Physical evidence for any sort of religious belief

[tar]

Kyrisch,

I hope you visit in and see this thread. I am interested in exploring this topic with everybody, but especially with someone who feels there is no evidence.

I take your statement of apparent lack of evidence, as meaning that we have not found a big all powerful, all seeing greybearded guy in a white robe, sitting on a golden throne in the clouds over any portion of the Earth.

Rather sure, am I, that we will not find this guy anywhere.

However, this is not the kind of evidence for religious belief that I think we will find.

The evidence lies more in our relationship to the universe, to reality, to truth. How we, as collections of atoms, the random stuff of the universe, have come to be TAR and Kyrisch, conscious of our existence and capable of considering our relationship to the cosmos.

We as humans know a lot. Collectively we have noticed many things about reality, and written them down, and shared the knowledge with other humans. We have excercised a good deal of control over our environment and fashioned materials into buildings and ships and tools and devices that help us to aquire food and water and shelter, fight diseases, fence out wild animals that would eat us, and we have established much that aid us in our survival and the survival of our children.

In control. Until the storm, the earthquake, the meteor strike, the plauge, rips what we have built apart.

Then we get a little humble. Not quite so in control as we had thought.

We realize we are both powerful, in control, conscious, and of the universe, AND fragile, small, limited and in a universe that is huge and longlived, beyond our comprehension.

It is here, that we find some evidence for religious belief.

As an Atheist myself, I need not be told that there is no anthropomophic being, that IS in control. It is just a wish some of us have, that allows us to feel that we have some control over the meteor strike. That we are friends with the guy/girl/being at the controls and if we appease him/her/it, he/she/it will take our wishes into account and things will go more our way.

But as an Atheist still, I do consider that this is my universe. TAR is of and in the universe, made by it, with no other option, but to be in it. And although there is no doubt that TAR will cease being TAR someday soon (likely in the next 50 years) there is no way my existence can be erased from the universe. The universe keeps a record of itself. Everything that happens, revirberates through the entire fabric, eventually. The universe is connected thusly to itself. The ripples on the pond caused by the dropped pebble.

This is the kind of evidence I am proposing for religious belief.

What do you think Kyrisch?

Regards, TAR

[ydoaPs]

When you nail it down to a specific religion that makes specific claims, then you can test the truth of those claims. While the falsification of claims within a religion does not necessarily falsify the religion itself, it can lend a greater understanding of the mindset of the authors and thus a greater understanding of the religion as a whole.

For instance: Matthew mentions Herod massacring all the infants of the area. Provided it is true, there could be several things to provide evidence such as historical accounts or an unusual spike in infant graves in the area at the time. Unfortunately, since it is the veracity of the claim in Matthew, we cannot use Matthew as an example of historical record. As it stands, there's no record of it other than Matthew. Does this alone provide evidence of the story being false? No. However, we do have the history provided by Josephus. Josephus goes on and on detailing the many crimes of Herod yet this massacre is oddly missing. Based on Josephus's character, he more than likely wouldn't have left something like that out. We also have the character of the author of Matthew. To author of Matthew, Jesus HAD to be the Messiah, so much so, that he did all he could to force prophecy fulfillment upon Jesus(often to ridiculous lengths). The character of these two men in addition to the complete lack of any substantiating evidence means that it probably didn't happen. Does it prove that it didn't happen? No, but it greatly reduces the likelihood.

As we can see, some religions DO make observable claims that can be tested. If a religion's claims had nothing to do with the physical universe, they'd have a hard time convincing anyone. There are plenty of claims that could easily be confirmed via evidence that may be present.

[soms]

i struggle with agnostism precisely because of 'physical evidence' or lack thereof. i do not see evidence of the supernatural. we have what is written in various holy books. but it is not seen in our day. (granted there are many who will argue this fact but i personally have not seen anything convincingly otherwise.) i have had experiences which cause me to think there could be more but they could also be coincidences. the thing that weighs most heavily against a God imho is the evil and suffering in this world. and oddly enough the thing that weighs most heavily in favor of their being something more is the existence of beauty-love-goodness.etc. a quote by Sir A. Conan Doyle via his creation Sherlock Holmes "There is nothing in which deduction is so necessary as in religion. It can be built up as an exact science by the reasoner. Our highest assurance of the goodness of Providence seems to me to rest in the flowers. All other things, our powers, our desires, our food, are all really necessary for our existence in the first instance. But this rose is an extra. Its smell and color are an embellishment of life, not a condition of it. It is only goodness which gives extras, and so I say again that we have much to hope from the flowers."

[tar]

ydoaPs said:

When you nail it down to a specific religion that makes specific claims, then you can test the truth of those claims. While the falsification of claims within a religion does not necessarily falsify the religion itself, it can lend a greater understanding of the mindset of the authors and thus a greater understanding of the religion as a whole.

Well sure. But take it from my perspective. I have read the bible, I have read the Koran twice
(after Sept. 11th 2001) and view them both as works of man. Word of God though, in a figurativish sense. Moses brought the 10 commandments down from the mount and changed the way his people lived, treated each other, and their relationship to the universe. Were the tablets carved by God? Depends on your definition of God. If stone carving tools were found in the area where Moses wandered in the mountains, with Moses' fingerprints on them and we were SURE no supernatural God was responsible...I believe his (Moses') message was still
from God. What I mean, is that Moses' insights, there on his wanderings, alone with the vast universe, caused him to give/assign his own consciousness, to the universe.

The neurological pathways involved in being able to put oneself in other people's shoes was discussed over in SFN in iNow's thread, that I unfortunately and unwittingly helped get closed.

So from my perspective, when we talk, or think about God, when we pray to God, we are doing the same thing. Assigning our consciousness, to a greater universe. It is not a false thing. We are of the universe, it is not a thing outside our realm. It has a size and power so much greater than an individual human's scope, and we each know, that we did not come up with ourselves. We were created by the universe and we exist in it. Call it creation, call it evolution, call it whatever you want...it still happened, its still true, YdoaPs exists, TAR exists, the universe exists.

From this vantage point, Moses was not telling a lie... he was sharing an insight. From it came the old testament, then the new, then the Koran. I have not read but a few books from Eastern religions, but I do believe the underlying human neurology, the ability to put oneself in the other person's shoes, is behind the anthropomorfic diety. The fact that such a fellow/gal does not exist, does not negate our ability to project our own mind onto the universe. And the projection is not wholely without merit, given the fact that we emerged from the universe, and as such, can give it some credit for being rather capable of creating.

So where does that leave us? In no ones hands? No. We are in our own hands. And the God we project, is the God we serve, and the God that guides us.

I agree with you, about the "mindset of the author". It is the most important consideration, when reading the bible, or the Koran. There seems to be a need to discount aspects of the other religions, to make your own more powerful and true.

But somehow I don't think discounting the other's argument, when it come to beliefs, is going very far, in proving your own. After all, you're dealing with roughly the same neurological pathways as the person that you are discounting. Sort of the pot, calling the kettle black.

Regards, TAR

[tar]

Soms,

I liked your reference to the rose. Several years ago, while musing over what people mean when they talk about how we are an "intelligent" species, I passed a small tree, putting out its first blossoms of spring, and wondered how it "knew", how to do that.

Regards, TAR

[naz]

Jan 10, 2010 6:33:24 GMT tar said:

ydoaPs said:

When you nail it down to a specific religion that makes specific claims, then you can test the truth of those claims. While the falsification of claims within a religion does not necessarily falsify the religion itself, it can lend a greater understanding of the mindset of the authors and thus a greater understanding of the religion as a whole.

Well sure. But take it from my perspective. I have read the bible, I have read the Koran twice
(after Sept. 11th 2001) and view them both as works of man. Word of God though, in a figurativish sense. Moses brought the 10 commandments down from the mount and changed the way his people lived, treated each other, and their relationship to the universe. Were the tablets carved by God? Depends on your definition of God. If stone carving tools were found in the area where Moses wandered in the mountains, with Moses' fingerprints on them and we were SURE no supernatural God was responsible...I believe his (Moses') message was still
from God. What I mean, is that Moses' insights, there on his wanderings, alone with the vast universe, caused him to give/assign his own consciousness, to the universe.

The neurological pathways involved in being able to put oneself in other people's shoes was discussed over in SFN in iNow's thread, that I unfortunately and unwittingly helped get closed.

So from my perspective, when we talk, or think about God, when we pray to God, we are doing the same thing. Assigning our consciousness, to a greater universe. It is not a false thing. We are of the universe, it is not a thing outside our realm. It has a size and power so much greater than an individual human's scope, and we each know, that we did not come up with ourselves. We were created by the universe and we exist in it. Call it creation, call it evolution, call it whatever you want...it still happened, its still true, YdoaPs exists, TAR exists, the universe exists.

From this vantage point, Moses was not telling a lie... he was sharing an insight. From it came the old testament, then the new, then the Koran. I have not read but a few books from Eastern religions, but I do believe the underlying human neurology, the ability to put oneself in the other person's shoes, is behind the anthropomorfic diety. The fact that such a fellow/gal does not exist, does not negate our ability to project our own mind onto the universe. And the projection is not wholely without merit, given the fact that we emerged from the universe, and as such, can give it some credit for being rather capable of creating.

So where does that leave us? In no ones hands? No. We are in our own hands. And the God we project, is the God we serve, and the God that guides us.

I agree with you, about the "mindset of the author". It is the most important consideration, when reading the bible, or the Koran. There seems to be a need to discount aspects of the other religions, to make your own more powerful and true.

But somehow I don't think discounting the other's argument, when it come to beliefs, is going very far, in proving your own. After all, you're dealing with roughly the same neurological pathways as the person that you are discounting. Sort of the pot, calling the kettle black.

Regards, TAR

I like the way you think TAR.

Understanding that there is something greater than ourselves leads to humility and that is a good thing IMO. And if we are to survive as a species perhaps a necessary thing.

[Kyrisch]

Jan 9, 2010 14:56:45 GMT tar said:

Kyrisch,

I hope you visit in and see this thread. I am interested in exploring this topic with everybody, but especially with someone who feels there is no evidence.

I take your statement of apparent lack of evidence, as meaning that we have not found a big all powerful, all seeing greybearded guy in a white robe, sitting on a golden throne in the clouds over any portion of the Earth.

Rather sure, am I, that we will not find this guy anywhere.

However, this is not the kind of evidence for religious belief that I think we will find.

The evidence lies more in our relationship to the universe, to reality, to truth. How we, as collections of atoms, the random stuff of the universe, have come to be TAR and Kyrisch, conscious of our existence and capable of considering our relationship to the cosmos.

We as humans know a lot. Collectively we have noticed many things about reality, and written them down, and shared the knowledge with other humans. We have excercised a good deal of control over our environment and fashioned materials into buildings and ships and tools and devices that help us to aquire food and water and shelter, fight diseases, fence out wild animals that would eat us, and we have established much that aid us in our survival and the survival of our children.

In control. Until the storm, the earthquake, the meteor strike, the plauge, rips what we have built apart.

Then we get a little humble. Not quite so in control as we had thought.

We realize we are both powerful, in control, conscious, and of the universe, AND fragile, small, limited and in a universe that is huge and longlived, beyond our comprehension.

It is here, that we find some evidence for religious belief.

As an Atheist myself, I need not be told that there is no anthropomophic being, that IS in control. It is just a wish some of us have, that allows us to feel that we have some control over the meteor strike. That we are friends with the guy/girl/being at the controls and if we appease him/her/it, he/she/it will take our wishes into account and things will go more our way.

But as an Atheist still, I do consider that this is my universe. TAR is of and in the universe, made by it, with no other option, but to be in it. And although there is no doubt that TAR will cease being TAR someday soon (likely in the next 50 years) there is no way my existence can be erased from the universe. The universe keeps a record of itself. Everything that happens, revirberates through the entire fabric, eventually. The universe is connected thusly to itself. The ripples on the pond caused by the dropped pebble.

This is the kind of evidence I am proposing for religious belief.

What do you think Kyrisch?

Regards, TAR

An excellent post, really. But (and I know a semantical argument can be made against this, but bear with me) it is a work of philosophy, not religion. You and I are atheists for the same reason, because of the lack of belief in a personal god. But the emotions to which you are appealing you claim remind you of religiosity. I agree; such feelings seem to belong to the words religion and spirituality. But such words, being essentially meaningless in and of themselves, can mean only what you make them mean. If feeling that oneness with the universe is a religious experience for you, then that is how you choose to describe it. My comment, however, was more directed to the point that I am a staunch empiricist to whom faith remains antithetical and in whose experience 'religion' refers to statements of faith. This is what I do not believe, though any transcendental appreciation of our place in the universe is not lost on me.

You can even take it one step further, however. TAR and Kyrisch do not, essentially, exist. Our bodies exist but they have no discrete boundaries. You cannot say for certain what is part of you and what isn't. The true boundaries of our existence are one and the same with the boundaries of the physical universe.

And as for YOU, as in the entity who calls himself TAR, or Kyrisch, I wrote a short essay about this some time ago. It goes as follows:

You? There is no 'you'. What you perceive as yourself is merely a figment of your own imagination, an emergent property of a large mass of highly specialized cells... And not your body, no -- your mind. Your body exists -- it is a physical entity that can be touched, observed; it has properties that can be measured. Your mind does not. In fact, in many senses your mind does not exist at all; and since your concept of self is merely a complication of your mind, that does not exist either... At least not in any real way. It exists in the same way the number three does, or the words house or table or chair -- a representation of a thing, but nothing of its own accord. YOU do not exist.

[tar]

Jan 11, 2010 3:23:16 GMT Kyrisch said:

You? There is no 'you'. What you perceive as yourself is merely a figment of your own imagination, an emergent property of a large mass of highly specialized cells... And not your body, no -- your mind. Your body exists -- it is a physical entity that can be touched, observed; it has properties that can be measured. Your mind does not. In fact, in many senses your mind does not exist at all; and since your concept of self is merely a complication of your mind, that does not exist either... At least not in any real way. It exists in the same way the number three does, or the words house or table or chair -- a representation of a thing, but nothing of its own accord. YOU do not exist.

Kyrisch,

I have wrestled with such thinking. Don't think it is valid. There is a complication that I think we deal with, a sort of cognitive disonance thing, when we know there is no soul, no way for TAR to continue to exist after the brain dies, yet we know we are us, with no physical place in the brain to be, but in there non-the-less. And worse yet, even knowing TAR will die, and without a brain, have no further imaginings, I still do not consider that that will be the end of existence.

One way to look at it, at least the one I currently entertain, is that TAR will be, after he dies, pretty much like he was before he was born. I don't know what that means exactly, but I have no qualms about being that way again, or still, as the case might be.

That being said, let me tell you an aside story about a train of thought I had when I was 13. Forgive any misremembering of the train of thought and possible additions of subsequent insights. Basically, I was lying in bed, after saying my prayers with my mom and was alone. I was considering who this God was that was going to take my soul, should I not wake. Seemed to be something like my father and my mother wrapped up together...but they also had a father and mother...so some consciousness, greater than them, greater than everybody, able to create the world, and the stars...did he have a father and mother? I considered space, and every hugeness being a part of a greater hugeness. I talked to God, the mind responsible for everything, that knew what has happened and was going to happen, from start to finish. I felt his dispair at being alone, his dispair at knowing all there was to know...and understood his reasons for thinking up me, who could not know it all. I was doing God a favor, to be a part of him that did not see it all...a secret that I would keep, with God.

Now there, I have gone and broken the promise.

But I don't think now, that I was talking to anybody but me.

But you say there is no me. I disagree. There is a TAR. I view the universe from one perspective, where ever my body is. I am separate from the universe in this way, for now. As long as my senses function, and my brain is working, I can internalize the world from this perspective. It is what makes TAR, TAR. My experiences, my memories, my thoughts, my mind, heart, body combo.

Where I would agree with there being no TAR, is that there is no TAR separate, from my mind, heart, body combo.

Regards, TAR

[Kyrisch]

First, why do you assume that there is a mind "responsible for it all"?

Second, there is no delineation between where your body/mind combo ends and where the rest of the universe begins. Further, there is no delineation between where your mind ends and your body begins. So how can they be discrete things, in the sense that you are speaking?

Also, what you conceive as you (your self, that figment of your own imagination) certainly did not exist before you were born because your mind did not. (It is my opinion that your mind did not exist after you were born, either, in the way we are speaking, but that is a separate issue). If you are talking about the individual components of your mind/body, then you fall prey to my previous argument: that there is no real definitive way to tell whether or not anything is part of "you". Either way, there still is no "you".

[tar]

Kyrisch,

I was 13 after saying my prayers that I thought a mind was responsible for it all. My estimation has changed since then. Subsequent muses and logical thinking have led me to belief that reality has always existed. This because a mind huge and powerful enough to think it up, would be very hard to find a genesis for, and such a mind would have no context in which to exist. Much cleaner to imagine existence always was, than to imagine a huge person that always was, with no place to be, and no mechanisms for existence.

But I have not discarded the idea of mind, in the grand scheme of things. Not in the sense of a human mind, but in the sense that there does seem to be a grand scheme of things.

Every entity seems to be made up of an arragement of component entities, and also is found to be a component of a larger entity. Currently the largest entity is our universe, and the smallest I think is a quark, but in between the entity idea seems to play out. The quarks make up the subatomic particles, the protons and neutrons make up neucleus, the electrons spin around the neucleus and make an atom, atoms together make molecules, molecules make up minerals and different substances, which make up mountains and rivers and oceans and clouds, as well as proteins and dna and mitochondria and cells and organs and organisms. Together they make a planet. Bunch of planets and a sun a solar system. Bunch of suns a galaxy. Bunch of galaxies a cluster, bunch of clusters a string, bunch of strings a universe.

Certainly a scheme. Bit more than a human mind could put together and arrange. Physics has it figured, but human brains didn't put it there. Its got a mind of its own. That is the mind I am talking about. And quite possibly, that is the mind that religious people are considering as the mind of God. The mind that arranges the universe so a galaxy takes on the same shape and swirl of a hurricane. And patterns repeat at different scales like a Manderbrot drawing.

As for the delineation between my mind, heart body combo and the rest of the universe, I figure it is the outside layer of my skin. This is where I end and the rest of the universe begins. Sure I eat and breath outside parts, and expel inside parts to the outside constantly, but the delineation is always present. Everywhere I go, there I am.

Now, in terms of what I consider part of my self, I think I should share with you a defintion of love I constructed while musing along these lines about 7 years ago. "Love is when your feeling of self includes another entity." Here is where our "imagination" comes in, and where the delineation between self and other, is varied and obscured.

I include my father and sister, wife and daughters in my feeling of self. To a lesser and deminishing degree I include my workmates, my town, my political party, my country, people of like mind I meet on the internet, humans, life on this planet, the Earth, the Milkyway, the Universe, Exsistence. Not necessarily in that order, but where one can use the word my, or ours, I think one is describing entities which they are including in their feeling of self.

So where is there a problem finding a definitive way to tell whether or not anything is part of you? Physically you end at your skin. Every other inclusion is an act of faith, love, or imagination.

Regards, TAR

[Kyrisch]

You have a naive vision if you believe that your physical existence ends at your skin. Your skin falls off and collects with dust. Are you in all those places at once? At what point did that skin cease to be a part of you? You eat food that eventually becomes a part of you as your body grows. At what point did that food begin to be a part of you? Your offspring are created from your seed. Are they or are they not a part of you? In a vacuum you would cease to live... Doesn't that mean that your environment, the air around you, the earth itself are all a part of your existence?

And once again you have not given a working definition for 'you', as in 'yourself'. If we are talking about our bodies, the above applies. If we are talking about anything else, you need to exactly define what you consider to be yourself, because I have pointed out that such a concept is nebulous if existent at all.

[tar]

Kyrisch,

I am alive. There are certain arrangements of molecules, DNA, mitochondria, cells, organs and such required to maintain this state. I need a certain temperature and pressure, certain air to breath, certain molecules to intake to metabolize for energy, and certain materials I need to intake for cell maintanence and growth. Still, its TAR.

Regards, TAR

[tar]

Kyrisch,

I don't get what you think I don't get.

Regards, TAR

[tar]

Kyrisch,

I don't know how to metabolize, yet my body does. Is this the difference you are trying to point out?

Regards, TAR

[tar]

Jan 12, 2010 7:51:50 GMT Kyrisch said:

You have a naive vision if you believe that your physical existence ends at your skin. Your skin falls off and collects with dust. Are you in all those places at once? At what point did that skin cease to be a part of you? You eat food that eventually becomes a part of you as your body grows. At what point did that food begin to be a part of you? Your offspring are created from your seed. Are they or are they not a part of you? In a vacuum you would cease to live... Doesn't that mean that your environment, the air around you, the earth itself are all a part of your existence?

And once again you have not given a working definition for 'you', as in 'yourself'. If we are talking about our bodies, the above applies. If we are talking about anything else, you need to exactly define what you consider to be yourself, because I have pointed out that such a concept is nebulous if existent at all.

Krisch,

I suppose my definition of me could best be defined by example.
If you and I were standing in a room, facing each other, the person you saw looking at you would be me, and the person I saw looking at me would be you.

And I suppose the dead skin that falls off my person would no longer be part of me, as soon as it fell off. And the food would be part of me as soon as I swallowed, and the breath, as soon as I took it. Whatever I throw up, or breath out, or pee or poop away is no longer a part of me.

As for the delination between mind and heart and body, I do not think they are discrete components with any required deliniations.
They are all required to make me a person.

Regards, TAR