dlowan said (and in doing so, demonstrated an admirable honesty)...
Quote:What am I saying? God knows!
But, let's assume (it's Christmas, after all) that somethings worth our consideration have indeed been said. One such is:
Quote:...we sort have a basis for privileging some perceptions and beliefs about reality over others - like, in our culture, the fruits of scientific method.
Here, you get no argument from me - faulty perceptions/beliefs of the natural world around (lions are smaller than mice) seem likely to be selected against, for example.
But what provides the basis for privileging? Your argument, I think, is that if a notion has broad commonality it is more likely to reflect 'reality' than another notion which doesn't have such commonality.
Yet if we were able to poll all homo sapiens who've lived over the last 50,000 years and ask whether the world was flat or spherical, we'd get 'flat!'. Though humans would mainly (until the last century or two) get this wrong, the consequences of being wrong are benign. Likewise, the notion that alignment of celestial bodies at one's birth determine aspects of one's personality. There are a lot of such notions with which we can merrily roll along and they won't cause us to bump into big hungry lions.
On the other hand, certain notions such as those we commonly see associated with religion, benign in terms of natural world interactions, might well have other advantages if commonly held - as discussed in the link I added earlier.
Thus, there are, I argue very compelling factors which encourage some notions to be held in common, even if they are a complete disconnect from their ontological status - what IS.
Wilso...you can stay, but for god's sakes man, put on some clothes!
Well, I shouldn't be here either, the discussion is compelling.
And I think someone could use that, yes-- the fascination with god to prove God exists... also,
I think all of us can say without, backing off, that using the deities' names in vain are one of those experiences which must have a basis of origin, AKA, God. There is nothing quite so satisfying as a string of good swearing when something has gone wrong.
Finally, there is music. The finest music in the world may be said to be a Christian oratorio or a plainsong. In fact the Muse, the Inspiration for all music, (including shudder, rap) proves to me there must be God.
Now, I admit, I have wavered in my beliefs and can be said to waver at this moment, between Agnosticism and a convinced Deism. However, I cannot explain away either the fascination, nor the swearing, nor the music. Inspiration is a fascinating word.
I once was in a discussion about God. I wondered aloud that, if God exists, would he have a personality? A discussant replied, "Of course. We have personalities, and God is greater than us if he created us, so he must have a personality." I got to thinking later that a "personality" might be a negative, perhaps a half-way point on the road to perfection, and that overcoming our personalities -- our emotions, our quirks, our differences -- might make us more God-like. I decided that, if God exists, he must indeed have NO personality. He must be all the same, all of the time, having existed always, and incapable of change.
Yes, this is fun.
Exactly Kara - how can God have a personality. There are characteristics and rules, but "In his own likeness" sounds good in the books - I believe that God is pure force!
And blatham - in your article,
"Dr. David Sloan Wilson, an evolutionary biologist, says religion evolved early because it helped make humans more cohesive and cooperative."
My view exactly. Religion is to control the masses. If you want, you can always cut out the middle man and go straight to the "Entity".
Bill, and what if the real God does not comply with any of the existing religious theories? What if these religions are, in fact, attempts to describe some entity that by definition cannot be described in terms of human intelligence without usage of dim and ambiguous metaphors?
And science that discovers the laws of nature is in fact a real and efficient theology, and physical constants of the Universe are the best proofs of God's existence?
Well, Blatham, like I said, I had fun saying it!
Alright, alright, I guess I'll aswer the question for youse guys. (ahem)..... God is everything, within itself. Any questions?
Apropos of nothing, except the fun we have been having, and because someone, somewhere on this thread did, I believe, mention the angels dancing on the head of a pin thing - and because somebody just sent this poem to me and I think it lovely - here is a poem by Billy Collins:
Questions About Angels
Of all the questions you might want to ask
about angels, the only one you ever hear
is how many can dance on the head of a pin.
No curiosity about how they pass the eternal time
besides circling the Throne chanting in Latin
or delivering a crust of bread to a hermit on earth
or guiding a boy and girl across a rickety wooden bridge.
Do they fly through God's body and come out singing?
Do they swing like children from the hinges
of the spirit world saying their names backwards and
forwards?
Do they sit alone in little gardens changing colors?
What about their sleeping habits, the fabric of their robes,
their diet of unfiltered divine light?
What goes on inside their luminous heads? Is there a wall
these tall presences can look over and see hell?
If an angel fell off a cloud, would he leave a hole
in a river and would the hole float along endlessly
filled with the silent letters of every angelic word?
If an angel delivered the mail, would he arrive
in a blinding rush of wings or would he just assume
the appearance of the regular mailman and
whistle up the driveway reading the postcards?
No, the medieval theologians control the court.
The only question you ever hear is about
the little dance floor on the head of a pin
where halos are meant to converge and drift invisibly.
It is designed to make us think of millions,
billions, to make us run out of numbers and collapse
into infinity, but perhaps the answer is simply one:
one female angel dancing alone in her stocking feet,
a small jazz combo working in the background.
She sways like a branch in the wind, her beautiful
eyes closed, and the tall thin bassist leans over
to glance at his watch because she has been dancing
forever, and now it is very late, even for musicians.
I would think it arrogant to assign an attribute such as "personality", or even gender, or, for that matter, agenda, to any assumed deity. There is no reason to take as given that if in existance, a diety would be gifted or afflicted with any human traits. Anthropomorphising the deity concept is a very human thing to do, of course. It is logical to form intellectual constructs congruent with experience. We know humans and other critters, therefore our god or gods must be humanlike, or animal-like, or some combination thereof, with a bit of room left for plantlife, astronomic, and geographical features. after all, those are the things, and for a very long time they were just about the only things, of our experience.
Should there be validity to deist concept, a deity would be as, if not more, likely of nature and attribute beyond our experience, a matter for which we would have no reference. There is in fact no reason whatsoever to assume deity would be anything like us or like anything of which we are aware, and considerable weight to assumption of the contrary.
In any discussion of this sort, I inevitably focus on the nature of an inherent human need for authority ... a need not uncomon among critters of the pack or herd persuasion. Hierarchy is nearly ubiquitous. If not for Alpha individuals, that next water hole or meal or place of shelter and refuge might never get found, to great disadvantage to the unfortunate pack or herd or clan. Someone has to be in charge, or needful things just don't get done, and considerable energy would be wasted in squabbles among individual members of the assemblage, counter to the interest of the pack, the herd, or the clan.
I see our core moral values as key to the perpetuation of the species, as but for them there would be no species, and, as such, these "values" are so deeply engrained as to be every bit as instinctual as the desire to mate or to find sustenance. By and large, such activities as killing and mating involve critters of other than one's own bloodline, whether one is a primate, a canid, a feline or an ungulate. Such critters as tend to live in groups tend exhibit a ranking structure agreed upon and adhered to one way or another among the members of the group. Humans is critters, folks, and humans have and always have had hierarchies. That's nature.
Whether or not there may be a deity, I'm pretty sure man has invented all of his own gods.
timber
Here - for anyone here not already there, also - is the link to the discussion on religious Darwinism stemming from the article Blatham posted up there a-ways....
http://www.able2know.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=2309&highlight=
Timberlandko,
...You seem to be saying man created, or described, the supreme being in his own image. Hmm...
steissd, it doesn't really matter to God. It does make a difference to mankind. As Booman just implied through timber, man created God in his own image and that image changes over time.
As the Bible is written and rewritten (new translations), the canges are created. And each week in the pulpit, that change is glorified. And, if this isn't fast enough for mankind, a new religion is developed!
Booman - that is the common belief of non-theists.
What do you call a new religion?
Scientology, Urantia, Falung Gong - here is a URL:
http://www.ucalgary.ca/~nurelweb/
The sects like Scientology, etc. do not constitute anything new. Just extreme types of heresies pertaining to mainstream religions, that always existed.
Who on earth is the man in the photo?
