What is "religion"?

[Donk]

Heavy stuff...

 

On a lighter note, I've been having some fun lately with a Jehovah's Witness - a customer of mine. For a long time I just had him marked down as a bit of a talker. After we'd done our bit of business he'd hang around and chat about an item in the day's news. He seemed to be twisting it towards philosophy, and the "preacher" alarm bells started to ring.

 

A few weeks ago he came out with it, and started "witnessing" at me. I listened politely to all he had to say about the Creator, then said "Yes? That's interesting, but what do you want me to do about it?"

 

He suggested (of course) coming along to his church to learn more. Too busy, I said. "Too busy for the most important news you'll ever hear??"

 

I gave him my standard reply (yes, I've heard the line before!). "News is only important to me if it affects me. This won't - I already live my life as well as I can. I give to charities. I do volunteer work. The only thing you'll want me to do that I don't do already is to pray, and I consider prayer and worship to be an insane waste of time."

 

A lot of would-be preachers have given up on me at this point. They're primed with all the arguments about the God's existence, but don't have a script to deal with somebody who says "so what?" The fun continues, but I think he's weakening. I give it another week or two :hihi::)

[coldcreation]

Heavy stuff...

 

On a lighter note, I've been having some fun lately with a Jehovah's Witness -

 

Been there, done that too. It's fun.

 

Beware though, the more you play the game the more he/she will dig in. I for example put up very firm resistance and they always came back for more, and more, and more...

 

lol

 

 

CC

[Boerseun]

Q, I apologize for the crass presentation of my last post. Modest said basically the same thing I had in mind, yet way more eloquently.

 

The Gift of the Gab - you either have it, or not.

[Qfwfq]

Q, I apologize for the crass presentation of my last post. Modest said basically the same thing I had in mind, yet way more eloquently.

 

The Gift of the Gab - you either have it, or not.

I very much accept your apology, :) indeed I spent this weekend meditating my reply, in the light of avoiding further exponential growth (and side-tracking off the topic), something for which currently I could not waste any more time even if I wished. You don't still think I was upholding Biblical Creationism against Darwinism, do you? I was even wary of addressing your points which I consider true statements but draw different conclusions from.

Yes, Modest is an eloquent and worthy opponent in debate.:(

 

I envy the Pope for his observatory and the Jesuits for the work they do there, but this does not make their religious beliefs rational.

Certainly not, but that wasn't what I meant. I meant that the people I'm talking about are very rational ones, whether these beliefs can be considered what we currently mean by rational involves subtle semantic issues. This is however distinct from discussing whether the person is "not rational" by holding such beliefs and it certainly depends on which ones; for some of them I will shortly pass the mike to Einstein. As for revealed religions, such as the stance of scientists who are sophisticated Catholics, I'll make a few points which don't fall within his opinions:

If the dichotomy were between; 1) thinking science can disprove purely metaphysical claims, and 2) having beliefs in purely metaphysical things, then I could agree that neither is much more or less rational than the other. But, that would be a false dichotomy. If we define “purely metaphysical” to be that which is unknowable by any means of current or future investigation then the irrational position is believing one knows the truth of such a claim—and, moreover, to find the truth of such a claim sacred or divine. For example, believing in and praying to a purely metaphysical concept is irrational. The diametric position which would then be rational is to admit what is true by definition: that which is unknowable is unknown.

Faith is definitely not part of the scientific method, it is simply external to it, except for a slight, subtle bearing which is one of the points in The Albert Show. Faith is not a rational basis for a belief; it would not be rational, in a sense, to "believe in" Euclidean geometry as well as other mathematical constructs. Some religious beliefs are no more repugnant to the rational mind than Relativistic Quantum Field Theory. The obvious difference is that between believing on a basis of experience and observation vs. by an Act Of Faith. There are even epistemological subtleties concerning someone's belief in the possibility of a metaphysical entity, endowed with a will, being able to cause a miracle, but I will definitely leave this kind of consideration until after the Albert Show (and discussion of it). While I differ from him in a few little details, I recommend it to all who are following this thread; it exquisitely covers not only this side-track but also the actual topic of: "What is Religion?"

 

I agree that *'purely' metaphysical beliefs are too far removed from the issue of 'what is religion'”but I also did not mean to say:

I don’t see “to contemplate the possibility of” to be religious.

I only meant it is this ability which makes it possible for a scientist to be religious without lacking self coherence.

 

And now, Ladies and Gents, as promised... here it is... The Albert Shooooooow!

Religious Einstein: "The situation may be expressed by an image: science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind."

Simply Enjoy. :hihi:

 

On a much lighter note, I'll reply to who remarked "Heavy stuff...":

The only thing you'll want me to do that I don't do already is to pray, and I consider prayer and worship to be an insane waste of time."

Donk, apart from the obvious disadvantages of implying one of your own business partners to be insane, and CC's additional consideration, there is a sure-fire method for dealing with Witnesses that lacks these setbacks. It is well proven and tested by people I've met, one isn't Jewish but has a personal cultural interest in the topics. The method is as follows:

 

1. Learn Biblical Hebrew.
   
2. Buy a copy of the Old Testament in the original and keep it handy for when they pay you a visit. Better still, possibly, in spare time, gain some familiarity with it.
   
3. As soon as they mention those little translation issues which are so necessary to their tenets, you say: "Sure! We need to look at it in the original!" and proceed to drag the tome down off the shelf and plunk it's mighty weight on the table, watching the transition in their faces and attitude.
   

 

I assure you, a black storm cloud (visible only to them via their faith) will immediately form before your front door, ominously rumbling and flashing threats of lightning. They will never come near it again, as long as you remain resident therein. :eek2:

 

Except that your customer might continue his custom, not having been insulted, but without daring to mention his faith. :hihi:

[modest]

...this does not make their religious beliefs rational.

Certainly not, but that wasn't what I meant. I meant that the people I'm talking about are very rational ones, whether these beliefs can be considered what we currently mean by rational involves subtle semantic issues. This is however distinct from discussing whether the person is "not rational" by holding such beliefs and it certainly depends on which ones...

 

I don't see all too clear your inference. As far as I can tell you are willing to say (in fact, your point seems to be) that:

A: very rational people can have religious beliefs.

Yet, you don't seem willing to say that:

B: religious beliefs can be rational.

Depending on how we define "very rational person" it's entirely possible for A to be true while B is false. This is possible because it would not be abnormal to allow very rational people at least some irrational beliefs. I should emphasis that by "irrational" I mean "not based on reason". Given this possibility, I will not argue against what you say (though I imagine many strong atheists would). I'll just say that I don't see a useful inference.

 

I would argue that B is not possible—it's a contradictio in terminis. But, If you are not claiming B nor implying it then I see no overt disagreement between us.

 

it would not be rational, in a sense, to "believe in" Euclidean geometry as well as other mathematical constructs.

 

I agree, and I appreciate such a good example. When I wrote my last post saying that belief and reverence in metaphysical concepts is not rational I thought you might put forward geometry (or space and time) as a counterexample. But, you've instead introduced it as an example... so, yeah. I agree. To the perfectly logical Spock-like mind "one geometry cannot be more true than another—it can only be more convenient." In the same way: one religious belief cannot be more true than another—it can only be more convenient.

 

It seems very straightforward then...

1) "God" is metaphysical

Where your promise gets unsteady is:God is not in

x-y

because god is not in

x

.

2) Belief in a metaphysical concept is not rational:

it would not be rational, in a sense, to "believe in" Euclidean geometry as well as other mathematical constructs

therefore, 3) belief in God is irrational

 

And, that would be my position as well (assuming I've correctly deduced yours). The only possible sleight of hand would be to redefine "God" or "Religion" in a manner inconsistent with 1 above e.g. Pantheism:

 

And now, Ladies and Gents, as promised... here it is... The Albert Shooooooow!

Religious Einstein: "The situation may be expressed by an image: science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind."

Simply Enjoy. :naughty:

 

Douglas Adams said "Isn't it enough to see that a garden is beautiful without having to believe that there are fairies at the bottom of it too?". The answer, of course, depends on the person. To some people the garden is more beautiful when inhabited with imaginary creatures. To some people the reality of the garden is awe inspiring even if not so inhabited. Einstein's position is stated eloquently, but is essentially nothing more than deciding to consider the garden a fairy because it is so miraculous and wonderful.

 

Maybe there's utility in that kind of thinking and maybe it's an improvement on what "fairy" means and what it means to "believe in fairies". But, what it does not do is answer Adams' question. Instead of answering the difficult questions that religion brings such as "is there a god" it redefines religion in an easily answerable way. "This rock is part of God; this rock exists; therefore God exists". That's fine, but some people really want to know if (or really believe that) there are fairies under the garden. To them the fairy is not the garden. To them a fairy is a fairy and a garden is a garden. I respect that for its straightforwardness.

 

~modest

[Qfwfq]

I don't see all too clear your inference.

The matter is indeed very complicated and fraught with great subtleties. I'm not sure you are even fully understanding Einstein's opinion, by analysing it through your own; his is much more subtle than considering the garden as being the fairy and certainly he did not mean to imply Spinoza's Amor Dei Intellectualis as being logically inferred nor a scientific fact. Even folks like Dirac and Feynman had the same drive, as described by Einstein's articles, but did not call it the same way. Call it what you will, Einstein called it the very core of religious and emotional conviction, divested of the tenets of revealed religions. This is very much the description of Deism and is hardly Pantheism.

 

This is possible because it would not be abnormal to allow very rational people at least some irrational beliefs.

Mathematicians have a very strong trend to believe the Riemann and Poincarè conjectures, just as they were compelled by Fermat's one. It doesn't make them bad mathematicians, as long as they distinguish a conjecture from a theorem, no matter how compelling the statement is found. And yet, these things do fall within the topic of mathematics, only they don't get proved in a short time.

 

It is clearly absurd to impose that, in order to be a good scientist, one must have no personality traits outside of the scientific method, logic and observation. What should we expect of them? There are aspects of life in which we simply do not go by the SM no matter how well we have mastered it. It is all very much a part of our human animal nature. Le coeur a ses raisons que la raison ne connait pas. We can't help it. Is fear rational? Is love rational? The SM has brought us to understand what such things are due to; it does not make us behave otherwise, nor even imply that we must. Likewise it does not imply much about an act of faith which does not concern the observable.

 

Also, society would hardly get on if there were no such thing as trust (fides) and economy would not prosper much without credit (from credere, believe).

 

I find that Douglas Adams was slightly naive. Yes, of course, the answer depends on the person. No one must believe in the fairies (as he puts it) and neither must anybody not. Many, including Einstein and Newton, found it very compelling to believe in the Swiss craftsman. Many others even add some of the most basic tenets of a revealed religion. So what? I doubt observation could ever settle the matter of cosmogony. :naughty:

 

The whole point is that the SM does not determine whether one must, should, shouldn't or mustn't have religious convictions and, while Einstein calls on hermeneutics to resolve the conflict, IMV there are even epistemological subtleties about some tenets being in contradiction (but that should be a quite different topic and thread), so I don't see a real problem with, for instance, the strongly Catholic faith of some scientists. It is possible to go, conceptually, somewhat past his statement:

 

"It is this mythical, or rather this symbolic, content of the religious traditions which is likely to come into conflict with science."

 

Further, this was not even the real cause behind the troubles Galileo met; it was only the final resort of the stubbornest medieval peripatetics, one of whom just happened to be an important cardinal. It wasn't long afterwards that the ruling was reached and the Vatican's official stance on the matter determined: the teaching of science is not within the purpose of the Holy Scriptures.

 

His articles do in any case say some helpful things about the actual topic of this thread, about what religion is. One key thing is:

 

"What complicates the solution, however, is the fact that while most people readily agree on what is meant by 'science', they are likely to differ on the meaning of 'religion'."

 

And this is definitely what causes so much contention and misunderstanding in discussions about whether these two things are compatible.

[freeztar]

You make a compelling case for the compatibility of Science and Religion (or at least spirituality) in your post, Q.

 

It seems this thread has gone a bit off track though. We've gone from defining religion in a dictionary sense to discussing the finer details of religion and its compatibility with science. To prevent going further off-track, but still quenching my curiosity, would you be so kind to start a new thread on these "epistemological subtleties" you refer to? I'd like to know more about these and think it would make for some good discussion. ;)

[modest]

I'm not sure you are even fully understanding Einstein's opinion... Call it what you will, Einstein called it the very core of religious and emotional conviction, divested of the tenets of revealed religions. This is very much the description of Deism and is hardly Pantheism.

 

Sorry if this post comes across as blunt, but I have no time not to be. Freezy, or Q, I have no trouble with the thread being split as you see fit, but the only place I see this little tangent going is the definition of religion, as I believe Einstein would have done far better calling what he describes (the emotion involved with the beauty of the garden) as something other than (but not exclusive of) religion (or religious).

 

Q, you say "call it what you will" then claim it is Deism and not Pantheism. I'm not sure if you meant that to be ironic or what, but I agree that people will call it what they will and I think that is by far the most meaningful thing you said in your post.

 

On a boat to the Pacific in '45 a American sailor heard from a Jesuit-educated Catholic officer that Einstein had accepted God through some force of logic. The sailor rather doubted this and wrote Einstein to confirm. Einstein writes back rejecting the claim and saying something I find profound "From the viewpoint of a Jesuit priest I am, of course, and have always been an atheist.".

 

He doesn't say that he is atheist, but recognizes that his position (his beliefs) are only meaningful with respect to the person judging them. Four years later the sailor wrote back asking if the statement leaves open the interpretation that Einstein is an Orthodox Jew, or *a Deist*, or some other thing,

"You say that "From the viewpoint of a Jesuit priest I am, and have always been, an atheist." Some people might interpret that to mean that to a Jesuit priest, anyone not a Roman Catholic is an atheist, and that you are in fact an orthodox Jew, or a Deist, or something else. Did you mean to leave room for such an interpretation"

Einstein replies:

"You may call me an agnostic"

Notice again he isn't saying "I am agnostic", but rather recognizes that from the point of view of the letter's writer he is Agnostic.

 

So, Einstein says "You may call me an agnostic", but recognizes that other people would flavor his beliefs as needed to fit their argument (as the Jesuit Priest did) or at least see his belief through various perspectives.

 

When one says that they "fully understand Einstein's opinion" then I think something like the above is going on.

 

Now to add my own little irony: his beliefs were the very description of Pantheism and not Deism :eek:

 

Edit: forgot... link... Freethought Today, November 2004

 

Mathematicians have a very strong trend to believe the Riemann and Poincarè conjectures, just as they were compelled by Fermat's one. It doesn't make them bad mathematicians, as long as they distinguish a conjecture from a theorem, no matter how compelling the statement is found. And yet, these things do fall within the topic of mathematics, only they don't get proved in a short time.

 

It is clearly absurd to impose that, in order to be a good scientist, one must have no personality traits outside of the scientific method, logic and observation. What should we expect of them? There are aspects of life in which we simply do not go by the SM no matter how well we have mastered it. It is all very much a part of our human animal nature. Le coeur a ses raisons que la raison ne connait pas. We can't help it. Is fear rational? Is love rational? The SM has brought us to understand what such things are due to; it does not make us behave otherwise, nor even imply that we must. Likewise it does not imply much about an act of faith which does not concern the observable.

 

Yes, I've already agreed. Very rational, intelligent, and sucessfull people hold irrational beliefs. Much of anyone's psyche is founded on such metaphysical beliefs (space and time being the most obvious). And, I don't think a person could usefully function without them. There is nothing of this for us to argue. Until you are willing to say "religious beliefs can be rational" then I see no overt disagreement between us on this. This is the second time I've said this, so... you know....

 

~modest

[Qfwfq]

It appears there is more than one definition of pantheism, and even some quite conflicting ones (I had always known it to mean indifferently worshipping gods of all religions, see pantheon). So I really think there is no use arguing about it, reading this might be more interesting. It definitely isn't the point anyway.

 

You make a compelling case for the compatibility of Science and Religion (or at least spirituality) in your post, Q.

 

It seems this thread has gone a bit off track though.

Indeed it was the side-track that I was trying to handle, so that the thread might get back on track and I was focussing on where the side-track does have bearing on the topic: the supposed incompatibility depends on which belief one considers (and various subtleties). Therefore, extending said incompatibility to all religion in general is due to a notion of religion which only includes things which clearly contradict science.

 

I'm not sure if I'll start a whole thread on the epistemological subtleties. I would likely need more time than I can afford. Some religious tenets are statements to which the scientific method simply does not apply, including some that concern unusual observable events which are contrary to ordinary observation. Declaring them impossible, apodictically false according to the SM, is something which even that well known member of the totally anti-metaphysical Vienna Circle by the name of Popper could not support, due to his opinions about induction and scientific laws. Indeed, in discussing his example statement about the devil, to the aims of the demarcation problem, he describes it as (something along the lines of) a highly unlikely but non-falsifiable observational statement.

 

I believe Einstein would have done far better calling what he describes (the emotion involved with the beauty of the garden) as something other than (but not exclusive of) religion (or religious).

This is the very reason he recognized that some folks might consider him atheist. He certainly did not think a Jesuit would say so because he wasn't Roman Catholic. This falls into the question "What is religion?", the problem of what is and what isn't religion. As I said before the side-track, one can fall into circularity in defending a definition according to which "all religions are red" by dismissing counterexamples because they are not red.

 

When one says that they "fully understand Einstein's opinion" then I think something like the above is going on.

The link about those letters is interesting and it says a bit more than you extracted from it. One thing I found interesting there includes the very brief bit that you quoted:

 

"I have repeatedly said that in my opinion the idea of a personal God is a childlike one. You may call me an agnostic, but I do not share the crusading spirit of the professional atheist whose fervor is mostly due to a painful act of liberation from the fetters of religious indoctrination received in youth. I prefer an attitude of humility corresponding to the weakness of our intellectual understanding of nature and of our own being."

 

His three publications which I suggested say much, much more than those letters, about his opinions. I don't think it makes sense to quibble about whether he considered himself religious.

 

Yes, I've already agreed. Very rational, intelligent, and sucessfull people hold irrational beliefs. Much of anyone's psyche is founded on such metaphysical beliefs (space and time being the most obvious). And, I don't think a person could usefully function without them. There is nothing of this for us to argue. Until you are willing to say "" then I see no overt disagreement between us on this. This is the second time I've said this, so... you know....

Of course. Scientific theories involve many of what Berkeley called qualitatis occultae meaning that the SM doesn't (or cannot) really explain them.

 

I don't know why and in what sense I should say that religious beliefs can be rational. A tenet of a religion might be a rational enough statement, only without rational grounds for one to believe it. Lewis Carrol was a highly rational chap and, although Alice's adventures are surrealistic, they are rational enough and aren't lacking self-consistency; they just conflict with common experience. Believing a statement is a distinct matter from the statement itself being rational. Anyway, a scientist is not required to "be rational" when choosing which toilet paper or toothpaste to buy and Einstein (even though he used only one soap!) did not publish those things in Annalen der Physik because they are not discussions of what the so-called "laws of nature" are. This even goes for a scientist that professes tenets of the Catholic faith. In short, give to Caesar what is Caesar's...

[modest]

It appears there is more than one definition of pantheism, and even some quite conflicting ones (I had always known it to mean indifferently worshipping gods of all religions, see pantheon).

 

I see. That explains why you rejected the term so strongly.

 

So I really think there is no use arguing about it

 

Indeed, that was the theme of my last post ;)

 

the supposed incompatibility depends on which belief one considers (and various subtleties). Therefore, extending said incompatibility to all religion in general is due to a notion of religion which only includes things which clearly contradict science.

 

Did someone in this thread claim that all of religion is incompatible with science?

 

The tenets of religion are often not incompatible with science. There's no inherent reason why something like God could not be part of science. It is just as valid an hypothesis as any other. The reason god occupies no place in any physical law is only that it has never been found useful in describing a physical process. The day a natural law is found such that "A + B + the hand of god = observable" god will be part of science. The question is, when that happens will god continue to be a religious concept?

 

What is more fundamentally at odds are the religious and scientific methods.

 

Indeed, in discussing his example statement about the devil, to the aims of the demarcation problem, he describes it as (something along the lines of) a highly unlikely but non-falsifiable observational statement.

 

That would indeed place the Devil outside of science by Popper's criteria:

In order to make this idea a little more precise, we may distinguish three requirements which our empirical theoretical system will have to satisfy. First, it must be synthetic, so that it may represent a non-contradictory, a possible world. Secondly, it must satisfy the criterion of demarcation, i.e. it must not be metaphysical, but must represent a world of possible experience. Thirdly, it must be a system distinguished in some way from other such systems as the one which represents our world of experience.

 

The logic of scientific discovery - Google Books

But, unless falsifiability is a demarcation for religion as well then that doesn't help us define our term. I would have a hard time saying that all of religion is non-falsifiable, but I know some people think of it that way.

 

I believe Einstein would have done far better calling what he describes (the emotion involved with the beauty of the garden) as something other than (but not exclusive of) religion (or religious).

This is the very reason he recognized that some folks might consider him atheist.

 

Absolutely ;) Given a certain definition of god, Einstein was atheist. Given a certain definition of religion, he was areligious

 

He certainly did not think a Jesuit would say so because he wasn't Roman Catholic.

 

Agreed

 

This falls into the question "What is religion?"

 

Yup

 

the problem of what is and what isn't religion.

 

that follows.

 

As I said before the side-track, one can fall into circularity in defending a definition according to which "all religions are red" by dismissing counterexamples because they are not red.

 

That’s interesting. I don’t see how dismissing a counterexample would defend a definition, so I perhaps agree with you. Dismissing counterexamples to a given definition would simply be appropriate... and, indeed, necessary to avoid an equivocation fallacy. But, what’s interesting is what happens when the counterexample is a well-known example of the word being defined. In that way, the counterexample would falsify the definition in a manner analogous to how Popper’s deductive method can use a counterexample to falsify a claim, but no amount of examples can prove the claim true. To give an example,

 

You define god in a rather interesting way to Boerseun saying “god is not in x-y because god is not in x” meaning god is not in the realm of the empirical (Boerseun originally called x “the totality of all possible knowledge”). I might point out that the God of Abraham (or any theistic god) is a counterexample to your definition—which would be true. Certainly a god who parts waters or subjects himself to empirical tests as with Elijah’s altar in I Kings 18 is very much in the realm of the empirical. It would seem reasonable to reject your definition of god on the sole basis that more than half of the world’s population believe in a god that doesn’t fit that definition. The counterexample has falsified the definition by popular opinion. I think popular opinion should carry a lot of weight given that the purpose of a word and its associated definition is to successfully communicate.

 

On the other hand, the purely theistic definition of god would have its own counterexamples. I, for example, would not consider Spinoza’s god to be a god any more than I would consider Lao Tzu’s tao to be a god. Spinoza’s god is clearly a counterexample to my definition, but does it falsify it? It would depend on how many people consider that kind of ‘non-theistic’ concept to be a god. I have a feeling it isn’t many, but I don’t have statistics nor any way to support such a claim.

 

While we’re on the topic,

 

I would say that a word and its associated definition are only good if they are useful. If religion is defined in such a way that it can be indistinguishable from philosophy then I would see no point in using the word especially when the word so commonly implies a very different meaning. If god is defined in such a way that it is indistinguishable from nature then I see no use for it—at all.

 

I don't know why and in what sense I should say that religious beliefs can be rational.

 

I’m quite sure you shouldn’t say that. I merely point out that until you do, you will get no disagreement from me on the issue.

 

A tenet of a religion might be a rational enough statement, only without rational grounds for one to believe it.

 

Precisely! It is the belief part that is not rational. Metaphysics is necessary, but how it is used means everything.

 

Kant has been traditionally taken to be offering a method of avoiding the insidious “transcendental illusion” that he suggests gives rise to metaphysics. Read in this way, Kant's Dialectic offers a criticism not only of the specific arguments of metaphysics, but also of transcendent, metaphysical (speculative or theoretical)

interests and propensities themselves.

This certainly accords with much in the Dialectic, and specifically with Kant's well-known claim that knowledge has to be limited to possible experience. Kant, however, complicates things somewhat by also stating repeatedly that the illusion that grounds metaphysics (roughly, that the unconditioned is already given) is unavoidable. Moreover, Kant sometimes suggests that such illusion is somehow necessary for our epistemological projects (cf. A645/B673). In essence, Kant argues that the transcendent ideas and principles of reason do have a positive role to play in knowledge acquisition,

so long as they are construed “regulatively” and not “constitutively.”

He thus suggests that rather than jettison the ideas of metaphysical objects (something, it seems, he does not think we are in a position to do), it is best to identify the proper use and function of these ideas and principles. This critical reinterpretation involves the claim that the ideas and principles of reason are to be used “regulatively,” as devices for guiding and grounding our empirical investigations and the project of knowledge acquisition. What the ideas do not do, according to Kant, is provide the concepts through which we might access objects that could be known through the speculative use of reason.

 

Kant's Critique of Metaphysics (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)

 

Religion seeks to establish things like ethics from metaphysics constitutively rather than using metaphysics regulatively and that is the problem. In fact, we might posit that as the dividing line between religion and philosophy. As I said before, religion anthropomorphizes the unknowable. It makes a transcendental idea into a knowable and consequential object. That is not rational. As far as I see, that approach is entirely flawed.

 

~modest

[Qfwfq]

Seems we're settling back into the thread topic i. e. what is and isn't religion. It also seems we are getting into the very subtle matters, and that it's only on these that you and I disagree or, better, misunderstand each other. IMHO the articles I linked to are very helpful to the topic (not only for the side track) because Spinoza, the author of the SEP article about him and Einstein discuss what is the very core of religion (that which Spinoza and Einstein, according their opinion, call true religion). Judging by some of your points about them, I'm not sure you read them thoroughly and it's definitely worth the effort.

 

The day a natural law is found such that "A + B + the hand of god = observable" god will be part of science. The question is, when that happens will god continue to be a religious concept?

I see no reason to even seek "god terms" in physical law.

 

What is more fundamentally at odds are the religious and scientific methods.

I repeat, they are totally different. That's why I say give to Caesar what is Caesar's and this is what many people do. I think it is here that we misunderstand each other, you argue as if I strove to prove the possibility of making religion scientific; nothing could be more absurd (apart from Scientology). Even Spinoza's view differs subtly from this.

 

That would indeed place the Devil outside of science by Popper's criteria:

To be precise, let's talk about his example statement. Yes he goes as far as arguing that it's a metaphysical statement despite it concerning observation. This makes his proposal for the Vienna Circle demarcation problem differ sharply from that of his buddy Carnap, as well as being in disagreement with the positivists. His argument though is strongly dependent on the VC anti-metaphysical dogma.

 

But, unless falsifiability is a demarcation for religion as well then that doesn't help us define our term. I would have a hard time saying that all of religion is non-falsifiable, but I know some people think of it that way.

I don't think of it that way either. I only meant that some beliefs can be compared to the devil statement. Attempting to scientifically devise an experiment to observe a miracle is futile. It makes no whatsoever sense to attempt falsifying the belief in their possibility, none more than for the devil statement.

 

Dismissing counterexamples to a given definition would simply be appropriate... and, indeed, necessary to avoid an equivocation fallacy.

I think we're in a logical misunderstanding here, perhaps I was a bit too brief and concise. Let's take this example:

 

Suppose Sam grew up on an apple farm in an area where only red varieties of apple are grown and no one around there has ever seen ones such as golden delicious or a granny Smith. Sam stubbornly insists that all apples are red when they are ripe. He includes this in his tacit definition of an apple. When shown ripe ones of other varieties, for the first time in his life, what does he do? He might accept them as counterexamples or, very stubbornly, he might object "But these are not apples!" and, of course, this is on the sole grounds of them being ripe but not red. Would you claim his objection is necessary to avoid an equivocation fallacy?

 

You define god in a rather interesting way to Boerseun saying “god is not in x-y because god is not in x” meaning god is not in the realm of the empirical (Boerseun originally called x “the totality of all possible knowledge”).

Actually, I hadn't defined god at all, I just pointed out an assumption in his argument. But of course you and he are both Vienna Circle members so it's no use making the objection. :D

 

What I meant was that god isn't subset of x (and therefore neither of x-y), to include god one must consider [imath]\Omega[/imath] (which many folks outside the VC don't assume equal to x) and I hadn't meant that god must be disjoint with x. Therefore you are not giving counterexamples to what I meant, apart from considerations of hermeneutics and those on the devil statement that I presented above.

 

On the other hand, the purely theistic definition of god would have its own counterexamples. I, for example, would not consider Spinoza’s god to be a god any more than I would consider Lao Tzu’s tao to be a god. Spinoza’s god is clearly a counterexample to my definition, but does it falsify it? It would depend on how many people consider that kind of ‘non-theistic’ concept to be a god. I have a feeling it isn’t many, but I don’t have statistics nor any way to support such a claim.

I'm not sure what you mean by the distinction. Theistic vs. non-theistic concept of god? :confused: In any case I disagree that demographics are the point and there are very subtle matters. For instance Spinoza himself doesn't make it a requisite for his views to be followed, to the contrary he says it doesn't matter exactly which religion folks have, it would be sufficient to remove the conflicts. Further, a lot of common ground can be found between Spinoza and Buddhism. It doesn't really fall prey to your objection:

I would say that a word and its associated definition are only good if they are useful. If religion is defined in such a way that it can be indistinguishable from philosophy then I would see no point in using the word especially when the word so commonly implies a very different meaning. If god is defined in such a way that it is indistinguishable from nature then I see no use for it—at all.

according to the SEP article Spinoza's concept isn't really to be taken as god=nature despite how easily this may seem. BTW tao means path or way so the Tao isn't exactly a god, Taoism is meant along the lines of "the way of the gods". In any case, including religions which differ very subtly from philosophy doesn't make the definition of religion so, any more than counting in white as a colour makes the notion of colour coincide with that of white.

 

Religion seeks to establish things like ethics from metaphysics constitutively rather than using metaphysics regulatively and that is the problem. In fact, we might posit that as the dividing line between religion and philosophy. As I said before, religion anthropomorphizes the unknowable. It makes a transcendental idea into a knowable and consequential object.

I'm not sure these generalizations apply to all religions, not all of them anthropomorphize and heck the Gnostics were accused of heresy.

[modest]

I wasn't so much going to reply, but with a fifth of jack and time on my hands...

 

Seems we're settling back into the thread topic i. e. what is and isn't religion. It also seems we are getting into the very subtle matters, and that it's only on these that you and I disagree or, better, misunderstand each other.

 

All good news :)

 

IMHO the articles I linked to are very helpful to the topic (not only for the side track) because Spinoza, the author of the SEP article about him and Einstein discuss what is the very core of religion (that which Spinoza and Einstein, according their opinion, call true religion). Judging by some of your points about them, I'm not sure you read them thoroughly and it's definitely worth the effort.

 

That’s unfortunate :(

 

I won't point out... well, let's just get on with it...

 

I see no reason to even seek "god terms" in physical law.

 

In that case we wouldn’t know that Aten is powered by nuclear fusion and has a local strength of 1.37 kilowatts per square meter. But, the life-giving disk of light isn’t called Aten anymore—it’s called the sun. And it isn’t a religious concept anymore either—it’s natural. The point of my question is to establish if this is always the case. When a religious concept is explained by natural laws then does it cease to be a religious concept? When “god lit the fuse of the big bang” ceases to be a concept undergoing anthropomorphism into a supernatural being and is replaced by knowledge of a natural concept of what initiated the big bang then does it necessarily loose its religiosity? The point is to explore the boundaries of religion.

 

"What is more fundamentally at odds are the religious and scientific methods. ~modest"I repeat, they are totally different.

 

Yes, of course they are different. To say that they are “totally different” implies that they have nothing in common. I would disagree. The religious and scientific methods can both be seen as a quest for understanding. As such, they do have things in common despite their differences. But, to say two things are “different” is not the same as saying two things are “at odds” or “incompatible”. The religious and scientific methods are incompatible. For example, finding the answer to a question by divine revelation is incompatible with finding the answer by experimental investigation. The very idea of having blind faith in a hypothesis runs contrary to the idea of having to test the hypothesis. The two methods are at odds.

 

Also, in case it isn’t obvious, I should establish that science is a body of information and the scientific method is a means of establishing the content of that information. Likewise with religion and the religious method.

 

That's why I say give to Caesar what is Caesar's and this is what many people do.

 

Forty four percent of Gallup pole respondents in the U.S. believe that the history of the world does not belong to Caesar. They think humanity was created in its present form within the last 10,000 years.^[1] Saying “give to Caesar what is Caesar's” as a means of segregating religion and secularism fails to acknowledge that one’s religious beliefs may determine Caesar’s domain. The statement, then, becomes relatively meaningless.

 

I think it is here that we misunderstand each other, you argue as if I strove to prove the possibility of making religion scientific

 

As far as I know you said nothing about making religion scientific.

 

"That would indeed place the Devil outside of science by Popper's criteria: ~modest"

To be precise, let's talk about his example statement. Yes he goes as far as arguing that it's a metaphysical statement despite it concerning observation.

 

I said nothing about the statement being metaphysical! I said “non-falsifiable”. It doesn’t matter if one wishes to call it metaphysical or not—the fact is, purely existential statements are non-falsifiable and are therefore placed outside of science by our current scientific method.

 

This makes his proposal for the Vienna Circle demarcation problem differ sharply from that of his buddy Carnap, as well as being in disagreement with the positivists. His argument though is strongly dependent on the VC anti-metaphysical dogma.

 

I have no idea what you mean by “his argument”. As I said before, you are talking about the demarcation of science which, as far as I can tell, has no direct impact on the demarcation of religion unless you want to say that the two are mutually exclusive. In other words, whether falsifiability or confirmability are a demarcation of science would mean nothing to this thread’s title unless they are also a demarcation of religion.

 

As far as discussing the particulars of a statement whose exact form you’ve yet to give, I would simply agree with Popper that “There is a ceremony whose exact performance forces the devil to appear” is inadmissible to the empirical sciences. If you wish to imply otherwise (and I have no idea what you are trying to imply) then you must accept that...

 

This is Carnap’s view too: his new criterion of demarcation is, as we have seen,

confirmability

. And in these two books, Carnap explains that the methods of confirming a sentence are identical with the

inductive method

. Thus we must conclude that the criterion of demarcation now becomes, more precisely,

confirmability by inductive methods

. In other words, a linguistic expression will belong to the empirical sciences if, and only if, it is logically possible to confirm it by inductive methods, or by inductive evidence.

 

As I have indicated in section 2, this criterion of demarcation does not satisfy my requirements: all sorts of pseudo-sciences (such as astrology) are clearly not excluded. The answer to this would be, no doubt, that the criterion is not intended to exclude what I call ‘pseudo-sciences’, and these consist, simply, of false sentences, or perhaps of

disconfirmed

sentences, rather than of metaphysical

non-confirmable

ones. I am not satisfied by this answer (believing as I do that I have a criterion which excludes for example astrology and which has proved extremely fruitful in connection with a host of problems) but I am prepared to accept it, for argument’s sake, and to confine myself to showing, as before, that

the criterion produces the wrong demarcation

.

 

Conjectures and refutations: the ... - Google Books

 

...things like astrology are part of science. You can see pages 336-8 of the book quoted above regarding the existential devil statement. Also...

 

well known member of the totally anti-metaphysical Vienna Circle by the name of Popper

Karl Popper was neither member nor associate of the Vienna Circle, and you are rather carelessly throwing that term around.

 

"But, unless falsifiability is a demarcation for religion as well then that doesn't help us define our term. I would have a hard time saying that all of religion is non-falsifiable, but I know some people think of it that way. ~modest"

I don't think of it that way either. I only meant that some beliefs can be compared to the devil statement. Attempting to scientifically devise an experiment to observe a miracle is futile.

 

I can’t help but point out that you just made the wrong deduction. That a statement is very-probable or very-improbable is beside the point as would be calling it a ‘miraculous’ observation. In fact, the most scientific of theories are those which predict very improbable observations. See pages 336-8 which I cite above—I believe it would be worth the effort. You *can* devise an experiment which observes (or verifies / confirms) an existential statement. Observational statements are conceivably observable. The thing which cannot be conceived of is an experiment which falsifies the statement. No experiment can be devised which proves this statement false: “There is a ceremony whose exact performance forces the devil to appear”, but it is conceivable to devise an experiment proving it true.

 

It makes no whatsoever sense to attempt falsifying the belief in their possibility, none more than for the devil statement.

Correct—it makes no sense to try and falsify non-falsifiable beliefs. As far as I know, nobody in this thread has said otherwise. And, again, unless falsifiability is a demarcation of religion I don’t see how this helps define religion.

 

"Dismissing counterexamples to a given definition would simply be appropriate... and, indeed, necessary to avoid an equivocation fallacy. ~modest"

I think we're in a logical misunderstanding here, perhaps I was a bit too brief and concise. Let's take this example:

 

Suppose Sam grew up on an apple farm in an area where only red varieties of apple are grown and no one around there has ever seen ones such as golden delicious or a granny Smith. Sam stubbornly insists that all apples are red when they are ripe. He includes this in his tacit definition of an apple. When shown ripe ones of other varieties, for the first time in his life, what does he do? He might accept them as counterexamples or, very stubbornly, he might object "But these are not apples!" and, of course, this is on the sole grounds of them being ripe but not red. Would you claim his objection is necessary to avoid an equivocation fallacy?

 

If the definition of apple includes “a red fruit” then one cannot accept that something green is an apple without making an equivocation fallacy. To hold to the definition one must dismiss the counterexample. Either the definition needs changed or the green thing isn’t an apple. I don’t know how to be more clear.

 

"You define god in a rather interesting way to Boerseun saying “god is not in x-y because god is not in x” meaning god is not in the realm of the empirical (Boerseun originally called x “the totality of all possible knowledge”). ~modest"

Actually, I hadn't defined god at all, I just pointed out an assumption in his argument.

 

Actually, “god is not in x” is an assertion rather than pointing out an assumption.

 

What I meant was that god isn't subset of x... and I hadn't meant that god must be disjoint with x.

 

That sounds like a very important addendum.

 

"On the other hand, the purely theistic definition of god would have its own counterexamples. I, for example, would not consider Spinoza’s god to be a god any more than I would consider Lao Tzu’s tao to be a god. Spinoza’s god is clearly a counterexample to my definition, but does it falsify it? It would depend on how many people consider that kind of ‘non-theistic’ concept to be a god. I have a feeling it isn’t many, but I don’t have statistics nor any way to support such a claim. ~modest"

I'm not sure what you mean by the distinction. Theistic vs. non-theistic concept of god? :)

 

From page 13 of John Orr’s 1934 “English Deism: Its Roots and Its Fruits”,

 

Prior to the 17th century the terms ["Deism" and "Deist"] were used interchangeably with the terms "theism" and "theist", respectively...

 

...Theologians and philosophers of the seventeenth century began to give a different signification to the words... Both [theists and Deists] asserted belief in one supreme God, the Creator... and agreed that God is personal and distinct from the world. But the theist taught that god remained actively interested in and operative in the world which he had made, whereas the Deist maintained that God endowed the world at creation with self-sustaining and self-acting powers and then abandoned it to the operation of these powers acting as second causes.

 

and from the wikipedia article “Theism”:

 

Theism, in this specific sense, conceives of God as personal and active in the governance and organization of the world and the universe. The use of the word theism as indicating a particular doctrine of monotheism arose in the wake of the scientific revolution of the seventeenth century to contrast with the then emerging deism which contended that God — though transcendent and supreme — did not intervene in the natural world and could be known rationally but not via revelation.

 

“Theism” in the sense I used it is distinct from deism, pantheism, and polytheism. I thought this would be clear from emphasizing “purely theistic” and again from the context in which it was used. A cursory examination of some encyclopedic articles on theism, deism, and pantheism may well be worth the effort.

 

In any case I disagree that demographics are the point and there are very subtle matters.

 

It is clear that you don’t think demographics are the point. But, you should, in my humble opinion, avoid defining god, religion, and other such terms in a manner which is unrecognizable to the vast majority of the people with whom you converse. While it may tacitly help your arguments, it does not help your ability to communicate, and the purpose of a word and its associated definition are none other than to successfully communicate. The *only* thing that makes a word meaningful is that others understand what you mean by that word. In that respect, demographics consensus is not only the point—it is the only meaningful point.

 

For instance Spinoza himself doesn't make it a requisite for his views to be followed

 

Case in point. It matters little how many people Spinoza thinks are godly when no one agrees with him on his idea of god. Read the Einstein letters again. From the Roman Catholic perspective Einstein is an Atheist. From Spinoza’s perspective Einstein believes in god. When the idea is to define god then Spinoza’s perspective is no more admissible than the Catholic’s... and, in my opinion, it is quite clearly less admissible considering how few people share such a view.

 

BTW tao means path or way so the Tao isn't exactly a god, Taoism is meant along the lines of "the way of the gods".

 

By the way, I can recite whole chapters of the Tao in Cantonese from memory (a legacy of martial arts), and “Tao Te Ching” means nothing like “the way of the gods”. You are no doubt confusing it with “Shinto” which literally means “Way of the gods”. Tao Te Ching doesn’t have “shen”, but rather “te” which means “inner strength” or “moral strength”. These are not subtle issues, nor can I overlook that you say ”Tao isn't exactly a god” as if you are disagreeing with my post when my point was, in point of fact, that the Tao *isn’t* a god and Spinoza’s god is no more a god than it (i.e. not a god at all). The Tao is a philosophical and ‘spiritual’ ideal and not a persona—not a being—not the thing we normally attribute a “god” to be.

 

By the way, you’ll find almost my exact wording in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy under Pantheism:

 

In any case, Spinoza's God and Lao Tzu's

Tao

, for example, are distinctly non-personal

I, for example, would not consider Spinoza’s god to be a god any more than I would consider Lao Tzu’s tao to be a god.

 

It doesn't really fall prey to your objection:

"I would say that a word and its associated definition are only good if they are useful. If religion is defined in such a way that it can be indistinguishable from philosophy then I would see no point in using the word especially when the word so commonly implies a very different meaning. If god is defined in such a way that it is indistinguishable from nature then I see no use for it—at all. ~modest"

according to the SEP article Spinoza's concept isn't really to be taken as god=nature despite how easily this may seem.

 

You don’t think? :P The only argument is whether Spinoza meant for god to be identical with the whole of nature or only part of nature. His ontology, in either case, is indistinguishable from atheism. Having read the link by which you fault my understanding you should well know this:

 

On either interpretation, Spinoza's move is a naturalistic and reductive one. God is identical either with all of Nature or with only a part of Nature; for this reason, Spinoza shares something with the reductive pantheist. But and this is the important point—even the atheist can, without too much difficulty, admit that God is nothing but Nature. Reductive pantheism and atheism maintain extensionally equivalent ontologies.

 

And here’s the kicker (the next paragraph):

 

What really distinguishes the pantheist from the atheist is that the pantheist does not reject as inappropriate the religious psychological attitudes demanded by theism. Rather, the pantheist simply asserts that God—conceived as a being before which one is to adopt an attitude of worshipful awe—is or is in Nature. And nothing could be further from the spirit of

Spinoza's philosophy

. Spinoza does not believe that worshipful awe or reverence is an appropriate attitude to take before God or Nature. There is nothing holy or sacred about Nature, and it is certainly not the object of a religious experience. Instead, one should strive to understand God or Nature, with the kind of adequate or clear and distinct intellectual knowledge that reveals Nature's most important truths and shows how everything depends essentially and existentially on higher natural causes. The key to discovering and experiencing God, for Spinoza, is

philosophy and science, not religious

awe and worshipful submission.

 

Don’t you see? But for that we have stretched the idea of religion past the point of breaking, he is atheist and areligious! It exactly falls prey to my objection. Spinoza’s god, the only god in whom Einstein could rationally believe, is no god at all. There is no religion there. It is entirely philosophical. I have no objection to Spinoza’s god—I just call it by a different name... Nature. And, yes, I’m quite capable of seeing just how beautiful the garden is without equating it with the fairy that others imagine. The only question in my mind is why people are so intent on painting an ugly face on something so naturally marvelous, and I’m quite confident that was the question on Spinoza’s mind as well.

 

In any case, including religions which differ very subtly from philosophy doesn't make the definition of religion so, any more than counting in white as a colour makes the notion of colour coincide with that of white.

 

~Qfwfq

 

Yeah... including religion which differs not at all from philosophy doesn’t make religion so, any more than counting white as a color....

 

~modest

[Moontanman]

Religion has never shown science to be wrong but science most certainly has shown religion to be wrong. Religion does indeed lay claim to showing science to be wrong but science simply shows what reality is. I think it's important to understand these things to understand what religion is.

[Qfwfq]

Religion has never shown science to be wrong but science most certainly has shown religion to be wrong. Religion does indeed lay claim to showing science to be wrong but science simply shows what reality is. I think it's important to understand these things to understand what religion is.

You appear to be identifyng the side track with the actual topic. The only relevance of the side track, which would otherwise be off topic and that's it, is that too many people restrict their notion of what religion is and hold misconceptions which I tire of repeatedly mentioning.

 

The day a natural law is found such that "A + B + the hand of god = observable" god will be part of science. The question is, when that happens will god continue to be a religious concept?

I see no reason to even seek "god terms" in physical law.

In that case we wouldn’t know that Aten is powered by nuclear fusion and has a local strength of 1.37 kilowatts per square meter. But, the life-giving disk of light isn’t called Aten anymore—it’s called the sun. And it isn’t a religious concept anymore either—it’s natural.

It seems like you lost track of what I was saying. I don't claim that it makes sense for a scientist to be a Bible-thumpin' Creationist, or believe in the Achean notion of gods or whatever. I was not claiming that all religious beliefs are compatible with scientific knowledge. That's why I think our problem is one of letting the baby out with the bath.

 

The scientists I talked about aren't replacing scientific method with faith, they simply see where their domain is different and they aren't talking about beliefs that will someday be replaced by scientific knowledge. The Achean concept of gods wasn't even metaphysical, it amounted to perfect people with magic powers, who control the world, and it isn't even very hard to climb Mt. Olympus.

 

The point of my question is to establish if this is always the case. When a religious concept is explained by natural laws then does it cease to be a religious concept? When “god lit the fuse of the big bang” ceases to be a concept undergoing anthropomorphism into a supernatural being and is replaced by knowledge of a natural concept of what initiated the big bang then does it necessarily loose its religiosity? The point is to explore the boundaries of religion.

The point is not to put religion into a box but to say what the box is. The side track only requires recognizing that not the whole box intersects scientific knowledge.

 

Yes, of course they are different. To say that they are “totally different” implies that they have nothing in common. I would disagree.

I should have specified that the SM is a totally different thing from faith, meditation or other religious methods but, yes, there are also philosophical methods in religion.

 

The religious and scientific methods can both be seen as a quest for understanding.

Some religions are a quest for understanding, some include understanding of the material and observable. There are and have been cases in which the religion is in lieu of scientific method but there are also cases of the religious who value it highly, for what it does cover, and avoid misconception.

 

The religious and scientific methods are incompatible. For example, finding the answer to a question by divine revelation is incompatible with finding the answer by experimental investigation. The very idea of having blind faith in a hypothesis runs contrary to the idea of having to test the hypothesis. The two methods are at odds.

It depends on what the divine revelation is about, if there is one at all. Deism is by definition belief in a god (often called the Supreme Being) but not in revealed religion.

 

Forty four percent of Gallup pole respondents in the U.S. believe that the history of the world does not belong to Caesar. They think humanity was created in its present form within the last 10,000 years.^[1]

This is most unfortunate and I call it ignorance. It is sad that religion still includes this type of thing in such great numbers, it is because of this that many scientific people let the baby out with the bath and often aren't even aware of religion that isn't thus. It does not imply that all religious beliefs determine Caesar’s domain, it only means that so many folks do not give to Caesar what is Caesar's.

 

As far as I know you said nothing about making religion scientific.

 

................

 

I said nothing about the statement being metaphysical! I said “non-falsifiable”.

I did not say that you said that I said that you said so let's avoid getting into confusion. I had distinguished his statement from the devil that it was about, I then said a few things about his argument, which I found relevant to the side track. As you have access to that book but don't know which argument I meant, it is a talk of his appearing at the very end of Conjectures and hence just before the beginning of Refutations. The VC demarcation problem was that between epistemology and metaphysics, that's what his argument concerned.

 

I would simply agree with Popper that “There is a ceremony whose exact performance forces the devil to appear” is inadmissible to the empirical sciences.

Popper, as I had said, goes as far as concluding that it must be a metaphysical statement, that's extreme. What I conclude is that a belief such as that can't be in conflict with the scientific method, it is simply something that can't be investigated. A highly Catholic scientist such as for instance Zichichi might argue that the scientific method cannot prove the impossibility of God choosing to perform miracles. Disagreement with Popper's opinion does not force agreement with Carnap and does not require admitting that astrology would have to be a science.

 

Karl Popper was neither member nor associate of the Vienna Circle

My bad, I only once read Conjectures and Refutations from cover to cover (and even hurriedly in parts) and occasionally about him since; he was definitely in close ties with them and agreed with their general stance, a great buddy of Carnap. I was left with a false impression but I was definitely not rather carelessly throwing that term around.

Karl Popper (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)

The dominant philosophical group in Vienna at the time was the

Wiener Kreis

, the circle of ‘scientifically-minded’ intellectuals focused around Moritz Schlick, who had been appointed Professor of the philosophy of the inductive sciences at Vienna University in 1922. This included Rudolf Carnap, Otto Neurath, Viktor Kraft, Hans Hahn and Herbert Feigl. The principal objective of the members of the Circle was to unify the sciences, which carried with it, in their view, the need to eliminate metaphysics once and for all by showing that metaphysical propositions are meaningless—a project which Schlick in particular saw as deriving from the account of the proposition given in Wittgenstein's Tractatus. Although he was friendly with some of the Circle's members and shared their esteem for science,

Popper's hostility towards Wittgenstein alienated Schlick

, and he was never invited to become a member of the group. For his part, Popper became increasingly critical of the main tenets of logical positivism, especially of what he considered to be its misplaced focus on the theory of meaning in philosophy and upon verification in scientific methodology, and reveled in the title ‘the official opposition’ which was bestowed upon him by Neurath.

 

I can’t help but point out that you just made the wrong deduction. That a statement is very-probable or very-improbable is beside the point as would be calling it a ‘miraculous’ observation. In fact, the most scientific of theories are those which predict very improbable observations. See pages 336-8 which I cite above—I believe it would be worth the effort. You *can* devise an experiment which observes (or verifies / confirms) an existential statement. Observational statements are conceivably observable. The thing which cannot be conceived of is an experiment which falsifies the statement. No experiment can be devised which proves this statement false: “There is a ceremony whose exact performance forces the devil to appear”, but it is conceivable to devise an experiment proving it true.

I can’t help but point out that you are confusing what I said and also what Popper said. I can't afford too much more time so I'll discuss only at your request. :) As for your remarks about my next sentence after that, it wasn't aimed at defining religion it was about the belief of some scientists in some tenets of faith.

 

If the definition of apple includes “a red fruit” then one cannot accept that something green is an apple without making an equivocation fallacy. To hold to the definition one must dismiss the counterexample. Either the definition needs changed or the green thing isn’t an apple. I don’t know how to be more clear.

Sue, a botanist, tells Sam she is not commiting the EF, the definition of apple doesn't include red, it's a type of pome and it is a fruit of any species of the Rosaceae Malus family. Elsewhere she is tells Pino that the seeds are never in the (always fleshy) pulp of the hypanthium, they are always inside the otherwise empty ovary or core. Pino is Sicilian and he shows her an orange as a counterexample. Sue will say Pino is in the equivocation fallacy, Sam will say both others are and Pino and Sam will agree on one point: they'll say how handy it is for Sue to invoke the EF when it suits her but not when it goes against her. :doh:

 

If there were no botanical definition of apple and the thread was entitled "What are apples?" how much sense would it make to invoke the equivocation fallacy? Botanists have not so far agreed upon a definition of religion and this thread's title is "What is religion?"

 

Actually, “god is not in x” is an assertion rather than pointing out an assumption.

Actually it was meant as the premise to what you then call a very important addendum and the clarifications that follow it.

 

I've seen various dictionary and encyclopedic definitions of theism, deism, and pantheism &c. but I didn't find the exact same that those quotes say, which don't completely agree with each other and I really don't think it's worth arguing about, so I'll just take your answer as a clarification of what you meant by purely. :) It otherwise comes across like an adjective over here, coned after a speaker at a funeral was striving to emphasize the late man's great vitality to the very last and said: "Just think... even a quarter hour before his death, he was live!"

 

It is clear that you don’t think demographics are the point. But, you should, in my humble opinion, avoid defining god, religion, and other such terms in a manner which is unrecognizable to the vast majority of the people with whom you converse. While it may tacitly help your arguments, it does not help your ability to communicate, and the purpose of a word and its associated definition are none other than to successfully communicate. The *only* thing that makes a word meaningful is that others understand what you mean by that word. In that respect, demographics consensus is not only the point—it is the only meaningful point.

Again you disregard this thread's title and topic being "What is religion?"

 

I'll add that current demographics don't quite equate to quoting John Orr and Wiki either, I wouldn't say it is the only meaningful point. :shrug: I think we are getting into an overly nebulous discussion that isn't worth the time.

 

It matters little how many people Spinoza thinks are godly when no one agrees with him on his idea of god. Read the Einstein letters again. From the Roman Catholic perspective Einstein is an Atheist. From Spinoza’s perspective Einstein believes in god.

Sorry but you aren't following what I said, nor what Spinoza said and you are positing that Roman Catholics do consider Einstein to be an atheist. I disagree with Einstein on that, as in many other details of his writings, it is not correct to call people atheist because they hold a different belief in god(s) but many folks have been doing it. Spinoza did not consider few folks to be godly. Basically his doctrine just doesn't share certain religious beliefs but the leading monotheistic faiths, of the brunt of religious people, have concepts of god which include an essence that he does share. He said it doesn't matter if others add tenets that aren't pernicious, as long as pernicious effects are avoided and benefits prevail. What therefore is unimportant is how many folks strip their concept of god down to this essence, I hope this clarifies.

 

By the way, I can recite whole chapters of the Tao in Cantonese from memory (a legacy of martial arts), and “Tao Te Ching” means nothing like “the way of the gods”. You are no doubt confusing it with “Shinto” which literally means “Way of the gods”.

My bad again :doh: and it even struck me later on, recalling what I had written. This was when it also struck me that we were getting into muddles between defining god and defining religion and I therefore meant to remind you that religion isn't necessarily god. Your explanation of “Tao Te Ching” puts it in terms of spirituality making it what is widely considered a kind of religion. I think our struggles are getting us both a bit lost. My hat off to your knowledge of Cantonese, glottology has always been one of my interests.

 

However, I disagree with

Spinoza’s god is no more a god than it (i.e. not a god at all).

and the SEP quote isn't almost exactly your wording; it says both are distinctly non-personal which is not the same as "neither is a god".

 

The only argument is whether Spinoza meant for god to be identical with the whole of nature or only part of nature. His ontology, in either case, is indistinguishable from atheism. Having read the link by which you fault my understanding you should well know this:

Those very two paragraphs were the main thing I had in mind and part of the reason for saying the matter is very subtle. The author is rejecting claims that Spinoza is a Pantheist and is not concluding that he's atheist. Just before your first quote he says:

 

For even if Spinoza does indeed identify God with the whole of Nature, it does not follow that Spinoza is a pantheist.

 

As for the last sentence in your second quote of Steven Nadler, I refer you to the last parts of the same article including the following quote of Spinoza himself:

 

As to the question of what God, the exemplar of true life, really is, whether he is fire, or spirit, or light, or thought, or something else, this is irrelevant to faith. And so likewise is the question as to why he is the exemplar of true life, whether this is because he has a just and merciful disposition, or because all things exist and act through him and consequently we, too, understand through him, and through him we see what is true, just and good. On these questions it matters not what beliefs a man holds. Nor, again, does it matter for faith whether one believes that God is omnipresent in essence or in potency, whether he directs everything from free will or from the necessity of his nature, whether he lays down laws as a rule or teaches them as being eternal truths, whether man obeys God from free will or from the necessity of the divine decree, whether the rewarding of the good and the punishing of the wicked is natural or supernatural. The view one takes on these and similar questions has no bearing on faith, provided that such a belief does not lead to the assumption of greater license to sin, or hinders submission to God. Indeed … every person is in duty bound to adapt these religious dogmas to his own understanding and to interpret them for himself in whatever way makes him feel that he can the more readily accept them with full confidence and conviction. (TTP, chap. 14, G III.164/S 162-3)

 

Now I don't think it's much use to argue about What Spinoza's god is, especially as the matter is so subtle that even folks who've read all of him are prone to equivocate, my take is that Spinoza considers god to be the source of reality's rationality but this would deserve a whole thread but would also require great competence so I won't go into it. Your conclusions are therefore as arbitrary as mine, Nadler's and other folks' take but I'll say one thing:

 

The only question in my mind is why people are so intent on painting an ugly face on something so naturally marvelous, and I’m quite confident that was the question on Spinoza’s mind as well.

I'm also sure he had this in mind but not all those faces are ugly (see the above quote of TTP, chap. 14, G III.164/S 162-3) nor are all of them incompatible with scientific knowledge, and don't construe me as being in perfect agreement with Spinoza, Einstein or whoever I'm discussing the interesting points of. There's plenty in what I linked to that's relevant to the aim of discussing what religion is.

 

I'm unsure how to take your next remark, but the last one misses the point about making the transcendental knowable (generalizing the faith = knowledge tenet) and consider as candidates of ones which don't anthropomorphize Buddhism and other oriental doctrines, some forms of Animism and Deism. In any case, I disagree with the use of that term for concepts of god(s) to which no human figure is attributed (which includes the Abrahamic יהוה); it is meant in a general sense but I would say anthropocentric or anthroposomething in order to distinguish them and keep anthropomorphic for those such as the Achean-Roman ones. Yes, how unfortunate it is that words are used in ways that can mislead, just like pantheism with its antipodically opposite meanings. :phones:

[Larv]

Religion is to the Freudian superego what lust is to the id. Religion will fortify the superego and help the ego defeat the id. Without a strong superego the id will take over, leaving the ego is a sorry state of affairs. Religion is everything that is wrong with the world, but it is still necessary to keep individual egos from being drawn into the id's black hole.

 

Yes, religion is bullshit. I agree entirely with George Carlin:

YouTube - George Carlin - Religion is bullshit. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MeSSwKffj9o

 

But, for all of its evil doings. it can save a person from destroying his life by letting the id take over. I am one lab rat who, at age 70, has come to the painful realization that I might have been a better person if I had been a religious person. Yet, for me, that would have been impossible. So I'm screwed this trip around. Maybe the next time.

[Qfwfq]

So I'm screwed this trip around. Maybe the next time.

Well, that too is a religious belief! B)

[Qfwfq]

Just to make a better effort than my faded memories had afforded, I found time to look at my old copy of C & R and see the exact bit I referred to. It is entitled A presumably false yet formally highly probable non-empirical statement and is the appendix of Truth, Rationality and the Growth of Scientific Knowledge and the verbatim statement is:

 

There exists a finite sequence of Latin elegiac couplets such that, if it is pronounced in an appropriate manner at a certain time and place, this is immediately followed by the appearance of the Devil--that is to say, of a man-like creature with two small horns and a cloven hoof.

 

He describes it as being "a simple, purely existential statement which is formulated in purely empirical terms" and later in his discussion, arguing against the positivists who consider it an empirical statement, says:

 

And why, I ask, should anybody who takes it for

empirical

think it is

false

?. Empirically, it is irrefutable. No observation in the world can establish its falsity. There can be no empirical grounds for its falsity.

 

To avoid confusion, my contention was that even some religious beliefs involving observable phenomena which, at face value, go against scientific "laws" are at most as falsifiable as that example so they formally don't contradict scientific knowledge. Of course believing them is a choice but the opposite conviction can only be based on an anti-metaphysical dogma, such as that which Popper shares with the Vienna Circle.

 

As for the notion of "going against scientific laws" it would be interesting to also look at the work of Berkely, starting from some points of his discussion of it (which also appears as a chapter in C & R):

 

A note on Berkely as precursor to Mach and Einstein. The Brithish Journal for the Philosophy of Science, 4, 1953

 

While it has no bearing on my point, I see fit to remark that the non-obvious mention of "formally highly probable" in the appendix title is treated as follows (32 is a footnote):

 

Probability theory tells us even more:it can be easily proved not only that empirical evidence can

never refute

an almost logically true existential statement, but that it can

never reduce its probability

. (32) (Its probability could be reduced by some information which is at least 'almost logically false', and therefore not by an observational evidence statement.) So the empirical probability or empirical degree of confirmation (in Carnap's sense) of our statement about the devil-summoning spell must forever remain equal to unity, whatever the facts may be.

 

32 This is a consequence of the 'principle of stability' of the probability calculus; see theorem (26), section V, of my paper 'Creative and Non-Creative definitions in the Calulus of Probabilty',

Synthese

, 15, 1963, No. 2, pp. 167 ff.

 

Wherein I'm currently unable to shed further light on references to Carnap and that paper. As a clarification I add that my previous words "highly unlikely" in trying to recall how he described the statement, are not to be construed as meaning "highly improbable", a subtle distinction which he even mentions here and there; I simply couldn't remember if he had said this or presumably false or exactly what.