Chemicals do not Disprove Religious Experince part 2

I was given an argument by an atheist which echos what I hear all the time in answer to my religious experience argumetns. The studies don't' conclude "God exist" so therefore they don't prove God exits. Of course they ignore the fact that I don't claim direct proof but argue for the rationally warranted nature of religious belief. They are not apt to accept anything not even slightest ground so they always fall back on brain chemistry. The fact that brain chemistry is somehow involved is just absolute proof to them that this naturalistic and has nothing to do with God. Of course they are totally ignorance the answers I give but assume that if chemicals are within 45 feet of the answer then it's a done deal.

My answer is that they are begging the question. They start out assuring there can't e a God. So evidence could ever count in favor of God. Having assumed the impossibility of God they further fall back on what they take to an absoltue certainty of disproof becasue chemicals are somehow involve and so it must be naturalistic. But this is disproved in two ways, through Newberg who argues that God would have to use brain chemistry so that doesn't tell us anything, and Hick who shows that the researchers who claim to have evoked RE through chemicals or stimulating the brain have really failed to measure in any reliable way that they are in fact getting mystical experince out of it. Since that's the atheist argumet in its entirety that actually beats their whole argument.

The real problem is they beg the question in terms of the role of the effects of having had the experince. The effect is that this is the real debarkation of God's role in the thing since no other pathology, chemistry or experince aside from these "mystical" ones can ever produce the same kinds of outcomes. Their role is to be the ultimate tie breakers. But the atheists continue to assume that as long as they can beg the question and assert that brain chemistry explains it all they just further assert that the effects could be produced if we really tried.

Here I dialogue with a carm atheist called "Phoenix."

Phoneix: on CARM

6/16/2009

Quote:Phoenix
If we take HRG's example of the unicorn (analogous to your God), WHERE is there ANY kind of independent observation, i.e., the empirical evidence like the observable fact that it's people who have fingerprints and leave the footprints/fingerprints for you God. Religious experience exists (the edelweiss flowers) BUT what you don't have is any equivalent evidence that your God (the unicorn) exists in the same way the fingerprints and footprints do. It seems that you want us to "overlook" this fact that you haven't connected the dots (where's the observable evidence that would justify the rational warrant?) between religious experience and the existence of your God? (my post to you on this subject that you never responded to, so you can't really claim that I have abvoided your arguments, can you?)

Yes we know the figner prints are real, but I have given sound reasons why we should assume the effects are the trace of the divine:

(1) Its' the reaosn why there is relgion, the concept was a consruel of the meaing of the experinces and goes back 65,000 years. That's a lot of presumption for an assumption. It's never been disrpoved, and it's grown with humanity throughout the ages righ ton up into the scientific era.

(2) The effects, being unproduceable in any other way indicate something different, no realtted to the chemicals alone (althought hey are invovled)

(3) Its' what we should expect of the divine because it's what religion is suppossed to do, transform our lives.

thus this is ample reason to make the assumtion that if the correlations holds and it has over four decades of scietnific study, then there' s every reason to make the construel. Thus belief is warranted.

(4) Not to foget that I'm not claiming proof but warrant for belief.

He links to the following:


Also by him on CARM

How does religious experience "justify" your assumption that the "cause" is your God, Metacrock?

1. The most plausible explanation is that the attribution of this experience to some external source is really a misinterpretation of the effects of a particular kind of brain chemistry in a particular location of the brain (what we actually observe).

Of course that's begging the question. Who says it's more Plausible? To say that you would have to know in advance that God is less plausible. If you had a way of knowing that you would just answer God arguments with that rather than asking how they prove things?

This seems plausible because you are begging the question by assuming your belief as a fact, and also because you have inaccurate info about RE being evoked by brain chemistry. I've quoted John Hick several times on this and I've beaten this with Hicks comments. Of atheists, not being interested in reason never take note of that. Hick argues that the researchers who make these claims offer no means of understanding how to judge a real religious experience. They based it upon someone's dream or a person talking about God after the alleged stimulation and that's supposed to prove they evoked a religious experince.

My theory has accounted for the use brain chemistry and its role in the process of RE through the work of Newberg. I've quoted Newberg at length when when shows that God has to use brain chemistry if he wants to experience soemthing. We could not experience anything with brain chemistry becasue it is through neural transmitters that we feel anything. So the receptors are opening to God and that can been seen as a physical process. Just because it' snot amazing flat out miracle doesn't mean God is not involved. This is part of the baby way of thinking that atheist use to think about religious things.

Newberg says:

A skeptic might suggest that a biological origin to all spiritual longings and experiences, including the universal human yearning to connect with something divine, could be explained as a delusion caused by the chemical misfiring of a bundle of nerve cells. But …After years of scientific study, and careful consideration of the a neurological process that has evolved to allow us humans to transcend material existence and acknowledge and connect with a deeper, more spiritual part of ourselves perceived of as an absolute, universal reality that connects us to all that is (Andrew Newberg, Why God Won’t God Away: Brain Science and the Biology of Belief. (New York, Ballentine Books), 2001, 157-172).

Phoenix

2. It seems to me that IF what is termed "religious experience" is really a "conduit to the divine" (so to speak), then WHY are there thousands of God(s?)-concepts STILL out there?

Religious experince is beyond words. When we speak of it we have to filter it through our cultural constructs, becasue that's our understanding. Constructs are the way we understand the world. So that's why religions are different, because people have culturally relative and culturally bound constructs. RE is primarily about presence. One senses a presence.So there's no question of total enlightenment or being told all the answers to all the mysteries.

Phoenix

* Let's assume for the sake of argument that there is a "Creator(s?)" that is the author of this Universe, then such a powerful Entity would have no trouble in using such power to override ANY cultural theistic prism and reveal the TRUTH™ about Itself (His/Her/Themselves?) to every "experiencer".

But that wont work because you are trying to cheat. I've explained this already. You are trying it both ways. You are trying to have God be a big guy in the sky and still overcome the limits of a guy in the sky. The terminology you use is indicative of this kind of thinking. You call God "an entity" and you say "a powerful entity." God is not a powerful entity, not an entity at all. The ground of being is not just another thing in creation. A big man in the sky, even if the most powerful man anywhere, is still just another thing in creation. God is much more than that. In being more he's actually limited in a sense because he is beyond thinking like a man. Moreover, he's still limited to logical necessity so one thing he can't do is allow us freewill and yet unburden us from the limitations of our infinitude. We are human we are finite we have to see things through cultural constructs that's what language is and that's what thought is. There's no other way.


Phoenix

* The fact that people interpret these experiences through what I will call the "cultural theistic prism" [the God(s?) concept prevalent in a particular culture] says to me that this is NOT due any "outside (supernatural?) influence, but to particular interpretation (an erroneous one IMO) of a specific combination of brain chemistry and culture.

These kinds of experinces are in all cultural all over the world. Even in traditions such as Vedanta where they don't feel a presence but a void and where they don't believe in a personality of God they still relate to the void in the same way that theists relate to the presence. This proves that these experiences are universal. they not just limited to people who believe in a certain idea of God. They in all cultures and all traditions that proves it's external to the traditions.


Phoenix

3. Humans are just now able to sort out what is really going on and what we actually observe is due to natural, physical causes.

that's begging the question. There's no guarantee were even beginning.


Phoenix

The bottom-line here is WHY should I think that there's anything other than brain chemistry (one that pleasurable and for that reason ultimately beneficial) going one here. This is the hypothesis that fits the facts and doesn't require the introduction of "assumptions".

Because it can't account for the effects. When nothing else produces the kind of effects, no pathology, no mental illness, no external naturalistic poison or substance or pathological state, and no other context in which brain chemistry does, there's just no reason to attribute it to such things. You are only begging the question in making that attribution because it's all you've got. Without that assertion you would have no answer at all and since your ideology will not allow you to accept any other possibility that's really you can say.


Phoenix

It seems to me that because previous studies can document that these experiences have beneficial effects that you are attempting to stretch that into a justification for "God (your liberal Christian version)-did-it" . I don't see anyone denying that these experiences exist or that they can be beneficial. What I can understand is the very legitimate objection of attempt to use this phenomenon (one with a demonstrable physical cause) into an a very obvious case of special pleading (my God-did-it!). In other words, connect the dots:

You can't explain the effects. Come now you don't actually expect a scientific study to say "the finding of our study is that God exists?" That would be totally unscientific. But the researchers in private do often believe. There's nothing wrong with making the assumption based upon the study that well we can construe that since the experince is real the content is real and the content is God so it's logical to assume this is an experince of God. You keep ignoring the fact that this is the way we reason about all things experiential. How do I know I had a car wreck? The car is dented. I have whip lash. I have a memory of a car wreck. Now why should I know conclude that the car really did wreck? It's not really proved, and it could well be that I looked around too fast and got whip lash, a wrecking crew wrecked my car while it was parked and I hallucinated the wreck. But since the effects match the content, the effects are real, the experince is an experince of something why not conclude that the content is really what was experienced?

The criteria we use to understand reality at the epistemological level is that experiences are:

regular
consistent
shared (inter-subjective--the same types of experience)

So Re matches the basic criteria we use to determine the reality of our experiences. So we have reason to trust it.

Since the skeptic can't show any other explaination for the effects, can't duplicate them with any other method, that's ample warrant for the assumptions.


Newberg again:

Tracing spiritual experience to neurological behavior does not disprove its realness. If God does exist, for example, and if He appeared to you in some incarnation, you would have no way of experiencing His presence, except as part of a neurologically generated rendition of reality. You would need auditory processing to hear his voice, visual processing to see His face, and cognitive processing to make sense of his message. Even if he spoke to you mystically, without words, you would need cognitive functions to comprehend his meaning, and input form the brain’s emotional centers to fill you with rapture and awe. Neurology makes it clear: there is no other way for God to get into your head except through the brain’s neural pathways. Correspondingly, God cannot exist as a concept or as reality anyplace else but in your mind. In this sense, both spiritual experiences and experiences of a more ordinary material nature are made real to the mind in the very same way—through the processing powers of the brain and the cognitive functions of the mind. Whatever the ultimate nature of spiritual experience might be—weather it is in fact an actual perception of spiritual reality—or merely an interpretation of sheer neurological function—all that is meaningful in human spirituality happens in the mind. In other words, the mind is mystical by default.(37)

Phoenix

Religious experience (physical evidence==>derived from a set of brain chemistry/brain location, one that can be induced by certain psychoactive drugs and in some cases by brain lesions like temporal lobe lesions) to ....(your justification)......"God-did-it" (no disrespect intended with this phrase, just my "shorthand" for your alleged mechanism).

But you can't prove they have been! I have said this so many times. Read the John Hick book. He shows that there is no valid research proving this. they just assume anything about God is a religious experience. They don't use the M scale and they don't a means of measuring religious experince. it's that simple they can't prove they evoked it.

Me from my book:

Hick complies a short list of the major arguments proposed as to the neurological causes of RE:

(1) Epileptic seizers and frontal lobe stimulation by the Presinger helmet cause religious visions.
(2) Psychotropic drugs cause various forms of Religious experience
(3) ‘Pure Consciousness,’ consciousness of the void, emptiness, sunyata is caused by consciousness continuing after cutting off the perceptual input.
(4) The sense of unity with all reality is caused by closing down the awareness of the bodily boundaries of the individual.
(5) The sense of the presence of God or other supernatural beings is caused by splitting of the self-system into two, one half seeing the other half as a distant entity.

This seems like a very impressive case, and the reductionisms make it sound as though they have really uncovered a one to one correspondence between brain and mind. Punch here, get this experience, and punch over there get this other experience. If you want the feeling of God’s presence stimulate this area, if you want the sense of undifferentiated unity stimulate this other area over there. In reality, however, such is not the case. This argument is essentially Hick’s argument, the researchers not well versed in theology or the study of mysticism, and thus they think that unusual experiences structured loosely in religious language constitutes “mystical experience.” They are missing the whole nature what RE is and what it does because they are trying to formulate this simplistic argument from sign. That’s exactly what their argument is, an argument sign. It’s not a demonstration of the naturalistic causality of RE, it’s a correlation between two events, one supposedly causing the other, but not necessarily producing authentic mystical experience. What is produced is an odd experienced loosly structured in religious language. I don’t include Newberg or D’Aquili in my broad swipe at “reductionists” but even they exhibit some of these tendencies, but to a lesser extent because they knew enough to use real mystics. The association between the physiological and RE is the crux of the whole naturalistic argument. It’s really nothing more than an argument from sign. For the average atheist message boarder or blogger the connection is very simple. It’s quite common to hear them say “if damage the brain our body stops working, so we are just nothing more than collections of brain function and extensions of brain function.” The more sophisticated argument made by scientific researchers isn’t that different from the same argument. Ramachandran links seeming mystical experiences with epileptic grand mal seizures. Of course I quote a study in chapter 3 (“Studies”) from Lukoff and Lu, which shows that mystical experience is not related to epilepsy. Indeed, it would be absurd to assume that for all the 350 studies all of these subjects are epileptic or have something wrong with them and no researcher thought to check that out. Newberg disregards the idea that RE is the result of epilepsy or exhaustion, drugs or hallucination might trigger any other aspect of brain disfuciton such as. He argues that delusional people return form such states understanding they’re incoherence but mystical visions are coherent and meaningful and mystics never back off the idea that they were shown something meaningful. Ramarchandran draws no conclusion about the existence of God. He is merely giving a descriptive analysis of findings. He backs away from saying this disproves God. He also lists a host of other conditions such as temporal lobe personality that cause mystical experience besides epilepsy. It seems pretty ridiculous, however, to assert that everyone who has such an experience is either sick or has some form of mental abortion such that they are hallucinating or having some form of brain dysfunction. After all the study finds show that mystics tend to be healthy both physically and mentally, to be successful, accomplished, not delusional. As demonstrated in chapter 3 several studies show that the behavior of mystics does not tally with that of the mentally ill.


Hick argues that these researchers are equating RE with unusual experiences structured in religious terms but they are not really dealing with the experiences mystics talk about. He says this because Persinger, for example, always goes to great lengths to report visions and feelings of supernatural beings, both God and satan and visions of Jesus and Mary all sorts of things that his helmet wearing subjects have seen or felt. But these are not necessarily what mystics talk about. Most mystics discount visions and few mystics have them. Most mystics don’t sense an evil presence, although a subject discussed by James did feel such an evil presence but its ambiguous to what that person though it was (see Chapter on Proudfoot). These examples, rather than being good examples of science disproving religious experience, are really good examples of reductionism’s ability to lose phenomena. This may sound like great scientific research because it uses high tech gadgetry and advanced knowledge of brain anatomy. In reality, as a scientific study, it basically fails social research methods 101. First, because no control group, no administration of the M scale or any other measurement of mystical experience, so that means there’s no way to actually prove that these subjects had mystical experiences. It sounds like they had strange experiences but not necessarily “mystical.” The examples that Hick quotes include visions of Jesus figures. They do include a sense of divine presence. But there is no follow up to see if their lives change or if they experienced any sort of transformative effects on a long-term basis. For that matter Newberg’s work seems to suffer in that regard too, although with him since he uses monks and nuns one can be assured there is a much greater likelihood since these are authentic religious adherents who live life styles conductive to the mystical experience and presumably spend a great deal of their time cultivating this sort of experience. Hick makes the point that Presinger and Ramachandran are neurologists studying people who go to them because they have problems. They are not studying actual religious adherents whose lives are oriented toward cultivating the mystical, as is Newberg. This could make a profound differnce. But the reductionist mentality just says hey the experience lines up with the stimulus, argument form sign; we see sign we assume causality case closed. They make no attempt to consider the context or nature of the experience.( John Hick, The New Frontier of Religion and Science: Religious Experince, Neuroscience and The Transcendent. Playgrave:Macmillion, 2006, 66)

pardon me for quoting myself from my unpublished ms but the published material there is more important since it comes from experts, Hick and Newberg. That is published and I do document it.




Quote:
Originally Posted by Metacrock View Post
the Lourdes evdience is obvious and certain.
I suppose you mean like the one you are so fond of:

Society for the Little Flower (Website) FAQ (visited 6/3/01)
St. Theresse of Lisieux

http://www.littleflower.org/therese/faq.html#4 (the one is the new site for your claim, your old link doesn't work)

Quote:
Regarding St. Therese, in 1923 the Church approved of two spontaneous cures unexplained by medical treatment. Sister Louise of St. Germain was cured of the stomach ulcers she had between 1913 and 1916. The second cure involved Charles Anne, a 23 year old seminarian who was dying from advanced pulmonary tuberculosis. The night he thought he was dying, Charles prayed to Therese. Afterward, the examining doctor testified, "The destroyed and ravaged lungs had been replaced by new lungs, carrying out their normal functions and about to revive the entire organism. A slight emaciation persists, which will disappear within a few days under a regularly assimilated diet." These two miracles resulted in Therese becoming beatified.
This is your evidence?! I have emailed this society, asking just what physical evidence exists that would validate the claim in bold (destroyed and ravaged lungs had been replaced by new lungs). There's no actual evidence posted here, Metacrock. We don't even know the location or the actual date this or the other alleged miracle (maybe 1916-17 for the ulcer cure). The location and date are important because the issue would be one of documentation, i.e., for instance X-rays of the lungs "before" (the alleged miracle) and "after" (the alleged miracle). If this incident was in some isolated hamlet in 1913-1923, then X-ray devices were far and few between. If this incidence happened during WWI then there would probably have been a shortage of the photographic glass used to create the images as well:

Quote:
Physics, Techniques and Procedures--X-ray film

Historically, photographic glass plates were used as the X-ray film base. After the supply of photographic glass from Belgium was cut off by World War I, cellulose nitrate, used as a base for photographic film was adapted for use with X-ray film. A cellulose triacetate base was developed in 1924 to avoid the highly flammable nature of cellulose nitrate. Finally, a stronger, thinner, more dimensionally stable film base made of polyester was developed in 1960.

Phoenix

So what do we have here in the way of evidence? The say-so of a maybe not disinterested physician or what, Metacrock? I very much doubt that there are X-ray pics of this case in existence. IF you are going to claim this as a miracle, then one would need something other than the word of the physician because this is an extraordinary claim (no physical cause possible).

You are committing a total violation of the rules of evidence. I use a published source, authoritative that douments the existence of medical evdience and show that that diagnostic technique did exist at that time.You have more more to so of any substance so you question the physician's interest level as though that's goign to really prove soemthing. Like the xray doesn't work if the physician doesn't care enough. that's really nuts and it's totally unfair. Xrays are objective diagnostic procedure they do not depend upon the interest level of the physician to work right. I guarantee if the guys lungs grew back over night the doctor would find some interest. That is gainsaying the evidence and its' totally unfair and it tells me you are clutching at straws.

This could be a case of spontaneous remission. Here's a recent example:
Quote:
Papulonecrotic tuberculid with spontaneous remission, by Tsuyoshi MITSUISHI, Kazumi IIDA, and Seiji KAWANA
{http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/journal/118603714/abstract?CRETRY=1&SRETRY=0}

ahahaha in one night!???ahahahahahahahahahahaahahaha


you really think lungs are going to grow back over night that's remission???! O get a brain man! that's stupid! learn something about it man. God almighty! Love love a duck! talk about clutching at straws!

We describe a 62-year-old Japanese woman who had skin lesions involving her extremities, chest and back that showed spontaneous remission. The skin lesions consisted of slightly atrophic scars and crusted, reddish or necrotic papules. A tuberculin test showed induration and bulla, which was regarded as strongly positivity. Histopathologically, a tuberculoid granuloma with necrosis was present in the upper dermis and the deep dermis, including the adipose tissues. Bacterial cultures were not positive from sputum, urine or stool, and the chest X-P was also normal. After skin biopsy, all the lesions disappeared within 1 month. No relapse was noted in the entire body.

Did it happen overnight? Is that the same as growing a new lung. I don't think so.
document where that's from.

Is the above a "miracle", Metacrock? Let's hope that these researchers are going to actually study this woman to find out what happened to see if they can find any way to help other suffers rather than just ASSUME that God(s?)-did-it (totally useless "explanation" with regard to helping anybody else).

do you have a reason to assume it was God? Does it not mean anything to you taht remission never mans going away without a trace it doesn't mean growing back new organs it doesn't mean over night and to call something a Miracle there as to be a reason such as the person was prayed for or something.

why don't you try to learn something about the things you are criticizing? it's the height of ignorance.



__________________

Revision:Transcendental Signifier Arument: Rational Warrant for Belief

I have said we don't need God arguments, but I didn't say I'm opposed to them. In looking back over the history of the blog I notice I've put this one up several times but in a truncated form. I've never put in the full version. So here it is.

If this is clear as mud to you and you want further background on the Derridian roots of the argument see these two articles:

Derrididan background part 1

Derridian Background part 2



Definitions

(1)Transcendental Signifier (TS):


The signification mark (word) which refers to the top of metaphysical hierarchy; the organizing principle which makes sense of all sense data and groups it into a meaningful and coherent whole, through which meaning can be understood.The corollary, the thing the Transcendental Signifier signifies, is the "Transcendental Signifiered (designated as TSed)"

(2) Signifier:

The term used of written words in the linguistic theories know as "structuralism" and in the theories of French Linguist Ferdinand Saussure. A signifier is a "mark," that is writing, which designates a concept forming a word, that which points to an object as the thing that it is and no other. ie, a physical tree is the signified, the object of the signifier "t-r-e-e."


Preliminary Observations:

(1) Any rational, coherent and meaningful view of the universe must of necessity presuppose an organizing principle which makes sense of the universe and explains the hierarchy of conceptualization.

(2) Organizing principles are summed up in a single first principle which grounds any sort of metaphysical hierarchy, the Transcendental Signifier (TS)

(3) It is impossible to do without a Transcendental Signifier, all attempts to do so have ended in the re-establishment of a new TS. This is because we cannot organize the universe without a principle of organizing.

(4)TS functions Uniquely as Top of The Metaphysical Hierarchy.It's function is mutually exclusive.



Argument:


P1) TS's function is mutually exclusive, no other principle can superceed that of the TS since it alone grounds all principles and bestows meaning through organization of concepts.

P2)We have no choice but to assume the reality of some form of TSed since we cannot function coherently without a TS

P3) We have no choice but to assume the reality of some form of TSed since the universe does seem to fall into line with the meaning we bestow upon it.

P4) The logical conclusion would be that There must be a TSed which actually creates and organizes the Universe.

P5) The signifier "God" is one version of the TS, that is to say, God functions in the divine economy exactly as the TS functions in a metaphysical hierarchy.

P6) Since "God" is a version of the TS, and since TS and God concept share a unique function which should be mutually exclusive, the logical conclusion is that: God and TS share identity.ie "God" concept is discretion of the Transcendental Signified.

P7)Since the TS should be assumed as real, and TS and God share identity, we should assume that God is the Transcendental Signified, and thus is an actual reality.

rational warrant for belief in God's existence, QED.







B. Transcendental Signifier is the ultimate metaphysical principle which makes sense of the universe.

The transcendental Signifier (TS) is the mark that gives meaning to all the marks that make sense of the world; the "zeit geist," the "urmind", the "overself", the "object of ultimate concern", the "omega point", the "Atmon", the "one," the "Logos", "reason." all the major top ideas which bestow meaning upon the world are examples of the TS. People have always advanced such notions. (The word "G-O-D" is the Transcendental Signifier, the thing those letters refer to is the "transcendental signified")

1) All people have some notion the "big idea" which makes sense of everything else.

William James, Gilford lectures:

"Plato gave so brilliant and impressive a defense of this common human feeling, that the doctrine of the reality of abstract objects has been known as the platonic theory of ideas ever since. Abstract Beauty, for example, is for Plato a perfectly definite individual being, of which the intellect is aware as of something additional to all the perishing beauties of the earth. "The true order of going," he says, in the often quoted passage in his 'Banquet,' "is to use the beauties of earth as steps along which one mounts upwards for the sake of that other Beauty, going from one to two, and from two to all fair forms, and from fair forms to fair actions, and from fair actions to fair notions, until from fair notions he arrives at the notion of absolute Beauty, and at last knows what the essence of Beauty is." 2 In our last lecture we had a glimpse of the way in which a Platonist writer like Emerson may treat the abstract divisiveness of things, the moral structure of the universe, as a fact worthy of worship. In those various churches without a God which to-day are spreading through the world under the name of ethical societies, we have a similar worship of the abstract divine, the moral law believed in as an ultimate object."

2) All Metaphysical Constructs include a TS.

Metaphysics is not merely realms unseen, but the organization of reality under a single organizing principle (this definition comes form one reading of Heidegger). All systems and groupings of the world verge on the metaphysical. Derrida and Heidegger say that it is impossible to do without metaphysics since even language itself is metaphysical. Everything points to the Transcendental Signifier. ( see Heidegger, Parenthesis, and Introduction to Metaphysics, and Derrida, Margins of Philosophy and almost any Derrida book).

3) Science has TS

William James--Gilford lectures:

"'Science' in many minds is genuinely taking the place of a religion. Where this is so, the scientist treats the 'Laws of Nature' as objective facts to be revered. ..."

Science is very Metaphysical. It assumes that the whole of relaity and be organized and studied under one central principle, that of naturalism.

"For essential reasons the unity of all that allows itself to be attempted today through the most diverse concepts of science and of writting, is in principle, more or less covertly, yet always, determined by a an historico-metaphysical epoch of which we merely glimpse the closure." [Derrida, The End of the Book and the Begining of Writting, trans. Gayatri Spivak 1967 in Contemporary Critical Theory, ed. Dan Latimer, New York: Harcourt, Brace, Jovonovitch, 1989, p.166]

MetaListon Scinece and religion
http://www.meta-list.org/ml/ml_frameset.asp
Stephen Hawking's

"In his best-selling book "A Brief History of Time", physicist Stephen Hawking claimed that when physicists find the theory he and his colleagues are looking for - a so-called "theory of everything" - then they will have seen into "the mind of God". Hawking is by no means the only scientist who has associated God with the laws of physics. Nobel laureate Leon Lederman, for example, has made a link between God and a subatomic particle known as the Higgs boson. Lederman has suggested that when physicists find this particle in their accelerators it will be like looking into the face of God. But what kind of God are these physicists talking about?"

"Theoretical physicist and Nobel laureate Steven Weinberg suggests that in fact this is not much of a God at all. Weinberg notes that traditionally the word "God" has meant "an interested personality". But that is not what Hawking and Lederman mean. Their "god", he says, is really just "an abstract principle of order and harmony", a set of mathematical equations. Weinberg questions then why they use the word "god" at all. He makes the rather profound point that "if language is to be of any use to us, then we ought to try and preserve the meaning of words, and 'god' historically has not meant the laws of nature." The question of just what is "God" has taxed theologians for thousands of years; what Weinberg reminds us is to be wary of glib definitions."

C. Attempts to Deconstruct TS lead to abyss of Meaninglessness, and back to TS.

1) Derridian Deconstruction.

The French Post-structuralist Jaque Derrida seeks to explicate the end of Metaphysics which is the final project of Western philosophy. His technique of deconstruction aims at undermining any logos or first principle that would give rationality to the universe by unseating the privileges of reason which under gird all such projects. Even logic itself is undermined.


Derrida:

"Are we obeying the principle of reason when we ask what grounds this principle [reason] which is itself a principle of grounding? We are not--which does not mean that we are disobeying it either. Are we dealing here with a circle or with an abyss? The circle would consist in seeking to account for reason by reason, to reason to the principle of reason, appealing to the principle to make it speak of itself at the very point where, according to Heidegger, the principle of reason says nothing about reason itself. The abyss, the hole, ..., the empty gorge would be the impossibility for a principle of grounding to ground itself...Are we to use reason to account for the principle of reason? Is the reason for reason rational?"

Derrida in Criticism and Culture, Robert Con Davis and Ronald Schlefflier, Longman 1991, 20.



Derrida's argument amounts to saying, "logic does not endorse itself." The point of the quotation above seems to be that logic is in a dilemma. If one tries to prove logic by its own terms, one is merely arguing in circle. But, if one does not do this, there is no foundation upon which one can base logic, because logic is the foundation.

[Quotes from Derrida from "The University in the Eyes of It's Pupils" Diactricits]

2) Into the abyss and back out to TS.

Many critics of Deconstruction have noted that if we take this principle seriously we would wind up unable to speak or think, even language requires an organizing principle which orders the world of our thought and speech (of course the basic thrust of Postmodern thought understands us to be trapped in, as Jameson said, "the prison house of language" unable to get at the real things of the world and their understanding because all we can really ever think through is language). But in opening this abyss Derrida creates a safe bridge over it as well, although that is not his intention. He uses the principle of difference (which he spells as "differance" to indicate that meaning is both differing and differing) but difference becomes the organizing principle of a Derridian universe. IT not only explains how meaning is derived from signifiers, not only does it tear down the meaning of all hierarchies, but it actually builds new ones because it becomes the foundation of value in valuing difference.

"The constant danger of deconstruction is that it falls into the same kinds of hierarchies that it tries to expose. Derrida himself is quite aware of this danger--and his response--which is really a rhetorical response...is to multiply the names under which deconstruction traffics..." [--Con Davis,Culture and Critique 178-179]

D. unavoidable nature of TS indicates God is a priori.

Either way, heather we try building a reductionist notion of the universe or heather we tear down the hierarchies of reason that implies a TS, we can never escape the TS. This inescapable nature of the transcendental signifier points to the a priori nature of the God concept. That reality is ordered by a single principle which gives meaning and rationality to all other principles is inescapable, but humanities multifarious attempts to understand that principle, and the frightening conclusion that the principle leads to a creator God is the logic inference. All of the many signs which have been used to understand this uber-sign imply an intelligent ordering rationality which makes sense of the universe, and therefore, logically must have created it in the first place.

1) Transcendental Signifier is unavoidable.

As has been pointed out above, there is no possibility of holding a rational view of the universe without an organizing principle, a "thing at the top." This indicates the ultimate necessity of a TS. In other words, the fact that we cannot get away from the TS indicates that there must really be one.

2) God is the ultimate Transcendental Signifier.

"Without God, who has been the ultimate Transcendent Signified, there is no central perspective, no objective truth of things, no real thing beyond language." [Nacy Murphy and James McClendon jr." Distinguishing Modern and Postmodern Theologies." Modern Theology, 5:3 April 1989, 211]

E. God is the ultimate unifying principle.

1) Coincidence of Opposites.

Nicholas of Cuza's concept that God's infinity is a universal set subsuming all finite sets of opposites. (See Westminster Dictionary of Christian Theology)

"The universe of Nicholas of Cusa is an expression or a development, though of course necessarily imperfect and inadequate, of God--imperfect and inadequate because it displays in the realm of multiplicity what in God is present in an indisputable and intimate unity (complication) a unity which embraces not only the different but even the opposite, qualities or determinations of being. In its turn every single thing in the universe represents it--the Universe-- and thus also God in its own particular manner; each in a manner different from that of all others, by contracting the wealth of the universe in accordance with its own unique individuality."[--Alexandre Koyre' From Closed World to The Infinite Universe, Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University press, 1957, 8-9.]



Cuza's vision of a universe taken up metaphysically in God in an undifferentiated unity is grounded in the paradoxical nature of geometry. One example Cuza gives is of the dichotomy between straightness and curvilinear. But if one was dealing with an infinite circle, from every point along the circle it would appear that the circle was a straight line. Or another example; large and small are opposites in a finite perspective, but in dealing with the infinitely large circle and the infinitely small one the center loses its special qualities, both are at the same time both nowhere and everywhere, and thus equally meaningful and meaningless.This may not seem like a particularly Christian notion of God, but Paul Tillich remarks that Martin Luther embraced it," one of the most profound conceptions of God ever developed." Paul Tillich, A History of Christian Thought.

2) God as Being itself.

As being itself God is Metaphysically above the level of existing things in the universe and constitutes all the potentiality and all actuality. This the nature of God is to order and to bring to concreteness potentialities. The signifier 'G-o-d' universally signifies and therefore takes up into itself all concepts and principles of rationality.

3) All people seek TS, therefore, this reflects innate sense of God.

Not only do we seek it, we cannot avoid it. The alternative is a meaningless universe, and more than that, a universe without coherence to reality. Of course we have the rules of logic, and we have science to tell us facts, but those move toward the TS becasue they are both predicated upon organizing reality under a logos, a rationale.

F. Objections.

1) Deconstruction and Postmodernism.

The climate of opinion today is that all metaphysical structures are merely constructed hierarchies of meaning and we can simply deconstruct them by reverse the terms, bringing out the contradictory elements in a text, or unbracketed that which is silenced by the text. But the move of Derrida to the metaphysical level form the linguistic level is totally unwarranted.The deconstruction of metaphysical hierarchies is nothing more than arbitrary. Moreover, Derrida simply makes his own TS through the concept of "difference" (he even spells it with an "a" to show that it is more than mere "difference" but induces differing and differing meaning. Yet this principle comes to define the universe, to set all values, to play the ultimate arbitration; in effect it has become its own TS.

2) We merely impose meaning upon a randum and cold universe.

We imposes meaning upon the universe as part of the brains innate pattern making ability, which is an evolutionary deposit allowing us to determine what to eat in the world and to recognize danger, remember where the good mushrooms are ect.and as cultural deposit owing to our need for security in a cold universe. Answer: While this is going to be the commonplace assumption in the current climate of opinion, and while it is no doubt true in general, even the "objective" "proven" "advocate of human knowlege" science must be nothing more than the imposition of a pattern of meaning upon nature to make us feel better in a cold universe. Of course the skeptic will break down the dichotomy between metaphysical meaning and "objective fact" about the workings of the universe. But science no less than religion transforms itself into metaphysical organization in dictating its materialist assumptions about ultimate reality. While it is true that we imposes patterns and read in meaning this in no way proves that there is nothing "out there" and the fact that it seems to be a natural inclination of humanity to find it implies that there is an innate sense of it laid upon our being as a divine program, to find the mark that gives meaning to all other marks.

3) This is an attempt to squre the circle.

Answer: This criticism has been made of the use of Nicholas of Cuza. Note, Cuza's argument does not mean that the square and the circle change shapes, it is not saying that sureness is really roundness. It is saying that in infinity all distinctions between binary opposition become meaningless. The shapes are the same, but from the view point of a finite observer in infinity the distinctions are meaningless.

Ingmar Bergman's Winter Light.

Gunnar Björnstrand

I have reviewed several Bergman films on this blog, starting with my review of his death two years ago ("Greatness has Left the Planet: Ingmar Bergman Dies"). Since getting Netflix last Summer I've been watching what I consider to be the greatest films from the the greatest age of art films. From the late 40s, beginning with Italian Neo-Realism, which followed the lead of Viscanti, to the mid 50s in French "new Cinema" and on to the end of the 60s film make reach it's peak in terms of artistic direction. A host of great filmmakers cranked out sublime creations, the greatest among them was Sweden's Ingmar Bergman. Bergman has a special sensitivity to religion. He was an atheist, he did not pull punches about his feelings of angst at the lack of a God (in his world view) but he was not one of these message board Dawkies. He approaches it with a sensitivity that preserves the dignity and intelligence of the believer.

My favorite example of that sensitivity is from my second favorite film, "Wild Strawberries," and there is a scene I love in that film where two young men are competing for the effectiveness of a young lady. Their contest takes the place of an intellectual debate which grows more angry in every scene. Finally they break into a fist fight and both have black eyes. They are angrily corralled by their companions and put in the back seat with the girl between them. She casually turns to the young seminarian and says "so, does God exist?" Bergman shows sensitivity in a scene where all the travels are together at a table the old doctor quotes poetry about religious belief, the atheist doesn't get it the seminary guy does. So even though he's an atheist he still acknowledges that Belief has its reasons and those reasons appeal to the heart, that doesn't make them stupid. Bergman's father the Chaplin to the Queen of Sweden, but privately he was abusive to the young Ingmar as he grew up. Bergman thus had a sympathy for the religious life but also a revulsion and an acute awareness of the personal struggles that go on in the psyche of believers and seeking unbelievers.


Björnstrand and Thulin in
Winter Light




"Winter Light" is the second in Bergman's Trilogy: "Through the Glass Darkly," "Winter Light," and "The Silence." I have reviewed Thought he Glass Darkly on this bog, and also another Bergman film "The virgin Spring." One of his greats. The review of his death included a review of his greatest work, "The Seventh Seal." That is my favorite film of all time bar none. I am almost having a mystical experince just thinking about that film.

Winter light is like setting out for a wonderful vacation in a great setting such as the south of France, and suddenly finding yourself in a dentist chair for four hours screaming in pain. It has all the slow agonizing tedious built up to nothing of a root canal. Well, one might ask, "what's so great about that, it sounds like a crap movie." The first time you watch it is. But it grows on you. If you think about it latter you come to realize you did see a fine film. I wouldn't not put it in the ranks of the Seventh Seal, or the the Seven Samurai for that matter, but it is a great film. That intense tedium that goes nowhere is intentional. Bergman wants you to feel that. That's the Katharsis. He also wants the film to look dismal, soul crunching, cold, barren, stark, bleak and it does. The setting is a small Island off the coast of Sweden. It has modern convinces but everything is shabby and gritty and the people are isolated and the region is a backwater.It's the kind of place that one begins a practice in (say in medicine) because there's no where to go from there but up.

The first scene is in a church as the Sunday service begins. In fact, the whole film takes place on that Sunday between the noon service and the evening service which is only bout three and half hours. The building is interesting, the service is dismal. The building is old and crumbling with vaulted sealing and very Norse looking statues of Christ on the cross. There are only seven people in the whole church and they are spread out around the sanctuary. The only people who sit together are one couple, the others all lonely individuals who have no one to sit with even in spite of their being a small enough group to have an intimate service. The service is anything but intimate. It's mechanical, and legalistic, formal and by the book. The people in the service, with the exceptions of an old woman and a a hunchback who seem moved by it all.

The opening of the film and the slow unfolding of conflict imply a real slap in the face to Christian belief. The minister, by played by Bergman's best friend Gunnar Björnstrand, mutters under his breath "what a ridiculous image" as he gases at the cross.Everything is old and falling apart, ony two out of seven parishioners who bother to show up really get anything out of it, the rest is all perfunctory because it's expected. The minister (Thomas) stays to talk to the one couple who sat together. The man is a fisherman played by Max Von Sydow (the Father in Virgin Spring, also the exorcist himself in that fim). The fisherman's problem is that he's depressed, to the point of suicide, because he's fretting about the bomb. This is a very periodized anxiety of that era. In that day it would have spoken to the audience. But the minister is totally inept at dealing with the man's problems. He gets him to agree to come back latter and talk to him in private session without his wife. The couple leaves and the minister's girl friend (Marta--Ingrid Thulin) comes in. She is clinging and mothering and hovering and suffocating. She gets him to read a letter which he reads before the return of the fisherman. The content of the letter is a sketch of all the problems in their relationship. The intensity builds as the text of the letter is acted by Thulin. The scene is a masterpiece as Bergman does not allow the camera to stray from a close up of her face as she speaks the text which the minister is reading. This is violation of all the rules of film making. The close up grows in intensity as the problems of the couple are revealed. The viewer wants to move on but can't. The intensity of the letter is drilled into the face of the audience.

Thomas is sick, he has fever but he's pushing himself. In real life Bergman got the doctor to prescribe ineffective medicine for Björnstrand's bronchitis so he would really appear sick. While we might give Thomas some points for sticking to his duty we have to subtract Thomas again because his councilmen technique was total inept. He did not talk about the man's problems at all. Instead he told the fisherman about his own problems. He confessed his lack of belief and all but said things are pretty hopeless. He talked about is ideas of God but not in a way that shed theological light but in an intensely private way that could only be described as self indulgent.The man leaves clearly more distraught than when he came. Surprise, he goes right out and shoots himself.

There is a great scene, the only real outdoor scene where Thomas goes to issue last rights and help with the body. The Fisherman has shot himself in front of a stream which is moving very swiftly. There are mountains around, but none of it is beautiful. Of cousre it's black and white but even so nature can be beautiful in black and white, the great open outdoor forested scenes of Virgin Spring are wonderfully Beautiful, this is not. The stream looks cold and bleak and like one might drawn. The mountains look gritty, everything looks gritty, snowy stark and bleak. This is of course, the way Bergman wants it to look. The American Title is "Winter Light" so named because the quality of light in the film is muted. this is the light of the winter in Sweden, dark, somber not happy sunshine but cloudy and stark. The scene focuses on a body being put in a body bag. Thomas doesn't seem shaken as much as bored. He's so self absorbed even this guy's doesn't make him re think what he's doing.It's clear he has no calling. He's just a guy doing a job. He could be a plumber. One can't help but wonder if this wasn't Bergman's feeling about his father's ministry.

The arch of conflict come after this scene where Thomas and Marta have a showdown int he school where Marta teaches and lives in the back. Thomas basically lets her have it. He doesn't like her. he tells her so. He is humiliated her, she's clinging and so forth. She has a habit of calling "poor little Thomas" and hanging to his back. But it's clear if we read between the lines that her main sin is she is not his dead wife. He was really in love with his wife, he says, he will never get over her. He speaks of her "mockery of my dead wife." Marta looks helpless and breaks off her sobbing to say "I didn't know her." To me that means he does see a similarity between the two, but resents it. Marta does have some qualities that his wife had, but she's not the right woman.

Before the evening service Marta sits in the pew and talks to one of the seven, now six members of the church, a little hunchback guy who plays the organ. The hunchback, payed by Johan Allan Edwall, tells her that Thomas and his wife had the same problems that she and Thomas have. Thomas has exaggerated his love for her becasue she's gone and though guilt built her into a saint while she was actually clinging and smothering. He also observes that Thomas talk of searching, is there a God and so forth is just a way of keeping at bay the realizations about his own character flaws. His search for certainty is a false search because he's using God as a scape goat and search for certainty of himself not God. The real Swedish title of the film is a word meaning "the communicants." That has a double meaning because it applies to the parishioners of the church doing communion but also to the communication between the characters: in both cases it's an ironic title because their doing of communion is hollow and without feeling and their communication is non existent. The only real communicating done in the film is he little hunchback's analysis of Thomas and his revelation to Marta that Thomas and his wife also had the same kind of relationship. The Hunchback is also the only real religious character in the movie. He's the only one (other than perhaps the old woman who is only in it for one fleeting close up at the beginning) for whom faith is really a way of life and really moving.

The film ends with the beginning of the evening service. There are only three people there for the service, the hunchback, the minister and the former girlfriend. But Thomas goes on anyway. He begins "Holy Holy Holy is the Lord God almighty..." as though those meaning anything to him. Another formalistic service by wrote, never mind that the audience is only one person (the other guy plays the music). As long as one person is there the service must go on. We can take this in two ways, either "the show must go on" a dig at Christianity becasue they are so pathetic that even with just three people they still can't depart from the script. Or we can see it as hope because even if only one person receives it the word of God is not lost.

The devastating critique of Christianity and its' position in Swedish culture in this film are obvious. What can be seen if one looks closer are the points of Bergman's sensitivity to religious belief. The only really "together" character was the only religious character who sums it all up in a knowing way and does only actual communicating in the film. The hopeful aspect of the end, even though a bleak winter kind of hope, that even if only one person hears God is still there, the word is not spoken in vein. Of course Bergman didn't believe God was there, but what he actually did believe is unclear, what is clear is that he actually did have a sense of admiration and sympathy for the true believer and the true seeker.

This film reminds me of the life of great theologian Carl Barth. Barth came out of seminary typical nineteenth century liberal. The triumphalism of post millennial was shattered by WWI and he had nothing to say to an audience. He was put in charge of a parish where only three old women came tot he service. But he didn't go by wrote, he formed an intimate little service and discussed what to do about it. He learned from these women what they needed to hear why they believed, why the modern church had nothing to day to people. From there he launched his revolution in neo-Orthodoxy whic brought people back to the churches.

Winter light is a great film, even though I wont put it on a level with Bergman's greatest, ironic since he wanted it to be part of the great Trilogy, like all great films it leads one to think about great ideas.

Will Atheists Never Learn the Concept of The Super Natural?

I am really sick of atheists repeating the same garbage over and over again. No matter how many times I try to correct them they just keep doing it. Here's a recent example.


Ingsve on carm

It is you that don't understand the word. You keep saying that your precious REs are supernatural which is completely false since we can easily detect them which means they are natural. If you however claim that a god makes the REs happen then that god is supernatural and that you have no proof of.

In a nut shell what's wrong with this view is that it doesn't speak to the original concept of the sueranatural. This is the degraded concept that Calvin brought about wtih the Reformer's. The idea that the supernatural can't be the religous experience because we can deterct them (althouigh what excactly he thinks we can detecti s a big quetion) is just totally missing the boat. Supernature is not a magic substance not made out of matter that can't be dterected and does amgic things. It's not a realm or a place or another dimension. It's basically just this:

God's power to elivate human antuer to a higher level. th'ts it. Ontolgoically it serves as ground and end of nature, because it's actually God's power. This is playing off of the eastern Orhtodox concept of "God's energies" God's power in teh world. So there' s a bit more to it than just matter or energy. But, that it can be detetected is not a problem becuase the Sueprnatural is in the nature. God's power to elivate is used in nature. Its' used in us. It can show up as the God part of the brain (so called) or in terms of reilgious experinece, but it is in nature. We detect it's effects that is not a disproof.

Here's a thing I wrote no Doxa summarizing the nature of the orignal concept.


Supernature: God's transforming Power in our lives and over the natural works of nature.

Nature:life from life

Natural:The sphere of influence necessary for support of physical life, the "natural world."

Supernatural:pertaining to the workings of Supernature either in the human heart or in the natural world.

Supernatural effects:Miracles; the alternation of nature in attraction toward its end in Suerpanture.

Ground and end:Ontological structure of the relation between Supernature and the natural. Foundation and telos toward which nature moves.


The problem in all these discussions about the supernatural is that we are dealing with a degraded concept. The notion of "Supernatural" is a misgnomer to begin with, because modern people construe the idea as another place, an actual location that you can go to. It's the unseen invisible world that is filled with ghosnts and magic and so forth. It's in the realm where God can heaven are, we supposse. But what they dont' realize is that this is the watered down, dilapidated concept. It's not even understood well by Christians because it was destroyed in the reformation.

The term "supernatural" comes from the term "supernauturalator" or "Supernature." Dyonisus the Areogopite (around 500ad) began talking of God as the supernaturalator, meaning that God's higher nature was the telos toward which our "lower" natures were drawn. St.Augustine has spoken of Divine nature as "Supernature" or the higher form of nature, but that is speaking of nature in you, like human nature and divine nature.

In the beginning the issue was not a place, "the realm of the supernatural" but the issue was the nature inside a man. Human nature, vs. divine nature. The Supernatural was divine nature that drew the human up to to itself and vivified it with the power (dunimos) to live a holy life. This is the sort of thing Paul was talking about when he said "when I am weak I am strong." Or "we have this treasure in earthen vessels." The weak human nature which can't resist sin is transformed by the power of the Godly nature, through the spirit and becames strong enought to reisist sin, to be self sacrificing, to die for others ect ect.

This was the "supernatural" prior to the reformation. It was tied in with the sacraments and the mass. That's partly why the Protestants would rebel against it. Austine (late 300s early 400s) spoke of Christians not hating rocks and trees, in answer to the assertion that Christians didn't like nature. But the extension of the natural world as "nature" didn't come until latter. The idea of "the natural" was at first based upon the idea of human nature, of biological life, life form life, that's what the Latin natura is about.

Prior to the reformation Christian theologians did not see the supernatural as a separate reality, an invisible realm, or a place where God dwells that we can't see. After the reformation reality was bifurcated. Now there came to be two realms, and they juxtaposed to each other. The realm of Supernature, is correlated to that of Grace, and is holy and sacred, but the early realm is "natural" and bad it's myered in sin and naural urges.

But all of that represents a degraded form of thinking after going throught he mill of the Protestant Catholic split. The basic split is characterized by rationalism vs feideism. The Catholics are rationalists, because they believe God is motivated by divine propose and wisdom, the Protestants were fiedeists, meaning that faith alone apart form reason because God is motived by will and sheer acceptation, the desire to prove sovereignty above all else.

The rationalistic view offered a single harmony, a harmonious reality, governed by God's reasoned nature and orchestrated in a multifarious ways. This single reality continued a two sided nature, or a mutli-facets, but it was one harmonious reality in which human nature was regenerated through divine nature. But the Protestant view left Christian theology with two waring reality, that which is removed from our empirical knowledge and that in which we live.

The true Christian view of the Sueprnatural doesn't see the two realms as juxtaposed but as one reality in which the natural moves toward its' ground and end in divien nature. It is this tendency to move toward the ground and end, that produces miracles. A miracle is merely nature bending toward the higher aspect of Supernature.

but with the Protestant division between divine sovereignty, acceptation and will motivating the universe, we mistake univocity and equivvocity for nature and supernature. We think nature and supernature are not alike they are at war, so difference marks the relationship of the two. But to make the Suepernatural more avaible they stress some aspect of nature and put it over against the rest of nature and pretend that makes it sueprnatuarl, this is univocity, it's the same. So will and acceptation, soverigty, God has to prove that he is in charge, these are all aspects of univocity.

It's the natural extension of this biphercation that sets up two realms and sees nature as "everything that exits." or "all of mateiral reality" that sets up the atheist idea that supernatural is unnecessary and doesn't exist.

Historical Overview: SN and Rise of Science

The medieval Christian doctrine of the supernatural has long been misconstrued as a dualistic denigration of nature, opposed to scientific thinking. The concept of supernature, however, is not a dualism in the sense of dinigrading nature or of pitting against each other the "alien" relams of spirit and matter. The Christian ontology of the supernatural bound together the realm of nature and the realm of Grace, immanent and transcendent, in a unity of creative wisdom and purpose, which gave theological significance to the natural world. While the doctrine of supernature was at times understood in a dualistic fashion, ultimately, the unity it offered played a positive role in the development of scientific thinking, because it made nature meaningful to the medieval mind. Its dissolution came, not because supernatural thinking opposed scientific thinking, but because culture came to value nature in a different manner, and the old valuation no longer served the purpose of scientific thinking. An understanding of the notion of supernature is essential to an understanding of the attitudes in Western culture toward nature, and to an understanding of the cultural transition to science as an epistemic authority.

The ontology of supernature assumes that the natural participates in the supernatural in an ordered relation of means and immediate ends, with reference to their ultimate ends. The supernatural is the ground and end of the natural; the realm of nature and the realm of Grace are bound up in a harmonious relation. The Ptolemaic system explained the physical lay-out of the universe, supernature explained its theological relation to God. The great chain of being separated the ranking of creatures in relation to creator. The supernatural ontology is, therefore, sperate from but related to cosmologies. This ontology stands behind most forms of pre-reformation theology, and it implies an exaltation of nature, rather than denigration. This talk of two realms seems to imply a dualism, yet, it is not a metaphysical dualism, not a dualism of opposition, but as Fairweather points out, "the essential structure of the Christian faith has a real two-sidedness about it, which may at first lead the unwary into dualism, and then to resolve ... an exclusive emphasis on one or the other severed elements of a complete Christianity...such a dissolution is inevitable once we lose our awareness of that ordered relation of the human and the divine, the immanent and the transcendent, which the Gospel assumes." Yet, it is this "two-sidedness" which leads unwary historians of into dualism.

In his famous 1967 article, "The Roots of Our Ecological Crisis," Lynn White argued that the Christian belief of the Imago Dei created "a dualism of man and nature;" "man shares in God's transcendence of nature." This notion replaced pagan animism, it removed the "sacred" from the natural world, and with it, inhibitions against exploiting nature. Moreover, by the 12th century, nature became a source of revelation through natural theology. In the Latin West, where action prevailed over contemplation, natural theology ceased to be the decoding of natural symbols of the divine and became instead an attempt to understand God through decerning the operation of creation. Western technology flourished, surpassing even that of Islamic culture (although they still led in theoretical pursuits). Thus, White argues, medieval theology did allow science to grow, but at the ultimate expense of the environment.

The insights of feminist scholarship, however, suggest an even more subtle argument for the denigration of nature. Feminist theologian, Rosemary Radford Ruther, argued that there is an identification between the female and nature, the male and transcendence. Women have been disvalued historically through the association between female sexuality and the "baseness" of nature. Londa Schiebinger, calls attention to the fact that the Judeo-Christian cosmology placed women in a subordinate position. Gender was more fundamental than biological sex, and it was a cosmological principle, "...Men and women were carefully placed in the great chain of being--their positions were defined relative to plants, animals, and God." The subordination of women was predicated upon their position in nature. "Male" and "Female represented dualistic cosmological principles penetrating all of nature, principles of which sexual organs were only one aspect. One might suspect that the place of women on the great chain of being is indicative of the true status of nature itself in Christian ontology; an overt denigration of women indicates a covert denigration of nature.



read the following paper i wrote for Grade school on Science and the Sueprnatural. Only 12 pages.

Suernatural and the Rise of Science in The Middle Ages.

My Own Peronsal View

Since I believe that this physical reality is a thought in the mind of God, I understand reality as one unified whole; God's "mind" is the framework that generates and holds together all reality. Thus, Supernature is God's nature, will, and imagination. Reailty is all one thing, and that one thing is created and sustained by God (that one thing is thought). Thus "nature" is just a subset of "supernature" as a product and creation of God's thought; a sub reutine, a subset of laws that funciton in harmony with the larger frame. But the two are mixed in toegether. The Supernatural is found in the natural. Supernature is not a realm where magical beings live, but is the vivifying aspect of reality. The epitome of "the natural" is human nature, and human nature strives toward it's end in vivification through Supenature.

The "Supernatural" is the "ground and end" of the natural.

meaning: Supernature is the basic framework holding reality which generates this reality, and human nature seeks its teolos in unification with Supernature (ie God). We have a foundation for relaity and a telos toward which the natural bends. Any supernatural effects (miracles) are the result of that telos.

Revisting Fine Tunning.

This is based upon an article by Andre Linde, although the first couple of quotes are by others. Linde is a major pysicist who is an atheist. But he admits the fine turning argument is a problem that science cannot at pesent deal with. At least at the time of the article which was a few years ago, he did say this. This is evidence I used in my previous post on the fine tuning arugment, and it was never addressed by Hemit or Loren.

1) Coincidence of the Universal Constants

Bradley again:

"One of the remarkable discoveries of the past 30 years has been the recognition that small changes in any of the universal constants produce surprisingly dramatic changes in the universe, rendering it unsuitable for life, not just as we know it, but for life of any conceivable type. In excess of 100 examples have been documented in the technical literature and summarized in such books as the Anthropic Cosmological Principle (1986)".

"Slight variations in physical laws such as gravity or electromagnetism would make life impossible . . . the necessity to produce life lies at the center of the universe's whole machinery and design," stated John Wheeler, Princeton University professor of physics (Reader's Digest, Sept., 1986). "University of Virginia astronomers R.T. Rood and J.S. Trefil conclude their book Are We Alone? ..by estimating the probability of life existing anywhere in the universe to be one in a billion, and thus conclude the existence of life on planet earth, far from being inevitable, is the result of a remarkable set of coincidences."

"If I were a religious man," Trefil wrote in the concluding chapter, "I would say that everything we have learned about life in the past twenty years shows that we are unique, and therefore, special in God's sight." Instead he concludes that life on planet earth is a remarkable accident, unlikely to have been replicated anywhere else in the universe, which his book powerfully argues."

2) Initial Conditions

Bradley:

"Initial condition problems are found in many places in our scenario of the origin of the universe, its development into a suitable home for us, and the origin of life. These initial condition problems have, in fact, grown much worse with the recognition that many critical processes in the origins scenario are nonlinear, and therefore, require particularly precise initial conditions. Trefil and Rood's book cited above mentions some of these problems in detail. I will also discuss, briefly, initial conditions problems having to do with the origin of the universe and the origin of life. In summarizing this section, it is clear that there does appear to be something unique and special about our home in the universe and our existence in it."

Adrei Linde,Scientific American. Oct 97

http://www.sciam.com/specialissues/0398cosmos/0398linde.html
[explaining problems with the BB for which the new inflationary model is propossed. The first problem listed above--that the universe pops into exitence out of nothing]

a) something from nothing

b) Flatness of Universe

"A second trouble spot is the flatness of space. General relativity suggests that space may be very curved, with a typical radius on the order of the Planck length, or 10^-33 centimeter. We see however, that our universe is just about flat on a scale of 10^28 centimeters, the radius of the observable part of the universe. This result of our observation differs from theoretical expectations by more than 60 orders of magnitude."

c) Size of Universe--Plank Density

"A similar discrepancy between theory and observations concerns the size of the universe. Cosmological examinations show that our part of the universe contains at least IO^88 elementary particles. But why is the universe so big? If one takes a universe of a typical initial size given by the Planck length and a typical initial density equal to the Planck density, then, using the standard big bang theory, one can calculate how many elementary particles such a universe might encompass. The answer is rather unexpected: the entire universe should only be large enough to accommodate just one elementary particle or at most 10 of them. it would be unable to house even a single reader of Scientiftc American, who consists of about 10^29 elementary particles. Obviously something is wrong with this theory."

d) Timing of expansion

"The fourth problem deals with the timing of the expansion. In its standard form, the big bang theory assumes that all parts of the universe began expanding simultaneously. But how could all the different parts of the universe synchromize the beginning of their expansion? Who gave the command?

e)Distribution of matter in the universe

"Fifth, there is the question about the distribution of matter in the universe. on the very large scale, matter has spread out with remarkable uniformity. Across more than 10 billion light-years, its distribution departs from perfect homogeneity by less than one part in 10,000..... One of the cornerstones of the standard cosmology was the 'cosmological principle," which asserts that the universe must be homogeneous. This assumption. however, does not help much, because the universe incorporates important deviations from homogeneity, namely. stars, galaxies and other agglomerations of matter. Tence, we must explain why the universe is so uniform on large scales and at the same time suggest some mechanism that produces galaxies."

f) The "Uniqueness Problem"

"Finally, there is what I call the uniqueness problem. AIbert Einstein captured its essence when he said: "What really interests ine is whether God had any choice in the creation of the world." Indeed, slight changes in the physical constants of nature could have made the universe unfold in a completeIy, different manner. ..... In some theories, compactilication can occur in billions of different ways. A few years ago it would have seemed rather meaningless to ask why space-time has four dimensions, why the gravitational constant is so small or why the proton is almost 2,000 times heavier than the electron. New developments in elementary particle physics make answering these questions crucial to understanding the construction of our world."

Now Linde is confident that the new inflationary theires will explain all of this, and indeed states that their purpose is to revolve the ambiguity with which cosmologists are forced to cope. The Scalar field is suppossed to explain all of this; but these inflationary models are still on the drawing board. Moreover, he never says where scalar fields come from, what makes them, and indeed never illustrates how they solve the initial problem of where it all came form in the first palce. Finally, it seems that scalar fields would be a design feature that should troulbe Linde as much as the initial problems, since he compares them the circuit breaker of a house which keeps the uiverse from heating up too fast before it can expand. Moreover, they might be argitrary necessiteis (see argument I).

Studies on Religous Expernice

A major philospher and friend of Brut Russell, Loren, makes these comments on the comment section in response to "Meaning and Truth."

Shouting "It's not a hallucination! It's not a hallucination! It's not a hallucination!" is a very bad argument, as is your waving away the serious epistemological problem that Bertrand Russell, Mark Vuletic, and I have tried to consider.

And becoming happy by believing something in no way indicates its truth. You could become very happy by believing that none of your miseries are any of your fault, blaming many of them on various conspiracies, but would your happiness indicate your faultlessness?

This is a hackney tactic of trying to hide the phenomena by re describing in ways the obscure what's important about it. I say RE results in "life transformation" she purposely reduces this to "getting happy" becasue the atheist can't face the facts or the truth that hundreds of studies demonstrate the superior nature of religious life.
What I'm talking about is mystical experience, not getting happy. You can get happy when you have a bowl of soup and good sandwich. I'm talking about something that totally changes your live, removes your fear of death, increases your socio us consciousness, makes you into a totally giving person, can cure you of heroin and other drugs (14%) gives your life meaning so that you feel its totally worthwhile to live. I know many atheists wallow in despair you know I'm right. not all of them, course not. But many do. studies prove that religous people have less mental illness, less depression, better sense of self actualization.

she wants to reduce this "getting happy" because it's the only thing she can say. She does not have one single counter study. not one single study shows different.



Religious experience indicative of good mental health

The “new atheists” put forth the notion that all of religion itself is a form of mental illness. This is the impression many love to cultivate. There is no basis for it in the data whatsoever. The effects are varied but over the entire range of research they spell out a healthy well-adjusted whole person. The qualities mentioned in the research over and over again include: less dogmatic, less authoritarian, more socially conscious, are about people, happy, healthy, successful, self aware, self assured, find life meaningful, enjoy their work, strong ego, strong sense of self, more self actualized. All the studies mentioned to this point back this up. Mathes, Maslow, Wuthnow, Greely, Luckoff and Lue, Noble, Hood and all others mentioned. I will include a list at the end of this chapter, and a select bibliography in the indices cataloguing the studies that find mystical experience to have long-term positive effects. These are the characteristics of self-actualization.
Religious People are More Self Actualized

This is the finding of a vast body of work. Some studies show that “Peakers” (those who experience “mystical experiences” what I’m calling “RE” in this essay) are more self actualized than those who do not have these experiences. But there are also studies that show that any inkling of religious experience carried some degree of the same advantages. Four hundred studies show that participation (as well as the nominal experiences) produces many benefits, among them less depression and better mental health.

Dr. Michael Nielson, Ph.D.

"What makes someone psychologically healthy? This was the question that guided Maslow's work. He saw too much emphasis in psychology on negative behavior and thought, and wanted to supplant it with a psychology of mental health. To this end, he developed a hierarchy of needs, ranging from lower level physiological needs, through love and belonging, to self- actualization. Self-actualized people are those who have reached their potential for self-development. Maslow claimed that mystics are more likely to be self-actualized than are other people. Mystics also are more likely to have had "peak experiences," experiences in which the person feels a sense of ecstasy and oneness with the universe. Although his hierarchy of needs sounds appealing, researchers have had difficulty finding support for his theory."


We turn once again to Jayne Gackenback


In terms of psychological correlates, well-being and happiness has been associated with mystical experiences,(Mathes, Zevon, Roter, Joerger, 1982; Hay & Morisy, 1978; Greeley, 1975; Alexander, Boyer, & Alexander, 1987) as well as self-actualization (Hood, 1977; Alexander, 1992). Regarding the latter, the developer of self-actualization believed that even one spontaneous peak or transcendental experience could promote self-actualization. Correlational research has supported this relationship. In a recent statistical meta-analysis of causal designs with Transcendental Meditation (TM) controlling for length of treatment and strength of study design, it was found that: TM enhances self-actualization on standard inventories significantly more than recent clinically devised relaxation/meditation procedures not explicitly directed toward transcendence [mystical experience] (p. 1; Alexander, 1992)
Believers: less depression, mental illness, Divorce rate, ect.

The study by Gartner and Allen indicates that religious belief is associated with good mental health, less depression and so on:

"The Reviews identified 10 areas of clinical status in which research has demonstrated benefits of religious commitment: (1) Depression, (2) Suicide, (3) Delinquency, (4) Mortality, (5) Alcohol use (6) Drug use, (7) Well-being, (8) Divorce and marital satisfaction, (9) Physical Health Status, and (10) Mental health outcome studies...The authors underscored the need for additional longitudinal studies featuring health outcomes. Although there were few, such studies tended to show mental health benefit. Similarly, in the case of the few longevity or mortality outcome studies, the benefit was in favor of those who attended church...at least 70% of the time, increased religious commitment was associated with improved coping and protection from problems."

This was based upon a review of social science studies. These were regular projects by social scientists published in the scholarly literature. All the researchers did was to read the literature and report the finds of these studies. In the past psychiatry has tended to assume what Freud assumed, that religion is pathology. This is no longer the case. The basic assumption in the mental health field today is that religion is positive, healthy, and a sign of functionality.
Long-Term Positive Effects of Mystical Experience


Research Summary

From Council on Spiritual Practices Website

"States of Univtive Consciousness"

Also called Transcendent Experiences, Ego-Transcendence, Intense Religious Experience, Peak Experiences, Mystical Experiences, Cosmic Consciousness. Sources:

Wuthnow, Robert (1978). "Peak Experiences: Some Empirical Tests." Journal of Humanistic Psychology, 18 (3), 59-75.

Noble, Kathleen D. (1987). ``Psychological Health and the Experience of Transcendence.'' The Counseling Psychologist, 15 (4), 601-614.
Lukoff, David & Francis G. Lu (1988). ``Transpersonal psychology research review: Topic: Mystical experiences.'' Journal of Transpersonal Psychology, 20 (2), 161-184.

Roger Walsh (1980). The consciousness disciplines and the behavioral sciences: Questions of comparison and assessment. American Journal of Psychiatry, 137(6), 663-673.

Lester Grinspoon and James Bakalar (1983). ``Psychedelic Drugs in Psychiatry'' in Psychedelic Drugs Reconsidered, New York: Basic Books.

Furthermore, Greeley found no evidence to support the orthodox belief that frequent mystic experiences or psychic experiences stem from deprivation or psychopathology. His ''mystics'' were generally better educated, more successful economically, and less racist, and they were rated substantially happier on measures of psychological well-being. (Charles T. Tart, Psi: Scientific Studies of the Psychic Realm, p. 19.)


Long-Term Positive Effects

Wuthnow:
*Say their lives are more meaningful,
*think about meaning and purpose
*Know what purpose of life is
Meditate more
*Score higher on self-rated personal talents and capabilities
*Less likely to value material possessions, high pay, job security, fame, and having lots of friends
*Greater value on work for social change, solving social problems, helping needy
*Reflective, inner-directed, self-aware, self-confident life style

Noble:

*Experience more productive of psychological health than illness
*Less authoritarian and dogmatic
*More assertive, imaginative, self-sufficient
*intelligent, relaxed
*High ego strength,
*relationships, symbolization, values,
*integration, allocentrism,
*psychological maturity,
*self-acceptance, self-worth,
*autonomy, authenticity, need for solitude,
*increased love and compassion

Short-Term Effects (usually people who did not previously know of these experiences)

*Experience temporarily disorienting, alarming, disruptive
*Likely changes in self and the world,
*space and time, emotional attitudes, cognitive styles, personalities, doubt sanity and reluctance to communicate, feel ordinary language is inadequate

*Some individuals report psychic capacities and visionary experience destabilizing relationships with family and friends Withdrawal, isolation, confusion, insecurity, self-doubt, depression, anxiety, panic, restlessness, grandiose religious delusions

Links to Maslow's Needs, Mental Health, and Peak Experiences When introducing entheogens to people, I find it's helpful to link them to other ideas people are familiar with. Here are three useful quotations. 1) Maslow - Beyond Self Actualization is Self Transcendence ``I should say that I consider Humanistic, Third Force Psychology to be transitional, a preparation for a still `higher' Fourth Psychology, transhuman, centered in the cosmos rather than in human needs and interest, going beyond humanness, identity, selfactualization and the like.''

Abraham Maslow (1968). Toward a Psychology of Being, Second edition, -- pages iii-iv.

Studies dealing with mystical experience (Peak experience or “RE”) itself also find that this kind of experience is also a major factor in well-being. Greely in 74, Hay and Morisy (1978) “people who reported having intense religious experiences were significantly more likely to report a high level of psychological well being than those who did not experience transcendence. Greely’s ‘mystics’ were also more likely to be optimistic than were his “non mystics” and less likely to be authoritarian or racist.” “Transcendent experience may well lead toward a permanent transformation of the psyche in the direction of wholeness and health, Maslow (1970) Owens (1972) Wapnick (1972).







2) States of consciousness and mystical experiences
The ego has problems:
the ego is a problem.

``Within the Western model we recognize and define psychosis as a suboptimal state of consciousness that views reality in a distorted way and does not recognize that distortion. It is therefore important to note that from the mystical perspective our usual state fits all the criteria of psychosis, being suboptimal, having a distorted view of reality, yet not recognizing that distortion. Indeed from the ultimate mystical perspective, psychosis can be defined as being trapped in, or attached to, any one state of consciousness, each of which by itself is necessarily limited and only relatively real.'' -- page 665

Roger Walsh (1980). The consciousness disciplines and the behavioral sciences: Questions of comparison and assessment. American Journal of Psychiatry, 137(6), 663-673.


3) Therapeutic effects of peak experiences
``It is assumed that if, as is often said, one traumatic event can shape a life, one therapeutic event can reshape it. Psychedelic therapy has an analogue in Abraham Maslow's idea of the peak experience. The drug taker feels somehow allied to or merged with a higher power; he becomes convinced the self is part of a much larger pattern, and the sense of cleansing, release, and joy makes old woes seem trivial.'' -- page 132

Lester Grinspoon and James Bakalar (1983). ``Psychedelic Drugs in Psychiatry'' in Psychedelic Drugs Reconsidered, New York: Basic Books.



Transpersonal Childhood Experiences of Higher States of Consciousness: Literature Review and Theoretical Integration. Unpublished paper by Jayne Gackenback, (1992)
http://www.sawka.com/spiritwatch/cehsc/ipure.htm

"These states of being also result in behavioral and health changes. Ludwig (1985) found that 14% of people claiming spontaneous remission from alcoholism was due to mystical experiences while Richards (1978) found with cancer patients treated in a hallucinogenic drug-assisted therapy who reported mystical experiences improved significantly more on a measure of self-actualization than those who also had the drug but did not have a mystical experience. In terms of the Vedic Psychology group they report a wide range of positive behavioral results from the practice of meditation and as outlined above go to great pains to show that it is the transcendence aspect of that practice that is primarily responsible for the changes. Thus improved performance in many areas of society have been reported including education and business as well as personal health states (reviewed and summarized in Alexander et al., 1990). Specifically, the Vedic Psychology group found that mystical experiences were associated with "refined sensory threshold and enhanced mind-body coordination (p. 115; Alexander et al., 1987)."

Studies have shown that religious satisfaction was the most powerful predictor of general happiness and acceptance of life. Prayer was also an important contributing factor. “As a result of their study the authors concluded that it would be important to look at a combination of religious items, including prayer, relationship with God, and other measures of religious experience to begin to adequately clarify the associations of religious commitment with general well-being."




Studies on religious participation



Psychiatrists assume religious experience Normative.

Dr. Jorge W.F. Amaro, Ph.D., Head psychology dept. Sao Paulo says that the unbeliever is the Sick Soul:

"A non spiritualized person is a sick person, even if she doesn't show any symptom described by traditional medicine. The supernatural and the sacredness result from an elaboration on the function of omnipotence by the mind and can be found both in atheist and religious people. It is an existential function in humankind and the uses each one makes of it will be the measure for one's understanding…." "Nowadays there are many who do not agree with the notion that religious behavior a priori implies a neurotic state to be decoded and eliminated by analysis (exorcism). That reductionism based on the first works by Freud is currently under review. The psychotherapist should be limited to observing the uses their clients make of the representations of the image of God in their subjective world, that is, the uses of the function of omnipotence. Among the several authors that subscribe to this position are Odilon de Mello Franco (12).... W. R. Bion (2), one of the most notable contemporary psychoanalysts,"

This relationship is so strong it led to the creation of a whole discipline in psychology; transactional psychology. The Transactional school is based upon the work of Abraham Maslow, who was the first modern researcher (since William James at the turn of the ninetieth into the twentieth century) to subject the outcomes of religious experience to modern social sciences research methods (late 60s to early 80s). Professor Neilson again:

"One outgrowth of Maslow's work is what has become known as Transpersonal Psychology, in which the focus is on the spiritual well-being of individuals, and values are advocated steadfastly. Transpersonal psychologists seek to blend Eastern religion (Buddhism, Hinduism, etc.) or Western (Christian, Jewish or Moslem) mysticism with a form of modern psychology. Frequently, the transpersonal psychologist rejects psychology's adoption of various scientific methods used in the natural sciences."

"The influence of the transpersonal movement remains small, but there is evidence that it is growing. I suspect that most psychologists would agree with Maslow that much of psychology -- including the psychology of religion -- needs an improved theoretical foundation."

There is a vast array of studies on other areas besides RE, studies that demonstrate the validity and advantage of participation in a religious tradition, or religious belief. This is not best evidence for the arguments because its not so much the trace of the divine as it effects and affects human life, but is a demonstration of the advantages of a belief. Nevertheless, because there is a link between belief, participation, and experience, especially if Maslow et al are right that we all experience God to some degree, we can assume that participation is a response to some degree of experience. So these studies are important for the religious a priori argument, and they serve as secondary back up for the co-determinate and Thomas Reid arguments.

Religion is positive factor in physical health.

Many studies confirm that religion is a powerful force in physical health. This is important because it seems that we are constructed as organisms to be religious. Religion seems good for us on many levels. I resist the urge to make a design argument, tempting though it is. Yet, the point is that religious experience is as trust worth as other forms of experience, in a general sense. One indication of that trustworthy nature is its healthy effect upon our bodies. Much has been said in the popular mainstream press, such as this Knight Ridder news release of 1998.

"Some suspect that the benefits of faith and churchgoing largely boil down to having social support � a factor that, by itself, has been shown to improve health. But the health effects of religion can't wholly be explained by social support. If, for example, you compare people who aren't religious with people who gather regularly for more secular reasons, the religious group is healthier. In Israel, studies comparing religious with secular kibbutzim showed the religious communes were healthier."Is this all a social effect you could get from going to the bridge club? It doesn't seem that way," said Koenig, who directs Duke's Center for the Study of Religion/Spirituality and Health.Another popular explanation for the link between religion and health is sin avoidance."

"The religious might be healthier because they are less likely to smoke, drink and engage in risky sex and more likely to wear seat belts. But when studies control for those factors, say by comparing religious nonsmokers with nonreligious nonsmokers, the religious factors still stand out. Compare smokers who are religious with those who are not and the churchgoing smokers have blood pressure as low as nonsmokers. "If you're a smoker, make sure you get your butt in church," said Larson, who conducted the smoking study."

Neilson:
Even when we control for smoking religious belief still comes out ahead.
The most important factor in well-being

Argyle and Hill were studying religious experience. Researchers, who have a large database, deal with a lot of people, tend to use simple one-factor measures to measure happiness. Those with small samples, few people, tend to use multiple measurements. The findings indicate that those who are involved in religion report greater levels of happiness than do those who are not. Neilson sites a study of over 16,000 people in Europe, 85% of weekly churchgoers were “very satisfied” with life, only 77% among those who never went to church. This does not even measure belief among non-churchgoers. Neilson sites studies by Argyle and Hills, Inglehart (1990, just mentioned) and he also sites his own study.

Atheists cannot make this go away by pretending it's just a matter of "getting happy." they can't pretend the facts aren't as they are. the research is there, it's proven. We can argue about the conclusions to be drawn, but to deny the facts is merely sticking your head in the sand. shame shame shame on you "free thinkers!" you can't face the facts.