I was hoping to attain a better understanding of the average - somewhat intellectual - religious person

I was hoping to attain a better understanding of the average - somewhat intellectual - religious person.

Why do you believe in God/prescribe to a particular religion?

Other urls found in this thread:

miraclesofthequran.com/historical_01.html
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eliminative_materialism
marcsandersfoundation.org/wp-content/uploads/paper-John-Hawthorne.pdf
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_causes#End
cs.helsinki.fi/u/ahyvarin/teaching/niseminar4/Hesslow_Simulation.pdf
twitter.com/SFWRedditGifs

>somewhat intellectual - religious person.

Doesn't exist.

t.fedora

t.christfag

A. There is a good philosophical basis for the notion of a singular ontological origin of physical, material phenomena.

B. There is a good basis in the development of language, culture, and ritual, and in our understanding of the co-development of human consciousness and culture, for interpreting this singular ontological origin of phenomena in a personal or quasi-personal manner.

tl;dr - All things come from the One, and it is most intellectually satisfying to call this One "God", "Ishvara", "Deus", or what have you.

you mean that believing that there is a greater good even only if it is to use it as a self-reminder to have morale and not to self-destruct isn't intellectual ?
Yeah I guess guys from the Lumières' time weren't intellectual

Big fan of Spinoza, personally.

P.S. Stop taking bait.

>We don't like infinite series and we're self-important.

Oh, ok then.

>There is a good basis in the development of language, culture, and ritual, and in our understanding of the co-development of human consciousness and culture, for interpreting this singular ontological origin of phenomena in a personal or quasi-personal manner

That would explain why we act in such a manner, but does not justify it, and yeah A is just an aesthetic appeal against infinity.

I find arguments for Divine Conservation to be fleshed out effectively as opposed to arguments for the opposing view, Existential Inertia.
I have support for much of neoscholastic thought generally and that, along with a decent grasp of history is why I am Catholic.


Hope this helps, OP.

>I find arguments for Divine Conservation to be fleshed out effectively

Please do elaborate, in your own words.

In what regard:

>Divine Conservation: That things ultimately do rely on something outside of itself for its continued existence constantly. Details of what that is and why that is are derived from the individual arguments themselves.

>Existential Inertia: That things ultimately move and exist on their own and don't need outside causation for their continued existence. How that works and why that is are derived from individual arguments themselves.

Most cosmological arguments are of that divine conservation - that constant sustaining causation - despite being represented constantly in the mainstream as dealing with a distant, temporal causation. Some do, such as the Kalam, but not most.

>In what regard:
"In what regard?" rather.

After studying philosophy, theology and history for a number of years, it seems rather obvious that Christianity is essentially an admixture of Zoroastrian, Orphic, Jewish, Neoplatonist, Aristotelean and eastern mystic elements, blended, in a utilitarian manner, with various pagan rituals.

As for Aquinas, I wouldn't exactly refer to the practice of reinterpreting Aristotle, in a manner consistent with Christian theology, as philosophy, but rather as an intellectually impressive form of special pleading.

Therefore, metaphysically speaking, it's a non-starter for me.

Additionally, metaphysical naturalism explains much more, in far more detail and contains far more beauty, even if it eventually leads to a sort of hopeless existential nihilism.

At least, in my eyes.

>Divine Conservation: That things ultimately do rely on something outside of itself for its continued existence constantly.

In regard to that part.

The other part I'm more than familiar with, as I'm based in science (astrophysics, but I also have a background in neuroscience).

Which arguments seem to persuade you the most?

I never asked you to agree with me, I was just explaining the basic view of the intelligent religious person as per OP's request.

As for your assertion that the concept of a Prime Mover is merely an aesthetic appeal against infinity, do you have any evidence whatsoever that material, physical phenomena are infinite in any way?

Your "infinity" sounds a lot like a really crude, poorly fleshed out concept of Deity in and of itself.

Well I'd have to disagree with the idea that it simply "is" a mix of those groups rather than arising in areas with those worldviews. That's a very difficult thing to parse on a board with 2000 character limits for posts though.

However I'm not sure why you even speak of Aquinas. Aquinas has a well-known example of a cosmological argument that he formulates but they are just based on the forms of others (that is to say, the First Way isn't his unique contribution to Christian thought but rather the work done to elaborate on all five results of the Quinque Viae) so he really says nothing different than Aristotle in regards to Divine Conservation. He didn't so much reinterpret it as he did expand on it.

And I don't see the special pleading at all. You'd have to have a very crude grasp of the argument to get to that. Abbreviated versions of it are common, however, so it wouldn't be surprising (though I mean no offense to you in saying that).

>Additionally, metaphysical naturalism explains much more, in far more detail and contains far more beauty, even if it eventually leads to a sort of hopeless existential nihilism.

I would find issue in that, as problems with eliminative materialism seem to lead to a reject of some core attributes of metaphysical naturalism. Mental intent is a hard enough thing to reject but they do not realize that the idea of the brain grasping information is teleological innately as well. They would deny information. However in arguing their view they'd self-refute themselves in the process.

I already told you the whole branch of relevant argumentation. Begin there.
Not sure how much astrophysics will help you here but I hope the best.

>do you have any evidence whatsoever that material, physical phenomena are infinite in any way?

I'm not sure if you're familiar with the state of modern cosmology, but I would say no.

Most popular models that do have evidence supporting them, do imply an infinite universe.

Many people think inflation has enough supporting evidence to be considered triumphant among hypotheses; however, I see this as sensationalism.

Additionally, inflationary theories are far too broad; an exaggerated analogy would be shooting at a wall and then drawing a target around it.

I'm drawn to the cyclic models, personally.

>Your "infinity" sounds a lot like a really crude, poorly fleshed out concept of Deity in and of itself

I'm fine with a deistic God.

>Your "infinity" sounds a lot like a really crude, poorly fleshed out concept of Deity in and of itself

>I'm fine with a deistic God.

Do you have any idea what you're speaking about?

Ok, fair point; that was a simplistic and dismissive reduction on my part.

In relation to the special pleading, I simply mean attempting to reconcile Aristotle with Christianity.

Why not simply expand on him, and leave out the revelation?

>Mental intent is a hard enough thing to reject but they do not realize that the idea of the brain grasping information is teleological innately as well. They would deny information. However in arguing their view they'd self-refute themselves in the process.

Ok, well this is brilliant.

There's a triumphalism around science, which I like to see challenged.

>Mental intent is a hard enough thing to reject

What do you mean by this?

>they do not realize that the idea of the brain grasping information is teleological innately as well. They would deny information.

And what do you mean by this?

Please do expand, as I'm very interested.

I was clarifying that I'm not inherently opposed to the notion of God, despite being based in science.

So, if we were, for example, to refer to the particular mathematical macro-structure that corresponds to our universe 'God', and develop a rigorous philosophy around that, then I'm all for it.

>Mental intent is a hard enough thing to reject

If by 'mental intent' you mean the intuitive impression that volition serves as the primary cause of human behaviour/we are the authors of our own actions, then it is most definitely not hard to reject.

It makes absolutely no sense, especially in relation to what we understand in physics.

>they do not realize that the idea of the brain grasping information is teleological innately

How is the processing of information innately teleological?

>somewhat intellectual - religious person.

>ISLAM (1/2)
Why do I believe my religion? Mainly because of how accurate the Quran is.

An UNLETTERED man in an UNLETTERED community would never know who is "Haman".

For the longest time, the Muslim are ridiculed for mistaking "Haman" in the Quran with "Haman" from the Bible(which is a Babylon king helper, 1100 years after Moses).

The Haman from the Quran is a helper of Pharaoh, which is DIFFERENT from the Bible.

>ISLAM (2/2)
The Quran said:

Pharaoh said, "Council, I do not know of any other god for you apart from Me. Haman, kindle a fire for me over the clay and build me a lofty tower so that perhaps I may be able to climb up to Musa's god! I consider him a blatant liar." (Qur'an, 28:38)

WHICH IS EXACTLY THE TRUE

According to Egyptian hieroglyphic script, THERE IS INDEED "HAMAN" DURING THE TIME OF PHARAOH!

And this "Haman" is "THE HEAD OF STONE QUARRY WORKERS", which aligned with "build me a lofty tower" in the Quran verse.

Here:
miraclesofthequran.com/historical_01.html

It's also mention of other Quran miracles, which an UNLETTERED man COULD NEVER possibly know of.

Hahah, well I believe that was done well before Aquinas' time. By the establishment of virtue ethics and much of his moral teachings he was paraded around as one of the Virtuous Pagans in, I think, the Patristic Era.

>leave out the revelation

Aquinas and the church at the time held that their revelation were entirely true and Aquinas was in an order of trying to defend his religion against people of other worldviews (pagans/heretics) and so needed to get into revelation.

He grew up with much of a Christian-centered world, intellectually, as well.

>There's a triumphalism...

Don't I know it. I find it a bit awkward at times too. It's obviously in reaction to Evangelicals, much as Evangelicals reacted to Evolution decades before, but once you're out of that sphere you realize how terribly foolish those science-parading anti-theists are. I tend to see metaphysics as a field denied or admonished by these same people and I just cringe over it. But these people drew up with such a worldview so I can't fault them for their ignorance. What makes me cringe is the arrogance that is tied with it.

>mental intent

Mental intent (mentally having purpose and direction) is so terribly apparent in most everyone's life that trying to argue it is illusory will be very difficult.

>information as teleological

Information entails the ability to infer, which is innately goal-directed. Goal-directedness is synonymous with intent. That is what purpose is. People can argue that some incredibly complex mix of difference purposeless forces actually do this but you would still deny inferring something as it would still boil down to mechanical forces.

Look up the criticisms of Eliminative Materialism. It has problems that can only be explained away by appealing to dualism or intentionality.

My criticism comes from your use of "deistic".
Deity is an entity. Deism is a relation between a kind of deity and nature. Your comment ends up being totally random.

Epic meme bro!

I'm a pretty devout Eastern Orthodox Christian, I converted as an adult, was raised a non-denominational protestent, became an atheist when I was 14, remained one until I was 19. The main reason I became religious was, in reading the accounts of the apostle's martyrdom, it struck me that they must have truly witnessed something extraordinary to willingly die for their beliefs. I then made up my mind to seek out what it was that they witnessed, and I think I have found it in the Eastern Orthodox Church.

>If by 'mental intent' you mean the intuitive impression that volition serves as the primary cause of human behaviour/we are the authors of our own actions, then it is most definitely not hard to reject.

It sounds like you're talking about free will, actually. I'm talking about intent, such as having beliefs and having mental direction when living. It is part of every day experience and so very difficult to reject.

>How is the processing of information innately teleological?

Inferring is a teleological process and information entails inferring.

Anyone on this board who says they're christian is just trolling for laughs

user, don't be stupid.

I'm a Catholic, just got back from mass in fact

>Mental intent (mentally having purpose and direction) is so terribly apparent in most everyone's life that trying to argue it is illusory will be very difficult.

I don't know anybody who would argue that mentally having purpose and direction is illusory.

>Information entails the ability to infer, which is innately goal-directed. Goal-directedness is synonymous with intent

Again, nobody is denying goal-directed behaviour or the ability to infer.

I just don't understand why you think that goal-directed behaviour is teleological in the natural sense.

Human behaviour can best be described as the striving for the experience of positively associated mental states, while attempting to avoid the experience of negatively associated mental states* (Corr, 2013; Carver and White, 1994; Gray, 1981), which, within the paradigm of hierarchical reinforcement learning, is achieved via the engagement of a wide range of habitual and goal-directed behavioural subroutines (mappings of actions to states) developed through learning (Botvinick et al., 2008).

*As governed by a range of positive and negative association circuitry (Rohr et al., 2016; Namburi et al., 2015; Redondo et al., 2014).

Learning via positive association is typically referred to as ‘approach learning’, while that which arises from negative association is termed ‘avoidance learning’ and both forms of learning are thought to be governed by two distinct systems, namely, the behavioural approach and behavioural avoidance systems.

In light of this, we may state that the 'objective' for learning is to identify subroutines that maximize the cumulative long-term experience of positively associated mental states and that human behaviour is ultimately dedicated to employing such subroutines, while avoiding those that result in the experience of negatively associated mental states.

Of the aforementioned subroutines, some are reliant on innate psychological mechanisms which ensure that certain action sequences result in unexpectedly salient outcomes during exploratory behaviour (Botvinick et al., 2008); these subroutines may therefore be referred to as gene driven.

Others develop primarily through environmental conditioning; however, it should be noted that the majority of archetypal human pursuits involve a heavy degree of genetic and environmental interaction.

We have inference, goal-directed behaviour and mental intent, yet they are the products of evolutionary processes and, therefore, are not teleological in the natural sense.

>I just don't understand why you think that goal-directed behaviour is teleological in the natural sense.

What.
user what.

Teleology is rejected BECAUSE goal-directedness (what is called 'intentionality', 'purpose', or 'final causality') is denied. The denial of innate purpose is an intrinsic part of Naturalism. That purpose is denied but they still accept inferring is explicitly part of why mind-body dualism is a thing.

>I don't know anybody who would argue that mentally having purpose and direction is illusory.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eliminative_materialism

Full references available; I just copied and pasted part of a paper I wrote, hence the citations.

I am not saying people do not believe in goal-directedness in nature, mental intent, and inference in nature. I'm saying that despite that people believe this, there is also the support for metaphysical naturalism and so these would be conflicting ideas to hold, if they hold them at all. It's common to believe in an immaterial 'mind' or whatever form of dualism people like to espouse nowadays but that still denies metaphysical naturalism.


I do appreciate it, but I don't think it would be necessary.

>eliminative materialism claims that future research will fail to find a neuronal basis for various mental phenomena

That's literally the opposite of what I am doing/plan to do as a scientist.

See Ok, when I speak of 'goal-directedness', I am speaking of dopamine mediated goal pursuit programs/behavioural subroutines.

I am also ready and willing to provide the neuronal basis.

>the average - somewhat intellectual - religious person

No such thing, and not even trying to be an edgelord. Religious conviction begins to crumble once a person becomes more cultured and versed, especially in the history of both his own religion and that of others. If a person is religious and considered intelligent, it's because he tries to learn about everything BUT religion, since he considers it sacrosanct and avoids learning anything because he realizes it probably is a fragile thing and he's afraid of toppling it.

>No such thing, and not even trying to be an edgelord.

You are most definitely failing.

>I'm saying that despite that people believe this, there is also the support for metaphysical naturalism and so these would be conflicting ideas to hold, if they hold them at all.

How are the two conflicting?

Because we are unaware of how the organic structure of the brain produces conscious experience?

>t struck me that they must have truly witnessed something extraordinary to willingly die for their beliefs

That's idiotic. People of every religious creed and doctrine have died for their beliefs: from the various "heretics" who refused to recant to orthodoxy in Christendom, to the Hindu martyrs who suffered grisly executions during the Muslim invasions, to cults such as Heaven's Gate, who committed suicide because they genuinely believed an alien ship was going to pick up their souls.

According to you, every religion is real, since most religions can count on martyrs who died in defense of their beliefs; therefore, all those people that died must have experienced something genuinely divine/supernatural, even though all these religions are exclusionary and reject each other.

God-damn, you're a fucking retard.

The Apostles claimed to witness the things they died for. Why would they have died for Christ if they really hadn't seen Him raised from the dead?

>No such thing, and not even trying to be an edgelord.
You failed. You're saying that if a person researches their religion and doesn't become an atheist they can't be considered intelligent. Mate, there have been many, many, many religious scholars and philosophers throughout history I would consider smarter than you. That's ignoring the large number of religious scientists throughout history who made breakthroughs in other fields like Isaac Newton.

>Of the aforementioned subroutines, some are reliant on innate psychological mechanisms which ensure that certain action sequences result in unexpectedly salient outcomes during exploratory behaviour

Could you elaborate on what exactly these psychological mechanisms are?

>That's literally the opposite of what I am doing/plan to do as a scientist.

And I hope the best for yourself research but what the eliminativist position is ends up being a biological reductionism rather than a support of body-mind dualism. Their view remains in the position of metaphysical naturalism. If you plan to do the opposite and examine the basis of mind-body dualism then your support for the "mind" is already a rejection of metaphysical naturalism.

>Ok, when I speak of 'goal-directedness', I am speaking of dopamine mediated goal pursuit programs/behavioural subroutines.

And when I or any academic speaks of goal-directedness, they are speaking about an object innately (not necessarily consciously) working for something outside of itself.

>How are the two conflicting? Because we are unaware of how the organic structure of the brain produces conscious experience?

No, because metaphysical naturalism denies anything existing outside the material world governed by innate laws. Innate purpose is rejected in this, which is what innate goal-directedness is, and mind-body dualism deals with the idea of an immaterial "mind". Whether you believe that this immaterial mind is born from the material or not is of no concern because you deny the claim of metaphysical naturalism.

Well, in relation to morality for example, you can model them as 'if p then q' domain specific reasoning operations, which facilitate the navigation of social contracts.

Elsewhere, they essentially encompass everything from mating strategies to intra-sex rivalry, cheater detection, agent detection, facial recognition, perception of mate value, specific fears (for example, the universal fear of spiders and snakes) and a number of other domains of cognition/subsequent behaviour.

It’s a convenient term to refer to specific neural functions, which ultimately drive and regulate human behaviour.

>Why would they have died for Christ if they really hadn't seen Him raised from the dead?

For the same reason that Mani let himself be flayed alive and crucified for his beliefs. So what, Manichaeism is real too?

>Mani
I would not be surprised if he really witnessed visions, but what caused these visions, I cannot say. However, in the case of the Apostles, they were not merely visions, but the resurrected Christ was with them in-body for several weeks, with hundreds of witnesses, and then ascended into Heaven... They physically touched His wounds.

>an object innately (not necessarily consciously) working for something outside of itself.

I have absolutely no idea what that means.

>the basis of mind-body dualism then your support for the "mind" is already a rejection of metaphysical naturalism.

I didn't state this explicitly, but I thought it would be inferred: on this view, the mind is an internal simulation and not some immaterial substance.

It is as governed by natural laws as any other part of the body, or universe for that matter.

So there really isn't a dualism.

>And I hope the best for yourself research

Thank you.

>the resurrected Christ was with them in-body for several weeks, with hundreds of witnesses, and then ascended into Heaven... They physically touched His wounds.

The majority of people in the world think like this.

>anything outside my sheltered world view is impossible

>anything is possible, you just have to believe!

This may assist you:

marcsandersfoundation.org/wp-content/uploads/paper-John-Hawthorne.pdf

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_causes#End

>the mind is an internal simulation

Could you explain to me what this simulation is exactly without biological reductionism?

Thanks for the links!

>Could you explain to me what this simulation is exactly without biological reductionism?

Perhaps this may do the trick:

cs.helsinki.fi/u/ahyvarin/teaching/niseminar4/Hesslow_Simulation.pdf

>Perhaps the most exciting aspect of internal simulation is that it suggests a mechanism for generating the inner world that we associate with consciousness. There are many problems of consciousness, but one of them certainly is the existence of an inner world of experience that does not immediately depend on external input. How does this inner world arise? The simulation hypothesis provides a simple and straightforward answer.

>Because simulation of behaviour and perception will be accompanied by internally generated sensory input resembling perceptions of the external world, it will inevitably be accompanied by the experience of an inner world.

I'll definitely read into the link, but definitely give me time for that.

>generating
>inner world

When you first commented about consciousness as a "simulation" I thought of a projector and its projected light as a simple comparison. My issue is not so much whether the simulation comes from or how it is maintained but what is it compared to its "projector". Pretty much any examination of this that I see treats it as something wholly different from matter that we do not fully understand, which is why the mind-body problem tends to boil down to forms of biological reductionism or forms of dualism. Hence my concern. It SEEMS that your quotes and the manner in which it speaks of this also speaks of a dualism but I'll make judgments later after reading.

Either way, thanks for the chat and the link. Glad we could get along.

>Hence my concern.
"Hence my original issue" I should say.

Yes, the brain would be the projector and it would, therefore, be a reductionist theory.

Yeah, it was a good chat; I'll have a think about all this, considering everything you have said.

Question:
If It's bad to desire
Is it bad to desire heaven?

Of course not.

I believe that their is plenty of concepts that we don't have a clue about, and that its a bit suspicious that every society ever has clung to the concept of an all powerful deity or deities.

Our scientific perspective limits us to other knowledge that we may have had, may have, or could have, if we were less staunch in our current mindset. Before we understood science, it too was magic and miracles, and the same I'm sure for the rest of the whatever we don't know or can't yet comprehend.

Also, If the universe expands indefinitely to encompass more multiverses, as most physicists think to be the case, then everything must be an infinite paradox, so divinity is infinite and finite, everywhere and nowhere, nothing and everything.

I don't believe in a god, or any particular faith, but understanding them is a good clue as to figuring out what we might have known or believed about the universe, and those hypotheses could very well prove to be scientific fact eventually.

>people saying you can't be an intelligent theist in this thread
>most intelligent discussion in this thread comes from a theist

wew