Tangential to Pompey's point, I don't see how it is possible that "belief comes prior to cultural conditioning". I've never hear of Barrett, but the wide variety of differing religious (and atheistic) beliefs makes me incredulous.
Tangential to Pompey's point, I don't see how it is possible that "belief comes prior to cultural conditioning". I've never hear of Barrett, but the wide variety of differing religious (and atheistic) beliefs makes me incredulous.
Originally Posted by Pompey Bum
Tuesday evening I was watching television and turned to pbs, an interesting show on birds, cleverness, and the capacity to solve problems... they pit a Raven against a Dog; the contest was to open a glass box in three steps to get at a food treat... a doggy biscuit for the dog, and some rat flesh for the raven. The dog had no idea how to open the box, nor even a clue what was expected... the raven opened the box so quickly and with so little hesitation that they had to play back the video in slow motion so you could fully appreciate it. By leaps and bounds the raven was the better problem solver. The dog can be trained to do far more complex tricks, but the raven had a natural ability to conceptualize... what we equate with cleverness.
As goes the raven, so goes our lives. We think the things, do the things, that we have the capacity for. No more, no less. We are clever, aren't we. What's inside the glass box... happiness, sorrow, God? Those things are no more important than rat flesh.
And I'm no nihilist.
You need a university degree and be far more fashionable than I, to be a nihilist.
Last edited by Iain Sparrow; 07-02-2015 at 08:03 AM.
That's an interesting parable, Iain, but I don't know what it's got to do with nihilism; a philosophy you sum up nicely when you say:
"there is no intrinsic value to any human thought or endeavor, suffering, faith in a God, non belief, justice, redemption, etc, etc. A child dying of cancer is no more or less important than a leaf falling from a tree. It's meaningless."
But as I said, your beliefs are your own business. I have not the slightest interest in whether you understand or own your nihilism. You sound to me like someone who is angry at people you think are better educated than you; but that, too, has nothing to do with me. It is your own nasty box to try to crawl out of. Good luck!
Last edited by Pompey Bum; 07-02-2015 at 04:16 PM.
The only thing I think one could draw from the big bang, quantum physics and relativity is a general panentheism. The big bang removes the eternal aspect of the universe. Quantum physics questions the underlying material substance of the universe and introduces consciousness collapsing the wave function. Relativity's speed of light limit on massive reality suggests that the outside of the universe is as near to us as light.
However, this panentheism would support many religions such as Hinduism or Christianity or even New Age spirituality. I don't see how it supports atheism.
Last edited by YesNo; 07-02-2015 at 11:46 AM.
My blog: https://frankhubeny.blog/
The variety of religious beliefs could be traced to cultural activity. The underlying similarity, however, would come from biology. This is from the cover of the book:
Infants have a lot to make sense of in the world: Why does the sun shine and night fall; why do some objects move in response to words, while others won't budge; who is it that looks over them and cares for them? How the developing brain grapples with these and other questions leads children, across cultures, to naturally develop a belief in divine power of remarkably consistent traits--a god that is a powerful creator, knowing, immortal, and good...
All of this comes before culture.
My blog: https://frankhubeny.blog/
How would pantheism support the idea of a personal God in whose physical likeness we are made-- the one who molded Adam's body out of clay, breathed life into his nostrils, and closed the ark's door behind Noah? How would it support the idea of an incarnate Christ? As usual, YN, you are a good man (better than me) who is trying to paint the scene a little prettier than the visible landscape will permit.
Last edited by Pompey Bum; 07-02-2015 at 02:47 PM.
This sounds like such malarky, YesNo, that I'm tempted to find Barret's book just to debunk it. It is true that Chomsky claimed that humans have the facility for language before they learn language -- but the still don't have a language until they learn it. Do non-human animals, who grapple with some of these same issues, have a belief in God? Human children's developing brains grapple with issues IN CULTURAL and LINGUISTIC terms.
You can't just use natural suffering as the proof and end here. Suppose you have just survived cancer, there is no way to reconstruct the self you were in that prior time.
The quote you quoted is from the Psychology Professor, not me (just clarifying), but I do agree with him. I'm not sure I understand what you mean, Trigger, about "reconstructing ourselves" to who we were prior to suffering, but he didn't mean what you understood his quote to mean. I appreciate your post for clarification purposes.
When the psychology Professor said (in post#1), "the believer has an easier time than the atheist psychologically as well as logically in dealing with the problem of natural suffering", he meant that, "for atheists, when it's over it's over, end of story, literally"…but for believers, their focus is far more reaching, into eternity, and they have a "peace that passes all understanding" when dealing with any trials and tribulations on earth in this temporary life that is just a speck of time compared to eternity.
That's making a long story short because I don't want to get into "religious" details so as to stick with the psychological and logical take on suffering as a challenge to God's existence presented by the Professor.
Last edited by Melanie; 07-02-2015 at 09:17 PM.
Live in the sunshine. Swim in the sea. Drink the wild air ~Ralph Waldo Emerson
Psychologically you can't say that the believer in God has an easier time than the atheist psychologically as well as logically in dealing with the problem of natural suffering.
It is reciprocating at the start of the quote. Religion as help is like a double negative.
edit: Nihilism because of this quote.
Last edited by TRIGGERSIDEWYS; 07-02-2015 at 09:19 PM.
Great! I would like to hear any criticism you might have of it. This book is a literature survey, so it may require going deeper into the studies he references. In my case, not being all that political, I am not a fan of "social construction" theories, so Barrett would find it easier to convince me.
In the 20th century there was also something called the "social construction of gender" which had a similar line of reasoning giving culture too much credit. See Larry Young, "The Chemistry between us: Love, sex and the science of attraction" for a literature survey that challenges that view.
The belief that theism is rooted in culture could be called the "social construction of theism".
I suspect non-human animals have something similar, but I don't know of any evidence for that.
Why do human children's developing brains grapple with issues in cultural and linguistic terms?
My blog: https://frankhubeny.blog/
What I think the big bang, quantum theory and relativity imply is panentheism, not pantheism. Pantheism would have the universe itself be a God or some set of Gods, but the universe had a beginning, so one has an outside to it as well. The details about Noah or Adam would be more specific issues of faith as you mention.How would pantheism support the idea of a personal God in whose physical likeness we are made-- the one who molded Adam's body out of clay, breathed life into his nostrils, and closed the ark's door behind Noah? How would it support the idea of an incarnate Christ? As usual, YN, you are a good man (better than me) who is trying to paint the scene a little prettier than the visible landscape will permit.
My blog: https://frankhubeny.blog/
I'm not sure I quite understand your point Melanie in the original post. Suffering is part of how we form compassion, and through compassion, love and self sacrifice. Suffering is how God makes us worthy of salvation, and is actually a gift from God. Christ's suffering in His passion is our model for suffering, and many saints embraced suffering to bring themselves closer to Christ. If you're interested, the life and writings of St. Thérèse of Lisieux explains it well.
LET THERE BE LIGHT
"Love follows knowledge." – St. Catherine of Siena
My literature blog: http://ashesfromburntroses.blogspot.com/
Yes, I appreciate the distinction between pantheism and panentheism (we've had the conversation before), but I don't see how either supports the idea of the Judeo-Christian God, either in a general sense or in the details of Biblical literalism. I would say yes (at least in the general sense) if you could show me that this panentheistic divinity is a unitary God of love and justice rather than just a divine essence underlying all things--but I don't think you can. As far as I can see, the God of love and justice requires faith.
And for me, that touches the thread's original question: how is a God of love and justice reconcilable to a world of suffering and injustice. As some have already pointed out, that question is not answered by assertions that belief in such a God make suffering and injustice easier to bear. Worse (in my opinion) are appeals to a killer God whose supposed justice is little more than an excuse for the world's problems--including violence, death, and in some cases, even genocide. Since parts of the Bible were written or edited to reflect such apologetic views, an uncritical, "literalist" stitching together of the Bible's many voices, in my opinion, produces a dangerous chimera--one never dreamt of by the Bible's authors.
That controversy notwithstanding, any appeal to "God's perfect plan" needs to account for a mind-boggling degree of inscrutability. Divine inscrutability is, of course, a possibility (as far as I can see it is the solution put forth by the redactors of Job), but it raises its own troubling questions: how can we live moral lives when we are incapable of understanding God's plan? How can we speak with certainty of a God we are not capable of understanding? Can understanding/enlightenment be achieved in this lifetime? Is it attainable after death? And how do we know for sure (assuming that uncritical "proof texting" is off the table)?
One solution (and I'm only throwing it out there) is that we don't understand these things because we are not meant to understand them. In that view, we live in a world where any atrocity might happen and we respond accordingly: moving toward faith in God or away. We may lack full freedom of will, but we do not lack choice. Perhaps the meaning of life is simply to choose God (for the Christian: God-with-us) despite the world's depravity and our own natures; or from an ethical atheist's perspective, to choose the Good despite the temptations of nihilism.
For me, these possibilities raise the questions: to what end? A better life? A serene death? To "merit" eternal life in Paradise? Because choosing the Good is right regardless of the end? Because choosing to have faith in God is within me--trusting to God for whatever the end will be? To grow in wisdom in preparation for another spin at worldly existence? To be done with such things and find peace.
This is a theology I continue to consider.
Last edited by Pompey Bum; 07-03-2015 at 08:53 PM.
I have found in the "Religious Texts" Forum that many members here believe that IF God our creator existed then he wouldn't allow suffering and therefore, our suffering proves God doesn't exist. Many arguments using Biblical scripture, religious texts, faith, beliefs, and scientific theories have been battled out in the "Religious Texts" Forum ad nauseam. So, my original post and purpose of this thread is to approach God's Existence, as challenged by their argument regarding suffering, from a purely logical and philosophical angle in the "Philosophical Literature" Forum. I began with a compelling view from a Professor of Philosophy from Boston University. You'll notice that Professor Kreeft never used any references to religious texts to make his point that our suffering doesn't disprove God's existence.
Your post, Virgil, is about what you believe to be God's plan for our "worthiness" via suffering, and your belief that our suffering is a gift from God, and using St. Therese's writings as a foundation…but to a non-believer that is not compelling evidence for God's existence, not in the eyes of unbelievers who are driven by logic alone. I agree that there are many reason's listed in scripture for why God allows suffering but I'm not one to believe that our suffering is to make us worthy for God's Kingdom. In the Religious Text Forum I could use my King James Bible to argue against your view and to post my personal view that salvation is by grace and not earned by our suffering to make us worthy of salvation since Christ already paid that price for us by suffering on the cross (why would we have need of a savior if we must earn salvation ourselves through suffering?)…but this argument would belong in the Religious Texts Forum, using scripture verses etc...not here. I appreciate and respect your views though.
Last edited by Melanie; 07-03-2015 at 03:58 PM.
Live in the sunshine. Swim in the sea. Drink the wild air ~Ralph Waldo Emerson
Posting Permissions
Reply With Quote
