howdy again, LogicWings! Thanks for your last. You wrote:

According to the world view you adhere to I am either 'saved' or I am 'corrupt.' There is no middle ground. My humour is often lost on others. This was a self deprecating joke that conforms to your beliefs. I must be this 'corrupt old logician' if I don't believe as you do. There is no other possibility allowed.

LW, I got the joke without you having to explain it to me. As to my “worldview”: What worldview, exactly, do you attribute to me? What, exactly, are these beliefs you attribute to me?

Skipping over some “mushy stuff” [:^)], you -- an apparent devotee of meditation and contemplation -- next observe:

There is insight, and then, there is insight. There is your insight that it is 'out there' and then there is the Zen insight that there is no 'out there.' Which insight do I believe? You cannot give any evidence of an 'out there' but I have only evidence of a 'here-now.' No matter where you go, you are here-now. All else is deduction, and subsequent, induction. Give me evidence, other than insight which can be contradicted by other insight, that there is an 'out there.'

IMHO, LW, you here set up a false dichotomy between my “out there” and your “here now.” There’s not an “either/or” choice to be made between them. My argument maintains that both are "normal" modes of human cognitive experience. Taking a hint from Plato, I see these two, not as irreconcilable opposites, but as two tensional “poles” between which human conscious experience normally takes place and unfolds. Man does not live entirely within the time order of the physical universe is the very point to be made.

And I suspect you already know that – and ought to acknowledge it. For, getting back to that “mushy stuff,” you clearly expressed admiration for a certain individual (please just leave me out of this entirely) that you could not possibly admire unless you were capable of a certain “spiritual vision.” For what you admire in this person are quintessentially spiritual qualities; and, absent spiritual vision, you would not have been able to recognize them. (I see them, too.) So there’s hope for you yet, kiddo. ;^)

If you want to get a handle on how to reconcile the “out there” and the “here now,” I highly recommend the following excerpt from my favorite pre-Socratic – Heraclitus – as a theme for your next meditation:

Those who speak with the mind must strengthen themselves with that which is common to all…. For all human laws nourish themselves from the one divine [i.e., the Logos] – which prevails as it will, and suffices for all things and more than suffices. [Fragment 114]

Although this Logos is eternally valid, yet men are unable to understand it – not only before hearing it, but even after they have heard it for the first time. That is to say, although all things come to pass in accordance with this Logos, men seem to be quite without any experience of it – at least if they are judged in the light of such words and deeds as I am here setting forth. My own method is to distinguish each thing according to its nature, and to specify how it behaves; other men, on the contrary, are as forgetful and heedless in their waking moments of what is going on around and within them as they are during sleep. [Fragment 1]

At other points, Heraclitus helpfully adds: “The invisible harmony is better than the visible.” [Fragment 54]. “From all is One, and from One is all.” [Fragment 10]. “But though the Logos is common, the many live as if they had a wisdom of their own.” [Fragment 2]

And let’s not overlook this fateful warning: “Character is destiny.”

As for Zen: Arguably, Zen deliberately gets rid of the “out there” simply because it is a system that is designed to rationalize ultimate principles in terms of human reason exclusively.

Marx was right: Ideas have consequences. And men are accountable for them; for only men have the freedom to act on their ideas.

And yes, there is judgment, LogicWings. If you want to “go first” on that topic, please do be my guest. :^)

God bless, bb.