Not sure how that relates to Josh's comment.

I think the idea of social engineering is so profoundly threatening to traditional Americans because they simply don’t belief that human beings are able to understand each other well enough for such engineering to be anything but a disaster, or simply because they are for indicating freedom. Public projects whose inequivocal value is obvious to them they do support ( like the trans-continental railroad or the interstate highway system)

This objection comes up over and over again in conservative think tank writings I’ve followed over the years. They simply believe that it is hubris to think humans can mess around with God-given or natural human nature and make any sense of it, much less
turn it into social engineering policies. so best to leave it to its own devices , the invisible hand.

The accusation of selfishness leveled against the right from liberals I think misreads this skepticism and caution as a lack of caring. — Joshs

Nicely put and I suspect this is correct. Misreading skepticism and caution as a lack of caring is a new one for me which I will mull over.

The gist is that the literalistic reading of the Bible that is characteristic of modern American evangelical Christianity in fact completely distorts its meaning (hence the title). — Wayfarer

Yes, it's important for people to understand that OT literalist readings are a more modern phenomenon and held by Christians rather than Jews. I think I have posted that here somewhere a couple of times.

But aside from creation stories and other spurious tales in the OT, literalism around Jesus' divinity, mission and resurrection has largely been consistent.

esus is a resilient philosopher. You could say he is not so easily buried — Olivier5

Nice line. Thanks for the chat.

Let me explain once more and if this doesn't hit the mark, let's just move on. Christians mostly believe that the words in the Bible, the resurrection and Jesus' divinity are historical facts. Their entire faith is predicated on its alleged factuality.

If Christians were to accept that Jesus was just an itinerant preacher who was killed and left on the cross to rot (as per, for instance, Professor Bart Ehrman's work) and that the New Testament is essentially a series of whoppers, attempting to depict that preacher as a superhero, then faith would largely collapse.

But these points have all to do with religious belief and nothing to do with historical facts, so I don't see the relevance — Olivier5

You're joking right?

So, if you start denying reincarnation, this raises the question of where to draw the line and whether it is still Buddhism or something else. — Apollodorus

I've sometimes wondered this too. There is so much divergent thinking around what it is to be a Buddhist, it seems almost anything is possible in this space. I remember a very influential Buddhist monk and teacher in my city some years ago who drank a lot of booze. A bottle of whisky in a session was not unusual. He explained his addiction to me in some doctrinal way which I have long forgotten and no one close seemed especially concerned. I guess the point is religions, as man-made artifacts, can bend in whatever direction they wish as long as no special outrage is created amongst core followers. And if there is outrage it may be opportune for a new sect or interpretation. Islam and Christianity have managed this process for centuries.

One can read the Gospels for their message only. — Olivier5

Yes and no. As we have seen throughout history what people think the message is depends on who is reading. If Jesus is not the son of god and was not resurrected, his message collapses in the eyes of most followers for whom the promise of everlasting life is the central attraction. Whether a few secular humanist still find some quaint and useful messages about ethics in the ruins of what's left over is a separate matter.

Interesting subject. I have always thought that what makes people content depends upon how restless or vulnerable they are to start with. Based on personal observation a lot of chasing after things, status or higher consciousness seem to be compensatory strategies - attempts to fill holes or put out fires. I generally think if you chasing after contentment or happiness they will remain elusive. For me it's found in quiet and not thinking too much about myself.

Plato's method of enquiry "that transcends the potential truth value" (whatever that's supposed to mean). — Metaphysician Undercover

You're right, poor wording. So I'm not surprised you went in the wrong direction. :wink:

I wasn't suggesting Socrates is superior to Christianity. That kind of hierarchical game I leave to zealots. My point was Plato's literature doesn't depend on historicity for its success. The method is what matters, not the biography. We can't really say the same about the Jesus stories. But whether Christianity (or The Rolling Stones for that matter) had a massive following and were hugely influential is scarcely the point.

:smile: I broke with theosophy and that world so long ago I can no longer even spell Madam Blatavsky... Blavatsky.

Personally I benefit from informed, well reasoned views that are different to my own. I count on other people to make me aware of things I devalue or overlook.

It's very disappointing.

But of course you're primed not to see that through your New Age spectacles. — Janus

I think he's a much better thinker that that, Janus. I'm an atheist and sometimes don't agree with Wayfarer either, but for my money he's well read, acute and serious about the subjects he studies.

Who says abduction isn't powerful? Of course Conan Doyle himself was not so acute and thought fairies were real and that Houdini actually dematerialized himself to escape from chains underwater, etc.

That is interesting. The term religion probably makes more sense in cultures with significant pluralism, where an umbrella term for the various traditions is helpful. As you suggest the term religion is gravid with meaning in the West, where you often hear, 'I'm spiritual but not religious'.

Maybe this is a digression, but how do you view Protestant fundamentalist Christianity? Academic David Bentley Hart (who identifies as Eastern Orthodox) argues they are not Christian so much as new cults of reward and punishment.

My understanding is that Holmes generally practiced abductive, not deductive reasoning.

But there are far more questions than answers. — Manuel

No question. I don't think we can underestimate the emotional hook concepts like 'truth' have on people who so often seem to require such notions in order to feel safe and worthwhile. You often hear the echoes of this in discussions of morality "If there is no God then there is no reason to be moral and life is meaningless." That kind of thing. Truth and foundational guarantees still make the world go around.

If knowledge is useful in practice than it's true knowledge? — Cornwell1

Good question. I would think 'truth' is a totalizing idea - 'useful in practice' is a way of measuring knowledge by its efficacy rather than its truth value - whatever that means.

I hope this isn't a silly question. Can accepting ideas which are useful be a potential problem when those ideas are applied in other contexts? I'm struggling to think of good examples but, let's say a belief in God may be useful to manage grief and loss following the death of a wife/husband, but what if this same belief allows you to disown your son/daughter because they are gay? Some ideas don't allow for much parsing and are kind of 'all or nothing' affairs.

I don't disagree at all. I mean, for me everything is essentially a mystery, science included. It's not as if science makes sense, as I've been saying through-out this thread (we don't understand the world, physics is mathematical, math is...?, etc.) . — Manuel

I think this is a reasonable position. Why should anything 'make sense' - the very idea of something making sense is in itself just a frame driven by humans who are meaning making creatures with a fetish for certainty. I guess science as practiced by many does take a metaphysical position that the world is intrinsically knowable - it this a case of elevating predictability to the status of certainty? I am often haunted by something Richard Rorty said in an interview on Dutch TV - "We don't know anything at all about truth, all we know is how to justify ideas."

One might argue that Socrates is completely and utterly a fictitious character, but that does extremely little toward negating the value of the information found in Plato's dialogues. — Metaphysician Undercover

Exactly. It matters not one jot if Socrates was fictional. What we have in Plato's literature is a method of enquiry that transcends the potential truth value. Plato is not dealing in 'revealed' wisdom. The New Testament, by contrast leaves us nothing but myths - a series of whoppers written about an itinerant preacher, produced for the most part decades after he lived by mainly anonymous sources. Not all ancient writings have the same status.

Thanks again. A succinct and engaging summary.

There is no such thing as evidence of something that doesn't exist, as nonexistence leaves no evidence except absence of evidence itself. — Garrett Travers

Nice.

What I'm interested in is 'higher consciousness', which actually has a wiki entry - not brilliant — Wayfarer

Jesus, that really is a slender entry - I wonder why that is? Whole bookshops are devoted to the perennial philosophy and the quest to achieve higher consciousness and only this on wiki! It was all certainly a part of my life 30 years ago when I first encountered Gurdjieff, Watts, Krishnamurti, Madam Blavatsky, etc.

Seems to me this entire discussion, whether it be about higher consciousness or the miracles of Jesus, comes back down to what we think we can reasonably say about reality. One way or another we end up arguing over the basic building blocks of ontology and metaphysics and the risks inherent in certain views.

No worries! Personally I can't tell if people are getting less intelligent or not. I have encountered no reason to think they are.

Of course. Thanks for clarifying.

The jump is not unjustified if you understand it. All material existence is ordered, it is not just random parts in a random spatial-temporal order. — Metaphysician Undercover

I understand your argument but it doesn't change my view. Clearly life behaves and for my money this is a natural process. Thank you for articulating your view of intentionality so well and with just the right level of detail.

What you are railing against is elimininative materialism, which treats experience as an epiphenomenon. From the point of view of science it is an epiphenomenon, whereas from the point of view of phenomenology it is central. Two different disciplines which by no means need to be at odds with one another. — Janus

Nicely put.

If this thread were entitled "The problem with physicalism", the agreement between Wayfarer and I would be more apparent. — Banno

Sorry Banno - I'm doing this between meetings - can you expand a little?

In my case, I have sought the resolution to that conflict through non-dualism, which is a hard thing to explain. — Wayfarer

Yep, I've seen several talks on non-duality by Rupert Spira.

You guys have done this a lot longer that I have. Is there any hope for some agreement on terminology?

Physicalism/naturalism/supernatural/extramundane/transcendent - the words seem to trigger reactions and some of those words seem loaded and inadequate in these discussions. Are there better alternatives?

If you don't find it interesting, then why barge in with inane commentary? — Wayfarer

I actually asked @Banno to look over the thread as I was wanting to read something more rigorous in response to intentionalism as a defeater of naturalism. I know his reading of Searle and others is far more advanced than mine.

He said the mind is strictly describable in terms of the entities explored by science, and that when this was complete, there would be nothing unexplained. — Wayfarer

Do you think this is an impossibility?

How small has religion become! Once it explained everything, physical, social, moral and political. Now it is reduced to the hope that neuroscience will not be able to explain why you raised your arm. — Banno

Ha! I guess intentionality, consciousness, something from nothing and whatever's left of Aquinas' five ways or proofs will always be offered up as potential defeaters of naturalism.

I'm not a scientist or philosopher, so I defer to others. But it does often seem that an argument from incredulity is employed by people who cannot imagine how the world could be what it is without some kind of transcendent or supernatural power. I wonder if I should stay out of these discussions in future... :gasp:

When we consider the reality of artificial things, in contrast with natural things, we see that human intention adds something to the material world, in this act which we describe as creative. Simple appeal to "the forces of nature" cannot account for the changes which the human mind have imposed onto the material world. These awesome changes are all around us, and we cannot ignore the fact that they are evidence of a great power. — Metaphysician Undercover

I like your approach to this discussion but I can't share this interpretation. The natural world has animals in it. They behave and do things. We can readily observe and explain this. Birds make nests. People make walls and houses. Not sure why we must accept intentionality (behaviour) as evidence of an enchanted world. Christians apologists like William Lane Craig and Alvin Plantinga are fond of this argument - via Anselm, I guess. This is a complex philosophical idea which is unsettled, so I will accept this point as a matter for further exploration.

For example, an atheist might observe the material world, and conclude that there is no evidence of God, while a theologist would say that the material world itself is evidence of God. — Metaphysician Undercover

The former assuming there is nothing beyond what is directly experienced, the latter assuming that there must be a cause of what is experienced. — Metaphysician Undercover

The big difference is that the former follows principles of skepticism. The latter makes an unjustifiable jump from an extant world to God. Why God? Everything you argue could apply to the role of aliens in a creation story. Why could you not argue that aliens created the world using this reasoning?

Original sin is one of his too. But yes, let's not debate Augustine.

I'm not a scholar of Augustine's works, but I've yet to read anything that he wrote about philosophy that I would consider nonsense. Of course, if I do, then I'll revise my opinion. — Wayfarer

Well, a notable one would be that Yeshua ben Yosef was the son of God.

If so, I'd say that you suffer from the prejudice, "that the natural world is all which exists". — Metaphysician Undercover

Your words are interesting. "Suffer from the prejudice" I think that's a prejudicial way of putting it. :smile: No one can say that the natural wold is all that exists (yet), and I do not know the answer since key evidence is missing. Most of these debates end up arguing about what constitutes evidence.

As a source, look up artificial in the dictionary — Metaphysician Undercover

I understand this but semantics are not my thing. We are talking about the paranormal or extramundane, not the difference between a cliff face and a brick wall.

I don't think naturalism and materialism are necessarily synonymous. In practice, naturalism often ends up meaning commitment to natural science as the only reliable source of knowledge. The problem then becomes what is considered as natural or part of nature — Wayfarer

I think that's fair and I have kind of said this.

'Miracles are not against nature, but against what we know of nature', said Augustine. — Wayfarer

As a quip, Augustine almost got it right here but remember he accepted an awful lot of unjustifiable nonsense too, so it's hardly surprising . I would restate this it Miracles are not necessarily against nature... - the time to believe is when there is good evidence. I don't really think we have a choice.

But what counts as evidence then becomes the new battleground. I generally stay out of this since disputes between irreconcilable world-views are not worth it.

if there is non-natural aspects of the world, we would probably be using something other than science to understand them, science being the means for understanding the natural aspects of the world. — Metaphysician Undercover

Yes, this is the point of challenge.

The artificial aspects of the world are distinct from the natural aspects of the world, because they are created by human activities rather than by nature. And we know that these artificial things are not natural because they are caused through intention, which we understand through philosophy and ethics rather than science. — Metaphysician Undercover

Interesting.

we know that these artificial things are not natural because they are caused through intention, which we understand through philosophy and ethics rather than science. — Metaphysician Undercover

Naturally occurring versus the product of intention hence artificial - interesting. I've always assumed human activities are a subcategory of naturalism. Are you drawing on a particular source for this?

That's brilliant!