How to resolve that (a perceived conflict between science and religion), or address it, is a big question — Wayfarer

The first step towards resolving that perceived conflict would seem to be the hardest, finding people who actually want a resolution. Philosophy forums may be the last place such folks would be found? :-) Anyway, assuming such a resolution was desired...

My take is that the paths of theism and atheism lead to essentially the same place if followed far enough.

A fundamental fact about the human condition is that the emergence of thought has increasingly shifted our focus from the real world to the symbolic realm between our ears. We've steadily lost a primal bond with reality which other creatures and primitive humans enjoyed. The idea of "getting back to God" is one way of expressing the desire to recover what's been lost.

The atheist path back to the primal bond with reality is observation of reality. Not observation as a means to the end of theories and conclusions, because developing such concepts is travel further in to the symbolic realm, thus feeding the ailment we are trying to heal. Instead, observation of reality is pursued for it's own value. When we observe reality closely and patiently enough the symbolic realm recedes and is replaced by the real. The real has always been there the entire time, but it gets covered up by the symbolic noise in our heads.

The theist path back to the primal bond with reality (now renamed god) is to shift the religious focus from explanations to experience. As example, Jesus said "die and be reborn". He didn't say "establish a doctrine about dying to be reborn". Jesus used the word "die", a verb, implying action, not analysis. When we love, we die to the ego, the primary product of the symbolic realm, and are reborn in to a larger realm of family, friends, community, and reality. Only the actual experience of love can accomplish this, not talk about the experience. The talk is for folks who'd like to love, but aren't ready yet, so they pretend the talk is love, which is a lot easier than the surrender involved in love.

Both paths, theist and atheist, lead from the symbolic realm back to the real world, if followed far enough. "Dying to be reborn" and "observation of reality" are two different cultural expressions, meaning essentially the same thing.

But "dying to be reborn" and "observation of reality" is a challenging business, so most folks walk a little ways down their chosen path, and then stop, and build a fort.

I think the answer is that truth in that sense is sought for its own sake, for the simple reason that it ought to be the aim of every philosopher. — Wayfarer

Truth can not be contained in any philosophy, because the truth is what's real, and any philosophy any one might come up with is merely a collection of symbols which point very imperfectly to the real. To confuse a philosophy, any philosophy, with the truth is like confusing a highway sign pointing to the next town with the town itself.

Philosophers typically try to find the truth by building a pile of symbols higher and higher. Such a process is travel in exactly the wrong direction. A journey towards truth is not a process of addition, but of subtraction. The philosopher challenges each philosophy until it is destroyed, and when all the symbolic idols have fallen, truth is what's left.

Truth was there all the time, patiently waiting for us to finally exhaust ourselves, shut up, and find it.

Again Hippy, you didn't actually read the argument — Philosophim

But somehow I magically know it is built upon unexamined unproven premises.

What's happening now is that you realize you don't know how to prevail on the logic, so you're trying to change the subject from the post to the poster, where you hope you'll have better luck. No offense taken, I accept your surrender, and you may keep your horse and sidearm.

But humans, have the ability to become aware of their own blind spots, and seek to fill-in the gaps. Unfortunately, we too often color-in those gaps with uninformed imagination, such as Weather Gods to explain tornadoes. — Gnomon

Or by imagining that our reasoning powers are relevant to everything everywhere. Such imaginings seem a willful denial of easily proven facts like how incredibly small we are, and how incredibly stupid we are.

Evidence: Let us observe how members of this forum, and more to the point, professional philosophers too, are to an extreme extent so bored by the fact that we have thousands of hydrogen bombs aimed down our own throat that such a subject rarely receives even the briefest attention.

These are the geniuses who think they are clever enough to uncover some previously hidden fact about the most fundamental nature of everything everywhere (scope of god claims), a realm no one can define in even the most basic manner.

On subjects of such enormous scale, reason does not lead to ever more clever logic calculations. It leads to a collapse of the entire god debate game.

Good post Gnomon,

For all practical purposes that's a useful assumption. But philosophers are sometimes Idealists, and try to comprehend the bigger picture. — Gnomon

Here's an example which may help to illustrate. It's a useful convention to say that the sun rises and sets, because from our limited perspective on the surface of the Earth, that's what it looks like. But from the bigger picture, the "rising and setting" concept is obviously entirely wrong.

Point being, a great deal of God topic discussion seems to make the mistake of assuming that we can map everyday human scale common sense assumptions on to a vastly larger scale, the scope of god claims.

The "does God exist" question seems a good example. In daily life a simplistic dualistic yes/no answer to the existence of something is reasonable and useful. Does a pencil exist on my desk, yes or no, simple, obvious and useful. But if we shift the focus to the sub-atomic scale we see the pencil is to an overwhelming degree mostly nothing. If we shift the focus to the cosmic scale, to space, the simplistic yes/no formulation falls apart entirely.

So if philosophers wish to comprehend the bigger picture, perhaps they should stop trying to map human scale concepts on to the very largest of scales, ie. scope of god claims.

For the purposes of this thread on the Probability of God, we are limited to seeing "in a glass darkly" through our subjective telescopes. — Gnomon

I don't see why we are so limited. I think instead it's a deliberate choice to be limited. I'm not arguing against that choice, just suggesting it would be more intellectually honest to state the choice clearly. That's what I was getting at with the card game example.

Members wish to display their talents for doing the logic dance game, and so they ignore anything which gets in the way of that. It's more exciting and glamorous to pretend this logic dancing game is relevant to all of reality, because by doing so the philosopher perceives themselves as being as big as reality itself. Ok, no problem, I get the emotional appeal and am not above it.

But if we wanted to do actual philosophy we might start from the premise that we actually have not the slightest clue how to calculate the probability of God, and probably haven't even formed a useful question, and then proceed from there.

If it's true that we have no idea at all what we're talking about, then what?

Wait, you don't believe in logic. — Philosophim

I never said that. Ok, I give up, this is hopeless. Good luck.

The core is about causality, and causality assumes sequential time — Philosophim

I'm hardly a physics major, but from documentaries I've watched it sounds like time may be a more complex phenomena than merely a sequence of events. Don't know myself, not sure anybody does.

The point here is that this seems another unproven, unexamined assumption which the thread is built upon. If we assume that X is true, and then build a complex logic chain on top of that assumption, and it turns out that X is not true, then the exercise becomes kind of pointless, doesn't it?

The best solution I see is a disclaimer something like the following...

This is just a card game, it has no bearing on reality. Here are the card games rules, let's play the game.

In that setting, it wouldn't matter if the logic card games rules are built upon unexamined faulty assumptions.

in fact it's recommended that skepticism be cultivated and generously applied to all situations. — TheMadFool

Ok then, perhaps someone would like to prove that the rules of human reason are binding upon subjects the scale of gods. You see, the thing is, philosophers like to talk about skepticism, but don't actually like to do it that much. That is, philosophers are human too.

I'm admittedly not keeping up with the intricate logic trains being assembled here, so perhaps this is a useless question, but anyway...

Does this entire thread depend upon time having a sequential linear nature, as every day common sense experience typically suggests?

Given that (your) "agnosticism" is A TRUTH-CLAIM, tell me/us what makes (your) "agnosticism" TRUE?" — 180

Have you, could you, ask him to put your truth claim in his own words? What is he hearing you claim?

If you can clarify what exactly it is that he's challenging, then you can defend that, or correct his misunderstanding of your position (if that is the case).

Or, you could perhaps use agnosticism as a springboard out of the God debate, and then leave the endlessly repetitive us vs. them squabbling behind. If the "does God exist" question is fatally flawed, there's no point to the theist vs. atheist vs. agnostic squabbling other than as an entertaining nerd ego circle jerk. :-)

How many of them have you persuaded to leave the church then? — Sir2u

The subject is doubt, not conversion.

Trying to force nature to conform to reason will not lead to truth. — Pinprick

Oh! I like that! :-)

Ever run across this quotation? — Wayfarer

No, I hadn't, thanks for sharing Wayfarer. Augustine takes those selling false explanations to task in a quite articulate manner. I can admire his rhetorical skill.

I feel there is a better alternative to all this ideological battle, both within Christianity, and between believers and non-believers. And that is to shift the focus from explanations to experience.

For Christians, this can be the experience of love. Not the ideology of love, the experience.

For atheists, this can be observation of reality. Not observation as a means to the end of theories and conclusions (ie. explanations) but the experience of observation pursued for it's own value.

In both cases, not the talking of the talk, but the walking of the walk. There's a meeting place for atheists and believers in the walking, but not in the talking.

I'm sure none of this will be new to you, so I'm addressing a larger audience here.

Personally, I spend a lot of time walking the walk, but due to genetic flaws beyond my control :-) I'm also addicted to the talking of the talk. So I have some empathy for my fellow talkers, religious and secular. But if we're going to talk, it seems best to talk about putting talking in to it's rightful place.

Could you give us an example, sounds interesting. — Sir2u

Ok, here ya go. I've spent 20 years on atheist and philosophy forums (which are mostly atheist). Getting atheists to doubt the qualifications of human reason to address the very largest of questions (scope of god claims) is pretty close to impossible. Getting Catholics to doubt the degree to which the Bible is literally true is child's play in comparison.

Contrast this primeval instinct of doubt to religious faith where doubt is viewed in a bad light — TheMadFool

FYI, there's more acceptance of doubt in religious communities than on atheist forums. :-)

If you want to discuss Christianity divorced from 3017amen and the metaphysical baggage that pollutes its message that sounds rather like a nice thread to start tugging at. — substantivalism

Ok, maybe we'll do that. Could be a plan. Until then, you might keep in mind that nobody is forcing you to focus on "metaphysical baggage" that you don't find credible. If you think it would be fun to transcend the metaphysical claims, you can start transcending when ever you're ready.

Given all your philosophical questions or issues why hold onto christianity at all and not go towards another religion or not possess any religion at all to be central to your philosophy? Why dogmatically assume christianity to be central around which your philosophy is built? — substantivalism

Discussion of Christianity on philosophy forums seems hopelessly inept. To read a philosophy forum, one would get the impression that Jesus never mentioned love. All this male ego chest thumping and intricate logic calculation etc, seems pointless.

That's just the natural extension of there being no afterlife. — Random Name

How do you know there is no afterlife?

You're not ruffling any feathers here, as I assure you I have no idea what the answer is.

For example, the language of mathematics that describe (not explain) the cosmos is indeed a truth, yet abstract!!! — 3017amen

A great example, thanks for that. So we are building a collection of phenomena which everyone agrees are real, but which do not meet the definition of existence.

Thus, it's possible that both theists and atheists are right.

THEISTS: God is real. Could be true.

ATHEISTS: God doesn't exist. Could also be true.

I'll add into the possibility that we will never know if Jesus wrote anything down himself. — 3017amen

Ah, good point. Hadn't thought of that. Must add that to my sermon! You can be my apostle now if you want, you've earned it. :-)

Jesus pointed us to love, and suggested we "die to be reborn". Two ways to describe a surrender of the self.

What is the self? A symbolic abstraction, a collection of ideas.

When we die to the self, to the pile of abstractions, where does that leave our focus? On the real world.

What is the real world? A single unified phenomena.

We just became everything, which is sometimes called God.

But, point to remember, we became everything by ceasing to exist.

So I would phrase this something like "Reason is an inadequate tool for this job". — EricH

Ok, except that we don't know that. We know only that no one has proven that it is adequate. It seems reasonable to guess that reason is not adequate, but without proof one way or another, a declarative sentence seems unwarranted.

One way of phrasing this might be "There is no reason to accept any holy book as being authoritative on these largest subjects. — EricH

Yes, and for the same reason that there is no reason to accept human reason as being authoritative. No proof.

Jesus who was known to be part God — 3017amen

Here's another take on that claim...

One theory could be that when Jesus went out in to the desert and subjected himself to extreme stress, he somehow overcame the illusion that he was a separate thing divided from everything else. If God is a word for everything, and Jesus realized that he was one with everything, he may have concluded that therefore he personally was everything, or in the language of his time, God.

Let's recall that Jesus was reportedly a very enthusiastic and charismatic person, who was only 30 years old. Given his age, it's possible he misinterpreted and over personalized a very real and profound experience he had. The problem may not be with his experience, but with his explanation of it.

Or, maybe he did understand the experience correctly, but when he came back in to town and tried to explain it to people who hadn't had such a transformative experience, they mangled his explanations, turning them in to something other than what Jesus intended. Given that Jesus never wrote anything down himself, we're never going to know what his words really were.

He doesn't care if his books are still selling. He doesn't care if his theories all get outlawed and every trace of his research burned. He doesn't care if children dress up as him for Halloween. He's dead. — Random Name

Why do you think you know all this?

To me, it seems every bit as much a made up story as Jesus in the clouds with his virgin mother and so on. And as made up stories go, it's not a very good one.

What if we didn't make up any stories? What if we just admitted that we have no idea what comes next? This has the advantage of being factual, and the unknown seems rather more exciting than pretending that we know.

A question to illustrate. Do like watching the same movie over and over every day of your life? Or when you sit down in front of the TV would you prefer to watch something you haven't seen already?

Ignorance has it's advantages, eh?

Returning to the thread title...

I can't provide what the original poster requests, but I can share an experience. This experience proves nothing at all, except that I type too much, but it may give some hint of how afterlife theories got started.

A few months after my Dad died he sent me a final message from the beyond. My Dad was the kind of fellow who always had one more thing to say, and this was his last "one more thing before I forget", a phrase which let you know you were in for another 45 minutes of yack. :-)

So I'm stoned, just out of a hot bath, lying on the floor naked, listening to some corny lady jazz singer. All of sudden my Dad floods my brain, to tell me my deceased Mom is doing great, and has upgraded her singing from HYPER CORNY!!!! Barbershop she sang her whole life to just somewhat corny jazz. I got this very strong impression that death had liberated my mom from much of the psychological tightness we all carry around with us, and so now she can swing.

Then my Dad gave me a little lecture about looking out for my sister, whom he typically largely ignored, but you know, the intentions of his sermon were good. :-)

And then he drifted away, and I've not heard from him in that way since. I got the strong impression that it took him a few months on the other side to figure out how to get in the last word as usual, and once he pulled that off he was then free to melt in to void, or whatever it is.

So there you have it. PROOF!!! that getting stoned can lead to some interesting experiences. :-)

Yep, the 'I' dies. — Wayfarer

The most reasonable theory is that nobody has the slightest clue what death is, and all theories are just wild guesses. Imagine there was a continent on Earth called Deathland that all humans travel to sooner or later. But, so far as we know, not a single one of them has ever come back to file a report. But this complete lack of any information doesn't stop us from having opinions about what Deathland is like. I say this, you say that, we get in to big arguments about it, all based on nothing. We're worried about losing our intelligence, but maybe we never had any to begin with. :-)

But, to be as absurd as anyone else and play the game...

It could be argued that the "I" is like the ripples on the pond. It's real, but has no physical substance of it's own. It's just a pattern. Real. But not meeting the definition of existence. And so it could be said that the "I" can not die, because it never existed in the first place.

Evolution has trained our mind to focus on things. Watch out for the lion, grab the potato, find a mate, that's how we got here. But because our mind functions by dividing reality up in to conceptual objects which we then label with nouns, it doesn't automatically follow that separate things actually exist. Our perception of things could just be a pattern our mind imposes upon reality.

If boundaries are a convenient conceptual illusion, and all things are just patterns, and reality is a single unified system, then things don't really exist, and thus can't die or be born.

I would basically agree with the statement that human reason is NOT qualified to generate meaningful statements on subjects the scale of gods. Is this what you're saying? — EricH

I'm saying reason has not been proven qualified for that job.

We look at holy books and see their qualifications for the largest subjects has not been proven. And so we withhold belief in that authority until such proof is provided.

We look at human reason and see it's qualifications for the largest subjects has not been proven. And so we withhold belief in that authority until such proof is provided.

If I accept that there is no such thing as a soul — Random Name

Soul may be a concept which is attempting to describe what I've called "leafness". Like the ripples in the pond, a pattern which is both real, and having no substance or energy of it's own.

And then there's this...

We typically assume that life and death are two different opposite phenomena. This may have more to do with the dualistic manner in which our mind organizes information than with the reality the mind is attempting to model.

If we define death as the absence of our memories, dreams, opinions, thoughts etc, then death happens naturally and routinely throughout every day. While our attention is focused internally on our thoughts, we are alive. And when the focus of our attention shifts to the real world beyond our minds, we are momentarily "dead", by the definition offered above.

Life and death might be thought of as life/death, much in the same way we use the expression spacetime. That is, two different words which humans are using to describe a single phenomena. To us, it APPEARS that space and time are two different phenomena, but at least according to Einstein, they are one.

A leaf falls to the ground and melts in to the soil. The tree pulls the nutrients left by the fallen leaf back up in to itself and uses them to creates new leaves. A particular leaf is gone forever, but leafness remains.

Leafness isn't a physical object, it's a pattern with no substance of it's own. As example, if we throw a rock in to a pond the ripples we see are real, but they have no physical substance of their own independent of the medium of water they are moving through. The water has mass and weight. The thrown rock has energy, which then moves from the rock to the water. But the ripples themselves have no weight, mass or energy of their own. And yet, there they are, you can see them with your own eyes.

So when we say that we live and then we die, who is the "me" that we are referring to? Am I the particular individual leaf which comes and goes? Or am I the leafness which is the foundation of all particular leaves?

There isn't a right or wrong answer to this question. Each person is free to decide it for themselves. And how they choose to answer will have an impact upon how they feel about death.

But there is no logic to a belief in god(s) - faith is totally irrational — EricH

If you believe faith to be irrational, you could always stop believing without proof that human reason is qualified to generate meaningful statements on subjects the scale of gods. Just saying, an option...

REALLY REALLY BIG: The God concept is typically some claim about the most fundamental nature of everything everywhere, a realm we can't define in even the most basic manner.

REALLY REALLY SMALL: Human reason is the poorly developed ability of a single species on a single planet in one of billions of galaxies, a species only recently living in caves, a species with thousands of hydrogen bombs aimed down it's own throat, a subject it typically finds too boring to bother discussing.

Ok Frank, thanks for playing. Well if you feel you have an answer, or a method of finding one, then you don't need an alternative. Go for it, and good luck.

wherein they wrote books about the religious experience that's one approach. Or in the alternative you could be more secular about it — 3017amen

What I'd really like to do is transcend the religious vs. secular paradigm, as that's what is implied by devaluing explanations. But yea, where to put it on the forum? Good question, will ponder.

However, should we share our experiences with other's — 3017amen

I'm enthusiastic about discussions regarding the practical business of how to have healthy experiences. To me, that seems the serious way to proceed.

Interpreting such experiences is probably inevitable, but taking our interpretations seriously isn't. For me, that works kind of like this. You're laying on your back watching the clouds blow by overhead. Each cloud is some interpretation of experience which has occurred to you. You watch a cloud come, admire it's unique beauty, watch it blow away, and then turn your attention to the next cloud. Some attitude along these lines allows one to be honest about the human need for explanations, but tends to keep the primary focus where it belongs, on the experience.

It seems to me that the more deeply one embraces the experience, the less need there is for explanations. Hmm... Perhaps this merits it's own thread?

I can't even remember what thread I'm in half the time anyway. Is this the thread about Chaturbate? Did I click a wrong link??? :-)

It's called inductive reasoning — 3017amen

How about this?

Skip the reasoning and stick with the experience.

Attempts to explain the experience are really a statement that the experience is inadequate on it's own. Is that true?

For one, that's what Phenomenology entails (i.e.: the ineffable experience)! — 3017amen

I'm all for ineffable experiences, but things begin to get a bit dodgy when we start talking about ineffable conclusions.

What do you mean by the word "God"? — EricH

By asking for a definition of God we are assuming that God is a "thing", some phenomena which is separate and distinct from other phenomena and thus describable with a definition.

It may be helpful to observe that the vast majority of reality, space, so infuses everything at every scale that it is hard to describe space as a phenomena separate and unique from other phenomena. So, to some degree at least, it is possible for a phenomena to be present and yet not really be definable.

Logic is just a means to an end — 3017amen

And one can use logic to discover that logic is not an effective means for every desired end.

Hippy, the "god question" which is really the "What the hell is going on here" question is the entirely of philosophy. It is what ALL philosophers have considered from the moment humans became aware enough to think "philosophically." — Frank Apisa

Yes, it's been a long investigation for sure. What this long investigation has revealed is that nobody on any side has been able to prove anything. We seem to agree on this.

When thousands of years of investigation led by some of the greatest minds among us fails to reach the goal of delivering a credible answer, it seems reasonable to question the assumptions that investigation is built upon. That's what I'm attempting to do.

One of the assumptions of the God debate, that nearly everyone on all sides agrees on, is that the goal of the investigation should be to deliver an answer, a knowing, a concept, a mental symbol, which accurately reflects the real world it is attempting to describe. Even agnostics agree with this goal, they just don't feel it has been reached.

What if the assumption that we should be seeking an answer is wrong? That might explain why the longest investigation in human history has failed. Maybe the answer seeking methodology which we've all just assumed to be correct should be set aside and replaced with other ways of approaching the god topic.

Before someone types "like what?" please first answer the following.

1) Do you think you have an answer to the God question?

2) Do you think the God debate will ever deliver an answer?

3) If you answered no to both of these questions, are you still interested?

I should have added that I was describing myself in the previous post, seeking fantasy superiority by the most efficient effective method!! :-) I'm still pissed that I can't claim such fantasy superiority over Frank Apisa though. What is that guy's problem anyway?? Why can't he just be nice and make himself an easy target??? Grrr...... Some people are so rude!!! :-)

Think about what you just wrote there...especially the wording used in the last sentence. — Frank Apisa

I've already been thinking about it for over 20 years. Your turn! :-)

No offense, but you've not actually addressed my claim at all, but just further fueled the Agnostic Holy War against the theist and atheist infidels. :-)