Religion

[cantdog]

So we're left, then, with only the Jewel idea, or something like it, to allow validity to contrasting beliefs.

They're all the jewel, even though they aren't each other, quite.

That's a good one for me.


cantdog

 

[Guest]

Where's Gauche? I just like looking at his AV.

Perdita

 

[Joe Wordsworth]

Originally posted by sweetnpetite
Yes, thank you cant. I was going to point out basicly the same thing.

Even in the dictionary there are 3 seperate definitions of truth including these two:a transcendent fundamental or spiritual reality b : a judgment, proposition, or idea that is true or accepted as true which go along w/ the idea of spirtual truths as apposed to facts.

But, they all participate in the same notion... "fundamental, correct, real, etc. There are three seperate definitions, but they are in concert on the same thing. Where your "spiritual truth" had a problem is that even a "spiritual truth" is a "truth", bound then to the requirements of "truth"--namely, accuracy and reality.

For instance, a "spiritual truth" that said "the world is held up by a great big elephant" is false if there isn't a great big elephant holding the world up. Calling it a "spiritual X" doesn't change it being subject to "X" (truth).

For instance, one can find truth in a work of fiction, although the story itself may contain no facts and may not be in any way shape or form factually true. I would think that this sort of thing would be fairly obvious to anyone hanging out in an authors forum.

I think people can find meaning in fiction. I think they can find things they believe to be true in fiction. But if someone finds "a truth" about how "love conquers all", and it actually isn't the case that love conquers all... they haven't found a truth, just something they think is true.

Big difference.

 

[cantdog]

Precisely, SnP. As a myth, the Jewel works admirably. As a myth, the totally untrue story still carries conviction and may even lead to enlightenment about something, or even (if the story is really wicked good!) about everything!

Heh.


cantdog

 

[Guest]

I think people can find meaning in fiction.

Thank fuck!

Perdita

 

[Guest]

Heh.

What he said.

Perdita

 

[mismused]

If you are saying that 'thought' cannot be verified or shown to correspond to any measurable thing...."

The perhaps a recent Discovery Health Channel program where in specified electrical current in the brain was observed to peak when a 'new' idea was introduced in the mind, might interest you.

Secondly, although one cannot take a thought and fondle it, thus measure it in the real world....one must acknowledge that the mind works in the same manner for each human being.(normative), not autistic or otherwise impaired)

Since human perceptions all come about the same way, through near identical sensory input, the the correlation of the content of the mind, i.e. thoughts and ideas, Do have a direct connection to reality, thus can be equated to being real.


amicus...

=====================

Hello, ami cus, how are you? Good, I hope. May I differ with you for a moment? Just a bit though.

Your use, and that which you state was found, and shown in the Discovery Channel, of thought as verified, and measured.

Isn't it the effects, or the detection of the presence of the thought being processed in whatever manner thought is processed to us, filtered, or put into useable format by us what was measured?

IOW, it wasn't the thought itself that was measured, just that an activity's presence. Possibly correct?

If thought could be measured, how could we possibly account for each word having a "measurable pressence" that will identify that thought itself. Is there a chemical for each word? Are there innumberable chemicals for our use when a new word is learned, created?

Pehaps I misunderstood your intent here. Did you mean to infer that thought itself could be measured. Forgive me if I'm mistaken.

mismused

 

[sweetnpetite]

Re: Re: Religion

Essentially (the mixing of metaphors here is a bit rough), you're saying that they are Absolute in that they both exist and don't contradict each other.

No, I'm saying that I believe that religions are systems, and that different systems work for for different people. In otherwords, just because I believe that Christianity has some things right, doesn't mean that I literally believe that every word of it is literally true.

"I believe the earth is composed of multipe gods and goddesses" is a statement defining what reality has--take then, into consideration "I believe that Christians are right, too, in that there's one God only". One cannot truly have both beliefs, as it represents an impossibility. One can assert them, utter them, talk about them... but, essentially, belief is the acceptance of something as true--and when you accept a truth (even if its not correspondant), you exlude that assertions contraries.

Oh can't you? Surely you've heard of a little thing called Trinity, which defies all logic in aserting that god is three but at the same time god is one.

Many pagans likewise believe that the many goddess and gods are different facets of one god (or in some cases 2)

One CAN truly have both beliefs, weather it represents an imposibility or not. Just as one can believe that a bush can be on fire but not burn up, or that one can believe that the red sea parted to let the isrealites through, or that a virgin could give birth without the help of any human sperm, or that a man could walk on water or that the dead can come back to life.

All of those things represent impossility. And all these things are believed by millions of people who also believe in the properties of fire, gravity, birth and death as explained by scientific fact.

I believe in God, but I've never said "God exists"--as that would be asserting a truth that I can't assert reasonably.

That is the most illogical thing I've ever read!

How can you believe in God, if you don't believe that it is true? If you won't or can't say that God exists then you don't believe it. Believing means *believing* and if you think something is unreasonable or that it might not be true, you don't believe, you just 'think maybe.'

And since we are quoting from the dictionary, please logic your way out of this:

be·lieve: To accept as true or real.

 

[cantdog]

I admire mismused's notions here, too.

On our perceptions, in the early or mid nineties, even the Wall Street Journal ran a three day column on page one about how we're perceived to be able to perceive. In sum, we can't, at least not directly.

Yes, even touch and taste is not direct. What it is is a set of impulses so fast that we think it's really real time, but it is something that is almost instantaneously fed to portions of the mind which interpret it all, and make judgements. That's also true of seeing. We, the outer body, if I can use that loosely, must wait to know what it is we saw, or thought we saw, until whatever it is that we are tells us what it thinks we saw. (Mercy, did I say all that mumbo-jumbo?)

There's a sensation called deja vu, where what just happened is perceived to have been already known to have happened.

This is, I think, tied in with the delayed nature of our cognizance of the world.

There has to be a zone of time between the impinging of the world on the senses and the knowledge in the mind that this has happened. During this lull, the brain is doing its thing, making a sensible construct out of the stream of undifferentiated sense data. Kant referred to this in Pure Reason. The a priori elements-- time frame, spacial frame, causation-- all get integrated into the sensory flow to produce something we can acknowledge as an experience.

mismused also brings up the Buddhist meditation, the Zen state of "just sitting," the "non-thought" state. The idea, I have always taken it to mean, of dwelling in that lull before the world is rationalized. You'd have all the time there was for each sensory impression, and no thought could be involved, since you are not there yet, you're coasting the bow wave, living in the instant between perception and intellectual apprehension.

Deja vu would be a straying into that time, that instant. So that when the mind shows you what has happened, you remember the echo of it as it was before the mind processed it.

In The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test, there is a mention of another experimental drug Kesey described, called IT-something, IT-97 or IT-74 or some damn number. People taking it passed into a constant state of deja vu. "I knew you were going to say that!"

And if everyone uses identical a priori tools to process the world, then we have to use a myth to reconcile us all. Otherwise, Joe is right and most of us have hold of a bad apple.

In any case, I don't believe we can ever know which of us has the bad one and which don't. Otherwise it would have become obvious long before now, and no further speculation would be required on the matter. What we require most is not an indice of the truth or falsity of a belief over another, but a way to live together, allowing each other to hold separate views with no disputes over it.

For that, the good story or the Jewel myth or the Tower of Babel permutation will do fine.

 

[sweetnpetite]

Unfortunately I have been swayed, majestically, by Star Wars (but forget the minihedrons or whatever they are)

I really believe that there is a 'force' which emanates from all living things, that surrounds us and penetrates us. And is a part of being 'alive'.

(I'm pretty sure he must have stolen the idea from a 'proper' faith)

When it comes to logic and truth I tend to believe that it is all wordplay. Which isn't to say that religion is any different.

In this case I subscribe to Pratchett. Anything you can think of or believe is 'true'. (For any given value of 'truth'.)

The site that I frequent, when researching answers to logic (apart from Monty Python) is The Atheism Web.

It seems to me that, were it not for religion, then there would be no logic.

Gauche

 

[amicus]

hello mismused....

Not sure your question can be answered even by someone familiar with how the mechanical functions of the brain actually work.

It is, however, miniscule amounts of electrical energy traveling along certain paths in certain areas of the brain that have been observed using scientific method.

It is not that I believe in or have faith in that science, but that the lay expressions are such that I can follow and 'logically' accept the information as valid and without contradiction.

Now, going back to your post about whether a 'word' could be detected or just 'brain activity'...I think was your question.

Well..both I suspect. The 'new idea' was presented to the subject through both words and sight and sound, as I recall. A variety of different stimuli were presented drawing a normative response from the brain. When the 'new idea' was comprehended, the brain had a mini orgasm in a particular area and the electricity measured peaked.

So while that is not the identification of a word, as you asked, but rather, I think, the identification of a 'concept' or an abstraction within the mind.

Words only describe existents and the wider range of thought, words are not the actual thing...thus the mind deals in the abstract, through the senses and the means by which memory and comparison works in a normal mind.

At least, that is how I understand the process....


amicus...

 

[Joe Wordsworth]

Re: Re: Re: Religion

Originally posted by sweetnpetite
No, I'm saying that I believe that religions are systems, and that different systems work for for different people. In otherwords, just because I believe that Christianity has some things right, doesn't mean that I literally believe that every word of it is literally true.

My comment was in response to your IBM and MAC analogy. Because those systems aren't contradictory (you talked about using one or the other), of course one can use them without problem. They are both "Absolute", in that they don't represent a contradiction. The analogy is poor for religion because "One God" and "Many Gods" is a direct contradiction. If you want to use an IBM and Mac analogy more accurately... it'd probably be "I can use IBM, because that works for me, but to use Mac I'd have to not be using IBM at the time" (I can believe X, but if I want to believe Y, I have to stop believing X).

Oh can't you? Surely you've heard of a little thing called Trinity, which defies all logic in aserting that god is three but at the same time god is one.

Well, there are different takes on the Trinity. Most notable that "god is three but at the same time god is one" is not exactly accurate. The most reasonable would be "Divinity is three things, God being one"--but "more reasonable" doesn't mean "logically sound" by any means. I would say that "the Trinity" is, yes, an irrational belief.

Many pagans likewise believe that the many goddess and gods are different facets of one god (or in some cases 2)

Facets is an interesting (and safe) term. As such, saying "I believe there are many 'facets' of one god" and saying "I believe in one god" is not contradictory. That would be a logically valid belief. However "facets" doesn't mean "actually independant and seperate"... so saying "I believe in multiple gods" would still be in contradiction to "I believe in one god".

One CAN truly have both beliefs, weather it represents an imposibility or not. Just as one can believe that a bush can be on fire but not burn up, or that one can believe that the red sea parted to let the isrealites through, or that a virgin could give birth without the help of any human sperm, or that a man could walk on water or that the dead can come back to life.

Bushes on fire, parting seas, virgin births... these things aren't rationally impossible. Thus, having them as a belief doesn't represent a contradiction (unless you have the belief that "bushes can't be on fire, seas can't part, and virgins can't be pregnant", then its a contradiction). I deal with this every semester... it takes a freshman class an average of a month to understand that "impossible" is a lot stronger a term than "not being likely" or "hasn't ever happened". It means, quite honestly, "NEVER, under no concievable circumstance, not even under the most absurd explanation, is it possible". "The sun will rise tomorrow" is a possibility, not a necessity. "People are telepathic" is a possibility, not an impossibility.

All of those things represent impossility. And all these things are believed by millions of people who also believe in the properties of fire, gravity, birth and death as explained by scientific fact.

Those things represented "improbability", not impossibility. There is a huge, huge difference.

That is the most illogical thing I've ever read!

How can you believe in God, if you don't believe that it is true? If you won't or can't say that God exists then you don't believe it. Believing means *believing* and if you think something is unreasonable or that it might not be true, you don't believe, you just 'think maybe.'

And since we are quoting from the dictionary, please logic your way out of this:

be·lieve: To accept as true or real.

I believe in God. I believe it is true that God exists. But I will never assert (say, point out, extend forward as the premise to an argument) that "God exists". I accept is true and real, but that I cannot prove it means that I don't use it as the premise to any argument. That'd be irresponsibly intellectualism and poor philosophy.

 

[sweetnpetite]

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: It is frustrating -

Dicks are not logical.

They may have a mind of their OWN, but they are certainly not logical.

But if we are going to mention dicks on a religious thread, I should blushingly add that one of the few ways to get an "Oh God!" outta me happens when my husband uses his.

Ahem.

Rolling around with laughter.

Absolutely spot on, you naughty girl!

 

[Pure]

cant said: In a place within the head so disconnected from the verifiable that the ONLY access to it is the testimony of the person who lives in that head,

i don't think thoughts, for instance, are 'in the head'.

i think all the talk of 'inner/outer' and 'inside/outside' applied to terms such as we are discussing, 'thought,' 'love,' 'contempt', even 'awe' is purely metaphorical.

i may have no problem with a pain being in the leg, but I do with these things you say are 'in the head.'

the reason for avoiding the 'inner' or 'inside' talk is that it creates a world with no contact with the outer, except this alleged (inner) observer who looks "in" and reports to those 'out.' this is the cartesian world.

you create the gap, then try to bridge it, or discuss communicating across it.

I'll not 'go on', but a key thing is "language", which cannot be said to be 'inner'. Language is public. People learn these public terms, in proper application to their experiencing. BUT it's NOT like learning from mom, what a sparrow is; that's a process which presumes mom and I can find a sparrow we are both looking at (joint regard).

This whole wrong approach claims there is an 'inner birdcage' the 'inner observer' can look into, find one bird, and make sure the other is looking at it. ("Hey Mom, here's something, I guess it's a feeling, but I can't tell which one. " She; "What does it look like?").

In a nutshell the, language of thoughts and emotions is based on learning through an intricate process, where external behavior provide a clue, but never a 'look' or a 'feel.' In fact Mom makes the judgement without even seeing the 'tingle' or 'ache' or 'emptiness.' In the Zen tales, two persons seeking the same exalted position are asked to write a poem. From reading both, the current Master knows to whom to pass the robe (Hui Neng).

As have been pointed out, even with color, the learning process cannot guarantee--and does not depend on-- sameness of experiencing. In one sense I never know if how yellow looks to me, is how it looks to you. (The spectrum inversion thought experiment; one person who sees according to an inverted spectrum-- red looks blue, etc., -- learns from another who is normal. BUT both will agree, on seeing an apple "This apple is red.")

In one sense, then, thought, feelings, and even 'mystic apperceptions of the great Void' are not 'in' anything; they are perhaps neither out nor in, but in several critical senses they are 'out', they are parts of our living, of our lives, that is, social and public events.

 

[sweetnpetite]

Re: Re: Re: Re: Religion

My comment was in response to your IBM and MAC analogy. Because those systems aren't contradictory (you talked about using one or the other), of course one can use them without problem. They are both "Absolute", in that they don't represent a contradiction.

Haven't read your whole post, but I wanted to say this. They are controdictory in such a way that programs written for one will not work for the other. (unless they are specially formatted, ie translated)

Or to put it another way, you can't play a BETA tape in a VHS or vise virsa.

they are *systems* for watching the movie. you can watch the same movie on either system, but as far as compatibility goes they are not.

Religion to me is a system, not a truth. Therefore, all systems that play the movie (ie, "work") are equally valid, even if they contradict each other.

So while you are saying A says B so if C is the opposite of B, either A and B or C are false, I am saying that A is true (works) in this system while B is true in that system.

It is true, for instance that strawberries are a healthy food, they are good for you. But in the body of someone who is alergic, they are not healthy, they are harmful. So while it is still true that strawberries are healthy, it is also true that they are unhealthy. Eating strawberies works for me, but it may not work for you.

Relilgions can say that things are true, and they may be. But they stop short of the whole truth which may be that A=B except when it doesn't. They drop the part that says 'exept when it doesn't' giving a partial truth and making it seem that anything that doesn't is not false, when it may very well be.

In otherwords, it may seem that two beliefs (or facts or truths) are opposite, but that is only because we have a partial understanding of them AND WE EXCEPT OUR PARTIAL UNDERSTANDING AS COMPLETE.

Does this make sense yet?

 

[mismused]

hello mismused....

Not sure your question can be answered even by someone familiar with how the mechanical functions of the brain actually work.

It is, however, miniscule amounts of electrical energy traveling along certain paths in certain areas of the brain that have been observed using scientific method.

It is not that I believe in or have faith in that science, but that the lay expressions are such that I can follow and 'logically' accept the information as valid and without contradiction.

Now, going back to your post about whether a 'word' could be detected or just 'brain activity'...I think was your question.

Well..both I suspect. The 'new idea' was presented to the subject through both words and sight and sound, as I recall. A variety of different stimuli were presented drawing a normative response from the brain. When the 'new idea' was comprehended, the brain had a mini orgasm in a particular area and the electricity measured peaked.

So while that is not the identification of a word, as you asked, but rather, I think, the identification of a 'concept' or an abstraction within the mind.

Words only describe existents and the wider range of thought, words are not the actual thing...thus the mind deals in the abstract, through the senses and the means by which memory and comparison works in a normal mind.

At least, that is how I understand the process....


amicus...

=======================

Thank you, ami cus.

I believe I misunderstood you this time, and that you misunderstood me, but the goodness of you to reply was appreciated, especially since I am, as always,

mismused

 

[cantdog]

The only reason I went into the head is because the word subjective was being defined out from under me.

I talk to a person and I listen; I interpret. For me, over time, learned as a skill, this process has resulted in my learning things about other people which other processes have not been able to show me.

I talk to people constantly and listen and learn. I gain insight, I feel, into the human condition, the workings of the mind, the nature of gender, the dimensions of the instinctual, hundreds of things, and indications of many others, that I just don't get so easily in any other way.

Wisdom traditions all over the world proceed by talking to one another. They do not, classically, use polygraphs.

I would also rather talk to someone than be waiting for somebody with some machine in some lab to find a meter twitch and inform me about it.

Those guys lie, too, don't they?

I chose, initially, with reason, I thought, indeed with as much reason as I ordinarily have to choose a word, to use the word subjective to describe the sorts of things about the other people that I was learning, the kinds of things that were not otherwise perceptible.

Perceptible, christ on a fuckin skateboard... Oh sure, we can postulate a future science of body posture and so forth by which all that I learned by simply talking with a fellow could be apprehended. As Joe harps on, it is not impossible, and so I don't get to say that these things are "imperceptible."

But I do say that they are much, much easier to learn by talking to the guy than they'd be by hooking him up to a meter of some kind.

Some stuff, squirrel behavior, I learn objectively. Some stuff, how the sight of a baby's face affects a person, I learn subjectively.

That's what I want to talk about. I'd like it if people would quit fucking with it.

I know the fuck it ain't in my head. But I don't get to say it's subjective, either. He doesn't like inner, he doesn't go for internal, that fellow hates that I call it in the head, the other says I can't use the word subjective without being dangerous. Fuck then.

What do you like? The stuff I learn easiest in dialogue: can I call it dialogical? I hate that, it sounds Hegelian. But I find the alternative terms cut out from under me. I want to say I'm checking out the personal and the interpersonal, the self and the cultural, the "I" and the "we", art and culture. All that stuff, to me, is subjective, but fuck that. Gimme a fuckin word for it so I can talk, here.

 

[Pure]

Joe W said,

I believe it is true that God exists. But I will never assert (say, point out, extend forward as the premise to an argument) that "God exists". I accept is true and real, [but won't use it as a premise for an argument]".

This seems a pretty abstruse, even absurd position, based in too much hair splitting in philosophy courses.

You either take "God exists" as a belief statement or (additionally) as a knowledge statement.

Which is it.?

It seems like the former (my guess).

So then there is the question of degree of belief, or how strong you think the evidence is.

If one says "I strongly believe that there are penguins in antarctica", he'd be willing to assert 'There are penguins in Antarctica.' Even use it as a premise in an argument proving, e.g., that there is birdshit in Antarctica. "There are penguins there; they shit; so there is bird shit in Antarctica."

So i can only conclude we're dealing with a weak belief. For instance I have a weak belief, based on some news story, that a planet beyond Pluto was discovered in the last five years. But I'd never assert that or use it in an arguement.

{IF you say, there's knowledge, the situation is even more weird.
"I know X, but I won't assert it." "I know God exists." "Do you assert "God exists."?" "No."}

My diagnosis. You want a world of private, unchallengeable 'religious talk.' So you can say "I believe it is true God exists." But you want it to be unchallenged and unchallengeable. If some one says "God does not exist" you want the option of replying "I never asserted [or argued] he did."

What you do is disconnect God and belief in 'him' from all activities of living. Your statement of belief is like you're saying, "I believe I had a dream last night." And no one can or will argue with it.

More pointedly, since you do not assert "God exists" nor "God does not exist"-- you take a 'pass' on both. You are--rather than 'privately religious' (the first label I considered)-- essentially agnostic (leaving aside your idiosyncratic use of terms).

----

A larger quote, but not full posting from Joe;

I believe in God. I believe it is true that God exists. But I will never assert (say, point out, extend forward as the premise to an argument) that "God exists". I accept is true and real, but that I cannot prove it means that I don't use it as the premise to any argument. That'd be irresponsibly intellectualism and poor philosophy.

 

[Joe Wordsworth]

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Religion

Originally posted by sweetnpetite
Haven't read your whole post, but I wanted to say this. They are controdictory in such a way that programs written for one will not work for the other. (unless they are specially formatted, ie translated)

Or to put it another way, you can't play a BETA tape in a VHS or vise virsa.

they are *systems* for watching the movie. you can watch the same movie on either system, but as far as compatibility goes they are not.

Alright, we'll start from there, then.

Your "system" analogy isn't very correspondant, as its not taking into account the actual "movie"--we'll say. Your analogy, saying that both can play the same movie, is most like saying "religion can be contemplated by one belief or the other", but you still reinforce that you can't cross the compatibility.

Religion to me is a system, not a truth. Therefore, all systems that play the movie (ie, "work") are equally valid, even if they contradict each other.

Religion may be a system, but systems are still subject to truth if the religion makes any claims to how the universe actually is. Its like saying "we can't ever say that science is wrong, because its a system". Systems are not immune to truth-value, most especially if they make truth-claims. For instance "fags are unnatural and all go to hell" is a religious statement, let's say that "fags are unnatural and are all going to hell" is a religion. Just because its a "system", doesn't mean that it isn't subject to truth... I mean, if that were the case, any belief would be a "system" and none would ever be wrong--including ones like "I own all the money in the bank" and "you deserve to be shot by me".

So while you are saying A says B so if C is the opposite of B, either A and B or C are false, I am saying that A is true (works) in this system while B is true in that system.

We have terms for that in philosophy (and debate, logic, forensics, argument, speech, etc.). "Valid" says that things are cohesive--that the premises lead to the conclusion without fallacy. "Sound" says that things are valid AND true. It sounds like you're defending beliefs as "valid", which may or may not be true (a belief that X is true, and your belief of Not-X is also true isn't cohesive at all, and it /is/ fallacious).

It is true, for instance that strawberries are a healthy food, they are good for you. But in the body of someone who is alergic, they are not healthy, they are harmful. So while it is still true that strawberries are healthy, it is also true that they are unhealthy. Eating strawberies works for me, but it may not work for you.

"Strawberries are a healthy food" is not actually true. Its a statement that can be accurate with the predicate "for people that aren't allergic". Kind of like saying "Cars are good"--which isn't actually true by itself, the statment needs something more to be true, like "for moving faster than you could under your own power".

See, "strawberries are a healthy food" isn't fundamentally accurate, real, correct, etc. Check the definition of truth. You need more than just "are a healthy food" to make it true.

Relilgions can say that things are true, and they may be. But they stop short of the whole truth which may be that A=B except when it doesn't. They drop the part that says 'exept when it doesn't' giving a partial truth and making it seem that anything that doesn't is not false, when it may very well be.

?

Religions /can/ say true things, yes. I agree there (because it is logically possible). I don't understand the "stop short" part. They don't necessarily stop short. Some might, I wouldn't know. I'd have to have direct understanding of spiritual actuality to know if they have or haven't told the whole story. I don't have that.

In otherwords, it may seem that two beliefs (or facts or truths) are opposite, but that is only because we have a partial understanding of them AND WE EXCEPT OUR PARTIAL UNDERSTANDING AS COMPLETE.

Does this make sense yet?

A partial truth may not be a truth at all... for instance "The US shot only 4,000 people in all the Gulf War" (let's assume that to be true, for a sec). If I make that a partial statement of "The US shot only 4,000 people in all war"... that's not a "partial truth". That statement is actually false, by itself.

"Partial truths" aren't necessarily "Truths" at all.

Now, if you have two contradictory statements like "I believe all homosexuals are going to Heaven" (given standard definitions of Heaven and homosexuals and all that) AND "I believe all homosexuals are going to Hell" (again, given standard definitions). One can no sooner believe both of those at the same time than one can concieve of a round square.

 

[Joe Wordsworth]

Originally posted by cantdog
I know the fuck it ain't in my head. But I don't get to say it's subjective, either. He doesn't like inner, he doesn't go for internal, that fellow hates that I call it in the head, the other says I can't use the word subjective without being dangerous. Fuck then.

What do you like? The stuff I learn easiest in dialogue: can I call it dialogical? I hate that, it sounds Hegelian. But I find the alternative terms cut out from under me. I want to say I'm checking out the personal and the interpersonal, the self and the cultural, the "I" and the "we", art and culture. All that stuff, to me, is subjective, but fuck that. Gimme a fuckin word for it so I can talk, here.

I'm still waiting on that "logic is based on empirical" justification. It would go a looooong way to me understanding what you've been talking about.

 

[sweetnpetite]

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Religion

Haven't read your whole post, but I wanted to say this. They are controdictory in such a way that programs written for one will not work for the other. (unless they are specially formatted, ie translated)

Or to put it another way, you can't play a BETA tape in a VHS or vise virsa.

they are *systems* for watching the movie. you can watch the same movie on either system, but as far as compatibility goes they are not.

Religion to me is a system, not a truth. Therefore, all systems that play the movie (ie, "work") are equally valid, even if they contradict each other.

So while you are saying A says B so if C is the opposite of B, either A and B or C are false, I am saying that A is true (works) in this system while B is true in that system.

It is true, for instance that strawberries are a healthy food, they are good for you. But in the body of someone who is alergic, they are not healthy, they are harmful. So while it is still true that strawberries are healthy, it is also true that they are unhealthy. Eating strawberies works for me, but it may not work for you.

Relilgions can say that things are true, and they may be. But they stop short of the whole truth which may be that A=B except when it doesn't. They drop the part that says 'exept when it doesn't' giving a partial truth and making it seem that anything that doesn't is not false, when it may very well be.

In otherwords, it may seem that two beliefs (or facts or truths) are opposite, but that is only because we have a partial understanding of them AND WE EXCEPT OUR PARTIAL UNDERSTANDING AS COMPLETE.

Does this make sense yet?

Edited to add: the original point was that religons are systems (like a VCR is a system) that can help us to see truth (like the images on your screen) except that they are more complicated than a VCR-- you have to understand them to some degree in order to use them and the better you understand them, the better you can use them. (hmm, maybe I should have said religion is a system, like the system one has for cooking). If they get you the desired results they work, or are true.

there is more than one recipe for making a chocolate cake or a loaf of bread. the fact that one recepe works does not mean that another is a false recepe. (if A is true, then not A is not true, as you say.) So it is NOT true that if my recepe makes plain chocolate cake, and your recepe is different from mine (not mine) that it will not make chocolate cake, or that it is a false recepe.

 

[Joe Wordsworth]

Originally posted by Pure
My diagnosis. You want a world of private, unchallengeable 'religious talk.' So you can say "I believe it is true God exists." But you want it to be unchallenged and unchallengeable. If some one says "God does not exist" you want the option of replying "I never asserted [or argued] he did."

What you do is disconnect God and belief in 'him' from all activities of living. Your statement of belief is like you're saying, "I believe I had a dream last night." And no one can or will argue with it.

More pointedly, since you do not assert "God exists" nor "God does not exist"-- you take a 'pass' on both. You are--rather than 'privately religious' (the first label I considered)-- essentially agnostic (leaving aside your idiosyncratic use of terms).

----

A larger quote, but not full posting from Joe;

I believe in God. I believe it is true that God exists. But I will never assert (say, point out, extend forward as the premise to an argument) that "God exists". I accept is true and real, but that I cannot prove it means that I don't use it as the premise to any argument. That'd be irresponsibly intellectualism and poor philosophy.

That would be somewhat inaccurate.

I believe in God. But I would not use "God exists" as a premise to an argument (assert) because I cannot prove it--to use it would be bad reasoning (premising an argument on an unprovable).

Has nothing to do with wanting a private anything. I think you're just reading way too much into it. I don't want a world of anythign where I can say this or that. Not really sure where you're getting all that from.

Believing in God and not using that as a premise to an argument isn't "being agnostic". Have zero idea where that's coming from either.

 

[Joe Wordsworth]

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Religion

Originally posted by sweetnpetite
Edited to add: the original point was that religons are systems (like a VCR is a system) that can help us to see truth (like the images on your screen) except that they are more complicated than a VCR-- you have to understand them to some degree in order to use them and the better you understand them, the better you can use them. (hmm, maybe I should have said religion is a system, like the system one has for cooking). If they get you the desired results they work, or are true.

there is more than one recipe for making a chocolate cake or a loaf of bread. the fact that one recepe works does not mean that another is a false recepe. (if A is true, then not A is not true, as you say.) So it is NOT true that if my recepe makes plain chocolate cake, and your recepe is different from mine (not mine) that it will not make chocolate cake, or that it is a false recepe.

But, if one recipe is for non-fat chocolate cake and the other is for regular fatty-good chocolate cake... they are a contradiction (much the same way "I don't believe in God" and "I believe in God" are contradictary; or "I believe in one God" and "I believe in a hundred Gods" is contradictory).

And if the goal is to make regular chocolate cake (we'll call that "Truth"), then one is a false recipe.

 

[Pure]

cant in part

I talk to people constantly and listen and learn. I gain insight, I feel, into the human condition, the workings of the mind, the nature of gender, the dimensions of the instinctual, hundreds of things, and indications of many others, that I just don't get so easily in any other way.

Wisdom traditions all over the world proceed by talking to one another. They do not, classically, use polygraphs.

I would also rather talk to someone than be waiting for somebody with some machine in some lab to find a meter twitch and inform me about it.

Those guys lie, too, don't they?

I chose, initially, with reason, I thought, indeed with as much reason as I ordinarily have to choose a word, to use the word subjective to describe the sorts of things about the other people that I was learning, the kinds of things that were not otherwise perceptible. [...]


What do you like? The stuff I learn easiest in dialogue: can I call it dialogical? I hate that, it sounds Hegelian. But I find the alternative terms cut out from under me. I want to say I'm checking out the personal and the interpersonal, the self and the cultural, the "I" and the "we", art and culture. All that stuff, to me, is subjective, but fuck that. Gimme a fuckin word for it so I can talk, here.

Let's not get too cranky. Apart from scientific truths, people dialogue, trialogue and discuss hundreds of issues. I called the stuff of such talk, statements of experience. "Experiential truths" (where they are true.) {Alternatively, "pragmatic truths" , truths about the 'lebenswelt', or even 'everyday or commonsense truths.' In any case, truths that do not deal with scientifically relevant properties of objects [forces, etc.] in the material world.}

I also agree there are process where two or three or more inquire into something, a process that occurred for instance in a Piagetian study and research group to which I belonged.

Becuase we are language users, and in a 'language' community, certain discussions are possible. "I'm so pissed off at Sally, I don't know if I love her any more." "I bet you do; else why buy her a cake today, on her birthday?" "I did it to keep the peace, till I talk to my lawyer." "Oh. Maybe you don't love her any more."

Mystics like Merton were essentially in 'dialogue' with readers. {As much as, say G. Fox, in his Journal} To the extent that his talk refers to experience (in a language we share), it can be digested and argued about by others. Had he been unwilling to assert anything in the religious domain--a la Joe W-- there would be nothing to discuss, and disagreement or agreement would be idle.

 

[Joe Wordsworth]

Originally posted by Pure
Had he been unwilling to assert anything in the religious domain--a la Joe W-- there would be nothing to discuss, and disagreement or agreement would be idle.

Not actually true. I assert quite a lot, but that I don't use my belief in God existing as a premise for religious argument is just intellectually responsible.