On 12/14/2016 8:06 AM, Telmo Menezes wrote:
Sorry for the silence, "real life" etc... :)
I hear people say stuff like "God for me is Nature" all the time. Don't
you?
No, I don't. But if I did, I'd take it as metaphor, "I worship nature." I
hear people say, "Time is money." and "Valentino Rossi is a motorcycle god."
but I don't take them literally.
Some people worship nature in some sense, but most of the time when
people say that god for them is nature, they mean that transcendental
reality is nature itself. This is a very common position in Europe,
perhaps not so much in the US, I don't know.
You are right that there are also metaphors, of course.
I'll give you two examples. Yesterday I listened to a presentation by
a mathematician who is working on a very abstract model of knowledge
discovery. She kept saying "god knows" for the set of truths in her
system that are not accessible to humans within their limited
viewpoints. This seems to be an intuitive sense of the word -- some
entity that transcends the reality we can observe.
I hear that expression occasionally, more commonly in the form "God only
knows."; but it's used to mean nobody knows or even nobody can possibly
know as in "God knows where Jimmy Hoffa is now." And it's also used to
mean it's certainly true, as in "God knows it's a long trip to Mars."
So "God" is just kind of thrown in for emphasis.
My second example is this song by Nick Cave (who, I assume, is not
secretly following this mailing list):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FG0-cncMpt8
You only need the first sentence. He says he does not believe in an
"interventionist god". What could he mean?
He means a God who answers prayers and performs miracles (i.e. makes
physically impossible things happen); in contrast to a deist God who
creates the world and lets it run.
I think you have jumped over millenia of human experience to arrive at
industrial age angst. I wasn't referring to 'miracles' of nature. Miracles
can only exist in contrast to a mechanistic model of un-miracleous nature.
You can look at existence itself as a miracle.
Or child birth or seeds or volcanoes or artificial mayonnaise.
Or not. I will spare
you the famous Einstein quote.
Nowadays religiously-inclined people point to qualia themselves. "Look
around you, how can you see all this and not believe in god?". I am
not saying that this is a good argument (I don't "believe" in any
god), but I am open to the possibility of transcendence,
But transcendence only exists in contrast to the mundane. That was my
point about primitive peoples. For them there was no transcendence
because there was no division between the magical and the ordinary;
religion, science, magic were all just part of knowledge of the world
and how to manipulate it.
and this is
what they are appealing to. They are using god in the sense that you
reject as bait. Once again, this seems intuitive to them.
Fear of hell is an invention of the priesthood. Primitive religions, and
even Judaism, don't teach punishment in an afterlife. It seems to have been
invented by Zoroaster; who at least made the punishment limited.
Yes, but fear of hell is just one example. There is also karma, divine
retribution etc. The game theoretical approach of religion seems to
rely on some cognitive features that are universal to humans.
Of course, and one of them is desire for justice. It obviously doesn't
obtain here - so there ought to be an afterlife or a reincarnation where
the scales of justice balance. And if there ought to be one, let's just
all believe there is and maybe that will restrain some of the wickedness.
Animist
religions appears independently all around the globe, and then evolved
into their own branches, but there are universal. It is hard to
believe that evolution does not play a role here.
But cultural, not biological, evolution. Read Craig A. James "The
Religion Virus", he lays it out in detail (and it's a short book).
I think you have the cause and effect backwards. Agriculture made
civilization possible - tribes didn't have to move and so could build
cities. Religion adapted by going from explaining nature to explaining why
the city had to be ordered around certain principles of behavior and
ownership, and why there was a leader who the gods would favor in war with
other cities.
I don't think it's a good idea to see these hyper-complex systems in
terms of linear chains of cause and effect. Religion adapted to
civilization and civilization to religion. Some aspects of religion
helped agriculture,
But they were invented after agriculture. Just as rules about civic
conduct were developed along with city states and were incorporated into
religion. I don't think religion ever led. It just followed and
reenforced. It has mostly been a conservative element of society,
justifying the status quo and explaining why the universe/gods mandate
society to be just the way the elders say.
some aspects of agriculture changed religion.
Yes, A LOT. No more praying to the bison god. Resurrection is
suggested by plant reproduction from (apparently dead) seed.
The
point is: humans seem to need some unifying narrative and religion
historically provides it. My point is not to defend religion, but to
recognise that some basic human needs need to be met.
I agree that in order to form societies with trust and cooperation
people need some narrative that justifies the structure of their
society. Scott Atran, David Sloan Wilson, Darrel Ray, and Robert
Wright have written about this. But it doesn't have to be a religion in
the sense of positing a supernatural god. In the U.S. I'd say the
actual dominant "religion" is capitalism, individualism, and American
exceptionalism - not the nominal Christianity that is really only
observed on Sunday morning and has little to do with holding society
together.
Look at how old soviet or nazi propaganda looks so much like something
a religious cult could come up with. Why?
Whatever is going to justify sacrifice and submission to authority is
going to look like a religious cult. You have to sell people on
something greater that they can be a part of. Fascism elevated the
nation-state to super-organism in which each person had function serving
the state and advancing it in glorious conquests. The communist
movement offered a similar idea of a workers utopia - which
unfortunately required a period of despotic authoritarian rule to
achieve because of the opposition of running dog capitalists.
People had no prisoner's dilemma when they lived in tribes. If you didn't
cooperate you'd be ejected from the tribe.
Not really. Ethnografies tell a much more complex and richer story.
It's more complex because unlike the prisoner's dilemma people in tribes
interact many times and develop reputations. Within a tribe or a
business or any society one of the most valuable things you can have is
a good reputation.
Existential crises result from
questions about "meaning" and "purpose" which were invented along with
religions. All good marketers know that to sell something you first create
a demand for it.
Religion did not come out of any centralised effort.
That's questionable. Every tribe had their shaman; but they didn't have
two shamans. The shaman taught the creation story that explained why
the tribe was the way it was and why that was the right way. But
extended tribes tended to share similar myths. But when city-states
arose in Egypt and Mesopotamia religion and the state were practically
the same. The great leader was god like and even regarded as immortal.
Not surprisingly religion switched from worshiping and placating natural
forces and phenomena to worshiping great leaders - warrior Gods like Yaweh.
It seems to
appear naturally anywhere there is a group of humans. Claiming that
religion invented existencial angst seems quite bold to me...
I don't see anything in pre-civilization religions like animism that
address existential angst, so I conclude that it was not a basic human
concern but rather developed along with the city-states. Remember,
humans have been around for 150,000yrs - civilization for only 12,000.
People don't lose sleep at night because they don't know how the wind
works,
For millenia they lost sleep worrying about whether a storm would kill their
flock or blow away their tents.
they lose sleep because they feel that they are unimportant or
that their lives are meaningless.
Only since they became comfortable and secure from the wind.
Worshiping wind god did not solve the wind problems, but people still
did it.
Sure it did. The wind died down and the shaman explained that the
sacrifices had placated the wind god. Or the wind blew the tents away
and killed a few people and the shaman explained that it was because the
tribe had been sinfully neglecting prayer to the wind god.
Can they not learn from past mistakes?
Yeah, eventually they invented science as a way to systematically
discover mistakes and learn from them.
Perhaps, but it is also
possible that attributing these events to some transcendental entity
helps them process them.
Not transcendental. Nobody knows what transcendental entities are like
because they are...well, transcendental. The event were attributed to
entities that were like humans. That had wants and emotions. Who liked
presents and praise and go angry when disrespected. Because they were
like humans then they were understandable and could be dealt with.
Take funerals. Surely people know that funerals will not bring their
loved ones back to live, and yet most cultures do them in some for or
another. They are trying to process their own experiences in a way
that saves them from despair.
I do them for my dogs. There are four of our families faithful
companions buried in the back yard and we have a 17yr old dog who will
soon join them. It doesn't have anything to do with bringing them back
to life. It's treating their remains with love and respect, which would
not be consistent with throwing the bodies in the trash barrels.
And the religionist, trying to keep their comfort and influence, keep
fuzzing up the target and spreading it out because it's center keeps getting
hit by facts.
That is true, but it might be a good idea to not be so hard on them. I
still feel that the (modern) catholic church is much better than ISIS.
Depends on where it's "modern". In Africa, Catholic Priests are still
preaching that albinos are witches and that birth-control is a sin. So,
sure they're better than ISIS. They're even better than Nazis. A
pretty low bar.
So they get really annoyed
when one enters into such nuanced discussions of what people mean by
"god".
Listen to any preacher in any religion and tell me how often he says God is
to give meaning to your life...and that meaning is to serve God. Even to
write it out is to show how ridiculous it is.
Not any religion for sure. What you are describing is essentially
judaic-christian religions. A zen buddhist will tell you nothing of
the sort.
Buddhist don't believe in gods. "God, no God -- same thing." --
Siddhartha Gautama
And before you tell me they have no god: they just remain
silent about it, because they claim there is no reason for one to
worry about that. Maybe it exists, maybe it doesn't, in any case it is
unknowable (quite close to the definition I started with) so it
doesn't matter. Again, I am not saying that I agree with the zen
buddhists (I will admit I like some of their views), what I am saying
is that you are operating on a very narrow cultural territory.
How so? The atheists I know are all of Hume's opinion, "Belief should be
proportioned to the evidence." Are you saying that human nature demands
fairy tales? I don't think so and I know a lot of humans to prove it.
To a degree, I do think human nature demands fairy tales. It is
possible to have a healthy or unhealthy relationship with them. Take
Star Wars again: why is it so popular? And yet, the vast majority of
people realize that it is pure fiction.
Yes, and if they merely thought of religious doctrines as historical
interesting myths and fiction they would have a healthy relation to
them - but it would no longer be a religious relation.
But will you resist them spreading beliefs that imply you should live a
certain way?
Yes, I will argue against them.
The authors of the Holy Inquisition were quite rational and
humane. Given the terrible torture that awaited anyone who died in unbelief
it was perfectly justified to burn heretics at the stake less they spread
false beliefs.
Yes, the holy inquisition is a rational response to absurd beliefs.
The same can be said of fundamentalist evangelic sects or ISIS. The
stupid beliefs should be argued against -- as I said before, we are in
agreement on the important stuff, I think.
What I won't do is pretend that religion was not evolutionarily
selected *because it helps the species survive*.
Certainly at the level of civilization it helped some cities prevail over
others. I don't see how you can maintain the religion of Australian
aborigines or Aztecs or ISIS helps humans survive as a species.
I know very little about Australian aborigines. Can you say what
you're referring to?
http://www.bradshawfoundation.com/unambal/circumcision_initiation.php
ISIS is both fascinating and horrifying. I think, in part, it explores
the religious instinct, but evolution is very slow and human culture
has been changing too rapidly for evolutionary fixes to show up at our
time scales.
There is cultural evolution and competition between cultures.
Christianity evolved from Judaism and eventually displaced the Roman
gods which had been inherited from the Greeks. When Christianity
wielded political power it was as ruthless and despotic as ISIS. But
eventually its influence was dissipated in religious wars and conflict
with the Enlightenment.
It is also a very complex situation. How does some guy
with a western education, raised in a liberal democracy, decide to
join a movement such as ISIS? I do not think anyone has the full
answer, but I would say it is something that superficially looks very
medieval, but it is also very modern in a sense. For example, there
are good reasons to think that ISIS is a product of the internet.
You've bought into the myth of religionists that without God we will be at
one another's throats - yet that is exactly where religion puts us. As
Voltaire said, "Man will cease to commit atrocities only when he ceases to
believe absurdities."
No, I am against organised religion and I don't really care what
people call god: I am just arguing with you that people do not have
such a narrow definition of god as you claim.
I do believe that humans need a reason for not killing themselves,
What is your evidence for this? Do you think intelligent animals need a
reason not to kill themselves? Do you think it is something that
evolved in humans? If a need to kill oneself is inherent, then what
could constitute a reason not to? When the early Christian Churches
faced this problem it was because they presented the afterlife as the
goal and heaven as much better than this world. So when believers
started killing themselves they quickly had to add new theology that
said suicide was a sin and you'd go to hell, and suffering in this world
is a virtue which will increase your reward in the afterlife.
When Epicurus said he accepted death he was challenged by, "Then why
don't you kill yourself?" He replied, "Because I also accept life."
and
that that is something that science and technology can not fully
provide.
That doesn't entail that religion can provide it. What gives us
pleasure and satisfaction and thereby reasons to live are built in by
evolution - love of children, curiosity, sex, power, food and drink.
As one ages, one becomes less capable of pleasure. I know some people
to whom death was not unwelcome; including my mother who died dozing in
her chair at age 101.
Our big neocortices are both a blessing and a curse: on one
hand they allow us to ask question about reality, on the other hand
they allow us to ask questions about reality. I frequently envy my
cat.
We are
possibly witnessing the early stages of collapse of western
civilisation because too many people find no meaning in their lives,
no sense of belonging to anything at all and no reason to cooperate.
We cooperate because if I help you and you help me we can both achieve more
of goals than if we each acted alone. Of course that assumed we have goals
beyond just cooperating or serving someone else (however divine). As George
Carlin quipped, "If we're here to serve other people, what are those other
people here for?"
It seems to turn out that a society can't run on money- and status-
seeking alone. We are so smart that we figured out that the gods are
bullshit, but unfortunately not smart enough to solve that one...
You may think you need God to give your life meaning, but ask yourself what
that meaning would be? If it's not your meaning then what use is it? Would
it give your life meaning to satisfy my demands? To say one gives one's
life meaning by serving God is like giving oneself style by donning the
Emperor's new clothes. It's abdictating responsibility while assuming moral
superiority.
I do not think that I, or anyone else, needs god to give their lives meaning.
What I do think is that there must be some opportunity for
transcendence.
Transcendence of what? Is this just a generalized complaint that life,
love, society, the universe is just not enough - you've got to have MORE
else life isn't worth living?
I have my personal answers for this, and I am sure you
have yours -- even if you don't admit them. This claim has nothing to
do with defending religions or gods, or even about defending any given
belief system. It does have something to do with the idea that science
does not cover all there is (in a deep ontological sense).
Of course it doesn't. I doesn't provide values. So what? That doesn't
mean that I have no values. It doesn't mean I need some gods imprimatur
to validate my values. In fact I don't see how anyone or thing could
possibly validate my values for me. If I don't find my life worth
living, then it isn't. But that also means that if I do finding it
worth living it is.
Brent
Telmo.
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