In the beginning ...

[loCAtek]

Me too. Theism and spirituality was not taught to me; it was not part of my upbringing, yet I had spiritual experiences, none-the-less. (Not all of which, I will share in public) Science and materialism was a large part of my education, and I accepted and agreed with it, but felt there was something more...

Buddha-ism, Buddha, meaning 'thought', reconciled both ways of perceiving existence as matter and spirit into duality = zen.

[thestoat]

Divine Purpose or Cosmic Accident. Once at that point one makes a decision I chose deism. Frankly Because the alternative meant, to me at least, a life devoid of purpose.

I can understand why you would therefore *want* to believe that there is a god - but wanting a god doesn't mean there is one.

But what is wrong with the picture of our universe without a god. To think we're one of a bazillion other lifeforms on other planets (subject of another thread, methinks). Why does life have to mean something? Why can't we simply be content with who we are and what we have without having to ascribe some higher meaning to it all? It seems to me that this is the humility that Lo talks of ...

[Crackpot]

Divine Purpose or Cosmic Accident. Once at that point one makes a decision I chose deism. Frankly Because the alternative meant, to me at least, a life devoid of purpose.

I can understand why you would therefore *want* to believe that there is a god - but wanting a god doesn't mean there is one.

It's more a visceral reaction than anything. as I said if you were to look at it in a purely cynical way we it's frontloading the equation to avoid the meaning problem. Otherwise it's a question of faith

But what is wrong with the picture of our universe without a god. To think we're one of a bazillion other lifeforms on other planets (subject of another thread, methinks). Why does life have to mean something? Why can't we simply be content with who we are and what we have without having to ascribe some higher meaning to it all? It seems to me that this is the humility that Lo talks of ...

mostly it's a question of morality without a creator morality is the subject of society and who's to say who is right or who is wrong. Morality falls at the whim of the majority. Without a Deity cosmically speaking a sociopath is no more right or wrong than someone who spends their life feeding the needy.

Unfortunately this is all the time I have to expound on this right now work calls

[thestoat]

mostly it's a question of morality without a creator morality is the subject of society and who's to say who is right or who is wrong

Well that is true with or without a creator. Society used to say "burn the witch", a view heavily endorsed by Christianity. Some morality. And today, religious morals are no better than those of other, more secular types (e.g. terrorism, paedophilia). The 10 commandments are yet another item plagiarised by Christianity, so no credit there. The 10 commandments are simply good rules to live by. They don't need to be attributed to god.

[loCAtek]

Society used to say "burn the witch", a view heavily endorsed by Christianity. Some morality. And today, religious morals are no better than those of other, more secular types (e.g. terrorism, paedophilia).

Disagree, 'burning witches', terrorism and shielding pedophiles, would be fanaticism, rather than religious morality.

[thestoat]

Disagree, 'burning witches', terrorism and shielding pedophiles, would be fanaticism, rather than religious morality.

You call it fanaticism. The point is it is spawned from religion and done under its name. Though you may disagree with what they do, they still do it for their god.

[Big RR]

That religion may led to fanaticism is not always religion's fault; some people will always pervert a message or understanding to their own ends, and seek to coerce others to do their bidding. This happens among the religious and nonreligious. That being said, things like witch burning and the torture of the inquisition were founded at the highest levels of some of the predominant religions in the world at that time; which is a good reason to eschew the man-made doctrinal orthodoxy urged by many religions and to seek the truth on one's own; there is a big difference between learning from a teacher who had studied, and accepting dogma from someone claiming to be god's ordained representative on earth. Indeed, this was the main message of jesus' ministry, he taught and made these teachings accessible to all, who he encouraged to understand and embrace that message. It took later generations to set up a hierarchy which espoused the true understanding, and urged the shunning/killing of those who disagreed; in a lot of ways the path of islam mimics this, and judaism, to a greater or lesser extent, has embraced the importance of personal understanding long ago.

There was an amusing aside on Family guy this week when Peter thought back on how we all got along before religion divided us; two men were standing (in the robes of the arabs or romans) and saying how they loved each other and had no reason to hate. A third man walks up and said "Hey, did you hear abut the magic baby born in bethlehem?", and they all draw their swords and kill each other--sadly, that has been the path of much organized religion, something divisive rather than ennobling.

[Sue U]

The problem with "fanatcism," of course, is that a fanatic is defined as anyone who believes more strongly than you do.

As my mother is fond of saying, "Religion is fine as long as you don't take it seriously."

[thestoat]

Good posts Sue and Big RR. The point I was making to CP was ...

mostly it's a question of morality without a creator morality is the subject of society and who's to say who is right or who is wrong

That is wrong - it doesn't matter if there is a god or not. Seems to me morality has little to do with the existence god.

A lot of people seem to want to justify religion by taking the good stuff attributed to it and assigning the bad stuff to "extremists". I don't think that is a valid stance. There are good people and there are shitty, evil people. There are religious types and there are atheists.

Now, some atheists are good people. Some atheists are shitty, evil people.
Some religious types are good people. Some religious types are shitty, evil people.

It seems to me this has nothing to do with god.

[Andrew D]

What meaning is there when your existence is a fluke of an apathetic cosmos? Any meaning you backload on to that is just window dressing to cover up the ugly truth: In the grand scheme of things it really doesn't matter. In a purely cynical way of looking at it you can say I put my wishful thinking on the front end by assuming Deity I sidestep the issue by baking meaning into the equation.

Why presume the existence of a grand scheme of things? And why presume that life can have meaning only if that meaning is established by reference to that grand scheme of things?

Why must the purpose of life be anything more than living it?

Life demonstrably creates the conditions necessary for further life. (Algae were (and may still be) necessary to the evolution of more complicated forms of life, plankton are necessary at least for more complex forms of sea life, the inhalation of carbon dioxide and the exhalation of oxygen by vegetation are necessary to the existence of organisms which inhale oxygen and exhale carbon dioxide, etc.)

The best definition of life which I have ever encountered is that a living thing is a continual embodiment of an autopoetic pattern of organization in a dissipative structure.

Are those things not enough for the development of a coherent moral philosophy? Is it not enough to say that living a morally good life means living in such a way as to enhance the conditions necessary for further life by living in such a way as to facilitate the continual embodiments of autopoetic patterns of organization in dissipative structures?

That way of looking at morality requires, it seems to me, taking the long view: Living one's life in such a way as to bring about more life tomorrow but also in such a way as to bring about a catastrophic destruction of life a hundred or a thousand or a million years from now does not seem to me to be facilitating life.

Why should life's meaning have to reside in -- and why should a life's morality be measured by -- anything other than facilitating not something beyond life but simply life itself?

[Sue U]

Nicely put, Andrew. I have always felt there is plenty enough meaning and morality in caring for my family, involvement in my community and generally making serious efforts towards making the world a better place.

[Big RR]

I can't argue with that Andrew.

[loCAtek]

Om mani padme hum

[dgs49]

Andrew, your "philosophy" ignores reality.

An external frame of reference is required first of all, because life is so profoundly senseless and unfair, with the causes of the senselessness and unfairness being both natural (i.e., totally outside human control), and human. What is the purpose of the life of any of the billions of people who will be born, suffer maltreatment, disease, hunger, cold, and pain, leading up to a death before achieving the capacity to think for oneself? Those who will die as a result of some natural catastrophe? Nothing at all?

An external frame of reference is required because people are intrinsically evil and selfish. Given a choice between doing what serves the self and what serves the community, we humans will naturally do what promotes our self interest, even if it means, Everyone else be damned. The proof is in the newspapers every day.

It's easy to talk about things like "social justice" when you are a white, college educated American, with more of everything than you will ever need, but what of the billions who will never know a full stomach, comfort, or even personal security (freedom from fear of being attacked, raped, or killed)? Is it "just" for them to try to kill their tormentors?

Altruism is purely cultural and basically does not exist in "godless" societies. Look at China under Mao, Russia under Stalin, Cuba under Castro, North Korea. These are all godless cultures, supposedly founded on the selfless philosophy of sharing the common resources for the common good. But without "God."

How's that working out, eh?

Religion may be all mumbo jumbo, but it provides at least a philosophical foundation for human cooperation and a motivation to conform to ethical and moral standards. (Rubato: restrain yourself).

How wonderfully ironic, Andrew, that you would make a statement like, "...living a morally good life means living in such a way as to enhance the conditions necessary for further life...," - you who would advocate compulsory birth control and massive employment of abortion to control world population.

[Scooter]

Look at China under Mao, Russia under Stalin, Cuba under Castro, North Korea. These are all godless cultures, supposedly founded on the selfless philosophy of sharing the common resources for the common good. But without "God."

How's that working out, eh?

About as well as France under its Catholic kings, Russia in the time of the Orthodox czars, and Italians during the temporal rule of the popes. Hinit - there were reasons why all three underwent revolutions.

[Big RR]

Indeed Scooter; god or no god, we intrinsically know what we should do, but often ignore it. On needs know external frame of reference to understand what is right and proper, IMHO we are wired to understand that very thing.

And dgs, is killing one's attackers or tormentors wrong?

[loCAtek]

Disagree, 'burning witches', terrorism and shielding pedophiles, would be fanaticism, rather than religious morality.

You call it fanaticism. The point is it is spawned from religion and done under its name. Though you may disagree with what they do, they still do it for their god.

Well, not exactly. Fanaticism is 'fanatical devotion' done to the extreme of ANY subject or object.

Persons fanatical to their athletic team of choice, are known as 'Sport's FANS'. The worst being, of course, annoyingdevote Cricket fans, who will toss a car in the name of cups.

You can be a fan of darn near anything: celebrities, music, cuisine, etc., etc., etc., ...that's a human failing- we assume that what we love should be lauded by all.


For example: 'Fans' of atheism, seem to think that since they like it, everyone should like it, 'eh?

[MajGenl.Meade]

To presumtiously answer for Meade you're talking about the wrong question. Or at least different questions.

You: How.

Meade: Why.

Only the insecure have issues with man understanding the how of things and put themselves at odds with those who use science to it's proposed ends. (we'll leave the "science as religion" folks for another time)

THe question Meade is talking about is Why. (or at least it's the one I arrived at) and that only really leaves two viable answers at the end: God or Atheism. Divine Purpose or Cosmic Accident. Once at that point one makes a decision I chose deism. Frankly Because the alternative meant, to me at least, a life devoid of purpose. From there I spent a long time at Agnosticism until such time that my study led me to believe that the Christian God (as written not necessarily taught) is what I'd want and expect God to be.

Yes. Except I hope you meant “theism” (God works) rather than “deism” (God used to work).

Christians and non-christians are equally to be commended for adapting wrongly understood but commonly accepted truths in the face of new knowledge and understanding. It is part of the “scientific” method although people, of whatever religious persuasion or none, have always done this. Science, most often historically developed by Christians keen to find out “how” God did it, should keep its mouth firmly shut about “why”? Science tells us nothing about “why” and can tell us nothing about “why”.

The “scientific method” is unable to say why there is something rather than nothing. It is unable to demonstrate and explain the existence of rationality. It is unable to answer whether or not there is “purpose” in life. Those who boast of their “scientific” standing are most often standing on nothing other than their own prejudices; exactly what they accuse others of doing. They are unable to demonstrate the facticity of any of the claims they make which are philosophical in nature rather than actual “science”.

The atheist argues that given enough time then life could emerge. This is faith and not science. The non-believer (admit it or not) must argue that time has no beginning – that the universe (or call it what you will) has infinitely existed in some form or another – a singularity, an eternal oscillation from one state to another. It ignores the inconvenient fact that in infinite time (and they mean an infinite regression into the “past”), all that could possibly happen must have happened. In which case we would not be here at all by now. They want all this time so that they can deny God and guess that mankind emerges by accident, but want to avoid the inescapable conclusion that entropy would already have had to occur – for that is what a true “infinity” of time must produce.

Theism explains the facts of life far better than non-theism, whether it be Buddhist mumbo-jumbo, New Age crystal gazing, Oprah Winfrey or Stephen H. Now, whether that theism is best expressed in Christianity, Judaism, Islam or some other variant is a different matter.

Science is and should be silent on “why”. Scientists (non-believing ones) enjoy the same freedom as anyone else to speculate about God, not-god, the origins of anything and so on. But they are in the realm then of religion, philosophy and not science at all. They have a right and freedom to attempt to shape society based upon their resulting worldview.

In that realm, the religious person, even perhaps a conservative Christian, has an equal right and freedom to speculate about the moral dimensions of society and an equal right and freedom to lobby for legislation that promotes the resulting worldview.

Regards
Meade

[thestoat]

Well, not exactly. Fanaticism is 'fanatical devotion' done to the extreme of ANY subject or object.

The point is *still* it is spawned from religion and done under its name. Though you may disagree with what they do, they still do it for their god. The bible is open to interpretation and because of that people interpret in different ways. I don't think it is valid to say "Religion takes the lovely bits of human nature and has nothing to do with the rest".

For example: 'Fans' of atheism, seem to think that since they like it, everyone should like it, 'eh?

Personally, I am not a fan of atheism any more than I am a fan of gravity. Both deal in facts without superfluous stuff tacked on

Christians and non-christians are equally to be commended for adapting wrongly understood but commonly accepted truths in the face of new knowledge and understanding

The christian's "understanding" and "new knowledge" comes from rehashing the bible rather than any new facts or observables. This is very different to science.

Science, most often historically developed by Christians keen to find out “how” God did it, should keep its mouth firmly shut about “why”?

What utter rubbish. Science looks initially for the how and then follows up with the why. If science can't answer the why then it could still postulate via a theory, and then follow that up later with more concrete facts.

The “scientific method” is unable to say why there is something rather than nothing. It is unable to demonstrate and explain the existence of rationality. It is unable to answer whether or not there is “purpose” in life. Those who boast of their “scientific” standing are most often standing on nothing other than their own prejudices; exactly what they accuse others of doing. They are unable to demonstrate the facticity of any of the claims they make which are philosophical in nature rather than actual “science”.

And because science cannot currently answer these questions, it says "I don't know YET" and moves on. It doesn't make up some fairies to explain the stuff it can't.

The atheist argues that given enough time then life could emerge. This is faith and not science. The non-believer (admit it or not) must argue that time has no beginning – that the universe (or call it what you will) has infinitely existed in some form or another – a singularity, an eternal oscillation from one state to another

You are clearly not a scientist. Time is wrapped up with the universe. In some instances it does not exist. And yes, the atheist may argue that life could emerge given enough time (and the right conditions) but this is couched in observations of where we have found life on our planet (in some VERY unlikely places). If (when?) we find life on other planets, would you therefore say "oh, the atheists had a point" or would you simply say "god did that".

Theism explains the facts of life far better than non-theism, whether it be Buddhist mumbo-jumbo, New Age crystal gazing, Oprah Winfrey or Stephen H. Now, whether that theism is best expressed in Christianity, Judaism, Islam or some other variant is a different matter.

Ah, so if better explanations can be made with fantasy figures then let's go with the Spaghetti Monster. Again, science explains the facts of life where it can, and where it can't it says "I don't know". Theism just reiterates its current interpretation of a very old book.

Science is and should be silent on “why”

So when is science "allowed" to talk of "why"? It has provided the understanding on "why" in a vast array of subjects. Is it taboo to ask "why" for life? That attitude got a load of people burnt at the stage in centuries past.

[Andrew D]

The claim that altruism is purely cultural is simply false. Not only is it not merely a cultural phenomenon; it is not even an exclusively human phenomenon. It has been observed in (other) animals on numerous occasions. (See chimpanzeeshere[/url] for a recent study involving chimpanzees, and see here for fascinating video of a hippopotamus rescuing a baby impala from the jaws of a crocodile.)

An external frame of reference is required first of all, because life is so profoundly senseless and unfair, with the causes of the senselessness and unfairness being both natural (i.e., totally outside human control), and human. What is the purpose of the life of any of the billions of people who will be born, suffer maltreatment, disease, hunger, cold, and pain, leading up to a death before achieving the capacity to think for oneself? Those who will die as a result of some natural catastrophe? Nothing at all?

But belief in God provides no answer to that question. ("It is God's will" is not an answer. Slapping a label on a problem does not solve the problem.)

As I wrote before:

Living one's life in such a way as to bring about more life tomorrow but also in such a way as to bring about a catastrophic destruction of life a hundred or a thousand or a million years from now does not seem to me to be facilitating life.

The Roman Catholic Church's viciously stupid anti-contraception policy is a perfect example of such a way of life. It has no rational moral basis whatsoever. (And please, no prattling about how overpopulation is not a problem.)

An external frame of reference -- i.e., one beyond life itself, as distinct from merely beyond one's own particular life -- is simply unnecessary to morality. Indeed, if anything, most external frames of reference are admissions of the absence of morality. If people are being "good" because they are afraid of hell (the Christian hell, the Buddhist hells, or whatever), then what they do does not represent goodness but mere selfishness.