The philosophical conception of god in the age of reason and science.

@prothero,

prothero;167420 wrote:

Well yes all human conceptions are abstractions from reality or raw experience. The typical philosophical conception of god implies that reality itself is experiential. Religion is more akin to art than to science actually.

I completely respect this sort of philosophical conception of god. I opened on that sort of note, but then I realized that the word "God" is so associated with the cruel uses of said word, that I decided I really didn't need it. Of course I think it has been used brilliantly by certain thinkers. I wonder if it hasn't become an obstacle to building a bridge. Wittgenstein's elusiveness in the TLP may have something to do with this. I'm fascinated by abstractions that point away from themselves, to that raw experience we have mentioned. This raw experience is really quite radical to contemplate --with the caveat that our contemplations are abstractions that soon obscure it.

---------- Post added 05-22-2010 at 09:12 PM ----------

prothero;167420 wrote:

Well, yes in some ways the strictly materialist view requires more miracles than the immanent theistic view. For in strict materialism, life must emerge from no life, mind from no mind, experience from that which lacks experience and perception from the non perceptual. The pan experiential or neutral monist view of reality actually requires a less miraculous transformation than materialism.

I utterly reject strict materialism. It seems logically indefensible. "Matter" is obviously an abstraction, and this is why materialism simply makes no sense. As you say, the emergence of experience from inert matter (an abstraction) is quite a proposition in itself. I am sympathetic with the neutral monism view, and this is what is meant by "absolute idealism" which is identical with absolute realism. Wittgenstein brilliant tackles this in the TLP. Monism is logical. Dualism is practical. The practical wins out in everyday life. Monism wins out upon close scrutiny, if one earnestly seeks a logical consistency beyond mere utility. But I prefer the term "nonism," as this indicates a suspicion toward all abstractions, and a knowledge of their contingency.

1 Reply

@Reconstructo,

Reconstructo;167468 wrote:

I realized that the word "God" is so associated with the cruel uses of said word, that I decided I really didn't need it.

That is a large part of the problem in any of these dialogs. There's an interesting title on Amazon about this:

Quote:

God.

It's such a small arrangement of letters to cause so much trouble. In the culture wars that rage around us today, few of the people who use that word as a weapon have any sense of its source, its nuances, or the ultimate elusiveness of its definition. The same can be said for a lot of other words from the vocabulary of faith, like religion, fundamentalism, or tradition. By decoding the hot-button words of religious language, Gary Eberle exposes their misuse as weapons of emotional rhetoric-while telling the fascinating real story of their history and shifting meanings. De-fanged and examined closely, the words he unpacks for us emerge as too complex and interesting to be used simply as verbal bullets. His entertaining analysis of "god-language" will open your eyes to the origins of some words you thought you knew. It also offers a hopeful new vision for genuine dialogue in the future.

from the description of Dangerous Words: Talking about Religion in an Age of Fundamentalism, by Gary Eberle

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@Zetherin,

Zetherin;167375 wrote:

That an imaginary character has had influence on human culture, does not mean that that imaginary character exists. I don't see how this God notion is any different than the thousands of other mythological stories told my the Greeks, Mayans, Romans, Egyptians, or even by modern cartoon storytellers. I don't see how it's any different from the multitude of characters in children's books, nor do I see how it's any different from anything I may conjure.

What's interesting is that humans keep cranking out gods. Do you like Joe Campbell at all? I think man has something like a religious instinct, as this manifests in the "worship" (admiration, envy) of celebrities as much as it does in conventional religions. From rock stars to athletes to actors of either gender, or dictators or popes...

I think the problem goes deeper than "god" or religion. I see a tendency toward idolatry that takes many forms. And I think we are built that way, with that sort of tendency. I think it takes no little amount of self-development to get away from this. No doubt philosophers are also taken as heros with an authority beyond their arguments. I guess I'm trying to zoom out and see what all these things have in common. What was Nazism if not a religion? Or communism? The cult of personality in dictatorships....I think the problem is bigger than and inclusive of the god-concept.

---------- Post added 05-22-2010 at 09:26 PM ----------

jeeprs;167471 wrote:

That is a large part of the problem in any of these dialogs. There's an interesting title on Amazon about this:

from the description of Dangerous Words: Talking about Religion in an Age of Fundamentalism, by Gary Eberle

Absolutely. Even though I have seen enough respectable religious culture to have gotten over my automatic distrust of the word, which was once very strong in me, I realize that for many it conjures conquest, inquisition, snakehandling, ridiculous attachments to obsolete traditions, a denial of science and denial in general.

At the moment I have a view of the world that offers me the beauty and wonder often missed in reductive views without a commitment to particular abstractions. Of course you have spoken well on the limits of abstractions yourself. The story of Buddha and the flower does illuminate Wittgenstein, I think. Much of our human experience simply slips thru the mesh of our abstractions, which makes sense, considering that abstract means something like "yank out."

---------- Post added 05-22-2010 at 09:28 PM ----------

I should add that I don't consider all philosophical concepts of god to be idolatrous. However one could make the argument that any human abstraction fails to encompass the totality of human experience. Still, abstractions are what we are here for...including those abstractions that point away from abstraction...

1 Reply

@kennethamy,

kennethamy;167407 wrote:

I mean by "atheism", the belief that God does not exist. (Which implies "weak atheism" the absence of the the belief that God does exist).

Ah but whose god, which god?
If it is the supernatural interventionist god of traditional or orthodox theism, well I do not believe that "god" exists either. Does that make me an atheist?
I thought weak atheism was just the lack of belief in a god or gods.
I thought strong atheism was the assertion that god does not exist
and
miltant atheism the active campaign to rid the world of religion. ??

1 Reply

@Reconstructo,

Reconstructo;167472 wrote:

I should add that I don't consider all philosophical concepts of god to be idolatrous. However one could make the argument that any human abstraction fails to encompass the totality of human experience. Still, abstractions are what we are here for...including those abstractions that point away from abstraction...

Glad you mentioned Joseph Campbell above.

It is all about tuning your radio into the right wavelength of awareness. That is what meditation is, and that is what the spiritual side of religion is about. But then someone who has actually done it, describes it, another person takes the description and memorizes it, and begins to propagate it, and then everyone forgets what it was a description of in the first place, and starts to argue about the wording. And from that point onwards, the rest, as they say, is history. Literally.

1 Reply

@jeeprs,

jeeprs;167502 wrote:

Glad you mentioned Joseph Campbell above.

It is all about tuning your radio into the right wavelength of awareness. That is what meditation is, and that is what the spiritual side of religion is about. But then someone who has actually done it, describes it, another person takes the description and memorizes it, and begins to propagate it, and then everyone forgets what it was a description of in the first place, and starts to argue about the wording. And from that point onwards, the rest, as they say, is history. Literally.

Right! And I think that abstractions (which in my book are metaphors) soon become or at least are perceived as excluding. There is just such a strong human tendency to use abstractions of any and every kind as the justification for contempt, for the withdrawing of sympathy. It may be something as silly as "having the best hair," or it may be something apparently more respectable such as "a deep understanding of Western Philosophy." Of course looking at the violence between religious sects, we see that slight differences can be more infuriating than large differences. Isn't that strange? And noteworthy?

The description replaces the experience. Before long, heretics are burned, who were likely closer to the original experience than those who burned them. The great thing about the Tao is its "the way that can be told is not the true way." Hell, that's how I see "nonism" (which is nothing but a pet name for something that explicitly cannot be conclusively named, the bigness and strangeness of the human experience.)

In any case, I'm sure that certain humans are fortunate to reach emotional peaks that other humans do not usually reach. I think great music suggests this, and also great "literature," spiritual or secular. For me, the ideal artist/etc. is a lucky man or woman who wants to communicate this luck --i.e. their ecstasy, peace, contentment.

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@prothero,

jeeprs wrote:

Glad you mentioned Joseph Campbell above.

Yes, I know of Joseph Campbell. I've even tried to get a copy of his works a few months ago (I really wanted to read his comprehensive work on mythology - the one which he didn't complete before he passed).

And even JC said, and I quote:

"God is a metaphor for that which transcends all levels of intellectual thought. It's as simple as that."

He saw the value in the religion, but still believed that God did not exist (as far as I know). And that is basically where I stand. There are some cultures that are brought together only by religion. A good example is the Serbian community in the PA and NJ region. My friend, who doesn't particularly believe in his Orthodox dogma, once said to me, "If we didn't have all these religious holidays, our community would never come together! That's why I go, Vince. I go for my culture, not necessarily for God". And compassion, communication, and community are all things I advocate. So, yes, I can see the value in religion. It would be ignorant of me not to, I think. But, by the same token, I still don't advocate supernatural belief. I don't advocate faith.

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@Zetherin,

the concept of god is out dated

god is not about reason or science , never has been really

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@Zetherin,

Zetherin;167572 wrote:

And even JC said, and I quote:

"God is a metaphor for that which transcends all levels of intellectual thought. It's as simple as that."

Great quote. I didn't know of that one. I find that quote to be a respectable conception of God. This quote is similar to negative theology. Which is an attempt to escape all crude limited conceptions God. Or "god" as something like what infinity is in mathematics. What do you think?

---------- Post added 05-23-2010 at 02:15 AM ----------

Zetherin;167572 wrote:

So, yes, I can see the value in religion. It would be ignorant of me not to, I think. But, by the same token, I still don't advocate supernatural belief. I don't advocate faith.

I completely related to this. The myths are great, in my opinion, but only if taken as myths. Of course there are people who believe the myths are history and simultaneously abstract their metaphorical content as well. I sympathize with these people, but cannot join them in taking the myths as anything more than metaphors, analogies.

---------- Post added 05-23-2010 at 02:19 AM ----------

Sometimes I think that life was so tough in the middle ages that it was hard to be comforted by the metaphor alone. Maybe technology and comfort has allowed man to be content with this one earthly life, which is generally much longer and pleasanter. Rorty held this view. We stopped thinking about our eternal souls and started thinking about our grandchildren's happiness. We are embracing the contingent, letting the eternal go. Of course eternal does have a non-afterlife meaning similar to timeless. And perhaps when we are happy, absorbed in something, we forget time...and this is eternity enough, down here on the dirt and concrete.

1 Reply

@Reconstructo,

jeeprs wrote:

For the existence of any kind of laws presupposes a Lawgiver,

jeeprs, can you explain this one to me? I think he is just confused about the word "law".

prothero wrote:

In effect it is an assertion that those who do not agree with my machine like and materialist view of the world have abandoned reason in their quest for truth. That sounds as dogmatic as any religious assertion I have ever heard. The fact of the matter is that it is very hard to scientifically or rationally draw the line between mind and no mind, between experience and no experience and between life and no life. It is entirely rational to assert that mind and experience may be more extensive in reality than is commonly assumed and there are conceptions of the divine that do not abandon reason or scientific fact.

Sciences difficulties in drawing a line do not lend credence to another method of drawing it (which is usually tradition in the case of theism).

******************

Anyway, the thing about these intelligent design of the universe type theories is that they recklessly glorify mankind's abilities. If you understand the process that shaped our brains and bodies as having that degree of randomness, of "useful for survival purposes at this point in history" to it, then you can make better judgments. Talking of a lawgiver tacitly supports the naturalistic fallacy. We see something and feel it is immoral, so that is a little bit of insight into the divine and we are certainly correct. When really we were just raised that way, or evolved that way, and it is something that doesn't work in our current society.

When the information that we have (frugal though it may be) points strongly towards one explanation, the "open minded" position is not open minded anymore. It is not rational to say things like "you might win the lottery, you might not" and leave it at that. Not when it is much more accurate to say that you will very probably not win.

The theist position is so far from humble--it is the insistence that I, personally, can understand the nature of the universe without the painstaking methods of experimentation, by relying on my intuition and spiritual feelings.

2 Replies

@prothero,

prothero;167501 wrote:

Ah but whose god, which god?
If it is the supernatural interventionist god of traditional or orthodox theism, well I do not believe that "god" exists either. Does that make me an atheist?
I thought weak atheism was just the lack of belief in a god or gods.
I thought strong atheism was the assertion that god does not exist
and
miltant atheism the active campaign to rid the world of religion. ??

I just had in mind the traditional, what is called, Abrahamic, conception of God. Nothing too fancy. And, yes, weak atheism is the non-belief in God. But strong atheism is the disbelief in God, and it was the latter I had in mind. Of course, the latter implies the former (although not conversely). That is why is called "strong atheism" as compared with weak atheism. In logic, if P implies Q, but Q does not imply P, then P is logically stronger than Q, and Q is logically weaker than P.

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@Jebediah,

Jebediah;167724 wrote:

Anyway, the thing about these intelligent design of the universe type theories is that they recklessly glorify mankind's abilities. ...
When the information that we have (frugal though it may be) points strongly towards one explanation, the "open minded" position is not open minded anymore.
The theist position is so far from humble--it is the insistence that I, personally, can understand the nature of the universe without the painstaking methods of experimentation, by relying on my intuition and spiritual feelings.

Ill be back later but
You know science is human invention as well
and it is
Far from humble to assert that studying objects from the outside and their physical properties will yeild a complete and adequate picture of everything.
and
There are lots of educated people who think there is more to the universe than random chance and necessity suffice to explain.
so
I think philosophical conceptions of god which take adequate account of scientific facts deserve just a little respect even if you have a different take on the world. I am not sure you are separating your metphysical assumptions and philosophical speculations from the facts of science. :bigsmile:

2 Replies

@prothero,

prothero;167749 wrote:

Ill be back later but
You know science is human invention as well
and it is
Far from humble to assert that studying objects from the outside and their physical properties will yeild a complete and adequate picture of everything.

Arrg! I think I can be frustrated when I have said several times (twice in that very post) that science will not yield a complete and adequate picture of everything. As I said, to leap from that to "this other method which has been traditionally used to answer these questions must be worthwhile" is unjustified.

Quote:

There are lots of educated people who think there is more to the universe than random chance and necessity suffice to explain.

Yes, I saw that you spoke about what I would call the snotty atheists, who think any theist is an idiot. I am not one of them.

Quote:

I think philosophical conceptions of god which take adequate account of scientific facts deserve just a little respect even if you have a different take on the world. I am not sure you are separating your metphysical assumptions and philosophical speculations from the facts of science. :bigsmile:

By framing the debate in terms of "these conceptions can't be disproven/not everyone who believes in them is an idiot/the deserve at least a little respect" YOU are disrespecting these conceptions. Because you are deflecting criticisms (sometimes strawman (for this thread) criticisms), instead of arguing for the merits of the conceptions.

1 Reply

@Jebediah,

My apologies for being the source of frustration to you.
[QUOTE=Jebediah;167754] Arrg! I think I can be frustrated when I have said several times (twice in that very post) that science will not yield a complete and adequate picture of everything. As I said, to leap from that to "this other method which has been traditionally used to answer these questions must be worthwhile" is unjustified. .[/QUOTE] I am not sure which other method you are referring to but:
By framing the OP in terms of philosophical conception, I was referring to rational speculation which basically is metaphysics in philosophy.
Science on the other hand deals with verification or falsification (depending on your affection for Popper versus other philosophers of science) or testable hypothesis.
So the fact that a particular conception of the divine is not verifiable, not testable, or not falsifiable does not eliminate it from religious philosophy as rational speculation. Of course even speculations must not ignore established fact , the rules of reason, or the findings of science. Mechanism, materialism, determinism are not established fact or the findings of science they are rational speculations in some cases just metaphysical assumptions about the nature of the world.

[QUOTE=Jebediah;167754] Yes, I saw that you spoke about what I would call the snotty atheists, who think any theist is an idiot. I am not one of them. .[/QUOTE]Well that is somewhat comforting and basically my goal in opening the topic. I did not set out to prove anything just to explore the notion that in fact there were still possible rational conceptions of "god" in the age of reason and science. The rationality of any particular conception and its coherence with reality as science reveals in to us or as reason requires is still open to question.

[QUOTE=Jebediah;167754] By framing the debate in terms of "these conceptions can't be disproven/not everyone who believes in them is an idiot/the deserve at least a little respect" YOU are disrespecting these conceptions. Because you are deflecting criticisms (sometimes strawman (for this thread) criticisms), instead of arguing for the merits of the conceptions.[/QUOTE] Fair enough but the merits involve in depth discussion of many different topics to include; and I have brought them up before:
- the question "what do you mean by god?" or "what is god?"
- what is the extent of mind and experience in the world?
- what is the alternative basis for the self organizing nature of reality and
its tendency towards order, complexity, life, mind and experience?
- why are the secrets of the universe accessible to reason and expressible as
mathematical equations

Which is more than any one thread will bear.

I guess my other point, which I try to make not very well apparently; is that determinism and materialism are not scientific fact or confirmed scientific theories. Materialism and determinism (hich are large barriers to any spiritual view of the world) are themselves rational speculations and metaphysical assumptions about the world. They accord with the rules of reason and with the findings of science even if lacking somewhat in dealing with mind and other realms of human experience. I am just saying there are other more theistic and more spiritual ways of viewing nature which also accord with reason and science.
The question is still open for reasonable differences of opinion and reasonable debate.
Atheism is not the only worldview which is rational and which accords with science??

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@prothero,

prothero;167749 wrote:

Ill be back later but
You know science is human invention as well
and it is
Far from humble to assert that studying objects from the outside and their physical properties will yeild a complete and adequate picture of everything.
and
There are lots of educated people who think there is more to the universe than random chance and necessity suffice to explain.
so
I think philosophical conceptions of god which take adequate account of scientific facts deserve just a little respect even if you have a different take on the world. I am not sure you are separating your metphysical assumptions and philosophical speculations from the facts of science. :bigsmile:

Machines that manufacture men's pants are human inventions, but the pants that come out of those machines are real. And we can certainly study pants from the outside as well as from the inside.

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@Jebediah,

Jebediah;167724 wrote:

For the existence of any kind of laws presupposes a Lawgiver

jeeprs, can you explain this one to me? I think he is just confused about the word "law".

I don't find the essay I quoted from confused. I think it is a good essay, and the argument from design is still a very good argument. In fact I think the argument from design is considerably stronger now than it was a century ago. We went through some of the aspects of it in the thread DNA and the Code of Life. The cosmological anthropic principle is also a very strong argument. There is another rather good summary of 'the new design argument' here.

But, you might say, what do these arguments prove? Do they prove the existence of God?

I don't claim that they do. It is forever an open question. Perhaps is part of the nature of this question that one must find an answer to it without reference to anyone else's answer. But I am certainly persuaded that for anyone to believe that there is a lawgiver is far from irrational on philosophical grounds (as distinct from simple hatred of religion.)

Interestingly, Buddhism does not presume the existence of 'a lawgiver', and will actually argue against such a presumption, but it does presume the existence of a universal law, which is dharma. This is implicitly understood to be ontologically senior to material existence; it belongs to a higher order of being. So in some respects, the same argument can be had with reference to whether a moral law exists, as distinct from whether a creator-God exists.

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@prothero,

There are two kinds of laws, prescriptive laws: no walking on the grass, and descriptive laws: planets move in elliptical orbits around the Sun. Prescriptive laws imply a law-giver, e.g. the legislature. Descriptive laws do not. They are simply discovered.

1 Reply

@kennethamy,

kennethamy;167798 wrote:

Descriptive laws do not. They are simply discovered.

And I know where you think they are discovered: in the mind-independent reality!

Nobody before the Enlightenment ever would have thought this way. First came the idea of God's Law. Then religiously-inclined scientists saw the discovery of natural law as a way of affirming God. Then they ditched God, and kept the laws.

Quote:

In the age of Newton, when the cosmic machine whirred and hummed with God-given efficiency, the apex of mechanical achievement was the miniaturized timepiece, a tribute to the power of human intelligence to impose form and order onto dumb matter, much as divine intelligence would have generated living creatures from water and sand. When theologian William Paley likened the organism to a watch, his intention wasn't so much to diminish the glory of living things but to augment that of the Almighty, now portrayed as not only a loving father but a skilled mechanic laboring to realize pre-envisioned plans.

The chief innovation on this model offered by neo-Darwinism is to ditch the mechanic but keep the mechanism. If the machines crafted by our own terrestrial genius can run on auto-pilot, why not the universe? Even if the stars and galaxies are indeed the handiwork of a deity, once we know the program, we have no use for the programmer. In the logic circuits of the celestial apparatus, divinity doesn't compute. God turns out to be the ghost in his own machine.

(my emphasis. Source.)

So, Kennethamy. Why is it that the Universe is lawful? Please try and keep your response to a paragraph.

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@prothero,

Let's reflect on what has changed in Western philosophy, with the assumption that the Universe originates with what we understand as 'natural processes' - that is, processes which are, in principle, discoverable by reason and science. This is in opposition to the traditional, pre-Enlightenment view that the Universe originates in an act of divine creation which is responsible for such laws (which is in some ways more Greek than Biblical in origin by the way, or perhaps a hybrid.)

One may say that scientific law or natural laws are discovered, they are simply there. But in saying this, there is actually no account given of how or why they are there. The question of 'what is natural law, and where did it originate' is not in itself a scientific question. Science assumes the existence of natural laws, as it assumes the efficacy of mathematics for describing them and calculating their results. But just because science rules out the so-called supernatural origin of natural law doesn't mean that it has an alternative explanation. Science does not explain science. It explains some things, and then assumes that the remainder will be explained, in time. Like 'we know the general outlines of evolution. One day we will understand all the details. We know the general outline of the composition of matter. One day we will know the details."

But that is not a philosophically satisfactory view. I think the honest answer is: we don't know. And the fact that we don't know will always provide scope for many possibilities.

That's what is interesting about it.

1 Reply

@jeeprs,

Let's make sure we don't end up spinning our wheels here.

Science doesn't explain everything, it's capacity and our capacity for understanding the world is limited. Our ability to figure out the world by reasoning is also very limited. Religion and certain kinds of philosophical thinking attempt to reason about what what we can't know. Why attempt to reason about something that's out of our reach? Why have beliefs about it?

We can't predict the future very well, hardly at all. So why believe that our horoscope is meaningful? Purely because it is interesting? But there are many interesting things which are rooted in reality. What science has to say about cosmology is not boring.

*****

And jeeprs, I still don't understand what you think about the law/lawgivers thing. Descriptive laws don't have a lawgiver, and the laws of nature are descriptive laws. They don't have a why. I read a bit in SciAm where they showed that they could eliminate (I think this was it) one of the 4 basic forces of the universe, and by tweaking another the universe could still theoretically exist.

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The philosophical conception of god in the age of reason and science.

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