IF GOD EXISTS, THEN HE CERTAINLY DOES NOT CARE FOR YOU AT ALL

[Angrboda]

." Though I think the trend towards greater secularism and tolerance of diversity will continue."

...you don't agree , yet you say this??? Sorry, sounds like you agree.

It is unfortunate that many fail to see that secular activism is not about tearing down religion but building wider acceptance of secularity. Not everyone agrees with Secular American views on religion, but too many don't recognize the value that flows from recognizing and respecting the viewpoints of the secular demographic. Groups like Cornwall benefit immensely from the general prejudice that the public has for Secular Americans, because with the secular perspective removed from the debate, the conservative biblical position escapes its most serious challenge. Of course, liberal religious groups can challenge the Cornwall position, and they do, but at that point the question becomes only one of whose interpretation of scripture is correct. Frankly, we are all at risk if the question of whether to protect the environment comes down to a debate over scriptural interpretation, because the Bible is at best ambiguous on the issue and certainly not based on science. Americans who care about the environment should be eager to legitimize the Secular American demographic, not because we all agree with the secular view on theology but because we all want the rational public policy that it demands.

— by David Niose

[SpecUVdust]

Agreed.
(IMO): Also, we must be skeptical. Especially when it comes to those people that have authority over us. Since so many people in authority are religious, however, we must skeptically interrogate these religions. A side-effect from this is religious deterioration, over time. I see interrogation of religion to be one of the most important things we can do as a species.

[Cato]

For what it's worth, I think the notion that the growth of reason will extinguish the flickering candle of faith is an overly optimistic one. There are reasons underpinning the existence of religion, imo, that aren't going to go away as a result of the encroachment of reason. Though I think the trend towards greater secularism and tolerance of diversity will continue. Perhaps it's hard for me to be objective, but my take on the science is that it isn't the Good News versus the Good Word of atheism. Moreover, I was born a child, became a theist, became an atheist, became an atheistic religious person, and then embraced a new deity from a radically different tradition. The reasons and substance of these changes are not something I intend to discuss, but I doubt many would accuse me of being unintelligent or deluded or brainwashed in the sense that your "reason shall overcome" thesis would seem to require me to be to explain my theism. Then again, I am profoundly mentally ill, and never have considered myself particularly rational. Go figure.

Apo,
You have handed me my ass on a plate, at least once, for being unreasonable. I would never consider you unintelligent nor brainwashed. In fact, as I pour through philosophy from Descartes to Wittgenstein, I would consult you for clarification/consultation/opinion.

You exclaim that you will not explain your theism, but offer the excuse that you are mentally ill/non-rational. Something is amiss.

[Angrboda]

Apo,
You have handed me my ass on a plate, at least once, for being unreasonable. I would never consider you unintelligent nor brainwashed. In fact, as I pour through philosophy from Descartes to Wittgenstein, I would consult you for clarification/consultation/opinion.

You exclaim that you will not explain your theism, but offer the excuse that you are mentally ill/non-rational. Something is amiss.

I neither excuse nor explain my theism with reference to my being mentally ill or irrational. I simply offer no account of it at all. The book referenced makes a distinction between being "publically secular," meaning that one supports and advocates secularism in the public sphere, and being "personally secular," in that the beliefs they hold and choices they make reflect embracing secularism on a personal, private level. If I were to build on that distinction, I'd say I lean towards being "publically secular," but "personally religious." On a forum such as this, there is not going to be a clear separation between the personal and the public, so you see elements of both sides of me here, though with the obvious emphasis on public secularism, for a number of reasons, including that I think that public secularism is in the best interests of us all, to the fact that most opinions expressed are in some sense advocating something, and I have zero interest in advocating the adoption of my religion, and every interest in advocating positions that benefit us all.

As to the nature of my justification of and embracing of my "personally religious" lifestyle, I wouldn't say that I have even ultimately concluded that it is justifiable, defensible and rational. And to explain why I have made and continue to make the religious choices that I make would require many inscrutable walls of text. To do my best to put things in a nutshell, my religious choices have been satisfactory and fulfilling for me, but in very deep ways, my core is not ultimately religious: I entertain deep theories about the structure of mind, biological systems and reality which does not in any fundamental sense connect with, nor depend upon, my religious views. That's my meat and potatoes. That's what I care most deeply about. As a philosopher and a thinker, I'm less interested in the ramifications of my religion than I am those of evolution and neuroscience. Perhaps my religion is a maze which I would be well off to find my way out of. Ultimately, I do what seems sensible at the moment. Thus the time I spend thinking and contemplating the big questions isn't devoted to questions arising out of my religious worldview. And those that do could not be readily explained in short form anyway (at least not at this time). So in a strange sense, while my religion is indeed central to my life, it isn't the center around which my life orbits.

If that makes any sense. Maybe I'm waffling in my answer to you, I don't know. I consider it more worth my time to get "the right answers" with respect to philosophy, psychology and cognitive science, than I do to worry about whether I have the right answers about worshipping the Dark One, or whether the Taoist conception of the ineffable isn't an incoherent bit of nonsense that would best be put aside. (That, combined with my larger worldview, which I doubt you would understand without massive explanation, leaves me comfortably at peace with my beliefs. Which should hardly be surprising to you, given that you are dealing with a Taoist. Many secular people envision belief as a battle, in which the strong beliefs vie for supremacy over defective beliefs, and against defective believers. I've used the metaphor of the rivers before, that in this world, we are all floating down rivers of thought, culture and epistemology, such that a Hindu may find herself at some point on the Ganges, another believer in a different faith might find themselves somewhere on the Mississippi, and another, floating down the Amazon. Because of the nature of things, we might paddle to influence the course we take in this or that river, but the ultimate nature of our journey, where we end up each of our days, is determined by forces we have essentially no control over. I could be wrong. I just don't believe that I am wrong about this. And it leaves me with a profound disinterest in winning this or that particular battle about belief [beyond the mere bloodlust which may be natural to one who worships a goddess known as, "She who destroys."]. I do what I can to see that the battles I care about go the way that I'd like to see them go. However, my mind and heart is always considering a much more expansive theater of operations.)

(See. Attempted explanation. --> wall of text. Oh well. I hope I have succeeded in at least hinting at my reasons in a way that you can find satisfying.)

[SpecUVdust]

Ugh. That was a nutshell? I immediately question your judgement.

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I find the most intriguing ideas are the ones simplest to "get across." Either by direct transference or propagating a question.

[Angrboda]

Ugh. That was a nutshell? I immediately question your judgement.

"This is my shocked face."

[SpecUVdust]

:p lol

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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S-5L2nQJ3Mw&sns=em

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XGK84Poeynk&sns=em

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http://youtu.be/cvz9uSK3zXo

[Angrboda]

"You are persuaded of something which is untrue."


I find it telling that two of the videos you share are set to music, when persuasive findings in neuroscience point to music and rhythm being an integral, even foundational part of the religious experience. J. Anderson Thompson in a talk I recently attended suggested that religion began, not as a complex orchestra of beliefs and claims, but as shared rituals of dance and music. And here you are setting the experience of your beliefs to rhythm and music, and apparently finding something special in that, such that you consider these unique musical experiences worth sharing with me and others. In a sense, it would appear that in an attempt to encourage people to leave the religious, you have inadvertently simply created another kind of religious experience.

I say this, not to point out any personal hypocrisy in you — I don't believe that you were aware of these elements, nor had you been aware of them, that you would have made other choices, or if you had not, that then you would have been duplicitous. I don't suspect you of any conscious desire to deceive, nor unconscious malheur. When I was younger, it was not uncommon for people to remark that one of the most important unexplored frontiers was the world's oceans, as they had limitless depth and complexity which due to our limited technology we had only begun to scratch the surface in knowing. That situation hasn't changed much. But alongside the mysteries of the oceans (and the equally profound mysteries of physics and cosmology), I would suggest one has to place the mysteries of the mind and the brain. And when I say 'mystery', I don't mean that in the sense that there are likely effects and mechanisms that explain it which are based in magic and such, but that like any incredibly deep, structured, nuanced, and largely not understood area of reality, wonders will abound, just like the wonders and majesties celebrated in your videos.

You are fascinated by what goes on outside us. I am fascinated by what goes on inside us. And I must confess a bit of feeling insult at your seeming asserting the categorical superiority of your questions, hypotheses and theories to my own, largely only on account that you are confident of the truth of your explorers and those questions, simply because you have confidence in its greater 'truthiness'. (There is something fundamentally religious in that attitude as well.)

"There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, Than are dreamt of in your philosophy."

Indeed, because, I suspect, you have a facile, and, I rather suspect, a largely incorrect mapping of the nature of the mind and brain, and its fundamental importance to these questions. I don't particularly hold this against you, your thinking on these matters is almost stereotypically ordinary. That you scoff at me and my thinking on such matters on the basis of that thinking only gives me pause to reflect that, perhaps you are not very bright, and perhaps my efforts would be greater rewarded by investing the energy and time in explaining myself to a more capable thinker, instead of to you.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aRxd1nuku8g

[Cato]

Apo,

Thanks for your considered response. I 'think' I understand. I also now have an image of you as a discriminating intellectual Kali.

You may cringe at the label, but I sense a hint of neopragmatism in your philosophical approach.

[SpecUVdust]

Apo: I don't know how you got it in your head that you contain all the answers. You carry yourself as some sort of final judge on others philosophies and/or knowledge. In every attempt to explain yourself, you rant on until any hope of making meaningful sense is gone. I think this I think that blah blah blah. Most of my philosophy deals directly WITH the human brain which is the most misunderstood yet most powerful thing in existence that we know of. You may have many fooled that you are some guru of intellect, but maybe, just maybe, you are nothing but an attention seeking, self-glorified wannabe Buddhist of some kind. I'm not religious and I find the lamas and rinpoche's to be a REAL source of wisdom along with scientists. I assure you you fall under neither category. Btw, you think that religion has some sort of "patent" on music??? Wow, you have become a danger to yourself and you aren't even aware of it. As far as intelligence: would you like to compare sat scores? How about IQ scores? No no no, I know. Lets have a spelling contest.

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Just for you, Apo:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XGK84Poeynk&sns=em

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Sry wrong one

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JB7jSFeVz1U&sns=em