@ De Marquis Point 1) Agreed. The fact that it is a mystery is not a point in favour of any opposing hypothesis I put forwards, either.
Point 2) My point wasn't that you should not explain the feelings to yourself. Quite the opposite. See below.
Point 3) What indeed are they to conclude? There could still be a naturalistic explanation without invoking the supernatural. And however many ways there are of coming to the right conclusion, there are far more ways of coming to the wrong conclusions.
Point 4) But in that case, why put anything else into the equation at all? Why not, say, conclude that mind is inescapably connected to the brain? It merely proves that your experience of something * can be stimulated by a particular region of the brain. Besides, I'm not aware of any news that atheists don't have temporal lobes, so I can't comment on that. Interesting if it were true, though, I'll admit.
Since you mentioned experience, perhaps I can suggest something? I am not saying that these spiritual experiences or feelings, whether with god or with anything equivalent or with neither, do not exist. But suppose we had "furiosity", a feeling of being connected with something fiery and shrieking that possessed us and left us in a rage. Would we be right in supposing that furious feelings imply the existence of a realm of pure fury, or a being of pure fury, which we could make contact with in certain deliberate conditions? Akin to spiritual feelings and the spiritual realm?
edited 27th Jul '11 5:00:58 AM by BlueChameleon
Personally, both equally submits to God's rules. The cell has shown what is possible and humans should at least try to learn to better oneself. That is one of the reason God has create such a beautifully complex world, so humans should get up and do something about it. This is proven true, humans do get up and do something about it. If a human could be impressed by man made art and engineering. Why shouldn't humans be impressed with God's creation.
If a chicken crosses the road and nobody else is around to see it, does the road move beneath the chicken instead?![]()
I'm not sure I agree that the idea of a god or some sort of deity is inherently uninteresting. If scientists discovered the existence of such deities, it would be touted as another gem to add to the scientific collection. Besides, the truth value of a statement does not rest on whether or not people find it interesting.
What is boring is how the idea is applied by some (not all) religious people.
@ Blurring: You say that "If a human could be impressed by man made art and engineering. Why shouldn't humans be impressed with God's creation."
Answer: Man-made art and engineering is provable. If asked to produce them, I could, in theory if not in practice, show you the people who built the churches or who made the stained glass windows. If asked to produce God or some other designer, however, I cannot show you anything, and your acceptance of my testimony that He or Someone Else did it depends on which religious upbringing or means of religious conversion you had experienced. In other words, everbody agrees that art and engineering were made by humans, but people disagree frequently over who made the universe, if indeed anything did make it.
Besides, who says the Universe was made? Maybe it is eternal, everlasting, self-sustaining, or cyclic?
edited 27th Jul '11 6:18:44 AM by BlueChameleon
A diety itself would be immensely interesting, but it'd rob most of the interest out of everything else, because it's literally true A Wizard Did It.
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I'm saying that if humans could be impressed with a human creation, then by logic humans could still appreciate the universe even if they believe God made the universe. That the believe in the existence of God does not take away the joy in finding how the universe work. I am not using the universe as a proof of God's existence here.
And you would actually don't want to improve humanity with the knowledge about this universe, if you ever get to know that God made this universe? That you actually believe that humans would just give up on seeking knowledge just because God made this universe?
edited 27th Jul '11 6:30:40 AM by Blurring
If a chicken crosses the road and nobody else is around to see it, does the road move beneath the chicken instead?![]()
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Sorry about that. I misunderstood what you were saying.
That said, do you think there is a subtle difference in appreciation of a God-run universe and appreciation in the existence of a self-sustaining universe? Presumably both can appreciate the beauty of a bird's feathers or the delight in finding mathematical relationships between the fundamental forces, but what about the overall picture, or the frame of the painting, as it were?
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If someone said "God reveals himself in his own time" or something equivalent, what would you reply?
Appreciation of a God-run universe will bring self closer to God. It is my belief that humans by nature really want to find God, and appreciation of God's creation for those who does not believe in God is an attempt to find God.
edited 27th Jul '11 6:46:20 AM by Blurring
If a chicken crosses the road and nobody else is around to see it, does the road move beneath the chicken instead?
But if god is real, isnt our time better spent deliberately causing the apocalypse so we can get on with the Heaven thing rather than caring about developing medicines for diseases what will be instantly fixed the second he returns?
My issue with "God did it" is that at least for me, I consider the universe beautiful because of how despite the low probabilities, the universe has mostly designed itself along a line of predictable set of rules. If theres an omnipotent God, then those rules only work because he says so, and can be revoked at any time.
edited 27th Jul '11 6:47:31 AM by Midgetsnowman
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And appreciation of a universe without God, by implication, won't bring the self closer to God, I guess?
Back to the Science vs. Religion discussion, I believe you take the position that the two concepts can co-exist?
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Naturally, we come back to the kicker: does God exist or not? Why isn't the topic ever this: does Brahma exist or not?
I don't understand what you mean.
edited 27th Jul '11 6:51:44 AM by BlueChameleon
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I'm a Muslim. We believe that the end of the world will come, but it is God's choice when this will happens. Nothing in this universe will hasten or delay the event. But in the meantime, we should do something good and try to improve the world.
edited 27th Jul '11 6:57:05 AM by Blurring
If a chicken crosses the road and nobody else is around to see it, does the road move beneath the chicken instead?![]()
The concepts can co-exist, sure. But I'm extremely reticent to believe in anything more direct than Divine Clockmaker, because the idea that God set some pre-existing conditions and let things develop of their own accord is far more miraculous to me than "God said GET UP YOU LAZY DIRT CLODS"
I was Christian at one point. Unfortunately, being an avid art and science fan and being raised in a fundamentalist chirch tends to force a conflict of interest, and in the end, I chose science and art.
edited 27th Jul '11 6:52:37 AM by Midgetsnowman
Alternatively, why does the world have to have some divine meaning? I getup every day convincesd that I will make something of myself by finishing my degree, finding a similarly art and theatre and science loving woman, and raise a middle class family. I do it not because I believe in some divine plan for my life, but because the idea that the world could come about with or without god convinces me anything is possible.
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You know, apart from the God thing, I agree with you. My version at the moment of what you said would run like this: the Universe will end one day. In the meantime, we humans should do some good while we are alive in it. We humans evolved in such a way as to develop strong bonds with other humans, and thus we evolved moral feelings, so we should take advantage of our chance while we still can.
Not So Different, I think.
edited 27th Jul '11 7:00:13 AM by BlueChameleon
Sheesh, I'm gone for a few hours and look what happens. This thread really took off.
BC: You put something else into the experience because that is what the experience itself is telling you. I sense the presence of a God in the universe. There it is. I either choose to believe it or I dont. I cant believe in it yet ascribe it to something else. It's beyond question that the mind is indeed connected to the brain ("inescapably" is another thing that we dont need to get into here), the issue here is whether or not the mind is also connected to anything else.
Let's put it this way: we believe we know that a person who experiences delusions is suffering from a mental illness. How do we know that? Mostly because no one else agrees with them. In fact, the experiences of everyone else directly contradicts the delusions that the person is reporting to us (we have good reasons to conclude that he cant be Napoleon).
Two points: 1) My internal experiences of God do not contradict anything in your experience, or anyone else's, so a conclusion that I am suffering from a delusion seems unjustified (not that you made this argument, but I want to clear it off the board)
2) The person suffering from the delusion is not being irrational if they decide to believe in it- even if they are wrong, and it really is a delusion. This is because they have no way of knowing that. After all, who should they believe, some guy in a suit telling them it isnt real, or the voice that they can clearly hear inside their own head? * Why not conclude that there is a natural explanation for the internal experience of a God in one's life? Because that directly contradicts the experience itself, and there appears to be no reason to do that.
"But suppose we had "furiosity", a feeling of being connected with something fiery and shrieking that possessed us and left us in a rage. Would we be right in supposing that furious feelings imply the existence of a realm of pure fury, or a being of pure fury, which we could make contact with in certain deliberate conditions?"
Are you making a deliberate allusion to Satan?
I'm done trying to sound smart. "Clear" is the new smart.@ De Marquis: It's a fun topic.
No, it's not a reference to Satan. Let me put it like this, since it also refers to your point that "You put something else into the experience because that is what the experience itself is telling you." I'll use the "furiosity" idea again.
Suppose there was a society which had mass congregations of people to witness the High Furies, exalted people ritually singled out for their ability to lash out at the slightest provocation. The congregations seek (from outside the arena, of course, so that the Furies don't attack them in their rage) to join them in their connection with the realm of pure fury as they work themselves up into a proper rage and make contact, or borrow strength, from the realm of pure fury.
They describe it as a wonderful feeling of connectedness, of certainty and surety of themselves, as if they were channelling strength from the heart of the sun, or being possessed by the spirits of their warrior ancestors. The spectators are encouraged to work themselves up into a fury by traditional methods - ingesting certain drugs, reading passages from culturally significant books about the horrible atrocities committed by others, exercising the body so as to achieve "total immersion with the furious realm", and imagining themselves as mighty gods about to show their power to the world. A whole culture is built around this belief in the furious realm.
Now imagine a team of scientists comes along and decides to do a few tests. They take blood samples from people who have had severe fits of fury, and find that their concentrations of epinephrine and norepinephrine correlate well with the length and reported intensity of the fits. They even increase furiousness by injecting some people with norepinephrine and not injecting others, and find a strong correlation between injection doses and subsequent likelihood, length and intensity of fits. They find chemicals in the drugs that, when tested, act very much like norepinephrine, or that can be distinguished in drug trials using a control group and placebo drugs. They study the brain and find that several areas reliably become more intense when fury is felt by the subject.
They can even induce fury in otherwise calm people by deliberate stimulation of these parts of the brain. They also test in the other direction, using fury-decreasing drugs that decrease activity in these areas of the brain. A strong correlation between brain activity and mood is identified.
Yet the High Furies, accepting though they are of these discoveries, still insist that these are all side effects of the real phenomenon. There really is a realm of fury that exists outside of normal experience. The scientists cannot understand it if they haven't felt those feelings of "furiosity" or fury; if they have felt the fury, then they must know what it is like to be connected; if the scientists say it isn't a realm of fury doing it, then they must be mistaken, or be lacking the ability to understand it, or be confused.
The scientists agree that they can't prove that the realm of fury does not exist, and the High Furies continue their traditions with pride. But the point isn't that they can't continue the traditions, or that the feelings they have aren't true or valuable in themselves. Conceivably, the High Furies could continue their culture cheerfully and proudly. But their belief that a realm of fury exists rests on only two things - personal experience, which can be unreliable and which in any case is untestable, and lack of counter-evidence, which could not be made a good argument for any idea.
How is spiritual feeling, and your conclusion that a deity is really there, any different from this scenario?
I am not certain as to why a computer processor is less interesting than a cell. They are both things that exist that can be explored. Existence being created by some being higher than us doesn't rob it of interestingness...I am confused by the idea that just because something was designed it's less interesting.
If anything it makes me wish I could learn more about the world so I can go and excitedly tell God what I learned. Sort of like how a child tells their parent about what they learned that day. Sure God already knows this shit, but it would be fun to tell him regardless.
Can somebody explain this in greater detail? I feel very confused at why this somehow makes life inherently less interesting. I don't see how God having the power to just take everything away affects the level of interestingness or the ability to be fascinated by existence...
That fills me more with feelings of "OH MY GOD I HAVE TO LEARN EVERYTHING NOW BECAUSE HE MIGHT BREAK IT D: D: D: D:"...
I do not mean to be rude or any such thing. I am just genuinely perplexed.
THE FATE OF THE UNIVERSE AND ME: I personally believe that the universe is due for ending. Perhaps not any time soon, but the universe at some point is going to end in some fashion. I do not know how, but I feel that it will. And then it will be reborn using the material of the old one. This cycle will happen again and again and again and again and again.
SCIENCE AND RELIGION FITTING TOGETHER: Of course they can! Why Buddhism and psychology are best friends or maybe relatives. Perhaps they're lovers. They could be all of these things. I wouldn't put it past psychology to be into her sister. I mean really the bitch had an affair with Freud, she has to be messed up.
...
CONVERT TO BUDDHISM NOW OR I WILL SHANK YOU. With loving kindness of course. My violent murder will be one that is most wholesome and procure me much merit.
If someone wants to accuse us of eating coconut shells, then that's their business. We know what we're doing. - Achaan Chah"I am confused by the idea that just because something was designed it's less interesting."
Agreed. Knowing that someone made your computer doesn't make it (or the computer manufacturer) any less interesting.
It depends on what this god or these gods are supposedly like. If they're mostly nice, you'd probably be pleased that now you've found someone who can tell you where energy comes from. If they're the capricious kind, though, it'd just give you a headache.
"That fills me more with feelings of "OH MY GOD I HAVE TO LEARN EVERYTHING NOW BECAUSE HE MIGHT BREAK IT D: D: D: D:"... "
That pretty much sums it up, especially since without it you're already rushing around trying to sort out misinformation, knowledge gaps, mysteries, mistakes and outright lies from the true stuff. It's not always easy or fun, learning things.
Scientist: "Gods damn it, He changed the gravitational force again!"
edited 27th Jul '11 9:44:37 AM by BlueChameleon
@BC: It isnt. But I am curious about this statement:
"...But the point isn't that they can't continue the traditions, or that the feelings they have aren't true or valuable in themselves."
Why not?
"...Conceivably, the High Furies could continue their culture cheerfully and proudly. But their belief that a realm of fury exists rests on only two things - personal experience, which can be unreliable and which in any case is untestable, and lack of counter-evidence, which could not be made a good argument for any idea."
Afraid I'm going to have to disagree with that interpretation. Personal experience and lack of counter-evidence are considered a good argument for a great many things that lots of people accept. Free Will, True Love, Universal Standards of Artistic Merit, Inner Beauty, and a whole host of other things, all of which are characterized by being subjective, not objective, sets of beliefs. If you could comprehensively map out and explain in neurological terms the experience of falling in love, would that make the experience any less "true" (before you answer, consider what people mean by "true" in that context). We don't believe in any of these things in the same way that we believe in proven scientific hypotheses, or any objective statement about the observable state of affairs in the world. But we do believe in them in another, non-objective sense.
So the mere fact that I possess a belief system that I acknowledge is inherently personal and subjective is no argument against it, from my own perspective. If God is out there somewhere, he isn't there in the same sense as a tree or a galaxy.
I'm done trying to sound smart. "Clear" is the new smart.
"...But the point isn't that they can't continue the traditions, or that the feelings they have aren't true or valuable in themselves."
"Why not?"
@ De Marquis: What do you mean, "Why not"?
"... the mere fact that I possess a belief system that I acknowledge is inherently personal and subjective is no argument against it ..."
In the interests of free speech, of course not. I cannot, indeed should not, dictate to you what personal or subjective beliefs you can hold. On intellectual grounds, however, I am skeptical.
Even allowing that I cannot experience what you can, that my subjective viewpoint is fixed to wherever my body is, and that you could be * experiencing a direct and convincing connection between you and the divine for all I know, how exactly am I supposed to interpret your testimony?
For all I know, indeed for all we know, any of the following could be true:
- You really have seen the divine, and I have not, so I cannot imagine what it would be like.
- You really have seen the divine, but I have too, and I have mistaken it for something else.
- You really have seen the divine, but I have too, and am merely testing you to see how sincere you are.
- You really haven't, but I have, and I know what I'm talking about.
- You really haven't, and nor have I, but you have misinterpreted it.
- You really haven't, and nor have I, and you are testing me to see how sincere I am.
This is just what I could think up at the time, but I hope it is enough to make my point clear. Knowledge of your own subjective experience I cannot have, except based on what you tell me. And people can be mistaken, or can lie, or be confused, or otherwise be capable of passing on unhelpful testimony. Myself included.
My point is this: if you invoke subjectivity, then the best I can do is to take your word for what you experience, and that opens the floodgates for equally compelling hypotheses about what actually happened that can support, contradict or ignore what you yourself claim. I have to take it on trust, until I have proof. But how can I take it on trust if someone else then claims the opposite? Am I supposed to take their testimony on trust as well? How do I resolve the contradiction?
edited 27th Jul '11 11:20:12 AM by BlueChameleon

edited 27th Jul '11 4:28:08 AM by Blurring
If a chicken crosses the road and nobody else is around to see it, does the road move beneath the chicken instead?