Kantian Naturalist and I have been hopscotching from thread to thread, discussing the nature of religious language. The main point of contention is the assertoric/disclosive distinction: When is religious language assertoric — that is, when does it make claims about reality — and when is it merely disclosive, revealing attitude and affect without making actual claims?
I’ve created this thread as a permanent home for this otherwise nomadic discussion.
It may also be a good place for an ongoing discussion of another form of religious language — scripture. For believers who take scripture to be divinely inspired, the question is when it should be taken literally, when it should be taken figuratively or metaphorically, and whether there are consistent and justifiable criteria for drawing that distinction.
An observation is not a threat, Alan. French language might not reveal this to you. But that doesn’t change KN’s current ‘identity’ reality. Your repeated ‘skeptic moderator’ threats to me, however, are documented here. So, whatever.
As a mod here you ‘represent’ people who are almost completely incapable of having an informed conversation about ‘religious language’ that is not tainted by their dire atheism or secularism. That’s who you represent at TS/AZ, including defense of KN’s, TS/AZ’s outspoken, confused local philosophist.
Your assumption is appropriate if you yourself have reading comprehension. “Solid inverted bowl”? Are you talking about the word rendered “firmament”? KN can perhaps lecture you on this. I have heard that in LXX that particular word was rendered “clouds”, which looks like a good equivalent to modern “atmosphere”.
When you take it that e.g. the ozone layer protects from radiation, then wouldn’t other layers have a purpose too? (Not my idea by the way. But I’ll be interested to see how you show it to be a bad idea, a lie even.)
Simple question: The ground where marine fossils are found, was it an ocean bottom when the fossils were formed or not?
So, philology lied?
In philology, myth is different from a lie. For example, Iliad is the myth that led to the discovery of the ruins of Troy.
I said this phrase “Maybe not overtly, but covertly as an atheist you secretly hate God who is dead to you.” is tantamount to (it would have been had you not included “maybe”) a personal attack and an accusation of lying. I said nothing about threats. Thankfully, so far, that issue has not come up.
I have no idea what you are hinting at here.
Indeed, one way we try to distinguish ourselves from some other sites with other ways of moderating is by being transparent.
I’m an admin!!!
I represent no-one but myself. And please do not equate atheism and secularism. They are distinct concepts.
Watch out Gregory, Alan has his
moderator’sadmin’s eye on you.Mung,
Yes and we’ve solved the mystery of your disappeared comment. See the moderation issues thread.
Gregory, to whom (or what) are we to suppose that Sellars sold out? Roy Wood wasn’t a theist, was he?
I mean your joke with Wilfrid’s name isn’t very good/funny/clever, but I’m wondering if it nevertheless makes any sense whatever or is just your usual angry gibberish (in addition to being adolescent and unfunny)? Thanks.
walto,
I suppose the implication is that I sold out to Sellars. Or something like that. No idea what Gregory is trying to say.
A mystery to you and Neil perhaps.
Sure, many participants here have a common history of being former ID critics currently unable or unwilling to post there. The hope is that some ID proponents may enjoy an occasional foray here to meet up with old adversaries. And the moderation is transparent. You can object to it. There’s a thread available for any aggrieved party to raise issues. ‘Tis too a site. So there!
I’m not selling atheism. I’m a live-and-let-live guy (I think I may have mentioned this). I do strongly advocate that states should have true secular administrations which can protect religious minorities just like other minorities.
I assure you of my complete sincerity when I say I have the greatest difficulty taking you seriously.
So what religious doctrine do you favour as an alternative? You seem to have overlooked my question several times now.
Not just ‘former ID critics,’ but also current ID critics. Won’t you at least be honest about that?
I am also an ID critic, Alan, but a theist ID critic. Your myopic atheist brand of ID criticism is obviously quite superficial, unphilosophical and even outdated. And the ‘there’ you mention is the (rather low brow IDism friendly) blog ‘Uncommon Descent’, right?
Let’s be honest: you’re a ‘live and let live’ atheist, Alan. That’s not a non-position worshipping ‘Science’ and death. And it doesn’t make your philosophy or worldview not shallow, or hopeful. But hey, you can parade some kind of pseudo hope in your outlook as a skeptic here just fine, no doubt. Atheists gobble up such garbage thinking nowadays.
I don’t treat ‘your question’ as valid coming from a shallow atheist human being. Too many others are more worthwhile to spend time with than you, Alan Fox.
And yes, that’s the kind of image this TA/SZ site portrays; despairing, confusion peddling, quasi-knowledgeable idiots, with you as their Admin. You have demonstrated no sincerity to seek religious language or ‘spiritual’ truths. So, go and ‘let live’ in your social depravity, if that’s what you choose to do. You earn no respect in your atheism.
Good catch, Gregory. I misspoke. What I should have said was something like “ID critics formerly posting at Uncommon Descent”. I don’t think any ID critic I know of has mellowed towards the idea that ID is any kind of scientific movement.
I’m aware that you have been sharply critical of ID at UD and elsewhere.
You wouldn’t (I hope) address an overweight person as “fatty”. Bear in mind that my working eye is very short-sighted.
My criticism of ID is that it is bogus science and has a not-to-well hidden right-wing political agenda which is potentially detrimental even beyond US borders.
Yes
*resists urge to type “So?”*
I think that I just told you that. (And I think I mentioned it before, too.)
Should I read that as saying I worship Science (is ‘Science’ different from science?) and death. I assure you you are mistaken.
What doesn’t?
Participation is voluntary. You are under no obligation to respond to anything you would rather ignore.
Don’t let me detain you if you have places to go. 🙂
I don’t think I’m a particularly mean person Gregory but I’m bound to say that we don’t seem to be having a fruitful conversation and I don’t think it is entirely my fault. I’m still not sure if you follow some kind of Christian doctrine but whatever it is, I don’t think the internet persona you present here is a great advert for it.
Oh look. Another
moderatoradmin who struggles with self-moderationadmonition.🙂
What about scientific criticism , how does Alan measure up in your expert opinion? Obviously doing it wrong ,too?
Reading your comments , one might guess the ‘ theistic ‘ view is based on vitriol and envy. Please go ahead, share your real hope, brighten my day, reading your co-theist Phodoo has caused me to doubt both hope and charity exist in certain theistic advanced philosophies. Spread your pearls of wisdom before atheistic swine. Thanks in advance.
Mung,
Good grief. Admins must be (even) holier than thou?
Mung,
I meant it as useful feedback.
And Atlantis. Don’t forget Atlantis.
And Thetans, Ogres, fire breathing dragons, pixies, faeries.
What would we do without myth?
I might mention that the Iliad is mostly a story about guys hacking each other to bits. There’s some talk about gods and such, but mostly guys fighting.
There are fine lines between myth, legend, and fairy tale, but the lines are there. Since you include Thetans, I know you don’t care about the lines. But not caring that Troy was found doesn’t change the fact that it was found.
And Jerichos. Dozens of them.
But what about Noah and his family?
When a cup is being filled with water, the rim usually remains safe, but flood is a different phenomenon. Flood starts as a threshold is crossed, i.e. goes over the rim. The sea level may rise as little as one meter, but when it breaks a levee or crosses a beach, it will drown everything that is at the same height.
People tend to think of tsunami as a giant wave rushing towards the beach, but more often it’s like sea level rising. See what happens https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gbq412haY1c It’s the movement of incoming water that does the work, not the rising level.
Over the weekend I caught up on some neglected reading, and in particular one of Robert Hanna’s articles on Kant, “Kant, the Copernican Devolution, and Real Metaphysics” (PDF here for those with interested; Academia.edu access may be required). I’ve been following Hanna’s work on Kant for a while, and I find it very important for clarifying my growing understanding of pragmatism’s relation with Kant and Hegel.
One point that Hanna makes very clearly is that Kant is an anti-mechanist: he does not think that the kind of intelligibility exemplified by Newtonian physics is sufficient for understanding what life is, nor (consequently) ourselves insofar as we are alive. (The line of thought that runs from Kant through Hans Jonas and Merleau-Ponty to Francisco Varela and Evan Thompson is central to my bio-philosophy, as many of you know.)
Hanna brings this theme out in Kant by way of what Wordsworth calls “natural piety” — a theme that also becomes important in the philosophical biology of Stephen Talbott. Here’s how Hanna puts it:
———————————————————————
Because I am taking Kant’s transcendental idealism to be a real, and in particular, an empirically realistic metaphysics of nature, and not merely epistemology, it follows with synthetic a priori necessity that space, time, quantity, movement, organismic life and natural teleology, consciousness, feeling and emotion, aesthetic form including beauty and sublimity, and morality, are all manifestly real, ontologically basic structures in the natural world of human experience.
The Kantian-Romantic-British-emergentist philosophical doctrine of natural piety, as I understand it, then, counsels a radically agnostic, empirically realistic, and metaphysically sane (where the criteria of metaphysical sanity are determined by Kant’s critique of modal metaphysics), aesthetically-sensitive and ethically-sensitive, and above all anti-mechanistic, non-reductive, non-dualist, primitivist approach to investigating nature, that is pro-science but not scientistic, by virtue of knowing the inherent scope and limits of natural-scientific investigation.
Natural piety, in turn, as a thesis in real metaphysics and also as an aesthetic, emotional, life-guiding, action-guiding attitude towards manifest nature, is intended as an essential corrective to the epistemic and metaphysical arrogance, and also to the aesthetic insensitivity and military-industrial authoritarianism, of the noumenally realistic epistemology and metaphysics, and of the corresponding “lordship and mastery of nature” ideology, that is explicitly or implicitly adopted by Bacon, by Descartes, by The Vienna Circle, and by recent and contemporary scientific naturalists, including most if not all proponents of Analytic metaphysics.
Indeed, the real-metaphysical-thesis-and-life-guiding-attitude of natural piety gives a rich sense to the radical poet Muriel Rukeyser’s deep insight that “the universe is made of stories, not of atoms.”
—————————————————————————————–
I am somewhat more sanguine than Hanna about the prospects of 21st-century natural science for a rapprochement between science and natural piety, along the lines attempted by Kaufman in his Reinventing the Sacred but (hopefully) fewer philosophical mistakes. Natural science need not be, for us, the enemy of natural piety as it was for Kant, Wordsworth, and Coleridge.
On the other hand, one of the very few (perhaps only) things on which Gregory and I agree is about the pernicious and disastrous impact that “scientism” has had on ‘Western’ culture.
Gregory and I might disagree on how precisely to characterize it; we certainly disagree on whether pragmatism offers the right resources for responding correctly to scientism. (We also disagree on whether Sellars was committed to ‘scientism’, but that’s a side-issue; even if he was, then he was wrong.) For an argument that pragmatism can respond effectively to scientism, see The Unraveling of Scientism. I think that Margolis is right about how to think about scientism, for the most part, but would want to supplement his diagnosis with an account of the political economy of science in order to avoid mere Romantic anti-capitalism. The classical pragmatists — but above all, Dewey! — were concerned with (here’s a slogan) “naturalism without scientism”. The hard question with which I am concerned is whether “naturalism without scientism” is any different from “scientism without capitalism”.
In terms of “varieties of religious language,” I wonder if the language of “natural piety” counts as a nice example of religion without supernaturalism.
Naturalism without scientism, religion without supernaturalism: that is what is best in American pragmatism.
Agreed, but in the modern world, even when we understand the philosophical(ly flawed) nature of Kraussian Nothing, there seems to be no stopping it, because science is prioritized over philosophy. And Russell’s Teapot also has force purely due to lack of knowledge of theology.
Data doesn’t put theoretical structures into doubt. The way you insert data into the theoretical structure may put it into doubt when it doesn’t fit.
Science is not about data, but about organizing it and explaining it. Theoretical structures organize and explain data. When data doesn’t fit the system, the data remains unexplained, but when you know it should fit the system, you will look for a way to modify the system. However, that the data should fit the system is again determined by the theoretical framework, not by the data per se.
There seems to be two different views of “big picture”. You seem to hold to the accumulative model where the big picture is constantly changing and growing more complete as new data pours in. On this view, data as if paints the big picture.
Another view is that the big picture consists in the way the world works. The world works with or without science, but if we are to examine scientifically how the world works, the data has to be collected and attributed the correct relevance and category. The categorization is at least as important as data itself, because when examining a specific area, irrelevant data (noise) has to be eliminated and this is a logical (not empirical) pre-conceived category applied to data. Also, not everything can be examined in terms of data, because some things are undetectable, but it doesn’t mean they do not exist – so we can deduce a category of undetectable things, which is a logically necessary category, even though it cannot contain any empirical data.
On this model, the big picture is a matter of mastering the art of attributing the right categories and values to data, not digging up more of it. New data is evaluated by means of comparison to known data, which means that the categories are analogical to each other or reflective of each other, comparable. Thus the categories are finite and when the science is properly mastered, all new data becomes just more of the same and ceases to yield new information. That’s how the big picture is completed. On this view, the big picture is not a collective evolutionary thing, but a cyclical rediscovery for every next generation.
Internet persona aside, Alan, being an atheist is the most depressing and distorted thing a human being (past, present and future) could be. It a self-destroying ideology. It dehumanises. It dys-personalises. It damages. Telling this to atheists & ‘skeptics’ is not threatening; it is simply true, as much as they (including you) may dislike hearing it & avoid the reality of what it means to be such ideologists.
Too many good, great and awesome people on this Earth are theists to instead bow to the political correctness you shovel from France as if ‘live and let live’ atheism is an honourable or wise social approach. It is not. TA/SZ is a disheartening (and in many cases, anti-intellectual, contra-knowledge, slimy self-righteous) pit of despair, unfortunately. This thread has displayed that in spades.
But wow, you ‘skeptic’ folks sure seem to enjoy ‘dancing’ spitefully with IDists, just as they gain their identity spitefully dancing with you.
Gregory,
Whenever you are challenged to defend your theism, you vamoose. If you have no confidence in the validity of your beliefs, why should anyone else?
Poor Erik is trying to distance himself from his claims regarding the vapor canopy and pre-Flood lifespans without actually denying them:
Dance, Erik, dance.
These items I would sincerely like to see refuted because I don’t like the particular source where I got them. But looks like no sound response is forthcoming.
How do you know this? From evidence or your own imagination? I’m an atheist because the current theistic ideologies make no sense to me and I seem not to have any desire for a belief in such an ideology. It doesn’t depress me. I have no current explanation for [insert all the great imponderables] but maybe something will turn up one day. But I am pretty much convinced that this life is all we get, so in the meantime we had better get on and make the most of it.
I’m not threatened. I’m happy with my own pragmatic position that it is not worth worrying about things you can do nothing about and one should enjoy the opportunities life gives you. Far from avoiding your particular reality, I’ve asked you about it. What rocks your boat, faith-wise?
Not sure why you are telling me this. I’m not campaigning for everyone to conform to my point of view. The most important thing is that everyone should have the right to think their own thoughts. Do you think religious ideas should be imposed on people? Would you like to convince me that your religious ideas are worth imposing on others? Would you at least like to promote them? Say what they are, even?
As I said, participation is voluntary. You are welcome to bring some intellectual rigour to this forum. Please feel free to start at any time.
This is true (not universally but all too often) and it’s a bit of a shame. Lizzie’s idea to try to meet and understand people with whom one disagrees strongly in an atmosphere of mutual respect is worth pursuing.
I’m not sure what exactly we disagree about if anything. My point about flood myths is one can easily separate facts, descriptions, statements that are possible or plausible from those that involve suspension of the laws/properties of matter and energy. Applying that to the Genesis myth, certain statements, for example that water covered all the Earth and only one family survived from which all mankind is descended falls into the category of suspension of scientific fact.
I just find it odd that some people hold on to such myths as if they were important rather than texts written for and by people we know little of that have little relevance today.
On the other hand I can see the interest and perhaps even value in studying ancient document for what they can tell us about the authors, whom they were written for and the purpose of the texts, the motivation. Doing this in combination with other disciplines, archaeology, palaeontology, forensics and so on is surely a way to add to our knowledge of the past.
Erik,
It really depends how much water you envisage, and what it needs to achieve to be a viable source of all Flood myths (such as being palpable to every civilisation that left descendants). A vapour canopy to add a few local inches or feet? Not a problem. To cover the globe to the height of Everest? You are talking surface pressures equivalent to those at 5 mile depth. And as dark. And a massive amount of potential energy that must convert to kinetic and eventually heat. And extending at least 17,000 * 5 miles into space.
That book looks interesting, but at just under C$1 per page for the paper back, it’s out of my price range (interestingly, Kindle and hardcover are a somewhat less expensive.)
I like this excerpt from the Amazon marketing blurb because it emphasizes that a metaphysics of causation etc must be informed by science:
The traditional topics of the “philosophy of nature” ― space, time, causality, the structure of the universe ― are overwhelmingly present in our modern scientific theories. This book traces the complex paths that discussion of these topics has followed, from Plato and Aristotle, through Descartes, Leibniz, Kant and other great thinkers, right up to the relativistic cosmologies and the grand unified theories of contemporary science. In the light of this historical development, it becomes clear that modern science gives us not only a technological power over the world, but also a deeper understanding of physical reality.
I think that if we interpret the text in the light of a specific domain of knowledge, then we should be constrained by the whole domain in any conclusions we draw.
For example, if we talk about the geologic history involving ice ages or about the purported protective powers of a canopy to extend life by blocking radiation, then we are taking a scientific approach to interpreting the text. To be consistent with that, we must consider all of science. Allan points out some scientific issues with a canopy. Another issue would relate to the scientific viability of claims that humans could live longer that 120 years even if protected somehow: that is ruled out by what we science tells about aging.
On the other hand, if we look at the text itself, then my understanding is that the text itself talks about people living longer than 120 years after the flood. So a literal reading of the text itself also seems to contradict the theory that the flood event immediately and drastically reduced life span. (One text reading is that the 120 years refers to how long God gave humanity to mend its ways).
If you find the idea to be depressing, then don’t be an atheist. It’s as simple as that.
Gregory posts dehumanize. Post after post by Gregory dehumanizes.
Does that make Gregory an atheist — no. Does that imply that theism dehumanizes — no. It says something about Gregory.
The idea of being like Gregory, is what I find really depressing.
I find it utterly baffling why anyone would think, “since I would be depressed if I were an atheist, then all atheists must be depressed, regardless of all evidence to the contrary”. One finds many theists who explicitly endorse this line of thought, and it suggests to me a profound lack of empathy and genuine understanding.
I think it also makes sense to suppose that if a lot of depressed people decide to attempt a “religious cure”–that alone would make it more likely that atheists are a generally happier breed. Theists seem needier to me. Gregory’s invitations to the sad will not help this trend.
Erik,
Besides boning up on the relevant science, you might want to do some philology by asking yourself the following question:
Does it make sense to regard scripture as the word of God?
Welcome to reality Mr. Fake ‘skeptic’!
Gregory,
You’re very attached to your misery. Perhaps this reading from Osho can help you address that.
Erik,
Pretty much every creationist argument has been addressed for many years on the Talk.Origins Index of Creationist Claims. The vapor canopy, for example, is addressed here.
The biblical flood claims are also addressed. As soon as you clarify your specific claims, we can discuss the supporting and disconfirming evidence. To that end:
1) When did the flood you claim happened occur?
2) Was the flood global? That is, did it cover all the planet simultaneously as described in the Bible?
3) Immediately after the flood were there only eight people alive on the entire planet?
Please answer these questions directly and clearly.
This is like Larry Moran asking Paul Nelson how old he believes the earth is. Paul answers that when he is doing science, he uses the age of 4.5 billion years. and Larry says, why can’t you say what you believe the age is?
Yes, I think that moderators, excuse me admins, ought not send the posts of other people to Guano and then engage in the same behavior that they just condemned.
lol
And I love the company. The Miserable Zone.
Aw, man–this comes as a disappointment to me. I thought Erik was coming up with that crazy shit on his own. 🙁
ETA: Hey, I see that Bible literalist types aren’t too taken with the vapor canopy theory themselves:
http://godandscience.org/youngearth/canopy.html
Me, I just like saying (and typing) “vapor canopy theory.” Whatever it may have done for Noah and his kin and kaboodle, it really floats MY boat.
Mung,
That would make it TAMSZ – the atheist miserable skeptic zone. Does it appear Hungarian or is it just me?
Oh goodness, just got misery Oshoed by an atheist here! 😉
Mung:
Mung, Gregory, phoodoo — think how much better you’d feel if you were able to defend your religious beliefs against your atheist critics.
Want to give it a try? How about answering the question I posed to Erik, and giving your reasons?
Right, “depends” is often the answer. The issue here is that we are not supposed to envisage, but understand what’s meant.
Objections to the water canopy say that it could not have covered Everest, but what if the flood gave rise to Everest? Much depends on the presuppositions, everything really.
Uh-oh everything is suddenly appearing Hungarian to me here. I don’t know why–or even what the hell that means, but it just is anyhow.
It even smells a little like Grandma’s chicken paprikash in here…and if you listen carefully you can almost hear Bartok’s fourth quartet in the background.
I mean what with the skepticism and atheism and everything.
Erik:
How would that work? Do tell.
No, the Flood did not give rise to Everest. It never could possibly have done so. That’s not how floods work in our real world. Everest does not look anything like flood-carved rock. It was never sculpted out of a high plateau (and where would all the debris have vanished to, anyways).
There is no physical link whereby a “global” flood could cause 8000 meters of continental uplift, either. In human history, our real world has never been basically flat such that a few meters of water could overflow nearly everything. The Himalayan uplift has taken about 56 million years to rise so high — and was the same height (minus a few meters) for all of humanity’s existence. So there’s no point in you pretending that it’s possible “the flood gave rise to Everest” just to get out of problems with the interpretation of “covered the mountains” in the Noah fairytale.
For chrissakes, boyo, learn just the most elementary-school geology. A third grade textbook will set you straight. For that matter, just look around you at your own physical surroundings, and you’ll see plenty of sediments eroded and deposited by water. Then look up and notice the hills are still there, above any possible Flood height. Pay attention!
You should be embarrassed to be so ignorant.
You should be embarrassed to write that “everything” depends on presuppositions. NO. Everything doesn’t. Not if we share an intersubjective reality of our physical universe and “everything”. Only if you think there is no real world outside your own skull, then of course your folktales tell you everything you need to know.
Lord, the stupidity. It burns.
Erik,
So, what do you mean when you claim:
and follow that with:
Two of the distinguishing, essential features of the biblical flood story are that it covered the entire planet and that only the people and animals on the ark survived.
I’m trying to understand what you are claiming actually happened. I’m not at this time interested in analyzing the story. It is necessary to understand your claim before it makes sense to consider what evidence you can provide to support it. To be sure I understand your claim, I’ve asked three simple questions:
1) When did the flood you claim happened occur?
2) Was the flood global? That is, did it cover all the planet simultaneously as described in the Bible?
3) Immediately after the flood were there only eight people alive on the entire planet?
Please answer these questions directly and clearly.
Erik, I too would like to know what your natural explanation is for this supernatural event.