I do not have a right to impose my views on anyone and no one has a right to impose their views on anyone else. That includes any parent who imposes their views on their children.
That's just your subjective truth.
If I have a universal truth it's that the individual is paramount.
I don't think that is a universal truth. (In fact, I don't think it's more than a half-truth in any sense.) It's certainly not any different in kind from any of the truths you say are merely subjective. You have no grounds for saying that is a universal truth but that religion or atheism are subjective.
And yes, a 'whatever works for you' stance' is liberating for the individual but it does bind one's hands when dealing with other people, including one's offspring. And rightly so, in my view.
If throwing everyone who doesn't worship the Emperor works for the Romans or cutting out the hearts of captives works for the Aztecs, then why should that bind their hands? It may bind your hands from imposing your view that religious intolerance or persecution are wrong on people who think religious persecution is perfectly alright.
But I would have thought the Golden Rule precludes you from imposing your subjective truth on anyone else given that you wouldn't want them doing it to you.
Only if the Golden Rule happens to be part of your subjective truth.
In any case, the Golden Rule is a purely formal instruction. An action described in one way may be against the Golden Rule, but if you redescribe the action in a different way, it might be permissible. For example, impressing upon your children the truths you are grateful that your parents impressed upon you does not violate the Golden Rule.
Or are you maintaining that there is one objectively valid interpretation of the Golden Rule as applied to any situation?
The Golden Rule, in the form of reciprocal altruism, has been hard-wired into us by evolution. Sure, there are societies and individuals who manage to disregard it, but they are always regarded as outliers.
Education and nurturing are more about sharing what you believe to be valuable and/or useful rather than demanding others think like you. If you find that your life is enriched by a faith you believe to be true, and/or it gives you more comfort and meaning than alternatives, why on earth would you not preferentially share it with your children? On a ‘what works for me’ basis, it makes no sense not to.
I'm arguing for a society that is as fragmented and individualistic as possible without the whole thing falling apart.
Why?
Can you explain why that is better than, say, “a society that is as collective, caring and cooperative as possible, while allowing individuals’ the freedom to live their life in any way that does not harm others.”
So, if I like model railways or carpentry I should share my interests with my children to the exclusion of interests I don't like (but which they might)
A faith or a philosophy of life is not the same thing as a hobby, and you cannot share what you do not have. Also, while accepting children may not eventually share your enthusiasm for something you feel to be good for them (say, exercise, good diet, a belief in individual human rights) that does not mean it makes sense to withhold it while they are not independent and their nurture is your personal (and indeed legal) responsibility.
As for individualism versus cooperativism, I'm afraid I do see the latter as leading to social conformity with a curtailment on individual freedoms. For example, a cooperative society might well agree that things like abortion and euthanasia are damaging to society but I regard both as essential individual rights.
I don’t understand this. My statement included individual freedoms as well as cooperative expectations, and currently, avowedly individualist societies are the least likely to protect the individual rights you mention - while democratic socialist societies are more likely to do so. On strong current evidence, the opposite of caring cooperation is not liberal individualism - it is a populist mob.
I don't know how many atheists actually condemn early teaching of Christianity. I know that obviously some do, but my family seemed largely indifferent, although my mother had a Lancastrian dislike of Catholicism. So of course, that's what I gravitated towards as a noxious adolescent. I feel too old and tired to really object.
I wish my parents had taught me Christianity. I found it for myself, but I would rather not have had the empty years without faith - and I would have had the basis to develop a more thoughtful understanding much earlier.
I also regret my period of being a tiresome ‘militant atheist’, which didn’t amount to much more than a display of hubris, category errors and repetitive assertions. Looking back, it was bizarre how much energy I invested in not being a Christian.
Could you say briefly how you think your parents should or might have 'taught' you Christianity? What is the essential element you have in it that you did not have before?
In relation to the first question, I have already alluded to a sharing pedagogy upthread. I suppose I would most likely put that in a community of practice framework, in which learning is achieved through legitimate peripheral participation, if you are looking for a more theoretical grounding.
In relation to the second question, my comment above was mostly about the journey and not about arrival. An earlier start on that journey, in a nurturing and supportive environment, would have been better for me.
Thank you for your reply. Do you think that an essential element of being taught Christianity by your parents would have been a faith belief in God, ;i.e. a belief which requires, totally, faith? This would obviously have been something your parents could not do, even if they had taught you about Christianity.
But I would have thought the Golden Rule precludes you from imposing your subjective truth on anyone else given that you wouldn't want them doing it to you.
Only if the Golden Rule happens to be part of yourOr are you maintaining that there is one objectively valid interpretation of the Golden Rule as applied to any situation?
The Golden Rule, in the form of reciprocal altruism, has been hard-wired into us by evolution. Sure, there are societies and individuals who manage to disregard it, but they are always regarded as outliers.
If any given interpretation of the Golden Rule were hardwired into us then we wouldn't be having this conversation.
Some forms of reciprocal altruism seem to be inherent. But not enough to determine any remotely interesting ethical question.
If anything is hardwired into us it is not your minimal society of individual freedoms. What hardwiring there is probably favours a high degree of group cohesion and conformity.
I wish my parents had taught me Christianity. I found it for myself, but I would rather not have had the empty years without faith - and I would have had the basis to develop a more thoughtful understanding much earlier.
I also regret my period of being a tiresome ‘militant atheist’, which didn’t amount to much more than a display of hubris, category errors and repetitive assertions. Looking back, it was bizarre how much energy I invested in not being a Christian.
Could you say briefly how you think your parents should or might have 'taught' you Christianity? What is the essential element you have in it that you did not have before?
In relation to the first question, I have already alluded to a sharing pedagogy upthread. I suppose I would most likely put that in a community of practice framework, in which learning is achieved through legitimate peripheral participation, if you are looking for a more theoretical grounding.
In relation to the second question, my comment above was mostly about the journey and not about arrival. An earlier start on that journey, in a nurturing and supportive environment, would have been better for me.
Thank you for your reply. Do you think that an essential element of being taught Christianity by your parents would have been a faith belief in God, ;i.e. a belief which requires, totally, faith? This would obviously have been something your parents could not do, even if they had taught you about Christianity.
Mu - I believe that the question is fundamentally flawed. Unask the question.
[
A faith or a philosophy of life is not the same thing as a hobby, and you cannot share what you do not have. Also, while accepting children may not eventually share your enthusiasm for something you feel to be good for them (say, exercise, good diet, a belief in individual human rights) that does not mean it makes sense to withhold it while they are not independent and their nurture is your personal (and indeed legal) responsibility.
As for individualism versus cooperativism, I'm afraid I do see the latter as leading to social conformity with a curtailment on individual freedoms. For example, a cooperative society might well agree that things like abortion and euthanasia are damaging to society but I regard both as essential individual rights.
I don’t understand this. My statement included individual freedoms as well as cooperative expectations, and currently, avowedly individualist societies are the least likely to protect the individual rights you mention - while democratic socialist societies are more likely to do so. On strong current evidence, the opposite of caring cooperation is not liberal individualism - it is a populist mob.
I agree a hobby is not the same thing as a faith or philosophy of life, but since your faith/philosophy of life is as personal to you as an interest in model railways it's reasonable to suspect that one's own faith or philosophy of life may not be appealing/relevant to everyone else.
I also agree that one cannot share what one doesn't have, but one can ensure a child has adequate exposure to a range of faiths and philosophies besides that which you personally hold.
By avowedly individualist societies do you mean places like the US? If so, then I don't regard them as at all individualistic in nature. Places like Scandinavia, those democratic socialist societies, are much more individualistic in terms or personal freedoms.
[If any given interpretation of the Golden Rule were hardwired into us then we wouldn't be having this conversation.
Some forms of reciprocal altruism seem to be inherent. But not enough to determine any remotely interesting ethical question.
If anything is hardwired into us it is not your minimal society of individual freedoms. What hardwiring there is probably favours a high degree of group cohesion and conformity.
I agree the hard wiring favours a high degree of group cohesion and conformity. As humans with our highly evolved sense of self we have to fight against that desire for conformity in others.
I agree the hard wiring favours a high degree of group cohesion and conformity.
As humans with our highly evolved sense of self we have to fight against that desire for conformity in others.
If the hardwiring doesn't grant the group cohesion any normative significance then the golden rule or reciprocal altruism doesn't derive any normative significance from being hardwired. That means it was rather pointless of you to drag evolution and hardwiring in if you don't actually think they're significant.
I agree the hard wiring favours a high degree of group cohesion and conformity.
As humans with our highly evolved sense of self we have to fight against that desire for conformity in others.
If the hardwiring doesn't grant the group cohesion any normative significance then the golden rule or reciprocal altruism doesn't derive any normative significance from being hardwired. That means it was rather pointless of you to drag evolution and hardwiring in if you don't actually think they're significant.
They are significant in that the hard-wiring of the Golden Rule means it will be learnt through an individual's experience without needing to be specifically taught.
[
A faith or a philosophy of life is not the same thing as a hobby, and you cannot share what you do not have. Also, while accepting children may not eventually share your enthusiasm for something you feel to be good for them (say, exercise, good diet, a belief in individual human rights) that does not mean it makes sense to withhold it while they are not independent and their nurture is your personal (and indeed legal) responsibility.
As for individualism versus cooperativism, I'm afraid I do see the latter as leading to social conformity with a curtailment on individual freedoms. For example, a cooperative society might well agree that things like abortion and euthanasia are damaging to society but I regard both as essential individual rights.
I don’t understand this. My statement included individual freedoms as well as cooperative expectations, and currently, avowedly individualist societies are the least likely to protect the individual rights you mention - while democratic socialist societies are more likely to do so. On strong current evidence, the opposite of caring cooperation is not liberal individualism - it is a populist mob.
I agree a hobby is not the same thing as a faith or philosophy of life, but since your faith/philosophy of life is as personal to you as an interest in model railways it's reasonable to suspect that one's own faith or philosophy of life may not be appealing/relevant to everyone else.
I also agree that one cannot share what one doesn't have, but one can ensure a child has adequate exposure to a range of faiths and philosophies besides that which you personally hold.
Except a faith or philosophy of life is usually associated with a community, is central to how one conducts one’s life with others, and shapes what one regards as the most important guiding values. One can still teach a child primarily what one knows, trusts and believes to be right, and welcome comparative RE classes in schools, for example. Drawing an analogy with an enthusiasm for model railways is silly, however, and I am not going to comment on this point further.
By avowedly individualist societies do you mean places like the US? If so, then I don't regard them as at all individualistic in nature. Places like Scandinavia, those democratic socialist societies, are much more individualistic in terms or personal freedoms.
The US average is significantly higher than that for Scandinavian countries (and Germany, etc etc...) on Hofstede’s individualism scale, although all are relatively high. There is plenty of valid debate about Hofstede’s measures and there are wide confidence intervals, but on this topic you are speaking on the basis of an obvious and profound lack of knowledge.
Except a faith or philosophy of life is usually associated with a community, is central to how one conducts one’s life with others, and shapes what one regards as the most important guiding values. One can still teach a child primarily what one knows, trusts and believes to be right, and welcome comparative RE classes in schools, for example. Drawing an analogy with an enthusiasm for model railways is silly, however, and I am not going to comment on this point further.
The US average is significantly higher than that for Scandinavian countries (and Germany, etc etc...) on Hofstede’s individualism scale, although all are relatively high. There is plenty of valid debate about Hofstede’s measures and there are wide confidence intervals, but on this topic you are speaking on the basis of an obvious and profound lack of knowledge.
I would say that steam engines, and to lesser extent models of them, give me the nearest thing to a spiritual experience I'll ever have so the comparison is not facetious.
Ass an atheist I have no sense of community and it has no bearing on how I live. I suspect any faith/philosophy that does not have an organized structure will also lack a community.
I agree that exposing a child to other faiths through school is essential.
I don't believe I have an obvious and profound lack of knowledge. I suspect I have a different idea of what individualism means. US attitudes to abortion suggest a profound lack of tolerance for individual choices.
They are significant in that the hard-wiring of the Golden Rule means it will be learnt through an individual's experience without needing to be specifically taught.
As opposed to your preferred liberal individualism which does need to be impos taught?
I do not see how this addresses any of the points I've raised.
Namely, the Golden Rule requires interpretation; and whatever aspects of reciprocal altruism are hardwired seriously underdetermine the application to real world problems.
(It is also really not obvious to me that the form of reciprocal altruism hardwired into humans meets the standards of the Golden Rule. It feels to me that my experience as the parent of two reasonably kind young children would be easier if it did.)
Except a faith or philosophy of life is usually associated with a community, is central to how one conducts one’s life with others, and shapes what one regards as the most important guiding values. One can still teach a child primarily what one knows, trusts and believes to be right, and welcome comparative RE classes in schools, for example. Drawing an analogy with an enthusiasm for model railways is silly, however, and I am not going to comment on this point further.
The US average is significantly higher than that for Scandinavian countries (and Germany, etc etc...) on Hofstede’s individualism scale, although all are relatively high. There is plenty of valid debate about Hofstede’s measures and there are wide confidence intervals, but on this topic you are speaking on the basis of an obvious and profound lack of knowledge.
I would say that steam engines, and to lesser extent models of them, give me the nearest thing to a spiritual experience I'll ever have so the comparison is not facetious.
Ass an atheist I have no sense of community and it has no bearing on how I live. I suspect any faith/philosophy that does not have an organized structure will also lack a community.
I agree that exposing a child to other faiths through school is essential.
I don't believe I have an obvious and profound lack of knowledge. I suspect I have a different idea of what individualism means. US attitudes to abortion suggest a profound lack of tolerance for individual choices.
You are just taking a Humpty Dumpty view of what words mean; a personal idea of what something might mean is not the same as knowledge, outside of Alice in Wonderland.
I have no part in the debate, but you are also showing a similarly obvious and profound lack of knowledge about US attitudes to abortion, which are varied and are not what you think: people self describing as ‘pro-choice’ and ‘pro-life’ are about equal in recent surveys, while there is a clear and consistent majority in favour of allowing abortion in some or all circumstances.
Your relationship with steam engines, however, is beyond question.
There is, however, a vast difference between an analogy involving real life and real things we use and the unverifiable assumption of God or a spirit of Christ being taught about, rather than taught as something believed to be real.
Hmmm. I’m not sure how much of a difference there really is between ethics and pragmatics. But putting that to one side ... I think I’m going to introduce a distinction between the verifiable and the absolutely demonstrable.
By analogy: for years I thought people who rabbited on about wine were just being pretentious. I knew what I liked, I knew what I didn’t like: what was all this ‘notes of’ and ‘bouquet’ malarkey? But then, over the years, I started drinking more wine, and better. And then by middle age at last I could discriminate all the different notes I had thought were just booshwah when I was younger. There was a reality waiting there to be sensed, but it took time and attention and listening to how French and Italian people talked about wine to get there; not helped by the fact that of course people often were just being pretentious and fakey when they talked about wine. These previously-unsensed notes are verifiable, in the sense that I can reliably distinguish them and have a sensible conversation with people of comparable experience about them. But I could never simply demonstrate their existence to someone who hadn’t developed their capacity to a certain point.
It is even so with spiritual experience. There are certain spiritual disciplines that I undertake - prayer, meditation, participating in the Eucharist - that help make me more present to God, and to sense that presence more directly. It is not a predictable thing, nor would I want it to be - God will always transcend my expectations. But the disciplines and their results I have learned from others, and in their words and in conversation I often recognise my own experiences. So that spiritual development is to my mind verifiable in roughly the same way that refinement of palate is. And I thus hope to cultivate such development, in the fullness of time, in my child, even if its effects are not demonstrable - above all to hostile witnesses.
And then ... leaving aside the question of whether ethics are ever really verifiable or demonstrable in the first place, it seems to me that with ethics a reliance on demonstrability is in fact often a weakness. Most virtues shine forth most brightly when put to the test - that is to say, when their exercise seems irrational. To refrain from theft or adultery when one fears getting caught is simply common sense; but to do so when it would be undetectable is a moral act. Courage and perseverance are more noteworthy the greater the odds stacked against them. And of course we admire people who have shown compassion or fidelity to principle even to their great personal cost or even death.
If I have a universal truth it's that the individual is paramount.
I don't think that is a universal truth. (In fact, I don't think it's more than a half-truth in any sense.) It's certainly not any different in kind from any of the truths you say are merely subjective. You have no grounds for saying that is a universal truth but that religion or atheism are subjective.
I am probably wrong, but I took that as meaning that it is a universal truth for him - If I have a universal truth - but other people have their own.
It HAS to be a universal truth. If it is only a subjective truth then others can arrive at a different truth, such as the needs of the collective are paramount, and then apply that to limit my individualism.
To say that, or what may perhaps be in your earlier post, you need first to give us your definition of both universal and truth.
There is, however, a vast difference between an analogy involving real life and real things we use and the unverifiable assumption of God or a spirit of Christ being taught about, rather than taught as something believed to be real.
Hmmm. I’m not sure how much of a difference there really is between ethics and pagmatics. But putting that to one side ... I think I’m going to introduce a distinction between the verifiable and the absolutely demonstrable. By analogy:
As always, an eloquent and interesting post.
for years I thought people who rabbited on about wine were just being pretentious. I knew what I liked, I knew what I didn’t like: what was all this ‘notes of’ and ‘bouquet’ malarkey? But then, over the years, I started drinking more wine, and better. And then by middle age at last I could discriminate all the different notes I had thought were just booshwah when I was younger. There was a reality waiting there to be sensed, but it took time and attention and listening to how French and Italian people talked about wine to get there; not helped by the fact that of course people often were just being pretentious and fakey when they talked about wine. These previously-unsensed notes are verifiable, in the sense that I can reliably distinguish them and have a sensible conversation with people of comparable experience about them. But I could never simply demonstrate their existence to someone who hadn’t developed their capacity to a certain point.
It is even so with spiritual experience. There are certain spiritual disciplines that I undertake - prayer, meditation, participating in the Eucharist - that help make me more present to God, and to sense that presence more directly. It is not a predictable thing, nor would I want it to be - God will always transcend my expectations. But the disciplines and their results I have learned from others, and in their words and in conversation I often recognise my own experiences. So that spiritual development is to my mind verifiable in roughly the same way that refinement of palate is.
Unfortunately, there is a 'but' here. There is abundant evidence for the wine itself, and no doubt chemical tests could determine changes in your taste buds and probably register neural reactions in your brain when you are discerning tones, but no verifiable God or spirit! I can see how the analogy works for you, but I'm afraid I don't think it really works in general terms.
And I thus hope to cultivate such development, in the fullness of time, in my child, even if its effects are not demonstrable - above all to hostile witnesses.
Well, I think you can anticipate my probable response! Your child may not acquire, or choose to acquire, a refined taste in wine, but the wine is demonstrable; God is not.
And then ... leaving aside the question of whether ethics are ever really verifiable or demonstrable in the first place, it seems to me that with ethics a reliance on demonstrability is in fact often a weakness. Most virtues shine forth most brightly when put to the test - that is to say, when their exercise seems irrational. To refrain from theft or adultery when one fears getting caught is simply common sense; but to do so when it would be undetectable is a moral act. Courage and perseverance are more noteworthy the greater the odds stacked against them. And of course we admire people who have shown compassion or fidelity to principle even to their great personal cost or even death.
@SusanDoris I think you've misconstrued the analogy. As outlined, the wine isn't God. In terms of the analogy, the wine is life and existence, and God is the notes present within it.
The collision of this with Eucharistic imagery was unintentional :-).
I agree that God is unverifiable if your only tool of verification is scientific testing. But scientific testing is a very limited rule. It has nothing to say, for example, about ethics.
The problem with trying to use science as the test for everything is that it tends to dismiss anything that cannot be tested by science irrespective of its importance.
If my only tool of measurement is a ruler then linear dimension is the only thing I can measure, and, if I’m not careful, it becomes the only measurement that I regard as important.
The problem with trying to use science as the test for everything is that it tends to dismiss anything that cannot be tested by science irrespective of its importance.
Yes. In particular, you end up with a total disjunction between 'subjective' and 'objective' and a view that subjective things are unknowable, unsharable, and either unimportant (because unverifiable) or the locus of all value (because by that same token utterly free). As though shared and conditioned subjectivity isn't where most of us live, most of the time.
If my only tool of measurement is a ruler then linear dimension is the only thing I can measure, and, if I’m not careful, it becomes the only measurement that I regard as important.
The scientific method is the only way known to man to arrive at an objective truth that describes reality and which is shareable by all concerned through hard evidence and experiment. Whether our intellect is always capable of comprehending what the scientific method reveals is another matter.
But subjective truths are arguably more important to us which is why lovers communicate with poetry and not algebra (my E= your mc^2) and we are thrilled more by a good novel than by a scientific theory.
But the limitations of language and other forms of communication means we can't share subjective truths with anything remotely close to one-hundred percent fidelity and given that all subjective truths are tailored to the individual it's improbable that any subjective truth will be equally true for anyone else.
No matter how much I love a novel and no matter how well I know someone's tastes and think they will also appreciate it, there's no guarantee they will and it is certain they will not have the same experience of reading it as I had.
The scientific method is the only way known to man to arrive at an objective truth that describes reality and which is shareable by all concerned through hard evidence and experiment.
But there are any things which we accept, basically without question, for which the scientific method only gives us circumstantial evidence at best e.g. the battle of Hastings, the Roman invasion of Britain etc.
The scientific method is the only way known to man to arrive at an objective truth that describes reality and which is shareable by all concerned through hard evidence and experiment.
But there are any things which we accept, basically without question, for which the scientific method only gives us circumstantial evidence at best e.g. the battle of Hastings, the Roman invasion of Britain etc.
Well, we have plenty of contemporary written records of both events gathered from a huge number of sources that indicate it happened, plus the archaeology, of which I own a couple of bits of Roman stuff. Plus there's the evidence in modern day genetics. We know both events happened, even if some of the details are sketchy.
But I do accept that the meaning and effect of both those events are very much subjective. Many would regard the Roman invasion as heralding a few centuries of stability and prosperity and see the Norman Invasion as heralding Everything Great That Has Happened To Britain Since, whereas I regard the Norman Invasion as an unmitigated tragedy and all empires as evil.
Hmmmm, some of those posts (not Colin Smith's) look to me as if some wriggle room is being sought!
For historical battles etc there is no need for total faith, and no religious groupss have resulted from some imagined battle which did not take place.
The scientific method is the only way known to man to arrive at an objective truth that describes reality and which is shareable by all concerned through hard evidence and experiment.
But there are any things which we accept, basically without question, for which the scientific method only gives us circumstantial evidence at best e.g. the battle of Hastings, the Roman invasion of Britain etc.
Well, we have plenty of contemporary written records of both events gathered from a huge number of sources that indicate it happened, plus the archaeology, of which I own a couple of bits of Roman stuff. Plus there's the evidence in modern day genetics. We know both events happened, even if some of the details are sketchy.
But I do accept that the meaning and effect of both those events are very much subjective. Many would regard the Roman invasion as heralding a few centuries of stability and prosperity and see the Norman Invasion as heralding Everything Great That Has Happened To Britain Since, whereas I regard the Norman Invasion as an unmitigated tragedy and all empires as evil.
I’m open to correction on this, but as far as I’m aware the only written record for the 55BC landings is Julius Caesar’s own account which can hardly be said to be independent. The written record for the later invasion in 43AD comes from Suetonius AFAICT who wasn’t born until 69AD, and is generally thought to have written about the invasion in 121AD. (A similar gap to that between the life of Jesus and the writing of the gospels.)
Hmmmm, some of those posts (not Colin Smith's) look to me as if some wriggle room is being sought!
For historical battles etc there is no need for total faith, and no religious groupss have resulted from some imagined battle which did not take place.
There’s no need for total faith because there is historical evidence - as indeed there is for the life death and resurrection of Jesus. Of course if a truth makes more demands on us, we may look for stronger evidence, but our desire for stronger evidence doesn’t affect the truth of what is claimed.
Hmmmm, some of those posts (not Colin Smith's) look to me as if some wriggle room is being sought!
For historical battles etc there is no need for total faith, and no religious groupss have resulted from some imagined battle which did not take place.
There’s no need for total faith because there is historical evidence - as indeed there is for the life death and resurrection of Jesus. Of course if a truth makes more demands on us, we may look for stronger evidence, but our desire for stronger evidence doesn’t affect the truth of what is claimed.
Historical evidence for the resurrection? Well, evidence and the supernatural sit oddly together. I would say that evidence is a naturalistic term, and that few historians describe the supernatural.
Evidence is also is the testimony of people who were there. You can choose how much weight to give it, but it is evidence nonetheless. To be strictly accurate it is the post resurrection appearances of Jesus for which there is evidence, rather than the actual event of resurrection itself.
Evidence is also is the testimony of people who were there. You can choose how much weight to give it, but it is evidence nonetheless. To be strictly accurate it is the post resurrection appearances of Jesus for which there is evidence, rather than the actual event of resurrection itself.
But how widely would allow for the supernatural? Do you restrict it to Jesus, or would you accept that Sai Baba could materialize rings and watches, attested by many followers? Of course, Mohammed went to heaven on a winged horse, etc., etc.
I think you test the evidence on a case by case basis. For some things you don’t care whether it’s true or not, it makes no claims on you, so you don’t bother so much.
I had a girl-friend who swam in the supernatural. We used to go down to Glasto, and snack on everything, Christian, pagan, Sufi, animist, Buddhist, dream-catchers, women's mysteries, goat yoga, blah blah, I got indigestion, but she motored on.
@OP
There are definitely ways to not teach Christianity. It is unacceptable to scare children about going to hell, that if they haven't done some form of conversionism that they are damned, and terrible nonsense like that. There are adults who can be satanic in their pursuit of Jesus who delight in scaring people; I've wondering about sublimation of normal sexuality and desires with intropunitive (self punishment) projected outwards toward damned-before-birth children.
Unsurprisingly, I think that in the phrase 'to teach Christianity' (or 'to not teach Christianity'), it is the omission of the word 'about' that concerns me.
I often wonder why humans like the supernatural, there are plenty of possible reasons, it's comforting, exciting, dramatic, and offers a way out of life. Other worldly.
I remember that Scott Atran argues that religion has to be costly, and counterfactual. This is very interesting, suggesting that non-rational factors are involved, e.g., sacrifice. From here, there are various routes, e.g., the idea that ego yearns to be swallowed up in the grand Oneness, or pleroma, or whatever you call it. We do see this yearning in love, sex, music, drugs, alcohol. Separation is overcome.
The scientific method is the only way known to man to arrive at an objective truth that describes reality and which is shareable by all concerned through hard evidence and experiment.
Woman knows another method but she can't share it?
As BroJames says, historical research does arrive at objective knowledge without the scientific method. Arguing that historical research is based on written records and archaeology just makes his point: it can aim at objective knowledge without being based on the scientific method.
Yes, many parts of history as a subject allow for differences of interpretation: so do some if fewer areas of science. The only subject entirely free of interpretation is mathematics.
You are talking as if the only two subjects in a modern university are physics and creative writing, to quote a remark by the theologian Nicholas Lash (*).
This discussion seems perpetually in danger of confusing whether truth is objective or subjective (ie whether it's the case whether we know it or not, whether we can be wrong about it) with whether our method of accessing the truth is objective or subjective (dependent on factors personal to the enquirer, possibly biased). The words 'objective' and 'subjective' seem badly tangled in that respect: I often think discussion would be clearer without them.
(*) who I have just seen on wikipedia is Ralph Fiennes' uncle.
Hmmmm, some of those posts (not Colin Smith's) look to me as if some wriggle room is being sought!
I don't think you're an unbiased judge.
Colin Smith made an assertion (only the scientific method gives access to objective truth).
BroJames offered a counterexample to that assertion.
Colin Smith has neither explicitly shifted his position to take account of the counterexample nor rejected the counterexample nor tried to explain why the offered counterexample isn't actually a counterexample to his original assertion. Instead he's waffled on a bit about historical evidence and subjective meaning without relating either to his original assertion.
I often wonder why humans like the supernatural, there are plenty of possible reasons, it's comforting, exciting, dramatic, and offers a way out of life. Other worldly.
I remember that Scott Atran argues that religion has to be costly, and counterfactual. This is very interesting, suggesting that non-rational factors are involved, e.g., sacrifice. From here, there are various routes, e.g., the idea that ego yearns to be swallowed up in the grand Oneness, or pleroma, or whatever you call it. We do see this yearning in love, sex, music, drugs, alcohol. Separation is overcome.
Well, we've happily wandered away from the OP a fair bit already, so .... just some random thoughts.
I think it depends on what you mean by 'supernatural'. I thought Persuasions of the Witch's Craft was an interesting study of this in contemporary culture, which chimed well with my now-vague recollections of my occult enthusiasms as a teenager. Here an interest in things like tarot and magic(k) emerge more as a kind of systematised means for exploring the psyche and its relation to the world; sort of Jungianism through the other end of the telescope.
With regard to monotheistic religious practice, I tend to think of this as 'transcendent' more than 'supernatural', though of course there's a big grey area in between (and Religion and the Decline of Magic is a really interesting study of how these two poles got defined in the early modern period; a surprisingly absorbing read for a scholarly tome, and all of 2 quid on Amazon). But I think the way you're framing the ego-question is an interesting one. I think for a lot of people the desire of the ego is sort of a final term, and indeed internal desires are I guess the ultimate explanation for a lot of psychological phenomena. For a religious person (most clearly in Buddhism), of course, there's another level there. The ego may or may not want to be swallowed up; but either way it's a delusion, and to some extent is always undoing itself.
The scientific method is the only way known to man to arrive at an objective truth that describes reality and which is shareable by all concerned through hard evidence and experiment.
But there are any things which we accept, basically without question, for which the scientific method only gives us circumstantial evidence at best e.g. the battle of Hastings, the Roman invasion of Britain etc.
Well, we have plenty of contemporary written records of both events gathered from a huge number of sources that indicate it happened, plus the archaeology, of which I own a couple of bits of Roman stuff. Plus there's the evidence in modern day genetics. We know both events happened, even if some of the details are sketchy.
But I do accept that the meaning and effect of both those events are very much subjective. Many would regard the Roman invasion as heralding a few centuries of stability and prosperity and see the Norman Invasion as heralding Everything Great That Has Happened To Britain Since, whereas I regard the Norman Invasion as an unmitigated tragedy and all empires as evil.
I’m open to correction on this, but as far as I’m aware the only written record for the 55BC landings is Julius Caesar’s own account which can hardly be said to be independent. The written record for the later invasion in 43AD comes from Suetonius AFAICT who wasn’t born until 69AD, and is generally thought to have written about the invasion in 121AD. (A similar gap to that between the life of Jesus and the writing of the gospels.)
Fair point on written records of the Roman invasion itself. However, I took 'invasion' to mean both the two actual invasions plus the three centuries of Roman occupation for which there is a lot of supportive documentation.
Hmmmm, some of those posts (not Colin Smith's) look to me as if some wriggle room is being sought!
I don't think you're an unbiased judge.
Colin Smith made an assertion (only the scientific method gives access to objective truth).
BroJames offered a counterexample to that assertion.
Colin Smith has neither explicitly shifted his position to take account of the counterexample nor rejected the counterexample nor tried to explain why the offered counterexample isn't actually a counterexample to his original assertion. Instead he's waffled on a bit about historical evidence and subjective meaning without relating either to his original assertion.
I'm only online a few hours each day, so...
I think Brojames's example is interesting, however I suggest there is a difference between an objective truth, such as revealed by science, and a truth everyone agrees on, such as we get from the historical record.
Three recent TV documentaries on the English Reformation, The Spanish Armada, and the reign of Queen Anne indicated that truths on which everyone agrees can be very far from objectively true.
Hmmmm, some of those posts (not Colin Smith's) look to me as if some wriggle room is being sought!
I don't think you're an unbiased judge.
Colin Smith made an assertion (only the scientific method gives access to objective truth).
BroJames offered a counterexample to that assertion.
Colin Smith has neither explicitly shifted his position to take account of the counterexample nor rejected the counterexample nor tried to explain why the offered counterexample isn't actually a counterexample to his original assertion. Instead he's waffled on a bit about historical evidence and subjective meaning without relating either to his original assertion.
I'm only online a few hours each day, so...
I think Brojames's example is interesting, however I suggest there is a difference between an objective truth, such as revealed by science, and a truth everyone agrees on, such as we get from the historical record.
Three recent TV documentaries on the English Reformation, The Spanish Armada, and the reign of Queen Anne indicated that truths on which everyone agrees can be very far from objectively true.
I think you’re working with an idiosyncratic definition of objective truth. There are things which ‘everyone’ believes which turn out to be wrong or untrue. They are simply not truth at all they are error or falsehood.
The battle of Hastings in 1066 is an objective truth. The idea that it was a tragic truncation of high Anglo Saxon culture may be held true by some people and not others. It could be called a subjective truth, though my choice of word would be opinion.
OTOH it may be true for you to say that Brussels sprouts or coriander/cilantro are horrible. Other people may like them. I would call that a subjective truth (of sorts) because there are known genetics behind those differing experiences of taste.
ISTM that the Christian claim that there is one god who made everything that is, seen and unseen, is a truth claim which doesn’t comfortably allow the existence of other gods, or other beings to have brought things into existence.
You can transform it into a taste/preference claim - ‘this is what I like to believe’, but by so doing you deny its claim to be truth. You can also deny it altogether. ‘It’s not real it’s just a matter of preference’, or ‘there are no such things as gods’. This moves it into the realms of myth, error or falsehood.
You might consider that myth, error or falsehood to be harmless and not worth worrying about, or you might consider it to be an unhelpful or dangerous delusion which should be suppressed, or at least caused to wither away.
Any honest self-report of one's own sensory impressions is a subjective truth. "That looks blue to me" is a subjective truth (if it really looks blue to you, and you're not seeing yellow and lying about it).
Comments
The Golden Rule, in the form of reciprocal altruism, has been hard-wired into us by evolution. Sure, there are societies and individuals who manage to disregard it, but they are always regarded as outliers.
It is incoherent but it isn't what I was saying.
A faith or a philosophy of life is not the same thing as a hobby, and you cannot share what you do not have. Also, while accepting children may not eventually share your enthusiasm for something you feel to be good for them (say, exercise, good diet, a belief in individual human rights) that does not mean it makes sense to withhold it while they are not independent and their nurture is your personal (and indeed legal) responsibility.
I don’t understand this. My statement included individual freedoms as well as cooperative expectations, and currently, avowedly individualist societies are the least likely to protect the individual rights you mention - while democratic socialist societies are more likely to do so. On strong current evidence, the opposite of caring cooperation is not liberal individualism - it is a populist mob.
Some forms of reciprocal altruism seem to be inherent. But not enough to determine any remotely interesting ethical question.
If anything is hardwired into us it is not your minimal society of individual freedoms. What hardwiring there is probably favours a high degree of group cohesion and conformity.
Mu - I believe that the question is fundamentally flawed. Unask the question.
I agree a hobby is not the same thing as a faith or philosophy of life, but since your faith/philosophy of life is as personal to you as an interest in model railways it's reasonable to suspect that one's own faith or philosophy of life may not be appealing/relevant to everyone else.
I also agree that one cannot share what one doesn't have, but one can ensure a child has adequate exposure to a range of faiths and philosophies besides that which you personally hold.
By avowedly individualist societies do you mean places like the US? If so, then I don't regard them as at all individualistic in nature. Places like Scandinavia, those democratic socialist societies, are much more individualistic in terms or personal freedoms.
I agree the hard wiring favours a high degree of group cohesion and conformity.
As humans with our highly evolved sense of self we have to fight against that desire for conformity in others.
They are significant in that the hard-wiring of the Golden Rule means it will be learnt through an individual's experience without needing to be specifically taught.
Except a faith or philosophy of life is usually associated with a community, is central to how one conducts one’s life with others, and shapes what one regards as the most important guiding values. One can still teach a child primarily what one knows, trusts and believes to be right, and welcome comparative RE classes in schools, for example. Drawing an analogy with an enthusiasm for model railways is silly, however, and I am not going to comment on this point further.
The US average is significantly higher than that for Scandinavian countries (and Germany, etc etc...) on Hofstede’s individualism scale, although all are relatively high. There is plenty of valid debate about Hofstede’s measures and there are wide confidence intervals, but on this topic you are speaking on the basis of an obvious and profound lack of knowledge.
I would say that steam engines, and to lesser extent models of them, give me the nearest thing to a spiritual experience I'll ever have so the comparison is not facetious.
Ass an atheist I have no sense of community and it has no bearing on how I live. I suspect any faith/philosophy that does not have an organized structure will also lack a community.
I agree that exposing a child to other faiths through school is essential.
I don't believe I have an obvious and profound lack of knowledge. I suspect I have a different idea of what individualism means. US attitudes to abortion suggest a profound lack of tolerance for individual choices.
I do not see how this addresses any of the points I've raised.
Namely, the Golden Rule requires interpretation; and whatever aspects of reciprocal altruism are hardwired seriously underdetermine the application to real world problems.
(It is also really not obvious to me that the form of reciprocal altruism hardwired into humans meets the standards of the Golden Rule. It feels to me that my experience as the parent of two reasonably kind young children would be easier if it did.)
You are just taking a Humpty Dumpty view of what words mean; a personal idea of what something might mean is not the same as knowledge, outside of Alice in Wonderland.
I have no part in the debate, but you are also showing a similarly obvious and profound lack of knowledge about US attitudes to abortion, which are varied and are not what you think: people self describing as ‘pro-choice’ and ‘pro-life’ are about equal in recent surveys, while there is a clear and consistent majority in favour of allowing abortion in some or all circumstances.
Your relationship with steam engines, however, is beyond question.
Hmmm. I’m not sure how much of a difference there really is between ethics and pragmatics. But putting that to one side ... I think I’m going to introduce a distinction between the verifiable and the absolutely demonstrable.
By analogy: for years I thought people who rabbited on about wine were just being pretentious. I knew what I liked, I knew what I didn’t like: what was all this ‘notes of’ and ‘bouquet’ malarkey? But then, over the years, I started drinking more wine, and better. And then by middle age at last I could discriminate all the different notes I had thought were just booshwah when I was younger. There was a reality waiting there to be sensed, but it took time and attention and listening to how French and Italian people talked about wine to get there; not helped by the fact that of course people often were just being pretentious and fakey when they talked about wine. These previously-unsensed notes are verifiable, in the sense that I can reliably distinguish them and have a sensible conversation with people of comparable experience about them. But I could never simply demonstrate their existence to someone who hadn’t developed their capacity to a certain point.
It is even so with spiritual experience. There are certain spiritual disciplines that I undertake - prayer, meditation, participating in the Eucharist - that help make me more present to God, and to sense that presence more directly. It is not a predictable thing, nor would I want it to be - God will always transcend my expectations. But the disciplines and their results I have learned from others, and in their words and in conversation I often recognise my own experiences. So that spiritual development is to my mind verifiable in roughly the same way that refinement of palate is. And I thus hope to cultivate such development, in the fullness of time, in my child, even if its effects are not demonstrable - above all to hostile witnesses.
And then ... leaving aside the question of whether ethics are ever really verifiable or demonstrable in the first place, it seems to me that with ethics a reliance on demonstrability is in fact often a weakness. Most virtues shine forth most brightly when put to the test - that is to say, when their exercise seems irrational. To refrain from theft or adultery when one fears getting caught is simply common sense; but to do so when it would be undetectable is a moral act. Courage and perseverance are more noteworthy the greater the odds stacked against them. And of course we admire people who have shown compassion or fidelity to principle even to their great personal cost or even death.
Often virtue runs against the grain.
To say that, or what may perhaps be in your earlier post, you need first to give us your definition of both universal and truth.
Fixed quoting code. BroJames Purgatory Host
The collision of this with Eucharistic imagery was unintentional :-).
The problem with trying to use science as the test for everything is that it tends to dismiss anything that cannot be tested by science irrespective of its importance.
If my only tool of measurement is a ruler then linear dimension is the only thing I can measure, and, if I’m not careful, it becomes the only measurement that I regard as important.
Yes. In particular, you end up with a total disjunction between 'subjective' and 'objective' and a view that subjective things are unknowable, unsharable, and either unimportant (because unverifiable) or the locus of all value (because by that same token utterly free). As though shared and conditioned subjectivity isn't where most of us live, most of the time.
Amen, @BroJames.
But subjective truths are arguably more important to us which is why lovers communicate with poetry and not algebra (my E= your mc^2) and we are thrilled more by a good novel than by a scientific theory.
But the limitations of language and other forms of communication means we can't share subjective truths with anything remotely close to one-hundred percent fidelity and given that all subjective truths are tailored to the individual it's improbable that any subjective truth will be equally true for anyone else.
No matter how much I love a novel and no matter how well I know someone's tastes and think they will also appreciate it, there's no guarantee they will and it is certain they will not have the same experience of reading it as I had.
Well, we have plenty of contemporary written records of both events gathered from a huge number of sources that indicate it happened, plus the archaeology, of which I own a couple of bits of Roman stuff. Plus there's the evidence in modern day genetics. We know both events happened, even if some of the details are sketchy.
But I do accept that the meaning and effect of both those events are very much subjective. Many would regard the Roman invasion as heralding a few centuries of stability and prosperity and see the Norman Invasion as heralding Everything Great That Has Happened To Britain Since, whereas I regard the Norman Invasion as an unmitigated tragedy and all empires as evil.
For historical battles etc there is no need for total faith, and no religious groupss have resulted from some imagined battle which did not take place.
That's really funny
Historical evidence for the resurrection? Well, evidence and the supernatural sit oddly together. I would say that evidence is a naturalistic term, and that few historians describe the supernatural.
But how widely would allow for the supernatural? Do you restrict it to Jesus, or would you accept that Sai Baba could materialize rings and watches, attested by many followers? Of course, Mohammed went to heaven on a winged horse, etc., etc.
There are definitely ways to not teach Christianity. It is unacceptable to scare children about going to hell, that if they haven't done some form of conversionism that they are damned, and terrible nonsense like that. There are adults who can be satanic in their pursuit of Jesus who delight in scaring people; I've wondering about sublimation of normal sexuality and desires with intropunitive (self punishment) projected outwards toward damned-before-birth children.
I remember that Scott Atran argues that religion has to be costly, and counterfactual. This is very interesting, suggesting that non-rational factors are involved, e.g., sacrifice. From here, there are various routes, e.g., the idea that ego yearns to be swallowed up in the grand Oneness, or pleroma, or whatever you call it. We do see this yearning in love, sex, music, drugs, alcohol. Separation is overcome.
As BroJames says, historical research does arrive at objective knowledge without the scientific method. Arguing that historical research is based on written records and archaeology just makes his point: it can aim at objective knowledge without being based on the scientific method.
Yes, many parts of history as a subject allow for differences of interpretation: so do some if fewer areas of science. The only subject entirely free of interpretation is mathematics.
You are talking as if the only two subjects in a modern university are physics and creative writing, to quote a remark by the theologian Nicholas Lash (*).
This discussion seems perpetually in danger of confusing whether truth is objective or subjective (ie whether it's the case whether we know it or not, whether we can be wrong about it) with whether our method of accessing the truth is objective or subjective (dependent on factors personal to the enquirer, possibly biased). The words 'objective' and 'subjective' seem badly tangled in that respect: I often think discussion would be clearer without them.
(*) who I have just seen on wikipedia is Ralph Fiennes' uncle.
Colin Smith made an assertion (only the scientific method gives access to objective truth).
BroJames offered a counterexample to that assertion.
Colin Smith has neither explicitly shifted his position to take account of the counterexample nor rejected the counterexample nor tried to explain why the offered counterexample isn't actually a counterexample to his original assertion. Instead he's waffled on a bit about historical evidence and subjective meaning without relating either to his original assertion.
Well, we've happily wandered away from the OP a fair bit already, so .... just some random thoughts.
I think it depends on what you mean by 'supernatural'. I thought Persuasions of the Witch's Craft was an interesting study of this in contemporary culture, which chimed well with my now-vague recollections of my occult enthusiasms as a teenager. Here an interest in things like tarot and magic(k) emerge more as a kind of systematised means for exploring the psyche and its relation to the world; sort of Jungianism through the other end of the telescope.
With regard to monotheistic religious practice, I tend to think of this as 'transcendent' more than 'supernatural', though of course there's a big grey area in between (and Religion and the Decline of Magic is a really interesting study of how these two poles got defined in the early modern period; a surprisingly absorbing read for a scholarly tome, and all of 2 quid on Amazon). But I think the way you're framing the ego-question is an interesting one. I think for a lot of people the desire of the ego is sort of a final term, and indeed internal desires are I guess the ultimate explanation for a lot of psychological phenomena. For a religious person (most clearly in Buddhism), of course, there's another level there. The ego may or may not want to be swallowed up; but either way it's a delusion, and to some extent is always undoing itself.
Is the continuum hypothesis true or not?
Fair point on written records of the Roman invasion itself. However, I took 'invasion' to mean both the two actual invasions plus the three centuries of Roman occupation for which there is a lot of supportive documentation.
I'm only online a few hours each day, so...
I think Brojames's example is interesting, however I suggest there is a difference between an objective truth, such as revealed by science, and a truth everyone agrees on, such as we get from the historical record.
Three recent TV documentaries on the English Reformation, The Spanish Armada, and the reign of Queen Anne indicated that truths on which everyone agrees can be very far from objectively true.
Royal History’s Biggest Fibs with Lucy Worsley is well worth watching https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000fj9d
I couldn't possibly comment
I think you’re working with an idiosyncratic definition of objective truth. There are things which ‘everyone’ believes which turn out to be wrong or untrue. They are simply not truth at all they are error or falsehood.
The battle of Hastings in 1066 is an objective truth. The idea that it was a tragic truncation of high Anglo Saxon culture may be held true by some people and not others. It could be called a subjective truth, though my choice of word would be opinion.
OTOH it may be true for you to say that Brussels sprouts or coriander/cilantro are horrible. Other people may like them. I would call that a subjective truth (of sorts) because there are known genetics behind those differing experiences of taste.
ISTM that the Christian claim that there is one god who made everything that is, seen and unseen, is a truth claim which doesn’t comfortably allow the existence of other gods, or other beings to have brought things into existence.
You can transform it into a taste/preference claim - ‘this is what I like to believe’, but by so doing you deny its claim to be truth. You can also deny it altogether. ‘It’s not real it’s just a matter of preference’, or ‘there are no such things as gods’. This moves it into the realms of myth, error or falsehood.
You might consider that myth, error or falsehood to be harmless and not worth worrying about, or you might consider it to be an unhelpful or dangerous delusion which should be suppressed, or at least caused to wither away.