Why do people cry when their near and dear ones die? It can't be because the deceased is going to a, ahem, "better place". Ergo ... either nothing or hell awaits us ... postmortem. — Agent Smith

I agree that many religious people have enough doubts about heaven that they fear dying.
But your quote neglects the possibility that the crying is due to leaving loved ones, even if only for a while (i.e., reuniting in heaven)

Are we addicted to thought? Are we amateur “philosophers” steeping ourselves in excess?
Therefore, is what is needed for better philosophy actually a fasting and detoxification of thought? — Xtrix

This brings to my mind Sherlock Holmes who would sometimes turn to playing the violin. For what purpose? To put thinking aside, to still the mind? To allow the subconscious to process the question? Of course, Holmes is fictional but temporarily abstaining from discursive thought may have concrete benefits.

T Clark: Yes, I think they are relevant, too. And then there's Plotinus and others.

I like the metaphor of a god-mold, filled with locally-available god-stuff. Which historically, has been mostly based on personal experience with physical human people in political positions of near-absolute power. And, it seems to be a novel take on on old "god shaped hole in the heart" argument. — Gnomon

Yes, the OP can be taken as describing the origin of the "god shaped hole in the heart"

I think a direct experience of transcendent phenomena is common, although obviously not universal. What does that mean? For me it is a sense that I belong in the universe. That we grew up together. That the world is a welcoming place. A sense of gratitude. I think that could be called a god, although not a personal one. — T Clark

The experiences may well be common. Do you have any idea how an experience of a non-person God could translate into accepting a religion with person Gods?

I would like to know what people think of C.S. Lewis's argument for the divinity of Christ. I personally enjoy it but there are much better arguments in my opinion; Justin Martyr provided an argument steeped in the Logos. — Dermot Griffin

Lewis omits an obvious alternative: legend. Not necessarily that Jesus is entirely legend but that what has come down to us is mostly legend. Just as even if a man named Clark Kent once existed who was exceptionally strong and worked for a newspaper, Superman would still be a legend. The Romans may have executed someone named Jesus who preached. They may have executed 100 men named Jesus who preached. This alternative says it doesn't matter, the picture of Jesus in the gospels is mostly legend.

P.S. Justin Martyr also wrote: "And when we say also that the Word, who is the first-birth of God, was produced without sexual union, and that He, Jesus Christ, our Teacher, was crucified and died, and rose again, and ascended into heaven, we propound nothing different from what you believe regarding those whom you esteem sons of Jupiter." Justin lived from 100 to 165, and the quote is from chapter twenty-one of his First Apology.

Jesus = the Roman "son of Jupiter" who became the figurehead of Rome's official religion?

P.P.S. "Jesus" is a Roman name like Marcus, Brutus, etc. Hm.

As noted earlier by myself and others, no evidence has been provided that this is really the way things work. It doesn't seem likely to me. — T Clark

The OP is my attempt to understand a phenomena I've witnessed many times. It contains the example of King David's census, but multiple similar examples could be given. The OP presents a thesis, a possible explanation, but doesn't not present a proof.

Question: can you offer a better explanation?

If you are experienced and trained in this area and would be up for helping me out through paid mentoring, please let me know. — keystone

There's an Australian mathematician, Norman Wildberger, on YouTube who doesn't accept infinities.
Here's a link to one of his videos.
Difficulties with real numbers as infinite decimals
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tXhtYsljEvY
You might try contacting him.

In a nutshell, I'm wondering if anyone on the forum knows about instances of either psychic abilities and or paranormal where investigated which may have supported (or not supported) the claims that such things exists. While it is almost a given that the majority of such instance where merely tricks and/or something other than psychic abilities/paranormal, I believe it is at least plausible a very small fraction of them could be real. — dclements

I agree that it's plausible; we can't prove psychic/paranormal abilities are impossible. On the other hand, we've had centuries to uncover positive proof and what do we have so far? No much. So I'm skeptical.

To argue, as Tillich and Hart seem to do, that God is being itself but not a being leads us where? For me the notion that God is not personal but 'the ground of all being' is where you end up when the mainstream 'fairytale' no longer has traction. — Tom Storm

I don't claim to know what Tillich or Hart have in mind, but "God is being itself but not a being" suggests to me that God, like the Hindu Brahman, is existence itself, the ultimate ground of all existent beings, not a "being" in the sense of a separate, individual entity.

Overall I think to pillory the Bible for being taken as some kind of positivist text is too easy and for atheists, highlighting the absurdity of fundamentalist's beliefs and interpretations is also undemanding work. This is the shallow end of the pool. There is much more sophisticated theology by people like Paul Tillich or David Bentley Hart one could consider. — Tom Storm

I agree. But the “shallow end of the pool” is occupied by, let’s say, 100 million people whereas the Tillich and Hart end is occupied by, let’s say, 100,000 people (using arbitrary numbers to make a point). I’d say addressing the shallow end is worthwhile, especially because such people vote.

Pantheism is "a doctrine which identifies God with the universe, or regards the universe as a manifestation of God". But what exactly does this mean when taken literally? — Michael McMahon

This is my first response in this thread so I'm responding to the OP.. Here's an excerpt from an article I'm working on which is relevant to the question.

How may we describe the relation of the universe to an immanent, impersonal God? Two analogies come to mind.

One, imagine light projected onto a movie screen. The light is one, but because of the way it moves on the screen, because of the different colors it shows, we see images of people, places, and things. In some similar sense, the people, places, and things of the world are images of God. In New Theology, we are literally an image of God, in which we live and move and have our being.

The movie analogy portrays an immanent God as the basis of physical objects. But a truly monist view must portray God as the basis of all: physical, emotional, and thought, space and time. So, we turn to another analogy.

In a dream, we create the people, their emotions and thoughts, and the universe in which they live. A person in a dream is a disguised version of our self. Or we might imagine the universe as existing in the mind of God, just as figures do in our dream. (This dream analogy suggests the idea that our impersonal and immanent God is, in some sense, conscious.)

Both analogies portray one reality underlying the universe (i.e., the universe as an image or the universe as dreamt.) Science also has the idea of one reality underlying the universe; for physics has found that as we go deeper, towards center, we go towards unity. An oak chair and oak table are distinct objects, but at the deeper level, they are both oak. At a deeper level, a chair and a cat are both a collection of subatomic particles. Physical objects on Earth are composed of about ten thousand different chemical compounds, which, in turn, are composed of about a hundred elements. Looking deeper, science finds the seventeen particles of the Standard Model, and hopes someday to discover some Grand Unified Theory, a single theory of everything. Science’s world view tends toward monism.

Moreover, science has found that matter is not “dumb” but almost infinitely subtle and complex. Quantum Field theory—the science that searches deepest into the heart of matter—has discovered a dance of energy with “virtual” particles popping in and out of existence at any moment. We look into the heart of matter and find something which, as far as we know, cannot be created or destroyed. If, in fact, the foundation of matter cannot be created or destroyed, we easily reach the conclusion that matter is a manifestation of something which is eternal.

New Theology’s view of the universe resembles science’s view: both have the idea of one reality underlying the universe, forming the universe’s foundation.

Do you get no comfort from the suggestion that we are all connected via the components we are made of? Conservation laws? Only the form changes, nothing is destroyed or created. We disassemble after death and what we were become universal spare parts again. — universeness

Good point. I'd say the OP concerns the ego but we also may be said to have a deeper self in that we are an expression of the entire universe, not that we are the universe but rather that the universe is us.

Death is nothing to us. When we exist, death is not; and when death exists, we are not. — Epicurus

I like it. Haven't seen it before.

Cuthbert, I don't agree with your assessment but there no point arguing. The link to the document is in the OP. People are free to accept your opinion of the article, or to read it themselves and draw their own conclusions.

New Theology aspires to be a universal theology. [...] New Theology values a different type of faith: faith in the facts, faith in the truth no matter how unattractive truth may be. — D'Adamo - link in OP

Which makes it, from point of view of epistemic attitude, the same old theology as most others. "I have the truth. Believe it or be a fool." — Cuthbert

If you read further, you'll see no claim that "I have the truth" is made.For instance, the section "The Nub" has "If and when it is shown that no fundamental entity, in fact, exists, New Theology will have to be abandoned or seriously revised." And the section "New Theology: Way of Knowing" has "To find the truth, New Theology would employ, as far as possible, the best epistemological method known today, science’s way of knowing. Like science, New Theology could have no beliefs above question, no eternal, unchangeable dogma."

1. I clearly do believe that God exists (as a reading of the document at the link shows) but not a God who is a person.
2. Moreover, a Christian might view the OP as explaining how a "God-shaped hole" arises in individuals.
3. I respect people but don't respect ideas which I believe to be false, some of them obviously false. A talking serpent, God drowning the entire world - babies, the elderly, kittens and puppy dogs - everyone except Noah & Company, God stopping the sun in the sky so the Hebrews could finish killing their enemies? Get real. I do not respect such ideas.
4. The last 3 lines of your 5 line paragraph are ad hominem. Just wanted to point that out.

I think when Kip uses the word destroyed, he really means converted. — universeness

What he says seems clear:

Thorne at 5:28: There is not matter in that black hole. It’s not a dense object made of very dense matter. There is no matter at all. There is matter in the star that gave birth to the black hole. Long ago, a star like our sun, but somewhat heavier, will have burned its nuclear fuel. It can no longer keep itself puffed out by its internal heat. It starts to cool off. It then implodes. And all of the matter in that star, much more matter than we have in our sun, goes crashing into the center and is destroyed at what we call a singularity at the center . . . All the matter’s destroyed. There is nothing left except this warped space and warped time.

What he "really means" is anyone guess. Besides, I'm not clear about the difference between "matter is destroyed" and "matter is converted." In a nuclear bomb, matter is destroyed/converted to energy.

What do you mean by destroyed? — universeness

I'm quoting Kip Thorne. Listen to the Closer To Truth episode to hear then entire session.

Here's a possible response.

My friend is kind; my friend is unkind. Contradiction.

My friend sometimes behaves in a kind way; my friend sometimes behaves in an unkind way. No contradiction.

If we think in terms of “is,” i.e., noumena, we have a contradiction. If we think in a phenomenological way, we do not.

I made a similar point in my “Against ‘is’” thread.
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/13370/against-is/p1

Tate,

The Historical Jesus link to Wikipedia "Historical Jesus" has this: "There is little scholarly agreement on a single portrait."

Hm. Sounds like some, if not all, of the portraits are fictional.

• For God commanded, ‘Honor your father and your mother,’ and, ‘Whoever reviles father or mother must surely die.’ Matthew 15:4 — Art48
This is not what Jesus himself believed and taught! — Alkis Piskas

OK, so I know what Jesus said according to the bible.
And I have someone I don't know on the Internet claiming to know what Jesus meant, what Jesus would have said if only Jesus could speak clearly so as to be understood.
Hm. What should I believe?

If one takes a coherentist approach to epistemology, the fine tuning argument holds weight as a “piece” of an argument for God. — Paulm12

The fine-tuning argument is simply the successor to the idea that lightning and thunder are physical signs of God's displeasure.

A point against fine-tuning which I didn't mention is that a great deal of the surface of the Earth (oceans, deserts, top of mountains) is hostile to human life in that a unclothed human being would soon die. And in 99.999999... percent of the universe, a human being would die instantly.

It's folly to take Jesus at face value. — ThinkOfOne

Correct. What has come down to us is mostly fiction.

Can you explicitly state why you think that Jesus was "not a great moral teacher" based on the verses that you cited? — ThinkOfOne

Killing a child who curses a parent is not the moral thing to do.
It's an evil teaching.

I doubt there is really "pre-science".
Science is rather a spectrum from minimal to maximal scientific rigor. — Yohan

Can you suggest a better label than "pre-science"?

If you deny doxastic voluntarism (the belief you can decide your beliefs) outright, then what triggers your belief other than a deterministic force, — Hanover

The facts as I understand them determine my belief.

Verily I say unto you, If ye have faith, and do not doubt ... (Matthew 21:21)
If faith is not a matter of choice then what does this mean? — Fooloso4

It means that we shouldn't take the Bible too seriously.
I don't accept "the Bible says" or "Jesus says" as a valid argument.

Faith is a matter of choice. Intelligence is not. — Fooloso4

I don't accept the idea you can chose what to believe. To use God language, I'd say both faith and intelligence are a gift of God. In my experience, many Christians say faith is a gift of God.

You also seem to feel a lack of respect for people who disagree with you in that regard. You cast doubt on their intelligence. — T Clark

Not at all. I'm fully aware there are Nobel laureates who are religious (Francis Collings is a case in point). My point is that the lacking faith accusation (which I've seen often on religious forums) seems to me ad hominem and I wonder why many religious people think that accusation is perfectly OK but would be insulted with Alex's counter-accusation

I'm asking people who believe what Chris says is OK but what Alex says is insulting to explain their reasoning. (I personally don't think there is a good reason but am opening to changing my opinion if I hear a good reason.)

I'm still not clear about the rationale for monism. — Agent Smith

If I'm a realist about a cat and a tree, then I see both as substances, as independent entities with their own essential properties that make them what they are. A cat is not a tree, and vice versa. Therefore, there are multiple things in the world.

But if cat and tree are appearances, if they have some inner essence (wavefunction, nomeuna) which is inaccessible to us, then it's conceivable their inner essences are identical.It's conceivable that monism is true.

Wikipedia has the entry "Universe wavefunction" where "The universal wave function is the wavefunction or quantum state of the totality of existence, regarded as the "basic physical entity"[8] or "the fundamental entity, obeying at all times a deterministic wave equation."

If, in fact, there is a single, universal wavefunction which accounts for the entire universe, that would be monism, agree?

I don't claim these thoughts prove monism. I merely claim the thoughts don't rule it out; they allow that monism may be true.

Quantum mechanics is science. It is a description of how the world is or appears to be, or at least how we think it is. Noumena and phenomena are metaphysical entities. They are not facts about the world, they're ways of looking at the world. Mixing up science and metaphysics is one of the most common mistakes in philosophical discussions. — T Clark

Which is why I wrote "QM reminds of Kant’s distinction . . ."

Metaphysics is a branch of philosophy. The book that arguably begin modern science is Newton's Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica, i.e., The Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy. Mixing up science and metaphysics may be a common mistake, but that doesn't me the two should never be mixed. (I'm not saying you believe the two should never be mixed. I don't know if you do or not. I'm just saying "common mistake" doesn't necessarily lead to "should never be done.")

Albero,

I’m a Schopenhauer newbie not an expert. The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy entry for Arthur Schopenhauer
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/schopenhauer/
has “An alternative title for Schopenhauer’s main book, The World as Will and Representation, might well have been, The World as Reality and Appearance. Similarly, his book might have been entitled, The Inner and Outer Nature of Reality.”

Maybe “will” is not an ideal label for what Schopenhauer had in mind?

they refer to 1) a "rational" God and 2) a God that think as humans think. Yet, such a God may not exist. — Alkis Piskas

Yes. One take away from the lack of a scripture (as described in the OP) is that God as often conceived may not exist.

Well the theists always use the same argument in that context: God is not guilty of human's free will. — javi2541997

What about earthquakes, drought, famine, disease, childhood cancer, etc.?

Why stop there? A god could surely just implant complete knowledge in all human minds, without the need for any long-form narrative — Tom Storm

Yes.

But Christians do say God has written the moral code in our hearts. Great. But when they are asked what the God-written moral code says about capital punishment, stem cell research, etc., etc, they don't agree. God seems to have a problem communicating clearly.

You're on the mark, but what if there are immaterial aspects of this our universe - perfected to house souls and satisfy their needs - that we're unaware of? — Agent Smith

Then it's up to proponents of the fine-tuning argument for God to identify those aspects and, in an ideal case, to prove them.

Please note, your argument is novel and interesting and as far as I'm concerned the only way to counter it was to replace a benevolent god with a malus deus. You should take that as a victory in my humble opinion even if scoring points is the last thing on thy mind. — Agent Smith

Thanks.

How do you know the universe isn't fine tuned for souls as well? Do you know something we don't? — Agent Smith

From the OP: But suppose we really are immaterial, immortal souls. If we are immaterial, immortal souls, then the type of universe we inhabit is irrelevant. The universe could be made entirely of green goo, and it wouldn’t matter to an immortal soul. A ghost doesn’t care if it’s raining or not. It’s immaterial; it doesn’t get wet.

Let me see if I understand this. You’re making a distinction between the legitimate use of the word ‘is’ to make a statement about objective reality vs the use of the word ‘is’ to state a subjective preference, and your only concern here is with confusions between the two contexts that result in a subjective use of ‘is’ appearing to be an objective use? — Joshs

Correct.But I'll add that I consider many apparently objective statements to be subjective.
Example: "The cat is on the table" -> "I see the cat on the table"

As a mathematician I must object to your example though. Saying 'two plus two is four' rather than the more formal 'two plus two equals four' will often lead to confusion. We just don't need 'is' in that context and it causes trouble if we do use it. The word 'equals' in mathematics conveys a relationship with a precise meaning that differs from that usually attributed to the dreaded verb 'is'. — andrewk

Good point and good response overall. Do you have a better example of a truly objective statement?
What about "There is no largest prime number"?
I consider that as a genuine objective statement (that is true).

Using it to express category membership (attributing properties) also seems harmless to me, and shorter than the e-prime alternative. Only the 'identity' and 'existence' uses cause serious trouble. — andrewk

I think attributing properties can be problematic, too, as in "That is a good movie"
But maybe attributing to myself is OK. "I am feeling happy"

I have worked on minimising my use of the the verb 'to be' over the past few years and find it a really helpful discipline, with profound benefits. — andrewk

Yes. I think the book I wrote in mostly E-Prime is a better book than it would have been otherwise.
But sometimes E-Prime seems awkward. For instance, the last sentence could have been
Yes. I regard the book I wrote in mostly E-Prime as superior to what I might have written otherwise.

Open question: Does the E-Prime attitude better accord with quantum mechanics in that, under the Copenhagen Interpretation, QM tells us what we will see if we measure rather than what IS happening when we aren't measuring. (On the other hand, Bohmian Mechanics does tell us what is happening.)

you could say: force equals mass times acceleration.
Or are you objecting to this as well because it seems to confer godlike authority? — Fooloso4

Object is too strong a work. Certainly, the world will continue using "is" as it has in the past. But, yes, "force equals mass times acceleration" is a statement about objective reality when in actuality it is what we believed before Einstein.