The Bible: Real, Fiction, or somewhere in between?

[Kepler]

Re: The Bible: Real, Fiction, or somewhere in between?

I believe the purpose of reason tool as is proposed here is to qualify or even defeat religion.

No.

We have reason because it accidentally proved to be a good way for relatively slow, small, clumsy animals to survive a natural world that was constantly at risk of killing them by rolling over them in its eternal sleep.

We have religion because humans mentally construct certain types of why statements that nature and therefore reason has nothing to do with. "Why did my child die?" Reason answers: "Because the tiger ate it." "Yes, but WHY did my child die?"

The second why only makes sense between our ears. There are no whys like that anywhere else in nature. So just as we created the why, we created the because.

The really interesting question is where did that second why come from. I strongly suspect that it is inextricably linked to reason -- when the machine that finds reasons bends back onto itself it creates a sort of cyberworld of meta-reasons that go something like, "Your child died to test your faith." And evidently, that's good enough for the reason-finder, so it can go back to finding reasons why the last tiger trap didn't work. Brains that failed to find the "test your faith" reason never got back to fixing the tiger trap, and those brains aren't around anymore.

 

[aparch]

Re: The Bible: Real, Fiction, or somewhere in between?

I also have never understood why a death bed conversion would matter.

It's the back door way into heaven; so potentially an "after-life insurance policy?"

 

[WisconsinWildcard]

Re: The Bible: Real, Fiction, or somewhere in between?

It's the back door way into heaven; so potentially an "after-life insurance policy?"

In that way, yes. I apologize as I should have been more specific. I should have said I do not understand why a death bed conversion would matter in determining the theist/atheist, gnostic/agnostic opinion of a person. If I were to have a significant ischemic stroke, I hope those around me judge me based on my prior beliefs and actions, not what I would say and do in the incredibly compromised situation.

As a side note: Although no where near absolute, those who held positions of power (police, doctor, lawyer, politician) often make difficult patients when suffering from dementia because they are used to being in control and they feel helpless. Those who work in sales, customer service, etc, often are "happily demented" and are much friendlier when some of their faculties are compromised. Anecdotal from nearly everyone I have worked with in the field, but it would be an interesting topic to do a study on.

 

[geezer]

Re: The Bible: Real, Fiction, or somewhere in between?

So you would say you are psychologically limited for not believing in Russell's teapot?

Remember, gods only matter if you believe in gods. There are an infinite number of things theists don't believe in, including (for monotheists) all the competing gods. All rejecting supernaturalism does is extend that set to one more. But in return, all the actual mysteries of the world open to us, which the theist has snapped shut in a chest called "Divine Mystery."
If you really are concerned about psychological limitations, I'm afraid that on balance it is believers who lead the unexamined life.

1. Jamie Russell?
2. Again, I don't see the "actual mysteries of our world" in religious terms. That's what science is for.
3. I understand what you mean... but I honestly feel that atheism would lead me into a more hopeless/negative state. In past discussions with atheist friends, I often remember two quotes. "People invented religion because they're afraid of the dark," by one of the unhappiest people I ever knew, and "I can't help being an atheist, God made me this way (wink wink)," by a carefree one. I'm not one of those personality types.
It's not a matter of "just rejecting one more thing of many," it's rejecting the peaceful acceptance of the unknowable. See what I mean? If you take away the last thing (monotheism), you're eliminating a whole state of mind that it supports. Psychologically, maybe there's a replacement for that... I don't know.
OK, I googled the teapot: I certainly don't expect anyone else to buy my own personal beliefs. This is a personal choice and that's cool if you don't have a teapot out there.

 

[5mn_Major]

Re: The Bible: Real, Fiction, or somewhere in between?

We have reason because it accidentally proved to be a good way for relatively slow, small, clumsy animals to survive a natural world that was constantly at risk of killing them by rolling over them in its eternal sleep.

We have religion because humans mentally construct certain types of why statements that nature and therefore reason has nothing to do with. "Why did my child die?" Reason answers: "Because the tiger ate it." "Yes, but WHY did my child die?"

The second why only makes sense between our ears. There are no whys like that anywhere else in nature. So just as we created the why, we created the because.

The really interesting question is where did that second why come from. I strongly suspect that it is inextricably linked to reason -- when the machine that finds reasons bends back onto itself it creates a sort of cyberworld of meta-reasons that go something like, "Your child died to test your faith." And evidently, that's good enough for the reason-finder, so it can go back to finding reasons why the last tiger trap didn't work. Brains that failed to find the "test your faith" reason never got back to fixing the tiger trap, and those brains aren't around anymore.

So it does appear your using reason as a competing 'rationale' along side faith to explain things. This seems odd...as 'just using intellect' to figure out how reality works is impossible on its own. You must create a theory or discipline that explains things. I guess that's why I'm saying reason is just an evaluative tool and that's all. Because reality is far too complicated to 'just figure out' without doctrine like science or faith to explain what's actually happening.

Regardless, your positioning of alternative why's is interesting. I happen to buy the fact that ceremonial burial and other rituals (which ultimately led to religion) came from an attempt to explain things. But I think what folks are saying here is Christianity hasn't served that purpose for a long time and now its a belief system aimed at a moral code rather than an explanation of how things work. This is an important distinction.

 

[Kepler]

Re: The Bible: Real, Fiction, or somewhere in between?

3. I understand what you mean... but I honestly feel that atheism would lead me into a more hopeless/negative state.

My experience is just the opposite. I found the religion of my upbringing to be oppressive, stultifying, not to mention containing obvious contradictions and special pleadings. Atheism, for me, is no more a "negation" than, say, not having a headache.

it's rejecting the peaceful acceptance of the unknowable.

Again, for me it is exactly the opposite. Letting "God" go is the first step to letting our insatiable urge to plaster names and explanations, no matter how ill-considered, over everything. "God" is a billboard that obscures the real landscape of things too big for us, right now, to grasp.

If you take away the last thing (monotheism), you're eliminating a whole state of mind that it supports.

That is true. It may simply come down to personality whether one finds this shattering or liberating.

Psychologically, maybe there's a replacement for that... I don't know.

No, no, no. The entire point is not to replace it, but to live outside that mindset as much as one can. You do not, upon jimmying open the lock to free yourself from a cage, go looking for another cage. Now it may be the case that you find you're actually within a larger cage, and even perhaps that it's cages all the way down.

There is, for example, at least one other cage that the religion cage is nested within -- the teleological cage. The more important falsehood in the sentence "My life's purpose is God" is not the word "God," it's the word "purpose."

OK, I googled the teapot: I certainly don't expect anyone else to buy my own personal beliefs. This is a personal choice and that's cool if you don't have a teapot out there.

Well, much as one should not demonize atheism, they should not romanticize it either. Everybody has a teapot. The key to living without "purpose" is recognizing that you are free to arbitrarily pursue anything as purpose, much in the way that knowing a hockey game has no meaning does not prevent you from rooting your head off for your team and being genuinely elated or despondent with the result.

We just get to choose our teapot.

 

[joecct]

Re: The Bible: Real, Fiction, or somewhere in between?

Fish's lie comes from the same righty websites that gleefully claim Sagan had a deathbed conversion.

For people who believe in an "almighty" deity, they sure get their panties in a twist about the few folks who know the emperor has no clothes. You'd think they'd just chill and wait for Magic Day.

But who wrote the rule book? I can't believe all the rules and Laws (including Kepler's) are accidents.

 

[Kepler]

Re: The Bible: Real, Fiction, or somewhere in between?

But who wrote the rule book? I can't believe all the rules and Laws (including Kepler's) are accidents.

The rules are all accidents. The configuration is an accident. It could as easily have been different.

I roll a die 5 times and get some random string, say, 35225. 35225 thinks, "wow, it was so improbable that I would come to be... it must be designed!" All the strings that didn't happen don't get to think anything.

No architect required.

 

[WisconsinWildcard]

Re: The Bible: Real, Fiction, or somewhere in between?

But who wrote the rule book? I can't believe all the rules and Laws (including Kepler's) are accidents.

That is just personal incredulity which is completely divorced from something being true or not. We are also looking at things after they happen. Dealing 52 cards from a deck in a particular order is near impossible (probability is 1 in 8x10^67 or so, which is roughly the number of atoms in the universe) but after it is dealt, the probability = 1.

Edit: Basically what Kepler said

 

[The Rube]

Re: The Bible: Real, Fiction, or somewhere in between?

I have found following a SPECIFIC religion can be oppressing. The movie "Dogma" said it best: it's better to have an idea, rather than a belief.

Serendipity: When are you people going to learn? It's not about who's right or wrong. No denomination's nailed it yet, because they're all too self-righteous to realize that it doesn't matter what you have faith in, just that you have faith. Your hearts are in the right place, but your brains gotta to wake up.

Rufus: He still digs humanity, but it bothers Him to see the **** that gets carried out in His name - wars, bigotry, televangelism. But especially the factioning of all the religions. He said humanity took a good idea and, like always, built a belief structure on it.
Bethany: Having beliefs isn't good?
Rufus: I think it's better to have ideas. You can change an idea. Changing a belief is trickier...

 

[geezer]

Re: The Bible: Real, Fiction, or somewhere in between?

I remember finding these essays interesting as to how some of the smart people think about this.

 

[5mn_Major]

Re: The Bible: Real, Fiction, or somewhere in between?

I remember finding these essays interesting as to how some of the smart people think about this.

Loaded question. Isn't the question of "Does science make belief in God obsolete?" mute if a replacement of science is not God's role? That message was Jesus' primary purpose.

 

[geezer]

Re: The Bible: Real, Fiction, or somewhere in between?

Loaded question. Isn't the question of "Does science make belief in God obsolete?" mute if a replacement of science is not God's role? That message was Jesus' primary purpose.

Some of the people there agree with your exact point. I think everyone can find someone there to nod along with and someone to shake a fist at.

(unrelated) Some of you guys know math. What are the odds of hitting 1/50 odds twice in a row on two and only two tries?

 

[Kepler]

Re: The Bible: Real, Fiction, or somewhere in between?

I remember finding these essays interesting as to how some of the smart people think about this.

I haven't read those, but I will. I assume that's the same Templeton that gives out the Templeton Prize, right? My only brush with them is via Charles Taylor's unbelievably large, dense, beautiful and complex A Secular Age, one of those books where you read one page and can then spend weeks thinking over everything that's on it and where it can lead.

 

[Kepler]

Re: The Bible: Real, Fiction, or somewhere in between?

(unrelated) Some of you guys know math. What are the odds of hitting 1/50 odds twice in a row on two and only two tries?

The odds of hitting 1/50 twice in a row are, unsurpisingly, 1/50 squared, or 2500 to 1.

The odds of hitting 1/50 twice in a row after having hit the first one and having a prejudgment of what to look for, are 50 to 1.

The odds of hitting 1/50 twice in a row after the fact of observing that something with those odds has come up twice are 1 to 1. This last is the mistake that all the "appeal to improbability" arguments about design make.

 

[FreshFish]

Re: The Bible: Real, Fiction, or somewhere in between?

Fish's lie

Most of the time you come across as the right-wing version of Stephen Colbert.

I say Einstein believed in God, someone else also says Einstein believed, but was more pantheistic than monotheistic, and you categorize that concurrence as a "lie"?

 

[FadeToBlack&Gold]

Re: The Bible: Real, Fiction, or somewhere in between?

There is no capital g "God" in pantheism. Pantheism says (more or less) that the all-encompassing power of the universe is divine, but does not manifest itself anthropomorphically like the "God" of Christianity, Judaism, and Islam. So, it's not really the same thing.

 

[Kepler]

Re: The Bible: Real, Fiction, or somewhere in between?

There is no capital g "God" in pantheism. Pantheism says (more or less) that the all-encompassing power of the universe is divine, but does not manifest itself anthropomorphically like the "God" of Christianity, Judaism, and Islam. So, it's not really the same thing.

It's not at all the same thing. The point of personified gods is they have a will and they notice you. The non-personified gods of deism, pantheism, Buddhism etc are like the grain in the wood -- there is a "right path" (cutting with the grain) but there's nothing that is conscious and there's nothing that notices you.

 

[jmh]

Re: The Bible: Real, Fiction, or somewhere in between?

This seems like as good a place as any to say: The Book of Mormon (that is to say, the musical, not the LDS scripture) is really funny.

 

[geezer]

Re: The Bible: Real, Fiction, or somewhere in between?

The odds of hitting 1/50 twice in a row are, unsurpisingly, 1/50 squared, or 2500 to 1.

(wrong thread but) what would the odds be of hitting 1/50 on the first two of an eventual three tries (1/50 + 1/50 + 49/50)? Or the 2nd and 3rd specifically of 4 tries but not the 1st or 4th? Do they change?