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The Problem of Evil.

Sort of. I never actually read Pascal and therefore don't know the context and tone of his original quote. However, I always got the sense that Pascal's wager involved an implicit fear of divine punishment for unbelief. The reason I don't name-drop Pascal when I say what I said is because fear of punishment doesn't enter into it for me. It's purely a matter of personal motivation. Unlike some people who are fans of Pascal's wager, I have no problem with the atheist's [counter]wager. I can't imagine a loving God being much offended, or an omniscient God having trouble understanding, someone who chooses not to believe. As a matter of fact, I think these two wagers are compatible, and add up to the sensible position that it's up to us each individually to decide what worldview is most consistent with what we know and live.

Its pretty straightforward actually. He argues that God either exists or doesn't and that reason alone cannot defend either of these propositions. Therefore you have to wager either way. To put it more in context here are some more quotes by him.

This is what I see, and what troubles me. I look on all sides, and everywhere I see nothing but obscurity. Nature offers me nothing that is not a matter of doubt and disquiet.

For after all what is man in nature? A nothing in relation to infinity, all in relation to nothing, a central point between nothing and all and infinitely far from understanding either.

There is nothing so conformable to reason as this disavowal of reason.

There no doubt exist natural laws, but once this fine reason of ours was corrupted, it corrupted everything.

If I saw no signs of a divinity, I would fix myself in denial. If I saw everywhere the marks of a Creator, I would repose peacefully in faith. But seeing too much to deny Him, and too little to assure me, I am in a pitiful state, and I would wish a hundred times that if a god sustains nature it would reveal Him without ambiguity.

We understand nothing of the works of God unless we take it as a principle that He wishes to blind some and to enlighten others.

It is not certain that everything is uncertain.

Personally I wouldn't take Pascals wager being that I think its kind of self deceiving in that you are quite possibly convincing yourself to believe in something you are not quite sure of.

Not necessarily. I'm willing to entertain a higher power that has us as an integral part of his plan. But again, our whole concept of 'take an interest' comes entirely from our interpersonal experience. It's quite possible that God's way of taking an interest, or the sort of interest he takes, doesn't closely resemble the ways in which people show an interest in each other, nor the motivations for doing so.

Its hard for me to agree with you on this being that so much of existence and all that has existed is wasted. Again the fact that 99.9% of all species that have ever existed on this planet have been wiped out points out to me meaninglessness and eventual nothingness. Seeing a ultimate plan or goal in all that death and destruction is all but impossible for me. I can't possibly see a divine plan in which the holocaust or Rwanda were essential to this Gods goals. I can't see the need to have people like Jack the Ripper and Jeffery Dahmer or the Zodiac killer. I just can't resign myself into believing that there is an ultimate purpose to mankind and that all its infinite goods and ills are somehow in furtherance of some unknowable goal/plan. You can sum all this up to our imperfect understanding of God but to me if God does indeed have a plan or goal then he's a sadistic little kid looking on an ant hill occasionally stomping on us poor ants just to see what happens and just because he can. Either that or he's some kind of scientist/observer who created all this just to see how it all plays out in the end.

However if we simply see God as nature then IMO we can avoid the above two options. We can see God and everything else that exists as simply existing. That all this is simply here to run its course and that we are here to observe and enjoy this sometimes beautiful existence while we can. I guess what I'm trying to say is that to me its more comforting to think that God doesn't have a plan. Because if he did then all the terrible things in life are also part of it and that terrifies and depresses me.

I find it intriguing how taken with transhumanism many of the New Atheists / Brights are. It's almost like it takes the place of an afterlife for them, in a similar way that evolutionary psychology often takes the place of creation myths.

Personally, I find rebirth or reincarnation of some sort pretty sensible.

I think transhumanism makes sense. It is a way of overcoming the limits of this world and empowers mankind to go beyond what nature has given us. (One day I hope sooner rather than later it will drive us to colonize the stars.) I think transhumanism is similar to the idea of being our own gods in that we hold the power to change the world and ourselves. Its far more comforting to have technology and empiricism IMO than it is to have faith in something admittedly unknowable and mysterious. Who knows maybe one day rebirth and reincarnation could be made physically possible through science and technology.

Good debating with you, dude. My angle in all this was to cut through the either-or, black-and-white thinking that tends to dominate this topic. Just because call something into question doesn't mean I intend to reject it, and just because I reject something doesn't mean I categorically reject all things remotely similar. I also intend to illustrate that to extend the rubric of scientific inquiry beyond what science is capable of assessing (i.e. metaphysics) is as much a value choice as choosing not to. It's a choice I understand and respect, so long as this understanding and respect is reciprocated. Because in the end, none of us really know what all of this is all about. We can only hope, speculate, and if we choose, pray.

I have also enjoyed debating this topic with you. I'm really glad our discussion so far has avoided being black and white as (as you said) it is so common with discussions of this type. Often times I find myself extremely frustrated arguing this topic with less respectful and less open minded individuals. It is refreshing to talk to someone who isn't dead set on believing one thing and saying to hell with everything else that doesn't agree with their particular worldview. For in the end what you say is true. We can never truly know beyond a shadow of a doubt one way or another. And it is so much better to agree to disagree and to discuss and argue our points amiably then it is to argue with our emotions rather than our reason.

And I say one can transcend drudgery far easier without meaninglessness, so why make it harder?

I guess my question was in the context of the Sisyphus myth in that his task was eternally meaningless. So IMO its better to find happiness in the meaningless and to be passionate about it. As I said earlier after the stone has rolled downed for the millionth time we have to be able to smile and say "I can't wait to get to the top again."
 
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Is evil a problem?

Surely there could be no good without evil. Just as there could be no back without front, nor void without form.

;)
 
Its pretty straightforward actually. He argues that God either exists or doesn't and that reason alone cannot defend either of these propositions. Therefore you have to wager either way. To put it more in context here are some more quotes by him.

Thanks, that was very helpful to be able to see the original source.

Personally I wouldn't take Pascals wager being that I think its kind of self deceiving in that you are quite possibly convincing yourself to believe in something you are not quite sure of.

And this I think is the core of the difference between someone who'll entertain the supernatural over someone who generally won't: what criteria a person has for accepting something as true.

Its hard for me to agree with you on this being that so much of existence and all that has existed is wasted. Again the fact that 99.9% of all species that have ever existed on this planet have been wiped out points out to me meaninglessness and eventual nothingness. Seeing a ultimate plan or goal in all that death and destruction is all but impossible for me. I can't possibly see a divine plan in which the holocaust or Rwanda were essential to this Gods goals. I can't see the need to have people like Jack the Ripper and Jeffery Dahmer or the Zodiac killer. I just can't resign myself into believing that there is an ultimate purpose to mankind and that all its infinite goods and ills are somehow in furtherance of some unknowable goal/plan. You can sum all this up to our imperfect understanding of God but to me if God does indeed have a plan or goal then he's a sadistic little kid looking on an ant hill occasionally stomping on us poor ants just to see what happens and just because he can. Either that or he's some kind of scientist/observer who created all this just to see how it all plays out in the end.

The first thing I think of, off the top of my head, is the Dharmic religions' idea that suffering is a product of ignorance of our true nature (unity with, and lack of separateness from, all of creation, including the original Source). Those who inflict suffering upon others, in this paradigm, do so because they give in to their natural temptation to feed their egos and maintain the illusion of permanence, individual separateness, and the possibility of boundless individual glory. They are lower levels of sentient beings, much farther behind on their journey to liberation than most of us. But I must ultimately be understanding and accepting of them, because I was them many lifetimes ago.

The Western esoteric tradition has a similar philosophy of how sentient beings progress, through each lifetime and many embodied lifetimes, from base creatures with only rudimentary survival and replication drives, up through the enlightened and self-aware being who wants nought but to reconnect with its Source and with all that is.

However if we simply see God as nature then IMO we can avoid the above two options. We can see God and everything else that exists as simply existing. That all this is simply here to run its course and that we are here to observe and enjoy this sometimes beautiful existence while we can. I guess what I'm trying to say is that to me its more comforting to think that God doesn't have a plan. Because if he did then all the terrible things in life are also part of it and that terrifies and depresses me.

I have sort of a different response to the same observation. The greatest sense of awe and trepidation, fear and trembling, comes from racking my brain pondering what a Master Builder who is most of the time good but also randomly unexplainably painful, must look like or think. It's the similar kind of feeling that the beginning apprentice of a very great master, who is an amazingly good teacher, but inscrutable and every now and then surprisingly tyrranical, must feel. In my Catholic upbringing, I was taught that awe, almost to the point of low-level fear, was a very proper and normal response to a supreme being whose ways just seemed to defy any easy generalization or predictability. It is nurturing that sense of awe and feeling it deep in your bones that trains one to handle and recognize the awe that ineffable mystical states impart.

I think transhumanism makes sense. It is a way of overcoming the limits of this world and empowers mankind to go beyond what nature has given us. (One day I hope sooner rather than later it will drive us to colonize the stars.) I think transhumanism is similar to the idea of being our own gods in that we hold the power to change the world and ourselves. Its far more comforting to have technology and empiricism IMO than it is to have faith in something admittedly unknowable and mysterious. Who knows maybe one day rebirth and reincarnation could be made physically possible through science and technology.

It's possible. Or maybe it's already happened, many lifetimes within lifetimes ago and several parallel universes over. I say this with absolutely no sarcasm. I actually think the esoteric traditions, which are more in line with Eastern spiritualities and indigenous cosmologies than the exoteric sides of Western religion, are quite compatible with transhumanism, depending of course on how its done and with what intentions.

I have also enjoyed debating this topic with you. I'm really glad our discussion so far has avoided being black and white as (as you said) it is so common with discussions of this type. Often times I find myself extremely frustrated arguing this topic with less respectful and less open minded individuals. It is refreshing to talk to someone who isn't dead set on believing one thing and saying to hell with everything else that doesn't agree with their particular worldview. For in the end what you say is true. We can never truly know beyond a shadow of a doubt one way or another. And it is so much better to agree to disagree and to discuss and argue our points amiably then it is to argue with our emotions rather than our reason.

You're welcome. For the longest time I've wanted to become a person who could debate this topic without getting upset, and based on your reply I feel I've come a long way on this, and that makes me happy. I think any good faith is tempered when put to the test by those who doubt. Inversely, I think any faith that causes one to get ruffled at the slightest attack on it could be called weak.

I guess my question was in the context of the Sisyphus myth in that his task was eternally meaningless. So IMO its better to find happiness in the meaningless and to be passionate about it. As I said earlier after the stone has rolled downed for the millionth time we have to be able to smile and say "I can't wait to get to the top again."

I think I need to reread this myth and see the circumstances under which Sisyphus was damned to his task before I can comment more.
 
Thanks, that was very helpful to be able to see the original source.

No prob.

And this I think is the core of the difference between someone who'll entertain the supernatural over someone who generally won't: what criteria a person has for accepting something as true.

I dunno to me Pascals wager seems incredibly dishonest to oneself. Even if someone is willing to entertain the idea of the supernatural doesn't mean they should wager their belief system. I think they should like anyone else go by their 'gut' and what their minds tell them to do.

The first thing I think of, off the top of my head, is the Dharmic religions' idea that suffering is a product of ignorance of our true nature (unity with, and lack of separateness from, all of creation, including the original Source). Those who inflict suffering upon others, in this paradigm, do so because they give in to their natural temptation to feed their egos and maintain the illusion of permanence, individual separateness, and the possibility of boundless individual glory. They are lower levels of sentient beings, much farther behind on their journey to liberation than most of us. But I must ultimately be understanding and accepting of them, because I was them many lifetimes ago.

The Western esoteric tradition has a similar philosophy of how sentient beings progress, through each lifetime and many embodied lifetimes, from base creatures with only rudimentary survival and replication drives, up through the enlightened and self-aware being who wants nought but to reconnect with its Source and with all that is.

For how good the Indian religions sound on paper they don't always actually work out that well in practice. I mean if you believe in Hinduism for example then you have to accept the caste system which is a big part of Hinduism. The way untouchables are treated in India is deplorable and although you can't blame this treatment entirely on Hinduism you have to at least admit that it plays a rather large part of it. Buddhism however seems to be far more tolerating of people. IMO this is because Buddhism doesn't put much emphasis on God or gods but rather on truth and the alleviation of suffering.

I have sort of a different response to the same observation. The greatest sense of awe and trepidation, fear and trembling, comes from racking my brain pondering what a Master Builder who is most of the time good but also randomly unexplainably painful, must look like or think. It's the similar kind of feeling that the beginning apprentice of a very great master, who is an amazingly good teacher, but inscrutable and every now and then surprisingly tyrranical, must feel. In my Catholic upbringing, I was taught that awe, almost to the point of low-level fear, was a very proper and normal response to a supreme being whose ways just seemed to defy any easy generalization or predictability. It is nurturing that sense of awe and feeling it deep in your bones that trains one to handle and recognize the awe that ineffable mystical states impart.

Even when I was a Christian I've always had a problem with this concept of fearing God. Meaning that I always felt that this fear was misplaced in that when people say they fear God they seem to be really saying that they fear the randomness and seemingly chaotic cruelty of nature. I'm having trouble trying to form this thought in my head but I'll give it my best shot.

When a person prays to God that their loved ones don't die what are they really asking for? They're pretty much asking for a stay of execution, for we all die eventually. What they essentially want is to die on their terms. But you can't negotiate with death and nature any more than you can negotiate with a hurricane or a tidal wave. That's why we call these thing a force of nature because it is totally out of our hands. That being said why do people pray at all? My answer is because they are misplacing their fears. What they should fear instead is the awesome power of nature not God. When the ancient Greeks feared Zeus and his thunderbolts they were actually afraid of a natural phenomenon. When Roman sailors feared the wrath of Neptune they were actually scared of the randomness of a rogue wave or the 'from out of nowhere' storm. Anyway I hope that made some sense.

It's possible. Or maybe it's already happened, many lifetimes within lifetimes ago and several parallel universes over. I say this with absolutely no sarcasm. I actually think the esoteric traditions, which are more in line with Eastern spiritualities and indigenous cosmologies than the exoteric sides of Western religion, are quite compatible with transhumanism, depending of course on how its done and with what intentions.

I guess you could tie the idea of reincarnation to Carl Jung and his idea of the collective unconscious. Maybe all this human knowledge is stored somehow in this region beyond our realm of understanding.

You're welcome. For the longest time I've wanted to become a person who could debate this topic without getting upset, and based on your reply I feel I've come a long way on this, and that makes me happy. I think any good faith is tempered when put to the test by those who doubt. Inversely, I think any faith that causes one to get ruffled at the slightest attack on it could be called weak.

I am glad that you aren't a fanatic for fanaticism leaves no room for discussion or doubt.

I think I need to reread this myth and see the circumstances under which Sisyphus was damned to his task before I can comment more.

Well here is the short version. Sisyphus according to the myth is the first king of Ephrya (also known as Corinth). He was smart and cunning but also greedy and dishonest. He was also something of a tyrant in his reign as king. Eventually he essentially got too smart for his own good and angered Zeus who ordered him chained in Tartarus the Greek hell. Once there Sisyphus fooled Thanatos the god of death into letting him go and trapped Thanatos in Tartarus. This greatly angered the gods especially Ares the god of war because as long as Thanatos was trapped no one could die so Ares and his wars became pointless. Eventually Ares freed Thanatos and gave Sisyphus to him. But since Ares killed Sisyphus he ended up on the river Styx where he convinced Persephone that he was there by mistake. Persephone then let him return to the mortal world.

Finally Hermes was ordered to drag him back to the underworld. There as punishment for his hubris, for thinking that he could fool Zeus himself he was punished to forever roll a large boulder up a hill. To show him finally that for all his efforts in life he will be eternally damned to accomplish nothing for all his toil.

In essence I was pretty much saying what the philosopher Albert Camus wrote in his book The Myth of Sisyphus. ""one must imagine Sisyphus happy" because "The struggle itself towards the heights is enough to fill a man's heart." That being said I sincerely believe that in order to be happy with or without the existence of god. One must find happiness in the struggle of life. To revel in it and be all the happier for it.
 
I dunno to me Pascals wager seems incredibly dishonest to oneself. Even if someone is willing to entertain the idea of the supernatural doesn't mean they should wager their belief system. I think they should like anyone else go by their 'gut' and what their minds tell them to do.

This is why, as I explained before, I don't find "wager" to be the most fitting analogy for choosing to believe in a higher power.

For how good the Indian religions sound on paper they don't always actually work out that well in practice. I mean if you believe in Hinduism for example then you have to accept the caste system which is a big part of Hinduism. The way untouchables are treated in India is deplorable and although you can't blame this treatment entirely on Hinduism you have to at least admit that it plays a rather large part of it. Buddhism however seems to be far more tolerating of people. IMO this is because Buddhism doesn't put much emphasis on God or gods but rather on truth and the alleviation of suffering.

All I was saying was that Indian philosophy has come up with a number of cosmological scenarios that answer the problem of evil more accessibly (and IMHO more convincingly) than any Western philosopher I've read. You kind of took my point in a whole different direction.

Even when I was a Christian I've always had a problem with this concept of fearing God. Meaning that I always felt that this fear was misplaced in that when people say they fear God they seem to be really saying that they fear the randomness and seemingly chaotic cruelty of nature. I'm having trouble trying to form this thought in my head but I'll give it my best shot.

When a person prays to God that their loved ones don't die what are they really asking for? They're pretty much asking for a stay of execution, for we all die eventually. What they essentially want is to die on their terms. But you can't negotiate with death and nature any more than you can negotiate with a hurricane or a tidal wave. That's why we call these thing a force of nature because it is totally out of our hands. That being said why do people pray at all? My answer is because they are misplacing their fears. What they should fear instead is the awesome power of nature not God. When the ancient Greeks feared Zeus and his thunderbolts they were actually afraid of a natural phenomenon. When Roman sailors feared the wrath of Neptune they were actually scared of the randomness of a rogue wave or the 'from out of nowhere' storm. Anyway I hope that made some sense.

You're missing an important point about fear (and awe), though. We fear what we don't understand and can't name. Nature is certainly serendipitous, but it's very understandable, and nowadays largely understood. It takes an entity or phenomenon that's apparently not beholden to the laws of nature as we know them, and does not interact with natural phenomena in ways that we can understand or predict, to inspire the sort of deeply-felt "fear of the Lord" of which I speak. This is my disagreement with secular humanists who say that beholding the natural world is just as awe inspiring and spiritual as reaching for something beyond the natural. I'm not trying to belittle the grandeur of the natural world -- for example, I'm fascinated with the intricacies of the human body. But I am saying that this awe feels wholly different, both in quantity and quality, from the awe of pondering the possibility of realms and entities far beyond my comprehension.

I guess you could tie the idea of reincarnation to Carl Jung and his idea of the collective unconscious. Maybe all this human knowledge is stored somehow in this region beyond our realm of understanding.

Oh yes. Reincarnation has been much more endorsed by Western thinkers and intellectuals than the history books would have you know.

Well here is the short version. Sisyphus according to the myth is the first king of Ephrya (also known as Corinth). He was smart and cunning but also greedy and dishonest. He was also something of a tyrant in his reign as king. Eventually he essentially got too smart for his own good and angered Zeus who ordered him chained in Tartarus the Greek hell. Once there Sisyphus fooled Thanatos the god of death into letting him go and trapped Thanatos in Tartarus. This greatly angered the gods especially Ares the god of war because as long as Thanatos was trapped no one could die so Ares and his wars became pointless. Eventually Ares freed Thanatos and gave Sisyphus to him. But since Ares killed Sisyphus he ended up on the river Styx where he convinced Persephone that he was there by mistake. Persephone then let him return to the mortal world.

Finally Hermes was ordered to drag him back to the underworld. There as punishment for his hubris, for thinking that he could fool Zeus himself he was punished to forever roll a large boulder up a hill. To show him finally that for all his efforts in life he will be eternally damned to accomplish nothing for all his toil.

Thanks. The lesson I pick up from this story is the pointlessness of blind ambition at others' expense. Sisyphus could have treated his subjects better. Or, having been damned to the underworld, he could have enjoyed the company of others there instead of conning his way out. But instead he tried repeatedly to selfishly get one up on the world, which earned him endless toil without anyone else to share the experience with. Which is exactly what anyone who lies and cheats their way to what they want ultimately gets.

In which case, I really think I was in error to use the myth of Sisyphus as a microcosm of the human condition as we all know it. It's really more of a morality play. It's the original Citizen Kane.

In essence I was pretty much saying what the philosopher Albert Camus wrote in his book The Myth of Sisyphus. ""one must imagine Sisyphus happy" because "The struggle itself towards the heights is enough to fill a man's heart." That being said I sincerely believe that in order to be happy with or without the existence of god. One must find happiness in the struggle of life. To revel in it and be all the happier for it.

I'll agree with you wholeheartedly that accepting challenges and striving for self-improvement are key to living life to the fullest. But I think that doing this at the expense of ones connectedness, to other people, to the world at large, and if you so desire to a higher power or ultimate source, misses the entire point of being alive.
 
^Ok been thinking about a reply for awhile now. Now I actually have time to make one so here goes.

This is why, as I explained before, I don't find "wager" to be the most fitting analogy for choosing to believe in a higher power.

You see Pascals position is that you MUST wager either way because it is impossible to know for sure. My position is that faith is believing the unbelievable and therefore not worth my wager. To quote Mark Twain "Faith is believing what you know ain't so." Although I often find myself disagreeing with Pascals position I can't help but grudgingly agree with him that yes it is a wager either way for in the end we are making a choice that is not at all obvious, with both sides equally lacking in empirical evidence.

All I was saying was that Indian philosophy has come up with a number of cosmological scenarios that answer the problem of evil more accessibly (and IMHO more convincingly) than any Western philosopher I've read. You kind of took my point in a whole different direction.

Yes I realize that. What I was trying to illustrate is that even though a religion looks good on paper or has some philosophically sound ideas it may or may not work out well in practice.

You're missing an important point about fear (and awe), though. We fear what we don't understand and can't name. Nature is certainly serendipitous, but it's very understandable, and nowadays largely understood. It takes an entity or phenomenon that's apparently not beholden to the laws of nature as we know them, and does not interact with natural phenomena in ways that we can understand or predict, to inspire the sort of deeply-felt "fear of the Lord" of which I speak. This is my disagreement with secular humanists who say that beholding the natural world is just as awe inspiring and spiritual as reaching for something beyond the natural. I'm not trying to belittle the grandeur of the natural world -- for example, I'm fascinated with the intricacies of the human body. But I am saying that this awe feels wholly different, both in quantity and quality, from the awe of pondering the possibility of realms and entities far beyond my comprehension.

My main disagreement with this argument is similar to Stephen Hawking and his assertion that even if God were to exist even he would have to conform to the laws of physics. I don't believe that if there is a God he would somehow be above the laws of nature. Therefore I cannot agree with you that such an entity is needed to inspire such fear and awe. IMO the same fear and awe could be found in the awesome power of a supernova or black hole. I see no reason why I should believe in the supernatural as I have never seen or experienced anything that could be classified as such. There are still abundant mysteries in nature to solve and plenty to be fearful and respectful of.

Also I forgot who said this but science on an advanced enough level is indistinguishable from magic. I believe that the future holds such wonders in the various fields of technology that one day mankind can be truly considered their own Gods.

Thanks. The lesson I pick up from this story is the pointlessness of blind ambition at others' expense. Sisyphus could have treated his subjects better. Or, having been damned to the underworld, he could have enjoyed the company of others there instead of conning his way out. But instead he tried repeatedly to selfishly get one up on the world, which earned him endless toil without anyone else to share the experience with. Which is exactly what anyone who lies and cheats their way to what they want ultimately gets.

In which case, I really think I was in error to use the myth of Sisyphus as a microcosm of the human condition as we all know it. It's really more of a morality play. It's the original Citizen Kane.

I interpret the myth of Sisyphus a little differently. I think within the context of the myth it is trying to say that pretty much you fuck with the Gods then you get fucked for eternity. It is not unlike how in Christianity and the other Abrahamic religions blasphemy is the only unforgivable sin. They're all pretty much saying the same thing. You question our God and you will be damned. God is all powerful therefore if you try to trick him your punishment will be severe. You find this type of story in all the mythologies of the world everywhere. Therefore IMO Sisyphus should be seen as a sort of anti-hero. In that he had the audacity to challenge the gods and in so doing suffers the consequences. He may have done morally questionable things but in the end he deserves respect for challenging the status quo.

I'll agree with you wholeheartedly that accepting challenges and striving for self-improvement are key to living life to the fullest. But I think that doing this at the expense of ones connectedness, to other people, to the world at large, and if you so desire to a higher power or ultimate source, misses the entire point of being alive.

Well for some people their whole reason for existence is to accept and defeat challenges. And indeed the goal of self perfection although ultimately unattainable is indeed a worthy goal and if you must shed aside some human connections in the process so be it. This reminds me have you ever heard of a book called The Razors Edge by William Somerset Maugham? Its one of my all time favorite books and I think that you would enjoy it immensely. I've read an reread it about 5 times now lol. Bill Murray made a movie with the same title based on the book and it is pretty faithful to the book if you don't have time to read it.

It is about a man who after fighting in WWI becomes disillusioned with life and abandons all he knows in America, his fiancee his family even his inheritance to go on a search essentially for God and self perfection. First he goes to Europe and studies the western religions and philosophies wandering Europe to find truth. Eventually he ends up in India and embraces eastern Philosophy and religion but he just can't seem to let go of what he experienced in WWI. I don't want to give too much away but suffice it to say it is a great book and judging from our discussion thus far I think you would like it a lot. There is a great part in the book where the main character and the narrator meet in a restaurant in Paris and discuss God, religion and philosophy much like we are doing now and it is just so great to read it and see the conclusions they come up with it. Sadly this part is not in the movie.

I really hope you consider reading this book. It just might change your life. My favorite quote from the book describes me perfectly. In the book the main character is talking to a Catholic priest about god and how he can't accept an all knowing all powerful and all loving God. In the end the priests says (paraphrasing as I don't have the book with me at the moment) "My son you are a deeply religious man who doesn't believe in God. Do not worry about finding God for in the end he will find you" When I read this part it deeply touched me. Because I realized that deep down I wish I could believe in God and that I have been searching for a way of believing in a God that would conform to what I believe. Sadly I still don't believe in God. But deep down I still have a spiritual yearning. Which is why I am so ultimately conflicted and torn between agnosticism and atheism.
 
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^Ok been thinking about a reply for awhile now. Now I actually have time to make one so here goes.

Ditto.

You see Pascals position is that you MUST wager either way because it is impossible to know for sure. My position is that faith is believing the unbelievable and therefore not worth my wager. To quote Mark Twain "Faith is believing what you know ain't so." Although I often find myself disagreeing with Pascals position I can't help but grudgingly agree with him that yes it is a wager either way for in the end we are making a choice that is not at all obvious, with both sides equally lacking in empirical evidence.

What makes it unbelievable that there is an order to all this, or an external reason that you're living the life you are as part of some greater plan? Is it that this proposition can't be supported with experimental data? Is it that what you've seen and lived doesn't lead you to believe that? Yes to either, then I think this cuts to the core of the difference between believers and unbelievers. Believers see their intuitions as more trustworthy than unbelievers do. Believers feel deep in their bones that there's a higher purpose to their lives, and that the paranormal events they've witnessed really do point to something beyond this mundane world, and so they go with their guts on this. Unbelievers are more apt to regard their intuitions as valuable for some things, but on the whole untrustworthy, and don't believe anything until they've seen it plainly. I just naturally belong to the former group. My intuition has been right about enough things in my life that I'm apt to trust it, especially for things metaphysical that we can't test or collect data on. Furthermore, I've had a number of unusual and jaw-dropping experiences (sober) that I can find no explanation for, and I refuse to belittle them or try to explain them away. I can't say exactly what they've taught me, other than there being much more to this world than meets the eye (or the microscope).

Your life experience and natural temperment have clearly led you to a different conclusion. Unfortunately I can't trade minds with you and show you firsthand what attitudes and memorable experiences make fertile ground for faith in some higher power. But this I will leave you with -- if there is a greater plan to your life in all this, you may or may not be privy to it. I could definitely see a place in some greater plan for beings who perform their part best when they are unaware or even dismissive of any such plan.

Yes I realize that. What I was trying to illustrate is that even though a religion looks good on paper or has some philosophically sound ideas it may or may not work out well in practice.

The best of intentions and noblest of ideas will not mean a thing if not put into practice.

My main disagreement with this argument is similar to Stephen Hawking and his assertion that even if God were to exist even he would have to conform to the laws of physics. I don't believe that if there is a God he would somehow be above the laws of nature.

Why?

Therefore I cannot agree with you that such an entity is needed to inspire such fear and awe. IMO the same fear and awe could be found in the awesome power of a supernova or black hole. I see no reason why I should believe in the supernatural as I have never seen or experienced anything that could be classified as such. There are still abundant mysteries in nature to solve and plenty to be fearful and respectful of.

This is a matter of taste, which makes it pointless to argue about. The bottom line for me (and I suspect many others) is that scientific, mathematical, logical, and secular philosophical examinations of the natural world are plenty intriguing, but do not scratch the same itch that spirituality does.

Furthermore, on a related track, I feel no obligation to forsake the latter for the pursuit of the former three. Intellectuals eschewing spirituality is merely a social convention, aimed at keeping the discussion purely within the realm of things whose existence and nature is more or less universally agreed upon. It's not a problem if a scientist, mathematician, or philosopher holds spiritual beliefs, as long (s)he doesn't use them as arguments in the scientific, mathematical, or philosophical debates (s)he engages in. For example, as a physician, I have a lot of hunches about patients I see. And a lot of the time I end up being right. But I don't voice these hunches, and don't let them dictate my final management of a patient, until I've got hard evidence to back them up. That's because people's bodies are natural things which appear to follow natural laws. But with things and realms that transcend the natural world as we know it (if they exist), all we have is hunches. So that's what I go with. And that's not problematic, as long as I always practice medicine with the assumption that the patient in front of me has a body that behaves more or less similarly to subjects tested under scientific conditions. From talking to other people in science fields who are also spiritual people, I hear a similar story: you're bound to the rules of scientific inquiry when you're performing scientific inquiry; it does not follow that one inquires exclusively scientifically. A boxer hits the man who opposes him when he's in a boxing ring; it does not follow that he hits all men who oppose him in any situation, or that a man inclined to hit anyone who stands in his way necessarily makes a better boxer.

Also I forgot who said this but science on an advanced enough level is indistinguishable from magic. I believe that the future holds such wonders in the various fields of technology that one day mankind can be truly considered their own Gods.

Arthur C. Clarke.

I interpret the myth of Sisyphus a little differently. I think within the context of the myth it is trying to say that pretty much you fuck with the Gods then you get fucked for eternity. It is not unlike how in Christianity and the other Abrahamic religions blasphemy is the only unforgivable sin. They're all pretty much saying the same thing. You question our God and you will be damned. God is all powerful therefore if you try to trick him your punishment will be severe. You find this type of story in all the mythologies of the world everywhere. Therefore IMO Sisyphus should be seen as a sort of anti-hero. In that he had the audacity to challenge the gods and in so doing suffers the consequences. He may have done morally questionable things but in the end he deserves respect for challenging the status quo.

It's truly amazing the extent to which the listener / reader is a collaborative author of a myth he hears / reads, isn't it? So too are we creative participants in the entire reality we behold. That's a core element of my worldview -- just throwing that out there.

Well for some people their whole reason for existence is to accept and defeat challenges. And indeed the goal of self perfection although ultimately unattainable is indeed a worthy goal and if you must shed aside some human connections in the process so be it. This reminds me have you ever heard of a book called The Razors Edge by William Somerset Maugham? Its one of my all time favorite books and I think that you would enjoy it immensely...

... I really hope you consider reading this book. It just might change your life. My favorite quote from the book describes me perfectly. In the book the main character is talking to a Catholic priest about god and how he can't accept an all knowing all powerful and all loving God. In the end the priests says (paraphrasing as I don't have the book with me at the moment) "My son you are a deeply religious man who doesn't believe in God. Do not worry about finding God for in the end he will find you"

Exactly. I couldn't agree more. If whatever drives this world and caused to to live your life now wants to contact you and fill you in, he/she/it will assume a form that you'd receive well, and deliver you the necessary message, in due time.

When I read this part it deeply touched me. Because I realized that deep down I wish I could believe in God and that I have been searching for a way of believing in a God that would conform to what I believe. Sadly I still don't believe in God. But deep down I still have a spiritual yearning. Which is why I am so ultimately conflicted and torn between agnosticism and atheism.

If it's time to lay our cards on the table, I'll admit that I used to think exactly as you did, from ages 17 through maybe 24. Before the days of Wikipedia and falling into Wiki holes, I used to go to bookstores and spend countless hours browsing selections from the new nonfiction and popular science tables (among others). I was lulled into thinking the likes of Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett, Matt Ridley, Steven Pinker, and their bunch truly represented the cutting edge of human knowledge about the human condition. But I eventually came to question this monopoly, and eventually came to realize that I had fallen into a trap by assuming these guys and the books they wrote were ultimate truth. I came to see that by the way these books are written, decorated, titled, and placed in the store was designed to make me submit to them as authoritative. When I came to understand what people they were written for, and what unproven assumptions about the world they worked on, only then did I feel free to disregard them as works I had no use for. I get the message they're all circling around: that we need to wake up to the fact that we're nothing but an ephemeral race of self-replicating animals created randomly by a cold and uncaring universe, and that we'll be better off if we just accept this and get over ourselves. Thanks. I get it. I understand why you think that. And I reject it. So until you've got something new to say that I haven't yet heard, Professors, I'll take a pass.

It's funny, having distanced myself from it, I can tell someone steeped in the juices of New Atheism / the Brights movement a mile away. The quotes they drop, the jokes and metaphors they make, the artistic images they put on their walls and cars and t-shirts, the fiction and nonfiction authors they fill their shelves with (and the ones they shy away from) follow a predictable pattern, which to me looks no different from the set of memes and conventions kicked around a youth subculture, a fraternal order, a sports league, or, dare I say it, a religion. This is why although I see the argument for why atheism isn't a religion, when it becomes a rallying point for socialization or united action, it really does become very much like one.

Sometime in my 20s, some strange things started happening to me every so often, and it was hard to shake the feeling that a number of things had been lined up or prearranged to happen a certain way for me. I also had a couple of frankly paranormal experiences, that were witnessed by other people near me. Then it hit me all of a sudden one day -- absolutely nothing science has discovered (or could discover) could ever disprove the possibility that I was right here right now, living the life I presently was and not some other, because some otherworldly being was wearing "MyDoorsAreOpen" as a sock puppet. And that set my imagination turning -- what purpose or goal might that entity which is right now living consciously through my eyes have in doing so? I resolved to be on the lookout for clues of such a possibility, in everything in my world around me.

I'll be clear about the fact that drugs played a major role, too. Psychedelics and dissociatives, in particular, have helped me to take more seriously the notion of my brain as a sort of cosmic radio, which tunes into and processes certain frequencies of reality, but can be tuned to perceive others. I talk to many here at BL who claim that drugs (often the same ones!) confirmed for them an already firm naturalism / physicalism / atheism (Psychedelic Gleam, do you still lurk here?), so I don't think it can be fairly said that drugs bias people toward one worldview or another. Similarly to what I said about myth interpretation, a lot of it depends on what you bring to the table. In my case, I think the drugs just got me back in the old groove of leading with intuition, and letting rational inquiry follow.

I hope that helps.
 
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