Why do you believe in YOUR religion

[seattlegal]

Originally Posted by China Cat Sunflower

No.

Chris

Then why this statement?

Originally Posted by China Cat Sunflower

We need a whole new clean language to talk about this stuff. "God" is just way to amorphous and hopelessly self-referential a term to be at all useful.

[China Cat Sunflower]

Most of what organized religion does has nothing to do with getting at a cutting edge conception of how the Universe works. The language of religion is arcane and doesn't work well with modern scientific concepts. So there are these two impediments: All the rigmarole, props, costumes, social and political control mechanisms and such that go into the cult of identity that is organized religion, and the impossibly arcane and amorphous nature of the language used to try to describe a thing that can't be described. The language may be confused as a result of all the excess baggage, if you want to look at it that way. Maybe the reverse is true, but I wasn't thinking of it that way.

I dunno, pitch me your idea. I was just thinking that if the reality on the "other side" is what we're trying to describe both in terms of quantum physics and in terms of what God, in essence, might be, then what really gums things up for me is all the baggage that comes with the language about God. It doesn't seem that there's any way to just isolate a pristine God concept because attached to it is several thousand years of convention, most of which is just dead weight.

Chris

[seattlegal]

Originally Posted by China Cat Sunflower

Most of what organized religion does has nothing to do with getting at a cutting edge conception of how the Universe works. The language of religion is arcane and doesn't work well with modern scientific concepts. So there are these two impediments: All the rigmarole, props, costumes, social and political control mechanisms and such that go into the cult of identity that is organized religion, and the impossibly arcane and amorphous nature of the language used to try to describe a thing that can't be described. The language may be confused as a result of all the excess baggage, if you want to look at it that way. Maybe the reverse is true, but I wasn't thinking of it that way.

I dunno, pitch me your idea. I was just thinking that if the reality on the "other side" is what we're trying to describe both in terms of quantum physics and in terms of what God, in essence, might be, then what really gums things up for me is all the baggage that comes with the language about God. It doesn't seem that there's any way to just isolate a pristine God concept because attached to it is several thousand years of convention, most of which is just dead weight.

Chris

Could the dead weight be the human desires attached to what we want God to be?

[Garnet]

I am a "Jew by choice".

I grew up something else, & left that religion for too many reasons to list here. I spent years looking for a different faith. The first time I went to services at a synagogue I felt as if I had gone home.

I believe I didn't actually choose Judaism; rather that it chose me.

[Tao_Equus]

Originally Posted by China Cat Sunflower

I'm happy for anybody's good thing. If you like your religion that's great...for you. I find religion completely unnecessary. I find organized religion to be a repository of patently ridiculous nonsense. Utterly stupid, anachronistic crappiola that by all rights should have been disgarded centuries ago. But that's just me.

Chris

I'm happy for anybody's good thing. If you like your religion that's great...for you. I find religion completely unnecessary. I find organized religion to be a repository of patently ridiculous nonsense. Utterly stupid, anachronistic crappiola that by all rights should have been disgarded centuries ago. But that's just me and you and....



tao

[bananabrain]

Originally Posted by China Cat Sunflower

Well, I wasn't talking about God, I was talking about organized religion. The problem with religion is that it can never seem to make a clean break with the past.

you could say the same thing about science. in my experience, there is absolutely no need for the two to be at loggerheads, yet some people don't seem to be able to get past the idea that science can somehow answer the question "what is the purpose of life?" it simply isn't set up to do so. by the same logic, religion simply isn't set up to answer the question "how does DNA work and what does it do?" you're presumably familiar with stephen jay gould's concept of "non-overlapping magisteria"? well, i think that magisteria partially overlap, but not completely (i think that's called a POMA). for example, both religion and science have a view about how the universe got started. it's not necessarily even a contradictory view - i am aware, for example, that kabbalists and quantum physicists often come up with astoundingly similar ways to talk about it.

Religion can't ever say "well, we were wrong about a few things.

i'm not sure that that's entirely fair. didn't the catholic church apologise for its historic antisemitism? judaism changes its rulings on things all the time. obviously, we have to have a good reason to do so, but it's not a matter of being "wrong" - first one has to show that something actually is wrong. have you got a particular example on your mind?

"It's got to invent some cockamamie excuse for how, technically, if you kinda close one eye and squint with the other, all these ridiculous pronouncements of the past when people believed in silly sh it are still valid...somehow. "Well, the sun didn't really stand still it was, uh...an eclipse...or...something."

we have a principle that "the Torah speaks in the language of humans" - this means that things are explained in terms of things we can understand. an example might be speaking about "G!D's Hand", when in fact G!D doesn't actually have a Hand as we would understand it - but we speak in these terms in order to convey the effective meaning of what happened, ie G!D Acted in some form, which, if it hadn't been G!D, would have required a "hand". does that make sense? so, in terms of something like the "sun standing still", this would merely be how it seemed in terms that the people involved could understand; put another way, it could be the earliest known application of the theory of relativity, in that the sun *seemed* to all concerned to be standing still during these moments of vital effort. you are of course free to scoff all you like, but it's only really necessary to have an "excuse" if you think the literal meaning of the text ("pshat") has been violated. and we have another principle which says that "interpretation of the Torah cannot be alienated from its literal meaning", which means that the literal meaning must have that level of flexibility. so you can't just say, oh, it was an eclipse, it wouldn't be so straightforward in the first place.

If quantum physics and religion are both trying to describe the same thing, why do we still have to have all the smoke and mirrors, funky turbans and spiffy robes, and authority hard ons that religion wallows in?

why do we have to have all the titles, academic qualifications, university buildings and administration, research publishing, graduations, spiffy robes and funky mortarboards, book contracts and TV appearances that science wallows it? there's so much misunderstanding associated with science, but it's still worth trying to understand it. sure it's gunked up with personal agendas and unscientific bias, but its also a repository of peer-reviewed working hypotheses which help us understand the universe.

We need a whole new clean language to talk about this stuff. "God" is just way to amorphous and hopelessly self-referential a term to be at all useful.

well, that's kind of what we're doing here, but i feel bound to point out that a manual on brain surgery would also have to be hopelessly self-referential to be any use and would be incomprehensible to someone who hadn't already gone to medical school. you couldn't just invent a "whole new clean language", because there is value in the thinking that has already been done.

The language of religion is arcane and doesn't work well with modern scientific concepts.

the language of science is arcane and doesn't work well with traditional religious concepts either, because of the POMA problem.

I dunno, pitch me your idea. I was just thinking that if the reality on the "other side" is what we're trying to describe both in terms of quantum physics and in terms of what God, in essence, might be, then what really gums things up for me is all the baggage that comes with the language about God. It doesn't seem that there's any way to just isolate a pristine God concept because attached to it is several thousand years of convention, most of which is just dead weight.

well, that is your opinion, but it's not always about convention (much of mystical thinking is really quite unconventional, as you should know) and, furthermore, who is to say what is "dead weight"? who is to say what is "pristine"? that's like trying to say, ok, my DNA is 90% the same as a banana (which it is, btw), i just want to isolate the pristine 10% which makes me human. oh, hang on, 9% of that is also shared by monkeys, etc, etc.

Originally Posted by China Cat Sunflower and Tao_Equus

I find organized religion to be a repository of patently ridiculous nonsense. Utterly stupid, anachronistic crappiola that by all rights should have been discarded centuries ago.

how about "the widow and orphan you shall not oppress"? how about "leave the gleanings of your field for the poor"? how about "love your neighbour as yourself"? how about "you shall love the stranger, for you were strangers in egypt"? are all these patently ridiculous, stupid or anachronistic?

b'shalom

bananabrain

[Snoopy]

Originally Posted by bananabrain

my DNA is 90% the same as a banana

I feel terrible...A great post and I just eat one of your cousins.

s.

[bananabrain]

not just *my* cousins. *everybody's* cousins, including yours. sorry mate.

b'shalom

bananabrain

[dauer]

Cannibal!

See, this is why I'm a vegan. I don't eat bananas.

[path_of_one]

BB, great post. Just wanted to give the shout-out.

I second the conclusion that no cultural or social institution/behavior/belief is free from the past. Science is no more free from the past as any other socio-cultural artifact. The value lies in recognizing how these are tied to the past and evaluating which connections are still valid for today.

Secondly, religion most certainly can and does change over time, and acknowledge being inaccurate, wrong, or not useful as time moves on. Some religions/churches may not do this, but others do, and quite forthrightly. Some religions are, by definition, a way of critically analyzing past practices and beliefs and reinventing them for contemporary times, given our newest information and social structures. To say otherwise is to ignore the diversity of the world's religions. I think many times, when I hear atheists denounce "religion," they are responding to a limited number of sects from the Western religions. But religion is not limited to these sects. One must be careful of definitions and the scope of one's arguments.

Basically, I'm in agreement with BB, and would have made more or less the same points. And I add that as BB says some Kabbalists and physicists come to the same conclusions, so too do other religions' mystics and monks. I've seen interviews with shamans and with physicists that describe the same reality. If anything, I see (in recent years) an incredible movement toward the union of science and mysticism. It's getting at the same reality from two different halves of our brain. If you're left-brained and approach reality that way, great for you, but it's hardly tolerant or fair to expect the entire human population to see the world just as you do. Likewise, it is intolerant to expect left-brained folks to approach the world as a right-brained person.

Most of the arguments against religion that I see are brought forth:

With more reference to the disgruntledness with social institutions (which could be ANY "-ism") and how people choose to perpetuate suffering than anything specific to religion.

With little attention to the detail of diversity of religion and its integration with society (which shows little attention to the science of society and human behavior).

With little attention to the reality of diversity of personality, perception, and interaction with the world displayed by human beings, and each person's right to experience reality as they do (rather than as you do).

Basically, with about as much intolerance as I see from the religious who insist everyone follow the (their) "Right Path."

I'm not a religious person, but that's just my observation. There's a strong tendency in people to want to feel that their way of thinking, of perceiving, and the reality they perceive is the correct one. Everyone else is playing catch-up- whether that is to say they are "unsaved" or "unschooled" is a matter of semantics.

[Snoopy]

Originally Posted by path_of_one

If anything, I see (in recent years) an incredible movement toward the union of science and mysticism.

Indeed.

"In 1950 David Bohm wrote what many physicists consider to be a model textbook on quantum mechanics. Ironically, he has never accepted that theory of physics...

...His objections to the foundations of quantum mechanics have gradually coalesced into an extension of the theory so sweeping that it amounts to a new view of reality. Believing that the nature of things is not reducible to fragments or particles, he argues for a holistic view of the universe. He demands that we learn to regard matter and life as a whole, coherent domain, which he calls the implicate order."



Interview with David Bohm - F. David Peat

s.

[Netti-Netti]

Originally Posted by Snoopy

"He demands that we learn to regard matter and life as a whole, coherent domain, which he calls the implicate order."

Sounds good, but I don see how this is workable in most scientific realms except maybe theoretical physics, which is not quite science.

both religion and science have a view about how the universe got started. it's not necessarily even a contradictory view - i am aware, for example, that cabbalists and quantum physicists often come up with astoundingly similar ways to talk about it.

This is interesting for people who want to talk about it.

I see (in recent years) an incredible movement toward the union of science and mysticism. It's getting at the same reality from two different halves of our brain.

I think there has been some discussion of a possible unification of science and mysticism, but a lot of this is post facto and therefore not "scientific" in a traditional sense of the word.

I'm not sure what value a union of science and mysticism would have. Even if we see some radical change in scientific methods, I'm not sure it would make much difference. Even the most adequate scientific descriptions could not be a substitute for the personal spiritual transformation that is a living, ongoing, dynamic process for a individual person living in an evolutionary world. How do you operationalize and measure the experiential reality?

I don't see how science will add much to a religious understanding of cosmology. Actually, questions about the origins of the universe will never get settled because there was no one there at the beginning to collect data.

Further, I don't see science adding much to an understanding of religious experience. The upper limit of any comparisons between science and mysticism be determined by the limitations of science. Given the reductionistic approach of the scientific method, we can reasonably assume that the description will always be very incomplete.

I also don't forsesee any applications from a "union of science and mysticism." First of all, why would anyone want to go into a research lab at some university and manufacture of spiritual encounters and what would the generality of any such experiences be?

And then there is the problem of language. After all this time, we still don't have decent translations of ancient Buddhist texts. What language would be needed to describe the findings? Maybe Pali or Chinese have suitable terms. But does English? That's the main language used by people who publish scientific research.

I was privy to several marvelous demonstrations of telepathy. If it had been documented scientifically, other people would prolly have been impressed by it as well. But the short- and long-term meaning arising from these events was purely dependent on the persons and the context. Deja Vu and syncronicity experiences are like that too.

In the end, abstractions are just abstractions, whereas experiences are experiences.

[path_of_one]

I am not advocating that science and mysticism become a single method of inquiry. Rather, I am saying that science and mysticism are coming to similar conclusions from different methods of inquiry.

Not every person is inherently prone to processing information in a scientific mode of inquiry. Ditto for mysticism. People do have inherent differences in how they most easily can perceive data in the universe and process it: some through deductive methods, some through subjective. Some intuitive and some reductionist.

As a person who does science, and as a mystic, I guess I just see both sides of the same coin at once. I inherently "work" both ways, but I can see how some aspects of reality are easier for me to approach through mysticism, and others through science. That said, I came to many of the basic conclusions (and debates) that underlie modern physics as a child through intuition/mysticism. The science I later learned confirmed for me that in other methods of inquiry, the same universe was being revealed.

I think underlying both accurate science (of any sort) and mysticism is an understanding of reality as process. This is, in part, I think what is valuable about seeing "matter and life as a whole, coherent domain." Even in science, we may be temporarily reductionist to address a particular question, but our science is founded on inaccurate bases if we do not remember that reality is not really reductionist. All things exist as part of everything, all things are part of larger processes. The boundaries we create in science are heuristic and artificial, and by remembering this, we ensure our science is useful and accurate in its exploration of reality. Mysticism points toward unity and the process nature of reality as well. This is why the two converge in their conclusions.

Science reveals in a different mode of inquiry what mysticism approaches intuitively. I find that very valuable and exciting. It can bring insight into reality to folks that otherwise would find such inaccessible, simply because their brains do not work in an intuitive, experiential manner. Furthermore, science can awaken a new way to experience life mystically. Science is not divorced from experience. In the way that religion creates abstractions from experience, so too does science. At the heart of both religion and science, each of which are conceptualizations of reality, are experiences of and with and in reality. Because of this, the language difficulty plagues any description or explanation of such experience, no matter what language is used. The instant we put words to the experience, we have shifted it from experience to concept, and have distanced ourselves from the now-ness of experience. The value of religion and science is that it can invite others into the experience- draw them in. We shouldn't confuse the moon with the finger pointing at it, in either science or spirituality.

[Tao_Equus]

Well this is far from the first, and no doubt it will be far from the last, time I have to listen to people who believe in something supernatural scrabbling desperately to put science in the same bracket as theology. Whether it be mortar boards and robes, ( an anachronism from when all schools were also religious), to quoting the odd piece of work that can in some way be sawn and malleted to fit some "believers" post-hoc reinterpretation of some obscure text, you just will not accept that science IS NOT a religion. It is a method of study. Why do you think all these trans-discipline theoscientists never get published in the science journals? Because their papers are not based soundly in science. Peer review demolishes them as nonsense or so speculative as to be meaningless in the science framework. Science is what gives us the internet, nuclear power, microwave ovens, catalytic converters, heart surgery, pacemakers, men on the moon and spaceships that are now leaving our solar system. All these things and so many more were worked out using logic and then made real. Science delivers!! No religion has ever demonstrated a word of its text to be anything but the work of some man somewhere lost in history. Even quantum physics, the spookiest, weirdest of the sciences was worked out in someone's head before it was proven to be possible. But of all the billions of theists that ever lived not one can provide anything but instead appeal to "faith". A meaningless appeal to suspend logic. I am sorry but I cannot draw any parallel between science and religion except for one. Science does not have all the answers but it does not pretend to and will never stop trying to answer the questions and pose new ones too. Perhaps science can be seen as the child of theological questioning, in so much that it is an evolution of enquiry into the realm we inhabit. Well I hope that evolution gets the time and space it needs to fully evolve, for it is high time any notion of God went extinct.

tao

[Dawud]

Originally Posted by Garnet

I am a "Jew by choice".

I grew up something else, & left that religion for too many reasons to list here. I spent years looking for a different faith. The first time I went to services at a synagogue I felt as if I had gone home.

I believe I didn't actually choose Judaism; rather that it chose me.

I like this post. I could change a few words and make it my own post

I believe I didn't find the Baha'i Faith so much as it found me. Seriously.