Can someone help me understand why religious people build a foundation of reality based on revealed truth? Throughout the course of a day people come in contact with revealed or empirical claims, and they either accept or reject them. Examples: 1. You tell me you watched TV yesterday. This to me is a revealed true that I cant validate empirically and can either accept or reject the claim. Lets say I accept it. Will it have impact on my life? No, not really. 2. I want to cross the freeway so I check for cars. In this example I am validating that there are no cars and accept it by walking across. Accepting the claim will have a greater impact on my life, I need more empirical data, and thats why I check for cars. The point is, the more impact a claim has on your life, the more empirical based it must be. Why is it that the most relevant claim, foundation for reality for religious people, doesnt need any of this validation? How does that make chance? Is hope and comfort really more important than our empirical based knowable truth?
Interesting way to pose this! I think our experiential reality is very much beyond empirical proof in all things--you can't empirically show understanding--you can demonstrate evidence in indirect ways, but you can't materially show it. It's just a reality that reality is in many ways NOT empirical and we accept it all the time--you can't HELP but accept it. A question that comes up, then, is: how honest are you about what you REALLY know empirically? We accept non empirical information all the time--often to explain what we do experience empirically.
How else are you connected to this reality? Our senses connect our brains with the physical world. Why assume that there is anything beyond that? Is it just because you can think about it? We do accept non empirical information, but weather that has any validity, should be tied back to something empirical. I'm referring to the first claim, the foundation that you use to test information. It's like the scientific process. If we dont need the initial claim/foundation to have some type of empirical validity, I could make all kinds of claims off of that first invalidated claim. Religious people do this, their first claim is revealed and then they build cases and arguments based off of the original invalidated claim. Shouldnt something with such impact on my life have an empirical foundation? And if it doesnt, why assume?
Because none other is cognizable by the human mind, obviously. No such truth is verifiable absent revelation, since we can only believe our senses if we are in our right minds, which itself is only verifiable by the Creator.
This is what I mean. You made a case or claim based on the initial claim that hasn't been validated. Second claim: Our senses can only by verified by the creator. First claim (implied): There is a creator. How is that logically sound? The first claim doesn't have any empirical value. ANYTHING that is used as a foundation for reason MUST have some type of empirical truth to it; otherwise its just a thought. We just don't know one way or the other, so why assume? Larry the 7 eyed creature lives on a moon in the Andromeda galaxy, he told me he created our solar system. And...? So what? I can build a beautiful model/tradition with rules and laws around this, and those laws can be verified and traced using the initial claim. Can you prove or disprove the original claim?
Assuming you refer to the claim of the existence of a Creator, it has - just not by anyone whose authority you accept. Since the underlined claim doesn't have any value at all, I'm not gonna lose any sleep. To be semantically correct, there is no "thing" which can be used for that purpose. Actually it has nothing to do with thought, at least from a human perspective. What you mean, "we", Kemosabe? Why indeed? Hardly necessary, since I know it's nonsense.
Since we are actually trapped onside our own skull, privy only to the data coming into our brains through the 24 elders of the cranial nerves, everything we believe about everything else IS empirical except that which is not this thinking we find ourselves doing. Empirical simply means "based on, concerned with, or verifiable by observation rather than theory or pure logic. This is a very importantb matter. The Age of reason was divided between those who agrued for Empirical Science as a finder of Facts, and the Rationality some said was the means by which we can understand the world within which we are both trapped and nurtured. That is to say, during the Age of Enlightenment, many people agrued that Common Sense was what made the world understandable, because we could reason out the cause and effect of all things based upon it. Empirical Science however dissolved that erroneous idea when things that defied Common Sense could be shown to be true. Whereas we can not always show a labortory controlled experiment that others can peer review, we can say that seeing is believing when other senses also coberate observations. The infant can not prove his toes are a part of him, but he does become certain he has the control over rhem to wiggle them. He learns to believe from such empirical evidence that he has a body. He becomes convinced that other people like himself exist, externally to the garden of pleasure he had been enjoying in the solitude he experienced prior to birth. The truth is that everything we can be sure of has sensory data and experiences to support it. But only the rationalizations we believe to make sense to us are open to deabte and private interpretations without hard evidence.
Good point. Religious people are really telling us what their own private Book Report says about the Bible. Religious views ARE philosophical. Philosophy is the sum of what a person has concluded about life and the life experience related to his own behavior and the justification for such a way of behaving. But religious Bible interpretations are like Book Reports,. They differ denominational because the philosophical perspective of the "student" reporting on the Bible is one of the dozen or so philosophically based perspectives that particular "student-of-the-Bible" has used, in order to make what he read conform with the philosophy he began with. This then means that the dozen or so philosophical points of view possible to man have become hard-headed religiously back and fanatically supported world views stamped with the assumed approval of a God believed to have confirmed each person's faith in the particular one of those 12 philosophical outlooks . The Stoic, for instance, will not only report on what he insists the Bible is telling men to accept as god-recommended Stoicism. But, he will say the more agnostic Epicurean is wrong to believe a little more liberal pleasure in life is acceptable behavior according to the epicurean god-view, which pleasure the epicurean bases upon the fact that the epicurean has found the Bible to say a little wine is good for the soul. It is no coincidence that Christianity has basically boiled down to the twelve major mainstream denominational Christian Churches enumerated in the World Almanac,m plus a large number sects, cults, and idiosyncratic minor divisions like the Moonies, for instance.
That sounds crazy in cases where controlled experiments are set up and everyone who participates can observe the exact same consequences take place. The one person who might say, "we can NOT believe our senses", as you infer, is the crazy. Empirical Science establishes Facts by setting up controlled experiments which demonstrate that everyone senses and observes the same effects. Then, based upon the accumulation of many facts, assumption are made concerning expectations of other predictable consequences. Those ideas are tested, then, by other controled experiments to validate that the consequences do, in fact, follow. It would be crazy to at some point say, "I would be crazy to accept what my senses tell me is true."
Who's the authority, and under what evidence do you accept their claim? Is it because it sounds good, or because others around you also agree and you need to assimilate? What if I wrote text about it, and it was found 1000 years from now? How would you determine that Larry didn't reveal the truth to me? Why is one account nonsense, but not the other?
Religion iniially was based upon the belief that one Reality did not exist for everyone, and that spirit worlds existed which some people were able to enter while others could not. Empirical Science has since the 17th century dispelled this notion by establishing the Facts of a singular Reality within which all life co-exists. The use of The Scientific Method has established the rule that for every Effect some Cause exists, given the axiom that the First Cause i.e.; pertaining to the Big Bang, can not be verified and must be accepted axiomatically. This has eliminated the beliefs in Magic and the spiritualism of early religions and primative societies.
No. Religion was based on no beliefs. It was based on ignorance. The void of knowledge was filled by assumptions which led to faulty claims which led to beliefs which led to systematic structure of a number or practices based on those beliefs.. Something that you are pretty familiar with. Really? What peer reviewed source? The subject matter aint relevant to empirical evidence. You are talking philosophy, not science. Again, what law, peer reviewed source, ect? There aint no axiom of a first cause. And please explain how you are trying to use the word "axiomatically?" If the scientific method has established that something cannot be verified, the default aint to just accept it. Modern Christianity believes that the Eucharist actually becomes blood, that they can speak in tongues, injest poison and not be harmed. Modern Christians believe in spiritual guides, communication with the dead, demonic possession, and that they have the magical ability to cast demons out of people and places. They believe that statues cry, they believe the Garden of Eden is a real place and that the events that are told literally happened. They believe a man literally walked on water. They believe in the rapture. They believe in the Angel Moroni, the virgin Mary, They believe in the resurrection, they believe that the path is narrow and few will find, but that of the 7 billion people now living and all the people who had previously lived, that they are among the chosen144,000 who know "the Truth." They believe in hell and a devil. And you think that the scientific method has eliminated magical thinking?
Point...? Isn't it enough to realize that you are not alone,... like you must have thought just before your birth? Isn't it enough to realize, (that because you are thinking and hence exist),... there is something ELSE which is stimulating your awareness of its presence? And, isn't it enough that whatever this "other" entity is it both nurtures you and traps you within a Pain/Pleasure prison which you can not ignore nor escape? Isn't it enough that it us you who must behave according to this entity which has an almighty power over you in everyway unless you bow down and adapt to it. Isn't it almighty, relative to you? Isn't it the God you must fear? Isn't it?
Let's try with something you said above: 2. I want to cross the freeway so I check for cars. In this example I am validating that there are no cars and accept it by walking across. Accepting the claim will have a greater impact on my life, I need more empirical data, and that’s why I check for cars. Second claim: By checking your senses, you are validating reality. First claim (implied): your senses are accurate. You cannot prove this first claim. There is no way. Can't work. No way to do it. Remember "I think, therefore I am"? The point of Descartes's famous phrase was to point out that you can't get any further than that. You know you exist because you can think, and if you didn't exist, you couldn't think. But... That's it. That's all you can get out of it without some sort of axiomal basis. ...Philosophy sucks. That said, one can still compare these axiomal bases to a certain extent.
I was referring to validation, or a way to build theories. I don't see how ideas alone can accomplish that.
There has to be a starting point, otherwise you cant determine anything. What i'm saying is that a natural starting point would be our senses since that connects us to reality, or the physical world. That's the point of this topic, validation through empirical data, THEN from that you can build claims.
But that's an assumption that may or may not be unreasonable. I agree with you on principle, that we need to be able to rely on our senses for any progress to be made, but the fact is, even that is an assumption. ...I (*)(*)(*)(*)ing hate philosophy. Seriously.
Its ALL about ideas. The first idea is that you empirically prove to yourself that there is a "you." You DO exist. Because, you are sort of talking to yourself with what is essentially ideas. Ideas occur to you which you ponder and think about, You exist, de facto. Then, ideas form inside your mind about the meanings of stimulations your are experiencing. Pain, pleasure, etc. You have the idea that these originate from seven sensory sources, which are themselves located in sense organs which you imagine to exist with ideas about yourself. You have ideas about your physical connection to a body that you control and one which is subjected to this external stimulating presence. That presence is Reality which you hear saying, "Iam. I, too, am here and exist. You are not alone in the womb anymore."
It is not called an assumption but empirical theories. We use one sensory organ to confirm assumptions called hypothesis about what another sensory organ claim is true about a certain sensation. We see a bird, hear it sing, and notice it flies. It looks like a duck, it flies like a duck, it quacks like a duck, so our theory is confirmed that these are ducks. The rest of the real world is discovered by these methods, and deduced even before, in some cases, by using theories about the real world we have already developed.
I like examples. For it's the best way to talk to a real person' beliefs. But we should remember howerver that no example 100% suits the situation we want to compare with it. If your neighbour saw over TV that your head is wanted by a US state for 1 000 000 dollars, then the fact that your neighbour watched television yesterday will change your life completely. This means that you should accept your constant lack of knowledge about the outside world. So You need to accept the world as revelation. You could never be at the Piramides. But as long as it was revealed to you - you know of it. Will that ever affect your life? Probably not. But this knowledge is appropriated as well-known. You would never see a cape of good hope. But you know of it from other people and without any empirical proof you believe into the most well-known FACTS of the world. This doesn't have any problems with the atheists until the subject of knowledge is not God. This example is only telling that revelation is snough for getting the same result and if such a revelation is the only way for your limited abilities (e.g. you are blind and deaf - it is the only way for you to cross the street. If you try to stop the highway and before the crossing to feel with your hands every car within a 100 meters it is just impossible. And there is risk, which is however proven to be right. If you CAN check a revealed knowledge yourself there is no need to believe assumptions, revelations and risk. (God's will in other words). Let's imagine that You are offered a higher position at a different city. However there is a risk that you will not pass a three-months trial period and lose your present job and all the savings. Is it worth of it? I think it is impossible to decide. There is just not enough information. So you will need to cross this road assuming a risk of possible losses. Or remain on your side of the road and make yourself comfortable which is also a choice and a risky choice.
Well, do you believe in a 'self', for instance? The evidence (try meditation) is extremely dubious: it is a matter of faith amongst brainwashed people, doubtless. I don't know what 'revealed truth' might be, but we have to act some way towards other people, and the way suggested by 'conservatives', religious or otherwise, is so extremely pointless and nasty that most people need somewhere to stand to live an a way that allows them to sleep at night, and some other 'religion' is, I suppose, one key way.
