Ignorance is bliss...

[metis]

I don't do anything involving the RCC. Discussing it here, isn't being 'drawn' to it. If I were still going to mass, etc...then, yes...I would agree.

I'm not angry with it, but it teaches things not based on objective truths. You are welcome to believe anything you like, and I see the pull it has, because the pomp and circumstance, music, rituals, etc...cover up the fact that what it's teaching is not based on anything provable. But such is faith. I have no problem with any religion so long as followers of said religions don't pretend to know with certainty that what they follow is based on objective truth.

Over the years I've developed a strong respect for the Anglican/Episcopalian Church for the reason that they are much more open to questioning and allowing more divergent opinions. My daughter-in-law just left her Pentecostal church in disgust, and she's now going to check out a local Episcopalian church per my recommendation near where her and my son live.

 

[Deidre]

Over the years I've developed a strong respect for the Anglican/Episcopalian Church for the reason that they are much more open to questioning and allowing more divergent opinions. My daughter-in-law just left her Pentecostal church in disgust, and she's now going to check out a local Episcopalian church per my recommendation near where her and my son live.

That's interesting, but the Bible story doesn't really change. To me, no matter what Christian church you end up in, the Bible still is what Christianity is built around. Certain denoms use subtle nuances, and sure there's diverging opinions, but the Bible story is what it is. So, if someone goes to a new church, is he/she looking for an 'interpretation' that matches his/her life choices/worldview? If so, that's making up your own religion, not following Christianity. I no longer wanted to do that anymore...

 

[lovemuffin]

The text itself doesn't change, but the text is never just the text. There is really no such thing as a plain and purely objective reading. There are a lot of difficulties in trying to deal with interpretation of an ancient religious text, whether it's any of the biblical texts (and it's worth keeping mind it's a collection and not a single text) or from any other religion. The problems are due to the nature of religious symbolism, differences between ancient literary genres and modern ones, ambiguities, technical usage of terms idiosyncratic to specific authors, translational difficulties, missing cultural context, and etc.

But even beyond all that, with Christian history specifically, it has long been traditional for the church at various times to interpret texts in a way that has less to do with the original intent of the authors (as best as we can determine it) as with their present needs. Whether it's Origen interpreting the Song of Songs, or Gregory Nazianzen interpreting the meaning of the crucifixion as "sacrifice", or the reformers making a systematic soteriology out of Paul's language on "righteousness", "grace", and "works", or modern Christians reinterpreting certain words of Jesus in order to avoid their previous anti-semitism. I've read doctrinal statements from some churches that assert that the "Bible is inerrant and infallible in the original manuscripts", but the funny thing about that is that it's sort of self-defeating. We don't have original manuscripts. And even if we did, the idea of an "original" meaning is already an ideal that is not within reach.

So the point is (and forgive me Deidre since you've heard me tell you this a few times and maybe you're tired of it ), "The Bible", at least as it represents an entire religious understanding, and not just the literal words, does change, has changed, will continue to change. If that amounts to "making up your own religion", then there really is no authentic Christianity at all, and never has been. Because the entire history of the religion involves just that process. What I've tried to suggest is that not only is that not an egregious fault, it's both necessary and desirable. Rather, the fault is with the fundamentalist dogma of a single objective and infallible reading, which has simply never existed and never can exist. That view is already just as "arbitrary" in one sense as what you are referring to as making up your own religion. It also turns out that it's not the most objectively correct understanding of the intent of the original authors, at least with regard to "inerrancy" and "infallibility", which are entirely modern concepts.

All of that isn't to say that there aren't more or less objectively reasonable readings. There are hermeneutical approaches that emphasize what the author probably meant, and how a contemporary reader would have understood the text, over completely esoteric readings. I think that's a good place to start. If you want to approach things with reason, you can also approach the meaning of biblical texts that was as well, first of all treating them as human artifacts, rather than as theological proclamations that "must" remain immutable.

 

[Typist]

I find atheism to be logical.....

In both cases, theism and atheism, a logical structure is built upon a foundation of faith. The theist has faith their holy book is binding on all of reality, whereas the atheist has faith the rules of human reason are binding on all of reality. In neither case are these assumptions proven. In both cases, once one has laid a foundation made of faith, one can then build a logical structure on top by referencing one's chosen authority.

And then your more important point....

.....yet on an emotional level, it leaves me wanting.

A possible solution here is to embrace and celebrate the ignorance, instead of pushing it away and viewing it as a failure to know. "Ignorance is bliss" can be a true positive, and not just a diagnosis of an intelligence illness.

What thousands of years of inquiry in to the god question have proven beyond doubt is that we are ignorant when it comes to huge issues such as the most fundamental nature of reality. We conducted an epic investigation, and have received the results, we are ignorant. Nobody can prove anything.

Instead of seeing this as a failure which must be covered up with all kinds of theist or atheist fantasy knowings, we can embrace ignorance as an asset, as the great gift that it is.

Just as some atheists report a kind of liberation experience when they leave religion, the very same thing can happen when we keep on going, and leave atheist ideology behind too.

And once all the fantasy knowings have been set aside, our minds are free to focus our attention and intelligence on reality. Not words about reality, or concepts, or opinions, or fantasy knowings, but reality itself.

A handful of dirt can be more emotionally rewarding than all the theology and atheist ideology books in the world, if we are actually paying attention to the handful of dirt. The obstacle is not in the handful of dirt, but in our unwillingness to attend to it with sufficient seriousness.

Following this trail can be both highly logical and reality based, and produce the same kinds of emotional experiences that have brought people to religion for endless centuries.

Why argue over theism vs. atheism, when we can have them both?

 

[beenherebeforeagain]

A possible solution here is to embrace and celebrate the ignorance, instead of pushing it away and viewing it as a failure to know. "Ignorance is bliss" can be a true positive, and not just a diagnosis of an intelligence illness.

After reading this entire thread and this line in particular, I am reminded of something that animists frequently proclaim: It's all a Great Mystery.

We can live as part of the mystery, we can investigate the mystery, we can interpret and appreciate the mystery, we can even worship the mystery. It remains a Great Mystery. I see ignorance is acknowledging that it's a Great Mystery, knowing that whatever we do know, we may not be able to know all or know for certain. Some call it God and have parameters that describe what deity is or must be; personally, I don't. For me, it's the Great Mystery.

 

[Typist]

.......we can even worship the mystery.

Indeed, and why not? Worshiping "what is" is a very rational response. That's what the inquiry should be about, establishing a positive relationship with reality.

Which is more rational? Ignoring the rain? Shaking our fist at the rain? Or rushing out in to the rain with tears of joy to worship it's glorious beauty?

Atheists need not deny themselves the emotional rewards of the worship experience, just because they don't believe in some unseen hyper-intelligence. What we can experience with our senses is surely glorious enough to merit worship.

What obstructs us from fully experiencing that glory is that our attention is typically distracted by something else, all the little thoughts spinning endlessly round and round in our heads. We're cheating ourselves, because nothing going on in our little inner man made conceptual world can ever be as interesting and rewarding as the rain, the Milky Way, a handful of dirt, the real world.

Just as it takes time and effort to develop our rational mind, it takes time and effort to develop our emotion based "worship mind" too. But there's nothing stopping anybody from making that effort investment and harvesting the rewards if it interests them to do so.

It's perhaps interesting to observe that both theists and atheists seem to agree that the point of the inquiry should be to establish a knowing. Both are attempting to do this, each with their own chosen method. What if that shared assumption is wrong?

What if the reason these inquiries go on without progress century after century is because we are stubbornly trying to pound a square peg in to a round hole, repeating the same things over and over and over again expecting different results, which Einstein called the definition of insanity?

What if this ancient inquiry has produced useful results by teaching us we are ignorant, but we simply refuse to accept the results of our experiment because we don't like the answer?

What if progress lies in the opposite direction, not in building towering piles of religious or anti-religious fantasy knowing forts, but in tearing such conceptual houses down within our own minds, board by board by board, until there's nothing left....

Except the real world.

 

[Deidre]

Worship a mystery? What is this you speak of? Hmmmm?
^_^

 

[Deidre]

In both cases, theism and atheism, a logical structure is built upon a foundation of faith. The theist has faith their holy book is binding on all of reality, whereas the atheist has faith the rules of human reason are binding on all of reality. In neither case are these assumptions proven. In both cases, once one has laid a foundation made of faith, one can then build a logical structure on top by referencing one's chosen authority.

And then your more important point....



A possible solution here is to embrace and celebrate the ignorance, instead of pushing it away and viewing it as a failure to know. "Ignorance is bliss" can be a true positive, and not just a diagnosis of an intelligence illness.

What thousands of years of inquiry in to the god question have proven beyond doubt is that we are ignorant when it comes to huge issues such as the most fundamental nature of reality. We conducted an epic investigation, and have received the results, we are ignorant. Nobody can prove anything.

Instead of seeing this as a failure which must be covered up with all kinds of theist or atheist fantasy knowings, we can embrace ignorance as an asset, as the great gift that it is.

Just as some atheists report a kind of liberation experience when they leave religion, the very same thing can happen when we keep on going, and leave atheist ideology behind too.

And once all the fantasy knowings have been set aside, our minds are free to focus our attention and intelligence on reality. Not words about reality, or concepts, or opinions, or fantasy knowings, but reality itself.

A handful of dirt can be more emotionally rewarding than all the theology and atheist ideology books in the world, if we are actually paying attention to the handful of dirt. The obstacle is not in the handful of dirt, but in our unwillingness to attend to it with sufficient seriousness.

Following this trail can be both highly logical and reality based, and produce the same kinds of emotional experiences that have brought people to religion for endless centuries.

Why argue over theism vs. atheism, when we can have them both?

thank you for this well thought out response. your last line...what do you mean by 'we?' we as in a collective we or we as in individuals? as in...i don't need to choose between atheism and theism/deism...i can adhere to both?

As an update to this thread, I woke up today feeling a sense of clarity and remembering why I left religion, and what eventually led me to atheism. Atheism isn't really a choice, it is more of a conclusion one might come to after leaving religion. My grandmother became ill last year and it was then that I started yearning for the comforts of religion. She died shortly after the holidays last year, and then I felt truly lost without her. Having left my religion, having abandoned the notion that god exists, and losing my grandmother was overwhelming, to be honest. But, today I realized that I've been trying to find solace in god, but there is no proof he exists. And the pain of my grandmother not being here, is still very present with or without faith...or religion ...or spirituality. Not that this should send someone rushing out of religion, but I don't want to believe lies in order to comfort myself anymore. I don't want to transpose Biblical stories and ancient tales in order to serve as a crutch. So, I need to just figure out 'where I belong' right now. I think I'm okay finally saying that I don't know what I believe. And maybe that's ok for now. But, for the first time in a while, I felt okay today thinking about atheism, and what that might look like for me.

 

[Deidre]

kepha, I appreciate you posting that above, but why do you feel that atheists or non-believers ...are the deceived ones? How can you be sure you aren't the one who is deceived?

 

[Typist]

Worship a mystery? What is this you speak of? Hmmmm?

Ok, I'll try again, this time from both the theist and atheist perspectives. Perhaps that will help?

----------------

ATHEISM:

The atheist method is built upon observation of reality. This is a great foundation, so let's build upon it.

What is the primary obstacle to our observation of reality?

Our thoughts about reality.

Imagine we are sitting down with our friend, while holding a photo of that friend. In every moment we are looking at the photo we are not looking at the friend. If we can't take our eyes off the photo, we won't see much of the real friend sitting right there in front of us. In such a case, we are choosing the symbolic realm (the photo) over the real world. To remedy this ignoring of our friend (who represents the real world), we'll need to put down the distracting photo (which represents the symbolic world).

The mystery, our ignorance, can be worshiped as it is a gift which helps put down the conceptual photos clogging our mind, and thus focus our full intelligence upon the real world. The conceptual photos seem important while we think they represent a useful "knowing", but once we see that on these topics they are just fantasy knowings, the conceptual photos lose their importance and are more easily set aside.

The atheist who is willing to embrace the mystery, their ignorance, is thus liberated from the symbolic realm to focus on the heart of atheism, observation of the real world.

Observation. Not observation as a means to the end of even more theories and conclusions, a return to the symbolic realm. Just observation, staying in the real world.

----------------

THEISM:

Theists believe a god exists in the real world. Ok, no problem, we are presenting no challenge to this perspective. But we might ask the theist....

If you sincerely believe a God exists in the real world, which indeed might be true....

Why are you looking for God in holy books, sermons, doctrines, theology, opinions and conclusions etc? That is, why are you looking for a real world God in the symbolic realm? Why not look for a real world God in the real world instead?

A great many theists are endlessly staring at photos of God (holy books, sermons, theologies etc) instead of putting the photo down and listening to the real world God. Poor God, he can hardly get a word in edgewise as our minds are so very busy chattering a million thoughts about him. Perhaps God is being polite, and waiting for us to shut the #$%% up before he says anything?

So, the theist faces the same obstacle in their chosen method as the atheist faces with theirs. It's the human condition, all of us spend so much time and energy in the inner symbolic realm, that there's hardly any time or energy left over for observing reality (atheist) or looking for a real God in the real world (theist).

Thousands of years of investigation have delivered to us a very useful piece of information. We are ignorant.

If we treat our ignorance as an asset instead of a failure then our ignorance, the mystery, can help us escape a symbolic realm crammed with fantasy knowings, and focus our intelligence on the real world.

Finally, why are you reading this post???

Atheists, I am not the real world, I am a typoholic symbol making machine.

Theists, I am certainly not God either. There's no point in looking for Him here.

Both of you, theist and atheist, what are you still doing here? Why are you still reading? Get the hell out of here both of you on to the real world with you!

 

[Deidre]

I initially had a response that might have been perceived in the wrong light. I think it’s safe to say, I’m just taking this time to reflect and figure myself out. At the risk of beating a dead horse, my grandma’s death was very impactful, and when she became ill over a year ago …that is when I started wavering in ‘my atheism.’ Having said that, atheism still very much resonates with me, as well as Deism. Perhaps I’m an agnostic atheist when all is said and done. But, while I know people here mean well, I will never return to theism. Christianity, etc…is just not the real deal in my eyes. If it is for others, that is great. But, religions that suggest I will lose my eternal life in heaven, if I don’t pursue the tenets of those religions, is just not one I can take seriously. I don’t have any preconceived ideas of a who a god is anymore, it’s anyone’s guess. If one should exist, the Abrahamic version isn’t one that resonates with me, anymore. But, everyone has to find their own path.

For now, I’m okay with not knowing, and just living life. Appreciate everyone’s thoughts and support.

 

[Typist]

Perhaps I’m an agnostic atheist when all is said and done.

Many people will challenge theism and become an atheist. Then some of them will challenge atheist ideology too, and become an agnostic. There's another step available after that which we might jokingly refer to as becoming a "Fundamentalist Agnostic".

Standard agnosticism typically accepts the primary assumption shared by both theism and atheism, that the goal of the inquiry should be to come to an answer, to establish a "knowing". A fundamentalist agnostic rejects that assumption.

A fundamentalist agnostic sees that the quest for a knowing on these subjects has been tried over and over and over again for endless centuries, with no convincing answers found. Such a person concludes that continuing to do the same thing over and over expecting different results is, as Einstein famously said, the definition of insanity.

So what then?

Upon seeing this, some people will wash their hands of the entire inquiry and redirect their attention to some other project where reliable knowings are possible. This person prioritizes the experience of knowing over this particular inquiry. This person will probably soon find themselves abandoning religion and anti-religion forums on the Internet.

A fundamentalist agnostic will wish to continue this ancient inquiry, and will do so by pursuing the experience of ignorance with the same passion that they used to invest in pursuing answers. A fundamentalist agnostic prioritizes this inquiry over the experience of knowing.

A fundamentalist agnostic is like the carpenter who, upon seeing that one of their tools isn't working, puts that tool down and picks up another. They don't give up and quit the job, but continue exploring the inquiry in a hopefully more productive manner.

 

[Deidre]

I like how you put that ^^ Typist
Your take on things is rather interesting.

 

[Typist]

Thank you. If I was fully loyal to my own proclaimed worship of ignorance, I would probably share less "take on things". Oh well, I am merely a typist.

 

[Deidre]

Thank you. If I was fully loyal to my own proclaimed worship of ignorance, I would probably share less "take on things". Oh well, I am merely a typist.

There will be more threads for you to display ignorance. lol jk!


Well named, agree with your suggestion about how to interpret readings, but that seems to be the mainstay mantra of modern day ''apologetics.'' If everything or nearly everything tucked away in 'holy Scripture', is up for interpretation...then it fails to have any objectivity at all. Which is fine, but the faith that you follow, or that anyone follows for that matter, has no concrete objective evidence to support it. The danger of all religions however, is that they often mislead people into thinking that they are based on absolute truths, which couldn't be further from.....the Truth.

 

[Typist]

Which is fine, but the faith that you follow, or that anyone follows for that matter, has no concrete objective evidence to support it.

To make everyone's life more difficult it must be said that this includes the atheist faith. All we need to do to see this is apply atheism's own procedures to atheism itself. Like this...

1) There is no proof holy books are binding on all of reality, therefore we can decline to accept holy books as a qualified authority on the subject of gods.

Using the exact same reasonable reasoning...

2) There is no proof the rules of human reason are binding on all of reality, therefore we can decline to accept human reason as a qualified authority on the subject of gods.

Please recall, the god idea is a proposal about the most fundamental nature of all reality. Unless any chosen authority can be proven to be relevant, qualified and binding upon that realm, it can be reasonably discarded in regards to this set of questions.

 

[lovemuffin]

The very phrase "up for interpretation" still contains this sort of nagging belief that somehow it's even possible that something could not be up for interpretation, but entirely settled, objective, and absolute. And only that which could not possibly be subject to interpretation is objective. But I think that's still wrong.

I mentioned the idea of an objective starting point focused on ascertaining the intent of the human author, and the likely reception of the text by contemporaneous readers, taking into account the culture and intellectual understanding of the time. Sometimes this approach is called "critical realism", borrowing the term from sociology. It's an objective method, and no less so just because it can't claim an absolute authority as far as the meaning of a text, any more than the fundamentalist view. I am certainly agreeing with you that it's a mistake for religions to project a claim to "absolute truth" in this way.

In a lot of ways, what I am suggesting to you is in fact what you might call a more "naturalistic" or even atheistic approach to hermeneutics. In the sense that it does not privilege a particular reading via some metaphysical justification. In other words, it's not a form of special pleading for the bible, as you seem to think it is. One of the mistakes of religious ideology has been in supposing that only a Supreme Being as the ground of all thinking can provide a fundamental basis for objective claims, whether it's about morality or about the authoritative reading of a text. In a sense, you are carrying that idea forward with you even having rejected the theism it springs from. That's why I'm suggesting that it may be fruitful to contemplate what "meaning" really means, and how it is determined, from a naturalistic point of view. That's why I suggested treating the text first as a human artifact. It might be easier if we dealt with a text other than the bible just to avoid all the past associations.

Part of the problem, from my perspective, is in the assumptions that already go into thinking about "it" as having "concrete objective evidence to support it". What is the it that we're referring to? Presumably it's what you perceive to be the historical claims of the text, stated as propositions. "Jesus rose from the dead" for example. Part of the point though is that this approach is already assuming a particular hermeneutical method, namely the attempt to interpret a text as history in a modern sense, and also assuming that the historical value of the text is its meaning. Certainly for Christians both ancient and modern, there are such historical claims in the text that matter, and as you say, many (certainly the resurrection is one) lack objective evidence. It is important to realize that. But the historical does not exhaust the possibility of meaning. Especially with religion where, I would suggest, how we live now, how we participate in life, and in so participating come to understand ourselves, others, the universe, the Divine, that this question about a way of life is more fundamental than an abstract set of beliefs.

So when I asked in another thread what value a deist might find in ancient religious texts, I didn't mean in particular the "value" of verifiable claims to historic facts. I meant something more like inspiration closer to the aesthetic than the historical. Beliefs and metaphysics matter in the sense that they condition how we experience and relate to life. You seem, to me, to be engaged in this journey that involves realizing the inadequacy of your prior background beliefs, about God, about the Bible, about Christianity, and etc. I think this is normal and healthy, and I would never encourage you to stay stuck. What I am suggesting is that pursuing these threads may require challenging some of the assumptions that you still retain about what "religion" is, or about what "truth" is.

What I hear you saying is that Truth in a capital-T transcendental sense is too important to maintain certain views against the overwhelming challenge of reasonable objections to them. I think I understand, I certainly don't object. What I am suggesting is that, if a certain cleansing and freeing step is necessary, to seek truth over easy emotional comfort or familiarity, yet it remains also to be discovered what the boundaries of "truth" might be, who you are for yourself rather than for the sake of fitting into a particular system of belief. But also beyond a mere labeling of historical propositions as true or false. What meaning can your life have for you? What I am suggesting is that I think it's possible to find a great deal of wisdom and meaning in the collective insights of thousands of years of human life, beyond just the determination of whether certain historical claims are true or false, and not just as a question of adopting or rejecting a particular label, whether "Christian", "Muslim", "theist", "deist" or "atheist".

 

[Deidre]

To make everyone's life more difficult it must be said that this includes the atheist faith. All we need to do to see this is apply atheism's own procedures to atheism itself. Like this...

1) There is no proof holy books are binding on all of reality, therefore we can decline to accept holy books as a qualified authority on the subject of gods.

Using the exact same reasonable reasoning...

2) There is no proof the rules of human reason are binding on all of reality, therefore we can decline to accept human reason as a qualified authority on the subject of gods.

Please recall, the god idea is a proposal about the most fundamental nature of all reality. Unless any chosen authority can be proven to be relevant, qualified and binding upon that realm, it can be reasonably discarded in regards to this set of questions.

This is why religion is detrimental to society. It purports a pseudo-reality, distorts truth. So much so, that some actually redefine truth and reality to their own liking.

 

[Smart_Guy]

Tell your friend that a whole community (hint: RF ) cares for her and wishes her the best in her beliefs. Tell her to not worry too much about the details of beliefs. Tell her to look at the basics and what beliefs mainly stand for. Details only give us headaches if we over-think them. Those details happened, if really did, long time ago when things could have been so much different from now. We are but this much old in this life to compare life now with how it was long time ago. Maybe if we lived those days for real we would have had different views? Tell your friend to be honest with herself and to stand up to what she sees the right thing.

My best regards and wishes to your friend. She must be a great friend for opening up like that

 

[Whiterain]

Putting American Norther Europeans into an Abrahamic faith from childhood is doomed to tragedy when they learn their ancestry and heritage.

You're talking about some really jaded people, you can't keep them brainwashed anymore.

Particularly since most people have access to the internet and technology to research their family.

When I learned I wasn't a Israelite, I was over joyed.

Why this happened in the first place puzzles me, it's a horrible idea.