RE: God: No magic required
January 17, 2014 at 4:06 pm
(This post was last modified: January 17, 2014 at 5:57 pm by Cinjin.)
Hi Minimalist. Are you Finnish (referring to the quote at the end of your post)? I'm half Finnish. Just an aside.
I'm going to attempt to respond to your questions and address your objections. What I'd ask is simply that each of us could approach this as a thought experiment, and not as opposing counsels in a criminal trial. I don't like animosity and bile, but I do like the intellectual challenge talking to people with different points of view.
For starters, people want citations for the peer reviewed research indicating greater happiness and longer life expectancies for spiritual/religious people, as opposed to pure secularists.
http://www.webmd.com/balance/features/sp...ive-longer
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1305900/
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19949046
Now, someone else suggested that (1) not every single US study has shown this to be the case and (2) some studies of third world countries have shown the opposite. With regard to #2, it's an apples to oranges comparison. I don't think that divine intervention is responsible for the longevity and mental health advantages to spirituality and religion. I don't know the literature for third world countries, where a large majority of the population is very poor. Perhaps the secularists in these countries belong to higher socioeconomic classes. Perhaps there are requirements unique to, for example, Islam which are potentially harmful to health (Ramadan fasting, followed by gorging, for example). What's relevant to this particular thought experiment is the population of people living in the USA, because that's the population in the studies I cited. I can safely assert that the preponderance of peer-review medical literature supports the advantages of spirituality/religion with respect to both longevity and happiness.
With respect to the "technology" of prayer, I simply used MRI and EEG as examples. I personally think that it's highly plausible that these and other non-invasive monitoring technologies, combined with ever-more-sophisticated computer algorithms, will allow future interrogators to eschew waterboarding, as it will one day be possible to literally read minds. Neutrinos (trillions of them) permeate every cubic millimeter of our bodies, including our brains. We can barely detect neutrinos and we can't detect dark energy (i.e. most of the energy in our universe). We are hardly in a position to assert the impossibility that such energy may be organized in such a fashion as to possess sentience and to be fully capable of monitoring, in real time, the thoughts of every other sentient being in the universe.
Why would such a dark energy sentience (let's call it "God," for convenience) be at all interested in monitoring us and hearing our thoughts? Why is the NSA interested in monitoring everything it can about everything it can? Do you have a cat or dog or goldfish? Would you have any curiosity about what it was thinking? If it was thinking that it wanted to be petted, would you pet it? Did you ever own a terrarium? They are very interesting little microcosms. Why do scientists run millions of computer simulations? What if the earth is simply one of a hundred billion "simulations" in our universe or one of an infinite number of "simulations" in the multiverse? So "God" provides some sort of kick start to life and then monitors how it evolves and what happens to each planet over infinite periods of time. What else is God going to do? Just sit around and contemplate his navel? I'd say that God would have a lot of reasons for wanting to be engaged (i.e. to be theistic, as opposed to deistic).
With respect to atheism being "theism-1," well...no. Who in the world said anything about "one true religion," in the present conversation? I personally look at religion like I look at language. Languages are simply mechanisms for communication between people. Religions are mechanisms for communication with God. I think that virtually all human societies, since the beginning of humanity, have had religions and that most (obviously not all) of these religions have been of positive value for the lives of the people in those societies. Religion has passed the test of time; that's why it endures. Talks of the death of religion are premature. At one time, the Soviet Union was almost entirely atheistic. Atheism is popular now in Europe and, increasingly so, in the USA. Yet, a declaration of victory would be just more in the way of certitude. But I digress.
A couple of people have said that there is no evidence that prayer works. That's certainly not true. I've already stated that I don't necessarily believe that God stops wars, brings rain, or cures cancer. I don't know for sure that he's never done any of those things. but I don't think that there's any real evidence that God ever did any of those things. But prayer certainly provides comfort, courage, perseverance, escape from substance abuse, improved performance with regard to personal responsibility and morality, and so on. Whether this is owing to divine intervention or is "placebo effect" is quite beside the point. Prayer works. Unambiguously works. It's worked for billions of people in the history of the world. It has certainly worked for me. It's why I keep doing it.
Here's a challenge, which I'm sure that everyone will reject, a priori (but maybe not forever; just keep it at the back of your mind for possible future use).
This really isn't about me, personally, but I can use myself as an example. I was a pretty hard core secular agnostic most of my life. But I'm a cancer doctor and a health nut (haven't eaten red meat for 40 years; work out; etc.etc.). I was impressed by the studies indicating a longevity advantage to religion/spirituality with the population equivalent to curing all forms of cancer. I also developed a personal morality problem which was refractory to self-help.
I made the decision to proceed with a "clinical trial." Was it possible for me to develop belief in God, and could I find a religion which would foster said belief, and, if so, would this make a positive difference in my life?
What I did was to pick out three different religions. For the better part of a year, I attended services in each of the three religions. While in each service, I suspended belief, in the same fashion as if I were attending a stage play in which there were audience participation. I did everything that the other people did. When they stood, I stood. When they sang, I sang. When they prayed, I prayed (though not initially sure that anyone was listening). I kept my heart open to everything; I rejected nothing.
At a certain point, I got to feeling that someone out there was listening to me and, later on, that someone out there was engaging in a conversation with me. Why would God do that? Again, for the same sort of reason that I might talk to a cat, if said cat could talk to me. Lots of perfectly logical reasons.
Anyway, to my astonishment, a lot of it started to feel very real to me. At a certain point, I made the decision to "join" one of the three religions which I'd auditioned. Not because I thought that it was the "true" religion. It's exactly analogous to making friends with someone who was fluent in three languages, other than English. So, if I wanted to talk to my new friend, I'd have to learn one of the three languages spoken by this new friend. So I'd try to learn the three different languages simultaneously, but, at a certain point, just decide to go with the language which came most easily to me.
This effort I made to consciously develop a sense of religious spirituality has had an incredible effect on me. I can't say that I'm a changed man, but I can say that I'm happier, mentally healthier, and have at least a modicum of improved self control. I can honestly say that the one hour per week I spend in the formal religious service is the very best hour of my week. I leave the assembly feeling uplifted -- like walking on air, to use the usual refrain.
I don't believe in Hell. Never have; doubt that I ever will (though, in the interests of avoiding certitude, I won't assert that it positively for sure doesn't exist, in some form). I don't really believe in heaven, either -- meaning that I don't have a strong faith in an afterlife. I think it's plausible; our loaf of bread size mass of neural connections does create a bioelectrical-based consciousness, which includes a prodigious amount of memory and knowledge. Perhaps it all gets assimilated into the dark energy of the universe, in the same way that the Star Trek Borg assimilated all consciousness in its path. But I view heaven as being the Great Perhaps (as opposed to the Great Reward).
I don't do it because I'm afraid of Hell or afraid of death or because I want God to cure the illness of a loved one. I do it because there were logical reasons to try to do it (physical and mental health benefits and a problem with personal morality). I keep doing it because it worked better than I could have imagined and because it continues to work.
And, yes, certitude is one of the greatest of all poisons.
I've got a little blog where I discuss some of this stuff in slightly more detail:
- Larry Weisenthal/Huntington Beach CA
I'm going to attempt to respond to your questions and address your objections. What I'd ask is simply that each of us could approach this as a thought experiment, and not as opposing counsels in a criminal trial. I don't like animosity and bile, but I do like the intellectual challenge talking to people with different points of view.
For starters, people want citations for the peer reviewed research indicating greater happiness and longer life expectancies for spiritual/religious people, as opposed to pure secularists.
http://www.webmd.com/balance/features/sp...ive-longer
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1305900/
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19949046
Now, someone else suggested that (1) not every single US study has shown this to be the case and (2) some studies of third world countries have shown the opposite. With regard to #2, it's an apples to oranges comparison. I don't think that divine intervention is responsible for the longevity and mental health advantages to spirituality and religion. I don't know the literature for third world countries, where a large majority of the population is very poor. Perhaps the secularists in these countries belong to higher socioeconomic classes. Perhaps there are requirements unique to, for example, Islam which are potentially harmful to health (Ramadan fasting, followed by gorging, for example). What's relevant to this particular thought experiment is the population of people living in the USA, because that's the population in the studies I cited. I can safely assert that the preponderance of peer-review medical literature supports the advantages of spirituality/religion with respect to both longevity and happiness.
With respect to the "technology" of prayer, I simply used MRI and EEG as examples. I personally think that it's highly plausible that these and other non-invasive monitoring technologies, combined with ever-more-sophisticated computer algorithms, will allow future interrogators to eschew waterboarding, as it will one day be possible to literally read minds. Neutrinos (trillions of them) permeate every cubic millimeter of our bodies, including our brains. We can barely detect neutrinos and we can't detect dark energy (i.e. most of the energy in our universe). We are hardly in a position to assert the impossibility that such energy may be organized in such a fashion as to possess sentience and to be fully capable of monitoring, in real time, the thoughts of every other sentient being in the universe.
Why would such a dark energy sentience (let's call it "God," for convenience) be at all interested in monitoring us and hearing our thoughts? Why is the NSA interested in monitoring everything it can about everything it can? Do you have a cat or dog or goldfish? Would you have any curiosity about what it was thinking? If it was thinking that it wanted to be petted, would you pet it? Did you ever own a terrarium? They are very interesting little microcosms. Why do scientists run millions of computer simulations? What if the earth is simply one of a hundred billion "simulations" in our universe or one of an infinite number of "simulations" in the multiverse? So "God" provides some sort of kick start to life and then monitors how it evolves and what happens to each planet over infinite periods of time. What else is God going to do? Just sit around and contemplate his navel? I'd say that God would have a lot of reasons for wanting to be engaged (i.e. to be theistic, as opposed to deistic).
With respect to atheism being "theism-1," well...no. Who in the world said anything about "one true religion," in the present conversation? I personally look at religion like I look at language. Languages are simply mechanisms for communication between people. Religions are mechanisms for communication with God. I think that virtually all human societies, since the beginning of humanity, have had religions and that most (obviously not all) of these religions have been of positive value for the lives of the people in those societies. Religion has passed the test of time; that's why it endures. Talks of the death of religion are premature. At one time, the Soviet Union was almost entirely atheistic. Atheism is popular now in Europe and, increasingly so, in the USA. Yet, a declaration of victory would be just more in the way of certitude. But I digress.
A couple of people have said that there is no evidence that prayer works. That's certainly not true. I've already stated that I don't necessarily believe that God stops wars, brings rain, or cures cancer. I don't know for sure that he's never done any of those things. but I don't think that there's any real evidence that God ever did any of those things. But prayer certainly provides comfort, courage, perseverance, escape from substance abuse, improved performance with regard to personal responsibility and morality, and so on. Whether this is owing to divine intervention or is "placebo effect" is quite beside the point. Prayer works. Unambiguously works. It's worked for billions of people in the history of the world. It has certainly worked for me. It's why I keep doing it.
Here's a challenge, which I'm sure that everyone will reject, a priori (but maybe not forever; just keep it at the back of your mind for possible future use).
This really isn't about me, personally, but I can use myself as an example. I was a pretty hard core secular agnostic most of my life. But I'm a cancer doctor and a health nut (haven't eaten red meat for 40 years; work out; etc.etc.). I was impressed by the studies indicating a longevity advantage to religion/spirituality with the population equivalent to curing all forms of cancer. I also developed a personal morality problem which was refractory to self-help.
I made the decision to proceed with a "clinical trial." Was it possible for me to develop belief in God, and could I find a religion which would foster said belief, and, if so, would this make a positive difference in my life?
What I did was to pick out three different religions. For the better part of a year, I attended services in each of the three religions. While in each service, I suspended belief, in the same fashion as if I were attending a stage play in which there were audience participation. I did everything that the other people did. When they stood, I stood. When they sang, I sang. When they prayed, I prayed (though not initially sure that anyone was listening). I kept my heart open to everything; I rejected nothing.
At a certain point, I got to feeling that someone out there was listening to me and, later on, that someone out there was engaging in a conversation with me. Why would God do that? Again, for the same sort of reason that I might talk to a cat, if said cat could talk to me. Lots of perfectly logical reasons.
Anyway, to my astonishment, a lot of it started to feel very real to me. At a certain point, I made the decision to "join" one of the three religions which I'd auditioned. Not because I thought that it was the "true" religion. It's exactly analogous to making friends with someone who was fluent in three languages, other than English. So, if I wanted to talk to my new friend, I'd have to learn one of the three languages spoken by this new friend. So I'd try to learn the three different languages simultaneously, but, at a certain point, just decide to go with the language which came most easily to me.
This effort I made to consciously develop a sense of religious spirituality has had an incredible effect on me. I can't say that I'm a changed man, but I can say that I'm happier, mentally healthier, and have at least a modicum of improved self control. I can honestly say that the one hour per week I spend in the formal religious service is the very best hour of my week. I leave the assembly feeling uplifted -- like walking on air, to use the usual refrain.
I don't believe in Hell. Never have; doubt that I ever will (though, in the interests of avoiding certitude, I won't assert that it positively for sure doesn't exist, in some form). I don't really believe in heaven, either -- meaning that I don't have a strong faith in an afterlife. I think it's plausible; our loaf of bread size mass of neural connections does create a bioelectrical-based consciousness, which includes a prodigious amount of memory and knowledge. Perhaps it all gets assimilated into the dark energy of the universe, in the same way that the Star Trek Borg assimilated all consciousness in its path. But I view heaven as being the Great Perhaps (as opposed to the Great Reward).
I don't do it because I'm afraid of Hell or afraid of death or because I want God to cure the illness of a loved one. I do it because there were logical reasons to try to do it (physical and mental health benefits and a problem with personal morality). I keep doing it because it worked better than I could have imagined and because it continues to work.
And, yes, certitude is one of the greatest of all poisons.
I've got a little blog where I discuss some of this stuff in slightly more detail:
- Larry Weisenthal/Huntington Beach CA
