Priscillian

If I understand Sells correctly he shares your distrust of belief in the supernatural. I believe he is arguing (and it seems cogently to me) for a radical freedom from the strictures of an excessively 'scientific' worldview.

Without doubt science is a very powerful intellectual tool but we all, theist and atheist alike, recognise its limitations, which was the point of my question.

The truth is we all depend on knowledge that cannot be drawn from science or proved by science. Personally, I find the prospect of a world of purely physical/material causation/motivation impossible to reconcile with the reality of life set out before me on a daily basis.

As beautiful as the material world can be (and it is not all beautiful) hominids (as someone in this thread is want to call us) have always reacted to a dimension of life that can be called spiritual (without necessarily meaning supernatural). For me it is as natural as breathing to explore the possibilties, puzzles and paradoxes of this 'spirited' life that I am living. I might even, at times, resort to the naive language of 'theistic belief' as part of that exploration.

While I dont conform intellectually to the Nicene formulation, and find the arguments that moulded it arcane, nonetheless the construction of that paradox has proved theologically and intellectually productive (for both good and evil) and is a landmark in the development of modern thinking.

You would do well to discard your anti-religious presuppositions and read Sells more carefully. You assume too much and as a consequence make serious interpretive mistakes in reading Sells article

Waterboy,

By all means you and Peter can "free" yourselves from the "strictures" of of an "excessive scientific world view". I have absolutely no problem with that at all. I agree science has limitations. There way well be knowledge that cannot be drawn from science (yet) and you may indeed living a separate "reality" from me. We may indeed have a "spirit" of some form (although I think the "spirit" in the Bible refers to a collective "spirit" or "esprit de corps" as in "The fellowship of the holy spirit". The "spirit" residing inside an individual is a relatively modern, pagan concept).

The point is that you are unable to convince me of any of this or even demonstrate even the basic tenets of Christianity other than quote the opinion of another human being.

e.g
Son of God
Die for our sins
Resurrection
God on earth in form of a human
Superior code of Christian morals
Inferiority of other beliefs
etc. etc. etc.

I admit I had drifted off topic concerning Peters article much of which I have thankfully forgotten. I mentioned my thoughts on the Trinity earlier in this forum. In short the Trinity is theology formed by a committee and ratified by Constantine in an effort to placate warring parties disagreeing about the nature of God. In any case I have no problem at all with you or Peter or anybody else holding to any view of the Trinity.

What I basically have a beef about is that I am paying for your superstitions with my hard earned taxes and suffer under the law because of the nonsense the religious hold to.

If parasitic religions earned their keep, were self sufficient, non political, paid their taxes and kept the hell out of our secular public school system and the law I say, "live and let live".

P

I totally agree with you that religions should not be exempt from taxes or from compliance with the law in any special way. To the extent that they do charitable work they should be treated like any other charitable organisation. If they 'behave' like a business then they should be treated like any other business, if a 'club' then be treated like any other club. Increasingly this is the case.

As for 'interfering' in any aspect of society Churches have the right to hold opinions and express them. Churches are now and always have been 'political' in some sense. That is inevitable. I do, however, think it wise to maintain the separation of Church and State. History tells us that Churches can no more be trusted with power than can secular governments.... checks and balances are needed.

I dont condone governments of any type silencing criticism by legislation or force. To paraphrase John Howard "I disagree with much that the Church has to say but I will defend with my life their right to say it."

BTW I have no particular desire to 'convince' you of anything. To the extent that you have intelligent argument to offer I enjoy debating with you and believe I am open to hear different views even if I dont necessarily adopt them.

Waterboy,
I agree with all of this.
In my reference to "political" I was not referring to the day to day input from religious groups which I agree is valid and part of healthy democracy. I am referring to influence on government that has resulted in things like the so called "Chaplains in (secular state) Schools" program and in Victoria the ridiculous Religious "Vilification" laws aimed primarily at protecting the sensitivity of Muslims. At the UN we have the real prospect of a resolution against even criticizing religion, particularly Islam.

I must say, however, that Christianity stands like a beacon of tolerance today as a religion that can handle and address criticism without resorting to burning and head chopping. If only Islam could see the advantage of this.

That’s a big question, Waterboy!

The way you’ve worded your question by adding “about life” to the end of what I simply would have worded, “Do you believe that science is able to reveal all that there is to know?”, says a lot about where you’re coming from, I think.

Since I don’t know everything there is to know, my answer to your question is, “I don’t know”, and I don’t think anyone can presume to know that there are things that science will never have a way of explaining or addressing.

But I don’t think writing science off so quickly is an honest way of searching for the truth considering it has so far proven itself to be the only reliable method of investigating reality that we have, and I suspect that anyone who does this is just looking to plonk their god into the real world in a similar fashion to how many Christians use the weirdness of quantum physics as a way of shoe-horning their god into science.

It’s often said that science answers with the ‘how’ and religion answers with the ‘why’. But religion doesn’t answer anything; it simply asserts it. Religion isn’t concerned with the truth; it never has been. All religion does is invent a problem, then dangle the cure in front of your face; when in fact, it was the problem all along.

<<Personally, I find the prospect of a world of purely physical/material causation/motivation impossible to reconcile with the reality of life set out before me on a daily basis.>>

I’m interested as to why this is, and how you would distinguish between something that cannot be reduced to the “purely physical/material” and something that doesn’t exist.

Occasionally, I’ll have feelings and experiences that seem deep and almost ‘on another level’, and when I have such experiences, I’m faced with two possibilities:

-I had an experience that was influenced by something that transcends that which is reducible to the physical, or;
-My right-brain got a bit overactive (or something chemical, etc.) and effected how I felt mentally and physically.

Continued...

...Continued

Being a person who cares about the truth of my beliefs, I go with the latter explanation and probably always will because, as with anything that we can know - to any useful extent - manifests in reality, it’s measurable, demonstrable and verifiable.

As I said to George, applied reasoning based on logical absolutes is the only reliable method we have of arriving at the truth given what we currently know.

We can explore other things like religions and philosophies of different cultures; and that can be an enriching and enlightening experience. But if we really care about our beliefs being as close to the truth as possible, then there is only one method we know we can rely on.

P.S. I could be offline for several days, so I may take a while to respond to any further posts.

Priscillian,

Thanks for the link to the Dan Dennett lecture. Fascinating study!