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just faith

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Nick Thompson

Re: just faith

And Sarbajit’s response seems to be that they make me DEVILISH!

All I can say is, “Gosh!”

From: [hidden email] [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of ERIC P. CHARLES
Sent: Monday, September 17, 2012 2:42 PM
To: Sarbajit Roy
Cc: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] just faith

Sarbajit,
Trying to make things succinct, I think the argument Nick is trying to make goes something like this:

To act a certain way in a certain situation is to "have a belief." Thus, our lives are full of beliefs, which are variously consistent or inconsistent depending on how you examine our lives. When people claim to lack deeply held beliefs, either 1) they don't know what they believe (i.e., lack meta-awareness), or 2) they just don't want to talk about their beliefs (i.e., are lying). Thus, in general, the claim to not be philosophical indicates a rigidity of belief, rather than a lack of belief.

Nick's beliefs include (i.e., Nick acts as if the following things were true): The world can be improved. Thinking is virtuous. Things have causes.

His eventual question seemed to be: Do these beliefs make me religious, in some general sense?

Eric

On Mon, Sep 17, 2012 02:25 PM, Sarbajit Roy <[hidden email]> wrote:

Dear Nick

I think the both of us are talking at cross purposes here.

I know next to nothing about philosophy. Perhaps somebody like Richard

Dawkins could help you here.

In my faith (I do wish the Islamists, Mormons, Sikhs, etc on this list

would speak out) . the "Devil" is all that is "known"

(and hence

wrong) whereas "God" is that which is "unknown" /

unknowable. The more

we become knowledgeable the less wise/efficient we are.

Islam apparently has a similar view (although perhaps not for the same

reasons as us). Images on Television are "devilish"

(whereas those

gazillion black and white pixellated dots on a blank channel are

"God"). I recall a SF short story about a programmer who starts

off

decoding this seemingly random white noise with a BASIC progam on an

Apple II and works it up eventually to a supercomputer where he starts

getting pseudo-gibberish possibly from God.

In sum: Philosophy falls in the realm of Devils ... and your name is very apt.

Sarbajit

On 9/17/12, Nicholas  Thompson <[hidden email]> wrote:

> Sarbajit,

> I think I believe that everybody HAS a philosophical system.  The variables

> are how explicit it is and whether the holder of the system is capable of

> engaging in analysis and critique.

> If somebody says they don't have a philosophical position, it generally

> means that they have one and they don't want to talk about it.  A

> non-philosophical person is just a person who is rigid in his philosophy.

> As to religion, can I be religious if God plays no part in my thought or

> discourse, either as an assertion or a denial?  Here I am prone to

> confusion

> because I may confuse religion with metaphysics.  I definitely believe that

> there are principles operating in the universe that are not in my immediate

> experience yet can be called upon to explain my experience.  I would be

> hard

> pressed to say what those principles ARE, but I am pretty sure they are

> back

> there somewhere.   Some of them are the kind of things that physicists

> know,

> but I don't.  But not all.  One of them might be The World is an OK Place,

> and that, if we keep tinkering and poking at it, things will get better.

> Another is the idea that, on average, thinking about stuff is better than

> not thinking about it.  A third is the idea that Things Have Causes.  These

> are all certainly elements of metaphysics, but are they religion?

> Nick

> I think that this way of being

> -----Original Message-----

> From: [hidden email] [hidden email] On

> Behalf

> Of Sarbajit Roy

> Sent: Monday, September 17, 2012 10:42 AM

> To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group

> Subject: Re: [FRIAM] just faith

> Well atheism would only convey a negation of belief (in God) to

me. My

> religious model has no problem accommodating atheists, and contrawise I

> have

> no problem with an atheist's belief model built around no-God (or

Gods or

> gods or GOD ...). As long as it functions its irrelevant whether a

car (or

> religion) runs on gasoline or horse-manure or hot air.

> My religion (loosely called "Adi Dharm") originally

reduced the 330 million

> "gods" of Hinduism down to one ("Brahma" the

absolute reality). Having done

> that very successfully we were forced to go underground in the previous

> century, and a not insignificant portion of our adherents became

"godless"

> Communists. Today we don't have a conception of a God as a father / creator

> figure. Instead we conceive God as "the" principle which

regulates

> existence/ the uinivers/ multiverse/ parallel worlds or whatever. Deus is

> the "mechanism behind the clock" and not the "clock

maker". The issue is

> whether atheists also acknowledge that there is a principle (or law .

or

> set

> of laws) which govern "their" universe.

> I agree with Eric, newer generations are not interested in philosophical

> systems any more or artificial religious categories.

> There are too many other things going on in their lives.

> On 9/17/12, Nicholas  Thompson <

<[hidden email]>

> [hidden email]> wrote:

> Sarbajit,

> Given your range of experiences with the religious, I am curious for

> your reflections on atheism as a religion.  When push comes to shove,

> are we atheists any the less religious, in the very broadest senses of

> that term?

> In what ways?

> Nick

> -----Original Message-----

> From:  <[hidden email]> [hidden email]

> <[hidden email]>

> [hidden email] On

> Behalf Of Sarbajit Roy

> Sent: Monday, September 17, 2012 8:51 AM

> To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group

> Subject: Re: [FRIAM] just faith

> Platinga's view is fairly well aligned with the beliefs of my own

> faith even though our "God" may be different. We all develop our

own

> models of reality, apparently the trick is to ensure that these models

> are robust enough accommodate everybody else's gremlins, devils,

> zombies, or maulvis and still continue to function.

> I probably know more Muslim's personally then half the members on this

> list.

> My neighbour is a Muslim and I also employ Muslims. India is a secular

> country whose 13% Muslim population is free to migrate anywhere in the

> world

> which will take them in - not  many do. India's Muslims when asked (by

> foreigners such as the BBC or the NYT) usually volunteer they consider

> themselves to be better off in India vis-a-vis their brethren in  Muslim

> countries like Pakistan or Iran (notwithstanding the occasional bouts

of

> communal frenzy which develop over pigs feet or beef entrails being

> thrown

> by the butchers of each community).

> India was ruled for over 200 years by Muslims as was China (Yuan

> dynasty).

> America probably needs to experience Muslim rule for some time to develop

> a

> sustainable and robust reality model. The "Dune" SF series was

heavily

> influenced by Islamic models.

> OT: Interestingly, "Islamic science fiction" is an emergent

discipline in

> the Arabic world to attract younger followers to the world of the Taliban

> and Al Qaeda.

> Sarbajit

> On 9/17/12, Roger Critchlow < < <[hidden email]>

[hidden email]>

> <[hidden email]> [hidden email]> wrote:

> Reading

>  <

<http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2012/sep/27/philosopher-defen>

> http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2012/sep/27/philosopher-defen>

<http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2012/sep/27/philosopher-defen>

> http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2012/sep/27/philosopher-defen

> ds-religion/

> was

> a rather odd experience this week, mixed in with Sam Bacile, the

> Salafists, the zombies, and whatever.

> The review is by a non-believer (Thomas Nagel) who finds the

book,

> written by a believer (Alvin Plantinga), very interesting, even

though

> he doesn't believe it.  Plantinga's day job is analytic philosophy, so

> he gets very precisely into what he thinks it is that his faith and

> his beliefs do for him.  Finally, the main argument is sort a grand

> slam of creationism: we wouldn't be able to correctly figure out how

> the world works if the deity, more specifically the deity that Plantinga

> believes in, wasn't helping us

> along the way.   Why would natural selection by itself care anything

> about

> the truth?

> As the reviewer says:  "The interest of this book, especially for

> secular readers, is its presentation from the inside of the point of

> view of a philosophically subtle and scientifically informed theist-an

> outlook with which many of them will not be familiar."

> -- rec --

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

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http://www.friam.org>

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> ============================================================

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

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> http://www.friam.org

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

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------------

Eric Charles
Assistant Professor of Psychology
Penn State University
Altoona, PA 16601

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Douglas Roberts-2

Re: just faith

In reply to this post by Tom Carter

Catch-22 was brilliant.

On Mon, Sep 17, 2012 at 2:00 PM, Tom Carter <[hidden email]> wrote:

As a youngster, I read a (stunning :-) book that contained this:

“What the hell are you getting so upset about?” he asked her bewilderedly in a tone of contrite amusement. “I thought you didn’t believe in God.”

“I don’t,” she sobbed, bursting violently into tears. “But the God I don’t believe in is a good God, a just God, a merciful God. He’s not the mean and stupid God you make Him out to be.”

Yossarian laughed and turned her arms loose. “Let’s have a little more religious freedom between us,” he proposed obligingly. “You don’t believe in the God you want to, and I won’t believe in the God I want to. Is that a deal?”

(for a more extended quote: http://niqnaq.wordpress.com/2009/07/19/the-god-i-dont-believe-in-is-a-good-kind-god/ )

If you haven't read (or haven't recently . . .) Heller's book, you really should :-)

Thanks . . .

tom

On Sep 17, 2012, at 1:52 AM, Roger Critchlow <[hidden email]> wrote:

> Reading http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2012/sep/27/philosopher-defends-religion/ was a rather odd experience this week, mixed in with Sam Bacile, the Salafists, the zombies, and whatever.
>
> The review is by a non-believer (Thomas Nagel) who finds the book, written by a believer (Alvin Plantinga), very interesting, even though he doesn't believe it. Plantinga's day job is analytic philosophy, so he gets very precisely into what he thinks it is that his faith and his beliefs do for him. Finally, the main argument is sort a grand slam of creationism: we wouldn't be able to correctly figure out how the world works if the deity, more specifically the deity that Plantinga believes in, wasn't helping us along the way. Why would natural selection by itself care anything about the truth?
>
> As the reviewer says: "The interest of this book, especially for secular readers, is its presentation from the inside of the point of view of a philosophically subtle and scientifically informed theist—an outlook with which many of them will not be familiar."
>
> -- rec --

> ============================================================
> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
> Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
> lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org

============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org

--
Doug Roberts
[hidden email]
[hidden email]

http://parrot-farm.net/Second-Cousins

505-455-7333 - Office
505-670-8195 - Cell

Roger Critchlow-2

Re: just faith

In reply to this post by Eric Charles

On Mon, Sep 17, 2012 at 12:41 PM, ERIC P. CHARLES <[hidden email]> wrote:

Sarbajit,
Trying to make things succinct, I think the argument Nick is trying to make goes something like this:

To act a certain way in a certain situation is to "have a belief." Thus, our lives are full of beliefs, which are variously consistent or inconsistent depending on how you examine our lives. When people claim to lack deeply held beliefs, either 1) they don't know what they believe (i.e., lack meta-awareness), or 2) they just don't want to talk about their beliefs (i.e., are lying). Thus, in general, the claim to not be philosophical indicates a rigidity of belief, rather than a lack of belief.

Nick's beliefs include (i.e., Nick acts as if the following things were true): The world can be improved. Thinking is virtuous. Things have causes.

His eventual question seemed to be: Do these beliefs make me religious, in some general sense?

I think there is a core of beliefs which we all share: the world exists, other people are beings like myself, language can be used for communication. Everyone acts as if these things are true, and once you've accepted these beliefs, there are a whole lot of derivative beliefs that you can work out: there exist material effects which have material causes, the material life and health of people can be better or worse depending on how they pursue it, acquired experience with the material world is useful and worth pondering, and so on. Such is the life of a material girl living in a material world.

I think that core of beliefs only becomes religious if you believe that the core of beliefs and those derivable from it comprise everything that is real. Now you've added an additional belief to core, that the core is all there is. This appears to be a tenable religion until you consider how it treats members of other religions: they're all certifiably insane. That doesn't work for me, because I still believe that other people are beings like myself.

Faiths which classify the unfaithful as subhuman have proven to be very difficult neighbors historically.

-- rec --

Douglas Roberts-2

Re: just faith

I vote that rec retain his status as FRIAM master of the understatement.

--Doug

On Mon, Sep 17, 2012 at 4:25 PM, Roger Critchlow <[hidden email]> wrote:

Faiths which classify the unfaithful as subhuman have proven to be very difficult neighbors historically.

-- rec --

Steve Smith

Re: just faith

In reply to this post by Nick Thompson

Nick -

The point I was making was roughly that many if not most and most if not all of the folks interested in "telling you how it is" are categorically opposed to consuming alcohol and other such things. They may or may not have a good reason for this...

The key, at least for me, and I suspect for others, is that alcohol and similar substances have a way of lowering inhibitions which might translate roughly into "not taking oneself and one's beliefs so seriously", though I suppose all the bar fights I've been in suggest just the opposite, so what do I know?

Drinking definitely changes the quality of my emotional state which in turn seems to affect the quality of my thought. It is rare and unlikely that drinking increases the *acuity* of my thought which.

Consuming alcohol in a group environment (in my case, small groups) is also a social convention, it could as easily be say ... Coffee on a Friday morning or Tea on any given afternoon.

- Steve

Steve,

I am happy to drink, but not because it improves the quality of my thought.

There is an idea lurking in this discourse about Whiskey, roughly

In vino veritas

Do you think that you think better, in some respects, when you are drinking?

Nick

-----Original Message-----
From: [hidden email] [[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Steve Smith
Sent: Monday, September 17, 2012 11:24 AM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] just faith

I am closer in age/experience to Nick/Eric than the presumed youth generation in question but am also, myself, more a "None" than an "Athiest".

It is not (in my case) that I have too many other things going on (though I do have plenty), it is rather, that I'm not a joiner. Perhaps I "would not be a member of any club that would have me", but more to the point, I have always found even the most *inclusive* clubs to be

*exclusive* at the end of the day. I took a short run at attending the Los Alamos "Universal Unitarians" only to find that the binding feature was "more tolerant than though" and I frankly could not tolerate that kind of intolerance! Ultimately clubs are not defined by what you

believe in but defined by what you don't.   Or in the case of

MonoTheistic religions, it may seem that belief in their "one true GOD"

is the defining factor, it is really the complement... that you are excluded by lack of belief in their God/Prophet/GravenImage/etc.

In the case of Athiesm... I was drawn to it the first time I heard of it.. *I* wanted to belong to a club whose definition was the *lack* of belief in "One True God" but it didn't take long for me to discover that the existing "card carrying Athiests" also defined their "club" in the exclusive... to wit, you had to firmly (and vehemenently) *disbelieve* in any and all Gods to keep your good standing. Card carrying Athiests, when confronted with the likes of me had to force-fit me into the club of "Agnostics" because if I wasn't as anti-God as they were then I must be a wishy washy fence-sitter (e.g. Agnostic).

These distinctions may seem subtle, but they are very real for me.

I share what I understand to be Doug's position regarding Religion only not so strongly... and occasionally (only when Doug writes or speaks on the topic) suspect him of being a proselyte from the Reformed Church of

Cynicism.   As with the Mormons, Seventh Day Adventists, Sikhs, Musims

and Adi Dharmists, I am much more inclined to let card-carrying Cynics through my door to try to complete my conversion (as I do have and express sympathies with all the above Religions from time to time) if they are also carrying a nice bottle of Whiskey, Bourbon, Gin or Tequila to lubricate the conversation.

Oddly, only a very few proselytes of any religion seem to allow or the ingestion of strong spirits (poisoning the body, mind, soul?). This is what draws me most perhaps to "the modern Cynics" (as opposed to the classical version with which I think I have even more affinity in their pursuit of "Virtue in alignment with Nature"). If I were a true child of the sixties, I would perhaps require them to be carrying some yet-more-toxic and mystical-experience-inducing substances... but I'm not.

It all started perhaps when I refused a draft card, now it is tamer as I refuse the AARP card I suppose, but the principle holds. I only wish I'd had the temerity to refuse the Social Security card.

- Steve

> Well atheism would only convey a negation of belief (in God) to me. My

> religious model has no problem accommodating atheists, and contrawise

> I have no problem with an atheist's belief model built around no-God

> (or Gods or gods or GOD ...). As long as it functions its irrelevant

> whether a car (or religion) runs on gasoline or horse-manure or hot

> air.

>

> My religion (loosely called "Adi Dharm") originally reduced the 330

> million "gods" of Hinduism down to one ("Brahma" the absolute

> reality). Having done that very successfully we were forced to go

> underground in the previous century, and a not insignificant portion

> of our adherents became "godless" Communists. Today we don't have a

> conception of a God as a father / creator figure. Instead we conceive

> God as "the" principle which regulates existence/ the uinivers/

> multiverse/ parallel worlds or whatever. Deus is the "mechanism behind

> the clock" and not the "clock maker". The issue is whether atheists

> also acknowledge that there is a principle (or law . or set of laws)

> which govern "their" universe.

>

> I agree with Eric, newer generations are not interested in

> philosophical systems any more or artificial religious categories.

> There are too many other things going on in their lives.

>

> On 9/17/12, Nicholas Thompson <[hidden email]> wrote:

>> Sarbajit,

>>

>> Given your range of experiences with the religious, I am curious for

>> your reflections on atheism as a religion. When push comes to shove,

>> are we atheists any the less religious, in the very broadest senses of that term?

>> In what ways?

>>

>> Nick

>>

>> -----Original Message-----

>> From: [hidden email] [hidden email] On

>> Behalf Of Sarbajit Roy

>> Sent: Monday, September 17, 2012 8:51 AM

>> To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group

>> Subject: Re: [FRIAM] just faith

>>

>> Platinga's view is fairly well aligned with the beliefs of my own

>> faith even though our "God" may be different. We all develop our own

>> models of reality, apparently the trick is to ensure that these

>> models are robust enough accommodate everybody else's gremlins,

>> devils, zombies, or maulvis and still continue to function.

>>

>>

>>

>> I probably know more Muslim's personally then half the members on

>> this list.

>> My neighbour is a Muslim and I also employ Muslims. India is a

>> secular country whose 13% Muslim population is free to migrate

>> anywhere in the world which will take them in - not many do. India's

>> Muslims when asked (by foreigners such as the BBC or the NYT) usually

>> volunteer they consider themselves to be better off in India

>> vis-a-vis their brethren in Muslim countries like Pakistan or Iran

>> (notwithstanding the occasional bouts of communal frenzy which

>> develop over pigs feet or beef entrails being thrown by the butchers

>> of each community).

>>

>>

>>

>> India was ruled for over 200 years by Muslims as was China (Yuan dynasty).

>> America probably needs to experience Muslim rule for some time to

>> develop a sustainable and robust reality model. The "Dune" SF series

>> was heavily influenced by Islamic models.

>>

>>

>>

>> OT: Interestingly, "Islamic science fiction" is an emergent

>> discipline in the Arabic world to attract younger followers to the

>> world of the Taliban and Al Qaeda.

>>

>>

>>

>> Sarbajit

>>

>>

>>

>> On 9/17/12, Roger Critchlow < <[hidden email]> [hidden email]> wrote:

>>

>>> Reading

>>>

>>> <http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2012/sep/27/philosopher-de

>>> fen>

>> http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2012/sep/27/philosopher-defe

>> n

>>

>>> ds-religion/

>>> was

>>> a rather odd experience this week, mixed in with Sam Bacile, the

>>> Salafists, the zombies, and whatever.

>>> The review is by a non-believer (Thomas Nagel) who finds the book,

>>> written by a believer (Alvin Plantinga), very interesting, even

>>> though he doesn't believe it. Plantinga's day job is analytic

>>> philosophy, so he gets very precisely into what he thinks it is that

>>> his faith and his beliefs do for him. Finally, the main argument is

>>> sort a grand slam of creationism: we wouldn't be able to correctly

>>> figure out how the world works if the deity, more specifically the

>>> deity that Plantinga

>> believes in, wasn't helping us

>>

>>> along the way.   Why would natural selection by itself care anything

>>> about

>>> the truth?

>>> As the reviewer says: "The interest of this book, especially for

>>> secular readers, is its presentation from the inside of the point of

>>> view of a philosophically subtle and scientifically informed

>>> theist-an outlook with which many of them will not be familiar."

>>> -- rec --

>>

>>

>> ============================================================

>>

>> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv

>>

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

>> archives, unsubscribe, maps at <http://www.friam.org>

>> http://www.friam.org

>>

>>

> ============================================================

> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe

> at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at

> http://www.friam.org

============================================================

FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv

Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org
============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
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Steve Smith

Re: just faith

In reply to this post by Douglas Roberts-2

On 9/17/12 10:00 AM, Douglas Roberts wrote:
> Nick, you asked Steve, specifically, but I'm happy to chime in.
>
> I like drinking. It brings me out of my shy, reticent shell, helping
> me to become less hesitant in expressing myself.
Actually I would claim to have observed just the opposite... a few
fingers of good whiskey and Doug just mellows right out, leaving more
room for the rest of us to rant and rave. So far I've seen Bulliette
Bourbon, Crown Royale, Jamesons, Glenfiddich and a couple of others have
that effect.
>
> I also like having a couple of beers before a gig, because either 1) I
> play better with a couple of good brews in me, or 2) I care less about
> precision and more about relaxing into the spontaneity of performing
> live in front of an audience.
My best pool game is about 2.3 beers in... before that I'm too stiff,
after that I'm too loose. But at 2.3 +/- .4 I have been known to run
the table (every few years).

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Steve Smith

Re: just faith

In reply to this post by Sarbajit Roy (testing)

Sarbajit -
> Dear Steve
>
> 3 quick interjections.
(are these anything like jabs with the left before a roundhouse with the
right?)
>
> 1) You will never find an ":Adi Dharmist" (??) knocking at your door,
> bugging you at an airport or selling / dumping you literature. Adi
> Dharm does not proselytise .. period. My own occasional statements on
> this mailing list are only to test whether "your" models work with
> "our" data / beliefs. Just FYI, Adi Dharm does not have priests (or
> popes) or their analogues, no "churches", no holy books, no prophets
> (or prophesies), etc. etc.
I was of course (ab)using Adi Dharmistimism for figurative purposes...
nobody actually ever knocks at my door trying to sell me anything...
they see the 1mX2m mounds of fresh earth in my back yard and turn their
bicycles around with my junkyard dog biting at their wheels. What
little I know of Adi Dharmism suits me just fine. On the other hand,
anyone hellbent on proselytising can claim membership in the Adi Dharma
club and with modern technology it isn't hard to get a laminated card or
certificate to that effect printed up and proceed to make all kinds of
claims in your religion's name they want to.
>
> 2) In Adi Dharm you are allowed to consume anything. In turn we
> believe that all life exists to be consumed. Nothing which has/had
> "life" is inedible, but nobody is forcing you to consume anything
> either.
>
> PS: Coconut 'feni' is an amazing liquid if you can get the genuine
> (triple distilled) article.
I know of use of fermented coconut in the Polynesian islands, but I'm
sure anywhere there is coconuts (or any starch or sugar containing item)
and anywhere there is yeast, there will be alcohol and people (as well
as many other animals) will consume it for it's mood-altering nature.
Humans may be the only one's who have mastered distillation of such
things... Do we need to come to India to enjoy triple distilled
'feni'? I have assumed that you are in fact, living in India, but
might be very wrong.

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Steve Smith

Re: just faith

In reply to this post by Sarbajit Roy (testing)

I'm starting to like Adi Dharmism more and more! Maybe strong drink
*is* the way to God (or Enlightenment or ...)!

Trying (hard as it often is for me) to be serious, I have long suspected
this correlation, that knowledge in some sense leads us away from Grace
(whatever that is).

God is entropy and it doesn't hurt to be confused!

> Dear Nick
>
> I think the both of us are talking at cross purposes here.
> I know next to nothing about philosophy. Perhaps somebody like Richard
> Dawkins could help you here.
>
> In my faith (I do wish the Islamists, Mormons, Sikhs, etc on this list
> would speak out) . the "Devil" is all that is "known" (and hence
> wrong) whereas "God" is that which is "unknown" / unknowable. The more
> we become knowledgeable the less wise/efficient we are.
>
> Islam apparently has a similar view (although perhaps not for the same
> reasons as us). Images on Television are "devilish" (whereas those
> gazillion black and white pixellated dots on a blank channel are
> "God"). I recall a SF short story about a programmer who starts off
> decoding this seemingly random white noise with a BASIC progam on an
> Apple II and works it up eventually to a supercomputer where he starts
> getting pseudo-gibberish possibly from God.
>
> In sum: Philosophy falls in the realm of Devils ... and your name is very apt.
>
> Sarbajit
>
> On 9/17/12, Nicholas Thompson <[hidden email]> wrote:
>> Sarbajit,
>>
>> I think I believe that everybody HAS a philosophical system. The variables
>> are how explicit it is and whether the holder of the system is capable of
>> engaging in analysis and critique.
>>
>> If somebody says they don't have a philosophical position, it generally
>> means that they have one and they don't want to talk about it. A
>> non-philosophical person is just a person who is rigid in his philosophy.
>>
>> As to religion, can I be religious if God plays no part in my thought or
>> discourse, either as an assertion or a denial? Here I am prone to
>> confusion
>> because I may confuse religion with metaphysics. I definitely believe that
>> there are principles operating in the universe that are not in my immediate
>> experience yet can be called upon to explain my experience. I would be
>> hard
>> pressed to say what those principles ARE, but I am pretty sure they are
>> back
>> there somewhere. Some of them are the kind of things that physicists
>> know,
>> but I don't. But not all. One of them might be The World is an OK Place,
>> and that, if we keep tinkering and poking at it, things will get better.
>> Another is the idea that, on average, thinking about stuff is better than
>> not thinking about it. A third is the idea that Things Have Causes. These
>> are all certainly elements of metaphysics, but are they religion?
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> Nick
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> I think that this way of being
>>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: [hidden email] [mailto:[hidden email]] On
>> Behalf
>> Of Sarbajit Roy
>> Sent: Monday, September 17, 2012 10:42 AM
>> To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
>> Subject: Re: [FRIAM] just faith
>>
>>
>>
>> Well atheism would only convey a negation of belief (in God) to me. My
>> religious model has no problem accommodating atheists, and contrawise I
>> have
>> no problem with an atheist's belief model built around no-God (or Gods or
>> gods or GOD ...). As long as it functions its irrelevant whether a car (or
>> religion) runs on gasoline or horse-manure or hot air.
>>
>>
>>
>> My religion (loosely called "Adi Dharm") originally reduced the 330 million
>> "gods" of Hinduism down to one ("Brahma" the absolute reality). Having done
>> that very successfully we were forced to go underground in the previous
>> century, and a not insignificant portion of our adherents became "godless"
>> Communists. Today we don't have a conception of a God as a father / creator
>> figure. Instead we conceive God as "the" principle which regulates
>> existence/ the uinivers/ multiverse/ parallel worlds or whatever. Deus is
>> the "mechanism behind the clock" and not the "clock maker". The issue is
>> whether atheists also acknowledge that there is a principle (or law . or
>> set
>> of laws) which govern "their" universe.
>>
>>
>>
>> I agree with Eric, newer generations are not interested in philosophical
>> systems any more or artificial religious categories.
>>
>> There are too many other things going on in their lives.
>>
>>
>>
>> On 9/17/12, Nicholas Thompson < <mailto:[hidden email]>
>> [hidden email]> wrote:
>>
>>> Sarbajit,
>>> Given your range of experiences with the religious, I am curious for
>>> your reflections on atheism as a religion. When push comes to shove,
>>> are we atheists any the less religious, in the very broadest senses of
>> that term?
>>
>>> In what ways?
>>> Nick
>>> -----Original Message-----
>>> From: <mailto:[hidden email]> [hidden email]
>> <mailto:[mailto:[hidden email]]>
>> [mailto:[hidden email]] On
>>
>>> Behalf Of Sarbajit Roy
>>> Sent: Monday, September 17, 2012 8:51 AM
>>> To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
>>> Subject: Re: [FRIAM] just faith
>>> Platinga's view is fairly well aligned with the beliefs of my own
>>> faith even though our "God" may be different. We all develop our own
>>> models of reality, apparently the trick is to ensure that these models
>>> are robust enough accommodate everybody else's gremlins, devils,
>>> zombies, or maulvis and still continue to function.
>>> I probably know more Muslim's personally then half the members on this
>>> list.
>>> My neighbour is a Muslim and I also employ Muslims. India is a secular
>>> country whose 13% Muslim population is free to migrate anywhere in the
>>> world
>>> which will take them in - not many do. India's Muslims when asked (by
>>> foreigners such as the BBC or the NYT) usually volunteer they consider
>>> themselves to be better off in India vis-a-vis their brethren in Muslim
>>> countries like Pakistan or Iran (notwithstanding the occasional bouts of
>>> communal frenzy which develop over pigs feet or beef entrails being
>>> thrown
>>> by the butchers of each community).
>>> India was ruled for over 200 years by Muslims as was China (Yuan
>>> dynasty).
>>> America probably needs to experience Muslim rule for some time to develop
>> a
>>
>>> sustainable and robust reality model. The "Dune" SF series was heavily
>>> influenced by Islamic models.
>>> OT: Interestingly, "Islamic science fiction" is an emergent discipline in
>>> the Arabic world to attract younger followers to the world of the Taliban
>>> and Al Qaeda.
>>> Sarbajit
>>> On 9/17/12, Roger Critchlow < < <mailto:[hidden email]> mailto:[hidden email]>
>> <mailto:[hidden email]> [hidden email]> wrote:
>>
>>>> Reading
>>>> <
>> <http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2012/sep/27/philosopher-defen>
>> http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2012/sep/27/philosopher-defen>
>>
>>> <http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2012/sep/27/philosopher-defen>
>> http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2012/sep/27/philosopher-defen
>>
>>>> ds-religion/
>>>> was
>>>> a rather odd experience this week, mixed in with Sam Bacile, the
>>>> Salafists, the zombies, and whatever.
>>>> The review is by a non-believer (Thomas Nagel) who finds the book,
>>>> written by a believer (Alvin Plantinga), very interesting, even though
>>>> he doesn't believe it. Plantinga's day job is analytic philosophy, so
>>>> he gets very precisely into what he thinks it is that his faith and
>>>> his beliefs do for him. Finally, the main argument is sort a grand
>>>> slam of creationism: we wouldn't be able to correctly figure out how
>>>> the world works if the deity, more specifically the deity that Plantinga
>>> believes in, wasn't helping us
>>>> along the way. Why would natural selection by itself care anything
>>>> about
>>>> the truth?
>>>> As the reviewer says: "The interest of this book, especially for
>>>> secular readers, is its presentation from the inside of the point of
>>>> view of a philosophically subtle and scientifically informed theist-an
>>>> outlook with which many of them will not be familiar."
>>>> -- rec --
>>> ============================================================
>>> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
>>> Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives,
>>> unsubscribe, maps at < <http://www.friam.org> http://www.friam.org>
>> <http://www.friam.org> http://www.friam.org
>>
>>
>>
>> ============================================================
>>
>> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
>>
>> Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
>>
>> lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at <http://www.friam.org>
>> http://www.friam.org
>>
>>
> ============================================================
> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
> Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
> lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org

Steve Smith

Re: just faith

In reply to this post by Eric Charles

Eric -

Thanks for paraphrasing or interpreting Nick... I think I got this when he said it, but rehashing it from a slightly different perspective helped me.

I myself love philosophy in the sense of seeking structured systems of thought. I'm not convinced that any such systems of thought are absolute or at least represent anything about reality... they may be just a convenience, a soothing practice for obsessive compulsive minds.

I think that their is a third category which is neither 1) ignorant of one's own beliefs; or 2) willfully hiding one's beliefs. 3) might be *unwilling* to think in those terms. My wife is pretty strongly in camp 3... because at the drop of a hat can *express herself* about her beliefs, but simply will not be held to them. As a regular observer of her rants and raves about things, I have a general outline of what I want to believe she believes but I'll be damned if I can really pin her down to any system or structure. Her beliefs are somewhat like an iterated map, a fractal set... you can get the general outlines of it from her as she waxes generatively about any particular issue, but it is pretty unlikely you can predict how she's going to come down on any highly specific situation. This might be a mental disorder, but I actually doubt it... (although it might be communicable?).

Dear Nick

I think the both of us are talking at cross purposes here.
I know next to nothing about philosophy. Perhaps somebody like Richard
Dawkins could help you here.

In my faith (I do wish the Islamists, Mormons, Sikhs, etc on this list
would speak out) . the "Devil" is all that is "known"
(and hence
wrong) whereas "God" is that which is "unknown" /
unknowable. The more
we become knowledgeable the less wise/efficient we are.

Islam apparently has a similar view (although perhaps not for the same
reasons as us). Images on Television are "devilish"
(whereas those
gazillion black and white pixellated dots on a blank channel are
"God"). I recall a SF short story about a programmer who starts
off
decoding this seemingly random white noise with a BASIC progam on an
Apple II and works it up eventually to a supercomputer where he starts
getting pseudo-gibberish possibly from God.

In sum: Philosophy falls in the realm of Devils ... and your name is very apt.

Sarbajit

On 9/17/12, Nicholas  Thompson [hidden email] wrote:
> Sarbajit,
>
> I think I believe that everybody HAS a philosophical system.  The variables
> are how explicit it is and whether the holder of the system is capable of
> engaging in analysis and critique.
>
> If somebody says they don't have a philosophical position, it generally
> means that they have one and they don't want to talk about it.  A
> non-philosophical person is just a person who is rigid in his philosophy.
>
> As to religion, can I be religious if God plays no part in my thought or
> discourse, either as an assertion or a denial?  Here I am prone to
> confusion
> because I may confuse religion with metaphysics.  I definitely believe that
> there are principles operating in the universe that are not in my immediate
> experience yet can be called upon to explain my experience.  I would be
> hard
> pressed to say what those principles ARE, but I am pretty sure they are
> back
> there somewhere.   Some of them are the kind of things that physicists
> know,
> but I don't.  But not all.  One of them might be The World is an OK Place,
> and that, if we keep tinkering and poking at it, things will get better.
> Another is the idea that, on average, thinking about stuff is better than
> not thinking about it.  A third is the idea that Things Have Causes.  These
> are all certainly elements of metaphysics, but are they religion?
>
>
>
>
>
> Nick
>
>
>
>
>
> I think that this way of being
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: [hidden email] [[hidden email]] On
> Behalf
> Of Sarbajit Roy
> Sent: Monday, September 17, 2012 10:42 AM
> To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
> Subject: Re: [FRIAM] just faith
>
>
>
> Well atheism would only convey a negation of belief (in God) to
me. My
> religious model has no problem accommodating atheists, and contrawise I
> have
> no problem with an atheist's belief model built around no-God (or
Gods or
> gods or GOD ...). As long as it functions its irrelevant whether a
car (or
> religion) runs on gasoline or horse-manure or hot air.
>
>
>
> My religion (loosely called "Adi Dharm") originally
reduced the 330 million
> "gods" of Hinduism down to one ("Brahma" the
absolute reality). Having done
> that very successfully we were forced to go underground in the previous
> century, and a not insignificant portion of our adherents became
"godless"
> Communists. Today we don't have a conception of a God as a father / creator
> figure. Instead we conceive God as "the" principle which
regulates
> existence/ the uinivers/ multiverse/ parallel worlds or whatever. Deus is
> the "mechanism behind the clock" and not the "clock
maker". The issue is
> whether atheists also acknowledge that there is a principle (or law .
or
> set
> of laws) which govern "their" universe.
>
>
>
> I agree with Eric, newer generations are not interested in philosophical
> systems any more or artificial religious categories.
>
> There are too many other things going on in their lives.
>
>
>
> On 9/17/12, Nicholas  Thompson <
[hidden email]
> [hidden email]> wrote:
>
> Sarbajit,
>
>
>
> Given your range of experiences with the religious, I am curious for
>
> your reflections on atheism as a religion.  When push comes to shove,
>
> are we atheists any the less religious, in the very broadest senses of
> that term?
>
> In what ways?
>
>
>
> Nick
>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
>
> From:  [hidden email] [hidden email]
> [hidden email]
> [[hidden email]] On
>
> Behalf Of Sarbajit Roy
>
> Sent: Monday, September 17, 2012 8:51 AM
>
> To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
>
> Subject: Re: [FRIAM] just faith
>
>
>
> Platinga's view is fairly well aligned with the beliefs of my own
>
> faith even though our "God" may be different. We all develop our
own
>
> models of reality, apparently the trick is to ensure that these models
>
> are robust enough accommodate everybody else's gremlins, devils,
>
> zombies, or maulvis and still continue to function.
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> I probably know more Muslim's personally then half the members on this
>
> list.
>
> My neighbour is a Muslim and I also employ Muslims. India is a secular
>
> country whose 13% Muslim population is free to migrate anywhere in the
>
> world
>
> which will take them in - not  many do. India's Muslims when asked (by
>
> foreigners such as the BBC or the NYT) usually volunteer they consider
>
> themselves to be better off in India vis-a-vis their brethren in  Muslim
>
> countries like Pakistan or Iran (notwithstanding the occasional bouts
of
>
> communal frenzy which develop over pigs feet or beef entrails being
> thrown
>
> by the butchers of each community).
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> India was ruled for over 200 years by Muslims as was China (Yuan
> dynasty).
>
> America probably needs to experience Muslim rule for some time to develop
> a
>
> sustainable and robust reality model. The "Dune" SF series was
heavily
>
> influenced by Islamic models.
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> OT: Interestingly, "Islamic science fiction" is an emergent
discipline in
>
> the Arabic world to attract younger followers to the world of the Taliban
>
> and Al Qaeda.
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> Sarbajit
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> On 9/17/12, Roger Critchlow < < [hidden email]
[hidden email]>
> [hidden email] [hidden email]> wrote:
>
>
>
> Reading
>
>
>
>  <
>
<http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2012/sep/27/philosopher-defen>
> http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2012/sep/27/philosopher-defen>
>
> 
<http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2012/sep/27/philosopher-defen>
> http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2012/sep/27/philosopher-defen
>
>
>
> ds-religion/
>
>
>
> was
>
>
>
> a rather odd experience this week, mixed in with Sam Bacile, the
>
>
>
> Salafists, the zombies, and whatever.
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> The review is by a non-believer (Thomas Nagel) who finds the
book,
>
>
>
> written by a believer (Alvin Plantinga), very interesting, even
though
>
>
>
> he doesn't believe it.  Plantinga's day job is analytic philosophy, so
>
>
>
> he gets very precisely into what he thinks it is that his faith and
>
>
>
> his beliefs do for him.  Finally, the main argument is sort a grand
>
>
>
> slam of creationism: we wouldn't be able to correctly figure out how
>
>
>
> the world works if the deity, more specifically the deity that Plantinga
>
> believes in, wasn't helping us
>
>
>
> along the way.   Why would natural selection by itself care anything
>
> about
>
>
>
> the truth?
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> As the reviewer says:  "The interest of this book, especially for
>
>
>
> secular readers, is its presentation from the inside of the point of
>
>
>
> view of a philosophically subtle and scientifically informed theist-an
>
>
>
> outlook with which many of them will not be familiar."
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> -- rec --
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> ============================================================
>
>
>
> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
>
>
>
> Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives,
>
> unsubscribe, maps at  < <http://www.friam.org>
http://www.friam.org>
> <http://www.friam.org> http://www.friam.org
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> ============================================================
>
> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
>
> Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
>
> lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at  <http://www.friam.org>
> http://www.friam.org
>
>

============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org

------------

Eric Charles
Assistant Professor of Psychology
Penn State University
Altoona, PA 16601

============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org

Steve Smith

Re: just faith

In reply to this post by Nick Thompson

Nick -

And Sarbajit’s response seems to be that they make me DEVILISH!

Those wicked-awesome eyebrows of yours always made me suspect you of some Demonic origin!

All I can say is, “Gosh!”

I think this is the perfect response!

Get thee behind thyself!

From: [hidden email] [[hidden email]] On Behalf Of ERIC P. CHARLES
Sent: Monday, September 17, 2012 2:42 PM
To: Sarbajit Roy
Cc: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] just faith

Dear Nick

I think the both of us are talking at cross purposes here.

I know next to nothing about philosophy. Perhaps somebody like Richard

Dawkins could help you here.

In my faith (I do wish the Islamists, Mormons, Sikhs, etc on this list

would speak out) . the "Devil" is all that is "known"

(and hence

wrong) whereas "God" is that which is "unknown" /

unknowable. The more

we become knowledgeable the less wise/efficient we are.

Islam apparently has a similar view (although perhaps not for the same

reasons as us). Images on Television are "devilish"

(whereas those

gazillion black and white pixellated dots on a blank channel are

"God"). I recall a SF short story about a programmer who starts

off

decoding this seemingly random white noise with a BASIC progam on an

Apple II and works it up eventually to a supercomputer where he starts

getting pseudo-gibberish possibly from God.

In sum: Philosophy falls in the realm of Devils ... and your name is very apt.

Sarbajit

On 9/17/12, Nicholas  Thompson <[hidden email]> wrote:

> Sarbajit,

> I think I believe that everybody HAS a philosophical system.  The variables

> are how explicit it is and whether the holder of the system is capable of

> engaging in analysis and critique.

> If somebody says they don't have a philosophical position, it generally

> means that they have one and they don't want to talk about it.  A

> non-philosophical person is just a person who is rigid in his philosophy.

> As to religion, can I be religious if God plays no part in my thought or

> discourse, either as an assertion or a denial?  Here I am prone to

> confusion

> because I may confuse religion with metaphysics.  I definitely believe that

> there are principles operating in the universe that are not in my immediate

> experience yet can be called upon to explain my experience.  I would be

> hard

> pressed to say what those principles ARE, but I am pretty sure they are

> back

> there somewhere.   Some of them are the kind of things that physicists

> know,

> but I don't.  But not all.  One of them might be The World is an OK Place,

> and that, if we keep tinkering and poking at it, things will get better.

> Another is the idea that, on average, thinking about stuff is better than

> not thinking about it.  A third is the idea that Things Have Causes.  These

> are all certainly elements of metaphysics, but are they religion?

> Nick

> I think that this way of being

> -----Original Message-----

> From: [hidden email] [hidden email] On

> Behalf

> Of Sarbajit Roy

> Sent: Monday, September 17, 2012 10:42 AM

> To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group

> Subject: Re: [FRIAM] just faith

> Well atheism would only convey a negation of belief (in God) to

me. My

> religious model has no problem accommodating atheists, and contrawise I

> have

> no problem with an atheist's belief model built around no-God (or

Gods or

> gods or GOD ...). As long as it functions its irrelevant whether a

car (or

> religion) runs on gasoline or horse-manure or hot air.

> My religion (loosely called "Adi Dharm") originally

reduced the 330 million

> "gods" of Hinduism down to one ("Brahma" the

absolute reality). Having done

> that very successfully we were forced to go underground in the previous

> century, and a not insignificant portion of our adherents became

"godless"

> Communists. Today we don't have a conception of a God as a father / creator

> figure. Instead we conceive God as "the" principle which

regulates

> existence/ the uinivers/ multiverse/ parallel worlds or whatever. Deus is

> the "mechanism behind the clock" and not the "clock

maker". The issue is

> whether atheists also acknowledge that there is a principle (or law .

or

> set

> of laws) which govern "their" universe.

> I agree with Eric, newer generations are not interested in philosophical

> systems any more or artificial religious categories.

> There are too many other things going on in their lives.

> On 9/17/12, Nicholas  Thompson <

<[hidden email]>

> [hidden email]> wrote:

> Sarbajit,

> Given your range of experiences with the religious, I am curious for

> your reflections on atheism as a religion.  When push comes to shove,

> are we atheists any the less religious, in the very broadest senses of

> that term?

> In what ways?

> Nick

> -----Original Message-----

> From:  <[hidden email]> [hidden email]

> <[hidden email]>

> [hidden email] On

> Behalf Of Sarbajit Roy

> Sent: Monday, September 17, 2012 8:51 AM

> To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group

> Subject: Re: [FRIAM] just faith

> Platinga's view is fairly well aligned with the beliefs of my own

> faith even though our "God" may be different. We all develop our

own

> models of reality, apparently the trick is to ensure that these models

> are robust enough accommodate everybody else's gremlins, devils,

> zombies, or maulvis and still continue to function.

> I probably know more Muslim's personally then half the members on this

> list.

> My neighbour is a Muslim and I also employ Muslims. India is a secular

> country whose 13% Muslim population is free to migrate anywhere in the

> world

> which will take them in - not  many do. India's Muslims when asked (by

> foreigners such as the BBC or the NYT) usually volunteer they consider

> themselves to be better off in India vis-a-vis their brethren in  Muslim

> countries like Pakistan or Iran (notwithstanding the occasional bouts

of

> communal frenzy which develop over pigs feet or beef entrails being

> thrown

> by the butchers of each community).

> India was ruled for over 200 years by Muslims as was China (Yuan

> dynasty).

> America probably needs to experience Muslim rule for some time to develop

> a

> sustainable and robust reality model. The "Dune" SF series was

heavily

> influenced by Islamic models.

> OT: Interestingly, "Islamic science fiction" is an emergent

discipline in

> the Arabic world to attract younger followers to the world of the Taliban

> and Al Qaeda.

> Sarbajit

> On 9/17/12, Roger Critchlow < < <[hidden email]>

[hidden email]>

> <[hidden email]> [hidden email]> wrote:

> Reading

>  <

<http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2012/sep/27/philosopher-defen>

> http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2012/sep/27/philosopher-defen>

<http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2012/sep/27/philosopher-defen>

> http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2012/sep/27/philosopher-defen

> ds-religion/

> was

> a rather odd experience this week, mixed in with Sam Bacile, the

> Salafists, the zombies, and whatever.

> The review is by a non-believer (Thomas Nagel) who finds the

book,

> written by a believer (Alvin Plantinga), very interesting, even

though

> he doesn't believe it.  Plantinga's day job is analytic philosophy, so

> he gets very precisely into what he thinks it is that his faith and

> his beliefs do for him.  Finally, the main argument is sort a grand

> slam of creationism: we wouldn't be able to correctly figure out how

> the world works if the deity, more specifically the deity that Plantinga

> believes in, wasn't helping us

> along the way.   Why would natural selection by itself care anything

> about

> the truth?

> As the reviewer says:  "The interest of this book, especially for

> secular readers, is its presentation from the inside of the point of

> view of a philosophically subtle and scientifically informed theist-an

> outlook with which many of them will not be familiar."

> -- rec --

> ============================================================

> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv

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

> unsubscribe, maps at  < <http://www.friam.org>

http://www.friam.org>

> <http://www.friam.org> http://www.friam.org

> ============================================================

> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv

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

> lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at  <http://www.friam.org>

> http://www.friam.org

============================================================

FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv

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

lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org

------------

Eric Charles
Assistant Professor of Psychology
Penn State University
Altoona, PA 16601

============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org

Steve Smith

Re: just faith

In reply to this post by Roger Critchlow-2

REC-

Well said!

Though more than a few of us may like to play with alternatives to this core... like "what if the world doesn't actually exist?" or "maybe (some) other people *aren't* like me (e.g. evil people)" or "communication might be an illusion?".

What you say about the core "being all there is" is quite apt, and is roughly what I was saying about exclusivity in clubs...

And yes, the problem of subhumanizing or demonizing the "faithless"...

SAS

On Mon, Sep 17, 2012 at 12:41 PM, ERIC P. CHARLES <[hidden email]> wrote:

Sarbajit,
Trying to make things succinct, I think the argument Nick is trying to make goes something like this:

To act a certain way in a certain situation is to "have a belief." Thus, our lives are full of beliefs, which are variously consistent or inconsistent depending on how you examine our lives. When people claim to lack deeply held beliefs, either 1) they don't know what they believe (i.e., lack meta-awareness), or 2) they just don't want to talk about their beliefs (i.e., are lying). Thus, in general, the claim to not be philosophical indicates a rigidity of belief, rather than a lack of belief.

Nick's beliefs include (i.e., Nick acts as if the following things were true): The world can be improved. Thinking is virtuous. Things have causes.

His eventual question seemed to be: Do these beliefs make me religious, in some general sense?

I think there is a core of beliefs which we all share: the world exists, other people are beings like myself, language can be used for communication. Everyone acts as if these things are true, and once you've accepted these beliefs, there are a whole lot of derivative beliefs that you can work out: there exist material effects which have material causes, the material life and health of people can be better or worse depending on how they pursue it, acquired experience with the material world is useful and worth pondering, and so on. Such is the life of a material girl living in a material world.

I think that core of beliefs only becomes religious if you believe that the core of beliefs and those derivable from it comprise everything that is real. Now you've added an additional belief to core, that the core is all there is. This appears to be a tenable religion until you consider how it treats members of other religions: they're all certifiably insane. That doesn't work for me, because I still believe that other people are beings like myself.

Faiths which classify the unfaithful as subhuman have proven to be very difficult neighbors historically.

-- rec --
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FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
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Nick Thompson

Re: just faith

In reply to this post by Steve Smith

Well, this implies that there are times when thought is better without acuity. I am wondering what value might be increased with a loss of acuity. There must be one.

Nick

From: [hidden email] [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Steve Smith
Sent: Monday, September 17, 2012 7:27 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] just faith

Steve,

I am happy to drink, but not because it improves the quality of my thought.

There is an idea lurking in this discourse about Whiskey, roughly

In vino veritas

Do you think that you think better, in some respects, when you are drinking?

Nick

-----Original Message-----
From: [hidden email] [[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Steve Smith
Sent: Monday, September 17, 2012 11:24 AM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] just faith

I am closer in age/experience to Nick/Eric than the presumed youth generation in question but am also, myself, more a "None" than an "Athiest".

It is not (in my case) that I have too many other things going on (though I do have plenty), it is rather, that I'm not a joiner. Perhaps I "would not be a member of any club that would have me", but more to the point, I have always found even the most *inclusive* clubs to be
*exclusive* at the end of the day. I took a short run at attending the Los Alamos "Universal Unitarians" only to find that the binding feature was "more tolerant than though" and I frankly could not tolerate that kind of intolerance! Ultimately clubs are not defined by what you
believe in but defined by what you don't.   Or in the case of
MonoTheistic religions, it may seem that belief in their "one true GOD"
is the defining factor, it is really the complement... that you are excluded by lack of belief in their God/Prophet/GravenImage/etc.

In the case of Athiesm... I was drawn to it the first time I heard of it.. *I* wanted to belong to a club whose definition was the *lack* of belief in "One True God" but it didn't take long for me to discover that the existing "card carrying Athiests" also defined their "club" in the exclusive... to wit, you had to firmly (and vehemenently) *disbelieve* in any and all Gods to keep your good standing. Card carrying Athiests, when confronted with the likes of me had to force-fit me into the club of "Agnostics" because if I wasn't as anti-God as they were then I must be a wishy washy fence-sitter (e.g. Agnostic).

These distinctions may seem subtle, but they are very real for me.

I share what I understand to be Doug's position regarding Religion only not so strongly... and occasionally (only when Doug writes or speaks on the topic) suspect him of being a proselyte from the Reformed Church of
Cynicism.   As with the Mormons, Seventh Day Adventists, Sikhs, Musims
and Adi Dharmists, I am much more inclined to let card-carrying Cynics through my door to try to complete my conversion (as I do have and express sympathies with all the above Religions from time to time) if they are also carrying a nice bottle of Whiskey, Bourbon, Gin or Tequila to lubricate the conversation.

Oddly, only a very few proselytes of any religion seem to allow or the ingestion of strong spirits (poisoning the body, mind, soul?). This is what draws me most perhaps to "the modern Cynics" (as opposed to the classical version with which I think I have even more affinity in their pursuit of "Virtue in alignment with Nature"). If I were a true child of the sixties, I would perhaps require them to be carrying some yet-more-toxic and mystical-experience-inducing substances... but I'm not.

It all started perhaps when I refused a draft card, now it is tamer as I refuse the AARP card I suppose, but the principle holds. I only wish I'd had the temerity to refuse the Social Security card.

- Steve
> Well atheism would only convey a negation of belief (in God) to me. My
> religious model has no problem accommodating atheists, and contrawise
> I have no problem with an atheist's belief model built around no-God
> (or Gods or gods or GOD ...). As long as it functions its irrelevant
> whether a car (or religion) runs on gasoline or horse-manure or hot
> air.
>
> My religion (loosely called "Adi Dharm") originally reduced the 330
> million "gods" of Hinduism down to one ("Brahma" the absolute
> reality). Having done that very successfully we were forced to go
> underground in the previous century, and a not insignificant portion
> of our adherents became "godless" Communists. Today we don't have a
> conception of a God as a father / creator figure. Instead we conceive
> God as "the" principle which regulates existence/ the uinivers/
> multiverse/ parallel worlds or whatever. Deus is the "mechanism behind
> the clock" and not the "clock maker". The issue is whether atheists
> also acknowledge that there is a principle (or law . or set of laws)
> which govern "their" universe.
>
> I agree with Eric, newer generations are not interested in
> philosophical systems any more or artificial religious categories.
> There are too many other things going on in their lives.
>
> On 9/17/12, Nicholas Thompson <[hidden email]> wrote:
>> Sarbajit,
>>
>> Given your range of experiences with the religious, I am curious for
>> your reflections on atheism as a religion. When push comes to shove,
>> are we atheists any the less religious, in the very broadest senses of that term?
>> In what ways?
>>
>> Nick
>>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: [hidden email] [hidden email] On
>> Behalf Of Sarbajit Roy
>> Sent: Monday, September 17, 2012 8:51 AM
>> To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
>> Subject: Re: [FRIAM] just faith
>>
>> Platinga's view is fairly well aligned with the beliefs of my own
>> faith even though our "God" may be different. We all develop our own
>> models of reality, apparently the trick is to ensure that these
>> models are robust enough accommodate everybody else's gremlins,
>> devils, zombies, or maulvis and still continue to function.
>>
>>
>>
>> I probably know more Muslim's personally then half the members on
>> this list.
>> My neighbour is a Muslim and I also employ Muslims. India is a
>> secular country whose 13% Muslim population is free to migrate
>> anywhere in the world which will take them in - not many do. India's
>> Muslims when asked (by foreigners such as the BBC or the NYT) usually
>> volunteer they consider themselves to be better off in India
>> vis-a-vis their brethren in Muslim countries like Pakistan or Iran
>> (notwithstanding the occasional bouts of communal frenzy which
>> develop over pigs feet or beef entrails being thrown by the butchers
>> of each community).
>>
>>
>>
>> India was ruled for over 200 years by Muslims as was China (Yuan dynasty).
>> America probably needs to experience Muslim rule for some time to
>> develop a sustainable and robust reality model. The "Dune" SF series
>> was heavily influenced by Islamic models.
>>
>>
>>
>> OT: Interestingly, "Islamic science fiction" is an emergent
>> discipline in the Arabic world to attract younger followers to the
>> world of the Taliban and Al Qaeda.
>>
>>
>>
>> Sarbajit
>>
>>
>>
>> On 9/17/12, Roger Critchlow < <[hidden email]> [hidden email]> wrote:
>>
>>> Reading
>>>
>>> <http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2012/sep/27/philosopher-de
>>> fen>
>> http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2012/sep/27/philosopher-defe
>> n
>>
>>> ds-religion/
>>> was
>>> a rather odd experience this week, mixed in with Sam Bacile, the
>>> Salafists, the zombies, and whatever.
>>> The review is by a non-believer (Thomas Nagel) who finds the book,
>>> written by a believer (Alvin Plantinga), very interesting, even
>>> though he doesn't believe it. Plantinga's day job is analytic
>>> philosophy, so he gets very precisely into what he thinks it is that
>>> his faith and his beliefs do for him. Finally, the main argument is
>>> sort a grand slam of creationism: we wouldn't be able to correctly
>>> figure out how the world works if the deity, more specifically the
>>> deity that Plantinga
>> believes in, wasn't helping us
>>
>>> along the way.   Why would natural selection by itself care anything
>>> about
>>> the truth?
>>> As the reviewer says: "The interest of this book, especially for
>>> secular readers, is its presentation from the inside of the point of
>>> view of a philosophically subtle and scientifically informed
>>> theist-an outlook with which many of them will not be familiar."
>>> -- rec --
>>
>>
>> ============================================================
>>
>> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
>>
>> Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures,
>> archives, unsubscribe, maps at <http://www.friam.org>
>> http://www.friam.org
>>
>>
> ============================================================
> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe
> at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at
> http://www.friam.org

============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org
============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org

Douglas Roberts-2

Re: just faith

Mail traffic on the FRIAM list pops to mind.

-Doug

On Sep 17, 2012 6:10 PM, "Nicholas Thompson" <[hidden email]> wrote:

Well, this implies that there are times when thought is better without acuity. I am wondering what value might be increased with a loss of acuity. There must be one.

Nick

From: [hidden email] [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Steve Smith
Sent: Monday, September 17, 2012 7:27 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] just faith

Nick -

The point I was making was roughly that many if not most and most if not all of the folks interested in "telling you how it is" are categorically opposed to consuming alcohol and other such things. They may or may not have a good reason for this...

The key, at least for me, and I suspect for others, is that alcohol and similar substances have a way of lowering inhibitions which might translate roughly into "not taking oneself and one's beliefs so seriously", though I suppose all the bar fights I've been in suggest just the opposite, so what do I know?

Drinking definitely changes the quality of my emotional state which in turn seems to affect the quality of my thought. It is rare and unlikely that drinking increases the *acuity* of my thought which.

Consuming alcohol in a group environment (in my case, small groups) is also a social convention, it could as easily be say ... Coffee on a Friday morning or Tea on any given afternoon.

- Steve
Steve,

I am happy to drink, but not because it improves the quality of my thought.

There is an idea lurking in this discourse about Whiskey, roughly

In vino veritas

Do you think that you think better, in some respects, when you are drinking?

Nick

-----Original Message-----
From: [hidden email] [[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Steve Smith
Sent: Monday, September 17, 2012 11:24 AM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] just faith

I am closer in age/experience to Nick/Eric than the presumed youth generation in question but am also, myself, more a "None" than an "Athiest".

It is not (in my case) that I have too many other things going on (though I do have plenty), it is rather, that I'm not a joiner. Perhaps I "would not be a member of any club that would have me", but more to the point, I have always found even the most *inclusive* clubs to be

*exclusive* at the end of the day. I took a short run at attending the Los Alamos "Universal Unitarians" only to find that the binding feature was "more tolerant than though" and I frankly could not tolerate that kind of intolerance! Ultimately clubs are not defined by what you

believe in but defined by what you don't.   Or in the case of
MonoTheistic religions, it may seem that belief in their "one true GOD"
is the defining factor, it is really the complement... that you are excluded by lack of belief in their God/Prophet/GravenImage/etc.

In the case of Athiesm... I was drawn to it the first time I heard of it.. *I* wanted to belong to a club whose definition was the *lack* of belief in "One True God" but it didn't take long for me to discover that the existing "card carrying Athiests" also defined their "club" in the exclusive... to wit, you had to firmly (and vehemenently) *disbelieve* in any and all Gods to keep your good standing. Card carrying Athiests, when confronted with the likes of me had to force-fit me into the club of "Agnostics" because if I wasn't as anti-God as they were then I must be a wishy washy fence-sitter (e.g. Agnostic).

These distinctions may seem subtle, but they are very real for me.

I share what I understand to be Doug's position regarding Religion only not so strongly... and occasionally (only when Doug writes or speaks on the topic) suspect him of being a proselyte from the Reformed Church of

Cynicism.   As with the Mormons, Seventh Day Adventists, Sikhs, Musims
and Adi Dharmists, I am much more inclined to let card-carrying Cynics through my door to try to complete my conversion (as I do have and express sympathies with all the above Religions from time to time) if they are also carrying a nice bottle of Whiskey, Bourbon, Gin or Tequila to lubricate the conversation.

Oddly, only a very few proselytes of any religion seem to allow or the ingestion of strong spirits (poisoning the body, mind, soul?). This is what draws me most perhaps to "the modern Cynics" (as opposed to the classical version with which I think I have even more affinity in their pursuit of "Virtue in alignment with Nature"). If I were a true child of the sixties, I would perhaps require them to be carrying some yet-more-toxic and mystical-experience-inducing substances... but I'm not.

It all started perhaps when I refused a draft card, now it is tamer as I refuse the AARP card I suppose, but the principle holds. I only wish I'd had the temerity to refuse the Social Security card.

- Steve
> Well atheism would only convey a negation of belief (in God) to me. My
> religious model has no problem accommodating atheists, and contrawise

> I have no problem with an atheist's belief model built around no-God
> (or Gods or gods or GOD ...). As long as it functions its irrelevant
> whether a car (or religion) runs on gasoline or horse-manure or hot

> air.
>
> My religion (loosely called "Adi Dharm") originally reduced the 330
> million "gods" of Hinduism down to one ("Brahma" the absolute

> reality). Having done that very successfully we were forced to go
> underground in the previous century, and a not insignificant portion
> of our adherents became "godless" Communists. Today we don't have a

> conception of a God as a father / creator figure. Instead we conceive
> God as "the" principle which regulates existence/ the uinivers/
> multiverse/ parallel worlds or whatever. Deus is the "mechanism behind

> the clock" and not the "clock maker". The issue is whether atheists
> also acknowledge that there is a principle (or law . or set of laws)
> which govern "their" universe.

>
> I agree with Eric, newer generations are not interested in
> philosophical systems any more or artificial religious categories.
> There are too many other things going on in their lives.

>
> On 9/17/12, Nicholas Thompson <[hidden email]> wrote:

>> Sarbajit,
>>
>> Given your range of experiences with the religious, I am curious for
>> your reflections on atheism as a religion. When push comes to shove,

>> are we atheists any the less religious, in the very broadest senses of that term?
>> In what ways?
>>
>> Nick
>>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: [hidden email] [hidden email] On

>> Behalf Of Sarbajit Roy
>> Sent: Monday, September 17, 2012 8:51 AM
>> To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
>> Subject: Re: [FRIAM] just faith

>>
>> Platinga's view is fairly well aligned with the beliefs of my own
>> faith even though our "God" may be different. We all develop our own

>> models of reality, apparently the trick is to ensure that these
>> models are robust enough accommodate everybody else's gremlins,
>> devils, zombies, or maulvis and still continue to function.

>>
>>
>>
>> I probably know more Muslim's personally then half the members on
>> this list.

>> My neighbour is a Muslim and I also employ Muslims. India is a
>> secular country whose 13% Muslim population is free to migrate
>> anywhere in the world which will take them in - not many do. India's

>> Muslims when asked (by foreigners such as the BBC or the NYT) usually
>> volunteer they consider themselves to be better off in India
>> vis-a-vis their brethren in Muslim countries like Pakistan or Iran

>> (notwithstanding the occasional bouts of communal frenzy which
>> develop over pigs feet or beef entrails being thrown by the butchers
>> of each community).

>>
>>
>>
>> India was ruled for over 200 years by Muslims as was China (Yuan dynasty).
>> America probably needs to experience Muslim rule for some time to

>> develop a sustainable and robust reality model. The "Dune" SF series
>> was heavily influenced by Islamic models.
>>
>>

>>
>> OT: Interestingly, "Islamic science fiction" is an emergent
>> discipline in the Arabic world to attract younger followers to the

>> world of the Taliban and Al Qaeda.
>>
>>
>>
>> Sarbajit
>>

>>
>>
>> On 9/17/12, Roger Critchlow < <[hidden email]> [hidden email]> wrote:

>>
>>> Reading
>>>
>>> <http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2012/sep/27/philosopher-de

>>> fen>
>> http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2012/sep/27/philosopher-defe

>> n
>>
>>> ds-religion/
>>> was
>>> a rather odd experience this week, mixed in with Sam Bacile, the

>>> Salafists, the zombies, and whatever.
>>> The review is by a non-believer (Thomas Nagel) who finds the book,
>>> written by a believer (Alvin Plantinga), very interesting, even

>>> though he doesn't believe it. Plantinga's day job is analytic
>>> philosophy, so he gets very precisely into what he thinks it is that
>>> his faith and his beliefs do for him. Finally, the main argument is

>>> sort a grand slam of creationism: we wouldn't be able to correctly
>>> figure out how the world works if the deity, more specifically the
>>> deity that Plantinga

>> believes in, wasn't helping us
>>
>>> along the way.   Why would natural selection by itself care anything
>>> about

>>> the truth?
>>> As the reviewer says: "The interest of this book, especially for
>>> secular readers, is its presentation from the inside of the point of

>>> view of a philosophically subtle and scientifically informed
>>> theist-an outlook with which many of them will not be familiar."
>>> -- rec --

>>
>>
>> ============================================================
>>
>> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv

>>
>> Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures,
>> archives, unsubscribe, maps at <http://www.friam.org>

>> http://www.friam.org
>>
>>
> ============================================================
> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe
> at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at

> http://www.friam.org

============================================================

FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org
============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org
============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org

Steve Smith

Re: just faith

In reply to this post by Nick Thompson

Might be...

Freeman Dyson is oft quoted "It is better to be wrong than vague"... which of course just tweaks the holy shit out of me...

Wisdom might actually be the contrapositive of this.. being ultimately vague and ultimately "right" (whatever that is?).

Just a thought.

- Steve

Well, this implies that there are times when thought is better without acuity. I am wondering what value might be increased with a loss of acuity. There must be one.

Nick

From: [hidden email] [[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Steve Smith
Sent: Monday, September 17, 2012 7:27 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] just faith

Nick -

The point I was making was roughly that many if not most and most if not all of the folks interested in "telling you how it is" are categorically opposed to consuming alcohol and other such things. They may or may not have a good reason for this...

The key, at least for me, and I suspect for others, is that alcohol and similar substances have a way of lowering inhibitions which might translate roughly into "not taking oneself and one's beliefs so seriously", though I suppose all the bar fights I've been in suggest just the opposite, so what do I know?

Drinking definitely changes the quality of my emotional state which in turn seems to affect the quality of my thought. It is rare and unlikely that drinking increases the *acuity* of my thought which.

Consuming alcohol in a group environment (in my case, small groups) is also a social convention, it could as easily be say ... Coffee on a Friday morning or Tea on any given afternoon.

- Steve
Steve,

I am happy to drink, but not because it improves the quality of my thought.

There is an idea lurking in this discourse about Whiskey, roughly

In vino veritas

Do you think that you think better, in some respects, when you are drinking?

Nick

-----Original Message-----
From: [hidden email] [[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Steve Smith
Sent: Monday, September 17, 2012 11:24 AM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] just faith

I am closer in age/experience to Nick/Eric than the presumed youth generation in question but am also, myself, more a "None" than an "Athiest".

It is not (in my case) that I have too many other things going on (though I do have plenty), it is rather, that I'm not a joiner. Perhaps I "would not be a member of any club that would have me", but more to the point, I have always found even the most *inclusive* clubs to be

*exclusive* at the end of the day. I took a short run at attending the Los Alamos "Universal Unitarians" only to find that the binding feature was "more tolerant than though" and I frankly could not tolerate that kind of intolerance! Ultimately clubs are not defined by what you

believe in but defined by what you don't.   Or in the case of

MonoTheistic religions, it may seem that belief in their "one true GOD"

is the defining factor, it is really the complement... that you are excluded by lack of belief in their God/Prophet/GravenImage/etc.

In the case of Athiesm... I was drawn to it the first time I heard of it.. *I* wanted to belong to a club whose definition was the *lack* of belief in "One True God" but it didn't take long for me to discover that the existing "card carrying Athiests" also defined their "club" in the exclusive... to wit, you had to firmly (and vehemenently) *disbelieve* in any and all Gods to keep your good standing. Card carrying Athiests, when confronted with the likes of me had to force-fit me into the club of "Agnostics" because if I wasn't as anti-God as they were then I must be a wishy washy fence-sitter (e.g. Agnostic).

These distinctions may seem subtle, but they are very real for me.

I share what I understand to be Doug's position regarding Religion only not so strongly... and occasionally (only when Doug writes or speaks on the topic) suspect him of being a proselyte from the Reformed Church of

Cynicism.   As with the Mormons, Seventh Day Adventists, Sikhs, Musims

and Adi Dharmists, I am much more inclined to let card-carrying Cynics through my door to try to complete my conversion (as I do have and express sympathies with all the above Religions from time to time) if they are also carrying a nice bottle of Whiskey, Bourbon, Gin or Tequila to lubricate the conversation.

Oddly, only a very few proselytes of any religion seem to allow or the ingestion of strong spirits (poisoning the body, mind, soul?). This is what draws me most perhaps to "the modern Cynics" (as opposed to the classical version with which I think I have even more affinity in their pursuit of "Virtue in alignment with Nature"). If I were a true child of the sixties, I would perhaps require them to be carrying some yet-more-toxic and mystical-experience-inducing substances... but I'm not.

It all started perhaps when I refused a draft card, now it is tamer as I refuse the AARP card I suppose, but the principle holds. I only wish I'd had the temerity to refuse the Social Security card.

- Steve

> Well atheism would only convey a negation of belief (in God) to me. My

> religious model has no problem accommodating atheists, and contrawise

> I have no problem with an atheist's belief model built around no-God

> (or Gods or gods or GOD ...). As long as it functions its irrelevant

> whether a car (or religion) runs on gasoline or horse-manure or hot

> air.

>

> My religion (loosely called "Adi Dharm") originally reduced the 330

> million "gods" of Hinduism down to one ("Brahma" the absolute

> reality). Having done that very successfully we were forced to go

> underground in the previous century, and a not insignificant portion

> of our adherents became "godless" Communists. Today we don't have a

> conception of a God as a father / creator figure. Instead we conceive

> God as "the" principle which regulates existence/ the uinivers/

> multiverse/ parallel worlds or whatever. Deus is the "mechanism behind

> the clock" and not the "clock maker". The issue is whether atheists

> also acknowledge that there is a principle (or law . or set of laws)

> which govern "their" universe.

>

> I agree with Eric, newer generations are not interested in

> philosophical systems any more or artificial religious categories.

> There are too many other things going on in their lives.

>

> On 9/17/12, Nicholas Thompson <[hidden email]> wrote:

>> Sarbajit,

>>

>> Given your range of experiences with the religious, I am curious for

>> your reflections on atheism as a religion. When push comes to shove,

>> are we atheists any the less religious, in the very broadest senses of that term?

>> In what ways?

>>

>> Nick

>>

>> -----Original Message-----

>> From: [hidden email] [hidden email] On

>> Behalf Of Sarbajit Roy

>> Sent: Monday, September 17, 2012 8:51 AM

>> To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group

>> Subject: Re: [FRIAM] just faith

>>

>> Platinga's view is fairly well aligned with the beliefs of my own

>> faith even though our "God" may be different. We all develop our own

>> models of reality, apparently the trick is to ensure that these

>> models are robust enough accommodate everybody else's gremlins,

>> devils, zombies, or maulvis and still continue to function.

>>

>>

>>

>> I probably know more Muslim's personally then half the members on

>> this list.

>> My neighbour is a Muslim and I also employ Muslims. India is a

>> secular country whose 13% Muslim population is free to migrate

>> anywhere in the world which will take them in - not many do. India's

>> Muslims when asked (by foreigners such as the BBC or the NYT) usually

>> volunteer they consider themselves to be better off in India

>> vis-a-vis their brethren in Muslim countries like Pakistan or Iran

>> (notwithstanding the occasional bouts of communal frenzy which

>> develop over pigs feet or beef entrails being thrown by the butchers

>> of each community).

>>

>>

>>

>> India was ruled for over 200 years by Muslims as was China (Yuan dynasty).

>> America probably needs to experience Muslim rule for some time to

>> develop a sustainable and robust reality model. The "Dune" SF series

>> was heavily influenced by Islamic models.

>>

>>

>>

>> OT: Interestingly, "Islamic science fiction" is an emergent

>> discipline in the Arabic world to attract younger followers to the

>> world of the Taliban and Al Qaeda.

>>

>>

>>

>> Sarbajit

>>

>>

>>

>> On 9/17/12, Roger Critchlow < <[hidden email]> [hidden email]> wrote:

>>

>>> Reading

>>>

>>> <http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2012/sep/27/philosopher-de

>>> fen>

>> http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2012/sep/27/philosopher-defe

>> n

>>

>>> ds-religion/

>>> was

>>> a rather odd experience this week, mixed in with Sam Bacile, the

>>> Salafists, the zombies, and whatever.

>>> The review is by a non-believer (Thomas Nagel) who finds the book,

>>> written by a believer (Alvin Plantinga), very interesting, even

>>> though he doesn't believe it. Plantinga's day job is analytic

>>> philosophy, so he gets very precisely into what he thinks it is that

>>> his faith and his beliefs do for him. Finally, the main argument is

>>> sort a grand slam of creationism: we wouldn't be able to correctly

>>> figure out how the world works if the deity, more specifically the

>>> deity that Plantinga

>> believes in, wasn't helping us

>>

>>> along the way.   Why would natural selection by itself care anything

>>> about

>>> the truth?

>>> As the reviewer says: "The interest of this book, especially for

>>> secular readers, is its presentation from the inside of the point of

>>> view of a philosophically subtle and scientifically informed

>>> theist-an outlook with which many of them will not be familiar."

>>> -- rec --

>>

>>

>> ============================================================

>>

>> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv

>>

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

>> archives, unsubscribe, maps at <http://www.friam.org>

>> http://www.friam.org

>>

>>

> ============================================================

> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe

> at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at

> http://www.friam.org

============================================================

FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv

Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org
============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org
============================================================
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Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org

Sarbajit Roy (testing)

Re: just faith

In reply to this post by Roger Critchlow-2

Like Glen (Ropella) I too intuit that there is no such absolute as "fact".

From this review, it seems that Mr. Platinga's system is based on
"warranted" facts .. and he has previously published a 3 part series
on what warranted facts.are.

Mr Platinga's system seems similar to an Indic system called "pramana"
(Sanskrit) .... a formal system to validate and certify observations
/ intuitions etc .
For eg. the term for "certificate" In the Hindi language is "praman
patra" or proof letter. I dare say similar epistemologies exists in
other philosophical systems but I got stuck at Descartes.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pramana
http://www.hindupedia.com/en/Pramana
(Both offered without certification of authenticity).

On 9/17/12, Roger Critchlow <[hidden email]> wrote:

> Reading
> http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2012/sep/27/philosopher-defends-religion/
> was
> a rather odd experience this week, mixed in with Sam Bacile, the Salafists,
> the zombies, and whatever.
>
> The review is by a non-believer (Thomas Nagel) who finds the book, written
> by a believer (Alvin Plantinga), very interesting, even though he doesn't
> believe it. Plantinga's day job is analytic philosophy, so he gets very
> precisely into what he thinks it is that his faith and his beliefs do for
> him. Finally, the main argument is sort a grand slam of creationism: we
> wouldn't be able to correctly figure out how the world works if the deity,
> more specifically the deity that Plantinga believes in, wasn't helping us
> along the way. Why would natural selection by itself care anything about
> the truth?
>
> As the reviewer says: "The interest of this book, especially for secular
> readers, is its presentation from the inside of the point of view of a
> philosophically subtle and scientifically informed theist—an outlook with
> which many of them will not be familiar."
>
> -- rec --
>

Roger Critchlow-2

Re: just faith

http://xianblog.files.wordpress.com/2012/08/img_2244.jpg