Where does polytheism come from?

[St_Redemption]

It really grew when civilizations started combining themselves into groups. And each group brought their god with them.

 

[pocaracas]

Pocaracas, I do not believe I said the same thing as Thistle. I did not look up the link earlier, but did to gain a context after you pointed it out. Out of 3 points that Father had made concerning our beliefs on the flood points 1 and 3 both state there was a flood which you are correct I stated. The second point could be true, but is lacking information by its brevity. For instance you must believe there was a Noah i.e. an actual person. Many who would read point 2 would most likely conclude that you do not have believe that Noah existed.

1. That the story is not literally true but is included in the Scriptures to teach us valuable theology about who we are and God’s relationship to us.

Thistle, stated, “Catholics do not have to believe the flood is literally true.” I think I stated that you do have to believe the flood is true just not the entire world was flooded (as we know the world mapped out today). I would disagree with point 2 as it is written above only because to much is left out of that understanding.

Thank you for pointing that out, and causing me to go and read the link that Thistle had posted.

I was under the impression that he had said that catholics can believe the flood, or not… they can choose.
You’re saying that, no, you must accept it as a real event, just not necessarily on the worldwide scale it’s usually portrayed, right?

As Jesus said, “If you have seen me you have seen the Father”. a longer discussion for sure, but I do believe Jesus revealed as much as possible about an infinite being to finite beings. See John chapters 14-17 for more information.

I would refrain from calling people dumb on this subject, ignorant yes. There are many reasons why people would reject Jesus and His church. The priest scandals, the sins of the laity, governments, false history being taught. The list goes on and on. It would be rare to reject based on sane arguments. The rejection most often comes from emotions and people being hurt by others or lies not investigated.

Curious… I usually see the acceptance based on emotional “arguments”…

 

[Heismysword]

With respect to the preceding conversation, I want to make a few small points.

This topic is impossible to answer. We have to presuppose that we know how religion developed, where, and when. Even if we have very early records of people venerating what seems to be a “fetish” animal, or spirit, we have very little context for which to put those beliefs in place. We have no holy books (there were none) or any oral stories to let us know what doctrines they held. Take for example, the common misconception that Catholics worship Icons or Statues. Some alien digging up a church 100,000 years from now might make the same, very erroneous, conclusion about us today.

Second, we assume that mans religion must go from Simple to Complex. If this was absolutely true, I would actually have to argue that Islam is older than Hinduism, since Islam is more simplistic a belief than Hinduism. You cant get much simpler than the Creedo: There is only one God, and Muhammad is his prophet.

Regards,

 

[pocaracas]

It really grew when civilizations started combining themselves into groups. And each group brought their god with them.

Interesting view… contrasting with all others brought forth thus far.
Would you mind providing some background for that?

 

[pocaracas]

With respect to the preceding conversation, I want to make a few small points.

This topic is impossible to answer. We have to presuppose that we know how religion developed, where, and when. Even if we have very early records of people venerating what seems to be a “fetish” animal, or spirit, we have very little context for which to put those beliefs in place. We have no holy books (there were none) or any oral stories to let us know what doctrines they held. Take for example, the common misconception that Catholics worship Icons or Statues. Some alien digging up a church 100,000 years from now might make the same, very erroneous, conclusion about us today.

I was hoping that the OT+NT could provide such an answer… but it seems that was an epic fail on my part.

Second, we assume that mans religion must go from Simple to Complex. If this was absolutely true, I would actually have to argue that Islam is older than Hinduism, since Islam is more simplistic a belief than Hinduism. You cant get much simpler than the Creedo: There is only one God, and Muhammad is his prophet.

Regards,

How about: there is no god? It’s as simple as it gets!

But I don’t think islam is that simple… it rests upon the shoulders of the teachings of Moses, like christianity and, of course, judaism.

 

[Heismysword]

No religion is certainly a possibility as the starting religion. Again my point is that tracing religion to its roots scientifically is impossible simply because there is much we will never know. It would be like the ancient and deeply important question: Was the first beer brewed an IPA or a Brown Ale. Personally, I think it was neither and we should be looking at a pilsner.

Islam doesn’t need the mosaic law nor the new testament. It is a rejection of both. It is a resetting of God 's (of Abraham) rules back to their Abramatic roots. My point is that it’s basic creeds and claims are much simpler than Hinduism, which is very complex. With the evolution of religion theory it should be the oposit.

But, knowing how polytheism etc developed is really a sidestep to how Christianity developed. The claims of Salvation History is simply that God continued contact with select groups of people until his plan could come to fruition in the person of Christ. The existence of polytheism doesn’t take away from that doctrine Particularly since we will never know exactly what the first humans thought. The arguments can become very speculative and redundant.

I apologize for the sloppy layout and Grammer. I am typing this on my cell, and doing a rather poor job I’m afraid!

 

[pocaracas]

No religion is certainly a possibility as the starting religion. Again my point is that tracing religion to its roots scientifically is impossible simply because there is much we will never know. It would be like the ancient and deeply important question: Was the first beer brewed an IPA or a Brown Ale. Personally, I think it was neither and we should be looking at a pilsner.

While I agree it is unknowable… I was hoping to get a speculative answer from the point of view of a chirstian…

Islam doesn’t need the mosaic law nor the new testament. It is a rejection of both. It is a resetting of God 's (of Abraham) rules back to their Abramatic roots. My point is that it’s basic creeds and claims are much simpler than Hinduism, which is very complex. With the evolution of religion theory it should be the oposit.

Oh, indeed… that’s because islam is not an evolution of hindu mythology, is it?
The way I recall it, hinduism is on a completely different evolutionary branch from abrahamism.

But, knowing how polytheism etc developed is really a sidestep to how Christianity developed. The claims of Salvation History is simply that God continued contact with select groups of people until his plan could come to fruition in the person of Christ. The existence of polytheism doesn’t take away from that doctrine Particularly since we will never know exactly what the first humans thought. The arguments can become very speculative and redundant.

Indeed they can… But if we’re not here to speculate, then what?.. rehash whatever people have written thousands of years ago? bah!!

I apologize for the sloppy layout and Grammer. I am typing this on my cell, and doing a rather poor job I’m afraid!

You did far better than I have ever done with such a long text on a phone… and I use swype.

 

[Heismysword]

If we are going to speculate about the unknown it should be obvious what each position would be. As a Christian, I am inclined to believe that Man knew God, at least in a primitive sense, from Adam. Then over time we divinized nature and became polytheistic. Quite obviously I’m biased. That being said, someone who is dead set against that senario (say an Atheist) would argue otherwise, but they too are equally biased. This is where any real discussion breaks down. The real answer can never really be known.

I think you misunderstand my second point. While Hinduism is not part (obviously) of the Abramatic tradition, it is much more complex than any of the Abramatic traditions. Even the Jewish laws are not more complex than other ancient legal codes such as Hammurabi (sp) . I suppose the point I was trying to make is that I feel polytheism is more complex than monotheism. You have a large pantheon of gods, they each have their own cult, with rituals, rites, etc. In layman’s terms, it seems to me that if we moved from simple to complex we would go from Anamistic to Monotheistic to Polytheistic.

This has been pleasant, and your very charitable, but what is it you want to glean from thus conversation? I’m afraid we can’t speculate much deeper.

 

[pocaracas]

If we are going to speculate about the unknown it should be obvious what each position would be. As a Christian, I am inclined to believe that Man knew God, at least in a primitive sense, from Adam. Then over time we divinized nature and became polytheistic. Quite obviously I’m biased. That being said, someone who is dead set against that senario (say an Atheist) would argue otherwise, but they too are equally biased. This is where any real discussion breaks down. The real answer can never really be known.

This here… this answers your question at the end of your post.
This is what I want to know - that you are aware of your biases.
It is a rare gift.

I think you misunderstand my second point. While Hinduism is not part (obviously) of the Abramatic tradition, it is much more complex than any of the Abramatic traditions. Even the Jewish laws are not more complex than other ancient legal codes such as Hammurabi (sp) . I suppose the point I was trying to make is that I feel polytheism is more complex than monotheism. You have a large pantheon of gods, they each have their own cult, with rituals, rites, etc. In layman’s terms, it seems to me that if we moved from simple to complex we would go from Anamistic to Monotheistic to Polytheistic.

It seems to me that the simplest observation would be that everyone has a spirit, then every thing in nature, animals, plants, rocks, sun, moon, have spirits - many spirits exist… and this flows neatly to many divinities existing.
With the confusion that many gods ensue, specially when dealing with “international” deities, the concept of a single all-round good guy bringing unity to all peoples becomes very appealing - this one deity then is the most complex god ever devised, for it contains all the qualities of all the other gods… and they cannot cause internal logical conflicts, like being the god of war and the god of love at the same time… how did people deal with that bit?

This has been pleasant, and your very charitable, but what is it you want to glean from thus conversation? I’m afraid we can’t speculate much deeper.

What I said above… bring awareness of one’s own biases. Make people think beyond what they are told by… whoever.

If I can learn something along the way, even if it’s something totally unexpected, like that non-orthodox hindu view, I’m happy.

 

[Cirdan_XII]

Reality is what it is.
Science is mankind’s best attempt at describing reality. It endeavors to be devoid of any bias - surely, some is bound to seep in, but, if discovered, it is minimized, or eliminated.
What is this truth you speak of?
The description of reality is as truthful as possible… it is also ever improving.

If you attempt to describe reality, you must first have a reason to believe or assume that there is reality. There is a (possibly apocryphal anecdote about Nils Bohr where a friend noticed he had a good luck horsehoe nailed to his doorframe, and this visitor said, you are a scientist and physiscist and extremely intelligent, surely you don’t beieve this superstitious rubbish. Bohr replied, you are right. Of course I don’t believe it. But I’ve heard it also works when you don’t believe it. Okay, this anecdote is more amusing than it teaches us anything, but I have talked to people who worked as missionaries or helpers in Africa nad they say it’s quite common to hear such things there. People may consult the village miracle healer but also go to the medical doctior about the same complaint and not because they want to cover their bases because they aren’t sure who of the two is right, but because they believe both may be right even though they are contrdictory and each healer says the other is a charlatan. So the concept of there being one reality is itself axiomatic. There may concetually be parallel realities or no reality, but there is only one truth. Truth is deeper than reality and a reality cannot exist without truth. If you try and construct a reality while denying the existence of truth you run into all sorts of contradictions.

Considering all the psychological pitfalls of the human mind, all the possible biases, revelation cannot be honestly considered as adequate at determining such a description.
But you seem to wish it were… why?

Then by the same measure science is also impossible, as the human mind is too imperfect and psychologically damaged to be able to pursue advanced logic for example?

Why is it that when a scientist says something that you can say, yes, I see this make sense. He must be right. But when a religious person says something you say, wait a second, if you agree with him then you are part of the same delusion. Isn’t that extreme bias?

Yes, that’s right.
The problem being?..

The problem being that empiricism teaches us what works, but not reallywhy it works.

Religion is all about the why. Therefore empiricism is not a good judge to measure religion by.

I remember presenting a tentative list of subjects which must go in a definition of “better” right after what you quoted.
For some reason, you removed that bit from your quote…

I explained this. They are all subjective and as I said, you can demonstarte these laews are useful, but utility does not in itself make right.

A man-made metric would be reliant on what works… the utility you speak of.

Man is even capable of building mental constructs in which scenarios can play out, thus being able to evaluate the utility of an action, prior to(or instead of) carrying out such action… it is even able to communicate the outcome of such mental experiment with other, so they, too, can carry it out in their minds, each individual bringing his own point of view and biases into the imagined scenario. Let’s call this Philosophy.
Using this capability, man can derive rules of what he perceives may work out well for his community and what may spell disaster.

Another mechanism to arrive at some of these rules may have been brought down through a trial and error procedure - for example, I can devise of no possible mental scenario, from millennia ago, for a rule that prevents siblings from having sexual intercourse, if not for the observation that it tends to have nasty results in the offspring.

Godly judgement… if it exists… should have gotten everything right from day 1… instead… well… let’s just say things haven’t been without a few hiccups.

Because maybe god did not set out to create a world with maximum immediate utility,but had other objectives in mind?

Have you looked into the experiments with silver foxes, and how they are “turned” into domesticated animals, capable of replacing a dog as a pet?
Behaviors (or aversion to certain behaviors) are predisposed.
Can some moral rules be seen as an aversion to certain behaviors?

Sometimes moral rules can overlap with utility, yes.
Sometimes evolution will select for utility, yes.
But utility does not define moral.
This is a big difference.

What?!
What is observed is that genetic predisposition will give you an enhanced ability to believe in non-natural events, like an afterlife, which then gets filled by the engulfing culture and religion.

But if evolution hard wired the predisposition for belief into people, the atheists must either

a) be able to overcome their hard-wiring
b) be a new evolutionary development lacking this hard wiring, or having a hard wiring pre-disposing them to atheism.

In case of (b), how do they know they are not just as deluded as the theists, seeing they are responding to the same hard-wiring?

In case of (a), the restriction caused ba the pre-disposition is obviosuly not very strong. So the whole argument that uses this to explain away religion is itself not very strong.

 

[pocaracas]

If you attempt to describe reality, you must first have a reason to believe or assume that there is reality…] So the concept of there being one reality is itself axiomatic. There may concetually be parallel realities or no reality, but there is only one truth. Truth is deeper than reality and a reality cannot exist without truth. If you try and construct a reality while denying the existence of truth you run into all sorts of contradictions.

(I had to remove some of this to meet with the maximum characters per post)
Good joke! I hadn’t heard it before!
I only know about the guy who claimed not to be superstitious, because it was bad luck to be superstitious.

But that last bit leaves me very confused…
What do you mean “construct a reality”?
To me, reality is what it is. I am real. My body is real… the planet Earth is real… the universe is real… if there is a god, it too is real. Reality is what is.
Truth is a description of events, or of reality, filtered by a particular view…

I once had to do an exercise on relativity… a guy was caught passing a red light. The police officer saw the red light and the guy passing on his vehicle. The guy claims truthfully that the light was green when he passed it.
The police officer then hands him a ticket for speeding. How fast was he going?

So, the reality is one thing, but two contradictory truthful statements are issued.

Then by the same measure science is also impossible, as the human mind is too imperfect and psychologically damaged to be able to pursue advanced logic for example?

Science has evolved slowly and has certainly produced some huge blunders… so yes, that is possible.
But the underlying principle is that honest attempt at minimizing biases. Being aware of the bias and doing your best to remove it from your reasoning.

Why is it that when a scientist says something that you can say, yes, I see this make sense. He must be right. But when a religious person says something you say, wait a second, if you agree with him then you are part of the same delusion. Isn’t that extreme bias?

Perhaps… but then the religious person must account for all the contradictory religious views.
The scientist relies solely on his materialist experience to agree with the other… the religious relies on what?

The problem being that empiricism teaches us what works, but not reallywhy it works.

Religion is all about the why. Therefore empiricism is not a good judge to measure religion by.

Religion… yes, empiricism/science can provide some insight into religion.
It does seem unable to provide any insight into god itself, although it should, if god is indeed a part of reality… or, to put another way, if god exists, then science should be able to spot it. Perhaps that would require a science of extra-universal ability, or something, and we can’t yet fathom how… but it should.

But the very man-made religions… those are all up for scrutiny.
It is true that they bring solace to many people. It is true that religions guide many people in their daily lives and drive those people to become better persons… and a whole other bunch of stuff - good and bad.
But the premise under which that is done may be faulty. But it doesn’t really matter, as long as it works.

It is also true that, some people, devoid of the guidance provided by religion, find it difficult to cope with certain problems that life presents to them… while others are perfectly fine.

I explained this. They are all subjective and as I said, you can demonstarte these laews are useful, but utility does not in itself make right.

Maybe it does… remember we are talking about utility for the group, not just the individual.
Group-wide utility is rewarded.
Individual utility, to the detriment of the group, is punished.

Because maybe god did not set out to create a world with maximum immediate utility,but had other objectives in mind?

Maybe the god that created this universe is just a high-school god who didn’t make an A+ worthy universe, but there are other gods out there who did… and a few who flunked with their utter rubbish universes…
Any speculation is as good as another, huh?

Sometimes moral rules can overlap with utility, yes.
Sometimes evolution will select for utility, yes.
But utility does not define moral.
This is a big difference.

Why not? Why can’t utility for the successful persistence of the group be a definition of moral?
What is moral?

But if evolution hard wired the predisposition for belief into people, the atheists must either

a) be able to overcome their hard-wiring
b) be a new evolutionary development lacking this hard wiring, or having a hard wiring pre-disposing them to atheism.

In case of (b), how do they know they are not just as deluded as the theists, seeing they are responding to the same hard-wiring?

In case of (a), the restriction caused ba the pre-disposition is obviosuly not very strong. So the whole argument that uses this to explain away religion is itself not very strong.

Or c), the mechanism for skepticism was there all along, it just got selected away… but not yet totally… some more millennia were required… but society has managed to accept non-belief, in some parts of the world, now… so it’s not expected to keep selecting this mechanism away.
Or, perhaps a d) the skeptical mindset grew as the ability to deceive and trick people grew and it is now developed enough that non-believers are growing in numbers… even in places in the world where being an atheist will get you killed.

 

[Cirdan_XII]

But that last bit leaves me very confused…
What do you mean “construct a reality”?
To me, reality is what it is. I am real. My body is real… the planet Earth is real… the universe is real… if there is a god, it too is real. Reality is what is.
Truth is a description of events, or of reality, filtered by a particular view…

So it can be true that something exists? It can be true that something is real? So you agree that truth is deeper than reality and truth is deeper tha existence, as without truth, neither realness nor existence have meaning? But we can still imagine an empty universe in which nothing exists but in which things can still be true. So truth is before reality.

I once had to do an exercise on relativity… a guy was caught passing a red light. The police officer saw the red light and the guy passing on his vehicle. …
So, the reality is one thing, but two contradictory truthful statements are issued.

No, the statement were not contradictory,as the conclusion of the story tells us. The story is really reminding us that the colour of a light can change depending on our speed relative to it. So it is true that the colour depends on the speed of the observer and therefore false that it does not change. I don’t see where two contradictory statment come into this. At best you could say the two statements appeared true because some information was missing. This is not really different to those proofs where somebody proves that 0 = 1 until you look at the fine print of the proof and see he divided by zero in some tricky way without you noticing. That doesn’t prove that 1 = 0 but just shows the person who did the proof either made a mistake or is an accomplished trickster.

Religion… yes, empiricism/science can provide some insight into religion.
It does seem unable to provide any insight into god itself, although it should, if god is indeed a part of reality… or, to put another way, if god exists, then science should be able to spot it. Perhaps that would require a science of extra-universal ability, or something, and we can’t yet fathom how… but it should.

No because science is founded on empiricism. Even theoretical science ultimately builds on empirical axioms. All of science is therefore tracable to empiricist principles.

God is not primarily empirical. It’s a different way of thinking. You can’t find god with a phscics formula and more than you can use religious principles to design a laser or land on the moon. Different thing, different purpose.

Would you criticize a symphony orchestra because its unscientific? Does it need to be scientific? If a conductor of a symphony orchestra told you physics is nonsense because there are’t enough trombones in science labs, you would probably look at him in disbelief and wonder why he is judging the rest of the world by some narrow criteria from his own background.

But the very man-made religions… those are all up for scrutiny.
It is true that they bring solace to many people. It is true that religions guide many people in their daily lives and drive those people to become better persons… and a whole other bunch of stuff - good and bad.
But the premise under which that is done may be faulty. But it doesn’t really matter, as long as it works.

no. this might be true if you were speaking from a certainty that true religion did not exist, and that you were trying to explain away some good things that religion appeared to be doing. But if you narrow things down unncessarily you have to be careful that that bias isn’t affecting your conclusion.

Maybe the god that created this universe is just a high-school god who didn’t make an A+ worthy universe, but there are other gods out there who did… and a few who flunked with their utter rubbish universes…
Any speculation is as good as another, huh?

This is missing a huge trick. If you’re in a monotheistic universe, then the one god gets to define what is true and what isn’t. If you like, that god doesn’t even need to decide because through his nature those things are. If you like god is a sort of ultimate rule book. All that scientists are doing is discovering or conjecturing about those rules, or at least those on the science pages of the rulebook. With a different set of physical laws and physical constants, the universe might be totally different in ways beyond our imagining. So this flunked up universe you speak of would have a set of useless laws, maybe life would never have evolved. maybe the entiure universe would be a one congealed glob of useless matter capabale of doing nothing and nothing would ever happen and that god would have is just reward for being so incompetent. But this is conjecture or maybe something to be explred in science fiction. But its not our universe.

Why not? Why can’t utility for the successful persistence of the group be a definition of moral?

You can define things differently if you want, and call it that. But you’re only making the conversation more difficult by doing os as if we don’t agree what words mean, it just gets more difficult to talk about them.

What is moral?

Moral is the behviour bit of the book I mentioned above, so not the science bit or any other bit there may be, but the bit that says what the people are supposed to be doing or not doing as the case may be.

Of course the empirical utility reward thing may partly overlap with that as the rules are not random but serve a purpose and some of the rules can be uncovered by trial and error, but that’s not to say the rules weren’t there first.

 

[pocaracas]

First, I’d like to say that I’m really enjoying this conversation!
I hope we could just keep it going on and on and on… but I am aware that, in the end, we’ll ahve to agree to disagree on a few things, hopefully having learned some about the other’s point of view.

And on that note, let’s continue!

So it can be true that something exists? It can be true that something is real? …] So truth is before reality.

I thought I was saying the exact opposite…
Reality just is… truth is a feature of a description of reality. These descriptions can feature truth in them… or not. Truth may be absent from such descriptions… the trick is, some people may claim a non truthful description to be truthful… and others may believe that claim… and propagate it.

A description of reality, be it truthful or not, requires a thinking mind to produce, methinks. If all the big bang and evolution shenanigans are taken to be accurate descriptions of the past, then I’d wager that such minds did not exist during most of the time… Only recently have they developed such ability, in humans… as far as we are aware.

So reality far precedes any truth… unless your concept of truth is different from mine…?

No, the statement were not contradictory,as the conclusion of the story tells us. The story is really reminding us that the colour of a light can change depending on our speed relative to it. So it is true that the colour depends on the speed of the observer and therefore false that it does not change. I don’t see where two contradictory statment come into this. At best you could say the two statements appeared true because some information was missing.

Sounds like you are talking about my kind of truth, then…

No because science is founded on empiricism. Even theoretical science ultimately builds on empirical axioms. All of science is therefore tracable to empiricist principles.

God is not primarily empirical. It’s a different way of thinking. You can’t find god with a phscics formula and more than you can use religious principles to design a laser or land on the moon. Different thing, different purpose.

Ah… but remember I added the caveat that science could find some mechanism to probe into the divine realm.
My point is a rather hypothetical one - if something is real, then it should be detectable… even if our current apparatuses are utterly lacking in the ability to detect what lies beyond the Universe, if anything.
If it is real, it is out there, somewhere, and it can be probed, somehow.

Would you criticize a symphony orchestra because its unscientific? Does it need to be scientific? If a conductor of a symphony orchestra told you physics is nonsense because there are’t enough trombones in science labs, you would probably look at him in disbelief and wonder why he is judging the rest of the world by some narrow criteria from his own background.

The non-overlapping magisteria thing… I don’t think it stands up to scrutiny, even if I can’t fathom of how such overlapping can occur.

no. this might be true if you were speaking from a certainty that true religion did not exist, and that you were trying to explain away some good things that religion appeared to be doing. But if you narrow things down unncessarily you have to be careful that that bias isn’t affecting your conclusion.

?.. ah… yes, well… “true religion” That is a whole other can of worms, isn’t it?

Let’s say I’m a complete alien to this world and have never heard of the concept of a god… kind of like a child… but I am used to dealing with deceiving tactics, so I am well equipped to avoid them.
How, then, can I tell one religion apart from another and discern which is the one that provides the best depiction of reality? How can I tell which is the one “true religion”, if any?

This is missing a huge trick. If you’re in a monotheistic universe, then the one god gets to define what is true and what isn’t. If you like, that god doesn’t even need to decide because through his nature those things are. If you like god is a sort of ultimate rule book. All that scientists are doing is discovering or conjecturing about those rules, or at least those on the science pages of the rulebook. With a different set of physical laws and physical constants, the universe might be totally different in ways beyond our imagining. So this flunked up universe you speak of would have a set of useless laws, maybe life would never have evolved. maybe the entiure universe would be a one congealed glob of useless matter capabale of doing nothing and nothing would ever happen and that god would have is just reward for being so incompetent. But this is conjecture or maybe something to be explred in science fiction. But its not our universe.

Still, our universe doesn’t seem to be the best one… there is too much suffering, it seems… and that’s just on this wee tiny rock we call Earth.

Moral is the behviour bit of the book I mentioned above, so not the science bit or any other bit there may be, but the bit that says what the people are supposed to be doing or not doing as the case may be.

Of course the empirical utility reward thing may partly overlap with that as the rules are not random but serve a purpose and some of the rules can be uncovered by trial and error, but that’s not to say the rules weren’t there first.

I see we were using different conceptions for “moral”.

What if the rules weren’t there first and there is no such book?
The empirical utility thing is, pretty much, all we’re left with… can it not account for every rule you think is on that book?

 

[Cirdan_XII]

First, I’d like to say that I’m really enjoying this conversation!
…

And on that note, let’s continue!

OK

Truth may be absent from such descriptions… the trick is, some people may claim a non truthful description to be truthful… and others may believe that claim… and propagate it.

Truth is not dependent on people recognizing it or claiming it. If somebody claims a false statement to be true its still false. The truth is not democractic.

A description of reality, be it truthful or not, requires a thinking mind to produce, methinks. If all the big bang and evolution shenanigans are taken to be accurate descriptions of the past, then I’d wager that such minds did not exist during most of the time… Only recently have they developed such ability, in humans… as far as we are aware.

Maybe, but if the Big Bang theory is true today, then it has always been true and will always be true. If at some point in the future it will be false, then it has been false all the time and is false now and will remain false. It’s just that we don’t know it’s false. The truth is independent of recognition or observation.

So reality far precedes any truth… unless your concept of truth is different from mine…?

I disagree. As I said previously, imagine a hypothetical universe that is completely empty to the point of not even having space or dimensions. It holds no reality but certain truths are nevertheless given.

Ah… but remember I added the caveat that science could find some mechanism to probe into the divine realm.

Maybe it also boils down to how you define science. But there have been philosophers who have had pretty interesting shots at finding evidence for (and also against) the diviine. And then there have been counter arguments and counter-counter arguments so I wouldn’t say there hasn’t been any rational attempt at probing this area, and neither would I assume that all has been said that can be said.

But if you’re thinking of the sort of science that’s going to make something go bang in a test tube and thus prove or disprove god, I don’t think that will ever happen, as as I have said before, science is attempting to understand and map out the laws and the mechanisms of creation and not trying to identify the creator. Maybe some day something else that will also call itself science may try that, but then its a question of where science stops.Think of a map maker whose job it is to make a road map of say all of Ireland. He travels down every road and takes measurements and notes and learns the names of villages, hills, lakes etc and bit by bit the white areas on the map are filled with information. This in my analogy is science. When he’s finished the map he can maybe then start doing more detailed maps up to the point of showing every tree and every rock. This would take many generations of iterative improvement. But if you ask him about say the geology or the history of Ireland he won’t know. That’s not in the scope of his remit and his tools aren’t designed to detect that.

My point is a rather hypothetical one - if something is real, then it should be detectable… even if our current apparatuses are utterly lacking in the ability to detect what lies beyond the Universe, if anything.

Maybe not 100%. If you write a program for example to do a diagnosis on your computer. It can do tests on the memory and speed and things but these are all things the people who designed the computer allowed it to do by providing that functionality, or maybe it uses some tricks to exploit things they didn’t anticipate, but it’s still a fairly restricted environment. If you ask a programer to write a diagnosis program to find the names of the people who designed the computer, unless those people hid that in a ROM somewhere so you could find, it’s not going to be able to do so. Similarly God reveals himself in his own time and way and is not tricked into doing so. But what you can do is see God’s handwriting for example in the beauty of nature or of mathematical consistencies. Similarly, a program probing the insides of a computer might show the designerds were pretty inconsistent or not because of inefficiencies or errors.

Let’s say I’m a complete alien to this world and have never heard of the concept of a god… kind of like a child… but I am used to dealing with deceiving tactics, so I am well equipped to avoid them.

Again this is observer bias. There is no complete alien as thee is only one God across the whole universe. God is not local to one planet. So said alien would also underly God’s will. And how do you know that if said alien was not far better at detecting deception than any human, that he wouldn’t side with the theists and find it is the atheist point of view is the deceptive one? We are throwing speculative assumption against speculative asumption here.

How, then, can I tell one religion apart from another and discern which is the one that provides the best depiction of reality? How can I tell which is the one “true religion”, if any?

This is a different question altogether. There is a huge difference between recognizing one or at least one religion is true and asserting zero religions are true. The question of “which one is true” is compatible to the first assertation but incompatible with the second. Trying to discuss that with an atheist would be a bit like discussing the precise details of evolution with a creationist. If you don’t accept that at least one option could be correct its a bit pointless to discuss which one that could be, or which one is closest,

 

[pocaracas]

Truth is not dependent on people recognizing it or claiming it. If somebody claims a false statement to be true its still false. The truth is not democractic.

I’m starting to think that you’re calling truth to what I’m calling reality…

Maybe, but if the Big Bang theory is true today, then it has always been true and will always be true.

Ok, a truly truthful statement is an accurate description of reality. I agree.
But many statements are made, claiming to be truthful, which are not… like in your example, if the BBT turns out to be wrong… although, to be fair, the moniker “theory” already contains the caveat that it may be wrong.

Or the ancient egyptian priesthood, claiming that the pharaoh was a god…

I disagree. As I said previously, imagine a hypothetical universe that is completely empty to the point of not even having space or dimensions. It holds no reality but certain truths are nevertheless given.

I find this concept of universe a bit mind-boggling… nothing, no dimensions, no space, no time… is something?

But there have been philosophers who have had pretty interesting shots at finding evidence for (and also against) the diviine. And then there have been counter arguments and counter-counter arguments so I wouldn’t say there hasn’t been any rational attempt at probing this area, and neither would I assume that all has been said that can be said.

That just tells me that philosophy doesn’t seem to be right way to go at it… if there is a right way to go.

But if you’re thinking of the sort of science that’s going to make something go bang in a test tube and thus prove or disprove god, I don’t think that will ever happen, as as I have said before, science is attempting to understand and map out the laws and the mechanisms of creation and not trying to identify the creator. Maybe some day something else that will also call itself science may try that, but then its a question of where science stops.

Yep, I was going for something like this.
If something exists, then it is real.
Science is interested in providing models and explanations for reality.
I’d expect the divine realm, if it exists, if it is real, to be available for scrutiny… somehow…
I wouldn’t ever rely on any one person who says that the full description of that divine realm popped into his mind… unless it popped into many, many, many independent minds at the same time. But that’s not the picture painted in the ancient texts, is it?

Similarly God reveals himself in his own time and way and is not tricked into doing so. But what you can do is see God’s handwriting for example in the beauty of nature or of mathematical consistencies. Similarly, a program probing the insides of a computer might show the designerds were pretty inconsistent or not because of inefficiencies or errors.

Is the beauty of nature by design, or do we perceive beauty due to evolution?
Is a tsunami beautiful? Is a volcano beautiful? Is a hurricane beautiful? (answer is both yes and no for all).

PS: I really liked your typo: design + nerds = designerds

Again this is observer bias. There is no complete alien as thee is only one God across the whole universe. God is not local to one planet. So said alien would also underly God’s will. And how do you know that if said alien was not far better at detecting deception than any human, that he wouldn’t side with the theists and find it is the atheist point of view is the deceptive one? We are throwing speculative assumption against speculative asumption here.

I don’t know what he would do…
My guess would be: look at the evidence for each side…
Look at the very scant, old and potentially biased reports from ancient times…
Look at present day claims of miracles and saints and the like…
Analyze how the human mind works - what could have been intentionally manufactured, what could have been unintentionally manufactured, what could have been a misinterpretation… stuff like that.

There are some people out there, who being taught to believe in religion A since birth, but when they looked at the evidence, trying to be skeptical about everything, they ended up disbelieving what they were taught about religion A… since they also disbelieved all other religions (as per their educations), the end result was typically atheism.
One can probably find people in this condition for every religion, leading to the conclusion that, skeptically looking at the evidence for each religion makes one disbelieve it… so no religion holds water…

Perhaps part of the problem lies in confusing religion with god.
Can you accept the religion without accepting the existence of the god? kind of difficult, huh?
Can you accept the existence of the god without accepting the religion? completely doable. (let’s face it, the mulsim god is the christian god and is the jewish god… but no follower of one religion accepts the religion of the other 2).

This is a different question altogether. There is a huge difference between recognizing one or at least one religion is true and asserting zero religions are true. The question of “which one is true” is compatible to the first assertation but incompatible with the second. Trying to discuss that with an atheist would be a bit like discussing the precise details of evolution with a creationist. If you don’t accept that at least one option could be correct its a bit pointless to discuss which one that could be, or which one is closest,

I could grant you the possibility of existence of, at least, a deist god… a creator god. Could you take it from there?

 

[Cirdan_XII]

Firstly I’m going to say that if I dop out of this conversation it’s not because I’m rude but I have some work-realted things coming up that will limit my ability to check this forum out. But I’ll be back eventually

I’m starting to think that you’re calling truth to what I’m calling reality…

could be

Or the ancient egyptian priesthood, claiming that the pharaoh was a god…

so in your book, said Egyptian priest was speaking the truth, but what he said wasn’t real?
I’ve never come across that point of view before.

I find this concept of universe a bit mind-boggling… nothing, no dimensions, no space, no time… is something?

yes, I would expect that in such a universe the rules of logic, or some situationally adapted maybe reduced varaint thereof would still hold. So the universe may be void of space, dimensions or matter but may still hold a truth.

That just tells me that philosophy doesn’t seem to be right way to go at it…

or that there are ground breaking arguments out there somehwere that philospher’s haven’t spotted yet.

I’d expect the divine realm, if it exists, if it is real, to be available for scrutiny… somehow…

what if it is real but not as a physical realness but more in the way that the rules of logic or mathematics are real? You don’t study mathematics or logics by doing complicated experiments in a lab or looking into a microscope but you sit down and think and test and develop your thoughts maybe consult some books and if any tools more advanced than a pencil and paper are required it is maybe at best a computer. In this respect mathematics and logic are more akin to philosophy than to practical sciences.

I wouldn’t ever rely on any one person who says that the full description of that divine realm popped into his mind…

Ah yes, in theology this is the sola scriptura argument. People who follow the sola scriptura train of thought believe that only what is written in the scriptures counts, Anything not in the scriptures does not count, and what the scriptures say is absolute.

This thinking is wrong on many levels. For example if only the scriptures count, who is to teach you how to interpret them? Who is to say even what the words mean? How can you be so sure that the texts you are looking at have been translated and transcribed correctly?

Catholics do not susbcribe to sola scriptura but to the entire corpus of tradition going back to the ancient prophets and through to modern teachings. Many great theologians have discussed, analysed and sometimes even battled one another over correct interpretations - and their exchanges make thought provoking reading. This is parallel to contemporary philosphy where you trace many thoughts back to Plato for example, but morre recent and modern philosophers have worked on that and added to it and in some cases maybe contradicted or reinterpreted it. But if you study philosophy, you will most likely start off by reading Plato as even many bits of Plato that are not that relevant today need to be understood if you want to follow what some of the more modern philosophers were saying.

Is a tsunami beautiful?

I would say yes. And maybe a bird can be beautiful because evolution played some part in making it beatiful. But tsunamis did not come from evolution, and neither did volcanoes so that beauty must have another explanation. I don’t think you can argue that beauty is just a function of your brain beacuse what evolutionary advantage does recognising the beauty of a tsunami bestow on you?

My guess would be: look at the evidence for each side…
Look at the very scant, old and potentially biased reports from ancient times…
.

Why not also read a good portion of theology and decide, is this coherent, is it compatible to reality? Does it fulfil objective critera? Is it beatiful. And then look at some of the atheist critiues thereof and ask, have they actually understood the argument before attacking it? Is atheism itself even a sort of religion-lite maybe, and are they too blind to see it is so?

…, the end result was typically atheism.

You can also find the reverse. People who had atheist parents but started taking an interest in religion at some point and then decided, this is the right thing for me. I don’t think there is any strong evidence of this being a one way process.

Can you accept the existence of the god without accepting the religion? completely doable. (let’s face it, the mulsim god is the christian god and is the jewish god… but no follower of one religion accepts the religion of the other 2).

Monotheistic religions do by definition believe there is only one god. So to say this is the same god as that doesn’t really add any meaning. But if you go with the revelation interpretation, all major religions contain some element of the truth.

I could grant you the possibility of existence of, at least, a deist god… a creator god. Could you take it from there?

it’s difficult to do this in a nutshell as it might easily make a multi page essay. But I’d start by looking at the nature of good and evil and ruth and falsehoods and how that ties in with this god. Then we’d need to look into the môdus operandi of this god. Did he just create the universe and let it run on its own power like clockwork, or does he take an active interest in what happens inside it? If the latter, how does that interest manifest itself. Is he prepared to intervene and do things, and if so under what conditions?

 

[pocaracas]

Firstly I’m going to say that if I dop out of this conversation it’s not because I’m rude but I have some work-realted things coming up that will limit my ability to check this forum out. But I’ll be back eventually

No problem. I’ll wait… I use the “subscribed threads” page to check new replies.

so in your book, said Egyptian priest was speaking the truth, but what he said wasn’t real?
I’ve never come across that point of view before.

He was convinced it was the truth. Those listening were similarly convinced… heck, maybe the pharaoh himself was convinced.
That makes it a true statement, when they claimed that the pharaoh was a god.

Reality may have been something else, but that didn’t matter much.

yes, I would expect that in such a universe the rules of logic, or some situationally adapted maybe reduced varaint thereof would still hold. So the universe may be void of space, dimensions or matter but may still hold a truth.

And yet, it would still be real.
When I say “real”, I don’t mean physical, as in containing the 3+1D materials we find ordinarily.
I’m leaving it broad so as to incorporate anything that exists.

or that there are ground breaking arguments out there somehwere that philospher’s haven’t spotted yet.

perhaps…

what if it is real but not as a physical realness but more in the way that the rules of logic or mathematics are real? …]In this respect mathematics and logic are more akin to philosophy than to practical sciences.

All those happen within a medium - the human mind.
All those are real in pretty much the same way Harry Potter is real, or Darth Vader, or the whole Start Trek “universe”. They happen within minds.

Is a water wave something detached from the water itself? Or is it simply a collective behavior of water that we classify as a wave?

Ah yes, in theology this is the sola scriptura argument. People who follow the sola scriptura train of thought believe that only what is written in the scriptures counts, Anything not in the scriptures does not count, and what the scriptures say is absolute.

This thinking is wrong on many levels. For example if only the scriptures count, who is to teach you how to interpret them? Who is to say even what the words mean? How can you be so sure that the texts you are looking at have been translated and transcribed correctly?

How can you be sure you are receiving the correct interpretation, from your teacher?
How many concurrent and logical interpretations can there be?

How can we accept the claim that’s written down, in the first place? Is the text an accurate description of past events, or more akin to fiction? How can we tell?

Catholics do not susbcribe to sola scriptura but to the entire corpus of tradition going back to the ancient prophets and through to modern teachings. Many great theologians have discussed, analysed and sometimes even battled one another over correct interpretations - and their exchanges make thought provoking reading.

Hehe… indeed they have. I’m currently reading the book “Lost christianities”, by Bart Ehrman and in it he describes a bunch of different views the people in the 1st- 4th century had concerning Jesus and how to properly worship him.
Clearly, the catholic interpretation won out… but that doesn’t mean it’s the right one.
Just this morning I read the part where he says that it’s no great wonder that the version of christianity that made it was the one that had the church in Rome - the center of the empire, home of many great thinkers, where the art of politics was honed… Armed with such argumentative arsenal, how would the poor provincial views subsist?

I would say yes. And maybe a bird can be beautiful because evolution played some part in making it beatiful. But tsunamis did not come from evolution, and neither did volcanoes so that beauty must have another explanation. I don’t think you can argue that beauty is just a function of your brain beacuse what evolutionary advantage does recognising the beauty of a tsunami bestow on you?

Recognition of the overwhelming power of nature…
We are drawn to power.

Why not also read a good portion of theology and decide, is this coherent, is it compatible to reality? Does it fulfil objective critera? Is it beatiful. And then look at some of the atheist critiues thereof and ask, have they actually understood the argument before attacking it? Is atheism itself even a sort of religion-lite maybe, and are they too blind to see it is so?

You know?.. this is not about catholic vs atheist…
This scenario was about picking the right religion, the right god, if any.
All religions, at least all major ones, are mostly coherent…
Compatible with reality?.. who knows? Like I said a few posts ago, it is true that some people can navigate through life more easily when they believe… but that has no bearing on the reality of the object of belief. Maybe…
Fulfill objective criteria? What do you mean?
Is it beautiful? Well, beauty is in the eye of the beholder, so they say…

[breaking this in two parts]

 

[pocaracas]

You can also find the reverse. People who had atheist parents but started taking an interest in religion at some point and then decided, this is the right thing for me. I don’t think there is any strong evidence of this being a one way process.

Which comes back to something else we mentioned earlier… only about 20% of the population seem to have the mindset for atheism… even children of atheists will have a mindset that seeks out a belief - usually described as an emptiness inside.
The thing is that, usually, atheist parents don’t impose a belief system on their kids… they’re free to roam - and religions can provide a very fulfilling perspective. Many people like that idea of the invisible baby-sitter. It probably feels good to know you are being watched over and kept out of trouble.
But are you really?

it’s difficult to do this in a nutshell as it might easily make a multi page essay. But I’d start by looking at the nature of good and evil and ruth and falsehoods and how that ties in with this god. Then we’d need to look into the môdus operandi of this god. Did he just create the universe and let it run on its own power like clockwork, or does he take an active interest in what happens inside it? If the latter, how does that interest manifest itself. Is he prepared to intervene and do things, and if so under what conditions?

Under the supposition of a creator god, many avenues can present themselves…

• creator god creates a bunch of universes… this is just one more… not necessarily the most perfect one… bah, just let it run.
• creator god creates just one universe - finds out he’s not so good at it and gives up… lets it run for eternity.
• creator god creates a universe - notices a few imperfections and tries to correct them - from our perspective, these corrections could be seen as magic.
• creator god creates a universe - notices a few imperfections, but lets it play out. gives a few instructions to one individual in a planet where some form of self-aware, intelligent life arose.
• many others

Good and Evil - have you ever tried to imagine the size of the Universe?
This site here is pretty awesome in giving you the perception of how big the solar system is: joshworth.com/dev/pixelspace/pixelspace_solarsystem.html

Can you spot good and evil at work in there? The truth and falsehoods?

Consider Carl Sagan’s thoughts on the last photo of our planet taken by Voyager: youtube.com/watch?v=kmP4Xzt0rN4

Why should we expect that god creator of the whole cosmos to focus on the perceptions of these tiny human beings? On the behaviors of these people? On the beliefs they hold?
What do these tiny humans mean to him?

But let’s say he does want to intervene… how would he go about it?

• make himself known to a particular group and tell them to take a particular patch of land from other humans already settled there?
• make himself known to a particular group by pretending to be human himself, only to be considered so self-important that he should be above the laws of men and hence be sentenced to die? “INRI - hahaha, so said the roman soldiers”
• make himself known to all mankind in the whole world, providing every individual with the assurance that he is there and watching, and everyone knows exactly how that happens and everyone gets a chance to communicate with him and… no belief is required.
• just touch up here and there and hope not to be noticed by the people, for they may become confused…
• communicate with humans through feelings - inadvertently leading them to create different forms of god worship, which then lead to conflict over who worships the right god… while those who have less contact with their feelings stay out of the belief game.
• etc…