It is hard to understand western history, music, art, literature or architecture without understanding the religious impulse that lay behind much of it. Likewise for other cultures. So being familiar with the worlds religions is essential to understanding the societies we live in. — prothero

True. But equally, it's hard to understand Western history, music, art, and architecture without understanding slavery, autocracy, colonization, religious violence, patriarchy, and economic exploitation. The historic underpinnings of our culture don't have to be virtuous to be of significance. But I agree with you that comparative religion (that antediluvian term) is a vital part of anyone's education. :up:

This post seems to highlight the various ways of "understanding" the world : a> Science, in terms of objective matter, and b> Theology, in terms of unknowable divinity, and c> Secular Philosophy, in terms of direct human experience. — Gnomon

An unknowable divinity would seem to be useless to us. I don't believe religious folk are looking for an unknowable divinity―that would indeed be a performative contradiction. It seems to me the only place God is to be found is within. What 'God' means in this context is totally ambiguous―it depends on the person as to what 'God' means to them.

I find this passage from the introduction to Paul Tillich's Systematic Theology Volume 1 quite apt:

Attempts to elaborate a theology as an empirical-inductive or a meta physical deductive "science," or as a combination of both, have given ample evidence that no such an attempt can succeed. In every assumedly scientific theology there is a point where individual experience, traditional valuation, and personal commitment must decide the issue.

This point, often hidden to the authors of such theologies, is obvious to those who look at them with other experiences and other commitments. If an inductive approach is employed, one must ask in what direction the writer looks for his material. And if the answer is that he looks in every direction and toward every experience, one must ask what characteristic of reality or experience is the empirical basis of his theology. Whatever the answer may be, an a priori of experience and valuation is implied.

The same is true of a deductive approach, as developed in classical idealism. The ultimate principles in idealist theology are rational expressions of an ultimate concern; like all metaphysical ultimates, they are religious ultimates at the same time. A theology derived from them is determined
by the hidden theology implied in them. In both the empirical and the metaphysical approaches, as well as in the much more numerous cases of their mixture, it can be observed that the a priori which directs the induction and the deduction is a type of mystical experience. Whether it is "being-itself" (Scholastics) or the "universal substance" (Spinoza), whether it is "beyond subjectivity and objectivity" (James) or the "identity of spirit and nature" (Schelling), whether it is "universe" (Schleiermacher) or "cosmic whole" (Hocking), whether it is "value creating process" (Whitehead) or "progressive integration" (Wieman), whether it is "absolute spirit" (Hegel) or "cosmic person" (Brightman)-each of these concepts is based on an immediate experience of something ultimate in value and being of which one can become intuitively aware.

Idealism and naturalism differ very little in their starting point when they develop theological concepts. Both are dependent on a point of identity between the experiencing subject and the ultimate which appears in religious experience or in the experience of the world as "religious." The theological concepts of both idealists and naturalists are rooted in a "mystical a priori," an awareness of something that transcends the cleavage between subject and object. And if in the course of a "scientific" procedure this a priori is discovered, its discovery is possible only because it was present from the very beginning.
This is the circle which no religious philosopher can escape. And it is by no means a vicious one. Every understanding of spiritual things (Geisteswissenschaft) is circular.

An unknowable divinity would seem to be useless to us. I don't believe religious folk are looking for an unknowable divinity―that would indeed be a performative contradiction. — Janus

It does seem odd that a god understood as a nonspecific intuition, let's say, could be presented as a meaningful relationship with the divine/ultimate concern. By definition, there is no relationship. I'd be interested in seeing someone try to crystallize what this looks like in practice. Whenever I read Tillich or others, the reasoning seems diffuse and it's difficult for me to get any traction on it.

I'd be interested in seeing someone try to crystallize what this looks like in practice. Whenever I read Tillich or others, the reasoning seems diffuse and it's difficult for me to get any traction on it. — Tom Storm

I read The Courage to Be about 40 years ago and i remember getting something out of it. As you probably know I am an atheist (in the soft sense of lacking belief in God as traditionally understood; i.e. the 3 Omni divinity). Anyway with all the theological discussion lately I thought I'd return to Tillich to see if I can glean any new understanding.

I'm just beginning on the project, so I can't say anything much as yet, except to say that it seems Tillich thinks of God as being inextricably bound up with mystical and religious human experience. I'm not sure if he thinks any definitive claim about the nature of God can be justified on the basis of human reports of religious and mystical experiences. I mean how would we know whether it was not rather an aspect of the nature of the human that is being revealed in such experiences?

It is hard to understand western history, music, art, literature or architecture without understanding the religious impulse that lay behind much of it. — prothero

I would say that is true in the east as well, so it is hard to understand humanity absent God.

The way I see it, my contradictory individual existence is as improbable as God’s.
I also see that my existence brings with it, God’s existence.

God wasn’t a construction that came after man; God and man have been connected from the very start.

Separately from all of that, we don’t belong simply to this life. Life needs no words or knowledge. This life needs nothing of this conversation, yet this conversation has dominated our lives since the dawn of human history.
We live in some other world than the earth lives in.
We are absurd, thinking, as if we could sit apart from the world, maintain our dignified intellects and yet reconnect with the world through our knowledge, as if we are high king and ruler and judge of all the physical universe and all of its wisdom - and then, as rational knowers of things, we think we could know God.

It’s all so implausible. We cut ourselves off from things in order to say “I over here know that thing over there that I just cut myself off of.” What was once intimately unified, I divide in order to say how I know it intimately. Absurd.

Yet, because of that absurdity, God becoming a man to tell us how to deal with this, and dying on a cross to save us - because that story cannot possibly make sense, it makes sense to me that such would be God in this universe of absurdities and impossibilities. So I am Catholic. It makes sense that we would have to eat God’s flesh if we are to live with God in spirit, eternally, despite our own deaths. It makes sense that God, like gravity and energy, makes no sense and is ultimately indescribable, as he is unavoidable.

We cannot see God unless and until he reveals himself, but at the same time, if we really look at ourselves and our world, God begins to appear as if he was always everywhere. In every human history and every thunderstorm and supernova.

And what about love? Absurd.

Love, that all consuming limitless source of action among humans; we kill for love, we die for love; we want to preserve those we love, and yet we want to consume and possess those we love. Love makes no sense, yet it is the source of greatest meaning for us. Love is desire and ecstatic fulfillment at once, and maybe never…. This is where to seek God. In the love you have for another.

To me, the idea that life is accidental or mindless isn’t necessary either. It doesn’t have to be a choice between God and Meaninglessness or theism versus nihilism. There’s perhaps a middle ground: a world where meaning is made, not given. — Tom Storm

This middle ground is something I don’t fully agree with, or maybe never understood. It seems to me that meaning has to involve participation in something shared with at least one other person, and if you are alone on an island, than shared at least with God. If I make my meaning all by myself, and no one agrees or shares my meaning, I, personally, would not find this meaningful to me, and cannot see how this could be meaningful for anyone. Without God and everyone I know, my meaning seems never to come to be.

I was not always a believer in God. But when I thought there was no God, I thought everything I said and all that everyone ever said, and so all that could be thought, was like everything else - a whisper that remains ultimately unheard, misunderstood, empty, and as meaningful as the difference between two grains of sand. If the ultimate answer to the question “who cares?” is only “me”, and I know that I am going to die, than my care is not meaning, it is simply another meaningless moment.

We can make meaning for ourselves - live a meaningful life anyway, despite our utter isolation from true understanding of things and other people. But we can also mean nothing just as well. And so, since meaning and no-meaning must be equal options, I just cannot bring myself to call either meaningful. Nietzsche was just wrong. Life as art is still pointless and unfulfilling. Meaning becomes another lie to justify some lonely need to tell lies. This isn’t meaningful.

Regardless, it is just as arbitrary to believe in God, as it is to see the human condition as the experience of meaninglessness. It is even more arbitrary perhaps to believe in Jesus or Allah or Vishnu or Yaweh. I do agree that having faith is receiving a gift.

Words alone do not convince one to believe. The right words at the right time from the right source - maybe then one opens the gift of faith and finally finds God. Something like that is what happened to me.

I also believe many atheists have more faith than they like to admit (or else they would not speak of “God” at all). Just as most theists have more doubt than they like to admit.

We will never evolve past discussions of God and religion. There has been relatively zero progress in human history since before we wrote our thoughts down. Thousands of years with the same awe in the face of the abyss between us and the world. Thought itself, self-relfection, was the biggest progression so far. Maybe next was our word for “God.” And the word for “is”. The apes do not have God, nor do they say “is” or “I am.” We are no longer only like the apes. We are also like God. God is that who is always further in front of us, towards whom we are striving to become, never just behind us. But God is there too, and our history will always remind us, even if we could somehow forget to wonder about God, like we could forget to wonder about the chasm between ourselves and that which we think we know.

I hope I have contributed something to an interesting thread.

It does seem odd that a god understood as a nonspecific intuition, let's say, could be presented as a meaningful relationship with the divine/ultimate concern. By definition, there is no relationship. I'd be interested in seeing someone try to crystallize what this looks like in practice

The simple answer is that one knows God via the body, rather than the mind. Rather like the way a plant knows soil through the roots. The flower, or fruit of the plant has no conception of the soil that was vital for it to grow.

I'd be interested in seeing someone try to crystallize what this looks like in practice — Tom Storm

During my mis-spent youth, I blundered into a menial job at Sydney’s Mater Misericordiae hospital as ‘causality wardsman’. (I say ‘blundered’ because I had approached the dole office in hope of receiving unemployment benefits and was instead sent to work there - a salutary lesson.) A Catholic teaching hospital, it was staffed in part by fully-costumed Catholic nuns in their wimples and polished black work shoes. The Matron was the formidable Sister Mary, a stern superior, overseeing a busy emergency department, where you never know what the next ambulance would disgorge.

One morning’s ambulance was an aged couple in a very poor state. Apparently the lady had been sitting near a radiator, when a gust blew a sheet of paper onto it, catching fire. She was wearing a rayon nightie which immediately exploded into flames. Her husband, still in his dressing gown, had burns to his hands and neck from trying to extinguish the flames. She was immediately sent to theatres in a very grave condition, he stayed in the Ward while his burns were being treated by casualty staff. The old fellow was in a state of profound distress, needless to say. After some time, word came back from theatres - the poor old dear had not made it (I’m guessing the shock killed her.) The old fellow just dissolved into sobs. And Sister Mary put her arms around him, held him and (I’m sure) wept with him. And that, I felt, was ‘how it would look in practice’.

For me, this both was and wasn’t a conversion experience. It made me very aware of that Catholic sense of healing mission - Mater Misericordiae means ‘Mother of Mercy’, and it’s an historical fact that the Church was deeply involved in the formation of the whole idea of hospitals. I also became very much aware of the serenity and selflessness of many of those sisters, it was practically palpable. It didn’t draw me to the institution of Catholicism (I had been born into a post-Christian Anglican family but am estranged from some major doctrinal aspects of Christianity.) But it did instill in me a deep respect. Decades later, someone very near and dear to me underwent major cancer surgery at that Hospital, and that same feeling was still there.

And Sister Mary put her arms around him, held him and (I’m sure) wept with him. And that, I felt, was ‘how it would look in practice’. — Wayfarer

I've known a lot of those sisters and priests through my work and watched them closely. I'll have to mull this over, since I don't immediately recognize it as the answer to my question. Nicely written, by the way — a concentrated little jewel of description.

The simple answer is that one knows God via the body, rather than the mind. — Punshhh

I'm not sure I understand this either. What does 'know by the body' mean? You feel it rather than think it?

I also believe many atheists have more faith than they like to admit (or else they would not speak of “God” at all). Just as most theists have more doubt than they like to admit. — Fire Ologist

I susepct most atheists rarely talk about God. The ones who do are likely also to be activists who see religion as the enemy of reason and human progress (I don't share this view myself).

f I make my meaning all by myself, and no one agrees or shares my meaning, I, personally, would not find this meaningful to me, and cannot see how this could be meaningful for anyone. — Fire Ologist

I have a stronger sense of meaning in the world when I'm alone than when I'm with others. I think the lack of distraction helps. We're all different.

Regardless, it is just as arbitrary to believe in God, as it is to see the human condition as the experience of meaninglessness. It is even more arbitrary perhaps to believe in Jesus or Allah or Vishnu or Yaweh. I do agree that having faith is receiving a gift. — Fire Ologist

Is it arbitrary? Isn't it, in the end, unsurprising when someone either believes or doesn’t? After all, most people follow their culture or families into faith or secularism. Here in Australia, the subject of God rarely comes up - atheism seems to be the default setting. In other countries, God comes up at every dinner...

I was not always a believer in God. But when I thought there was no God, I thought everything I said and all that everyone ever said, and so all that could be thought, was like everything else - a whisper that remains ultimately unheard, misunderstood, empty, and as meaningful as the difference between two grains of sand. — Fire Ologist

For me, meaning seems to be evanescent and contingent, something we create and nurture in the moment, which, rather than being empty, gives it a unique kind of beauty and urgency.

I too have had experiences like this. One which had a similar conversion like experience, although I would call it more like an epiphany.

I was attending a Puja ceremony at an ashram I was staying at. I knew the Guru well, not a close friend, but we had a nice banter going on and I had become a favourite of his for a few days. Much to the consternation of some of the monks.
To set the scene, there were a number of Asian naturalised Hindu worshippers there who would come at the weekend, on a Sunday. So for them it wasn’t a deep New Age type feeling as it was for me. For her it may have been a lot like going to your local Church of England, or Catholic mass, or the like, as you do every Sunday.
During the ceremony, at the height of the fervour I watched the guru who was only a few feet away turn and see a little old Asian lady, who was there for the weekend ceremony. Effortlessly and in an instant he moved from the intensity of the ceremony to greet her and bent over to exchange a smile and hold her hand. I was struck by how kind this was and could somehow see the depth of grace and humility in his behaviour. At that very moment, he turned suddenly to me before I could turn away and in that fraction of a second his glance was so intense, fiery and I had a sense of exchanging a glance with something bright like a star, light years away. Then he turned back to her, and pressed his hand more firmly into hers and then turned away and returned to the worship. I felt as though I had seen a ghost, although not scared, or shocked as if I had seen a ghost. But surprised and trying to process what had just happened.

What stayed with me was the depth of humility and kindness which I had witnessed. Which I would not in a million years have expected to see while there. Everything else that happened didn’t affect me so much as that sort of thing happened all the time in that place.

I'm not sure I understand this either. What does 'know by the body' mean? You feel it rather than think it?

We in our western society and with all the scientific knowledge we now have, seem to have reached the view that we are minds and that our body doesn’t know anything, with out the mind processing the nerve impulses and so on. Or that a mind is required to know something and that it is somehow the mind that knows it.
But in reality we are an organism with a body, hormones, nerve endings etc. these things go on about their business regardless of what the mind is doing, thinking about, a lot of the time. Also animals which don’t do much thinking and have little in the way of knowledge are the same. They know things without a mind doing the knowing.
Also there is a deeper level to this described in the word communion. Where beings have knowing between them by being together, either in a group, or in prayer.

What stayed with me was the depth of humility and kindness which I had witnessed. — Punshhh

It's very interesting, isn't it, that a meeting with the Guru is called 'darshan', meaning 'auspicious vision'. It is exactly that sense which can be conveyed by a glance or a single word. It's the all-important sense of actual presence. And also that all of the principle schools of Hindu philosophy are called 'darshana'.

Thankyou Tom :pray:

It's very interesting, isn't it, that a meeting with the Guru is called 'darshan', meaning 'auspicious vision'.

Thank’s for this it has focussed my mind a little and reminded me about the specific experiences of participating in puja.
I like this definition;
“ In Hinduism, darshan is a significant aspect of temple rituals and devotion. It involves viewing the deity's image (murti) in the temple's inner sanctum (garbhagriha).”

We had a life size murti of kali carved in black granite in the inner sanctum.

I think a lot of people share this intuition. I personally don’t and I don’t encounter any transcendent meaning in life or the universe as I understand it. What I do see is humans telling stories - stories that offer solace, meaning, and guidance for how to live.
To me, the idea that life is accidental or mindless isn’t necessary either. It doesn’t have to be a choice between God and Meaninglessness or theism versus nihilism. There’s perhaps a middle ground: a world where meaning is made, not given. — Tom Storm

Yes. Since I don't find the Judeo-Christian Bible or Islamic Koran plausible as the revealed word of God, I've been forced to create my own mythical story to establish the meaning of my own worthless life. It's intended to be a "middle ground", based on information & insights from Objective Science, Subjective Religions, and Rational Philosophy. My myth does not have a happy ending in transcendent Heaven, yet it does conclude that the evolution of Life & Mind from a mysterious Big Bang was not "accidental", but in some sense intentional*1. You could say that it's my own version of a "More Sophisticated, Philosophical Account of God". :smile:


*1. The idea that "life was not accidental" suggests that existence is not purely random or chaotic, but rather guided by a purpose or meaning, even if that purpose is not explicitly defined. This belief can be seen in various philosophical, religious, and personal contexts. . . .
The idea that "life is not accidental" can also be interpreted as a belief in the principle of cause and effect, where events are interconnected and influenced by preceding circumstances.
https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&q=life+was+not+accidental
Note --- Cause & Effect is not totally random or inconsequentially accidental, but reliably predictable. That's the assumption Science is based on.

An unknowable divinity would seem to be useless to us — Janus

Perhaps, unless the deity is knowable by reason rather than revelation*1. That's what's called the "God of the Philosophers". For example, Spinoza imagined his God, not as transcendent, but immanent, serving as the very stuff of reality (substance ; being), which is otherwise inexplicable*2. And Whitehead describes his God as a "value creating process"*3. Which has evolved the human mind, as the only value-evaluating (usefulness) process in the world. :nerd:


*1. Whether it is "being-itself" (Scholastics) or the "universal substance" (Spinoza), whether it is "beyond subjectivity and objectivity" (James) or the "identity of spirit and nature" (Schelling), whether it is "universe" (Schleiermacher) or "cosmic whole" (Hocking), whether it is "value creating process" (Whitehead) or "progressive integration" (Wieman), whether it is "absolute spirit" (Hegel) or "cosmic person" (Brightman)-each of these concepts is based on an immediate experience of something ultimate in value and being of which one can become intuitively aware.
___Excerpt from your Tillich passage

*2. The Big Bang theory assumed, axiomatically, that Energy & Regulations preexisted the bang. And from that cosmic Energy, all the matter in the world evolved. So, the God of Cosmology is essentially Cause & Laws.

*3. In Whitehead's philosophy, the process of creating value involves the "subject-superject" concept, where every event is both experiencing and aiming for a future state. This "subjective aim" drives the experience towards its ultimate satisfaction and realization, which is intrinsically valuable. Value, for Whitehead, is not an external attribute but rather the intrinsic reality of an event and its enjoyment.
https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&q=whitehead++value+creating+process

Since I don't find the Judeo-Christian Bible or Islamic Koran plausible as the revealed word of God, I've been forced to create my own mythical story to establish the meaning of my own worthless life. — Gnomon

Human beings are endlessly creative.

yet it does conclude that the evolution of Life & Mind from a mysterious Big Bang was not "accidental", — Gnomon

Random thought: It's interesting how often Christian apologists seek to contrast "accidental' life from divinely planned life.

The idea of life being “accidental” seems to be a stumbling block for many who struggle to emotionally accept that life might not have an inherent human centric purpose. Many people fear and even loathe the idea of a purposeless universe. But it’s important to distinguish this from notions like randomness or accident. The absence of inherent purpose doesn’t necessarily imply arbitrariness; it simply means that meaning is not built into the fabric of reality, but must be created by conscious beings. This distinction often gets lost in emotional reactions to, shall we call them 'naturalistic' worldviews.

A scientific account doesn’t describe life as an “accident” in any meaningful sense. It simply explains that life arose through natural processes. To call it an “accident” is to impose a value-laden metaphor onto a description that is, at its core, neutral.

I meant useful in the sense of offering solace or salvation.

The absence of inherent purpose doesn’t necessarily imply arbitrariness; it simply means that meaning is not built into the fabric of reality, but must be created by conscious beings. This distinction often gets lost in emotional reactions to, shall we call them 'naturalistic' worldviews. — Tom Storm

I think it's indubitably true that the apparent conflict between the idea of ‘grand design’, on the one hand, and the meme of fortuitous origins, on the other, is a major cultural fault-line—no matter where one stands on the spectrum of views.

Consider the famous 'foundation statement' by Richard Dawkins:

An atheist before Darwin could have said, following Hume: ‘I have no explanation for complex biological design. All I know is that God isn't a good explanation, so we must wait and hope that somebody comes up with a better one.’ I can't help feeling that such a position, though logically sound, would have left one feeling pretty unsatisfied, and that although atheism might have been logically tenable before Darwin, Darwin made it possible to be an intellectually fulfilled atheist.

I certainly don’t want to defend Dawkins’ Intelligent Design opponents. But many—myself included—have observed that Dawkins makes a kind of category error here. The God whose existence he sets out to refute is framed as a superhuman technician, a cosmic engineer meticulously assembling wings, flagella, and other biological contraptions. But this is far removed from the God of classical theism, who is not a being within the order of things at all, but the necessary ground of being itself. Creation, in this tradition, is not the manual assembly of parts, but the ongoing act of sustaining the whole of existence (per the Ever-Present Origin of Jean Gebser.)

But the thing is, as soon as the most rudimentary organisms begin to form, something else appears with them: the rudimentary emergence of meaning. How so? Because the very hallmark of an organism is that it maintains itself in distinction from its environment. It enacts a boundary—not merely spatial, but functional and existential. It resists entropy, resists the universal drift toward dissolution, by preserving internal order and homeostasis. In doing so, it expresses negentropy: it is for itself, in a basic but decisive sense. This is the first flicker of seity—the incipient sense of a self. Not yet a mind, not yet a subject in the rich psychological sense, but already more than mere matter. Already something that matters to itself.

So even if it's true, as some argue, that meaning is “created by conscious beings,” we ought to recognize that this act of creation is not simply a matter of conscious intention. It arises from a much deeper orientation—one that begins, however humbly, with life itself. That, I think, is the current framework for the debate.

So even if it's true, as some argue, that meaning is “created by conscious beings,” we ought to recognize that this act of creation is not simply a matter of conscious intention. It arises from a much deeper orientation—one that begins, however humbly, with life itself. That, I think, is the current framework for the debate. — Wayfarer

But meaning may not arise from any deep metaphysical structure, rather from the ordinary, improvisational practices that help us stay oriented in a world we can’t help but attempt to interpret. In that light, its apparent importance may have less to do with ultimate truth or a foundational 'cosmic consciousness' and more to do with pragmatic survival. Why woudl making meaning not be like another sense?

I was taking issue with meaning as the ‘creation of conscious beings’ if by that you mean something invented or projected by us onto the world as a kind of blank canvas. I’m pointing out that meaning can be understood as intrinsically connected to organic existence at a fundamental level - not simply as the product of our imaginative acts. At the same time I'm trying to avoid the two extremes of 'intelligent design' vs 'fortuitous origins'.

OK. I imagine meaning includes both: creation and intrinsic.

Indeed. There is good work showing how biology is fuelled by meaning - rather than sterile abstract information or matter. There is no reason to suppose meaning is purely a semantic phenomenon.

hence the ascendancy of biosemiotics, something I’ve learned a lot about here.

Definitely. I really think that field is going to gain more and more recognition in the coming years, just as long as scholars get over their phobia of transdisciplinarity and can embrace concepts that encompass both science and the humanities.

A scientific account doesn’t describe life as an “accident” in any meaningful sense. It simply explains that life arose through natural processes. To call it an “accident” is to impose a value-laden metaphor onto a description that is, at its core, neutral. — Tom Storm

Yes, but many people interpret the inherent randomness, indeterminacy, & uncertainty of quantum physics as a series of blundering accidents ; hence no divine intention or pre-destination. But there's another way to interpret the stochastic nature of Nature : it allows opportunities for novelty to emerge*1 from evolution, and the final outcome (the sum) is negotiable, un-decided until the the process is complete.

Evolution is not just a blindly meandering process*2, it's a progressive process. Not necessarily in the sense of Orthogenesis, but in terms of increasing complexity & novelty. The most obvious sign of creativity is the emergence of Life & Mind from a hypothetical primordial soup of meta-physical quarks & gluons. And the minds of those living creatures have introduced Purpose into the world. For some myth believers, their "higher" purpose is not just basic survival long enough to reproduce, but to thrive in a second chance at life.

Therefore, something is going on here that smacks of Teleology*3. That doesn't imply creation by divine fiat, for the purpose of producing sycophantic slaves of faith. But it does provide food for philosophical thought. A deterministic (cause & effect) universe would move quickly & directly to some predestined end : as in Genesis. Yet a lawful, but stochastic universe would erratically evolve by trial & error : Darwinian evolution*2. And the ultimate state of such a world would be unpredictable. So, purposeful people would have opportunities to pursue their own personal goals in their allotted lifetime. :smile:


*1.Emergence theory, in a nutshell, explains how complex systems can exhibit behaviors and properties that are not present in their individual components. It suggests that these emergent phenomena arise from the interactions and relationships between the parts, rather than being simply a result of their individual characteristics. Essentially, the "whole" is greater than the sum of its parts.
https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&q=emergence+theory

*2. While the statement "evolution is blind" is often used to describe the process of natural selection, it's not entirely accurate. While mutations are random, the selection process itself is guided by environmental pressures and the interactions of organisms with their environment. This means that evolution is not entirely blind but rather a complex process involving both random variation and directed selection.
https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&q=evolution+not+blind

*3. In Whitehead's philosophy, teleology, the idea of things having a purpose or end goal, is not about pre-ordained destiny, but about the dynamic and open-ended process of becoming. He viewed reality as a constant flux of actual entities (occasions of experience) that are continuously engaging with each other and co-creating new possibilities. This means that while there's a sense of ongoing creation and potential, there's no fixed endpoint or predetermined path for entities to follow.
https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&q=whitehead+teleology

↪Gnomon
I meant useful in the sense of offering solace or salvation. — Janus

OK. But I interpreted "useless" to mean having no function or value. And "solace or salvation" seems to be the ultimate value for believers. So, the function of Faith is to get us to where our treasure is laid-up*1.

However, if this world of moth & rust & thieves is all we have to look forward to, then investing in "pie-in-the-sky" heaven would be a "white elephant" of no practical value. :smile:


*1. Value & Treasure :
Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal, but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.
___ Matthew 6:19-21

Therefore, something is going on here that smacks of Teleology*3 — Gnomon

Well that's your conclusion, not mine.

If pushed, and speaking from a human perspective, you might say the world appears designed and calibrated for dysfunction and suffering: children with cancer, mass starvation, natural disasters, a clusterfuck of disease and disorder wherever you look. Not to mention the defective psychology of humans. But I don't believe this theory either. Things may appear a certain way to us because we want to believe. We are sense-making creatures compelled to find or impose an overarching narrative on everything.

But the thing is, as soon as the most rudimentary organisms begin to form, something else appears with them: the rudimentary emergence of meaning. How so? Because the very hallmark of an organism is that it maintains itself in distinction from its environment. It enacts a boundary—not merely spatial, but functional and existential. It resists entropy, resists the universal drift toward dissolution, by preserving internal order and homeostasis. In doing so, it expresses negentropy: it is for itself, in a basic but decisive sense. This is the first flicker of seity—the incipient sense of a self. Not yet a mind, not yet a subject in the rich psychological sense, but already more than mere matter. Already something that matters to itself.

We don’t realise the importance of cellular life for the ground of our sense of being and consciousness. After all we are a colony of cells. As you say this is crucial for the emergence of life, living beings. Animals and plants, (even fungi). While they don’t yet have a mind, they do know things, they do have knowledge, how ever simple.

While they don’t yet have a mind, they do know things, they do have knowledge, how ever simple. — Punshhh

Indeed. Part of me believes that the animal is in a superior position to the human. They have what they need. They require no gadgets, no psychotherapies, no fictional narratives through which to interpret their existence. They act, they live, and that is enough. In contrast, we are burdened by self-consciousness- forever constructing and deconstructing meaning, seeking justification, and struggling to feel at home in the world and often being dreadful to all an sundry while we go about it.

Well that's your conclusion, not mine.
If pushed, and speaking from a human perspective, you might say the world appears designed and calibrated for dysfunction and suffering: children with cancer, mass starvation, natural disasters, a clusterfuck of disease and disorder wherever you look. — Tom Storm

FWIW, I'd suggest that you cut-back on your intake of Headline News. William Randall Hearst, magnate of the nation's largest media company, insightfully observed about the criteria for news publishing : "if it bleeds, it leads". Another version is "bad news sells". News outlets may have professional scruples about objectivity, but the bottom line says that the news industry is basically mass-market gossip and broadcast rumours. The function of Modern news networks is to collect information about "dysfunction and suffering: children with cancer, mass starvation, natural disasters, a clusterfuck of disease and disorder" from around the world, and funnel it into your eyes & ears.

Even a high-tone philosophy forum like TPF, contributes its share of bad news in the form of criticism of sinful human nature and design flaws of Nature. But look around you with your own eyes & ears and make note of the last time you personally witnessed --- from your own "human perspective", not the media perspective --- "dysfunction and suffering: children with cancer, mass starvation, natural disasters, a clusterfuck of disease and disorder". You might even find some not-so-bad news on Good News Network, The Optimist Daily, and DailyGood. But these outlets are financially marginal because good news is boring. Our survival-scanning minds seem to be tuned to look for the exceptions to the common routine, because that's where threats are most likely to come from.

Our modern cultures are far safer from the ancient threats of tooth & claw, but now imperiled mostly by imaginary evils brought into your habitat by the Pandora's Box of high-tech news media. Maybe we all need a Pollyanna Umbrella defense-mechanism from pollution of the mind. :wink:

PS___ Catholics are taught from infancy about Original Sin. But my anti-catholic Protestant upbringing did not interpret the Bible from that inherently pessimistic perspective. We were taught about Free Choice, not Predestination for Hell. Did that blind me to Satan's schemes?

PPS___ If you live in Gaza or Ukraine, a bit of pessimism about man's inhumanity to man is justifiable. But, if you live in shopping center Suburbia, lighten-up! :joke:


"Pessimism leads to weakness, optimism to power." ___ William James : noted for promoting a philosophy of Pragmatism

"I don't think of all the misery, but of the beauty that still remains." ___ Anne Frank : died in Bergen-Belsen concentration camp

"The best and most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen or even touched". ___ Helen Keller : deaf & blind from birth

FWIW, I'd suggest that you cut-back on your intake of Headline News. William Randall Hearst, magnate of the nation's largest media company, insightfully observed about the criteria for news publishing : "if it bleeds, it leads". Another version is "bad news sells". — Gnomon

You may not have intended it this way, but that comes across as both dismissive and tangential. I’m not generally a consumer of news, and this perspective is shaped by direct experience. My professional work brings me into daily contact with refugees, asylum seekers, survivors of abuse and trauma, former prisoners, the homeless, and those who are sick or dying. My father was in a Nazi camp during WW2 and some of my mother's family and friends starved to death in the Dutch hunger winter of 1944. My views are not based on some tabloid journalism of confected horror. I could take a cue from your tone and say back to you - why not get out into the real world and look around?

That said, I raised the point as a plausible interpretation of a world that appears deliberately built to produce suffering. I don't actually hold this view myself, but it's a useful counterpoint to those who see evidence of divine design in nature.

Our modern cultures are far safer from the ancient threats of tooth & claw, but now imperiled mostly by imaginary evils brought into your habitat by the Pandora's Box of high-tech news media. Maybe we all need a Pollyanna Umbrella defense-mechanism from pollution of the mind. — Gnomon

How is this relevant to my point? I'm said on here several times that I think this is the best time to be alive.