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Anthony · Joined: 30 Jun 2004 Posts: 1542

Sorry Kiahanie Very Happy

I was not being serious but couldn't resist the opportunity. Incidentally, my 'commitment to animals' is not primarily spiritual but equally inclusive of the secular.

jnsn · Joined: 13 Mar 2008 Posts: 51

Friend Kiahanie- I have been mulling it over for a few days and I think that I can take another run at it. My overall objection to The secular Humanists and so many other s who might be grouped under "non-religious" is that I notice are often using "Science" as the cudgel with which they knock the religious or spiritual over the head. Of course they are only trying to help, just to knock some sense into you, as it were.

I won't bore you, but I spent time on the path of science. Until one day I had a epiphany of sorts, while mounting samples on slides. It was that science can give you a lot of information about an object, it can tell you quite a bit about the nature of the object, but nothing about the ultimate nature of it. In fact science cannot cross that divide.

Maybe to illustrate consider a hammer. There is a lot of information you could learn about it, its weight, length, what element make up the steel etc. You could use computers to evaluate kinesthetics, possible tasks, etc to optimize the design. But you can not get an answer about your mortal existence and what you should use the hammer for. And to me this seems like the whole point. Because the answer you most need actually lays outside the realm of science. (hmm... I will let it stand but have no faith in myself being able to get this obtuse point across in such a small space)

There are also some structural problems with science, and our pursuit of it as "truth" in general . It is overall akin to looking at a Mandelbrot set with a computer. After hundreds of hours, and cutting edge computers we can see the nth iteration -"well what does it look like" "er...well, pretty much like the picture we started with" (this is not to disparage Mandelbrot sets, or the mathematicians who work with them)

well I will rethink it and try again later-John

CelticNorth · Joined: 22 Sep 2005 Posts: 755 Location: East of Eden

Clarmont College in Southern California has instituted a new area of study, and have dedicated a special department to the study of Secularism to compliment its school of theology. Claremont may be the first College to ever offer a Secular Religious Studies Program. I cannot help but sense that Secular Humanism has made huge contributions to our understanding of religious tolerance, and that it rightfully desreves a place in academic study. Chistian Seminary Schools have held sway far to long in the ivory towers of academia.

Jim Wilson · Joined: 13 Sep 2009 Posts: 99 Location: Northern California

Friend jnsn:

I enjoyed reading your post regarding science and its limitations. It resonates with my own experience. In spite of some brave attempts, such as the new book by Sam Harris, science is not able to guide us as to how to live.

I think a good case can be made, and has been made by some, that science and technology have in addition to the benefits bestowed, also created many difficulties in human life. It is completely secular cultures that have generated the greatest tyrannies and it is science which has generated the possibility of the self-destruction of humanity. Science, indeed, has its limitations.

Thanks again,

Jim
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james · Joined: 11 Jun 2004 Posts: 1108 Location: Minneapolis

While I completely agree that science cannot guide us as to how to live, this does not at all imply that religion, per se, is the one and only answer.

I've long felt and often expressed my sense that we should be careful not to confuse truth with goodness. Truth is that which is the case, whether it's good or not. Goodness is that which is righteous, generous, moral, whether it's true or not. Children sometimes die of cancer; that is true but not good. The biblical image of the lion and the lamb lying together may be good but it certainly is not a true image of the world we live in.

However flawed and limited, science is our best tool for determining the truth. However flawed and limited, the human heart is our best tool for determining the good. Religions are human institutions for discerning and channeling the human heart's impulse toward what is good. There are secular institutions that discern the impulses of the heart as well. But--and this was a primary insight of the first Quakers--it is the human heart itself, not the institutions humans have built, that is the primary source.
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James Riemermann
www.nontheistfriends.org
www.liberalquakers.org

Anthony · Joined: 30 Jun 2004 Posts: 1542

Friends,
I am a little surprised that there seems to be some who claim they know what is truth. Is something 'true' because it happens before our eyes - that we witness a physical action, therefore, it is true. Well, yes, but are we discussing physical phenomena as truth? Is truth the same as Truth? Can we say that something represents truth because we have witnessed it with our five senses when our senses are delusional. Is there a non-physical truth that underpins all phenomena? Do some say' "No!" Really, I wonder how they know? Is matter real or solid? Not according to modern physics. No one knows 'truth' and the most honest thing to do is admit it, and to admit that the other person can't be wrong about truth because we don't know what is truth? Truth may simply be that we don't know what is truth so we should not tell others they are wrong about their truth.

james · Joined: 11 Jun 2004 Posts: 1108 Location: Minneapolis

Anthony, while I might have some sense of what you're getting at, I'm not really following you too well.

If your point is that a lot of what we think is true might be mistaken, I completely agree. It is important to stay humble, in all things, but *especially* in things that are based on little but tradition or personal hunches without much in the way of evidence.

That humility doesn't mean that all assertions are equally likely. I try to gauge the odds based on what I can see. When you tell me of your inner experience, I'm inclined to trust your account. On the other hand, when you make assertions about the nature of reality itself based on that experience, I'm inclined to see that as interpretation rather than experience itself. And I'm more likely to remain skeptical, especially if I don't see much in the way of evidence. And, yes, I mean physical evidence, evidence that can be demonstrated in some way.

I don't distinguish between upper-case and lower-case truth, mainly because no one who does has every been able to explain to me what they mean in clear language.
_________________
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www.nontheistfriends.org
www.liberalquakers.org

Anthony · Joined: 30 Jun 2004 Posts: 1542

james · Joined: 11 Jun 2004 Posts: 1108 Location: Minneapolis

Kiahanie · Joined: 25 Mar 2008 Posts: 464 Location: Oregon

Jim Wilson · Joined: 13 Sep 2009 Posts: 99 Location: Northern California

Friend James:

This may not be the place to get into an arena that is fairly complex, but I want to add that the distinction you make between that which is good and that which is true is a distinction that many have struggled with and not everyone accepts. I think the best analysis of this that I've come across would be Plotinus who argued for the ultimate unity of the Good, the Beautiful and the True in the transcendental One. His work is not easy to read. Again, I'm simply offering that this separation is not an obvious one or one that is broadly understood in the way you outlined. Not that your distinction is not true, or good (meaning well-made Very Happy

), only that it is not clear if the separation you have outlined is a necessary one; that is to say inherent in the nature of the good and the true.

I have a different approach to religion. I think of religion as arising from the human confrontation with eternity and the following human attempts to grapple with that immensity. That is one reason why I consider many philosophies to be religions; e.g. Platonism, Confucianism. Because their origin is in this eternal dimension of existence.

Best wishes,

Jim
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www.shapingwords.blogspot.com

CelticNorth · Joined: 22 Sep 2005 Posts: 755 Location: East of Eden

From the reading of the previous posts, I am seeing Secularism as having two main components. The first implies that religious considerations should be excluded from civil government and public education. The second defines secularism as a system of philosophy that rejects religious nessesity, interpetation and supernatural beliefs. Secularism seems to be the classic double edged sword in the ongoing cultural debate about where to place individual concepts of devinity and pupose in relation to the world of public policy and government sanction. I am guessing that most of here adhere to variations of the first definition, one that argues against a government sanctioned religious belief that exculdes all others. I think there are arguments going on here as to whether spiritual and mystic experiences in and of themselves are religously nessesary, or that they require the interpetation of others to be validated as "real". Perhaps at the end of the day we can only say the the religous experience itself is real, but choose to leave it open to individual interpetation for definition and purpose.