Philosophy Discussion Forums | A Humans-Only Club for Open-Minded Discussion & Debate

[Belindi]

Spirituality and religion are not the same thing, in fact, I do not believe religion is spirituality at all, it is a specific system, to relieve the insecurity we all feel in this fleeting life. When one sees a majestic mountain range, a storm upon the ocean, or the wonders of the rainforest, and one lose oneself to it, this is spirituality. Participation in nature as what you are.

I agree, especially with your taking the time to explain what you mean by that elusive term 'spirituality'. However I wonder if you would include the feeling of spirituality that many people get in the dusky towering space of Rheims cathedral. Or that mathematicians are said to get from the elegance of a perfect mathematical idea.

Hi Belindi,
Oh yes of course, anything the moves the spirit, architecture has been said to be frozen poetry, with its own rhythms, and as biological extensions of the human animal it can be very moving. Like all human creations, it comes out of our very nature; just as much as the complex design of the spider and its extraordinary web. If one can lose oneself in it, that is participation in divinity/nature. A little Spinoza there!!

Then is spirituality so defined a virtue, and if so why ? Can one have too much spirituality and not enough practicality?

[popeye1945]

No spirituality has nothing to do with virtue, virtue is a societal thing. It is more about losing your sense of separateness. I have had the experience a number of times in my life, but it is so little when one considers a whole lifetime. Something similar happens when totally engrossed in the making of something, so that the world falls away, it is a place of peace, and in a sense, you lose yourself in the creation of the object of art. I suppose it would be conceivable to have too much of it, one would be in a state of not being present to be functional in the world, not at all practical though enjoyable for as long as it lasts.

[Belindi]

No spirituality has nothing to do with virtue, virtue is a societal thing. It is more about losing your sense of separateness. I have had the experience a number of times in my life, but it is so little when one considers a whole lifetime. Something similar happens when totally engrossed in the making of something, so that the world falls away, it is a place of peace, and in a sense, you lose yourself in the creation of the object of art. I suppose it would be conceivable to have too much of it, one would be in a state of not being present to be functional in the world, not at all practical though enjoyable for as long as it lasts.

I can understand you here Popeye, although I have experienced loss of sense of separateness only on one occasion, quite spontaneously. I can also understand when you say that one can have too much of loss of ego self, as such would be a danger to one's life. However was it not yourself who equated spirituality with emotionality, or sensibility to affect?
Also, comparatively few people have reported transient ego loss ,whereas many people use and have used the word 'spirituality'.
The S word is useless for philosophical investigations.

[popeye1945]

No spirituality has nothing to do with virtue, virtue is a societal thing. It is more about losing your sense of separateness. I have had the experience a number of times in my life, but it is so little when one considers a whole lifetime. Something similar happens when totally engrossed in the making of something, so that the world falls away, it is a place of peace, and in a sense, you lose yourself in the creation of the object of art. I suppose it would be conceivable to have too much of it, one would be in a state of not being present to be functional in the world, not at all practical though enjoyable for as long as it lasts.

I can understand you here Popeye, although I have experienced loss of sense of separateness only on one occasion, quite spontaneously. I can also understand when you say that one can have too much loss of ego self, as such would be a danger to one's life. However, was it not yourself who equated spirituality with emotionality, or sensibility to affect?
Also, comparatively few people have reported transient ego loss, whereas many people use and have used the word 'spirituality'.
The S word is useless for philosophical investigations.

As far as emotionality and sensibility go, those are not absent in the loss of self. There is something obviously happening here in this process, as it is an almost indescribable elation when you become what you view, and there is a lingering of that elation for some time afterward. Like your experience mine was not sought after, it was spontaneous. Well yes, experience is not philosophy, it has nothing to do with theory, it is experience, but when analyzed, it is a union of one's own creation, a verification of the fact that subject and object are one, and by the way it tends to vitalize for a duration after the fact. Most people think if they swear belief in a supernatural mythology that, that is spirituality, but I think it is something else, too complex to get into here.

[Belindi]

No spirituality has nothing to do with virtue, virtue is a societal thing. It is more about losing your sense of separateness. I have had the experience a number of times in my life, but it is so little when one considers a whole lifetime. Something similar happens when totally engrossed in the making of something, so that the world falls away, it is a place of peace, and in a sense, you lose yourself in the creation of the object of art. I suppose it would be conceivable to have too much of it, one would be in a state of not being present to be functional in the world, not at all practical though enjoyable for as long as it lasts.

I can understand you here Popeye, although I have experienced loss of sense of separateness only on one occasion, quite spontaneously. I can also understand when you say that one can have too much loss of ego self, as such would be a danger to one's life. However, was it not yourself who equated spirituality with emotionality, or sensibility to affect?
Also, comparatively few people have reported transient ego loss, whereas many people use and have used the word 'spirituality'.
The S word is useless for philosophical investigations.

As far as emotionality and sensibility go, those are not absent in the loss of self. There is something obviously happening here in this process, as it is an almost indescribable elation when you become what you view, and there is a lingering of that elation for some time afterward. Like your experience mine was not sought after, it was spontaneous. Well yes, experience is not philosophy, it has nothing to do with theory, it is experience, but when analyzed, it is a union of one's own creation, a verification of the fact that subject and object are one, and by the way it tends to vitalize for a duration after the fact. Most people think if they swear belief in a supernatural mythology that, that is spirituality, but I think it is something else, too complex to get into here.

The spontaneous experience of 'wholeness', (or being devoid of ego)is itself the most important value of the experience. Elation whether indescribable or not, is not a necessary adjunct. What I found most lastingly valuable about the experience is it is evidence that only egos ,i.e. self consciousness, prevent us from percieving subject and object as one absolute whole .

[popeye1945]

No spirituality has nothing to do with virtue, virtue is a societal thing. It is more about losing your sense of separateness. I have had the experience a number of times in my life, but it is so little when one considers a whole lifetime. Something similar happens when totally engrossed in the making of something, so that the world falls away, it is a place of peace, and in a sense, you lose yourself in the creation of the object of art. I suppose it would be conceivable to have too much of it, one would be in a state of not being present to be functional in the world, not at all practical though enjoyable for as long as it lasts.

I can understand you here Popeye, although I have experienced loss of sense of separateness only on one occasion, quite spontaneously. I can also understand when you say that one can have too much loss of ego self, as such would be a danger to one's life. However, was it not yourself who equated spirituality with emotionality, or sensibility to affect?
Also, comparatively few people have reported transient ego loss, whereas many people use and have used the word 'spirituality'.
The S word is useless for philosophical investigations.

As far as emotionality and sensibility go, those are not absent in the loss of self. There is something obviously happening here in this process, as it is an almost indescribable elation when you become what you view, and there is a lingering of that elation for some time afterward. Like your experience mine was not sought after, it was spontaneous. Well yes, experience is not philosophy, it has nothing to do with theory, it is experience, but when analyzed, it is a union of one's own creation, a verification of the fact that subject and object are one, and by the way it tends to vitalize for a duration after the fact. Most people think if they swear belief in a supernatural mythology, that is spirituality, but I think it is something else, too complex to get into here.

The spontaneous experience of 'wholeness', (or being devoid of ego) is itself the most important value of the experience. Elation whether indescribable or not, is not a necessary adjunct. What I found most lastingly valuable about the experience is it is evidence that only egos,i.e. self consciousness, prevent us from perceiving subject and object as one absolute whole.

We are on the same page Belinda! "Thou art that, the Upanishads.

[Gee]

But which is causal? Emotion -- a force? "God" -- a deity? It is clearly not thought.

Gee

I'm thinking it's a combination of entropy and chaos, resulting in the probability that ordered entities may emerge. From there, it's a matter of "survival of the persistent". Qualities that lead to persistence will logically tend to increase in reality. It's not technically natural selection, which only applies to biology, but a larger tendency of reality of which natural selection is a part.

I'm thinking that your above explanation does not have a damned thing to do with spirituality, be it religious or nonreligious. Either that, or I have completely missed your point.

Digging deeper, past entropy and chaos would seem speculative. Maybe God is the Great Programmer of this particular universal simulation? At the core of all things, anything can be postulated - from The Void to a humanoid deity to multidimensional membranes to endless cycles.

You have already dug too deep, as it appears to me that all of the above is speculation.

Gee

You asked 'Which is causal?", not "Which is spiritual?".

You misunderstood the question. This whole thread is about spirituality, so I was not questioning that, what I questioned was whether spirituality was caused by a "force", or by a "deity". If you read my post immediately preceding your statement, you will find that it starts out by questioning, "wouldn't it be nice to know what consciousness is?" Many people associate consciousness with "God", which would make spirituality solely religious. That is a very limited explanation.

I answered your question regarding causality.

Actually, you didn't. You offered a rationalization that has nothing more than opinion to support it. The opinion offers nothing about causes, drives, and motivators, and only assumes why the initial activity ends up the way it does.

I did not think you expected me to answer the meaning of life in one fell swoop, but to provide initial thoughts as part of a larger discussion.

I did not expect that. Adding "the meaning of life" into the conversation can only serve to confuse the issue more.

Thing is, emotion is not a cause. It only emerged with brained animals. Until then, no emotion. There was complexity and there were drives, even hunger and satiation, but these were not emotional. The first emotion was probably fear. Anger would have also been an early emotion. Things have complexified since.

Emotion is very much causal -- I can't believe you would state that. To state that emotion did not exist until there were species with brains to recognize it, would be a lot like saying that gravity did not exist until it knocked someone down.

Apparently science has learned a great deal about emotion since the last time you checked; it is the motivator, the driver, the force behind all life -- the mover and the shaker. Fear and anger were not the first emotions, they were the first emotions that science validated with hormones and survival instincts. That was a long time ago.

There is no such thing as digging too deep, and speculation is not only fine, but absolutely essential to original thought, just that unfounded ideas should be treated as such. Unfounded ideas ideally would not form the basis of religions and other dogmas, where speculation is heaped upon already highly questionable claims.

There is always such a "thing as digging too deep" when you are using an air shovel to rationalize and make things up. It is clear that you have a problem with religion, so I would like you to honestly answer a question. Why do you think it is that ALL cultures, nations, and civilizations all over the world and back to early humanity in prehistoric times have created or interpreted "God"s? I think there is a reason and I think that the reason is that we have no good understanding of motion and what causes force -- so we name it "God".

Gee

[Sy Borg]

Digging deeper, past entropy and chaos would seem speculative. Maybe God is the Great Programmer of this particular universal simulation? At the core of all things, anything can be postulated - from The Void to a humanoid deity to multidimensional membranes to endless cycles.

You have already dug too deep, as it appears to me that all of the above is speculation.

Do you mean speculation that's unlike the outrageous suppositions an speculations of religions?

How can a religious person accuse a non-believer of speculation with a straight face? Religion is the very most unsubstantiated and speculative of fields, making the multiverse look positively scientific by comparison.

Sorry, I'd respond to the rest but the formatting is a mess, and cleaning it up is not worth the trouble.

You closed by asking why all societies have religion. That fact says more about humans than about the nature of reality. Religions also differ wildly, constantly contradicting each other. One religion posits a single god, another posits thousands of them, some worshipped the Sun, and others revered the Earth and the spirits of ancestors.

I have no problem with religion. My disbelief does not constitute a "problem" with it.

My attitude towards religion is not so different to my attitude towards any myths - they evoke curiosity in me as to what the myth-makers were trying to say. I obviously don't believe them implicitly; that would be missing the points the authors were trying to make.

I think the keys to most religion are the Sun and the Earth - which certainly are worthy of worship - and all religions extrapolated from that base.

[Gee]

Digging deeper, past entropy and chaos would seem speculative. Maybe God is the Great Programmer of this particular universal simulation? At the core of all things, anything can be postulated - from The Void to a humanoid deity to multidimensional membranes to endless cycles.

You have already dug too deep, as it appears to me that all of the above is speculation.

Do you mean speculation that's unlike the outrageous suppositions an speculations of religions?

No. I mean speculation that is just like the outrageous suppositions and speculations of religions. Different ideas, same topic.

How can a religious person accuse a non-believer of speculation with a straight face? Religion is the very most unsubstantiated and speculative of fields, making the multiverse look positively scientific by comparison.

In your second sentence, you have a point. In your first sentence, it looks like you are considering me to be a religious person. Is that true?

Sorry, I'd respond to the rest but the formatting is a mess, and cleaning it up is not worth the trouble.

OK. My apologies if I made a mess.

You closed by asking why all societies have religion. That fact says more about humans than about the nature of reality.

Probably so, but there was something that these people were trying to understand, something that they interpreted to be some kind of force or "God". I think that the something was spirituality. I don't believe that religion caused spirituality, nor do I believe that a "God" caused spirituality. I think that we have it backward and always have had it backward. We became aware of spirituality, were sometimes in awe of spirituality, which is actually a perspective of emotion, so we tried to learn about it. Religion developed from the quest to understand spirituality/emotion, and "God" was the interpretation we gave to the cause of it. When the "God" idea went out of favor, then we decided that an Intelligent Designer, or maybe a universal simulation might be causal. Why do we insist that something or someone is causal in this?

I think that the reason is simple. If you see a ball flying past your head, you will look to see who threw it. If something falls out of the sky that is not rain or snow, you will look to see what dropped it. Why? Because we know and understand that when something is put in motion, something that is static, material, and solid would have caused the motion. So something caused life, something caused the self balancing of nature, something caused the sun and moon to move and shape our lives -- something caused and continues to cause motion, spirituality, and feeling/awareness/emotion which are all fluid.

As I sit here at my desk, I remember that science has explained that my desk is not really solid; it is made up of atoms, and molecules, and even smaller particles that are in motion. When it comes to consciousness, we believe that solid, digital thought is what causes fluid emotion -- following the same line of thinking. What if we are wrong? What if motion is the base and what appears to be solid, stable, and continuous, is just ***?

Religions also differ wildly, constantly contradicting each other. One religion posits a single god, another posits thousands of them, some worshipped the Sun, and others revered the Earth and the spirits of ancestors.

That would be because they are all interpretations.

I have no problem with religion. My disbelief does not constitute a "problem" with it.

Maybe so, but anyone who can read my words and interpret them to mean that I am religious has a problem. My friends and family would fall over stunned if I suddenly "got religion". So I suspect a little projecting.

My attitude towards religion is not so different to my attitude towards any myths - they evoke curiosity in me as to what the myth-makers were trying to say. I obviously don't believe them implicitly; that would be missing the points the authors were trying to make.

And it has been stated that myths often have a grain of truth, or at least a reason for being.

I think the keys to most religion are the Sun and the Earth - which certainly are worthy of worship - and all religions extrapolated from that base.

The Earth and Sun both represent motion, so on that basis, I can agree with you.

Gee

[Sy Borg]

Digging deeper, past entropy and chaos would seem speculative. Maybe God is the Great Programmer of this particular universal simulation? At the core of all things, anything can be postulated - from The Void to a humanoid deity to multidimensional membranes to endless cycles.

You have already dug too deep, as it appears to me that all of the above is speculation.

Do you mean speculation that's unlike the outrageous suppositions an speculations of religions?

No. I mean speculation that is just like the outrageous suppositions and speculations of religions. Different ideas, same topic.

I simply did what religions do - I saw a gap and put something I thought was not impossible in it. The difference is that religions come up with some exceptionally unlikely scenarios.

How can a religious person accuse a non-believer of speculation with a straight face? Religion is the very most unsubstantiated and speculative of fields, making the multiverse look positively scientific by comparison.

In your second sentence, you have a point. In your first sentence, it looks like you are considering me to be a religious person. Is that true?

Maybe haha. Still, religious people often accuse atheists of speculating.

You closed by asking why all societies have religion. That fact says more about humans than about the nature of reality.

Probably so, but there was something that these people were trying to understand, something that they interpreted to be some kind of force or "God". I think that the something was spirituality. I don't believe that religion caused spirituality, nor do I believe that a "God" caused spirituality. I think that we have it backward and always have had it backward. We became aware of spirituality, were sometimes in awe of spirituality, which is actually a perspective of emotion, so we tried to learn about it. Religion developed from the quest to understand spirituality/emotion, and "God" was the interpretation we gave to the cause of it. When the "God" idea went out of favor, then we decided that an Intelligent Designer, or maybe a universal simulation might be causal. Why do we insist that something or someone is causal in this?

I think that the reason is simple. If you see a ball flying past your head, you will look to see who threw it. If something falls out of the sky that is not rain or snow, you will look to see what dropped it. Why? Because we know and understand that when something is put in motion, something that is static, material, and solid would have caused the motion. So something caused life, something caused the self balancing of nature, something caused the sun and moon to move and shape our lives -- something caused and continues to cause motion, spirituality, and feeling/awareness/emotion which are all fluid.

As I sit here at my desk, I remember that science has explained that my desk is not really solid; it is made up of atoms, and molecules, and even smaller particles that are in motion. When it comes to consciousness, we believe that solid, digital thought is what causes fluid emotion -- following the same line of thinking. What if we are wrong? What if motion is the base and what appears to be solid, stable, and continuous, is just ***?

I think the religious belief regarding a force, or forces, is part of a larger dynamic. That is, there is a tendency to assume agency when it's just physics at play. For instance, two tribal people see a nearby bush tremble. Person A assumes it's a tiger and runs away. Person B assumes it's a breeze and stays. So, by game theory we have different outcomes:

If it's a tiger:
- A lives
- B dies

If it's a breeze:
- A wastes a bit of energy
- B saves a bit of energy.

If you repeat this dynamic enough, there will be more As than Bs. So we are evolved to see agency. So there were volcano gods, river rods, desert gods, tree gods. Storms, droughts and floods. All these things can be overpowering, even overwhelming. So it might make sense to surrender something you value, like a virgin, to the volcano god, who presumably also values virgins. By petitioning the volcano god, they have a sense of control. To them, it's not a force of nature that will happen no matter what they do, It's a mind, and minds can be petitioned.

When you say "motion is the base", yes, everything that's not at absolute zero is dynamic. It's said that reality is a verb, not a noun. It seems about right, all things considered.

Religions also differ wildly, constantly contradicting each other. One religion posits a single god, another posits thousands of them, some worshipped the Sun, and others revered the Earth and the spirits of ancestors.

That would be because they are all interpretations.

Yet, scientists from different cultures seemed to have much more in common.

I have no problem with religion. My disbelief does not constitute a "problem" with it.

Maybe so, but anyone who can read my words and interpret them to mean that I am religious has a problem. My friends and family would fall over stunned if I suddenly "got religion". So I suspect a little projecting.

Nah, I just can't always keep track of who's what, and I don't care enough to remember :) So, if you play Devil's Advocate without idiot-proofing, I might figure you're just another theist trying to justify what doesn't need justifying. Who cares? I don't It's their heads, not mine, so it's no my business. They can do whatever they like with their minds - believe what they like, desire what they like - as long as they don't cause others grief.

My attitude towards religion is not so different to my attitude towards any myths - they evoke curiosity in me as to what the myth-makers were trying to say. I obviously don't believe them implicitly; that would be missing the points the authors were trying to make.

And it has been stated that myths often have a grain of truth, or at least a reason for being.

Sure. If you don't take the Bible literally but see it as a pretty random repository of knowledge, history, culture, myths, propaganda, wisdom and the authors' personal fetishes. The desire to pass thoughts on is very much human. It's what we do. My only objection is to silly literalist and presentist interpretations.

I think the keys to most religion are the Sun and the Earth - which certainly are worthy of worship - and all religions extrapolated from that base.

The Earth and Sun both represent motion, so on that basis, I can agree with you.

The Sun has 99.86% of the solar system's mass. If the Sun was a person, the Earth would be like a drop of sweat in its BO cloud. This is not our story or the Earth's story, this is the Sun's story, and we are along for the ride. As for the Earth itself, if it lived as long as a human, our lives would last a matter of seconds, like a bubble. Thus, the Sun beats down on the Earth, its radiation causing complex bubbles to continuously grow and pop. We life forms are the bubbles.

There's two top quality deities right there. Add the Moon - whose contribution to our existence is considerable - and we arrive at the emotionally satisfying number of three, which is quite popular in religions.

[Gee]

You have already dug too deep, as it appears to me that all of the above is speculation.

Do you mean speculation that's unlike the outrageous suppositions an speculations of religions?

No. I mean speculation that is just like the outrageous suppositions and speculations of religions. Different ideas, same topic.

I simply did what religions do - I saw a gap and put something I thought was not impossible in it. The difference is that religions come up with some exceptionally unlikely scenarios.

"not impossible"? That is your criteria for your speculations? For someone who routinely posts in the Religion Forum, you seem to have a seriously biased and limited understanding of religion, spirituality, and the history behind religion.

To help me understand what appears to be a serious bias, please list five things that you see as "outrageous suppositions".

How can a religious person accuse a non-believer of speculation with a straight face? Religion is the very most unsubstantiated and speculative of fields, making the multiverse look positively scientific by comparison.

In your second sentence, you have a point. In your first sentence, it looks like you are considering me to be a religious person. Is that true?

Maybe haha. Still, religious people often accuse atheists of speculating.

And as is evidenced by your posts, atheists often accuse religious people of speculating. You have no point here -- just a tit for tat.

You closed by asking why all societies have religion. That fact says more about humans than about the nature of reality.

Probably so, but there was something that these people were trying to understand, something that they interpreted to be some kind of force or "God". I think that the something was spirituality. I don't believe that religion caused spirituality, nor do I believe that a "God" caused spirituality. I think that we have it backward and always have had it backward. We became aware of spirituality, were sometimes in awe of spirituality, which is actually a perspective of emotion, so we tried to learn about it. Religion developed from the quest to understand spirituality/emotion, and "God" was the interpretation we gave to the cause of it. When the "God" idea went out of favor, then we decided that an Intelligent Designer, or maybe a universal simulation might be causal. Why do we insist that something or someone is causal in this?

I think that the reason is simple. If you see a ball flying past your head, you will look to see who threw it. If something falls out of the sky that is not rain or snow, you will look to see what dropped it. Why? Because we know and understand that when something is put in motion, something that is static, material, and solid would have caused the motion. So something caused life, something caused the self balancing of nature, something caused the sun and moon to move and shape our lives -- something caused and continues to cause motion, spirituality, and feeling/awareness/emotion which are all fluid.

As I sit here at my desk, I remember that science has explained that my desk is not really solid; it is made up of atoms, and molecules, and even smaller particles that are in motion. When it comes to consciousness, we believe that solid, digital thought is what causes fluid emotion -- following the same line of thinking. What if we are wrong? What if motion is the base and what appears to be solid, stable, and continuous, is just ***?

I think the religious belief regarding a force, or forces, is part of a larger dynamic. That is, there is a tendency to assume agency when it's just physics at play. For instance, two tribal people see a nearby bush tremble. Person A assumes it's a tiger and runs away. Person B assumes it's a breeze and stays. So, by game theory we have different outcomes:

If it's a tiger:
- A lives
- B dies

If it's a breeze:
- A wastes a bit of energy
- B saves a bit of energy.

If you repeat this dynamic enough, there will be more As than Bs. So we are evolved to see agency. So there were volcano gods, river rods, desert gods, tree gods. Storms, droughts and floods. All these things can be overpowering, even overwhelming. So it might make sense to surrender something you value, like a virgin, to the volcano god, who presumably also values virgins. By petitioning the volcano god, they have a sense of control. To them, it's not a force of nature that will happen no matter what they do, It's a mind, and minds can be petitioned.

When you say "motion is the base", yes, everything that's not at absolute zero is dynamic. It's said that reality is a verb, not a noun. It seems about right, all things considered.

We seem to be close to agreement here. The one thing that I would add is that the "motion" that is the base of reality is something that religion understands as emotion/spirituality.

Also, is anything really capable of sustaining "absolute zero dynamic"? Doesn't entropy prohibit that?

Religions also differ wildly, constantly contradicting each other. One religion posits a single god, another posits thousands of them, some worshipped the Sun, and others revered the Earth and the spirits of ancestors.

That would be because they are all interpretations.

Yet, scientists from different cultures seemed to have much more in common.

Of course they do; it's science, not an interpretation. You are talking apples and oranges in your comparison. If you want a comparison of the different cultural religions, look to music or dance, which is very different in different cultures and is also based on interpretation of feeling.

Consider this: If you asked 50 people to give you a word or phrase that means "love" to them, how many different answers would you get. I would estimate at least 10 entirely different answers, and up to 30 or 40 different answers. The reason is that there is no definitive answer to the question of what is love; it is all interpretation. All emotion is interpreted and religion studies emotion. Spirit is a perspective of emotion; therefore, there are going to be different interpretations of "God". It would be unrealistic and maybe impossible to expect it to be otherwise.

I have no problem with religion. My disbelief does not constitute a "problem" with it.

Maybe so, but anyone who can read my words and interpret them to mean that I am religious has a problem. My friends and family would fall over stunned if I suddenly "got religion". So I suspect a little projecting.

Nah, I just can't always keep track of who's what, and I don't care enough to remember

If you can't keep track, can't remember, and I have not claimed to be religious, then where did the idea come from?

So, if you play Devil's Advocate without idiot-proofing, I might figure you're just another theist trying to justify what doesn't need justifying.

You are making less sense by the minute. Justify what, exactly? If you will recall, I study consciousness, which I have mentioned a few hundred times. I look at religions, because they also study consciousness. I don't care if they want to call it "God", it is still relevant to my studies.

Who cares? I don't It's their heads, not mine, so it's no my business. They can do whatever they like with their minds - believe what they like, desire what they like - as long as they don't cause others grief.

If you truly do not care, then why do you spend so much time in the religion forum attacking religion???? Unless you can convince me that it is some kind of duty, it will appear to me that you do indeed care.

My attitude towards religion is not so different to my attitude towards any myths - they evoke curiosity in me as to what the myth-makers were trying to say. I obviously don't believe them implicitly; that would be missing the points the authors were trying to make.

And it has been stated that myths often have a grain of truth, or at least a reason for being.

Sure. If you don't take the Bible literally but see it as a pretty random repository of knowledge, history, culture, myths, propaganda, wisdom and the authors' personal fetishes. The desire to pass thoughts on is very much human. It's what we do. My only objection is to silly literalist and presentist interpretations.

If anyone wanted to take the Bible literally, they would first have to remember that the New Testament is around 2000 years old, and the Old Testament is closer to 3000 to 4000 years old, and the oral stories that the Old Testament came from are at least 6000 years old -- and they would have to interpret the Bible while considering those time frames. They would also have to consider that the Bible is a history book, and all history books are written for the purpose of promoting a specific history. Then they would have to be able to decipher what is literal and what is metaphor. Then they would have to be able to divide what was actually written in the Bible and what was church doctrine which was taught to the people, but is not in the Bible and sometimes is not even referenced by the Bible.

Who is going to do all of that? And why are you talking about the Bible, as you have not given me the impression that you know enough about it to comment.

I think the keys to most religion are the Sun and the Earth - which certainly are worthy of worship - and all religions extrapolated from that base.

The Earth and Sun both represent motion, so on that basis, I can agree with you.

The Sun has 99.86% of the solar system's mass. If the Sun was a person, the Earth would be like a drop of sweat in its BO cloud. This is not our story or the Earth's story, this is the Sun's story, and we are along for the ride. As for the Earth itself, if it lived as long as a human, our lives would last a matter of seconds, like a bubble. Thus, the Sun beats down on the Earth, its radiation causing complex bubbles to continuously grow and pop. We life forms are the bubbles.

You are talking about "mass", I was talking about motion -- not the same thing. So what is this? An apologist notion that religion can worship the Sun which makes an adequate deity because it causes life? You know, science has recently found life in places that never see the Sun, deep in caves, etc., so the idea that life is caused by the Sun is an old idea.

There's two top quality deities right there. Add the Moon - whose contribution to our existence is considerable - and we arrive at the emotionally satisfying number of three, which is quite popular in religions.

The number three is quite popular in many venues. But if you want to start a new religion based on the Sun, Earth, and Moon, you are going to have to find a time machine to take you back 10 or 20 thousand years in order to find people, who will buy into your nonsense. Have you been arguing the science v religion nonsense for so long that you have actually convinced yourself that religious people are stupid? They are not.

Gee

[Belindi]

You have already dug too deep, as it appears to me that all of the above is speculation.

Do you mean speculation that's unlike the outrageous suppositions an speculations of religions?

No. I mean speculation that is just like the outrageous suppositions and speculations of religions. Different ideas, same topic.

I simply did what religions do - I saw a gap and put something I thought was not impossible in it. The difference is that religions come up with some exceptionally unlikely scenarios.

How can a religious person accuse a non-believer of speculation with a straight face? Religion is the very most unsubstantiated and speculative of fields, making the multiverse look positively scientific by comparison.

In your second sentence, you have a point. In your first sentence, it looks like you are considering me to be a religious person. Is that true?

Maybe haha. Still, religious people often accuse atheists of speculating.

You closed by asking why all societies have religion. That fact says more about humans than about the nature of reality.

Probably so, but there was something that these people were trying to understand, something that they interpreted to be some kind of force or "God". I think that the something was spirituality. I don't believe that religion caused spirituality, nor do I believe that a "God" caused spirituality. I think that we have it backward and always have had it backward. We became aware of spirituality, were sometimes in awe of spirituality, which is actually a perspective of emotion, so we tried to learn about it. Religion developed from the quest to understand spirituality/emotion, and "God" was the interpretation we gave to the cause of it. When the "God" idea went out of favor, then we decided that an Intelligent Designer, or maybe a universal simulation might be causal. Why do we insist that something or someone is causal in this?

I think that the reason is simple. If you see a ball flying past your head, you will look to see who threw it. If something falls out of the sky that is not rain or snow, you will look to see what dropped it. Why? Because we know and understand that when something is put in motion, something that is static, material, and solid would have caused the motion. So something caused life, something caused the self balancing of nature, something caused the sun and moon to move and shape our lives -- something caused and continues to cause motion, spirituality, and feeling/awareness/emotion which are all fluid.

As I sit here at my desk, I remember that science has explained that my desk is not really solid; it is made up of atoms, and molecules, and even smaller particles that are in motion. When it comes to consciousness, we believe that solid, digital thought is what causes fluid emotion -- following the same line of thinking. What if we are wrong? What if motion is the base and what appears to be solid, stable, and continuous, is just ***?

I think the religious belief regarding a force, or forces, is part of a larger dynamic. That is, there is a tendency to assume agency when it's just physics at play. For instance, two tribal people see a nearby bush tremble. Person A assumes it's a tiger and runs away. Person B assumes it's a breeze and stays. So, by game theory we have different outcomes:

If it's a tiger:
- A lives
- B dies

If it's a breeze:
- A wastes a bit of energy
- B saves a bit of energy.

If you repeat this dynamic enough, there will be more As than Bs. So we are evolved to see agency. So there were volcano gods, river rods, desert gods, tree gods. Storms, droughts and floods. All these things can be overpowering, even overwhelming. So it might make sense to surrender something you value, like a virgin, to the volcano god, who presumably also values virgins. By petitioning the volcano god, they have a sense of control. To them, it's not a force of nature that will happen no matter what they do, It's a mind, and minds can be petitioned.

When you say "motion is the base", yes, everything that's not at absolute zero is dynamic. It's said that reality is a verb, not a noun. It seems about right, all things considered.

Religions also differ wildly, constantly contradicting each other. One religion posits a single god, another posits thousands of them, some worshipped the Sun, and others revered the Earth and the spirits of ancestors.

That would be because they are all interpretations.

Yet, scientists from different cultures seemed to have much more in common.

I have no problem with religion. My disbelief does not constitute a "problem" with it.

Maybe so, but anyone who can read my words and interpret them to mean that I am religious has a problem. My friends and family would fall over stunned if I suddenly "got religion". So I suspect a little projecting.

Nah, I just can't always keep track of who's what, and I don't care enough to remember So, if you play Devil's Advocate without idiot-proofing, I might figure you're just another theist trying to justify what doesn't need justifying. Who cares? I don't It's their heads, not mine, so it's no my business. They can do whatever they like with their minds - believe what they like, desire what they like - as long as they don't cause others grief.

My attitude towards religion is not so different to my attitude towards any myths - they evoke curiosity in me as to what the myth-makers were trying to say. I obviously don't believe them implicitly; that would be missing the points the authors were trying to make.

And it has been stated that myths often have a grain of truth, or at least a reason for being.

Sure. If you don't take the Bible literally but see it as a pretty random repository of knowledge, history, culture, myths, propaganda, wisdom and the authors' personal fetishes. The desire to pass thoughts on is very much human. It's what we do. My only objection is to silly literalist and presentist interpretations.

I think the keys to most religion are the Sun and the Earth - which certainly are worthy of worship - and all religions extrapolated from that base.

The Earth and Sun both represent motion, so on that basis, I can agree with you.

The Sun has 99.86% of the solar system's mass. If the Sun was a person, the Earth would be like a drop of sweat in its BO cloud. This is not our story or the Earth's story, this is the Sun's story, and we are along for the ride. As for the Earth itself, if it lived as long as a human, our lives would last a matter of seconds, like a bubble. Thus, the Sun beats down on the Earth, its radiation causing complex bubbles to continuously grow and pop. We life forms are the bubbles.

There's two top quality deities right there. Add the Moon - whose contribution to our existence is considerable - and we arrive at the emotionally satisfying number of three, which is quite popular in religions.

Aristotelian teleology was superseded by scientific and philosophical enlightenment ethics and empirical methods. That 's why all scientists agree, give or take a few details. No post-enlightenment (18th cent) scientist believes in or on teleological explanations. Also the passing away of teleology is why theists hated scientists like Darwin.

[Gee]

Aristotelian teleology was superseded by scientific and philosophical enlightenment ethics and empirical methods. That 's why all scientists agree, give or take a few details. No post-enlightenment (18th cent) scientist believes in or on teleological explanations. Also the passing away of teleology is why theists hated scientists like Darwin.

To sum up, you are saying that ethics replaced morality, empirical methods are the new magic, and religion is obsolete. This also means that consciousness does truly come from the brain, no species without a brain is conscious or aware, spirituality does not actually exist, nature is self balancing through magic, and evolution also works through magic.

Thank you for enlightening me about scientific belief. I can now clearly see why it is "science v religion", as science has it's own "beliefs" that are in conflict with religion's "beliefs". In a thread like this, one must choose their belief before they can discuss something like spirituality -- which does not actually exist in science.

Gee

[Sy Borg]

Do you mean speculation that's unlike the outrageous suppositions an speculations of religions?

No. I mean speculation that is just like the outrageous suppositions and speculations of religions. Different ideas, same topic.

I simply did what religions do - I saw a gap and put something I thought was not impossible in it. The difference is that religions come up with some exceptionally unlikely scenarios.

How can a religious person accuse a non-believer of speculation with a straight face? Religion is the very most unsubstantiated and speculative of fields, making the multiverse look positively scientific by comparison.

In your second sentence, you have a point. In your first sentence, it looks like you are considering me to be a religious person. Is that true?

Maybe haha. Still, religious people often accuse atheists of speculating.

You closed by asking why all societies have religion. That fact says more about humans than about the nature of reality.

Probably so, but there was something that these people were trying to understand, something that they interpreted to be some kind of force or "God". I think that the something was spirituality. I don't believe that religion caused spirituality, nor do I believe that a "God" caused spirituality. I think that we have it backward and always have had it backward. We became aware of spirituality, were sometimes in awe of spirituality, which is actually a perspective of emotion, so we tried to learn about it. Religion developed from the quest to understand spirituality/emotion, and "God" was the interpretation we gave to the cause of it. When the "God" idea went out of favor, then we decided that an Intelligent Designer, or maybe a universal simulation might be causal. Why do we insist that something or someone is causal in this?

I think that the reason is simple. If you see a ball flying past your head, you will look to see who threw it. If something falls out of the sky that is not rain or snow, you will look to see what dropped it. Why? Because we know and understand that when something is put in motion, something that is static, material, and solid would have caused the motion. So something caused life, something caused the self balancing of nature, something caused the sun and moon to move and shape our lives -- something caused and continues to cause motion, spirituality, and feeling/awareness/emotion which are all fluid.

As I sit here at my desk, I remember that science has explained that my desk is not really solid; it is made up of atoms, and molecules, and even smaller particles that are in motion. When it comes to consciousness, we believe that solid, digital thought is what causes fluid emotion -- following the same line of thinking. What if we are wrong? What if motion is the base and what appears to be solid, stable, and continuous, is just ***?

I think the religious belief regarding a force, or forces, is part of a larger dynamic. That is, there is a tendency to assume agency when it's just physics at play. For instance, two tribal people see a nearby bush tremble. Person A assumes it's a tiger and runs away. Person B assumes it's a breeze and stays. So, by game theory we have different outcomes:

If it's a tiger:
- A lives
- B dies

If it's a breeze:
- A wastes a bit of energy
- B saves a bit of energy.

If you repeat this dynamic enough, there will be more As than Bs. So we are evolved to see agency. So there were volcano gods, river rods, desert gods, tree gods. Storms, droughts and floods. All these things can be overpowering, even overwhelming. So it might make sense to surrender something you value, like a virgin, to the volcano god, who presumably also values virgins. By petitioning the volcano god, they have a sense of control. To them, it's not a force of nature that will happen no matter what they do, It's a mind, and minds can be petitioned.

When you say "motion is the base", yes, everything that's not at absolute zero is dynamic. It's said that reality is a verb, not a noun. It seems about right, all things considered.

Religions also differ wildly, constantly contradicting each other. One religion posits a single god, another posits thousands of them, some worshipped the Sun, and others revered the Earth and the spirits of ancestors.

That would be because they are all interpretations.

Yet, scientists from different cultures seemed to have much more in common.

I have no problem with religion. My disbelief does not constitute a "problem" with it.

Maybe so, but anyone who can read my words and interpret them to mean that I am religious has a problem. My friends and family would fall over stunned if I suddenly "got religion". So I suspect a little projecting.

Nah, I just can't always keep track of who's what, and I don't care enough to remember :) So, if you play Devil's Advocate without idiot-proofing, I might figure you're just another theist trying to justify what doesn't need justifying. Who cares? I don't It's their heads, not mine, so it's no my business. They can do whatever they like with their minds - believe what they like, desire what they like - as long as they don't cause others grief.

My attitude towards religion is not so different to my attitude towards any myths - they evoke curiosity in me as to what the myth-makers were trying to say. I obviously don't believe them implicitly; that would be missing the points the authors were trying to make.

And it has been stated that myths often have a grain of truth, or at least a reason for being.

Sure. If you don't take the Bible literally but see it as a pretty random repository of knowledge, history, culture, myths, propaganda, wisdom and the authors' personal fetishes. The desire to pass thoughts on is very much human. It's what we do. My only objection is to silly literalist and presentist interpretations.

I think the keys to most religion are the Sun and the Earth - which certainly are worthy of worship - and all religions extrapolated from that base.

The Earth and Sun both represent motion, so on that basis, I can agree with you.

The Sun has 99.86% of the solar system's mass. If the Sun was a person, the Earth would be like a drop of sweat in its BO cloud. This is not our story or the Earth's story, this is the Sun's story, and we are along for the ride. As for the Earth itself, if it lived as long as a human, our lives would last a matter of seconds, like a bubble. Thus, the Sun beats down on the Earth, its radiation causing complex bubbles to continuously grow and pop. We life forms are the bubbles.

There's two top quality deities right there. Add the Moon - whose contribution to our existence is considerable - and we arrive at the emotionally satisfying number of three, which is quite popular in religions.

Aristotelian teleology was superseded by scientific and philosophical enlightenment ethics and empirical methods. That 's why all scientists agree, give or take a few details. No post-enlightenment (18th cent) scientist believes in or on teleological explanations. Also the passing away of teleology is why theists hated scientists like Darwin.

I don't think of it as teleology. The fact is, that certain things perform certain functions in natural systems. For instance, consider our planetary defence projects. What is that but the Earth 1) developing a sensory system capable of detecting threats and 2) developing a defensive system to protect against perceived threats?

People will argue that it's humans doing it, not the Earth, but that is incoherent. We are as much a part of the Earth as rocks, plants, the ocean and the air. I suspect that this disconnect - this relatively modern notion that we live ON the Earth but rather than being part of it - lies behind those aspects of religion that generate cognitive dissonance.

It's hard to get through to people that we are short-lived mobile, sentient parts of the Earth, just as much a part of this planet as volcanoes, rocks, trees, oceans and air. What humans do is what the Earth is doing. What the Earth is doing is what humans (plus all the other geobiological systems, and the synergies between them) are doing.

[Belindi]

Aristotelian teleology was superseded by scientific and philosophical enlightenment ethics and empirical methods. That 's why all scientists agree, give or take a few details. No post-enlightenment (18th cent) scientist believes in or on teleological explanations. Also the passing away of teleology is why theists hated scientists like Darwin.

To sum up, you are saying that ethics replaced morality, empirical methods are the new magic, and religion is obsolete. This also means that consciousness does truly come from the brain, no species without a brain is conscious or aware, spirituality does not actually exist, nature is self balancing through magic, and evolution also works through magic.

Thank you for enlightening me about scientific belief. I can now clearly see why it is "science v religion", as science has it's own "beliefs" that are in conflict with religion's "beliefs". In a thread like this, one must choose their belief before they can discuss something like spirituality -- which does not actually exist in science.

Gee

Religions often get blamed for teleology's persistence after its time is over. However religions are not the only wrongdoers in that regard . Conservative regimes too must bear the blame for not providing top quality education for all children even the very poor ones and the very disabled children.

Straw man! Science lacks the attributes that would make it a religion. Abrahamic religions (at least) are repressive by nature , as keeping the plebs in order is what religions are for. By contrast, science is a means to empirical probabilities.

'Spirituality' is seldom explicitly defined. Scientists work in explicit language.

Your entire paragraph that begins "to sum up ---" is an entire fabric of lies. Libel even!