Slasdhot linked article RE; god

[Gillian Densmore]

In light of the exuberant discussion started by  about Athiesm.
http://science.slashdot.org/story/14/12/30/2231220/science-cannot-prove-the-existence-of-god

In case you don't like slashdot for valid reasons:
Pro Seraphim however those wonderfully alien Kick Effing Arse Mother Effers are spelled:
http://www.wsj.com/articles/eric-metaxas-science-increasingly-makes-the-case-for-god-1419544568

And the skeptical response:
https://medium.com/starts-with-a-bang/can-science-prove-the-existence-of-god-b6fefdc52588

Does that sugest that a part of the explanation for Serphim having so much mythos and lore around them is they  may be Aliens?

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[Vladimyr Burachynsky]

So... Delusions are very common and make up the bulk of frenetic Human
Activity.
Since so few know which Delusions may turn out to be falsifiable, they must
resort to a dirty trick.
 They  defend every delusion with denial: should the truth remain , they
then resort to threat of violence and when overwhelmed by
the inescapable truth they fight to the death or someone else's.

Paris seems to have become the latest battleground in the war of Delusions.
I place my bets on the French; they  appear to have more discipline and a
greater ability to think ahead.
Maybe some delusions are more mature than others.
Time, trial and error improves the operation of delusions. Eventually they
may improve or evolve to the degree that they become
Science. The French have historically significantly more practise than most.
No one gets it right the first time, that is why memory is so critical.
So the ultimate goal of terrorism is not to kill all of it's critics but to
make as many as possible afraid to act.
The goal is pacification/passivity. Acquiescence to a delusion, suspension
of disbelief, perhaps?
So mocking a delusion is certainly a dangerous act requiring great bravery
or blind stupidity.
Perhaps there is a metric for Delusion rather than Truth since the former is
entirely Human and the latter is indifferent to our wishes.
vib


-----Original Message-----
From: Friam [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Marcus G.
Daniels
Sent: January-07-15 2:22 PM
To: [hidden email]
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Slasdhot linked article RE; god


>
> And the skeptical response:
> https://medium.com/starts-with-a-bang/can-science-prove-the-existence-
> of-god-b6fefdc52588

"Do you want or need your belief in a divine or supernatural origin to the
Universe to be based in something that could be scientifically disproven?"

And so believers who avoid this trap must construct an origins story which
cannot be falsifiable.  It must be fantasy.

Marcus




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[Marcus G. Daniels]

Glen writes:

(¬Falsifiable ↛ false)
(fantasy ≢ counterfactual)

On Thu, 2015-01-08 at 15:47 -0600, Vladimyr Burachynsky wrote:

> Time, trial and error improves the operation of delusions.
[..]
> So the ultimate goal of terrorism is not to kill all of it's critics
> but to make as many as possible afraid to act.

One might complain of some intolerance on my part in not acknowledging
the obvious distinction Glen makes.  But then we're reminded, again,
what happens when it isn't nipped in the bud..

Marcus


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[Owen Densmore]

The big issue Europe, and France in particular faces, is "multiculturalism" vs "cultural integration". The US is structured to favor the latter.  Europe the former.

The co-existence approach (multiculturalism) can in the worst of cases lead to ghettos and isolation, leading to anger and hate.

I have zero idea if this is part of the apparent (and definitely not real) perception that islam, rather than islamic nut cases, is the cause of the current violence.

   -- Owen

On Thu, Jan 8, 2015 at 3:08 PM, Marcus G. Daniels <[hidden email]> wrote:

Glen writes:

(¬Falsifiable ↛ false)
(fantasy ≢ counterfactual)

On Thu, 2015-01-08 at 15:47 -0600, Vladimyr Burachynsky wrote:

> Time, trial and error improves the operation of delusions.
[..]
> So the ultimate goal of terrorism is not to kill all of it's critics
> but to make as many as possible afraid to act.

One might complain of some intolerance on my part in not acknowledging
the obvious distinction Glen makes.  But then we're reminded, again,
what happens when it isn't nipped in the bud..

Marcus


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[glen ropella]

Re: clique preservation, I keep finding myself wondering if we're
shooting ourselves in the foot calling these acts "terrorism" and the
actors "terrorists".  It seems to me these are just criminals.  If you
buy the Dawkins/Harris/Maher line about Islam being more violent than
other religions, then perhaps these "new" categories (like "enemy
combatant" and "terrorist") might make sense.  But if you don't buy that
(like me) and tend to think any person is capable of massive destruction
given the right circumstances, then such categories don't make as much
sense.

Granted, _if_ these people were rational and strategic and were
committing these acts purposefully to instill terror, then it makes
sense and the actors would sometimes commit other, more mainstream acts
(crimes, acts of war, etc that are not terrorism).  But it's difficult
to buy the argument that these guys (or Tsarnaev and the like) are
rational.  I can see someone thinking of bin Laden as rational and a
terrorist.  But these guys seem more like fever-eyed lunatics to me.

The same issue comes up w.r.t. gitmo and justifications for suspending
due process.  If the US were really more focused on integration, then
wouldn't we treat people like this as criminals and not terrorists?


On 01/08/2015 02:36 PM, Owen Densmore wrote:

> The big issue Europe, and France in particular faces, is "multiculturalism"
> vs "cultural integration". The US is structured to favor the latter.
> Europe the former.
>
> The co-existence approach (multiculturalism) can in the worst of cases lead
> to ghettos and isolation, leading to anger and hate.
>
> I have zero idea if this is part of the apparent (and definitely not real)
> perception that islam, rather than islamic nut cases, is the cause of the
> current violence.

--
⇔ glen

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[Marcus G. Daniels]

On Thu, 2015-01-08 at 15:17 -0800, glen wrote:
> If the US were really more focused on integration, then
> wouldn't we treat people like this as criminals and not terrorists?

Or that they are mentally ill and need `retraining'.  But that takes us
down the road of recognizing the danger latent in faith, which I don't
think the US is close to doing.  

Marcus


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[glen ropella]

On 01/08/2015 03:49 PM, Marcus G. Daniels wrote:
> Or that they are mentally ill and need `retraining'.  But that takes us
> down the road of recognizing the danger latent in faith, which I don't
> think the US is close to doing.

Exactly ... though it goes beyond just faith to any sort of
psychological problem, I think.  E.g. It's fine if you're deluded into
believing, say, the "law of attraction"
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_attraction_%28New_Thought%29> as
long as you don't do things like rely on it to heal your children or
somesuch.

Beliefs don't kill people.  People kill people. ;-)

--
⇔ glen

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[Vladimyr Burachynsky]

This is becoming a shark feeding frenzy of Media demanding that I believe different versions of the demented beliefs.
Which ever outlet I side with demands I become a believer. I am not Normal to begin with, otherwise I MIGHT actually take up arms and shoot at a target they suggest. Should I take a Gravol to control the vertigo as they spin me around, aiming at phantoms.

Hollande is strutting about like a shrunken , down sized de Gaulle after he nearly lost France to a Troop of Disgruntled Foreign Legionnaires
from Algeria.

al Jazeera wants me to believe that there is a war against all Muslims. CBC wants me to believe that the Muslims are about to attack the country.
Wait we are in a deep freeze and any Arab set upon conquering Canada must contend with unimaginable Arctic Cold and if they want to rob a gas station on the way they will probably freeze to death in the dark. Hollande wants us to believe he is the reincarnation of de Gaulle or Vercingetorix. Kerry wants me to believe he speaks French. Putin probably wants me to believe he is Vladimir Monomahk the slayer of Turks.

These  tough-guys are not so crazy as the Media. They have remained silent for now. One Canadian media outlet is attacking our National Outlet , CBC, as cowards , yes they used the word correctly,
who refused to show the Charlie Hebdo images on air( they were Blacked -Out). Maybe Oprah Winfry can get them to confess on prime time T.V.
A Montreal journalist ,  has bared his chest ( but no soul was to be seen) and declared that CBC ordered him to self-censor out of fear.
What a show.
Actually the Russian media is being rather discreet, what a shock. No one has the wherewithal to post the price of oil or the disposition of ISIL
and the Saudi invasions.
vib

I will snicker from my warm hovel in this cold blast.
I am waiting for the much feared promised global warming to arrive.
Just where is Al Gore now that I want to believe in his delusions? If I pick one belief  will the others stop pestering me?
No I guess it is more like an attack of Blackflies or mosquitoes.
Perhaps Glen is correct  "Beliefs don't kill people. People kill people"
I might add "Believers have the right to  kill non-believers".


-----Original Message-----
From: Friam [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of glen
Sent: January-08-15 7:24 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Slasdhot linked article RE; god

On 01/08/2015 03:49 PM, Marcus G. Daniels wrote:
> Or that they are mentally ill and need `retraining'.  But that takes
> us down the road of recognizing the danger latent in faith, which I
> don't think the US is close to doing.

Exactly ... though it goes beyond just faith to any sort of psychological problem, I think.  E.g. It's fine if you're deluded into believing, say, the "law of attraction"
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_attraction_%28New_Thought%29> as long as you don't do things like rely on it to heal your children or somesuch.

Beliefs don't kill people.  People kill people. ;-)

--
⇔ glen

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[Victoria Hughes]

So any belief other than one's own is a delusion?
How convenient.
I do not believe that our technology is sophisticated / adept / precise / subtle enough to answer any of these open ended philosophical queries. I believe that believing our technology- and our ability to be responsible and appropriate with its use-
Oops! Does that make me a terrorist? Or criminally dysfunctional?
Perhaps in Russia I would now be banned from having a drivers' license.
Gosh.
Good luck in your
Tory

> On Jan 8, 2015, at 8:03 PM, "Vladimyr Burachynsky" <[hidden email]> wrote:
>
> This is becoming a shark feeding frenzy of Media demanding that I believe different versions of the demented beliefs.
> Which ever outlet I side with demands I become a believer. I am not Normal to begin with, otherwise I MIGHT actually take up arms and shoot at a target they suggest. Should I take a Gravol to control the vertigo as they spin me around, aiming at phantoms.
>
> Hollande is strutting about like a shrunken , down sized de Gaulle after he nearly lost France to a Troop of Disgruntled Foreign Legionnaires
> from Algeria.
>
> al Jazeera wants me to believe that there is a war against all Muslims. CBC wants me to believe that the Muslims are about to attack the country.
> Wait we are in a deep freeze and any Arab set upon conquering Canada must contend with unimaginable Arctic Cold and if they want to rob a gas station on the way they will probably freeze to death in the dark. Hollande wants us to believe he is the reincarnation of de Gaulle or Vercingetorix. Kerry wants me to believe he speaks French. Putin probably wants me to believe he is Vladimir Monomahk the slayer of Turks.
>
> These  tough-guys are not so crazy as the Media. They have remained silent for now. One Canadian media outlet is attacking our National Outlet , CBC, as cowards , yes they used the word correctly,
> who refused to show the Charlie Hebdo images on air( they were Blacked -Out). Maybe Oprah Winfry can get them to confess on prime time T.V.
> A Montreal journalist ,  has bared his chest ( but no soul was to be seen) and declared that CBC ordered him to self-censor out of fear.
> What a show.
> Actually the Russian media is being rather discreet, what a shock. No one has the wherewithal to post the price of oil or the disposition of ISIL
> and the Saudi invasions.
> vib
>
> I will snicker from my warm hovel in this cold blast.
> I am waiting for the much feared promised global warming to arrive.
> Just where is Al Gore now that I want to believe in his delusions? If I pick one belief  will the others stop pestering me?
> No I guess it is more like an attack of Blackflies or mosquitoes.
> Perhaps Glen is correct  "Beliefs don't kill people. People kill people"
> I might add "Believers have the right to  kill non-believers".
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Friam [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of glen
> Sent: January-08-15 7:24 PM
> To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
> Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Slasdhot linked article RE; god
>
>> On 01/08/2015 03:49 PM, Marcus G. Daniels wrote:
>> Or that they are mentally ill and need `retraining'.  But that takes
>> us down the road of recognizing the danger latent in faith, which I
>> don't think the US is close to doing.
>
> Exactly ... though it goes beyond just faith to any sort of psychological problem, I think.  E.g. It's fine if you're deluded into believing, say, the "law of attraction"
> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_attraction_%28New_Thought%29> as long as you don't do things like rely on it to heal your children or somesuch.
>
> Beliefs don't kill people.  People kill people. ;-)
>
> --
> ⇔ glen
>
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[Marcus G. Daniels]

Victoria writes:

"So any belief other than one's own is a delusion?"

Subjective experience must run counter to objective evidence to get this label.  A belief that can be represented by a set of features, understandable by independent observers in a repeatable way is not a delusion.  If someone wants to bind a name like Seraphim to such a set of features, they may, provided the other observers agree that name is not confused with other useful names.   But if no features are described in detail, there is no way to tabulate evidence or cross-check the tabulations.   Faith creates names for things, and constraints amongst things which either can't be grounded in evidence or must endure being mistaken.  One way to endure is by recruiting more people to have affinity for those ungrounded names and constraints.

Marcus


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[glen ropella]

On 01/08/2015 10:47 PM, Marcus G. Daniels wrote:
> Victoria writes:
>
> "So any belief other than one's own is a delusion?"
>
> Subjective experience must run counter to objective evidence to get this label.  A belief that can be represented by a set of features, understandable by independent observers in a repeatable way is not a delusion.  If someone wants to bind a name like Seraphim to such a set of features, they may, provided the other observers agree that name is not confused with other useful names.   But if no features are described in detail, there is no way to tabulate evidence or cross-check the tabulations.   Faith creates names for things, and constraints amongst things which either can't be grounded in evidence or must endure being mistaken.  One way to endure is by recruiting more people to have affinity for those ungrounded names and constraints.


Well, Tory makes a good point, though, about the ability of our methods (scientific or not) to establish any sort of objectivity.  Sure, faith (and it's kin) is one of the most egregious and specious of the pseudo-objective centroids, gathering lots of people who talk about faith as if it's a real thing, but never being able to actually describe what it means, what it does, how it works, etc.

But there are plenty of other concepts, even in science, that are guilty ... not just as guilty, perhaps, but guilty still.  I tend to think evolutionary selection is one of them.  All of us who believe in it can describe what we think happens and, each of us has an onion-like description.  Our outer layers all agree fairly well (much like the faithful).  But as you peel each onion, the inner layers can look different from one selection believer to another.  Worse yet, amongst the lay population who _say_ they believe in evolution, their onion is really more of a hollow spheroid, with a flimsy outer layer alone.

And one way for believers in selection to endure is to recruit more people by giving them hollow spheroids to play with.

--
⇒⇐ glen e. p. ropella
Can't stand I wouldn't go there


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[Marcus G. Daniels]

On Fri, 2015-01-09 at 08:39 -0800, glen wrote:
> Worse yet, amongst the lay population who _say_ they believe in
> evolution, their onion is really more of a hollow spheroid, with a
> flimsy outer layer alone.

Sure, religion is just the worst because they do it _on purpose_.
Meanwhile, atheism is not "delusional" like theism because for something
to be delusional there has to be contrary evidence, and there is not.

There's nothing wrong with having a vague guess about life, the
universe, & everything, provided one is happy to have it falsified, and
move on from there with a new hypothesis.

Marcus


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[Marcus G. Daniels]

Victoria writes:

> I suggest this is tautological reasoning.

I'm not just making up definitions to suit my purposes.

http://wordnetweb.princeton.edu/perl/webwn?s=delusion
https://www.google.com/search?q=delusion&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8



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[glen ropella]

On 01/09/2015 08:51 AM, Marcus G. Daniels wrote:
> Sure, religion is just the worst because they do it _on purpose_.
> Meanwhile, atheism is not "delusional" like theism because for something
> to be delusional there has to be contrary evidence, and there is not.

Heh, you say that like "evidence" has a rock solid, unambiguous
definition.  I know plenty of people who believe there is (are?) lots of
evidence of the existence of gods that interfere with the world.  Hence,
atheism is delusional in exactly the same way that theism is delusional.

Granted, to make this conversation useful, we'd have to denote the
language in which delusion is expressed.  If we let A be the language of
atheists (or perhaps even science), then we can call delusional_A the
criterion by which we show evidence there are no gods.  And if we let T
be the language of theists, then delusional_T can be the criterion by
which we show evidence there are gods.

Then(!)  you can assert that delusional_A is ≠ delusional_T.

--
⇔ glen

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[Mohammed El-Beltagy]

There is a common thread running through this discussion it that to my mind seems quite problematic. It has to do with imposing a restriction on any given religion to be "in concordance" with science to be "valid" and not to be regarded as some fantasy or myth. Here any religion is reified to its particular version of Genesis, where the poetry and symbolism are brushed aside for literal or atavistic reading of that story. Such "reading" is hence held up to our scientific yardstick (or modern values) to see if it measures up.

One might as well be questioning the "validity" of Shakespeare's Hamlet by investigating if it matches up to what we now know of Danish history.

It is clear to me that the  literal and/or anachronistic readings/interpretations of any holy text often reflects, the all  too human, fears and prejudices of the reader/interpretor at a given point in time. Often that results in litany of blunders and disasters...somewhat understatedly.

However, I posit that one can see a given religion as a mean of reaching out to gain a grasp on reality in a holistic sense, or a very right brained sense. Like one observe a flower as total experience and not its component feature, colors or cellular structure. Such holistic grasp and resultant passion may often accelerate our understanding of the natural world in the left brain or analytic sense. This case is very clear in ancient Egypt where that religious passion gave rise to amazing advances in mathematics, geometry, astronomy,..etc. The same can be said many religious traditions.

The conflict arises when a given "reading" is clearly at odds with our scientific understanding. In that case the "authorities" in any given religion will do anything in their might to dismiss such new inconvenient discoveries. This will hold on to their ossified readings, rather than inject new life in what was once beautiful, poetic, and inspiring.

On Fri, Jan 9, 2015 at 7:37 PM, Steve Smith <[hidden email]> wrote:

Tory/Marcus/Glen -

Good to hear your "voice" T, after a hiatus... (and that of Vladymir as well, also AWOL for some time?)

I think this discussion or even conflict is an important one, and tends to get argued on superficial grounds.  This discussion, as it unfolds, promises to be a little deeper.

I have to support Tory's implications about belief, faith, and delusion.   We tend to dismiss another's beliefs, no matter *what* they arise from or are grounded in as "delusion" if we don't share those beliefs (or perhaps just nuances of them).   The three Ibrahamic religions, the several variants of Catholicism, the *many* variants of Protestantism are a good example of this splitting of hairs, whilst other religious or philosophical views would dismiss the entire concept of paternalistic creator out of hand, offering up yet another cosmology, code of conduct, etc. as "the one true way", then again factionating into the bigendians and little endians of Johnathon Swift's parody.

I am sympathetic with the view of the scientific method (repeatability) that Marcus presents, yet I fear it aggravates the issue in some ways, as it admits wholeheartedly that all theories are contingent and through experience, but also by the structure of the system, we realize that every "objective truth" found by science is contingent on new evidence and new theoretical structurings.  I learned decades ago to not allow myself to think of Scientific Truths as absolute...  wonderfully predictive in many contexts... powerfully supportive of engineering... but not the route to absolute Truth (if there even be such a thing?).

Our Faith in the scientific method, scientific thinking or the collective scientific institutions of the world is a form of Faith as well.   And as Glen points out, there are some judgements of the collective scientific institutions which can be a bit hollow upon close inspection and those are the ones which often gather the most virulent advocates.   I would suggest that all emergent phenomena fall into this category, with Darwinian Selection a most common example (Global phenomena such as emergence/divergence of species attributed to the local survival/selection pressures of the individual).   Non Scientists who have strong Belief in Science perhaps do the worst damage... it is quite fashionable among the non-scientific intelligentsia to support Scientific Theories as if they were Truth.   Evolution being a strong example.   Anthropogenic Climate Change is perhaps becoming another.   There is a lot of Scientific Evidence growing to support the latter and it is (in the past 10-20 years) fashionable to Believe in it, but it is far from a Scientific Certainty such as Classical Mechanics, Thermodynamics, Relativity.

This *is* where *I* happen to put my Faith, what little I have... in the methods of Science and in Scientific Thinking as well, and I find it extremely difficult to put any similar Faith in another system... maybe most particularly those which attempt to adopt the tropes and trappings of Science.  The suite of New Age ideas that arose (mostly) in the 1980s but often based in much older systems such as Astrology and Occultism were acutely difficult for me, as they suggest various forms of causality and imply "proof" by a (psuedo) scientific method.

While *I* cannot embrace any of the Theistic spiritual systems (religions by another name) literaly, I *do* find many of the more whimsical (my term) and colorful traditions such as the pantheons of egyptian/mesopotamian/hindu/greek/roman/norse and the animism of many aboriginal cultures extremely compelling, NOT to understand the physical world and it's idiosyncratic behaviour, but to understand the human world and *our* ideosyncracies whilst embedded *in* the physical world.    Such systems do not provide any "answers" for me as such, but do often provide useful and interesting perspective.

I cannot help but think that for those who are entirely wedded to a singular religious system are drawn by the same features that I am... only they mistake weak correlation for strong causation. I am suspicious of the exclusionary nature of many religions especially one for which the highest sin is Shirk or belief in False Gods, or those which name it's adherents to be the "chosen people".... but *that* is a different issue than Belief, Faith, Truth methinks...

- Steve

On 01/08/2015 10:47 PM, Marcus G. Daniels wrote:

Victoria writes:

"So any belief other than one's own is a delusion?"

Subjective experience must run counter to objective evidence to get this label.  A belief that can be represented by a set of features, understandable by independent observers in a repeatable way is not a delusion.  If someone wants to bind a name like Seraphim to such a set of features, they may, provided the other observers agree that name is not confused with other useful names.   But if no features are described in detail, there is no way to tabulate evidence or cross-check the tabulations.   Faith creates names for things, and constraints amongst things which either can't be grounded in evidence or must endure being mistaken.  One way to endure is by recruiting more people to have affinity for those ungrounded names and constraints.

Well, Tory makes a good point, though, about the ability of our methods (scientific or not) to establish any sort of objectivity.  Sure, faith (and it's kin) is one of the most egregious and specious of the pseudo-objective centroids, gathering lots of people who talk about faith as if it's a real thing, but never being able to actually describe what it means, what it does, how it works, etc.

But there are plenty of other concepts, even in science, that are guilty ... not just as guilty, perhaps, but guilty still.  I tend to think evolutionary selection is one of them.  All of us who believe in it can describe what we think happens and, each of us has an onion-like description.  Our outer layers all agree fairly well (much like the faithful).  But as you peel each onion, the inner layers can look different from one selection believer to another.  Worse yet, amongst the lay population who _say_ they believe in evolution, their onion is really more of a hollow spheroid, with a flimsy outer layer alone.

And one way for believers in selection to endure is to recruit more people by giving them hollow spheroids to play with.

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[Marcus G. Daniels]

Mohammed El-Beltagy wrote:

> Such holistic grasp and resultant passion may often accelerate our
> understanding of the natural world in the left brain or analytic
> sense. This case is very clear in ancient Egypt where that religious
> passion gave rise to amazing advances in mathematics, geometry,
> astronomy,..etc.

I find that keeping an arms length from specialists helps me get going
on a project.  I like the adventure of a new project, especially when a
lot of it is new to me.  Soon enough, I realize if I am out of my depth
and need the specialists (or should just stop), if I can cope and push
through myself, or if I can estimate what is involved in becoming such a
`specialist' (in some areas it doesn't amount to much).

But I find that once I'm past the static friction (and irrational
exuberance), habit takes over and I block out distractions.  In terms of
effort, the idea was the easy part, and the work takes much more time.
I don't need passion or a holy grail to keep going on the work, I would
need sedation to stop.    

Also while a part of me would love to spend all day reading arXiv from
end-to-end, Science, Nature, PNAS, etc. I wouldn't accomplish anything
if I did that.  I think for many (not all) people, general curiosity
needs to have some practical limits.  

Marcus


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[Steve Smith]

Mohammed -

Also good to hear your "voice" after a very long time... I hope things are going "well enough" for you, I assume you are still in Cairo amidst the constant ebb and flow around you there. 

I like the way you phrase this.  I'm sure I have little left to add to this one...  I feel like the problem is most acute when one mode of understanding the nature of reality pretends to be able to answer the questions generated by the other mode.  

- Steve

There is a common thread running through this discussion it that to my mind seems quite problematic. It has to do with imposing a restriction on any given religion to be "in concordance" with science to be "valid" and not to be regarded as some fantasy or myth. Here any religion is reified to its particular version of Genesis, where the poetry and symbolism are brushed aside for literal or atavistic reading of that story. Such "reading" is hence held up to our scientific yardstick (or modern values) to see if it measures up.

One might as well be questioning the "validity" of Shakespeare's Hamlet by investigating if it matches up to what we now know of Danish history.

It is clear to me that the  literal and/or anachronistic readings/interpretations of any holy text often reflects, the all  too human, fears and prejudices of the reader/interpretor at a given point in time. Often that results in litany of blunders and disasters...somewhat understatedly.

However, I posit that one can see a given religion as a mean of reaching out to gain a grasp on reality in a holistic sense, or a very right brained sense. Like one observe a flower as total experience and not its component feature, colors or cellular structure. Such holistic grasp and resultant passion may often accelerate our understanding of the natural world in the left brain or analytic sense. This case is very clear in ancient Egypt where that religious passion gave rise to amazing advances in mathematics, geometry, astronomy,..etc. The same can be said many religious traditions.

The conflict arises when a given "reading" is clearly at odds with our scientific understanding. In that case the "authorities" in any given religion will do anything in their might to dismiss such new inconvenient discoveries. This will hold on to their ossified readings, rather than inject new life in what was once beautiful, poetic, and inspiring.

On Fri, Jan 9, 2015 at 7:37 PM, Steve Smith <[hidden email]> wrote:

Tory/Marcus/Glen -

Good to hear your "voice" T, after a hiatus... (and that of Vladymir as well, also AWOL for some time?)

I think this discussion or even conflict is an important one, and tends to get argued on superficial grounds.  This discussion, as it unfolds, promises to be a little deeper.

I have to support Tory's implications about belief, faith, and delusion.   We tend to dismiss another's beliefs, no matter *what* they arise from or are grounded in as "delusion" if we don't share those beliefs (or perhaps just nuances of them).   The three Ibrahamic religions, the several variants of Catholicism, the *many* variants of Protestantism are a good example of this splitting of hairs, whilst other religious or philosophical views would dismiss the entire concept of paternalistic creator out of hand, offering up yet another cosmology, code of conduct, etc. as "the one true way", then again factionating into the bigendians and little endians of Johnathon Swift's parody.

I am sympathetic with the view of the scientific method (repeatability) that Marcus presents, yet I fear it aggravates the issue in some ways, as it admits wholeheartedly that all theories are contingent and through experience, but also by the structure of the system, we realize that every "objective truth" found by science is contingent on new evidence and new theoretical structurings.  I learned decades ago to not allow myself to think of Scientific Truths as absolute...  wonderfully predictive in many contexts... powerfully supportive of engineering... but not the route to absolute Truth (if there even be such a thing?).

Our Faith in the scientific method, scientific thinking or the collective scientific institutions of the world is a form of Faith as well.   And as Glen points out, there are some judgements of the collective scientific institutions which can be a bit hollow upon close inspection and those are the ones which often gather the most virulent advocates.   I would suggest that all emergent phenomena fall into this category, with Darwinian Selection a most common example (Global phenomena such as emergence/divergence of species attributed to the local survival/selection pressures of the individual).   Non Scientists who have strong Belief in Science perhaps do the worst damage... it is quite fashionable among the non-scientific intelligentsia to support Scientific Theories as if they were Truth.   Evolution being a strong example.   Anthropogenic Climate Change is perhaps becoming another.   There is a lot of Scientific Evidence growing to support the latter and it is (in the past 10-20 years) fashionable to Believe in it, but it is far from a Scientific Certainty such as Classical Mechanics, Thermodynamics, Relativity.

This *is* where *I* happen to put my Faith, what little I have... in the methods of Science and in Scientific Thinking as well, and I find it extremely difficult to put any similar Faith in another system... maybe most particularly those which attempt to adopt the tropes and trappings of Science.  The suite of New Age ideas that arose (mostly) in the 1980s but often based in much older systems such as Astrology and Occultism were acutely difficult for me, as they suggest various forms of causality and imply "proof" by a (psuedo) scientific method.

While *I* cannot embrace any of the Theistic spiritual systems (religions by another name) literaly, I *do* find many of the more whimsical (my term) and colorful traditions such as the pantheons of egyptian/mesopotamian/hindu/greek/roman/norse and the animism of many aboriginal cultures extremely compelling, NOT to understand the physical world and it's idiosyncratic behaviour, but to understand the human world and *our* ideosyncracies whilst embedded *in* the physical world.    Such systems do not provide any "answers" for me as such, but do often provide useful and interesting perspective.

I cannot help but think that for those who are entirely wedded to a singular religious system are drawn by the same features that I am... only they mistake weak correlation for strong causation. I am suspicious of the exclusionary nature of many religions especially one for which the highest sin is Shirk or belief in False Gods, or those which name it's adherents to be the "chosen people".... but *that* is a different issue than Belief, Faith, Truth methinks...

- Steve

On 01/08/2015 10:47 PM, Marcus G. Daniels wrote:

Victoria writes:

"So any belief other than one's own is a delusion?"

Subjective experience must run counter to objective evidence to get this label.  A belief that can be represented by a set of features, understandable by independent observers in a repeatable way is not a delusion.  If someone wants to bind a name like Seraphim to such a set of features, they may, provided the other observers agree that name is not confused with other useful names.   But if no features are described in detail, there is no way to tabulate evidence or cross-check the tabulations.   Faith creates names for things, and constraints amongst things which either can't be grounded in evidence or must endure being mistaken.  One way to endure is by recruiting more people to have affinity for those ungrounded names and constraints.

Well, Tory makes a good point, though, about the ability of our methods (scientific or not) to establish any sort of objectivity.  Sure, faith (and it's kin) is one of the most egregious and specious of the pseudo-objective centroids, gathering lots of people who talk about faith as if it's a real thing, but never being able to actually describe what it means, what it does, how it works, etc.

But there are plenty of other concepts, even in science, that are guilty ... not just as guilty, perhaps, but guilty still.  I tend to think evolutionary selection is one of them.  All of us who believe in it can describe what we think happens and, each of us has an onion-like description.  Our outer layers all agree fairly well (much like the faithful).  But as you peel each onion, the inner layers can look different from one selection believer to another.  Worse yet, amongst the lay population who _say_ they believe in evolution, their onion is really more of a hollow spheroid, with a flimsy outer layer alone.

And one way for believers in selection to endure is to recruit more people by giving them hollow spheroids to play with.

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Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
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[Mohammed El-Beltagy]

Thanks Frank and Steve.

> I feel like the problem is most acute when one mode of understanding the nature of reality pretends to be able to answer the questions generated by the other mode.  

I fully agree.

I am still based Cairo... recently I started an innovation accelerator with partners in  Sweden (http://www.novelari.com/)

On Mon, Jan 12, 2015 at 9:44 PM, Steve Smith <[hidden email]> wrote:

Mohammed -

Also good to hear your "voice" after a very long time... I hope things are going "well enough" for you, I assume you are still in Cairo amidst the constant ebb and flow around you there. 

I like the way you phrase this.  I'm sure I have little left to add to this one...  I feel like the problem is most acute when one mode of understanding the nature of reality pretends to be able to answer the questions generated by the other mode.  

- Steve

There is a common thread running through this discussion it that to my mind seems quite problematic. It has to do with imposing a restriction on any given religion to be "in concordance" with science to be "valid" and not to be regarded as some fantasy or myth. Here any religion is reified to its particular version of Genesis, where the poetry and symbolism are brushed aside for literal or atavistic reading of that story. Such "reading" is hence held up to our scientific yardstick (or modern values) to see if it measures up.

One might as well be questioning the "validity" of Shakespeare's Hamlet by investigating if it matches up to what we now know of Danish history.

It is clear to me that the  literal and/or anachronistic readings/interpretations of any holy text often reflects, the all  too human, fears and prejudices of the reader/interpretor at a given point in time. Often that results in litany of blunders and disasters...somewhat understatedly.

However, I posit that one can see a given religion as a mean of reaching out to gain a grasp on reality in a holistic sense, or a very right brained sense. Like one observe a flower as total experience and not its component feature, colors or cellular structure. Such holistic grasp and resultant passion may often accelerate our understanding of the natural world in the left brain or analytic sense. This case is very clear in ancient Egypt where that religious passion gave rise to amazing advances in mathematics, geometry, astronomy,..etc. The same can be said many religious traditions.

The conflict arises when a given "reading" is clearly at odds with our scientific understanding. In that case the "authorities" in any given religion will do anything in their might to dismiss such new inconvenient discoveries. This will hold on to their ossified readings, rather than inject new life in what was once beautiful, poetic, and inspiring.

On Fri, Jan 9, 2015 at 7:37 PM, Steve Smith <[hidden email]> wrote:

Tory/Marcus/Glen -

Good to hear your "voice" T, after a hiatus... (and that of Vladymir as well, also AWOL for some time?)

I think this discussion or even conflict is an important one, and tends to get argued on superficial grounds.  This discussion, as it unfolds, promises to be a little deeper.

I have to support Tory's implications about belief, faith, and delusion.   We tend to dismiss another's beliefs, no matter *what* they arise from or are grounded in as "delusion" if we don't share those beliefs (or perhaps just nuances of them).   The three Ibrahamic religions, the several variants of Catholicism, the *many* variants of Protestantism are a good example of this splitting of hairs, whilst other religious or philosophical views would dismiss the entire concept of paternalistic creator out of hand, offering up yet another cosmology, code of conduct, etc. as "the one true way", then again factionating into the bigendians and little endians of Johnathon Swift's parody.

I am sympathetic with the view of the scientific method (repeatability) that Marcus presents, yet I fear it aggravates the issue in some ways, as it admits wholeheartedly that all theories are contingent and through experience, but also by the structure of the system, we realize that every "objective truth" found by science is contingent on new evidence and new theoretical structurings.  I learned decades ago to not allow myself to think of Scientific Truths as absolute...  wonderfully predictive in many contexts... powerfully supportive of engineering... but not the route to absolute Truth (if there even be such a thing?).

Our Faith in the scientific method, scientific thinking or the collective scientific institutions of the world is a form of Faith as well.   And as Glen points out, there are some judgements of the collective scientific institutions which can be a bit hollow upon close inspection and those are the ones which often gather the most virulent advocates.   I would suggest that all emergent phenomena fall into this category, with Darwinian Selection a most common example (Global phenomena such as emergence/divergence of species attributed to the local survival/selection pressures of the individual).   Non Scientists who have strong Belief in Science perhaps do the worst damage... it is quite fashionable among the non-scientific intelligentsia to support Scientific Theories as if they were Truth.   Evolution being a strong example.   Anthropogenic Climate Change is perhaps becoming another.   There is a lot of Scientific Evidence growing to support the latter and it is (in the past 10-20 years) fashionable to Believe in it, but it is far from a Scientific Certainty such as Classical Mechanics, Thermodynamics, Relativity.

This *is* where *I* happen to put my Faith, what little I have... in the methods of Science and in Scientific Thinking as well, and I find it extremely difficult to put any similar Faith in another system... maybe most particularly those which attempt to adopt the tropes and trappings of Science.  The suite of New Age ideas that arose (mostly) in the 1980s but often based in much older systems such as Astrology and Occultism were acutely difficult for me, as they suggest various forms of causality and imply "proof" by a (psuedo) scientific method.

While *I* cannot embrace any of the Theistic spiritual systems (religions by another name) literaly, I *do* find many of the more whimsical (my term) and colorful traditions such as the pantheons of egyptian/mesopotamian/hindu/greek/roman/norse and the animism of many aboriginal cultures extremely compelling, NOT to understand the physical world and it's idiosyncratic behaviour, but to understand the human world and *our* ideosyncracies whilst embedded *in* the physical world.    Such systems do not provide any "answers" for me as such, but do often provide useful and interesting perspective.

I cannot help but think that for those who are entirely wedded to a singular religious system are drawn by the same features that I am... only they mistake weak correlation for strong causation. I am suspicious of the exclusionary nature of many religions especially one for which the highest sin is Shirk or belief in False Gods, or those which name it's adherents to be the "chosen people".... but *that* is a different issue than Belief, Faith, Truth methinks...

- Steve

On 01/08/2015 10:47 PM, Marcus G. Daniels wrote:

Victoria writes:

"So any belief other than one's own is a delusion?"

Subjective experience must run counter to objective evidence to get this label.  A belief that can be represented by a set of features, understandable by independent observers in a repeatable way is not a delusion.  If someone wants to bind a name like Seraphim to such a set of features, they may, provided the other observers agree that name is not confused with other useful names.   But if no features are described in detail, there is no way to tabulate evidence or cross-check the tabulations.   Faith creates names for things, and constraints amongst things which either can't be grounded in evidence or must endure being mistaken.  One way to endure is by recruiting more people to have affinity for those ungrounded names and constraints.

Well, Tory makes a good point, though, about the ability of our methods (scientific or not) to establish any sort of objectivity.  Sure, faith (and it's kin) is one of the most egregious and specious of the pseudo-objective centroids, gathering lots of people who talk about faith as if it's a real thing, but never being able to actually describe what it means, what it does, how it works, etc.

But there are plenty of other concepts, even in science, that are guilty ... not just as guilty, perhaps, but guilty still.  I tend to think evolutionary selection is one of them.  All of us who believe in it can describe what we think happens and, each of us has an onion-like description.  Our outer layers all agree fairly well (much like the faithful).  But as you peel each onion, the inner layers can look different from one selection believer to another.  Worse yet, amongst the lay population who _say_ they believe in evolution, their onion is really more of a hollow spheroid, with a flimsy outer layer alone.

And one way for believers in selection to endure is to recruit more people by giving them hollow spheroids to play with.

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Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
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