[HN Gopher] My grandfather Paul Tillich, the unbelieving theologian
___________________________________________________________________
My grandfather Paul Tillich, the unbelieving theologian
Author : rbanffy
Score : 77 points
Date : 2024-03-22 10:19 UTC (12 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (aeon.co)
(TXT) w3m dump (aeon.co)
| zvmaz wrote:
| > Among the most puzzling and paradoxical ideas in his Systematic
| Theology (1951) is his statement that 'God does not exist' and
| that 'to argue that God exists is to deny him.' Tillich goes on
| to state that the word 'existence' should never be used in
| conjunction with the word 'God'.
|
| By reading this, I am tempted to imagine the intellectual
| atmosphere that prompted the logical positivists to insist on
| what constitutes meaningful statements to the point of being
| themselves incoherent [1].
|
| [1]
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logical_positivism#Cognitive_m...
| flenserboy wrote:
| It does bring that to mind, especially given the era he came
| out of. Likely, however, what he is trying to get at is the
| distinction between God/not God: _existence_ is something a
| thing which is not God -- a neutrino, a squirrel, a rock -- is
| given, which makes speaking of God as having existence in the
| same way as those things a mistake, as if the highest thing is
| just one of those many things which could be enumerated that
| way. This helps maintain the distinction Tillich is likely
| aiming at, which is to avoid speaking of God as part of the
| universe, or in some panentheistic way.
| taion wrote:
| And in that sense Tillich isn't that far from, say, Aquinas,
| who is consistent about asserting that existence is not a
| "real" predicate and that God's existence is outside of the
| world and outside of space and time.
|
| You don't even need to squint that hard to see a commonality
| between Tillich's notion of discussing God symbolically and
| Aquinas's notion of doing so analogically, not to mention the
| contrast between finite humans and an infinite God who is
| beyond understanding. And not to mention that apophaticism -
| the idea that positive knowledge about God is impossible -
| has been a feature of Christian theology since the beginning.
|
| So much of this can be taken in ways that not only aren't
| outside the bounds of Christian orthodoxy, but also align
| with more sophisticated Christian philosophical
| understandings of God.
|
| That much, of course, is not why Tillich is controversial!
| jiggawatts wrote:
| So... God is mathematics?
| rjknight wrote:
| It's also worth bearing in mind that much theology is an
| attempt to explain what the _experience_ of God is like. The
| experience of God is not (for Tillich, nor perhaps for very
| many moderns) about finding a literal place and time in which
| God-the-being can be directly observed. To seek God and
| expect to find a being who exists in the same manner as a
| tree or a building is to set oneself up for failure.
|
| When Tillich says "The courage to be is rooted in the God who
| appears when God has disappeared in the anxiety of doubt" he
| is describing the psychological process the seeker undergoes.
| In his case, he identifies God with the open, reflective cast
| of mind in which one engages with the unknowable, ineffable,
| combinatorally-explosive possibilities that are found at the
| horizons of our understanding. The "state of being grasped by
| an ultimate concern" is one in which we are trying - and
| necessarily failing - to see beyond the horizon. And yet,
| something sustains us in the effort, which is faith in God.
|
| Doubtless this really _is_ a very different kind of faith
| than other self-described Christians might have, whose faith
| might be rooted in a different mode of being and engagement
| with the world. And, to be clear, Tillich 's description is
| very much "what it's like" to have his variety of faith, and
| not a metaphysical claim about the workings of the universe.
| A different Christian might hold much stronger claims about
| God's precise nature and existence, but for Tillich those
| beliefs were unsustainable.
| RcouF1uZ4gsC wrote:
| > To seek God and expect to find a being who exists in the
| same manner as a tree or a building is to set oneself up
| for failure.
|
| But isn't that the whole point of Christianity, that Jesus
| was God in human flesh and actually existed like you or I
| exist while also being fully God?
| smeej wrote:
| Existed like you or I exist, yes, but existed _merely_ as
| you or I exist, or merely as a tree or building exists,
| no.
| scop wrote:
| I think this is on point, but does point to the limits/faults
| in his work. I recall being very energized by Tillich in my
| youth and at the very beginnings of my religious exploration,
| but was very surprised that the sort of "ambiguity" he was
| trying to parse was much more well laid out in classical
| theologians (Aquinas, etc), i.e. "to define God, the
| limitless being, is to inherently apply limit" which is why
| theologians have traditionally pursued God via "what He is
| Not" as we can certainly say that God is not limited, time
| bound, etc.
|
| Tillich's "ambiguity" was very approachable in my youth, but
| today I find it extremely dangerous from a moral and
| philosophical perspective. There is truth in what is said,
| but unless you have the context in which it is said you can
| quickly spin it to your heart's delight. My primary takeaway
| as a youth was "this is great and very
| theological/intellectually stimulating while not morally
| demanding of me whatsoever, hooray!" which is why, as a
| stubborn young adult, certainly found it attractive.
|
| FWIW, if anybody wants a great challenge that seeks to bridge
| classical theology with modern/personalist/subjective
| thought, you should read _Man and Woman He Created Them_ by
| John Paul II. It is as rewarding as it is dense and gave me
| the bridge between "old" and "new" philosophy/theology that
| I find lacking in many moderns.
| smeej wrote:
| Strong second for _Man and Woman He Created Them._ If you
| can get through it without coming to a deeper understanding
| of yourself (whether in agreement with its ideas or in
| opposition to them), you 'll be the first person I've met
| who has.
| rhelz wrote:
| > you can quickly spin it...
|
| It's really hard for me to see how any theology--or any
| text--could be any less ambiguous than any other.
|
| E.g. quantum mechanics is arguably the least ambiguous
| theory ever devised, because it gives results of the most
| specific agreement with experiment. But nevertheless has an
| ever-increasing number of interpretations, none of which
| can be ruled out--to all appearances hopelessly ambiguous
| to what it actually _means_.
|
| When it comes decisions you have to make, either
| individually or as a society, even the most verbose and
| specific moral codes suddenly seem to be ambiguous. Some
| examples:
|
| 1. Are we morally obliged to either support or oppose
| Obamacare?
|
| 2. Is a 50% tax rate moral or immoral? What is the exact
| tax rate which is "most moral"?
|
| 3. Is it Moral to support a president who boinked an
| intern? Or a president who payed hush money to hookers?
|
| 4. Should it be illegal to smoke? Or sell fruit-flavored
| vapes?
|
| 5. How old should somebody be before they are allowed to
| (fill in the blank here...vote, have sex, drive a car,
| drink, drop out of school?)
|
| We certainly look to our cultural polestars---religion,
| tradition, precident--to help us out with these sorts of
| questions, but by no means does any of them give us any
| definitive answers.
| AnimalMuppet wrote:
| > It's really hard for me to see how any theology--or any
| text--could be any less ambiguous than any other.
|
| "Virtual base classes are instantiated in the order
| specified by the depth-first, left-to-right traversal of
| the directed acyclic graph of all base classes." That is
| a _very_ precise, unambiguous statement if you know what
| virtual base classes are. (The sentence went on to define
| what "left to right" meant in this context.) You don't
| even need to know what a directed acyclic graph is in a
| formal way to be able to clearly, unambiguously
| understand what that sentence is saying.
|
| Compare that to, I don't know, the worst sentence from
| your CEO's quarterly yay-us message to the company. Or
| the worst sentence from a politician's campaign speech,
| or from a political debate where they're trying to dodge
| the other side's point.
|
| Yes, statements can be less ambiguous than other
| statements. (Even in politics - compare George Bush's
| "Read my lips: No new taxes" with the statements many
| politicians make.)
| rhelz wrote:
| Well...Suppose I wrote an optimizer which could---perhaps
| as some kind of return-value optimization, determine that
| we didn't even need to construct such an object, but we
| instead could just pass along the values to the caller?
|
| If I never had to create the virtual table, would it be a
| violation of the spec if I didn't do it?
|
| We are so good at handling ambiguity that we don't even
| notice its existence most of the time. But specs,
| especially specs which specify the semantics of an
| expression--are infinitely ambiguous as to how to that
| expression is actually calculated.
|
| Ideally, the spec, for c++ or another language is
| _deliberately_ made ambiguous, just because it leaves
| room for creative interpretations---also known as
| "optimizations".
| jiggawatts wrote:
| > If I never had to create the virtual table, would it be
| a violation of the spec if I didn't do it?
|
| Generally: no. Most such specs have a phrase along the
| lines of "externally observable effect".
|
| In other words, the compiler can do anything as long as
| the programmer or external systems can't tell that
| anything is different.
|
| Processors do this all the time, reordering instruction
| execution but then arranging things so that it's
| impossible to tell that this occurred.
| rhelz wrote:
| Yup. Its an interesting example of _deliberate_
| ambiguity, and how useful it can be.
|
| This is why I don't like using "ambiguous" as a term of
| abuse. Ambiguity isn't inherently bad. Languages are
| ambiguous for a reason.
| chambers wrote:
| You raise a good point on how people like us enjoy
| leveraging ambiguous philosophy for our own amorality. If
| the philosopher fails to take a stand -- something is good,
| something is bad, something is wrong, something is right --
| their ideas are easily repurposed for rationalizing, even
| absolving, immoral acts.
|
| People like me want nice-sounding, undemanding ideas that
| makes them look good and feel good. We desire ideas that
| shift with words, ideas that lack solid form and the
| logical consistency that would ward off our own desires.
|
| Like you said, it's dangerous because people think
| ambiguous philosophy as a vitamin, when really it's an
| intellectual candy. Tasty and sweet, but no nutrition for
| the soul, and certainly it gives no energy for its
| exercise.
| lo_zamoyski wrote:
| > much more well laid out in classical theologians
| (Aquinas, etc)
|
| And what's more, while God as _Ipsum Esse Subsistens_ is a
| conclusion we can arrive at philosophically (and thus
| unaided reason with no appeals made to revealed knowledge),
| we also find Scriptural antecedents, such as Exodus 3:14
| (where God gives his "name" to Moses as "I Am"; God is not
| _this_ god, or _that_ god, but _is_ ).
|
| > It is as rewarding as it is dense and gave me the bridge
| between "old" and "new" philosophy/theology that I find
| lacking in many moderns.
|
| You might find Betz's recent book[0] interesting.
|
| [0] https://stpaulcenter.com/product/christ-the-logos-of-
| creatio...
| cameron_b wrote:
| The pain evident in his life story seems to shatter the very
| assumptions of language even.
|
| I read in that sentence something of the nature of "Humans
| can't even plumb the depths of 'existence' with surety to
| understand how to bring that idea to a superseding and
| underlying ever-being of a God"
|
| Tillich would overload the semi-colon in C.
| anonymouse008 wrote:
| Sounds like he would sure love the Abrahamic God - the one when
| inquired of "who should I tell them sent me" responds with "I
| AM"
| panosfilianos wrote:
| I wonder if this refers to a central idea in Orthodox theology
| which is very clear to distinguish between:
|
| - God "uparkhei" (Greek for existing under someone's authority,
| "up" under -"arkhe" authority) which is used in modern Greek
| for all things that simply exist and is false for God and,
|
| - God "einai" (Greek for being, present tense) which is True of
| God and of nothing else.
| SRasch wrote:
| His point is that we talk of existing, as existing in this
| universe. But God is outside of it.
|
| An analogy is: it would be wrong to say Tolkien exists in the
| Lord of the Rings universe, even though he made it, and so in a
| sense is a precondition for any of the characters in the lore
| existing.
|
| This is actually not unusual but is the standard theological
| view
| csours wrote:
| Interesting that the word 'humility' does not appear in the
| article, but it seems to me that is what the article is about.
|
| No matter how you explain the world to yourself, I think you need
| some humility to recognize that you do not have a complete
| understanding. Humans also need faith to function, but not too
| much, or it's too easy to stay wrong and too easy to dismiss the
| idea that other people can have a valid point of view that
| disagrees with your own point of view.
| wredue wrote:
| Humans do not need "faith" to function.
|
| If you're talking about "having faith" as in "I have faith my
| car will start with morning", then yes, but that is not the
| same thing as theological faith. I have loads of evidence and
| experience that I can draw on to "have faith my car will
| start", whereas "faith" in the context of religion means to
| "believe absent evidence".
| csours wrote:
| You may notice that I did not specify theological faith.
| oaththrowaway wrote:
| No, that's a common misconception. Faith in the context of
| religion requires or enables action. It's taking your belief
| and acting on it.
| slothtrop wrote:
| That is just what follows from faith, not the definition of
| faith. That is just as true of anything someone really
| believes in; your actions would or ought not be incongruent
| with your beliefs.
|
| If you believed animals are sentient and ought not be
| harmed at all, then you wouldn't harm them. But those
| actions that follow have no bearing on the meaning of
| belief or faith (where the latter can be distinguished as
| being a "willful" belief).
| scop wrote:
| This may come as a surprise to you but I have "religious"
| faith _because_ of evidence, not lack thereof. As to how it
| operates on a day to day basis in my life, I have faith in
| God just as I have faith in my wife: it is a relationship
| founded upon experience and knowledge. Certainly the
| objection would be that that is entirely subjective, but that
| is where objective arguments can then be laid out in addition
| to my "experience" of God in my life: philosophical
| arguments for God, historical arguments for God's actions in
| time and space, etc. I am a convert and came from a non-
| religious background, most often seeking reasons to _not_
| convert, FWIW.
| moritzwarhier wrote:
| I am from a non-religious background as well, and I would
| love to be able to have religious faith.
|
| I like the comparison with having faith your wife, but it
| also shows the gap of reasoning between you and the post
| you are responding to, no?
|
| You start by saying
|
| > This may come as a surprise to you but I have "religious"
| faith because of evidence, not lack thereof
|
| What is that evidence? Are you sure you are not playing on
| words here? Because faith has positive effects on you?
|
| I like the argument about humility stated in another
| thread. For me, humility really seems to be the core value
| of religion that I find helpful.
|
| Another point you make I don't quite understand:
|
| > Certainly the objection would be that that is entirely
| subjective, but that is where objective arguments can then
| be laid out in addition to my "experience" of God in my
| life: philosophical arguments for God, historical arguments
| for God's actions in time and space, etc
|
| What are these arguments that are not debunked? As far as I
| know, proofs of God and arguments for His/Its/Her/Their
| existence are very indicative of the time and author's
| reasoning system.
|
| But there are none that I know of that have stood the test
| of time - be it Aquin, Kant, Descartes or whoever else?
| scop wrote:
| > What are these arguments that are not debunked?...there
| are none that I know of that have stood the test of time
|
| To say that the classical arguments for God, e.g.
| Aquinas' five ways, have simply been "debunked" is
| completely false. I recall reading Dawkin's _The God
| Delusion_ in early college and being convinced that these
| arguments were indeed antiquated. However as I began to
| read book-length treatments on various arguments
| (beginning, contingency, etc) I realized Dawkins et al
| oversimplified the entire enterprise. Are there debates
| about them? Sure and there always will be. But there are
| many professional philosophers who consider various
| classical arguments sound (though they often prefer one
| over the other, a gradient of "soundness").
|
| > What is that evidence? Are you sure you are not playing
| on words here?
|
| Putting aside the philosophical (see above), the
| historical arguments for Christianity and especially the
| mystery resurrection are what specifically convinced me.
|
| tldr
|
| - The gospels are written within a single generation of
| the apostles. They were likely written because the
| apostles and early disciples were beginning to die.
|
| - We have documentary evidence of the gospels being
| faithful to the original documents. We have a _vast_
| number of manuscripts, many more than most any other
| ancient work, and they all are in agreement with one
| another (ignoring small copyist errors here and there).
|
| - There are embarrassing stories in the gospels (Jesus'
| baptism, Jesus' rebuke of family, his inability to work
| miracles in certain places, Jesus' uncertainty as to the
| time of his return, the apostles total abandonment of him
| at his passion)
|
| - There is nothing placed in Jesus' mouth that are
| reflective of later debates in the early Christian
| communities (e.g. do we still circumcise?), which one
| would expect if later Christians were as free to make up
| stories to fit the "needs" or "meanings" in their
| community.
|
| - The names of people in the gospels correspond exactly
| to 1st century census data. If you were born in the 90s,
| you know a lot of Jennifers, yet there are very little
| baby Jennifers today. Names come and go quickly in
| cultures (outside of the true constant ones). There have
| been studies of the many names in the stories of Jesus
| and they all correspond to the timeframe expected (30ish
| AD) based on census data.
|
| - What explains the presence of the woman at the empty
| tomb? Woman held low esteem in ancient society, yet they
| are the first ones to learn of Jesus' resurrection. If
| this story was simply made up, why do we not see Peter,
| James, and John finding the empty tomb and immediately
| becoming full of faith?
|
| - After the collapse of faith of the apostles and their
| abandonment of Jesus at his passion, they all come "on
| board" with his resurrection and all go to their deaths
| attesting to this.
|
| - What explains the _completely novel concept_ of a pre-
| resurrection resurrection? Jesus rose Lazarus from the
| dead, but this was simply a resuscitation. Jesus '
| resurrection on the other hand is an eschatological
| resurrection, which means "end of time" resurrection. He
| is given a _glorified, eternal_ body that is capable of
| things unknown to us (passing through walls, suddenly
| appearing, etc). There were some Jews at the time of
| Christ who believed in an end-of-time resurrection, but
| _nobody_ believed that a single person would experience
| this sort of thing _before_ everybody else. This is a
| completely novel idea in Jewish thought and for it to so
| suddenly appear and fully formed within a Jewish "sect"
| is truly remarkable. Greek and Roman sources fail to
| explain this as well. The concept of an eschatological
| resurrection of so foreign that even the resurrection
| stories have an odd tone to them unlike the rest of the
| gospels, notably containing zero explicit biblical proofs
| ("here's where the Old Testament said I would rise") and
| containing remarks about various people doubting, being
| scared, etc. NT Wright's _The Resurrection of the Son of
| God_ is considered one of the best treatments on this.
| adamsb6 wrote:
| People claming to be witnesses to the resurrected Christ
| spent the rest of their lives executing on the Great
| Commission, going as far as India, Russia, Spain, and
| Carthage. Many did so under the threat of torture and
| death, and many were tortured and killed, never
| recanting.
|
| There's no comparable event in history, and especially
| not in antiquity. Much of what we take for granted as
| ancient history comes with far fewer sources.
|
| This is what kind of cracked my atheism and lead me to
| more fairly evaluate the claims of Christianity. Until
| that point I'd been a bit of a scoffer, taking for
| granted the premise that no organized religion could
| possibly be true.
|
| Discovering eucharistic miracles led me further toward
| accepting Christianity as true. I still feel like kind of
| a crackpot mentioning the evidence. But there's
| strikingingly consistent features of eucharistic
| miracles, going back to a time where it wouldn't have
| been possible to fake. They all have a somewhat rare
| blood type, including ones that were preserved centuries
| before we knew about blood type. They're all human
| cardiac muscle. The more recent ones, which haven't
| decayed and lost evidence, have features that are
| consistent with someone undergoing extreme physical
| stress. They also have features that are consistent only
| with living tissue, even for samples that have been
| sitting in tap water for months or years.
|
| See this book: https://www.amazon.com/Cardiologist-
| Examines-Jesus-Stunning-...
| moritzwarhier wrote:
| Thanks for your reply. I'll spend some more time reading
| it in detail at a later point.
|
| To clarify one thing: I haven't even read Dawkins' books.
|
| My stance on "proof of god's existance" arguments stems
| from, among others, a very goos philosophy PhD which I
| had the fortune to have as a high school teacher for a
| while (until he quit and went back to scholarship).
|
| His favorite subjects were Thomas von Aquin and Immanuel
| Kant, both believers in Christian theological "proofs" of
| various kinds.
|
| I couldn't think of a less flamboyant word than
| "debunked". To put in other words: all of the proofs of
| god's existance that I have seeen have turned out to be
| logical fallacies.
|
| My best friend, who was strongly catholic most of his
| life, but went on to study phiolosphy, I think concluded
| the same.
|
| That doesn't mean he's lost his faith completely though.
| AFAIK he doesn't like to call himself a Catholic anymore
| though.
|
| Which brings me to another issue, if not the main one,
| with these proofs:
|
| which god's existance do they aim to prove? Belief in
| most religions seems mutually exclusive (in a single
| mind, and without redefining and muddying historical
| terms), as much as we'd like otherwise.
|
| "Proving" something like "there is an entity or cause of
| effect that is more powerful than any entities or causes
| of effect that we know" is not a proof of the existance
| of any particular human-defined "God".
| scop wrote:
| Thanks for your reply! I wasn't trying to be spicy, just
| trying to write up a semi-thorough response in the middle
| of some tasks. I appreciate your feedback. There is
| something certainly to be said about logical proofs of
| God being inherently a very odd thing. How do you "prove"
| something that is Being Itself. In my religious journey I
| read a lot of philosophical books and while I was
| convinced by some of the philosophical arguments, they
| did indeed leave me a little empty. For example, I think
| the argument of contingency is a very good one, but even
| when accepting that I cannot say that I "know" or "see"
| or "believe" in God. It is like being told that some guy
| named Bob exists in a different city. Ok, so what? I
| haven't seen him, heard him, touched him. Until you see
| him, the abstract really doesn't bring you across the
| finish line so to speak. I look at philosophical
| arguments more about "clearing the ground" for God,
| placing Him within a "why this is a reasonable belief"
| context. T
|
| To actually encounter God is completely different, which
| is also why I found the historical arguments far more
| effective for me in my journey as we have in Jesus, so we
| are told, the God-Man making Himself known to us. We get
| to _see_ God. I personally became very convinced of the
| historicity of the gospels after about 10 years of
| intensive study, having started out as somebody who
| enjoyed them as "myth".
|
| Yet this God is also peculiar: He suffered complete
| desolation on the cross. And here I find myself in this
| strange life, full of trials and sorrow, and I see Christ
| as fully explanatory of how suffering and hope possess
| meaning. I encounter Christ in these moments as I know
| that Christ doesn't remove suffering but transforms it.
| He doesn't take away my crosses, he makes them _light_
| and even, dare I say, full of love.
| moritzwarhier wrote:
| I really appreciate your responses - while I basically
| remain at my POV, unable to really invest in religion in
| an ontological way, I do feel as part of an aged,
| Christian-based culture and feel very deeply about some
| aspects of this heritage, without really being Christian
| myself. For me, emotional experience of the world and
| expanding my mind has certainly led me to see religion
| differently than as a 15-year old, meaning much more
| reapectfully. I still fit into the atheist ane agnostic
| cohort but I see religion as part of the fabrics of
| civilization today. And transient, like language. But I
| value a lot of Christian culture (e.g. Bachs music and
| prior art) and some Christian values (e.g. ethics of
| forgiveness and human rights)
| scop wrote:
| I likewise appreciate your replies and thoughtfulness.
| You did remind me of one of my favorite "arguments" for
| God:
|
| > There is the music of Johann Sebastian Bach.
|
| > Therefore there must be a God.
|
| > (You either see this one or you don't.)
|
| - Dr. Peter Kreeft (https://www.peterkreeft.com/topics-
| more/20_arguments-gods-ex...)
|
| Bach, man, if you look at my HN comments you'll probably
| see Bach mentioned at least 10% of the time. His music is
| unlike anything else out there: all individual parts
| unique and interesting yet everything forming a unified
| whole, constantly, across every single measure. You can
| listen to a cello line and be fully entranced and then
| listen to a violin going at the same time, likewise love
| it for itself, and then have the ability to then listen
| to them simultaneously and hear the harmonies. Every
| other composer I've listened to has a "dominant"
| section/theme, for example let's say the violins are
| playing a melody and the cellos are acting as a harmonic
| filler. It's beautiful, but listening to the cellos by
| themselves could be pretty boring. But with Bach, _every
| single instrument_ is doing something enjoyable at the
| same time.
| moritzwarhier wrote:
| Yes <3
|
| It sounds pathetic but sometimes I think his music has
| saved my life at a certain point. The fact that all
| voices are always "singing" makes it also very enjoyable
| to practise his music.
| tithe wrote:
| The performance of "Magnificat" (or anything performed by
| the Netherlands Bach Society) may help others to "see"
| this argument more clearly :)
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EsUWG2axB3w
| tombert wrote:
| I mean, I'm a pretty big anti-theist, and I think that
| misinformation and supernatural thinking is pretty much
| invariably bad, but I'll admit that I have some level of
| "faith".
|
| I have "faith" in the sense that I don't think most
| scientists are faking scientific papers. I have faith that
| when the NIH publishes a study it's usually accurate. I have
| faith that physics and mathematics is a good way of modeling
| the world.
|
| The reason I say "faith" is because conceivably I could
| dispute every paper and try and replicate it on my own, and
| try and go through elaborate proofs to make sure every
| mathematical theorem is correct, and I think there might even
| be value in that, but I also have a life to live. At some
| point, I have to put my trust into others and just hope it
| works out, and usually it does.
|
| Of course, this falls apart, there's been plenty of cases of
| scientists faking data, the NIH and CDC have gotten stuff
| wrong before, and plenty of things in physics have been
| proven wrong either mathematically or experimentally, so of
| course it's not a perfect system (nothing involving trust
| ever is), but I will acknowledge that way I live my life
| involves something that could be considered "faith".
| paulryanrogers wrote:
| Unlike scientific 'faith', religious faith requires hoop
| jumping to maintain it in the face of evidence proving it
| false/unlikely. Or reducing ones faith to unfalsifiable
| things.
|
| I took the latter path until I realized there was nothing
| left but hot air and wasted time.
| tombert wrote:
| That's fair; I guess the difference between what I'm
| defining as "faith" is that I am more than happy to be
| wrong.
|
| If it turned out that a paper was using fudged data, or
| the results were measured poorly, or that the math being
| used to crunch something was incorrect, I would like to
| think that I would be willing to readjust my position on
| it and go where the latest research points. Einstein
| proved that Newton's "laws" of physics were really just
| really good approximations, and I think the vast majority
| of physicists were willing to adjust accordingly.
|
| If it turned out tomorrow that Type Theory was shown to
| be unsound or something, I'm pretty sure I'd just concede
| that I was wrong to believe it, and then move onto
| whatever revised framework came along to replace it. I
| wouldn't just tune out all contrary perspectives and
| vehemently insist that "no type theory is always right
| and I have faith!!!"
|
| So you're right; it's not equivalent to religious faith,
| because religious faith typically involves readjusting
| your perception of the world to fit with it, while
| "faith" in science involves changing the data to fit
| better with the world.
| JackFr wrote:
| Assuredly there are some things you believe which aren't
| scientifically provable? In particular questions about
| how one should order their life? Not questions about 'is'
| but questions about 'should'.
|
| Is a love of peace over violence, freedom over slavery,
| ignorance over wisdom simply a matter of taste?
| tombert wrote:
| Yeah but I wouldn't really consider that "faith", more
| "opinions".
|
| Like, I think the best moral code tends to be "try and
| maximize empathy" as at least for me that seems to
| usually leads to the best results.
|
| Do I have some kind of objective proof that that's best?
| No, not really, it's a "feels" based judgement, but I
| don't think that's a "faith" based thing either, any more
| than me saying that "Donkey Kong Country 2 is the best
| game ever" would be.
|
| We can objectively measure how close something is to some
| moral framework, but the weighting of that moral
| framework will eventually get subjective. I don't think
| subjectivity implies "faith".
| PaulDavisThe1st wrote:
| I don't think that's quite an equivalent loss of "faith".
|
| More equivalent would be where you see enough evidence of
| faked/false papers being published that you _start
| believing that most papers are faked /false_. More
| equivalent would be you concluding that (e.g) the FDA
| does not possess either the authority or expertise (or
| both) to ever correctly make any judgements about the
| safety of food or drugs. More equivalent would be your
| deciding that CDC doesn't actually understand how disease
| spreads and thus should be ignored.
|
| (I'm aware that the latter two examples here sound
| suspiciously related to specific recent events/trends in
| the USA, but that's accidental and not intentional on my
| part)
| wredue wrote:
| Nah dude. That's exactly what I am saying. Your "faith" in
| science is not misplaced, and it is not absent evidence of
| working. If science didn't work, you couldn't have written
| that comment. You also have evidence that a small minority
| of people exploit that trust for personal gain, but this is
| a fixable thing.
|
| This is an entirely different definition of faith.
| tombert wrote:
| Sure, I would say that it's not an article of faith to
| say that, I don't know, transistors work as expected,
| because obviously I can very clearly demonstrate that by
| sending this very message.
|
| But "science" isn't a monolith. _Most_ science is stuff I
| don 't really understand with any kind of intimate
| detail. Pretty much anything involving chemistry,
| biology, health, or physics is over my head; I'll try and
| read the abstract of a paper in those subjects and I feel
| like I generally understand it well enough, but I don't
| know enough to actually criticize anything.
|
| If we take the Jan Hendrik Schon scandal from about 22
| years ago, I know I would have read the papers and just
| taken on faith that the paper writer wasn't lying. I'm
| not equipped enough in physics or chemistry to call
| bullshit on anything being said in there and I probably
| would have trusted it. I also would have been wrong.
|
| Now the Jan Hendrik Schon case isn't a great example,
| because of course he _was_ caught, and it 's tempting to
| say "see! Science is self-correcting!" and I think it
| broadly is, but at the same we really have no way of
| knowing how prevalent these cases of fraud actually are.
| Maybe other scientists are just better at covering up
| their tracks.
|
| Of course this is getting into the bigger "replication
| crisis" in science, but I generally believe a vast
| majority of scientists are honest with their results, and
| I generally believe the results of their papers are at
| least _truthful_ , but at some level that's an article of
| "faith", or maybe just an article of "intellectual
| laziness" on my end.
|
| I guess I might argue that there's not much of a
| difference between the two.
| aprilthird2021 wrote:
| There is actually quite a lot of evidence of God. There are
| many books, works, ancient religious structures, etc. which
| provides that evidence.
|
| It's the same evidence as there is evidence for ancient
| Sumerians.
|
| But then maybe you'll say "anything that exists is not
| evidence, we have to apply scrutiny to that evidence to see
| if it holds up". And of course everyone's level of scrutiny
| and what they view as proof and not proof will differ, so
| that's a road leading to nowhere fast.
|
| Perhaps the simplest proof of a God is that none of us truly
| live our lives as if there were no God. Many of even atheists
| don't live as if there is not a moral tally over their lives.
| They don't live as if their lives were truly meaningless (for
| if they did, they would see no issue in ending the whole
| cosmic accident of their own life or the lives of others on a
| whim). If God didn't exist, the ones who truly don't believe
| would likely act out much more on their beliefs no?
| r2_pilot wrote:
| Point 1: ">There is actually quite a lot of evidence of
| God. There are many books, works, ancient religious
| structures, etc. which provides that evidence. It's the
| same evidence as there is evidence for ancient Sumerians. "
| This is a false equivalency. We know the Sumerians existed
| both because of their writings and other physical
| artifacts. However, if none of these were present today,
| that doesn't mean the Sumerians didn't exist. Similarly,
| just because there are words describing a god, and they
| came from a previous society, does not mean their god
| exists. Most people can agree on solid evidence or at least
| are willing to compromise/determine standards of evidence
| in order to agree with others. Point 2: "Many of even
| atheists don't live as if there is not a moral tally over
| their lives. They don't live as if their lives were truly
| meaningless" Human history and evolution in general show
| that altruism helps promote species' growth. Morals are
| codified behaviors that generally (not always!!) promote
| the growth of a human society. It is evolutionary-negative
| to end other members of your own species, so those traits
| are heavily selected against.
|
| Bottom line, people are naturally good because that's what
| gets humans reproducing. No god needed
| JR1427 wrote:
| I believe in God for a number of reasons.
|
| Firstly, it just seems much more plausible that someone
| created the universe. If we walked in to the middle of
| nowhere and saw a beautiful statue, most of us would say
| "wow, I wonder who made it?" not "wow, what an incredible
| coincidence that this thing which has meaning to me just
| spontaneously formed".
|
| Another main reason is that I _feel_ like there is a God,
| and generally my feelings tell me things. When I feel
| hungry, I don't think "ah, but that feeling is only an
| illusion!" instead I go and eat.
|
| I feel like there is a God, so I go and eat.
|
| p.s. I'm not trying to convince anyone here, just putting
| my thoughts out there in case they are helpful to anyone
| else.
| alt227 wrote:
| I started writing a reply about how this is the 'infinite
| monkeys' argument, however on rereading your reply it
| looks like this is not correct.
|
| It seems like you are saying you base your reality on
| your feelings.
|
| To extend your examples, what do you think when you look
| up in the sky and see a Goodyear blimp? Do you think 'Wow
| look at that blimp, what a modern miracle that humans
| have made things that can fly" or do you go buy tires?
|
| EDIT: I dont mean to detract from or insult your beliefs
| in anyway. They sound very nice :)
| JR1427 wrote:
| Ha, I've not seen a blimp in a long time!
|
| I think I'd probably think both those things :P
|
| I wouldn't say that I _only_ base my view of reality on
| my feelings, but I don't discount them just because they
| might be hard to explain.
|
| I think our feelings, as well as our thoughts, should be
| listened to.
|
| Not that it really makes any difference, but I have a
| science background (PhD, post-doc) so am used to thinking
| about evidence, so I hope you don't get the impression
| that I'm just too stupid to be an atheist!
|
| I appreciate your respectful reply, though. It's actually
| fun when you can exchange a few thoughts with people on
| the internet in a respectful way.
| JR1427 wrote:
| As a side note, I also spent a period mentally tallying
| up the (sometimes famous) people on both sides of the God
| debate. When I discovered that someone I admire/respect
| believed in God, I'd add a mental mark on one column, and
| when I discovered someone else I admire/respect who
| doesn't, I'd add a mark in the other column.
|
| Both columns became full pretty quickly, so I concluded
| that someone's point of view on God cannot be a case of
| intellect or integrity. This at least helped me not feel
| insecure about my beliefs on that front.
|
| One reason why I don't hide my beliefs (although I rarely
| flaunt them, either) is so anyone else carrying out the
| same exercise has some more data. They might of course
| choose to put me in a "stupid believer" category, but
| that is up to them!
| IncreasePosts wrote:
| Most of us would say "Wow, I wonder who made it" about a
| statue, but not a tree that is growing next to it.
| f30e3dfed1c9 wrote:
| > I believe in God for a number of reasons.
|
| I'm not sure that what you describe as "reasons" actually
| qualify as reasons.
|
| > Firstly, it just seems much more plausible that someone
| created the universe.
|
| Why is that more plausible? You think that there is "an
| uncaused thing," which you call "God," and that this
| uncaused thing created the universe. Why is that more
| plausible than the uncaused thing being the universe
| itself? The universe manifestly exists; your idea of
| "someone" who created it does not (it may exist, but does
| not manifestly exist in the way the universe does).
|
| > If we walked in to the middle of nowhere and saw a
| beautiful statue, most of us would say "wow, > I wonder
| who made it?" not "wow, what an incredible coincidence
| that this thing which has > meaning to me just
| spontaneously formed".
|
| This is a variant of a common creationist argument, often
| promoted by those who prefer the term "intelligent
| design" to "creationism." But so-called "intelligent
| design" is just a variant of hard-core creationism.
|
| > Another main reason is that I _feel_ like there is a
| God, and generally my feelings tell me > things. When I
| feel hungry, I don't think "ah, but that feeling is only
| an illusion!" instead I > go and eat.
|
| This conflates two very different senses of the words
| "feel" and "feelings." Hunger is a biological sensation;
| your "feeling" that there is a God is not and is a very,
| very different kind of "feeling."
|
| Consider this: if you had been left alone on a desert
| island as a child, with no other humans around, you would
| still feel hunger, because that is a natural, biological
| sensation.
|
| But you almost certainly would not have the "feeling" you
| have now that there is a God, and even if you did, that
| God would even more certainly not have the
| characteristics you ascribe to it now.
|
| The "God" that you "feel" exists, which has whatever
| characteristics you ascribe to it, is a social construct.
| In the absence of a social environment, it is vanishingly
| unlikely that you would construct a similar idea on your
| own.
|
| Again, this "feeling" is not at all like hunger: it is a
| purely psychological phenomenon in a way that "feeling"
| hungry is not. Using the words "feel" and "feeling" in
| these two different ways confuses the issue rather than
| clarifies it.
|
| > I feel like there is a God, so I go and eat.
|
| This is not really even intelligible.
| notanastronaut wrote:
| "If God didn't exist, the ones who truly don't believe
| would likely act out much more on their beliefs no?"
|
| I don't need some fear based faith system keeping me in
| check. Life is hard, difficult, and unfair enough as is
| without me adding hateful chaos to the mix.
|
| I do find it weird that people need the threat of a
| punishment in the hereafter to keep their baser instincts
| in check. I am highly suspicious of anyone who cannot seem
| to fathom that goodness or morality can be found in
| something outside of divinity. What may they be hiding
| under that coat of piety and how many rounds does it hold?
| MisterBastahrd wrote:
| Given that the god of the Bible is a literally an
| amalgamation of various ancient Sumerian gods, I don't
| believe that this is the win that you think it is.
|
| And however powerful you think he is, he got his ass handed
| to him by Chemosh, a member of a Moabite pantheon, after
| the king of the Moabites sacrificed his heir in a burnt
| offering to his own god.
|
| I didn't make it up. That's in the Bible.
|
| The Christian god is what happens when you take a fictional
| character and keep on ascribing to him greater and greater
| powers because it's easier than describing his limitations.
| Same thing happened with Superman in the 40s and 50s,
| really.
| MisterBastahrd wrote:
| > If God didn't exist, the ones who truly don't believe
| would likely act out much more on their beliefs no?
|
| But I do. My morality doesn't come from an imaginary being.
| It comes from my relationships with other people. I don't
| kill people because (a) it would bring me no joy to do so,
| (b) would bring me no benefit, and (c) we have laws that
| prevent killing because societies are more stable when they
| don't engage in random killings. Societies only get to
| exist if the people in them find a net benefit in staying
| alive and having others stay alive. It's amazing how many
| cultures have existed throughout our history as a species
| and none of them just went crazy because they didn't
| believe in some land-locked storm god who forgot about his
| wife.
|
| The idea that people are just going to go apeshit if they
| truly believed there wasn't a god is right up there in
| terms of ridiculousness with all the men in the Republican
| party and pastors who claim steadfast morality but keep
| getting caught with minors, women who aren't their wives,
| and gay men. So I feel sorry for you if you are so
| inherently immoral that you need to be held back by stories
| of a man in the sky, but some of us don't live our lives in
| fear of supernatural retaliation.
|
| And if we're being real, the vast majority of the planet
| don't believe in your god, including people who claim to be
| Christian. It's just easier to say that you do so that
| people will leave you alone.
| kybernetikos wrote:
| > "faith" in the context of religion means to "believe absent
| evidence".
|
| I'm pretty sure this definition comes from atheists. I think
| it's a strawman. I don't know any religious person who thinks
| they believe without any evidence.
| krapp wrote:
| It comes from the Bible, for instance in Hebrews - "Now
| faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of
| things not seen."
| kybernetikos wrote:
| And you get from that "believing absent evidence"?
|
| I get from that that faith is where your confidence in
| the logical conclusions of your belief gives you impetus
| to turn your hope into action.
|
| Faith isn't to do with why you believe, its to do with
| what you do with that belief, and the separate question
| of why you believe of course involves evidence.
| slothtrop wrote:
| > its to do with what you do with that belief
|
| No, that is simply what _follows_ from having faith as is
| demanded of adherents. Faith in itself does not mean
| that. Faith is to fully believe by choice, and if one
| does, then it necessitates that they do what is demanded
| of followers.
| wredue wrote:
| No see. Now you're taking a third definition of faith and
| mangling it to shift the goal posts.
|
| This is a constant thing we see among religion argument.
|
| I do agree with you that "faith" is often defined in this
| way, but it is absolutely not the definition we are
| discussing.
| kybernetikos wrote:
| > I do agree with you that "faith" is often defined in
| this way, but it is absolutely not the definition we are
| discussing.
|
| Well yeah, because it's in the Bible that way, and a lot
| of the people you're talking about are Christian.
|
| It's fine for people to have different definitions of
| things as long as they agree when arguing. But just as
| I'm not talking about your definition of faith when you
| say 'faith', you're not talking about my definition of
| 'faith' when you say 'faith'.
|
| If you want to talk about 'belief absent evidence', I
| agree that's a bad thing, so there's probably no argument
| there. Furthermore, I think the vast majority of
| religious people think they do have evidence for their
| belief and don't agree that they have 'belief absent
| evidence'.
|
| Perhaps they're using the word wrong, but that's not a
| real area of disagreement.
| wredue wrote:
| It is not. I would welcome you to watch actual debates.
| This definition of faith is what happens when arguments are
| defeated. The response will always be
|
| "Well that's where you have to have faith"
| kybernetikos wrote:
| That doesn't mean that there is no evidence for the faith
| they are advocating.
| wredue wrote:
| When the evidence you present is defeated and you respond
| "that's where you have to have faith", that is literally
| "belief absent evidence".
|
| That's not even counting the types of "evidence". Like "
| nature is beautiful" and "bananas fit in your hand and
| angle toward your mouth".
| slothtrop wrote:
| > I don't know any religious person who thinks they believe
| without any evidence.
|
| That is what faith is by definition. You can't redefine the
| term, whether you have faith or not.
|
| Subjective experience is not empirical evidence i.e.
| evidence, colloquially used. Even on the individual level
| there's a willful interpretation involved. They might play
| the semantic game of calling it evidence, but it isn't.
| rhelz wrote:
| That definition actually comes from the epistle to the
| Hebrews, Chapter 11. It's a way, way less poetic way of
| saying "Faith is evidence of things not seen, and the
| essence of things hopes for."
|
| And then the chapter goes on to give examples of people who
| had faith--none of which did what they did or believed the
| way they do because of anything describable as what would
| count as evidence in science, or a court of law.
|
| This is not to say that the faithful are irrational or even
| that they are wrong. The faithful have good reasons to
| believe as they do, but those reasons are not confirmed by
| evidence.
|
| Why is this so important? Well, what do you do when all the
| evidence says you are doomed to fail? Or that there is no
| way out? Do you give up? Or does your hope, as Hebrews
| says, consist of things not seen?
|
| If the faithful insist that their faith is confirmed like
| any other belief is confirmed, they will miss the whole
| point of faith, and when the time comes that they need that
| kind of faith, they find they don't have it.
| kybernetikos wrote:
| I think there's a big big stretch between "faith is the
| substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not
| seen." and "faith is belief absent evidence", and lots of
| room for different opinions in there.
| rhelz wrote:
| I think one of the reasons there are so many opinions is
| because people give different meanings to the words
| "faith" and "evidence."
|
| Here is the difference for me: A teacher has two
| students, and she firmly believes they both can succeed
| in her class, and in life.
|
| 1. The first student has a history of getting good
| grades, has engaged parents, secure home, etc. The
| teacher takes this as EVIDENCE that the student will
| succeed.
|
| 2. The second student has always gotten very bad grades.
| He gets in trouble a lot. His parents are disengaged and
| have trouble keeping food on the table. Nevertheless, the
| teacher has an unshakable belief that this student can
| succeed. In complete contradiction to every piece of
| objective evidence. Because she has FAITH in the kid.
|
| There is a huge difference between those two ways of
| coming to a belief. This difference should not just be
| glossed over. Both kinds of ways of coming to believe are
| essential to human existence.
|
| Sometimes, the apropos thing to do is throw out all the
| evidence. Sometimes the most rational thing to do is have
| the courage to keep going by faith.
| haswell wrote:
| The definition of "evidence" is what then comes under
| scrutiny.
|
| The person of faith believes evidence in the form of 1st
| person subjective experience is sufficient to justify their
| beliefs.
|
| The person of science believes evidence must meet a
| fundamentally different set of criteria.
|
| There are two different language games being played, with
| each player insisting their ruleset is the right one.
| kybernetikos wrote:
| Yes, I think this is the right argument to have - what
| constitutes acceptable evidence for an individual to
| believe something, and what evidence is there, rather
| than trying to say faith is by definition stupid and
| therefore people who have faith are stupid, which as I
| say is a strawman.
| denton-scratch wrote:
| > "faith" in the context of religion means to "believe absent
| evidence".
|
| I think that's a bit simplistic.
|
| I was taught (in a Buddhist context) that "faith" should be
| interpreted as a kind of confidence. To do meditation (beyond
| something like mindfulness), you need confidence that you
| aren't going to explode, or harm yourself. It's like that
| game of deliberately falling backward, with the confidence
| that your friends will catch you before you hit the ground.
| So you need confidence in your teacher and in the teaching.
|
| You gain that kind of confidence based on experience; you
| don't trust your friends (or your teacher) because you're
| supposed to; you trust them because they have shown
| themselves reliable in the past. You don't acquire confidence
| in a flash, as it were on the road to Damascus; it's
| something that develops.
|
| I don't know whether the Christian notion of faith jibes with
| this Buddhist interpretation.
|
| /me no longer a Buddhist, nor any kind of thing-ist.
| slothtrop wrote:
| You could suggest we have a confidence interval for various
| things (e.g. 99% for gravity, 55% for whether x/y/z will
| happen or a president gets a second term), but in the
| capacity of Christianity the expression of faith demanded
| necessarily goes beyond mild conviction. The institutions
| (and what is conveyed in the Bible) don't want you to kinda
| sorta believe, they want you to believe by willfully
| eschewing all doubt. It's an action as much as a descriptor
| for belief.
|
| I never felt as though I could "choose" to believe
| anything, or not easily at any rate. I could choose not to
| explore certain data and be satisfied with ignorance
| (though I try not to) but if something is incongruent with
| the facts as I understand them, then I can't "faith" my way
| to believing it.
| denton-scratch wrote:
| > the expression of faith demanded necessarily goes
| beyond mild conviction.
|
| OK. So in Buddhism (the way I was taught it), confidence
| or faith isn't something you express; you either have
| enough to achieve what you're trying to achieve, or you
| don't. And nobody demands it. But you're right, it's not
| an all-or-nothing deal.
|
| > necessarily goes beyond mild conviction.
|
| Indeed (although I'm not sure what "mild conviction"
| means; being convinced of something means you can see no
| room for doubt). For some kinds of meditation, e.g. some
| kinds of Tantric meditation, you need something that
| feels like certainty. It's not about falsifiable facts;
| it's about trusting, because you have to let go (like
| falling backwards).
|
| I don't know any evangelical Christians; I think that for
| them, expressing their faith is part of the deal, and it
| is expected (i.e. demanded). In that sort of context, I
| can imagine a pastor or community "demanding" that you
| hold beliefs that are false to fact, e.g. Young Earth.
| That's not what I understand by "confidence".
|
| Regarding trust and confidence, I just watched a two-part
| PBS documentary about Jim Jones and the Jonestown
| Massacre; it was an eye-opener. A lot of testimony from
| people who totally trusted this guy for a long time,
| despite (what looked to me like) his total charlatanism.
| He just wanted to be admired, apparently.
| jayknight wrote:
| In classical Christianity, "having faith" really means "being
| faithful". To be a a faithful husband/wife, you have to do
| more than "believe" that you are married, you have change
| your life such that it is inseparable from your spouse. The
| same is true for Christians.
| s_dev wrote:
| >Humans also need faith to function
|
| Faith is fundamentally a bad idea. Take my word for it.
|
| If you're rebuttal is: "Why should I take your word" you've
| already partially come around to a more formal method of
| thinking that is based on questioning.
| giraffe_lady wrote:
| Did you see the definition of faith Tillich uses? Do you
| think that's "fundamentally a bad idea?"
| jmcqk6 wrote:
| I wonder if you're taking a particularly narrow definition of
| what faith is.
|
| I don't think it's possible to operate without faith,
| regardless of belief in god. You are not going to get out and
| check every bridge you drive across. You're going to trust
| that they are not going to fall, and that is a type of faith.
|
| The same can be said for the vast majority of human
| experience. Living requires us to constantly act with
| incomplete knowledge. I'm not sure that complete knowledge is
| even possible.
| cafard wrote:
| One name I don't see here is "Heidegger". I remember hearing
| years ago that Tillich drew heavily on Heidegger, sometimes with
| little more alteration than swapping in "God" for "ground of
| being".
|
| Perhaps someone better acquainted with Tillich and Heidegger
| could weigh in?
| mattgreenrocks wrote:
| This quote has stuck with me:
|
| > Paul Tillich wrote that all institutions, including the church,
| are inherently demonic. Reinhold Niebuhr asserted that no
| institution could ever achieve the morality of the individual.
| Institutions, he warned, to extend their lives when confronted
| with collapse, will swiftly betray the stances that ostensibly
| define them. Only individual men and women have the strength to
| hold fast to virtue when faced with the threat of death. And
| decaying institutions, including the church, when consumed by
| fear, swiftly push those endowed with this moral courage and
| radicalism from their ranks, rendering themselves obsolete.
|
| https://libquotes.com/chris-hedges/quote/lbh3k8n
| oldgregg wrote:
| ^^^ you are here.
| fsckboy wrote:
| many, even most, individuals do not hold fast to virtue even in
| their daily lives, and society has only crude solutions for
| dealing with that, but we must deal with it.
|
| organizations that consist of individuals who do hold fast to
| principle we tend to label as "cults", and their chosen
| principles are not necessarily favored by any majority.
|
| we need organizations, as imperfect as they are--which is as
| imperfect as we are--and so we regulate them as best we can.
|
| the Tillich quote you cite sounds Ayn Randian.
| mattgreenrocks wrote:
| We do need organizations. And we also need to see them for
| how they behave sometimes.
|
| Both things can be true.
| photochemsyn wrote:
| Perhaps all religious and metaphysical argument can be abstracted
| away into the simulation hypothesis - i.e. that we all live in a
| perfect simulation, running on a substrate somewhere else. The
| key point in this argument is that no experimental or
| observational evidence is capable of proving or disproving the
| existence of the simulation, since it is a _perfect_ simulation.
|
| This is logically equivalent to the statement that a supernatural
| being is continually intervening in the world, but only when
| nobody is watching, and only such that no evidence of
| intervention is left behind.
|
| Similarly, nobody can prove that a person who claims to hear the
| voice of a supernatural being in their head (and that's the
| inspiration for writing a holy text which forms the basis of a
| religion) is actually just schizophrenic, rather than having had
| their neurons plucked like strings by said supernatural being.
|
| This view seems to upset atheists more than anyone else, since it
| places their certainty about the fundamentally mechanistic and
| non-simulated nature of reality in the same bin with religious
| evangelicals, but the religious people don't like it much either
| as there is no clear basis to choose one religion as superior to
| another, other than the purely utilitarian arguments about which
| one provides the optimal moral basis for a healthy society.
|
| Hence the mysterious unknowable nature of reality: some questions
| cannot be answered. Even the mathematicians agree on that these
| days.
| anonymouse008 wrote:
| What led you arrive at this? Would love to read these works
| haswell wrote:
| This is one of the reasons that I've mostly shifted to
| "agnostic" after many years of considering myself a hard
| atheist.
|
| The degree to which I still consider myself an atheist is
| mostly rooted in my belief that if some god-like entity or non-
| entity or whatever "exists", he/she/it/they is certainly not
| like the common conception of some "father god" figure in the
| clouds.
|
| It took me awhile to realize (after going down quite a few
| science and philosophical rabbit holes), that the atheist's
| position is untenable - not because I think there is a god, but
| because there seems to be no reason to believe we can actually
| know one way or the other.
|
| I'm not religious, but I do find myself spending more time
| contemplating this primordial unknown. I'm a strong believer in
| the value of science, but if for no other reason than our lack
| of progress on the hard problem of consciousness, I have to
| accept that it doesn't have ultimate answers. Maybe someday
| this will change.
| adamsb6 wrote:
| The leap from "we are in a simulation" to "some pieces of bread
| have a tag that marks them as belonging to the body of Christ"
| is rather small.
|
| That's not that much data. It's really not that remarkable once
| you've bought into the idea of your existence being a
| simulation.
| kayodelycaon wrote:
| > nobody can prove that a person who claims to hear the voice
| of a supernatural being in their head (...) is actually just
| schizophrenic
|
| Bipolar chiming in. Personally, I find hallucinations and mood
| swings to be very different from God. The disconnect from
| reality caused by the former is very distinct, even though I'm
| forced to act as if they were real.
|
| God tends to come in the form of action, something tangible,
| something outside logic and emotion. I've never heard words or
| had feelings associated with it. It's not part of any moods
| like everything else is.
|
| Of course, this is all impossible to prove. After all, I'm
| diagnosed with a mental illness which has delusional thinking
| as a common symptom. _I_ wouldn't trust me. :)
| zoogeny wrote:
| I think this view is agnostic at its core but it requires each
| individual to make a choice between a simulation without an
| ultimate observer and a simulation with an ultimate observer.
| It can get even more tricky if you consider the multi-verse and
| the possibility that all simulatable realities exist
| simultaneously and completely. That give a new breadth, IMO, to
| the idea of omnipotence since one may feel compelled to assume
| that such an ultimate observer is aware of each of those
| possible universes/realities.
|
| If one makes the choice to believe in a God-like ultimate
| observer then one is required to confront the nature of their
| relationship between their own subjective experience and that
| ultimate observer. One of the consequences that I believe
| results from contemplating this with respect to multi-verses
| will be the necessity of rejecting the idea of revelation
| entirely.
|
| If that is a correct view, then it leaves the would-be believer
| in a paradoxical (or even absurd) condition. One is driven by
| the question of their relationship to some ultimate source
| while never being able to reconcile it.
|
| Of course, if you simply reject the ultimate observer, or even
| an ultimate source from which everything emanates, then you
| don't have anything to contemplate at all and any discussion on
| the matter would appear trivial and frivolous.
| card_zero wrote:
| It should upset, or rather _irritate,_ anyone with a scientific
| mindset, because the idea of a _perfect_ simulation is an
| untestable hypothesis, and an untestable hypothesis, listen
| carefully, isn 't worth shit: and why don't you know this
| already? What makes you keen to promote an untestable
| hypothesis? The natural assumption to make is that you were
| bitten by the religion bug, and are seeking a way to sneak
| religion into cosmology through the back door.
| asdff wrote:
| Was gravity an idea not worth shit before we developed ways
| to empirically test it out?
| card_zero wrote:
| I'm sorry: unfalsifiable, then. Fine distinction.
| asdff wrote:
| Everything is unfalsifiable until we develop tests for
| it.
| photochemsyn wrote:
| Well, we often deal with untestable questions in science,
| such as: what was the molecular pathway that led to the
| origin of life? Time has erased the data we'd need to test
| any hypothesis, thus even if we do create a living cell from
| simple elements, there's no way at all to be sure that was
| the route that life took. Hence we can't rule out some
| supernatural being jiggling the atoms about just so at the
| origin of life.
|
| So, even if we choose to _believe_ in a purely mechanistic
| universe, we can 't definitively test that hypothesis using
| the tools and methods of science. Practically, this means
| that the scope of science as a means for discovering the
| nature of reality is limited.
|
| edit: note that a reproducible glitch in the simulation would
| be of interest, and one could even argue that looking for
| such glitches is in part what scientists do.
| swat535 wrote:
| Paul Tillich is definitely interesting, but I find his
| conclusions deeply unsatisfying and even somewhat "new agey."
| This is pretty typical of existentialists though. When you search
| for meaning and purpose, you tend to find it in reinforcing what
| it is you want in the first place. So for Nietzsche, it was
| ultimate freedom, for Kierkegaard it was Christianity, for Camus
| it was living contradiction, and for Tillich it is some sort of
| Christian-y/pantheist/new age hybrid. It doesn't help that unlike
| most existentialists, Tillich is a pretty dull writer.
|
| That doesn't mean he didn't have a number of insights and
| thought-provoking ideas, and really my criticism is more due to
| my feelings about existentialism than Tillich itself. I find a
| vigorous approach to seeking/knowing truth far more interesting
| and satisfying than seeking (or creating) meaning/purpose.
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