Realms of discourse

[johngh]

Today in my Philosophy of Religion class the professor brought up an interesting idea that I have thought about before and wanted to know everyone’s opinion on.

The basic idea is that different subjects have their own independent realms of discourse. Essentially they have their own language, or grammar if you will, and that you cannot use the language of one to talk about the other. Some realms of discourse include Religion, Science, History, Common Sense, etc.

The reason this seems important to me is that if it is true, that would eliminate a lot of arguments that are made both for and against the existence of God. It seems that most of what is argued about these days is things in the realm of science. Atheists often claim that if they can come up with a natural explanation for an event that this automatically disproves God. I have always found there to be something fundamentally wrong with that argument, and perhaps it is that science has no place in arguments about the existence of God.

Honestly I don’t have any real conclusive opinion on this, which is why I want everyones (name removed by moderator)ut. What do you all think?

 

[geometer]

Honestly I don’t have any real conclusive opinion on this, which is why I want everyones (name removed by moderator)ut. What do you all think?

You have an honestly educated professor.

 

[Touchstone]

Today in my Philosophy of Religion class the professor brought up an interesting idea that I have thought about before and wanted to know everyone’s opinion on.

The basic idea is that different subjects have their own independent realms of discourse. Essentially they have their own language, or grammar if you will, and that you cannot use the language of one to talk about the other. Some realms of discourse include Religion, Science, History, Common Sense, etc.

The reason this seems important to me is that if it is true, that would eliminate a lot of arguments that are made both for and against the existence of God. It seems that most of what is argued about these days is things in the realm of science. Atheists often claim that if they can come up with a natural explanation for an event that this automatically disproves God. I have always found there to be something fundamentally wrong with that argument, and perhaps it is that science has no place in arguments about the existence of God.

Honestly I don’t have any real conclusive opinion on this, which is why I want everyones (name removed by moderator)ut. What do you all think?

The idea that a natural explanation disproves God is a bogus one. Such explanations cannot establish God’s non-existence, even if you could provide some exhaustive model of nature, which is a pipe dream for us.

What a natural explanation can do, though, is make God more superfluous, unnecessary, extraneous, at least for that process. As natural explanations pile up, God’s intervention in nature gets pushed back further and further, and with maximal descriptions, God would only be effective in explaining the laws and order that enabled all those natural explanations – a remote God who designed a “clockwork universe”, perhaps.

Since God’s special intervention and creative immanence is major attraction to the idea of God for many people, natural explanations that push God “toward deism” often tend to attenuate belief, or put pressure on faith.

-TS

 

[brandymmiller]

Today in my Philosophy of Religion class the professor brought up an interesting idea that I have thought about before and wanted to know everyone’s opinion on.

The basic idea is that different subjects have their own independent realms of discourse. Essentially they have their own language, or grammar if you will, and that you cannot use the language of one to talk about the other. Some realms of discourse include Religion, Science, History, Common Sense, etc.

The reason this seems important to me is that if it is true, that would eliminate a lot of arguments that are made both for and against the existence of God. It seems that most of what is argued about these days is things in the realm of science. Atheists often claim that if they can come up with a natural explanation for an event that this automatically disproves God. I have always found there to be something fundamentally wrong with that argument, and perhaps it is that science has no place in arguments about the existence of God.

Honestly I don’t have any real conclusive opinion on this, which is why I want everyones (name removed by moderator)ut. What do you all think?

Education is a toolbox full of different tools which are used to answer the questions we have about life, the universe, and our place in it. Each subject is a tool in that toolbox, and all work together.
75% of the questions you have about life, the universe, and your place in it have already been answered by someone else.
**Language Arts **- Reading, Writing, Public Speaking, and Debate - teach you how to find the people to ask and how to get the answers from them that you need in the most efficient manner.

• Reading allows you to tap the brains of people dead for centuries or separated by
  great distances from you, opening up the number of resources you have available.
• Grammar is the key that unlocks the code of written language
• Writing ensures that the message you are trying to communicate is the one that is
  received
• Public Speaking allows you to address large numbers of people all at the same time
• Debate helps you to extract answers and spot errors in answers you do receive
• Foreign Languages expand the number of options you have when seeking answers
  Science - teaches you how to test the answers you get to see whether or not those answers can be relied upon by testing them. Science is often relegated to the classroom, but can be used for magazine articles, political speeches, etc. The truth always stands but what is false falls when tested.
  Math helps to make sense of the results you get from proper application of the scientific method. Also helps you to think logically and sequentially.
  History is the study of the experiments that various societies of the past have conducted and the results they have gotten so that you don’t have to repeat their errors and can build upon their successes
  Music is the true language of love and is a combination of music, science, and language arts
  Dance is the body’s natural response to music
  Philosophy teaches you to take the answers you get to the little questions and put them together to answer bigger questions in a logical and reasoned way.
  Religion teaches you that there is an answer to why you are here and that you do have a purpose and should search for it.

These subjects all work together. Isolating them actually weakens them and makes them less useful. If you study history, but you don’t test what you find in history or analyze the results of what you’ve tested, you glean nothing but facts which aren’t very meaningful to your present day life. If you don’t ask the questions in the first place you haven’t got much to build a philosophy on. If you don’t think there’s a purpose to your life here, why bother searching, etc. etc.

 

[brandymmiller]

Since God’s special intervention and creative immanence is major attraction to the idea of God for many people, natural explanations that push God “toward deism” often tend to attenuate belief, or put pressure on faith.

-TS

Actually, this shouldn’t be true for any Catholic who knows their faith. In Catholic theology, we presuppose that God created the natural law and manifests Himself through its workings. Simply put - we don’t need miracles to affirm our belief in God.

For myself, it is because I found that obedience to the teachings of the Catholic Church were ALWAYS the most beneficial path to me that I came back to a belief in the Church after having left it for many years. My faith is unshakable because it rests on the knowledge that obedience to the Church’s teachings equips me to both give and receive love better than I did when I was not obedient which makes those teachings healthier for me and healthier for the people I love. I have examined many different sets of beliefs, and many different religions, and never have I found one that helped me to love as I am able to love now. Love is the source of happiness, and so I have also found that being an obedient servant of Christ helps me to be happier as well

 

[Touchstone]

Actually, this shouldn’t be true for any Catholic who knows their faith. In Catholic theology, we presuppose that God created the natural law and manifests Himself through its workings. Simply put - we don’t need miracles to affirm our belief in God.

Isn’t ‘creat[ing] the natural’ a miracle? No matter, if God’s reality is only underwritten by the presupposition of his creation of the universe, I say that is gratifying minimal, and fragile. I approve! That seems quite an exotic position, given Catholics I know – priests among them – and folks here.

For myself, it is because I found that obedience to the teachings of the Catholic Church were ALWAYS the most beneficial path to me that I came back to a belief in the Church after having left it for many years. My faith is unshakable because it rests on the knowledge that obedience to the Church’s teachings equips me to both give and receive love better than I did when I was not obedient which makes those teachings healthier for me and healthier for the people I love. I have examined many different sets of beliefs, and many different religions, and never have I found one that helped me to love as I am able to love now. Love is the source of happiness, and so I have also found that being an obedient servant of Christ helps me to be happier as well

Well, let me recommend Mormonism to you, then! Catholics do have a lot to be proud of in showing Christian love to others, but it that’s your measure of truth – I think you can do even better. Mormons have some wacky claims (a do Catholics), but they excel at the kind of praxis you exalt here, in my experience. You might be even happier there!

Does it strike you as problematic that your beliefs are grounded – “unshakabl[y]” grounded – in emotional gratification?

-TS

 

[Betterave]

Actually, this shouldn’t be true for any Catholic who knows their faith. In Catholic theology, we presuppose that God created the natural law and manifests Himself through its workings. Simply put - we don’t need miracles to affirm our belief in God.

For myself, it is because I found that obedience to the teachings of the Catholic Church were ALWAYS the most beneficial path to me that I came back to a belief in the Church after having left it for many years. My faith is unshakable because it rests on the knowledge that obedience to the Church’s teachings equips me to both give and receive love better than I did when I was not obedient which makes those teachings healthier for me and healthier for the people I love. I have examined many different sets of beliefs, and many different religions, and never have I found one that helped me to love as I am able to love now. Love is the source of happiness, and so I have also found that being an obedient servant of Christ helps me to be happier as well

This is quite right, but TS is also partially right. He is right because most people are relatively ignorant about their faith and so they don’t notice that the non sequiturs that people like TS offer are in fact non sequiturs. They assume that science is successful, so in order for religion to be successful it must compete with science (even though science has nothing to do with understanding love, with helping us to love, purifying/elevating our love, etc.). But that is a stupid claim that I think is only ever made by a confused person trying to justify their rejection of the claims of the Church (which they necessarily misrepresent) or someone who has been confused by such a person or by a generally shallow positivistic education. This is also the source of such oddities as young earth creation science.

Brandy is right, then, to say that the tools should work together. But remember that the tools are different tools. It’s not a collection of hammers, from which we want to find the most powerful one and use that one for everything, including smashing all the other ‘inferior’ tools, which we imagine we don’t need any more, even though we might well demonstrably know next to nothing about them. Understanding the tools at our disposal is a major and ongoing task and they shouldn’t be artificially conflated (the prof is partly right) or separated (Brandi is partly right). (Sorry for the pedagogical tone - that’s just my take!)

 

[Spock]

They assume that science is successful, so in order for religion to be successful it must compete with science (even though science has nothing to do with understanding love, with helping us to love, purifying/elevating our love, etc.).

I am not particularly interested in this thread, but this remark needs correction. While it is true that science itself is not directly interested in “love”, but it was science that liberated us from backbreaking manual labor, and gave us the freedom to indulge in other pursuits of life, gave us more free time to enjoy the company of our loved ones. So indirectly science has a lot to do with love. Just about a hundred years ago everyone (except a small ruling class) had to engage in 10-12-14 hours of work every day - just to earn a very meager existence. It was applied science which changed all that - not religion. Religion might have made those times more endurable, but it was just rationalization, nothing more. “It will be different in afterlife” was taught, as if that hope would have made life easier and better here.

 

[brandymmiller]

Isn’t ‘creat[ing] the natural’ a miracle? No matter, if God’s reality is only underwritten by the presupposition of his creation of the universe, I say that is gratifying minimal, and fragile. I approve! That seems quite an exotic position, given Catholics I know – priests among them – and folks here.

I stand corrected! Creating the natural out of nothing would constitute a miracle. Amazing what we take for granted at times.

Well, let me recommend Mormonism to you, then! Catholics do have a lot to be proud of in showing Christian love to others, but it that’s your measure of truth – I think you can do even better. Mormons have some wacky claims (a do Catholics), but they excel at the kind of praxis you exalt here, in my experience. You might be even happier there!

Not at all so. I have grown up around Mormons, and I love and respect them dearly - but what they offer does not hold up to examination. I did say that I had tried many many different things before coming back home to the Church. I could not believe in the Mormon faith at any rate - too many holes and too much evidence against it.

Does it strike you as problematic that your beliefs are grounded – “unshakabl[y]” grounded – in emotional gratification?

My relationship with my husband is equally grounded in emotional gratification supported by years of evidence that the relationship is beneficial to us both. Is there a problem with that?

 

[brandymmiller]

It was applied science which changed all that - not religion. Religion might have made those times more endurable, but it was just rationalization, nothing more. “It will be different in afterlife” was taught, as if that hope would have made life easier and better here.

Science, my friend, does not make life easier and better without charity. It is charity that determines 40 hours as being a reasonable work week and not 120 which those who employ labor might prefer. It is charity that determines that children under a certain age should not be forced to labor but allowed to be children. It is charity that determines that a free education is the right of all. Science does not do any of that.

 

[Touchstone]

Not at all so. I have grown up around Mormons, and I love and respect them dearly - but what they offer does not hold up to examination. I did say that I had tried many many different things before coming back home to the Church. I could not believe in the Mormon faith at any rate - too many holes and too much evidence against it.

But wait – you just said your Catholic faith was grounded in how much happiness it produced, how conducive to love it is. On your priorities as stated there, Catholicism may be quite adequate, but I think Mormonism excels over it, and I commend it on that basis.

But now the story line changes. Mormonism has too many holes and too much evidence against – a charge I can fully agree with, but which doesn’t distinguish it from Catholicism, in my view. At any rate, now we see that your faith is NOT unshakable because it facilitates your happiness, but because, at least in part, it holds up to examination.

My relationship with my husband is equally grounded in emotional gratification supported by years of evidence that the relationship is beneficial to us both. Is there a problem with that?

If “it makes me happy” is your measure of truth, your basis for faith, I think you aren’t particularly tied to Catholicism or your husband. After twenty years of marriage, I remain a happy husband, but I don’t suppose “emotional gratification” is the basis and test of my marriage. I might do better elsewhere, at least from time to time. That relationship is grounded in something more than just gratification, which is a wonderful thing, as far as it goes.

-TS

 

[Spock]

Science, my friend, does not make life easier and better without charity. It is charity that determines 40 hours as being a reasonable work week and not 120 which those who employ labor might prefer. It is charity that determines that children under a certain age should not be forced to labor but allowed to be children. It is charity that determines that a free education is the right of all. Science does not do any of that.

Charity? What does that have to do with anything? Applied science makes the productivity higher, not some “charity”. A hundred years ago about 90% of the US population worked in agriculture fo feed the country. Today about 5% feeds everyone and there is a surplus, too. That is the result of science. In the third world countries, where productivity is low, children are still engaged in agriculture. Their labor is still necessary. Only 50 years ago a computer which was of much lower quality than you use today cost close to a million dollars. It was applied science that changed that. Only 40 years ago a heart attack was almost always fatal. Science changed that. The good old times are today - and that is the result of science.

 

[Betterave]

I am not particularly interested in this thread, but this remark needs correction. While it is true that science itself is not directly interested in “love”, but it was science that liberated us from backbreaking manual labor, and gave us the freedom to indulge in other pursuits of life, gave us more free time to enjoy the company of our loved ones. So indirectly science has a lot to do with love. Just about a hundred years ago everyone (except a small ruling class) had to engage in 10-12-14 hours of work every day - just to earn a very meager existence. It was applied science which changed all that - not religion. Religion might have made those times more endurable, but it was just rationalization, nothing more. “It will be different in afterlife” was taught, as if that hope would have made life easier and better here.

Interesting theory Spock; unfortunately it is false. People used to spend more time with loved ones. Technology facilitates isolation/individualism more often than it does human interaction/relationships. (Of course this statement is way too sweeping, but so was yours.)

 

[johngh]

Interesting theory Spock; unfortunately it is false. People used to spend more time with loved ones. Technology facilitates isolation/individualism more often than it does human interaction/relationships.)

Amen

 

[Spock]

Interesting theory Spock; unfortunately it is false. People used to spend more time with loved ones. Technology facilitates isolation/individualism more often than it does human interaction/relationships. (Of course this statement is way too sweeping, but so was yours.)

Really? After 12-14 hours of work, every day? From early childhood? Because that was the way of life only a hundred years ago, and it was much worse before that. Don’t believe the fairy tales about the golden Victorian era. Most people worked every day until they dropped dead.

Technology gives you much more freedom to live your life as you want to. Even if people are not physically present, they can stay in touch via the internet… not having to wait days and weeks for exchanging letters. Yes, those people who were at the top of the “food chain” had a lot of leisure time, but not the rest. Yes, there are many people today who live in isolation, because they choose to.

 

[Betterave]

Really? After 12-14 hours of work, every day? From early childhood? Because that was the way of life only a hundred years ago, and it was much worse before that. Don’t believe the fairy tales about the golden Victorian era. Most people worked every day until they dropped dead.

Technology gives you much more freedom to live your life as you want to. Even if people are not physically present, they can stay in touch via the internet… not having to wait days and weeks for exchanging letters. Yes, those people who were at the top of the “food chain” had a lot of leisure time, but not the rest. Yes, there are many people today who live in isolation, because they choose to.

Very parochial observations, I suspect Spock. People I know who visit technologically “backward” countries are often amazed by the quality of relationships that they see the people there having. There is a sense of community that is simply missing in modern technologized societies - no one can simply “choose” to live in genuine community with those around them, even if they want and try to be counter-cultural. Cultural dynamics are much more resistant to individual choice than that. People used to have to stop working when the sun went down. Now natural regulation/limitation of work has been largely eliminated. Farmers work just as long as they ever did, probably longer. They have headlights on tractors. Now there is just more work, more business, for everyone. That’s part of the reason why a monastic vocation is much more counter-cultural in our day than it has been in the past.

 

[JDaniel]

The idea that a natural explanation disproves God is a bogus one. Such explanations cannot establish God’s non-existence, even if you could provide some exhaustive model of nature, which is a pipe dream for us.

What a natural explanation can do, though, is make God more superfluous, unnecessary, extraneous, at least for that process. As natural explanations pile up, God’s intervention in nature gets pushed back further and further, and with maximal descriptions, God would only be effective in explaining the laws and order that enabled all those natural explanations – a remote God who designed a “clockwork universe”, perhaps.

Since God’s special intervention and creative immanence is major attraction to the idea of God for many people, natural explanations that push God “toward deism” often tend to attenuate belief, or put pressure on faith.

-TS

Touchstone:

I’m relatively sure that you have read this, but, just in case you haven’t, I’ll post the URL again. TheWhim originally presented the url to the forums. It is worth the read - especially if you will read it with a willing suspension of an oppositional attitude towards it. No reply is necessary - unless you think it necessary.

communio-icr.com/articles/PDF/spaemann32-4.pdf

God bless,

jd

 

[Touchstone]

Touchstone:

I’m relatively sure that you have read this, but, just in case you haven’t, I’ll post the URL again. TheWhim originally presented the url to the forums. It is worth the read - especially if you will read it with a willing suspension of an oppositional attitude towards it. No reply is necessary - unless you think it necessary.

communio-icr.com/articles/PDF/spaemann32-4.pdf

God bless,

jd

OK, will read this tonight, thanks for the recommend.

-TS