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Posted by: The Vines ® 03/31/2002, 16:29:28 Author Profile Mail author |
This topic has come up lately in various forms and I read an article on CS that I thought would be of some interest to some. Plus I am interested in knowing if anyone has read Newberg's book "Why God Wont Go Away..." to see if it would be worth the investment.
I would appreciate discussing this topic with believers and non. Of course to some deconstructing spirituality could be threatening. To some instead it is a coming to know the objective nature of aspects of our spiritual experience that could prove to widen our views. Abandoning dogmatism and attitudes of superiority dictated by a specific belief system could be much easier when confronted with the reality of the true nature of our spirituality as humans. Perhaps the subjective belief of being chosen is simply a superposition of culture (religious) over the inheritied cognitive abilities we call spiritual fpund in every race, creed, and culture on our planet. What a personal discovery that would be!
Title ==== Prayer: So Powerful, Our Brains Change ====
By Cathryn Conroy, CompuServe News Editor The activity in the frontal brain increased; this is the area we use when we are concentrating on particular task. However, there was a marked decrease in the activity in the back part of the brain that controls the sense of being oriented to a location and place. This is significant because the Penn scientists think this may explain why those who are deep in prayer have a lack of spatial awareness and an abiding sense of being elsewhere. In addition to understanding the power of prayer, this body-spirit-mind research could also be used with hypnotherapy to help people cope with long-term illnesses. Newberg told the BBC, "When someone has a mystical experience, they perceive that sense of reality to be far greater and far clearer than our usual everyday sense of reality." For more info on the topic try looking up Michael Persinger's work at Laurentian University. Good luck to all. The Vines |
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Replies to this message
If he's THERE where do you want him to go!! Re: Why God Wont Go Away - Am I Chosen/Different? -- The Vines Top of thread Archive
Posted by: Bahman ®
03/31/2002, 16:45:49
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I am not sure exactly what you want to discuss here but I have a suggestion. Past experience shows that when people talk about god, it's mostly in the context of religious, and specifically Biblical, god. I think for those who want to have intellectual discussion of god, it is much better to concentrate on a philosophical god. If that suits your purpose, I can argue along the following line. Although the existence of such a god hasn't been scientifically proven, its existence hasn't been ruled out either. But maybe that is not waht you had in mind.
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Thats the title of the book... Re: If he's THERE where do you want him to go!! -- Bahman Top of thread Archive
Posted by: The Vines ®
03/31/2002, 17:20:31
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Although the existence of such a god hasn't been scientifically proven, its existence hasn't been ruled out either. But maybe that is not waht you had in mind.
That is exactly what I want to talk about. Let's not say philosophy... or I'll tune out. If it makes sense then its fine to me, whether its philosophy or whatever I could care less...
What you say is what a believer should say in the face of this kind of study. I don't recall if you are a believer or not, but I would say that studies of this kind do not prove God is out of the picture, but they do prove that spiritual experience is common, and that is important. We all have different cultures and beliefs, and these shape the experience we have in the spiritual realm. Understanding that our religious, or cultural beliefs are like software loaded onto the natural hardware in our brain that produces spiritual experience is IMO important. If God exists we would perceive his presence based on our cultural makeup. Some would perceive a man, some a horse, or a bear, etc.... The point is that knowing that culture is an important factor allows us to develop a less rigid approach to spirituality. There is more room for religious tolerance.
BTW, Why God Wont Go Away is the title of the book I qouted.
TV
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Three quick points Re: Thats the title of the book... -- The Vines Top of thread Archive
Posted by: Cal ®
03/31/2002, 19:08:56
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Hey Vines,
1. Who could deny that scientific or other forms of evidence haven't and can't disprove the existence of God? I for one, a non-believer with a strong materialist bent, surely wouldn't ever deny that.
But the problem is that it's a meagre claim that should provide little comfort to the believer or give much pause to the disbeliever. One can avail themselves of it for a great number of bizarre and unlikely claims, including affirmations of the existence of the Invisible Pink Unicorn and the truth of alien abduction stories. No scientific or other evidence has or can disprove the claims that reincarnation or that Rah, the copulating bull god, exist either. The point is that nothing much at all follows from the fact that one's claim hasn't been disproven by science. Why should anyone care?
2. There's something misleading about the title of the book you're referring to (which I haven't read). Clearly the evidence points against the inevitability of widespread human belief in God simply because of the relatively late emergence of monotheism in human history, let alone its perennial geographical restriction once it did come into existence. Certainly many Buddhists have the kinds of religious experiences that the book presumably describes, and they don't infer God from their experiences.
This isn't to criticize the book, which I can't not having read it. It's rather to criticize what its title misleadingly suggests. One could reasonably imagine beliefs in God declining to insignificance in some distant future, while the religion-inducing features of our neurological makeup produce other forms of "supernaturalism" or recognizably religous belief systems.
3. Why would it be God's presence that is discerned behind these various cultural manifestations of religious belief? Why wouldn't experiences of God be, e.g., the culturally filtered partial truth that the highest (and atheistic) Buddhist experiences disclose more fully?
I'm glad you've started an interesting thread. It's about time someone did.
Regards,
Cal
Modified by Cal at Sun, Mar 31, 2002, 19:11:56
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Re: Three quick points Re: Three quick points -- Cal Top of thread Archive
Posted by: The Vines ®
03/31/2002, 23:29:54
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Hi Cal:
Thanks for your reply and here we go...
1) Has science, or can science disprove the existence of God? I guess not. As to your statement "The point is that nothing much at all follows from the fact that one's claim hasn't been disproven by science" you are right.
2) I haven't read the book and don't know if I will, though it seems that some people liked it. From both the title, and some of the content (according to some reviews) it seems the author is seeking to reach as much of the reader base as possible for sales reasons... not a very good prospect for those who seek scientific information.
Here is a review posted on Amazon.com's website
Good book mared by moments of occasional pseudo-science., February 4, 2002
Reviewer: Andrew T Fyfe (see more about me) from Bedford, Texas United States
In the early 90's Gallup polls showed that over half of American adults have had "a moment of sudden religious awakening or insight." For this large portion of our population one can image how this experience would quickly become the true pillar of their faith. Whatever Thomas Aquinas may have done to try and prove God's existence in his Summa Theologica 800 years ago is unimportant to the real, undeniable experience over half of Americans have felt in their lifetime. That "oneness" with the universe and that great surge of both fear and overwhelming joy a simple commoner can attain by just closing their eyes and clearing their mind. Skeptics may show whatever logical and empirical evidence they wish for and against the spiritual realm, but eventually they must account for that feeling of infinite harmony attributed to meditation and prayer. Thanks to the latest in 21st century technology, that is exactly what Dr. Andrew Newberg and the late Eugene d'Aquili have attempted to do in their April release, "Why God Won't Go Away."The most compelling aspect when reading Dr. Newberg and d'Aquili's book is their experiments using a "SPECT camera" to take, as the title of the books first chapter puts it, "a photograph of God." Newberg and d'Aquili, working with eight Tibetan meditators and several Franciscan nuns, were able to use the SPECT to gain an "accurate freeze-frame of blood flow patterns" at the "transcendent peak" of mystical experience. What was found in these scans was an expected increase in the activity of the prefrontal cortex, home to your attention span; but also, and more interestingly, was a decrease in activity of the so dubbed, "orientation association area." The "primary job of the OAA is to orient the individual in physical space" but to accomplish this it must also generate a clear "distinction between the individual and everything else, to sort out the you from the infinite not-you that makes up the rest of the universe. Specifically, the "left orientation area is responsible for creating the" boarders of the self, while "the right orientation area is associated with generating the...physical space in which that self can exist." In fact, people with severe damage to this area of the brain have great difficulty maneuvering in physical space-often bumping into chairs or falling to the floor instead of successfully lying down to bed. But what the SPECT scans show is not a shut down of the OAA but that during spiritual events it becomes deprived of the "incoming flow of sensory information" which it needs to be able to find any boundaries between itself and existence. Put simply, the mind has "no choice but to perceive that the self is endless and intimately interwoven with everyone and everything." In his book Newberg and d'Aquili go on to describe the different levels of spiritual events leading up to the culminary, and rare, "Absolute Unity Being" state. They describe the two paths of meditation in which religions over time have used to attain this AUB and how Newberg and d'Aquili connect the origin of religion and myth to the ability of the brain to reach this state. In turn, they also give how the origin of this very "ability" lies in our ancient ancestors dread of death and a need for safety. Those are the positives.
The most dismaying aspect of "Why God Won't Go Away" is Newberg and d'Aquili's conclusions from their own research. Their regular personal interjection of factless speculation greatly harms the work and teeters onto the point of scientific irresponsibility. Through out their book they try to draw connections between their research and the existence of "a primary reality that runs deeper than material... a state of pure being that encompasses the lesser realities," whatever that means. The irony lies in how Newberg and d'Aquili often point to the flaws in their own conclusions, but then fail to correct them. Just as often as they tell us that they believe "we saw evidence of a neurological process that has evolved to allow us humans to transcend material existence," they state (rather contradictory) that their "neurological model... does not explain whether absolute being is nothing more than a brain state or, as mystics claim, the essence of what is most fundamentally real." A reader is left with the question, if your research cannot state if this transcendent and non-material world exists; then why do you at other times draw the conclusion from your very research that it does exist? They even go on to tells us that their work "could support the argument that religious experience is only imagined neurologically, that God is physically 'all in your mind'" but then tries to draw the opposite conclusion later in the book with no evidence why. Newberg and d'Aquili repeatedly states that they have proven that this meditative state is not a delusion, but I am inclined to believe this is his attempt to soften the book so not to drive away religious readers and their wallets. Otherwise, how Dr. Newberg and d'Aquili are able to hold these contradictory ideas would be a true testament the brain's ability to over come reality and rationality, as well as be a fascinating matter of study for the next generation of neurologists to look into: "Why Reason Won't Stay"
Overall the book is an important work in our understanding of the religious experience. This is a field of study everyone should be ready to set aside a few hours and 25 bucks to try and gain a basic understanding of, and it would seem, for now at least, that the most accessible and up-to-date way to do that is Newberg and d'Aquili's "Why God Won't Go Away," even with it's occasional moments pseudo-science. If you do buy this book, then I recommend you draw your own conclusions from those experiments and not take Dr. Newberg and the late Eugene d'Aquili's opinions too seriously. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
3) You ask: Why would it be God's presence that is discerned behind these various cultural manifestations of religious belief? Why wouldn't experiences of God be, e.g., the culturally filtered partial truth that the highest (and atheistic) Buddhist experiences disclose more fully?
Well I think you are absolutely right, and this has been my major point of dissent with Mikwut recently. I believe the simple fact that these religious experiences occur cannot validate the experience's content as objective by any means, and isn't proof of any objective reality causing the experience beyond the very structures of the brain. Some, like Mikwut argue that the fact that we have these experiences is a validation of the objective reality of God. I find these experiences to have no verifiable connection to anything else outside of the brain itself, at least nothing that has been proven.
TV
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Re: Three quick points Re: Re: Three quick points -- The Vines Top of thread Archive
Posted by: mikwut ®
04/01/2002, 18:08:51
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Vines,
I had responded to Cal and Craig and Jak really at the beginning of this whole discussion about the god sense that it is very important that the existence of god has not been disproven. Contrary to you and Cal much follows from this seemingly simple observation. I think science for all practical purposes has disproven many "belief in" objects such as the loch ness monster by scanning the entire loch and finding nothing for example. If science somehow were able to prove the nonexistence of god then our faith in the reliability of our sense that he exists and the communicative efficacy of our belief in prayer, inspiration, and revelation would all be for nothing, they truly would be mere projection and unwarranted belief. You and Cal don't find that very elightening I understand but for those of us that believe we have a "sense" that god exists it is important indeed.
I believe you have misunderstood the main line of my entire argumentation. I accept this as my fault for not articulating it better and that fact has severely been reinforced as of late but, hence, that is why I am here. My main argument that belief in god is basic and fundamental and primary like our reasoning processes is passing over you because you are obviously enamored with the brain scans. I would take a similar line of argumentation such as ryan did in response to you on the other thread if I was simply making the natural argument of "religious experimence" ala William James. I don't discount the powerful persuasive force of such arguments but I am arguing for experience per se, not a particular form of it such as "religious experience". The feelings of awe, oneness, peace, joy etc.. to me are secondary cognitive components to what I am arguing. I am arguing that we "sense" or "apprehend" the fact that god exists in similiar fashion to how we perceive our reasoning processes are reliable, that when I taste salt it is the same as when you taste salt. Similiar to our perception that when I see a tree in front of me I apprehend a real world and not a world some mad alien scientist has programmed on a supercomputer that I exist within. We somehow just know it. And the contrary arguments although appealing to some are simple silliness to us that believe. You would probably like the adjectives, hard wired or preprogrammed (silly 'memes' if you ask me) but however one likes it we simply find ourselves with the belief and removing it for most of us is as foolish as abandoning our reasoning prossesses. Although we see this happen all the time such as romantic love situations where one doesn't use ones head so the fact that some do abandon it shouldn't be all that bothersome. Your brainscans don't hit the mark because I perceive it right now, and when I am eating a bologna sandwich, when I am driving, when I am writing checks to pay my bills, when I am working and living in a concrete day to day fashion, it is simply there. The "religious experience" examples add consilience and coherence to this fact of reality just like experiencing and interacting with the real world adds to its reliability. Just like babies gain trust in the concrete empirical world we must gain trust in this cognitive sense as well. My 1 year old daughters cognitive noetic structure does not base her crawling and interacting with the real world on complex and sophisticated philosophical, scientific or religious arguments and evidence pro or con. She simply perceives it and experiences it and believes in the real world as a basic and primary trust or belief. It is no different for most with god, we simply perceive and apprehend his existence "religious experiences" simply confirm it. Your arguments are good enough to note that we are unable to validate it empirically but don't allow for us to dismiss it as justified belief any more than I should dismiss my reasoning abilities as truly unreliable mechanisms that blind chance has evoled solely for my survival, "fitness" doesn't necesarily entail "reliable". To deny this apprehending of god we have to shift to an emphasis on the logical-deductive cognitive aspects of our experience and apply cynical critical thinking in overabundance to dismiss this born with belief. This shifting is what I call subjective and the sense itself as objective. It provides a primary ground or support for us to construct the "subjective" parts of our theologies or spiritual beliefs, such as what god is etc...
In response to what you are discussing here I would say this. It is definitely nothing new or unique. It is a subset of evolutionary epistemology that has been running strong since the early sixties. In fact this line of thought was fascinating to Dewey and the pragmatists as well soon after Darwin. Evolutionary epistemology is simply the attempt to address the issues from a evolutionary point of view. One I don't find total disagreement with but one that can't answer all of the issues by itself. The two distinct but not wholely unrelated theories being constructed are dubbed EEM and EET. EEM programs are saddled with uncertainties and EET programs are even more problematic. We obviously don't have hard empirical data such as fossils of prehistoric brains. Although the emergence since the sixties of more complex explanatory options is promising it is definitely WAY to early in the game for hanging one's hat with either one, which is quite frankly what I see you doing. The issues get too complex and sordid for the board and the reading necessary is fundamental for discussion but I was going to take it up with Cal at a later date and might as well add it here. The consequences that come with the evolutionary epistemology totally naturalized are radical and few embrace them. For one "science" is traditionally viewed as progressive and generally viewed as building a body of knowledge which slowly converges on the truth. Ironically within the evolutionary epistemology concepts such as rationality are subject to evolution. This in turn seems to abandon the idealistic enlightenment notion of "goal directedness" in science. Strangely it is you and the strict empiricists on the board who are heading in a postmodern direction with these lines of thought carried out to their logical conclusions without the "humanistic" and enlightenment baggage that come along the for the ride.
It seems to date you have been arguing against my god sense in a fashion similar to the following:
mikwut: "my reasoning processes are reliable they cognate to me information that can be trusted"
vines: "that belief is subjective and irrational"
mikwut: "that belief is incredibly hard for me to abandon, it is so basic and primary to all my experience and interaction with the world that to do so would require incredible evidence."
vines: "science has shown through the use of magnetic rays and brainscans that a particular subject who is currently "reasoning" about something exhibits interesting frontal lobe activity. This activity shows that such reasoning is simply culturally and bilogically inherited and evolved and need not be reliable. I believe through a irrational and subjective means that it still is reliable but we can't call it objective and rational."
mikwut: "I simply disagree."
in disagreement but respect,
mikwut
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A brief set of questions Re: Re: Three quick points -- mikwut Top of thread Archive
Posted by: Cal ®
04/01/2002, 18:28:45
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mikwut,
How do you distinguish your basic and guiding sense of God's existence and equally powerful events that trigger, say, atheistic Buddhist beliefs from the standpoint of their evidential worth? What signs are there in the triggers for your belief that make them self-certifying while contrary, non-theistic beliefs that arise through powerful religious responses can't claim the same status? As all "mature" theists that I've read acknowledge, religious perceptions can be mistaken, and in the case of you vs. the Buddhist, at least one of you has to be mistaken.
Plus one comment: Who here's spoken of evolutionary epistemology, let alone relied on it? How did that come up?
Modified by Cal at Mon, Apr 01, 2002, 18:29:31
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my thoughts on this Re: A brief set of questions -- Cal Top of thread Archive
Posted by: Ryan ®
04/01/2002, 21:47:30
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I'm not Mikwut, but I'd like to share a few thoughts on this. Q:
"How do you distinguish your basic and guiding sense of God's existence and equally powerful events that trigger, say, atheistic Buddhist beliefs from the standpoint of their evidential worth?"
Me:
By turning to the scriptures. God has always taught line upon line and precept upon precept, so seemingly contradictory beliefs are not necessarily opposed to each other. One of the great things about God is that he isn't bound by our sense of logic. He knows all things from the beginning to the end, so he governs according to wisdom, knowledge, justice, mercy, love, etc. These are the higher forms of reasoning, and they do not answer to mortal logic.
Q:
"What signs are there in the triggers for your belief that make them self-certifying while contrary, non-theistic beliefs that arise through powerful religious responses can't claim the same status?"
Ryan:
Actually, we believe in letting all men worship according to the dictates of their own conscience. That which is of God is light, and we believe that as someone accepts the light that they have, more is added and it grows brighter and brighter...until the perfect day...
Q:
"As all "mature" theists that I've read acknowledge, religious perceptions can be mistaken, and in the case of you vs. the Buddhist, at least one of you has to be mistaken."
Ryan:
Noone has to be mistaken. It's just different levels of perception. When I was very young, I asked my mom if she would buy me something at the store. She told me that she didn't have enough money. In reality, she did literally have enough money even though she couldn't fit it into her budget. Since I didn't understand the concept of budgeting, she spoke to my understanding.
"Plus one comment: Who here's spoken of evolutionary epistemology, let alone relied on it? How did that come up?"
Ryan: Of course, this is highly presumptuous of me to answer when these questions aren't even directed towards me, but (if I may) I think this came up through simple deductive reasoning. TV was arguing neuron constructs... TV believes the neuron constructs evolved through natural selection... so there you have it.
Well, I'll bud out for a little while.
thanks,
Ryan
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While you bud out . . . Re: my thoughts on this -- Ryan Top of thread Archive
Posted by: Cal ®
04/02/2002, 00:16:01
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Ryan,
mikwut has been making philosophical arguments that have little to do with Mormonism per se.
His basic claim is that there are events that trigger a justified and almost incorrigible belief that God exists. You can be Eastern Orthodox, or Catholic, or Mormon, or Presbyterian--or a New Ager or a Deist for that matter--and undergo something that makes you know as well as you know anything else that God exists. So appeals to scriptural traditions, including the old "line upon line" passage that comforted me when I was younger, can't help in this context.
At any rate, you say that "no one has to be mistaken" when it comes to apparently contradictory religious experiences. But someone has to be mistaken about the implications of their religious experiences if they disagree over the very existence of God. That's a basic difference between a Buddhist and a theist, and one that's especially important for mikwut here.
We're talking about a fundamental issue: Either God exists or he doesn't. The Buddhist says that the theist is wrong. Mormons and other theists may learn the truth "line upon line" but, whatever they learn, their belief that God exists is ultimately false from the standpoint of the Buddhist.
mikwut's task is to distinguish powerful religious responses to the world that imply God's non-existence from those that imply God's actual existence. I'm skeptical of whether that can be done. Do you think it can?
Cal
Modified by Cal at Tue, Apr 02, 2002, 00:18:57
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just since you ask Re: While you bud out . . . -- Cal Top of thread Archive
Posted by: Ryan ®
04/02/2002, 01:19:39
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Ryan, mikwut has been making philosophical arguments that have little to do with Mormonism per se.
His basic claim is that there are events that trigger a justified and almost incorrigible belief that God exists. You can be Eastern Orthodox, or Catholic, or Mormon, or Presbyterian--or a New Ager or a Deist for that matter--and undergo something that makes you know as well as you know anything else that God exists.
Sounds good to me!
At any rate, you say that "no one has to be mistaken" when it comes to apparently contradictory religious experiences. But someone has to be mistaken about the implications of their religious experiences if they disagree over the very existence of God. That's a basic difference between a Buddhist and a theist, and one that's especially important for mikwut here.
A Buddhist may believe in the attributes of God that matter, such as an existance of eternal love and light, and thereby believe in God without knowing that they are believing in God. It's a matter of definitions and most of the physical attributes of God have no necessary bearing on the day to day progression of the average Buddhist.
We're talking about a fundamental issue: Either God exists or he doesn't. The Buddhist says that the theist is wrong. Mormons and other theists may learn the truth "line upon line" but, whatever they learn, their belief that God exists is ultimately false from the standpoint of the Buddhist.
But the key point is that the Buddhist received their confirmation based on the attributes of God that matter and are relevant to them. They don't receive powerful confirmations that God doesn't exist. They simply receive confirmations of truths that leave the personal nature of God on the sidelines for the time being, and it may even be a stumbling block for them at this point in their progression.
mikwut's task is to distinguish powerful religious responses to the world that imply God's non-existence from those that imply God's actual existence. I'm skeptical of whether that can be done. Do you think it can?
Sure. The key word here is imply.
The confirmations were based on learning truths. Truths can still be confirmed even if they don't contain everything, and even if someone goes on to hold a false opinion about some of the details.
regards,
Ryan
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God in the sidelines Re: just since you ask -- Ryan Top of thread Archive
Posted by: The Vines ®
04/02/2002, 21:20:20
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Dear Ryan:
I agree with your post in that you state that the fact that Buddhists do not recognize a God in their experience does not mean necessarily that God is not involved in the causation of the experience itself. God may not be recognized but because the ultimate goal of spiritual upliftment and personal progress is reached, the revelation of his presence is secondary. If God exists this would be a reasonable position, and I happen to agree with your position as to my faith.
I think however that the issue at hand is another. The issue at hand is this "God sense" through which man perceives objectively the presence of God. Cal rightly asks why some people do not interpret this inner working of consciousness as a divine presence.
TV
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Hi Vines Re: God in the sidelines -- The Vines Top of thread Archive
Posted by: Ryan ®
04/02/2002, 21:32:59
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I'm glad we agree on something!
As for the other question, I understood Cal to be presenting a theological problem which he felt could not be answered. I understood his argument to be that one side (Buddhists) or the other side (those who believe in God) had to be wrong, so therefore the spiritual confirmations (presumably used to validate beliefs on both sides) must be lying to someone. I pointed out that his argument could be cut off from the beginning because neither side necessarily is wrong.
With regards,
Ryan
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I think there is more Re: Hi Vines -- Ryan Top of thread Archive
Posted by: The Vines ®
04/02/2002, 21:47:41
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Its not just an issue of spiritual confirmation. Some religions do not have a God concept, and hence in the drafting of conscious experience (the actual processing of data to form a conscious interpretation of an experience), in this case of spiritual experience, they do not include a God figure. So the issue becomes: If belief in God is basic, as Mikwut claims, why doesn't the discerning of this reality transcend the cultural limitation of these atheistic type religions and reveal the presence of a superior being to the individual?
TV
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I see Re: I think there is more -- The Vines Top of thread Archive
Posted by: Ryan ®
04/02/2002, 21:58:13
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This is why I said that they could be believing in God without realizing that they were believing in God.
Kind of like someone who spends their entire life indoors without ever directly looking at the sun. They might not have any idea what is causing the light outside, and they might not "call it" a giant nuclear furnace, but they still see outdoors as a result of this light.
So it is with the light of Christ. Someone might not realize where it is coming from or even what it is, but it still leads them in further and further truth as they expose themselves to it.
Regards,
Ryan
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Absolutely! But remember.... Re: I see -- Ryan Top of thread Archive
Posted by: The Vines ®
04/02/2002, 22:10:05
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I couldn't agree with you more. I believe in God and acknowledge that my belief is completely irrational, and your post describes well the God I have chosen to believe in: a being that shines inspiration to uplift the state of intelligent beings, and that puts actual recognition of self as a non-priority.
But remember, the issue here was whether or not belief in God is a basic cognitive tendency validating God's objective existence. What you say makes sense but is not the issue. The issue remains: why doesn't this God sense transcend the cultural limitation of a Godless religion and manifest the objective truth of the imminent presense of a superior being. If we are to say that the simple fact that those in question (atheist buddhists) are drawn to good and that this equates to God even though they don't know it, then we can scratch the whole concept of "God sense" and call it rather conscience, or moral sense, which implies no validation of God's objective reality, only the ad hoc reality of good and evil.
TV
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Re: Absolutely! But remember.... Re: Absolutely! But remember.... -- The Vines Top of thread Archive
Posted by: Cal ®
04/03/2002, 19:50:05
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Hey Vines,
I couldn't have responded better than you have to Ryan's posts here. He's certainly right that there's the possibility that God is behind all the diversity of religious experiences, etc. But you've understood clearly what's at stake here, and that's the evidential status of mikwut's basic belief in God given the diverse claims to which religious experiences give rise.
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You are right Re: Re: Absolutely! But remember.... -- Cal Top of thread Archive
Posted by: The Vines ®
04/03/2002, 20:30:29
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Dear Cal:
Your rebuttal to Mikwut's assertions is right on and it was clear to me that your using the example of a Buddhist that associates no God figure to religious experience would be a good test subject to see if an instinctual attraction toward a God figure were realistic, or rather if the latter were a cultural phenomena.
Thanks for your insightful contribution.
TV
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nevermind the Buddists... Re: You are right -- The Vines Top of thread Archive
Posted by: rdl ®
04/03/2002, 21:04:40
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...what about those of us who don't have an instinctual attraction towards god...never did. Where does that leave us in the scheme of things. Are we a higher evolved life form ;-) since we don't have that "basic" knowledge of god that humans evolved with? Or are we the ones that lost the battle in the pre-existance and decided to follow the "other guy"?
It seems that the more I learn about this concept of God, the less appealing it is to me.
sigh
rdl
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I am reminded Re: nevermind the Buddists... -- rdl Top of thread Archive
Posted by: Ryan ®
04/03/2002, 21:32:11
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Hi there!
I am reminded of a friend of mine who said she simply looked at everything from a cerebral perspective and had a hard time with the whole "spiritual confirmation" thing because she wasn't "bent that way."
I asked her what she meant by that, and she said that feelings didn't mean anything to her. So, I asked her if she loved her two children. She said, "Oh yes! Of course!" Then I pointed out to her that she, in fact, really was "bent that way," it's just that she didn't realize that God's love for us is what it's all about. These feelings she had been so opposed to were, in actuality, the same type of feelings she had for her children but only on a much grander scale (in that we can not comprehend it on earth). By showing love to her children, she was in fact walking in the direction of God's love and her life's most precious moments were composed of the very feelings she had dismissed.
Ryan
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The leap from deep feeling to God Re: I am reminded -- Ryan Top of thread Archive
Posted by: Cal ®
04/03/2002, 22:24:29
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Like you say, it's not an absence of feeling that makes one disbelieve. One can love one's children--I love my daughter. One can have powerful responses to music, to art, to horrors such as genocide or the current conflict in Palestine or to the sublimity of a Greek tragedy--I have, at least.
And, these things being true, one can still disbelieve in God, in powerful emotional experiences that are supposed to evidence the presence of a Divine Cosmic Love.
Why? Partly because of the "grand scale" of the inferences that follow from them. The inference from powerful feelings to God amounts to a huge leap that projects one's feelings, one's experience of deep things, onto a cosmic plane.
Come on, there are limits to what one should believe based on deep feelings. Perhaps your friend had a good sense of these limits.
Modified by Cal at Wed, Apr 03, 2002, 22:27:33
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A parent's love has nothing to do with God Re: I am reminded -- Ryan Top of thread Archive
Posted by: Martin ®
04/04/2002, 06:57:12
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Ryan, You wrote: "By showing love to her children, she was in fact walking in the direction of God's love and her life's most precious moments were composed of the very feelings she had dismissed."
While it is true that people much prefer to hold happy and quasi-mystical feelings about love, especially parent-child love, these poetic and captivating reconceptions are but an pretty cognitive coating on top of powerful psychobiological hard wiring. And the hard wiring underneath is cold and calculating, measuring affection and love in terms of number of shared genes. If I were so foolish as to believe in God, I would have nothing but contempt and derision for it as a result of this cold, clinical calculation underlying love.
As it is, I am free to recognize this cold aspect of our biology and, through consciously denying that we could possibly be creatures of a God, instead decide to deliberately create an ethic of my own devising that values love independently of your very ugly God. It never ceases to disgust me that people could find a belief in God to be praiseworthy!
- Martin
Modified by Martin at Thu, Apr 04, 2002, 06:59:16
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Re: A parent's love has nothing to do with God Re: A parent's love has nothing to do with God -- Martin Top of thread Archive
Posted by: Ryan ®
04/05/2002, 20:13:18
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Martin:
It never ceases to disgust me that people could find a belief in God to be praiseworthy
Ryan:
That depends on what else goes along with that belief. In other words, it's all relative to the paradigm in question. If, for example, one believes that each of us has chosen to come to earth and experience pain and discomfort, then the blame does not rest entirely on God's shoulders.
Or, suppose that someone believes that we lived with God for aeons of time. One day, we came up to God and said, "this place is great, but we want to know what pain feels like. Since the only way to find it out is to experience it, will you please let us suffer?" Then, God reluctantly says, "okay, but I'm gonna throw in a little bit of fun, too." In this case, pain and suffering would not be the fault of God.
By this point, you're probably pretty pissed off, so I better stop.
Your friend,
Ryan
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I asked Mikwut this same question Re: nevermind the Buddists... -- rdl Top of thread Archive
Posted by: The Vines ®
04/03/2002, 21:32:41
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In fact he mentioned something along the lines of "those who were born without this cognitive tendency..." and frankly I didn't understand what he was talking about and I am waiting for clarification.
TV
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Clarification has arrived Re: I asked Mikwut this same question -- The Vines Top of thread Archive
Posted by: Ryan ®
04/03/2002, 22:06:57
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dfjakfjioafkevjiakdfkekviakfknvkdikeivaokadfkakviakfjekkfdajfiakvkefjaikkkkkdkfdkafiekvajkdkdfjakfjioafkevjiakdfkekviakfknvkdikeivaokadfkakviakfjekk
fdajfiakvkefjaikkkkkdkfdkafiekvajkdk
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Addendum Re: Clarification has arrived -- Ryan Top of thread Archive
Posted by: Ryan ®
04/03/2002, 22:09:38
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You'll have to excuse my bizarre sense of humor
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yup... Re: Clarification has arrived -- Ryan Top of thread Archive
Posted by: rdl ®
04/03/2002, 22:20:21
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that makes about as much sense as anything else I've read recently....
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an intelligent response to your blasphemy Re: yup... -- rdl Top of thread Archive
Posted by: Ryan ®
04/05/2002, 20:15:44
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ajfkdjaiofdlkfdak;fakld;fjiodfjkdajfie;kakjdfjiad;fkjdkjakjfkjfakjkejkfjkdjfkdajfkjda;dkfakj
djfkdjakfjkfjoaiejklfkl;dvkcdk;lad;fka;jfklda
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a thousand pardons.... Re: an intelligent response to your blasphemy -- Ryan Top of thread Archive
Posted by: rdl ®
04/05/2002, 20:52:01
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....for mistaking sacred words for gibberish. It's a habit I have. Forgive me most honored sir.
Modified by rdl at Fri, Apr 05, 2002, 22:11:12
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there can be no forgiveness!! Re: a thousand pardons.... -- rdl Top of thread Archive
Posted by: Ryan ®
04/07/2002, 13:56:45
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There can be no forgiveness, and I will tell you why. It is simply because fajkdifjaklfjnidafuhdakfjdiufikfjkdjfidj;kfjafk;udk and dkfja;idfjkdfjidafkejfkdajk
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I'll concede Re: there can be no forgiveness!! -- Ryan Top of thread Archive
Posted by: rdl ®
04/07/2002, 18:24:52
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In the spirit of conciliation I'm willing to give you "fajkdifjaklfjnidafuhdakfjdiufikfjkdjfidj;kfjafk;udk" but, I just can't agree with "dkfja;idfjkdfjidafkejfkdajk". I'm terribly sorry...but there it is. One has to take a stand somewhere and draw the line.
rdl
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except... Re: Absolutely! But remember.... -- The Vines Top of thread Archive
Posted by: Ryan ®
04/03/2002, 20:06:00
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I don't think of God, as a Father, in terms of physical attributes, power, omniscience, etc. although I acknowledge those aspects of His, I do not find them impressive and I do not think someone should be worshipped merely because they posess those great yet superficial attributes. I think in terms of the "divine fullness" which he possesses, of everything that is good. This is what I love and admire about God. I believe, therefore, that anything that is good comes from God but is also a part of and synonamous, to an extent, with God. Downplaying the notion of "Good" as though it were some sort of trite yet irrelevant notion does a disservice to the entire issue, in my opinion.
I do not think that anything good can come from any source other than the divine fullness of God . This fullness, therefore, is what our inheritance is in the next life, but ONLY in so much as we will not abuse it and, hence, different degrees of it are allotted to different individuals. I think we will view the other attributes he allows us to have, such as power, as being incidental. This divine fullness was posessed in full by Christ when he was upon the earth, and can be passed on to the rest of us through the atonement (as Christ became one with the father in order to attain it, so we must become one with him) Think of it as plugging your cord into an electric socket and suddenly having light. To me, this is like connecting with the Divine fullness.
I know that I'm only sharing my perspective on this, but I think it's important for you to know where I am coming from.
The relevance of all this is that the objective reality of God's other attributes is not as fundamental as the objective reality of his fullness and that as people enter into his fullness and walk into it, more and more is increasingly added unto them. I don't know how to make completely clear what I mean by that, only that more will come later for individuals, which is why I think most missionary work happens after people die.
So, to me , the God sense is the light of Christ. It is the notion that, "My sheep hear my voice, and they know me and they follow me." For those familiar with sheepherding, shepherds can let their flock graze among other flocks but when it is time to move on, the shepherd need only call to them and they recognize his voice and come, while the other sheep (who do not recognize his voice) continue grazing as though nothing had happened.
To me, this is like life here on earth. We are all grazing and when the Shepherd calls (the God sense) we can either continue grazing or follow his light, thus entering into and becoming part of his fold. I think he calls us individually, and sets forth a path that will lead us home in the most effective way for us. If we follow.
This also explains the idea of evil, as those who simply ignore or worse yet become offended at the call of the voice and try to stop others from following it, often listen to the voices of others....because there is more than one master out there.
So, take this will a grain of salt. It's not presented very well here, but enjoy it for what it's worth.
Regards,
Ryan
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Thanks. I think that's marvelous! Re: except... -- Ryan Top of thread Archive
Posted by: The Vines ®
04/03/2002, 20:51:26
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Dear Ryan:
I think your testimony of belief is wonderful. If there is a God that objectively exists beyond our subjective faith in him, and this being is worthy of worship, he would have to have a love for all beings, and would have to shine forth his positive influence on ALL.
There is another possibility I might add, that the so called light of Christ, or conscience in man is actually a series of cognitive modules (hardwired cognitive tendencies, or instincts) that lead to what we instinctually define right, or moral. Of course morality as the world views it is by no means entirely inherited, but rather rooted in cultural paradigms. However, there are many "moral" behaviors that are rooted in instinct. Some may view this instinctual behavior as the direct imminence of God's spirit. I personally think that man has genetically transmitted cognitive tendencies that emerged as adaptations to foster survival. Man is a social mammal, and as such needs somewhat of a "moral" code. I also have faith that God can influence us to follow good. However, I must admit that as one who believes in strict determinism, it is hard to understand why God would influence us only to a certain extent, and not cause us to be completely good through his influence. I think this would be evidence against God's actual ability to communicate to all men, and thus against the actual existence of an omnipotent being.
I think it is clear that , in essence I don't believe in free agency as other LDS do, if I can be called LDS...
Thank you for sharing your feelings in regards.
TV
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Marvelous, perhaps . . . Re: Thanks. I think that's marvelous! -- The Vines Top of thread Archive
Posted by: Cal ®
04/03/2002, 21:50:11
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. . . but, Vines, I have a few questions.
What do you really think about the idea that this God has left himself to be discerned only, as you've put it, through irrational means? It's as if God wishes to remain hidden from so many of us, both to the more skeptical and rational amongst us as well as to the non-Christian or non-theistic religious folk in our midst, such as Buddhists, animists, New Agers and others.
God works, I suppose, in mysterious ways, but one of them is apparently to make belief in him into a veritable gauntlet for many of us.
One virtue of mikwut's account, at least, is to suggest that it's often a kind of defect in us that makes god-belief inaccessible. I think he's wrong, of course, but at least he offers an economical way to explain away apparently rational disbelief, as well as to ground the rationality of experientially based belief. In your case, however, it's as if God wished to hide himself deliberately from many of us.
Cal
Modified by Cal at Wed, Apr 03, 2002, 21:51:01
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Yes, in fact Re: Marvelous, perhaps . . . -- Cal Top of thread Archive
Posted by: The Vines ®
04/03/2002, 22:31:43
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... as I said to Ryan:
However, I must admit that as one who believes in strict determinism, it is hard to understand why God would influence us only to a certain extent, and not cause us to be completely good through his influence. I think this would be evidence against God's actual ability to communicate to all men, and thus against the actual existence of an omnipotent being.
Along those same lines, your objection finds place. Why would God not provide a means for all to discern his presence? I have only two answers:
1) This is beyond his power.
2) He doesn't really exist.
As to number one, I do not believe in an absolutely omnipotent God, meaning supernatural. I believe God's power is constrained by that which is physically possible. I do not believe omnipotence can defy that which is physically possible. In essence I conceive God as being able to do anything physically possible.
Hence, in order for God to maintain the qualities of justice that I attribute to him, he must not be able to reach us if we do not reach out through our cognitive abilities at the root of our spiritual experiences. I think all people can find these abilities for they are built into our brain. However, can we discover consciously this presence without the aid of religious memes? I think not. Though we may have revelation from God, this may not necessarily be conscious, nor may it be of significant impact unless it becomes conscious.
Personally I believe God's presence is felt as a confirmatory feeling toward everything that is good, a sort of confirmation to the cognitive instincts inherited by all men that drive us toward good. In essence, God confirms what we have inherited as cognitive adaptations in our evolutionary past. By doing this he becomes a conditioning factor in the deterministic processes that make us what we are. However, I believe his power is limited. He cannot reach us beyond these subtle impressions for some reason I cannot explain.
I realize that this is really wishy washy, but this is based on my subjective experience, and is the only way I can reconcile the various qualities I attribute to God with my observations of reality.
As to solution #2, I have chosen to not accept this solution because I feel there is something behind my subjective impressions. But I trust this theistic feeling as far as it can be reconciled to my conscience and to science.
TV
Modified by The Vines at Wed, Apr 03, 2002, 22:39:30
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What the hell happened to you, Vines?? Re: Thanks. I think that's marvelous! -- The Vines Top of thread Archive
Posted by: Martin ®
04/04/2002, 04:34:13
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Dear Vines, I used to see you as a clear thinking person who, while a believer, compartmentalized his religious beliefs into the irrational and unjustified portion of his worldview because he realized that his religious beliefs are not based on any actual knowledge and cannot in any way be justified on a rational or objective basis and so must remain a matter of blind, uncritical faith.
But Ryan is posting utterly absurd and even silly blither about "objective" attributes of "God" and all you can do is praise him for it?
Please explain why you consider it praiseworthy for someone to foolishly and uncritically accept and proclaim such patently irrational and unjustifiable gibberish. I, for one, find such blind and ignorant adherence to crackpottery rather ignoble for it deliberately eschews -- even insults -- reason and careful thinking.
- Martin
Modified by Martin at Thu, Apr 04, 2002, 04:36:44
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Re: What the hell happened to you, Vines?? Re: What the hell happened to you, Vines?? -- Martin Top of thread Archive
Posted by: The Vines ®
04/04/2002, 08:50:24
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Dear Martin:
It should not insult if a person is sincere. We should accept people as they are. At one level or another our intelligence would always offend a superior being. Our intellectuality is certainly gibberish for higher beings, but they would hardly be superior if they didn't recognize the reality of their intellectual evolution.
Ryan expresses what he believes and does that with an honest intent, I think that is a good foundation on which to build in his personal quest for enlightenment in time. Without putting myself as superior or inferior to him, I can see independently that his heart is right.
TV
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Re: What the hell happened to you, Vines?? Re: Re: What the hell happened to you, Vines?? -- The Vines
