Theists: Are there good reasons not to believe?

[leroy]

Darwin did how work in the mid 1800's, so when a believer resorts to citing him against science it indicates a straw man argument. Try to learn modern biology when you attempt arguing against eviolution. Of course you can't. If you cite modern experts in biology you would accept evolution as do well educated people do.

And sorry, but no Gods are known to exist, despite some insisting they do. Notice these believers can't defend their assertion that any God exists. They confuse their belief (which is uncertain and not evidence based) with knowledge, and they do this for the sake of offsetting doubts. It is self deception.


Except science and evolution becomes more certain and more precise, while belief in any sort of gods becomes less certain and more vague. Yes, there is change. But it isn't the same kind of change, is it?

If you develop some form of cancer, do you pray to your God, or do you go to seek medical care that treats your cancers because they accept evolution and how biology works? With your back against the wall you will trust science over your superstition.

Do you even reed what I wrote?

I am accepting and acknowledging evolution, all I am saying is that the modern theory of evolution is different from Darwin’s original hypothesis (which is ok )

while belief in any sort of gods becomes less certain

Based on what are you making that affirmation?

 

[leroy]

I wo
They can and should, but then one asks why go to the Bible for answers about how reality is organized and how it operates if it has to get them from science. A source allegedly of divine provenance should not have to be modified at all.

Well the bible is not intended to be a science book, so if you have a question about science the bible shouldn’t be the best place to go.

 

[leroy]

That is what the apologists do all the time - 'Bible's one day does not equal earth's one day', etc.

Yes, my point is that I don’t see anything wrong with that.

1 Origianly (say 300 years ago) we thought that the humans where created 6 days after the planet was created………..

2 new scientific discoveries where made

3 we now claim that the 6 days are not literal, and find a new interpretation that would be consistent with modern science.

What is wrong with that?

How is that different from

1 origianlly darwin thought that organisms evolve by random changes and natural selection

2 new scientific discoveries where made

3 now we know that there are many other mechanism that plat an important role in evolution

 

[It Aint Necessarily So]

Why do you believe that?

I had written, "I think the story was told and believed to be a literal account of the natural history of the world." I believe that because people believe what they are told by elders uncritically, meaning literally unless there is a reason to suspect that the stories cannot be literally true. Consider all of the American mythology we all imbibed uncritically when we were unsophisticated thinkers. When they told us that Washington cut down the cherry tree and told his father that he cannot tell a lie, why wouldn't we believe that that literally happened? People are still looking for Noah's ark. It's only when science begins to challenge these claims that they begin to evolve closer to the science and a humanist interpretation of the stories - it didn't really happen.

There's really no reason at all to assume that they approached understanding the world as we do, using a "scientific" lens to understand "natural history".

I am not saying that they used a scientific lens. Clearly they didn't. I am saying that until they had a reason not to, they understood the myths as history, and that these myths did for them what science does for us today - explains why the world appears to us as it does. And like every other prescientific attempt at mythmaking, it guessed wrong. How could it be any other way before empiricism was introduced into the process?

the Hebrew texts was all about the monotheistic God being worshipped over the polytheistic gods of the day. That's the aim of the text, not teaching the "how", nearly so much as the "Who".

I disagree that that comment characterizes what the myths were about or that that was the sole purpose of those scriptures. Some were enumerating commandments. Some was genealogy. And some texts were explaining where the world came from.

you are presuming that mythic accounts are premodern attempts at doing science.

No. I am assuming that they are premodern attempts at doing what science does - describing how the world was formed and how the world works.

Creating a mythology is not creating a fabrication. It's creating a story of meaning. And the meaning is the truth of the story. They weren't scientists, nor thinking as scientists, nor average people who were exposed to the sciences through public education systems as people are today. They spoke the language of truth though myth, story, song, tales, etc. It's all about meaning making and a common system of symbols and language.

All this means to me is that people create stories and call them truth. The myths have no meaning to me - none of them - except as I've explained: first attempts at explaining observed reality later shown to be incorrect, now called deep meaningful, truth-impregnated insights. Where is the deep truth in the flood myth or the tower of Babel myth? There is none. They're just wrong guesses for why marine fossils are found on the highest mountaintops and why people speak languages that others cannot understand.

Where's the truth or wisdom in either of those stories? Please give me a truth and explain why you use that word there? The tower story implies that man should not have digital translators or communications satellites, both thwarting God's apparent intent. Shouldn't this god be swatting these satellites out of orbit like it destroyed that tower? It confounds me that people elevate these stories to something more than early attempts at explaining reality that got it wrong.

Well, not necessarily simple. They could have been quite sophisticated, but just using a premodern, mythic system or language to translate reality through.

Most people were simple and childlike in their thinking just as many still are today.

It may help to try to think of it in terms of children and adults today. Are children just unskilled adults?

They are more concrete and more gullible than adults. It's simply not credible that such people who didn't know where the rain came from were mostly sophisticated thinkers able to recognize when a myth is not correct.

Truth in the context of meaning making, is relative truth, not absolute truth. Scientific truths, tend to be viewed in more binary terms like this, but symbolic truths can be multifaceted, and even contradictory but still true. Paradoxical truth, is truth, even if self-contradictory.

Sorry, but this also means nothing to me. What isn't truth by this reckoning?

 

[F1fan]

Do you even reed what I wrote?

I am accepting and acknowledging evolution, all I am saying is that the modern theory of evolution is different from Darwin’s original hypothesis (which is ok )

Then, why bring up Darwin at all.? Darwin is not relevant to evolution today. The only reason Darwins ever brought up any discussion about evolution that isn’t about history is because creation, us, or theistic evolution us are trying to disparage the theory of evolution in one way or another. You have been trying to disparage evolution in numerous discussions. So when you bring up Darwin, it just continues to be an example of how you’re trying to disparage evolution and science. It’s not relevant.

Based on what are you making that affirmation?

Observations. we often see theorists try to find gaps in science, where they can shoehorn their gods into so that they appear to be relevant. This is called God of the gaps. As we know, we see theorist sell them willing to explain what their God is, and what it does in the universe. The descriptions of gods are often very vague and personal, and framed in such a way that it tries to avoid any sort of discussion. Theater truck constantly trying to find a way to make their gods relevant to reason and science and it just doesn’t work.

 

[F1fan]

Belief is certainly a conscious process, of course it is.

some belief is conscious. For example, if you are on a jury that has to make a decision about the guilt of a person who’s being tried yes, you have to consider deliberately the evidence presented to you. You can form a conscious judgment about that evidence. The mini beliefs in life are not conscious or deliver it. The way we adopt, certain cultural norms is not a conscious decision. The way we acquire language is not a conscious, decision or belief. We just learn socially from interaction with other people in our social circles. Religious belief is in this category. This is why we see a broad diversity of religious belief, worldwide and geographically. There isn’t one religious belief. There isn’t one uniform way of believing and religious concepts. And why not? That is because cultures have evolved slowly overtime at along with it, all the cultural and religious beliefs that come with it.

As for being reasonable, rational or logical, no, those are not the tools that lead me personally to seek conscious contact with a Power greater than myself; a Power I choose - for want of a better word - to call God.

OK, if you’re not going to apply reason to something you believe, or some sort of ritual that you can’t call it knowledge, regardless of the experience, and what you think of it. I started this thread, asking theorist why they consider god knowledge instead of belief. that’s far I see theorist evading the direct question, and instead are talking about what they required, culturally and socially, and what they believe as adults. You might know that you believe in some thing, but you don’t know that it’s true. There is good reason to convince the self that emotionally tied beliefs are more than what critical thought reveals.

There are other aspects of consciousness, other mental processes which also have value; intuition, inspiration, revelation. And whilst I most certainly do value logic and reason, I think over-reliance on them can cut us off from other realms of consciousness, and other means of understanding and connecting with world around us - and within us.

The list you provide above can be said to me more and action of the subconscious. There’s a great deal of mental activity that goes on in the subconscious that the conscious mind is not aware of. Studies revealed that our consciousness and our conscious awareness is only a fraction of what really goes on in our brains. from what I observe, there are people that have conscious beliefs and assumptions and attitudes that are derived from the subconscious experience that they’ve had in life, and they are not conscious decisions.

 

[leroy]

Then, why bring up Darwin at all.?

I brought Darwin as an example.

1 Someone(don’t remember who) criticized theism because ”we” change our view when new discoveries are made (for example we now reject the 7 literal days, )

2 I responded to that criticism by say “so what” everybody changes their view based on new scientific discoveries, and then I simply used evolution as an example (what scientists say today is different from what Darwin said 180 years ago)

The only point that I made is that there is nothing wrong with changing your view, based on new discoveries.

Darwin is not relevant to evolution today. The only reason Darwins ever brought up any discussion about evolution that isn’t about history is because creation, us, or theistic evolution us are trying to disparage the theory of evolution in one way or another. You have been trying to disparage evolution in numerous discussions. So when you bring up Darwin, it just continues to be an example of how you’re trying to disparage evolution and science. It’s not relevant.

I am pretty sure you are confusing me with someone else; I have affirmed and granted evolution multiple times in this forum

Observations. we often see theorists try to find gaps in science, where they can shoehorn their gods into so that they appear to be relevant. This is called God of the gaps. As we know, we see theorist sell them willing to explain what their God is, and what it does in the universe. The descriptions of gods are often very vague and personal, and framed in such a way that it tries to avoid any sort of discussion. Theater truck constantly trying to find a way to make their gods relevant to reason and science and it just doesn’t work.

How does that makes the existence of God less certain? (as you originally claimed)

 

[PureX]

Correct. It was a response to another poster who claimed that some people could experience God while others could not.

And he is quite right. Because perception is conception.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

And he is quite right. Because perception is conception.

Well, yes, but only for those who have the perception.

 

[Windwalker]

Interesting that you call creationism pseudoscience when they want to put it in schools - and I agree that it is - but not when people read and believe their Bibles. There, it's truth of some sort as you described above. Is that correct?

Yes, I say that is correct as I've tried to explain it, particularly in how I explained it this morning in the previous post. The reason Creationism is a pseudoscience, is because it tries to claim the Biblical account is a scientific explanation of creation. I've contended from the outset that it never was intended to be an explanation of natural history. That it's not really about how the universe was created, but more about who created it, as I just put it this morning.

It's a theological text. Not a scientific text. It's not teaching earth sciences. It's not teaching about natural history. It's teaching about the monotheistic God of the Hebrews in contrast to the polytheist gods of its neighbors they were exposed to. It's also about the human condition told in allegorical or mythological stories, like we talk about the truth of human love in the story of Romeo and Juliet. Those are still truths, and really, factually true in real lived experience.

So the story of the Fall from Paradise, eating the forbidden fruit, etc., are a common themes in origin myths the world over. They are a very real truth about the reality of what it is to be a human being, sensing there is something greater, more noble to us, living side by side with this baser, more primitive self-seeking destructive nature. How do we talk about this to ourselves and to others? Create a story that tells the truth about it, even if it's figures are fictional. They become alive and real, because they speak of something that is commonly recognized and related ot. Being fictional made up characters, are simply masks for real actual realities which they symbolize.

But when people mistake the stories as primitive man attempting to explain natural causation, either through primitive attempts at being scientists, or actually telling us scientific truths through Divine interventions and control of their pens on paper, both are "pseudoscientific" views of scripture. Both attribute a motivation of speaking to scientific truths, in texts that have nothing to do with that.

That's an anachronism. Questions like that and modes of thought like that didn't exist for them in that way. Thinking scientifically that way, really began in the 6th century BCE in Greece, and only with a limited few. Even then the general masses themselves outside the elite, weren't thinking that way as we modernists do far and wide today. Even mythic religious believers today, are still products of a culture where that type of cause and effect relationships are still part of their world.

Very few of them truly live thinking purely in mythic frameworks for every part of their life, like they did back then, or you may find some remote isolated areas of the world. It's pretty much just their religion that is stuck there in that mythic structure, and that's is why they run into conflicts as they do and come up with this pretend science of Creationism, or apologetics trying to prove the book of Genesis was about science. They don't know how to pull their faith forward from mythic structures to those structures which are compatible with the modern rational scientific frameworks, and so they are stuck in constant conflict, IMO.

Pseudoscience is, really, just mythic systems trying to be rational systems. And that doesn't matter if it's Creationism or some other mythic/magic system trying to sound scientific, like so much New Age woo stuff is. It's really like a child putting on dad's shoes and hat. They don't fit correctly. So it's not that mythic thought or structures are bad or wrong. It's not to belittle them. It's just to recognize that they are not rationalist structures and shouldn't pretend that they are. Each stage is stage appropriate.

So reading scripture is fine when it says God created the world. I don't have a problem with that. I see everything that science reveals about the natural world as absolutely awe-inspiriting and to me speaks of the Divine reality. It's is absolutely glorious. But that doesn't mean I think that mean I should read that language as literally true from a scientific mindset! This is tough thing for a lot of people to do. And in my view, it's a mistake that both the believer and the atheist make in approaching those same texts.

The key is, to realize it's a different language speaking from a different framework. The eyes of a child, so to speak, looking at the wonder of the clouds following them and smiling on them as they marvel at the beauty and terrors of the magical world they find themselves in. Who but the worst cynic sneers at the mind of a child?

Also, please note that when Christians want that taught in schools, it is as an alternative to science, and arguing that it is not science is correct but irrelevant. It is believed to be the truth as to what happened in the past, and evolution the lie.

I think the correct approach would be for them to teach the Genesis myth in a comparative religions class alongside all the other creation myths from the world. It might help inform the students about the nature of religious texts, how they speak of how humanity has chose to speak to the mystery of life and creation using the different stories, and how they all relate to each other, in a prescientific, premodern age. Before we began thinking of "how" creation happened in scientific ways the way we do today. If they did this, I think it would began to get rid of this unnecessarily conflict between science and religion, and between modernity and mythic systems of our past.

That is a different definition of intelligence than the one I use, which implies consciousness. Or maybe you consider the universe an intelligent, purposive organism.

True. I am using it in the broader sense than cognitive thought, concepts and ideas, and such. Cognitive thought is an expression of intelligence, not the definition of intelligence. The cells in my body posses intelligence. They know what to do, if they don't have cognitions like, "oh boy, it's so wet in here!".

In this sense, yes, I see Life itself as purposive. I'd be hesitant to call in an organism however. But such words, what really to they mean anyway? It's just a wrapper we call a system. I do believe as the Buddhist would put it that everything is interdependent. Nothing is truly other to something else. There's a term they have for this that slips my mind at the moment, but basically it's capture in saying in my cup of tea there are clouds and the stars of distant galaxies. Systems within systems of systems of systems, and so forth. You could call that an "organism" I suppose, but I just call it Reality.

Good discussion. I've got to say that I have been confused on this site by the names windwalker, wildswanderer, and wellwisher. I have distinct conceptions of the three of you but have trouble remembering which is the one I generally agree with. It's you.

Haha. Yes, I've run into that, and it even confuses me sometimes when I see someone responding to who I think is me and it's one of them. I had one member attacking me in one of my posts, saying I was saying all sorts of utter nonsensical crap I would never think let alone say, and we went back and forth a few times about it until I figure out they were confusing me with one of the other posters. I thought about changing my username, but I think I was here first, so they can change theirs.

BTW, it's nothing really special. I just like the sound of it, since I first heard it in a movie title from back in 1980 when I worked in radio and recorded a spot advertising it at the local theater. Windwalker (1980) - IMDb

 

[Aupmanyav]

Yes, my point is that I don’t see anything wrong with that.

I never said that it is wrong. I expect them to do this and more in future to defend their beliefs which have no evidence.

 

[Aupmanyav]

That's funny because I am not post-Baha'i ..
Every person is worthy of all five divine traits.
Divinity by itself is a self-fulfilling prophecy, the ones who have the most of it are the ones who are willing to embrace the concepts of it. The only reason why they don't is because they reject it. But that doesn't make them unworthy of divinity.
I have a neighbor who is over 80 years old ..
Some people are just set in their ways.

Whatever you or Bahais are, that is OK with me, but I am what I am.
I have already expressed my view about that. I do not believe in prophecies or prophets. As an atheist, I do not make anything 'divine'.
My best wishes for your neighbor, but I have my own reasons to act in the way I want.
My reasons are different from that of a 'post-Baha'i'.

 

[Aupmanyav]

I am accepting and acknowledging evolution, all I am saying is that the modern theory of evolution is different from Darwin’s original hypothesis (which is ok )
Based on what are you making that affirmation?

You accept that it is OK, so I have no further problem with that.
Based on lack of evidence.

Well the bible is not intended to be a science book, so if you have a question about science the bible shouldn’t be the best place to go.

You are correct, but Bible and Quran are fun to read. IMHO, they also show how incorrect information is spread out and superstitions are strengthened.

And he is quite right. Because perception is conception.

And according to the view I follow, perceptions are always considered to be false - Advaita Hinduism, (Maya, illusion).
Our sense organs have very limited capabilities.

 

[DNB]

It means that something doesn't add up. That it is suspicious. That's what is being claimed is not believed true.

So what are your answers to my questions?

But why fish, are they known to be sly or shrewd creatures? In many parts of the world, depending on the species, they are considered a delicacy.
I don't understand with what that has to do with anything that was said - the topic was not about fish, neither literally nor analogously?

 

[RestlessSoul]

some belief is conscious. For example, if you are on a jury that has to make a decision about the guilt of a person who’s being tried yes, you have to consider deliberately the evidence presented to you. You can form a conscious judgment about that evidence. The mini beliefs in life are not conscious or deliver it. The way we adopt, certain cultural norms is not a conscious decision. The way we acquire language is not a conscious, decision or belief. We just learn socially from interaction with other people in our social circles. Religious belief is in this category. This is why we see a broad diversity of religious belief, worldwide and geographically. There isn’t one religious belief. There isn’t one uniform way of believing and religious concepts. And why not? That is because cultures have evolved slowly overtime at along with it, all the cultural and religious beliefs that come with it.


OK, if you’re not going to apply reason to something you believe, or some sort of ritual that you can’t call it knowledge, regardless of the experience, and what you think of it. I started this thread, asking theorist why they consider god knowledge instead of belief. that’s far I see theorist evading the direct question, and instead are talking about what they required, culturally and socially, and what they believe as adults. You might know that you believe in some thing, but you don’t know that it’s true. There is good reason to convince the self that emotionally tied beliefs are more than what critical thought reveals.


The list you provide above can be said to me more and action of the subconscious. There’s a great deal of mental activity that goes on in the subconscious that the conscious mind is not aware of. Studies revealed that our consciousness and our conscious awareness is only a fraction of what really goes on in our brains. from what I observe, there are people that have conscious beliefs and assumptions and attitudes that are derived from the subconscious experience that they’ve had in life, and they are not conscious decisions.

In adulthood we begin to question the cultural norms we were raised with, don’t we? Everyone does that. Some of those we reject, some we reach accommodation with, others we become grateful for. And some of those we do reject, we may return to and form a different relationship with further down the line. I have noticed a tendency among atheists to assume all believers were brainwashed as children and have not evolved from this state, but that’s not the case with any of the religious people I know; most have gone through various crises of faith, many have rejected the religion of their parents while retaining an underlying residual faith in God, which helps guide them on their path through life.

It seems you do recognise that there are working parts of the mind operating at different levels of consciousness. In other words, there is more to consciousness than that part of the mind dominated by the ego, and more to the self than the noisy clamour of me me me.

It isn’t a great step from this realisation, to connection with the universal consciousness deep within. We are connected to, and separated from the world through sensory perception, and through the mind’s interpretation of sensory data; our reality is framed by symbolism, the mind’s decoding of the information our senses are bombarded with. But we are part of something much bigger, much greater than ourselves, and we can overcome that separation, that illusion of otherness, to become truly connected with the world and with each other; this is the underlying purpose, the unifying essence of all religions. That we should become one with each other and with The Universal Creative Spirit.

 

[It Aint Necessarily So]

The reason Creationism is a pseudoscience, is because it tries to claim the Biblical account is a scientific explanation of creation. I've contended from the outset that it never was intended to be an explanation of natural history. That it's not really about how the universe was created, but more about who created it, as I just put it this morning.

You've said a few times what the scriptures are trying to do, and it's not science. I have agreed that it's not science, but not that it wasn't what many people believed was the literal history of the universe. Then you come back to your original claim. Why do you think that these stories were not told and believed literally by many if not most people in ancient times? That's the natural order of the progression of thought - from concrete to abstract, concrete being first. When they say to not throw out the baby with the bathwater idiomatically, it's not surprising to learn that it was once meant literally.

There are still people today that believe the biblical creation story literally, and there are people that still want it taught as history in public schools. Have you ever been a Christian? They don't tell one another that this or that is metaphor. The forbidden fruit is understood to have been plucked from a tree and eater literally.

So what is the evidence that that is not correct? You seem to be saying, no, no, they knew it wasn't the truth.

we talk about the truth of human love in the story of Romeo and Juliet. Those are still truths, and really, factually true in real lived experience.

We are told that story is fiction, but if it were in the Bible, it would be believed literally by many. This isn't an important issue. I just find it incredible that these stories weren't mostly told without qualification and weren't mostly believed to be history.

I'm thinking of a recent thread here on RF in which a believer was arguing for a literal resurrection as every other Christian does. If that story meets the fate of the creation myth - science coming along that makes believing the story literally untenable. With time, some Christians would begin calling it allegory while others hung onto literalism, and the day might come in the future when in a discussion like this one, one might read that that story was never taught or believed literally, and one might ask why should that be believed?

Man likely evolved the way children still do, from concrete to increasingly abstract thought. They go from believing Santa literally to understanding that Santa is an abstraction with parental or societal help, without which they would be expected to believe that Santa existed literally as they do Adam andNoah.

I think the correct approach would be for them to teach the Genesis myth in a comparative religions class alongside all the other creation myths from the world.

Yes, if there were reason to teach any of them, one ought to see a few, and like with Romeo and Juliet, go into it knowing that it is not believed literally any longer except perhaps by a contingent of outliers (there are still Zeus worshippers). Have you looked at any? Here's some of the Mesopotamian one:

"The mighty Marduk took his club and split Tiamat’s body in half. He placed half of her body in the sky and made the heavens (space). He created the moon to guard the heavens, and set it moving back and forth, on endless (time) patrol (energy). With the other half of Tiamat's body he made the land.(matter) "

And here's the Viking creation myth

"Odin, Vili, and Vé killed the giant Ymir. The sons of Bor then ... made the world (matter) from him. From his blood they made the sea and the lakes; from his flesh the earth; from his hair the trees; and from his bones the mountains. They made rocks and pebbles from his teeth and jaws and those bones that were broken. Maggots appeared in Ymir's flesh and came to life (life). By the decree of the gods they acquired human understanding and the appearance of men"

Do you think that they ought to add that none of these stories were believed literally? Do you think that's true?

The cells in my body posses intelligence. They know what to do, if they don't have cognitions like, "oh boy, it's so wet in here!".

Once again, that's a different meaning for intelligence than I use, which implies consciousness. By that definition, the planets in the solar system are intelligently going about their orbits. They don't actually think, "Oh boy, another trip around the sun," but they know what to do.

But why fish, are they known to be sly or shrewd creatures?

Something's fishy refers to the smell of fish in a negative sense - strong and bad - especially when from an unseen source, and means that something doesn't seem right.

The idea appears again when somebody says that things don't smell right. When somebody tells another an idea that doesn't resonate properly, or he finds things suspiciously out of place - maybe missing money - and he has a sense of foul play (another olfaction metaphor), that something isn't right, but he just can't say what yet, he can say that something smells fishy.

 

[Windwalker]

I had written, "I think the story was told and believed to be a literal account of the natural history of the world." I believe that because people believe what they are told by elders uncritically, meaning literally unless there is a reason to suspect that the stories cannot be literally true.

I think it may help to attempt to clarify further what I'm getting at. I don't dispute that they would have taken the stories "uncritically" as just simply "the way things are". They would just simply see these things as "how things are or how they came to be, without critical examination. That in fact happens today for the vast majority of people programmed by their families and cultures.

We do it ourselves, you and I, unless for some given reason we choose to examine these "givens" with a more critical eye. But for the most part in everyone's life, we work off of these givens, as the reality of whatever is, unless provoked to think otherwise. It's just a matter of efficiencies for to the brain really. It requires time and energy to critically examine every single assumption of reality handed down to us during our programming growing up.

What I am saying that disputes what you are saying, is that they would have even thought at all in terms of "natural history", meaning how do these things arise in nature through natural processes. That is a much more modern critical lens that largely pervades our culture today, first beginning in a shift that happen in Greece around 600 BCE where you see the first recorded instances of trying to understand the forces of nature without invoking the gods. Of course that didn't find its way to the masses until the modern age beginning in the Western Enlightenment period.

The ancients simply wouldn't look at the world in terms of "natural history" at all. It was a world ruled by and created by the gods. So every cause and effect would be viewed in relation to them. They weren't trying to figure out how nature works in terms of natural cause and effect, and instead of understanding natural processes, they filled in the blanks with guesses and attributing the unexplainable to gods.

Those weren't questions in their minds, the way they are to us today because of where we landed in history. I claim that that is a projection of modernity back into the mindsets of what we moderns imagine they must have been doing, because that's how we approach reality.

I am not saying that they used a scientific lens. Clearly they didn't. I am saying that until they had a reason not to, they understood the myths as history

But not history in the sense of history that we moderns think of history! That's my point. They didn't think in these terms the way we do. So when I say the "scientific lens", I really mean the lens of modernity, the way that we see things like history and the natural sciences. That is that Rational Structure of Conscioseness itself that is that lens. They weren't using that lens.

It's not that they simply lacks the tools. They lacked the mindset itself to begin to consider even looking for the tools to answer questions born from that very mindset itself. I hope the picture is starting to become clearer here.

This can seem like a very subtle distinction. But such as subtle distinction can change where you land by thousands of miles apart. Shift the course of where you start by 1 degree, and you end up on a different continent at your destination. That helps to understand better for me what Zen Buddhism means when they say in effect that heaven and hell are 1/10,000th of an inch apart. That tiny little shift lands you in the other place.

In simpler terms, it's putting the cart in front of the horse. Modern science didn't arise, until the structure of conscious that created it came online. At which point then, the science helps to reinforce and nurture and develop that structure of consciousness itself. Humans were not born moderns in antiquity. They evolved over time to become that.

and that these myths did for them what science does for us today - explains why the world appears to us as it does. And like every other prescientific attempt at mythmaking, it guessed wrong.

No they didn't. This is presuming their minds were looking for natural explanations at all, and just acting like modern Creationists with their "god of the gaps" fallacy. This notion that these were simply ancient answers to modern questions is a misguided assumption.

How could it be any other way before empiricism was introduced into the process?

How could empiricism come online until the structures of consciousness that gave birth to that process first existed? The horse needs to come before the cart is built for the horse to pull.

I disagree that that comment characterizes what the myths were about or that that was the sole purpose of those scriptures. Some were enumerating commandments. Some was genealogy. And some texts were explaining where the world came from.

Let me more clear. I was specifically referring to the Genesis story of the creation. Not the entire book of Genesis, nor all scriptures. The creation myth was crafted as a polemic to elevate the monotheist God of the Hebrews as over the polytheist gods of nature. That was the audience and the culture to which it was written. They weren't wondering where the earth came from the way us moderns think in terms like that. They didn't think in terms of "earth history" like us at all. It as all a magical place with supernatural origins, and ruled by which of the gods. Is it those gods, or this God? That was there question.

The rest of the scripture have different focus and intent. But the same principle applies in examining those. Who was its intended audience and how did they see reality back then, in what type of lens. It certainly wasn't through the sense of a Rational Structure of Consciousness*.

*To clarify, to call it the Rational Structure of Consciousness does not mean that they were not rational humans, or that their thinking was irrational or misguided prior to that. It's called that simply to distinguish it as the main mode or framework that the mind uses to interpret reality through. Instead of using mythic symbolic representation, it uses rational constructs such as math and science and analytic thought as its primary lens. That doesn't mean analytic thought doesn't exist prior to that overall stage. It's when it becomes the dominant mode, that it is considered a stage or the primary structure through which the mind sees reality though.

This is what is wrong in assuming ancients were asking the same questions we are today, but just lacking the tools of science and "guessing wrong", as you said.

No. I am assuming that they are premodern attempts at doing what science does - describing how the world was formed and how the world works.

Yes, that is what I have been trying to say you are doing. That's what I am challenging as incorrect. I think this post is putting a finer point on this, hopefully clarifying what I'm intended to say.

 

[Windwalker]

I'm making this a separate post because it speaks to something a little different:

All this means to me is that people create stories and call them truth.

People create stories to express a truth as they see it. They become the truth to others when the story speaks to that truth that they hear in themselves as well. In other words, they realate something in themselves to the story, thus making it a "truth".

This is not to excuse away disinformation, calling lies facts. Those are political truths, where they repeat lies, or spin or distort information to program it into someone's brain where it becomes reality or truth for them. All that is simply an exploitation of what our brains naturally do in forming our ideas of truth and reality.

All of this, all of what we see as truth and reality is highly mailable. It is anything but hard and fixed, even though we trying to defend against disinformation by pointing to fixed points. I don't malign that at all. I believe we need to have some hold or grasp on reality in order to function and not fly apart at the seams, when disinformation houses like Fox News programs the mind to accept pure fabrications born out of political lies, to be the truth.

But the fact that is happening, proves my point about the mailability of the mind and it's perceptions of truth. To me, that anchor needs deeper tap roots than just facts and data, as powerful as those are. But that is getting way far ahead of this discussion.

The myths have no meaning to me - none of them - except as I've explained: first attempts at explaining observed reality later shown to be incorrect, now called deep meaningful, truth-impregnated insights.

That could be why you don't see any meaning in them, because you assume they're just bad information about natural history. For me, if you remove that expectation, that that's all they were doing, clumsily trying to figure stuff out and how it works, and approach more as a creative expression of their thoughts and feelings about their reality, more like writing a piece of music or a poem, then the meaning begins to reveal itself better.

I think I may be at an advantage as someone who writes music as an artistic expression. While I'm not a poet, I understand the underlying impulse behind the art, to emote, to attempt to paint or portray a deep meaning in form. The words aren't just information and data about things. They are expressions of existential impulses. They are "inspired", in the sense as welling up from a place within ourselves that words as mere descriptors cannot express or convey. It's using the medium of language for commerce, to try to express a vision of the human spirit, or soul, or whatever poetic word captures that ineffable quality of being within us.

Some people just do get poetry for this meaning. "Well, just tell me what it means". And that's fine. That's just a difference in temperment. But when you do resonate at those frequencies, so to speak, then such things speak to you, you "hear" them. It is really a matter of temperament, I believe, or life experiences that open us to that part of ourselves, such as deep loss or trauma of some sort or another.

Where is the deep truth in the flood myth or the tower of Babel myth? There is none. They're just wrong guesses for why marine fossils are found on the highest mountaintops and why people speak languages that others cannot understand.

This is making my point above about the intent of the stories being assumed to be about explaining natural phenomena as a matter of a type of primitive scientific inquiry that just makes bad guesses at an explanation. I don't see that at all as their underlying motivation. I don't believe they were trying to explain natural phenomena using gods in place of empiricism.

As far as the deeper meanings of such things, well, that's up the reader. That's what makes for the best mythologies. They lend themselves to reinvionsing deeper truths to them. Contrast that to just stating raw facts. That's it's meaning, and there is no other meaning. That's just information. But stories inspiring creative imagination, which leads to deeper understandings and deeper truth to emerge from within the individual. It's about opening us up, not telling us what something means and leave it at that.

Where's the truth or wisdom in either of those stories? Please give me a truth and explain why you use that word there? The tower story implies that man should not have digital translators or communications satellites, both thwarting God's apparent intent. Shouldn't this god be swatting these satellites out of orbit like it destroyed that tower? It confounds me that people elevate these stories to something more than early attempts at explaining reality that got it wrong.

I don't have tons of thoughts about those myths off the top of my head, but that doesn't mean I couldn't find them there. I'm personally more fond of the myth of the fall in the Garden of Adam and Eve. I find there is tons of meaning in there I could expound upon. I draw from it all the time to speak about the condition of the human existential angst.

But I find it absolutely unnecessary, to imagine it is historically factual. That would create far more a distraction from the deeper truths the story can expose when read as a story about us.

Most people were simple and childlike in their thinking just as many still are today.

If that were true, then how do you explain the developments and innovations that they created? My point is, our intelligence wasn't less. We weren't irrational morons chewing on our fists because we didn't know how to grow food in the fields. All I am saying is that the context of reality placed limits on how that thinking could expand and grow into. It was a simpler reality. "When I was a child, I thought as a child". That doesn't mean I was an idiot. Our reality was simply 'smaller', and less inclusive.

They are more concrete and more gullible than adults.

Concrete, yes. This goes to the developmental research of Piggate and the concrete operational stage. Yes, that is what I'm talking about with the mythic structures of consciousness. We cannot ignore or overlook these as primary factors in how we perceive and translate and talk about reality with.

Piaget's 4 Stages of Cognitive Development Explained

It's simply not credible that such people who didn't know where the rain came from were mostly sophisticated thinkers able to recognize when a myth is not correct.

They would be sophisticated thinkers within the context of their worldview. Thinking outside that box, is a leap up to another stage of development, or another structure of consciousness. Those people who did do that, typically were viewed as either insane, or demonic or something.

Think of these things in terms of horizontal and vertical directions. Sophisticated thinking is like rearranging on the furniture on a single floor to be more effective for use. Leaps into entire other floors that no one thinks about or are even aware exists yet, is that leap into an upper story. That's what leads the way to evolving those who only are aware of the 2nd floor reality, to realize that there is another floor at a higher altitude than where they are seeing the world out of its window at. The higher floor, gives a higher perspective. That's the difference here between a mythic structure, and a rational structure. They aren't just rearranging the furniture. It's a different floor. A different view of reality.

Sorry, but this also means nothing to me. What isn't truth by this reckoning?

I'll try to expound on this later at some point.

 

[It Aint Necessarily So]

What I am saying that disputes what you are saying, is that they would have even thought at all in terms of "natural history", meaning how do these things arise in nature through natural processes. That is a much more modern critical lens that largely pervades our culture today, first beginning in a shift that happen in Greece around 600 BCE where you see the first recorded instances of trying to understand the forces of nature without invoking the gods. Of course that didn't find its way to the masses until the modern age beginning in the Western Enlightenment period.

Natural history? I believe they wondered how their world got there. Natural history is a modern term, but what happened is an ancient curiosity. You seem to be asking me to believe that religion wasn't among other things an effort to explain the world using gods and finding ways to control nature by appeasing them.

They weren't trying to figure out how nature works in terms of natural cause and effect

I think that they were trying to explain and control nature in terms of gods having power over nature.

The ancients simply wouldn't look at the world in terms of "natural history" at all. It was a world ruled by and created by the gods. So every cause and effect would be viewed in relation to them. They weren't trying to figure out how nature works in terms of natural cause and effect, and instead of understanding natural processes, they filled in the blanks with guesses and attributing the unexplainable to gods.

This sounds like what I'm saying.

But not history in the sense of history that we moderns think of history! That's my point.

History only has one meaning to me: things that happened and perhaps commentary on why.

The creation myth was crafted as a polemic to elevate the monotheist God of the Hebrews as over the polytheist gods of nature.

I don't see why you think that. For me, the creation myth is a description of how the world was created with no mention of other gods. That's the Ten Commandments with its admonitions against other gods and false idols.

People create stories to express a truth as they see it. They become the truth to others when the story speaks to that truth that they hear in themselves as well. In other words, they relate something in themselves to the story, thus making it a "truth".

Once again, that's not what I mean by truth.

That could be why you don't see any meaning in them, because you assume they're just bad information about natural history.

I didn't assume anything about them. I read them, and that is what I saw. You seem to be implying that I went into it with a closed mind and therefore missed meaning I would otherwise have sensed.

I think I may be at an advantage as someone who writes music as an artistic expression.

Here we have something more in common. I'm guessing that you're a keyboardist with a computer.

I'm into electric guitar improvisation as a form of artistic expression, which I'm going to guess comes as a surprise to you based on your comment. This is alive performance of an Allman Brother's song, the one that made me want to be a guitar player to be able to sing like that with my hands. If you know the song, you may recognize a few "licks" copied in homage to the original guitarists, Dickie Betts and Duane Allman. I hope you like it. And if you have a link to something you've done, I'd love to hear it.

 

[DNB]

Something's fishy refers to the smell of fish in a negative sense - strong and bad - especially when from an unseen source, and means that something doesn't seem right.

The idea appears again when somebody says that things don't smell right. When somebody tells another an idea that doesn't resonate properly, or he finds things suspiciously out of place - maybe missing money - and he has a sense of foul play (another olfaction metaphor), that something isn't right, but he just can't say what yet, he can say that something smells fishy.

...thank you IANS, but, I'm actually fully aware of the idiom 'smell's foul/fishy/awry...'. It was just F1Fan's rhetoric, as usual, that just gave me the impression that it was a futile endeavour to attempt to reason with him - so, I just resorted to amusing myself with a little senseless levity.