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They’re being serious
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AlanFromWichita
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I don’t support their presumption that you “will” be subjected to eternal punishment under any particular observable criteria. I’m not a fan of using eternal punishment as a reason to behave because bribes and threats are training, not teaching. Other Christians can have their own opinions.
I would interpret this mystically and leave the literal meaning to those who like to fight about it. To me, if you cannot hear what Jesus is trying to say because you don’t believe you can truly have peace and joy NOW, not after we’re dead, then at this particular moment you are not experiencing “the kingdom” where dualistic and non-dualistic thinking are in harmony. So basically I say you’re missing out. If you hold on to grief, anger, etc. then you are creating your own hell. It’s kind of like the album “hemispheres” by rush – uniting the heart and mind is what it’s about no matter what religion or even non-religion you are.
I believe the lack of believe is its own self-punishment. Honestly I don’t worry about after I die. I don’t think that’s where the spiritual journey is supposed to take us … cheap behavior contests and an exit plan for the next life. If that’s all Jesus came to give us I’d call that the Bad News … but it’s so much better.
She can try to tell me that, but I might just tell her that my spirit is stronger than her fairies. If her fairies control her, then since they don’t always seem to be benevolent, I’d talk to her more about cause, effect, responsibility, etc.
I can use the word “spirit” in a generic way; in fact I talk to both Christians and atheists, and other religion people using the term. Once you get into a conversation, you can agree on what you each mean by “spirit” and there is no reason a conversation cannot ensue even if there is a difference in how each uses the term. Each just knows what the other’s word means. I use it to indicate those human processes that we can see how they act but we don’t necessarily understand them. This is compatible with the Biblical description, too, as scripture says the Spirit is like the wind – you cannot see it but you can see its effects.
Alan
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tonyrey
Guest
- You have not explained why it is an indefensible and simultaneously irrefutable position.
- What do you mean by “external reality”?
- The only hook here is that on which you have hung yourself by asking questions to which you have given no answers or explanations.
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atheistgirl
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But I do believe we can, and do, have peace and joy now. In fact, it’s no exggeration to say my life is full of the deepest joy and happiness.
No indeed, because after we’re dead, we’re dead (from my perspective).
I disagree. I’m not missing out on anything at all.
I don’t, and I dont know any healthy person that does.
How am I being punished by my own lack of belief in a God I see no evidence of or for? To me, that’s just like my friends daughter saying me not believing in her fairys is it’s own self-punishment
It’s not Me neither
Interesting comment about you telling her your ‘‘spirit’’ is stronger than my friends daughters fairys.
Perhaps it is my spirit is stronger than any ‘‘deity’’.
Sarah x
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FurtherSuntime
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If an apple can explain the tree, then science should in time be able to explain the reality, of the ultimate tree.
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Sample
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Ok, you win.
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AlanFromWichita
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Excellent!
I believe there are as many paths to “the top” as there are belief systems. Some are more effective than others. You personally might not be missing out, but people who regurgitate piety at me and clearly have no peace in their hearts, most likely are. But people who already believe in God and have what I call (after a book so named) “Toxic Faith” where it actually makes them more paranoid than they would be without it. Unfortunately I think many Catholics and non-Catholic Christians I’ve met fit into this category. I am finding more and more “enlightened” people every day, though.
Key word is “healthy.” What percentage of people do you think are healthy in this way? I’d say probably very few – both religious and non-religious.
I’m talking about not believing in the kingdom here and now, especially in the context of someone who believes in God but thinks that honoring God is about groveling and being unworthy and wearing sackcloths and ashes and playing the martyr. These people are worse off than if they had no religion at all.How am I being punished by my own lack of belief in a God I see no evidence of or for? To me, that’s just like my friends daughter saying me not believing in her fairys is it’s own self-punishment
That said, I know some atheists, both my age and my kids’ ages, and they have had quite a few problems in their logic, and they certainly were not as well adjusted as you come across as being. Not all my kids believe in God and I know I can get killed for writing this, but I believe there is a spirituality that transcends religion or lack of religion. This is one reason I can see you and I are on the same plane on a lot of this stuff even though I claim to believe in God. I still have agnostic tendencies, and they don’t bother me because my peace is unconditional, and once I got it (from Jesus or wherever) it no longer depends on clinging to any fixed belief system.
It was the first thing that popped into my mind. If I say, “there are no fairies,” she say “you don’t understand” and be even more concerned for me. In an actual situation not much telling what I’d say, but I guarantee it would be gentle but would protect against her imaginary friends causing her to fear for me based on her assessment of my behavior and beliefs.
Edit: it just occurred to me why I’d want to have a “spirit” against someone who has fairies. The fairies are processes of her mind that she can talk to directly but I can’t. I think it’s only fair to let her know that my mind has access to power and information that she can’t talk to directly. (You have a secret, well I have a secret too!
)Perhaps. At a fundamental level, we’re all the same. People say “spirituality but no religion” and of course many say that’s blasphemous, but I say religion is supposed to point us to God, not define God or be God-substitute. Too many religious think their religion is an end in itself. If a religion doesn’t point beyond itself, it is idolatrous.Sarah x
Alan
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Sample
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It may be, however, meaningless to posit there is an ultimate reality that is knowable through our use of science as interpreted by human brains. I try to be led by the evidence. If the evidence someday shows that the universe is, as Richard Feynman might say, like an onion with infinite layers, then that’s how it is.
On the other hand, I stand with your sentiment in that “science is the best tool ever devised, for understanding how the world works” (M. Shermer).
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Gaber
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You two are some of my favorite sane people on here. For myself, I’m a bit wonkers, and finding this conversation very sparky for me, I hope you don’t mind that I quoted it all and added my third, sort of, perspective. Sometimes triangulation gets information across that a line, straight or curvy, between two points doesn’t
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Gaber
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Continued
It was the first thing that popped into my mind. If I say, “there are no fairies,” she say “you don’t understand” and be even more concerned for me. In an actual situation not much telling what I’d say, but I guarantee it would be gentle but would protect against her imaginary friends causing her to fear for me based on her assessment of my behavior and beliefs.
Edit: it just occurred to me why I’d want to have a “spirit” against someone who has fairies. The fairies are processes of her mind that she can talk to directly but I can’t. I think it’s only fair to let her know that my mind has access to power and information that she can’t talk to directly. (You have a secret, well I have a secret too!
Yes, any spirit of integrity is stronger than a belief. That is why you don’t want to be a pink monkey amongst the furry ones.
Perhaps. At a fundamental level, we’re all the same. People say “spirituality but no religion” and of course many say that’s blasphemous, but I say religion is supposed to point us to God, not define God or be God-substitute. Too many religious think their religion is an end in itself. If a religion doesn’t point beyond itself, it is idolatrous.
Excellent!
Alan
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tonyrey
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It’s not a question of winning but discovering to what extent science can explain reality.
Thanks for your questions. They made me think.
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aquohn
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I’d like to propose a different viewpoint: that science and philosophy are essentially one and the same. I’ve written a post on this on this here blog: jofqc.wordpress.com/2012/05/23/theology-philosophy-and-science/
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tonyrey
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An excellent essay. The Design argument predicts that the laws of nature will continue to hold good and they are being constantly tested in science and every other human activity - and always successfully!
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Solus_vistor
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“Dennett …, however, respond(s) that the aforementioned “subjective aspect” (of consciousness) as commonly used is non-existent and unscientific, and that his “re-definition” is the only coherent description of consciousness” ( en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consciousness_Explained).
“Much the same could be said about consciousness. What isn’t there does not have to, be explained. It just isn’t there!” (youtube.com/watch?v=qYYFQiN052c).
A summary of these summaries? “Cogito, ergo sum” (Descartes), “Cogito, ergo non sum” (Dennett).
“Much the same could be said about consciousness. What isn’t there does not have to, be explained. It just isn’t there!” (youtube.com/watch?v=qYYFQiN052c).
A summary of these summaries? “Cogito, ergo sum” (Descartes), “Cogito, ergo non sum” (Dennett).
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Solus_vistor
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Thanks for the quote from Benedict XVI that would show a deeper understanding of what philosophy of science is all about than what I would have expected.
You wrote “Since philosophy is also a quest in search of the truth, which, arguably, is ‘about the universe’, therefore philosophy should be considered a form of science.” (jofqc.wordpress.com/2012/05/23/theology-philosophy-and-science/) It seems that you are using science in the sense of German “Wissenschaft” which encompasses all human rational endeavour (“search for truth”, if you like), whereas in English science normally means only natural science (Naturwissenschaften).
Perhaps a better starting point are Roger Penrose’s (mathematical physicist, agnostic or even atheist) three worlds - mental, mathematical, physical - interconnected but not assumed reducible all to the one, the physical, unless you are a naturalist/materialist. Pure mathematics is concerned with the first two only, whereas both science and philosophy are with all the three, with science anchored in the physical, using mathematics as its “language” and the mental as the arena where the representations or models of classes of phenomena, aspects of the physical world, reside. So does Mathematics reside in the mental only insofar it is just an invention and not discovery (actually, it is both!).
One could add here the spiritual or transcendental world, which an atheist will either not believe in (cf. Cagan’s “Cosmos, i.e. the physical world, is all there is”) or see it reducible to the physical (yes, there are spiritual atheists as well, see bigquestionsonline.com/features/finding-the-sacred-in-the-secular.)
Galileo spoke of two books written by God, the Book of Scripture and the Book of Nature. You have to have some faith (Galileo had apparently only the Christian version in mind) to be able to properly read the first book, and have a knowledge of some non-trivial mathematics to be able to read properly the second book. If you have those qualification in mathematics and mathematical physics, you can read critically the second book irrespective of whether you are a theist or atheist, especially where it speculates about the ultimate structure of the physical world using representation (theories) with mathematical models of phenomena that determine phenomena directly outside of direct approach, hence verification, empirically, directly via our senses. Let me add, that with these prerequisites, you can also communicate your reading with fellow scientists or philosophers of science, irrespective of whether you are a theist or an atheist.
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Gaber
Guest
I like “Sum, ergo Lux est, ergo cogito.”“Dennett …, however, respond(s) that the aforementioned “subjective aspect” (of consciousness) as commonly used is non-existent and unscientific, and that his “re-definition” is the only coherent description of consciousness” ( en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consciousness_Explained).
“Much the same could be said about consciousness. What isn’t there does not have to, be explained. It just isn’t there!” (youtube.com/watch?v=qYYFQiN052c).
A summary of these summaries? “Cogito, ergo sum” (Descartes), “Cogito, ergo non sum” (Dennett).
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kevinerose
Guest
Reality can not be explained by any device known to man. Science or philosophy can only define what it is that we perceive to be real. Only by faith does a person believe in one aspect of reality or another.I’m sorry, but I do not think so.
Science’s domain concerns explaining the world of nature and its phenomena.
It is PHILOSOPHY (and Religion) that explain Reality, not science.
Anybody who thinks Science=Reality is under the spell of Scientism, and that is faith-based.
And true science is NOT faith-based in any way. It concerns studying and explaining (defined) natural phenomena. NOT reality.
Got this explanation from a response in another forum. Parapharsed this somewhat and added “religion” to it. Made by a scientist, as a matter fact.
Thought it wa a cool response to a question asked there.
Anybody agree/disagree with it?
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Solus_vistor
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I apologize for the confused last paragraph - it was 3 a.m. here in Germany. So this is what it was supposed to say:
Galileo spoke of two books written by God, the Book of Scripture and the Book of Nature. You have to have some faith (Galileo had apparently only the Christian version in mind) to be able to properly read the first book. And you have to have a knowledge of some non-trivial mathematics to be able to read properly the second book.
If you have those qualification in mathematics and mathematical physics, you can read critically the second book irrespective of whether you are a theist or atheist, especially where the need arises to describe the ultimate structure of physical (material) reality using representations (theories) with mathematical models of concepts explaining physical phenomena outside of direct approach through senses, even visually unimaginable, e.g. the wave-particle duality or entanglement in QM. (A philosopher is not required to have these qualification, although it helps if he/she wants to delve into metaphysics.)
Let me add again, that with these prerequisites, you can communicate your readings with fellow scientists, irrespective of whether theist or atheist. Only when interpreting these findings and theories within philosophy of science, your world-view - whether it is theist or atheist - could, and usually does, become relevant.
Galileo spoke of two books written by God, the Book of Scripture and the Book of Nature. You have to have some faith (Galileo had apparently only the Christian version in mind) to be able to properly read the first book. And you have to have a knowledge of some non-trivial mathematics to be able to read properly the second book.
If you have those qualification in mathematics and mathematical physics, you can read critically the second book irrespective of whether you are a theist or atheist, especially where the need arises to describe the ultimate structure of physical (material) reality using representations (theories) with mathematical models of concepts explaining physical phenomena outside of direct approach through senses, even visually unimaginable, e.g. the wave-particle duality or entanglement in QM. (A philosopher is not required to have these qualification, although it helps if he/she wants to delve into metaphysics.)
Let me add again, that with these prerequisites, you can communicate your readings with fellow scientists, irrespective of whether theist or atheist. Only when interpreting these findings and theories within philosophy of science, your world-view - whether it is theist or atheist - could, and usually does, become relevant.
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Sair
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Solus_vistor
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But that is just a point as well - there have been failures of Christianity (religion), corrected by – what, anti-Christianity (anti-religion) claiming science for themselves? No, by good Christianity (religion), enriched by new insights from science.
There are religious as well as irreligious scientists and philosophers, some of them better experts on what e.g. physics - trying to understand the structure of (material) reality - is all about than Harris.
However, if you like to quote, here is A.N. Whitehead, at least as much a philosophical authority as Samuel Harris:
“Faith in the possibility of science, generated antecedently to the development of modern scientific theory, is an unconscious derivative from medieval theology.” (Science and the Modern World).
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