Concept of God arising in multiple, different cultures

[wynn]

Understanding things on a fundamental level is key to understanding everything else.

Sure, this seems true on the face of it.

But from

Understanding things on a fundamental level is key to understanding everything else.

it does not follow that

Modern Western science offers a way to properly understand things on a fundamental level, and is thus key to understanding everything else.

 

[wynn]

There's volumes of religious ideas all based on the wildly speculative concept of supernaturalism. It's a monumental process of circular thought.

I wish that humankind had been faster at admitting that it's quite obvious that the foundation is just a guess--a guess that looks wilder and wilder to observant onlookers as time passes.

Because what they are based upon, the idea of supernaturalism, is nothing but pure conjecture. It's somewhat like humankind doing all kinds of preparation involving huge amounts of time and resources to get ready for an exodus to Sirius or Betelgeuse to colonize a planet that the prophets of the Cosmos say will be a new pristine and resource-rich Earth. That could appeal to a lot of people in this age of ecological deterioration and imminent standard of living declines. It'd be like Heaven's Gate on a massive scale.

To clarify:

Do you think that religious doctrines are generally wrong, and modern Western science is right?

Or do you maintain that both religion and science are merely guessing?

Except that science may be better, because it tries to prolong human life, so that people could have more time to guess more?

 

[lightgigantic]

Would you not be in danger of throwing baby out with the bath water?
We have to start with some basic assumptions.
If not you never start.
If those basic assumptions prove inadequate then we change them.
If those assumptions hold then good.
Issue arises when assumptions or lack of knowledge can not address an issue yet alternative assumptions can not be validated.
In that case either conclude ignorance or agnosticism.

In my view better to start with assumptions that can't be self-validated but allow understanding relative to those assumptions, than start with assumptions that are self-validating but lack explanatory capability.

What are your self-validating assumptions?

actually the danger is simply taking one thing that works well in one situation (eg empiricism) and extrapolating that to meaning it works well in all situations.

IOW in regards to empiricism we are not talking about the argument of starting somewhere, but rather the argument that it ends there

You talk about changing assumptions when they prove inadequate, but its the staunch refusal of the empiricist to do precisely this that relegates them to an unsatisfactory level of performance

:shrug:

 

[wynn]

That even before there was a church, stories were stolen from multiple sources and presented as truth. That there are passages which contradict other passages within the same book, and phenomena explained incorrectly based on the information we have now. That iconography within various religions are exactly as you'd expect them to be for people of that given time and place; that the rules and laws within various religions are exactly as you'd expect them to be for people of that given time and place. That so many important facts are flat-out wrong, or omitted completely. That religion at its most rudimentary form seems to be nothing more than ancestor idolization and the worship of celestial bodies based on superstitions (which are based on misunderstandings of how the world works), meaning that this alleged "first cause" that all other religion is extrapolated from told its people to pray to the sun and the moon for good harvests, and to kill people for giving them the evil eye and other such nonsense. If you think that's a more plausible explanation than "They made it up," more power to you, but you've got all your work ahead of you in explaining why I should believe it instead of the simpler, better answer.

I suppose you see this conversation as a debate, a competition, a conquest, a matter of winning and losing?

Well, okay, that will get you as far back as the Bible. How do you go from there? How do you maintain this premise when faced with the lineage of the stories within?

Maybe the Bible itself is a product of extrapolation and other similar cognitive processes.

Well, that's not entirely true. You said you thought there was a limit to what could be said of religious doctrine, and "made up" was beyond that limit.

I wouldn't use a term like "made up" for texts like the Constitution either.

But anyway, I think extrapolation could be part of the explanation, but even so, it only takes the variety so far (such as the differences between Jews and Christians, but not Mohawk Indians and Buddhists)

Yes, very much so. But that doesn't explain the whole of religious variety.

If we want to talk about religious variety, we also need to look into the meaning of "religious" and how to apply the qualifier accurately.

Something isn't religious simply because someone calls it "religious."

Part of the problem of trying to explain religious variety is in that things may too readily be considered "religious" that might not actually be religious.

Before we can explain religious variety, we have to be in the clear what "religious" actually means; possibly, simple dictionary definitions may be too vague or too biased.

You seem to have your mind made up.

I'm sure you see it that way.

Maybe here you should remember that we're having a discussion about their legitimacy.

The OP doesn't suggest that.

...is that it? You're just going to throw that out there without any supporting argument?

Uh. Ever noticed the striking resemblance between descriptions of superheroes and God or gods/demigods?

 

[wynn]

If those basic assumptions prove inadequate then we change them.

If they are indeed our basic assumptions, then we can't change them; because they are basic for us.


As already addressed by Quine:

/.../
The totality of our so-called knowledge or beliefs, from the most casual matters of geography and history to the profoundest laws of atomic physics or even of pure mathematics and logic, is a man-made fabric which impinges on experience only along the edges. Or, to change the figure, total science is like a field of force whose boundary conditions are experience. A conflict with experience at the periphery occasions readjustments in the interior of the field. Truth values have to be redistributed over some of our statements. Re-evaluation of some statements entails re-evaluation of others, because of their logical interconnections -- the logical laws being in turn simply certain further statements of the system, certain further elements of the field. Having re-evaluated one statement we must re-evaluate some others, whether they be statements logically connected with the first or whether they be the statements of logical connections themselves. But the total field is so undetermined by its boundary conditions, experience, that there is much latitude of choice as to what statements to re-evaluate in the light of any single contrary experience. No particular experiences are linked with any particular statements in the interior of the field, except indirectly through considerations of equilibrium affecting the field as a whole.
/.../

W. V. O. Quine, Two Dogmas of Empiricism

 

[Write4U]

Sure, but the notion of arriving at "fundamentals" via empiricism is technically as feasible as jumping over your knees ... hence its more about being a crutch for a weak ego than a valid tool for dissecting the essence of reality

W4U,
I really urge you the read David Bohm in depth.

LG,
Unless he has got something to say about how one can empirically approach a term beyond the tacit, there is not much point

I am very optimistic that, over time, "the unanswered question" will be answered. In theism it is called revelation. In science it is called evidence.

In order to break the code of the Transcendent dimension, science must learn to reverse this process of divine alchemy. It must abandon its philosophy of continued dismemberment or scientific reductionism in favor of a cosmological, or whole systems approach. Scientists must learn to embrace the view that material reality is not a collection of separate objects as it appears, but an undivided whole in which all parts merge and unite in one totality. Fortunately there are some theorists who recognize this possibility and are beginning to agree that the next great paradigm shift in science will be a cosmological revolution, because Cosmology, once the mother of all science, embraces the whole of reality and describes its order.
One of the most impressive theories emerging out of scientific cosmology respecting these ancient truths was set forth by the late physicist, David Bohm in his book, Wholeness and the Implicate Order. Using the language of mathematics, Bohm set out to describe the transcendent reality and its graded energetic hierarchy in four basic states or orders of energy beginning with the physical world, which he called the Explicate Order.

'The Explicate Order, weakest of all energy systems, resonates out of and is an expression of an infinitely more powerful order of energy called the Implicate order. It is the precursor of the Explicate, the dreamlike vision or the ideal presentation of that which is to become manifest as a physical object. The Implicate order implies within it all physical universes. However, it resonates from an energy field which is yet greater, the realm of pure potential. It is pure potential because nothing is implied within it; implications form in the implicate order and then express themselves in the explicate order. Bohm goes on to postulate a final state of infinite [zero point] energy which he calls the realm of insight intelligence. The creative process springs from this realm. Energy is generated there, gathers its pure potential, and implies within its eventual expression as the explicate order.' Will Keepin, David Bohm, Noetic Science Journal

When Bohm's resonant fields are arranged in a vibrational hierarchy they represent energy in successive states of manifestation from infinitely subtle to the gross physical reality.

The Zero Point Order which Bohm identified as the realm of insight-intelligence bears an unmistakable resemblance to the supreme spiritual realization of Indian metaphysics known as the Brahman, a perfectly inactive, pure noetic plenum realized as Absolute Being. The Brahman is characterized by a complete fusion of Time and Consciousness which is experienced as Timelessness, or undifferentiated Time. In this state Time-energy vibrates at such an intense rate that it appears static and thereby lacking any element of periodicity or denseness. Hence it cannot produce any form or any division of Consciousness-substance into distinct crystallised objects in Space.

http://www.quantumyoga.org/QuantumBrahman.html

Here is where I see common ground for science and metaphysics. The tool which might provide testable evidence for a proper identification of the properties of the Wholeness. I am confident that the property of Potential will almost surely be an aspect of this wholeness.
It is an identification of a latent excellence which may become reality and applies in all dimensions of existence.

Mankind will just have to learn to harness its Inherent Potential to fashion its own harmonies. "To the symphony of life, no one has the score."

In the end, George Carlin says it best.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7W33HRc1A6c

 

[elte]

On the contrary, the notion of reductionism is nothing but pure conjecture.

IOW if the notion that everything that is real is capable of being empirically validated is not in itself a premise capable of being empirically validated, your immediate problem is negotiating yourself out of the double bind before you start navigating others toward it.

I resist the urge to needlessly take the low road and won't resort to a counter ad hominem as you have used one with your insinuation of blindness or what not, but I will just point it out for the reader that this is a great tendency on your part. I wish the moderators could prevent you from replying to my posts, unless I replied to yours first.

What you are saying is a strawman, I don't say everything could be empirically evaluated but that the process does work for determining things whereas supernaturalism doesn't. It looks likely that with enough advancement, everything could be evaluated by empiricism while on the other hand it also looks highly likely that nothing supernatural can ever be determined to actually exist other than in thoughts. Now, if you are saying that the supernatural is real in that it is a concept resulting from the thought process, I'll grant that. However, you flapping your arms and flying falls into that category similarly because I can think of you doing it.

And that's not true about conjecture because pure conjecture means no evidence at all. There is no physical evidence to support the supernatural whereas there is immense amounts of evidence that natural laws determine the operation of everything.

 

[elte]

To clarify:

Do you think that religious doctrines are generally wrong, and modern Western science is right?

Or do you maintain that both religion and science are merely guessing?

Except that science may be better, because it tries to prolong human life, so that people could have more time to guess more?

I'm not responding to your ad hominen except to refer you to my post to LG, and that first paragraph applies to you as well.

A general note: I know some accept bullying and badgering as usable tactics, but I won't accept them and will point it out when used on me.

 

[Baldeee]

actually the danger is simply taking one thing that works well in one situation (eg empiricism) and extrapolating that to meaning it works well in all situations.

IOW in regards to empiricism we are not talking about the argument of starting somewhere, but rather the argument that it ends there

You talk about changing assumptions when they prove inadequate, but its the staunch refusal of the empiricist to do precisely this that relegates them to an unsatisfactory level of performance

When we start with something that initially works and then doesn't, is it necessary to conclude that it can't work and move to something else, or can we not conclude just that we can't yet get it to work?
We can try other things in the meantime and perhaps one of them will prove satisfactory, even take over as the prime philosophy of our life.

What alternatives do you propose?

 

[Baldeee]

If they are indeed our basic assumptions, then we can't change them; because they are basic for us.

Basic does not mean they are immutable.
They may take some shifting but all foundations can be removed.
Some may not be as open to the possibility as others.
No idea how open I am.
Still learning.
Life experiences could drastically alter my foundations.

 

[C C]

Was Kant a tacit solipsist after all?

Reason was universal to human minds (not just specific Sue or specific Tom). We can place the "blank slate" of an empty computer shell (stripped of internal organization) on a table for several weeks, months, or years -- and see if it acquires or gets filled with "knowledge" or processed information from experience (in addition, "...What experience?"), as the stereotype of the early, anti-rationalist empiricist contended in regard to people. There's no understanding of anything minus at least a rudimentary framework / scheme for accomplishing such being "pre-installed".

Oh, and - "a God"? This is a nonsense phrase.

This or that god, "a god", has been variously outputted by populations back into the ice age (aside from a group's determination that it is "nonsense" being arguably redundant since there are "blasphemous" standards that would judge the term nonsense minus any modifier). A general "god" as opposed to particular ones would defy manifestation as concrete object, anyway, and even some Abrahamic theists seemed to need a daily fix of the latter once JC was "downloaded" as a physical avatar of His more abstract counterpart (images, statues, etc; along with the stories of living and preaching among the Judeans). Granted, one needs to form the tentative concept of what one's particular god is going to entail in the beginning, before filling it with empirical details (analogy-wise, like imagining / selecting "5 apples" for the abstract, symbolic placeholder of "5"; as opposed to potatoes, marbles, vases, etc). And this is more what Kant would have been referring to, the blueprint concept for a god which the Understanding would have dealed in, before the memorized appearances of the Sensibility fleshed it out as "Anthropic Body Elephant Head With Six Arms" or whatever.

Even reknown atheist Richard Dawkins, however, grants the potential for "non-supernatural" god-like entities, so militant segments of the secular set can't subsume all definitions of "gods" under a global-spanning judgement of meaninglessness. (Never mind the possibly quaint implication / suggestion that most words in a dictionary pertaining to fictional matters cannot induce any "meaning" whatsoever in people, like "The Wizard of Oz" correlating to an image of Frank Morgan).

Dawkins: "In what sense, then, would the most advanced SETI aliens not be gods? In what sense would they be superhuman but not supernatural? In a very important sense, which goes to the heart of this book. The crucial difference between gods and god-like extraterrestrials lies not in their properties but in their provenance. Entities that are complex enough to be intelligent are products of an evolutionary process. No matter how god-like they may seem when we encounter them, they didn’t start that way. Science-fiction authors have even suggested -- and I cannot think how to disprove it -- that we live in a computer simulation, set up by some vastly superior civilization. But the simulators themselves would have to come from somewhere. The laws of probability forbid all notions of their spontaneously appearing without simpler antecedents. They probably owe their existence to a, perhaps unfamiliar, version of Darwinian evolution.” --The God Delusion

 

[spidergoat]

...

it does not follow that

Modern Western science offers a way to properly understand things on a fundamental level, and is thus key to understanding everything else.

It's the only way yet discovered to find things out reliably. It discovered the atom and sub-atomic particles. It is well on the way to a unified field theory.

 

[Balerion]

I suppose you see this conversation as a debate, a competition, a conquest, a matter of winning and losing?

No, I see it as an exchange of ideas. But if your ideas don't have any basis or value to them, I have no reason to simply accept your point of view as valid. This is why I ask you to explain your position to me as explicitly as possible, so I can make a judgment one way or the other.

Maybe the Bible itself is a product of extrapolation and other similar cognitive processes.

It doesn't seem to be. In most cases it appears to be a retelling of old morality tales, a confusion of others, or political maneuvering.

I wouldn't use a term like "made up" for texts like the Constitution either.

That's because justice and freedom are real things. The proposition that God created the earth isn't so clear.

If we want to talk about religious variety, we also need to look into the meaning of "religious" and how to apply the qualifier accurately.

Something isn't religious simply because someone calls it "religious."

Part of the problem of trying to explain religious variety is in that things may too readily be considered "religious" that might not actually be religious.

Before we can explain religious variety, we have to be in the clear what "religious" actually means; possibly, simple dictionary definitions may be too vague or too biased.

This really just seems like pedantry or evasion, possibly both. I've used the term to describe supernatural mythologies and superstitions that groups of people have believed. I can't see how operating under a different definition helps anything.

I'm sure you see it that way.

Yeah, because that's how you present yourself.

The OP doesn't suggest that.

That exactly what he suggests. The OP reads:

Is this proof of God

or

proof that God and religion are man-made conceptions?

Uh. Ever noticed the striking resemblance between descriptions of superheroes and God or gods/demigods?

For instance?

 

[wynn]

Reason was universal to human minds (not just specific Sue or specific Tom). We can place the "blank slate" of an empty computer shell (stripped of internal organization) on a table for several weeks, months, or years -- and see if it acquires or gets filled with "knowledge" or processed information from experience (in addition, "...What experience?"), as the stereotype of the early, anti-rationalist empiricist contended in regard to people. There's no understanding of anything minus at least a rudimentary framework / scheme for accomplishing such being "pre-installed".

Do you think that epistemology is something that does not apply on the level of the individual? That Sue can't talk about her epistemology, as there is no such thing as Sue's epistemology?

This or that god, "a god"

I couldn't find the online text from Kant in German that you were referring to.
Can you provide it?
Did Kant write "ein Gott", "Gott" or even "Götze" in the original?
In German, all nouns are written capitalized, so the distinction between "(a) god" and "God" is realized differently than in English (in German, with the appropriate use of the article or without it). I'm sure the translator was aware of that. It's awkward that a published translation would have "a God" in it.

, has been variously outputted by populations back into the ice age (aside from a group's determination that it is "nonsense" being arguably redundant since there are "blasphemous" standards that would judge the term nonsense minus any modifier).

"A God" makes as much sense as "a Barack Obama."

 

[wynn]

I resist the urge to needlessly take the low road and won't resort to a counter ad hominem as you have used one with your insinuation of blindness or what not, but I will just point it out for the reader that this is a great tendency on your part. I wish the moderators could prevent you from replying to my posts, unless I replied to yours first.

What you are saying is a strawman, I don't say everything could be empirically evaluated but that the process does work for determining things whereas supernaturalism doesn't. It looks likely that with enough advancement, everything could be evaluated by empiricism while on the other hand it also looks highly likely that nothing supernatural can ever be determined to actually exist other than in thoughts. Now, if you are saying that the supernatural is real in that it is a concept resulting from the thought process, I'll grant that. However, you flapping your arms and flying falls into that category similarly because I can think of you doing it.

And that's not true about conjecture because pure conjecture means no evidence at all. There is no physical evidence to support the supernatural whereas there is immense amounts of evidence that natural laws determine the operation of everything.

Basic does not mean they are immutable.
They may take some shifting but all foundations can be removed.
Some may not be as open to the possibility as others.
No idea how open I am.
Still learning.
Life experiences could drastically alter my foundations.

Did either of you read Quine's paper that I linked to?

 

[wynn]

What you are saying is a strawman, I don't say everything could be empirically evaluated but that the process does work for determining things whereas supernaturalism doesn't. It looks likely that with enough advancement, everything could be evaluated by empiricism while on the other hand it also looks highly likely that nothing supernatural can ever be determined to actually exist other than in thoughts. Now, if you are saying that the supernatural is real in that it is a concept resulting from the thought process, I'll grant that. However, you flapping your arms and flying falls into that category similarly because I can think of you doing it.

And that's not true about conjecture because pure conjecture means no evidence at all. There is no physical evidence to support the supernatural whereas there is immense amounts of evidence that natural laws determine the operation of everything.

Would you agree that while the empirical process works for empirical things, the supernaturalist process works for supernatural things?

 

[wynn]

I am willing to look if someone can point out something to look at.

I am very optimistic that, over time, "the unanswered question" will be answered. In theism it is called revelation. In science it is called evidence.

Do you see what you're seeing with? Do you see your own eyes?

IOW, do you understand your own apparatus by which you arrive at what you call "evidence"?

Obviously, by "eyes" I don't mean just your eyeballs, or your neural system, but also and esp. the cognitive apparatus that you employ to come to conclusions.

 

[wynn]

It doesn't seem to be. In most cases it appears to be a retelling of old morality tales, a confusion of others, or political maneuvering.

Those are still within the range of extrapolation.

That's because justice and freedom are real things.

So you can empirically measure them and thus evidence they exist?

This really just seems like pedantry or evasion, possibly both. I've used the term to describe supernatural mythologies and superstitions that groups of people have believed. I can't see how operating under a different definition helps anything.

You're just oversimplifying.

Yeah, because that's how you present yourself.

Lol.

You're exemplifying here the problem that several lines of discussion in this thread are concerned with.

Namely, you, along with the other empiricists, posit that things basically are the way you see them; that you are an objective, dispassionate, unbiased observer; that you operate out of direct perception.

I, on the other hand, and I think so does LG, propose that perception is an active, selective, biased, subjective, partly culturally-conditioned process, so that what one actually sees, is one's own perception, not the thing in and of itself. IOW, for the most part, what we usually call perception is actually projection.
Without projection, we couldn't call such a thing that is in this image

an "apple."

That exactly what he suggests. The OP reads:

The OP poses no question to the effect of "Which religion is the right one?"

For instance?

Superheroes, and gods and God tend to be described using one or more qualifiers such as: beautiful, wealthy, strong, influential, smart, attractive, being able to fly, see through walls, hear distant sounds etc.

 

[lightgigantic]

When we start with something that initially works and then doesn't, is it necessary to conclude that it can't work and move to something else, or can we not conclude just that we can't yet get it to work?
We can try other things in the meantime and perhaps one of them will prove satisfactory, even take over as the prime philosophy of our life.

What alternatives do you propose?

Before one can discuss alternatives one has to understand why something doesn't work.

At the moment, several posters are struggling to comprehend how empiricism simply is not capable of in/validating an explicit term.

IOW its not a case of "there is no evidence", but rather a case of "this is totally incapable of dealing with subject".

Its just like one insisting that one can use a tape measure to measure temperature since it does such a brilliant job with distance.

 

[spidergoat]

Before one can discuss alternatives one has to understand why something doesn't work.

At the moment, several posters are struggling to comprehend how empiricism simply is not capable of in/validating an explicit term.

IOW its not a case of "there is no evidence", but rather a case of "this is totally incapable of dealing with subject".

Its just like one insisting that one can use a tape measure to measure temperature since it does such a brilliant job with distance.

But your "subject" is just invented out of thin air! You can't propose a subject that has no identifiable qualities! That's called special pleading.