For the discussion of all things philosophical.
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YES YESYES!!!thedoc wrote:It is extremely provincial to assign human experience as the limiting factor to what the Universe can or cannot do.
In all facets, levels, dimensions, etc. There is surely SO MUCH MORE than any human idea or belief can fathom or encompass at any point in our short and limited timeline and perspective, no matter how aware or intelligent or spiritual we think we are.It does matter! What they teach is wrong, and it's a sell out!thedoc wrote:It doesn't matter what churches taught in the past, what matters is what they teach now, and my church teaches that Jesus and God are one being along with the Holy Spirit. Three in One.
Have I missed something? Tell you what; you point me to the passages in which you believe you have said something more substantial. I will then apply whatever comprehension faculties I have and either rip it to pieces, or congratulate you on your cogent and well reasoned argument. Where do I start?Reflex wrote:Then I suggest they take a course in reading comprehension and find the courage within themselves to posit a narrative that informs them about who they are, where they come from and how they should live. Anyone can be a critic; not everyone has the wherewithal to posit such a narrative.uwot wrote:All you are saying is that there is a god and it's rather lovely. Your critics are asking what do you "know" about this god, and how do you know it?
Okay, call me provincial, but I don't think you get my point, which Leo made to me. Void is a label, a term, to signify whatever, wherever, the universe is expanding. And your telling me its not a label, whatever it is. Void is the algebraic X. And by saying its not, is to not only misunderstand X, but to say you know what X is, which you don't. Neither do I. No astrophysicist ever will. Do you see where I'm going? Void is the algebraic X term for the completely unknown. Hardly a provincial thought.thedoc wrote:Why should the Universe be expanding into something, even a void? There is no reason to expect that the Universe will conform to human expectations. The Universe will do as the Universe does and human expectations have no control or determination of it. It is extremely provincial to assign human experience as the limiting factor to what the Universe can or cannot do.Dalek Prime wrote:What's it expanding into then? Void is the best guess. It's not expanding into concrete. Void is not even a vacuum. Vacuum is something; void just is. It's a label, not a thing. So to say there is no void is to say you have determined what a void actually is, beyond the label. And as anything at peak expansion could not gain the momentum to cross over, its impossible to know what void is, beyond a label.thedoc wrote:
It is my understanding that the universe is not expanding into a void, the universe isn't expanding into anything. There is no void, no emptiness, nothing to expand into, it's just expanding.
No, I don't care what you call it, I'm not arguing over the label, I'm simply saying there's nothing to label, the Universe is not expanding into something.Dalek Prime wrote:Okay, call me provincial, but I don't think you get my point, which Leo made to me. Void is a label, a term, to signify whatever, wherever, the universe is expanding. And your telling me its not a label, whatever it is. Void is the algebraic X. And by saying its not, is to not only misunderstand X, but to say you know what X is, which you don't. Neither do I. No astrophysicist ever will. Do you see where I'm going? Void is the algebraic X term for the completely unknown. Hardly a provincial thought.thedoc wrote:Why should the Universe be expanding into something, even a void? There is no reason to expect that the Universe will conform to human expectations. The Universe will do as the Universe does and human expectations have no control or determination of it. It is extremely provincial to assign human experience as the limiting factor to what the Universe can or cannot do.Dalek Prime wrote: What's it expanding into then? Void is the best guess. It's not expanding into concrete. Void is not even a vacuum. Vacuum is something; void just is. It's a label, not a thing. So to say there is no void is to say you have determined what a void actually is, beyond the label. And as anything at peak expansion could not gain the momentum to cross over, its impossible to know what void is, beyond a label.
You're arguing over what to call the term.
Yes: the whole point of this thread. And you can start by taking a course in reading comprehension. (What part of the title don't you understand?)uwot wrote:Have I missed something? ...Where do I start?Reflex wrote:Then I suggest they take a course in reading comprehension and find the courage within themselves to posit a narrative that informs them about who they are, where they come from and how they should live. Anyone can be a critic; not everyone has the wherewithal to posit such a narrative.uwot wrote:All you are saying is that there is a god and it's rather lovely. Your critics are asking what do you "know" about this god, and how do you know it?
Like it or not our species is in an evolving part of the Great Cycle. Of course as a whole we are doing everything possible to prevent it in support of the Great Beast. I know I am cursed out by both blind believers and blind deniers for this opinion but the fact that there are those in the world who understand the human condition far better than I do means that there is a conscious direction within which I can improve my understanding and be capable of living it to a certain degree.It's been suggested that the quantum level of existence appears chaotic because it is the transitional phase between one level of order and a deeper order. The world is in such a transitional phase. As a species, we can either grab hold of the reins or let it run roughshod over us; either way, a new world order is upon us. It's impossible to predict how things will play out in the end, but assuming we don't destroy ourselves first, I do have some ideas. In any event, I consider myself blessed to have the vantage point I do in this age of transition even though I have to constantly remind myself that “may you live in interesting times” is an ancient Chinese curse, not a blessing. I can never let myself forget my higher purpose.
GIGO.Reflex wrote:Religion is not about God, but about us. It's about personal wholeness and social coherence — that is, it's about developing healthy and robust personalities while at the same time constructing harmonious and cooperative social groups by constructing and maintaining shared worldviews composed of cosmological and moral elements that tell us who we are,where we come from and how we should live. Religion, in spite variegated and often contentious nature, gives us an orientation towards an ideal that is universally and exclusively human. And in spite of its sordid history, there is plenty of evidence to the point that there has never been a coherent human culture without a religious tradition.
Two things I've learned:
1) The power of any idea lies, not in its certainty or truth, but rather in the vividness of its human appeal and
2) it is what one believes rather than what one knows that determines conduct and dominates personal performances. Purely factual knowledge exerts very little influence upon the average person unless it becomes emotionally activated.
My current beliefs are very different than what I grew up with and continue to evolve because my desire for a comprehensive understanding of Ultimate Reality — of what must be in order for what is to be as it is — is more fundamental than my belief that God IS. Still, I would be foolish to claim that my beliefs are not conditioned by my personal history, culture, natural inclinations and what have you. In the end, however, God is what I want God to be.
Now, although it's just a blip on the radar screen of historical theism, virtually every discussion with respect to the reality of God that I've seen is in regards to what some philosophers of religion call “theistic personalism” or “neo-theism.” It is this kind of debate between atheists and theists, more than debate between theistic personalism and classical theism, that prompted me to favor the latter because with it I can have God without being saddled with all the reasoned objections that comes with former.
Because of what classical theism takes God to be, there is something so fundamentally absurd about God's non-existence that questions posed by scientific discoveries are superfluous or distracting at best, and circular at worst (as science cannot explain the lawful order it presupposes in order to explain things) are meaningless. Neither does it does much matter whether religious experiences are just effects of temporal lobe seizures, or even whether an all-powerful, all-good demiurge of the sort called theistic personalism calls 'God' should prevent more evil than is in fact prevented. And whether talking about the Big Bang as a singular event, an infinite number of universes, something from “nothing,” “branes” or whatever, there is always and inevitably the premise of a self-existing and indeterminate quantum field. There is no way of getting around it, and notwithstanding the aversion to calling this field a “first cause” because of its obvious theistic connotation, that's exactly what it is. It can even be said that this presumed first cause of science and the God of religion are one and the same; the former being the quantitative aspect of cognition and the latter the qualitative. But whether we call it 'God' or the 'quantum field,' it is "the circle of infinity whose center is everywhere and circumference nowhere."
If all this makes it unacceptably difficult for the proponents of atheism to argue against or offends your sensibilities, that's too bad. If it means to you that I'm not open to alternatives, bear in mind that no self-respecting atheist will posit an argument against something about which he or she knows nothing or without positing a viable alternative. As I said in the beginning, religion is not about God, or even what is factually true, but about formulating a satisfying narrative consisting of cosmological and moral elements that tell me who I am, where I come from and how I should live.
Well, that's that, then.thedoc wrote:No, I don't care what you call it, I'm not arguing over the label, I'm simply saying there's nothing to label, the Universe is not expanding into something.Dalek Prime wrote:Okay, call me provincial, but I don't think you get my point, which Leo made to me. Void is a label, a term, to signify whatever, wherever, the universe is expanding. And your telling me its not a label, whatever it is. Void is the algebraic X. And by saying its not, is to not only misunderstand X, but to say you know what X is, which you don't. Neither do I. No astrophysicist ever will. Do you see where I'm going? Void is the algebraic X term for the completely unknown. Hardly a provincial thought.thedoc wrote:
Why should the Universe be expanding into something, even a void? There is no reason to expect that the Universe will conform to human expectations. The Universe will do as the Universe does and human expectations have no control or determination of it. It is extremely provincial to assign human experience as the limiting factor to what the Universe can or cannot do.
You're arguing over what to call the term.
True enough. What our critics don't understand, what they don't want to understand, is that we're not talking about some new-fangled idea of God taking over the world, but a paradigm shift: a radically different way of seeing the world, our place in it, and how to relate to not just it, but the entire universe at large. Religion, the dedication of one's whole life to a transcendent ideal-image, is destined to increase its influence on the world, not decrease. Whether it will be enough to prevent humankind's self-destruction is not certain, but already it can be seen that the New Atheist movement is beginning to burn itself out. Even atheists are making their voices heard against the New Atheism. (See here.)Nick_A wrote:Reflex wrote:Like it or not our species is in an evolving part of the Great Cycle. Of course as a whole we are doing everything possible to prevent it in support of the Great Beast. I know I am cursed out by both blind believers and blind deniers for this opinion but the fact that there are those in the world who understand the human condition far better than I do means that there is a conscious direction within which I can improve my understanding and be capable of living it to a certain degree.It's been suggested that the quantum level of existence appears chaotic because it is the transitional phase between one level of order and a deeper order. The world is in such a transitional phase. As a species, we can either grab hold of the reins or let it run roughshod over us; either way, a new world order is upon us. It's impossible to predict how things will play out in the end, but assuming we don't destroy ourselves first, I do have some ideas. In any event, I consider myself blessed to have the vantage point I do in this age of transition even though I have to constantly remind myself that “may you live in interesting times” is an ancient Chinese curse, not a blessing. I can never let myself forget my higher purpose.
You don’t have to be a believer to see that religion genuinely offers something to its adherents (often when nothing else is available) and that what it provides is neither inconsequential nor silly.
By contrast, the New Atheists engage with religion purely as a set of ideas, a kind of cosmic rulebook for believers. On that basis, it’s easy to point out inconsistencies or contradictions in the various holy texts and mock the faithful for their gullibility.
But what happens then? You’re left with no explanation for their devotion other than a susceptibility to fraud. To borrow Dawkins’ title, if God is nothing but an intellectual delusion then the billions of believers are, well, deluded; a collection of feeble saps in need of enlightenment from their intellectual superiors.
That’s the basis for the dickishness that so many people now associate from the New Atheism, a movement too often exemplified by privileged know-it-alls telling the poor that they’re idiots.
I never claimed it as a fact, I said it was my understanding based on what scientists have theorized about the universe. And they would be the same scientists who have come up with the theories about the universe.Dalek Prime wrote: Just out of curiosity, which explorer made it past peak expansion and back for you to know this as fact? Just curious, as a dumb provincial. Gonna go drool on my bib, now.
Oh that.Reflex wrote:Yes: the whole point of this thread.uwot wrote:Have I missed something? ...Where do I start?
Uh huh. With you so far.Reflex wrote:Religion is not about God, but about us.
Not according to history. I've said elsewhere that Christianity was cooked up by the Romans in an attempt to win the hearts and minds of Jerusalem. Its spread was achieved by violent pagan warlords who converted and with the support of Rome, destroyed their enemies. So yes, having wiped out the opposition there was in Europe a brief spell of limited religious harmony and cooperation, not that it did much to prevent political turmoil.Reflex wrote:It's about personal wholeness and social coherence — that is, it's about developing healthy and robust personalities while at the same time constructing harmonious and cooperative social groups by constructing and maintaining shared worldviews composed of cosmological and moral elements that tell us who we are,where we come from and how we should live.
Probably because chimpanzees aren't stupid enough to believe in god.Reflex wrote:Religion, in spite variegated and often contentious nature, gives us an orientation towards an ideal that is universally and exclusively human.
Well, given its sordid history, is there any reason to suppose it has had a positive effect?Reflex wrote:And in spite of its sordid history, there is plenty of evidence to the point that there has never been a coherent human culture without a religious tradition.
It is certainly true that humans behave according to belief rather than knowledge, but I think you are over egging it by suggesting that there is anything that appeals to all humans.Reflex wrote:Two things I've learned:
1) The power of any idea lies, not in its certainty or truth, but rather in the vividness of its human appeal and
2) it is what one believes rather than what one knows that determines conduct and dominates personal performances. Purely factual knowledge exerts very little influence upon the average person unless it becomes emotionally activated.
Which is why religion is hopeless at "constructing harmonious and cooperative social groups". The Roman Catholic church struggled along with the threat of violence and eternal damnation, but eventually, along comes Martin Luther who tells the Roman Catholics that they aren't interpreting the book they cooked up in the first place correctly. Since which time Christianity has splintered into more factions than you can shake a stick at. (The shakers being one, come to think of it.) Some of the more self-righteous and annoying were packed off to America, so that there is now a portion of the American people who have an ancestral suspicion of education and a fear of their neighbours. (For the record, I am not anti American; many fine and beautiful people are American and it's not their fault.) Given the freedom mandated by the first amendment to the constitution, American religious nuts continued hacking up Christianity into, for example, Jehovah's witnesses, Seventh day Adventists, Mormons, which are just the ones that spring to mind.Then there are the innumerable small time 'prophets', most of whom witter away harmlessly enough, some on this forum, but occasionally there's a Charles Manson, or a Jim Jones, or a David Koresh.Reflex wrote:My current beliefs are very different than what I grew up with and continue to evolve because my desire for a comprehensive understanding of Ultimate Reality — of what must be in order for what is to be as it is — is more fundamental than my belief that God IS. Still, I would be foolish to claim that my beliefs are not conditioned by my personal history, culture, natural inclinations and what have you. In the end, however, God is what I want God to be.
So you chose your theism specifically because you think it is immune to reasoned objections. That doesn't suggest a "healthy and robust personality".Reflex wrote:Now, although it's just a blip on the radar screen of historical theism, virtually every discussion with respect to the reality of God that I've seen is in regards to what some philosophers of religion call “theistic personalism” or “neo-theism.” It is this kind of debate between atheists and theists, more than debate between theistic personalism and classical theism, that prompted me to favor the latter because with it I can have God without being saddled with all the reasoned objections that comes with former.
Well, if the worst thing is to be circular, shouldn't you try harder to explain the absurdity of god's non-existence that that's "what classical theism takes God to be"?Reflex wrote:Because of what classical theism takes God to be, there is something so fundamentally absurd about God's non-existence that questions posed by scientific discoveries are superfluous or distracting at best, and circular at worst (as science cannot explain the lawful order it presupposes in order to explain things) are meaningless.
We have good evidence that there is a quantum field now, the Casimir effect, for example. What we don't know is whether this field was created by our universe, or whether our universe is 'in' a larger, possibly infinite and eternal quantum field. You might choose to believe the latter, it may be true, but there are ways of getting around it.Reflex wrote:Neither does it does much matter whether religious experiences are just effects of temporal lobe seizures, or even whether an all-powerful, all-good demiurge of the sort called theistic personalism calls 'God' should prevent more evil than is in fact prevented. And whether talking about the Big Bang as a singular event, an infinite number of universes, something from “nothing,” “branes” or whatever, there is always and inevitably the premise of a self-existing and indeterminate quantum field. There is no way of getting around it, and notwithstanding the aversion to calling this field a “first cause” because of its obvious theistic connotation, that's exactly what it is.
Call it what you like. What has it got to do with "personal wholeness and social coherence"?Reflex wrote:It can even be said that this presumed first cause of science and the God of religion are one and the same; the former being the quantitative aspect of cognition and the latter the qualitative. But whether we call it 'God' or the 'quantum field,' it is "the circle of infinity whose center is everywhere and circumference nowhere."
Well, there's this thing called democracy, according to which everyone is subject to the same tyranny of laws that the majority find least disagreeable. It's not perfect, as Brexit and Trump show (Tony Abbot for the Aussies), but at least it is flexible.Reflex wrote:If all this makes it unacceptably difficult for the proponents of atheism to argue against or offends your sensibilities, that's too bad. If it means to you that I'm not open to alternatives, bear in mind that no self-respecting atheist will posit an argument against something about which he or she knows nothing or without positing a viable alternative.
Call it religion, if you will, but if god is irrelevant, you would confuse less people by calling it philosophy.Reflex wrote:As I said in the beginning, religion is not about God, or even what is factually true, but about formulating a satisfying narrative consisting of cosmological and moral elements that tell me who I am, where I come from and how I should live.