From: [email protected]
To: [email protected]
Subject: RE: [MD] Other sorts of truth
Date: Wed, 3 Feb 2010 13:02:34 -0700
Steve said to dmb:
> In the thread on demanding evidence for religious bleiefs, I suggested that
> "If religious claims are intended as some other sort of non-scientific
> non-historical assertions then these assertions need not face such demands
> for evidence on historical-scientific terms. If people making such
> assertions do indeed intend something clearly different in purpose from
> historical and scientific inquiry and can articulate in what other ways, if
> not scientifically and historically, these claims may be regarded as true,
> then perhaps it can indeed be made coherent to say as is so often claimed by
> theists that there is indeed no conflict between science and religion. Such
> does not seem possible for theists of the Fundamentalist or Orthodox
> Catholic variety, but perhaps it is possible for more liberal theists to
> distinguish religious truth from scientific-historical truth."
>
> I'm wonderring whether you have any thoughts on how a belief might be
> thought of as true if not historically or scientifically true, and what the
> criteria for such truth may be like. For example, would Joseph Campbell
> assert in some way that a myth is true?
dmb says:
I take it you're not really changing the subject so much as moving the topic
onto something more concrete.
As I understand it, the basic empirical standards of truth do not change. In
religion as well as science and history, truth (or falsity) is what happens to
an idea in the course of experience. This is why I can take Campbell's side on
the issue. He says that theists and atheists are both wrong. They both suffer
from the same misconception, the only difference being that one affirms it and
the other denies it. By taking symbolic language as literal they both have a
mistaken idea about the sense in which myths are true. As far as his own
religious experience goes, Campbell says he doesn't need faith because he has
experience. And his stance on how myths should be read and understood is
arrived at by through a survey and analysis of the relevant empirical data,
namely the mythical art forms of the world as well as their relations to
dreams, to religions and to the wider culture.
If you take things literally in such a way that you believe the world was
created, as so many do, then you have to find a way to dismiss the empirical
evidence for the theory of evolution. In the abstract there seems to be no way
to convince a believer in creationism but if that belief were really acted upon
in practical reality it could literally kill them. See, creationists don't
realize that common things like a flu shot are the one of the practical results
of the theory of evolution. Now we're not talking about what happened billions
of years ago (or 6,000 years ago). Now we're talking about whether or not your
kid is going to die or at least get sick. Of course there are also lots of
religious that can't be tested in experience at all because they have no
apparent consequence one way or the other, no practical bearing on anything.
Ironically, myths refer to inner experience, to psychological events and
processes or to spiritual growth patterns if you like. They're derived from
experience and that is where their truth is tested. That is to say, if you read
them as a guide to such a thing it works out and if you read them as science it
is a disaster.
This is at least related to what Pirsig was talking about when he said Quality
could be the uniter of art, science and religion. Experience serves as the
basis for all them. There is primary and secondary experience and the various
ways we can subdivide after that too. And of course experience in a science lab
and experience in an art studio can't be treated as if they were the same kind
of experience but they both involve actual engagement with the subject matter.
We have to make certain adjustments so that our standards of truth are
appropriate to kinds of claims being made, but its always on an empirical
basis, on the basis of how well that idea functions when the rubber meets the
road.
This would probably be a good place to throw in a few complaints about the
otherworldliness of religion in general. I know it's an old complaint but it
covers just about every brand of christianity. To the extent that religion
teaches us that this life is just a brief test for our eternal lives, it
teaches us to take our eyes off the ball. Big time. What could be a more epic
case of missing the point? Ironically, that was the original meaning of the
word "sin", to miss the point. I believe the term comes from art of archery.
Some say Zen is useful in the art of archery (and motorcycle maintenance).
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