SouthStar said:
Is thinking like an atomist wrong? If not, then there is no reason to think any other way. (Don't bash my logic: I'm right because I'm right)
It's not wrong to think like an atomist. But thinking like an atomist gives you a lesser advantage to orientate yourself in the realm of knowledge -- in comparison to the advantage that, say, holism gives you.
In this regard, atomism is not as economical as some other approaches.
On second thoughts you are right. But that doesn't make us any less hypocrite. I wrote about identity in my theory too so you'll have to wait. Stop thinking ahead of me!
Huh. I think the time difference between us is some 10 hrs or so, I have GMT +1. Hm. Am I thinking ahead of you?
People make up words don't they? Remember, from the other thread, 'free' and 'intelligent' have nothing to do with reality. Just like the word 'mountain' is stiff and trite, just like the word 'exciting' is boring, words have nothing to do with reality. Shameful caricatures, they are.
I don't see why one would compare a real mountain to the word "mountain" -- compare their realities.
I don't even know how to go about such a comparison. For what is a moutain? Is a mountain that which I can see in the distance if I look out of my window? Or is that on top of which I sometimes stand? The experience of those two are not the same at all. Not to mention all othe rmountains.
I would feel better if people weren't so convinced they were logical and someone else was illogical. As long as you are thinking in a circle, there is no such superiority.
It's the same thing as above: school's punishing the student who does not grasp a concept that may be discarded the next day, churches claiming truth when 'God' is an empty word that has changed more times than life on earth.
What irks me the most is when people claim 'objective facts' have some sort of superiority. If that is not the most circular reasoning available then I don't know what is. Objective information, like words, has nothing to do with reality. It is a gross distortion. You can tell me every chemical property of the human body and that is still a huge misrepresentation of it.
Since they are all misrepresentations and circular, there is no reason to put down another person.
I can understand that.
In the old days, people felt superior because they belonged to a higher caste.
Nowadays, when human equality is officially proclaimed and sanctioned, it is unthinkable that someone should say "I am superior because I am richer than you" (not that people don't act on this).
The hierarchical fights are now being fought in the sphere of knowledge (" ") and facts (" "), not in the sphere of material possessions or familial descent.
Is there any other way to know Him? Apart from what we fashion Him to be?
There is always the possibility of divine intervention.
But imagine the humility it takes to accept this solution!
The only other thing we can look to is what we make of things. And what we think is arbitrary, circular, and certainly not logical. No better than religious tradition.
It's the human condition.
Straight from the mouth of Jenyar:
What authority, infallibility and inerrancy refer to is the fact that we can trust God for His words and their validity. It means recognizing God's authority.
Note how instead of providing some precedent for assuming God's word really is God's, he proceeds to go around in a circle and appeal to God's authority.
This is the hateful arbitrariness I spoke of. Define what is and what isn't God's word is and then say, "Aha! This is written by God!"
I understand how this can be understood as circular, and without invoking another system, it certainly is circular.
The way I see it, the precedent for assuming God's word really is God's, is in experience that can confirm or deny the hypothesis that what is said to be God's word is God's word.
It is a two-way induction: You set up an explanation that allows you to see the very evidence on which this explanation is based. This is technically circular, but in practice, it isn't.
One of the more famous examples is Descartes reconceptualization of movement. In his times, it was believed that the way a bullet or an arrow move, once shot, is the same as they way a carriage or running man move. Their speed is greatest some time after the beginning of the course; movement was regarded as a process in 1630.
But, for some reason, Desi thought that this isn't so, and reconceptualized movement as a state, not as a process anymore. And hence our modern theories of movement.
The old theory was rational in regards to the facts that were known to it. But Desi's theory was rational to the facts that this very theory made possible to see.
The relationship between belief and observation is a two-way inductive process, not a one-way inductive process.
So, to apply this to God and the Bible: I have a certain present theory that I have gathered from reading the Bible and from what I have heard from other people. Something in this theory stinks, to my nose. So I investigate.
Now, if I would be so appalled by this stink, and would thus stop there, I can soon find more than enough reasons to disprove the whole of religion. This is what most popular atheists and non-believers have done. They have given in to the emotional block that emerges when we see that "something doesn't fit".
(This emotional block is common.)
But I am a jolly scientist, and I put a clip on my nose, and I don't get stopped by that emotional block, so I investigate further, and I allow for two-way inductive thinking. I see that a lot of that stink that I can smell comes from religious tradition and practice, and this I have dismissed as being crucial as to what God is anyway. So I can move on.
I take "What authority, infallibility and inerrancy refer to is the fact that we can trust God for His words and their validity. It means recognizing God's authority." as a hypothesis and test it. But the thing is that in order to test it, I would have to actively carry out my recognition of God's authority. How do I do that?
It cannot be completed as a thought experiment. The only way to test it is to actually do it.
You may say it is circular.
But how can we know?
Neither of us has carried out the testing of the hypothesis, so we don't know what the solution will be!!
Desi, before he started to reconceptualize movement, didn't know what it will be that his search and testing would lead to. He didn't know the outcome.
The same, we don't know what the testing of "What authority, infallibility and inerrancy refer to is the fact that we can trust God for His words and their validity. It means recognizing God's authority." will result in.
So we can neither dismiss it, nor approve it.
The only problem with this approach is that it cannot be planned or predicted, and it takes time.
How can any circular system not breed ignorance?
If you can prove that religion is a circular system, yes, then it breeds ignorance.
But what if you have a hunch, like Desi? I am sure that other people in his time also thought that the movement of an arrow and the movement of a running man may not be the same, but they didn't know how to put their doubts in words, how to constructively think about them. But Desi proved, with his own example, that it is possible to reconceptualize, and come to new insights.
You and I both have certain hunches about religion and God. What will we do with those hunches?
You could say the same for any established ideology or "cult" or "movement".
It is about country-club mentality, elitism and power struggles.
The actual verbalized arguments are just a surface, and are just a medium in which those power struggles are carried out.
I think it is foolish to approach such people with well-thought-out arguments. They are not there to defend their religious belief, they are there to defend their social, hierarchical etc. position. It is just that instead of using swords and fire, or bombs, they use words.
I hope Jenyar is listening to truth.
Well, not all religionists have those same hierarchical power struggles in mind.
Jenyar is in another sphere that you and me, and we don't really know what his intentions are. And if we ask him, we'll still translate his words into our understanding, possibly missing *his* understanding.
True, true, true. But I know why this is, my theory explains it. If only you would stop thinking ahead of me!
It is nonsensical to demand of someone to do something that cannot be done deliberately.
EVERYTHING you know is in a circle. Your own spirituality is in a circle. Therefore it is a closed system. You will always view spiritual things through an arbitrary, circular lens.
If we learn, and add, and reconceputalize, then we can't stay in the same circle.
If anything, we are moving from one closed system into another closed system.
Which is a contradiction in terms! For in order to be able to move out of a closed system, the system wasn't really closed, ... or there was some trick at work.
If you had evidence then it wouldn't be faith, it would be knowledge.
It takes faith to accept something as evidence.
Seeing "if it makes sense" to have faith in something is wonderfully arbitrary and the reason for your conclusion will definitely be circular. That strikes me as a closed system.
It is always possible that the observer lacks the insight that the observed has.
What if Jenyar is to us what Desi was to other people of his time?
I believe, the quest for truth is futile.
By this, do you imply that the quest for objective reality is futile?
