My own take is that there is some degree of evidence for any number of things that may be unlikely. But the question in each case is, Is it strong evidence or poor evidence? Not all evidence is automatically strong. At the same time, even if evidence is poor, it can still be counted as evidence. Just evidence for ... what? If certain evidence is duly weighed by peers and found to be lacking in buttressing one particular argument -- argument A -- that only means that that evidence is poor in sufficiently buttressing argument A. It is still useful in buttressing argument B, particularly if argument B convincingly disposes of argument A. It is simply that it is evidence that has been misinterpreted to mean one thing when it more likely meant another. So it is poor evidence in what it may be used to argue for. But it is still evidence, since it is evidence for something else that is being overlooked. That's why it still constitutes evidence. If it's not strong evidence for one thing, it makes sense to determine what it is indeed strong evidence for. One simply interprets it differently than at first. After all, evidence, whether poor or strong, doesn't simply go away. Does it make sense to just dismiss evidence out of hand without proper scrutiny? Of course not. It is still useful evidence down the road for arguing B, even if trying to argue A with it has not panned out.
My take is that there is some degree of evidence for deity, but the huge question is, How strong is that evidence? After all, even the evidence for deity that we may or may not have is still a "some-degree-of" proposition only. It is not proof. Furthermore, I see no clear evidence at all for deity being specifically Allah, or Yahweh, or Jehovah, or Brahma, or Ningirsu, or Baal, or Jove, or Jupiter, or Zeus, or Tian -- or what/who/ever. Whatever evidence for deity there is -- and again, such evidence is distinct from proof -- is only rooted in huge historic cycles showing cultural transformations within the homo sapiens species among various communities and societies throughout the ages, not connected with any one take on deity within any one region or any one era. Instead, it's what "goes down" in era after era and region after region -- all taken together -- that is ultimately useful to this question.
Why do so many different regions and eras bear witness to this startling notion of a deity? Sure, one could well maintain that a primitive hankering after any old explanation for everything is ultimately at the back of the deity notion in one case or two or three or four .... or five ............. But dozens? That's what history gives us. And if there isn't something more concrete and relevant at the back of this deity notion, as would appear by its staggering level of recurrence in culture after culture, could there be something basic in our brains instead that is invariably present and induces this deity notion across the eons?
Small minds may have trouble dealing with this huge question simply because their outlook may be too parochial. One really has to view this question globally and historically to get a proper grasp of its huge dimensions.
Recent scientific research suggests some symbiotic connection between gluing community together and the notion of the metaphysical and/or the divine. Trafficking in delusion? If so, how come?
I invite us, first off, to look at these two pages on the Web. What do they suggest to you? --
Survival of the fittest? Anthropologist suggests the nicest prevail — not just the selfish | Newsroom | Washington University in St. Louis
Can "neurotheology" bridge the gap between religion and science? - By George Johnson - Slate Magazine
There is also a curious dual pattern that I've encountered that I believe needs more scrutiny -- preferably from a whole panel of thoroughly up-to-date scientists, brain specialists, and cultural historians -- researchers who will also be numerous enough to reflect all attitudes ranging from atheist to Hindu to agnostic to Christian to Jewish to Buddhist to Platonic to Confucian to .......... every philosophical slant you can name in order to neutralize any possible individual bias.
In brief, this dual pattern involves the concrete literary record of the beginnings of various cultural doctrines throughout time and what these earliest documents from each paradigm-shifting doctrine can tell us. To assess all this properly at the outset needs 8 concrete steps involving certain premises, a few hypotheses to be tested rigorously, and alternate interpretations of curious pieces of literary data:
1. Premise 1 -- any species dependent on socialization, such as humanity, needs an ethic of mutual caring in order just to survive;
2. Hypothesis 1 -- human history reveals all autonomous altruistic doctrines, advanced to reform occasional human indifference, as a positive for the species;
3. Datum 1 -- in their primary texts, autonomous altruistic doctrines seem to show a symbiotic relationship to autonomous formulations for the divine (twelve such figures hardly cover all of this, and they are not each personally altruistic at every stage, but they are illustratively useful -- Mesalim | Urukagina | Moses | Wen Wang | Hesiod | Lao-tzu | Siddhartha Gautama Buddha | Confucius [Kung-fut-ze] | Socrates | Jesus Christ | John Locke | Thomas Jefferson);
4. Hypothesis 2 -- the reason for that symbiotic relationship may be a link of some kind between pioneering altruism and some kind of deity, although indicating nothing re theists in general.
5. Premise 2 -- humanity sows the seeds of its own destruction if too critical a mass of its members look out only for themselves;
6. Hypothesis 3 -- all autonomous self-centered doctrines are a negative for the species;
7. Datum 2 -- in their primary texts, autonomous self-centered doctrines seem to show a symbiotic relationship to autonomous formulations for atheism (Brhaspati | Critias | Jean Meslier); and
8. Hypothesis 4 -- the reason for that symbiotic relationship may be a link of some kind between autonomous "self-ism" and autonomous atheism, although indicating nothing re atheists in general.
Now, in its bald form, does this dual pattern tell us that human society needs some self-propelled insight into some divine construct in order not to devolve into a self-destructive orgy of greed and selfishness? Is that really how hopeless humanity is? Can human community, then, evolve into a functional society that is prosperous, free and considerate of each other only when such a construct of the divine is concurrently promulgated? Again, if so, how come?
Must this construct be related to something really divine that really exists, or can it really be related to a delusion that is hard-wired in our brains? If it is a delusion, can we come up with any other normal evolving process that has also helped fashion human communities effectively through the eons and yet has always been symbiotically tied to a generally conceded delusion? If no other clear parallel to this exists, then could this more general construct of the divine contain a kernel of truth? If so, it might only make sense (of a sort) if one restricts the construct to minimal elements that are common to all faiths (which would mean that one would have to jettison any notions of deity as, among other things, creator or controller of events, since these constructs are not present in all faiths).
Only a rigorous and long-term scientific project geared toward a large-scale, multi-attitude, multi-perspective, multicultural study of this cultural evolution pattern for cultural/social doctrines throughout time could even begin to answer such questions satisfactorily.
Thoughts?
Operacast
My take is that there is some degree of evidence for deity, but the huge question is, How strong is that evidence? After all, even the evidence for deity that we may or may not have is still a "some-degree-of" proposition only. It is not proof. Furthermore, I see no clear evidence at all for deity being specifically Allah, or Yahweh, or Jehovah, or Brahma, or Ningirsu, or Baal, or Jove, or Jupiter, or Zeus, or Tian -- or what/who/ever. Whatever evidence for deity there is -- and again, such evidence is distinct from proof -- is only rooted in huge historic cycles showing cultural transformations within the homo sapiens species among various communities and societies throughout the ages, not connected with any one take on deity within any one region or any one era. Instead, it's what "goes down" in era after era and region after region -- all taken together -- that is ultimately useful to this question.
Why do so many different regions and eras bear witness to this startling notion of a deity? Sure, one could well maintain that a primitive hankering after any old explanation for everything is ultimately at the back of the deity notion in one case or two or three or four .... or five ............. But dozens? That's what history gives us. And if there isn't something more concrete and relevant at the back of this deity notion, as would appear by its staggering level of recurrence in culture after culture, could there be something basic in our brains instead that is invariably present and induces this deity notion across the eons?
Small minds may have trouble dealing with this huge question simply because their outlook may be too parochial. One really has to view this question globally and historically to get a proper grasp of its huge dimensions.
Recent scientific research suggests some symbiotic connection between gluing community together and the notion of the metaphysical and/or the divine. Trafficking in delusion? If so, how come?
I invite us, first off, to look at these two pages on the Web. What do they suggest to you? --
Survival of the fittest? Anthropologist suggests the nicest prevail — not just the selfish | Newsroom | Washington University in St. Louis
Can "neurotheology" bridge the gap between religion and science? - By George Johnson - Slate Magazine
There is also a curious dual pattern that I've encountered that I believe needs more scrutiny -- preferably from a whole panel of thoroughly up-to-date scientists, brain specialists, and cultural historians -- researchers who will also be numerous enough to reflect all attitudes ranging from atheist to Hindu to agnostic to Christian to Jewish to Buddhist to Platonic to Confucian to .......... every philosophical slant you can name in order to neutralize any possible individual bias.
In brief, this dual pattern involves the concrete literary record of the beginnings of various cultural doctrines throughout time and what these earliest documents from each paradigm-shifting doctrine can tell us. To assess all this properly at the outset needs 8 concrete steps involving certain premises, a few hypotheses to be tested rigorously, and alternate interpretations of curious pieces of literary data:
1. Premise 1 -- any species dependent on socialization, such as humanity, needs an ethic of mutual caring in order just to survive;
2. Hypothesis 1 -- human history reveals all autonomous altruistic doctrines, advanced to reform occasional human indifference, as a positive for the species;
3. Datum 1 -- in their primary texts, autonomous altruistic doctrines seem to show a symbiotic relationship to autonomous formulations for the divine (twelve such figures hardly cover all of this, and they are not each personally altruistic at every stage, but they are illustratively useful -- Mesalim | Urukagina | Moses | Wen Wang | Hesiod | Lao-tzu | Siddhartha Gautama Buddha | Confucius [Kung-fut-ze] | Socrates | Jesus Christ | John Locke | Thomas Jefferson);
4. Hypothesis 2 -- the reason for that symbiotic relationship may be a link of some kind between pioneering altruism and some kind of deity, although indicating nothing re theists in general.
5. Premise 2 -- humanity sows the seeds of its own destruction if too critical a mass of its members look out only for themselves;
6. Hypothesis 3 -- all autonomous self-centered doctrines are a negative for the species;
7. Datum 2 -- in their primary texts, autonomous self-centered doctrines seem to show a symbiotic relationship to autonomous formulations for atheism (Brhaspati | Critias | Jean Meslier); and
8. Hypothesis 4 -- the reason for that symbiotic relationship may be a link of some kind between autonomous "self-ism" and autonomous atheism, although indicating nothing re atheists in general.
Now, in its bald form, does this dual pattern tell us that human society needs some self-propelled insight into some divine construct in order not to devolve into a self-destructive orgy of greed and selfishness? Is that really how hopeless humanity is? Can human community, then, evolve into a functional society that is prosperous, free and considerate of each other only when such a construct of the divine is concurrently promulgated? Again, if so, how come?
Must this construct be related to something really divine that really exists, or can it really be related to a delusion that is hard-wired in our brains? If it is a delusion, can we come up with any other normal evolving process that has also helped fashion human communities effectively through the eons and yet has always been symbiotically tied to a generally conceded delusion? If no other clear parallel to this exists, then could this more general construct of the divine contain a kernel of truth? If so, it might only make sense (of a sort) if one restricts the construct to minimal elements that are common to all faiths (which would mean that one would have to jettison any notions of deity as, among other things, creator or controller of events, since these constructs are not present in all faiths).
Only a rigorous and long-term scientific project geared toward a large-scale, multi-attitude, multi-perspective, multicultural study of this cultural evolution pattern for cultural/social doctrines throughout time could even begin to answer such questions satisfactorily.
Thoughts?
Operacast
