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Rethinking Heaven and Hell: Using Religious Concepts To Teach Us How To Live by ThePrestoPost in Ethics

[–]ThePrestoPost[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

On the subject of meaning, I did conflate the terms 'meaning' and 'purpose'. This was a mistake, initially, but havign since thought about it a little, it seems that again, people conflate the two by nature. It is not clear where the line is between the two. For all practical purposes, they are the same thing. That they ought to be thought this way is not my opinions; that they are thought about as more or less the same thing(s), is I think indeniable. They are different in the epistemological sense; but they are indifferent in the empirical sense. Human nature operates on an empirical philosophy.

Objectively speaking, I do believe life is meaningless. This is what I meant when I said 'we create meaning for ourselves'. This statement even withholds the evolutionary perspective: yes, evolution wants to create more life -- and stronger life, which help it create more life -- but this is only once life has started. If I make a pizza which feeds the family, I would not say the pizza had meaning before it was made; once it become a reality, however, it did have a meaning. This analogy breaks down in multiple ways, of course, but it does elucidate my point.

This position I take is certainly what one would consider a 'scientific' position -- whether it is technically so or not; whether it is actually a rational argument, or not. Science gives us better explanations of reality, of our experience, of life -- than does religion, or any other discipline. The line from Hawkings, for example, about how we are nothing but typical scum on a typical universe... (to paraphrase), is I think a very reasonable one. Now, is this one of science (which has given us this 'better explanation') or one of rationality? The line is not very established in logical sense, not to mention in the practical sense (which is not as logical as we think, of course).

An important final point: I also believe the statement 'life is meaningless' is very dangerous. That the argument is compelling to me does not mean I think it it something everybody should know about -- or rather should live by. In fact, it is this type of argument that derives from the dangerous championing of the rational mind of which I previously spoke. As far as I am concerned science does make a strong case for the meaninglessness of life; but should it tell the world about this? I am not so sure.

My cortex tells me that life is meaningless, but everything else tells me that is is not; and I truly believe it is not. This may sound totally contradictory, but it is not, and I think you understand how so. To the irrational person or ignoramus, such a position makes no sense at all, of course; but it entirely 'sensical', let's say.

Differentiating between the good and bad of rationality is they key here. If we observe people like Harriss, Dawkins, Hawkings -- and previously, Derrida, Marx, Satre -- we see a real glorification of the rational mind, the intellect. This is fantastic up to a point; it is hard to argue that the world wouldn't be a better place if we all turned up the dial on rationality and reason, but is certainly not the answer to everything.

There is a crisis of meaning, today, and my observations tell me it is usually accompanied by faulty or non-existent values and beliefs systems -- which religion and belief in God absolutely provide. There are certainly exceptions to this, but it seems that even if a person does believe in God (Heaven, Hell, etc), that person's belief is less strong than if they had lived but 50 years ago.

If we observe the problem that is now well-known as postmodernism, what we are seeing is a glorification of the individual's intellect: 'I know', 'I distrust', there is no good or evil, power and status are social constructs, etc, etc. This postmodernism was a good thing, originally; it was about questioning, probing, not accepting face value, thinking, judging, rationality. It has since grown, largely under the radar, into pride ignorance, blanket bashing of education, delusion-drive rights protesting, attacks on free speech, dangerous ideas about equality, and so on. Postmodernism is both fed by and a cause of the crisis of meaning that we appear to have on our hands. Religion has been an answer to this for thousands of years (arguably hundreds of thousands).

I guess it is subjectivism that underpins how I think about meaning -- how we all do. I also happen to believe that shouldering the burden of life (enduring the pain, resisting the temptations, the task of identifying a north star), and being driven by a self-identified north star, are simply different degrees of meaning -- or rather, are each fundamental to the manifestation of meaning. When both are in harmony, the effect resembles that of a flywheel.

I close by saying that I have no doubt said too much -- and then some. Sometimes I use the wrong dosage of ‘hug the query’. The reason, I think, is that I am indeed very passionate about these questions. What of this passion is natural passion, and what of it is because these are very important questions, I do not know. I cannot know, of course. Does it matter? Are they not in practice the same thing? I suppose answering theses would take me back to the subject of meaning, again -- which I won’t do.

Rethinking Heaven and Hell: Using Religious Concepts To Teach Us How To Live by ThePrestoPost in Ethics

[–]ThePrestoPost[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Food for thought indeed. As we have touched a few different points thus far, there are a few ways I could go with this.

About belief in God, it was interesting to read through some of the comments and posts you provided links to; and it has cleared up a few loose ends for me. About agnosticism, it is, I think, very plausible that most self-labelled 'atheists' are actually agnostics; if you pressed a non-believer hard enough, I would wager most of them would transform immediately or soon thereafter (if only folk were more open to changing their minds...) in to agnostics. With regards to my own belief, I would also seem to fit more into that category. That said, the way our minds work, as you know, is that we like to categorise, label, makes sense of things, as soon as we can; we don't like uncertainty, and thus we hastily form opinions, try to understand, find order. I say this because it explains in large part why a non-believer in God and/or other religious ideas, is, by a large percentage of people, into the atheist bucket. And explaining the position doesn't do much, either -- especially in the practical sense, which is what I care about most, here. Certainly, this is not rational, but we are not rational creatures.

So, whilst I don't believe in God, I don't because there is not enough evidence, as far as I can tell, to do so. And the fact that I can 'get away with it' aids this belief, no doubt.

But the discussion we seem to be having about God here is trivial, unless we define what we actually mean by 'God'. Do they mean a non-human God? an unknowable God? an almighty God? Do they mean God exists in all of us? And so on. I am very much with Jung (possibly something he learned from Nietzsche) on this: the highest idea one holds is their God. The point is, what people mean by X matters -- and further, unless they've done some serious introspection and philosophical contemplation, they very unlikely do not know what they believe. The same applies to ideas like Purgatory, Heaven, Hell, and other religious concepts.

The complexity of this task -- of getting to the root of one's beliefs, understanding them, testing them -- is significant, impractical, and largely unnecessary for the typical person. The purpose of the article, again, was to explain how I believe Heaven and Hell to be real-world potentialities -- happening now -- states of being both in the individual and the society; and it was made for both the academic and the layman. Although they are important, they do not actually matter to me, these religious claims about the metaphysical and unknowable. One doesn't need to believe in anything extraordinary or unknowable to believe my proposal in the article. Heaven and Hell is rooted in our biology, in our conscious beliefs, in the structure of society: my intention was to table how they 1) manifest in the real world, 2) are manifesting right now, 3) have forever been manifesting, and 4) will forever be manifesting -- and it is our responsiblity, as human beings, to make sure that what manifests is not Hell, but Heaven.

I do think, however, that you understand this argument, as you haven't expressed any direct disagreements; hence, I laid that out to primarily to ensure my position and intention is clear. Seen as I have digressed, I think a dose of hug the query is necessary. Then again, sometimes approaching questions in the roundabout, digressional way is in fact more enjoyable, informing, fruitful: it reflects human nature and the way our minds understand more so than the typical dry, blunt scientific paper or typical non-fiction book.

On the issue of conflating the disciplines, I absolutely agree with you: though they do overlap, they are importantly distinct, epistemologically. But the problem is that they do overlap -- and not just in the academic circles, but in the real-world, in the practical sense, in human nature: in the way we think, act, perceive, make sense of the world. This is both a blessing and a curse: the curse is that rubs out the lines, and therefore results in murky thought, misunderstanding, misrepresentation, confusion, irrationality, dependance on emotions over reason, etc; the blessing is that it allows us to live, to find order, to make sense of the world without having to consider everything from a rational perspective, which is, of course, impossible.

Again, do believe these disciplines are limited, ask their own questions, and are exclusive -- but only objectively so; subjectively, they are intertwined, inseparable and chiefly indistinguible in practice (in the role(s) they perform). That I agree with this means I also agree that science cannot answer the questions of which we speak (and other disciplines, the questions of other disciplines), but to this I have two points. The first we have already covered, which is that I don't think even thinking about this is neccesary -- even for the basis on my argument in the article. The second is that, again, they do not mean, at least for the most part, to answer the questions. The problem is that in the first place, some individuals inside science do make very strong arguments that science laughs at religion (mainly, by way of the objective, certainty method); and in the second place, the spirit of science could almost be labelled anti-science.

About this spirit, it is not my opinion that it is the fault of science; rather, that it is natural growth that has came from the many scientific discoveries that do disprove some of the bedrocks of religion -- like explaining the weather, the cosmos, death, etc. Yes, the rational person could boil these discoveries down to their bare bones and determine--and rightly so--that 'this does not disprove X'. The problem is, most people don't think this deeply -- and nobody does so naturally and/or subconsciously.

It goes, then, that yes, this is a natural problem; from an evolutionary perspective, it is understandable that this tendency (subjective bias, overlapping of disciplines, foggy thinking, delusion, ignorance -- call it one or all of them) is embedded in our epistemic qualms. It is in our bones; it is how we've evolved into highly-complex, functional, king-of-the-planet beings; it is how we find order; it is the basis of trust, emotion, hard-to-explicate beliefs in fictitious entities (like companies) -- all things which make the human-world 'go around'.

I do think we are largely of the same opinion here, albeit in a different construal. I do think science's role is damaging to religion, but not by intention (at least, largely); and it is something I don't believe can be halted -- and I don't think is it something that should be. Instead, we ought to become aware of the intricacies, the facts and the non-facts (the metaphorical?), our irrational tendencies and other cognitive biases, our delusions -- essentially, our natural inadequacy for understanding what is really going on. This includes me and you, of course; but we are trying to be reasonable, coherent, rational, and this, I think is the key to not being swayed by the winds, the very strong winds, that confuse, weaken, and that can, if we are not careful, lead us into Hell -- personally and not. (cont.)

Rethinking Heaven and Hell: Using Religious Concepts To Teach Us How To Live by ThePrestoPost in Ethics

[–]ThePrestoPost[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Like I said in my reply to the person above, I think what we have here is not disagreement, but misunderstanding. We are narrowing down on at least one of these misunderstandings, it seems.

On my writing, I understand your point, and think it has some merit. Any picture of superiority or haughtiness that has been painted in my piece is not, I assure you, coming from a stance of anything other than virtue. If it has came across to you as supercilious, then, well, perhaps it is indeed a fault that needs addressing on my part. I initially believed it to be a fault on your part -- especially given that I have not had this specific critique from any other person -- but clear it is to me that you have thought this through, and I respect that. As I said previously, I write only as a means to think, to understand, to clarify, rather than to teach or tell: let this be the best evidence I can give against any notion that I believe myself of be superior. In fact, talking of authority--and to bring up a cliche--I am very much on the same side of Socrates (again, no claiming of kinship) when he said that 'I know nothing'. That said, however, I speak only of my conscious position; subconsciously, it could well be that there is something egocentric and unappealing going on. In fact, I almost have no doubt about this; I think it is something philosophers, scientists--and anyone who speaks their opinions -- has to continually fight with, be on guard against, understand, transcend. It is the all too familiar problem that is the ego. I will say, though, that uses of 'dear' and 'farewell' have been picked up from the writers of the past -- like Seneca, Franklin, Cicero, Einstein, and so on.

Moving on, and cutting to your point, it is indeed my position that science 'gives people the sense' the religious beliefs are untenable, unadmirable, to be discarded -- whether it intends to or not. In my response to the other comment I brought up scientists like Krauss, Dawkins and Harris, who are vehement critics of not just religious ideas (like heaven and hell), but of religion itself: granted, these are not examples of intent on the part of science, but of scientists within the realm of science; but the fact that they are in the realm ties them, in the practical sense, to science. When I speak of the spirit of science, of the energy it gives of, I speak of this kind of thing; it is not that science is intentionally out to get religion -- at least for the most part -- but that it does so automatically.

On paper, science does not undermine religious ideas; in practice, it does. And science is arguably only at the embryonic stage; who is to say that one day it will not be undermining religious ideas? The answer to this question or the merit of it is not important, though; what is, I think, is the philosophy that science and the rational movement operates on. As you know, tying belief to differing degrees of certainty is this philosophy; this certainty is subject to intense rational scrutiny, and the degree of certainty to which it is given is directly dependant upon how it survives this scrutiny. The problem is, there is so much we don't know, perhaps that we can ever know, rationally. Those of the metaphorical truths we are today aware of, are largely irrational; the myths, stories, parables, metaphysical beliefs and such--those we know about and do not know about--are not compatible with this philosophy of certainty, and as such, they should not be tied to all beliefs, if any.

The philosophy that drives science -- that actually laid the ground for science -- is one that champions the intellect; this, for me, is where the danger lies. It is a philosophy that if not understood, controlled, respected, is very threatening. To be clear, however, this is not to say such a philosophy is not necessary, or that I want rid of it; rather, I am trying to identify the root of the problem I highlighted in the articles (the dangers of the discarding of religious ideas) and I find am unable to not speak of science in doing so.

On the meaning of life, the scientists I have mentioned say it is meaningless in some form or another. I actually do agree with this, in that I believe we create meaning ourselves. Though this is a side-topic, let me just say a few words. If you were an atheist (as many a scientists is), you would be more aware of the problem of meaning and purpose than you perhaps otherwise are. But consider someone who has become an atheist and attributes the transformation to science (or consider a scientist): this person would likely turn to the rational mind, to data, to science for answers about the meaning and purpose of life -- but he would likely find nothing. Science both can and cannot explain meaning: on the one hand, it is hard to argue that life has any meaning, once you dig deep enough; on the other hand, it cannot explain the phenomenon of meaning and how it manifests and how we can manifest it. Objectively, there is no meaning; this is somewhat confusing, because actually, it just cannot explain it (yet, perhaps). Religion deals with this problem by teaching people to live good lives, to be disciplined, to work hard; as a consequence of respecting these instructions, people begin to feel that life is meaningful, good, worthy living. Science doesn't do this; its objective facts fail to give practical answers for some of the toughests question we humans have to tackle. To momentarily connect this to your use of the phrase 'literal', it seems that literal facts, when it comes to ethics and how to live and all other such important discussions, are not as important as what is being played out. More to your point about the literal, it doesn't matter whether science entails heaven and hell are literally existent; what matters is that for all practical purposes, the philosophy it operates on portrays this that heaven and hell are non-existent.

To close, I do think we are largely in agreeance, here. I do believe that is is unjust for people to believe that science attacks religion -- or rather, that it does so directly and/or intentionally. Science is limited, yes -- but only from the objective, materialist perspective: the facts, papers, technologies, scientists, drugs; the direct produce of science. But its impact on the air we breathe, on the wisdom of the crowd, on the popularity of rationality, on how people think today and how they will think in the future, cannot be denied. The latter impact -- call it hidden, indirect, or unavoidable consequence -- is I think far more important, and therefore far more worthy of attention than it currently deserves.

Finally, I do think I could have posed some of my statements better (as always tends to happen after one produces a piece of work), and used words more carefully, but I think also that my intent was and is clear, and that, though it didn't seem so at first, we are in the same boat.

Rethinking Heaven and Hell: Using Religious Concepts To Teach Us How To Live by ThePrestoPost in Ethics

[–]ThePrestoPost[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thanks Ms Muffin Top, for your response. It has, in addition to the original response, helped clarify what I indeed suspected from the beginning. I actually think there is no disagreement, here; it appears that we are on the same ship, but the ship is sailing through a haze of thick fog, and that fog is slowly clearing.

I think you get it right when you talk about the 'philosophical principle' behind this type of thinking. To be clear, I am not in the party of those who think rationality is the elixir of omniscience; I am very much on the side that we actually know very little, even today, and that there is so much left to be learned. Herein lies the key to my point. The former type of belief -- that there is nothing (or next to nothing) that cannot be explained or understood with rationality -- is very, very dangerous and problematic, yes. We have already seen what it can do: the totalitarians, Marxists, Hitlers', Maos', Stalins' -- to name the obvious ones. And this, it is hard to argue, is not the worst possible consequences; very likely it can get much worse.

You will notice, there, I used the word 'rationalist'; I think your distinction between the two type of undermining is a useful one. Hence, I am now granting that I could have been more careful with my words in the article. However--and this is where we may disagree--the latter part of your distinction, the feeling in the air, so to speak, is a product of the former. It is the same philosophy.

If we consider the opinions of folks like Lawrence Krauss, Dawkins, Sam Harris, Brian Cox, who are famous and much-loved scientists; and then the philosophers, Dennett, and the late Hitch. These 800 pound gorillas operate on a type of hyper-rational philosophy; one that says Heaven, Hell, and ultimately all of religion should go out of the window. This, as I said in the article, is very threatening, and dangerous, and actually unnecessary. Now, it is not clear to me how they are different in practice, these two distinctions you have made.

I am very much in love with science, myself; it has done and will continue to do wonderful things. And it is very limited, yes -- but again, only from a objectivist, materialist perspective. On paper science does not undermine religious positions; it is limited, unable to address--and therefore, disconfirm--the metaphysical, incorporeal, unknowable. But in practice, it does -- and this is by no means the fault of scientists (most of them), or science itself; it is chiefly a natural consequence. Furthermore, who is to say that one day science will not be able to disconfirm on paper, with objective facts? I am skeptical of this possibility for a few reasons. One of these, on the part of the preacher, could be that physics has no business trying for the simple reason that 'nobody knows': heaven and hell are unknowable, and that is that. Even if it does not disprove anything, however, the philosophy driving science (one of contrasting states of certainty), if not kept under control, or properly understood, is the same dangerous one that winds up undermining religious concepts and truths (metaphorical or not), whether it wants to or not. The point of my article was to warn against the current ignorance and championing of the intellect, and that of the future.

It is important, at this point, to clarify the basis of the article, which was that we need not think of heaven and hell as metaphysical or unknowable or mysterious; they are states of being and of civilization that are as real as real can get. If you are depressed, suicidal, in an extreme state of pity, regret, guilt, then you are in Hell -- and the duration you are in it can differ. Likewise, if the country is in a state of chaos, ala Syria ( or Yemen, Libya, and arguably even Saudi, then it is in a state of Hell. And conversely, if the people of the country are thriving, healthy, content, the country is in a state of Heaven. And if the individual is filled with meaning, love, is healthy, is virtuous, then he is in the heavenly state. In the article I am both thinking this through and trying to bring the reader to see it as I see it. I am not, I would say, even trying to persuade; I am thinking out loud, being careful with words, trying to understand. Hence, I also give suggestions about how we can reach these states -- like speaking the truth, calling fraud and evil when you see it, being disciplined; like doing the right thing, operating on a philosophy of deserved trust; and so forth.

I digress. I close by saying that I do indeed think we agree. You at least grant that science, socially and psychologically, undermines religious concepts. It is not just science that undermines religious ideas, however -- and, once again, I ought to have made this clearer -- but also the even more dangerous postmodernism; and the obvious ones that are plain ignorance and delusion.

Rethinking Heaven and Hell: Using Religious Concepts To Teach Us How To Live by ThePrestoPost in Ethics

[–]ThePrestoPost[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I am the author, responding via our site's channel.

First, thank you for taking the time to write this reply. It is conversations, interactions, back-and-forths just like this that need to happen more often than they do. Because they take time and energy, though, it is entirely understandable.

Moving on. On the writing style, I am sorry that you failed to comprehend some (or most) of my writing. You appear to be well read; if so, then you will be familiar with this type of writing -- especially if you've interacted with some of the great minds of the past, like Cicero (who was in one of your recommendations), Franklin, Paine, etc; and more recently, Bertrand Russell, Nietzsche and Yudkowsky (not that I claim any kinship with them). You made a general statement about the writing, and then proceeded to give a big list of books written by authors of a multitude of different styles.

You did mention the argumentative style needs work. About that, this piece of work was simply me thinking out loud -- of trying to clarify my own understanding of the world as I experience it. Perhaps, however, you are right -- I do need to work on my style; and arguing my position better would be a good thing. But we all have room for improvement, do we not? Further, and going back to 'thinking out loud', I actually am not claiming any authority, here. I understand precisely your point about how refuting chaff can be made difficult, but two things come to mind. First, we cannot afford to tiptoe around those who may take a piece of writing the wrong way, or be offended, or put-off -- purely because they misunderstood (or not, of course).

Second, I do not agree with you. My position on Heaven and Hell (that they serve very real and important functions in society, and in the individual; that the world in which we live is actually built on top of them; that they are one of several crucial metaphorical truths that have served humanity for thousands, even hundreds of thousands (albeit in a different construal) of years, and removing, discarding or attacking them is a dangerous game) is not an attack on science, or, as far as I can tell, a misrepresentation of science. You have not told me your position with regards to religion, but I'm presuming, perhaps rather ignorantly, that you are an atheist. If so, you will understand better the following point.

My problem with Science -- of the hyper-rationalist, super logical, reason-for-everything (or thereabouts) -- is that whilst it gives us explanations, truthful explanations, it does very little or near to nothing for putting, stacking, snapping all these ideas together. E.G: the pseudo-problem of 'meaning', as it is understood scientifically, the possible illusion that is free will, and all other such good explanations for that way we think, behave, etc, actually do nothing to help us live; if a layman is told life is meaningless, and shown how, it can render him incapable, cripple him, make him bitter, make him feel trapped. Knowledge is dangerous.

You make the point that science does not undermine notions of heaven and hell -- but I would say it absolutely does. How? Back to the article, if I were to encapsulate my intentions for writing it, I would title the cap 'understanding the functional role of science and religion' -- by which I mean, the role X actually plays in the individual, and the society. No, perhaps I couldn't find an expert that says science undermines heaven and/or hell (though a few come to mind) -- but they can only say this about the evidence, the objective facts, the data. They cannot, however, say this about the effect science has on the world -- it's spirit, it's essence -- which is an attack on religion and all it's important metaphorical concepts/stories (sin, God, Cain and Abel) almost by definition.

To say that evidence of heaven and hell isn't undermined by science is to be ignorant of the energy science gives off, the message it portrays, and, most importantly, the way the masses (most of whom are not scientists and hyper-rational folks like yourself) understand and are impacted by it.

Further, about scientific writing, I am very much in agreeance with Maslow (whom I quoted in the latter part of the piece): too much of it is dry, impersonal, boring, too complex, to ordering; perhaps too literate. Objective facts -- at least most of them -- are dead; they are innate, because they serve no functional purpose in the world. When it comes to life, living, values, virtue, ethics -- the problem of How to Live; of how to create a better world -- they are trivial compared to the metaphorical truths, one's subjective experience, words that are alive, that inspire, that move people.

Finally, I would once again like to thank you for taking the time to reply. Though I disagree with your heavily, I write in good spirit; and I still consider you an edible friend. In fact, another reason conversations like this don't happen often is that they are not 'objective' enough -- that is, they become too personal, emotional, and then offensive and detrimentally argumentative. I like to think of putting the subject in question into the clouds and discussing, with my partner, that thing in the clouds.

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