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Folk Music and the Environment
Johnny C:
--- Quote from: pilsner on 26 Jan 2008, 10:29 ---Assuming for the sake of argument that this poll does accurately describe the beliefs of a majority of Americans, how can these beliefs be consistent with the transcendental conception of God that you claim is the "modern concept of God in Western monotheism"?
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Fair enough, you've caught me. The vast majority of theism that I'm versed in is liberation theology. You're right, belief in God and God's work is tremendously inconsistent across the board. I suppose by a "modern concept of God in Western monotheism" I'm not necessarily talking about the average person's views on the subject, but rather the bulk of priests and theologians and, shit, Christians with religious studies degrees in my life. Those people are very unlikely to say that God is a big bearded cloud-being. You're right, I probably could have clarified that up the page, and that certainly undermines that part of my argument a bit. Well-played.
--- Quote from: pilsner on 26 Jan 2008, 10:29 ---To the theists and agnoistics participating in this conversation, I ask you:
(1) Do you believe that there have been events on Earth inexplicable by the laws of physics, and caused by God?
(2) Do you believe that there have been instructions, communicated by God to man, which provide, directly or through interpretation, an irrefutable basis to guide or judge moral decisions?
--- End quote ---
Are you asking about miracles with that first question? I have my doubts, but since my set of beliefs acknowledges a possibility that there is an omnipotent being behind the creation of the universe I have to acknowledge the possibility that they can happen. They might also be events of mass hysteria, just like God might be a meme. My beliefs fall on the first side. You're perfectly entitled to your beliefs falling on the latter side or on any side you please, really.
On the second question, I believe there have been. However, I'm not advocating taking the Bible as either one hundred percent true fact or absolute in every word. Each book of the Bible was written for specific people at specific time. A good deal are fables and allegory meant to prove a point rather than tell a narrative relating to individual people who actually existed. Various parts contradict each other. What's moral in one book is a terrible sin in the next. However, the overall message of the Bible, that love for your fellow man is paramount, is I'd say an irrefutable basis to guide or judge moral decisions, and that's fairly consistent throughout. I'd personally say that even if you aren't willing to take the Bible as instructions communicated by God to man on how to behave with one another, the fact is that behaving in a consistently compassionate and loving manner towards your fellow human being is tremendously rewarding and making your moral decisions based on that behaviour is likewise rewarding. That's not to say you can't occasionally fuck it up, but that release of endorphins is either evolutionary, spiritually related or some combination of the two.
Jackie Blue:
--- Quote from: pilsner on 26 Jan 2008, 10:29 ---Respectfully, I don't believe you understand the fundamentals of the scientific method.
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Respectfully, I don't think you understood what I was talking about.
--- Quote ---No rational person says "I will believe only that which I can scientifically prove exists." Instead, a rational person says: "I will observe the world and try, to the extent possible, to find logically consistent theories to explain that which I observed." A scientist observes her own apparent capacity of self-awareness and to make decisions.
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But again, you're still not coming up with a workable definition of what a "decision" is that coincides with established science.
--- Quote ---Is it an exceptionally complex interactions of hormones, electric discharge between neurons, and external stimuli which create these observed phenomona?
--- End quote ---
If so, then choice does not exist. Only the illusion of it.
--- Quote ---The scientist may accept this as the contours of a theory even while admitting that the exact workings of this mechanism are not know and perhaps may never be fully understood.
--- End quote ---
Of course. Just as I may observe that I have had spiritual experiences (not specifically religious ones, but spiritual ones; more Terrence McKenna than Pat Robertson) and accept that they happened while admitting they may never be understood, by myself or anybody else.
--- Quote ---In other words, the fact that science does not currently offer a complete explanation for a phenomenon does not mean a supernatural explanation is acceptable.
--- End quote ---
I reject the word "supernatural" entirely; nothing is supernatural, by definition. At various times in history, gravity, light and fire would have been considered "supernatural".
--- Quote ---(1) Do you believe that there have been events on Earth inexplicable by the laws of physics, and caused by God?
--- End quote ---
Unanswerable question. Define "the laws of physics". Do you mean the laws of physics we had in 100 AD, in 1800 AD, in this year, or the totality of the "laws of physics" which doubtless include untold numbers of things we have yet to conceive of?
I have personally experienced something that was completely and utterly unanswerable by the laws of physics - and it was something so mundane that its happening is all the more perplexing. Story time:
A friend and I went out of town to see a band. We got a hotel room. While I was in the shower, he left the room to get some food. When I emerged from the bathroom, he was knocking on the door. Why couldn't he get in? The deadbolt was locked. There is no way to lock it from outside the room. There was no one else in the room. I was in the bathroom when he left. There is literally, flat-out no explanation for that, yet I assure you that it happened. We were not on drugs or otherwise mentally incapacitated. It happened.
--- Quote ---(2) Do you believe that there have been instructions, communicated by God to man, which provide, directly or through interpretation, an irrefutable basis to guide or judge moral decisions?
--- End quote ---
Another poorly-worded question; we haven't agreed on what God even is yet. To me, "God" is the sum of humanity's collective unconscious, independant of space and time, and briefly glimpsed while in trances, in sleep, in meditation, or on certain powerful psychoactives. Whether "it" existed before us or is a by-product of us, I do not hazard to guess. In either case, however, morality in its broadest terms is a survival trait for any societal animal. It is a socio-genetic advantage to not have the urge to kill and eat your neighbors.
supersheep:
That's yet another completely different definition of God. Personally I don't believe we have a collective unconscious, just lots of separate unconscious minds, and the things we see in trances or while on psychedelic drugs are just our neurons firing weirdly.
Johnny, are you talking about a conception of God specific to liberation theology or is it the general sort of God that Aquinas and the like are talking about, or some other thing? Also, I am kinda surprised that all the religious people you know are liberation theologists, given that the Church doesn't like it very much. Speaking of which, have you read any Kung? I've been meaning to look into him for about five years, but never got around to it. Any good starting points?
Johnny C:
I haven't had a chance to read Kung, unfortunately. I've been meaning to. When I find out what a good starting point would be, I'll let you know.
My mom is a social justice type so in the Church I grew up around social justice types. The youth at my church were, when I was in high school, fairly active in local community charity - I even worked at one of them for a few months. Hence, a good deal of the people I know are of the opinion that at least in part the story of Jesus is one of social justice. The sort of God I'm talking about is one that most of those people seem to believe in. I think it comes naturally out of the attitude - we're supposed to be busy helping each other, not shouting that God is real and here is the proof. God as an entity with His fingers in all sorts of human pie doesn't gel as well with this belief as God as a benevolent, omnipotent force outside our understanding.
I can't speak for anyone else but myself in this instance, but I'm not particularly enamoured with the Church as an institution, nor have I ever been, so what they say I ought to believe I try and take with a grain of salt.
KvP:
--- Quote from: Johnny C on 26 Jan 2008, 10:57 ---On the second question, I believe there have been. However, I'm not advocating taking the Bible as either one hundred percent true fact or absolute in every word. Each book of the Bible was written for specific people at specific time. A good deal are fables and allegory meant to prove a point rather than tell a narrative relating to individual people who actually existed. Various parts contradict each other. What's moral in one book is a terrible sin in the next. However, the overall message of the Bible, that love for your fellow man is paramount, is I'd say an irrefutable basis to guide or judge moral decisions, and that's fairly consistent throughout. I'd personally say that even if you aren't willing to take the Bible as instructions communicated by God to man on how to behave with one another, the fact is that behaving in a consistently compassionate and loving manner towards your fellow human being is tremendously rewarding and making your moral decisions based on that behaviour is likewise rewarding. That's not to say you can't occasionally fuck it up, but that release of endorphins is either evolutionary, spiritually related or some combination of the two.
--- End quote ---
But most people would like to say there's something meaningful or special about being a Christian. Saying that the bible is allegorical is reducing it into a rather vague parable that doesn't make for a good religion, like a less useful Tortoise and the Hare. If someone agrees with the sentiment of that parable, yet understands that there isn't a literal slow yet ultimately victorious turtle, would we still call them (for lack of a better term) a Shellite? The basic moral philosophy of Jesus is native to every culture on the planet. Accepting it doesn't make you a Christian, unless it also makes you part of 95 other faiths. Believing the meek shall inherit the Earth doesn't make you a Christian, it just means you're not Nietzsche or Ayn Rand. Is there something special about being a Christian?
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