Intellect is not a Property of Matter

[Touchstone]

reggieM:

It would not be reasonable to immediately dismiss what was said. There is no basis to distrust the testimony – why not believe that it actually happened just as he said? Why not accept that God does answer his prayers?

Well, once we understand that simply accepting the paradigm produces its own validation, we immediately have reason to mistrust it. It’s returns “my paradigm is true”, no matter what, meaning that if/when it’s false, it will still confirm itself.

We can add to it that his claim is not that unusual. Many others make similar claims (I would myself after 30 years of daily prayer and Catholic practice).

Yes, but this is an automatic product of embracing a credulous and self-validating paradigm. Pointing out that it is very popularly embraced doesn’t help the problem at all.

This is particulary crushing to honest analysts here, when the various and contradicting claims of those of so many other faiths is reviewed. If what you say is even a little bit true, we are now obligated to accept, at face value, the conflicting claims of a myriad faiths and religions.

But now we will see that some simply dismiss this evidence. Skepticism will prevail – and that means that there’s immediately a distrust of what the person has said.

Yes, and this is both healthy, respectful and responsible. Failure to do this results in things like a 2,000 year persecution culture against homosexuals, among other problems. A skeptical stance signals respect, as it credits the other with making claims that might be true, as in “not false”, and thus meriting critical investigation. Simple credulity is really contempt for true beliefs.

To me, that says something about a bias that is present before the information has been received. If there was no bias, then the evidence would be accepted, through a reasonable trust in the words of an honest person. Or, at worst, the testimony would be investigated with an open mind (and interested heart).

The facts have a well know “reality bias”. If someone claims a person was raised from the dead after three days in the grave, that’s a fantastically outrageous claim in light of the available facts (and this is the whole point of putting it in the Gospel, remember!). An open mind, one available to various theories and hypotheses, adjudicated by the evidence and critical analysis, will find such a claim totally unsupportable. A fair judge, just hewing to the available evidence and knowledge, can’t reach belief in such claims. It’s only by special pleading and caprice that one can get there (and this is religious faith).

When the evidence is blocked immediately, however, without further investigation or discussion – then there’s some other factor at work.

That’s how I see it anyway.

That’s a kind of Orwellian rendering of “evidence”, don’t you think? I understand my experiences as subjective evidence, but that those are evidence in a different sense than evidence obtained through objective methods. And it’s this latter sense that we observe to be strikingly successful in separating fact from fiction.

-TS

 

[Windfish]

Hey, BTW, how long have you been a neuroscientist? Would it be too much to hope for if you happen to know another neuroscientist named Dr. Ricardo Gomez, atheist-turned-Catholic after investigating alleged miracles/seers on behalf of the Church? Maybe you can hook me up with more info.

 

[RobbyS]

I approached this post from an unusual viewpoint; that of a clinical researcher in neuroscience who is also a believing Catholic. In particular, I believe in the existence of the individual human soul, created by God, united during life to the human body, and destined to eternal life.
I say this because as a neuroscientist I do not accept that the brain has unlimited capacity for either storage or processing of information, and as a Catholic I do not believe that the human soul has an infinite capacity for knowledge. I believe in an all-knowing God, but not in any all-knowing creatures, be they angels or devils or humans. Thus I conclude that, while the original post’s syllogistic conclusion is true, its argument is based on an erroneous premise.

The limits of our knowledge follows from the limits our ability to know, and that is self-evident. We have imperfect knowledge even of what is within range of our senses. Indeed, the Indian notion that All is illusion seems more likely than the possibility that we can know everything.

 

[RobbyS]

Well, once we understand that simply accepting the paradigm produces its own validation, we immediately have reason to mistrust it. It’s returns “my paradigm is true”, no matter what, meaning that if/when it’s false, it will still confirm itself.

Yes, but this is an automatic product of embracing a credulous and self-validating paradigm. Pointing out that it is very popularly embraced doesn’t help the problem at all.

This is particulary crushing to honest analysts here, when the various and contradicting claims of those of so many other faiths is reviewed. If what you say is even a little bit true, we are now obligated to accept, at face value, the conflicting claims of a myriad faiths and religions.

Yes, and this is both healthy, respectful and responsible. Failure to do this results in things like a 2,000 year persecution culture against homosexuals, among other problems. A skeptical stance signals respect, as it credits the other with making claims that might be true, as in “not false”, and thus meriting critical investigation. Simple credulity is really contempt for true beliefs.

The facts have a well know “reality bias”. If someone claims a person was raised from the dead after three days in the grave, that’s a fantastically outrageous claim in light of the available facts (and this is the whole point of putting it in the Gospel, remember!). An open mind, one available to various theories and hypotheses, adjudicated by the evidence and critical analysis, will find such a claim totally unsupportable. A fair judge, just hewing to the available evidence and knowledge, can’t reach belief in such claims. It’s only by special pleading and caprice that one can get there (and this is religious faith).

That’s a kind of Orwellian rendering of “evidence”, don’t you think? I understand my experiences as subjective evidence, but that those are evidence in a different sense than evidence obtained through objective methods. And it’s this latter sense that we observe to be strikingly successful in separating fact from fiction.

-TS

Two thousand year persecution of homosexuals? Are you gay that you make this charge, as if this oddity called homosexuality were really so important? In any case. as Dennis Praeger has pointed out, the “persecution” goes back further since the Law proscribes homosexuality as an “abomination,” means exactly what the law means by one of the Baals that the people of the Land were tempted to pray to, or Astarte. Temple prostitution was part and parcel of the worship of the fertility gods and homosexuality proscribed as part of that worship.

 

[Touchstone]

Two thousand year persecution of homosexuals? Are you gay that you make this charge, as if this oddity called homosexuality were really so important?

Not gay, but I do have family and friends who are that I love and have empathy for. I have an interest in justice and decency being extended toward all men, as that’s how I might expect to receive it from others. As an atheist, this is not a remote subject for me – something I didn’t think much about in my 30+ years as a Christian, not going out of my way to demonize or even actively support such demonization of homosexuals, but still all to willing to keep quiet and look the other way. I wasn’t gay after all, so it wasn’t my ox being gored, so to speak. That’s a comfort a white, affluent, Protestant, professional, monogamous father of six can largely take for granted in modern America (more in previous decades than now, though, I note).

In any case. as Dennis Praeger has pointed out, the “persecution” goes back further since the Law proscribes homosexuality as an “abomination,” means exactly what the law means by one of the Baals that the people of the Land were tempted to pray to, or Astarte. Temple prostitution was part and parcel of the worship of the fertility gods and homosexuality proscribed as part of that worship.

I’m aware. It’s an ancient animus.

-TS

 

[RobbyS]

Not gay, but I do have family and friends who are that I love and have empathy for. I have an interest in justice and decency being extended toward all men, as that’s how I might expect to receive it from others. As an atheist, this is not a remote subject for me – something I didn’t think much about in my 30+ years as a Christian, not going out of my way to demonize or even actively support such demonization of homosexuals, but still all to willing to keep quiet and look the other way. I wasn’t gay after all, so it wasn’t my ox being gored, so to speak. That’s a comfort a white, affluent, Protestant, professional, monogamous father of six can largely take for granted in modern America (more in previous decades than now, though, I note).

I’m aware. It’s an ancient animus.

-TS

Opposition rather. Such practices are antithetical to the Judaeo-Christian tradition, because they are grounded in a very different view of the world. It is hardly news to say that acceptance of the homosexuality is possible only among those whose views of sexuality are indifferent/hostile to
human reproduction. Homosexuality is in a way a kind of a school of psychology that divides mankind into males and females and makes them opposite rather than complimentary. Or rather into two hemaphrodite classes.

 

[Touchstone]

Opposition rather. Such practices are antithetical to the Judaeo-Christian tradition, because they are grounded in a very different view of the world. It is hardly news to say that acceptance of the homosexuality is possible only among those whose views of sexuality are indifferent/hostile to
human reproduction.

I think if you look at the available science you will see that one of the better hypotheses out there right now is that homosexuality is a manifestation of heightened maternal fertility (see here, for a intro to the topic if this is new to you). On this model, the data indicate that gay men are a by-product of above-average reproduction. If you are into human reproduction, gay men are your thing, it seems. This works because evolution is a population dynamic, not an individual dynamic, and nature is filled with cases where individuals in the population have ostensibly neutral or ineffective features but which actually promote genetic success in the population.

The vast majority of female bees are workers, and sterile. That seems positively anti-reproductive! But only on a simplistic understanding of biology and reproduction. The worker bees are key to the overall reproductive success of the hive in serving the needs of the queen bee.

If gay males are produced where reproduction is in high gear, from the most fertile mothers, would you say their presence was somehow “hostile” or “indifferent” to reproduction? I think one would have to restrict oneself to clumsy, simplistic thinking about human biology to hold to that.

Homosexuality is in a way a kind of a school of psychology that divides mankind into males and females and makes them opposite rather than complimentary. Or rather into two hemaphrodite classes.

Ah, it’s a contemporary animus, as well…

-TS

 

[BTW]

Several points.
Point One;
Touchstone

The Christian paradigm reinforces itself NO MATTER WHAT happens.
How do you explain “My God, my God, why have You forsaken me?” Mt27:46?

Point Two; Scientific convictions are not the only rational convictions, though this quote from Touchstone seems to imply that they are, suggesting that the only acceptable belief exceptions are “subjective and visceral predispositions”.
*Touchstone

I can’t see science as beginning to inform me why I should like the Rolling Stones over my beloved Pink Floyd, or Lichtenstein over Kandinsky, or even why it has some role in such questions, but I do understand that Catholics claim that God is real entity that can be known as real in some way, as an objective fact – God exists whether we want him to, or know he does or not, right?

*If so, you’re making a knowledge claim, a claim about the reality we all share. That separates the question from other more subjective and visceral dispositions, like my love for the guitar playing of David Gilmour and it’s “rightness” for my tastes.

If God as an idea is neither something that proceeds from my tastes and preferences and desires, nor something that can be verified or falsified by any means at our collective disposal, it seems to be a complete nothing, conceptual. To say it’s “true” that God exists is meaningless, disingenuous even*.

On the other hand this quote from him seems to imply the opposite;
Not gay, but I do have family and friends who are that I love and have empathy for. I have an interest in justice and decency being extended toward all men, as that’s how I might expect to receive it from others. As an atheist, this is not a remote subject for me –
I would argue that a belief that “justice and decency [should be] extended toward all men” is a rational but non-scientific belief, and certainly not just “subjective” or “visceral”.
It seems to me that the famous theorem of Godel proving that mathematics is not a closed system that can prove its own validity could be extended to science as well. We still need philosophy.

Point Three: My belief that God will give me what I pray for, or enlighten me as to why He didn’t is not automatically self-confirming; I could end up not getting satisfying answers for why some of my prayers weren’t answered, and if that happened often enough, my belief would erode. The reason the process is not scientific is not that it’s non-rational, it’s because it’s necessarily subjective.

Point Four: I believe that religious belief requires Faith in that which cannot be proven beyond any doubt, and I further believe that Faith is an act of our own individual Free Will, albeit made possible by God’s assistance.
I am well aware that this Free Will claim is controversial, and was at the heart of the Reformation, but I think that my position is consistent with Catholic teaching. My point, however, is that even though our personally experienced evidence for our religious beliefs is probable rather than certain, there comes a time when we need to commit to them, and base all of our subsequent actions on those beliefs.

 

[Touchstone]

Several points.
Point One;
Touchstone

The Christian paradigm reinforces itself NO MATTER WHAT happens.

I think I could not point to a strong commendation for my idea than this verse. Possibly Job, but I think this is the apotheosis of the idea. So trapped is the man on the cross in the paradigm that even at the worst of all imaginable points, he cries out to his Father, his authority figure. He’s not doubting God’s existence (in the Catholic view, he is that God), but he’s at the end. And even then, the paradigm holds. If there is a better example of this paradigm being unescapable, I can’t think of what it might be (maybe Job, but that’s more clearly fictional).

And I’m not just talking about Jesus, but about the cult that was following him, helping the paradigm form. As the events happened (if they happened at all), this is the point of know return. Nothing, not death, not evil, not persecution, not feelings of forsaken-ness, not hunger or disease or malaise can overcome the good news of Jesus’ conquering of sin. Followers of Christ can expect to “take up their own crosses” and suffer every kind of setback, contradiction, and hardship, and this will just prove the truth of Jesus’ words.

The idea persists in its self-validation even today. I am being persecuted, ridiculed for my beliefs… Jesus predicted this would happen, I’m on the right path. David Koresh used the same idea, as do innumerable martyr-driven and persecution-animated cults.

Point Two; Scientific convictions are not the only rational convictions, though this quote from Touchstone seems to imply that they are, suggesting that the only acceptable belief exceptions are “subjective and visceral predispositions”.
*Touchstone

I can’t see science as beginning to inform me why I should like the Rolling Stones over my beloved Pink Floyd, or Lichtenstein over Kandinsky, or even why it has some role in such questions, but I do understand that Catholics claim that God is real entity that can be known as real in some way, as an objective fact – God exists whether we want him to, or know he does or not, right?

I don’t know what you mean by acceptable – people believe what they will. If one can accept subjective decisions, there’s nothing more… subjective than that, right? What would be less objective and a-heuristical than that? If you have a word or term, I guess I’d be happy to use that. The point I’m making there is that rational, objective analysis just can’t cover all of life’s questions. I don’t think that’s controversial, is it?

*If so, you’re making a knowledge claim, a claim about the reality we all share. That separates the question from other more subjective and visceral dispositions, like my love for the guitar playing of David Gilmour and it’s “rightness” for my tastes.

If God as an idea is neither something that proceeds from my tastes and preferences and desires, nor something that can be verified or falsified by any means at our collective disposal, it seems to be a complete nothing, conceptual. To say it’s “true” that God exists is meaningless, disingenuous even*.

On the other hand this quote from him seems to imply the opposite;
Not gay, but I do have family and friends who are that I love and have empathy for. I have an interest in justice and decency being extended toward all men, as that’s how I might expect to receive it from others. As an atheist, this is not a remote subject for me –

I would argue that a belief that “justice and decency [should be] extended toward all men” is a rational but non-scientific belief, and certainly not just “subjective” or “visceral”.
It seems to me that the famous theorem of Godel proving that mathematics is not a closed system that can prove its own validity could be extended to science as well. We still need philosophy.

It’s either an objective truth or it’s not. Objective or not exhausts all the options – it obtains independent of mind or will, or it does not. Subjective isn’t a dirty word – it’s all we have in many situations, and its fine. It’s just bad fish compared to objective knowledge when it comes to performative models that make predictions and offer explanations about the real world (if for no other reason than a tautological one – we define “performance” in part based on “objective scoring”).

Gödel’s theorem says perfectly **NOTHING (<= NOTE: edited to add this crucial word that got left out!) **about the real world. It’s math, symbolic calculus. That’s a hugely important resource for modeling the world, but the models only have value as real-world models when they are tested and applied empirically. Gödel’s Incompleteness is perfectly unattached from that. If that’s clear, consider whether Euclidean space (or alternatively, something else like Riemannian geometrics) make space-time what it is. These are just tools we use for approximation, modeling, conceptualization. Gödel’s awesome insight is an insight into the nature of formal (rule-based, consistent, propositional) systems. Nature can’t be bothered.

-TS

 

[Touchstone]

BTW:

Point Three: My belief that God will give me what I pray for, or enlighten me as to why He didn’t is not automatically self-confirming; I could end up not getting satisfying answers for why some of my prayers weren’t answered, and if that happened often enough, my belief would erode. The reason the process is not scientific is not that it’s non-rational, it’s because it’s necessarily subjective.

It’s not invincible of course. Many break out of the paradigm. My point about it being perfectly self-validating is that if you don’t question the paradigm itself, it can account for literally any scenario, any scenario at all. See your “Eloi, Eloi, Lama Sabachthani”, above, for example.

In your case, there is no reason for your belief to erode, on Catholic terms. The paradigm holds. God doesn’t owe you satisfying answers. Some Christians get a fate in God’s universe that is terrible suffering and abuse toward and agonizing, desperate death. The problem is not (just, or primarily) that it’s a subjective process, it’s that Christianity doesn’t define any means to falsify itself. There is literally no scenario you could encounter that your Catholic friends could not defend for you as just part of God’s (sometimes) impenetrable plans and priorities. You can rest assured you will find out everything after you’ve lived this life to its end, so there is always some satisfaction, and reasons for everything that you might have been chagrined by, that check just gets cashed when you are dead. And even if you still don’t like it, he’s God and Therefore Just, so deal!

Point Four: I believe that religious belief requires Faith in that which cannot be proven beyond any doubt, and I further believe that Faith is an act of our own individual Free Will, albeit made possible by God’s assistance.

Just about nothing is believable beyond any doubt, that’s not a reasonable criteria. Religious belief doesn’t even rise to plausible, though, in terms of reasoning on the evidence, which is a much lower bar. Much lower.

I am well aware that this Free Will claim is controversial, and was at the heart of the Reformation, but I think that my position is consistent with Catholic teaching. My point, however, is that even though our personally experienced evidence for our religious beliefs is probable rather than certain, there comes a time when we need to commit to them, and base all of our subsequent actions on those beliefs.

It’s not probable or non-probable – as a subjective matter, it is just inscrutable, unknown. “Probable” is not an adjective we have a basis to apply, as we don’t know the phase space, the selectors, or any of the dynamics that would make such a belief “probable”.

It’s just a referendum on one’s intuitions and desires. Do I “just know” this because I “just know” it, or not. Does it “feel” true, or not?

Indeed, in my case, as a Christian, it did “feel true” in many ways and at many points. But it was when I understood the folly of mistaking that for probable that I got a grip on the self-deceiving, paradigm-promoting insidious paradigm.

-TS

 

[sidbrown]

Gödel’s theorem says perfectly about the real world.

It does? Can you explain how it relates to the real world. Also, are you speaking of the first or of the second incompleteness theorem of Godel.

 

[Touchstone]

It does? Can you explain how it relates to the real world. Also, are you speaking of the first or of the second incompleteness theorem of Godel.

sidbrown, sorry, I left out crucial word in my sentence there, that totally inverts the meaning (and renders the sentence inchoate given the subsequent sentences). That sentence should read:

*Gödel’s theorem says perfectly nothing about the real world.
*

I’ve edited the post so as not to throw others off. If re-read it with that fix, you will see it makes sense, now. Gödel is math, language, and analytical insight into the nature of formal systems, not anything to do with physics or nature per se.

Sorry for the confusion.

-TS

 

[Windfish]

Once you ascent to the truth of the existence of God, of course you’re going to be interpreting your experiences in light of His providence - it isn’t a paradigm so much as it is something that follows naturally from that initial ascent to the truth.

BTW, did you happen to see my post earlier?

 

[nbtrap]

I recommend that the TC read Mortimer Adler’s Intellect: Mind over Matter for a definitive and thorough, yet easy to understand answer to this question.

 

[Touchstone]

Once you ascent to the truth of the existence of God, of course you’re going to be interpreting your experiences in light of His providence - it isn’t a paradigm so much as it is something that follows naturally from that initial ascent to the truth.

BTW, did you happen to see my post earlier?

Windfish, who are you responding to, here?

-TS

 

[reggieM]

I grew up in a Baptist home, and had the misfortune to run in circles dominated by Calvinist theology for a long time.

That’s an interesting detail on your background – which wouldn’t seem to have any relevance to your following comments, but I’ll accept that it does.
You chose to tell me that you ran in circles dominated by Calvinist theology. Did you accept that theological view yourself? Was that theological perspective your primary foundation for understanding Christianity?

I have more questions like that and they’re essential because I have no way of knowing what your understanding of God is or how you incorporate atheistic thought in your life.

That’s one of the biggest problems in any discussion with atheists, as I see it. Each will draw certain conclusions about God based on the religious formation they had (or didn’t have).

The topic of religious belief is one which is highly personal as well. This should be obvious, since prayer emanates from the deepest part of a person and involves the most intimate aspects of a person’s life.

So, we usually don’t discuss a person’s feelings about his wife, for example, in these forums – except with anonymous posts.

We do discuss temptations and sins – but again, these are personal matters.

So, when you give details about your personal life, this is “knowledge” that we have access to. I could probe this more and ask for more personal details.

What evidence have you given me to validate your claim about the Calvinist background you had? Are you just lying?

But really, if you think that’s what reasonable people should take as compelling, I’d have to be a Mormon.

I notice here that you’ve re-written what I said. In this case, you propose that I think it’s “compelling” and said nothing like that. I was talking merely about trust. That’s the very trust that prevents me from calling you a liar since you post under an anonymous name and give no evidence to support the claim about your Calvinist background.

On the contrary, I don’t see any reason for you to lie about such a thing, nor do I see a reason for you to be deluded about it. So, I trust what you said.

I think there’s even less reasoned basis for being a Mormon, but based on what you are appealing to here, the LDS pwn you guys, and will prevail in the end, if this is the thing.

What I’m appealing to is the very concept of trust that you expect me to show towards you.

It’s a tricky situation. I’m sure his life experiences are reinforcing for the paradigm he adopted

The term paradigm really ends up just trivializing a person and his beliefs. The path of thought and life experience that a person has taken is reduced to “a paradigm” as if this is something that was manufactured and artificially placed on the person.

I know mine were for the same (or very similar) paradigm as a Christian. But if by ‘rational’ we mean “the product of reason”, there’s a problem. The Christian paradigm reinforces itself NO MATTER WHAT happens.

Following St. Paul, if Christ did not rise from the dead … then the Christian paradigm did not reinforce itself. At the same time, an atheistic conviction which pre-judges any religious experience as being an illusion or a lie reinforces itself NO MATTER WHAT.

We see that here on CAF every day. Atheists claim “there is no empirical evidence for the supernatural”.

When we point out that one must look at other kinds of evidence to discover a world which is much greater than that of materialism, the argument follows:

“We will only consider matter and properties of matter”.

So, that view reinforces itself no matter what. It has closed off other possiblities.

It’s a bit like a “mind virus” or something that way – it defeats alert mechanisms in the thinking routine the way my little bits of mischievous code would insert itself on a co-worker’s machine in a bit of prank hanking and defeat the machines ability to detect and signal problems first.

Coming to a Catholic site and calling the Catholic belief a “mind virus” is not what I’d call a very winning position for you to take. It’s just name-calling and demeaning.

That means that this recipe:

1. Accept Christian paradigm
2. Live life for a bit
3. Review and see if life experiences reinforce Christian paradigm

Again, you’re trivializing the topic in order to dismiss it.

How do I know that you even know what “the Christian paradigm” is?

Even if it’s true that you do have some kind of Calvinist background (evidence?), all that tells me is that you have a warped view of Christianity (probably not your own fault).

So, now I’m telling you to “accept the Calvinist paradigm”?

Again, that’s absurd and demeaning. Again, I really don’t know anything about you and that was the point of the post.

Without knowing anything about people who present their own internal evidence, you do not seek any more information. You approach the topic with a bias against the person.

We always have a reason to lie, to ourselves, others.

I don’t agree, but what prevents you from lying to me now?

We are skeptical of others and ourselves, because we understand the complex cauldron of emotions and interests that are human beings, and that this introduces risks in the process.

If I approached you with skepticism, I would demand some evidence for your good-faith participation in the discussion.

 

[Touchstone]

That’s an interesting detail on your background – which wouldn’t seem to have any relevance to your following comments, but I’ll accept that it does.
You chose to tell me that you ran in circles dominated by Calvinist theology. Did you accept that theological view yourself?

No, Never did. As Protestants go, I was always as Arminian as you could get, even when the church I attended was overtly Calvinist, or “Calminian”.

Was that theological perspective your primary foundation for understanding Christianity?

Only in a negative sense. Calvinism was, even from the gradeschool years of Sunday School as I became old enough to understand “TULIP”, a repulsive set of doctrines. I did have teachers, occasionally that were “hyper-calvinists”, which is really over-the-top bad stuff, but no matter how much I understood it conceptually, I couldn’t believe it. As it happened, my “Arminian” views were actually very close to Catholicism in terms of soteriology, sanctification and justification, something I would later take as “a sign” that I should “swim the Tiber”. See Francis Beckwith’s conversion to Catholicism for a similar kind of match to my own on those issues.

I have more questions like that and they’re essential because I have no way of knowing what your understanding of God is or how you incorporate atheistic thought in your life.

OK. Happy to share, but wasn’t trying to make my bio the central theme here.

That’s one of the biggest problems in any discussion with atheists, as I see it. Each will draw certain conclusions about God based on the religious formation they had (or didn’t have).

Yes, but we’re exactly like theists that way, I’ve found. It’s a universal dynamic.

The topic of religious belief is one which is highly personal as well. This should be obvious, since prayer emanates from the deepest part of a person and involves the most intimate aspects of a person’s life.

So, we usually don’t discuss a person’s feelings about his wife, for example, in these forums – except with anonymous posts.

We do discuss temptations and sins – but again, these are personal matters.

So, when you give details about your personal life, this is “knowledge” that we have access to. I could probe this more and ask for more personal details.

OK. Well, I worry about it just being more a problem of being boring than anything else, but I’m prepared to be open and frank on this stuff if it’s relevant.

What evidence have you given me to validate your claim about the Calvinist background you had? Are you just lying?

Uh, none beyond my claims here. Does a Calvinist background sound implausible to you, somehow. In Minnesota, where I gew up, in a Baptist General Conference church (see John Piper for a fairly famous example of such a position – he’s a BGC Calvinist from Minnesota), it was (and is) quite common. I can’t think why that would be hard to accept for you.

I notice here that you’ve re-written what I said. In this case, you propose that I think it’s “compelling” and said nothing like that. I was talking merely about trust. That’s the very trust that prevents me from calling you a liar since you post under an anonymous name and give no evidence to support the claim about your Calvinist background.

Ah. Well, anything I post is certainly subject to doubt that way, it’s the nature of the medium. But knowing that, I don’t identify anything there that depends on any of that being true. That is, even if you don’t believe it, it doesn’t change the concepts at work, here. That’s good, because the discussion can proceed without all that – I don’t have to test your bona fides, either, for example.

On the contrary, I don’t see any reason for you to lie about such a thing, nor do I see a reason for you to be deluded about it. So, I trust what you said.

Great. But if I told you I had walked on the moon, without a space suit, just in my jeans and a t-shirt, would you still trust me?

How about if I wrote a letter that said I have more than 500 witnesses to my moon walk? Trust me now?

What I’m appealing to is the very concept of trust that you expect me to show towards you.

Sure. Where there’s implausibility or inconsistency, you’re obligated by reason to take not, and take action where warranted. I do the same.

The term paradigm really ends up just trivializing a person and his beliefs.

No it doesn’t. Why would that be? It’s no more trivializing than saying a person has a “worldview”. It’s a practical model for how people process (name removed by moderator)ut and incorporate feedback from their experiences. Nothing trivializing about it at all.

The path of thought and life experience that a person has taken is reduced to “a paradigm” as if this is something that was manufactured and artificially placed on the person.

It’s not artificial if the owner chooses it, which I understand nearly everyone does, at least when they are old enough to think for themselves.

-TS

 

[Touchstone]

Following St. Paul, if Christ did not rise from the dead … then the Christian paradigm did not reinforce itself. At the same time, an atheistic conviction which pre-judges any religious experience as being an illusion or a lie reinforces itself NO MATTER WHAT.

No, as I’ve said before here, many times, I can lay out a large number of scenarios that would convince me not only that God exists, but that Jesus is God and the Bible is true. My atheism is fragile, and highly falsifiable. There’s just not enough god around to overcome a fragile atheism.

Can you tell me how the world would develop such that you would consider your Catholicism falsified?

reggieM:

We see that here on CAF every day. Atheists claim “there is no empirical evidence for the supernatural”.

That’s true, and I endorse that claim. It’s a bit of a ‘trick’ claim, though, as “supernatural” is by definition outside the scope of “empirical”. So if we had empirical evidence, it wouldn’t be considered “supernatural” anymore.

When we point out that one must look at other kinds of evidence to discover a world which is much greater than that of materialism, the argument follows:

“We will only consider matter and properties of matter”.

So, that view reinforces itself no matter what. It has closed off other possiblities.

Again, I’ve posted repeatedly on this – I don’t rule out other forms of evidence a priori; I just don’t know any other forms that are meaningful as evidence. My desires for a God to exist is not “evidence” for God’s existence; that’s just as compatible with a godless universe as a godful one, so it doesn’t help me either way.

I’m open to “other forms of evidence”, but anything offered me is just transparently an attempt to pass off intuition, feelings and “common sense” off as “evidence”. If you have something more than that, I’m really interested to hear about it.

Coming to a Catholic site and calling the Catholic belief a “mind virus” is not what I’d call a very winning position for you to take. It’s just name-calling and demeaning.

The point there is that like a virus that defeats the host’s ability to fight it first, the theistic paradigm first asserts authority such that the “host” cannot defeat it internally. It wasn’t anything more than that concept.

Again, you’re trivializing the topic in order to dismiss it.

Hmmm. I believe I was giving it thoughtful substance! I say this, having read lots of exposition here where theists “just know it”, and “it’s obvious”, and the “can feel it”, which I suggest is a trivialization of this topic in a way my “paradigm” concept is not.

How do I know that you even know what “the Christian paradigm” is?

Perhaps you don’t. What would you ask to test that?

Even if it’s true that you do have some kind of Calvinist background (evidence?), all that tells me is that you have a warped view of Christianity (probably not your own fault).

Well, as above, I was never a Calvinist. That was a prominent feature of my upbringing, but as an adult, I attended Arminian churches, until leaving, so I thought at the time, for the Catholic Church, after several years of study, heavy dialog and debate with clued in and thoroughly catechized Catholics (and a couple of very patient priests).

So, now I’m telling you to “accept the Calvinist paradigm”?

No. For the purposes of this forum, I take the CCC to be definitive of the paradigm, insofar as one set of documents can capture it. More broadly, the Catholic body of doctrine as the paradigm.

Again, that’s absurd and demeaning. Again, I really don’t know anything about you and that was the point of the post.

Without knowing anything about people who present their own internal evidence, you do not seek any more information. You approach the topic with a bias against the person.

The same bias I hold against myself. If “personal internal evidence” makes an existential difference, we are all living in isolated universes from each other, each an “island of truth unto ourselves”, a kind of postmodernist fantasy. In which case, there’s no point in talking, so it would be the end of story, if your “internal evidence”, or mine moved the needle, at the end of the day. Reality isn’t structured according to your subjective convictions, nor mine, and it’s a conceit on either of our parts to suppose it does.

So I do have a reasonable bias against that, as should you, if you take the inquiry seriously.

I don’t agree, but what prevents you from lying to me now?

Nothing, and that’s always good to keep in mind!

If I approached you with skepticism, I would demand some evidence for your good-faith participation in the discussion.

What would that evidence look like? I’m not sure how that could be satisfied. On internet forums, it’s just assumed as a starting point, so that civil discussion can happen at all.

-TS

 

[BTW]

BTW, did you happen to see my post earlier?

Yes, and I’m going to check it out. I’ll let you know as soon as I do.

 

[BTW]

Originally Posted by Windfish
BTW, did you happen to see my post earlier?

Yes, and I’m going to check it out. I’ll let you know as soon as I do.

I found your earlier thread on this question, and would say that I agree with the comments provided by Jen. The only things I can add are these:
First, I was attending the 10:30 Mass at Blessed Sacrament Church in Washington D.C and heard a sermon that I believe mentioned the Eucharistic miracle that Dr. Gomez was concerned with.
I don’t know the name of the priest who gave the sermon but the date was 6-6-10.
Second, I found this book title on Amazon when I searched under Ricardo Calderan Gomez.

Misterios DE La Iglesia (Mundo Magico y Heterodoxo) (Spanish Edition) [Paperback]
Carmen Porter (Author)
I don’t read Spanish very well, but I think this translates to Mysteries of the Church: The World of Magic and Heterodoxy.