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Talbain
Joined: 14 Jan 2007
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 Posted: Sun Dec 06, 2009 6:27 pm |
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bbp, religion is a standard of beliefs, as the scientific method is a system of beliefs.
Also, since no one can observe beauty empirically bbp, does it mean that it too does not exist? Or really anything that deals with man perceiving meaning?
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Dracko
a sapphist fool
Joined: 06 Dec 2006
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| Posted: Sun Dec 06, 2009 6:47 pm |
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| Talbain wrote: |
| the scientific method is a system of beliefs. |
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true doom murderhead
Joined: 17 May 2008
Location: Austria
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| Posted: Sun Dec 06, 2009 7:06 pm |
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| Talbain badly in need of some Karl Popper itt |
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Talbain
Joined: 14 Jan 2007
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| Posted: Sun Dec 06, 2009 7:10 pm |
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standard of beliefs probably would have been better. Semantics aside, I certainly find the scientific method considerably more pragmatic than religious belief, but it ultimately is belief. There is certainly potential for it to be subverted, however unlikely with our current understanding of the world.
bbp, even if you can't agree with my understanding of religion or science, what is the purpose of debating with somebody if you cannot give any possibility for credence to their argumentation? There's not much of a debate occurring if there's no possibility for the opposing party to be right.
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true doom murderhead
Joined: 17 May 2008
Location: Austria
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| Posted: Sun Dec 06, 2009 7:30 pm |
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| CubaLibre wrote: |
| diplo wrote: |
| the thing i find that seemingly pervades the general arguments of hitchens, dillahunty, dawkins, etc. is that truth is equal to literalism (curious, since that seems to place them in a similar area as fundamentalists (either side says: 'realistically' disprove or contradict the story of, for example, genesis and it loses all its worth or 'truth')), which seems to completely rule out the function of truth as metaphor, or at least selectively glosses over the worth of religion as such while allowing it (metaphoric truth) to be elsewhere deemed valid in a novel or movie. |
Again I think you misapprehend or sell short the criticisms of these guys. Hitchens himself is very concerned to point out that eliminating the religious is not the same as eliminating the transcendent. Indeed, he states in no uncertain terms that the novel is the repository of moral philosophy. I don't think any of these people would deny the fundamental power of metaphor. Except maybe Dawkins, he's boring. This point being made, you now have two options as regards religion:
1. The Bible is just another novel.
2. The Bible is more than just a novel.
If 1, then the argument is over; there's nothing to disagree about. In fact, Hitchens says that even in an entirely secular world he would recommend study of the Bible to everyone, for its absolutely brilliant and powerful metaphor. The problem is that as a factual matter most if not all religious people believe 2. That is what separates religion from art. The question then becomes, what is this surplusage that the Bible has that no other book does? And it is always based on some literal, factual truth, from the basic "God exists" all the way down to all the specific theologies of Christianity. Even Adilegian seems to be this way, even though his beliefs are heavily metaphorical and aesthetic; he at least believes in the existence and divinity of a guy named Jesus who lived around 2000 years ago. That's a factual assertion and not a "metaphorical truth" that one can derive from art.
Hitchens has sort of addressed this argument himself when he refers to Socrates. He says that if someone proved Socrates never existed, it wouldn't matter a whit to him. The writings of Plato still exist and the (now fictional) character of Socrates still says the same extremely important things. His appreciation of the Socratic method doesn't depend in any dimension on Socrates' existence as a real person. Now imagine the exercise as applies to Christ and a Christian. You can't. A Christian can't say: it would be totally fine with me if Christ just never existed; the Bible would be just as useful. He would have to concede that something had been lost. That something is a matter of fact, not of metaphor.
Of course, any religious text or authority could be substituted for the Bible in this instance. |
Cuba, what is that surplusage that all religious texts have to set them apart from other fiction? I mean what's the ingredient that they all have in common, that special powder that makes people believe in them? The thing that promotes pure rhetoric to something higher, something spiritual. Do you know?
On another note: I was glad that Hitchens addressed cognitive dissonance in "The Four Horsemen". Was about to smash my tv in when the other participants didn't seem to get how people could "hold contradictory views" and still breathe.
And, BroTip: I downloaded an episode of a Canadian program called "Big Ideas" that had Hitchens in it. He talks about hate speech. Making the case that it shouldn't be illegal. Mentions the holocaust, Islam and, briefly, the shitty right-wing politics of early 2000s Austria. Well worth watching if you haven't already. |
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Dracko
a sapphist fool
Joined: 06 Dec 2006
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| Posted: Sun Dec 06, 2009 7:39 pm |
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| Talbain wrote: |
| I certainly find the scientific method considerably more pragmatic than religious belief, but it ultimately is belief. |
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Talbain
Joined: 14 Jan 2007
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| Posted: Sun Dec 06, 2009 8:00 pm |
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I suppose I see your point bbp, if Karl Popper is correct about his theories on science. God as an entity is not empirically deniable, but that does still leave the question of belief, which I don't think he fully addressed. The world theories which he supports seem to be as questionable as the belief of God, particularly World Two which is constructed on perception and when connected to his idea of World Three which deals with the aesthetic senses, it seems hard to think that he was not a deeply religious man (which may or may not have dealt heavily with his own refutation of beliefs).
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true doom murderhead
Joined: 17 May 2008
Location: Austria
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| Posted: Sun Dec 06, 2009 8:19 pm |
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| Quote: |
| bbp, even if you can't agree with my understanding of religion or science, what is the purpose of debating with somebody if you cannot give any possibility for credence to their argumentation? There's not much of a debate occurring if there's no possibility for the opposing party to be right. |
oh, you can admit to yourself that the opposing party was right, once the debate is over. the point of a debate, while it's ongoing, isn't to vindicate the opposition though.
Or maybe what you're asking is why I don't engage you. That's because I'll read something and if it interests me then I'll respond. If not, then not. Sometimes I read something and think "that's old" because I've had similar debates already. I already know where it's going. Maybe it doesn't seem like the person will make for an interesting enough opponent, for whatever reason. Stuff like that. |
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diplo
Joined: 18 Dec 2006
Location: Brandy Brendo's bungalow
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| Posted: Sun Dec 06, 2009 8:34 pm |
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| CubaLibre wrote: |
| Hitchens himself is very concerned to point out that eliminating the religious is not the same as eliminating the transcendent. |
meant to cover this when i said:
| Quote: |
| while allowing it (metaphoric truth) to be elsewhere deemed valid in a novel or movie |
although i didn't present the acknowledgement as i should have.
i'm familiar with hitchens' statement re: socrates/jesus, and i mostly agree with it. i think, though, that it's possible to recognize that not all of jesus' teachings are dependent upon our belief of his supposed status (and, on a less related note, that socrates would probably be appalled by how hitchens conducts himself in a given dialogue, even though i find a lot of the discussions involving his input valuable), nor, by extension, are all of the bible's teachings dependent upon our belief that the bible is the word of god (a phrase itself that can be interpreted in a few ways).
| CubaLibre wrote: |
| The question then becomes, what is this surplusage that the Bible has that no other book does? |
right, yeah. i don't know. and the problem, if you want to call it that, is that the bible can be taken interpretively, and acknowledged by the interpreters as such (even while there are many who would like to claim that there is an absolute 'correct' reading inherent to the material (ergo, "you're not a 'true christian'")). how do we confront those who have consulted various texts and then come to the bible, or returned to it, for the value they've deemed specific to the bible? do we say, "well, you simply haven't consulted enough information to know what's best"? |
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diplo
Joined: 18 Dec 2006
Location: Brandy Brendo's bungalow
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| Posted: Sun Dec 06, 2009 8:38 pm |
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shit, i sure hope not. |
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Talbain
Joined: 14 Jan 2007
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| Posted: Sun Dec 06, 2009 8:41 pm |
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| | BLUE | BLACK | PURPLE | wrote: |
| Quote: |
| bbp, even if you can't agree with my understanding of religion or science, what is the purpose of debating with somebody if you cannot give any possibility for credence to their argumentation? There's not much of a debate occurring if there's no possibility for the opposing party to be right. |
oh, you can admit to yourself that the opposing party was right, once the debate is over. the point of a debate, while it's ongoing, isn't to vindicate the opposition though.
Or maybe what you're asking is why I don't engage you. That's because I'll read something and if it interests me then I'll respond. If not, then not. Sometimes I read something and think "that's old" because I've had similar debates already. I already know where it's going. Maybe it doesn't seem like the person will make for an interesting enough opponent, for whatever reason. Stuff like that. |
I was actually referring to adilelgian, I just thought that most of what you were saying seemed to be on very absolutist terms. In one of your earlier arguments, you didn't bother to cede that something like religion is defineable.
| Quote: |
| That's a good one. I'm not going to define religion because it can't be done. I'm not aware that anybody has ever defined it in a satisfactory manner. Religion itself deals with supposedly unexplainable and undefineable things, so how could it itself be defineable. |
My question here is two parts.
If it's not defineable, then how can so many other undefineable things in our world be defined? (such as art, beauty)
If you can't define religion, then how can you argue against it (or for it, really)?
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Dracko
a sapphist fool
Joined: 06 Dec 2006
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| Posted: Sun Dec 06, 2009 9:00 pm |
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| Talbain wrote: |
| God as an entity is not empirically deniable |
:|
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Talbain
Joined: 14 Jan 2007
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| Posted: Sun Dec 06, 2009 9:10 pm |
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| Dracko wrote: |
| Talbain wrote: |
| God as an entity is not empirically deniable |
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Ugh, sorry man. God as an entity is empirically deniable. Popper was right about that much.
I've been good at fumbling today. Or maybe just all the time (I want to say lately, but it feels like all the time as of recent).
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evnvnv
hapax legomenon
Joined: 05 Dec 2006
Location: the los angeles
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| Posted: Mon Dec 07, 2009 6:04 am |
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evnvnv wrote:
PS bbp please stop referring to religions as personified individual objects that are capable of "doing" things, it is one of my pet peeves. the equivalent of the way scientists feel about people saying that planets or particles or atoms or what the f ever "want" to behave in certain ways, maybe.
Nope, you're wrong.
Evan, sorry that I have to school you once again (jk, bff): you can refer to religions as whatever you want because religious people will refer to whatever they want as "religion". I define "religious people" as: people who call themselves "religious". There, that one was easy! They don't define what religion is. It's not something that has a method, a defined ruleset or even a hierarchy/power structure/clear authority (because often times "god" is their authority, at other times it's ... "the essence" or whatever madeup stuff). Some religions do include an authority on their teachings. But that authority is not the religion. It's seperate from the religion -- it's "the church" of the religion, for example. "Religion" is different from things like, say, "Government" in that regard because a country is only governed if there is an actual govenment. Religion doesn't necessitate "actual" anything. You could declare your body a temple and start The Religion Of One right now. Who could deny you your claim of being the prophet, messiah and sole member of that religion? That's exactly how Christians, Muslims, etc. operate in the interpretation of their holy scriptures and that's how they form their believes. They don't base any of that on scientific research. The only difference to my example is that they are much more conformist and orientate their believes in relation to what their peers believe.
When you're attacking religion you don't have anything concrete to attack except for the minds of religious people. You can't attack religion itself because it's not even defined. And that's why you have to attack it in the first place; that whole bullshitting approach. That has to go. That has to be brought down.
And you can't play fair against someone who's set on cheating! CONFIRM/DENY
footnote@nedge: what the fuck are you even talking about
P.P.S.: I actually just now came up with a perfect definition of religion. fuuuck |
this is freaking me out, because most of this is just a weird hyper aggressive version of what i probably would have said had you asked me to explain what i meant by my earlier quote.
look, you can generalize and say 'religion is evil,' 'religion has such and such an effect on blah blah blah' or whatever. you may be wrong most of the time, but the sentences will at least make sense. if you say 'religion never makes predictions' it is so vague what you're actually referring to that you might as well have never said it at all.
i know this is not where this conversation is going right now (maybe it should be)--i think everyone in the thread is overlooking the nature of religions as social organizations that influence the behavior of individuals. bbp's problem with adilegian's approach to what they are calling 'religious experience' has almost no relation to what atheists get their underwear in a bunch over, and what has made religion a powerful force in human life.
the association between this kind of social organization and the irrational or supernatural side of religion that 'science' defeats most easily is kind of dishonest, because it does nothing to show that whatever is happening in the name of science--in terms of how it enables people to organize themselves and guide behavior--is any better or more enlightened than organization through religion.
basically, i just think the opposition should be between the government and religion, not science and religion. that conflict makes much more sense historically, and is far more likely to continue to be an issue of great importance in the present and near future. the problem is, if you're an atheist looking at the present world, you're not really going to come up with many things in secular governments (lol) that are really that much better than what has been produced by religious organizations.
in terms of understanding of the natural world, i think science and belief systems must complement each other.
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Adilegian
Rogue Scholar
Joined: 05 Dec 2006
Location: Q*Bert Killscreen Nightmare
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| Posted: Mon Dec 07, 2009 7:42 am |
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Hey, this thread is alive again!
| diplo wrote: |
| based on this observation, i was trying to come up with a premise linking religion and art . . . but, it wasn't exactly working, since -- correct me if i'm wrong -- the ultimate source of art-experience is physically verifiable, whereas the supposed ultimate source of religious-experience isn't. |
What “ultimate source of art-experience” do you mean is “physically verifiable?” The physical verification of an aesthetic experience interests me greatly as it relates to poetry – which becomes the question, “How do you physically verify language?” That point might be relevant later, but for now I’m just curious about how you see an art-experience as physically verifiable.
| diplo wrote: |
| i can read a poem and have "illogical"/"irrational" reactions to it, like crying, and i can use the material, and the metaphoric truths it presents, as a way to apply meaning to my life -- and i can probably do all this while avoiding the critique of, say, matt dillahunty. however, if i were to do the same things with religious text, my actions would suddenly become immoral and absurd, because everything and the possible truths it offers must suddenly be taken from a factual/scientifically testable standpoint. i don't understand what is setting up this divide. can someone explain? or did i answer my own question. |
This is a question that I have as well. My gut response is “Those who think religion is dumb but enjoy art are uncomfortable sharing the bench.” Which basically comes down to intolerance. However rational a view might be justified, privately, there’s no use kidding ourselves that we send our views rationally into the world.
This is interesting! How do you see my arguments as similar to Hume’s?
I’m only familiar with Hume’s treatises against Natural Religion, which I think are fine pieces of work. Philosophically, I consider myself more aligned with latter day Continentals like Heidegger and Derrida – and, to an extent, American Pragmatism.
| negativedge wrote: |
| the rest has been pretty pish |
hey man i made some good points stfu
| bbp wrote: |
| No, no and no. I am talking about empirical observation. No one can "observe" a "religious experience" empirically. One can observe a dude talking garbage (aka speaking in tongues) and twitching on the floor (aka "rapture") but that "religious" part is kind of lost on the observer. If you disagree, name an event. |
It sounds like you’ve got a problem with subjectivity when it involves experiences you don’t understand.
| bbp wrote: |
| I will of course, at this point, mention "the God spot" again. Mr. Mech linked to an article on that. Activity in that brain region can be experienced. It is an experiencable event in that a scientist can stand there and observe his instruments pick it up. That is the definition of experiencable that I was using. |
Okay, I think I’m getting a better idea of your standing, prompted in part by diplo’s use of “literalism.” The position isn’t too different from religious fundamentalism. You drink from a different authority, but the epistemology and patterns of thinking appear to be the same.
| bbp wrote: |
| The scientific method. Straight up, bare bones. The lean, mean, way of looking at the world in this way, that's what I mean. Not the business of manipulating and selling scientific research or whatever you mentioned when you talked about sponsored science. |
You’ve offered a definition of “science” that you clearly don’t apply in your own censoring or screening of what constitutes reliable information.
| bbp wrote: |
| That's a good one. I'm not going to define religion because it can't be done. |
By any standard of critical writing and analysis, this is a cop out. If you can’t define what you’re attacking, then you’re probably arguing mostly from emotion and subjective revulsion. I’m pretty sympathetic toward arguments rooted in emotion and subjective revulsion – I think that a lot of good work can come from those unnamed feelings, in fact – but I don’t respect a passion that finds itself mature in its own infancy.
| bbp wrote: |
| Of course from my point of view, when people call themselves religious then, just as with the onus of proof, it's their turn to define what they mean. |
This is clever but disingenuous. Your presence in this thread has been devoted to attacking something that you have called “religion,” and you’ve been far more faithful in attacking what you call “religion” than I have been in defending what I call “religion.”
Your arguments are under scrutiny here, and deflecting attention away from an insufficiency at their very core will not justify them.
| bbp wrote: |
| Defining things is what science does and religion is thorougly unscientific. |
This very instance of definition proceeds neither from science nor religion but, instead, assertion.
| bbp wrote: |
| About the rest of your post: Once it gets personal the debate is probably soon over. |
LOL
Judging from the tone and content of your writing, you lack the barest threads of respect for anything outside your own experience. You’re living in a glass house, BBP – especially when your arguments are tenuous precisely because they rely on the force of assertion that you decry as the sole province of “religion.”
If your posts in this thread represent your critical thinking skills, you need better instruction, practice, and self-reflection. You might brush this off as an attack that’s the result of having been backed into the corner by the power of science, but, really, it’s more weariness debating with someone who has one idea about a complex web of topics. You’re arguing on auto-pilot.
I’m willing to tolerate disrespect to a point, but we should be honest and recognize that not much good will come from rigid self-righteousness. Earn your place.
| CubaLibre wrote: |
| Even Adilegian seems to be this way, even though his beliefs are heavily metaphorical and aesthetic; he at least believes in the existence and divinity of a guy named Jesus who lived around 2000 years ago. That's a factual assertion and not a "metaphorical truth" that one can derive from art. |
I feel that I’ve responded to this at some point previously, but, after double-checking, I realize that I haven’t! I must have written something on the point but deleted it from the MS Word file before posting.
Yes, it’s a factual assertion – but not in the same sense that the statement “calcium contributes to healthy bones” is a factual assertion. The latter is a factual statement that places claims upon both of us. You and I both have bones, so the statement’s claims require each of us to orient ourselves toward the claimed information and, afterwards, understand that the statement factually describes each other.
Claiming that Jesus Christ was the son of God is a different sort of “factual assertion.” Because I grant that claim the importance of a fact, I will mentally and personally mature differently from someone who does not allow the claim the importance of a fact. I will also make different decisions based upon the sense of myself and my world. I will act and choose in ways that I find follow from granting that claim the importance of a fact.
You and I will not reliably face polar consequences according to whether we each accept Christ’s divinity as factual. We will, however, face polar consequences according to whether we live as though calcium contributes to healthy bones.
Honestly, I’m not sold on the existence of “facts.” I think the idea of a fact mistakenly projects onto a given phenomenon the importance that we grant that phenomenon. The concept of “facts” arises mostly out of mutual agreement both in word and in action – “reality” is so very little more than a social pact of agreement. I respect the importance that we place upon certain ideas much more than I respect some innate quality of factuality.
So! I guess what I’m saying is this: I agree that saying “Jesus Christ is the son of God” is a factual claim, but I think we might have different ideas about what facts are.
I’m going to bed!
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true doom murderhead
Joined: 17 May 2008
Location: Austria
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| Posted: Mon Dec 07, 2009 10:08 am |
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| Evan wrote: |
| if you say 'religion never makes predictions' it is so vague what you're actually referring to that you might as well have never said it at all. |
Nope. There have been times when religious people have made predictions about events -- Jesus' second coming, for example -- and they made those prediction based on their religious texts or on supposed inspiration by their religious authority (god), and those predictions -- first of all -- don't even qualify as predictions if you have any rational standards at all, and second, were never even close to being right. Religion can't make predictions. What's your problem with that statement? What's vague? The word "religion"? I talked about that already.
We're talking about religion vs. science here because religion does claim things that belong to science. Say, the pope saying that condoms don't prevent aids but actually promote it. Make it spread even faster because people will be more likely to have casual sex and thus more accidents will happen and aids will spread. This shit is serious, you know? So yeah, scientists hear that and go "WHAT!?" and then they put their thick glasses on, consult their charts and figure out that, hey, the pope's talking out of his ass. He's wrong. Give people access to condoms and aids infections will go down. But I guess all research on that is sponsored by the condom industry, so we'll never know and have absolutely no means to look into the matter and ever find out, so we must rely on god
| Evan wrote: |
| basically, i just think the opposition should be between the government and religion, not science and religion. that conflict makes much more sense historically, and is far more likely to continue to be an issue of great importance in the present and near future. |
No, the opposition should always be between all three of them. Government has to become more scientific, science has to be better governed as it gets bigger and bigger. Healthy competition between (and within) all three is best.
| Evan wrote: |
| in terms of understanding of the natural world, i think science and belief systems must complement each other. |
In praxis they will, of course, because people can't hack it any better. Do you personally think Confucianism or Taoism helped you understand the natural world? How so?
| Evan wrote: |
| i know this is not where this conversation is going right now (maybe it should be)--i think everyone in the thread is overlooking the nature of religions as social organizations that influence the behavior of individuals |
yeah, overlooking it on purpose, to stay focused on making the claim that thinking scientifically is superior to thinking supernaturally. If we're going to take this down to the social level though, you'll be surprised at how the arguments will change.
| Adilegian wrote: |
| Honestly, I’m not sold on the existence of “facts.” I think the idea of a fact mistakenly projects onto a given phenomenon the importance that we grant that phenomenon. The concept of “facts” arises mostly out of mutual agreement both in word and in action – “reality” is so very little more than a social pact of agreement. I respect the importance that we place upon certain ideas much more than I respect some innate quality of factuality. |
hey Adi, that's pretty much how I would describe you. From the shudder-worthy first sentence to the common-sensical last one, which I agree with 100%. Difference between us on this is just that I'll use facts to bargain a better "social pact of agreement", while you won't. Scientific research impacts society. Just as religious ideas do/used to do.
| Adilegian wrote: |
| Judging from the tone and content of your writing |
kekeke
yeah, that startled you, didn't it. you see, to the observer it's obvious that you took this more personal than I did. I was subtle (in a flamboyant way) with my personal attacks, you weren't. They are part of a debate, yet I generally don't do obvious stuff like this: "You’re living in a glass house, BBP[...]". See, that's unelegant. You want to get your opponent to do stuff like that. Because even if your statement's true: you let the audience decide that. You just keep on raising your own bar instead of lowering your opponents. You think you're attacking the "basis" of his arguments by saying that they have no basis, he's an un-virtuous man, he's cocky, he's self-righteous, he has no respect for you, he's an IT geek (I'm not, by the way) who just thinks completely different from you, and that's why you don't make any arguments. Well, then you'll just end up looking defensive/passive-aggressive, which kind of implies that you're under attack. If you weren't then you could have just not responded at all.
I respect you as a person -- I've been impressed with you since I started posting here -- and that's why I debate with you. My respectlessness is a rhetoric device, nothing more. You're supposed to just be a playa and not take it personally. I wanted to know what's in your head and how we measure up. And now I know. Now everybody knows, actually, if they want to pass judgement. |
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diplo
Joined: 18 Dec 2006
Location: Brandy Brendo's bungalow
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| Posted: Mon Dec 07, 2009 6:55 pm |
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| Adilegian wrote: |
| diplo wrote: |
| based on this observation, i was trying to come up with a premise linking religion and art . . . but, it wasn't exactly working, since -- correct me if i'm wrong -- the ultimate source of art-experience is physically verifiable, whereas the supposed ultimate source of religious-experience isn't. |
What “ultimate source of art-experience” do you mean is “physically verifiable?” The physical verification of an aesthetic experience interests me greatly as it relates to poetry – which becomes the question, “How do you physically verify language?” That point might be relevant later, but for now I’m just curious about how you see an art-experience as physically verifiable. |
i mean the inciting factor. the art-experience is always dependent upon a physical stimulant. for example, it is impossible to have an art-experience with a painting without the painting, or to have an art-experience with music without the vibrations of the song. but one can have a religious experience without the need of any physical object -- and, i guess what i'm suggesting, by extension, is that even when a physical object is present and a religious experience occurs, the experience may be presumed to be ultimately tied to a higher source. in other words, the religious object, such as a book, is a filter of potentiality for the 'real' thing -- whatever that thing is -- to be subsequently filtered through us. |
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evnvnv
hapax legomenon
Joined: 05 Dec 2006
Location: the los angeles
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| Posted: Mon Dec 07, 2009 7:30 pm |
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bbp you're taking things that are promoted by contemporary religious organizations that conflict with modern science and equating that to the idea of religion as a whole. of course i agree with you that many of the values promoted by the church are out of step with scientific knowledge that we have now. where i disagree with you is the idea that this is somehow an inherent and defining factor of "religion" itself. all of the claims that 'religion' was 'wrong' about from XXX bc until relatively recently are irrelevant, and certainly unrelated to the backwardness of the church today, because "science" was not around to be producing claims to the contrary. if you actually knew anything about religions you would see that religious organizations have done much more for people in history than just cause genocides, build cathedrals, and 'make up' cosmological claims in order to deceive peasants (lol). what i'm talking about is some vague hope that it is possible to bring the organizational tactics of religions--the sense of community, the solidarity, and even some of the ritual aspects--into the modern world.
the pseudo-scientific claims of 'conficianism' and 'taoism' cannot be separated from the eras in which they were promoted. they are also horribly broad and almost meaningless categories. but the contemplation and observation of nature promoted in the ideologies of both contributed to what you would call the 'science' that enabled people to develop technology, agriculture, government, and basically create civilization. ideas about empirical observation of the world are at the heart of both confucian and taoist philosophical texts. if you want to think of either of them as organized groups of people then you would basically look to the success of the chinese empire as evidence of what confucianism 'did'. for taoism it is a little less clear because it is even less definable as a 'world religion' than confucianism--and you are probably incapable of accepting any of the benefits of religious organization on the local level so i won't try to explain it.
personally speaking, i don't know that reading confucian or taoist texts has taught me anything about the scientific facts of the natural world that i couldn't have learned from science textbooks, although what i've learned about ethics and human behavior from them are things that would certainly be impossible to prove in a controlled laboratory environment, or whatever, and somehow they have still been meaningful and helpful to me. uh oh!
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Adilegian
Rogue Scholar
Joined: 05 Dec 2006
Location: Q*Bert Killscreen Nightmare
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| Posted: Tue Dec 08, 2009 12:45 am |
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Trying to spin your previous posts as some kind of psychological experiment/performance is one way of admitting that you have no argument. I’m sure you know plenty of rhetorical tricks, and I’m sure they have helped you appear clever in the past. It’s the argumentative equivalent of the trite narrative trope, “It was all just a dream.” This is not very interesting or original.
I’m sure you’d like to re-author the previous discussion into an elaborate performance , but you’ve already established a pattern of shifting the grounds of discussion whenever you’re out of substance, and there’s no reason to trust that this is any different.
You can’t back up your own ideas. Pretending that you’ve been playing a social game doesn’t camouflage that. There’s no difference between performance and identity.
| diplo wrote: |
| the problem, if you want to call it that, is that the bible can be taken interpretively, and acknowledged by the interpreters as such (even while there are many who would like to claim that there is an absolute 'correct' reading inherent to the material (ergo, "you're not a 'true christian'")). |
I took Old and New Testament Survey courses as an undergrad, and those courses gave the biggest shock to my vestigial fundamentalist attitudes. Biblical language relies upon the same kinds of mnemonic devices as the Homeric epics. In other words, the material was transmitted orally, and ancient Hebrew historians didn’t memorize historical content as a collection of concrete facts. Retelling oral history used formal poetic devices to assist the historians’ memories, and to establish associative relationships between ideas rather than concrete relationships.
So, when the Gospels trace Christ’s lineage through Solomon to David to Noah to Adam, the writers were communicating metaphorically rather than literally. I mean, the Bible’s writers were writing for an audience that shared certain cultural assumptions of communication, so there wasn’t need for them to turn aside to the audience and say, “Hey this is a metaphor!” The entire Bible is a poetic enterprise.
Everyone I know who has academically studied the thing (including me!) admits as much, which makes atheistic attempts to debunk the Bible-as-literal-truth a bit depressing to watch. People only seem to understand Biblical writing as metaphorical when characters within the text give a rare concession to the audience and say, “HEY THIS IS NOT TO BE TAKEN LITERALLY!” Christ actually goes out of his way to say “He who has ears, let him hear and understand what I’m saying,” and I really do think that, had Christ NOT said that, people would think that the Parable of the Good Samaritan was not about treating people with respect and dignity regardless of social stigmas… but, in fact, a moral lesson about Samaritans and only about Samaritans!
| envnv wrote: |
| i think everyone in the thread is overlooking the nature of religions as social organizations that influence the behavior of individuals. |
Religions are precisely this! It’s one of the reasons why I don’t see sense in individualistic, heaven-oriented Christianity. As my former religious mentor has said, “If I were all alone on a desert island without hope of contacting anyone else in the world, why would I believe in God?”
I think that emphasizing a religion’s ability to influence the behavior of its adherents overly ascribes that function to religion, however. Theologically liberal Christians (going all the way back to Reinhold Niebuhr in the late-early 20th century) have long recognized that economic organization holds greater influence over people’s behavior than religion does.
There’s a good quotation by the Agrarian poet and essayist Allen Tate about the relationship between the American South and Christianity: “Introducing religion to the South did not make the South religious; it made religion Southern.” The problems identified with religion exist independently of religion, and I think we err in trying to eliminate those problems by eliminating religion.
| envnv wrote: |
| basically, i just think the opposition should be between the government and religion, not science and religion. |
This is a great insight!
I mean, really. Goddamn! That’s perspective that I didn’t have, and I appreciate it.
So now I’m wondering… do you think that the efforts on behalf of science to discredit or otherwise obsolesce religious belief is more about stripping religion’s political significance – or do you think it’s more purely about principle? I’m sure it’s impossible to wholly strain one motivation from the other, but I’m just interested to know more about what you think on this.
| diplo wrote: |
| i mean the inciting factor. the art-experience is always dependent upon a physical stimulant. for example, it is impossible to have an art-experience with a painting without the painting, or to have an art-experience with music without the vibrations of the song. but one can have a religious experience without the need of any physical object -- and, i guess what i'm suggesting, by extension, is that even when a physical object is present and a religious experience occurs, the experience may be presumed to be ultimately tied to a higher source. in other words, the religious object, such as a book, is a filter of potentiality for the 'real' thing -- whatever that thing is -- to be subsequently filtered through us. |
OK, this makes sense, though I’d suggest one kind of religious experience that does have a concrete point of reference.
If one looks at the history of “religious experiences,” one comes up against the notion that David Hume put to rest: the idea of Natural Religion. Natural Religion was the argument that one could look at the natural world around us and only conclude that God exists because of how fucking great it all is. I agree with Hume’s argument against it: looking at nature is not insta-faith, and the only way that you can see God in nature is if you already believe in God. However, with that said, transcendent experiences set off by experiences with the natural world can be said to have physical stimulants. I’m also tempted to put transcendent experiences ignited by breathing meditation in this category, but I’ll need to think about that a bit more.
| envnv wrote: |
| what i'm talking about is some vague hope that it is possible to bring the organizational tactics of religions--the sense of community, the solidarity, and even some of the ritual aspects--into the modern world. |
I’m concerned that the primary obstacle for the realization of this idea lies in one area of modern industrial science: media technology and consumerism. This is kind of what I meant when I wrote that our economy has more influence upon our behavior than religion does anymore.
| envnv wrote: |
| personally speaking, i don't know that reading confucian or taoist texts has taught me anything about the scientific facts of the natural world that i couldn't have learned from science textbooks, although what i've learned about ethics and human behavior from them are things that would certainly be impossible to prove in a controlled laboratory environment, or whatever, and somehow they have still been meaningful and helpful to me. uh oh! |
I’m reminded of an instance in Taoist writing that parallels the metaphoric usage of genealogy in the Christian Gospels. Contemporary biological and botanical research has well expanded our knowledge of the living world beyond “ten thousand things,” yet we can find value in the Tao Te Ching despite its scientifically false claims that the global gene pool is so limited.
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CubaLibre
the road lawyer
Joined: 02 Mar 2007
Location: Balmer
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| Posted: Tue Dec 08, 2009 5:41 am |
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| | BLUE | BLACK | PURPLE | wrote: |
| Cuba, what is that surplusage that all religious texts have to set them apart from other fiction? I mean what's the ingredient that they all have in common, that special powder that makes people believe in them? The thing that promotes pure rhetoric to something higher, something spiritual. Do you know? |
I don't think it's anything in particular. There have been too many religions with too many wide-ranging tenets to classify them as one particular rhetorical device. What's the common thread of the cult of Zeus, Zoroastrianism, Norse mythology and Scientology? I don't think there is one, other than perhaps that they make claims about death. I guess that might be the only common thread, but then there is of course a mountain of non-religious fiction that makes other claims about death. The only commonality is that they are factual assertions instead of metaphors, unsupported by any empirical observation.
If you're asking why the Bible is a book that's convinced people its factual assertions are true while The Brothers Karamazov isn't, again I don't think there's any particular rhetorical trick that results in the one being religious and not the other. It's an accident of history and tradition working on human wish-thinking.
| Quote: |
| On another note: I was glad that Hitchens addressed cognitive dissonance in "The Four Horsemen". Was about to smash my tv in when the other participants didn't seem to get how people could "hold contradictory views" and still breathe. |
Yeah, he is the only one with a really profound sense of irony and aesthetics, which is why he's the only one I really respect and keep citing to.
| Adilegian wrote: |
| Claiming that Jesus Christ was the son of God is a different sort of “factual assertion.” Because I grant that claim the importance of a fact, I will mentally and personally mature differently from someone who does not allow the claim the importance of a fact. I will also make different decisions based upon the sense of myself and my world. I will act and choose in ways that I find follow from granting that claim the importance of a fact. |
I understand and appreciate this. It doesn't obviate my point, however, which is that it is the factual nature of this assertion that raises your beliefs to the level of the religious, rather than merely the aesthetic or the ethical or the metaphysical. Whether or not you believe that fact applies to me is a matter of your theology.
It also means you have no quarrel with Hitchens (though maybe with Dawkins; he is a dull literalist). See below.
| Quote: |
Honestly, I’m not sold on the existence of “facts.” I think the idea of a fact mistakenly projects onto a given phenomenon the importance that we grant that phenomenon. The concept of “facts” arises mostly out of mutual agreement both in word and in action – “reality” is so very little more than a social pact of agreement. I respect the importance that we place upon certain ideas much more than I respect some innate quality of factuality.
So! I guess what I’m saying is this: I agree that saying “Jesus Christ is the son of God” is a factual claim, but I think we might have different ideas about what facts are. |
I'm completely sympathetic to this point of view. I don't mean to elevate "facts" to some religious (har) consecration, only to work within commonsense definitions of objectivity. As it happens, I'm of the opinion that metaphysically everything is subjective - a radical subjectivity - but that the form of human consciousness demands that we delimit between objective and subjective factors for all moral purposes.
One result is that I won't assault you with stupid hypotheticals like, "But if you went back in time in a time machine and saw that Jesus really didn't exist, that would either disprove the fact of his existence or prove it, and that's really the only kind of fact there is," etc.
| Adilegian wrote: |
| envnv wrote: |
| basically, i just think the opposition should be between the government and religion, not science and religion. |
This is a great insight!
I mean, really. Goddamn! That’s perspective that I didn’t have, and I appreciate it.
So now I’m wondering… do you think that the efforts on behalf of science to discredit or otherwise obsolesce religious belief is more about stripping religion’s political significance – or do you think it’s more purely about principle? I’m sure it’s impossible to wholly strain one motivation from the other, but I’m just interested to know more about what you think on this. |
This is the real point. You'll notice that Hitchens is not a scientist, but a political commentator, while the other three "Horsemen" (ugh) are scientists. That's why his critiques are so much more urgent and cogent. His project is not to "disprove" religion with some kind of hard-nosed rationality. His argument is more thus: religion facially perpetrates far, far more evil in the world than good; there's no persuasive evidence at all to believe it is true; therefore we need not, and should not, tolerate the bad deal we get on its evil-to-good perpetration ratio. In other words, it is a critique of religion in government (i.e., in politics), which uses the scientific point (i.e., religion is factually false) merely as a premise.
Therefore he would have no quarrel with you, Adilegian. Your entire theology is based around the fact that I don't need to agree with any of your religious factual assertions, not just on the basis of general toleration but on the basis of real ethics. You don't even vaguely wish that I was religious but don't particularly care that I'm not, but would actively wish for me not to be religious if it were the most effective environment for my intellectual and moral growth. Therefore your religion has no political content (because it doesn't declare anything about how you expect other people to act) and that's all Hitchens wants to see.
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negativedge
banned
Joined: 04 Dec 2006
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| Posted: Tue Dec 08, 2009 6:05 am |
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| CubaLibre wrote: |
| | BLUE | BLACK | PURPLE | wrote: |
| Cuba, what is that surplusage that all religious texts have to set them apart from other fiction? I mean what's the ingredient that they all have in common, that special powder that makes people believe in them? The thing that promotes pure rhetoric to something higher, something spiritual. Do you know? |
I don't think it's anything in particular.. |
Based On A True Story
(yeah, you eventually came around to that, but I wanted to make the smarmy connection-to-modern-day joke) |
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Mr. Apol
king of zembla
Joined: 04 Dec 2006
Location: a curiously familiar pit
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| Posted: Tue Dec 08, 2009 7:52 am |
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hey man i know all about that place
30 floors of fucking mazes and it's a bitch to get through without magic mapping fuck
shit or at least clairvoyance
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psiga
saudade
Joined: 04 Dec 2006
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| Posted: Tue Dec 08, 2009 11:20 am |
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I'm so reluctant to post since I don't wanna fall back into a forum checkin' habit, but still this thread has been neat and well thought out, and it got me wondering a few things. Having admittedly only gotten a bit through the early and late pages, some of these questions may have been answered already, so please feel free to just tell me that it's in here somewhere.
Adilegian, did you explain why you've gravitated toward Calvinism specifically? Since it has ties to some of the same scriptures that are used in myriad other religions, both current and long past, I wonder why you'd hold to an ideology based on those scriptures specifically. Why not an interpretation of the Judaic Dead Sea Scrolls, pre-Jesus? Why not a variation of Islam that is post-Jesus? For example, Islam reveres Jesus plenty, but just reveres Mohammad more -- and their story may well be ongoing, what with al-Qaeda's leader lately claiming to receive "true dreams" from Allah which would make him a scripture-worthy prophet if it had happened back in the day, and his kind were the winners who wrote the history books later.
Did you speak of Calvin's and your own take(s) on Total Depravity? More specifically, I am curious how you assess the mythologized concept, in light of advances in understanding of biology and neurology which have used modern scientific methods to determine rational, demonstrable explanations for certain behaviors which used to have no other explanation than some vaguely deep rooted depravity.
Your explanation of Sheol was super enlightening to me, by the way; thank you for that. My take on it may be different from yours, in that it sounds to me like a thousands-of-year-old phrasing of what we today say is consciousness being a product of the mind. When we die, we return to neutrality; nothingness in the mind. If our bodies were to be rejuvenated, so too would our individual consciousnesses. (This puts an interesting ball into the court of the transhumanists, but nevermind.)
Now, when you said:
"Through the figure of Christ, God loves everyone regardless of unbelief. Some call this "softcore universalism." My response points to extensive Scriptural evidence that God, as revealed in the person of Jesus Christ, was never, ever an asshole. ^______________^
In fact, Christ was only ever a jerk toward ancient capitalism, when he beat merchants out of the Hebrew Temple for forcing the sale of sacrificial animals to worshippers."
I found it amusing in light of some of the Matthew passages quoting the J man himself:
Think not that I am come to send peace on earth: I came not to send peace, but a sword. For I am come to set a man at variance against his father, and the daughter against her mother, and the daughter in law against her mother in law. And a man's foes, they of his own household.
He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. And he that taketh not his cross, and followeth after me, is not worthy of me.
It can probably be justified, largely because you're already flexible with interpretations of what is direct and what entails implication, what is or isn't metaphor, etc. Just saying that it made me smile.
Keep on truckin', everyone.
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psiga
saudade
Joined: 04 Dec 2006
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| Posted: Tue Dec 08, 2009 12:14 pm |
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Reading bits more of page 2...
Adilegian, when you said "God's punishment for, or judgment of, sinfulness was exhausted with Christ's crucifixion. Only love remains." do you have much to back it up? It'd be neat to toss scripture at the people who like to claim that god is punishing us to this day for gays and whatnot. I mean, this is news to me, that the wrath of god had expired to such a degree.
As for the ten commandments, what's up with the old original commandments, that are all like thou shalt not eat unleavened bread, and thou shalt not eat shrimp?
Ann Lamott's quote, "Sin is its own punishment," is a little wonky to consider, since many generally accepted sins feel pretty darned good and work to the favor of the sinner. Just sayin'.
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| BLUE | BLACK | PURPLE |
true doom murderhead
Joined: 17 May 2008
Location: Austria
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| Posted: Tue Dec 08, 2009 4:02 pm |
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| CubaLibre wrote: |
| | BLUE | BLACK | PURPLE | wrote: |
| Cuba, what is that surplusage that all religious texts have to set them apart from other fiction? I mean what's the ingredient that they all have in common, that special powder that makes people believe in them? The thing that promotes pure rhetoric to something higher, something spiritual. Do you know? |
I don't think it's anything in particular. There have been too many religions with too many wide-ranging tenets to classify them as one particular rhetorical device. What's the common thread of the cult of Zeus, Zoroastrianism, Norse mythology and Scientology? I don't think there is one, other than perhaps that they make claims about death. I guess that might be the only common thread, but then there is of course a mountain of non-religious fiction that makes other claims about death. The only commonality is that they are factual assertions instead of metaphors, unsupported by any empirical observation.
If you're asking why the Bible is a book that's convinced people its factual assertions are true while The Brothers Karamazov isn't, again I don't think there's any particular rhetorical trick that results in the one being religious and not the other. It's an accident of history and tradition working on human wish-thinking. |
Well, if you do think that then I might be able to blow you away. I say that the rhetorical trick that they all use is that they establish a power structure in their narrative that you can be part of.
Try that one on for size!
Scientology tells you about your poison levels or whatever and tells you that you can improve your station by doing X and not doing Y. I guess Zeus will whip your ass with lightning bolts if you offend him, so you'd better not and worship him. Norse mythology is all about going out as a warrior, so you can join the gods in Valhalla after death. Live life as a warrior and Odin will guide your spear. Die of old age and you get nothing. So just throw yourself into battle, you've got nothing to lose -- not even your life! because remember, Valhalla! Buddhism has its hoops for you to jump through as well, the eight spokes on its wheel, that lead you to enlightenment. It tells you precisely what to do to avoid suffering in life. Islam says that everything happens out of god's will so you're firmly part of the religion already, no matter what you do. But of course, so as to not fall victim to HIS wrath you should pray five times a day and good things will come to you -- allah will have mercy. So it's an advantage to be a Muslim. The Dao De Jing is very subtle because most of the time it only implies what it thinks is the best way to live life. It establishes this figure of "the master" that's this really cool and sovereign dude and it makes you want to be like him. It does give direct orders too though. Even if they're sometimes as abstract as "know the black, stick to the white". It tells you what to do to be a master/sage, who's got life all figured out.
A religious text has the balls to tell you what to do. Keep in mind the funny example of Dante's Divine Comedy which was considered pretty seriously by clergy in its day. Right? It outlined his fictionalized journey with utmost sincerity and placed specific men and women -- fictional and real -- that had committed specific acts, in specific locations of hell, purgatory, heaven. So basically it told you how to behave to end up in certain places. And it used popular figures as examples.
So yeah, baby, power structures. If there's one thing I learned from Nietzsche it's to always look for the balance of power in any given situation. It's the true "Chi".
It's been a while since I read it, but I think Brothers Karamazov doesn't make a claim to power, tell the reader what to do and it also doesn't outline the consequences of those actions just like the bible and such documents.
Yes, consequences are important, which reminds me of how when people in RL want to describe a videogame to me they almost always start with "You have to...". Like, "You have to sneak around and infiltrate Shadow Moses Island". Or, "You have to make grog and become a pirate". Videogames inherently have that power structure and it's basically what the game's about. Unlike a novel, which is always about "You have to read". Unless it's a Make Your Own Adventure type thing. A videogame always tells you about your current situation (and that will always differ from (what you thought was) your reality) and then it gives you options. Just like religions. They'll give you a path to success and a path to failure, to put it bluntly. (Videogames and religions.)
The prosecution rests its case. (<-- dunno if that's authentic lingo) Your turn to bust this case wide open, mr. defense lawyer. (<-- that probably is) |
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G.
suffer like I did
Joined: 25 Jan 2007
Location: European cannon
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| Posted: Tue Dec 08, 2009 4:11 pm |
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| Adilegian wrote: |
| So now I’m wondering… do you think that the efforts on behalf of science to discredit or otherwise obsolesce religious belief is more about stripping religion’s political significance – or do you think it’s more purely about principle? I’m sure it’s impossible to wholly strain one motivation from the other, but I’m just interested to know more about what you think on this. |
I think Galileo had other things on his mind than to debunk the Church's grip on the worldview of the masses. Monarchs who had to allow the Church political interventions on the other hand...
| CubaLibre wrote: |
| I don't think it's anything in particular. There have been too many religions with too many wide-ranging tenets to classify them as one particular rhetorical device. What's the common thread of the cult of Zeus, Zoroastrianism, Norse mythology and Scientology? I don't think there is one, other than perhaps that they make claims about death. I guess that might be the only common thread, but then there is of course a mountain of non-religious fiction that makes other claims about death. The only commonality is that they are factual assertions instead of metaphors, unsupported by any empirical observation. |
Answering the question "WHY?". Whether it is Zeus' wrath, the existential duality between Good and Evil, the trickery of Loki or the current state of mankind. Secondary to that is the question of "HOW?", as far as living or conduct goes. 10 Commandments, sacrificial offerings, or reaching Nirvana. Which treads neatly onto the area of politics.
Compare this to science: Answering the question of "HOW?", sifting through the building blocks, dissecting the elements and reconstructing. The "WHY?" doesn't exist here, other than perhaps the sum of the "HOW?". the sum of its parts. Why did an earthquake hit Lisbon in 1755? Because the plate-tectonic forces in the area were at a boiling point.
Science and Religion have vastly different outlooks, one mechanical, the other ethical, on the world and don't mix: There's nothing ethical about moving gears, as is there nothing mechanical about the 10 Commandments. It would be so much easier if either side just stuck to its own business.
| Adilegian wrote: |
| Claiming that Jesus Christ was the son of God is a different sort of “factual assertion.” |
Well, to be fair, you could say that's a tautology! |
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| BLUE | BLACK | PURPLE |
true doom murderhead
Joined: 17 May 2008
Location: Austria
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| Posted: Tue Dec 08, 2009 4:14 pm |
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| Quote: |
| I'm so reluctant to post since I don't wanna fall back into a forum checkin' habit, but still this thread has been neat and well thought out, and it got me wondering a few things. |
kekeke
so what are your favorite topics to discuss again? not that I'm planning to make sure that those are always around and bearing plenty of sticky-sweet fruit
YEAH THAT'S RIGHT, LIKE A FLY, PSIGA, LIKE A FLY |
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G.
suffer like I did
Joined: 25 Jan 2007
Location: European cannon
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| Posted: Tue Dec 08, 2009 4:22 pm |
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| BBP wrote: |
| So yeah, baby, power structures. If there's one thing I learned from Nietzsche it's to always look for the balance of power in any given situation. It's the true "Chi". |
Whoa, *snip*. Nietzsche's major gripe with Religion was the subversion of the strong, or nature, by the weak. The sheep condemning the wolf because he's just following his basic needs of feeding. It wasn't the internal power structure that bothered him, but the way that power structure treated the outside world. The whole irony of mentioning Nietzsche here is that you're basically rejecting one metaphysically based power structure for another. Nietzsche's argument against Religion wasn't a scientific one, but an ethical one.
Interesting note: all this pertains to Western Religion for the most part. Buddhism and Hinduism (not the smallest of religions) pretty much get carte blanche in Nietzsche's books. |
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| BLUE | BLACK | PURPLE |
true doom murderhead
Joined: 17 May 2008
Location: Austria
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| Posted: Tue Dec 08, 2009 4:57 pm |
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| G. wrote: |
| BBP wrote: |
| So yeah, baby, power structures. If there's one thing I learned from Nietzsche it's to always look for the balance of power in any given situation. It's the true "Chi". |
Whoa, *snip*. Nietzsche's major gripe with Religion was the subversion of the strong, or nature, by the weak. The sheep condemning the wolf because he's just following his basic needs of feeding. It wasn't the internal power structure that bothered him, but the way that power structure treated the outside world. The whole irony of mentioning Nietzsche here is that you're basically rejecting one metaphysically based power structure for another. Nietzsche's argument against Religion wasn't a scientific one, but an ethical one.
Interesting note: all this pertains to Western Religion for the most part. Buddhism and Hinduism (not the smallest of religions) pretty much get carte blanche in Nietzsche's books. |
yeah, we're not one and the same person, Nietzsche and me. reading nietzsche made me aware of that power structure.
that with the "chi" was a joke.
I'm not adapting any ethics from nietzsche. also not his qualms with whatever religion.
about the subversion of the strong by the weak I'd say that -- first of all, strong and weak are unspecific and need context; different environments, different strengths and weaknesses -- religion, especially Christianity, actually does a pretty good job of keeping the weak weak and the strong strong. basically the dude that doesn't have a problem with submitting to "the LORD" will do so and the man that wants to be a lord himself just looks at the bible and sees a pretty great guide. that's probably what Mohammad did. didn't turn out too bad for him.
oh yeah, and napoleon of course, who took a liking to the Quran and wanted to publish his own, edited version that served his needs. and then of course there was hitler who used christianity AND nietzsche to his advantage, in a flash of evil brilliance. all sorts of stuff happening. or yeah, just think about false prophets within religions. tele evangelists that damn well know they're lying. they make their money. the ability to lie is high level, it's a strength. so, religions do get the sheep all together but it's not like they hold any sort of power on their own. they need that wolf in sheep's clothing. then they are led and then they commit all these beastly acts, just like a wolf would.
Last edited by | BLUE | BLACK | PURPLE | on Tue Dec 08, 2009 5:15 pm; edited 2 times in total |
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Isfet
Joined: 05 Dec 2006
Location: A New York
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| Posted: Tue Dec 08, 2009 5:00 pm |
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i think Buddhism and Hinduism typically get carte blanche in most people's books, to be honest.
not exactly on the topic of anything in particular and not an argument that can be made against anyone who reads the bible allegorically, but i've always been somewhat fascinated by how much the Old Testament borrows from ancient Sumerian stories. it explains a few of the more troubling passages that don't seem to jive very well with God's whole m.o.
and the old versions are a lot more entertaining, in a black comedy sort of way. |
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| BLUE | BLACK | PURPLE |
true doom murderhead
Joined: 17 May 2008
Location: Austria
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| Posted: Tue Dec 08, 2009 5:10 pm |
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| G. wrote: |
| Adilegian wrote: |
| Claiming that Jesus Christ was the son of God is a different sort of “factual assertion.” |
Well, to be fair, you could say that's a tautology! |
WHAT!? A religious person falling prey to self-deception? no waii
if a man wants to call the divinity of J.C. "fiction with benefits" THEN THAT'S OKAY |
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kirkjerk
Joined: 08 Dec 2007
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| Posted: Tue Dec 08, 2009 6:34 pm |
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So I kinda missed this thread.
Honestly I've just skimmed it to catch up.
So i just want to interject without nec. getting directly involved with some of the dialogs here, though I welcome feedback/new dialoging.
I recently listened to the audiobook of Karen Armstrong's "The Case for God". Mostly it's a historical cliff notes survey of religious belief over thousands of years, but I think Armstrong had already written THAT book, so she wrote it again along with a bit of an attack on New Atheism at the end. Her conclusion is, roughly, that maybe the postmodernist theologians are doing the best job of "knowing that we don't know" and have the most sensible kind of belief.
Anyway, her major theme seems to be that centuries ago, people had a clearer split of Mythos v. Logos. That the stuff you believe as Mythos was hardly ever expected to be literally, historically, factually true - that a culture could have mutually incompatible creation myths, say, and they didn't get worked up over if it REALLY happened... that say Greeks didn't REALLY believe Zeus was hanging around and changing into swans and all that jazz.
She then goes on to say that during the enlightement, a mythos/logos merging happened, that there was so much science didn't quite know, it was useful and scientifically, logos-y correct to assume that "god is doing that" (for example, she thinks that Newton doesn't really believe in a watchmaker, but in a god who is ACTIVELY moving the planets, albeit in a way perfectly described by mathematical formulas) and that was a fatal mistake- as science started to explain things on its own, that took away from god, and then that's how we end up with fundamentalists who are so dedicated in preserving their Mythos being backed by Logos that they throw science out the window.
But anyway, I'm not sure how much I believe that previous cultures were ok with their Mythos not being historically true. I mean, I'm sure some deeper thinkers were fine with that mythos/logos split, but for the hoi polloi it sounds a bit sophisticated, in the sophistry sense.
Anyway, yeah, I think fundamentalists and fundamentalist zeal is the problem, and that can be in both religious and atheistic forms.
Like Vonnegut said in Cat's Cradle,
Live by the foma ("lies" / "harmless untruths") that make you brave and kind and healthy and happy |
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CubaLibre
the road lawyer
Joined: 02 Mar 2007
Location: Balmer
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| Posted: Tue Dec 08, 2009 7:03 pm |
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| | BLUE | BLACK | PURPLE | wrote: |
| It's been a while since I read it, but I think Brothers Karamazov doesn't make a claim to power, tell the reader what to do and it also doesn't outline the consequences of those actions just like the bible and such documents. |
The only reason novels have any power of moral explication is precisely because they outline the consequences of certain actions in certain contexts. It describes the character of a person, places him in a particular factual setting, and then observes the interaction of setting and character that propels the person to action, and all the consequences of that action. That's precisely why the novel is the true moral (and psychological) laboratory.
You're right that most of them don't explicitly address the reader, instead leaving him to draw his own conclusions via "observation" (of a sort). But most religious texts are replete with parables that serve precisely the same function. Meanwhile, there are tons of books, we'll put them under the general title of "self-help," that directly address the power structures surrounding the reader and how he can manipulate them to his advantage, but most of these books are not recognized as religious. And you can't forget the supernatural content of religious texts, which is mostly absent from these nonreligious self-help texts.
Is that a formula? Moral parables elucidating a self-help scheme of living in a particular supernatural power structure? Maybe.
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Let's Play, starring me. |
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Talbain
Joined: 14 Jan 2007
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| Posted: Tue Dec 08, 2009 10:19 pm |
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Adilegian, I've a question, if it's acceptable (if it's not you can just skip it).
How much of religion to you is procedural? As in, is it just something we do (e.g. drinking a cup of coffee in the morning, religiously)? Not terribly philosophical maybe, but I am interested.
As for why I ask, I've begun (or rather have thought for a long time) to think that pretty much all man does is follow procedure. The Protestant Reformation brought change to the original Catholicism, but I think it was largely just a procedural change rather than a change that we might equate with religion. (These thoughts are mostly an aside that I have to write down because I'm thinking about it) I'm not sure I really buy the idea that anyone was making big changes in thinking until around the 19th century.
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| BLUE | BLACK | PURPLE |
true doom murderhead
Joined: 17 May 2008
Location: Austria
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| Posted: Wed Dec 09, 2009 1:06 am |
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| CubaLibre wrote: |
| | BLUE | BLACK | PURPLE | wrote: |
| It's been a while since I read it, but I think Brothers Karamazov doesn't make a claim to power, tell the reader what to do and it also doesn't outline the consequences of those actions just like the bible and such documents. |
The only reason novels have any power of moral explication is precisely because they outline the consequences of certain actions in certain contexts. It describes the character of a person, places him in a particular factual setting, and then observes the interaction of setting and character that propels the person to action, and all the consequences of that action. That's precisely why the novel is the true moral (and psychological) laboratory.
You're right that most of them don't explicitly address the reader, instead leaving him to draw his own conclusions via "observation" (of a sort). But most religious texts are replete with parables that serve precisely the same function. Meanwhile, there are tons of books, we'll put them under the general title of "self-help," that directly address the power structures surrounding the reader and how he can manipulate them to his advantage, but most of these books are not recognized as religious. And you can't forget the supernatural content of religious texts, which is mostly absent from these nonreligious self-help texts.
Is that a formula? Moral parables elucidating a self-help scheme of living in a particular supernatural power structure? Maybe. |
the consequences that novels outline are not the consequences that YOU, the reader, will encounter. of course I know what you mean. I write fiction myself, I'm familiar with the importance of that aspect. that's precisely why I also know that there's a difference between a novel, where a character only experiences ONE consequence of an action even though he might have considered another path, and a religion, that outlines all of its paths for the reader. a character in a novel might consider option 1 and option 2, but in most cases he can only go for one and the other remains unexplored. the author is forced to make decisions and close off paths to his characters. further, novels don't give the reader the feeling that there are any choices to make, for them. they just watch choices being made for them. things are on rails. the reader is not engaged to find his own place in that power structure because it's not a power structure, it's a narrative. you can't move around in it.
which leads us to the narrator -- the voice, or voices, of the text. there's something to be said about fragmentation. that seems to aid religious texts. they're never clear cut tellings of one story from beginning to end. they don't just follow one protagonist all the time. they tend to have a protagonist but they put the reader in relation to the protagonist, that is their achievement. they tell the reader: Jesus did this for you, what are you going to do about it. Buddha achieved enlightenment, he said you can do it too, what are you going to do.
I thought about things that could break my hypothesis. I didn't think of self-help books. some do incorporate a lot of religious mumbo jumbo. Those could be considered compilations. Bits and pieces of superstitions. They don't become religions for the same reasons that a "Best Of" is not considered an album and why a mixtape is also not an album.
And then there are others that are a bit more original. They may address the situation around you -- say, how the stock market works, how to Be Confident, whatever it may be, all very specific things and not as all-encompassing and all-explaining as religions tend to be. Yet they don't give you a god, a karma system, a tao -- something that clearly runs this world. something that will judge you and either punish or reward you. and it's important that that judgement is "emotional" instead of rational/predictable. Because the most important thing about religion is that at the core of it is always bullshit. It is absolutely essential that it does not work. you can never be sure if you're pleasing god or angering him. you might feel one way or the other at times but you won't for long, because you can't prove it reliably one way or the other. you can never be sure if you're decreasing your karma or not because you can't measure it. you just believe. you can never be sure of the tao because it's unknowable. you can never be sure if you're enlightened now or WHAT. is this nirvana already? I don't know, probably not. that's a power structure, because there's someone in the submissive, searching role and something in the dominant, leading role (even though that something is fictional and nonexistent, which is what helps keep people in the loop for so long). if you tell me, "eat more than you burn and you'll grow fat, burn more than you eat and you'll lose weight", then that's not a power structure. you can theoretically be in control of that. you can influence it predictably. of course whenver people can't quite hack it then weightloss becomes this gigantic, haunting problem. some people don't understand how it works and will keep trying diets for their entire lives. it's the same kind of hook.
and even if we're talking about things you can't influence, like the path of the sun on the horizon, you can at least know it and predict it, which gives you knowledge and puts you in control. puts you at ease at least. you don't have to pray for things that you know will work out just fine.
it's only a power structure in the favor of religion if it's dominating you. you never know what god's gonna throw at you next. your child will die and you'll ask "what the fuck did he do that for?". he dominates you because he's always one step ahead of you, you can never know him, you can never please him. because he simply does not exist, but you insist that he does and you try to find him or understand him or just, really, make your peace with him. at the heart of every religion is something that does not exist the way it's said to. How can you know if you're at one with the Dao? You feel it in your heart? It's funny how cynical Scientology is in this regard, with its "Thetan meter" or whatsitsname.
The problem with self-help books is when they work to some degree.
you can't make a religion out of something that produces predictable results. you can't make science a religion; you're in control of it. it gives you power. religion takes power away from you. it makes you perform its rituals, it tells you what to eat and what not, it tells you where to be at what time of the day on what day of the week and how to pray to god. and all for naught. you never reach a higher level, you never make progress. you never get results. so you keep at it, keep trying. if a self-help book works and you learn to do whatever it said it would teach you then you have no more need for it. you need the bible until the day you die and beyond.
further, the author of a self-help book is on your level. he's eye to eye with you. I don't think any religion was ever started this way. they were all cocky motherfuckers. takes some gall to call yourself a prophet of god and take on all established religion. and the beautiful thing about religion is that there's nothing cockier, nothing flashier, nothing more grandiose. if you claim to be all-powerful, no one's going to believe you. matter of fact they'll probably try to punch you in the face. but if you claim to know somebody who is and he talks only to you and nobody can see him but, hey, whenever lightning strikes?, that's him!, then people fall to their knees and kiss your feet, kiss your ring. I don't think self-help book authors really shoot that high. so they don't reach that high either. creating the seed for something that's as big as Islam or Christianity now isn't something everybody can do. so I guess that's why we don't see self-help books become big religions all the time.
I don't doubt though that there are some people out there that follow certain self-help book authors religiously. follow them like gurus.
as you already implied, the field of "self-help" is not homogeneous.
Other interesting works to consider: Das Kapital. Star Wars. both work religious angles. both all the more successful for it.
| Quote: |
| Moral parables elucidating a self-help scheme of living in a particular supernatural power structure? |
It sounds pretty close. I do think you generally place too much emphasis on the moral parables though. The power structure alone is enough to guide people's actions. You establish how big and powerful god is and they will want to avoid divine punishment from him, on one hand, and will want to command some of that power -- have it work for them -- on the other. Fear will be a strong enough motivator for most people to submit to whatever religion. The moral aspect is more of a bonus for the intellectuals. Yeah, it's probably what draws the more intelligent people in. |
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G.
suffer like I did
Joined: 25 Jan 2007
Location: European cannon
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| Posted: Wed Dec 09, 2009 2:50 am |
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evnvnv
hapax legomenon
Joined: 05 Dec 2006
Location: the los angeles
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| Posted: Wed Dec 09, 2009 3:56 am |
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bbp, what do you think about alcoholics anonymous?
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The text will not live forever. The cup are small |
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diplo
Joined: 18 Dec 2006
Location: Brandy Brendo's bungalow
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| Posted: Wed Dec 09, 2009 5:34 am |
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...? |
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evnvnv
hapax legomenon
Joined: 05 Dec 2006
Location: the los angeles
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| Posted: Wed Dec 09, 2009 7:06 am |
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| adilegian wrote: |
envnv wrote:
basically, i just think the opposition should be between the government and religion, not science and religion.
This is a great insight!
I mean, really. Goddamn! That’s perspective that I didn’t have, and I appreciate it.
So now I’m wondering… do you think that the efforts on behalf of science to discredit or otherwise obsolesce religious belief is more about stripping religion’s political significance – or do you think it’s more purely about principle? I’m sure it’s impossible to wholly strain one motivation from the other, but I’m just interested to know more about what you think on this. |
to be honest, i'm not really sure WHAT to think of it. everything cuba said above seems like a much more intelligent response to this question than I'll be able to say--
but honestly my gut reaction whenever i hear of atheist activists is to associate it with my own teen angst. it's probably unfair--but i was a frustrated atheist in a very, very church-dominated town. so i feel like i can relate to the desire to antagonize people whose weird beliefs are perceived as being oppressive and backwards--i just tend to associate it with being 16, angry, and unclear in what direction to vent that spleen. what i've come to realize is the last thing you want to do is argue with a person about their religion. it seems like these days the people on the "science" side of the debate are acting more and more like cornered fundamentalist christians than thoughtful provocateurs--science is being (offensively) defended with all the fervor and melodrama of those on the 'religion' side.
i think it's bizarre that, as people go to greater lengths to promote or deride evolution (have you been to the giant dinosaur statues in cabazon, ca. lately?) it has become rather common place for politicians to feel the need to appeal to some kind of godly power that gives legitimacy to the US government. i used to hear people trying to explain what deism is, but it seems like that almost never happens anymore. I don't necessarily think there's anything WRONG with living in a country whose leaders assume divine providence is guiding the way, but it seems awfully reactionary to have all of that stuff coming up now, in a country that has (i'm assuming) a greater diversity of religious practices than anywhere in the world.
| Quote: |
envnv wrote:
personally speaking, i don't know that reading confucian or taoist texts has taught me anything about the scientific facts of the natural world that i couldn't have learned from science textbooks, although what i've learned about ethics and human behavior from them are things that would certainly be impossible to prove in a controlled laboratory environment, or whatever, and somehow they have still been meaningful and helpful to me. uh oh!
I’m reminded of an instance in Taoist writing that parallels the metaphoric usage of genealogy in the Christian Gospels. Contemporary biological and botanical research has well expanded our knowledge of the living world beyond “ten thousand things,” yet we can find value in the Tao Te Ching despite its scientifically false claims that the global gene pool is so limited. |
at this point it's pretty common to take '10,000' to just mean 'myriad' any time you see it in an ancient chinese text (unless it's about accounting, or something), but i'm not sure if that has always been the case or if it is just retconning. it does seem pretty central to the message of the tao te ching that 10,000 be interpreted as an unimaginably large number, though.
one interesting and semi-related thing is to look at different concepts of world geography from ancient chinese texts--it was established very early on that the 'middle kingdom' itself was always supposed to be comprised of nine states. but in the really early days there was no concept of anything outside of the middle kingdom, so the whole world was thought to be divided into nine continents. later, as people became aware of other civilizations, the model changed but the 'nine' stayed--people started thinking of the world in nine concentric circular regions with the capital in the middle. the further out you went, the less 'civilized' you would be, etc. as people's worldviews got more and more complex, the concept of world geography got more and more accurate, but somehow they were able to keep the nine in there somewhere--even though eventually there were far more than nine chinese states i believe the term 'nine states' was still used to refer to china.
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The text will not live forever. The cup are small |
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| BLUE | BLACK | PURPLE |
true doom murderhead
Joined: 17 May 2008
Location: Austria
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| Posted: Wed Dec 09, 2009 2:22 pm |
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| evnvnv wrote: |
| bbp, what do you think about alcoholics anonymous? |
i'm not giving up the bottle, okay
I'M HAPPY THIS WAY |
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G.
suffer like I did
Joined: 25 Jan 2007
Location: European cannon
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| Posted: Wed Dec 09, 2009 2:24 pm |
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Yeah, I have no idea what went wrong with BBCode there.
In short:
Condition G: God exists, and conversely ~G: God does not exist
Decision B: Live according to God's tenets, or ~B: Don't live according to those tenets.
(B, ~G), (~B, ~G), (~B, G) would give out no rewards (you could argue that (~B, G) would mean burning in hell though!).
(B, G) is the only true positive in that decision matrix, giving out maximum (infinite) rewards, while minimizing the risks.
It would mean that given the possible decisions and possible conditions, it would be the most profitable decision to go with (B, G).
Which would break with bbp's statement that it's the power structure, not personal decisions.
Granted, this is a decision matrix dealing with uncertainties which goes lopsided once you're sure of your conditions, but affirmation of your beliefs does nothing in this discussion.
| BBP wrote: |
| you can't make a religion out of something that produces predictable results. you can't make science a religion. |
Given how people cling to some perceived axioms or "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic", I think you can. See also: Kuhn's concept of scientific paradigms.
| BBP wrote: |
| (Science) gives you power. religion takes power away from you. |
And science gives power takes power away from those who are uncapable of wielding it. It and its consequence, technology, dictates the same things as religion does. See also Marx's concept of alienation.
| bbp wrote: |
| further, the author of a self-help book is on your level. he's eye to eye with you. |
I used to be just like you. But with the help of this method, I overcame my problems and now you can do the same for only $49! Order now and get a free pen! Oh wait.
I'm honestly puzzled how someone who's fixated on power structures can overlook that. |
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