Ye Religion Thread

[DaHanG]

Right, we don

[QuakeDuke]

I've no idea why you have taken such a tack but instead of dealing with each individual post I will go with this.

Yes. I feel like you are accusing me of dishonesty, as if I changed my entire initial post to reflect that of a religious experience. This is something I did not do. The edit was very minor and reflected something grammatical, which is why I specifically asked quadz to bring up the original post to prove you wrong.

Why bother Quadz. Here's the link: http://tastyspleen.net/quake/forums/index.php?topic=4240.msg62527#msg62527

Your post where you say your original intent was religious personal experiences prove nothing can be found here: http://tastyspleen.net/quake/forums/index.php?topic=4240.msg62565#msg62565. Contained in that post is what you must consider a condescending attitude, if I am to go by your example of my condescending attitude:

Here

[quadz]

But you did outright say that I edited my initial post to convey the message of religious/spiritual experiences. That would be an accusation of dishonesty.

Again, the post I referred to as being edited and showed you "clarified" "changed" however you want to put it can be found here: http://tastyspleen.net/quake/forums/index.php?topic=4240.msg62565#msg62565. Is this your post or not? Does it show you clarifying you meant? Was it edited by you? If it is yours and you did it, how is my referencing it an accusation of dishonesty?

Gentlemen!  You can't fight in here!  This is the War Room!! 

From the standpoint of an observer, I think a simple misunderstanding or two led to the current confusion.

For example: I think dahang thought he was being accused of literally editing the content of his original post about "personal experience proves nothing" and that the implication was that somehow he had edited this post in a questionable or disingenuous way to try to pretend he had said something different that was originally said.

HOWEVER, it appears QD was not intending to make that accusation, but was simply referring to a later post where dahang had clarified that he meant, in context, personal experiences of a religious nature.  It seems that QD was referring to dahang's clarification, rather than accusing dahang of disingenuously modifying an earlier post.

As far as I can tell, the disconnect based on this initial misunderstanding eventually snowballed into the current rift.

I would humbly suggest both sides might want to take a step back, and just let go any animosity that may have arisen from what appears to be an initial misunderstanding.

(And I can't help but observe that, we appear to have a nice case in point here, where personal experience, modified by interpretation--based on a misunderstanding--has resulted in an actual example of personal experiences proving nothing. )


Regards,

quadz

[DaHanG]

I've no idea why you have taken such a tack but instead of dealing with each individual post I will go with this.

Yes. I feel like you are accusing me of dishonesty, as if I changed my entire initial post to reflect that of a religious experience. This is something I did not do. The edit was very minor and reflected something grammatical, which is why I specifically asked quadz to bring up the original post to prove you wrong.

Why bother Quadz. Here's the link: http://tastyspleen.net/quake/forums/index.php?topic=4240.msg62527#msg62527

Here

[DaHanG]

I would humbly suggest both sides might want to take a step back, and just let go any animosity that may have arisen from what appears to be an initial misunderstanding.

It's kind of sad but that seems to be the root of all this. It did seem though that I couldn't justifiably explain myself, which is what I took most of my offense to.

(And I can't help but observe that, we appear to have a nice case in point here, where personal experience, modified by interpretation--based on a misunderstanding--has resulted in an actual example of personal experiences proving nothing. )

Brilliant observation. 

[QuakeDuke]

I would humbly suggest both sides might want to take a step back, and just let go any animosity that may have arisen from what appears to be an initial misunderstanding.

Done.

(And I can't help but observe that, we appear to have a nice case in point here, where personal experience, modified by interpretation--based on a misunderstanding--has resulted in an actual example of personal experiences proving nothing. )

Except that we experienced whatever it was that we experienced personally as a result of whatever it was that we experienced

QD

[DaHanG]

I would humbly suggest both sides might want to take a step back, and just let go any animosity that may have arisen from what appears to be an initial misunderstanding.

Done.

Done.

[reaper]

The evidence is far skewed on one side though. Although the comparison isn

[QuakeDuke]

While I believe I understand what you're getting at, I still feel an important distinction is being overlooked here, with regard to proof vis-a-vis science.

Let's consider the color "red".  Personal experience is involved, certainly, because people who are able to see color must first agree they know the color red when they see it.  However, very little in the way of scientific proof can be drawn from the fact that most people seem to be able to agree that red is red.  It is a vastly shared personal experience, to be sure, but it doesn't prove much in and of itself beyond implying most of our color perception circuitry is all wired about the same.

But now consider the first person to discover that what we agree on as red light occupies a frequency band in the spectrum of visible light from about 625 - 740 nanometers.  I would argue the discoverer's personal experience has no direct bearing at all on the provability of this discovery.  Indeed, the spectral frequency band of the color we agree is called red was a pre-existing fact waiting to be discovered.  The personal experience of the discoverer has no causality with respect to the discovery.  Nor is the personal experience of the discoverer related to the scientific provability of the discovery.

I think the difference in the way I  look at this would be in this way, and I am going to use the terms personal experiences & shared personal experiences. If I'm not clear, please let me know so I can try again .

Anyway, at the point of the "first" personal experience with the color someone designated "red" as the color "red" and the term (color) "red" is put into play. It doesn't really become "red" officially until there are shared personal experiences of everyone agreeing this particular color is "red", until then it's still only one persons personal experience - the one who decided to name it "red".

To me, our ability to analyze the spectrum and assign this color to a certain space on the spectrum isn't what defines "red". My reasoning is because our personal experiences (from the first experience on) could just as easily have ended up with this color being known as "puke green" -  the data assignation on the spectrum would be no different than what it currently is no matter what we decided to call the color and because we assigned the color "red"  before we learned of the spectrum, it was the (the total of all) personal experiences that defined red. The data (which we usually refer to as scientific fact)  merely proves there is a band of light of about 625 - 740 nanometers we have decided to assign to the color red based on the consensus (agreement) of the shared personal experiences of those deciding to call red, red. Whew!

I guess in a nutshell I view everything in science in this matter - to me it's why I don't see a conflict between the existence of god and science. Our science "proves" "disproves" "assigns" "puts in a box" concepts, etc. that were /are part of someone's personal experiences long before science could even begin to formulate the question, and I suspect, it will always be this way.

Note that I have never taken the stance that personal experience proves nothing.  However, from the standpoint of conscious phenomenology, I question whether personal experience can prove much of anything in and of itself beyond axiomatically that the person having the experience is alive.  (An experience can't even be reflected upon without being subject to interpretation; more on that below.)

I did notice that, believe it or not Well, again to me, personal experiences is much more than being alive - it's what makes up the history of mankind. I know there are those who constantly question (and re-write for that matter) history (and we should - question, not necessarily re-write) but whatever route people take, it's always (to me anyway) based on someone's personal experiences. What is history but the collection of mutually agreed on renditions of someone's personal experiences? Even if we concede we learn more about King/Queen/President _________ (you fill in the blank) 30 (or 100, 200) years after they are no longer alive, what is that knowledge based on? Artifacts? Tombs? Hieroglyphics? All tangible expressions of someone's personal experiences. Perhaps we should attempt to discern when personal experiences become tangible?

So maybe I'm still not sure whether we are using the same definition of the term proof.

Probably not. But I believe (note I'm stating it's my opinion) all proof - whether to confirm or disprove - has it's roots in the personal experiences of those doing the work. Perhaps I'm just to obtuse (everyone missed a good chance for an amen here ) but I haven't been able to understand how you can separate them. To me, they are just as inextricably entwined as the life force in each living being, and we know what happens if you remove the life force from a living being.

Yes, I watched it.  Thanks for the heads up in the shoutbox that it would be airing. 

Most welcome. I've enjoyed most of what I've read / heard /seen from him.

From what I've read of Hawking, I don't get the impression that he takes the tone of certainty.  But again, I fail to see how his personal experiences are relevant to the science of his information loss theory.  He had arrived at an elegant equation combining thermodynamics, relativity, and gravity; however whether that equation truly represented what goes on in a singularity was far from universally accepted among physicists.  Indeed, what I got from the Discovery show and from the few things on the subject I've read since, was that of late it's largely been Hawking who has doggedly been trying to make sense of his own equation.  As far as him changing his mind, what I understood was that he was able to come up with an alternate explanation to account for the apparent information loss implied by the equation, by considering the effect of multiple parallel universes, some of which would contain the black hole, and some of which wouldn't.  But if I understood right, he was still saying: I believe my equation is correct; there would still be information loss if you only considered a singularity in the context of one universe; but there's a way around information loss if you consider multiple parallel universes.

I agree. But it seems to me he's always presented ( by the faithful - hmmmm) as the final authority on whatever subject he is dealing with, and thus as above reproach (by which I mean "Stephen Hawkins said so and so there!") without taking into account or mentioning his own struggles with these things.

But what I got from the Discovery show, other physicists were somewhat underwhelmed by Hawkings new idea, partly because the full details of his theory (which he is still developing) have not been made public yet, and also partly because of the the apparent difficulty in testing a theory involving other universes.

To me, the fact other physicists not being willing to consider / help prove /disprove his theory speaks to Hawking's credit and their detriment, apparent difficulty in testing a theory notwithstanding.

Which again, is back to the point of science vs. personal experience.  Hawking may be respected, but his personal experiences don't matter to the other physicists.  They want solid theory, and they want to be able to test it.

His personal experiences may not ever matter much to other physicists, but you can bet when / if they are ever proven right, the discovery will be assigned a place on the corresponding "spectrum" of knowledge and it will have been (to me anyway ) Hawking's personal experiences that will be at the root of it.

Simply because we, in our own personal experience haven't encountered a phenomenon in no way  invalidates the personal experience of someone who has - regardless of what that experience is. While there is nothing wrong with investigation of the personal experience in question, (and they should be investigated) for us to start from the premise they must be wrong (and how do we arrive at the premise they're wrong? Because we haven't experienced it). This starting position blinds us and prevents us from objectively looking at a situation.  Because we've already made up our minds they are wrong, our "evidence" gathering, our acceptance of personal experiences are going to be to support our position not to truly find out the truth.

Comparison of personal experiences is a far different realm from these experiences proving something to one another.

Except to me, it's these comparisons and agreed on results can be the "proof" long before there is the "hard science" to understand how it's done. Egyptian pyramids are an example. We have no clue (we have theories but no "hard" proof) of how they were built, and we, the most technological advance incarnation of mankind cannot duplicate their efforts - but the "personal experiences" of those who did stand before us.

For instance, you may feel you've had a personal experience that implies God unquestionably exists.  Whereas I may have had a personal experience that suggests something else, just as concretely.
What are the possibilities?  1. I haven't had your experience, and you haven't had mine.  2. We've both had the same category of experience, but have interpreted the experience totally differently.  3. ... (?)

1. Which doesn't (at least to me) necessarily  invalidate either experience.  I say this because it is impossible for two people to have the exact same experiences because they are separate people (there are even differences between identical twins) To me, it would be the blending of the commonality of these experiences that produces the "fact".

2. Even if we would have the same category of experience, you could just about guarantee it would be interpreted different. I could eludicate on this farther but who wants to hear a bunch of old war stories, huh? Still, I believe (my opinion again) it's those very differences (and the acceptance of the possibility there's more in common than at first blush) that speeds up the resolution of the conflict (differences) in those experiences.

3. We could both be completely wrong?

I tend to think deep personal experience is almost unavoidably colored by the interpretive process of trying to understand it--or even to resolve it into basic metaphors and ascribe any meaning to the experience; in essence a Heisenberg effect: The more we map an experience into analogies and metaphors we can understand in order to ascribe some meaning to it, the less of the original experience remains.

I would tend to agree with you about the coloring. I just don't necessarily see this as a bad thing - provided those who are attempting to map the experience were open to learning something outside their previous "experience". I still believe it's inflexibility that has hindered the growth of our knowledge.

I would suggest the possibility that you and I could have the same category of experience, and that while you might make sense of it with God-centric metaphors, I might reflect on it differently.

This might be true if I attempted to explain god and his ways. Tell me truly now, have I come across as trying to do that?

You left one out: Man's presumption that a specific interpretation of a personal experience indicates that God undeniably exists may be just as blinding.

Perhaps, if we approach that specific interpretation dogmatically - of course, that would hold with any interpretation of something we didn't understand and often does no matter the experience being examined.

Thanks Quadz... Sometimes I wish I could get together with some of the 'spleeners and have these discussions into the wee hours of the month

QD

[QuakeDuke]

I have some questions to ask and I think this might be the thread for them. If it's not, move it where thou wilt Quadz.

Is there truth apart from our perception of truth or is truth bound by our perception of what truth is? In other words, is there such a thing as absolute truth?

QD

[DaHanG]

The evidence is far skewed on one side though. Although the comparison isn

[DaHanG]

Is there truth apart from our perception of truth or is truth bound by our perception of what truth is? In other words, is there such a thing as absolute truth?

I would consider gravity and other predictable phenomena under the category of absolute truth (for our world). The second results come about that are different than expected (assuming there wasn't human error in the prediction itself), then it would be ruled out as absolute truth. I think absolute truths exist within our physical world.

A more interesting concept is whether or not absolute truth exists within morality. While I have very inflexible views on certain aspects of morality (murder for the fun of it is wrong, etc.), some are certainly open to debate among us. Some think the death penalty is immoral, while others think it is justified. I presume that most would say that if god exists, then there is such a thing as absolute morality (cause-->effect). I think otherwise. Things are either intrinsically moral, or they are not. God can

[quadz]

Things are either intrinsically moral, or they are not. God can

[quadz]

Comparison of personal experiences is a far different realm from these experiences proving something to one another.

Except to me, it's these comparisons and agreed on results can be the "proof" long before there is the "hard science" to understand how it's done.

I'm still not sure what kind of "proof" we're talking about.

[DaHanG]

I'm inclined to wonder if morality may be kind of a species-relative concept.  If your species has a nervous system that can feel pain and pleasure, and has the ability to both conceptualize and feel empathy for other beings. . . . I'm thinking morality may arise largely out of empathy, and the ability to reason about or envision the cascade of implications stemming from that initial/particular precept.

I was part of a massive three hour conversation on morality and how it relates to religion a few days ago. This sort of thing came up, where you have implied a sort of raising of consciousness toward other beings and perhaps what they feel. I think a very interesting question is where in the hell did the empathy come from? There was the argument of it arising from our social way of life and the rules for living we developed over time (be nice to one another, altruism, ..). Then there was also the argument of it being biological, and the ability to empathize is simply rooted in a more powerful brain capable of understanding how others feel and not wanting them to experience pain (we flinch when seeing someone get smacked in the face as a consequence of recently discovered mirror neurons). I suppose there has been some studies on this sort of thing (nature/nurture concept once again), but I