As Above, So Below - the religion thread (formerly: People of California, beware)

You talkin' to me?
You talkin' to me?

You talkin' to me?

Then who the hell else are you talking... you talking to me?
Well, I'm the only one here.
Who the fuck do you think you're talking to?
Oh yeah?
OK.

As an atheist I am absolutely convinced the world revolves around me ('me' in the sense of 'man').
We ARE the top of the heap. We ARE the alphas.
WE make the rules. WE set the standard. WE create and uncreate.
Not any Santa Claus, Oberon, Toth, Ouranos, God type of creature.

ANd that endows us with an AWESOME responsibility.
If we accept and embrace that rather than blame or thank invisible spirits in the skies, we can do ANYTHING.

Fallible human being as opposed to what?

I've always seen religion partly as a kind of point of reference. God is the "perfect being". Something we aim for but we'll never become, but we try to get as close to that perfection as it can. Faith isn't about the lack of humility, it's about picking a certain assumption.

And also this. Science can also work as something above us. There are things we don't know about "nature". I am not even sure that "nature" can be defined right. Even in music there are "natural" chords, harmonics, etc., and music is one of the most beautiful, but also most artificial concepts in human history. There is human nature, there is natural wildlife. Also, science is seen mostly as what we call "natural sciences" - physics, mathematics, biology, chemistry... It also leads to questions. Like Steven said about the "theory of everything". If I understand the concept well (it's something that Newton was looking for and had to create a new branch of mathematics for), it's about finding one mathematical formula for every little thing that is in the world. Logic is part of mathematics in its most formal sense. We have things like the Fibonacci sequence, which tells us, if i remember well, the amount of leaves on branches, among others.

There of course come emotions and spirituality. Psychology likes its basis in the biological and chemical principles that rule the brain. You feel bad? Check your serotonin levels, something's wrong there. You get psychotic? How's your dopamine?

I am not trying to simplify anything. But isn't the ultimate search for one formula, something like looking for God but with bigger intellectual principle? Don't we have *faith* that it'll give us the answers to what's reality?

Then comes philosophy. Which also deals with logic. And then comes my idea of assumptions - the difference between atheists and theists is the main one, because one group assumes there is no God, the other one assumes there is one. This is where everything starts. The logic that leads to discovery of, I don't know, heliocentric system by Copernicus, was the same that led scholastic philosophers to their views about God's nature. The process of saying there is no God and there is a God and the methodic process leading to a huge scientific discovery is basically the same. The difference is in what we assume. We might laugh at somebody like Thomas Aquinas or St. Anselm of Canterbury, but it's a hugely logical process, an implication one. This leads to major conflicts. If Tom believes that surviving the stroke means that God has a certain mission for him, which basically means that if he survived it it means that he must become a better person than he was (or he thinks he was), then let it be.

Of course, here also comes the danger of religious system. Faith is emotional, not logical, but faith doesn't necessarily mean lack of logic. Faith is a choice of assumption. Of course, it was discovered over 100 years ago ALREADY that assuming the result = the result of the experiment, but still: it's a case of an assumption. You tend to diss religion because of a different assumption and call it illogical crap. The thing is that it can be VERY logical and usually rules of logic aren't defied here. Religious people just assumed there is a God.

There of course lies the difference between moderates and extremists, but that's for another post if you want it, this one overstayed its welcome anyway...

I bet dolphins think they're the pinnacle of "creation" as well. "No one can jump as elegantly out of the water as we can, we're surely the most awesome creatures on this planet!".

Sure, we as humans think we're special because we create art and travel into space. But who says that creating art and traveling into space is the supreme achievement, testifying greatness? We do. Because we value it and are good at it. Awfully circular, when you think about it.

Peter

But you're just referencing formal logic, Pawel, which -as you well know- can also be well employed to prove internal and consistent logic within the abject or the surreal. In that sense faith by itself is not the absence of logic.
But there is no erligion in the world that does NOT use arguments of faith to explain that which can be explained away by faith (in again another internal logical structure).

The Bard said it best: "Though this be madness yet there's method in't"

To standards of logical positivism (or external logic) these fallacies -however logically internally- cannot hold up, of course.

The existence of fallibility doesn't necessitate the existance of infallibility, as your question seem to suggest.




I think there's alot of truth in that. God is a super human, an impossible ideal, that we look up to, and aspire to be. Evidence that he's a figment of our imagination.




But picking a certain assumption, claiming it to be the Truth, is lack of humility. There's no way you can have humility and also believe that your assumptions are Truth.




I agree, "nature" is difficult to define. I personally think everything that exists is natural... which kinda makes the word useless. If God exists, I wouldn't call it supernatural, I'd call it natural.




I disagree. Theists assume a god; atheists doesn't assume a god (which is very different from assuming that there is no god).




No! You're missing one major component here, and that is "evidence". Copernicus didn't assume, he used and argued from evidence. The Ptolemaic system didn't fit with observations, while the Copernican model fit better with the observations, and most importantly, it predicted the movements of the planets.




I think there's a breakdown of logic somewhere if you think you can intuitively grasp the greatest truths of the universe. That said, any belief system can be internally logical, but be entirely devoid of truth. The spider-man comic is logically consistant. Doesn't make it anything other than fantasy though.




No. I dismiss claims that haven't been demonstrated to be true. I'm sticking to the default position, the same way that I'm sticking to the default position that fairies do not exist, until someone can demonstrate it. When that happens, I'll be forced to change my position.




Don't be so humble. It was an interesting post, though I'm not sure I understood all your points.

Peter

How long can you hold your bare arm over an open flame? ....and do tattoos help?

Wiki has a short description, and also links to a translation of Corpernicus' work. Here's a quote from the article:



I haven't read his work in detail yet, but every source I've read, points out his use of prior observations. Galileo did indeed later defend the Copernican view, when his own observations were in line with predictions from Copernicus' view.

That said, it should be obvious that prior observations are needed. Otherwise he might as well have come up with a theory about planets moving in squares. He wanted to explain the bizarre and observable planetary motions, via simpler mathematical models than the various overcomplicated epicycle models in vogue at his time.

Peter

I know what you are getting at. But thinking, making theories and deductions is how we come closer to the truth, whatever that truth is. Like I mentioned in the earlier, I do think there are certain things, deeper and going beyond conventional tangible sources, which shall be beyond our comprehension, which we will not be easily able to find material evidence for. It naturally doesn't mean we give up the quest or start groping in the dark intentionally, but faith is valid as long as it doesn't cross the borders of reason. What's reasonable in cases like this, largely depends on our outlook of life.



Correct me if I'm wrong, but I do think I have stayed well within the limits of humility in my discussion here? I have repeatedly stressed that my philosophy is not the absolute truth, and accept that I could be wrong. But the same applies for the other party too, since neither can claim to know the Ultimate Truth. We are discussing about our beliefs/theories here, not passing them off as fact. And not everyone's faith is based on blind/false belief or emotional bias, as I said earlier too.

Why does that matter?
What other kind of evaluation on this level IS there?
(With of course the added proviso that any kind of objective evaluation would require a point of view that would far exceed our human limited perception...
Like that of ...welll...God. )



Yes?
So?

(See, I don't really care (on a moral, ethical or philosophical level) what our biological roots are. I am interested in where we are today as homo sapiens sapiens, and what that means. Of course I acknowledge our biological make-up and our evolutionary roots, but pardon me if I don't actually take the position and opinion of the humble bacteria into any other consideration)



Not sure what "greatest" means, but we certainly ARE the decision makers.
If only because we're the only ones who CAN make decisions (formed from imagination and reasoning in the abstract).
I'm not sure what the actual point of your point is?

Well, yeah. I mean my core is just agnostic, but I make the assumption of something above me, that's all. That's why I push that theme a lot - assumptions.

assume nothing

He wrote about the history of Joseph Smith, the guy who invented the whole thing. He was raised in a family who believed in magical stuff, and felt they were connected with god because of some odd happenings. Apparently he was a conman from the beginning, and was brought to court for misleading people into believing something with stones (forgot the details, book is back at the library). He was labelled a fraud several times before too.

Anyhow, then he convinced a friend (I think) to write down everything he found on these plates he was supposedly given by an angel. The friend had to write down because Mr Smith was only able read (and improvise).

Very vague stuff. Very unconvincing.
Hitchens restates that religion is man made.


Since I don't have the book here, he may have written "fastest growing in the USA". I don't really know anymore. I just was a bit off when reading that.


What do you do on these missions? I hope you just mean there to volunteer in aiding programs (children?), which is to be applauded (and something I'd want to do once too), and not "converting" to Mormonism.