Are science and religion converging?

Nonsense.

0 Replies

Oh, you're right, setanta - everything I read in my history books when growing up about Columbus, and manifest destiny, and the founding fathers was honest, and accurate. What could I be thinking? Of course its nonsense.

0 Replies

truth
Setanta, what do you recall the Kung! were laughing at, the notion of religion, supernaturalism, magic, God...? And I DID say "virtually universal". But you are right. There are very few generalization made by anthroplogists that cannot be countered by some other anthropologist with the assertion that "In _______land they do not do/believe that." On such a diverse planet as ours, generalizations are often faulty or so abstract as to be vacuous.

0 Replies

JLN

Yes - my usage of "know" and "existence" is non-standard, but as I have said elsewhere, I think it has to be if we expect to rise above the level of word salad. Standard usage puts the words "atheist" "god" and "fiction" together, but such usage is grounded in the "naive realism" of an objective reality. As soon as we allow "reality" to be an interaction between observer and observed with neither having a priori status, then standard usage breaks down. The current exhange between Set and Snood within the celebrated "history is bunk" debate confirms that breakdown.

(LATER ADDENDUM)To All

The original Dawkins article cited by rosborne purports to answer the convergence debate by talking about language usage. Perhaps this should be the central issue.

0 Replies

snood wrote:

Oh, you're right, setanta - everything I read in my history books when growing up about Columbus, and manifest destiny, and the founding fathers was honest, and accurate. What could I be thinking? Of course its nonsense.

History does not lie, people who write about history lie. I wrote "nonsense," and then left, because it was late and i was tired. I knew your response would be something of this sort. I do not say that i knew this because of any failing or incapacity on your part. Rather, because history is constantly misrepresented and traduced. History cannot lie, no more than can biology, or physics, or statistics or mathmatics. People can lie about history, they can use history to lie. They may do so willfully, they may do so ignorantly, they may do so because they are writing in good faith, but have themselves been misinformed--either willfully or through ignorance.

Allow me to use an example from what you've written. You mention manifest destiny. Anyone familiar with the term knows that it was a fig leaf with which generations of grasping, often venal, usually simply self-deluded, Americans covered their greed and acquisitiveness. But it is as much a lie about history to characterize all Americans as participants as it would be to deny the concept and the harm wrought with it. In his book about Tecumseh entitled A Sorrow in Our Hearts, in the the notes at the back, Eckert quotes a letter to the editor of a Louisville newspaper by one of the Kentucky volunteers who had participated in the invasion of Canada and the battle at which Tecumseh died. That part of it has no bearing on this, but the opening to the letter does. At the beginning of the letter, its author condemns with dirision those who use the term manifest destiny. This reveals two things--the first is that the term was current much earlier than most historians acknowledge--the phrase used by the correspondent (in the late 1820's, if i recall correctly) was something to the effect of "there is a lot of talk going around about manifest destiny;" the second thing which it demonstrates is that one cannot describe all citizens of Kentucky in that period as believers in manifest destiny, and slave-holders who want to expand the territories to provide new land for slave-driven industries. It is just as much a lie about history, Snood, for you to disparage any view as being Euro-centric, and implying that there never was a just view of others presented by a European capable of seeing past his or her own culture. That knife cuts both ways.

0 Replies

Re: truth

JLNobody wrote:

Setanta, what do you recall the Kung! were laughing at, the notion of religion, supernaturalism, magic, God...? And I DID say "virtually universal". But you are right. There are very few generalization made by anthroplogists that cannot be countered by some other anthropologist with the assertion that "In _______land they do not do/believe that." On such a diverse planet as ours, generalizations are often faulty or so abstract as to be vacuous.

Actually, i was doing a paper i had been assigned to compare the historical record provided by colonialists to the reports of anthropologists. I chose French colonial history (the second period of French colonial history, the first being royalist, and in an era when there were no anthropologists), and the remark was made about the Dogon. As a general rule, French educators were opposed to the influence of religion (for example, see La gloire de mon père by Maurice Pagnol), so that when a missionary order wished to send clerics and "lay brothers" into the French West African colonies under government auspices, one of the claims they made was that many tribes were ignorant of a concept of God. They specifically mentioned the Dogon. French educators wished to counter this, so they prevailed upon anthropologists to visit these people to confirm this. What i read--and more than thirty years ago, so i cannot provide a citation, nor vouch for the quality of support given the article--was that these anthropologists reported that among the tribes, the one about which they could say with certainty that they had no notion of a deity was the Dogon--and that they greeted the concept with derision. It should be noted, as i then did not know, that since the days in which priests and monastic orders in France were made stipendiaries of the government at the time of the revolution, there has always been a very hostile dynamic between the ultramontane (conservative "true believers") catholics and the usually agnostic and often atheist public educators. The truth of what the Dogon believed then many be difficult or even impossible of ascertainment. This is very likely a case of whose ox was gored. The article i used in that paper, one of many, concerned itself with what anthropologists reported of the base social beliefs of tribes which hadn't been "corrupted" by long association with European civilization, and it also mentioned the tribes of the Kalahari, and contacts between Australians and tribes in Papua.

0 Replies

Ox goring as a means of divination osso ?

0 Replies

I haven't read the previous pages completely yet but supernaturalism always leaks through.

0 Replies

From what I understood from TIME magazine, is that our brains are wired to acknowledge GOD.

0 Replies

Religion and science never diverged.

0 Replies

"...implying that there never was a just view of others presented by a European capable of seeing past his or her own culture"

...never implied that. I am saying that the history taught to us as children and adolescents in public schools had a lot of lies in it (some outright, some by omission, but lies), and I am saying that American history is generally taught from a Eurocentric perspective. That generalization above was from between your ears.

0 Replies

truth
Just think of it, Algis. If human brains were wired to believe in God or gods, we atheists and agnostics would have very severe headaches. The article must have been referring to some kind of mystical or reverential attitude toward life and nature. But even then the incidents of headaches would only be reduced, not eliminated.
Setanta, anthropology in those days was scientifically very unreliable.

0 Replies

Frank Apisa wrote:

Here is a concept of God:

Some kind of originally existing being or condition -- with absolutely no personal aspects at all. No desire to reveal self -- or communicate with humans or whales or tse tse flies.

Why should I simply discard that possibility just so that atheists can say -- see, if you discard that possibility, there are no gods?

Well, who made that concept, I suppose you, but why did you made it.

It serves a purpose, to get an easier life, mainly because you want to believe, but you don't due to the lack of evidence, evidence that will never be found of a god. What you can find is, through philosophy & psychology the terms of how gods are created & the purpuses they serve.

I've got no real concept of a god, since they are all man-made & they serve a purpose, however wicked that purpuse may be.

As ironically as it may sound, we created gods, they didn't create us. Since we create them they are man-made, they are false, If I had a personal concept of god then it'll be false cause I made it.

Later I'll post some concepts they serve that I've writtena fter tons of hours reflexing about it, unfortunately it's late & I'm exhausted of reflexing about dreams, since I'm still reading Freud.

Have a nice night Very Happy

0 Replies

JLNobody wrote:

Setanta, anthropology in those was scientifically very unreliable.

Given that i've given only a very general impression of an article i had read more than 30 years ago, that statement is laughably abusrd. No offense JLN, but i don't come to you for judgments on the reliability of source material, and a remark such as that would tend suggest your unreliability at any event.

0 Replies

Dux wrote:

Frank Apisa wrote:
Here is a concept of God:

Some kind of originally existing being or condition -- with absolutely no personal aspects at all. No desire to reveal self -- or communicate with humans or whales or tse tse flies.

Why should I simply discard that possibility just so that atheists can say -- see, if you discard that possibility, there are no gods?

Well, who made that concept, I suppose you, but why did you made it.

It serves a purpose, to get an easier life, mainly because you want to believe, but you don't due to the lack of evidence, evidence that will never be found of a god. What you can find is, through philosophy & psychology the terms of how gods are created & the purpuses they serve.

Jesus Christ, Dux, wake up.

The last thing in the world I want to do is to "believe." I am an agnostic -- and I acknowledge that I do not know and don't have enough evidence upon which to base a guess (what you call a belief).

You want to believe. You want to BELIEVE that there are no gods.

But instead of acknowledging that you are just guessing -- you try to present it as something that simply is.

But you have never presented even a tiny bit of evidence that there are no gods -- NOTHING.

All you do is assert that there are no gods -- and assert stuff that leads to that wild, unsubstantiated guess.

Now you are asking everyone to simply discard ANY AND ALL concepts of god so that you can say: See, there are no gods.

But I have given you a concept of god that might be.

What evidence do you have that this one possible god does not exist.

And if you have none -- stop pretending you know there are no gods, because that is just as inane as the theists who pretend they KNOW there is a God.

Quote:

I've got no real concept of a god, since they are all man-made & they serve a purpose, however wicked that purpuse may be.

You have said that dozens of times now. What evidence do you have that all concepts of god are man-made -- or do you suppose simply because you can write those words, they have to be true?

Quote:

As ironically as it may sound, we created gods, they didn't create us. Since we create them they are man-made, they are false, If I had a personal concept of god then it'll be false cause I made it.

How do you know we created gods and that they did not create us.

And learn some logic before you post. It is entirely possible for you to have a personal concept of god and have it accidentally be correct. It does not have to be false just because you made it up. Anyone can occasionally make guesses that prove to be correct.

Quote:

Later I'll post some concepts they serve that I've writtena fter tons of hours reflexing about it,

"Reflexing about it!!!"

Quote:

Have a nice night

You too, Dux. I'm enjoying crossing swords with you. You are very determined.

But wrong! :wink:

0 Replies

truth
Frank, I truly do see the virtue in an agnostic apporach to life. Remember, Nietzsche's admonition that doubting is less dangerous than believing. Nevertheless, when you tell Dux that his problem is that he CHOOSES to BELIEVE that there is no God, that he is actually JUSt guessing and that his proposition is based on no evidence. But as an agnostic what can you accept as evidence? If I present empirical support for a proposition how do you not KNOW that the supporting facts I present are not delusions provided by the Devil? I know that it is not (at least I would place all my bets on it). As a radical agnostic (something stronger than a reasonable skeptic) you cannot deny this possibility of demonic delusion. You must admit that in denying it you are only "choosing to believe" it is not, that you are ONLY guessing that it is not. How do you steer through life like that, except by breaking regularly your own rules?

0 Replies

truth
Setanta, Sorry; it was just a comment--a sound one, I insist--that anthropology in those days was less scientific than it is now. And that isn't saying much. No offense taken.
By the way, why do you take pleasure in such caustic phrases as "laughably absurd" when a simple "wrong" would do just as well.
And who says reliability of source material is off limits?

0 Replies

JLNobody wrote:

Frank, I truly do see the virtue in an agnostic apporach to life.

Then do not lead an agnostic life. It is not for everybody.

Quote:

Remember, Nietzsche's admonition that doubting is less dangerous than believing.

Why?

Quote:

Nevertheless, when you tell Dux that his problem is that he CHOOSES to BELIEVE that there is no God, that he is actually JUSt guessing and that his proposition is based on no evidence. But as an agnostic what can you accept as evidence?

I do not know. Try me. What evidence do you have one way or the other?

Quote:

If I present empirical support for a proposition how do you not KNOW that the supporting facts I present are not delusions provided by the Devil?

I don't -- and I suspect neither do you. Which reinforces my agnostic stance.

Quote:

I know that it is not (at least I would place all my bets on it).

There are lots of things I would place bets on that I do not know for sure. So what?

Quote:

As a radical agnostic (something stronger than a reasonable skeptic) you cannot deny this possibility of demonic delusion.

I would not even think of doing so. What are you getting at?

Quote:

You must admit that in denying it you are only "choosing to believe" it is not, that you are ONLY guessing that it is not.

What are you talking about, JL. You usually make lots of sense -- and are one of my favorite posters -- but you are so far off base here, I don't even know how to steer you out of where you are.

Quote:

How do you steer through life like that, except by breaking regularly your own rules?

I have not broken any rules of mine. Please point out the rules you think I have broken.

0 Replies

I do suspect they are. A new breed of ape was discovered in the Congo. No links. Do your own research. Smile

0 Replies

truth
Good responses, Frank. And, by the way, you are one of my favorite posters too. Very Happy

0 Replies

Are science and religion converging?

Related Topics

Quick Links

My Account

able2know