Religion

[cantdog]

Pure

Varieties of Religious Experience was for me a sort of catalogue. It was Merton who described a particular mystical expience so that I could identify it. Sufi writers and some of the South Asian stuff (Sri Isopanishad) also helped me make sense of what I'd experienced, and an obscure little book called Fire In the Head which was primarily about shamanistic stuff.

It seems that most mystics are fairly "empirical" in that they describe the experiences directly, for the most part, and only in the interpretation do they begin to apply the structure of their religions to the phenomena of their experiences.

I'm not satisfied with the interpretations (of course) but they didn't ask me, and I believe them to have been sincere. Such things happen to people; it's up to the people to make sense of them and ask what happens next.

I do not, however, disparage them for not having a statistically significant sampling of mystical experiences, or otherwise expect them to adhere to scientific norms. In my view, testimony from those who know is completely valid, in this kind of study, if truthful.

cantdog

 

[Joe Wordsworth]

Originally posted by Pure
I believe cant, besides the above, wants statements about experience, i.e, its quality, to be the other realm. A realm where 'truth' also applies, though not because of measurability.
I'm not sure what to label them, but perhaps 'experiential truths' or 'phenomenological truths' would do. I don't really like 'inner truths.'

See, that's where I've had a problem from the get-go. Statements like "the wavelength of this light is X" and "John's thoughts about his mother were laden with anxiety" are both objective. That its in John's head or experience, personally, doesn't automatically make it subjective--as his thoughts either are or aren't laden with anxiety. If they are, that is true; if not, then its false.

Objectivity isn't, and has never been, synonymous with "strictly external" nor "measurable"--only "independant of the mind" (which is to say, independant of perceptive preference). The statement "I feel sad" is either true or not true, despite being internal.

Where I disagree with a number of others, however, is that I think these kinds of statements can be objectively true.
It does make sense sometimes to say "John is simply wrong about how he thinks he feels toward Jane." or "John is lying about what he feels toward Jane" or "John is lying to himself in denying feeling any anxiety over thoughts about his mother."

That is very, very accurate.

As to God, Wm James spent a lot of energy on this, in _Varieties of Religious Experience_. Certainly there are commonalities of 'God experience'. Where he had to draw the line as an empirical psychologist was in making a claim of a scientific sort (or in the 'outer realm' as it were) that "God was communicating with St. Hildegaard." of "St. Hildegaard heard God, i.e., the words God spoke to her."

I love that book, it hold a special place on my shelf with "The Sacred and the Profane".

I believe the 'truths of logic' are fairly irrelevant to the present discussion, since I believe they don't 'refer'-- point to anything.
"A is A" "B implies that A implies B" or "2+2=4 [derived from truths of logic and set theory]. They have the quality I call 'analytic truth' different from either type above; the term meaning 'true by definition.'

See... irrelevant is a hard thing to nail down, because you're actually employing it. If it were irrelevant, your points would be--also--irrelevant. The rationality and associations between your points (logic) makes Reason perfectly relavent in this discussion. As we are talking about analytic things (truth, objectivity, subjectivity, God as a concept, etc.), the best language we have for the relationships between our ideas is logic.

Everyone has been participating in it, so far.

I don't agree with the *terminology of this passage, but with its import. I don't believe "nothing we tell each other will be true in the sense that it is measurable, provable, reproducible." I think the last sentence is just a play on words. It's obvious that if I make a statment _truthfully_ or that has 'truthfulness', then that statement is 'true'. I think cant concedes too much in--apparently-- letting 'true' only apply to scientific statements. Nonetheless, cant's distinction is important.

I think its important to note that certainty on inner-experience is hard to have (I don't know that its impossible, though, to be honest), but to say that when I tell you "I was thinking about horses" is a thing that cannot be objective is just going to far.

Because I was thinking about horses.

 

[Lucifer_Carroll]

Because I was thinking about horses.

I think we should all think more about horses.

Honestly, how many times have we had the same debate about religion on this forum?

Also what's up with the one person on the forum with a name taken directly from a current religion running far away on any debate on the subject? (Besides the obvious one I'd use that any debate here touches on very touchy ground and threatens the very principles by which people live and is based on something unprovable by the bounds of logic)

-

P.S. Joe, logic fails for religion. Don't question it, it's just one of those things. They don't coexist well and most blendings prove very...either flawed or odd. Have a long look at Descartes's famous essay if you don't believe me. Sorry man. I'm by no means advocating that the two can't live side by side or even be followed by the same person. Just that you can't use one to prove the other and vice versa.

 

[Joe Wordsworth]

Originally posted by Lucifer_Carroll
P.S. Joe, logic fails for religion. Don't question it, it's just one of those things. They don't coexist well and most blendings prove very...either flawed or odd. Have a long look at Descartes's famous essay if you don't believe me. Sorry man. I'm by no means advocating that the two can't live side by side or even be followed by the same person. Just that you can't use one to prove the other and vice versa.

Based on Philosophy of Religion being my secondary field (primary is Ethics), and a few thousands years of tradition...

...I think I'd say that logic doesn't actually fail for religion. It is entirely possible to discuss religion through reason, and most philosophers of religion will agree.

I mean, you may be right... but the two aren't exclusive by any means.

 

[Lucifer_Carroll]

Based on Philosophy of Religion being my secondary field (primary is Ethics), and a few thousands years of tradition...

...I think I'd say that logic doesn't actually fail for religion. It is entirely possible to discuss religion through reason, and most philosophers of religion will agree.

I mean, you may be right... but the two aren't exclusive by any means.

*shrug* It hasn't been the case for what I've seen, but maybe I've just seen a different side of the blend. In my experiences when someone mixes, they either expose a logical flaw or utilize a logical flaw and great big rows begin to erupt.


But as I said, I'm sort of passing through the argument, not really participating. Ciao and enjoy Luxury Land you lucky little lad you.

 

[cantdog]

But you have to make me believe you were thinking about horses. I have to sense truthfulness to do that. All very iffy. A real horse, now there you have something provable.

Because anxiety (in John's case) or horses (in yours) make no mark on the external world (so far! EEG studies do seem to show only the broadest distinctions) there has to be a reliance on dialogical, interpretive methods.

Anxiety, actually, may be measurable.

Oh well.

Myth and mysticism, psychology (beyond the behavior study) and love, quality in nearly all contexts... subjective methods seem to work best for these things. What is needed is a general acceptance that the methods are valid. Science is king, right now. A person can besmirch workers in these fields for their lack of rigor and utterly discredit them. It's silly.

cantdog

 

[Joe Wordsworth]

Originally posted by cantdog
But you have to make me believe you were thinking about horses. I have to sense truthfulness to do that. All very iffy. A real horse, now there you have something provable.

Because anxiety (in John's case) or horses (in yours) make no mark on the external world (so far! EEG studies do seem to show only the broadest distinctions) there has to be a reliance on dialogical, interpretive methods.

Anxiety, actually, may be measurable.

Oh well.

Myth and mysticism, psychology (beyond the behavior study) and love, quality in nearly all contexts... subjective methods seem to work best for these things. What is needed is a general acceptance that the methods are valid. Science is king, right now. A person can besmirch workers in these fields for their lack of rigor and utterly discredit them. It's silly.

cantdog

The listener doesn't have to sense truthfulness at all for the statements to be true. Again, "measurable" and "objective" aren't synonymous. If I actuall am thinking of horses, then it is an objective truth that I am thinking of horses.

You seem to be talking about verifiability, which is important--surely. You seem to be saying that if it isn't verifiable, then its subjective... but "verifiability" is not, and never has been, a prerequisite of "objective". Nor has its lack been a prerequisite of "subjective".

 

[cantdog]

Fine, then. I like to use those words, I suppose. But suggest a pair to use that would satisfy my requirements. I need to keep people from discrediting a perfectly usable set of tools, applicable to _____, what ever the word we pick is.

Because I heard Piaget was discredited because (a) his interviews were just that, and consequently his evidence was anecdotal, and (b) he didn't do it for six hundred years, so he didn't have a statistically significant sample.

Well, yeah! But how can you arrive at a significant sample alone? You have to publish, you have to interpret to the best of your ability, and others need to carry on the work. Anecdotes are all there is in truly ____________ studies.

Sure, Piaget could have been wrong, he doubtless expected to be wrong to some degree. But not for those reasons. Those are monologue reasons for distrusting dialogue methods.

cantdog

 

[Joe Wordsworth]

Originally posted by cantdog
Fine, then. I like to use those words, I suppose. But suggest a pair to use that would satisfy my requirements. I need to keep people from discrediting a perfectly usable set of tools, applicable to _____, what ever the word we pick is.

Because I heard Piaget was discredited because (a) his interviews were just that, and consequently his evidence was anecdotal, and (b) he didn't do it for six hundred years, so he didn't have a statistically significant sample.

Well, yeah! But how can you arrive at a significant sample alone? You have to publish, you have to interpret to the best of your ability, and others need to carry on the work. Anecdotes are all there is in truly ____________ studies.

Sure, Piaget could have been wrong, he doubtless expected to be wrong to some degree. But not for those reasons. Those are monologue reasons for distrusting dialogue methods.

cantdog

(I'm actually horribly ill today, so forgive me if its just my lack of concentration talking)

Huh?

 

[cantdog]

phut

 

[cantdog]

Okay. My error.

1. I figured you had an objection to my terms, subjective and objective.

2. I figured your objections made sense enough.

3. I also figured, from your discussion of the thinking of horses, that you understood my distinction between my "subjective" and my "objective" well enough to know that I was misusing the words.

What part of that is not the case?

Because I am asking you to come up with an alternative to those two words which will satisfy your definitions and still serve my purposes.

If we aren't at that point yet, tell me what link is missing.

cantdog

 

[Joe Wordsworth]

Originally posted by cantdog
Okay. My error.

1. I figured you had an objection to my terms, subjective and objective.

2. I figured your objections made sense enough.

3. I also figured, from your discussion of the thinking of horses, that you understood my distinction between my "subjective" and my "objective" well enough to know that I was misusing the words.

What part of that is not the case?

Because I am asking you to come up with an alternative to those two words which will satisfy your definitions and still serve my purposes.

If we aren't at that point yet, tell me what link is missing.

cantdog

(again, really really sick today, so forgive me if I'm off-base)

Easiest way to start is for you to state what you mean by "objective" and "subjective" (how you've used the terms). We'll set aside, for now, what the terms actually mean in favor of getting a clear sense of what you're talking about when you've used the terms. From there, I'm sure we can find a more comfortable marriage between what you mean and what words are most applicable.

(see, and who says nothing can ever come of debates like this... we're about to cross a huge threshold of understanding that we wouldn't have gotten to had it not been for the back and forth)

 

[Lucifer_Carroll]

(again, really really sick today, so forgive me if I'm off-base)

Easiest way to start is for you to state what you mean by "objective" and "subjective" (how you've used the terms). We'll set aside, for now, what the terms actually mean in favor of getting a clear sense of what you're talking about when you've used the terms. From there, I'm sure we can find a more comfortable marriage between what you mean and what words are most applicable.

(see, and who says nothing can ever come of debates like this... we're about to cross a huge threshold of understanding that we wouldn't have gotten to had it not been for the back and forth)

Or you could have used common sense and basic comprehension skills in order to move right past this argument over the meaning of words and straight into the much more violent argument over the "truth" of religion and the application of logic to that end.

Suddenly your crafty strategy becomes clear Wordsworth-san.

P.S. Honestly you two, your discussion is eerily reminiscent of Bill Clinton during the Lewinsky trial. ("It depends on what your meaning of the word "is" is")

 

[cantdog]

Yeah, screw it. I know and use the language every bit as well as the next motherfucker. I don't need to start off explaining a definition for every term in the lexicon. If fifteen posts using, consistently, the words subjective and objective in complete sentences is enough to elicit a complaint that I've misused the words, then it's enough to explain what I mean by them. You like "internal" for subjective? Fine. Go through the posts and substitute it.

Do not take up subjective studies. Do not attempt, by talking to people, to understand their subjective experiences or their interpersonal ones. No one will be able to define their every word, dude, and they'll hit you if you stay in the room.

Christ's pimply ass.

cantdog

 

[Joe Wordsworth]

Originally posted by cantdog
Yeah, screw it. I know and use the language every bit as well as the next motherfucker. I don't need to start off explaining a definition for every term in the lexicon. If fifteen posts using, consistently, the words subjective and objective in complete sentences is enough to elicit a complaint that I've misused the words, then it's enough to explain what I mean by them. You like "internal" for subjective? Fine. Go through the posts and substitute it.

Do not take up subjective studies. Do not attempt, by talking to people, to understand their subjective experiences or their interpersonal ones. No one will be able to define their every word, dude, and they'll hit you if you stay in the room.

Christ's pimply ass.

cantdog

?

I must have entirely missed something.

Really, when it comes down to it, misuses of terms is a potentially dangerous thing... and cross-opinions and misunderstandings generate from just those sorts of things. It isn't a worthless battle of semantics, its when people use the wrong terms for things--then base erroneous conclusions on them--that hazard is found.

Its a bit like if I say "religion is personal experience" and "subjective is personal experience", then conclude "religion is subjective"... um... no. That's actually using both "religion" and "subjective" inaccurately. But should someone come along, they might not realize that the conclusion is invalid... they could walk away believing something entirely false.

Dangerous.

Its like preaching the propogation of ignorance.

 

[cantdog]

Too bad. Because nobody is going to use the words you like. Most of the world isn't even using English, for example. And people use different vocabularies in different disciplines, and because of their regional speech, and because they feel like it, and for any number of reasons.

Whenever you listen to someone, you end up having to interpret them. This requires an elasticity of mind.

And empathy.

But no one will bother to do it if they truly do not give a shit about understanding anyone.

 

[Joe Wordsworth]

Originally posted by cantdog
Too bad. Because nobody is going to use the words you like. Most of the world isn't even using English, for example. And people use different vocabularies in different disciplines, and because of their regional speech, and because they feel like it, and for any number of reasons.

Whenever you listen to someone, you end up having to interpret them. This requires an elasticity of mind.

And empathy.

But no one will bother to do it if they truly do not give a shit about understanding anyone.

Maybe, maybe not. It is entirely possible that at least some people are going to use the words preferred... why wouldn't it be? I mean "nobody is going to"? Are you serious? At least /some/ must have, otherwise we would have no idea what /anyone/ was ever saying.

Conceptual clarity is a very noble (and quite generally agreed upon) goal. To call the refining of concepts a lack of mental elasticity is a bit of a cop out, I should think. Rather, efforts to clarify language and meaning require an intensely elastic mind--so many thing to consider, instead of just lumping X, Y, Z, and everything else into one term (especially when it generates contradictions). Empathy,, too... I should think it the highest form of compassion to correct and seek the most correct explanation of ideas so people can prosper from proper knowledge and understanding--instead of riding insensibility.

 

[cantdog]

Possibly. But fuck it. I will continue to insist that you do some of the work. It's like lifting a Hummer with a fuckin spoon. Sending out an endless stream of requests for definitions isn't the highest form of any thing.

 

[Joe Wordsworth]

Originally posted by cantdog
Possibly. But fuck it. I will continue to insist that you do some of the work. It's like lifting a Hummer with a fuckin spoon. Sending out an endless stream of requests for definitions isn't the highest form of any thing.

If its all for the purpose of a better understanding of something... it may well be the highest form of respect for communication. I don't ask you to clarify because I want you to "do all the work", I ask because half your posts are really, really, really hard for me to understand.

Clarification is sort of necessary, on my end. If you just don't /feel/ like it, I can't really do anything about that. I have no idea what the Piaget post was supposed to mean, really. Kind of came out of nowhere.

 

[cantdog]

C'est la vie. I'm not at my best this evening. I apologize for my shortness.

It'll have to be later for all this.


c

 

[Pure]

Hi cant,
I think we are somewhat in the same ballpark, though I don't use 'subjective' in the phrase 'subjective' truth. Nor do I like "inner truth.' "Inner" is a metaphor, only. As I said, there are statements about quality of experience.

Some are 'objectively' true, meaning that someone other than the (original) speaker--John, in this example-- can question or dispute them, or provide support for them (As in "I think John really does love Amanda, but sometimes his jealousy leads him to violence against her.")

It seems that Joe W is actually in agreement, more or less, up to this point.

WITHIN some 'religious' (not their word) traditions, some of this applies, in that (for example) one's Zen teachers seem to know if you're talking from a minor realization or the 'big one' -- which would make you a highest level teacher. This may well have been true, in Judaism in the period of the 'prophets' (700-200 BCE)--the ones with books of the Tanakh named after them.

WITHIN Christianity of the last fifteen hundred years or so, I don't think this applies (outside possibly a few monastic orders). Why, because, for instance, the Inquisitors said that they heard God's message and were accepted as such; only AFTER the fact, and by *decree* as it were (the authorities saying: This was NOT from God), was this decided not to be the case. Hence there is no possible discrimination of true and false statements in cases such as "I communicated with God and heard a message from Him." These are in the same category as the gambler who says, "Lady Luck was with me last night, and I won big."

The reason for my choice of words, cant, is to avoid the pointless merry go round of Joe Wordworthian questioning.

 

[Joe Wordsworth]

Originally posted by Pure
the pointless merry go round of Joe Wordworthian questioning.

Never pointless... always has a point.

 

[amicus]

sweetnpetite....had to go back and see who started the thread and what the original content was...

Cantdog....not that you need or will appreciate a pat on the back, but thanks for some most excellent thoughts on the subject and for your seemingly endless patience....

Some where a page and half back or so....you expressed a point of view concerning the existence of measurable reality and the existence of the unmeasureable subjective experiences one has.

Well done!

It could be left there and perhaps should be....but...to cast all subjective truths into the same bin troubles me just a tad.

Perhaps one should qualify that most human beings past and present, never question their faith, beliefs, subjective truths, et cetera, they just accept them, abide by them, live by them and share in what ever community or association they may have been born into.

But for those few in every generation who do question and seek to understand, we owe them, I think, our best effort.

Love...for one thing....what is it?

Subjective for sure...or is it?

Is it universal to the species?

You hinted, I think, at progress in the behavioral sciences that does give us a means to quantify (measure) some of these emotions common to the species.

Should we just accept that this feeling, 'love', is totally subjective, that there is no common denominator by which it might be measured, classified, categorized, and understood?

Or should we pursue an understanding.

I am going to leave you with the questions only here, to see if the thought is pursued.

I would also add 'faith' as one of those emotions that perhaps we ought to study on a rational, objective basis. But from the acknowledgement that since the beginning of time, mankind has sought to know from whence he came.

Again, Preacher or Teacher, I am not nor claim to be, but as we have dissected the physical body to learn of its nature, should be not also apply that same curiosity to the workings of the mind and the emotions?

I hope that by including faith or 'Religion' as sweetnpetite initiated, that this will not be seen as corrupting the thread.

amicus

 

[Pure]

amicus,
thanks for reminding us of sweetnpetite; on re reading the first posting, it seems quite well stated. as usually the case, she raises good points. indeed, she has an almost unparalleled record of starting threads with excellent position statements or articles; either of which raise fine issues for debate.

let me mention some of her present points, as far as I understand them, and speaking only for myself.

she was also clear that the 'truths of logic/mathematics' are not the key issue here, nor is 'proof' in that sense (final conclusive, deductive).

i find too, that her account of religious statements is, in some ways what I proposed (leaving aside the issues of 'empirical mysticism' cant has posed). they are at least partly metaphorical, as in my example where I compared a statement about God to a statement about "Lady Luck."

i don't find she has a category for truths of experience that can be undermined or supported. "Sally has contempt for John."
these truths--where they are such-- have a kind of objectivity to them.

instead she has a category of what might be called, subjective, perhaps self validating, and uncorroborable claims. "I saw some fairies last night, outside my window." these she wants to allow, in one sense ---anyone can make them and not be questioned-- but in the sense required for 'objectivity', she agrees with my own position; they lack it.

 

[cantdog]

interpretation

There's been a curse on this thread this morning, for me. This is the fourth time I began a response. Each time until now the board informed me I had a PM waiting. They've been excellent PMs! Love abounds. I am happy to have been pulled away from the replies here for their sake.

But to business. My hint to the universe that I would as soon have more PMs of that variety seems to have been shrugged off, so off we go.



interpreting

When someone communicates a report from the space I continue to call the self, the subjective space, the interior space where all is unmeasured and perhaps far from limitless just the same, the person receiving that report has to interpret it. Unless he hears something like, "I'm sick," and can see the cold sweat or the hangdog pallor, or "I'm scared," and can see that the kid just wants to be up out of bed a little longer, or something independently verifiable like that, I think it is interpretation, as a skill in the listener, which makes the moment useful or not.

You'll get better at it as you do it. Body language, expression, emphasis, and your own history with the person all inform.

Congruence with similar reports helps you believe it. I read Merton and al-Arabi (in translation) and they both referred to "time becoming irrelevant" in a mystical experience. James says the same. When I described my own experience the listener said I'd helped her to understand what those people meant. I had had one experience which I had little reason to imagine was not simply a schizophrenic episode, and yet I'd helped someone understand the writings of mystics! Blew me away a little.

What I said was just an attempt to describe how long it had lasted. I began confidently, and then realized I had absolutely no idea how long it might have been, except that it didn't seem to have been long enough to cause the sun to have shifted position in the sky. I sheepishly admitted I couldn't complete the thought because I really had no clue whether the thing was long or short. But that, she said, was undoubtedly the same as the remarks about irrelevance the sources she'd read had made.

That was the biggest clincher, but for her, everything I told her was congruent with the other reports and with her own experience. To make that judgement, she had to discount a lot. The interpretation placed on the experience by Merton, for example, has a good deal to do with a Christian God; al-Arabi had a different notion of the thing, but these are cultural traditions, and condition the context of the report and the terms chosen to describe it. Her decision that I had had a mystical experience was thus a sophisticated exercise in analysis.

Plus she had to decide I was sincere.

My report, as an atheist, had a different flavor altogether. Mystics are seldom atheists. But she made the connection, she was firm on it, and it was immensely reassuring and intriguing.

Some are 'objectively' true, meaning that someone other than the (original) speaker--John, in this example-- can question or dispute them, or provide support for them (As in "I think John really does love Amanda, but sometimes his jealousy leads him to violence against her.")

It seems that Joe W is actually in agreement, more or less, up to this point.

WITHIN some 'religious' (not their word) traditions, some of this applies, in that (for example) one's Zen teachers seem to know if you're talking from a minor realization or the 'big one' -- which would make you a highest level teacher. This may well have been true, in Judaism in the period of the 'prophets' (700-200 BCE)--the ones with books of the Tanakh named after them.

WITHIN Christianity of the last fifteen hundred years or so, I don't think this applies (outside possibly a few monastic orders). Why, because, for instance, the Inquisitors said that they heard God's message and were accepted as such; only AFTER the fact, and by *decree* as it were (the authorities saying: This was NOT from God), was this decided not to be the case. Hence there is no possible discrimination of true and false statements in cases such as "I communicated with God and heard a message from Him." These are in the same category as the gambler who says, "Lady Luck was with me last night, and I won big."

The description of interpreting, as a process, which I just used is itself "subjective" as well as "intersubjective" since it's concerned with the more-or-less social process of the dialogue itself. It, too, is unverifiable in any objective, concrete way.

But it rings true to you, I daresay. The ability to work beyond someone's choice of words and the unique context of their mind to hear that ring of truth (definition 3 in the m-w cited by Joe) is the skill of interpreting.

That's why I say it needs elasticity of mind, but I also say it is fallible. Freud was frequently off the track a bit. (I like Jung better.) Piaget, as I said, doubtless expected to be wrong in some way. The process is too intersubjective to be infallible.

As a method of deriving the true will of a God, it leaves much to be desired. It's sometimes a source of much wasted effort and false conviction. There are times when it just rings true, and it rings true for everyone. This is when we are in a place where the common threads of human brains and human experience are strongest. Consequently, the seemingly certain interpretations tend to teach us the least.

cantdog