This discussion began on CARM. It looked like it was shaping up to be a good discussion. I don't know anything about Daedalus but he seems bright and more informed than most.He also seemed eager to have a good discussion and not a Ping contest, so that makes him a worthy opponent and it makes his arguments worth dealing with. This discussion kept foundering becuase he kept saying he didn't have time but would get back latter. So It kind of built over time by little pieces step by step. He reflects a lot of "typical" atheist understanding of many important issues that dealing with, but when I say "typical" I don't mean that as a pejorative.
#1
Daedalus:
MEta"Tangentially" Is a bad word. Analogically is better. I would expect that argument. First,it's a necessity, weakness or not it can't be helped. God is beyond our understanding. You are playing up the self confidence of reductionism which is a sham and based upon ruling out most of reality and sticking to only that which we knwo (minuscule). Secondly, all language is meatphor. We don't have a set of words that accurately tell us the ultimate nature of reality, and scinece doesn't tell us that. Science is just as stumped epistemological when it comes to transcendent aspects of reality that aren immediately given in our limited experience. We do not know ultimate reality, we don't know the basis of reality. We have no more clue as to Heidegger's ultimate question (why something rather than nothing) now than we did in his day.
Daedalus:
MEta:That's an illusion because while the principles can be proved the extrapolation, like a abridgments (extrapolation is an abridged version of truth) must leave out huge gaps in knowledge and into those cracks fall all that makes cinece less than self confident, all the basis of metaphysical principle and religious belief.
Deadalus:
Deadalus:
Yes but again Electricity is established by "facts" in evidence because they mundane and within the limited sphere of our perceptions. But by the same token that creates the illusion of certainty and objectivity but when you go to connect it to some higher level and solve some real epistemological problem then it all has to go through the distorting lens of our assumptions. Moreover, the 'certainty' we think we found with Electricity is nothing more than the limited perspective which we can reason, which is by hits nature a prori a correlation and not causality itself. The same problems resolved in the same way in a religious sphere are dmissed as "speculation."
Daedalus:
Meta:That's right. God is what Tillich calls "the unconditioned." That is transcendent of the subject/object dichotomy. The unconditioned is both subjective and objective. It's objective to the extent that everyone can see it and find it and reason to it, but it's not located in any one individual it's personal experiential perspective of everyone. Some don't experience it, but of those who do they experiences the same kinds of things.
Daedalus:
Meta:
I don't see why you say "philosophically." Why would God have a need?
Daedalus:
straw man argument. You are assuming God's purpose in creation is this "experiment." You are deciding what you think he wanted to get out of creation. That's no guarantee that's it.
Daedalus:
That's the irony isn't it? god is not conscoius in the way we understand it. becuase God is beyond our understanding.
Daedalus:
But that's still straw man argument. You are deciding in what sense the term "Need" really applies and in what sense it doesn't. The term "need" applies in two different senses here but you treat it one sense. For the argument to do some damage to a generic God concept, it has to be a need of dependence. To use the term in the ordinary sense of fulfilling a purpose, while technically sounding bad for a God concept is actually not a threat to God's impassibility or aseity. God can "need" to fuflill a purpose without being dependent for his existence or well being upon fulfilling it, and certainly without being unable to fill it. The ability of Go to supply any of his own needs means he is still a se and not contingent and not dependent.
Of course implacability is a quality Christian philosophers borrowed from Aristotle's unmoved mover.
Another mistake in your statement is the idea that there could be a multiplicity of gods. In my view God is the ground of being, thus there can only be one. Multiple gods would be contingent, in my view God has to be necessary.
Daedalus:
That's unfounded. That reminds me of this obscure English spy movie about a female James Bond figure called Modesty Blaze. There's a rock group named for it too. In the film (which was a real failure) the villian was this high living rich guy who has expensive tastes. He's crawling through the destert dying of thirst and he's saying "Champagne!" "Champagne!" Instead of "water!" As I drew the distinction between need for fulfillment of purpose vs. need for dependence you ad another one, selfish wants. So you are confusing want with need. But granting that desire introduces a "needy" aspect to wanting, it's not still not the same as the notion of "needing" for fulfillment of a purpose. To need for fulfillment does not require that one depend upon the fufillment for life or sustainance.
Daedalus:
God Needed to create the Universe.
This, of course, really makes a problem for the Theist. After all, if they claim that God is conscious in some way and He made the decision to create the Universe, that means the Universe (and everything about it) is Contingent. (This means Logic is Contingent and the Theist shoots himself in the foot claiming that he can use Logic to support his claim that Theism, Christianity, or whatever, is tenable.)
However, if the Universe is Necessary, then God is reduced to a step in a chain of something He is not in control of. If, in every possible world, God created a Universe, then there is no possible world in which he didn’t create a Universe. That is, God MUST act to create a Universe by a Law that He can’t even control – and he either CHOSE to make this one (with all the Suffering in it) or had no control over it (which makes him less potent than a God is usually defined as).
I’m not aware of these studies and must admit I am skeptical. If these truly showed some insight into the Supernatural, I think we’d be hearing about them much more.
I’d also have to look and see what the studies were and what they claim to find.
I don’t doubt mystical experiences happen.. I would just call them unknown experiences. I don’t see how you can attach a dubious experience to an unknown (God).
I don’t doubt that. However, connecting the experience to “God” is the problem. I don’t think anyone discounts that Theists aren’t experiencing SOMETHING!
Wait a minute, though. We both agree that M&E exist and can be talked about Objectively. I am just stating that it is a reasonable place to start since we both agree and the added element is “Other”. We don’t know what “Other” (Supernatural) is. It could be anything.
It could actually be a simple misunderstanding of M&E and nothing more. Since it is unknown in a testable sense (in the same way as M&E), I don’t think it is unreasonable to place it in its own category and ask more questions about it.
After all, if it is a separate category, then it deserves to be measured by its own rules. But, if measuring M&E have shown to be effective/useful, then it also seems appropriate to rule it out by using the Scientific Method.
I imagine this is where your studies come into play. What do they claim? What do they show? What was the methodology? Etc?
Well, I hope that is not what I am doing. I will try to formalize it, if it comes to that so we can move past prose and into logical argument.
My point is that “IFF” my argument, with it’s assumptions, holds true, then “IFF” the foundation of those assumptions is shown to be true, then my conclusion would logically follow.
The same for yours.
IFF Supernaturalism is true, then if your argument (one in which the assumption that Supernaturalism exists) is valid, then the conclusion logically follows.
Not to be too simplistic but I would use this analogy:
A person is found dead, shot by a rifle multiple times. The detective has a theory but it relies on an assumption: that a person wouldn’t kill themselves by shooting, turning the gun around, loading it and turning it back to shoot themselves again 5 or 6 times – in the head!. (This was an actual case in the news many years ago – they called it suicide!)
Put another way:
People have religious experiences
All experiences are Natural in nature, and have natural explanations.
Therefore, religious experiences are a function of Nature (of Matter and Energy; not Supernatural)
If you agree that 1 is true, then all I have to do is show that 2 is true to arrive at 3.
If I can prove all experiences are based on M&E, or if I can show that ONLY M&E exist, then I don’t need to address religious experiences, since they would be the same as any and all experiences.
My larger point is that this is virtually impossible to prove – since it is a fundamental problem in philosophy, but there is warrant to believe it is true (that only M&E exist) for a number of reasons we can explore.
Either way, it is rollicking good fun to talk about it!
I guess I need to see what we are talking about here, since it seems you are being inconsistent: that experiences are subjective by nature, but that religious experiences have been objectively validated…
Let’s look at the studies.
However, it’s fair to ask “by what metric do you measure these aspects of reality that you claim exist but can’t be proven to be objective?”
It seems that you are constantly begging the question, or arguing from ignorance, that your Experiences can’t be proven, except in the way that proves them to be what you want them to be.
It’s hard not to lionize something that has worked so well. That is an understatement. It has made the difference! It has risen above all other ways of knowing that it stands alone in the Pantheon of Knowing.
However, that is not to say other ways of knowing can’t be entertained, but I suppose my point is the opposite of yours: let us not denigrate Empiricism for a few esoteric, philosophical reasons.
I don’t think either of us are attempting to use circular reasoning or play games.
Not the only valid form of reasoning, just the one that has proven to be most reliable. I think that reliability has value. That value can’t be proven by empiricism (many things can’t, and maybe nothing at all), but if Empiricism can’t prove things, there is little else that can except for Reason with some select circular (read: tautological) statements. Reason can prove things true, but only to the extent that they are “trivially true”.
For example, that a bachelor is unmarried is much less impressive than you arriving at the same atomic weight of a molecule as another person half-way round the world. Avogadro’s Constant is so magnificently large that to arrive at it by chance would be earth shattering – but people do arrive at it. Not by chance, I charge, and that seems to be a strong rationale for the reality and efficacy of the scientific method, Materialism, etc.
I see what you are saying, but I’d have to maintain that the philosophical world accepts that the concept of the Objective exists and is useful. In fact, it is a rather Skeptical position to not accept that certain things exist, and can be known, independent of the mind.
Again, I’d go back to Avogadro’s Constant as evidence that Matter exists independently of the mind; is Objective reality.
My point is that we ‘Know” through a number of criteria, most of which rely on some verification against our subjective experience. Inter-subjective experience only goes so far. After all, get two atheists together and they will claim that an experience of God doesn’t exist.
I guess I’d have to see why you feel “Inter subjective has to be the standard”? According to what standard? Why “must” it be the primary criterion?
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#1
Quote:Meta
| the mystical tradition in Christianity is old and all organized religion is probably based upon mystical experience at some level. The assumption that any temporal image used to discuss God is just a metaphor pointing to God is implied in all theology. we don't have to have the kind of precision we have with science because it's not about words on paper or mathematical equations, it's about personal experience. |
I will be short in my responses. I don’t mean to be curt – ask if you want clarification. I think you probably understand the principles I am raising as well (or better) than I do, so I hope you will extrapolate the best argument you are aware of, rather than going for the quick kill. I will try to do the same.
I agree that all theology attempts to talk about God tangentially. In fact, it seems a weakness to me, since it seems unable to talk about God in ANY direct manner.
MEta"Tangentially" Is a bad word. Analogically is better. I would expect that argument. First,it's a necessity, weakness or not it can't be helped. God is beyond our understanding. You are playing up the self confidence of reductionism which is a sham and based upon ruling out most of reality and sticking to only that which we knwo (minuscule). Secondly, all language is meatphor. We don't have a set of words that accurately tell us the ultimate nature of reality, and scinece doesn't tell us that. Science is just as stumped epistemological when it comes to transcendent aspects of reality that aren immediately given in our limited experience. We do not know ultimate reality, we don't know the basis of reality. We have no more clue as to Heidegger's ultimate question (why something rather than nothing) now than we did in his day.
Daedalus:
The power of science, and Materialism, is that it relies on extrapolations of well-known principles that can be objectively proven.
MEta:That's an illusion because while the principles can be proved the extrapolation, like a abridgments (extrapolation is an abridged version of truth) must leave out huge gaps in knowledge and into those cracks fall all that makes cinece less than self confident, all the basis of metaphysical principle and religious belief.
Deadalus:
Personal experience is, obviously, a contentious philosophical topic. I don’t expect us to settle it here. It is enough to say, IMO, that we must rely on it to some extent, but that we must also understand its limitations. The discrepancy between the two (Objective vs. Subjective, vs. Inter subjective) is the crux of the issue it seems.Meta:The limitations of personal experience are absolute. You can't get around them. To pretend that you can is the "epistemologist's fallacy." That means there is no objective knowledge. Think about it how can objective knowledge read us objectively if we can't be objective? It's not that numbers on paper have person biases, 2 + 2 = 4 in base 10 every time, but when we go to connect the "big picture" we can't do it. The info is distorted through a necessary lense of personal perspective that means we can't have objective anything except at the most mundane an immediate level.
Deadalus:
There is a vast difference between our experience of, say, Electricity (scientifically proven; its laws established and repeatable) and, say, Beauty (metaphorically described and subjective/Inter Subjective).Meta:
Yes but again Electricity is established by "facts" in evidence because they mundane and within the limited sphere of our perceptions. But by the same token that creates the illusion of certainty and objectivity but when you go to connect it to some higher level and solve some real epistemological problem then it all has to go through the distorting lens of our assumptions. Moreover, the 'certainty' we think we found with Electricity is nothing more than the limited perspective which we can reason, which is by hits nature a prori a correlation and not causality itself. The same problems resolved in the same way in a religious sphere are dmissed as "speculation."
Daedalus:
It appears God floats in the middle ground: not scientifically provable, but also not a simple subjective feeling, according to – I think – your argument. God, according to your explanation is a generally agreed-upon “experience’ that people attribute to something they call God.
Meta:That's right. God is what Tillich calls "the unconditioned." That is transcendent of the subject/object dichotomy. The unconditioned is both subjective and objective. It's objective to the extent that everyone can see it and find it and reason to it, but it's not located in any one individual it's personal experiential perspective of everyone. Some don't experience it, but of those who do they experiences the same kinds of things.
Quote:Meta
| I wouldn't say God needs anything, but the fact is all humans everywhere have always tried to define the human problematic and the one and only thing that mediates the definition and the resolution is ultimate transformative experience. |
Daedalus:
Many religions claim God “requires” (needs) certain actions or acts of faith by us. No, I suppose by classical definitions, God doesn’t have Needs, although, philosophically, I’d say he does:
Meta:
I don't see why you say "philosophically." Why would God have a need?
Daedalus:
If God created the world for even just ONE person to realize something of his nature, or plan, then if no one did realize it, his experiment would be a failure. He NEEDS someone, anyone, to become enlightened or else why make the Universe and Life at all?Meta:
straw man argument. You are assuming God's purpose in creation is this "experiment." You are deciding what you think he wanted to get out of creation. That's no guarantee that's it.
Daedalus:
That is if God is conscious in a way that I understand as a conscious, intelligent Being.Meta:
That's the irony isn't it? god is not conscoius in the way we understand it. becuase God is beyond our understanding.
Daedalus:
Just to clarify, all Gods need something. Even the Creator of the Universe – if acting with purpose, needed to create the Universe, for some reason we can’t fathom. Otherwise, it was either created unwittingly – without a purpose – which makes the act of creating a Universe analogous to sweating: it’s just a by-product. Or it is a Want, which means it is by a whim.Meta:
But that's still straw man argument. You are deciding in what sense the term "Need" really applies and in what sense it doesn't. The term "need" applies in two different senses here but you treat it one sense. For the argument to do some damage to a generic God concept, it has to be a need of dependence. To use the term in the ordinary sense of fulfilling a purpose, while technically sounding bad for a God concept is actually not a threat to God's impassibility or aseity. God can "need" to fuflill a purpose without being dependent for his existence or well being upon fulfilling it, and certainly without being unable to fill it. The ability of Go to supply any of his own needs means he is still a se and not contingent and not dependent.
Of course implacability is a quality Christian philosophers borrowed from Aristotle's unmoved mover.
Another mistake in your statement is the idea that there could be a multiplicity of gods. In my view God is the ground of being, thus there can only be one. Multiple gods would be contingent, in my view God has to be necessary.
Daedalus:
I Need food. I Want Cordon Bleu. There can be no moral Good, I would argue, that comes from a Want, not in the most strict analysis. Wants, by definition, are selfish.Meta:
That's unfounded. That reminds me of this obscure English spy movie about a female James Bond figure called Modesty Blaze. There's a rock group named for it too. In the film (which was a real failure) the villian was this high living rich guy who has expensive tastes. He's crawling through the destert dying of thirst and he's saying "Champagne!" "Champagne!" Instead of "water!" As I drew the distinction between need for fulfillment of purpose vs. need for dependence you ad another one, selfish wants. So you are confusing want with need. But granting that desire introduces a "needy" aspect to wanting, it's not still not the same as the notion of "needing" for fulfillment of a purpose. To need for fulfillment does not require that one depend upon the fufillment for life or sustainance.
Daedalus:
God Needed to create the Universe.
This, of course, really makes a problem for the Theist. After all, if they claim that God is conscious in some way and He made the decision to create the Universe, that means the Universe (and everything about it) is Contingent. (This means Logic is Contingent and the Theist shoots himself in the foot claiming that he can use Logic to support his claim that Theism, Christianity, or whatever, is tenable.)
However, if the Universe is Necessary, then God is reduced to a step in a chain of something He is not in control of. If, in every possible world, God created a Universe, then there is no possible world in which he didn’t create a Universe. That is, God MUST act to create a Universe by a Law that He can’t even control – and he either CHOSE to make this one (with all the Suffering in it) or had no control over it (which makes him less potent than a God is usually defined as).
Quote:
| Mystical experience is validated by over 100 empirical scientific studies (closer to 300). these studies are validated by Ralph Hood in the development of his instrument known as the "M scale." Through cross cultural verification he has demonstrated the verification for the theories of W.T. Stace and all the major mystics. so thesis validated and verified scientifically. |
I’d also have to look and see what the studies were and what they claim to find.
I don’t doubt mystical experiences happen.. I would just call them unknown experiences. I don’t see how you can attach a dubious experience to an unknown (God).
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| Religious experience is not just subjective. Its' also inter subjective and thus contains verifiable aspects. |
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It could actually be a simple misunderstanding of M&E and nothing more. Since it is unknown in a testable sense (in the same way as M&E), I don’t think it is unreasonable to place it in its own category and ask more questions about it.
After all, if it is a separate category, then it deserves to be measured by its own rules. But, if measuring M&E have shown to be effective/useful, then it also seems appropriate to rule it out by using the Scientific Method.
I imagine this is where your studies come into play. What do they claim? What do they show? What was the methodology? Etc?
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In other words, your method is circular it rests your premise on your conclusion. |
My point is that “IFF” my argument, with it’s assumptions, holds true, then “IFF” the foundation of those assumptions is shown to be true, then my conclusion would logically follow.
The same for yours.
IFF Supernaturalism is true, then if your argument (one in which the assumption that Supernaturalism exists) is valid, then the conclusion logically follows.
Not to be too simplistic but I would use this analogy:
A person is found dead, shot by a rifle multiple times. The detective has a theory but it relies on an assumption: that a person wouldn’t kill themselves by shooting, turning the gun around, loading it and turning it back to shoot themselves again 5 or 6 times – in the head!. (This was an actual case in the news many years ago – they called it suicide!)
Put another way:
People have religious experiences
All experiences are Natural in nature, and have natural explanations.
Therefore, religious experiences are a function of Nature (of Matter and Energy; not Supernatural)
If you agree that 1 is true, then all I have to do is show that 2 is true to arrive at 3.
If I can prove all experiences are based on M&E, or if I can show that ONLY M&E exist, then I don’t need to address religious experiences, since they would be the same as any and all experiences.
My larger point is that this is virtually impossible to prove – since it is a fundamental problem in philosophy, but there is warrant to believe it is true (that only M&E exist) for a number of reasons we can explore.
Either way, it is rollicking good fun to talk about it!
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Let’s look at the studies.
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| you have get past the circular reasoning of trying to bias the result up front by lionizing the data your methods can provide and automatically ruling out any other form of knowledge. |
It seems that you are constantly begging the question, or arguing from ignorance, that your Experiences can’t be proven, except in the way that proves them to be what you want them to be.
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| there is no reason to lionize empiricism. If science didn't know empiricism is not enough they would not have invented parsimony. |
However, that is not to say other ways of knowing can’t be entertained, but I suppose my point is the opposite of yours: let us not denigrate Empiricism for a few esoteric, philosophical reasons.
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| Quote: It's not a proof, it's an attempt to make it a best explanation. there can't be proof, there's nothing in valid about "best explanation." That's a lot better than circular reasoning and game playing. |
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| that sort of circular reasoning that you think is so valid is the upshot of atheist ideology and reductionism. That in itself disproves your whole view, what think is the only valid form of knowledge is nothing more than circular reasoning. |
For example, that a bachelor is unmarried is much less impressive than you arriving at the same atomic weight of a molecule as another person half-way round the world. Avogadro’s Constant is so magnificently large that to arrive at it by chance would be earth shattering – but people do arrive at it. Not by chance, I charge, and that seems to be a strong rationale for the reality and efficacy of the scientific method, Materialism, etc.
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Again, I’d go back to Avogadro’s Constant as evidence that Matter exists independently of the mind; is Objective reality.
My point is that we ‘Know” through a number of criteria, most of which rely on some verification against our subjective experience. Inter-subjective experience only goes so far. After all, get two atheists together and they will claim that an experience of God doesn’t exist.
I guess I’d have to see why you feel “Inter subjective has to be the standard”? According to what standard? Why “must” it be the primary criterion?
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