[quote]DoubleDuce wrote:
Why single out religion as something to try to delete from your belief structure?[/quote]
I never singled out religion as something to delete from my belief structure. I simply took a step back and asked myself what is real, and what is fantasy. I think it’s important to have a realistic view of the universe, where answers are forthcoming at least, and to let that view inform the values that you hold.
According to science, any hypothesis that is impossible to test is worthless, because it can’t be proven wrong. I could hypothesize that there are invisible flying pink unicorns in the sky, and there may actually be invisible flying pink unicorns in the sky, but since it’s impossible to prove a negative, why would I proactively choose to believe in invisible flying pink unicorns? It makes no sense. I would rather believe in things for which there is reliable evidence, and withhold judgment on things for which there is no reliable evidence.
In a sense that is true, but what I can do (indeed, what I must do if your conditions are correct) is to environmentally influence the beliefs of others. Collectively, we provide our own contribution to the environmental influences that people experience in their lives.
I don’t believe in a universal morality, but I do think that there are certain moral principles that the majority agree upon. At best, we can base our morality on the majority opinion, with the caveat that this opinion may evolve (and hopefully improve) over time with progressive social enlightenment, based on what actually contributes to the interest of mankind and on what doesn’t.
[quote]pat wrote:
No, it cannot. Even if scientists knew the exact bio-electro-chemical make up of some one that is feeling love and could replicate it, they cannot make some “love”. It is more than chemistry, electricity and biology.
[/quote]
How exactly did you establish this?
[/quote]
Because love is a metaphysical object. Our physical make allows us to interact with it, but it is not something we can fake or replicate in a petri dish. There is not one feeling or emotion or thought involved with love, it encompasses the spectrum.[/quote]
You know this how?[/quote]
Love is a noun, it is a thing. However the only way we interact with it is via action. We can feel love and express it, but we cannot touch, feel it physically, taste it, hear it or see it. Love has no physical embodiment in it self; we sense it only through emotion and expression. Things that exist, but do not have a physical make up are metaphysical entities.
[quote]pat wrote:
Well you obviously ran into something you could not reconcile. I personally get the feeling your not lost, just really pissed off at church and God.[/quote]
There are quite a few people that reconcile their religious faith with being gay, I just wasn’t one of them. If I still believed there was a God, I could easily find a gay friendly local church. And even if every church in the world decided to embrace gays, I couldn’t in good conscience return to my former belief system.
I’m not pissed off at anyone. To the contrary, I think there are a lot of good things that came along with my religious upbringing. I respect the people of my former religion, and find most of them to be sincere and well meaning.
As I said earlier in this thread, I have no desire to “convert” anyone to my world view. If you find happiness and meaning in whatever God you choose to worship, I think that is great and wish you well, particularly if you return the same sentiment to me.[/quote]
I do wish you well, I have no reason to wish you otherwise.
You do have to admit you are fascinated by religion as you have started at least 2 or 3 of them. Ironically, I have never start one, yet it is a topic I am rather fond of discussing.
[quote]DoubleDuce wrote:
Why single out religion as something to try to delete from your belief structure?[/quote]
I never singled out religion as something to delete from my belief structure. I simply took a step back and asked myself what is real, and what is fantasy. I think it’s important to have a realistic view of the universe, where answers are forthcoming at least, and to let that view inform the values that you hold.
[/quote]
And you decided your inner voice is more real than an external one?
I agree that an un-testable scientific hypotheses is useless, in the scientific since. Fortunately, science doesn’t hold the last word on matters of purpose and meaning. There is no reliable evidence of any “right” or “wrong”. If you truly took the dictates of science that seriously in your quandary, concepts like love should have gone the way of the pink unicorns. Don’t try to hide behind science only when convenient.
[quote]
In a sense that is true, but what I can do (indeed, what I must do if your conditions are correct) is to environmentally influence the beliefs of others. Collectively, we provide our own contribution to the environmental influences that people experience in their lives.
I don’t believe in a universal morality, but I do think that there are certain moral principles that the majority agree upon. At best, we can base our morality on the majority opinion, with the caveat that this opinion may evolve (and hopefully improve) over time with progressive social enlightenment, based on what actually contributes to the interest of mankind and on what doesn’t.[/quote]
You are still assuming that one, your beliefs are more correct than others, and two there is a correct direction for society to morally evolve. If my morals are opposed to yours is it not my duty to influence others toward the direction I consider progress?
On one hand you are stating the only method of comparison is collective agreement. On the other you are stating that you must oppose collective agreement to make morals better. If collective agreement is the standard of comparison, and you are in the moral minority, your morals are the “wrong” ones. You have no right to oppose the moral majority unless there is an authority greater than collective agreement.
[quote]pat wrote:
I do wish you well, I have no reason to wish you otherwise.
You do have to admit you are fascinated by religion as you have started at least 2 or 3 of them. Ironically, I have never start one, yet it is a topic I am rather fond of discussing.[/quote]
You’re one of the “good eggs” as far as I can tell You have your religious beliefs, but don’t across as extremist or judgmental.
I’m interested in religion given my religious background, but more importantly (at the risk of sounding sappy), I’m interested in the quest for truth and morality.
[quote]katzenjammer wrote:
A deity is the object of your worship.
[/quote]
Fair enough. By your broad definition, I’m not an agnostic/atheist. Essentially, you’re saying that anyone that places value on anything is a theist.[/quote]
No again - you seemed really hooked on this “what I value” thing (which, interestingly, is part of my point); certainly I haven’t brought it up.
I’ll say it again: “the most important thing” in your life has very little, if anything, to do with what you say it is; with what you purportedly “value.” You aren’t alone here - we all deceive ourselves in this regard.
I’ll say it again: it is your actions which reveal what you, in fact, worship; take a look at what you actually do year by year, day by day, hour by hour. And if you really believe that your actions reveal a life that is radically informed by charity - in the traditional sense of the term - then I’ll eat my hat and then some.
Most people, when it really comes down to it, worship their own precious selves (this can take various forms - via power or money or whatnot). It’s as if the tendency to worship the self is so deeply grooved in our imperfect humanity that we invariably revert to doing so. It almost cannot be helped.
It’s not a question of whether or not we worship something - that cannot be helped, really. It’s a question of what we worship.
[quote]DoubleDuce wrote:
And you decided your inner voice is more real than an external one?
[/quote]
There’s objective evidence that I have a brain, but there is no objective evidence that there is a supernatural being that communicates to people.
This is true. As we were discussing earlier, morality is a social rather than a scientific question. My point was that, to the extent we have objective knowledge, our morality should be informed by that knowledge. It makes no sense to inform your morality with fantasy.
All I’m doing is choosing to base my beliefs on objective evidence, and choosing not to believe in ideas for which there is no objective evidence. Is that really so controversial? It’s ok to say, “I don’t know” when we really don’t know.
I never said this. Prescriptively, it would be nice if society evolves in such a way as to benefit mankind, but even the general value of “benefiting mankind” is itself a moral judgment.
It’s your duty to determine the facts, and then use what we actually know to inform your morals. I think influencing others is acceptable, to the extent that we are promoting our values, but only if doing so doesn’t restrict the freedoms of others that aren’t hurting people through their own beliefs.
[quote]If collective agreement is the standard of comparison, and you are in the moral minority, your morals are the “wrong” ones. You have no right to oppose the moral majority unless there is an authority greater than collective agreement.
[/quote]
Collective agreement is not a static entity, and if it weren’t constantly challenged and tested, it would never progress toward greater enlightenment. There is no absolute standard of comparison. You can only determine what you believe is in the best interest of mankind, and nudge collective agreement along toward that end.
[quote]forlife wrote:
Reductionism, oversimplification, intolerance for ambiguity, unwillingness to question, and strident criticism of those who disagree with your own beliefs are hallmarks of the fundamentalist mindset, and apply to all inquiries of life rather than just religion.
I think monotheistic religions can be relatively tolerant, with the level of tolerance tending to reflect the tolerance and mercy attributed to the deity being worshiped. I’ve known tolerant Christians who focus on the principle of love as the center of their faith, in contrast to the modern day pharisees that Jesus condemned, who strain at a gnat but swallow a camel.[/quote]
Jesus NEVER preached tolerance the way you understand it - which is, of course, thoroughly interfused with postmodernism/perspectivalism.
Here’s a suggestion for you - why not nix all these buzz words like “tolerance” and “judgemental” and so on, and replace those with either:
[quote]katzenjammer wrote:
I’ll say it again: it is your actions which reveal what you, in fact, worship; take a look at what you actually do year by year, day by day, hour by hour. [/quote]
This is a good point. However, recognizing that you don’t always live true to your values doesn’t imply those values don’t exist. It just means you aren’t perfect in exercising those values in all situations and at all times.
People are complex, and we typically juggle a myriad of values at once (including less flattering values like laziness, selfishness, and greed). The goal is to determine your core values, and to consistently expand the situations where you demonstrate those core values through your actions.
[quote]katzenjammer wrote:
Jesus NEVER preached tolerance the way you understand it - which is, of course, thoroughly interfused with postmodernism/perspectivalism.[/quote]
There are millions of Christians that disagree with you. Of course, it’s impossible to prove who is “right”, but it does illustrate that your particular interpretation of Jesus is not the only one. We do know that Jesus was most critical of the pharisees that were so obsessed with the law and judgment of others, that they missed the principle of love that was the hallmark of everything Jesus taught.
[quote]Here’s a suggestion for you - why not nix all these buzz words like “tolerance” and “judgemental” and so on, and replace those with either:
true, or
false.
Or, are you afraid to use these words? [/quote]
I love the words, but I’m honest about what can reliably be called truth. Many people believe in fantasy, which they label truth, to the point that they are willing to give their lives (or take the lives of others) for it. But devout conviction in a fantasy doesn’t make it any more real.
[quote]forlife wrote:
Question for believers, and for agnostics/atheists:
Have you always seen the universe as you do now, or have your beliefs changed over time?
I have a theory that there are a lot more believers → agnostics/atheists than there are agnostics/atheists → believers.
But maybe I’m overgeneralizing from my own experience. I was a devout Christian for 35 years before becoming an agnostic.[/quote]
What I’ve observed is that religions are the places we put things we cannot (as opposed to do not) understand. Things like why Life exists, or little kids get cancer.
So here is my radical thought for the day: What I’ve observed is that no matter how irreligious people claim to be, there is some part of their life that they make a religion around. Be it the loss of a parent or friend, or some other traumatic event. This is how people deal with things much larger than themselves. As such, religions will I think always be with us and we people will re-invent them as needed.
Is this from some psychological need? Some social need? Hell if I know. I am just being an empiricist…
(Having the sunny disposition I do, I have to comment on one other ramification of this. As technology changes, the net effect is that there is more to be ignorant about. A services-based economy insulates people from their own stupidities very well. I predict that the recent trend we see in hysterical politics, magical thinking and just plain loony-ness is because of my observation about religion. The world will be come less understandable to people and their natural instinct is to try and deal with it in a quasi-religious way. Maybe the history of the 21st century will be largely about renewed religious wars?)
I like to think that with the discovery and advancement of science, and with the availability of knowledge through the internet, people will progressively become more willing to base their beliefs on facts rather than fiction.
However, the temptation of magical thinking will always be with us. It’s human nature to want things to be true, and therefore to selectively gather evidence confirming our desires and quelling our fears, regardless of whether or not they really are true.
[quote]forlife wrote:
I like to think that with the discovery and advancement of science, and with the availability of knowledge through the internet, people will progressively become more willing to base their beliefs on facts rather than fiction.
However, the temptation of magical thinking will always be with us. It’s human nature to want things to be true, and therefore to selectively gather evidence confirming our desires and quelling our fears, regardless of whether or not they really are true.
Wizard’s First Rule:
A higher percentage of Americans believe they have a personal guardian angle than believe in the Theory of Evolution.
[quote]DoubleDuce wrote:
And you decided your inner voice is more real than an external one?
[/quote]
There’s objective evidence that I have a brain, but there is no objective evidence that there is a supernatural being that communicates to people.
[/quote]
A physical brain is not objective evidence of a guiding conscience.
Morality itself is fantasy. There is no objective knowledge basis for moral questions. Period.
Morality has no objective evidence. Love has no objective evidence. This statement is a complete lie. There is absolutely nothing objective about right and wrong. By definition they are purely subjective constructs.
Bingo. Words such as “nice” and “benefit” are purely subjective. If you have not authoritative basis for your beliefs, and you try to spread them to other people, you are no different than a religion.
Acceptable, values, freedoms, hurting, are words you are using that mean different things to different people. Using these words in your argument while maintaining there are no universal standards for them is utter hypocrisy.
It’s like trying to write to someone without agreeing on a universal standard of language. Allow me to right to you without the third party authority of the English language: “asdf asdjkeiomv kjdf wo;sdfjk welkrousal aslfj” Without a standard of spelling, punctuation, definition, and usage, you can write anything you want and have it mean what ever you want. You can only say that my quotation is wrong and nonsensical within the authority of third party.
You attempt to remove third party authority from the argument while maintaining rules and regulations on meaning. It’s a self defeating argument. You cannot do both.
Collective agreement is not a static entity, and if it weren’t constantly challenged and tested, it would never progress toward greater enlightenment. There is no absolute standard of comparison. You can only determine what you believe is in the best interest of mankind, and nudge collective agreement along toward that end.[/quote]
This is total BS. If collective agreement is your measuring stick, you’re wrong. If it isn’t you have no standard by which to judge others as right or wrong. What you and I consider progress and enlightenment are 2 different things. If you are maintaining they are relative, remove them from your argument, because you have removed their definition.
I doubt you and I agree with what is the best interest of mankind, but why do you get to choose that as the standard to begin with? Atheists like Rand (and her followers) don’t even believe in a collective in that sense, only individuals. I fall into this category. I don’t even believe in concepts such as “collective good”. The only events that even occur are on the individual scale. For example, nothing ever happened to the USA and the USA has never conducted a single action. However, individuals that call themselves Americans have had things done to them and the same individuals had done things. Being American is nothing more than an imaginary social construct and as such is capable of nothing, it is imaginary. The USA didn’t fight and die in WWI, individual soldiers did.
The same goes for your use of the word “mankind”. There can be no good or bad for mankind because it’s an imaginary construct. It’s nothing more than a label for individuals.
But, as you have stated, it is my duty to spread my beliefs on the subject, even if they oppose yours, correct?
[quote]DoubleDuce wrote:
A physical brain is not objective evidence of a guiding conscience.
[/quote]
I never said it was. Brains generate thoughts, supernatural beings don’t.
Morality is often informed by one’s view of reality. If you believe there was a historical Jesus that died for your sins, your moral view is informed by that belief.
Again, I agree that morality is entirely subjective. I never said otherwise. I only said that one’s moral view is often informed by one’s view of objective reality.
That would only be true if religion restricted itself to the realm of morality. Unfortunately, that is rarely the case. Most religions make claims about the nature of objective reality as well, and those claims are rarely substantiated by reliable evidence.
[quote]You attempt to remove third party authority from the argument while maintaining rules and regulations on meaning. It’s a self defeating argument. You cannot do both.
[/quote]
I’m not attempting to maintain rules and regulations on meaning. Your moral view is as authentic as mine. I only ask that you use objective facts to inform whatever view you hold, rather than basing your morality on fantasy.
Of course I do. I have my own moral standard as a measuring stick for the moral standards of others. The only objective measurement of the validity of a particular moral standard is the degree to which that standard is informed by actual facts. Beyond that, there is no argument for the superiority of one moral standard over another, aside from that standard being yours.
Rather, it is a label for a quantity of individuals, with the morality determined by whatever positively impacts the greatest quantity. But again, measuring morality by the degree of global impact is itself a moral judgment. There is no objective measure for morality aside, as I’ve said several times, from the commitment to inform one’s morality by whatever objective facts are available, and to forego informing one’s morality by claims for which there is no objective evidence.
[quote]But, as you have stated, it is my duty to spread my beliefs on the subject, even if they oppose yours, correct?
[/quote]
Please list out some of these facts I should be considering relating to moral beliefs. I’m am truly curious.
But even in the sense of using facts to set moral standars, you are setting a subjective requirement on the beliefs of others. Why do moral standards have to be based on fact? Why is my moral standard not as good as yours if I base mine on a magical sky unicorn (I’m thinking of starting this religion), or LSD trips.
It’s interesting that many moral philosophers disagree with you on your use of fact as the ultimate reality. Many derived meaning from meditation, or drugs, or near death experiences, or religious experiences. These don’t fall under the category of factual reality. Are you saying people who derive morality from a sense of karma are wrong? They are entirely ignoring the factual workings of earth.
[quote]DoubleDuce wrote:
Please list out some of these facts I should be considering relating to moral beliefs. I’m am truly curious.[/quote]
Examples of “facts” that inform people’s moral beliefs:
Jesus walked on water, multiplied bread and fish, and turned water into wine
The planet was created by a supernatural being in 6 days
Praying results in physical healing that otherwise wouldn’t occur
People are repeatedly reincarnated after death until they reach a state of perfection
If the beliefs underlying your morality are fallacious, your morality is more likely to be fallacious. Garbage in, garbage out.
Deriving meaning from meditation is fine, as long as that meaning isn’t based on fallacious assumptions about the nature of reality. How much sense does it make for people to forego happiness in this life in the conviction that they will be granted happiness in the next life, if there is no afterlife in reality?
[quote]DoubleDuce wrote:
Please list out some of these facts I should be considering relating to moral beliefs. I’m am truly curious.[/quote]
Examples of “facts” that inform people’s moral beliefs:
Jesus walked on water, multiplied bread and fish, and turned water into wine
The planet was created by a supernatural being in 6 days
Praying results in physical healing that otherwise wouldn’t occur
People are repeatedly reincarnated after death until they reach a state of perfection
[/quote]
Okay, what are some of YOUR facts. (and I don’t think anyone directly basis moral principal on any of those facts)
fallacious as measured by what perspective of reality?
[quote]
Deriving meaning from meditation is fine, as long as that meaning isn’t based on fallacious assumptions about the nature of reality. How much sense does it make for people to forego happiness in this life in the conviction that they will be granted happiness in the next life, if there is no afterlife in reality?[/quote]
I meditate by praying, so I’m wrong? Happiness is a subjective matter. Many people get happiness out of non-factual based mediums like religion. Why should they forgo that happiness and base their beliefs on your factual view?
[quote]DoubleDuce wrote:
Okay, what are some of YOUR facts. (and I don’t think anyone directly basis moral principal on any of those facts)[/quote]
It may be a direct or an indirect correlation. The point is that our world view affects our morality, so it’s wise to ensure our world view reflects objective reality to the extent we are capable of doing so.
You can find a list of my facts in any scientific textbook. Those facts may actually be refined over time, based on the progressive discoveries of science. For the rest, I admit that I simply don’t know the answers, and don’t pretend that I do.
[quote]fallacious as measured by what perspective of reality?
[/quote]
Fallacious as measured by reliable scientific evidence.
There are many people who forego happiness in this life, from the misguided belief that they will be rewarded with happiness in some hypothetical next life. For example, a radical muslim may commit a suicide bombing in the belief that Allah will reward him with 7 women in the next life. Or a gay Christian may choose a life of loneliness in the belief that he will be made straight in the next life. Or a parent my deny her child a blood transfusion in the belief that if it’s God’s will, the child will be healed anyway.
You have your religious beliefs, but don’t across as extremist or judgmental.