Discussion about Religious Beliefs

[Makalakumu]

I would say that naive realism is no better than supernaturalism. Both are ontological blackholes, in my opinion.

When I close my eyes, the Moon is still there, caught in the gravitation sink that surrounds the Earth's mass.

My observation has no bearing on this and I dare you show me otherwise.

 

[Ray]

When I close my eyes, the Moon is still there, caught in the gravitation sink that surrounds the Earth's mass.

My observation has no bearing on this and I dare you show me otherwise.

I think that statement is deeper than I think.

 

[heretic888]

When I close my eyes, the Moon is still there, caught in the gravitation sink that surrounds the Earth's mass.

My observation has no bearing on this and I dare you show me otherwise.

Well, honestly, how could I??

Your statement is essentially an a priori faith assertion that is impossible to falsify. Might as well ask me to disprove the existence of "God". Just because you proceed from different ontological assumptions doesn't put you in a different boat than the supernaturalists. Your "faith" is the same as theirs (psychologically speaking).

By the way, are you referring to the Moon you see, the Moon I see, or the hypothesized "real" Moon that underlies both our perceptions??

 

[Makalakumu]

Your statement is essentially an a priori faith assertion that is impossible to falsify. Might as well ask me to disprove the existence of "God".

The Moon is not God, heretic. I can observe the moon every single day if I want to and that is not so with God. If I shut my eyes the probability the moon is still there is much higher then if I were to do the same thing with God...of whom I've never ever seen in my entire life.

Just because you proceed from different ontological assumptions doesn't put you in a different boat than the supernaturalists. Your "faith" is the same as theirs (psychologically speaking).

And I would argue that it is not faith at all to make an assumption based on repeatable observation. This is more along the lines of a pretty safe guess. There is a real problem with trying to label both of these things as faith. It assumes that real parity exists between assumptions based on faith and those based on reason. This is a chic argument for our overly PC times. Unfortunately, this just isn't the case and my example above demonstrates exactly why it isn't the case.

Sorry folks, science trumps religion...always.

By the way, are you referring to the Moon you see, the Moon I see, or the hypothesized "real" Moon that underlies both our perceptions??

The Moon that would be there if all humans were exitinct. The Moon that was there before humans ever existed. The very same Moon that crossbedded the Hinkley Sandstone Formation 1.5 billions years ago by pulling on the oceans with its gravity.

 

[OnlyAnEgg]

I opened a box, once, to see if the cat was still there...

 

[Makalakumu]

I opened a box, once, to see if the cat was still there...

Was it?

 

[OnlyAnEgg]

yes...but, maybe (just maybe) it wasn't there when the box was closed.

I know I thought it was.

 

[Ray]

I opened a box, once, to see if the cat was still there...

PETA's going get you for putting that cat in the box. TIP: If you kill the cat first, you can rest assured it's not leaving the box.

 

[Makalakumu]

yes...but, maybe (just maybe) it wasn't there when the box was closed.

For all practical purposes, the cat was still there. And, the fact that people could even think that it "might" not be there is actually a gross misapplication of quantum mechanics. I'm not trying to patronize anyone, btw, I just want to clarify something.

You have effectively no chance of witnessing quantum effects at the sizes that humans normally experience. To indicate "might" or even imply that the cat or the moon "might" not be there is really misleading because it's not taking into account the probabilities involved.

We're talking that if you were to count up every proton and neutron in the universe, you might get numbers involved in these odds.

 

[OnlyAnEgg]

I'm just saying I believe the cat is there whether or not I can see it. Another may say it's not there because they can't see it. What does not exist, in the context of a cat, a box and two points of view is an impartial way for either observer to prove their assertion.

Kinda like the thread.

 

[elder999]

When I close my eyes, the Moon is still there, caught in the gravitation sink that surrounds the Earth's mass.

My observation has no bearing on this and I dare you show me otherwise.

Actually, by coupling Bell's Theorem with Heisenberg's Uncertainty Relations, it's demonstrably provable that when no one is looking at it, the moon is not there-not to muddy the waters or anything, but the admixture of physics with "religious beliefs" is a philosophical minefield without a satsifactory resolution for either party. Best to leave them exclusive, for now....carry on.

 

[Makalakumu]

That depends on your standard of "proof". However, there does exist a way to vastly support one assertion over another.

There is a difference.

 

[Makalakumu]

Actually, by coupling Bell's Theorem with Heisenberg's Uncertainty Relations, it's demonstrably provable that when no one is looking at it, the moon is not there-not to muddy the waters or anything, but the admixture of physics with "religious beliefs" is a philosophical minefield without a satsifactory resolution for either party. Best to leave them exclusive, for now.

Would you care to clarify? I've heard this argument before, but it was unconvincing. For example, "no one" was looking at the moon 1.5 billion years ago when its gravity was crossbedding the Hinckly Sandstone deposits...

 

[elder999]

Would you care to clarify? I've heard this argument before, but it was unconvincing. For example, "no one" was looking at the moon 1.5 billion years ago when its gravity was crossbedding the Hinckly Sandstone deposits...

It's a mathematical conceit...a What the @#$% kind of thing that the math holds up for. Bottom line is that quantum mechanics don't entirely apply to objects larger than quanta-in fact, they mostly just don't apply-hence, no time travel, no being in two places at once, and the moon is actually always there....but the math can be manipulated to say that it isn't..that's all..

 

[heretic888]

The Moon is not God, heretic.

Actually, quite a few human cultures worship or have worshipped the Moon. Same deal with the Sun.

I can observe the moon every single day if I want to and that is not so with God. If I shut my eyes the probability the moon is still there is much higher then if I were to do the same thing with God...of whom I've never ever seen in my entire life.

Allow me to rephrase.

What you refer to as the Moon, as with all knowledge, is a construction. All knowledge is constructed. The Moon is a construction. The Sun is a construction. God is a construction. The self itself is a construction.

The very act of "observation" fundamentally modifies and shapes what can and cannot be observed in the first place, and this happens in ways that individual men and women cannot even begin to be consciously aware of (due to both biological and cultural constraints). This is the essential insight of philosophy over the past 100 years, that there is no such thing as "innocent" observing, no passive "map-making" of reality. The Myth of the Given has been laid open bare.

Hell, even the idea that knowledge is a construction is itself a construction....

This is also why modern philosophy of science (in the way of Thomas Kuhn's insights about paradigm shifts) does not embrace the naive realism that many individual scientists subscribe to. Ever since Sir Karl Popper, we've moved away from the idea that scientific progress occurs directly through empirical observation (due to the threat of methodological bias). We now realize that inductive reasoning based on such empirical observations is how knowledge progresses in science.

And I would argue that it is not faith at all to make an assumption based on repeatable observation. This is more along the lines of a pretty safe guess.

The problem with the 18th century worldview you are espousing is the naive assumption --- there is a reason philosophers call it 'naive realism', after all --- that your observations correspond with reality in a self-evident fashion. Your observations take place within a certain context (the combination of psychological, biological, and social constraints that limit what you can observe) and everything you "see" is filtered through that context.

As long as you work within the confines of this context, paradigm, or schema, then things are fine. However, once you move outside of this context, then the self-evident "truth" of your observations no longer holds. In particular, the truth of these statements becomes less obvious as you move further away from formal-operations and closer to network-based systems thinking. And this isn't even getting into altered states of consciousness!

This isn't to say that all knowledge is relative or arbitrary, merely that is inevitably contextual in nature. There are, of course, narrower and deeper contexts. The logical formulations of concrete-operations is a relatively "narrower" or more "shallow" context than the logical formulations of formal-operations (since the latter encompasses the former).

There is a real problem with trying to label both of these things as faith. It assumes that real parity exists between assumptions based on faith and those based on reason.

Reason??

Despite whatever psuedo-philosophy you've been fed, all "logic" and "reason" refer to are internally consistent arguments. The premises for which these arguments begin can be based on mythological faith assumptions as easily as they can be on empirical observations.

Reason is directly compatible with faith assumptions. It calls them premises, and has no real way of distinguishing between them.

Sorry folks, science trumps religion...always.

Sometimes, science and religion are the same thing.

The Moon that would be there if all humans were exitinct. The Moon that was there before humans ever existed. The very same Moon that crossbedded the Hinkley Sandstone Formation 1.5 billions years ago by pulling on the oceans with its gravity.

So, in other words, you don't know. Fair enough.

 

[elder999]

It's a mathematical conceit...

And it's not my conceit;It belongs to N. David Mermin, Horace White Professor Emeritus at Cornell University. He wrote an amusing paper that was published in Physics Today, back in 1985 or so, titled Is the Moon There When Nobody Looks? Reality and Quantum Theory.

 

[tellner]

When I first took bayat (became part of a Sufi community and was accepted as a student of the Shaykh) my wife was still a hardcore anti-theist. Not just "no dieties" but a visceral disgust for religion in general. My Shaykh is a very wise man who goes out of his way not to convert people. As he says, the only way a Muslim is permitted to do so is by the example of his good works and by answering honest questions about Islam. He gave me a series of devotional exercises and talked to my wife and to me over tea.

He was perfectly cool with the idea of me being a Jew and a Sufi and with my wife being an atheist. "What's important," he said "is love and the connection between people." Several of our friends began referring to her as "The Tariqa's Official Dog of an Infidel"

Well, a little while later she asked the Shaykh what she could do to help me. His instruction was "Love him, but don't put with his ********." Fortunately for me but unfortunately for my ego it was excellent advice. He also suggested a spiritual exercise that actually has a lot of resonance with the traditional Buddhist practices on the Chinese side of her family.

Well, Tiel started doing the assignment. After a while she said "I've got a cat in a box. Until I ask myself a question I won't know if it's a live cat or a dead cat." Every once in a while she'd say "The cat is still in the box." Almost a year later she said "I'm driving down to Napa tonight. I opened the box, and it's a Sufi cat."

And so she did. And she's taken to it like a fish to water. She's still the same frighteningly intelligent no-nonsense beautiful woman I married. And she still believes that you're never going to find The Truth in a church, any church. But now she wants G-d and suddenly started wearing a headscarf and writing devotional poetry. Really good stuff and largely in difficult formal modes like sonnets, rondels, gods-help-us-dorsimbras, sestinas and triolets. Me? I'm still counting on the merciful and compassionate clause.

 

[Carol]

And so she did. And she's taken to it like a fish to water. She's still the same frighteningly intelligent no-nonsense beautiful woman I married. And she still believes that you're never going to find The Truth in a church, any church. But now she wants G-d and suddenly started wearing a headscarf and writing devotional poetry. Really good stuff and largely in difficult formal modes like sonnets, rondels, gods-help-us-dorsimbras, sestinas and triolets. Me? I'm still counting on the merciful and compassionate clause.

Ummm....pardon me while I pick myself up off the floor. Migosh Tellner, Tiel's poetry is outstanding. Her Haiku really blew me away.

Sufiism is quite fascinating. There is quite a bit of my own scriptures that were from Sufi saints, perhaps the most beloved being Saint Kabir. Good stuff.

 

[Makalakumu]

heretic, all of that sounds quite impressive, but I am not enamored with the squishy way that philosophers treat the universe. In my opinion, its counter-intuitive and I think that because it just doesn't jive with what we can measure and count.

And I know that "measuring" and "counting" are constructions...but if the universe contained one "thing" and I counted it as "one" that thing would still be there even if I was gone. So how much does that really matter?

With that being said, lets rephrase this gobbly-guk.

What you refer to as the Moon, as with all knowledge, is a construction. All knowledge is constructed. The Moon is a construction. The Sun is a construction. God is a construction. The self itself is a construction.

What if there is no one around to "construct" anything? Would the celestial body that we call the moon still be a "construction"? Would it still exist?

The answer is obviously yes. The moon is still going to be there.

Now apply the same test to "God."

Is that going to be there if no humans are around to "believe" in it?

Whether you answer yes or no, the way you support this assumption is going to be totally different then the way you support your assumption about the moon.

The problem with the 18th century worldview you are espousing is the naive assumption --- there is a reason philosophers call it 'naive realism', after all --- that your observations correspond with reality in a self-evident fashion. Your observations take place within a certain context (the combination of psychological, biological, and social constraints that limit what you can observe) and everything you "see" is filtered through that context.

As long as you work within the confines of this context, paradigm, or schema, then things are fine. However, once you move outside of this context, then the self-evident "truth" of your observations no longer holds. In particular, the truth of these statements becomes less obvious as you move further away from formal-operations and closer to network-based systems thinking. And this isn't even getting into altered states of consciousness!

This isn't to say that all knowledge is relative or arbitrary, merely that is inevitably contextual in nature. There are, of course, narrower and deeper contexts. The logical formulations of concrete-operations is a relatively "narrower" or more "shallow" context than the logical formulations of formal-operations (since the latter encompasses the former).

Have you ever considered that some people may have taken something that is pretty simple and tied it into esoteric knots? IMO, alot of this stuff seems pretty silly when you start asking the questions I asked above.

And then there is the sheer conceit to think that the existance of the universe DEPENDS on the observation/interaction/constructions that we create.

The amount of hubris inherit in that is staggering.

So, in other words, you don't know. Fair enough.

There is a wonderful state park near my home that has a fairly consistent red/brown sandstone formation that overlays some harder and more resistant basalts. On the way to the park, there is a road cut that gives some great fresh surfaces. If you look closely, you can see cross bedding that is directly analogous to the cross bedding created by sand on a shallow tidal beach. Radiometric dating has shown this rock to be more then a billion years old.

The Moon and the Sun's gravity caused these features to form. There were no humans around...no one was there to "construct" anything so they could observe this.

And it still happened.

Why?

 

[tellner]

Ummm....pardon me while I pick myself up off the floor. Migosh Tellner, Tiel's poetry is outstanding. Her Haiku really blew me away.

She doesn't claim credit for any of it. She almost always starts readings off with "This Verse Does Not Belong To Me" and usually finishes with one of my favorites "Bitter Wells".

Sufiism is quite fascinating. There is quite a bit of my own scriptures that were from Sufi saints, perhaps the most beloved being Saint Kabir. Good stuff.

And we have the coolest hats of any religion. Well except for some of the really flamboyant blue-turban Sikhs.

Seriously, it is. Other people have come up with good spiritual technologies that help you deal with your **** and wake up. This just happened to be one that got through my nafs and provided the much-needed kick in the ***.

One of the things that made a really deep impression was the matter-of-fact attitude towards the extraordinary. Yes, there are strange and wonderful spiritual states. Do the work long enough and you'll find them. They are traps. Keep doing what you're supposed to, and they will pass. You may encounter or become the vessel for miracles. Don't worry about it. Just keep working on opening your heart, getting out of G-d's way (and your own way) and make G-d your goal. They'll go away. Even heaven and hell are traps. Eternal torture or eternal partying; if they distract you from what's important (the Beloved) they are even more insidious traps.

One of my favorite Sufi books is written by a guy who would probably look at you funny if you said so - Richard Adams who wrote Watership Down. His book Shardik really hits a lot of important Sufi concepts in some very subtle and not-so-subtle ways. And it's a great sprawling story as well.

What are some of Kabir's writings which you would recommend? So far I've been working my way through Al-Ghazzali and Abdul Qadir Jilani who are counted among our pirs. It's heavy going, and a change of pace would be nice.