There is also little evidence that clinical psychology is at all effective compared to talking with friends, or talking to someone who is pretending to be a psychologist (but does not have a degree). — RepThatMerch22

Do you have a cite for the study you're referencing?

Obviously "soul" carries religious meaning, but the Cartesian mind seems distinct from the body, even if we concede it is composed of the same substance. There does seem something meaningfully distinct in critical ways between rocks and perceptions of rocks.

That is much like saying "if Einstein is right, then Newton is wrong". It gives entirely the wrong impression since Newton is absolutely not wrong in-so-far as we're concerned with motion on Earth, or in any given portion of spacetime that can be treated as flat. — Agustino

Jews do not believe Jesus was the son of God. I think most would agree that Jesus' position as the son of God is an essential element of Christianity. If one insists upon dividing the world into accidental and essential properties, I don't know many who would consider Jesus's role as savior and son of God as a non-essential part of Christianity. So, yes, if Judaism is right, Christianity is wrong in an essential, non-trivial ort of way. Do you not agree with this?

Well, you have to remember that missionaries don't have just a spiritual mission, but also a political and social one. So by converting you to their church they achieve political and social goals much more than spiritual ones in this case. — Agustino

That might explain someone in a leadership position who actually worries about overall numbers, but the kid in the tie on his bicycle is at my door because he thinks he has the key to truth and heaven that is lacking in whatever religion I subscribe to.

Well, I think that it's clear that some properties are essential to an object, while others are not. For example, a three-sided figure is still a triangle regardless of the proportions of the sides, or the color of the lines, etc. So three-sidedness is an essential property of a triangle - if an object lacks those, it cannot be called a triangle, unless of course you re-define what a triangle is. — Agustino

The reason we can't decipher the accidental from essential property of a chair, for example, is because the distinction isn't real. A chair that cannot be sat on can still be a chair. A four legged chair with a missing leg is still a chair, even though it sits broken on the floor. A chair in a dollhouse is still a chair, even though it serves no function of being a chair. There are a set of properties that make something a chair and it's possible that two chairs be chairs yet not share a single property. In your case of transubstantiation, you even suggested that the essential property not even be empirically knowable, indicating that essence is a transcendent property, like the soul of something, imbuing it with chairness. Like I said, I reject essentialism, which might be why I consider your suggestion that all religions share an essence unsupportable.

With regards to Monotheism, there is still one God in Christianity, much like one triangle is one triangle even though it has three sides. — Agustino

As I indicated, Mormonism is polytheistic. http://www.mormonhandbook.com/home/polytheism.html This is directly from a Mormon website. Are you now declaring Mormons non-Christian? There are plenty of other religions that are polytheistic. Are you still claiming that they are essentially the same as Christianity?

If you want to really rest your argument on the accidental/essential distinction, then you are going to be required to itemize the properties you find essential to Christianity and then to the various competing religions. We will then need to see what the common essence is of all religions. That's your thesis, right? And then once we find that essence, you're going to have to be committed to the idea that any belief system with that very basic essence is just as valid as any other.

No, they're clearly not the same in their accidental features, of course not (and religions are also not all the same in the symbols they use, in their socio-cultural practices, and in their politics, etc.). But there must be something they have in common in virtue of which we see a resemblance amongst all rocks, and thus call them all rocks, thus grouping them together. — Agustino

You're now rejecting essentialism and arguing Wittgensteinian family resemblance. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Family_resemblance . If that's where you're falling on this, we're in agreement, but I think what's really happened is that you're simply recognizing the unsupportability of essentialism and you're trying to adapt to the objections being raised.

For what it's worth, I did learn that what we consider Aristotilian essentialism (i.e. "the doctrine that some of the attributes of a thing (quite independently of the language in which the thing is referred to, if at all) may be essential to the thing and others accidental. E.g. a man, or talking animal, or featherless biped (for they are all the same things), is essentially rational and accidentally two-legged and talkative not merely qua man, but qua itself.") is based upon a paper by Quine and he never confirms that view was actually attributable to Aristotle. http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Essentialism

I point this out because I never found the conversation about Aristotilian metaphysics philosophically significant. It's value is historical because apparently the Catholic Church adopted his views long ago when arriving at an explanation for transubstantiation. I suppose if some academic or theologian really wanted to figure out the underlying basis for the Church's position, they could go back and read the original texts. It's sort of like if I wanted to know why the American founding fathers referenced inalienable rights, I might want to go back and re-read Locke's view on natural rights since that's it's origin, but that hardly means I need to accept Locke's views. I'd just be trying to figure out where those views came from. And that is important too, if not just to point out the obvious fact that these views on transubstantiation are historically rooted as opposed to being rooted in the inerrant word of God.

And, since I mentioned Locke, he did mention primary and secondary qualities of objects, which seems another futile attempt at distinguishing properties out of objects (in his case, subjective properties versus objective properties as opposed to Aristotle's essential versus accidental). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Primary/secondary_quality_distinction

It is almost a given that when you're looking for the essence of something you will discard accidentals. The fact that such a universal unifying core exists is proof enough that religions have been grappling with what is essentially the same hierophanic phenomenon. So when atheists bring up the point that religions are all different and therefore they can't all be right, they fail to understand the significant portion in which religions are actually not different. — Agustino

I don't subscribe to the idea that essences exist. There are only particular traits that once fully subtracted leave the object at nothing. I understand the need to invoke accidental and essential properties when discussing the doctrine of transubstantiation because the Church relied upon those concepts when forming the doctrine, but I don't find it useful or persuasive as a metaphysical theory.

It is not a fact that a unifying core exists. If Christianity is right, Judaism is wrong. The fact that missionaries knock on my door is evidence someone doubts the ultimate legitimacy of my beliefs.

So it's quite possible that Judaism either has not perceived that experience in which the truth of the Trinity is grounded, or they have, but they don't express it through the doctrine of the Trinity - instead, expressing its inner meaning through a different doctrine. — Agustino

And it is not only possible, but probable, that they find the triunity an incoherent attempt to save Christianity from polytheism. And the Mormons accept the trinity as three different entities, rejecting the triunity and embracing a form of polytheism.

And what is more essential to Judaism than the first commandment and monotheism, yet I am supposed to believe polytheistic religions that worship idols are essentially all the same?

Sure, of course not. But they're both attempts at grappling with the relationship between man and his divine ground and do bear significant common ground with each other. — Agustino

Which is only to point out that the word "religion" means something and there must be something similar for us to catagorize them in the same bucket. Are all rocks the same because they're all rocks?

If souls exist, then how could they not have come from somewhere?

Are you saying there is no soul?

That is why all discourse remains at the level of conflicting organized religions and fails to grasp the process through which these organized religions came to be in the first place. As such, it is very likely that where there was initially unity, through the process of solidification and ossification of dogmatic structures meant to preserve the teachings (a process that translates an experience into language), there arose irreconcileable differences. — Agustino

Your thesis that all organized religions are essentially the same, whatever religious essence might be, is anything but obvious, and very doubtful. There are far too many religions to suggest it's possible to distill a few unifying truths and to also not require discarding critical distinguishing elements. That is, Judaism is not in essence Christianity.

I'd invest in the Bolivar. Buy low, sell high.

A diverse group will inevitably arrive at diverse solutions, and all will insist theirs is the most efficient.

Similar goals does not dictate similar political views. We both may want cheap and high quality medical care (who wouldn't?), but we may still debate the best way to acheive that (e.g. higher taxes versus free enterprise solutions).

Pork bellies. You heard it here first.

It's a buyer's market... Or maybe wait and see.

For me, doing philosophy also has intrinsic value--because it is so much fun!! — Mitchell

Would it not if it weren't fun? I'd think its value exceeds that of a good massage, even should the good massage be more fun.

Which was the impetus of my prior post. We can look at what we value, but we can't determine what has actual value from that because we seem to inherently know value even when we don't value it. I can throw my entire life into meaningless hedonism, valuing only the next fix of pleasure, but I would think that upon reflection (assuming I haven't destroyed my ability for reflection), I'd realize I am seeking those things that ought not be sought.

The road to recovery is often paved with reevaluating how one is living one's life and steering themselves in the direction of valuing the truly valuable. And I use "recovery" here to mean from anything meaningless, even if it's just from living a previously unexamined life.

Perhaps what we need to do is to tie intrinsic value to needs not wants. — Mitchell

If it's tied to needs (or wants), I'd argue it's not intrinsic, but dependent. That is, if my needs are better fulfilled by cheating, does justice now lack intrinsic worth?

Which brings us to a central question: "What is it to value something?" — Mitchell

But why is that the central question, with "value" being a verb and not a noun. That is, why isn't the real question, what is value? To ask it as you have triggers my same objection as before, which is that if you ask what is it to value something, you simply ask the subjective question, making the most logical response a psychological one, as in "to value something is to hold it in high regard." It's likely I value things of no value and ignore things of value, thus ignoring the deeper question of what value is.

I'd offer a slightly different definition of "intrinsic value" as being that which has value in itself as opposed "to be desirable in and of itself. The use of "desirable" forces us to your example of hedonism because it suggests that achievement of desire is of value. Removing the desire element from the definition leaves us with more worthy results, like justice, morality, love, and things we'd have stand alone as valuable, even should no one happen to desire them.

There is a reason why you use the particular arbitrary symbol which you do, rather than some other arbitrary symbol. The reason is that you have faith that the other person will understand better, what you want to say, by your use of that particular symbol rather than some other. — Metaphysician Undercover

If there's a reason I use "2" and not "3" for 2, then "2" is not arbitrary. The definition of arbitrary is that it is not based upon a system or reason, but it's just random or whim. Not every symbol is arbitrary, but some are based upon prior similar usage (as when we adhere to roots) and some languages attempt to make the word look like the thing it represents (like hieroglyphics). Regardless, though, I would agree that whatever the basis for why we have chosen a particular symbol, the typical user has no idea what it is. All of this is terribly irrelevant though because none of this requires any degree of faith. The reason I believe "2" represents 2 is through empirical evidence. Every time someone uses "2," I know they mean 2. If someone starts using "2" to mean 3, I'd correct the person because it would be contrary to what I empirically knew to be true, and the argument would consist of empirical examples of usage.

This reliance upon empirical evidence is not limited to language usage, and I wonder why you've chosen to use it as example, but it is used to know most things about the world. And, as I've said, I fully acknowledge having faith in the truth of empirical evidence (and in my ability to reason) as those things are foundational to any understanding of the world.

. How do you define faith? I would define it as confidence inspired by trust. Do you agree with this? — Metaphysician Undercover

I think you've defined "belief" and not "faith." I would define faith as belief inspired by something other than proof. It is a belief often the result of spiritual apprehension but sometimes the result of necessity.

What 2 means is that there is one distinct object and another distinct object, two distinct objects. — Metaphysician Undercover

This categorization of two dogs as two objects and then on the other hand categorizing them as a group isn't mysterious and has nothing to do with transubstantiation.

Without the measurement system, there is no procedure. You cannot proceed without accepting on faith, these arbitrary assumptions, the numerals. You could draw me circles, and whatever shapes you like, showing me how they are related, but these are useless without the numerals. — Metaphysician Undercover

I'm not following your argument that "arbitrary" = "faith." I don't see the correlation and I don't understand why I can't accept that we use all sorts of arbitrary symbols to describe reality without having faith.

The argument is that faith underlies all we do. To reject something simply because it is faith based, is an unjustified rejection. — Metaphysician Undercover

There are foundational beliefs that anchor us into reality, sure. We might accept that our senses report to us what is occurring in the real world, and we might accept that reason and logic provide us insights into reality. Those foundational beliefs might at some level have to be accepted on faith, simply because a foundational belief can't have a further foundation; it's the origin of our belief.

If you're saying that your foundational belief is whatever the Catholic Church happens to tell you is true, I'd say that foundation is a much less rudimentary foundation than mine that no doubt relies upon many other more rudimentary beliefs, thus making it not truly foundational.

I say that it is a mystery as to how one individual is grouped with another individual to make one unit. Why are they one unit under the symbol "2", which is what is declared in mathematical proceedings, and they are not two distinct units, as the meaning of "2" indicates? Now how is your mystery any more mysterious than my mystery? — Metaphysician Undercover

You find it mysterious why people notice similarities among things and group them into categories?

I told you to accept the definitions of the theist, for the sake of progress, and because, the theist studying these aspects of reality more, is likely more aware than you what God refers to. — Agustino

This is wrong for a number of reasons. First, it suggests that the theist has some superior method of understanding God, as if the skeptic lacks the capacity at the same understanding, that the skeptic hasn't spent just as long as the theist in considering these issues, and that the skeptic might not have reached a very different conclusion than the theist. It's also very wrong to think that there is some monolithic thought process among theists, ignoring that the definition of God that one theist might have from another may vary widely even in the same church and same pew on any given Sunday. And, of course there are very different views from one church to the other, one denomination to another, and certainly one religion than another. Then there are those who take the idea of God very seriously but who find that no religious doctrine does it justice and who find that the study of religious literature is not the avenue to enlightenment in that area.

Your assertions that you know exactly what God is and that you stand with some authority on that question speaks loudly that your views bear no relation to my own, as I see one's relationship with God as personal, subjective, unprovable, and unverifiable by definition. To present God as this object fully subject to a complete knowable definition candidly feels to me like you have no idea what god is, but are instead just trying to define another object. Consistent with what I've said though, you may have that belief, and it is certainly yours to have, but it offers nothing for me, seems overly simplistic, and by positing yourself as a guru of sorts, it makes it impossible for me to take you seriously.

Yes, we've been using the same words, BUT with different meanings. That's exactly the problem. You understand by "literal change" something different than I - or other believers - understand by a literal change. — Agustino

By literal change, I mean not symbolic. The bread is the same in substance than it was before and after the prayer.

If you think that the reasons for making the particular steps which are made, in these mathematical proceedings having concrete references, then I think you are hallucinating. The reasons why the steps are performed, are complex, often ambiguous, and in no way constitutes a concrete reference; just like the Church's reasons for performing their rites cannot constitute a concrete reference. In mathematics, the reasons for the steps of procedure being as they are, are extremely vague, and sometimes completely arbitrary. That the circle has 360 degrees for example, is completely arbitrary. — Metaphysician Undercover

I really don't understand this comment. I could draw you a unit circle, show you tangents and whatever else you need if you really want me to graph out the basis of trigonometry. That the measurement system is arbitrary (360 degrees as opposed to 100 degrees in a circle) hardly impacts the validity or usefulness of the conclusions. And, even to the extent that mathematics is abstract, it hardly puts it in the same epistemological class as religion.

The best I can decipher this argument is that you're saying that the world's a complex, confusing place, and there are things none of us understand in the physical world, so it's just as acceptable to posit religious truths as explanations.

That these symbols, 1,2,3, etc., are the symbols which are used, to signify what they do, is just as much of a mystery, or more, as the mystery of transubstantiation. — Metaphysician Undercover

The reason "2" means 2 is because someone declared it a while ago. How's that mysterious? The reason we refer to transubstantiation as "transubstantiation" is for the same reason. That's not where the mystery lies. The mystery lies in how bread becomes the flesh of a guy who died thousands of years ago.

The argument is that your rejection is unjustified. If you are so smug in your rejection, that demonstrating this to you requires humility, then the blame for this humility is your smugness, not the argument. — Metaphysician Undercover

My point remains that your argument was from the point of view that we ought be humble regarding those things we don't understand and try to understand them. The concept of humility when faced with otherwise preposterous beliefs if often presented by theists as the best way to try to understand them.

I assume that I know better what the word "God" refers to, and I've cited why. So at the very least, my definitions (or the believer's more generally) ought to be accepted as a starting point. — Agustino

This isn't the starting point for a conversation about God, it's the ending point. What you've done here is no different than it would be if I simply declared myself an authority on any subject, declared I knew better than you, and then proclaimed that you should defer to me for guidance. That posits you as Socrates, where I suppose I'm supposed to listen carefully to your comments and questions and try to obtain your wisdom. Anyway, this entire line of conversation hinges upon the fallacy of appealing to authority, although in this case, you appeal to yourself as the authority.

The statement transubstantiation happens and the statement transubstantiation doesn't happen are both true at the same time, since there is an equivocation on the word transubstantiation. — Agustino

I don't agree with this. We've all been relying upon the Catholic definition of the term throughout.

You're not a believer, you used to be one. So you don't understand, at least anymore (maybe you never have, I wouldn't know that) how the term "God" is best to be used, and what it refers to. I, who am a believer, am more likely, by the fact that I devote more time to study and understand this than you do, to understand what "God" refers to. — Agustino

The problem is that you assume superiority in your position. It would make as much sense to argue that you should open your mind to the enlightenment of atheism by someone who insists they have had ineffable experiences of the lack of a supreme being as it makes for you to argue the opposite.

And I think this conversation has changed objectives to something far more moderate, which is simply to argue for the possibility of a higher power, which, from my perspective, is far more defensible than arguing for the validity of transubstantiation. The vagueness of what God is allows plenty of room for acceptance, whereas transubstantiation is a very specific doctrine clarified by the Catholic Church that does not offer much wiggle room for skeptics to take it seriously.

But to the extent that we're now just arguing that there might be some higher power out there, there seems not to be much controversy in accepting such a claim other than by pretty committed atheists. I'm not saying atheists have nothing significant to say in that regard, but I do know that if that were the focus of the OP, we wouldn't be in the 28th page. It was the outlandish attempts to defend transubstantiation to a secular crowd that generated the discussion.

The lack of a concrete referent troubled me, so I could not proceed to the level of abstraction required because I was unwilling to accept the articles on faith alone, I needed to understand through concrete reference. — Metaphysician Undercover

I don't see how this is analogous. Algebra and trigonometry do in fact have concrete references, and I agree that it's a poor way to teach to simply itemize the steps the students are to perform without offering an understanding as to why those steps must be performed. The problem I have with transubstantiation is not that the teacher has failed to provide the underlying concrete basis for it, but it's that the teacher has specifically told me that it's a mystery.

The argument is a resort to humility, to argue I should just accept there are certain things beyond my comprehension, and instead of smugly rejecting them, I should take pause and recognize it is my limitations that keep me from understanding it. If you were trying to explain to me some complex physics problem, I'd agree with you, but it's a bit hard to accept the same with reference to transubstantiation when the explanation you offer is to tell me that it's just one of those mysteries. I think a better response would be to take pause and then declare that the emperor wears no clothes. That often takes more courage than blind acceptance.

And so this conversation ends with a lame insult like most.

And, I believe that it is reasonable to have more faith in ancient books than modern books because they have stood the test of time, by demonstrating their consistency. — Metaphysician Undercover

Your test for validity uses a stopwatch, not a petri dish. Monarchies have existed longer than democracies, so let's stick with that.

Your cat is an emaciated bug eyed dwarf. Throwing a blanket over it doesn't make it a grizzly bear. It just makes it more tolerable to be around.

The shared core argument you're making is the same flawed argument that gets dragged out in Philosophy 101 classes every semester as proof against moral relativism: There must be absolutes because every culture shares the same basic moral truths.

Don't get me wrong, I do hold there are moral truths, but I also think some cultures think wrong is right. The same holds true of religion, and you can't arbitrarily reject those you feel are too primitive or that hold to satanic beliefs.

You're also departing the crux of this thread, and that is the question of the validity of the Euchrist. I'm pretty sure the Jewish faith, for example, rejects that to the core.

Well, we're not talking about Nazism here. It's Catholicism - a world view followed by hundreds of millions of people over two thousand years. It would take monstrous hubris to claim it has nothing of value to offer. To come to a discussion without that understanding is the sign of a poor philosopher. — T Clark

The question isn't whether it has nothing (as in zero) to offer. The question is whether its fundamental beliefs are true, from the resurrection to transubstantiation. It takes no hubris for me to say those things are false. It takes blind faith for you to say they are true.

But sure, if the Catholic Church had a food drive, I might throw a can of green beans in the bin and be thankful to the Church for offering something of value to those in need. And to the extent the institution survives by offering a strange mythology to a susceptible people, I'm in favor of it, so long as it keeps having food drives and the like. But to the extent anyone should argue that the mythology has a value outside of its political influence in creating group cohesiveness, as in suggesting that the mythology must be rooted in reality, I say such simply does not logically follow.

The problem is that faith is something very real, it is just as real as the food we eat, and we all partake. That someone can't handle the proposition that faith is real, and we all partake, so we as good philosophers ought to try to understand it, doesn't make faith go away, it just makes that person a lesser philosopher. — Metaphysician Undercover

I stepped away a minute and a few pages went by, so sorry if I've missed a point here or there.

I'd draw a distinction between faith generally and religion specifically. To the extent there's an underlying current of "physicalists and Catholics both rest on faith at some fundamental level, so neither can assert greater validity," I don't find that at all persuasive. To a large degree, the foundational beliefs of a physicalist (or someone generally non-religious) are things like there being an objective reality that is knowable through our senses, as opposed to fairly specific and structured claims like transubstantiation. If attempting to decipher the nature of reality, I rely upon my senses and reason and you rely upon the five books of Moses, surely you can see that we don't just have different foundational anchors, but they are of a significantly different type altogether. My point being that I am relying upon some fairly basic means of acquiring information, whereas you are relying upon some old book, and I therefore can say that we are not using faith in the same way.

I also don't find it all useful to refer to the antiquity of a doctrine to determine its validity, nor do I think it matters much how many good or bad things a faith has cast upon the world when assessing its value. Religion generally, and most certainly Catholicism, is as much a political institution than anything else, and just like a government can feed the hungry, it can engage in wholesale murder. Its success or failure to speaks also to its political pull in gaining and keeping adherents, not to its inherent rootedness in truth. It's clear that there are all sorts of religions worldwide with tremendous diversity among them, many thousands of years of old and many with hundreds of thousands and even millions upon millions of followers. Surely they can't all be right, which would indicate their being right has little to do with their success.

No, it simply points out the obvious, which is that some find the business of living a positive experience.

No one's trying to pass you I don't think. If I wanted to, though, I could crush your spirit and leave you helpless with the bat of an eye (yes, I can bat a single eye in complete badassery).

You may have built your body and the sacred balls of your frozen canuck feet, but your spirit is weak and exposed, ripe for destruction.

I like hard work. On Saturdays I volunteer planting trees, tearing out invasive plants, and carrying water buckets. It beats office work. I get that some people enjoy being lazy, but that just describes some people. Feel free to go about being lazy, and I'll go about feeling superior, and we'll just carry on as always.

With all due respect, what the fuck are you talking about? I ask because I want to be a part of the convo, but I'm not sure if you're talking about kicking footballs, doing an Irish jig, or you're training to be a ninja.

No, I wasn't referring to that sort of scenario. I was referring to the sort of scenario where, say, someone saw a murder, but the murderer later threatened to kill all witnesses, and this person nevertheless comes forward to testify. In that light, his testimony, because he is willing to risk his life, has greater weigh — Agustino

I would agree that statements against interest carry greater weight, the most significant being a confession (which is precisely why they must be given freely to be admissible). In your scenario, perhaps someone in fear for their life who offers testimony that places them in greater danger might be considered more honest, although exaggerating the testimony might also occur in that situation in an effort to assure the conviction. That is, once you've taken a swing, make sure you win the fight. I guess the point is that it really depends on all the facts.

I'd think bias would count against the witness, offering a motive to fabricate.

And don't be silly now - if you were a judge and a man risked his life to testify something, while the other didn't risk anything, who would you believe? — Agustino

The one telling the truth?

To state categorically that some people think better than others makes no sense. — WISDOMfromPO-MO

It does make sense. You're just measuring an overall score. Restaraunt A is overall better than B even though B has better fries.

You don't need to know any langauge other than English when traveling to other countries. Just speak really loud and slow and point a lot and speak in their accent.

I know exactly what this means. You're worried about all sorts of shit you can't control so you're trying to assure yourself that you're doing exactly what you ought to be doing and that you're exactly in the right place and you're using as evidence of this some completely irrelevant things that you're trying to convince yourself are important, but you know deep down they're really not, and this is so not what you want to hear.

It's all self deception to alleviate your sense of hopelessness. It's distressing to me. I can't imagine what it's like to you.