Religions, Science, and Society

[Mal]

But....if I've understood correctly, it's not till the 19thC that we finally get to a stage where God is surplus to requirements...

The gods were surplus to Epicurus' requirements; gods still exist in Epicurean philosophy but they are off in cloud cuckoo land and do not affect the world at all.

[Lat-Literal]

Not sure that I am young enough now to wish to be drawn in. I could reiterate that the scientific understanding of universe, as with almost everything else, is a language which does not belong to other animals. It also sits in a context where we know that crowds, literal or merely groupings, are more than capable of mass mirage, hallucination and hysteria. This is also witnessed on the religious side, not least in the talking in tongues. So I think the universe does not exist other than in the brain although it is no doubt projected out and back again and perhaps the same is true of routine life. It exists because other people say it exists and to say otherwise is to be banished from it all. Exploration here - exploration of the planets and so on, followed by explanation - is essentially the filling in of gaps of the commonweal of nonplussed minds across the planet. It just looks external.

But I have said such things before so that now even I yawn. What I haven't said is that the religion versus science argument is in the tradition of bipolar, if you will, opposites. Man and woman. Labour and Conservative. Authoritarianism and democracy. We should all know by now that the devil is in the detail and that untruths are cast aside in such broad churches. Consequently, it is amoeboid in its approximation though arguably a high upon high in terms of societal convenience. Fair enough - but that's not fact. It's organisation prioritised over something other than limitation. That has to be the way otherwise conflict can't be contained on ground level to the extent that mass mirage, hallucination and hysteria do break out. Both are needed communally to ensure that there is never a proper assessment of the human brain for that would make survival almost impossible.

Incidentally, as a trend, I note how those who are of faith tend to revere the family and the father while those of science revere intellectualism. Neither is good enough for me. They look limited to the extent that the human ego is at play in each. That is a key part of how and why the human race can't get to grips with these issues.

Ta.

[Serial_Apologist]

Not sure that I am young enough now to wish to be drawn in. I could reiterate that the scientific understanding of universe, as with almost everything else, is a language which does not belong to other animals. It also sits in a context where we know that crowds, literal or merely groupings, are more than capable of mass mirage, hallucination and hysteria. This is also witnessed on the religious side, not least in the talking in tongues. So I think the universe does not exist other than in the brain although it is no doubt projected out and back again and perhaps the same is true of routine life. It exists because other people say it exists and to say otherwise is to be banished from it all. Exploration here - exploration of the planets and so on, followed by explanation - is essentially the filling in of gaps of the commonweal of nonplussed minds across the planet. It just looks external.

But I have said such things before so that now even I yawn. What I haven't said is that the religion versus science argument is in the tradition of bipolar, if you will, opposites. Man and woman. Labour and Conservative. Authoritarianism and democracy. We should all know by now that the devil is in the detail and that untruths are cast aside in such broad churches. Consequently, it is amoeboid in its approximation though arguably a high upon high in terms of societal convenience. Fair enough - but that's not fact. It's organisation prioritised over something other than limitation. That has to be the way otherwise conflict can't be contained on ground level to the extent that mass mirage, hallucination and hysteria do break out. Both are needed communally to ensure that there is never a proper assessment of the human brain for that would make survival almost impossible.

Incidentally, as a trend, I note how those who are of faith tend to revere the family and the father while those of science revere intellectualism. Neither is good enough for me. They look limited to the extent that the human ego is at play in each. That is a key part of how and why the human race can't get to grips with these issues.

Ta.

Would not one say that the ego is in part a social construct made up of others' attributions of oneself and self-selected memories: a combination of centre from which we are led to assume we act, and over which we have control in so-called "normal" states of mind? I go along with those for whom the source of action is of itself, rather than anything that can be defined and separated out, and operates best when not identified or interfered with, the same way as our heartbeats, breathing, digestion etc. don't need "it" to tell them what to do. Judaeo-Christian self-doubt underpins so many problems: peoples of the Indian subcontinent didn't have them before our ancestors imposed our western puritanism on them.

[Lat-Literal]

Would not one say that the ego is in part a social construct made up of others' attributions of oneself and self-selected memories: a combination of centre from which we are led to assume we act, and over which we have control in so-called "normal" states of mind? I go along with those for whom the source of action is of itself, rather than anything that can be defined and separated out, and operates best when not identified or interfered with, the same way as our heartbeats, breathing, digestion etc. don't need "it" to tell them what to do. Judaeo-Christian self-doubt underpins so many problems: peoples of the Indian subcontinent didn't have them before our ancestors imposed our western puritanism on them.

Yes - I agree. But science based upon notions of rational principle is at least as egotistical. Both religion and science claim to be authoritative and yet each is based in patterns or codes of belief around which one has to accept there is much that we still don't know. Each claims to provide a route to greater knowledge and/or truth. One perhaps is considered to be more deeply rooted in history. Like concepts of the family from generation to generation that can be a plus or minus depending on perspective. The other often speaks more of the future like an ambitious someone who has just reached the age where they have left the family home. There is in that construct a recipe for conflict in terms of values with egos involved on both sides. But considered in this context, which I think is absolutely the right context in which to assess it, neither seems as huge as is generally considered. It all seems very evidently small - as in limited - to me. And being so ring fenced, the ironic contradiction is that neither can ably deliver what they purport. It is like arguing about which of two roads to travel on in Sussex to discover the meaning of the universe without anyone saying that Haywards Heath is Haywards Heath. It is all very King Canute versus the Flat Earth Society in that sense.

[Richard Barrett]

Both religion and science claim to be authoritative and yet each is based in patterns or codes of belief around which one has to accept there is much that we still don't know. Each claims to provide a route to greater knowledge and/or truth.

You seem to be proposing a symmetry between them which doesn't bear close scrutiny. Religion claims that there is an absolute truth which is provided through an obscure process of revelation, whereas science makes no such claim, proceeding instead through "conjectures and refutations", that is to say admitting that something is not true is the only thing that can be established, and then subject to change through subsequent reframing or refinement of the experimental approach used to draw that conclusion. It rests ultimately on the notion that reality behaves according to predictable "laws" that don't require any external intervention, whereas a religious point of view would presumably have it that while those laws appear to govern things the reality (based on no kind of evidence) is actually different. But I think many people of a religious persuasion these days have given up on the idea that their faith explains reality, and would say instead that it is not about making claims to truths that science is better placed to investigate. The atheist Xenakis asserted that music could occupy "realms that religion still occupies for some people".

[Serial_Apologist]

Zen in particular has numerous parables about individuals being forced by the logic of their own terms of reasoning to square up to reality rather than encoded assumptions about it, whether inscribed in ancient tracts or any other discipline that fails to appreciate their limitations - the frequent analogies used being the recipe, the menu and the meal; and the map and the journey: both meal and journey being metaphors for actuality as directly experienceable without conceptual, imaging or other intermediaries. Hence the popularity of psychedelics and TM in the 1960s for circumventing habits ingrained in thought processing. Nevertheless one does not achieve understanding by ditching the recipe or the menu, which the responsibilities of living in societies run on complex practicable networks of agreed ideology require updating for purposes of planning.

The historically perpetuated baggage wrapped up in differing versions of Truth cry out for the Zen-like ethos of detachment inscribed in scientific methodology as explained by Richard, because mathematically encoded, the derived assumptions are universal principle-based, unveiled in discovery. One other respect in which scientific objectivity is analogous to Buddhist detachment lies in its attitude of openness to theory just being theory, subjectable to change, amendment or being ditched in the light of evidence to the contrary, subject desirably to testing, and open-ended, provisional, not fixed for all time - and, of course, to peer-group oversight. Sure, there is always the danger of corrupted verification - relating back to discussions elsewhere including on this forum about conditions giving rise to or encouraging it - but this danger is of a different "order" to that of people claiming their divinely revealed truth as justification for any and every vile act throughout (unilluminated) history.

[Lat-Literal]

You seem to be proposing a symmetry between them which doesn't bear close scrutiny. Religion claims that there is an absolute truth which is provided through an obscure process of revelation, whereas science makes no such claim, proceeding instead through "conjectures and refutations", that is to say admitting that something is not true is the only thing that can be established, and then subject to change through subsequent reframing or refinement of the experimental approach used to draw that conclusion. It rests ultimately on the notion that reality behaves according to predictable "laws" that don't require any external intervention, whereas a religious point of view would presumably have it that while those laws appear to govern things the reality (based on no kind of evidence) is actually different. But I think many people of a religious persuasion these days have given up on the idea that their faith explains reality, and would say instead that it is not about making claims to truths that science is better placed to investigate. The atheist Xenakis asserted that music could occupy "realms that religion still occupies for some people".

The similarity - I doubt that I would call it symmetry - is that each resides in the domain of human language which is of itself invented. That might well provide ideas about truths for human purposes but the truth, whatever that is, is unlikely to exist in language at all given that it is invented. It is quite possible that a bird or a goat is much closer to the truth. Certainly each is more "route one" in everything it does and each should appeal to the many nowadays who prefer succinctness to the lengthy. The detailed languages of both science and religion could be interpreted as diversionary and/or getting in the way. This is not to suggest that detail doesn't matter. It does. But the detail is likely to be basic rather than in the money making spiel below two umbrella systems in opposition. I have some sympathy with the Xenakis point which is new to me. It is closer to my outlook but I'd call it spirituality.

Zen in particular has numerous parables about individuals being forced by the logic of their own terms of reasoning to square up to reality rather than encoded assumptions about it, whether inscribed in ancient tracts or any other discipline that fails to appreciate their limitations - the frequent analogies used being the recipe, the menu and the meal; and the map and the journey: both meal and journey being metaphors for actuality as directly experienceable without conceptual, imaging or other intermediaries. Hence the popularity of psychedelics and TM in the 1960s for circumventing habits ingrained in thought processing. Nevertheless one does not achieve understanding by ditching the recipe or the menu, which the responsibilities of living in societies run on complex practicable networks of agreed ideology require updating for purposes of planning.

The historically perpetuated baggage wrapped up in differing versions of Truth cry out for the Zen-like ethos of detachment inscribed in scientific methodology as explained by Richard, because mathematically encoded, the derived assumptions are universal principle-based, unveiled in discovery. One other respect in which scientific objectivity is analogous to Buddhist detachment lies in its attitude of openness to theory just being theory, subjectable to change, amendment or being ditched in the light of evidence to the contrary, subject desirably to testing, and open-ended, provisional, not fixed for all time - and, of course, to peer-group oversight. Sure, there is always the danger of corrupted verification - relating back to discussions elsewhere including on this forum about conditions giving rise to or encouraging it - but this danger is of a different "order" to that of people claiming their divinely revealed truth as justification for any and every vile act throughout (unilluminated) history.

You make some good points as always. But: I have already commented on the trend based biases in science (a preference for intellectualism over family) and religion (vice versa). Another concern I have is the tendency of scientists who are in opposition to religion to speak about the historical connections between religion and war or atrocity. While no doubt true, there are many exceptions. Even if it were wholly true, it would be to attach a value judgement from a position of supposedly evidence based absolutism so far as such things have been achieved. That is not without irony. And it is also oddly parochial - ie it is purely about earth based occurrences - when what is mainly under discussion concerns universal themes.

[Richard Barrett]

The similarity - I doubt that I would call it symmetry - is that each resides in the domain of human language which is of itself invented.

Galileo is supposed to have said (and his words have been echoed through the intervening centuries) that the laws of nature are written in the language of mathematics. Is mathematics a man-made language? That is a matter for some philosophical speculation, which might be worth discussing. Also: either the earth orbits the sun, as established by scientific method, or vice versa, as asserted by the early church. Only one of those two possibilities can be the case, whatever one chooses to believe in.

[Serial_Apologist]

You make some good points as always. But: I have already commented on the trend based biases in science (a preference for intellectualism over family)[1] and religion (vice versa). Another concern I have is the tendency of scientists who are in opposition to religion to speak about the historical connections between religion and war or atrocity. While no doubt true, there are many exceptions. Even if it were wholly true, it would be to attach a value judgement from a position of supposedly evidence based absolutism[2] so far as such things have been achieved. That is not without irony. And it is also oddly parochial - ie it is purely about earth based occurrences [3] - when what is mainly under discussion concerns universal themes[4].

[1] Not sure what the connection with family - a social construct specific to given periods of historical development - is? Leaving aside that in some wider sense you might be meaning tribe here, and I sincerely hope not, "intellectualism", is surely fine in its place? Otherwise we must deduce that the evolved capacity for intellectual thought is somehow divorced from the natural propensity for evolution to "come up with" additional brain capacity - which would seem to be in flat contradiction. Is there not the possibility that the evolutionary process, left to itself in propitious circumstances, would self-correct? My own brain power, not being even as it was 20 years ago, has nevertheless come up with simple practical solutions to frequent memory lapses.

[2] "Evidence-based absolutism" seems preferable to wild assertion, surely. What better alternative is there - or is it the "supposedly" that you find problematic? Checks and balances are inbuilt into the practice and principles of science - we can't blame science per se whenever these are not upheld.

[3] Personally I don't see anything problematic about situating our fortunes in the earthbound. The idea of a godhead somewhere out there transcends my capacity for responsibility (response-ability); and in any case I don't see any alternative to us nurturing the little bit of the universe that managed to come up with us and keeps us going as long as we do so.

[4] All universal themes are limited by provisionality.

[Lat-Literal]

Galileo is supposed to have said (and his words have been echoed through the intervening centuries) that the laws of nature are written in the language of mathematics. Is mathematics a man-made language? That is a matter for some philosophical speculation, which might be worth discussing. Also: either the earth orbits the sun, as established by scientific method, or vice versa, as asserted by the early church. Only one of those two possibilities can be the case, whatever one chooses to believe in.

You are a bright man. I have heard it said along the way - perhaps less so now - that you will find the highest IQ in an identity that has a combination of music and maths. Not so much in music and words. Nothing I have experienced in other people contradicts it and some of that experience has appeared to underpin it. It makes rational sense. Mathematics is precise. Uncannily. At times the precision can seem like magic. It is also used for trickery. Certainly there is a linkage between mathematics and what's perceived as being external. But what is perceived as external, if it is not ideology exactly, owes so much to the human eye. And the human eye can't be measurably trusted. It is limited by its attachment to the human brain.

(I'm an A+ in arithmetic and only a C+ in mathematics as officially tested historically - I've never quite known what that means but obviously, as anticipated, the O'level was a "B")

[Lat-Literal]

[1] Not sure what the connection with family - a social construct specific to given periods of historical development - is? Leaving aside that in some wider sense you might be meaning tribe here, and I sincerely hope not, "intellectualism", is surely fine in its place? Otherwise we must deduce that the evolved capacity for intellectual thought is somehow divorced from the natural propensity for evolution to "come up with" additional brain capacity - which would seem to be in flat contradiction. Is there not the possibility that the evolutionary process, left to itself in propitious circumstances, would self-correct? My own brain power, not being even as it was 20 years ago, has nevertheless come up with simple practical solutions to frequent memory lapses.

[2] "Evidence-based absolutism" seems preferable to wild assertion, surely. What better alternative is there - or is it the "supposedly" that you find problematic? Checks and balances are inbuilt into the practice and principles of science - we can't blame science per se whenever these are not upheld.

[3] Personally I don't see anything problematic about situating our fortunes in the earthbound. The idea of a godhead somewhere out there transcends my capacity for responsibility (response-ability); and in any case I don't see any alternative to us nurturing the little bit of the universe that managed to come up with us and keeps us going as long as we do so.

[4] All universal themes are limited by provisionality.

Tribe wasn't even at the beginnings of my thinking but now that you mention it I do see it as relevant in one modern sphere. That is where there are big problems in the Islamic faith.
I do not see them as problems with Islam per se but rather with a tribal instinct which would work well on its own yet which has a religious aspect pasted on to it. It is all confusion essentially. A sticking process with no clear definition of what represents progress. I'd see both as sophisticated systems if left to do their own thing. I am not anti intellectualism. It is so much better than the trite. However, you are right. It has its own sphere which is merely human. Obviously it has made a significant contribution to evolution and survival along with the more powerful push and shove of self-interest. But neither evolution or survival of the species is about the reasons why we are all here and everything else that appears to us to exist.

The connections between religion - for example in Christianity - and reverence for the concept of the family are surely unquestionable. The father, the son and the holy ghost. Women, I guess, don't get a great deal here directly. Men with "family" reflect the grandiosity of a higher male power but only by virtue of being lesser or even subsumed. That is essentially the issue with gay marriage actually. At root, it has nothing to do with the nature of any physical activity but that one man should choose another man and put him on a pedestal. There is no assumption in that arrangement of a higher paternal deity. It is also almost certainly why the relationships between woman and woman were not so much condemned as dismissed as irrelevant. There are plus and minus points. On the big minus side, it has traditionally ruined the lives of many who are as they are. On the plus side, and it is for us all, the emphasis on us not knowing everything is one that would be of much benefit, not least given the fascistic iconography at the heart of everything from tattooing to finger wagging at the obese.

[Frances_iom]

(I'm an A+ in arithmetic and only a C+ in mathematics as officially tested historically - I've never quite known what that means but obviously, as anticipated, the O'level was a "B")

maybe your own adopted pseudonym reflects what I would read into that - good at mechanical manipulation of a set of rules but less good at seeing the underlying reasoning for them and applying this to new problems?

I always wonder if given Maxwells equations coded in some APL-like notation (that gives away my age!) if some extraterrestrial being would correctly determine their import

[Serial_Apologist]

Tribe wasn't even at the beginnings of my thinking but now that you mention it I do see it as relevant in one modern sphere. That is where there are big problems in the Islamic faith.
I do not see them as problems with Islam per se but rather with a tribal instinct which would work well on its own yet which has a religious aspect pasted on to it. It is all confusion essentially. A sticking process with no clear definition of what represents progress. I'd see both as sophisticated systems if left to do their own thing.

Tribalism was considered in relation to territorialism in an interesting discussion on this morning's Start The Week (Radio 4), it being pointed out that tribes arose at the point where humans started settling and becoming agrarian, and having given physical attributes in common helped distinguish between those interested in safeguarding the community and those out to undermine or usurp it. Distinguishing characteristics will always of course be decided by those at the top of the tribe; where tribalism persists it will seek self-perpetuation by pasting on some aspect of subsequent social development.

I am not anti intellectualism. It is so much better than the trite. However, you are right. It has its own sphere which is merely human. Obviously it has made a significant contribution to evolution and survival along with the more powerful push and shove of self-interest. But neither evolution or survival of the species is about the reasons why we are all here and everything else that appears to us to exist.

But for there to be reasons there has to be someone, or some entity presumably, laying down that unless there are reasons for our existence life has no meaning, either now or ultimately. We can all have reasons or purposes for why we think this way or do that, but it's a bit of a jump to ascribing the fact that we are here to some reason. In Buddhism it is said that reasons belong to the category of reasons and reasoning, and everything "deeper" floats free.

The connections between religion - for example in Christianity - and reverence for the concept of the family are surely unquestionable. The father, the son and the holy ghost. Women, I guess, don't get a great deal here directly. Men with "family" reflect the grandiosity of a higher male power but only by virtue of being lesser or even subsumed. That is essentially the issue with gay marriage actually. At root, it has nothing to do with the nature of any physical activity but that one man should choose another man and put him on a pedestal. There is no assumption in that arrangement of a higher paternal deity. It is also almost certainly why the relationships between woman and woman were not so much condemned as dismissed as irrelevant. There are plus and minus points. On the big minus side, it has traditionally ruined the lives of many who are as they are. On the plus side, and it is for us all, the emphasis on us not knowing everything is one that would be of much benefit, not least given the fascistic iconography at the heart of everything from tattooing to finger wagging at the obese.

Well, however it was that religions originated - there having to be a Higher Power that on the one hand could ruin the crops and on the other cure an outbreak of flu - general population's enslavement to preordained texts, especially those that constantly remind us of how fallen we all are, have been used as instruments of legitimation of status quos and ruling orders. The point about music is that a sense of connectedness embodied in it (which is a big subject in itself) transcends language's capacity to communicate, owing not just to mythological mystification but (as Wittgenstein and his erstwhile followers have explained) due to the structure of language itself. It's not that without belief or faith there would be no point to anything, but that meanings belong in the realm of language, or more accurately conceptualisation. As one Zen monk asked another, "If your original nature is pure, then why do you need to take a bath?" To which the other replied, "Just a dip: no why!"

[Lat-Literal]

maybe your own adopted pseudonym reflects what I would read into that - good at mechanical manipulation of a set of rules but less good at seeing the underlying reasoning for them and applying this to new problems?

I always wonder if given Maxwells equations coded in some APL-like notation (that gives away my age!) if some extraterrestrial being would correctly determine their import

Erm, I am not sure how to respond. I am just a humble rather limited person who walked out in an uncharacteristic huff as Lateralthinking and then again as Lateralthinking1 and had to change my name. That was two years or more ago. I decided at the start of this year that I wouldn't see the year out - not deliberate but declining health and I have not altered that opinion. Mathematics, oddly, were also involved. There is a lot of 2 and 18 in my birthdate. Consequently, I'm not persuaded by age differentials. And certainly manipulation ain't me.

I've got through the February date - I had dental work then - and both the 12 and 21 June so it's looking like the 6 December - you've hopefully got almost six months of me yet)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0V-LGVKOHgU

(Bless 'em)

[Lat-Literal]

Tribalism was considered in relation to territorialism in an interesting discussion on this morning's Start The Week (Radio 4), it being pointed out that tribes arose at the point where humans started settling and becoming agrarian, and having given physical attributes in common helped distinguish between those interested in safeguarding the community and those out to undermine or usurp it. Distinguishing characteristics will always of course be decided by those at the top of the tribe; where tribalism persists it will seek self-perpetuation by pasting on some aspect of subsequent social development.



But for there to be reasons there has to be someone, or some entity presumably, laying down that unless there are reasons for our existence life has no meaning, either now or ultimately. We can all have reasons or purposes for why we think this way or do that, but it's a bit of a jump to ascribing the fact that we are here to some reason. In Buddhism it is said that reasons belong to the category of reasons and reasoning, and everything "deeper" floats free.



Well, however it was that religions originated - there having to be a Higher Power that on the one hand could ruin the crops and on the other cure an outbreak of flu - general population's enslavement to preordained texts, especially those that constantly remind us of how fallen we all are, have been used as instruments of legitimation of status quos and ruling orders. The point about music is that a sense of connectedness embodied in it (which is a big subject in itself) transcends language's capacity to communicate, owing not just to mythological mystification but (as Wittgenstein and his erstwhile followers have explained) due to the structure of language itself. It's not that without belief or faith there would be no point to anything, but that meanings belong in the realm of language, or more accurately conceptualisation. As one Zen monk asked another, "If your original nature is pure, then why do you need to take a bath?" To which the other replied, "Just a dip: no why!"

Wittgenstein has cropped up a lot in our discussions here. I don't know if it is you with that focus in discussion or me in discussion with several. I once bought a Wittgenstein book which if nothing else could suggest a leaning. I'm not sure that I am focussed on any meaning in being here. As I walk about these days, the answer is zilch but anything like acute alienation to an exasperation with the humdrum - and the two combine - are often mitigated here. I could still venture into Croydon for a jazz event but you would be very disappointed in my non-ordinary ordinariness. Bathing is a strange one. It tends to give energy. I'm not sure why. I think it's a "we were once in poverty" thing. Cleanliness is wealth, hence big power.