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Fear of Religions...when our children are concerned
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It appears that organisations such as Atheist Ireland assert that atheism may share a world view above and beyond what you describe. I strongly disagree with this assertion, and consider it a deliberate misuse of the term.
Everyone has a worldview, as does every organization, although organizations trying to maintain a coherent worldview can be like herding cats
. For any individual atheist to say my worldview is simply I don't believe in God or Gods is generally inaccurate, as individual atheists have views adding up to a worldview that are all over the map, just like theists (including according to surveys a not insignificant number of atheists who believe in a higher power, but not God
).
I agree attributing a worldview to a negative claim like atheism is problematic. Atheism is simply lack of belief in a God, nothing more. Those that try and append other beliefs onto atheism generally have some other agenda, such as the claim that a "proper" scientist cannot also practice religion. That's a lot of past, current, and future scientists that need to be chased out of the academy.0 -
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The implication of your logic above is that you consider every proposition X to be either true or false based on the available supporting evidence or lack thereof.
No. That is not a correct representation of my position at all. Which you probably suspected already given the only user on the whole forum who thanked your post
My position is that when confronted with a proposition I do not judge it to be true or false at all. I consider every proposition to be _value neutral_ unless something is offered to substantiate it.
So if you told me that "If you leave the house tomorrow before the first cock crows.... then a yellow pokka dot VW Mini will materialize above your head, fall upon you, and kill you" I do not consider your proposition either true of false at all. I see it as value neutral and not worthy of any consideration in the first place.
I see no reason to classify it as true of false. I simply dismiss it.
Similarly the claim there is a god is an assertion that comes before us devoid of any substantiation. I do not classify it as true or false in any way. I consider it solely in the category of "Unsubstantiated hypothesis".
And therein lies the break down in much of the discourse between theists and atheists. The theists see the atheist dismissal of their position as being value positive rather than value neutral. Hence the oft repeated line "Can you prove there is NO god???".0 -
I would suggest that X could be probably true or probably untrue based on supporting evidence for or against, or anywhere in between based on lack of supporting evidence. Where an exhaustive search has been carried out for such evidence and none is forthcoming, I'd dismiss X as unknown and sufficiently improbable to be considered effectively untrue.
Don't forget the human brain and it's selective screening of the evidence:).
Even in science, the most reliable method of inquiry we have, history is littered with dogmatic belief in theories that have been debunked by new evidence, and refusal to accept new theories. A significant number of major breakthroughs in the history of science, that not just challenged but demolished prior theories, was initially met with great reluctance and even scorn. The list of scientists who were scorned, driven from posts in academia, refused funding etc. is truly shocking. The concept of heresy is not just a religious one! Although Galileo is the favorite poster boy for atheists, it was the existing scientific academy he upset, who happened to be Catholics;).
http://blog.vixra.org/category/crackpots-who-were-right/If we look at Christianity and creationism for example, I would consider the creationist myth untrue as it is directly contradicted by very many scientific and archaeological observations.
A view shared by most Christians, and all Catholics.I dismiss the existence of God and the supernatural on the basis that massive efforts have been put into finding supporting evidence for them, and none has been forthcoming.
Not true actually. Massive efforts are put into efforts that hold economic potential, like weapons, foodstuff that poisons people and drugs that extend life somewhat after poisoning, essentially anything that can be utilized to make money in the here and now, generally this quarter and maybe next for most corporations
.This does not generalise that into dismissing every proposition X that has not been substantiated, as there may be more evidence forthcoming for very many cases.
Exactly. Our knowledge continues to evolve, its only impediment is closed minds that want to cling to existing knowledge, aka dogma.0 -
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Religion and Science are different subjects and there should be no muddling between the two. Religion is experienced rather than taught, so a church or a Zen garden is a far more appropriate setting than a school. I think the reality in Ireland is that both have been combined, they need to be unraveled.
I feel the same way - and I think it does religion no favors to be in schools either. Many people look back later and feel a little angry at the way they were spoon-fed bowdlerized religious concepts with the clear intent to help keep them safely compartmentalized from other ideas, to make sure they are in there as unquestioned concepts before people are able to think too critically about them. It treats religion as something you unquestioningly accept, rather than experience as a search for truth.Religion itself is a vast subject, there is the study of religious history, the morality teachings of various religions, and the religious experience itself or spiritualism. My personal opinion is that without a religious practice, we are not discussing religion, we are discussing religious culture or history. An "al a carte Catholic" who does not participate in a religious practice, be it regular mass attendance or regular prayer or reflection, is not a Catholic, nor even religious imo.
And yet what gets taught in Catholic schools is basically Catechism - which does a poor job if you are looking for cultural/ religious history!I will have to come back to the QM discussion. Everything I have read on the subject suggests I have to give up my idea of local reality or accept Many Worlds. Many Worlds is a serious pill to swallow. An easier pill to swallow imo is a top down universe.
I think "Many Worlds" is more a matter of mathematical convenience, a sort of short-hand. A photon that goes through a beam-splitter does not really split into two photons in two separate worlds: it is just that we have a hell of a time wrapping our heads around the anti-intuitive idea of a photon in a superposition state, with random phases between the two pieces.
We only speak of many worlds because there is no more detectable interference between the two branches of the wave-function.
I am not completely conversant on all of it - I need regular refreshers from my son just to keep it straight in my head but it really does seem to me that a lot of the philosophical flights of fancy resulting from QM are conflicts between our stubborn intuition and the theorems.A metaphysical position has to start with what is known and cannot contradict established science. You build from there and try and establish a model for what is most feasible. My view FWIT is that after reviewing all the evidence from a wide range of sources, we live in a top down "virtual simulation" that we have no current ability to describe accurately. I have no problem with those who describe this as unsubstantiated.
The problem with that is that my theory that a small gnome lives in my sock-drawer and steals my left socks passes that test: it starts with what is known and does not contradict science in any way, which kind of demonstrates just how low that particular bar is. Also, since you leave the known behind and boldly venture out beyond it, there is a real risk of building teetering towers of metaphysical speculation based on very narrow foundations. Again, QM mysticism is a great example of this.
To me, it smacks of confirmation bias: the desire to find a god that comes first, and a search for anything that fits that follows. Just look at the below:If you accept the reductionist materialistic view of the universe, there is a lot of baggage that goes with it, including a denial of God concepts. My worldview is based on having rejected this view, because of the mounting evidence against it. I fully accept there are many others who conclude differently.
But if QM is part of that evidence, then we have seen that at best it can be considered compatible with such a worldview, and that only if you stick to very specific interpretations and extend them in ways that seem very vulnerable to good ole Occams razor. I would not call that evidence in favor of it at all, rather a lack of incompatibility that seem compelling only if you are looking for pieces to a god-shaped puzzle.0 -
Vivisectus wrote: »It treats religion as something you unquestioningly accept, rather than experience as a search for truth.
And yet what gets taught in Catholic schools is basically Catechism - which does a poor job if you are looking for cultural/ religious history!
I think we are closely aligned on this topic. I steer away from dogmatic religious teachings of any form, and Catholicism is one of the most dogmatic. However I see the value of the spiritual experience from both the individual and societal level, and while the baggage of organized religions is increasingly difficult for many or perhaps most people to swallow, in rejecting it there is the danger of throwing out the baby with the bathwater. This is why I think it is important to teach about religions in all schools, exposing children to the "search for truth" that humans have indulged in for thousands of years, and allow them make their own minds up when appropriate whether to participate in religion or not.Vivisectus wrote: »I am not completely conversant on all of it - I need regular refreshers from my son just to keep it straight in my head but it really does seem to me that a lot of the philosophical flights of fancy resulting from QM are conflicts between our stubborn intuition and the theorems.
The conflict is between the way our brains expect the world to work and the physical experiments that validate QM theory. The many experiments ran to confirm Bell's theorem, including recently for large molecules, are simply baffling when considered from a classical standpoint. The measurement problem is at the heart of this conflict or enigma, and is a surprisingly persistent problem. Although decoherence has been claimed to solve the measurement problem, there appears no agreement on this among physicists, no more so than agreement on any interpretation of QM.
http://cds.cern.ch/record/531385/files/0112095.pdfVivisectus wrote: »To me, it smacks of confirmation bias: the desire to find a god that comes first, and a search for anything that fits that follows.
Ironically that's the same argument that I use against atheists, that when you start from the materialistic reductionist philosophical worldview, you only consider evidence that supports it and reject anything that conflicts with it:).
What it breaks down to ultimately in my view is how one views mind. In my experience people who are truly religious believe that mind is immaterial, in the sense that it cannot be measured directly by our senses or instruments, and has different properties to the material. Clearly the majority opinion in neuroscience is that mind = brain, but this is a claim that doesn't hold up well to scrutiny. We can certainly claim that certain aspects of mind correlate to brain activity, but to identify mind with the brain is a claim without evidence. As Wilder Penfield concluded "it is simpler and logical if one adopts the hypothesis that our being consists of two fundamental elements". If this is where the evidence leads you, you end up with idealism, property or substance dualism, or neutral monism as your philosophy of mind.0 -
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Vivisectus wrote: »Mind is commonly seen as an emergent property of a nervous system.
This I agree with, but that does not necessarily lead only to a materialistic metaphysical conclusion, it is also compatible with at among others property dualism, dual aspect theory, and neutral monism. I highlight these three as arguments I have read in their favor are not trivial to discount, and in some ways are more compelling in terms of what we observe.
There are many philosophies of mind but the most common among neuroscientists and philosophers is based on materialistic reductionism, with the conclusion that our consciousness, or awareness if you like, is a kind of side effect of neural processes, an epiphenomenon, or even an illusion. This is a deterministic view and excludes free will, indeed most leading thinkers on the subject reject free will.
If this is true how can we explain emergent mental states having physical causative properties on the same brain they emerge from? How can we explain the physical effects of meditation or psychotherapy for example on the physical structures of the brain, confirmed by fMRI scanning. The only answer I have seen to this paradox that seems somewhat compelling is from information philosophy, which suggests that mind is both material and immaterial (in the traditional sense of material, with mass). Thoughts for example are somehow stored in the brain in some material sense, and represent the potential for action. When they are activated, they transition to immaterial energy and communicate with other parts of the brain, or body, or environment. They can then have a causal effect on other material parts of the brain or body. The whole conscious experience then is an amalgamation of material and immaterial thought, the entire nervous system, and its environment.Vivisectus wrote: »Modern research suggests otherwise - most of Penfields work was done in the early 20th century. He never had the chance to try modern scanning devices which, as far as I am aware, seem to be piling on the evidence that we can safely assume that mental occurrences are closely correlated to physical occurrences in the brain.
An area I am very familiar with, having worked on fMRI technology and its applications for more than a decade. It is very exciting but we have to be careful not to overstate what brain scans are telling us. While we can monitor brain activity during observable behavior, we simply cannot determine mental states by looking at fMRI scans. Penfield was one of the first to notice that the brain was not as modular as we thought and remains plastic throughout life.
Closely correlated yes, but correlation is not causation. There is zero evidence at present that our conscious experience can be reduced to brain processes. Indeed, when it comes to concepts like values, morals, and awareness, we have effectively no idea where to even look.Vivisectus wrote: »But if that is a biased view then I would be more than happy to review any evidence that suggests otherwise, as that sounds very interesting.
There's a lot of it, but you have to let go of the materialistic reductionist model which dismisses such evidence, and consider other models. The former is inadequate in terms of explaining many empirically observed phenomena. We are not meat robots, we are causally effective conscious agents. 0 -
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This I agree with, but that does not necessarily lead only to a materialistic metaphysical conclusion, it is also compatible with at among others property dualism, dual aspect theory, and neutral monism. I highlight these three as arguments I have read in their favor are not trivial to discount, and in some ways are more compelling in terms of what we observe.
Compatible, sure. But I refer you to the gnome who lives in my sock-drawer! That is a very low bar indeed and includes the beliefs of, say, paranoid schizophrenics.
So far you have not provided anything we observe that strikes me as compelling. In fact, further down this post, you make a very suspicious demand that almost sounds as if you expect me to change my mind before being persuaded.There are many philosophies of mind but the most common among neuroscientists and philosophers is based on materialistic reductionism, with the conclusion that our consciousness, or awareness if you like, is a kind of side effect of neural processes, an epiphenomenon, or even an illusion. This is a deterministic view and excludes free will, indeed most leading thinkers on the subject reject free will.
A certain pigeon-hole is materializing for me now. I do hope you do not end up filling it with pigeon. Some of it's feathers have to do with researchers being biased because they do not subscribe to your particular philosophy, and then spending a lot of time pointing at things that, while not incompatible with a proposed theory, are actually as neutral as materialism is about my little sock-drawer gnome.If this is true how can we explain emergent mental states having physical causative properties on the same brain they emerge from? How can we explain the physical effects of meditation or psychotherapy for example on the physical structures of the brain, confirmed by fMRI scanning.
Actually, this works the other way around. How can we explain measurable changes in the brain if mental phenomena are NOT linked to "physical causative properties"?
Explaining it from a purely physical perspective seems trivially easy, in fact. If one did not emerge from the other, we would not expect to see such changes.
What am I missing here?The only answer I have seen to this paradox that seems somewhat compelling is from information philosophy, which suggests that mind is both material and immaterial (in the traditional sense of material, with mass). Thoughts for example are somehow stored in the brain in some material sense, and represent the potential for action. When they are activated, they transition to immaterial energy and communicate with other parts of the brain, or body, or environment. They can then have a causal effect on other material parts of the brain or body. The whole conscious experience then is an amalgamation of material and immaterial thought, the entire nervous system, and its environment.
I see no paradox - in fact, I think it is your position that is paradoxical?
Also - "Immaterial energy"? "Material in the traditional sense"? I see no need to introduce new concepts here? Why are you doing so?
What exactly are you having trouble with explaining in a purely material sense? What is this "immaterial thought" and why do you expect it to exist?An area I am very familiar with, having worked on fMRI technology and its applications for more than a decade. It is very exciting but we have to be careful not to overstate what brain scans are telling us. While we can monitor brain activity during observable behavior, we simply cannot determine mental states by looking at fMRI scans. Penfield was one of the first to notice that the brain was not as modular as we thought and remains plastic throughout life.
For sure - if I was to engage in science I would work in neurology or QM, as both of them seem to be really getting into some fascinating territory. Some of the more recent studies suggests we are getting pretty close to being able to detect specific mental states, for instance.
http://med.stanford.edu/news/all-news/2011/05/new-imaging-method-allows-scientists-to-identify-specific-mental-states.html
Early days, of course, and I totally agree we mustn't jump to conclusions, but at the very least it seems to me that what we are seeing so far is what we would expect to see if we assume a purely materialistic model of consciousness, and not what we would expect if any of the other ones are true.Closely correlated yes, but correlation is not causation. There is zero evidence at present that our conscious experience can be reduced to brain processes. Indeed, when it comes to concepts like values, morals, and awareness, we have effectively no idea where to even look.
I thought Atheists where the ones who ignore evidence that does not fit their model?
So according to you, if I give you some drugs, then the changed state of consciousness that results merely correlates with the fact you were administered them, but it is not warranted to conclude that there was some sort of causative connection between the two?
And somehow the fact that we do not yet know how to scan for specific ideas (ideas that may not have any meaning from a purely neurological perspective as they are complex cultural concepts) enforces that conclusion?
And even if I went out on a very shaky limb and accepted your position here, than we have once again merely failed to rule out a non-materialistic model of consciousness. We have not yet seen anything that actually arguesin favor of it.
I think you need to go back and either articulate this differently or re-think this one.There's a lot of it, but you have to let go of the materialistic reductionist model which dismisses such evidence, and consider other models. The former is inadequate in terms of explaining many empirically observed phenomena. We are not meat robots, we are causally effective conscious agents.
What evidence is this? Do you mean that you feel you have presented some in the preceding parts? Or are you still merely hinting at it? Maybe we can start with the empirically observed phenomena?0 -
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