There is a common thread running through this discussion it that to my mind seems quite problematic. It has to do with imposing a restriction on any given religion to be "in concordance" with science to be "valid" and not to be regarded as some fantasy or myth. Here any religion is reified to its particular version of Genesis, where the poetry and symbolism are brushed aside for literal or atavistic reading of that story. Such "reading" is hence held up to our scientific yardstick (or modern values) to see if it measures up.
One might as well be questioning the "validity" of Shakespeare's Hamlet by investigating if it matches up to what we now know of Danish history. It is clear to me that the literal and/or anachronistic readings/interpretations of any holy text often reflects, the all too human, fears and prejudices of the reader/interpretor at a given point in time. Often that results in litany of blunders and disasters...somewhat understatedly. However, I posit that one can see a given religion as a mean of reaching out to gain a grasp on reality in a holistic sense, or a very right brained sense. Like one observe a flower as total experience and not its component feature, colors or cellular structure. Such holistic grasp and resultant passion may often accelerate our understanding of the natural world in the left brain or analytic sense. This case is very clear in ancient Egypt where that religious passion gave rise to amazing advances in mathematics, geometry, astronomy,..etc. The same can be said many religious traditions. The conflict arises when a given "reading" is clearly at odds with our scientific understanding. In that case the "authorities" in any given religion will do anything in their might to dismiss such new inconvenient discoveries. This will hold on to their ossified readings, rather than inject new life in what was once beautiful, poetic, and inspiring. On Fri, Jan 9, 2015 at 7:37 PM, Steve Smith <[email protected]> wrote: > Tory/Marcus/Glen - > > Good to hear your "voice" T, after a hiatus... (and that of Vladymir as > well, also AWOL for some time?) > > I think this discussion or even conflict is an important one, and tends to > get argued on superficial grounds. This discussion, as it unfolds, > promises to be a little deeper. > > I have to support Tory's implications about belief, faith, and delusion. > We tend to dismiss another's beliefs, no matter *what* they arise from or > are grounded in as "delusion" if we don't share those beliefs (or perhaps > just nuances of them). The three Ibrahamic religions, the several > variants of Catholicism, the *many* variants of Protestantism are a good > example of this splitting of hairs, whilst other religious or philosophical > views would dismiss the entire concept of paternalistic creator out of > hand, offering up yet another cosmology, code of conduct, etc. as "the one > true way", then again factionating into the bigendians and little endians > of Johnathon Swift's parody. > > I am sympathetic with the view of the scientific method (repeatability) > that Marcus presents, yet I fear it aggravates the issue in some ways, as > it admits wholeheartedly that all theories are contingent and through > experience, but also by the structure of the system, we realize that every > "objective truth" found by science is contingent on new evidence and new > theoretical structurings. I learned decades ago to not allow myself to > think of Scientific Truths as absolute... wonderfully predictive in many > contexts... powerfully supportive of engineering... but not the route to > absolute Truth (if there even be such a thing?). > > Our Faith in the scientific method, scientific thinking or the collective > scientific institutions of the world is a form of Faith as well. And as > Glen points out, there are some judgements of the collective scientific > institutions which can be a bit hollow upon close inspection and those are > the ones which often gather the most virulent advocates. I would suggest > that all emergent phenomena fall into this category, with Darwinian > Selection a most common example (Global phenomena such as > emergence/divergence of species attributed to the local survival/selection > pressures of the individual). Non Scientists who have strong Belief in > Science perhaps do the worst damage... it is quite fashionable among the > non-scientific intelligentsia to support Scientific Theories as if they > were Truth. Evolution being a strong example. Anthropogenic Climate > Change is perhaps becoming another. There is a lot of Scientific Evidence > growing to support the latter and it is (in the past 10-20 years) > fashionable to Believe in it, but it is far from a Scientific Certainty > such as Classical Mechanics, Thermodynamics, Relativity. > > This *is* where *I* happen to put my Faith, what little I have... in the > methods of Science and in Scientific Thinking as well, and I find it > extremely difficult to put any similar Faith in another system... maybe > most particularly those which attempt to adopt the tropes and trappings of > Science. The suite of New Age ideas that arose (mostly) in the 1980s but > often based in much older systems such as Astrology and Occultism were > acutely difficult for me, as they suggest various forms of causality and > imply "proof" by a (psuedo) scientific method. > > While *I* cannot embrace any of the Theistic spiritual systems (religions > by another name) literaly, I *do* find many of the more whimsical (my term) > and colorful traditions such as the pantheons of > egyptian/mesopotamian/hindu/greek/roman/norse and the animism of many > aboriginal cultures extremely compelling, NOT to understand the physical > world and it's idiosyncratic behaviour, but to understand the human world > and *our* ideosyncracies whilst embedded *in* the physical world. Such > systems do not provide any "answers" for me as such, but do often provide > useful and interesting perspective. > > I cannot help but think that for those who are entirely wedded to a > singular religious system are drawn by the same features that I am... only > they mistake weak correlation for strong causation. I am suspicious of the > exclusionary nature of many religions especially one for which the highest > sin is Shirk or belief in False Gods, or those which name it's adherents to > be the "chosen people".... but *that* is a different issue than Belief, > Faith, Truth methinks... > > - Steve > > > On 01/08/2015 10:47 PM, Marcus G. Daniels wrote: >> >>> Victoria writes: >>> >>> "So any belief other than one's own is a delusion?" >>> >>> Subjective experience must run counter to objective evidence to get this >>> label. A belief that can be represented by a set of features, >>> understandable by independent observers in a repeatable way is not a >>> delusion. If someone wants to bind a name like Seraphim to such a set of >>> features, they may, provided the other observers agree that name is not >>> confused with other useful names. But if no features are described in >>> detail, there is no way to tabulate evidence or cross-check the >>> tabulations. Faith creates names for things, and constraints amongst >>> things which either can't be grounded in evidence or must endure being >>> mistaken. One way to endure is by recruiting more people to have affinity >>> for those ungrounded names and constraints. >>> >> >> Well, Tory makes a good point, though, about the ability of our methods >> (scientific or not) to establish any sort of objectivity. Sure, faith (and >> it's kin) is one of the most egregious and specious of the pseudo-objective >> centroids, gathering lots of people who talk about faith as if it's a real >> thing, but never being able to actually describe what it means, what it >> does, how it works, etc. >> >> But there are plenty of other concepts, even in science, that are guilty >> ... not just as guilty, perhaps, but guilty still. I tend to think >> evolutionary selection is one of them. All of us who believe in it can >> describe what we think happens and, each of us has an onion-like >> description. Our outer layers all agree fairly well (much like the >> faithful). But as you peel each onion, the inner layers can look different >> from one selection believer to another. Worse yet, amongst the lay >> population who _say_ they believe in evolution, their onion is really more >> of a hollow spheroid, with a flimsy outer layer alone. >> >> And one way for believers in selection to endure is to recruit more >> people by giving them hollow spheroids to play with. >> >> > > ============================================================ > FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv > Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College > to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com >
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