The immoderate use of reason

Philosophy Forums Philosophy
21

I think spirituality is not dead, and is not dying. Right now, the old belief systems are in their last throws. They’re dying. But I think what will slowly replace them is a new belief system, based upon the true faith of the individual, not upon sheep-like obedience to some socially constructed text or political entity.

Science is giving us a better and better picture of reality. Scientists devise theories to try to explain how and why the universe works. These theories are conceptualizations of the nature of reality. They are sets of propositions that are attempts to categorize and explain the interactions between particles of matter that make up the universe. These propositions (like all propositions) are either true or false. The way science goes about determining whether the theory is valid or not is by making oberservations of the universe (they see what the universe is like). If the observations confirm the predictions of the theory, the theory is validated; if they don’t, the theory is falsified and a new theory must be developed. That is how science progresses. Scientists continually make up new theories to better picture the universe. They try to take in all kinds of data, and organize them into coherent concepts that descirbe nature.

The problem with science and spirituality is the propositions of spirituality cannot be tested. There is no way to demonstrate the existence of karma in a test tube. God isn’t going to pop up in a linear acclerator.

Science tries to explain all that does exist. It tries to provide a complete picture or representation of how the universe works. But it cannot try to explain how or why all that exists does exist. Scientists are limited to obeservations of the universe to verify their theories, and there is no way to look at the universe and see how it came into existence. That would require looking at things outside the universe, which is impossible for science to do. How can one look at something that exists removed from the universe when the universe is all that exists? It’s a great paradox. Cosmology provides a great picture of how the universe evolved and how it was long ago, but still it can’t explain how the universe popped into existence. Science can develop a perfect picture of the universe, but cannot picture how the universe came to exist.

So there is no objective, scientific way to explain how the universe came into existence. So can metaphysics give us an answer? I think not. According to Mr. Wittgenstein, propositions are true if they are logical and if they refer to an objective fact. But the propositions of metaphysics, the theories that try to explain how and why the universe exists, do not refer to object facts. They may be logical, but there is no way to show that they are not empty concepts. They are subject to the same treatment Kant gave to the ontological argument. So we can’t even speak of metaphysics.

Thus, philosophy and science can’t explain how anything exists. There is no way to objectively picture the spirit world, or how our world exists. But these paradoxes still haunt us. So the solution is to make spirituality completely subjective. There are no answers to the questions, no way to even symbolize the answers. So the individual can make up their own picture of spirituality, their own picture of faith, their own picture of God. They can have no evidence for its truth. They can’t know if it’s false either. All they can do is believe in it, on the strength of the absurd. The existence of the universe poses questions which have no answer, so each person can create their own, individual answer to them. Spirituality will not die, it must merely become completely subjective.

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Personal experience is not absurd; and the transcendent experience is proof of the truth of both ground and direction.

If you haven’t had a transcendent experience you can’t speak about it (unless you want to theorize about it); and if you think my personal experience is absurd then why should i speak to you, or hear you at all?

23

Scientists are people, they are not science.

People theorize; most scientific theories come from scientists, some don’t.

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Transcentental experience does not prove objectively the existence of the spirit world. Just because someone says a miracle happened to them does not mean that I have to believe in miracles (see Mr. David Hume, in his Essay Concerning Human Understanding Section XI: Of Miracles for further discussion of this matter). Or, see John Locke, who talked about how feelings of religious ecstacy don’t amount to truth. Just because you’ve had a transcendental experience doesn’t mean I can’t explain away that experience in naturalistic terms.

What I’m saying is, people can have any kind of spiritualistic viewpoints they want, provided they acknowledge them as just beliefs and not as absolute, objective truths. If you’ve had an experience you called transcendental or spiritual, that’s great, but that doesn’t mean that the experience A) proves your view of spirituality objectively true or B) that your own subjective experience with the supernatural can’t be explained by some rational means.

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You’re on the right track there, theonefroberg! Disciple of light, you are simply masturbating. What if I wrote in response: The incontitudinal right of the human being rejects the propositions proposed in your invested entrapment, because the metaphysical nature of stipulations require that creationism is deterministically rationalist.

You see, the problem you have, and that many other writers have, is that you double-talk almost. Perhaps because of a lack of confidence in your own intelligence, you choose the big word instead of the little word, in attempt to prove to others that you are smart. The result is a convoluted mess of cliches and giant, meaningless words that act as a barrier to the understanding of your message! The medium is not the message, the message is the message, so don’t let your medium fuck with your message.

I get what you’re trying to say, though. That a focus on materialism and atheism in people makes them immoral. First, think of it this way.

Morality is the caring for future generations. Basically, morality means looking ahead. Moral decisions take in consideration the effect on society of the action, and the long term effects on your children and so on. Logic looking far ahead is morality; they come to the same conclusions.

The problem with today’s materialism and atheism, or at least the problem you see, is that it is too shortsighted. For some reason, when making a logical decision, we do not take into account the long term effects of our actions. We may not care about our children, or may just lack the capacity to consider consequences that far in the future. We don’t consider that, though murdering a miser for his money would seem to have more benefits that detriments, if you do get caught you get put to death or in jail, and if you don’t get caught you prove to other people in the society that you can murder for money without getting caught. You encourage murder in the society by murdering and not getting caught, and because of the increase in murders, eventually, you or one of your line is murdered. Both the moral and the long-term logical decision amount to the same thing, don’t murder.

So, what the problem really is with lack of faith is that morality is replaced with shortsighted logic. Myopic logic. People will choose not to ever have children, but the origin of long-term happiness is children, so they end up being less happy.

Wow, I hope I didn’t doublespeak there.

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zeusy -

I guess that’s the atheist position in a nutshell.

You are joking, yes?

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What? Huh? No, I was being serious. How is I write that makes faust not understand?

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It was a rhetorical question.

You have written here a ridiculous thing. That atheism encourages murder. Compared to what? Need I trot out all the killing done in the name of religion?

That is a rhetorical question, as well.

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Faust you nincompoop (I apologise already). My gosh, the difficulty I have making my writing clear. Sorry, but that’s not what I meant, so I’ll dissect my own writing.

I did not mean the problem with atheism. I meant the problem in how many people practice atheism, and how atheism is interpreted by religious folk.

I meant that some atheists don’t. I do. I’m atheist.

How in the hell did you misinterpret this. Argghhhh. What I meant to say was that correct atheist logic and morality would come to the same decision in this situation (i.e. no death). Mislead religious folks and equally mislead atheists would kill.

What I’m trying to say is that most often, when an atheist comes to a different decision than a religious fogie would take, he has made a mistake by not considering everything.

The message here is that, morally, atheism chooses the same actions as religion, because those actions are the most beneficial. The differences are in how they come to the decision, and why they think they chose it retrospectively.

What I meant is that the problem arises when an atheist chooses a different action than a religious folker, because the religious person’s decisions are correct.

I at no point in my discussion said that the correct atheist thing to do was to murder. In fact, I have no firkin idea how you came to that conclusion, faust.

Get it now?

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you have to say christian religion dont allow you to kill any man as the old bible allowed it as a defense like bush said as well as islam who see in it strength of not fearing death to live with God

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No I don’t, so be quiet.

I can clarify further. What I meant was this:

D of L and other religious folks’ problem with atheism is that it encourages the murders like the one above. I tried to say that it didn’t, and atheists that would murder after thinking about it atheistically have made mistakes in their reasoning, sometimes by not looking far enough into the future. Moreover, I denounced the idea of atheism not considering consequences on one’s children, because a very important part of happiness derives from making the world more hospitable for your kids.

Clear?

Another important point is that religion also cannot be used to justify murder without making a mistake in your religious thought.

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hey what gives you the right to talk to me like your pet, is it because of the jews military on my head weak soul, i fear their humilating bombs but it will not blind my awakness to all yours and mine responses, i said and i repeat it there can be NO MISTAKE IN RELIGION THOUGHT OF ALLOWING TO KILL CONCERNING TORAT AND CORAN, and to your information wise kid, plus and minus is minus, NOT ANY ACTION OF STRENGTH SHOULD BE MADE TO SAY OF YOUR WILL FOR PEACE IN GOD

33

After him iman , get him !

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Religion is a poor balm for the problems that face the world. Let’s compare the comparatively secular Roman Empire during its expansion, to the European Middle Ages, to the Renaissance. Let’s compare the Middle East in 1500 to Europe of that time. Now let’s compare the relatively secular modern Europe and the more devout Middle East.

All too often when you remove that materialistic shallowness, you also start to undercut profit motives and other forces that keep society going. Mother Theresa may have meant well, but had she used her wealth to hire real doctors, the world would be a much better place. When you spend your life focusing on the next world, you tend to be pretty worthless in this one. An individual can waste their lives in inefficiency, but for a society to do so is tragic indeed.

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Mans interpretation of the prophets words are a poor balm more so .

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I’m sorry iman, I just tend to pick on you because you write funny. Whenever you post I look at the first line, check it for punctuation, and if there is none I make an honest attempt to convert you to the ranks of the understandable. What’s your background anyway? Like, where do you live? Is english your second language? I imagine you as an exasperated silicon valley programmer who comes home each day and blathers on this forum to relax. Am I right?

As to disciple of Light, did I get your qualm correctly? Could you try and say as shortly and simply as possible what your problem is with atheism and materialism? (other than the fact that it’s godless, that is).

37

hate the craneurs who dont feel ashamed of moving their heavy heads in times of wars

38

I’m special too! I’m speaking as my heart tells me too, and it says to say quork bjipr fl dmve sooorn dlllllled dicm elss drjkmd kv-.
I know these words may seem not to have meaning, but I understand them at that’s all that counts.

39

you could at least make an effort to give your heart’s talk an appearance of being sensible as a respect to whom they come from, we sure could never love each others