‘You can have “data” and you can have “information” but you “use” knowledge’, is precisely correct spindoc.

Most of us know our finitude – our transient time here, about the danger of living and about the tragic character of existence. The fear and anxiety we experience are the heritage of all people.

Augustine knew a hidden element of despair is in ‘every man's soul’, as did the great Danish Protestant, Kierkegaard. Whilst we know we are to end up as just a collection of dust particles, we often feel we are more than this. We know that we belong to a higher order than that of our animal needs and desires; and yet we know that we shall abuse the higher order, and as we are now painfully more than likely to see, the abuse to occur in the service of our lower nature. Our knowledge tells us that we are only small members of the spiritual world, yet we also know that we shall aspire to the whole, making ourselves the center of the world.

Our religions, as an answer, demand ritual activity, the participation in religious enterprises, and the study of religious traditions, prayer, sacraments and meditations. They demand moral obedience, inhuman self-control and asceticism, devotion to man and things beyond our possibilities, surrender to ideas and duties beyond our power, unlimited self-negation, and unlimited self-perfection: the religious law demands the perfect in all respects.

As a result we see, in all Christian Churches, the toiling and laboring of people who are called Christians, serious Christians, under innumerable laws which they cannot fulfill, from which they flee, to which they return, or which they replace by other laws. But, and I’ll be game enough here in quoting Tillich in the ‘knowledge’ he reveals, “We call Jesus the Christ not because He brought a new religion, but because He is the end of religion, above religion and irreligion, above Christianity and non-Christianity.”

george:

>> A theist (Christian) who needs to argue that the atheist is immoral, irrational, illogical, inconsistent, ridiculous ...
>> has obviously a personal problem that only indirectly is related to where theism and atheism differ.
>> Does this not hold also the other way around?

a) no. and actually, i don't know that i accept the first way round either.
well, maybe yes, if they "need" to argue. but i don't need to: i'm just procrastinating!

b) if you're referring to me and you, i don't think you're any of those things. i may (and do) consider some of your arguments irrational or ridiculous, but that is very different.

>> One thing is to engage in world-view discussions in order to broaden one’s own perspective ...
>> another thing is to attack the opponent’s world-view with sweeping accusations ...
>> Conversions from theist to atheist, or vice-versa, seldom follow from that.

well, i doubt anybody thinks anybody is likely to be converted here, whatever the tone. but apart from that, i think you're being a little precious.

it's all fine to talk about world-view, but at some point it's fair to go back to the wendy's ad, and to ask: where's the beef?

you're a mathematician. you know the power of mathematics is in precise reasoning from precise definitions. so, for example, mathematicians ended millenia of waffle about infinity. they mastered the concept, to great effect. calculus is the beef.

yes, god is harder than maths. but still, you ought to be able to point to a little bit of beef. it is not unfair or impolite to point out that, with all the grand general talk, neither you nor sellick nor reida, nor anyone here, will point to any religious beef.

spindoc's question remains.

quote the spindocter<<..Can we please have an example of religious knowledge..>>>so i gave him one[quoting the sourcethen he comes back..

delusionally..<<The question remains unanswered>>>because he refuses to accept the reply....why?

hear his own words..<<...Your response..>>ha...<<has again drifted down into theological and biblical content>>>so what you idiot...you got one egsample....if i quoted science...you would have said thats not biblical...no ssshit...you asked theology...and got theology knowing.

i have also presented science...lol and you debate the word experts...who write dictioary definitions...be at least honest you wil ignore any biblical..thus your refusing any reply,..that replies your set up question...YOUR SIMPLY UNABLE TO EGSAMINE THE TRUTH WITHOUT BIAS

see..pal...how our laws are based on the bible..govt we even got the ursurors...every plolitition is likely to have included the holy texts in their preperation to govern...lest we forget the lords parayer read before parliment sits

your clever in chosing to limit the replies your prepared bias can pounce upon...fact is if yopu dont know the texts...you dont have that knowledge....science

<<all the vast quantities of religious “information” you have, cannot produce a single example of useable “religious knowledge”>>>

without you unthinkingly stating correctly...im quotoing the holy texts...get it ya dumb retard?

<<is it not time..that you recognized..the fact that the reason for this...is that it cannot>>..it acturatly transmits the thought from dead people...into our knowledge base...god alone knows what you expect

see your saying science is in...im saying the science isnt proof...you say give me religious proof...because you got no science

its pathetriclly obvious...even to the drone of retards jumping in with reply the question...when we should be hearing your proof

so saying reply mine...this should be easy..if you really got a science..one give me a genus evoplution tree...2 give me the name of that first living thing that evolved...3 validate a SINGLE EGSAMPLE OF GENUS EVOLVING INTO OTHER GENUS...

ANSWER THE QUESTION..using science..IM NOT AS INSANE AS YOU..TO ASK YOU TO PROVE IT..WITHOUT SCIENCE...LOLL..YA DOLT

relda, no, all you have done is replace the word “knowledge” with “spirituality”.

OUG. Whilst you last post failed to offer an example of religious knowledge there were some interesting perspectives I’d like to address.

There are six domains into which all things human (cognitive) exist. These are Social, Political, Economic, Religious, Ecological and Scientific. These exist as a product of human endeavor, without human consciousness they could not exist.

Since each domain is a “product” of human intelligence, imagination, creativity etc., they are also subject to interpretation by that same intelligence. Our personalities, attitudes, values and beliefs are defense mechanisms we have developed to help us cope.

The two ends of that defense spectrum are “reality” at one end and “non-reality” at the other, each of us sits somewhere along that spectrum. For those at the reality end, there is a “need” for all things to be tangible in order to feel secure. For those at the non-reality end, the security “need” can be met by intangibles. The two ends of the human spectrum stare at each other in wonderment.

In the real world, questions are very complex but the answers, when we get there, are very simple. In the non-real world, the questions are very simple but the answers are very complex. So complex in fact and so full of contradictions that an act of faith is needed to provide that human security.

Each scientific or medical achievement presents complex and almost insurmountable technicality however, once the answer is discovered we can very simply reproduce it. That is because it has now become “knowledge”.

Theology is precisely the opposite; a very simple question requires ever more complex explanations. As human knowledge grows theology has to respond with ever more convoluted explanations. Institutionalized religion has capitalized on this and made it into a global business. It has already permeated domains such as politics and science in its quest for more power and affluence. It is Theology that powers these. When will the Vatican follow the tenet, “give away your worldly goods and serve the needy”?

Spindoc, Relda, George et al.

When arguments about “knowledge” are based on words like “data” and “information”, the proponents are using linguistic and mathematical intelligence. This is only one type of intelligence – i.e. one way of “knowing”. As many are probably aware, Gardner has delineated at least eight types of human intelligence, and I suggest that each of these is equally able to lead to knowledge. Since we are each more highly endowed with one or some of these intelligences than with others, the problem becomes how to communicate our knowledge with other people who tend to rely on different intelligences than our own.

I have on occasions come to deepen my knowledge of the human condition (and thus come closer to God) through listening to music and through responding with my own music-making. A piece of poetry at times has been just as effective. While I dwell within the broad Christian tradition, the Sufi tradition within Islam uses music and dance and poetry in a similar way. Yet it would be difficult for any of us relying on musical, kinaesthetic and linguistic intelligences to communicate the resultant “knowledge” to one of my friends who found greater knowledge through experiences in athletics and mountaineering.

I think we have the same problem in these threads attached to Peter’s articles.

In the same vein I suggest that Spindoc’s spectrum with “reality” at one end and “non-reality” at the other is quite flawed. Reality is perceptible, not only by the use of the senses (making it “tangible” in Spindoc’s terms) but also by acts of intuition. Carl Jung’s schema of cognition is very helpful here, including sensation and intuition as opposite but equally valid modes of perception.

“Intuition” in this context needs to be understood not merely as “having a hunch”, but as a way of grasping objects as symbols rather than facts. I think this is another problem in discussions flowing from Peter’s articles: the sensate types demand “data” while the intuitives demand symbols. Each of us tends congenitally towards one of these polarities, so let’s be kind to one another!

Spindoc,
while I’m on your side, the cognitive view of phenomena is relatively new; since Descartes, though the Reformation gave Descartes impetus (if we are to be slaves to the so-called history of philosophy). The Cartesian view derives its empirical authority from the self, the “I am”, a paradigmatic shift. Thus it was possible, under Plato, and ergo Christianity, for “all things human” to relate directly to God (s), and archetypal forms.
You also talk of abstractions such as “our personalities, attitudes” etc., that “we have developed to help us cope”; but what is “we” and “us”, the “I am” again, but abstractions?
Then you talk about “reality” and “non-reality”: “each of us sits somewhere along that spectrum. For those at the reality end, there is a “need” for all things to be tangible in order to feel secure. For those at the non-reality end, the security “need” can be met by intangibles. The two ends of the human spectrum stare at each other in wonderment”.
This is beautifully put, but both “realities” are surely mere perspective; one relying on the senses, or Kant’s grandiose unity of apperception, and the other on an unfashionable (in the context of our putatively secular world) premise based on faith. While I’m heartily impatient with religious complacency, and especially the brain-dead fundamentalists (a bit of rigour would do them good!), I’m increasingly impatient with a scientific hegemony that is just as guilty of asserting a dubious foundationalism—a material dialectic that, via its stunning successes, no longer interrogates its “reality” sceptically.
What is this “real world” you talk of?
You’re talking “realism”, the toy of our technocratic age.
Certainly, we can reproduce, that is commodify, our “qualified” successes, but we never arrive at “truths” or “answers”; all “knowledge” is pragmatic, contemporary and relative; indeed immediately obsolete—and we revise accordingly, ad infinitum.
Which is not to defend organised religion, which is no different to any other corporate enterprise; they exist to replicate and grow in power and wealth.
When will the secular masters give up their excesses, like the space programme, and serve the needy?