Why religion could be true

[7Wannabe5]

@Jason:

I disagree. The reason I somewhat jokingly chose pantheism is because I was imagining being offered false trichotomy of :

1) Dead is Alive

2) Alive is Alive

3) Alive is Dead


So, most rational choice would be (2.) However, my metaphysical construct would really hold that all 3 are true. IOW, the ideal or immortal is emergent quality of complex open living systems, and complex open living systems are emergent quality of open non-living systems. So, it's not that I choose pantheism. It's that I recognize that I am neither an immortal ideal nor the simple sum of my non-living parts. Both God and the elements mixed with energy that are currently held within the boundary of my skin sac will continue to exist when I am gone, and even when the entire species of homo sapiens is gone. I like to think about the energy and elements in my skin sac eventually being re-purposed by other conscious complex open living systems after my death towards some ideal. That makes me happy.

[Jason]

That’s just a version of pantheism which makes you epistemologically consistent but obviously not necessarily right not to mention it opposes the other two constructs.

[7Wannabe5]

@Jason: I think that is kind of like saying that holistic knowledge of a human female can't exist, just because platonic knowledge, carnal knowledge, and carnivorous knowledge of a human are in direct opposition.

Let the flowers make a journey
on Monday so that I can see
ten daisies in a blue vase
with perhaps one red ant
crawling to the gold center.
A bit of the field on my table,
close to the worms
who struggle blinding,
moving deep into their slime,
moving deep into God's abdomen,
moving like oil through water,
sliding through the good brown.
The daisies grow wild
like popcorn.
They are God's promise to the field.
How happy I am, daisies, to love you.
How happy you are to be loved
and found magical, like a secret
from the sluggish field.
If all the world picked daisies
wars would end, the common cold would stop,
unemployment would end, the monetary market
would hold steady and no money would float.
Listen world.
if you'd just take the time to pick
the white flowers, the penny heart,
all would be well.
They are so unexpected.
They are as good as salt.
If someone had brought them
to van Gogh's room daily
his ear would have stayed on.
I would like to think that no one would die anymore
if we all believed in daisies
but the worms know better, don't they?
They slide into the ear of a corpse
and listen to his great sigh.
Anne Sexton

[Jason]

But we are speaking in terms of metaphysics not epistemology - knowledge.

Philosophy has three categories: metaphysics (being) epistemology (knowledge - how we know what we know) and ethics. You are conflating the first two.

Your view of being as described in how you view life and death is thoroughly pantheistic. The deistic/theistic model and the materialist model have different views that do not permit such a conception. However, Within your model you are “correct”.

[7Wannabe5]

Gotcha. I am very comfortably centered within my own skin, and I often forget that many others are not. Pantheists should never neglect to remember that lest they find themselves being smoked on a stake like a sausage, while somebody born with a wizened leg or wearing a black buckled hat chortles or intones upon preferred alternate metaphysics.

[Jason]

The problem with metaphysics, and probably why there is not a great body of literature addressing it directly, is that it has to be approached apophatically, meaning by discussing it in terms of that which it is not. No one knows what infinity is. They just know its not finite. No one knows what eternity is, they just know its not time bound etc. No matter what you believe, we all know no one can describe it for what it actually is.

Philosophers like Alvin Plantinga will use alternate world models found in quantum mechanics to try to get at it. At that point, I personally check out as its beyond me and my philosophical curiosity/ability when discussions about things I already barely understand extend to whether we could have had the exact same conversation that I barely understand yesterday. However, the issue with alternate world theories is that people will still want their metaphysical system to be non-negotiable. A theist will not allow a model that does not pre-suppose the existence of God into the equation and a materialist will not allow one that does. So its just kind of re-arranging the deck furniture on the Titanic to the one who opposes that metaphysical system. Or at least the ones I've heard.

[fiby41]

No one knows what infinity is. They just know its not finite. No one knows what eternity is, they just know its not time bound etc. No matter what you believe, we all know no one can describe it for what it actually is.

It is not necessary to "know" infinity to study or even define its properties.

All this is infinite. All that is infinite.
From infinity, infinity comes.
When infinity is taken from infinity,
Infinity still remains.
Om shanti shanti shanti

Shaante Mantra in the Isha Upanishad

This defines the infinite by giving it's properties.

∞+∞=∞
All operation, except division in which infinity is in denominator, in which infinity gets involved results in infinity.

∞-∞ is still equal to ∞ only, and not zero, as you correctly noted we don't know what number/value that infinity is, and the first infinity might very well be greater than the second infinity.

One could say the same about zero that no one knows what zero is. But if one knows the commutative, associative, additive identity and distributive properties of zero, then they can use it all the same.

[Jason]

All this is infinite. All that is infinite.
From infinity, infinity comes.
When infinity is taken from infinity,
Infinity still remains.
Om shanti shanti shanti

Shaante Mantra in the Isha Upanishad

That's a pantheistic metaphysical definition of infinity.

The theist will say that infinity is created (distinct substance from the deity), contingent, distinct from eternity (existing only in time, not eternity) and completely known by its creator.

The materialist will say infinity is non-contingent, an expression of time (therefore potentially destructible), not self-emanating nor self-perpetuating.

So although its agreed infinity is not throughly knowable, one's worldview conditions how one will frame the discussion and process the "facts." That's why there are no "brute" facts. People can't help but process data according to the pre-suppositions that they have either knowingly or unknowingly committed themselves to. That's how I was defining "religious." We are all interpreting the universe through such commitments. And essentially, there are really only three of them.

[fiby41]

At the hazard of sounding monotheistic- there is only one true definition of infinity- the mathematically correct one.

[Jason]

Yes, you are sounding monotheistic. But you are also sounding materialistic. And while we are at it, you are also sounding pantheistic.

That's because no one is arguing that infinity is not a mathematical concept. The issue is that people have different views of where the laws of mathematics are "found."

The monotheistic is actually saying that because metaphysically, the laws of mathematics originated in the mind of the divine being, epistemologically, He is the only one that has archetypal knowledge of them i.e. infinite knowledge of infinity. We though only have ectypal knowledge of infinity - limited knowledge. True yet not exhaustive knowledge. Einstein said something to the extent that he was chasing the mind of God (I understand that does not by default make him a theist). The theist will agree that the materialist and the pantheistic can understand mathematics as well as the theist, Possibly even better. He will say, yes they can count, but he will also say that they cannot "account for counting" because they have a faulty metaphysical view of the universe that does not accurately explain where/how the laws of mathematics are found and came to be i.e. in a randomly generated universe with no divine origin, how do you explain the existence such an intricate system of laws.

Of course the materialists have an argument, I'm not saying they don't. Its just that's its a point of disagreement. From a practical standpoint, we can all take the same math course. It's just that when you probe deeper, there are different systems operating beneath it.

[fiby41]

Einstein said something to the extent that he was chasing the mind of God (I understand that does not by default make him a theist).

Why not?

If God has a brain, then He also has a face, hands, body.

God is a Person-- not a cloud of dust, or a ball of energy or a speaking-bush on fire.

[Jason]

I did not mean what God actually is, but how Einstein conceived him. Deists believe in God, but don't imbue him with personal attributes that make them morally responsible to him. They give him creative ability but not providential ability, especially in a moral sense. That's is the why the deists use the imagery of the watchmaker winding up the watch and letting it wind. It was the defining definition of God during the enlightenment period and one I believe Einstein worked with.

I was historically contextualizing the argument in deference to Einstein's statements. But I'm sure your superficial renderings of what you think God is would have brought him to whatever version of truth you are comfortable with.