Metacrock

this essay is by me, it's cut and pate, but from my Website and I'm the author. so I dont' think that should be a problem.










God cannot be the subject of empirical data becasue is not given in sense data. That's becasue God is not just another object along side objects in creation. God is not just another thing, God is the basis of reality. That's like a fish scientist saying "they assinged me to study this thing called 'water' but I can't find any water." he says that because it never dawns on him that its' all around him, the medium in which he lives and he's always looking through it. he can't see the water because he's looking through it.

That's sort of the case with God because God is the basis of reality, the ground of Being. "in him we live and move and have our being." When we try to look at God and see him directly we look through him because in a sense he's the medium in which we live.

The only answer to this is to search for something else. We don't look for empirical evdience of God, we look for a "co-detemrinate." That is, we look for the signatrue of God, or to use a Derridian term the "trace of God." Like the arua of a neutrino. We can't photogrpah neutrinos directly but we have photographed their auruas that are the reaction of Nuetrinos with other particals. When you see that aurua you know you have one.

But the trace of God has to be the result of a subjective or intersubjective understanding. So rather than subject it to empirical means, we need allow the sense data to determine the categories under which we organize our thinking about God.

Schleiermacher was the originater of this kind of thinking (prior to Brintono who is attributed to be the inventer of Phenomenology). Here is Schleiermacher's take on God consciousness. We don't search for God in objective terms we search for "God consciousness."


A.Religion not Reduceable to Knowledge or Ethics."

Schleiermacher, (1768-1834) in On Religion: Speeches to it's Cultured Dispisers, and The Chrisitian Faith, sets forth the view that religion is not reduceable to kowledge or ethical systems. It is primarily a phenomenoloigcal apprehension of God consciusness through means of religious affections. Affections is a term not used much anymore, and it is easily confussed with mere emotion. Sometimes Schleiermacher is udnerstood as saying that "I become emotional when I pay and thus there must be an object of my emotional feelings." Though he does vinture close to this position in one form of the arugment, this is not exactly what he's saying.

In the earlier form of his argument he was saying that affections were indicative of a sense of God, but in the Christian Faith he argues that there is a greater sense of unity in the life world and a snese of the dependance of all things in the life world upon something higher.

What is this feeling of utter depenedence? It is the sense of the unity in the life world and it's greater reliance upon a higher reality. It is not to be confussed with the stary sky at night in the desert feeling, but is akin to it. I like to think about the feeling of being in my backyard late on a summer night, listening to the sounds of the freeway dying out andrealizing a certain harmony in the lfie world and the sense that all of this exists because it stemms form a higher thing. There is more to it than thatbut I don't have time to go into it. That's just a short hand for those of us to whom this is a new concept to get some sort of handle on it. Nor does"feeling" here mean "emotion" but it is connected to the religiousaffections. In the early version S. thought it was a corrolate between thereligious affections and God; God must be there because I can feel love for him when I pray to him. But that's not what it's saying in the better version.


B.Platonic background.

The basic assumptions Schleiermacher is making are Plaontic. He believes that the feeling of utter dependence is the backdrop, the pre-given, pre-cognative notion behind the ontological argument. IN other words, what Anselm tried to capture in his logical argument is felt by everyone, if they were honest, in a pre-cognative way. In other words, before one thinks about it, it is this "feeling" of utter dependence. After one thinks it out and makes it into a logical arguemnt it is the ontological arguement.


C.Unity in the Life world.

"Life world," or Labeinswelt is a term used in German philosophy. It implies the world of one's culturally contructed life, the "world" we 'live in.' Life as we expeirence it on a daily basis. The unity one senses in the life world is intuative and unites the experiences and aspirations of the individual in a sense of integration and belonging in in the world. As Heidegger says "a being in the world." Schleiermacher is saying that there is a special intuative sense that everyone can grasp of this whole, this unity, being bound up with a higher relatiy, being dependent upon a higher unity. In other words, the "feeling" can be understood as an intuative sense of "radical constingency" (int he sense of the above ontolgoical arugments).

He goes on to say that the feeling is based upon the ontological principle as its theoretical background, but doesnt' depend on the argument because it proceeds the argument as the pre-given pre-theorectical pre-cognative relaitzation of what Anslem sat down and thought about and turned into a rational argument: why has the fools said in his heart 'there is no God?' Why a fool? Becasue in the heart we know God. To deny this is to deny the most basic realization about reality.


D.Logic of the co-determinate


Peak expereince is validated through a varitiey of data. It is proven to be a true consciousness change. Moreover, it has powerful and postive affects which last a life time. Since it is an expereince of "someting" (transcendence at leat if not of "God") we must concude that there is a real external cause at work producing the expereince. Religous expereince is expereince of something, something we usually call "God," thus it is logical to conclude that there really is a God to be experienced. At this stage we cannot argue that this is the God of the Bible, but that will be established on other pages. Religious experience is not merely a change in feeling or a veg indefinable sense of niceness set off by beutiful clouds or something of that nature, if that were the case it could not be life changing. That is is subjective is obvious, but that is merely subjective is belied by the fact that is and has been shared my millions of people (in fact on some level by the vast majority of people) thoughout human history.


This notion applys to the feeling of utter dependence, but it can work also with mystical expericne. In this argument I'll focuss just on mystical experience. The argument says:

*There are real affects from Mytical experince.
*These affects cannot be reduced to naturalistic cause and affect, bogus mental states or epiphenomena.
* Since the affects of Mystical consciousness are independent of other explaintions we should assume that they are genuine.
*Since mystical experince is usually experince of something, the Holy, the sacred some sort of greater trasncendent reality we should assume that the object is real since the affects or real, or that the affects are the result of some real higher reailty.
* The true measure of the reality of the co-dterminate is the transfomrative power of the affects.


This last point of course will be hoty disputed, but the reasoning is well documented and based upon the previous two arguments. Since we have seen that religious expeince is highly effocacious in terms of its transformative effects, that it is nomrative and that it representes a dimension to human being that empirical reductionism reifies and misses, we should assume that the extrent to which religious experince is transformational is a measure of its efficacy. To put it simply, it works, it changes lives, why shouldn't we assume that it is the affect of something real?

Metacrock

M-Crock writes:


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Skeptical manifesto wont keep epitsemology from breaking down. If you examine those approaches they dont' rely on just empricism alone. No one can really.





Science is not empricism gone wild. If that were the case, there would be parsemimony. paresemony is a decsion making paradgim in science spcifically because scienists became aware that empiricism in and of itself will not do the job!






But those pertain to science as well, and to any world view. There is a difference between science as a methology and a scientifically based world view with an epistemic agenda.


I agree. that's exactly why empiricism by itself wont work. :down: :huh: :wave:

lpetrich

So one cannot perceive Mr. G., I presume.

Doesn't seem like some Universe-controlling anthropomorphic superbeing, like the Biblical God. For starters, praying to It would be an absolute waste of time. Spinoza's "God" was something similar, and both Jewish and Xtian authorities agreed that that was no God at all.

So why not give this alleged entity another name, like "Q"?

However, since this Universe is fundamentally impersonal, any alleged "ground of being" is likely impersonal.

What big words I know! (sarcasm)

(detection of elementary particles...)

Seems very New Agey.

I've never felt any such thing in my life, as far as I can remember.

That a perfect being would not be completely perfect unless it existed?

I've never experienced any such thing.

I've never experienced any such thing.

Big words again.

So if a hallucination seems real, that means that it is real?

This reminds me of Lucretius's attempts to explain people's visions of pagan deities in On the Nature of Things; do they also exist?

Can one be sure that it is not some deity of some other religion? Like Allah or Brahma. Or some impersonal substratum of reality?

I wonder if Metacrock had gone in a time machine and checked; as Lucretius notes, people have had visions of deities that Metacrock would undoubtedly consider heretical.

Something that Metacrock has yet to demonstrate; there is good reason to think otherwise. Simply study How to have your own mystical experience and other stuff from Massimo Pigliucci's site.

Something purely psychological can always do that.

Metacrock

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Originally Posted by Metacrock
God cannot be the subject of empirical data becasue is not given in sense data.


Not in the sense that percieve objects

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That's becasue God is not just another object along side objects in creation. God is not just another thing, God is the basis of reality.


The images of God in the Bible are analogical. All religious lanaguge is analogical. there are many images of the female and the mother used of God in the Bible, and of the father too. So Obviously, the parental image is a symbol. But that in no way means praying is a waste. Praying is not a waste at all and Spinoza didn't have the last word in unerstanding.

I opposse both the fudie guy in the sky whose just a big man with big powers, and the Spinoza mathematical principle. They are both wrong.








why? The term "god" doesnt' 'big man" or anything like that. There's no reason why we should assciate the term "G-0-d" with anthropomorphic images. Being a center of consciousness is not necessarily anthropomorphic. Having a body, having 10 toes, being just like a man on a thorne, that is anthropomorphic, but being a centerr of consciousness isn't.


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That's sort of the case with God because God is the basis of reality, the ground of Being. "in him we live and move and have our being."




Wrong. We are personal. This is the problem with the atheist fascination for empiricism. It seperates us from reality and makes the mind the center around which objects perade. In that epistemic centering of our observational power we forget that we are part of the parade of objects. So our personal natures are as indicative of the universe as is the blind molecures. So there's no need to ascribe impersonal natrue to God. God is the bassi upon which the personal is possible.Tillich calle God "The personal itself."

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The only answer to this is to search for something else. We don't look for empirical evdience of God, we look for a "co-detemrinate."

What big words I know! (sarcasm)



why are you sarcastic when people know big words? Are you afaid of not knkowing them? Are you embarraced? Why should you be?







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Here is Schleiermacher's take on God consciousness. We don't search for God in objective terms we search for "God consciousness."



Schleiermacher lived in the 19th century, so it's before the new age came along. Schleiermacher influnced Husseral and Heidegger. It's not new age, its phenomenology.




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What is this feeling of utter depenedence? (on this alleged stratum of reality)



I bet you have. You just dont' know what to call it. Ever go out in the desert at night and look at the stars? Did the get the idea that something was up in the universe that was going on beyond, something really big and neat that you weren't let in on? Something that had to do with you exist and why the world exists? Most people have felt something like that at some time.








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The basic assumptions Schleiermacher is making are Plaontic. He believes that the feeling of utter dependence is the backdrop, the pre-given, pre-cognative notion behind the ontological argument.



No, the argument from perfection is just one offshoot of the OA. this has more to do with the ontological principel.

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Schleiermacher is saying that there is a special intuative sense that everyone can grasp of this whole, this unity, being bound up with a higher relatiy, being dependent upon a higher unity.

\



Maybe not, but I bet you have. Most people have. Have you never lied awake late at night and listened to freeway noise and gotten a sense that somehow there's a great harmony in the universe, tha'ts its connected?

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... why has the fools said in his heart 'there is no God?' Why a fool? Becasue in the heart we know God. To deny this is to deny the most basic realization about reality.



You're just making an argument from incredulity. Just because you havent' doesnt' mean it's invalid. Plenty of others have.

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D.Logic of the co-determinate

Big words again.




what a sin. No one should ever use big words. they make you feel small? that is not my intenition. Why don't you just learn what they mean? Beasdies, it's the same word you compalined above, you should have some sesne of what it means by now.


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Since it is an expereince of "someting" (transcendence at leat if not of "God") we must concude that there is a real external cause at work producing the expereince.




Actually yea. If a hallucination is real enough and the effects of it are eral there's no way to tell its hallciantion. The expernice you take for daily reality could be hallucination, and you can't prove it's not. And the experinces of hallicination, if they leave real affects, maybe they are real?

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Religous expereince is expereince of something, something we usually call "God," thus it is logical to conclude that there really is a God to be experienced.



How is it like that?

I'm of the opinion that all religious differences are due to cultural constructs. We all experience God on a mystical level, and we have to load that experince into cultural constructs.


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At this stage we cannot argue that this is the God of the Bible, but that will be established on other pages.



In my view all God's point to God; what I said above about cultural constructs; all the differnt ideas of God are just determined by the constructs we have to use to talk about the experinces we have of the real thing, which are beyond words.

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That is is subjective is obvious, but that is merely subjective is belied by the fact that is and has been shared my millions of people (in fact on some level by the vast majority of people) thoughout human history.



heresy is relative to a theolgoical community. I'm not concerned wtih that right now. Behind all those different communities are expeinces of the same ultimate reality.


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*There are real affects from Mytical experince.
*These affects cannot be reduced to naturalistic cause and affect, bogus mental states or epiphenomena. ...


what? who? I don't know any Massimo Piglucici.

I have demonstreated this point. I linked to my page with the studies on the other thread.


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To put it simply, it works, it changes lives, why shouldn't we assume that it is the affect of something real?



wrong! that's the strudies demonstrate. it only works Religious experience, nothing else produced that kind of change.

Sven

Not that I really agree or disagree (too less information), but I found this part of Kendall Hobbs testimonial especially interesting in the context of this discussion:

BSM

MC no I don't mind. In fact, it's good that you moved otherwise I might have derailed yet another thread with my rambling thoughts.

I'll look over what you wrote and try to respond this weekend.

Before I do comment you referenced a couple of studies. Could you provide a link?

~BSM

Chili

What I find so sick about this story is that his own mother fornicates the spiritual well being of the son at the tender age of 8. The premature awakening of this God consciousness is America's favorite sport that is permitted under the "great commission" -- as must be obvious if you watch them yodel rigth along when they set an new whelp a-yelping.

It does two things, firsts, it proves the essence of God exists within man and second, it proves that there is a right time for everything in life.

PoodleLovinPessimist

Huh? How does childhood indoctrination prove either of these things? It proves only that there is a wrong time for religious indoctrination. The existence of a wrong time does not entail that there is some "right" time; it might be the case that all times are wrong.

PoodleLovinPessimist

directly contradicts

Metacrock appears to be trying to have his cake and eat it too: The existence of God is both required for an empirically adequate theory accounting for sense data ("peak" and "transcendental" experiences) and not given by sense data, but rather required as some sort of "ontological ground".

Metacrock

http://www.geocities.com/meta_crock/...e/mystical.htm