The Function Of Belief

[juantoo3]

Kindest Regards, all!

You see all this is exactly what I'm about here Juan, there is no contention of belief just an awareness of what is going on in the process or function of belief. Without an antagonist there can be no protagonist. It is possible to have dialog and inquiry without debate but most people do not think that way, there must be an opposition to be challenged or we are lost!

The difficulty I see is in that even while discussing we tend to gravitate to sides anyway. You believe you are correct, and within certain limits will try to defend what you believe. Tao does the same. Chris does the same. Snoopy does the same. Seattlegal does the same. I do the same. We all do the same. Some of us have higher limits and greater "certainty" (that tends to get us into trouble sometimes), some of us through whatever religious or socio-cultural indoctrination may be willing to surrender our superfluous opinions pretty easily. But those core essential beliefs that drive us to be who we are we do not surrender so readily.

We can always keep our ideas of morality and ethics but why fall asleep at the switch and compartmentalize each thing we come in contact with, labeling it and thereby insulating ourselves from actuality, from things as they are.

We don't have to, that is the joy of the mind of the seeker. But even that seems to me a little too all-encompassing, because we tend to do this in order to make sense of our world, and thereby control or influence it. It's a scary thing when everything is out of your understanding and control, the more understanding you have and the more control you can exert, the lesser the paralyzing and insane fear. As a child you expect your parents to control your environment, as an adult you no longer have that luxury (well, most of us anyway).

Hi Juan Happy New Year to you!!

Likewise, good friend!

Frightened children. How the churches love them! How they like to sustain that fear in the books they use. ...Being equal is far more desirable than being the product of a deity that appears to allow such great suffering in his name dont you think?

I understand what you are getting at, and in a modern context you are mostly correct (my opinion, ermm belief, here). But you are missing (evading?) my point. You are fixated on institutional religion. I am speaking of the spirit quest, the personal manifestation of religion. If there were nothing there to seek or worth seeking, how did the spiritual search and drive come into being? A lie would not sustain it in prehistoric times, nor would a lie sustain it now, I don't believe.

I do not think people are in fear without god, I think they are in fear because of god. A benign and ambivalent universe has not got it in for you because you fail to attend church of a Sunday, because you actually enjoy sex and use contraception because you dont want a baby every time, because you like to wear a bikini on the beach, because you like to read Salman Rushdie or partake of a wee dram. And do not forget the peer pressure, which is concentrated fearmongering, to conform. I wonder how many people would actually care about religion if somehow we managed to liberate them from peer pressure. Not that many I think.

This is manipulation. Moms do it, marketing does it, religious institutions do it. Play the guilt trip. Yeah, so? It has no bearing on why so many caves are painted and so many venus figures are carved and so many other carvings, musical instruments and other evidences that tend towards an aesthetic that includes a search for, and here I always come up short for a name to call it, but a search for some conceptual understanding that equates across the board with G-d in the broadest sense of the term. Not an anthropomorphic beard or tits in the sky hurling thunderbolts, but an intuition that some "intelligence" lies behind the great mystery.

Religion is a mass hysteria without factual evidence to support its claims. Wherever there is hysteria there is fear, they walk hand in hand.

Again, this pivots on how you define "religion." In the institutional sense, there seems to be among certain sects an attitude of hysteria that is cultured and encouraged, I can see that. But fear and hysteria are effectively the same thing, hysteria perhaps being an irrational out of proportion fear, an insane fear. True religion, the spirit quest, provides knowledge that allays fear and subsides hysteria. The evidence is personal and circumstantial, but too pervasive to ignore; culturally, socially and historically.

Embellishment is the first tool of every storyteller. Things were no different back at the dawn of language. Smart people began to realise, for good or ill, that particular embellishments would have particular effects. Over the millennia this has been refined to a fine art.

I disagree. Falsehoods are very severely frowned upon in tribal cultures. Lying is so anathema to their outlook that telling a lie is literally unthinkable. The concept is foreign. Oral histories cannot be accurate if the teller is prone to falsehood (indeed, the tribe would not trust that person with such vital information). Even to carry back mentally into a pre-historic survival situation, there is absolutely nothing, power or otherwise, to be gained by not telling the truth. I think you are giving a bit more devious credit than the evidence warrants, and projecting modern points of view onto an early cultural scenario. I simply do not see it, and not for lack of trying. There is no survival benefit to telling falsehoods, everything to lose by doing so, and such an all-encompassing pervasive search for spirit across early communities, that spirit quest is in my mind such a given because there *is* something to it.

And so we have the devices of mass control we call our holy books. As I have stated many times this was not strictly a bad thing, societies need laws of governance. But the greedy and powerful have so corrupted them that they are no longer useful. Well not if we do not wish to walk headlong into some mutually assured destruction. I think mankind has reached the point we need to cast away our fairytale books and go in for some factual education. Just as we get over the realisation that Dad is Santa Claus, so we will get over the fact God is no more than an instrument of fear propagated by the churches.

Again, your vitriol is aimed at religious institutions, and that is not withoout warrant. But it is confusing the vehicle with the journey. Perhaps the vehicle may well be a worn out piece of crap that should have been junked long ago, but the road has been there for thousands of years, and the view along the way is still as beautiful as it ever was.

I haven't read Dawkins but I agree. I personally don't have an issue with people forming beliefs so much as I have a problem with fundamentalism, including that on the far left. At that point I think there's a real risk of it becoming a cancer on other parts of society. If someone's saying, "I know I'm right because I've got this source of absolute truth here and you're completely wrong for questioning it, should believe as I do" then I get concerned. If someone's only going so far as saying, "I disagree with you because I believe I'm right but you're welcome to live your life according to your own beliefs" then I'm not so worried.

Live and let live, with the understanding that while I think I am right, there is the possibility I might not be. (But if you are gonna try to convince me that I am not correct, pack a lunch 'cause it's gonna be a long day)

juan, you're so erudite, you leave me speechless!

what did these grins actually mean?

The way that can be named is not the true way, yes? My grins were a way of saying "I agree." We don't seem to have any "thumb's up" smilies for the posts.

I'm sparticus!!

How can you be Spatacus when you can't even spell the name? Seriously, you can't be Spartacus cuz I am Spartacus.

A predilection toward addiction, or at least "self medication" is a common factor in most depressive illnesses. It is also the case that such people are more likely to have strong religious beliefs. Is this just a coincidence?

Yes, it is a coincidence.

But a true atheist cannot be drawn to political extremes any more than religious ones. Dogma is dogma wherever it resides. Atheism is probably most akin to communism in its ideal because an atheist will see that what is good for all is also good for him.

Consumerism is a trickier one. All of us are guilty of aspiration to better things. What society needs is education to realise the full cost of a product and all of its subsidies removed. The insane core of capitalism, constant growth, also has to be addressed... and soon. The holy book of consumerism is advertising and the similarity between a 'good' sermon and a 'good' advert is striking. They will both make you feel like you need the product to be complete again... after they have devalued you.

Some very excellent points, but they should be kept in context. In a modern context you are correct. Beliefs have become perverted and polluted. That does not mean beliefs are not essential nor fulfill a necessary purpose. (He says as he struggles to spell "necessary" after jibing about spelling earlier, LOL) And I would add that raw belief, belief in just any ol' thing for the sake of believing something, is fundamentally counter-intuitive and oxymoronic. Belief must be "truth" to a person or it serves no validating purpose. I cannot "believe" fire won't burn me in order to master fire, I must believe the truth about fire in order to master it. My truth about fire may vary from your truth about fire, but an obvious falsehood will not serve the same purpose. Perhaps you believe fire is born of lightning from the heavens, that becomes a part of your truth, perhaps I see that friction causes heat and that becomes a part of my truth. We are still looking at the same reality, we simply come away with differing beliefs about that reality. But reality it is, it is not (and cannot be) imaginary for both of us unless we are both "not-quite-right" mentally.

 

[juantoo3]

Spatacus

Where's an embarassed smiley when you need it?

That is supposed to be "Spartacus."

 

[dauer]

Seattlegal,

Oh boy! Shall we revisit the classic thread, The Rush to be Right once again?

You may, but I won't. It's ten pages long and I never joined in the first time around. xD

juantoo,

Live and let live, with the understanding that while I think I am right, there is the possibility I might not be. (But if you are gonna try to convince me that I am not correct, pack a lunch 'cause it's gonna be a long day)

In my case almost every time this comes down to one person asserting I can know when I'm saying I don't know ( and even in the case that I might know I don't know how I'd verify that), and each person trying to tell me I can know has different criteria for knowing be it logic, reductionism, a sacred text or peak experiences. I try to turn things on their head by answering each with another.

-- dauer

 

[Tao_Equus]

Hi Juan,

You Spat-a-cus!! Never, simply dont believe it!!

You are absolutely correct to say that I ignore personal or individual spirituality in my rants. And that such can be wholly beneficial to both the individual and the wider community. I have to hold my hands up and say that I do not quite know how to tackle individual spirituality other than to maintain the position that it too is illusory, yet not necessarily detrimental. I am sure it is clearly obvious to all by now that my grievance is with institutionalised belief, and I feel warranted in painting with such broad brushstrokes because by far the vast majority of believers hold institutionalised opinions. People like you and the good people here with self-discovered spiritual leanings represent a tiny minority.

I have only recently come down off the fence, perhaps due to challenges I was presented with here on these forums. But if memory serves me right you were engaged on a few threads where I think it was clear I was ascribing to some notion of a bigger purpose/ plan / intelligence. I know in myself this is what I wanted to find and so I sought it. I could never have found it in any of the established institutions, I may be uneducated but I am not blindly stupid. So I sought it where my deepest most profound feelings reside, my love of life, life forms and this beautiful universe. I sauntered down the Lovelock way and found Gaia theory so obviously truth, based on my own hands on interaction with the natural world, that I began to elevate it beyond that which it is. I still believe the super-organism referred to as Gaia is a fact. And I still believe that we, as a constituent part of it, get our sense of something "bigger" from our immersion in it. But the 'intelligence' of Gaia shows no sign of being anything godlike in nature.

Artistic or aesthetic predispositions are a side effect of bigger brains that evolved because our species needed them to enable our omnivorous and nomadic way of life. These functions allowed us to predict and plan and adapt to the ever changing environment. But aesthetic appreciation of beauty is not confined to humans. Very many species of bird use it in the mating game for example, like peacocks or birds of paradise. The bower bird even produces sculpture. You may argue that such behaviour is not nearly as evolved as ours but my point is that nature produced such abilities, not a divine and unique gift to mankind.

The first storytellers may well have had an entirely survival based oratory. But power politics takes place within a nuclear family let alone a clan. It is naive to think that life back at the dawn was all for one and one for all. Competition for often scarce resources would inevitably lead to power games. They would certainly manifest themselves in the oral tradition of the people. If you have a few guys telling you to retell a story a certain way, and they are telling you not asking if you might, then you will. Or die.

Also we cannot dismiss the value of ignorance. We take our evolved science and education for granted but back when if a clan elder gave a supernatural explanation you believed it for there was no alternative. For every avenue of inquiry into the why and when of mankind's spiritual and intellectual sentiments we can with a little thought find an alternative to the divine gift bestowed on us. There are no mysteries. And there is no valid case to support belief in the supernatural.

Tao

 

[Snoopy]

That would be a good starting place. I have long advocated that all "national service" should become "international service", where one is duty bound to go and live, study and work in another nation.

Tao

Tao, I think this is a brilliant idea, of great benefit to the individual, the two countries involved and the world. See what Gordon thinks of it.

s.

 

[_Z_]

perhaps belief came about because as we evolved we ‘tuned in’ to the greater aspect ~ the presence if you will of infinite being or just of something very great.

as this happened we saw things on an increasingly great scale, the flat world become the round, the universe of spheres became the vast universe we percieve today. time was thought of probably as more clockwork like at first then we conjured eternity.

if you have notions that are not present in the everyday world, then you have belief!

i am afraid belief is present in science too!

 

[Paladin]

perhaps belief came about because as we evolved we ‘tuned in’ to the greater aspect ~ the presence if you will of infinite being or just of something very great.

as this happened we saw things on an increasingly great scale, the flat world become the round, the universe of spheres became the vast universe we percieve today. time was thought of probably as more clockwork like at first then we conjured eternity.

if you have notions that are not present in the everyday world, then you have belief!

i am afraid belief in present in science too!

Yes, exactly Z you have managed to sum it up quite nicely here!
This is what I'm getting at, we live in the conceptual rather than the actual. Notice the resistance you get when this is pointed out. Living in the actual is uncomfortable and unpredictable. Here the son of man has no place to rest his head.

 

[_Z_]

thanks paladin

we live in the conceptual rather than the actual.

very true.

i would go as far as to say that the actual is not as real as the imaginary/conceptual. here i am considering the imagination as the entity of our minds - the ‘you’ and the entire conceptual world - rather than imagination as we would normally see it.

the physical world is there to serve us, it gives us info by which we may interact - thats it.

the son of man may rest his head nicely in the greater version of reality. although i personally think he was a man just like us, but thats another topic and has already been debated.

 

[Paladin]

Well, actually Z I mention the son of man as metaphor for the human race not having a conceptual resting place.

 

[_Z_]

Well, actually Z I mention the son of man as metaphor for the human race not having a conceptual resting place.

ah i see. where humanity is the son of the greater aspect kinda. interesting metaphor.

 

[China Cat Sunflower]

I think that there has to be some medium for all the parts and particles to clink around in. I'd call that belief. Fish need water to swim around in so they can do their fishy thing. Facts need something to swim around in so they can be rearranged into ever more concrete hypotheses.

Chris

 

[Tao_Equus]

I think that there has to be some medium for all the parts and particles to clink around in. I'd call that belief. Fish need water to swim around in so they can do their fishy thing. Facts need something to swim around in so they can be rearranged into ever more concrete hypotheses.

Chris

But, (here he goes again), too often religion is like pouring concrete into the pooliverse. Dogma is the enemy of fact and reason. Since i have become evangelical i believe i have to say this

In regard to the Z/Palladin posts;
True no 2 individuals share a reality on a personal level. But we do share a collective reality that we must have a duty to be aware of.

Tao

 

[China Cat Sunflower]

But, (here he goes again), too often religion is like pouring concrete into the pooliverse. Dogma is the enemy of fact and reason. Since i have become evangelical i believe i have to say this

Maybe we should separate religious belief from the belief process in general even though it's the same mechanism essentially. I fail to see how "belief", of itself, possesses any innate veracity. It's completely silly to think that one should or must respect another's "beliefs." Belief is a means, a mechanism, a temporary tool to get to an answer. Belief itself is never an answer.

Chris

 

[Tao_Equus]

Maybe we should separate religious belief from the belief process in general even though it's the same mechanism essentially. I fail to see how "belief", of itself, possesses any innate veracity. It's completely silly to think that one should or must respect another's "beliefs." Belief is a means, a mechanism, a temporary tool to get to an answer. Belief itself is never an answer.

Chris

I believe you could well be right there!!

 

[China Cat Sunflower]

To invent an analogy: Belief is like scaffolding. It's very useful, but in the end the building has to stand on its own. If the construction materials and methods are solid the building will stand the test of time. But you can't just leave the scaffolding up forever all the while insisting that the building is sound. It either stands on its own or it doesn't, that's the proof.

"Is the building finished?"

"Yes."

"Are you satisfied with the quality of materials and construction methods?"

"Yes."

"What's this stick doing propping up the balcony?"

"Don't touch that!"

"Why not?"

"Because I said so."

"But why, I thought you said you were confident in the construction."

"Don't you disrespect my beliefs."

Chris

 

[_Z_]

tao, hi

True no 2 individuals share a reality on a personal level. But we do share a collective reality that we must have a duty to be aware of.

i actually believe we do share both a personal and collective reality, i don’t believe in subjectivism. we are all points on a piece of paper, there is no individuality in spiritual terms, it is only in the physical realm where we are apparently separated. this is due to our human forms receiving information from singular sources like i.e. our extended senses/the physical side of the senses.

the mind itself usually relates only to these as they are important to our survival, yet the mind is not directly fixed to the senses, if this were so ~ and if we were only physical entities it would be as if we were glued to them, then we would not have the nature of mind that is free flowing.

CCS

Belief itself is never an answer.

perhaps in essence it is all we can do, knowledge is a function of language which is metaphoric to the actual. here i contradict myself with the above where i said i don’t believe in subjectivity, but that is when it in the singular, not the universal context. at the least belief in anything extraneous to the physical is the only thing we can do with it as it cannot be known by the senses. things like infinity, the eternal even being and mind all then belong to the realm of belief, however that doesn’t mean they cannot be true or have a basis ~ this is where philosophy comes into play. belief in and of itself is the dodgy one.
so yes it is like the scaffolding or philosophy is its scaffolding.

 

[China Cat Sunflower]

perhaps in essence it is all we can do, knowledge is a function of language which is metaphoric to the actual. here i contradict myself with the above where i said i don’t believe in subjectivity, but that is when it in the singular, not the universal context. at the least belief in anything extraneous to the physical is the only thing we can do with it as it cannot be known by the senses. things like infinity, the eternal even being and mind all then belong to the realm of belief, however that doesn’t mean they cannot be true or have a basis ~ this is where philosophy comes into play. belief in and of itself is the dodgy one.
so yes it is like the scaffolding or philosophy is its scaffolding.

That makes a lot of sense, Z. I think that one has to embrace an open ended commitment to humility and patience, understanding that there is no final plateau to be reached. In other words, you have to remain philosophical throughout. I do think that it's responsible and reasonable to say that, in the absence of absolute proof, certain processes or things seem to be trending a certain way with enough stability to make solid assumptions. And the beauty of belief systems, when they work properly, is that the scaffolding can be easily broken down and reused on a variety of projects. There is a danger there of constructing a web of assumptions based on false conclusions, but the advantage is that one doesn't have to start all over at the beginning every time.

Chris

 

[_Z_]

CCS

I think that one has to embrace an open ended commitment to humility and patience, understanding that there is no final plateau to be reached. In other words, you have to remain philosophical throughout.

absolutely.

There is a danger there of constructing a web of assumptions based on false conclusions, but the advantage is that one doesn’t have to start all over at the beginning every time.

yes i see what you mean. in a sense religion has done this over and over again, form the earliest times we have found new forms of scaffolding to prop up the apparent reality [the world] and our place in it. perhaps it has gone from wood to iron to aluminium, then maybe it will become some composite.
if beliefs can make our foundations stronger then there is no problem with them.

i think people like dawkins just looks at belief for its own sake and attacks that without looking at its reasons and purpose. i don’t know anyone who just believes for the sake of it, in fact many have found it after much heart ache, perhaps their ideas are wrong but there is something to what they believe not just nothing, - so what if everyone is not a great philosopher who can say what they believe!

 

[China Cat Sunflower]

I applaud Dawkins for volunteering to be the goat. Someone needs to do it, I'm glad he's willing. But he's just preaching to the choir. There is no way to reach folks who live in a faith based reality. They're entirely insulated from any sort of logical compulsion. So Dawkins' derisive talking points, which unfortunately take the form of an extended and rambling rant for the edification a perceived audience of like minded atheists, only function as an ego prop. It might be fun to imagine smacking down one's ideological opponents with a few well crafted intellectual put downs, but it won't accomplish anything. The net result is merely an ego stroking, and one should ask one's self how intellectually mature it is to engage in that kind of mental masturbation.

Chris

 

[Tao_Equus]

I applaud Dawkins for volunteering to be the goat. Someone needs to do it, I'm glad he's willing. But he's just preaching to the choir. There is no way to reach folks who live in a faith based reality. They're entirely insulated from any sort of logical compulsion. So Dawkins' derisive talking points, which unfortunately take the form of an extended and rambling rant for the edification a perceived audience of like minded atheists, only function as an ego prop. It might be fun to imagine smacking down one's ideological opponents with a few well crafted intellectual put downs, but it won't accomplish anything. The net result is merely an ego stroking, and one should ask one's self how intellectually mature it is to engage in that kind of mental masturbation.

Chris

I am glad that you applaud something about Dawkins. He is evangelical, and he does rather ni$ley out of it. But apart from that I think you undervalue the actual work he does. It is true that he is not going to turn the heartland of the Christian Right into atheists but that does not mean his voice goes unheard. Here on this forum his work has been discussed or referred to on dozens of threads and this is because he has, (and this was so very badly needed), set a benchmark of rationality that was previously missing.
Everybody tends to dislike this guy. I tend toward thinking that it is because as well as shooting from the hip with cold hard logic, he has a rather smug air about him. His arguments are thoroughly thought through and no theologian can counter the science he uses to validate his opinions. I think that combination makes him a little dislikeable to anyone with even a trace of hope that there is a God, and utterly despicable to those that openly hold beliefs. But he is just the messenger. The truth is there for anyone who cares to look.

YouTube - dawkins v haggard

I wonder if haggard was finding it difficult to concentrate on evolution because he was thinking how good it would be to get on his knees and pray to the great god felatio!!

Tao