Dear me, Madness, apples and oranges! You're downgrading priests and philosophers because they don't do science? If they did, they'd be scientists! As it happens, a priest named Martin Luther changed the course of human history by nailing tattooed tree pulp to a wooden door. Different tools for different tasks.
I'm not sure how I've "downgraded" priests or philosophers? There are plenty of "christian scientists" (or any other faith/sect/whichever),
Dr. Damadian, for instance, who precipitated MRI and fMRI.
Sure, Martin Luther, MLK Jr., the Suffragists, etc, etc, all effect change within the human sociocognitive arena (or in a certain cognitive ecology, Bakker might say).
It's bothersome being "put into a box," though I suppose it an inevitable consequence of perception and caricature. I find it kind of funny that anyone might suggest I devalue the words of anyone considering that I've been led to my personal strange and arbitrary crux by thinkers of all creeds and ideologies, secular and faithful.
Yes, we're living in an age where the method of "science!" is more highly regarded than the methods of faith and philosophy.
I don't think this is accurate. If science was more prevalently accepted than faith or philosophy, we wouldn't be seemingly overwhelmed with sociocultural dysfunction of that type.
It's the "Revenge Of The Alchemists". The point that I'm trying to make is that we need faith and philosophy (and art, for that matter) as well as science to fully explore reality. I believe* that it's very dangerous to use the "hammer" of science to reduce the tools of art, faith, and philosophy to rubble.
(*Hey, I finally managed to address the question posed by the thread!)
Again, I'm really confused as to why I'm being perceived as discounting faith, philosophy, or art as worthwhile practices and pursuits?
:slow clap:
Out of all this conversation, that is the most sensible comment, that I've seen(excuse me I skim over a lot that really just goes over my head), in this thread.
Not trying to detract from BFK's words but I find that terribly insensitive to the
previous thread. Understanding or otherwise, I think you'd appreciate giving a deep read to the last incarnation, MSJ.
To fully be human we need all of that. Science to dig deep and create things and also expand our knowledge. Thing is a lot of science, is just theories. So how is a theory any different from faith?
Because priests and philosophers and artists aren't manifesting nuclear explosions.
I was never contesting that these things are important and impactful regarding human behavior. Obviously, all the above effect how we speak and act, negatively or positively.
Its just the way I look at it. Not saying I have the strongest faith, but I do find myself leaning on it at times. And, maybe that's my problem, I should lean on it all the time. I've seen and heard miracles through faith. Giving people the strength to change their lives and such. Thats the same type of proof, if not more, that you find in some fields of science. Arts and philosophy expand our minds and make us more creative. I wholeheartedly agree with this sentiment, BFK.
I don't understand why it has to be either/or. Community yields us positive dividends. Whatever form that takes.
How you act give commitment to your belief/ideology? (The Royal You, of course.)
Humans are highly capable of holding and acting on two contradictory ideas (or beliefs) and through the kind of neglect that Bakker always talks about, or other factors, never feel an ounce of that cognitive dissonance. So, they can actually believe that "all men are created equal" and simultaneously own slaves (to give a historical example). This can be done through simple neglect, i.e. not actually attending to "the issue," or creative interpretation and deployment of language, among other tactics.
Ugh... my post should have read "given," which may have changed your response.
People have an almost infinite capacity for self-delusion, yes.
So, do actions denote a commitment? Maybe, but I don't think it's an absolute signifier. People are highly capable of commitment with no action and action without commitment.
Again, my error in typing may well have prompted a miscommunication here. Actions don't denote a commitment, I don't think. But commitment absolutely prompts a certain percentage of behaviors, prosocial or antisocial.
Creed/ideological commitments very well might engender more prosocial than antisocial behaviors but the damage done by those symptomatic antisocial behaviors seems to cause far more damage overall.
Destruction takes a fraction of the time or effort as creation.
MSJ presents the case for faith well. Faith can give us a way of coping with or even overcoming the bleak truths presented to us by science, as believers who have received a discouraging prognosis from a doctor might confirm.
I suppose I'm more H in this context than otherwise. I lived inside the Roman Catholic story until I was thirteen and was still thinking in terms of a soul as late as seventeen. But I've never experience faith as described by others.
But to these words, BFK, I've basically been permanently switched on by an awareness of my mortality since I was about seven. I don't need faith to forfend any resulting emotional residue. As far as I'm concerned, we seem to all agree that we can do better, here and now.
Indeed I don't think anyone has argued that faith/religion/etc. provide no value. There's absolutely no reason for them to exist if no one got anything from them. Its as much a part of our society evolution as anything else, probably more so than most things.
I doubt we'll ever get away from people needing 'a higher order' to make sense of life. Its something that some people need. Strangely though, not something everyone needs.
I find it suspicious that there are so many beliefs, so many forms of religion, spirituality. Suspicious that one's man self-evident truths are so different than another. If there was a 'one true power', I am very confused as to how its possible so few agree on what it is.
The trouble I have, what worries me about the situation, is that there is no means to question. Either you believe or you don't. What's worse though, is that as immovable ideologies clash, death comes swirling down. There doesn't seem room in the world for so many powerful people to claim divine hegemony over the world. Since no one can prove one way or the other, and since no means exist to probe deeply into one's faith from the outside, we're ultimately left with violent outcomes. Either MY god is the true one, or YOUR god is, and whichever one is left standing is correct. Its the worst kind of Might makes Right, and it terrifies me.
+1
Somewhere between seventeen and twenty-one that was my takeaway. There are
so many competing beliefs that our three pounds have cooked up, competing beliefs that people embody until murder and death. I find it very unlikely that we can grok it all, life, the universe, and everything.
I'll continue to err on the side of mundane empathy and compassion.