romansh

Bill I have to admit when I juxtapose your two quotes I get a certain degree of cognitive dissonance.

One doesn't ... agnostically speaking?

I would have a lot of respect for Reza Aslan, if he announced he was going to write about a similar study of Mohammed.

Well this question is mainly about pronunciation, is it not? The difference between agnostic and atheist is more about semantics and the ensuing logic ... I think.

I am not so sure about that Joseph ... Gaylord is an atheist and I consider myself a devout agnostic.

This is a misrepresentation of how our brains work, I think. I would argue our brains are thinking whether or not we are aware.

Welcome Gaylord I was intrigued by the line above. I just finished reading Did Jesus Exist? by Bart Ehrman. His conclusion was almost certainly ... Jesus of Nazareth. ... existed. Implicitly Ehrman defined mythicists as people who believe Jesus of Nazareth never existed. Would this be an apt description of your view? From a personal nomenclature point of view for me Jesus is the historical character or seed that the myth of Christ has been built upon. Welcome again rom

Here is how I treat the concept of rational Bill. Everything is rational. When two billiard balls collide the go off in predictable directions and speeds. if they don't there is a cause, eg spin on a ball that was not accounted for, perhaps a dead fly on the table in a ball's path, They behave rationally. Similarly if I experience demons in my mind then it is rational for me me to be fearful of those demons. If god gave humans rationality it gave everything rationality. (In my opinion). Irrationality is akin to magic. While I agree the the danger of a metaphor or poetry is that its interpretation is shaped by a persons experiences, genetics, body chemistry ... you name it. Nevertheless our forbearers try to express their truths in these formats. Take a look at physics and the sciences in general ... here we try to as objective as possible and yet we have widely differing interpretations of what it all means. Regarding Eastern/Western modes of thought ... tell me rationally what is a tree.

I thought I'd give this thread a bump in the light of Bill's understanding of my position. This may give a more accurate view of where I am trying to come from. Sure we cannot help but have judgements. Now I happen to enjoy bacon. Is this a judgement? I would say no ... it is an observation of my condition. If someone won't eat bacon, because say on religious grounds, is this a judgement? I would say no. If that same person would say eating bacon is wrong/evil/breaking a covenant with god .etc ... then I would say yes, they are passing a judgement. if someone thought eating bacon was ethically/morally wrong because we are eating another sentient being they too are passing judgement. If that same non bacon-eating person were to say they won't eat bacon because they don't want to eat sentient beings ... that in my book is not passing judgement. While in all this have I exercised judgement? Nowhere did I say judgement is wrong (or right). It is an unavoidable fact of human life. But at times we can try and still our minds and try to see things without our mind chatter. Look at a tree and not think tree.

I can't help wondering about the words have faith, believe, know and think. Here's how I see the words or at least try and use them. I believe ... I have a fair amount of evidence to support my position and hence behaviour. I know .... I have so much evidence to support my position and behaviour it is not true. I have faith in ... I don't have convincing evidence but I believe it anyway. I think ... The perceptions I have, that have been formed by the universe.

Here is an example of a teleological argument. I go into the doctor's and she says that the tests have come back positive for some nasty disease. I ask what is the false positive rate? She says 5% and it does not give false negatives. I say what I have a ninety five percent chance of having this nasty disease? What is my doctor's correct response? Apologies in advance for overthinking this problem

Rhino If in fact any posts did actually cause any confusion or unhappiness, it was not from over-examining. I would argue quite the opposite.

Bill That you think I am promoting some moral relativistic position does show that you do not understand my position. For the record I think moral relativitism as dualism gone mad. A sense of morality (or more accurately our ability to have one) is an evolutionary trait. As far as I can tell the stardust that I am composed of is amoral. Also as far as I can tell so is that of the neighbour's cat and the rock in my garden. Now why would a human being's pattern of stardust be moral and that of a rock not?

I won't speak for what is what is god ... I have a sense of what is not god, at least for me. Love has many facets ... acceptance (and even letting go) are a couple of them. The problem with the word acceptance when juxtaposed with something is that is most abominable plainly can lead to an emotional reaction. Which is fair enough. I am not saying we should stand by idly when rape pillage and murder occur. Far from it. I would try to deal with the causes prior to these events. If I had to emphasize a facet of love it would be understanding. Evolution I think has endowed us (most of us) with an ability to have a sense of good and bad (evil). This is ability while useful has some room for improvement, I think.

Bill i really think you have misunderstood the point/position I am trying to make here. It surprises me.

I suspect it is ... the parasites and symbiants shape a tree and vice versa. Yet we think of them as separate. Is the light that falls on a tree separate, is the water and air that a tree takes in separate? Our language is definitely a reflection of the way our brain processes these concepts. Are you and I separate? I think we need to be more honest with ourselves. And understand the origin of those mores. We can put a thief in jail without thinking the thief's actions are bad or thief himself bad. Campbell is fairlyy circumspect as to his beliefs. In my opinion ... I have just extrapolated from what I have read of him. But here is anpther Campbell quote: “ … one of the greatest challenges in life is to say “yea” to that person or act or that condition which in your mind is most abominable.” Look at it from a panentheistic point of view. If god is in you, me, rocks, the neighbour's cat and that thief ... then there is a certain cognitive dissonance in thinking of that thief or thiefly actions as bad. In my opinion. If that thief has an absence of god then we need understanding not a condemnation as "bad". Don't you think?

Welcome CD Just curious though ... when you say mankind ... do you mean man collectively or individually? rom

Why are you still expressing yourself in terms of good and bad, when Campbell never did and I carefully did not express it as such? This is how Campbell expressed it: “That is to say, put yourself back in the position of paradise before you thought in terms of good and evil. You don’t hear that much from the pulpits.”To be fair he goes on to say: “Why was the knowledge of good and evil forbidden to Adam and Eve? Without that knowledge we would still be a bunch of babies in Eden, without any participation in life." Yes Campbell did treat it as myth. He studied comparative mythology for forty years. Incidently he thought religion turned poetry into prose. Quite ... but then the universe has unfolded in such a way that you would think that. Has it not? Well I enjoyed my beef and vegetable pie tonight. I suppose I respect the bovine, carrots and whatever the green bits were. I will have to work on the cherishing though. Sorry I thought you said gastronomy. Ultimately our language is dualistic. It parses things into what is and what is not. We do this for trees, bovine creatures and god or God. This is the orinal sin, I think. I am not going after the old man in the sky - there is no need by and large for that. I am going after the language we use though, Do you actually need a disproof of god?

Or is god a reflection of our biases? or perhaps as Rhino put it

Let me make an assumption that JC's, no not that one, Joseph Campbell's interpretation of the Garden of Eden story is right, and if we want to get back to the Garden of Eden we should stop thinking in terms of good and evil (bad). So your very prerequisite that qualities could be bad fail at the first hurdle.

No not really Bill. I would argree I have heard scientists use proof and its derivatives. I can't speak for your education but people's understanding of what is and is not science is improving. Science can disprove or prove a hypothesis false. It cannot prove a hypothesis true. Yes Bill I have that syndrome too, but goes more like this.. Love? that is hormones interacting in unision with the body. That is nothing but [add expletive here] amazing. Bill you are wise enough to understand that you have biases. (see below). I do too. Just ask yourself where do these biases come from? Are they spontaneously created in your mind or are they a result of some sort of chain of cause and effect? The more we understand our universe, the more of our concepts of god will be assimilated. Resistance is futile. Or if you prefer Douglas Adams Resistance is useless. I don't have to disprove god. I would not know how to begin ... what evidence would work to disprove your concept of god?

Funnily enough I did not use that word (belief or believe) in this thread except in reference to free will. Fairies under my garden shed don't require belief either. If you see what I mean.

This I have to admit does not make sense to me Bill. If god is transcendent and by happy unknowable chance evangelical Christians got it right ... how could one say I would be "X"? Asking the question another way what if by unknowable chance there is no god, what would you be? You would be exactly what you are today in both cases. i would argue (philosophically). Again science does not prove things!!! I cannot emphasize this enough. Science (or at least the process people carry out - for all their faults) gets a hypothesis and tests it to destruction. It took 250 y to understand that Newtonian Mechanics is only an approximation, a very good approximation. If god was shown to physically or materially exist, scientists simply will refine their meters and scopes and models to include said god. God would join the material world. Your dark matter analogy is no different than god. We have models of the world that don't fit ... we just plop in god that fills our lack of understanding. Of course this is just my opinion. Unprovable notions like love. I don't think any one is denying these emotions are real. And while the these experiences feel magical, there is a very "real" chemistry underlying these phenomena. Take oxytocin for example. Now for some people to understand that our positive emotions like love and altruism might be a result of simple chemistry is sad or depressing. For me it fills me with awe and wonder. And there likely is a chemical or combination for awe and wonder too. I have no need to make a choice as to whether there is a god or not ... be it of love or something else.

Bill Apparently Jesus did not say much about God either ... except to be wary of those that claimed to speak for God. There is an irony here regarding the Bible. Regarding Campbell, I would recommend the Power of Myth it is a transcript of an interview with Bill Moyers and Joseph C. Available in DVD too. I preferred the coffee table version of the book myself. Myths of Light was good too and Pathways to Bliss. As a scientist I am sensitive to having proof associated with science. Either the evidence corroborates the scientific theory or it does not. In the latter case the theory needs modification or we go back to the drawing board. As a devout agnostic I do understand the need to make a best guess and moving forward. Funnily enough god or God is not one of those things I need to make a guess about to move forward. I seem to move forward anyway. I see no need to come to a general conclusion about the existence of god. Or to use Laplace's words I have no need of such a hypothesis

CS Lewis's trilemma is more of a pentalemma ... I am sure there are other options to.