Holy texts should be respected by scholars

[baumgarten]

there is no such thing as the capital T truth. in order for any universal truth to be established, there would have to be universal acceptance of its veracity or irrefutable evidence as to its applicability in all situations. i can say with confidence that you will never encounter such a thing.

I sure hope not. It would be a real blow to my world view.

 

[Lawdog]

Lawdog! It's you! Where have you been?

hello superliminal,
its good to see that you are still questing, if that is indeed what you are doing.

I hope that you have taken the opportunity to examine some real theology, like Aquinas, Duns Scotus, and others, and have not dismissed the discipline outright.

i had to take my leave of sciforums for a while, since, as you know,
kindness is not great here, and after being so cut down by the rationalists so much, I needed to recover.

 

[Lawdog]

Assuming God exists, how do you know what 'he' prefers?

I know because I can rely on the doctrines and customs of the universal Church known and visible to all, The Roman Catholic, which, as a whole, cannot decieve nor be decieved. God is not cruel. Christ would not have left his Apostles without an anchor of certitude concerning the Truth, and true doctrines, and the means for discerning them.

 

[S.A.M.]

Ok. Now that I've regained my... composure ... I understand what you're saying. I suppose all you can go on is an educated guess that since we're all incredibly similar in brain structure, that it would be very suprising if your experience of self-awareness was not essentially the same as mine.

Hmm I missed this post...

Thats rather a broad generalisation, I think, because perceptiveness ( which you may agree or not) is also a kind of "awareness" and there are differences in the kind and degree of perception that individuals experience.

If you think of awareness as a "learned" behavior maybe through genetic imprinting and also through focussed learning, is it not possible that some individuals may experience greater awareness?

Similarly is it not possible for an individual to be more oe less spiritually inclined based on his exposure to spiritual training and his own personal interest and knowledge of it?

 

[Crunchy Cat]

You can interpret it any way you want; that's why you have so many different kinds of religious people, ranging from stark raving fundamentalist lunatics to very kind, intelligent individuals. I can tell you right off the bat that Catholics do not believe that the Bible is intended to be interpreted literally. Most Catholics literally interpret their theology, but it is of course possible to interpret Catholic theology in other ways. Many, for example, consider heaven and hell to be states of mind rather than physical places where your soul goes when you die.

If the content of theology is so ambiguous that such a wide array of interpretations result then it provides a constantly adapting mechanism of self-deceipt.

If something is supernatural, then it should appear to the scientific eye that there is nothing to study. It's a silly concept in its common usage, I think, but so many people use it that it merits discussing. Ghosts and the like may not be supernatural phenomena, but they are at least somewhat subjective. Some people are apparently more sensitive to them than others. My uncle saw them all the time; I have only encountered the unexplained a few times in my life, and many, as you, never have. Whether they are merely the hallucinations of hysterics or something else is difficult to say unless you have experienced them yourself, and even then it is easy to doubt. I heard breaking glass downstairs at night once, but nothing broken was to be found. Could that have been in my head? What about coming home to an empty house and finding the master bedroom and upstairs hallway full of recently sprayed perfume? What about lights and radios turning themselves on in sequence - one turns on in the middle of the night, you get up and turn it off, and then another one turns on - how can that be explained? It is easy to call the first a hallucination. The second and third are much more difficult to explain; science might be able to provide answers to these, but they may sound even more far-fetched than the conclusions of a superstitious person. To me, the question of who to believe depends not on the "truth" of their theories, but how well they work. Superstitions and theology both persist because they somehow agree with the experiences of people. When they are very old, it is an indicator that they work well.

You did a great job of showing a core issue. Superstition/Theology agree with and provide definitive explanation for fantastic experiences and people in general value an agreeable explanation over truth. From an evolutionary perspective this makes alot of sense in a social species.

IMO that value system might be changing as I have seen an increasing number of people whom value truth over what's satisfying. I suspect the results of science might be fueling this and if that value system is held by a majority then evolution might take its course with the resultant environmental pressure.

There certainly is. I think people believe what satisfies them. Newton believed that gravitational force was instantaneous action at a distance. While it has been shown that gravitational waves actually propagate at c, it is still practical in many cases to use Newton's formula F = GMm/r^2 today. The most "obvious" interpretation of this formula is Newton's, and indeed it works wherever the formula works. For a time, then, both this formula and interpretation were the final word on gravity, and everyone knew it was the truth. If you lived then, so would you. In the same way, were you to live under different circumstances, you might now "know" for certain who the One True God is. If history is any indicator, we are completely wrong about everything we think we know.

You might be right, and what was the answer to the original question? Sorry, I wasn't able to discern it.

 

[baumgarten]

If the content of theology is so ambiguous that such a wide array of interpretations result then it provides a constantly adapting mechanism of self-deceipt.

That's true. Unfortunately, many people do not understand the importance of letting reality dictate to you. Imagine how much better things would be if every religious extremist asked himself if his beliefs were actually helping him. Does it really make sense that being a hateful person would get me to heaven? It is an easily answered question, but I imagine those to whom it most applies can't be honest enough to themselves to do it.

You did a great job of showing a core issue. Superstition/Theology agree with and provide definitive explanation for fantastic experiences and people in general value an agreeable explanation over truth. From an evolutionary perspective this makes alot of sense in a social species.

IMO that value system might be changing as I have seen an increasing number of people whom value truth over what's satisfying. I suspect the results of science might be fueling this and if that value system is held by a majority then evolution might take its course with the resultant environmental pressure.

Well, what to you is the difference between an agreeable explanation and truth? Or rather, what is the explanation agreeing with? I think that some people allow an experience to agree with an explanation they heard, when it would be better to fit an explanation to the experience. In the former case, the "agreeable explanation" is going to agree only with itself and not necessarily the truth, but in the latter, they are pretty much the same thing. Is this what you mean?

You might be right, and what was the answer to the original question? Sorry, I wasn't able to discern it.

Sorry about that. I was trying to illustrate how any interpretation that works suffices, but I lost my point in the process. The answer is yes, if you can find such an interpretation.

 

[Lawdog]

Exactly what sort of theology are you looking at? Ambiguous? hardly in my experience!

 

[baumgarten]

Theologies in general, not any one in particular. But even Christian theology as discerned from holy texts can be quite ambiguous without a good degree of interpretation. The Catholic Church, to whom I believe you refer, is great because it does almost all of the interpretation for you. There's very little room nowadays for violent extremism under Catholicism. On the other hand, many find this restrictive. It is collectively a mixed blessing, I suppose.

 

[superluminal]

hello superliminal,
its good to see that you are still questing, if that is indeed what you are doing.

I hope that you have taken the opportunity to examine some real theology, like Aquinas, Duns Scotus, and others, and have not dismissed the discipline outright.

i had to take my leave of sciforums for a while, since, as you know,
kindness is not great here, and after being so cut down by the rationalists so much, I needed to recover.

Always questing. And I promise not to be unkind.

 

[superluminal]

Thats rather a broad generalisation, I think, because perceptiveness ( which you may agree or not) is also a kind of "awareness" and there are differences in the kind and degree of perception that individuals experience.

Yes.

If you think of awareness as a "learned" behavior maybe through genetic imprinting and also through focussed learning, is it not possible that some individuals may experience greater awareness?

Definitely.

Similarly is it not possible for an individual to be more oe less spiritually inclined based on his exposure to spiritual training and his own personal interest and knowledge of it?

Of course.

When I said:

...essentially the same...

I mean within some "normal" range. I can say with some confidence that your experience of awareness may be quantitatively different from mine, but not qualitatively. As you said, you may be more "aware" than I am, but it's a matter of degree, not of kind. Si o no?

 

[S.A.M.]

Yes.


Definitely.


Of course.

I mean within some "normal" range. I can say with some confidence that your experience of awareness may be quantitatively different from mine, but not qualitatively. As you said, you may be more "aware" than I am, but it's a matter of degree, not of kind. Si o no?

Can we place limits on human experience? Que pense tu?

 

[superluminal]

Can we place limits on human experience? Que pense tu?

Creo que no.

Therefore I suppose that each persons sense of awareness taken as the variation in their perception and experience (qual es no limitado, si?) is unique. Yet is the fundamental sense of awareness that different? Can it be, given the similarity of human brains?

 

[superluminal]

This is so far off topic it isn't even funny. Well, yes it is.

 

[S.A.M.]

Creo que no.

Therefore I suppose that each persons sense of awareness taken as the variation in their perception and experience (qual es no limitado, si?) is unique. Yet is the fundamental sense of awareness that different? Can it be, given the similarity of human brains?

Well its hard to find an analogy but if you look at the Guiness book of world records you might say that we don't know what we are capable of until we aim high enough; some experiences are a result of trying to reach an invisible goal only the person testing himself can determine...

What do you think?

 

[S.A.M.]

This is so far off topic it isn't even funny. Well, yes it is.

Okay to get back on topic, what is your opinion on the sanctity of religious books?

Is anything sacred anymore?

 

[superluminal]

Well its hard to find an analogy but if you look at the Guiness book of world records you might say that we don't know what we are capable of until we aim high enough; some experiences are a result of trying to reach an invisible goal only the person testing himself can determine...

What do you think?

Well sure. I guess I'm saying that I think the qualitative experience of peoples sense of awareness is probably very similar, but I have no way of proving it. But as far as experience goes, and the attainment of that experience, I can imagine that greatly effecting the quantitative sense of awareness and their degree of perceptiveness. Does that make any sense?

 

[S.A.M.]

Well sure. I guess I'm saying that I think the qualitative experience of peoples sense of awareness is probably very similar, but I have no way of proving it. But as far as experience goes, and the attainment of that experience, I can imagine that greatly effecting the quantitative sense of awareness and their degree of perceptiveness. Does that make any sense?

Yes, maybe having lived in a culture which is very intensely spiritual makes me biased, but we have a history of people ( of various religions) who have achieved spiritual fulfillment simply by making it the major focus of their lives; the way a man might gain intellectual fulfillment by making that the major focus in his life.

Which is why it is difficult for me to relate to someone who completely dismisses the possibility of spirituality as mumbo-jumbo

 

[wesmorris]

And as I've said before:

"Without bullshit to bind us in purpose, we'd have been extinct long ago."

 

[superluminal]

Okay to get back on topic, what is your opinion on the sanctity of religious books?

Is anything sacred anymore?

I don't like the words "sancitity" and "sacred" much. They imply that a force-field of unquestioning sterility surrounds the "sacred" thing. Respect on the other hand implies a willingness to avoid certain things in order to not unduly offend people.

For instance, After reading your posts for a while now, I respect your position as a muslim and will not attack you regarding that anymore (others, however... grrrr). If religion was a private thing for the practioner, I would absolute respect it. But as it is, I find its intrusion into public policy one of the most dangerous things on earth. It's not a big stretch form saying your country was founded on thus-and-such religious philosophy to becoming a theocracy. I'd rathed pour sand in my eyes and record the scraping sounds as I blink for entertainment, than live in a theocracy.

So, no. Things are not sacred (to me) unless they are of immediate personal importance to someone I respect. Si?

 

[superluminal]

Which is why it is difficult for me to relate to someone who completely dismisses the possibility of spirituality as mumbo-jumbo

Mumbo-jumbo? I never said spirituality was mumbo-jumbo! Maybe the wild rantings of a madman, but never mumbo-jumbo.

Do you remember a post I made (I think in response to one of yours) that atheists can be just as "spiritual" as theists (even more-so)? I don't dismiss it at all. It's just that my source of "spirituality" is not a god of dubious existence. It's the mysterium tremendum of the cosmos itself.