Jenyar,
In other words, you believe that truth is relative, and religions are valid or not relative to your position? While I can appreciate this, it doesn't have much practical value (which is what you're ultimately aiming for, isn't it?).
I was thinking about the word 'relative' today -- and I'm afraid it can be and is easily abused. I meant 'relative' in the sense of context-bound, relational to other phenomena -- whatever is termed in this sense, is thereby also given practical value!
'Relative' in the sense of 'indefinable and therefore useless' is kinda mean and weak. I'll have to come up with some new words.
But to argue from your POV, if your demands from life suddenly changed drastically - say, you found out you had two weeks left to live - then wouldn't certain things become more true? But if they are true then, weren't they also true before, and you just couldn't appreciate it?
I'll tell you something: In 2000, I was bitten by a tick, and then got some symptoms of meningytis. I went to the doctor, but since I didn't have enough symptoms, they said they would wait for the 3-4 week incubation period to be over. If I don't get sick by then, then I don't have meningytis, they said, since meningytis is one of the few virus diseases that don't become dormant. Tick-related meningytis in grown-ups can be debilitating, or, in most cases, deadly.
Those were the strangest days of my life so far. I don't know whether I was scared or whether I was thinking about God or the truth ... I felt sick all the time, had 24/7 headaches, was tired and exhausted by a mere few steps ...
The incubation period was over, meningytis didn't strike, but my symptoms were still there. Further tests. After two months and my arms looking like those of a junkie from taking blood samples, they figured out that my thyroid doesn't work right.
I got meds, but they made me worse. Anyhow, the thing settled after a while, and now I have to go for a check up every four months or so. I don't take meds now, I hate them, they make me sick. I'm living on the edge of still sufficient numbers.
This thyroid malfunction is for life, it won't go away. And by now, I have learned how it is affected by my thoughts and by my behaviour. My sick thyroid kinda plays god for me, no pun intended whatsoever. It is my second conscious. If I do or think something that I know is not good for me or others, I know this will result in a lower rate of my thyroid hormons, and eventually in the meningytis-like condition I already had.
It's weird, but it really pushes me to do and think things right. I mean right in the sense of practical and useful.
And to tell you the truth, I am scared to hell. Even though the doctors have a fancy chemical explanation of my condition and that condition is also genetcally predisposed, I know exactly why it appeared when it did. This was when my demons took over me. And my body gave me a serious warning that I can't play with myself anymore the way I used to.
It is not scary at all to find your demons. It is scary when you try to live without them.
I imagine myself as a house, and these demons are merely inhabitants in my house. They're just trying to survive, they don't really wish me any harm, it is just in their nature that they are harmful. And, like anybody else, they rebel against eviction.
Gosh, it's spooky.
I'm sorry if I came across too personal and too emotional. But religion is after all a personal thing. I hope that you can now understand my position a bit better.
In late 2002, I actually very seriously contemplated the Bible and Christian life, regularly read scriptures on a daily basis.
But what disrupted me was this: After a while, everything became so understandable, so graspable. Those symphonies were beautiful because God inspired them. I became unable to listen to music. I didn't hear it anymore. My cat was just a cat. Beauty became reasonable, fathomable.
I longed for the unfathomable, for the non-graspable, for the ununderstandable. I felt dead with all those things that were once so important and beautiful to me, now turned into mere understandable objects.
So I gave up the Bible, gave up wanting to name and understand *all* things, and after a long while, I became able to hear music again.
I know, I may come across as chasing illusions and worshiping things that "don't matter". But most of the times, I keep them to myself. I overcame the desire to share that beauty. If I see that people are interested, then yes, I share it. But I don't start talking about the beauty of it as I once used to.
And so I also have an "external" side, the "professional" approach. That's the one of logical reason. That one you've already met.
“Yes, but aren't you then also saying that peson A is worth more than person B? Aren't you saying "A's identity is worth more than B's identity"? ”
No, not at all! It has nothing to do with intrinsic worth, but with realized worth, as I explained above. If I say it's true that you were created in God's image and you have no idea what I mean, that truth will be diminished. It will be relative to you, even if it were absolutely true in reality.
But if I don't believe it to be true, then I would lie if I would act as if it were true! I think I am more truthful if I stick to what I believe now, rather then to just *say* that I believe your truth, and not really mean it. If I am true to myself, no truth gets diminished. Maybe the only thing that gets diminished is your desire to make everybody else think what you do.
I'll quote you F. Scott Fitzgerald, the opening from "The Great Gatsby":
"Whenever you feel like criticizing anyone, just remember that all the people in this world haven't had the same advantages that you've had."
I'm not saying that you are downright criticizing me. But do keep in mind: maybe you know a truth -- and this means that you have obviously had a advantages in your life that I and other people didn't have.
You have no right to blame us for the disadvantages we had, and you also have no right trying to push us in a certain direction.
No truth can get diminished. If it's there, it's there. Maybe it only got covered by a junk heap of external harmful influences, unfulfilled wishes, unattainable ideals ...
The best thing you can do, IMO, is to respond to people when they do come to you and ask you for your help. And then, if you really wish to help, you need to help them on their terms and in a way they can understand, not on yours.
You can talk to me about God and Jesus for days, and I won't believe it any more than I do now. You'll have to be more creative to get to me. Or give it up, and not blame anyone.
“My position is that we don't know or understand the world and ourselves in the strict sense of "to know" and "understand". We are only acquainted with them and are able to live with them. /.../
In this sense, I stand for theories that have to do with real world phenomena as in the Hawking paraphrase. ”
But you imply that there is nothing more to know than what we can predict, as Hawking describes.
No no no! Hawking does not imply that there is nothing more to know than we can predict -- although I can see that his quote may be construed that way. Hawking only said something about the worth of scientific models and theories.
Do you know something called "the new modesty of science"? There was a time when science indeed went around, bashing all old values and denying God and such. Those were the ravings of human intellect. Unfortunately, this negative attitude became the hallmark of science, and is still sticking to it.
(Look what happened to Darwin: his theories were widely accepted, but few bothered to read the preface of his book, where he expressed his firm faith in God and His creation!)
Today's *true* scientists are nothing like that (well, except for some). They stick to theories describing and, as far as possible, explaining certain mechanisms and phenomena, yet they do not make assertions about human value or about God.
I know, reading a study by a cognitive scientist may be frustrating and leading one to think that what is said there about the human mind is also all that there is to say about it.
But that is not true at all! What that scientist says about the human mind is only what science so far can say about the mind; he doesn't say that what science has to say about the human mind is also all there is to say.
Scientific studies are to be read as what they are: scientific studies. Any other way to read them is an abuse of them. Science goes (or at least tries to go) by the rules of logical reason and the established agreements about what a good theory is (consistent, systematic, ...). And as such they should be understood. This also means that one first has to learn something about science and logics and that -- or he is bound to misinterpret science.
And yes, science gets abused all the time. It is especially vulnerable, even more than religion, as science does not have any regulatory mechanisms within to define its value in regards to society. It just is there, a tool. Whether this tool will be used to do something good or for something bad -- this science cannot control.
That's just one half of the argument. What about how science is abused? Your view of science might leave you with the smallest chance of being "wrong", but what about being wrong? God says you are of eternal worth to Him, science says you're an cosmic accident destined to die. What's the truth?
Both are true: science from its scientifical POV, religion from its religious POV. Their truths are incomparable, as they make their claims from incomparable POV's.
Meaning: the existence of scientific truth *does not* exclude the existence of religious truth.
(Technically, vice versa should be possible, but religions usually don't think very highly of science.)
Yes, I know, this may sound strange, even paradoxical: but form the POV of strict science, it isn't.
But, life is about choices, and this is where the whole thing with science vs. religion gets complicated. It takes an extended understanding. For some reason, people don't like extended understanding, so they simply say "Science is against God", and that makes their lives much much easier.
I repeat what I said above: explanations aren't everything. They're not all that's truth.
They don't even try to be!! Explanations, more correctly: descriptions are there just as descriptions. They don't attempt to say something about the essence of a phenomenon. They only describe its characteristics and the relations to other phenomena, all as *we* see them.
If someone considers then such a description to be an attempt to make claims about the very essence of a phenomenon, then he is not making a scientific claim.
Do you shun every truth if it has been abused? Be honest. A lot of evolution is based on the concept of survival of the fittest; it can be considered a "truth". Then why was what Hitler did wrong? Wasn't he the "fittest", wasn't it because of their weaknesses and inability to adapt that he could conquer other countries? But does that mean "survival of the fittest" isn't ever true in nature?
"Survival of the fittest" is a scientific claim, calling what Hitler did "wrong" (in the sense of unethical) is an ethical claim. Ethics is not the same as science. Above, you mixed science with ethics, IMO, and this is not scientific.
Or to use your example. "God created man in his image". Can you tell a black person's blood from a white person? Who decided that "man" meant caucasians? The people who wrote that sentence were semitic - eastern. They weren't white either.
Well, those who use that line from the Bible as a proof that blacks weren't created in God's image are white ... and think themselves better than other.
And where does the Bible say anyone is better than another?
The Bible may not say so, but the believers very well.
People who stop thinking about what they're doing with their faith are just as dangerous as people who stop thinking what they're doing with their science. Selfishness and hatred is destructive in any context - and that is what God considers sin. Sin is sin no matter what you believe, and so is God.
Science doesn't know sins! Science per se is not a thing with ethics. That ethical part, for example about prohibiting human cloning, is a matter of *social regulation* of science.
You see, the thing with scientists is that they also need to keep in mind that they are just scientists, and to be able to distance themselves from their work. Some scientists forget about it, and also some religious people are forgetting it too.
Like I said, science is a tool -- how you will use it, depends on your ethics, not on the tool itself. The needle cannot prevent that you use it to poke someone in the eye.
It is up to you, whether you will use the needle to sow a dress, or to hurt someone.
Bosnia, as in Bosnia-Herzegovina? At least I know where it is. Not many people have much knowledge about South Africa either, so I can sympathise
I'm from Slovenia, that's the northern republic of former Yugoslavia --- and yes, I do know something about South Africa!
Shoot that was one long post, I apologize, but the occasion called for it.
