lpetrich

So what about difficult-to-describe experiences?

The most that can be said is that they are a psychological quirk, and in no way demonstration of some supposed Universe-controlling superbeing.

Consider the case of the phantom limb, a.k.a. the stump hallucination. Those with amputated limbs sometimes continue to experience sensations from those missing limbs.

Or optical illusions. There are several Internet sites that feature some well-known optical illusions.

Cosmology is nowadays a sober science, not some mystical cult.

That mystic-physics interpretation is pure nonsense.

lpetrich

SO WHAT???

Which is a non sequitur. Hippocrates, of the famous Oath, had concluded that epilepsy is considered the disease of the Gods because nobody really knows what causes it. To him, saying that some god causes epilepsy is invoking a god of the gaps.

Now we see DM believing in another god of the gaps. And why one and not another? I wonder why he doesn't believe that epileptic fits are due to gods trying to tease us. Or that Zeus makes lightning and rain. Or that angels push the planets. Or numerous other theological notions.

What is that supposed to prove?

An exercise in irrelevance and straw-position construction. One does not have to know everything to have reason to conclude that the Biblical God is as fictional as Zeus or Amon-Ra or Marduk or Brahma or Amaterasu or Quetzalcoatl or ...

WJ

Typhon!

Something else to think about or consider. It is not going to be very long but please carefully consider it before you respond. Ready: your Being is an ineffable mystery.

Now, before you reply, perhaps go back and read Dave's comments and apply them to the meaning behind say, philosophic existentialism.

Or, think about the fact that I just made an assertion about some thing that exists [you]. Is the statement true, false or is it unknown(or can or cannot be known)? (And why.)

(Think about the answer in a comprehensive way that draws from all the [empirical] sciences and humanities.)

Just another thought to ponder. I think thru that process, at the very least, the word 'mystery' will rear its ugly head.

Wali

Theli

David Mathews...

Isn't gods existence knowledge? And isn't this in contradiction with "The Great Mystery"?
Why should this peace of rantings be more probable then any other theory created by man?
And also, what is "The Great Mystery", but mans complete ignorance?
We have already discovered alot of reliable knowledge wich has eaten away a peice of "The Great Mystery", why shouldn't we be able to eat away even more?
And how does "god" fit into this mystery? Please, don't insult your own intelligence. And try to answer the questions in a nonpoetic, nonmystical and nonrhetoric manner.

David Mathews

Hello Doubting Didymus,

David: Let's take as a starting point the remarkable and undeniable reality of the mystery as it exist today: Carl Sagan's candle immersed in the dark void of ignorance. The existence of mysteries and the mystery is beyond dispute, I suppose that the most philosophical of the atheists are distinctly aware of the mystery because they are the ones who desperately hope for its resolution in the future.

Let's take it as a secondary point that within your lifetime and mine, these mysteries will still remain unresolved, both the minor mysteries which science has encountered and the great mystery. In a hundred, in a thousand and in ten thousand years these mysteries will still remain.

Finally, it seems quite evident that human perception and intellect are fallible and limited. There is no guarantee that humans can comprehend these subjects. It seems possible that humankind will at some point reach the limit of the mind's ability both individually and collectively, if that is the case then a day must come which mankind has exhausted the potential of its intellect and the mysteries still remain.

I think it worth noting that the life cycle of dominant species, such as homo sapiens, does not normally extend beyond tens of millions of years. Given human propensity for destroying and polluting the environment, it seems quite possible that we will drive ourselves to extiction in hundreds of thousands of years. If humankind becomes suicidal and engages in a large scale nuclear war, we could very well become extinct in hundreds or thousands of years.

Based on all these circumstances it seems likely that the human race will never resolve the mysteries that science has confronted, nor will it resolve the great mystery which is attested by philosophy and religion.

It's a pity, isn't it, that as soon as the human race has become extinct, all of the effort of these billions of humans and all of their acheivements will not amount to anything at all. The whole intelligence/self-consciousness/free-will evolutionary experiment will not mean anything whatsoever in this large Universe, as a matter of fact the Earth itself will not mourn the failure of the human race. The Earth has witnessed anough extinction in its time, and those species which became extinct before us were a lot mor successful that us.

They lived for tens of millions or hundreds of millions of years. I suppose that their wisdom was greater than ours, with our miniscule history of millions of years, with cultural history's shorter duration of hundreds of thousands of years. Though these other animals lived for such a large amount of time they didn't care about anything at all except for survival, and they never experienced the sorrows that we have brought upon ourselves.

Consider as well the forms of life which have existed for so much longer than us, forms of life which will also exist long after we have gone: Plants and animals who have lived for hundreds of millions of years, bacteria and other unicellular life which have existed for billions of years. I suppose that in all of this time these species have accumulated much more wisdom that we have, and yet we find not a one who cares about any of the things that we care about.

Intelligence/self-consciousness/free-will are special gifts that humans have received, gifts that humans do not appreciate. We have been given greater liberty and also greater responsibility, and we see that humankind has squandered our liberty and abdicated our responsibility. In our attempt to become great, we have descended below the status of the animals. While we boast against God, presuming our status as primary and only intelligent life in the Universe, we have emulated Satan in our words, thoughts and behavior.

I don't know why you have any hope because it seems like life is hopeless. You want to conquesr the great mystery but the great mystery is not subject to human conquest.

David: Can you explain God? You can't even explain your own existence, nor can you justify your own existence. Under these circumstances the claim to explain God seems like an empty boast.

Sincerely,

David Mathews

David Mathews

Hello lpetrich,

David: These evidences point out limitations upon the reliability and trustworthiness of the human sense-perceptions and the intellectual apparatus to interpret these perceptions. That the human mind can fail these relatively simple tasks should indicate that there may be topics completely outside the range of the human perceptions and human intellect.

David: You are mistaken. Consider the following statements by Robert Burnham, Jr. in Volume 3 of Burnham's Celestial Hanbbook:

You see that these scientists and atheists -- I suppose that Mark Twain was an atheist -- were well aware of the mystery and the limitations upon human intellect.

Humans were aware of these mysteries and limitations for thousands of years before science approached its own brick wall. In former generations scientists could observe the growth and progression of knowledge and hope as a optimistic idealist that science would eventually resolve all of humankind's mysteries, questions and problems.

Then came the 20th century and science met its first impassable boundary in the uncertainty principle, it then encountered its own brand of mysticism in the behavior of subatomic particle, and as a final death-blow to its arrogance it committed a grevious sin against humankind by invented and perfecting the nuclear bomb so that nations could possess sufficient weapons to bring about the extermination of humankind and human culture.

The Secular Humanists acknowledged the failure of humanistic optimism in the Humanist Manifesto II:

"It is forty years since Humanist Manifesto I (1933) appeared. Events since then make that earlier statement seem far too optimistic. Nazism has shown the depths of brutality of which humanity is capable. Other totalitarian regimes have suppressed human rights without ending poverty. Science has sometimes brought evil as well as good. Recent decades have shown that inhuman wars can be made in the name of peace."
(http://www.jeremiahproject.com/prophecy/manifesto2.html)

Their optimism regarding reason, logic and science degraded considerably in the 20th century. Consider what A Secular Humanist Declaration said about Reason:

"7. Reason. We view with concern the currect attack by nonsecularists on reason and science. We are committed to the uses of the rational methods of inquiry, logic, and evidence in developing knowledge and testing claims to the truth. Since human beings are prone to error, we are open to the modification of all principles, including those governing inquiry, believing that they may be in need of constant correction. Although not so naive as to believe that reason and science can easily solve all human problems, we nonetheless contend that they can make a major contribution to human knowledge and can be of benefit to humankind. We know of no better substitute for the cultivation of human intelligence."

In the next section titled Science and Technology, the following statement appears to be a confession:

"8. Science and Technology. We believe the scientific method, though imperfect, is still the most reliable way of understanding the world. ... While we are aware of, and oppose, the abuses of misapplied technology and its possible harmful consequences for the natural ecology of the human environment, we urge resistance to unthinking efforts to limit technological or scientific advances."

Though A Secular Humanist Declaration was somewhat ambivalent about science, The Humanist Philosophy in Perspective approaches true mysticism:

"4. Though we take a strict position on what constitutes knowledge, we are not critical of the sources of ideas. Often intuitive feelings, hunches, speculation, and flashes of inspiration prove to be excellent sources of novel approaches, new ways of looking at things, new discoveries, and new information. We do not disparage those ideas derived from religious experience, altered states of consciousness, or the emotions; we merely declare that testing these ideas against reality is the only way to determine their validity as knowledge."

I feel only a little sympathy for secular humanism as it transformed itself from dogmatic scientific rationality to ambivalent scientific rationalism to near mysticism in only one century. They took a hundred years to discover principles which religion had encountered thousands of years before.

You can look to science to solve all of humanity's mystries, questions and problems. I tell you that science has already failed. Science stumbled upon its own limitations a century ago, the progress of science since that time is evidently slowing.

Soon enough the progress of technology is also going to slow. What will happen to the world when both science and technology finish their work, and all that humans have to face is the impenetrable darkness of the great mystery enclosing them?

I can tell you what you will happen: Religion will quickly return to its dominant role in humankind's approach to the cosmos. That is why the lesson of love, mercy, tolerance and peace must be taught and accepted now by theists and atheists worldwide.

The day is quickly coming and it is perhaps already upon us: Science's ultimate failure is assured and inescapable. The distraction of science was effective for many centuries and the work of science will continue forever, but the idealistic dream of the scientists has met its own untimely end.

What then are you going to do with the ineffable mystery?

Sincerely,

David Mathews

David Mathews

Hello Theli,

David: God's existence and nature are incomprensible, hence outside the realm of human knowledge.

David: Not in the least. Our knowledge of God merely introduces us to the great mystery, in the same sense in which our toe becomes acquainted with the hard edge while walking about in an absolutely dark room at night.

David: Because the mystery's existence does take empirical form in the simple questions that we have failed to answer, and the more complicated questions which science forbids us from answering.

David: Absolutely. The Great Mystery is man's complete ignorance.

David: Our knowledge doesn't not eat away at the Great Mystery. That is the whole point of Carl Sagan's candle imagery.

David: God is the greatest of the great mysteries, a mystery of such profound importance that some humans are intent upon avoiding it at all costs. After centuries of effort the mystery still remains, when scientific progress has run out of steam the mystery will still remain in all of its terrifying magnificence.

Isn't this Universe such a wonderful place for mystics and theists?

Sincerely,

David Mathews

Theli

David Mathews...

Then isn't god just a peice of our lack of understanding of nature? It is a peice of our lack of knowledge. It is a peice of the mystery.
Then why have you given it a name?
This understanding doesn't really correlate with the usual christian beliefsystem as they reffer to god as having feelings, being just and forgiving. These cannot be attributes of god as they are knowledge, am I right?
So, can you really reffer to yourself as a christian when you can't adapt any of their knowledge about god?

Ehhh... toes? ...David?
I'm going to pretend I didn't read that last line.
The first part of your response brought up a strange little thing though.
If we have knowledge of something then it can't be considered a mystery any more. Wich is the definition of mystery, BTW.
The part of something we do have knowledge of cannot be a part of the mystery.

"Science forbids"? I'm going to pretend you haven't lost your mind.
This doesn't point at the christian god at all.
You didn't even respond to my question.
You only claim that what we don't know is a mystery, and I agree with that. But what I don't see is where the christian god fits in.

Qeh?

Let's test this.

P1 - "The Great Mystery" is mankinds ignorance.
P2 - Ignorance is lack of knowledge.
P3 - The more knowledge we have the less "lack of knowledge" we have. This one is pretty obvious.
C - Knowledge is eating away the great mystery.

Where's the problem here?

Is this why there are so few theists in the world?

P - All people tries to avoid believing in god.
C - Many people believes in god.

Now, here's some real problems!

Terrifying magnificance?
Why are you reffering to mankinds ignorance as something magnificant.
Is a stupid monkey scratching his ass magnificent in your eyes?
And also, you are reffering to mankinds ignorance as an actual being.
Is that what this is all about?
You don't like science?

Yea, I guess.

[ July 12, 2002: Message edited by: Theli ]</p>

Typhon

Hello David,

I'm sorry but I see no reason to give weight to what you have claimed here. If this is the sum of what you drew from Carl Sagan's wonderful and insightful work, then I have to say you missed the entire thrust of the book. You have for your own reasons it would appear, chosen to focus on the darkness, rather than the candle's light, chosen to trust in the obscurement of reality over the light of the revelation of knowledge. This is not what Carl Sagan speaks to in his documentation and opinions on the issue.

Fact. We know more about the universe today than we did in the past.

Fact. Our tools for detecting and observing the universe today are far superior to those possessed in the past.

Fact. The expansion of our fields of knowledge have progressed at a rate unheard of previously in the past.

Fact. We have not encountered any mythical wall to either knowledge or this progression, now or in the past, giving us no reason to believe in your immaterial, unencountered, "ineffable mystery."

Expectation: There is little reason to think that we see a complete reversal of these trends, because you believe in an unsupportable "ineffable mystery" which doesn't correspond to the bulk of human experience with a knowable universe.

I'm sorry David, but there simply and overwhelming isn't support or reason to think that you will be right about science hitting a brick wall that stops us suddenly from any forward progress. There is more to learn that is likely to be discovered over the next century or two, and there is more likely to be discovered than all the previous learning of the human race put together. There has also been no appreciable slowing of the pace of science's exploration of the world around it. The candle's light is small, true, but as Carl Sagan emphasized, its power is vast in proportion to its minuscule and humble origins, and most importantly, continues to be the illumination that brings us real understanding about the universe in which we live.

You have yet to show that the human mind has failed, or even approaches a limit in either science or philosophy. You have not presented any evidence of this, only opinion. Your opinions however well meant or well put, can not thus stand up to critical scrutiny, not even in the slight light of man's growing storehouse of knowledge, understanding, and hard-won illumination.

Again I challenge you. I challenge you to show how human intellect has failed, how human knowledge is an unworthy tool, and how ultimately, humanity's search for the truth about our place and our origins in the universe will be futile. I suspect you will be unable to do so, and for good reason.

We have begun a long journey, but even here on the leading edge of our path, we have traveled a long way to get to the start. Religion if anything has held us back with such flawed thinking and fearful cowering before the light of day. Even now it often seeks to slow and block the progress of science, why? To a large degree I suspect, because of this: the illumination of knowledge so clearly shows that there very likely are no "mysteries of god" only more knowledge, waiting for the light to reveal its secrets to the questing minds of we, a race of curious, quarrelsome apes.

.T.

[ July 12, 2002: Message edited by: Typhon ]</p>

sandlewood

Agreed. That the Universe is not completely understood is not in dispute.
You are still just asserting the same thing with no reason to make the connection. You are just saying “we don’t know everything about how the Universe works, therefore God exists”. I don’t see any reason not to say “we don’t know everything, therefore God doesn’t exist.” The feeling of awe experienced when we contemplate the amount of knowledge we have yet to gain is an emotional response. It is not a reliable indicator of anything.

What Paul says is irrelevant and circular. What we are trying to determine is whether God exists or not. Until we do, what Paul say is not necessarily true. He doesn’t make an argument for God existence, he just makes a claim.
Why not?

Pithy answers aside, I’m going to assume that by “why?” that you mean “what is the purpose of everything?” as opposed to “what is the cause of everything?” Correct me if that is a wrong assumption. “Why?” asks what is the purpose or the reason that the Universe exists. In turn, of course, I have to ask you why it needs one. Purpose is a concept of the human mind, and perhaps of animal minds. To ask what is the purpose of something is to already presuppose that is was created, that it was created by something with a mind, and that it was created for some purpose. Without humans, the idea of “purpose” doesn’t exist (ignoring animals for the moment). So I think to impose the question of “why?” on the Universe is a complete assumption and is a case of misapplying meaning of human-created things onto non-human-created things. You need to jump out of the system.
(And yes, I know what a man-year is. I was making a joke.)
I don’t see it approaching any brick wall. In fact, I see us acquiring knowledge at an increasing rate. What makes you think we are heading for a wall?
No one asserted that humans have answered every question. If God is no longer needed, that self-reliance does not result from a belief that we have answered every question. It results from the experience we have that some answers that were once unknown are now known. Therefore it is reasonable to believe that further unknown answers can be known. I don’t see how that is arrogant.
All hollow assertions. The only mystery about “spiritual mystery” is what “spiritual mystery” means. You will have to define spiritual for me. I don’t think I even know what you mean by “physical mystery” unless you mean “things we don’t know yet”. You keep referring to it in the singular as if to imbue it with some grandiose meaning. But it is simply the collection of things we don’t know yet. I also don’t know whether the vague question “why?” comes under the heading of spiritual mystery or physical mystery, not that it matters I guess.

I don’t know what makes you think we have reached the limit of human knowledge of such matters. I claim we haven’t. What makes you think scientific progress will end? What makes you think that the scientific method will not someday lead to an answer for some particular question you might have?

If anything will hit wall it will be Christianity. What more information is there to be had than a 2000 year old book? What more can be done than to invent new ways to interpret it, to speculate about what it really means as opposed to what it seems to mean. We’ve done this for 2000 years and the only result is that some alleged, unknowable being created the Universe in some unknowable way. And there is no reason to think we will get any further than that. If anything has hit a brick wall, it’s Christianity.
In general, you seem to be putting forth the old argument that because science cannot answer every question, that science is faulty and therefore god exists. Science doesn’t claim to have an answer for every question and never did, so that argument is something of a straw man.

There are so many objectionable points in your response to lpetrich that I don’t have time to address them. But a few are:
How do you see that as a confession? I don’t see that at all.
You pretend to not know the difference between science and mysticism, but no way do I think you are ignorant. The scientific method does not dictate the source of ideas. It does require that claims be testable, repeatable by anyone, and subject to peer review. Mysticism does not require such rigor, and that is a key difference. You seem to misunderstand what this paragraph is saying.
Do you think the purpose of the scientific method is to march to some ultimate, grand question of “why?” Hardly. The scientific method is already a success because it is a reliable way for us to gain knowledge about the real world. That’s all it is. You whole point seems to be a straw man.

[edited for formatting]

[ July 12, 2002: Message edited by: sandlewood ]</p>