Another white male attack:

wolly.green said:
I'm not saying religion always obstructs progress. But that it is difficult to tell until after the fact, until after the damage has be caused. And then we learn, again, why dogma is such a bad thing.
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I don't think it's only apparent in hindsight. If there's going to be an investigation into whether multiverses exist, and someone quotes dogma as a possible answer, there's definitely something wrong.
 
wolly.green said:
You have said too many things here. So I'll reply to a few.

1. Measurement is not the standard by which we come to know a thing exists. That is the role a theory, to explain the available evidence and tell us what exists and why?
2. The problem with faith has nothing all to do with evidence. The problem is what faith causes its hosts to do. You have faith that the silhouette on the wall isn't a lion? If you're wrong it'll eats you. You have faith that god will help all people living in poverty? If you're wrong they all die from some treatable disease. All I see in faith is death.
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Do we have a soul?
This can neither be proven nor disproven.
1.) A theory that cannot be shown as a working model does not make it nonexistent was the point...we have string theory, QM, and a whole slew of “theories” of how things work. They can’t all be true...the answer is - we don’t know yet.
So to discount the existence of a soul when there has been loads of subjective evidence across the existence of humankind, is jumping the gun.
2.) All you chose to see in faith is death.
The shadow of a lion on the wall is reminiscent of Plato’s allegory of the cave.
People grow up seeing shadows on the wall of a cave will believe that is the real world, when if their perspective were to change and they turned to face the other way, they would see the true reality.
What our brain show’s us is a very limited version of actual reality...we see, hear, feel, etc. a very small spectrum of available information.
You don’t taste anything...your mind gives you the illusion of taste...it creates a whole virtual world in your skull that does not again, represent actual reality. Having faith and having faith in a God are two separate matters entirely.
I don’t personally believe that God interferes in anyone’s life, if God is actually there.
It would be a violation of free-will...to do good or evil.
But I don’t discount that intervention could indeed happen as well.
You don’t have to believe in God to have faith that there is something more than a meat computer on your shoulders and we are just acting out a set of preprogrammed algorithms that only give us the illusion of making a choice when the choice has already been made by our programming.
What would be the purpose of our brain tricking us into having the illusion of free choice?
It would be much easier, and would cause less internal conflict and cognizant dissonance if the choice was just done in an instinctual manner...so why have an illusion of choice at all?
 
Flavus Aquila said:
I don't think it's only apparent in hindsight. If there's going to be an investigation into whether multiverses exist, and someone quotes dogma as a possible answer, there's definitely something wrong.
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Well yes, like I said, not always. But even this is missing the point. Dogma is such a bad thing because it assumes there is such thing as absolute truth or perfect knowledge. Immanuel Kant showed us that is not possible. He demonstrated that knowledge is always flawed in some way. Now before continuing, I want to take the time to dispel a serious but common myth. When making choices, one is not weighing the evidence, but rather using evidence to choose between competing explanations. Of course it is possible for one to choose a course of action without an explanation, but it should be obvious that this sort of choice can be harmful. So, all knowledge, and all choices always lead to error and problems. If and when problems emerge, certainty (dogma) will prevent one from solving them. Sometimes leading to chanting, sacrificing, the building of monuments to the gods and ultimately death.
 
Skarekrow said:
Do we have a soul?
This can neither be proven nor disproven.
1.) A theory that cannot be shown as a working model does not make it nonexistent was the point...we have string theory, QM, and a whole slew of “theories” of how things work. They can’t all be true...the answer is - we don’t know yet.
So to discount the existence of a soul when there has been loads of subjective evidence across the existence of humankind, is jumping the gun.
2.) All you chose to see in faith is death.
The shadow of a lion on the wall is reminiscent of Plato’s allegory of the cave.
People grow up seeing shadows on the wall of a cave will believe that is the real world, when if their perspective were to change and they turned to face the other way, they would see the true reality.
What our brain show’s us is a very limited version of actual reality...we see, hear, feel, etc. a very small spectrum of available information.
You don’t taste anything...your mind gives you the illusion of taste...it creates a whole virtual world in your skull that does not again, represent actual reality. Having faith and having faith in a God are two separate matters entirely.
I don’t personally believe that God interferes in anyone’s life, if God is actually there.
It would be a violation of free-will...to do good or evil.
But I don’t discount that intervention could indeed happen as well.
However, you don’t have to believe in God to have faith that there is something more than a meat computer on your shoulders and we are just acting out a set of preprogrammed algorithms that only give us the illusion of making a choice when the choice has already been made by our programming.
What would be the purpose of our brain tricking us into having the illusion of free choice?
It would be much easier, and would cause less internal conflict and cognizant dissonance if the choice was just done in an instinctual manner...so why have an illusion of choice at all?
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Again, I don't care about evidence. My point is about what faith caused its hosts to do. Proof and evidence are not the center piece of my objection to faith. In either case, you completely misunderstood my comment about lions. My point was that if your belief about what is around the corner is wrong, you die. I can't really reply to you because I can't see a coherent thread. So ill have to agree to disagree.
 
wolly.green said:
Again, I don't care about evidence. My point is about how faith caused its hosts to act. I don't care about proof and evidence. In either case, you completely misunderstood my comment about lions. My point was that if your belief about what is around the corner is wrong, you die. I can't really reply to you because I can't see a coherent thread I your reply. So ill have to agree to disagree.
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I understand what you are saying.
What I am saying is “faith” like any other “reason” for someone to act in an evil manner is just that...a vessel by which their insanity/hatred can flourish.
It does not make faith itself evil because people use it as an excuse to be a piece of shit.
 
Skarekrow said:
I understand what you are saying.
What I am saying is “faith” like any other “reason” for someone to act in an evil manner is just that...a vessel by which their insanity/hatred can flourish.
It does not make faith itself evil because people use it as an excuse to be a piece of shit.
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If and when faith prevents progress, which has happened many times in history, it is evil. Like dogma, when it prevents one from solving problems, it is evil. Almost all enemies of humanity think that change and progress is bad, and are thus lead to do terrible things..
 
wolly.green said:
If and when faith prevents progress, which has happened many times in history, it is evil. Like dogma, when it prevents one from solving problems, it is evil. Almost all enemies of humanity think that change and progress is bad, and are thus lead to do terrible things..
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Again...it wasn’t faith that kept progress from happening but the dogmas put in place by mankind, who then used faith as a way to covey control.
Still does not make faith itself evil.
It’s like the argument about calling all guns evil...it depends who is holding it, and for what purpose?
 
Stick around and you'll see she does.

This should go with the quote below!
 
wolly.green said:
Well yes, like I said, not always. But even this is missing the point. Dogma is such a bad thing because it assumes there is such thing as absolute truth or perfect knowledge. Immanuel Kant showed us that is not possible. He demonstrated that knowledge is always flawed in some way. Now before continuing, I want to take the time to dispel a serious but common myth. When making choices, one is not weighing the evidence, but rather using evidence to choose between competing explanations. Of course it is possible for one to choose a course of action without an explanation, but it should be obvious that this sort of choice can be harmful. So, all knowledge, and all choices always lead to error and problems. If and when problems emerge, certainty (dogma) will prevent one from solving them. Sometimes leading to chanting, sacrificing, the building of monuments to the gods and ultimately death.
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Kant's position isn't exactly tenable. How can one discuss the knowability of an infinite universe, when Kant is sceptical as to whether there is any universe, or indeed persons outside one's perception. It's an idealistic approach, not a realistic one. Negating the independent existence of evidence makes kantianism fundamentally ideological/dogmatic.

How can you study an infinite universe, if a priori you dogmatically claim it is impossible to verify there is actually a universe per se at all?

Kantianism is no different than the most fundamentalist religions imo, insofar as it filters all knowledge and meaning through a single grand dogma: there is nothing to learn outside oneself.
 
Skarekrow said:
Faith should not be discounted any more than reason and rationality, just because something cannot yet be measured does not make it nonexistent.
For thousands of years people believed the world was flat and the Sun rotated around the Earth, to suggest otherwise would get you laughed at if not burned as a heretic.
Because we have not discovered how such a thing would work, we do not understand how to also measure such a thing - if it is actually measurable.
I have loads of studies that show group meditation and prayer actually do make a difference that is measurable, I would be happy to supply the links.
We still have no idea how our universe works, we have a few things figured out, but step into the realm of quantum physics and we are still in the infancy of creating working models of how it all comes together and functions.
DNA dictates that you are a human, but what tells the DNA to form it’s structure? What tells those atoms to form into the structures after them?
Or before them? Can it all be reduced to nothing? Is it infinitesimal?
Where does consciousness spring? Why can’t all the accounts of spirits and the afterlife, that have been fairly consistent in their similarities across thousands of years, religions, continents, be just as correct as the alternative that the brain is a complex bio-computer (possibly quantum), as the source of consciousness?
Both could very well be possible...as could some other completely different model/theory/source that has yet to find a discoverer.
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Interesting that Buddhist doctrine has known for a very long time the law of inter-dependence and the inter-connection of causality. Many things that are now coming to light in quantum physics and science more generally right now. I also agree with Scarekrow that it is not faith per say that should be refuted (although everything should be questioned, blind faith is not a wise route), but it is how faith is put to use (once the 'truth' of an idea is rigorously tested and found to be true). How something is used and if this is for 'the good' ultimately, this is what is important. (Obviously this also excludes wars in the name of religion, apart from everything else).
 
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Flavus Aquila said:
Kant's position isn't exactly tenable. How can one discuss the knowability of an infinite universe, when Kant is sceptical as to whether there is any universe, or indeed persons outside one's perception. It's an idealistic approach, not a realistic one. Negating the independent existence of evidence makes kantianism fundamentally ideological/dogmatic.

How can you study an infinite universe, if a priori you dogmatically claim it is impossible to verify there is actually a universe per se at all?

Kantianism is no different than the most fundamentalist religions imo, insofar as it filters all knowledge and meaning through a single grand dogma: there is nothing to learn outside oneself.
Click to expand...

Forget Kant, lets engage in a thought experiment. Suppose you do stumble upon some ultimate foundation of knowledge or perfect explanation. If you are rational, you will want to be able to compare competing explanations. But since your explanation is foundational, there can be no answer to the question "why this foundation and not another". Which we have already established is irrational. Is this a situation you're happy with?
 
wolly.green said:
Forget Kant, lets engage in a thought experiment. Suppose you do stumble upon some ultimate foundation of knowledge or perfect explanation. If you are rational, you will want to be able to compare competing explanations. But since your explanation is foundational, there can be no answer to the question "why this foundation and not another". Which we have already established is irrational. Is this a situation you're happy with?
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For starters, as an empiricist, knowledge will never flow from some mythical gnosis/concept, but is the marriage of mind and reality in conscious comprehension of that which exists.

The foundation of knowledge is not in knowledge itself, but in the existence of unknown, but knowable realities, and the ability of the mind to learn of these through the mediation of the physical senses.

Learning is not the futile task of picking a doctrine, secular or otherwise, but the active attempt to comprehend when confronted with the unknown.

(I just acknowledge here that Ti types are usually rationalists, and Te types are usually empiricists).
 
melissa* said:
Interesting that Buddhist doctrine has known for a very long time the law of inter-dependence and the inter-connection of causality. Many things that are now coming to light in quantum physics and science more generally right now. I also agree with Scarekrow that it is not faith per say that should be refuted (although everything should be questioned, blind faith is not a wise route), but it is how faith is put to use (once the 'truth' of an idea is rigorously tested and found to be true). How something is used and if this is for 'the good' ultimately, this is what is important. (Obviously this also excludes wars in the name of religion, apart from everything else).
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Yes ^^^
 
Flavus Aquila said:
For starters, as an empiricist, knowledge will never flow from some mythical gnosis/concept, but is the marriage of mind and reality in conscious comprehension of that which exists.

The foundation of knowledge is not in knowledge itself, but in the existence of unknown, but knowable realities, and the ability of the mind to learn of these through the mediation of the physical senses.

Learning is not the futile task of picking a doctrine, secular or otherwise, but the active attempt to comprehend when confronted with the unknown.

(I just acknowledge here that Ti types are usually rationalists, and Te types are usually empiricists).
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Not so fast. Empiricism has been refuted many times; the best of which comes from Karl Popper. In fact, a variant of empiricism called logical positivism almost put an end to Science. They believed that one could observe the universe without first interpreting it according to some background knowledge. But this is incorrect, observation is ALWAYS an interpretation of sense data. There is no such thing as pure observation. Anyway, we are way off topic so ill just have to disagree.
 
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Skarekrow said:
Again...it wasn’t faith that kept progress from happening but the dogmas put in place by mankind, who then used faith as a way to covey control.
Still does not make faith itself evil.
It’s like the argument about calling all guns evil...it depends who is holding it, and for what purpose?
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Your gun analogy doesn't work though because a gun does not tell its holder what to do. In the same way that a computer program tells a computer what to do, our beliefs tell US what to do. We are beholden to and ruled by our ideas and beliefs.

Faith requires an unquestioning belief in something; a belief that is beyond question. This requirement is what makes dogmas so damaging. Although the two are different, they have the same affect on their hosts.
 
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wolly.green said:
Forget Kant, lets engage in a thought experiment. Suppose you do stumble upon some ultimate foundation of knowledge or perfect explanation. If you are rational, you will want to be able to compare competing explanations. But since your explanation is foundational, there can be no answer to the question "why this foundation and not another". Which we have already established is irrational. Is this a situation you're happy with?
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Can I interject and ask if you are willing to accept the possibility of two separate perfect answers?
 
wolly.green said:
Your gun analogy doesn't work though because a gun does not tell its holder what to do. In the same way that a computer program tells a computer what to do, our beliefs tell US what to do. We are beholden to and ruled by our ideas and beliefs.

Faith requires an unquestioning belief in something; a belief that is beyond question. This requirement is what makes dogmas so damaging. Although the two are different, they have the same affect on their hosts.
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I don’t feel “ruled” by my beliefs.
You seem to take everything in a negative way...that is not a requirement of faith the way I understand it, imho faith requires much study, soul-searching, and critical thinking...when you say unquestioning, that is “blind faith”...yes, yes, drink the Kool-Aid!
And you’re right...guns don’t kill people...blah blah kill people...(insert NRA slogan).
You seem to be under the impression that people are ruled by faith, and not that people who have faith can use it without it overtaking their sanity.
You’ve limited your parameters of your rule-stick.
This isn’t a problem with an answer to be solved.
 
Skarekrow said:
I don’t feel “ruled” by my beliefs.
You seem to take everything in a negative way...that is not a requirement of faith the way I understand it, imho faith requires much study, soul-searching, and critical thinking...when you say unquestioning, that is “blind faith”...yes, yes, drink the Kool-Aid!
And you’re right...guns don’t kill people...blah blah kill people...(insert NRA slogan).
You seem to be under the impression that people are ruled by faith, and not that people who have faith can use it without it overtaking their sanity.
You’ve limited your parameters of your rule-stick.
This isn’t a problem with an answer to be solved.
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If he's Cartesian/Kantian his anti-religion is at least understandable. If his level of rationalism is such that he is skeptical of any meaningful/accurate perception of reality outside his own psyche, it is important that any predeterminations be set aside for the sake of exploration.

However, if I was a skeptical rationalist, doubting that anything might exist outside my own psyche, I would most probably pursue the most comfortable outlook possible.
 
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