Raithere rambles on about religion

I was asked this question and my reply took on a life of its own. I though perhaps I’d post it and see what kind of flies it drew.

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Yes... perhaps I should clarify:

I don’t believe in any god although there are some definitions of god that I find acceptable and even sometimes useful though overall I find conceptions of God to be more problematic than useful. However, I could also be considered an Agnostic and even a Cosmotheist depending upon how you look at it. And I find Zen/Buddhism, Taoism, and a couple of other ‘religions’ to be laudable practices.

What I don’t believe in is an omnipotent, omniscient, intelligent being... particularly one that interferes in my life, worries about my sex life or other aspects of my behavior and will punish me for disobedience or disbelief. Nor do I believe that my personality will survive my death.

However, everything that we say and do does survive us, which I believe puts a tremendous moral burden upon us and is also a very important type of immortality. I also believe that there is a principle of unity to existence (there are various ways of demonstrating this) and that humans do sometimes have transcendent experiences. These and some other experiences that we all have, as well as certain aspects of science, lead me to believe that the answer (if there is one) is far, far greater than anyone has been able to convey. So, in some respects, I understand and appreciate the religious experience.

But (and I think this is the point) this experience is not something you can write down in a book and hand to other people. This is what I find to be the primary failing in most religions. You cannot force or coerce someone into having a transcendent realization. Threats of everlasting torment or oblivion cannot induce one. Nor do I believe that most theists ever really have one.

Most theists (and I’ll probably catch hell for this) never experience what they call God because religion can’t really teach them how. (I say this because few Theists, in my experience, act or speak in a way that demonstrates such a realization). And often, even if they do experience it, they fall to authority to explain their own, intensely and wholly personal, experience.

Religions, religious texts, religious teachers, and gods only point the way. At the moment of realization one is beyond religion. Unfortunately, most western traditions teach that the path is the destination. And I think that consciously or not they realize that error; which is perhaps why so many are so desperate to convince the rest of us that what they believe is true.

The religious experience is real but one cannot codify it, put it down on paper, or preach it in the streets. It is intrinsically personal and utterly subjective. Religion, defined as “A set of beliefs, values, and practices based on the teachings of a spiritual leader” (AHD) is utterly oxymoronic to the experience.

~Raithere

 

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Raithere,

Thankyou. That was a surprising revelation that I had not expected.

 

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Very well put.

Not sure how I feel about this bit:

But I appreciate and agree with the rest of what you said whole-heartedly.

 

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Cris.

Thanks. The thing is that too many people have the experience to, IMO, simply dismiss it as fantasy. It’s an experience akin to the recognition of beauty. We all perceive beauty. Many of us even share in experiences of beauty. Yet beauty is utterly subjective.

Religious experience, IMO, is really just the experience of the mystery/immensity/unity of existence but people have a strong tendency to anthropomorphize and objectify it; they project an image of themselves onto this experience and try to give it an independent existence. Various other accretions, primarily superstitious and political, are then also added. Eventually, the actual experience is completely buried.

The irony is that most of my “religious” experiences have occurred while contemplating science.

~Raithere

 

What bothers you about it, maybe I can explain.

~Raithere

 

What is meant by "a principle of unity to existence"?

 

Unity

There are various levels at which it is apparent that all of existence is inexorably intertwined. Chaos theory demonstrates this in the fact that a single ‘small’ change within a complex system can have a drastic effect upon the entire system. Quantum physics and general relativity show that what we perceive as physical objects are really only patterns of energy and force, which also binds us with the rest of existence; a pattern amongst patterns. These discoveries reflect the fairly common religious notion of unity with God. Within some religions such as Hinduism and Buddhism this is explicit, within others it is subsumed or expressed only within certain interpretations. But all religions (and please correct me if I’m wrong here, I cannot think of any exceptions) are about connecting with the primal source of existence. IMO, it is essentially the same thing.

~Raithere

 

Thanks. I guess I would not elevate commonality and interdependence to some principle of unity to existence, much less invest them with religious connotation. There's beauty in the butterfly effect (that "Out of Africa" might have been triggered by Panama is a wonderful story), and I have no qualms with "only [sic] patterns of energy and force" but these seem to point to nothing beyond the principle of methodological naturalism.

 

Fair enough, but why invent names like Atheists, Theists, agnostic, and Cosmotheist, ect....Names that really might not describe you so well and stems from such limited knowledge. I know that you don't long for the club membership to feel good about your set of beliefs. It's really so simple Raithere, you are here and you have purpose and cause, everthing does, and you have been designed as such, so believe in YOUR purpose and cause and strive to meet it, and you'll be looked at very favorably by your designer whatever it is and whether it is a cosmo or much bigger. Screw up the precious programming given to you and your designer will no longer recognize you and will leave you alone.

What do you mean by being? I hope your imagination don't go the gutters that Cris is in and start seeing pink elephants that fly or grey haired Greek gods. You would admit that our world is designed intelligently, so the cause behind our creation is intelligent, ominpotent, ominoscient, ect. What is the cause....who cares....but it's clear that us effects must have had a cause to be subjected to and to live by it's criteria.

You are contradicting yourself. First you said you don't believe that our personality will last after our death, then you say that everything we say and do survive us. You relate our deeds in this life to morality and immortality. How? There is a missing link, because we don't know precisely what is good or bad for the future or our cosmos, plus we don't seem to have so much control over our cosmos, afterall, we don't order rainfall or tornadoes or earthquakes, or meteoroids, ect.....So how do our lifes affect our cosmos if we have no constructive means to affect, alter, or protect our cosmos. How do we rest assured that our cosmos is not going to be destroyed tomorrow let alone act moral under such circumstances. And please don't tell me that we have improved so much in scientific knowledge that one day will be able to control our cosmos. If you look at all our advancment, they have been in the area of making life easier for humans, light, cars, phones, trains, planes, rockets, ect....We have done nothing to affect or alter our cosmos and we will never be able to. With all our advancement, we can't even redirect a misely storm out of an area to watch a tennis match peacefully.

I agree totally.

I agree totally, and don't worry, if you catch hell for this, I'll make sure to interfere and throw the hell back to it's source.

Nicely put, very true....maybe we'll get the chance to speak more about that.

I slightly disagree, because while I agree that the religios experience are real and cannot be put on paper, I disagree that you apply your statement to the Quran or the historic uncorrupt testaments, these divine religious guidelines can be put down on paper in perfection, yet the interpretation of the words will always be subjective.

 

I find that its much more integral than that. At some levels we're not simply interdependent; we're patterns of energy and force within a larger pattern. Objectification becomes meaningless at this resolution. This is not to say that our perception of objects isn't also true at other levels however.

You mistake my meaning; it's the reverse. The religious experience is an interpretation of a natural truth. I'm not trying to invest it with more than that; I find it significant enough in itself.

I feel the key discovery here is that even reductionism fails at some point. In the era of classical physics we thought we had the Universe deconstructed into tiny little physical realities. Instead we discover that, at its core, the Universe is rather vague and that our classical perspective is a result of probability rather than irreducible facts.

~Raithere

 

"failing" implies the ability to satisfy a purpose. In the general context of religion I don't think the purpose of communicating the 'religious experience' is to communicate the inspired nature of that experience. I think the 'religious experience' is simply a tool for conversion. I therefore disagree with your assessment of failure and say it IS quite successful (though it's just part of the package) as a tool for generating new resources (members).

Certainly not, but you can make it seem desirable and make it appear that there's only one path such that YOU TOO can have this awe inspiring experience. Ah, marketing.

But they can act as excellent motivation.

If they do I'd guess 9/10 of them are basically the result of meditation with a religious twist to re-enforce the cult conditioning.

I'd say religion is not really able to give you that experience, but if you are tenacious you can use it as a vehicle to add an 'exhaulted' flavor to your meditation (prayer) experience. Now that I think of it, prayer is basically meditation but with the purpose of re-enforcing some aspect of the cult montra.

Buddhists are better at it because they don't screw up their meditation by confounding it with religious imagery. I think meditation is a universal organizational tool for humans. It seems to me to be most effective when pure (not muddled with detail, but empty). Religions generally short circuit the potential upside of a meditation-like experience by using it instead as a means to perpetuate eronious beliefs.

As meditation tends to do.

How many times do you think a religious person having such an experience is incredibly confused and tends to recede from that depth of meditation from that point forward because realization conflicting with the structure of their beliefs?

 

Do any words really suffice as a description for anyone or anything? The definition of a word can never contain the totality of any thing. I attempt to use these words where they are appropriate. Regarding the question of whether I believe in God, my response is that I am an Atheist. But if you ask if I believe whether God ultimately does or does not exist I am an Agnostic (depending upon the definition of God, of course). Both are correct answers depending upon the question being asked.

I don't see this at all. My purpose is essentially self-defined, at least that portion which I can control is. As far as some universal consciousness having an explicit interest in my behavior or having some intent in the purpose of my life, I don't see it. I don't see conscious design apparent at all, in fact.

Even assuming some form of God, well, I frankly don't care. God is either benign, in which case it will appreciate the efforts I have made or it will be critical of my honesty and concerned only with my abiding by its rules in which case it is not worth my respect. For me, God had become quite inconsequential even before I ceased to believe in it.

An actual consciousness or personality.

No, I wouldn't.

All of our actions have an affect upon the world. This scope of this effect involves the entire system.

I'm not prepared to go into a full treatment of ethics here but you hit upon what I feel is a key element " we don't seem to have so much control". Moral responsibility increases with our ability to for foresee and affect the overall outcome.

That is it's failing. Any words are simply an approximation of the truth. Something is always lost in the conveyance.

~Raithere

 

Politics

That's politics, not religion. And I agree that most religions have been subsumed to some extent by politics. However, in most cases, the original 'revelation' was primarily intended to relay the religious experience.

But I don't think that the ancients perceived the divisions between these areas that we do. I think there is both a positive and a negative side to this. On the positive side the division we perceive today is somewhat artificial. Religion, morality, and politics are intertwined and you cannot affect one without affecting the others. On the negative side, such a conglomeration tends to roll over everything, ignoring discrepancies, errors, change as well as alternative perspectives.

I'm not sure about the word organizational but otherwise I agree.

Often. Either that or they tend to become aware of the strictures of a specific doctrine.

~Raithere

 

Re: Politics

Certainly, but communicating the idea in the capacity of "sharing religious knowledge" is political by nature. It's different if it's "sharing knowledge" but how many are lucid enough keep their religion segragate from their humanity? The whole thing is that it becomes one and the same to the religious person. As such, I think it is almost exclusively politicized.

Yes but for what purpose? Why relay it? It's intensely personal by nature right, how then can anyone else understand? I believe the only intent is possibly to communicate "hey that was good shit" and "you should try this". Hence recruitment. Seems like an effective tool to spark the roots of the desire for indoctrination to me, conveniently wrapped in a package of "sharing religious knowledge".

How is that positive? Seems like a downside to me, not that it's avoidable... but still I don't see it as positive. I must be missing your point.

I think there's a lot more of a downside, but that's because religion somewhat disgusts me and I have a tendency to focus on the downside of it when I start talkign about it. For instance, basing moral or political decisions on the eronious bullshit propagated by religion.

By organizational I mean, it is used to organize the mind in a manner analagous to sleep. To me, it's kind of a conscious analagy of sleep in the sense that it's used to let the mind do it's thing and find it's own 'balance' by blanking the slate and letting the mind come to a 'nuetral' state.. or some shit like that.

 

I know you are involved in muti discussion, so I'll be patient.

Very True, but as much as reading words are limited in ability to pass information, our whole being is limited as well. For example, humans have five senses, each sense has it's limited range of function. We may not hear above or below a certain deciple, same for vision, touch, smells, ect. Many patients suffering from seizures for example report hearing noises and smelling foreign materials, and I believe them very much. In short, us humans are short of describing anyone or anything period...We are incompetent in defining anything and it's for an important reason.

You seem to be struggling with the definition of god, but you believe in unity, and so if you regard god as the unifying force that keeps all elements in unity, then you may say that in some instances you are a theist in a very deep way.

It can't be. You are not self-defined by any mean. Consider this. If I take you out of your current environment and place you in burning oil, what will happen, you'll disintegrate right? Then you are not self defined, if you were self defined, then only you may define how you are regardless of your exterior environment, you are defined by your surrounding and what they decide you must be and your surrounding are defined by another dimension yet higher that ensure their function and stability.

So even my hero Raithere gives up as any human do and say I don't care. I must say, I'm shocked and not surprised. Yes, no matter how much you turn your head up to understand the concept of perfection, your limited sight will return you even more puzzeled than when you started, and even adopting the easy route of declaring Atheism will neither help you understand nor change the fact that our world is unified and perfect. Your last sentence is very serious that I ask you reconsider.

 

Re: Re: Politics

I perceive a strong difference between religion and what I've been calling the 'religious experience'. I agree with you in this regarding religion... but not religious experience. I don't feel that most of the individuals accredited with the original (I hate to resort to this word, but) revelation had politics in mind but were attempting to simply convey the experience and describe how they got there. Politics starts to enter the picture as the 'revelation' is accommodated into the person's world view.

 

Flores

First you state:

For example, humans have five senses, each sense has it's limited range of function… In short, us humans are short of describing anyone or anything period...We are incompetent in defining anything and it's for an important reason.

Then you state:

the fact that our world is unified and perfect.

Contradict much?

 

Q, I thought you are smart, maybe I'm not perfect afterall.

Anyways, our limited abilities doesn't contradict with our perfect universe. To expect us to be perfect is to expect us to be the unified universe and we are not, we are just a misely part of it.

 

First of all, "the easy road"? Please Flores, there is only one road of truth and it is not easy, nor for panzies. Though you reach some valid conclusions - you are a muslim, which IMO means you are not on it.

Further, how the hell would YOU - as a muslim - know what might or might not assist in understanding the perfection of the world? You are not other people, so you don't know where what can lead them. You are simply unwarrented in your accusation.

I am an aitheist and you'll note (if you look) that indeed I came to exactly that conclusion in a thread called (I think, it's an old thread) "Perfection". In it I discussed exactly what you say. I believe the universe/existence is exactly perfect and it is merely our distorted expectations that keep us from understanding this.

 

I don't know about there being a reason but other than that I agree.

For the reasons we're discussing above as well as some others I don't think that Reality/unity/god is completely definable. (That is what the Quran teaches, no?) But I don't find that problematic in it self. Religion is about us, not about defining God.

Close, but I'd make a small change. God is the perception of unity.

I tend to think of it this way; The deeper questions are beyond religion. At which point theist or atheist we're on the same level.

I mean my purpose is self determined, not that I am sufficient cause for myself.

I would say that we are influenced by our surroundings rather than defined by them.

I disagree here, the unity I have been discussing is intrinsic to these 4 dimensions not projected from somewhere else.

Well, I was a bit crass. To put it more gently (and accurately), I find religion to be inconsequential in its details. Whether I pray to Mecca, observe the Sabbath, or take Holy Communion is irrelevant. In this I think the Buddhists have it; if one is striving towards enlightenment one will never reach it.

Actually, I found religion more of a burden in the pursuit than a help.

Perhaps if I express it another way. Whatever we think God is, is not God, and is therefore inconsequential.

~Raithere