What do we need a deity for? (Introduction)

by broken_cynic , Tuesday, August 09, 2011, 23:53 (4855 days ago) @ dhw

Kent: Well, so long as you insist on a (false) dichotomy of being unable to judge anything in the absence of complete knowledge, you will die on that fence. -> dhw: You have emphasized "anything", which is an astonishing presumption on your part. I have explained why I refuse to take on trust the chance explanation of the origin of life, and I remain open-minded on matters relating to the mysteries of consciousness and psychic/mystic phenomena. ... I'm not at all sure that I see any value for you or anyone else in your contemptuous rejection of all deities as "utterly ridiculous". -I'm sorry, that was poorly and antagonistically phrased on my part. I am very much in favor of (initially) approaching any and all ideas with an open mind. My frustration comes in when it seems that you want to ask of science/rationalism a complete and airtight description of the entire universe from start to finish before you will accept that its account carries more weight than that of unsubstantiated stories which just happen to parallel in nearly all respects, stories we know for certain were made up. -> I'm amazed that anyone actually knows about all the deities. It must have taken you years of research. -I don't need to know about all of the deities humans have ever described to dismiss them as a class. Do you need to know the back story of every character in the DC or Marvel (comics) universes before you can confidently describe the entire group as fictional characters?-> For the record, I make judgments all the time in the absence of complete knowledge. No-one has complete knowledge when judgments are called for - if they did, there would be no need to make a judgment! I do not believe absolute knowledge of the God issue is possible, and I do not consider that I have sufficient knowledge to make a judgment. I'm surprised that you find that so difficult to accept.-I can accept that you do not have sufficient knowledge to satisfy your own threshold of certainty. The only part I have trouble accepting is as above, when you seem to give equal weight to sober analysis of the evidence on one hand and slightly re-worked versions of Bronze Age myths on the other. If neither convinces, that's fine, but they are still not equal. -> The belief I have assigned to you is that there is a material answer to what you yourself called "the big questions". If that is not what you believe, I apologize... It would be extremely helpful if you would explain what, in this context, you do believe, rather than reiterating what you don't believe. -When I try to synthesize all of the branches of our conversation under the abiogenesis topic I will address this more thoroughly (and positively,) but there is a difference between 'believing that there is a material answer to everything' and simply operating in a world where there has never been evidence of a non-material answer for any question whatever outside the realm of stories (from fairy tales to religions.) To say I 'believe in' material answers makes no more sense than to say that I 'believe in' sources of engine problems other than gremlins, or of relationship issues other than fairy folk or of sour milk other than elves. I don't need to hold an explicit belief in the real world, I live there. You aren't far off the mark on my perspective, it's the insistence on labeling ideas as absolutist, black and white beliefs that makes me keep saying 'No!'->> Kent: Why are you comfortable saying you know that about Thor and FSM, but not Yahweh/Jehovah/Allah/etc...? What is the difference you see?-> dhw: But I'm not convinced that they will do so, because I'm not convinced that chance really is capable of such a colossal scientific achievement.-Huh? Anthropomorphize much?-> dhw: I leave open the option of an alternative explanation, namely a force that lies beyond our current concepts of Nature. Call it God, Yahweh.whatever you like (but forget the attributes imposed on it by the various religions - that is a different matter). Are you genuinely unable to see the difference, or are you kidding me?-The only difference I see is an insignificant one: that the origins of some of them are far enough in the past that it is not entirely clear at this point whether the original authors of the stories were intentionally pulling the wool over people's eyes or sincerely looking to explain the world as they saw it. Maybe it would make more sense if instead of comparing Yahweh to a clear parody like FSM I instead compared him to Xenu?-You haven't answered my question about what difference you see between the ancient stories and the recent ones, only described the gaps that you think some gods or other might still possibly be found hiding in. -Why is a story made up to explain things we don't yet fully understand worth of veneration, or even of respect? I love a good story, particularly ones that play with mythos (Neil Gaiman and Charles de Lint are favorite authors of mine,) but a huge part of the pleasure of a good story is that it is definitively Not Real and Not To Be Taken Seriously. Stories work their own sort of mundane magic and stories can teach, but they are still inherently an escape from the real world.