diana

And a fine bonjour to you in this thread, as well. No, I haven't. I simply disagree with you. I've told you before, buzzes aren't my style. (I believe you said they were yours, IIRC.)

True. It is tautological. We can speculate as to why we developed these particular capacities, and they allow us to speculate about any "greater" reason we might have them, but such speculation (again) presupposes a higher power.

You say "designed." I say "evolved." But I agree with your sentiments in that doing what we have capacity for makes us happy. I'm not sure where that leads us, but I agree it makes us happy.

Actually, I was basing that the biblical definition.

Not at all. "Beauty" is but a word we've assigned to an abstract concept. We began with the concept--based upon a need to describe something we experienced--and labeled it. In the case of God, which is presumably not an abstract concept, but a real entity, you began with the belief--not the experience of God--which turns out to be one removed from the God you assert you believe in, even.

With beauty, you began with an experience, then labeled it. With God, you didn't have any experience to begin with, so you had to begin with something else. To equate belief in beauty to belief in God is a poor analogy.

You're certainly entitled to your opinion. I stand by it, though. To be disinterested in the truth of a theory because the facts might ruin the "beauty" of it destroys one's credibility as a scientist.

Of course, this story has nothing to do with your Einstein example. Scientific quests may be sparked by anyone's whim or theory, really. All they need is an idea, to form a theory, then set up a test to determine that theory's validity.

In your Einstein example, however, you have a scientist refusing to look farther into the truth or falsity of his own theory because it might ruin the beauty of it, somehow. The quark scientists used their aesthetic tastes as a jumping off point. Einstein, according to your story, used his as a dead end. Sap.

Would it help if I used the word "pragmatic" instead?

There are things that aren't demonstrably true that may be true. I do not deny this. But I won't bet my Xmas bonus on any of them.

And if I don't?

d

Albert Cipriani

Dear Jobar,
As the great and glorious Oz was revealed to be just a man by toto, a dog, I too, hope to function as a kind of hound of heaven here, revealing that behind all these atheistic fulminations resides befuddled Scientific Man in need of God so that he may find his way home.

But you spin your dials, puff more smoke, and say my burnt broomstick isn’t evidence enough for you and throw more dichotomous detritus at me:
The answer to which reminds me of another film. A low-grade werewolf flick I saw 20 years ago where the chick finally catches on to the guy not being normal and says, “You’re crazy!” He retorts: “I’m much more than that” as he starts his werewolf metamorphosis to prove his point.

Likewise, a fideist is a subset of what I am as a Catholic. I’m much more than a fideist. Yes, fideism is a heresy. No I am not really a fideist. But I will admit to you that I am more a fideist today than I was when we crossed swords here a year ago.

Since 8th grade, I’ve been in love with the life of mind. It stands to reason, then, that making a virtue out of not thinking, the blind faith of fideism, would be anathema to who I am. I’m as reconcilable to it as matter is to antimatter. Yet I now see the beauty of it whereas before I could not see past my own repugnance of it.

It’s beautiful to me in the same way my goats are. They are monuments to stupidity yet that doesn’t interfere with them doing exactly what they need to do as goats. Fideists, like my dumb-as-the-boulders-they-do-sentry-duty-upon goats, believe the right things. So so what if they have no methodology? They are like sailors that have foresworn stars and sextants and compass, yet sail into safe harbor by dead reckoning just the same. So my reaction to fideism is bifurcated into repugnance AND APPRECIATION, whereas before it was unadulterated repugnance. – Cheers, Albert the Traditional Catholic
Albert's Rants

Sue Sponte

Oz is a nice analogy to Christianity, except that Dorothy and her friends didn't concoct "intepretations" to continue their belief that there was an Oz after toto pulled back the curtains.

So many curtains have been pulled from the fables in the bible that Oz is there in plain sight for anyone to see, as long as you are willing to believe what your eyes are telling you.

Albert Cipriani

And the veil of the temple was rent in twain from the top to the bottom. – Mark 15:38
“We’re Off to See the Wizard”

Toto parted company with them
and made the Wizard of Oz thunder:
“Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain!”

When the converse of d-o-G de-
parted, God parted His own curtain
through which the holiest place on earth
leaked… away over the quaking earth

from there and then we tin men are still
rusted in our catatonic stance,
so turned away from our fate that we
close the eyelids, sheet over the faces
of those who’ve come face-to-face with God.

diana

I just wanted to say, I love reading your posts. While I delight in finding logical flaws in your arguments, your rhetoric is flawless. It is smooth and beautiful, and often startlingly poetic. I really do love it. The more beautiful and full of imagery your presentation is, the more of a challenge it is to spot the fallacies therein. Your ability serves your well.

Do you or have you ever considered writing poetry? Or even prose? Professionally, I mean. If not, your talents are being wasted.

Seriously.

Even when you're ticked off and being a bit of a jerk, your posts are still a pleasure to read. I tip my hat to you, sir.

I know this isn't part of our conversation, but I've always found the concept of faith intriguing. Of course, I see it as an either/or characteristic (in keeping with my admittedly black-and-white view of the world): either you believe or you don't.

Xns (Protestants, specifically) speak of "strengthening their faith" or "having weak faith," but I've never been able to grasp exactly how that can be. How, exactly, does one "kinda believe"?

But then, this would be intricately linked to what I mean when I say "believe" versus what you mean with the same word, yes?

I've heard this sentiment many times, often by extremely intelligent Xns who have investigated the scientifically available evidence and found it wanting. At this point, they either remain consistent with the scientific approach and toss their religion as a scientist would a theory that could not be supported, or they cling to their religion tighter, simply changing their criteria for belief. Interesting.

Even the Muslim fideists? That's the problem with fideism--how does one know he believes the right things? Or are you defining "the right things" as "what the fideist believes," regardless of the culture and cult in which that fideist resides?

To foreswear the instruments at one's disposal in lieu of just guessing is not very smart. Those sailors who foreswear the instruments that could very well save their lives remind me of some of the older people I know who still refuse to use calculators, as they don't trust them. They'd rather do the math with pencil and paper. Their refusal to learn to use this technology makes them far more prone to error. And why do they foreswear it? Resistance to change, most likely.

d

Albert Cipriani

Dear d,
Thank you for your kind words. Yeah, I do write professionally. I did as a former newspaper journalist and do as a technical writer now. I’ve recently gotten a few of my 600-plus poems published. I see it all as one long excretion.

But what’s this about being challenged “to spot the fallacies therein”? You needn’t let those spots spoil the big picture. So, repeat after me: “God is good. God is good.” Let logic limp away. What’s it ever done for you anyway? And finding a fallacy here and there won’t win you no eternal reward.

You ask,
With percentages. If you would realize that even rock hard scientific beliefs are constantly evolving, you’d be more inclined to ascribe percentages of sureness to your beliefs instead of either just digitally believing or disbelieving.

No doubt the Medieval thinkers were quite sure flies spontaneously generated from fish. Nothing’s changed but the topics. From probing fish heads we are now examining black holes. Yet our temptation to be 100% sure of our conclusions remains. It’s intellectual arrogance and belies our finite place in this universe.

Just as nothing is completely flat or straight or perfectly circular, neither am I 100% sure of anything. This initially humbling recognition is ultimately freeing. I am free to believe anything that is only 51% convincing. Thus, it is far easier for me to honestly believe in God than you, who I imagine are holding out for 100% proof.

Faith according to the Nominalists and Protestants is fiducial, that is, it’s merely our trust in God that saves us. The Catholic conception of it is confessional, that is, faith must involve not just our sentiments, but our will, so that our faith is expressed in word or deed.

Put it this way, if you believe in extraterrestrial life but do not contribute to SETI, or haven’t even seen the Carl Sagen movie “Contact” with Jodie Foster, then you’ve just got a fiducial faith in their existence that won’t do you a bit of good when they finally show up and kick everybody’s butt for being so stupidly self-absorbed that we didn’t act on our faith in intelligent life elsewhere. That’s a caricature of how I see the real Judgement Day coming down.

You write in reference to Muslims:
One must distinguish between one’s belief in the concept of God and one’s conception of that belief. Speaking of conception… orphans believe that they had mothers, but they have no conception of their mothers. One orphan may form an ugly stereotype of his mother that justifies his rage against women. Another orphan may not, yet both orphans believe in their mothers.

Ditto for God. Just because -- as Jobar is always fond of reminding us -- theists can’t get their conceptions of God straight, is no reason to doubt the reality of the conception. No doubt when faced with the word D-O-G, the converse of G-O-D, we all form wildly different conceptions. Different conceptions of reality do not disprove reality, they just demonstrate how confusing reality is to us all.

You said elsewhere,
With God we did have an experience to begin with. I call it awe. It’s that joyous recognition of our puniness in comparison to that which awes us. Why should this feel good? Don’t we all want to be big? Sure we do, but when we feel small in comparison to something really worthy of making us feel small, something like the ocean or the stars or Bach, something really beautiful, we don’t mind our relative insignificance.

In fact, we are freed to revel in our relative puny worthlessness like children playing in the mud. When we recognize that which humbles us as being worthy of humbling us, we can accept our true status as the dust swirls that we are, something at all other times our egos resist by masking the ugly faces of reality that conspire to make us seem small.

This sense of awe puts us in our proper place in relation to creation. It’s one small extrapolation from there to let awe put us in our proper place in relation to creation’s Creator. The Bible says what I just said: “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.” [Psalms 110:10] – Cheers, Albert the Traditional Catholic
Albert's Rants

Hawkingfan

I've never heard anybody speak about their beliefs like this. You either believe something or you don't. Or you can say something is reasonable or not. Didn't Jesus say, let your "yes" be "yes" and your "no" be "no"? Do you think Jesus had degrees of faith, or would promote such an idea as yours? Science involves observing, drawing conclusions from observations and mathematics, designing experiments to examine those conclusions, and ending up stating a theory which should express a new fact or idea. Religion does no such thing. Also, a unique property of science is this--if new or better evidence comes along, scientists must either discard that theory or amend it to accommodate the new evidence. But the theory is considered truth until then. Is religion that honest with itself?

As J. Randi states about science: "Only the probability of a theory being correct, can ever be properly stated. Fortunately, most of science consists of theories that are correct to a very high degree of probability; scientists can only establish a fact to the point that IT WOULD BE OBSINATE AND FOOLISH TO DENY IT. Since new data is constantly being presented, a theory or observation may have to be refined, repudiated, modified or added to, in order to agree with the new data.

True science recognizes its own defects. That willingness to admit limitations, errors and the tentative quality of any conclusion arrived at, is one of the strengths of science. It is a procedure NOT available to those who profess to do science but do not: the abundant and prolific pseudoscientists and crackpots.

And there is an important difference between pseudoscience and crackpot science: The former has some of the trappings, generally the appearance and much of the language used by real science, while the latter has no pretensions at all of appearing to be science. The German fascination with imaginary E-rays and the speculations on how dowsing is supposed to work, are pseudoscience; most perpetual motion ideas and things like reflexology, palmistry and psychometry are crackpot science."

Not being 100% sure of anything is your problem. Maybe that's why in another thread you were so eager to accept that some police psychics are real. Maybe you just had 51% evidence? Do you consider trickery and slight-of-hand evidence? What you are saying is that you are more gullible than diana. And what evidence do you have that we don't to make you 51% sure that there is a god? And how would you think god feels about you being 51% sure he exists? Is that the kind of faith god wants Christians to have? Clearly from his teaching it isn't.

Since there is absolutely no single shred of evidence god exists, it is perfectly reasonable to doubt his existance 100%. There is a 100% total lack of evidence for an extraordinary claim that by its very nature requires an extraordinary amount of evidence; not to mention that the existance of such a being would contradict known laws of science.

It is perfectly fine to feel in awe of the ocean, stars, Bach, etc.. because those things have been proven to exist. There is a difference between fact and fiction. The ocean is fact. God is fiction. I have an "experience" with quantum mechanics. I call it awe. It's a joyous recognition of my puniness in comparison. I feel small in comparison to science which is really worthy of making us feel small, not God--a product of imagination!

diana

Bonjour, AtTC. I hope this evening finds you in good spirits. It's much more of a pleasure to disagree with you--as I will anyway--when you aren't cranky.

"One long excretion." Love it. BTW, was the Oz poem above one of yours? Very polished.

Not much, really. It's only earned me a higher (ongoing) education, the respect and admiration of my peers, self-confidence, a commission, and an unlimited future. Perhaps you're right. I should trade it for a life driven by emotion, whereby I would most likely find myself barefoot and preggers somewhere wondering why my husband stays out late with the boys instead of coming home to me, and not feeling worthy enough to tell him to stick it where the sun don't shine.

You see, Albert, that's a fair picture of the life religion had in mind for me. The life I have is due almost entirely to my ability to think clearly, and to trust my own conclusions. That is what logic has done for me.

Oh, but I do realize science presses on, discovering new things and disproving the accepted "truths" of yesterday. I have a hard time assigning "percentages" to any belief, as I wouldn't know what numbers, exactly, to work with to arrive at that percentage.

The reason I accept the findings of science, oddly enough, is because scientists admit they don't know for sure if their theories are absolute truth. They observe phenomena, then posit a theory to explain why they happen the way they do. Theories may only legitimately bear that label if they are falsifiable.

I believe the man who seeks the truth; I doubt the man who claims to have found it.

No. I don't think we have 100% proof of any theory. And yes...it is ultimately freeing to realize you don't have the absolute answers, as well as giving you an undying sense of wonder.

However, there's a veritable chasm betwixt "medieval scientific theories were bogus" to "belief in God is reasonable." To assert that belief in God is reasonable because science has made some boners is to forget that science is designed to be self-checking. It admits it might be wrong. Belief in God comes with no such money-back warranty. It is therefore highly suspect.

Besides...I don't have to simply accept anything science claims. I can go check it for myself. Once again, belief in God offers no such assurance.

So it works like this:

Experience of beauty --> label it "beauty"
Experience of awe --> label it "awe"

How'd you fit "God" into that analogy again? Something like this?:

Experience joyous recognition of our puniness in comparison to the ocean or the stars or Bach --> label it "awe" --> assert it was created for us by a higher being --> label that being "God"

Is that it? Still, the order in your analogy between belief in beauty is switched. In beauty, you still start with the sensation and label the sensation. For the analogy to be good, you'd have to start with the experience of God, then label that experience. But you concede it doesn't work quite like that. We instead experience "awe," which we already have a word for, as noted. This is why I called it a poor analogy.

Beautiful. And yes. But there's no need to muddy the picture with an indefinable and unknowable being. Why isn't the world--nay, the universe--worthy of our awe? Why is it you feel the need to believe that some being must be behind it all? Is it not enough to awe you as it is?

d

Albert Cipriani

Dear Hawkingfan,
Your well-stated impassioned defense of science will get no counterpoint from me. I dare say your reaction to the awesomeness of creation as revealed to us by science qualifies as a religious act. A couple of millennia ago your sentiments could have made you a good Druid at Stonehenge.

Well, yes and no… Just kidding. Of course He did! And my methodology ferrets “yes” or “no” out of “maybe.” Most people live their life out undecided. In most every poll, the undecided are in the double-digits. What a waste of neurons!

And this epidemic of indecision has nothing to do with a lack of intelligence. Ask people, “What’s your favorite color?” At least 3% honestly won’t know. If there is a God, surely He spits on that. I know I would if I were Him. To the degree we are undecided about His creation, we are not living in His creation but are insulated by our doubts from His creation. I’d find that insulation insulting of my handiwork if I were Him.

Everything you said about science is true of religion. Just as you guys have your crackpot pseudo-science, Catholicism has got its Protestants and Muslims. You say:
Ditto for Catholicism. We have a 2,000 year long intellectual tradition, much longer than your science has. What is called the Magisterium is the self-correcting teaching mechanism of the Church. Not correction in the sense of contradiction, as in steering a course in the opposite direction, but correction in the sense of tacking to the wind in order to continually advance in our understanding of God.

Let us be clear on our terms here. Our theological advances, like your scientific advances, are not refutations of past teachings, but refinements of them. For fish heads in the sun do generate fly maggots. But now we know that they do so because of flies and the fish flesh, not just because of the fish flesh. That’s a refinement, not a refutation. Knowledge itself cannot be refuted; it’s infallible. Ergo, new knowledge rearranges old knowledge. The latest greatest knowledge cannot overthrow prior knowledge, only integrate prior knowledge.

Of course! At the very least it is evidence of a good magician. All we have is our senses. All sensory data is our evidence, the cards we are dealt. What we make of this evidence is what we make of ourselves.

Jesus taught that if we had faith the size of a mustard seed (At that time it was believed to be the smallest seed in the world) “you might say to this mulberry tree, Be thou rooted up, and be thou transplanted into the sea: and it would obey you.” [Luke 17:6] That’s my 1% He was talking about. All any of us needs is 1% more belief than disbelief.

If you imagine that faith is 100% certitude, you’ve been listening to too many Protestants. And they haven’t reflected on how Jesus could perform no miracles unless the people believed in Him. Yet he was able to perform the miracle of driving a dumb spirit from a boy whose father could only manage this weak response to Jesus’s question of whether or not he believed: “I do believe, Lord. Help my unbelief. [Mark 9:23]

Nah. You miss the point. Their existence is irrelevant. That something in my existence generates awe in reference to my relationship to them -- that’s the point. Awe is the point, not existence. A dog turd exists and leaves me un-awed. – Cheers, Albert the Traditional Catholic
Albert's Rants

Hawkingfan

Well, then!! Do you believe with 1% faith that you can uproot a mulberry tree and throw it into the sea by your commandment? If not 1% how about 0.000000001%? Would that do it? Let's see it!! And don't forget he said the same thing about a mountain!Which mountain would you like to move? I'll buy a plane ticket to see it. I can hardly wait! Do you need help? More believers to combine faith with? I'll gladly get as many Christians as I can who have at least SOME degree of faith (no matter how small) to meet you there, and you all can move that mountain. How does that sound?

And religion I guess at times has altered it's beliefs--especially when scribes doctored inconsistencies and mistakes in the bible. If Catholics were bent on modifying old beliefs, why does the bible still today say that the rabbit chews its cud? Is it because they were 1% sure it chews its cud? Will YOU say it chews its cud because you are 1% certain it does? Some divisions of the church in the past have altered their beliefs due to scientific findings (i.e. the earth is a sphere, God does not live in the clouds, the earth is not the center of the universe, stars are not "just outside" our solar system, etc.) I cannot think of any instances where science had to refute one theory due to "religious findings" as so many people say will happen someday (yeah, right).

And trickery and slight-of-hand are not evidence. We do have senses, but we also have our intellect and scientific methods (not to mention parsimony), something that deciphers between evidence and trickery.