Love:
Just to make sure I'm understanding your position correctly: Your answer to my first question (asking what the basis is for your progressive Christianity) could be summarized as "the teachings of the historical Jesus according to scholars like Dr. McGrath, and your direct mystical experience of something malevolent (a Devil?), and of (what you consider to be) God." Your answer to my second question (why bother with the Bible?) is "Actually, I don't." Your answer to my third question (on what basis can you pick out the "nice" parts and discard the "mean" parts of the Bible/Jesus' teachings as portrayed therein) would be "I don't--because I don't follow the Bible in the first place" and/or "I take seriously the parts that NT scholars (Prof. McGrath, et. al.) think are what the historical Jesus taught." Is that a fairly accurate summation of your position?
Let me try to restate it: what consequences can we anticipate finding in reality if your god exists that we would not find if he/she/it doesn't exist (or vice versa)? Example: physicists searching for the Higgs boson were able to work out among themselves the range of properties they expected it to have, and what sort of experiments would produce results that would indicate that it did exist (and what sort of results, e.g. decay products those would be). They could agree in advance that the presence or absence of those results would indicate the presence or absence of the Higgs boson. In short, they agreed on an answer to the question, "what would reality look like if it had Higgs bosons in it?" then set out to see if reality actually looked that way.
In the case of your god, you have defined it as "a panentheistic transcendent consciousness." If it is panentheistic and transcendent and conscious, it should have access to knowledge we do not have (yet)--unless it doesn't have memory or something. If such an entity exists and you or anyone else can communicate with it with any sort of reliability, you could, for example, ask it to tell you about something a space probe is likely to encounter fairly soon that we don't have lots of information about (such as what the Curiosity rover might find over the next rise or whatever). Then you could post its answer before the probe makes the observation. If by doing so you could predict a new scientific surprise, you would provide evidence that would increase the probability of your god's existence. Then we'd have to devise tests to rule out other alternatives (maybe you're just psychic
). Other ways to pursue this avenue of testing: ask your god to provide novel information about history that will be subject to future testing, such as information about the area/culture a new archaeological dig is investigating. Physics or mathematics could also work, if it knows more about these than we do. Post its answers in advance, then you and skeptical observers could test them.
If your god cannot demonstrate knowledge of anything you don't know or couldn't come up with by ordinary human means, like reading New Age literature (case in point: Neale Donald Walsh and his "Conversations With God"), then it is behaving like a creature of your own mind rather than a transcendent panenetheistic consciousness.
Would you agree that this sort of test would falsify your belief in your god if the results came out negative? If not, can you think of some other kind of test whose results would come out one way if you're correct, and another way if we are?
How could you know this, without some kind of total, infallible knowledge of what the scope of reason is? If I went back in time and asked Aristotle about what the far side of the Moon looked like he would likely answer (quite reasonably, within the context of his knowledge) that only the gods could know or reveal such things, that the far side of the Moon was beyond the scope of reason and human ken. And yet...we have pictures.
The "brain-as-receiver" model seems problematic to me for several reasons:
1) It doesn't really provide any explanation for what consciousness is or how it works (other than that it's "out there" "somewhere" transmitting to brains somehow).
2) It has no additional explanatory power vis a vis the "brain-as-generator of conscious" model, AFAIK.
3) It's less parsimonious, as it requires a number of additional hypotheses: Consciousness exists outside of brains, presumably composed of something other than energy/matter. Consciousness somehow sends and receives data to and from brains--how does "consciousness-stuff" (whatever it is) interact with energy-matter in the brain to trigger neuron firing, neuroplasticity, etc.? If consciousness can see without eyes (i.e. if NDE's are veridical), why would there be eyes in the first place? How could anyone be blind? How could disembodied consciousness (such as during an NDE/OBE) absorb light energy without this being visible to others? To see light, it would have to interact with light, and conservation of energy means that light would have to give energy to "consciousness-stuff" to trigger a sight response in it. Light passing through "consciousness-stuff" would be fainter, or perhaps red-shifted after giving energy to the "c-stuff." Where does "c-stuff" get its energy? "Transmission" that causes responses in energy/matter in the brain requires energy. How does it "transmit" it? How does it store information (memory)?
In contrast, the brain-as-generator model fits observations (damage to the brain damages the consciousness, etc.) at least as well as the brain-as-receiver model, and provides a plausible explanation of how consciousness actually works, as information processing by brain structures (neurons, and perhaps glial cells and microtubules). We have existence proofs of energy/matter structures capable of processing information without that faculty being "broadcast" to them from outside: computers, mechanical calculators. An abacus can compute, and store information (just don't shake it or knock it over! ). Even if we don't yet know exactly how neural firings etc. produce the qualia of love or "chocolate sundae--yum!" the "generator" model offers a path of inquiry that has already proven to be fruitful in the study of cognitive neuroscience. The "receiver" model just kicks the can down the road to "wherever the consciousness-transmitters are." It can't tell us how qualia work either, and it doesn't even offer us a potential way to find out.
So, barring some striking new evidence that fits the "transmitter" model and doesn't fit the "generator" model, the "generator" model is superior as an explanation of consciousness and path of investigation in search of more/better answers.
The "blind pitiless indifference" of the Cosmos in general is still a fact whether or not any deities exist. Just ask the dinosaurs. Or anyone who has a child with leukemia. I do not see how gods change the situation. If a god or goddess shows up and says, "Behold! The meaning and purpose of your lives is to [spread the Gospel and convert/kill the heathens!] [be excellent to each other!] [colonize the solar system and spread to the stars!] [insert preferred meaning/purpose here]!" all that does is give us the deity's opinion. And what about the deity? A monotheistic god in particular has no deity of its own to tell it what the meaning and purpose of its life is, provide it with moral guidance, etc. It's an atheist! Again, this is just kicking the can down the road, not providing actual answers to existential questions.
Furthermore, it's possible for atheist worldviews to have views of meaning/purpose of life and morality/ethics without "inevitably" resulting in nihilist despair. We are at least as capable of creating these things (if no inherent or objective answers can be derived from the nature of Universe in some way) as deities are.
The historical Jesus (if such a person existed) didn't have much effect on those around him. The Gospels portray him frequently arguing with literate individuals ("scribes and Pharisees"), yet none of these people considered him remarkable enough to write about, even in opposition. Philo of Alexandria, who was interested in Judean religious movements, lived in the region and had acquaintances in Judea, and was himself a proponent of religious views similar in many ways to those attributed to Jesus, did not make a note of him.
The great spread and influence of Christianity is the result of the energetic proselytizing of Saul (Paul) of Tarsus, who never met Jesus, but only had an ecstatic vision of a heavenly being. The Jesus of the authentic Pauline epistles is a fully deified celestial figure that has little or nothing to do with "the man from Galilee." The "red-letter Bible" teachings of Jesus (or even the very idea that Jesus taught crowds in Judea) are absent from Paul's letters, even when they could have been cited to clinch Paul's arguments.
Furthermore, the answer to the question of who the historical Jesus was and what he taught is pretty much in the eye of the beholder, as far as scholarship is concerned. Is he a proto-hippie social reformer? A Cynic sage? A Jewish dynast and would-be king (Tabor, The Jesus Dynasty)? An Essene/fundamentalist rebel against the Roman Empire (Eisenmann, James, the Brother of Jesus), a failed apocalyptic prophet (Erhman, Did Jesus Exist?)? A magician and/or faith-healer? Etc., etc..
Or was "he" more like what we now call a "channeled entity," a divine intermediary ("Logos") and/or Mystery School god-man who never lived on Earth as a human (Hebrews 8:4), but "spoke" through visionaries like Paul and/or esoteric readings of the Hebrew Scriptures (Carrier, Price, Doherty)?
As the basis for a world-view, Jesus is a classic "house built on sand."
Well, this is interesting. At least, this approach offers the virtue of repeatability under controlled conditions. I have done a lot of reading (and a little experimentation *cough*) in this area. So far, the realm of psychedelic experience is IMO "the last, best hope" for a serious challenge to my current world view. Unfortunately our ability to systematically and scientifically explore this terrain is severely constrained at the present time. However, the "trip reports" I'm aware of vary quite a bit, and not all of them support monotheism, or even necessarily "theism" as commonly understood.
Just to make sure I'm understanding your position correctly: Your answer to my first question (asking what the basis is for your progressive Christianity) could be summarized as "the teachings of the historical Jesus according to scholars like Dr. McGrath, and your direct mystical experience of something malevolent (a Devil?), and of (what you consider to be) God." Your answer to my second question (why bother with the Bible?) is "Actually, I don't." Your answer to my third question (on what basis can you pick out the "nice" parts and discard the "mean" parts of the Bible/Jesus' teachings as portrayed therein) would be "I don't--because I don't follow the Bible in the first place" and/or "I take seriously the parts that NT scholars (Prof. McGrath, et. al.) think are what the historical Jesus taught." Is that a fairly accurate summation of your position?
(April 20, 2013 at 4:36 am)Love Wrote: Please could you clarify what you mean in question four?
Let me try to restate it: what consequences can we anticipate finding in reality if your god exists that we would not find if he/she/it doesn't exist (or vice versa)? Example: physicists searching for the Higgs boson were able to work out among themselves the range of properties they expected it to have, and what sort of experiments would produce results that would indicate that it did exist (and what sort of results, e.g. decay products those would be). They could agree in advance that the presence or absence of those results would indicate the presence or absence of the Higgs boson. In short, they agreed on an answer to the question, "what would reality look like if it had Higgs bosons in it?" then set out to see if reality actually looked that way.
In the case of your god, you have defined it as "a panentheistic transcendent consciousness." If it is panentheistic and transcendent and conscious, it should have access to knowledge we do not have (yet)--unless it doesn't have memory or something. If such an entity exists and you or anyone else can communicate with it with any sort of reliability, you could, for example, ask it to tell you about something a space probe is likely to encounter fairly soon that we don't have lots of information about (such as what the Curiosity rover might find over the next rise or whatever). Then you could post its answer before the probe makes the observation. If by doing so you could predict a new scientific surprise, you would provide evidence that would increase the probability of your god's existence. Then we'd have to devise tests to rule out other alternatives (maybe you're just psychic
). Other ways to pursue this avenue of testing: ask your god to provide novel information about history that will be subject to future testing, such as information about the area/culture a new archaeological dig is investigating. Physics or mathematics could also work, if it knows more about these than we do. Post its answers in advance, then you and skeptical observers could test them.If your god cannot demonstrate knowledge of anything you don't know or couldn't come up with by ordinary human means, like reading New Age literature (case in point: Neale Donald Walsh and his "Conversations With God"), then it is behaving like a creature of your own mind rather than a transcendent panenetheistic consciousness.
Would you agree that this sort of test would falsify your belief in your god if the results came out negative? If not, can you think of some other kind of test whose results would come out one way if you're correct, and another way if we are?
(April 20, 2013 at 7:41 am)Love Wrote: It is my contention that human consciousness, including love, is beyond the scope of reason.
How could you know this, without some kind of total, infallible knowledge of what the scope of reason is? If I went back in time and asked Aristotle about what the far side of the Moon looked like he would likely answer (quite reasonably, within the context of his knowledge) that only the gods could know or reveal such things, that the far side of the Moon was beyond the scope of reason and human ken. And yet...we have pictures.
(April 20, 2013 at 7:41 am)Love Wrote: There is a very interesting speculation that the brain is actually a receiver of consciousness as opposed to being the generator of such. The philosophy of mind is extremely complex and is something that I am presently reading about.
The "brain-as-receiver" model seems problematic to me for several reasons:
1) It doesn't really provide any explanation for what consciousness is or how it works (other than that it's "out there" "somewhere" transmitting to brains somehow).
2) It has no additional explanatory power vis a vis the "brain-as-generator of conscious" model, AFAIK.
3) It's less parsimonious, as it requires a number of additional hypotheses: Consciousness exists outside of brains, presumably composed of something other than energy/matter. Consciousness somehow sends and receives data to and from brains--how does "consciousness-stuff" (whatever it is) interact with energy-matter in the brain to trigger neuron firing, neuroplasticity, etc.? If consciousness can see without eyes (i.e. if NDE's are veridical), why would there be eyes in the first place? How could anyone be blind? How could disembodied consciousness (such as during an NDE/OBE) absorb light energy without this being visible to others? To see light, it would have to interact with light, and conservation of energy means that light would have to give energy to "consciousness-stuff" to trigger a sight response in it. Light passing through "consciousness-stuff" would be fainter, or perhaps red-shifted after giving energy to the "c-stuff." Where does "c-stuff" get its energy? "Transmission" that causes responses in energy/matter in the brain requires energy. How does it "transmit" it? How does it store information (memory)?
In contrast, the brain-as-generator model fits observations (damage to the brain damages the consciousness, etc.) at least as well as the brain-as-receiver model, and provides a plausible explanation of how consciousness actually works, as information processing by brain structures (neurons, and perhaps glial cells and microtubules). We have existence proofs of energy/matter structures capable of processing information without that faculty being "broadcast" to them from outside: computers, mechanical calculators. An abacus can compute, and store information (just don't shake it or knock it over!
). Even if we don't yet know exactly how neural firings etc. produce the qualia of love or "chocolate sundae--yum!" the "generator" model offers a path of inquiry that has already proven to be fruitful in the study of cognitive neuroscience. The "receiver" model just kicks the can down the road to "wherever the consciousness-transmitters are." It can't tell us how qualia work either, and it doesn't even offer us a potential way to find out.So, barring some striking new evidence that fits the "transmitter" model and doesn't fit the "generator" model, the "generator" model is superior as an explanation of consciousness and path of investigation in search of more/better answers.
(April 20, 2013 at 10:03 am)Love Wrote: However, I often think very deeply about these topics, and my view on atheism inevitably progressed to a worldview of existential nihilism, in that: (1) the universe is devoid of purpose or meaning; it simply exists (2) life is ultimately meaningless in the grand scheme of things. All that really exists is, as Richard Dawkins would say, "blind pitiless indifference".
The "blind pitiless indifference" of the Cosmos in general is still a fact whether or not any deities exist. Just ask the dinosaurs. Or anyone who has a child with leukemia. I do not see how gods change the situation. If a god or goddess shows up and says, "Behold! The meaning and purpose of your lives is to [spread the Gospel and convert/kill the heathens!] [be excellent to each other!] [colonize the solar system and spread to the stars!] [insert preferred meaning/purpose here]!" all that does is give us the deity's opinion. And what about the deity? A monotheistic god in particular has no deity of its own to tell it what the meaning and purpose of its life is, provide it with moral guidance, etc. It's an atheist! Again, this is just kicking the can down the road, not providing actual answers to existential questions.
Furthermore, it's possible for atheist worldviews to have views of meaning/purpose of life and morality/ethics without "inevitably" resulting in nihilist despair. We are at least as capable of creating these things (if no inherent or objective answers can be derived from the nature of Universe in some way) as deities are.
(April 20, 2013 at 4:23 pm)Love Wrote: I am much more concerned with Jesus as a historical figure, his consciousness and, indeed, the remarkable impact he had on those around him.
The historical Jesus (if such a person existed) didn't have much effect on those around him. The Gospels portray him frequently arguing with literate individuals ("scribes and Pharisees"), yet none of these people considered him remarkable enough to write about, even in opposition. Philo of Alexandria, who was interested in Judean religious movements, lived in the region and had acquaintances in Judea, and was himself a proponent of religious views similar in many ways to those attributed to Jesus, did not make a note of him.
The great spread and influence of Christianity is the result of the energetic proselytizing of Saul (Paul) of Tarsus, who never met Jesus, but only had an ecstatic vision of a heavenly being. The Jesus of the authentic Pauline epistles is a fully deified celestial figure that has little or nothing to do with "the man from Galilee." The "red-letter Bible" teachings of Jesus (or even the very idea that Jesus taught crowds in Judea) are absent from Paul's letters, even when they could have been cited to clinch Paul's arguments.
Furthermore, the answer to the question of who the historical Jesus was and what he taught is pretty much in the eye of the beholder, as far as scholarship is concerned. Is he a proto-hippie social reformer? A Cynic sage? A Jewish dynast and would-be king (Tabor, The Jesus Dynasty)? An Essene/fundamentalist rebel against the Roman Empire (Eisenmann, James, the Brother of Jesus), a failed apocalyptic prophet (Erhman, Did Jesus Exist?)? A magician and/or faith-healer? Etc., etc..
Or was "he" more like what we now call a "channeled entity," a divine intermediary ("Logos") and/or Mystery School god-man who never lived on Earth as a human (Hebrews 8:4), but "spoke" through visionaries like Paul and/or esoteric readings of the Hebrew Scriptures (Carrier, Price, Doherty)?
As the basis for a world-view, Jesus is a classic "house built on sand."
(April 20, 2013 at 5:18 pm)Love Wrote: I am trying to work out what God actually is because I certainly do not believe that him/her/it is an omnipotent and omniscient being, but I do believe that it is omnipresent and is probably the driving force behind nature, like a panentheistic entity. It feels like a universal consciousness that can probably be experienced more intensely through the use of psychedelic drugs, such as DMT, mescaline, mushrooms and LSD.
Well, this is interesting. At least, this approach offers the virtue of repeatability under controlled conditions. I have done a lot of reading (and a little experimentation *cough*) in this area. So far, the realm of psychedelic experience is IMO "the last, best hope" for a serious challenge to my current world view. Unfortunately our ability to systematically and scientifically explore this terrain is severely constrained at the present time. However, the "trip reports" I'm aware of vary quite a bit, and not all of them support monotheism, or even necessarily "theism" as commonly understood.
