• Why Science Has Succeeded But Religion Has Failed
    ↪universeness
    "Objective realities" to true believers (who do not require evidence other than their "faith"), no doubt.
  • Why Science Has Succeeded But Religion Has Failed
    ↪Agent Smith
    I'm neither a scientist nor a priest so what else could I say? Why even ask ...
  • How does ethics manifest in behavior?
    ... let's face the facts - we're at the top of the food chain — Agent Smith
    ... and therefore we're on an extinction path as we destroy more and more of the base of the food chain. Maybe we'll develop AGI before we're done. Maybe viable space habitats (for genemodded exo-humans). But probably not.
  • Why Science Has Succeeded But Religion Has Failed
    Am I right to say that science has room for religion, but the converse is false? — Agent Smith
    I don't think so.
  • Why Science Has Succeeded But Religion Has Failed
    No spiritual system ever tried to "find" objective reality. — Vera Mont
    Quite right! Religion has always just assumed – canonized – "objective reality", which is its most profound failing.
  • How does ethics manifest in behavior?
    ↪Shawn
    Yes. Aristotle's term for this (human, all too human) moral failing is akrasia. My own (extended) term is foolery.
  • If you were (a) God for a day, what would you do?
    ↪universeness
    Except for those creations, of course, who "devoutly" strap-on dynamite vests or carry out crusades & stake-burnings "In His Name" in order to settle disputes. :mask:
  • Why Science Has Succeeded But Religion Has Failed
    ↪Hanover
    :up:
  • How does ethics manifest in behavior?
    So, you're assuming that we are by nature ethical. I find this argument in lacking in the real world. — Shawn
    You must believe we are not an eusocial species and that antisocial sociopathy is the norm rather than a pathology afflicting less than a twentieth of the general popularion.

    You also must believe that decades of scientific studies which demonstrate empathy and fairness in pre-socialized human toddlers and nonhuman primates elephants & cetaceans are "fake news" or "alternative facts".

    Or maybe you just didn't bother to check out the links in the linked post above?

    Tell me, Shawn, where does the predominance of (some) moral behavior come from "in the real world" if moral behavior is not a feature, or function, of our mammalian nature. :chin:
  • Does theism ultimately explain anything?
    ↪Andrew4Handel
    Quite astute of Baron d'Holbach considering the state of physics, astronomy, religious / cultural anthropology, etc in the late 18th century. Again, he expressed anti-clerical polemics during the Counter-Enlightenment as part of the freethought, emancipationist movement of the day. In any regard, his example doesn't make your point either.
  • Dualism and the conservation of energy
    ↪Banno
    :100: :up:
  • Does theism ultimately explain anything?
    ↪Andrew4Handel
    Richard Dawkins is a biologist by profession and education who also happens to be a very vocal atheist (without much philosophical credibility). Is he all you've got? :sweat:

    update:

    Oh I see you've added Le Mettrie and Paul Churchland. The latter is polemicizing against 'folk psychology' and the former against 'occult spiritual forces'. 'Mechanistic reductionism' is not entailed by atomism or atheism (though that sin belongs to the 'vulgar materialism' of Marxist-Leninists, logical positivists, instrumentalists, moral nihilists et al).

    Just as atomism / materialism does not entail atheism (e.g. Epicurus), atheism does not entail materialism (e.g. Schopenhauer).
  • How does ethics manifest in behavior?
    The question of this thread is that if we don't live with a rationale or volition to do good, then how does ethical behavior arise in our lives? — Shawn
    Habit. Substitute maintain homeostasis for "do good" and healthy for "ethical" and the question need not be asked.

    Is it necessary to have a prescriptive ethical doctrine in place to behave or have ethical behavior emerge from ones thinking process?
    Of course not. Consider fairness and caretaking in nonhuman animals or human toddlers ...
    https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/699762
  • Why Science Has Succeeded But Religion Has Failed
    ↪Vera Mont
    Perhaps. Still, I challenge you, Vera, to name at least one major world religion that completely lacks idols, superstition, conformity and/or scapegoating (i.e. the stigmata of magical thinking). :chin:
  • Does theism ultimately explain anything?
    They say gods are made in mans image. — Andrew4Handel
    "Norse gods" aren't depicted looking like "Yoruba gods" or "Aztec gods". "Egypyian gods" aren't depicted as looking like "Roman or Celtic gods". "Aboriginal gods" aren't depicted as looking like "Chinese gods". European "Christ" isn't depicted as looking like Judean "Yeshua" ... Just what you'd reasonably expect of man-made gods. (Read Feuerbach, the Greek Pre-Socratics, Mosaic prohibition on "graven images", etc.)

    I think you can defend gods and the esoteric as explaining these types of things ...
    Questions are only begged by mysteries not answered. "Godidit" begs the question, "godsaidit" begs the question. Mysteries neither explain nor justify. "Gods" are mysteries, no? Thus, not even their adherents agree on them (e.g. schisms, heretics, heterodoxies, etc). "Faith in god" – self-abnegating worship – often amounts to little more than believing in the unbelievable in order to defend the indefensible; otherwise just superstitious conformity to a cultic tradition.

    ... purely materialist atoms banging together doesn't explain, like meaning in language, concepts, desires and so on.
    False dichotomy & category error fallacies, Andrew. :roll: Besides, Epicureanism (e.g.) "explains" far more about "meaning in language, concepts, desires and so on" than purely im-material "gods and esoterica" (i.e. magical thinking) which conspicuously do not explain anything at all.

    Atheists appear to be trying to make us just another senseless causal determined mechanism of brute nature in my opinion.
    "Appear" to whom? Which "atheists" are "appearing" so? Clearly, Andrew, you haven't the slightest comprehension of atheism (or, for that matter, that atomists such as Epicurus were not atheists because atomism does not entail the absence of gods.)
  • Why Science Has Succeeded But Religion Has Failed
    ↪Art48
    :up:

    In other words, more broadly, science concerns forming explanations which we can mathematically agree on about nature in contrast to religion which is concerned with idols and superstitions, conformity and scapegoating. In hindsight, at least in the Western tradition, philosophy concerns – began with – critiques of religion (i.e. magical thinking) which, in effect, makes space for non-religious narratives and the defeasible, critical reasoning that underwrites the natural (& historical) sciences.
  • Universal Mind/Consciousness?
    I can relate to that; there is a kind of tension in Kant, since he rejects the possibility of doing metaphysics (as traditionally conceived) via pure reason, while advocating practical reasons for believing in God, Freedom and Immortality. There may be inherent problems of inconsistency and incoherence in his philosophy which would explain why there is (apparently) controversy among Kant scholars as to just what he thought about some issues. — Janus
    :up:
  • Dualism and the conservation of energy
    ↪Metaphysician Undercover
    :eyes: :roll:
  • Does theism ultimately explain anything?
    ↪Andrew4Handel
    Sorry. None of what you've written makes sense to me or addresses the gist of the question of mine you've quoted.
  • Universal Mind/Consciousness?
    ↪Janus
    :up:
    Btw, I'm not actually interested in what Kant thought about reality (noumenon) because his phenomenon-noumemon distinction seems to me one of Kant's own "transcendental illusions" (re: an inconsistency of his schema).
  • Universal Mind/Consciousness?
    So, logically we can then ask "what about reality in itself or beyond the "for us"?", and Kant's answer is that we can have no idea of what that could be. — Janus
    Isn't that the "reality beyond the 'for us'" – the limit or horizon of our reasoning, namely that reality necessarily encompasses its conception such that the notion that 'conception encompasses reality' entails self-contradiction? In the Kantian sense, empirical knowledge (phenomenon) proximately approaches but asymptotically cannot reach the horizon/reality (i.e. noumenon). In other words, aren't we (embodied reasoners) just an aspect of the whole which cannot transcend – thereby 'totalize' – the whole (re: mereological self-consistency)? Inhabitants of the territory who cannot make a map (out of aspects of the territory) informationally identical to, let alone 'greater than', the territory itself? Well, isn't that a coherent "idea of reality in itself" (i.e. the territory > maps-of-the territory), of what makes "reality for us" (i.e. map-making/using) possible? I suppose I could be confusing myself with 'transcendental illusions' ... :chin:
  • My problem with atheism
    ↪Tom Storm

    God is a concept
    By which we measure
    Our pain     — J. Lennon
    :chin:
  • Matter and Patterns of Matter
    I don't know if this ontology has a name already but if it does please tell me.

    It is a dualist ontology, but not substance (ew), or property dualism. I believe that what exists is matter, and patterns of matter.     — khaled
    Sounds to me like what neo-Scholastics call "hylomorphism".
  • Dualism and the conservation of energy
    ↪Banno
    :up:
  • Universal Mind/Consciousness?
    I don't see functionailsm as being "the idea of Mind as-if a Real thing" but the idea of mind(ing) as a real process, attribute or function of a real thing (the body). — Janus
    :100:
  • Universal Mind/Consciousness?
    is the universe conscious of our probing, or just a machine grinding out evolutionary products? — Gnomon
    Neither. :roll:

    In quantum experiments, the human operates the machine to output an answer. But is the response conscious or automatic?
    "The output ... response" is physical.

    What do you think?
    Another rhetorical question; you have no interest, Gnomon, in what anyone else, especially who differs with you, thinks.
  • Does theism ultimately explain anything?
    The problem with the explanations of theism is their lack of predictive power ... — Judaka
    :100:

    To me the brute existence of reality was inexplicable. — Andrew4Handel
    Yeah, like "the brute existence" of g/G ...

    ... if things can appear for no reason then causality breaks down and reality makes no sense.
    Keep in mind these few bon mots while reading what follows:

    The only answer to the ultimate Why-question which does not beg the question is that there is no ultimate Why.

    In other words, there is no sufficient reason for 'the principle of sufficient reason'.

    And so "why there is something rather than nothing" must be because nothing stops something from happening.     — excerpts from Proofs by 180 Proof

    Besides, Andrew, why must reality as whole "make sense" to us when, in fact, we can make sense only of tiny parts of reality, proximately, in order to survive and thrive in our daily lives? We swin and sail and fish the oceans without ever reaching the deepest ocean floor, so what practical or existential difference can getting to the very bottom of it make to us?

    Gaps in our knowledge or understanding do not contradict what we actually know or understand – we learn more, make better sense, by acknowledging what we do not know – without filling-in those gaps with "gods" – than what we think we know. Does the lack of a greatest number entail that the real numbers "make no sense"? Of course not. Reality makes limited sense to limited minds like ours; as Zapffe/Camus point out, we become absurd whenever we deny or ignore the (human) limits of reason.

    Not satisfying? Not comforting? Not ultimately meaningful?

    :death: :flower:
  • The best arguments again NDEs based on testimony...
    ↪TiredThinker
    :up:
  • Does theism ultimately explain anything?
    ↪jgill
    :cool:
  • Eureka!
    Empty yer mind ... :party: — Agent Smith
    D'oh! :gasp:
  • Does theism ultimately explain anything?
    ↪busycuttingcrap
    :up: :up:
  • The best arguments again NDEs based on testimony...
    When does a biologist sit down and take a break, satisfied that he's reduced biology to chemistry & physics. — Agent Smith
    Never. :sweat:
  • If you were (a) God for a day, what would you do?
    Is it advisable to explain evil? — Agent Smith
    I don't think evil can be explained.
  • My problem with atheism
    ↪Agent Smith
    Actually, IIRC, Einstein was a pantheist (in what he, like many, wrongly believe was aa Spinozist position) and not a pandeist.

    I wonder why smart folk, if they're at all spiritually inclined, are usually pandeists[pantheists]?
    Many are pantheists; few, however, are pandeists. I'm neither, though I find the latter consilient with my naturalist outlook. As for why – I think for many "smart folks" pantheism is an expression of nature as the embodiment of reason that 'evolves' in complexity and 'towards' unity (i.e. universality), and thus is the ultimately providential / beneficial (universal) standard for thinking and living (e.g. Logos, Dao). Pandeism, on the other hand, is much more modest (e.g. not 'providential' ...) and more speculative (i.e. cosmogenesis) than pantheism.

    ↪Joshs
    Your unwillingness or inability to give straight-forward answers to straight-forward questions is tedious. My apologies for bothering to engage you.
  • Kant and Work Culture
    ↪schopenhauer1
    Yes, of course, I'm only referring to Kant in the sense you bring him up in the OP.
  • Kant and Work Culture
    ↪schopenhauer1
    Kant is not even wrong ... so Cabrera is a non-issue as far as I'm concerned.
  • My problem with atheism
    ↪Joshs
    So if "sacred scriptures" contain claims about human beings, the natural world, moral / social values, history, etc which the majority of non-literalist believers (i.e. adherents to those "sacred scriptures") live by and even organize their communities around generation after generation, determining the prospects for well-being of themselves and their descendants, how do you suggest, Joshs, such "sacred" claims – usually extensions of the purported predicates of some so-called "god" – be evaluated, especially when they contradict publicly accessible facts and practices?

    Or do you advocate instead that "religious claims" get an uncritical, automatic pass from carefully reasoned scrutiny (e.g. philosophical, historical and scientific analyses) – in order to avoid the hysterical appearance of "doctrinnaire atheism"?
  • Does theism ultimately explain anything?
    I am concerned with the truth and making up systems on false premises to me is nihilistic. — Andrew4Handel
    Agreed, like theistic religions, based on imaginary deities (i.e. fictions), which are nihilistic.

    Morality as in a system of behaviour we expect ourselves and others to follow as if compelled. — Andrew4Handel
    This is more like "Law" – permissible public conduct / practices – than the three predominant moral concepts of virtue ethics, utilitarianism or deontology, all of which begin with the idea of well-being (i.e. happiness) and none of which are practiced "as if compelled".

    As I said, the "prominent issues" you've mentioned are neither "moral" per se nor "unresolved" but rather political-juridical (i.e.policy); they are resolved differently in different societies as practical compromises of the moment by the relevant, competing interests, and to the degree these resolutions mostly produce peaceful compliance they suffice.

    These questions so far have no answers.
    I'm afraid like the rest of your post, Andrew, "these questions" are quite confused.

    Most Christian fundamentalist views make god look like a cunt. — Tom Storm
    :halo: :up:

    ↪busycuttingcrap
    :100:
  • Does theism ultimately explain anything?
    Prominent issues dividing people include Abortion and assisted suicide, capitalism and anti-capitalism. — Andrew4Handel
    What makes these "moral issues" instead of political issues?

    What I'm trying to get at is what you mean by "moral" or "ethical" because that's where I suspect much of your (or my) confusion lies.
  • Does theism ultimately explain anything?
    But moral issues can never be resolved. — Andrew4Handel
    "Moral issues" such as?
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