Religion Catch All

Off Topic Politics & World Issues
1658

I agree somewhat. I think others have had somewhat similar views about Christianity. I am not sure any have his exact take on it. I think most self proclaimed Christians would say that someone who claims the beliefs Peterson claims is not a Christian.

I wonder your take on this:

@pat I am not well versed in this topic, but I am not sure it is exclusively a freewill argument. I think perhaps it fits within compatibilism because of the “bounded by circumstance” part. I am just engaging in this portion for learning. No need for hard debate as I haven’t ever taken a philosophy course (just an interest). I could be wrong on definitions.

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1659

I watched 2 minutes of the video.

I don’t disagree with the guy so far and I would imagine I would feel the same about the rest of the video.

If a Christian must be someone who believes in the supernatural components of religion then yeah he isn’t one.

I believe and JP too that if you adopt the ethos of Christianity and still live your life as a Christian then it does not matter.

Most Christians probably hold the former view point. Which is why I argue, with growing secularism, they need to adapt and change. Becoming more palatable to the masses. Prove their utility outside of fear mongering. Which is very doable. I think Peterson does an excellent job with this.

1660

Good discussion. I agree with your whole post, just have a question about your last two items.

I see your point here. I can see positives to Christianity as well, and currently some negatives which you seem to suggest should be removed from the religion. Now if that happens (we remove the negative aspects and perhaps the supernatural claims), what benefit would Christianity have that Secular Humanism doesn’t already have? It sounds like you are advocating for over time change Christianity into Secular Humanist Meetups? Maybe that is a mischaracterization? I apologize if so.

1661

I am making a case against determinism, that’s different. That doesn’t make freewill true, it just means determinism isn’t.

If I were to hazard a guess, I would say yes. But I wouldn’t necessarily call it ‘particles’ as in physical particles, I would guess it to be more like bits of information or perhaps energy.

Sure. Thanks to that we have the internal combustion engine, perhaps the greatest invention since the wheel.

Our bodies are made of physical stuff, but using the term mind outside of the idea of ‘brain’, isn’t the stuff of physical interactions necessarily. It’s really unlikely that if you took 2 brains, even of identical make up, that you could fire identical electro-chemical reactions and get the exact same thought or image out of both brains, though they may feel the same way about whatever the electro-chemical reaction produced.

Let’s try an experiment. Think of a chair, everything about it. The way it looks, what it’s made of, whether or not it has a back on it, if it’s cloth of leather, etc. No if I were to take a map of that exact electro-chemical make up of that thought process and dropped it in the brain of say, your brother (if you have one), that technically should have a pretty identical brain. Do you think he would think of a chair? Possibly. However, if you both could draw the image in your head exactly and you perceive it, do you think his drawing would match? I would say almost definitely not, not exactly anyway.
What about the purpose of a chair? Of course, you’re probably thinking of sitting, I am guessing, but I have seen a chair be used as a weapon. I have seen it used as a footstool, a prop, a clothes rack, the one item that is keeping the house from crashing down on you. Where did this idea come that chairs are for sitting? Maybe they are a weapon first.
In other words, the thoughts from your physical matter are not physical in themselves.

1662

Yup. That’s not counting the loony evangelist ones, which I believe are what China is really clamping down on(so are other Asian countries) and they’ve been reduced to cell group meetings at houses of church members.

The loony evangelist church in South Korea that started the pandemic there has over 200,000 members. Just ONE church alone.

1663

I don’t agree with Sam Harris.

Not secular human meetups.

Christianity tells a story about humanity. At least in the West. You lose that story if you argue that morality is intrinsic and logic based. Which I believe is what Harris does and where I think you were going with that. That storey is very important because of what it says about us and our evolution.

The only negative with Christianity is when people fixated on the literality of the text(Obviously you can find more than one FYI thats not the point). So Christianity is not the problem. Its people. Isn’t that always the case haha.

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1664

We could simply assume that a Creator set events in motion that led you to changing your mind while knowing exactly how your mind will change. So one isn’t a “robot” with the brain being a harddrive with some “pre-installed” algorithm, but rather, subject to the illusion of free will through events that have already been set up to happen by one’s Creator.

That would, however, nullify the existence a Devil since even bad decisions are all made due to this Creator…

Like in the show TV show Lucifer. God, I love that show. You should watch it. It’s a comedy/drama and I think it has your kind of sense of humor.

1665

Ok so thats a yes to all three?

Or at least the first two for sure.

Like this:

What is this? Lets assume mind = brain from here on out.

In theory yes it is possibly. If you operate under the condition that the mind is product of its structure.

You just need to rebuild the structure.

Since it is made up of fundamentally small parts. We would just need to have the technology to arrange those parts in that manner.

I don’t really know what your saying though.

Ok thats like saying if I drop the same software into two different computers with different hardware.

Would that software run the same.

Obviously not man. That says nothing to your point. Which honestly I am having a hard time grasping.

They come from the idea that people where tired of standing all the time and wanted somewhere to sit.

Oh yeah weapons first?

I’ve seen a sausage used to beat the shit out of someone. Maybe they were used as weapons first as opposed to a tasty way to preserve food for extended periods of time.

But they are though. I see what you are trying to say. Thoughts are akin to ideas. How can they be physical? Right is that what you mean.

But they are physical.

Neuro surgery. Stimulation of the brain elicits memory recollection in person being operated on.

If your hippocampus gets destroyed your ability to form new memories is destroyed.

Broca/Wernike area destroyed = loss of speech.

Each area of your brain has a specific purpose.

Neurons make hundreds/thousands of synaptic connections with one another allowing probably hundreds of million if not billions of unique patterns of firing.

Each unique pattern serves a function. Wether that is in memory recollection, formation, hormonal regulation, processing sensory stimuli.

It’s all physical.

Honestly. I think its obvious how everything is cause and effect.

I think its harder to argue its not.

Apologies for typos. I am not gonna correct them as I am too lazy to at the moment.

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1666

I guess there is this:

But I don’t see how it is all that effective if we work to reduce the amount of people who take it literally as you say here:

If we remove the supernatural, I just don’t see how Christianity has much merit over other stories or just meetups without stories?

1667

Very few. Honestly sloth is the first to come to mind and I know some very devout Catholics off T-Nation.

A lot of people would identify as Christians and they will share some Facebook religious memes and stuff but don’t really attend church. Not that church attendance is the be all end all but I don’t know anyone who seems really pious that doesn’t attend personally.

When and where I grew up (80’s, 90’s) it would have been far easier to pick the kids who didn’t attend church (we missed maybe two sundays a year) than did. But that some location has incredibly low church attendance numbers now compared to then.

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1668

They could introduce yoga and mindfulness. But, yeah, I agree. Buddhism at least has lots of really fucking complex eastern philosophy so you have ample things to selectively fuck around with and simplify while keeping stuff vague enough for followers to not question them too much and interpret them in their own ways

And you know why they mostly use the Indian stuff?

The Chinese stuff is so fucking complex I had to read abridged versions in English even though my Mandarin is much better because they used ancient language and fucked around with words in a manner that’s impossible for me to explain to someone not versed in the language. But stuff like the Tao Te Ching was brilliant shit even in the English versions.

I don’t think those charlatans would even understand the abridged Chinese shit.

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1669

Can you speak fluent mandarin? That’s awesome

1670

Thanks. I grew up speaking a Chinese dialect at home that’s very similar to Mandarin and Mandarin was a mandatory subject at school for Chinese students. I can speak English relatively well for my generation because my Grandfather was a public servant during the British colonial era so he insisted on also speaking English at home and I did a lot of self-study since I was really interested in some Western stuff,

My wife is from China and we only converse in Mandarin and I only spoke said Chinee dialect to my parents after my grandfather passed away. I only speak proper English at work. Every other occasion it’s “creole” like @Jewbacca called it so I’m kinda code switching multiple times a day.

That’s why I have some “good” days and “bad” days when I write in English here and when it comes to comprehending some posts, which I usually rectify when I reread them again lol. Mostly they’re good days unless I’m REALLY sleep deprived so you don’t have to dumb down anything for me.

1671

But back to to religion.

Because Chinese buddhist philosophy is so fucking complex, what do you think people did? That’s right, they turned it into stories about gods and demons and fairies and started worshipping the author of the Tao Te Ching. Shit the dude goes to India and they think he’s the reincanation of Buddha lol.

Go googgle “Laozi” if you think i’m making this up. Dude was unwittingly creating what we now call Taoism even though he was arguably closer to an atheist than a theist, In fact, I’m like 90% sure he was an atheist.

Taoism is the reason why people pray to every single thing, believe there are multiple gods and believed the Emperors of China were “sons of heaven”.

So my point is religion with deism will never die out, People may even create ridiculous new ones like Scientology that our descendants will be worshipping like the bible several centuries later if the earth still exists,

Note:

For people who have read the Tao Te Ching, the word “heaven(天 tian)” is the same word as “sky” and other references to deism in there work in a similar way.

For those who haven’t, check this out to see what sort of genius I’m talking about here:

Tao Te Ching - Lao Tzu - chapter 25

Something mysteriously formed (shit formed from chaos( 有物混成 as in混乱) put the latter through google translate if you don’t believe me. It also implies some “matterr物” preceding chaos forming, which is kinda like…DARK MATTER. Remember, the use of the language is fucking different from today so if you put the exact phrase into google, you’re not going to get anything close to accurate. But I’m gonna go with “shit formed from chaos”),

Born before heaven(sky天) and earth.

In the silence and the void,

Standing alone and unchanging,

Ever present and in motion.

Perhaps it is the mother of ten thousand things.

I do not know its name.

Call it Tao.

For lack of a better word, I call it great.

Unknown, 6th century – 4th century BC

This dude almost described The Big Bang and they managed to turn shit like this into worship of gods and fairies. Anyone really think atheists will make society crumble?

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1672

Never really done yoga but huge fan of mindfulness. I have bipolar disorder but I’m lucky in the sense it rarely effects me (two major episodes one when I was 18 and one 15 years after). All that said the best I’ve ever felt was when I was meditating regularly with the headspace app. For some reason I go long periods of time without doing this and then sometimes I’ll do it for months without missing a day.

Although I’m not religious I’m a huge proponent of that even though I’m not super consistent.

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1673

I’m not against it at all. It’s when people start going further and turning this shit into proof there’s astral travel going on just because one dude has a lucid dream while meditating in a lotus position. That’s where it goes into charlatan territory. I’m always wary when anyone tells me they’ve embraced “secular Buddhism” since most of the time they’re walking into a scam like this.

1674

Oh yeah that shits wack. I don’t think it gives me astral travel and I don’t even do it in the lotus position. Just relax close eyes and follow simple instructions like breathe.

I don’t know much about different types of meditations but the headspace stuff doesn’t get into any of that woo woo stuff.

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1675

Oh, then I do something similar too when I get overly worked up during work cause I read about some of this headspace stuff before. It’s either pretty effective, or at least it temporarily gives me time to calm down before I do or say something stupid lol.

1676

That’s what deists believe. And perhaps it’s true, I don’t know. It’s definitely a tough argument to overcome. Because we have determinism all around us. The universe functions as if it were fixed to a plan and what will happen is going to happen and as long it’s possible in physics, any one event is a likely extent in the vastness of the place were are in. But with in the confines of that, there are apparently closed systems, that no matter what happens in that closed system it’s not going to affect the overall trajectory of space-time.
So we can have pockets of sentient beings and that will that will not affect the end result of what our matter will eventually turn into. So we can have these ‘freewill zones’ inside a determined system without affecting that system. So while, most of the universe, of existence does seem to operate on a program there is wiggle room where personal choice that doesn’t matter at all to the operation of the program. So while the Creator setting off a process we just operate under, still gives us the room for will. So the program will continue as planned, but the operators within it do not have to be on board with the plan. The Creator micromanaging out thoughts is also possible but if it doesn’t ultimately matter, why would he need to?
All that to say, there is still room for freewill to exist, even if even most of your decisions are made for you. After all the universe doesn’t care if you run and orphanage or burn one down.
But this is an interesting case with determinism. Because you can choose to believe it, or choose not to and it should have nary a single physical effect. So does the question then become, can we choose to accept determinism?

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1677

Yeah, that was the long way around…

‘mind’ and ‘brain’ are synonyms, got it.
Can’t think of a word for what I meant, but exchange ‘mind’ with the ‘metaphysical part of your brain’ until I figure out a better word… I am open to suggestions.

Well, that’s the problem. Even if you were to make up two identical brains physically, they cannot have both the exact same experiences which is immeasurable and can never be mapped on to a brain, supposing such technology existed. So there is no way to map one brain’s process on to another’s and get the exact same result even if you could.

Well, I am trying to say you can never have two physically identical brains or I guess computers either, because they cannot occupy the same space at the same time. But it doesn’t matter as much to computers as it does to people, or brains. Because 2 brains cannot simultaneously have the same experience at the same time that doesn’t matter so much for computers but it makes a huge difference in brains. There’s another component that cannot be mapped on, and that’s the metaphysical experience that brain has.

Was it frozen, or was it like a stick of jerky or something. I love stories like these. Once, back when the world was a little less intense, I read a story about a guy who beat his wife with a frozen squirrel. Now that’s a way to put a humorous spin on domestic abuse

All true, but I am trying to get to the heart as to what a ‘thought’ is or an ‘idea’ is. When I imagine an object, I can construct it in my head (and rotating for some reason, I cannot get it to stop), certainly is altered by physical stimulation and such, but it is as much shaped by prior experiences, informing me say what a chair is suppose to look like I get an idea in my head. What’s that? A distinct idea only I have, informed by my past, created by my brain but the object I am thinking of only exists in my brain, you cannot have it. Nobody else has the same idea. Similar, but not the same. And that’s caused by something not physical.

Oh don’t get me started…

EDIT:
Please ‘@’ me in response. Since I made the OP I get notified of every post not just responses to me, so I get lost easily…