- it's rationality that cautions against rationality! — Agent Smith

Sounds rational!

You are, by law, directed towards the institutions of knowledge. In my humbly humbleness I can't help calling that authorative... : — Haglund

Radical skepticism is in order. We must put logic in the dock, interrogate it! How did it come to be this powerful? What vile trickery did it put to its service? Who were/are its accomplices? :chin:

No. That is not the definition I was using at all. It is one plied by religious dogmatic types to justify labelling science as ‘dogmatic’.

That is not the definition I was using at all. It is one plied by religious dogmatic types to justify labelling science as ‘dogmatic’. — I like sushi

And what definition is that?

We must put logic in the dock, interrogate it! How did it come to be this powerful? What vile trickery did it put to its service? Who were/are its accomplices? — Agent Smith

Once upon a time, in a country far far away, called Greece....

Once upon a time, in a country far far away, called Greece.... — Haglund

The Indians too were very good logicians. The Chinese, however, are a different story. Taoism seems to be a slap in the face of logic!

From Wiki:

Dogma is a belief or set of beliefs that is accepted by the members of a group without being questioned or doubted.

The Indians too were very good logicians. — Agent Smith

They had to be, in meeting up the western invaders... :grin:

:smile:

From a dictionary:

“A 'dogma' is defined as a principle or set of principles laid down by an authority and held to be incontrovertibly true.”

Truth is not directly what science is about. Science is concerned with how things work by refining proposed rules and laws and making observations.

Dogmatic attitudes have existed amongst science-based persons. Yet when evidence is brought forward they DO NOT deny the evidence. Evidence is taken into account and minds are changed. There is no ‘god’s word’ or ‘scripture’ that cannot be changed.

This is basic stuff.

Note: I am NOT saying that all religious people are aligned with such dogma but enough are to cause problems.

Buddhism for example has no belief in a creator god, yet it seems to be similar to theistic religion in terms of its ethical philosophy and behavioural demands (celibacy, non-violence, non-coveting etc) and even in many philosophical respects. — Wayfarer

I'm not sure if I'm right about this, but in physics, especially quantum physics, there seems to be an inclination towards eastern philosophies. Especially the relation between the parts and wholes, and the holism (lacking in the "hard" reductionist sciences) inherent in eastern philosophy, seems attractive. So maybe "the whole" is holey ("wholey"!).

A 'dogma' is defined as a principle or set of principles laid down by an authority and held to be incontrovertibly true.” — I like sushi

That's exactly what is done in the scientific world. And I have encountered it directly. I have questioned the standard model with a preon model. Quarks and leptons being made if three other particles, preons. The model offers only advantages, but the dogma is that quarks and leptons are fundamental and point-like (string theory offers string and brains but they are supersymmetric in orinciple, contrary to observations). When I offered the midel as an alternative, the dogma defenses were activated.

“model”

Bye bye (that means you get a response from me for around a month).

Have fun :)

"Model"? Ain't the standard model a model?

These are not mutually exclusive, many but not all scholars are believers. — Fooloso4

True.

Are you claiming that stoning was never taken literally? If it conflates your dubious distinction it does so for good reason. The rabbis who interpret the Law, both then and now, were both believers and biblical scholars. — Fooloso4

There is no historical evidence of the stonings taking place and extremely few death penalties being carrier out in the rabbinical era beginning in the 1st century CE. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capital_punishment_in_Judaism ( "The Mishnah states that a Sanhedrin that executes one person in seven years — or seventy years, according to Eleazar ben Azariah — is considered bloodthirsty.")

This is to say that that biblically imposed death penalties occurred in antiquity far less often than secular based death penalties in modernity.

How do you reconcile such changes with your claim that there is an objective morality? — Fooloso4

Because I have never suggested, hinted, or intimated that the Bible is the source of morality. I hold to moral realism, a claim that there is a true right or wrong, regardless of what the current population might hold.

So what would you suggest is the best way to answer the question? — Fooloso4

Through personal experience, introspection, and a need for there to be an anchor for meaning and purpose.

You shifted from biblical scholarship to modern biblical scholarship. The inclusion of the perspective of time is significant. — Fooloso4

What is significant isn't when it occurred as much as who is doing the scholarship. It's a distinction between believers and those not committed to interpreting it from a perspective of belief.

At least we can define God as the good and deny unholy acts are decreed by him, but only falsely in his name.
— Hanover

seriously? Or are you saying that you are not prepared to back up your claim? When you say "we" who are you referring to? — Fooloso4

I'm saying that I'm not committing to your strawmen and am asserting what I take to be a more proper conception of God.

I'm using "we" in the third person objective, synonymous with "one." It expresses an ideal, or what a reasonable person should do.

There is no historical evidence of the stonings taking place and extremely few death penalties being carrier out in the rabbinical era beginning in the 1st century CE. — Hanover

Do you mean no historical evidence taking place or no historical evidence of them taking place in the rabbinical era?

[Edit]

Through personal experience, introspection, and a need for there to be an anchor for meaning and purpose. — Hanover

In other words, your definition of God is subjective and based on the presupposition that there must be a meaning and purpose that is not subjective.

I'm saying that I'm not committing to your strawmen — Hanover

To be clear, are you claiming that the quotes from Isaiah and Job are false? And that they are false because they do not conform to your definition of God as good? A definition that "we" or "one" should accept because that is what a reasonable person should do?

[Added: Does this mean that those of us who do not accept what a reasonable person does is not reasonable, at least to the extent they do not accept your definition of God?

Do you mean no historical evidence taking place or no historical evidence of them taking place in the rabbinical era? — Fooloso4

I don't accept the historicity of the Bible, so I'm not using that as a source of proof. Whether there were stonings in the Near East in the Bronze and Iron ages, I don't know as the historical record is pretty much lacking unless there's an archeological record. What I can say is that the institutional religious records written by the rabbis do not reflect stonings occurring, with that era beginning in the first century CE.

I'm also not committed to referring to the ancient Hebrews as Jews until much later in the biblical history, considering the religion of sacrifice centering around the Temple is a much different religion that what is practiced today.

So there is for you no connection between your moral realism and your claims about God and identification with Judaism? — Fooloso4

None might be an overstatement, but to the extent there is a dispute between a Judaic concept and my personal belief, my personal belief trumps.

In other words, your definition of God is subjective and based on the presupposition that there must be a meaning and purpose that is not subjective. — Fooloso4

Maybe as a broad sketch I might agree with this. I'd have to think on it. I do believe in the subjectivity of faith in a Kierkegaardian sort of way. I'm trying to make sense of it honestly.

To be clear, are you claiming that the quotes from Isaiah and Job are false? And that they are false because they do not conform to your definition of God as good? A definition that "we" or "one" should accept because that is what a reasonable person should do? — Fooloso4

I'm in disagreement with any statement that represents God as not being the source of the good or morality, whether that be Isiah, the Koran, or whoever says something contrary to what I think.

My take on the Bible is that it is an ancient source of wisdom, in particular how it has been interpreted, meaning our wisest ancestors used it as the vehicle to describe good from evil and to take a stab out of describing God. I think they did a far better job with the Bible, than say the Scientologists have done with Dianetics.

What I can say is that the institutional religious records written by the rabbis do not reflect stonings occurring, with that era beginning in the first century CE. — Hanover

Right. This supports the claim of moral relativism, that even under the pretext of what is unchanging and absolute the beliefs and values of human beings are not invariant. Now you may think that this is progress, that we are moving toward the realization of moral objectivity, but I think that it is instead a matter of trying to figure out what is best in the absence of knowledge of what is best. In the absence of such knowledge perhaps what is best is to accept that certain moral problems do not yield clear solutions, that the recognition of uncertainty leads to toleration of differences.

our wisest ancestors used it as the vehicle to describe good from evil — Hanover

What I am suggesting is that our wise ancestors did not make such a clear distinction. The tree of knowledge is of both good and evil. One tree, so to speak, that bears fruit that is both good and evil, just as experience shows. (Koholeth) eschews the pollyannic view and squarely faces the fact that the wicked may prosper and the righteous get what the wicked deserve.

.

The question for me is whether or not theism is true rather than 'whether or not this or that or any (under-defined) "god" exists.' I reason that theism is (and its variations are) not true (anti-theism), and therefore, that every theistic deity is imaginary (atheism). That's it. Notions of the "numinous" "sacred" "spiritual" "supernatural" "miraculous" "mystery" ... are 'meaningful' only in relevant discursive forms of life (metaphysical / religious / aesthetic traditions) as highly-qualified, or overly-interpreted, 'experiences' of limit-situations (Jaspers), etc. I don't conceive of antitheism, and implied atheism, as entailing negations (exclusions) of ideas often associated with religious traditions; case by case, a freethinker has to think through the sense each "notion" has absent any theistic commitment or justification (e.g. Buddhism, Daoism, Pyrrhonianism, Epicureanism, Spinozism, etc). You're only pushing on an open door, Wayf, taking issue with common variety, less considered, expressions of 'nonbelief' (à la "new atheism") than what I've proposed here.

The experience of the sacred is clear; there is nothing clearer. Clarity par excellence. — ZzzoneiroCosm

I have never experienced it. So it is not clear. Only clear to those who make such claims, eh?

Notions of the "numinous" "sacred" "spiritual" "supernatural" "miraculous" "mystery" ... are 'meaningful' only in relevant discursive forms of life (metaphysical / religious / aesthetic traditions) as highly-qualified, or overly-interpreted, 'experiences' of limit-situations (Jaspers), etc — 180 Proof

Why not consider life itself "numinous" "sacred" "spiritual" "supernatural" "miraculous" "a mystery", instead as "highly-qualified, or overly-interpreted, 'experiences' of limit-situations (Jaspers)" (who ever that might be), as secular knowledge tends to turn it into?

I'm not sure if I'm right about this, but in physics, especially quantum physics, there seems to be an inclination towards eastern philosophies. — Haglund

Do you know Tao of Physics? That was published in the early 1970s. Of course it has its critics but Heisenberg was interviewed by the author and he approved it. Carlos Rovelli's RQM model makes explicit reference to the Buddhist philosophy of Nāgārjuna. There are many such parallels. Have a read of Schrodinger and Indian Philosophy, Michel Bitbol.

The experience of the sacred is clear; there is nothing clearer. Clarity par excellence. — ZzzoneiroCosm

Agree, even if glimpsed from afar.

Right. This supports the claim of moral relativism, that even under the pretext of what is unchanging and absolute the beliefs and values of human beings are not invariant. — Fooloso4

Variations in moral beliefs over time and among cultures is an obvious empirical fact, and if that proved relativism, the debate over moral realism would have ended long ago. The problem is that epistemological uncertainty has no bearing on ontological reality. Whether we know what is right doesn't affect what is right

In the absence of such knowledge perhaps what is best is to accept that certain moral problems do not yield clear solutions, that the recognition of uncertainty leads to toleration of differences. — Fooloso4

Why would someone advocate otherwise, as if to insist someone behave in a certain way when we ourselves aren't certain of what is the right way to behave? This has no bearing on moral relativism or absolutism, but is just pragmatics. I'm going to insist though that others not rape. Moral quandaries exist, but sometimes not

What I am suggesting is that our wise ancestors did not make such a clear distinction. The tree of knowledge is of both good and evil. One tree, so to speak, that bears fruit that is both good and evil, just as experience shows. (Koholeth) eschews the pollyannic view and squarely faces the fact that the wicked may prosper and the righteous get what the wicked deserve. — Fooloso4

By using a biblical analogy to make your point, do you not invoke the wisdom of the Bible?

Agree, even if glimpsed from afar. — Wayfarer

How do you account for those, like me, who do not see/experience the sacred? Are we insensitive, blind to it, suppressing it, immune to it, not looking carefully...

I don't know. Thomas Nagel says he 'lacks the sensus divinatus'. I recall realising about age 6 that there was such a thing as atheism and finding it shocking. But I wasn't brought up in a religious household, my parents were not religious, and I don't feel much affinity with the Church. So it's quite possible that what I understand by God is different to what others do. I've never imagined a sky-father type of God. I don't believe in a literal God. In fact I don't believe in a God. It's quite possible that many tub-thumping evangelicals would consider me atheist, and they'd probably be right. But then I discovered that the theologian Paul Tillich understood this point. It's also implicit in many of the medieval mystics (who often skirted heresy).

As I've said many times on this forum, it's why I studied comparative religion (for which I've recently been severely criticized as it's apparently a totally bogus discipline.) But I was trying to understand what enlightenment or illumination meant. At the time I started out on that, I had no sense that it was connected to what I had been taught as 'religion' at all. But over the years, and through books like William James Varieties of Religious Experience and Alduous Huxley's The Perennial Philosophy, I began to see the connections. I had also had 'peak experiences' under the influence of enthoegens which conveyed a strong sense of the numinosity of nature. Impossible to convey in words, of course. And some encounters with charismatic teachers - likewise.

But overall, I do see atheism, in the sense of Dawkins-Dennett style of materialism, as a lack, something not seen, a missing dimension, and that's just going to remain an irreconcilable difference I'm afraid.

I have one Capra book. Not sure if it's the Tao. It's got a blue cover with a stone wall and a white wave. He says interesting stuff about economy but I haven't read more. The connection between life and QM, the part and the whole, not seems clear to me. Of course the non-locality of QM is interesting, and the QM phenomena are dependent on circumstance (close one slit and the pattern changes, which also happens in an experiment with two waterwaves, indicating that the wavefunction is, well, just a wave, which is nothing special per se; so why not associate waterwaves with eastern philosophy? Waterwaves have beautifull non local features, i.e., one part of a wave is no causaly connected with the other parts, all parts exercising the collective motion), but hey, there is more physics than QM. QM is nothing special, and I can't see the connection with consciousness. Quantum matter ain't different from normal matter.

"Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance" lay around somewhere too. Penrose, Rovelli, all nice but not particularly enlightening. David Bohm is great. The hologram universe.

have a look at that OP pinned to my profile, The Neural Buddhists, David Brooks. Always felt that probably describes my overall orientation quite well.

will do. Thanks. That's a good collection by the way...

The problem is that epistemological uncertainty has no bearing on ontological reality. — Hanover

Without epistemological certainty there can be no certainty of ontological reality. Moral realism remains an assertion.

Whether we know what is right doesn't affect what is right — Hanover

If we do not know what is right we do not know if anything is right beyond whatever it is we assert to be right.

quote="Hanover;686309"]Why would someone advocate otherwise, as if to insist someone behave in a certain way when we ourselves aren't certain of what is the right way to behave?[/quote]

This happens all the time. Although those who want to make abortion a criminal offense may be certain that they are right, it certainly is not certain that they are.

This has no bearing on moral relativism or absolutism, but is just pragmatics. — Hanover

Of course it does. Those who are convinced of their own moral certainty are now the majority of the Supreme Court and a large and powerful enough faction of the Legislator to determine what significant portions of our lives will be.

By using a biblical analogy to make your point, do you not invoke the wisdom of the Bible? — Hanover

The point is, what is regarded as the wisdom of the Bible does not conform to what you want it to. Where it does you call it wisdom, where it doesn't you reject it. I do think there is wisdom to be found but do not think it matches up with what you find.







.

Why not consider life itself "numinous" ... — Haglund

Works for me – deus, sive natura naturans.

I do see atheism, in the sense of Dawkins-Dennett style of materialism, as a lack ... — Wayfarer

Naturalism, or supernaturalism sans "super" (i.e. the imaginary :sparkle:)