it's being made from a 'third-party' perspective. In other words, you're making a judgement about what you think are the deficiencies of 'religious practices', based on your knowledge or belief about the shortcomings of other people's endeavours to practice them. — Wayfarer
But the point about the scientific perspective is that it is third-person by design. It is what any observer will see, all things being equal. It presumes the subject-object relationship i.e. ‘I see it’. — Wayfarer
If I were to say that ‘neuroscience cannot account for consciousness’ I would not be taking issue with the neuroscientist with regards to her domain of knowledge, but making a philosophical point about the brain-mind relationship which might be outside the domain of neuroscience as such. — Wayfarer
I don’t think neuroscience claims to understand the philosophical question of brain-mind relationship as it is not necessarily a scientific question. — Wayfarer
The point about the perspective of a spiritual practitioner is that it is not objective in the sense that science is. Let’s say it involves a shift in perspective from the ego-logical to an other-oriented perspective. There might be a cathartic experience of seeing through or beyond oneself that is profoundly life-altering but not necessarily scientifically verifiable — Wayfarer
How does one florist convince another that she too has had the Direct Experience of the world as a purple rose? Locke discussed the 'Inner Light' — j0e
And then there is the issue of power struggles between people. We could say that notions of subjectivity and objectivity are born of, created by the power struggle. But even if you do away with notions of subjectivity and objectivity, the power struggle remains, you're still a person in a power hierarchy, and you still have to look out for yourself.That's the trouble with talk of objectivity and of subjective experience: it doesn't help anything. — Banno
I agree. Although religious apologists sometimes go to great lengths to present them as objectively empirically testable propositions.They are not so much stated beliefs as sentiments; to be seen in music and art, not dissected by philosophers. — Banno
No. I'm saying one has to have those things, or else getting involved with religion is going to squish one.By having confidence in yourself, believing that you exist for a reason, that you're a worthy person, and so on. Yes, cheap self-help slogans, I know. But I'm earnest about this.
— baker
I think you are right that religion offers some people these things. — j0e
I'm sometimes amazed by high-calibre thinkers like Marx, Weber, or Nietzsche because they don't account for the cunning of religious people. Instead, they talk of religious people as if a page from De Imitatione Christi were a template for them.I don't agree with Marx entirely, and personally I think humans can get just as entangled with conspiracy theory sans the supernatural for the same 'opium.' Perhaps even Marxism is the opium of the intellectuals, etc. I quote this to make the point that 'mythos and ritual that makes us feel good (but only if one really believes and practices a certain lifestyle)' is not so far from what an atheist might say.
Of course, it's possible to jump to conclusions, even encouraged sometimes.Doing a religious practice can never convince a person who doesn't already believe.
— baker
I lean toward agreeing with you, but I can imagine exceptions to this rule, depending on the practice. — j0e
I'm trying to give a context for approaching religion, a context that tries to make sure that one's involvement with religion isn't going to become something ill.By having confidence in yourself, believing that you exist for a reason, that you're a worthy person, and so on. Yes, cheap self-help slogans, I know. But I'm earnest about this. It's a contextual reply to your question.
A philosophical quest for the truth, for "knowing how things really are" can sometimes turn into a self-perpetuating obsession that makes one's life miserable. It can start off out of a poor self-image, or it can result in one (and then further perpetuate it and itself).
— baker
I've no idea how this addresses what I said. Perhaps you could expand. — Isaac
Eh.That's a good example. I think intuitively we'd all want to say that the woman in question was suffering from some mental health issues and would possibly benefit from psychiatric help. — Isaac
What I'm doing is that I try to establish a healthy and safe distance toward religion. I'm not defending it.There's been a tendency to exempt religions on the grounds of numbers (that many people can't all be mad).
That's where one's self-confidence comes in and intuitively deciding that some claims aren't worth one's time, or are otherwise none of one's business.But yeah, personally, I don't really see any other way out of it. There's no denying the difference between some lunatic believing in their own fantasy world and a religious claim is the number of people ho go along with it, and that does make claims about the success of religious practice empirical, otherwise the lunatic gets their fair shake too.
While in religion/spirituality, "you" are the object of your investigation.But the point about the scientific perspective is that it is third-person by design. It is what any observer will see, all things being equal. It presumes the subject-object relationship i.e. ‘I see it’. — Wayfarer
I'm trying to give a context for approaching religion, a context that tries to make sure that one's involvement with religion isn't going to become something ill. — baker
That's where one's self-confidence comes in and intuitively deciding that some claims aren't worth one's time, or are otherwise none of one's business.
One will simply crash and burn if one wishes to give all claims a "fair hearing" or approach them scientifically, testing them or requesting evidence for them. — baker
in religion/spirituality, "you" are the object of your investigation.
Noone can do that for you, nor can you do it for anyone else. — baker
It's not just in reply to your posts. It's something I've been working out for myself. Maybe someone else benefits as well.I can sort of see that. Just not sure why you're doing it in reply to my posts. — Isaac
I think that in some matters, esp. in religion, those are the only options.Are they really the only options you see? Either a gut feeling guess or a full blown scientific investigation? What about a rough, informed-but-not-expert, examination of the general picture?
Of course. Such are the prospects of any practice.But neither of those negations have any bearing on the matter of whether you can do it for you. Maybe you can't do it for you either, maybe no one can do it for anyone.
No. I'm saying one has to have those things, or else getting involved with religion is going to squish one. — baker
I'm sometimes amazed by high-calibre thinkers like Marx, Weber, or Nietzsche because they don't account for the cunning of religious people. Instead, they talk of religious people as if a page from De Imitatione Christi were a template for them. — baker
Of course, it's possible to jump to conclusions, even encouraged sometimes.
I've seen this in Buddhism, for example, where there was a subtle pressure to conclude, after a few "good" meditation sessions, that the Buddha was enlightened and that the practice of meditation was the one true path to enlightenment. — baker
That's a good example. I think intuitively we'd all want to say that the woman in question was suffering from some mental health issues and would possibly benefit from psychiatric help. — Isaac
There's been a tendency to exempt religions on the grounds of numbers (that many people can't all be mad). I'm inclined to go along with that approach, but in doing so we've pinned religious acceptance to empirical claims (the question of how many people share the feeling) and that takes us away from what people like Wayfarer want to say about religious investigations, I think.
But yeah, personally, I don't really see any other way out of it. There's no denying the difference between some lunatic believing in their own fantasy world and a religious claim is the number of people ho go along with it, and that does make claims about the success of religious practice empirical, otherwise the lunatic gets their fair shake too. — Isaac
What I think neither side want is for my claim that one should rub trifle in their hair every day to achieve enlightenment, to sit alongside the claim that one should attend church, meditate, wear a hijab or whatever. And it's not the degree of justificatory narrative around the claim. Anyone who thinks I couldn't come up with whole libraries of justificatory narrative for the trifle rubbing clearly hasn't read enough Terry Pratchett. — Isaac
That's where one's self-confidence comes in and intuitively deciding that some claims aren't worth one's time, or are otherwise none of one's business.
One will simply crash and burn if one wishes to give all claims a "fair hearing" or approach them scientifically, testing them or requesting evidence for them. — baker
But the point about the scientific perspective is that it is third-person by design. It is what any observer will see, all things being equal. It presumes the subject-object relationship i.e. ‘I see it’.
— Wayfarer
While in religion/spirituality, "you" are the object of your investigation.
Noone can do that for you, nor can you do it for anyone else. — baker
The notion of 'Direct Experience' is an epistemic disaster. Think of the strong criticisms of sense-data empiricism. This stuff is private by definition, so it makes an absurd foundation for science, however initially plausible. Instead we have to start with (theory-laden) observation statements. — j0e
In Buddhism, we distinguish between spiritual experiences and spiritual realizations. Spiritual experiences are usually more vivid and intense than realizations because they are generally accompanied by physiological and psychological changes. Realizations, on the other hand, may be felt, but the experience is less pronounced. Realization is about acquiring insight. Therefore, while realizations arise out of our spiritual experiences, they are not identical to them. Spiritual realizations are considered vastly more important because they cannot fluctuate.
The distinction between spiritual experiences and realizations is continually emphasized in Buddhist thought. 1 — Traleg Kyabgon Rinpoche
metaphors like 'truth' and 'knowledge' for something that's also called 'mythos' or 'gnosis.' — j0e
But it is always supposed that the source of that mythology is insight into a higher reality and the mythical re-telling a way to communicate that rather than a literal description. Actually that goes back to Armstrong's point about the distinction of logos and mythos - to interpret mythos literally is to mistake it for logos, which it isn't. — Wayfarer
As I think we've discussed previously, one glaring problem in all this, the elephant in the room, is that in modern philosophy there is no 'higher' - there's no axis against which that can be calibrated. I'm afraid that's always going to be an insuperable barrier. — Wayfarer
What is 'height' here? What makes one judgment or proposition higher than another ? Is it generality? That the statement speaks of larger structures in existence? — j0e
The "perennial philosophy" is ...defined as a doctrine which holds [1] that as far as worthwhile knowledge is concerned not all men are equal, but that there is a hierarchy of persons, some of whom, through what they are, can know much more than others; [2] that there is a hierarchy also of the levels of reality, some of which are more "real," because more exalted than others; and [3] that the wise men of old have found a "wisdom" which is true, although it has no "empirical" basis in observations which can be made by everyone and everybody; and that in fact there is a rare and unordinary faculty in some of us by which we can attain direct contact with actual reality--through the Prajñāpāramitā of the Buddhists, the logos of Parmenides, the Sophia of Aristotle and others, Spinoza's amor dei intellectualis, Hegel's Vernunft, and so on; and [4] that true teaching is based on an authority which legitimizes itself by the exemplary life and charismatic quality of its exponents.
In the West, a large number of philosophers discarded the basic presuppositions of the "perennial philosophy," and developed by contrast what for want of a better term we may call a "sciential" philosophy. That has the following features: [1] Natural science, particularly that dealing with inorganic matter, has a cognitive value, tells us about the actual structure of the universe, and provides the other branches of knowledge with an ideal standard in that they are the more "scientific", the more they are capable of mathematical formulation and the more they rely on repeatable and publicly verified observations. [2] Man is the highest of beings known to science, and his power and convenience should be promoted at all costs. [3] Spiritual and magical forces cannot influence events, and life after death may be disregarded, because it is unproven by scientific methods. [4] In consequence, "life" means "man's" life in this world, and the task is to ameliorate this life by a social "technique" in harmony with the "welfare" or "will" of "the people."
Is there a performative contradiction in reasoning about something that hides? — j0e
. IMO, you are just throwing all 'atheist' philosophy (I mean that with a non-religious attitude) into the same Flatland bin. — j0e
That's the question. Here's a quote from Edward Conze, an irascible Buddhologist from mid last century: — Wayfarer
Conze contrasts this with the 'sciential' philosophy of the modern West: — Wayfarer
Well, I was speaking rhetorically, but I think in the secular academy it is assumed that the Universe is essentially energetic-material with no intrinsic value/purpose/meaning. There are exceptions, but I feel that in English-speaking academic philosophy, the assumed background is explicitly secular. — Wayfarer
Actually, I googled that phrase, 'nature loves to hide', which lead me to splashing out seventy five bucks for a philosophy of physics book of that same title. Hasn't arrived yet. Hope I can understand it. — Wayfarer
It seems a little wacky to me too. But perhaps our florist is happy. Then I'd classify it as more of the usual human vanity. — j0e
The woman probably obeys traffic rules and is nice to babies. It's only when you get her started on flowers that she's harmlessly mad. — j0e
I think this connect to the OP. It's as if people are doing some ritual of claiming to believe. Did the average Trump voter really believe the election was stolen? I like the pragmatist idea that belief is enacted. A Catholic can show up and mouth the Apostolic creed, put a tithe in the basket, try to be nice. The ritual actions have a low cost. — j0e
A single madman is a joke. A few is a cult. Many are a religion. At the same time there's the sublimation (or neutralization) of a religion that makes it relatively harmless, in the short run at least. — j0e
Yes, absolutely. I classify such utterances under "poetic ontology", "poetic epistemology", and other poetic suches. There's plenty of this in literature. It doesn't occur to me to think of the utterers of such utterances as having "mental health problems".That's a good example. I think intuitively we'd all want to say that the woman in question was suffering from some mental health issues and would possibly benefit from psychiatric help.
— Isaac
It seems a little wacky to me too. But perhaps our florist is happy. Then I'd classify it as more of the usual human vanity. The woman probably obeys traffic rules and is nice to babies. It's only when you get her started on flowers that she's harmlessly mad. A very nice person recently told me she believes in fairies. — j0e
The 'harmless belief in fairies' is of the less common kind by quite a long way. — Isaac
Yes, this is much more like it. Certain beliefs are used as membership criteria for certain clubs, they're not really beliefs in the sense of tendencies to act as if... but merely part of a word game (or ritual enaction) that is played to create a sense of mutual belonging (and of course, exclusion of the other - the dark side). — Isaac
The vast majority of religious practice is just social-bonding ritual and as harmless as a knitting club on a societal scale, but then so's the alternative. — Isaac
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