Is there evidence your god beliefs are true while other god beliefs are false?

[Henners]

aww..
never been in love, huh?

Genuine spiritual knowledge = Love?

Is that what you mean?

You seem to be saying that there is no place for poetry.

 

[plumjam]

Genuine spiritual knowledge = Love?

Is that what you mean?

You seem to be saying that there is no place for poetry.

What I was getting at is that if something like falling in love happened only to a small minority in society it would be just as easy for the majority to dismiss it, as with your Napoleon example, as just another batty idea.
The only reason falling in love is accepted as a real and meaningful phenomenon is because it happens to most people.
No other reason.

Likewise, if most people experienced genuine spiritual experience, the phenomenon and its meaningfulness would not be routinely dismissed as it is now.
So it's a kind of mob rule, if you like.

I'm all for poetry. I don't quite get you on that one.

 

[athon]

Well, since my last post was a raging success, I'll have another stab at this:

Conversely, the impression given on this forum is that religions claim, as a general rule, mutual exclusivity i.e. 'if my religion is true yours must be false'.
This is just not true. And anyone with more than a high school level of knowledge about comparative religion would know it.

Very few don't claim that. Most religions do claim that their view is exclusive - they have some form of equivalent 'there is no other God' view. The closest some of the more polytheistic - pantheistic - animistic ones will concede that another's religion is another 'facet' or view of their own; however this is not a comment of religious practice or dogma but one of theistic belief.

Furthermore, this massive straw man is commonly used to try to demonstrate that as "all religions claim mutually exclusive access to the truth" (or some such phrase), then "not all of them can be right, therefore all of them must be wrong".

You haven't demonstrated that it is at all a straw man, although you do respond with one of your own, ironically.

Theism does indeed lay claim to some truth of reality. Nobody believes in a deity which in their own mind is untrue or unconnected with their view of reality. However, when most atheists questions 'why', it is stating 'not all can be right...therefore all but one must be in some way wrong - how would you decide which?'.

SkepticGirl, the universe does not bend to your preconcieved notions of what its laws are all the time, nor does it to me. Everyday science finds something new that contradicts what we thought was true yesterday, and we will again tomorrow.

Sorry, but it really bugs me when this is said. It's as flippant as the remarks you're annoyed at skeptigirl for.

Science doesn't often contradict itself. I've described its actions to my students like this - imagine an image on your computer screen made of ten dots. You try to guess the image...and every few seconds the dots resolve to produce more pixels. Every change you guess at the picture. It starts off wild, but every time it gets a little closer. Some seem like contradictions (it's a car...no, wait, it's a boat!), but every guess is made with more observations, and gets closer to an accurate guess. As time progresses you can make better and better guesses which are more useful than the last.

Religion, however, cannot do this. Each change brought by more pixels means its more difficult to convince yourself the image reflects your first guess. In the end you rely on the right to call a boat a horse painted to look like a boat because nobody can go back in time and see what the original subject of the photograph was. Sure, it's your right to describe reality according to whatever philosophy you wish...but meanwhile others have sacrificed the comfort such a philosophy brings so you can have the way of life you have now.

Remember that the next time you dismiss a person so blantanly and speak to the things that they hold dear as if they are things to be discarded at will . . . .

Likewise, others have let go of comforting thoughts in favour of a philosophy that actually produces something for their community.

Athon

 

[athon]

What I was getting at is that if something like falling in love happened only to a small minority in society it would be just as easy for the majority to dismiss it, as with your Napoleon example, as just another batty idea.
The only reason falling in love is accepted as a real and meaningful phenomenon is because it happens to most people.
No other reason.

Likewise, if most people experienced genuine spiritual experience, the phenomenon and its meaningfulness would not be routinely dismissed as it is now.
So it's a kind of mob rule, if you like.

I'm all for poetry. I don't quite get you on that one.

Christ...I was waiting for the 'love' analogy to raise its ugly head. How many strawmen can we fit into one thread?

Love is a sensation. So is the sense that voices in one's head are speaking to you. I don't suffer from the latter, nor do many people I know. But when a schizophrenic describes it, I can be fairly sure it's an actual experience they are having. Why? Because I know people can experience diverse sensations that I do not. When somebody says they feel some form of divine experience, I also believe them, in spite of never having felt it myself.

So sensation and experience aren't the point. We can agree they occur.

However, that is not to say that the voices mean people are really talking to you, or that the divine sense means there is a divine cause. When in love I feel that the person I love is one of the most perfect people ever made. It hardly makes it so, even though I sense it.

Athon

 

[V23]

-Sorry, but it really bugs me when this is said. It's as flippant as the remarks you're annoyed at skeptigirl for.

Science doesn't often contradict itself. I've described its actions to my students like this - imagine an image on your computer screen made of ten dots. You try to guess the image...and every few seconds the dots resolve to produce more pixels. Every change you guess at the picture. It starts off wild, but every time it gets a little closer. Some seem like contradictions (it's a car...no, wait, it's a boat!), but every guess is made with more observations, and gets closer to an accurate guess. As time progresses you can make better and better guesses which are more useful than the last.
Religion, however, cannot do this. Each change brought by more pixels means its more difficult to convince yourself the image reflects your first guess. In the end you rely on the right to call a boat a horse painted to look like a boat because nobody can go back in time and see what the original subject of the photograph was. Sure, it's your right to describe reality according to whatever philosophy you wish...but meanwhile others have sacrificed the comfort such a philosophy brings so you can have the way of life you have now.
Likewise, others have let go of comforting thoughts in favour of a philosophy that actually produces something for their community.

Athon

Oh horse crap . . .There are about as many different fields of science as there are virginities lost on prom night across the US. And EVERY DAY we find something new, unexpected, and different then we thought yesterday.

And science does contradict it's self. Often. A good example of it is when we started looking at planets in other systems through some of our larger teloscopes and finding eratic orbits and gas giants well beyond any speculative range. Text books were rewitten and reputations faltered. And it happens all the time.

In my field, Criminology, we learn new techniques for crime scene processing all the time, and rediscover things constantly out any number of psych. depatments across the country that deal with abnormal behavior. It changes constantly. Hell, they are adding a new diagnosis to the DSV this coming year for people who are addicted to internet porn.

And by the way, not all religions are stagnant, nor do they all so ironclad as to not move with the latest. If you look back at some of my ealier posts you'll realize that I am not a member of any of the stagnant ones.

Oh and finally, I am one of those people that actually PROVIDE the way of life YOU lead. And I havent had to sacrified my beliefs to do so. Come to think of it, the lab that we work at has two Jews, a Catholic, a couple Baptists, and one gothy looking Wiccan.

All of which I am sure would thank you for your appreciation of Crime Scene Investigators, Criminalogists, and Pathologists.

Thanks.

 

[plumjam]

Well, since my last post was a raging success, I'll have another stab at this:

Lol, sorry Athon. Your last post was, well, a bit long.. and I felt it was talking at cross-purposes to my point

Very few don't claim that. Most religions do claim that their view is exclusive - they have some form of equivalent 'there is no other God' view. The closest some of the more polytheistic - pantheistic - animistic ones will concede that another's religion is another 'facet' or view of their own; however this is not a comment of religious practice or dogma but one of theistic belief.

I don't think so. Muslims Christians and Jews might call it/him/her Allah, God, or Yaweh or whatever, but they agree they're talking about the same God. Hindus have many deities but it is recognised that these are various manifestations of the same Unitary God. Sikhs believe in one God. Buddhists talk less of God, though some strands such as Tibetan have various Gods and Goddesses, seen as real phenomenal entities. Buddhism nevertheless talks about the universal Buddha Nature, which exists as the supreme unitary consciousness behind all phenomena.. very similar to Hinduism's description of Divinity as Sat-Cit-Ananda (Being, Consciousness, Bliss).
So what can appear as big differences are really more about labelling and words.
Most religions, in whatever language, describe God as Love, more specifically infinite love. The fact that Buddhism, might, for example describe this as the Universal Compassion of the Buddha Nature, makes no real difference. It's pretty clear they're all talking about the same thing.

In fact, the commonality is really quite striking.

You haven't demonstrated that it is at all a straw man, although you do respond with one of your own, ironically.
Theism does indeed lay claim to some truth of reality. Nobody believes in a deity which in their own mind is untrue or unconnected with their view of reality. However, when most atheists questions 'why', it is stating 'not all can be right...therefore all but one must be in some way wrong - how would you decide which?'.

huh?

Science doesn't often contradict itself. I've described its actions to my students like this - imagine an image on your computer screen made of ten dots. You try to guess the image...and every few seconds the dots resolve to produce more pixels. Every change you guess at the picture. It starts off wild, but every time it gets a little closer. Some seem like contradictions (it's a car...no, wait, it's a boat!), but every guess is made with more observations, and gets closer to an accurate guess. As time progresses you can make better and better guesses which are more useful than the last.

Religion, however, cannot do this. Each change brought by more pixels means its more difficult to convince yourself the image reflects your first guess. In the end you rely on the right to call a boat a horse painted to look like a boat because nobody can go back in time and see what the original subject of the photograph was. Sure, it's your right to describe reality according to whatever philosophy you wish...but meanwhile others have sacrificed the comfort such a philosophy brings so you can have the way of life you have now.

Genuine spirituality is entirely capable of self-correction by testing dogma against inner experience. E.g. the Buddha.

Likewise, others have let go of comforting thoughts in favour of a philosophy that actually produces something for their community.

Spirituality does not exist primarily for social utilitarian ends. Spirituality, seen as the end goal and purpose of creation, is the reason societies, and everything else, exist in the first place.
As a side issue, history shows that the birth and flourishing of genuinely inspired religions actually improves societies, e.g. the Muslim Golden Age. Those Arab scholars were beavering away not primarily to better society, but to glorify God by advancing their knowledge of his Creation.

 

[I less than three logic]

So getting to the nitty gritty . . . You are asking why we don't use skeptisim in our own religoius beliefs, right?

In other words, you want to know why we aren't atheists too . . .

It's interesting that you think using skepticism in one's religious beliefs is just another way of saying atheism. Surely there must be more than just one possible conclusion to be drawn from using skepticism in one's religious beliefs. Atheism is certainly one possible conclusion, but what about reinforcing one's current religious beliefs, or that one's current beliefs are incorrect and a different set of religious beliefs are correct?

 

[V23]

It's interesting that you think using skepticism in one's religious beliefs is just another way of saying atheism. Surely there must be more than just one possible conclusion to be drawn from using skepticism in one's religious beliefs. Atheism is certainly one possible conclusion, but what about reinforcing one's current religious beliefs, or that one's current beliefs are incorrect and a different set of religious beliefs are correct?

OH . . .but that's not SkepticGirl's assumption. She assumes that if i used the same skeptic eye that I appy to other arguments to my spiritual belief system I would find myself an Atheist.

But I do agree with you, and I do actually evaluate my own beliefs in this way, I just come to diffrent conclusions than other people.

 

[Mobyseven]

Godel can't prove he was here.

It's sad. He always had an inkling that a part of him was missing.

 

[V23]

It's sad. He always had an inkling that a part of him was missing.

Do you know that he literally died of starvation due the fact he thought that the enviroment had been posioned?

 

[plumjam]

Christ...I was waiting for the 'love' analogy to raise its ugly head. How many strawmen can we fit into one thread?

Love is a sensation. So is the sense that voices in one's head are speaking to you. I don't suffer from the latter, nor do many people I know. But when a schizophrenic describes it, I can be fairly sure it's an actual experience they are having. Why? Because I know people can experience diverse sensations that I do not. When somebody says they feel some form of divine experience, I also believe them, in spite of never having felt it myself.

So sensation and experience aren't the point. We can agree they occur.

However, that is not to say that the voices mean people are really talking to you, or that the divine sense means there is a divine cause. When in love I feel that the person I love is one of the most perfect people ever made. It hardly makes it so, even though I sense it.

Athon

I don't quite get your sensation/experience dichotomy. When I look at the clock here, it is a sensation. So too if I ask someone for directions. Their reply in my ear is an auditory sensation. It just so happens that both those 'sensations' manage to improve my level of knowledge.
Likewise with the sensation of love. When feeling love you are simultaneously improving your level of knowledge. You are getting closer to knowing the true nature of all reality. This happens to some extent with interpersonal love, it gives some kind of glance.
Unfortunately interpersonal love is impure in that it is centered on a particular fallible (according to our commonly selfish criteria), impermanent phenomenal aspect of reality, i.e. an ordinary human being. Thus it gets mixed up with egoic things like possessiveness, jealousy, competition, power relations etc..
With Divine Love these aspects are not present, and thus a full knowledge of the nature of reality is gained.

It's true that people can hear voices and be mistaken. People can be mad.
But you can't dismiss a whole zone of human experience merely because sometimes people are mistaken.
Scientists make mistakes too. They can delude themselves, cling to theories for emotional reasons. They can see what they want to see, and ignore what they don't want to. They can misinterpret results etc..
All that doesn't mean we should throw science out the window.

 

[Mobyseven]

All of which I am sure would thank you for your appreciation of Crime Scene Investigators, Criminalogists, and Pathologists.

Thanks.

Australians are often accused of having 'tall poppy syndrome', but most of the time it's just that we can't stand arrogant wankers. You want us to thank you for 'providing the way of life we live'? News flash, moron - you're not more important than anyone else on this forum. You want us to thank you? How about thanking Athon - after all, he's the one teaching science to the next generation. He's been raising the next generation of scientists and crime scene investigators, and he's being paid peanuts to do it (Australian teachers are not paid what they're worth 90% of the time.)

Why can no one answer the question from the OP? We've had clarification upon clarification, and so far we've had a bunch of people describe the OP as a trap, and another one tell us that we wouldn't understand what he would say anyway.

I see excuses not to answer the question filling up four pages so far, and not one single actual answer. Wouldn't it be more productive to have an actual discussion, and not a 'dodge the question' marathon?

 

[JoeEllison]

Why can no one answer the question from the OP? We've had clarification upon clarification, and so far we've had a bunch of people describe the OP as a trap, and another one tell us that we wouldn't understand what he would say anyway.

I see excuses not to answer the question filling up four pages so far, and not one single actual answer. Wouldn't it be more productive to have an actual discussion, and not a 'dodge the question' marathon?

Well, it sort of IS a trap... the trap is set by the nature of religious belief, not the OP. They simply cannot formulate a good answer, because their isn't one. I guess I feel sorry for them.

 

[athon]

Oh horse crap . . .There are about as many different fields of science as there are virginities lost on prom night across the US. And EVERY DAY we find something new, unexpected, and different then we thought yesterday.

I notice you've changed this from 'contradicted'.

Of course science changes its mind. It's a great thing, too. But each change is, as suggested in the analogy, using more information and is a better informed estimate. Not some blind, wave of the arms, stab in the dark guess, but an estimate which is more focussed and more useful than the previous one.

The problem is that often, the most newsworthy stories are the ones which look like great big about-faces in science. Do yourself a favour and do what I do consistently - read the media releases from the sources. The bulk of science plods along with small discoveries, tiny adjustments and small changes to what we knew. Sometimes a new piece of information will cause great debate, and the loudest will get air time. Meanwhile the rest of the scientific community take account of the changes in evidence and are mindful of how confident they should be in a given theory.

And science does contradict it's self. Often. A good example of it is when we started looking at planets in other systems through some of our larger teloscopes and finding eratic orbits and gas giants well beyond any speculative range. Text books were rewitten and reputations faltered. And it happens all the time.

No contradiction there. Often the population who reads these stories find their high-school science is radically altered, but those in the field often know how confident they should be in a theory. Sometimes there are indeed big surprises, however they are relatively uncommon. Of course they tend to be big news, especially if there's a research department who's after funding, and the media sensationalises it.

Ask anybody who's in the science communication business - science is not the flippant world the masses think it is.

In my field, Criminology, we learn new techniques for crime scene processing all the time, and rediscover things constantly out any number of psych. depatments across the country that deal with abnormal behavior. It changes constantly. Hell, they are adding a new diagnosis to the DSV this coming year for people who are addicted to internet porn.

Again, so? You're in an applied field - I used to work in pathology. We were always getting new techniques. It didn't mean the old ones were useless; Christ, we'd used them quite well for a number of years. But new ones came in which made better predictions with more accurate results.

Of course in some applied fields it's less a matter of the science and more the politics of who gets to imply the newest applications. Education is a classic in this. New fads come out all the time; it's not that the last ones were useless, but rather that the new ones are being implemented by academics who have more clout than others (this sounds more pessimistic than it is, as clout is often reliant on the funding, which depends on who produced results in the past. But that's for another discussion).

And by the way, not all religions are stagnant, nor do they all so ironclad as to not move with the latest. If you look back at some of my ealier posts you'll realize that I am not a member of any of the stagnant ones.

No, I do understand that yours is less a religion and more of a philosophy. And you're of course free to follow whatever metaphysical beliefs you want. I can't pretend to understand why somebody would believe in things which are beyond observation, but hell, it's a free world.

Yet for religions, while some practices might evolve with social pressure, for the most part religion begins with the notion that it is true. That is what faith is all about - belief without the need to provide evidence.

Oh and finally, I am one of those people that actually PROVIDE the way of life YOU lead. And I havent had to sacrified my beliefs to do so. Come to think of it, the lab that we work at has two Jews, a Catholic, a couple Baptists, and one gothy looking Wiccan.

I wouldn't trust the Wiccan.

People are of course capable of cognitive dissonance. I've known biochemists who believe in vitalism, physicists who are NECs, and then there's famous examples such as Liebniz and his bizarre metaphysical idealist system which he adhered to in spite of his brilliant mathematics career. Yet in each case, the part that furthered their community was not their religious or metaphysical beliefs, but rather their scientific ones. And it only occurred in each case due to the dissonance - their ability to partitian their minds and keep their faith and their science separate.

All of which I am sure would thank you for your appreciation of Crime Scene Investigators, Criminalogists, and Pathologists.

Thanks.

Well, having been a pathologist myself, and currently am a science communicator, I've seen various angles of how people reason their faith and science. The point is, while faith can exist in the mind, the world view it offers does not contribute to the community. Hence 'in spite of' such philosophy, they contribute to progress.

Athon

 

[I less than three logic]

OH . . .but that's not SkepticGirl's assumption. She assumes that if i used the same skeptic eye that I appy to other arguments to my spiritual belief system I would find myself an Atheist.

But I do agree with you, and I do actually evaluate my own beliefs in this way, I just come to diffrent conclusions than other people.

Where did she say that? Seems to me she's only asking for the criteria you used when you were evaluating your beliefs to reach the conclusion that you did. Perhaps more specifically, if your criteria used yielded two or more equally likely conclusions, what did/would you use to pick one conclusion over the others. I believe people are unnecessarily compounding the question by worrying about perceived motives.

 

[V23]

Australians are often accused of having 'tall poppy syndrome', but most of the time it's just that we can't stand arrogant wankers.

moby . . .read Athon's post from ahile back where he said . .

Religion, however, cannot do this. Each change brought by more pixels means its more difficult to convince yourself the image reflects your first guess. In the end you rely on the right to call a boat a horse painted to look like a boat because nobody can go back in time and see what the original subject of the photograph was. Sure, it's your right to describe reality according to whatever philosophy you wish...but meanwhile others have sacrificed the comfort such a philosophy brings so you can have the way of life you have now.
Likewise, others have let go of comforting thoughts in favour of a philosophy that actually produces something for their community.

(boldface added)

I am just replying to what he posted . .

 

[V23]

Honestly, moby . . .

Havent got a big head . . .just proving my point.

 

[athon]

Lol, sorry Athon. Your last post was, well, a bit long.. and I felt it was talking at cross-purposes to my point

Meh, I was probably waffling. I do that.

I don't think so. Muslims Christians and Jews might call it/him/her Allah, God, or Yaweh or whatever, but they agree they're talking about the same God.

Hell no. While you might well get some who have such a nice view of it, I'd venture to say that most do not see the common roots equating the same gods. Of course, when even the God in the Bible seems to have multiple personality disorder, it's hard for us to understand how anybody can see individual personality in their god.

But in this, while we might see common heritage, I'd say a good majority of the faithful in each group would not say their God is the same as Yaweh is the same as Allah.

Hindus have many deities but it is recognised that these are various manifestations of the same Unitary God. Sikhs believe in one God. Buddhists talk less of God, though some strands such as Tibetan have various Gods and Goddesses, seen as real phenomenal entities. Buddhism nevertheless talks about the universal Buddha Nature, which exists as the supreme unitary consciousness behind all phenomena.. very similar to Hinduism's description of Divinity as Sat-Cit-Ananda (Being, Consciousness, Bliss).
So what can appear as big differences are really more about labelling and words.

Again, we might say that from the outside. But talk to somebody of faith - with few exceptions, the most they might concede is that another's faith is a reflection of theirs.

Most religions, in whatever language, describe God as Love, more specifically infinite love. The fact that Buddhism, might, for example describe this as the Universal Compassion of the Buddha Nature, makes no real difference. It's pretty clear they're all talking about the same thing.

In fact, the commonality is really quite striking.

Of course we all seek similar things in deity (we = humans). I'd be shocked if a deity prompted you to kill all your newborn and spare none, for instance. So of course there will be commonalities. But that is not the same as somebody of Christian faith conceding they are really worshipping Allah.

huh?

I'm not sure what is unclear.

Genuine spirituality is entirely capable of self-correction by testing dogma against inner experience. E.g. the Buddha.

It isn't ever self correction, but self reinforcement. Starting with the premise that it is correct and seeking affirmation is not the same as starting with a neutral premise and finding reason to be wrong in addition to finding reason to be right.

Spirituality does not exist primarily for social utilitarian ends. Spirituality, seen as the end goal and purpose of creation, is the reason societies, and everything else, exist in the first place.

Whoa. That's one hell of a claim. Spirituality is the reason why societies exist? I know of a lot of sociologists who'd love to see your evidence for that one. Societies formed as the result of a lot of influences, and while I'll agree that spirituality helped maintain bonds between individuals within communities, it is far from the reason societies formed.

As a side issue, history shows that the birth and flourishing of genuinely inspired religions actually improves societies, e.g. the Muslim Golden Age. Those Arab scholars were beavering away not primarily to better society, but to glorify God by advancing their knowledge of his Creation.

In societies where science advanced, it was often in spite of the scriptures of their religion. Mathematics and physics tended to rarely contradict religious teachings, so allowed room for science. In matters such as biology, it hampered it greatly. So while there are a number of more deistic beliefs throughout history where individuals sought to 'know the mind of god', by far the more common dogmas were those which inhibited freedom to search and speculate.

Athon

 

[V23]

Where did she say that? Seems to me she's only asking for the criteria you used when you were evaluating your beliefs to reach the conclusion that you did. Perhaps more specifically, if your criteria used yielded two or more equally likely conclusions, what did/would you use to pick one conclusion over the others. I believe people are unnecessarily compounding the question by worrying about perceived motives.

Read the whole thread . . .

 

[I less than three logic]

Read the whole thread . . .

I have, and I stand by my statement.