[net.religion] Different sets of assumptions - response to Laura

rlr@pyuxd.UUCP (Professor Wagstaff) (03/04/85)

> Okay Rich, this article got here. Here goes. I have tried to tell you
> in the past that a religion does not imply a belief in God. I am going
> to try again, but again I think that you are barking up the wrong tree
> with respect to every mystical tradition I know of. But here goes anyway....

And I've repeatedly stated that the understood definition of the word religion
implies (as all the definitions in my dictionary do) a "belief in and reverence
for a superhuman power recognized as the creator ... of the universe".  Other
life-philosophies and/or belief systems (like Ubizmatism) get *labelled* as
religions, but they are not.  (Just as certain disciplines get called sciences
when they hardly qualify for the term.)  We've been through this before.

>>Since there is no hard evidence to support the existence of a deity, one
>>would normally work (in a typical analysis of a non-religious oriented
>>phenomena) from the assumption that the thing for which there is no evidence
>>does not exist.  Without evidence showing proof of a thing's existence, or
>>its observed effect on the "physical" world, via Occam people would generally
>>assume that it does not exist until evidence of a viable nature presents
>>itself.  The *possibility* that it may exist is left open, but such a
>>possibility evinces itself if and only if evidence is presented to support it.

> Delete the word "deity" and replace it with "religious experience". [WHY?]
> Now we have something which is verifiable.  [WE DO?]
> You can hook up mystics of all flavours and have them go into trances and
> measure things like Alpha waves, and lowered heart beats, and lowered blood
> pressure, and increased electrical activity on their skin. You cannot
> read their minds and find out what they are subjectively experiencing.
> It is interesting that all mystics seem to talk of the same feelings, despite
> different religious traditions in which to find a context for their
> experiences.

Thus, all you can verifiably claim is that their bodies, their nervous systems,
etc. react to actions of their brain in a substantial physical manner.  Since
these are quantifiable physical phenomena, I'm not surprised that the "same
feelings" are experienced.  In what way are any of these things verifiable as
"religious experiences"?

> Religious experiences are direct, and (I believe) do not involve
> concept formation.

Real _e_x_p_e_r_i_e_n_c_e of any phenomena does not involve "concept formation".  *That*
comes after the fact as part of an effort to *describe* the event.

> Instead they are direct sensation/impression of divinity.

Now THAT is a concept formation exercise right there.  And one that involves
patterning based on preconditioned existing beliefs and assumptions.

>>However, obviously some people do believe in the existence of a deity despite
>>the lack of realistic evidence.  One can only assume that 1) these people have
>>a different set of criteria for acceptability of evidence, and/or 2) they have
>>some vested interest in believing that particular outcome of analysis that
>>they believe to be true.  Quite possibly both.  I think we have shown endless
>>times that the nature of the subjective evidence offered in favor of religious
>>belief is tainted:  How come your subjectivity shows a different world view
>>than someone else's? Which one is right?  WHY is his/hers wrong and YOURS
>>right?

> Bingo. Now we hit the point where I think that both you and the
> Christians are wrong. You are thinking in your concepts. they are
> thinking in their concepts. Both of you mistake your concepts for
> reality *which* *is* *something* *else* *altogether*.

No, Laura, we've missed the point entirely.  I am making statements about
the nature of reality, and about the nature of one's subjective experience
of reality, and how one's perceptions based on that subjectivity are subject
to error.  The only "concept" I am putting forth here is the erroneousness of
assuming subjective experience as equivalent to reality.  It is by its very
nature MORE tainted than efforts towards objective experience.

> Then there is the endless argument over RIGHTNESS. You both are right. You
> both are wrong. In so much as you cling to your concepts rather than to your
> experience, you are distorting and thus wrong. There is no way to avoid
> this and still think. You are thus right. It is only when you insist
> that your concepts adequately describe reality (in the sense of being
> comprehensive, rather than, say, useful) that you are making a
> fundamental WRONG sort of error.

My "concepts" don't adequately "describe" reality, because 1) any set of
concepts described in words in inadequate to describe reality completely,
and 2) the observational tools don't exist to make such a complete description.
My warnings about the unreliability of the basis of certain "concepts" are not
a description of reality, but rather a set of precepts for determining (at
least in part) what is a viable means of determining "reality".

>>If he/she is being deceived, how can you be sure it is not YOU who has been
>>deceived?  (Not to mention the way the brain is known to impose patterns onto
>>events/phenomena/observations that upon closer examination are shown to be
>>quite wrong---like "recognizing" someone at the airport and realizing that it
>>wasn't them after all.)

> Mystic traditions call this ``self-deception''. They warn about it a lot.
> Some traditions say that you can never be sure that you are not being 
> deceived, and others claim that freedom from self-deception is the mark of
> enlightenment -- and when you are enlightened you, and everybody else will
> know it.  The best you can do is compare your experience with others. It also
> helps to have a good guru/spiritual leader. But the system isn't perfect,
> alas....

One must do much more than "compare with others".  One must ensure that one's
potential self-deception is not based on personally or societally ingrained
presumptions.  And checking to see if a "guru" or "spiritual leader" agrees
with your conclusions is possibly the most erroneous way of all.  (Save a few.)

>>With that in mind, the only other reason that such people might readily accept
>>the notion of the existence of a god is precisely because they already believe
>>it to be so:  they hold the existence of god as an assumption, an axiom, and
>>work ALL analysis of the world from there.  "Why is life full of problems? 
>>Because god designed the world that way knowing that it would be best for us
>>not to have a perfect life but rather to struggle and learn."  Contrast this
>>with the simpler, less presumptive notion that life is full of problems
>>because all those problems are simply a part of the natural flow of things,
>>based on what we observe and codify as physical laws.  We experience them as
>>problems because they conflict with our wishes for a world ordered around our
>>lives, and because such conflicts are inevitable in a world with trillions of
>>organisms and objects caught up in the "natural flow".  As opposed to
>>assuming, for whatever reason, the existence of an ultimate "good" force that
>>"designed" the universe to be a certain way.

> This notion that what we preceive as problems are as a result our desires to
> have the world ordered around our lives, rather than ``the natural flow''...
> gee, that could be taken from any Buddhist text you care to mention. It
> describes viparyasa rather well, if perhaps too succinctly.

But, as I mentioned before, that doesn't qualify as a "religion" by the
definition put forth.  So I'm not sure what point you were trying to make.
If you're saying "See?  A religion said this.", well, it's not quite a
"religion" by definitional standards---which is not to belittle it, it simply
doesn't qualify for THAT label, which is probably something (from my
perspective) to be proud of.  I'm not all that familiar with Buddhism, but it's
intriguing that it posits what I've described above, in contrast to religions.

>>I contend that all such analysis of the world by religious believers, and the
>>answers offered in such analysis, stem directly from an a priori assumption of
>>the existence of god.  Lewis' works are prime examples.  Jeff Sargent, for
>>example, has used the phraseology "Why would you want to believe that human
>>beings are 'nothing but' lab specimens?"  (... when you have this other
>>possibility to believe instead.)  "Wanting to believe", the desirability of
>>holding certain beliefs as opposed to others owing to their intrinsic
>>"aesthetic" value rather than their veracity, becomes a factor in forming
>>belief systems for certain people.

> Given that one has the hard thing, called a religious experience, to
> think about, it would be very unlikely if the desirability to certain
> beliefs played no role. This seems essential to the process of concept
> formation, though, and not particular to religion.

But in religion, it would seem that the introduction of further evidence to
contradict the original presumptions does NOT have the same effect on the
"concept former" as it would in other areas of analysis and concept formation.
Moreover, you're not addressing the primary question here:  is wanting to
believe that the world is a particular way a reasonable basis for a model of
the world?

>>Thus my question is: why DO you presume the existence of god as a given
>>(obviously I and many others simply do not), if not because you have some
>>vested interest in believing that it is so, what I have endlessly and perhaps
>>monotonously labelled as WISHFUL THINKING?

> I don't, of course, but what I want to ask you is how do you explain
> religious experiences? And, of course, if you think that your concepts
> are RIGHT, how can you prove this?

How do *I* "explain" them?  I think my first few paragraphs cover that.  I
contend that *your* "explanation" of them as being "religious experiences" is
presumptive in the extreme.  Thus, it is not *I* who is obliged to "explain"
religious experiences, but it is *you* who is obliged to show in what way
they are different from non-religious experience to merit special case beliefs.

>>Given that we are dealing with two forms of logic, one of which starts off
>>making the assumption that god exists and the other of which does not, a
>>person using one form of logic cannot possibly convince the person using the
>>other form of logic to accept his position.  This is not always true, because
>>the two forms of logic and their two sets of assumptions are NOT disjoint
>>sets.  In fact, for most reasonable people, they are practically equivalent,
>>with the addition of the a priori assumption of god being the only major
>>difference between the two sets.  Conclusions drawn from the two sets of
>>assumptions, however, can and will (and do) wind up being radically
>>different.  The "impossibility of convincing" that I mentioned above only
>>comes into play when the "extra" assumption has a role in the formation of
>>some conclusion.

> Why are you so involved with your concepts that you think that playing
> logic games with them is productive? Go out and meditate for a
> while.... :-)

I thought we had outlawed proselytizing and made the offense punishable by
being subjected to other proselytizing.  :-)  The above paragraph did not
consist of "logic games", as you put it, but rather, of reasons why religious
believers, who add into their precepts additional pre-defined axioms about
god, reach conclusions that are significantly different from those who don't
make such presumptions (which is not the same as presuming that the other
presumptions were "wrong").
-- 
"When you believe in things that you don't understand, you'll suffer.
 Superstition ain't the way."		Rich Rosen  ihnp4!pyuxd!rlr

wallace@ucbvax.ARPA (David E. Wallace) (03/05/85)

In article <617@pyuxd.UUCP> rlr@pyuxd.UUCP (Rich Rosen) writes:
>> (LAURA)
...
>> Okay Rich, this article got here. Here goes. I have tried to tell you
>> in the past that a religion does not imply a belief in God. I am going
>> to try again, but again I think that you are barking up the wrong tree
>> with respect to every mystical tradition I know of. But here goes anyway....
>
>And I've repeatedly stated that the understood definition of the word religion
>implies (as all the definitions in my dictionary do) a "belief in and reverence
>for a superhuman power recognized as the creator ... of the universe".  Other
>life-philosophies and/or belief systems (like Ubizmatism) get *labelled* as
>religions, but they are not.  (Just as certain disciplines get called sciences
>when they hardly qualify for the term.)  We've been through this before.

From the Pocket Edition of the Merriam-Webster Dictionary:

	religion (n) 1: the service and worship of God or the supernatural,
	2: devotion to a religious faith, 3: an organized system of faith
	and worship; also: a personal set of religious beliefs and practices,
	4: a cause, principle, or belief held to with faith and ardor.

	religious (adj) 1: relating or devoted to the divine or that which
	is held to be of ultimate importance, 2: of or relating to
	religious beliefs or observances, 3: scrupulously and conscientiously
	faithful, 4: FERVENT, ZEALOUS.

Sorry, Rich.  Maybe all the definitions of religion in your dictionary imply
a "belief in and reverence for a superhuman power recognized as the creator
...  of the universe," but not all the definitions in my dictionary (above)
seem to.  Include, yes, but imply, no.  I'd say Laura wins this round.

Dave Wallace
(...!ucbvax!wallace  wallace@Berkeley)

rlr@pyuxd.UUCP (Professor Wagstaff) (03/05/85)

>>And I've repeatedly stated that the understood definition of the word religion
>>implies (as all definitions in my dictionary do) a "belief in and reverence
>>for a superhuman power recognized as the creator ... of the universe".  Other
>>life-philosophies and/or belief systems (like Ubizmatism) get *labelled* as
>>religions, but they are not.  (Just as certain disciplines get called sciences
>>when they hardly qualify for the term.)  We've been through this before.[RLR]

> From the Pocket Edition of the Merriam-Webster Dictionary:   [WALLACE]

> 	religion (n) 1: the service and worship of God or the supernatural,

I'd guess that's a point in favor of my definition.

> 	2: devotion to a religious faith, 3: an organized system of faith
> 	and worship; also: a personal set of religious beliefs and practices,

Obviously this is a cross-referential definition, pointing to 'religious'.
We'll have to look below.  Also, the word "worship" directly implies worship
of SOMETHING, presumably being a supreme existing entity.

> 	4: a cause, principle, or belief held to with faith and ardor.

e.g.,  "It seems like posting to the net is his religion."

> 	religious (adj) 1: relating or devoted to the divine or that which
> 	is held to be of ultimate importance,

I'd call that a pointer to a divine entity.

> 	2: of or relating to religious beliefs or observances,

Well, obviously that relates back to (1).

> 	3: scrupulously and conscientiously faithful,
> 	4: FERVENT, ZEALOUS.

These, admittedly, have nothing to do with a deity.  However, these are
definitions of "religious" and not of religion.

> Sorry, Rich.  Maybe all the definitions of religion in your dictionary imply
> a "belief in and reverence for a superhuman power recognized as the creator
> ...  of the universe," but not all the definitions in my dictionary (above)
> seem to.  Include, yes, but imply, no.  I'd say Laura wins this round.

I'd say that 1) the primary definitions of both religion and religious
support my point, and 2) I was wrong to say "all".  Still, given the direct
implication of the primary definitions I'd say that my point is still valid.
-- 
Otology recapitulates phonology.
					Rich Rosen    ihnp4!pyuxd!rlr
-- 
Anything's possible, but only a few things actually happen.
					Rich Rosen    pyuxd!rlr

laura@utzoo.UUCP (Laura Creighton) (03/06/85)

Rich,
your personal definition of ``religion'' implies a worship of a deity,
and your personal definition of ``worship'' implies the existence
of a deity -- or deities, I suppose.

Unfortunately, you are in Humpty Dumpty mode again. Everybody else
(yes, I am sure you could drag up people who agree with you, that
wasn't meant to be taken literally) just doesn't use words that way.
This definition of religon is true for Judaism, Christianity and
Islam -- though I know Gnostics who consider themselves Christian
and who don't ``worship God'' (according to them, Jesus was *not*
God, and worshipping the Demiurge [sp?] is a mistake) (as opposed
to the Yezidees who have a similar world view and who are
proclaimed Satanists) and I am not sure how to characterise
Sufism.

You seem to have left out Hinduism (though some Hindus do ``worship''
as you understand the term) Buddhism, Taoism, and a great many
``primative religions'' found in Malasia, Africa, and the Americas.
The european pagan tradition (assuming that you believe that there 
was one, and that it is connected to current paganism, the point
being hotly debated in anthropological circles today) would be very
divided into worshippers and non-worshippers by your standard -- all
depending on what and how one takes to be symbols.

That is a lot of people who consider themsleves ``religious'' and who
have designed ceremonies, and build statues, frescos and temples
and in general gathered together to express a common belief and
practice which they considered religious whom you are not recognising.

Why must we all adopt your definitions? It seems that you are only
willing to discuss what are called ``Judeao-Christian religions''
(the authority centred, God creator ones) and, at that, I can't
remember you discussing Islam ever, or Judaism much. If what you
want to discuss is Christianity, then, you are in the wrong newsgroup,
even if ``religion'' is synonymous with ``christianity'' to you.

Laura Creighton
utzoo!laura