Belief, Faith, Experience, and Adaptation

[Windwalker]

I'm starting a separate thread so I can focus on a discuss that is unfolding with @People_Lack_Integrity begun in a different thread. For the most part I'm going to need to focus replies with him as I'd like to go into greater depth with them. Also, the effort to make this thread will serve a point of reference for me for future discussions around these areas.

I think in reading your replies from the other thread, it will be helpful that I define what I mean when differentiating between beliefs and faith. I appreciate everything you are saying, and agree we are not too dissimilar. I'm hoping this thread and will help clarify where our use of terms may be creating a disconnect, and hopefully make sense to you as I have found it makes sense to me. I'll respond to your points from that thread in subsequent posts here, using this opening post as a point of reference, or as a departure to a greater discussion with you about these. That will be my hope.

From the title of this thread, you can see there are distinctions to be made between beliefs and faith, and between faith and experience, and further down the road between experience and adaptation, or integration. I first encountered these distinctions from reading Integral Philosopher Ken Wilber's book, A Sociable God. It very much resonated with me from both personal experience and observation, as well as fitting in with other material I have read in this area.

To quote briefly his explanation with short excerpts of each from chapter 6 of the above book:

Belief

Belief is the lowest form of religious involvement, and, in fact, it often seems to operate with no authentic religious connection whatsoever. The "true believer" - one who has no literal faith, let alone actual experience - embraces a more-or-less codified belief system that appears to act most basically as a fund of immortality symbols. This can be the mythic-exoteric religion (e.g., fundamentalist Protestantism, lay Shintoism, pop Hinduism, etc.), rational-scientism, Maoism, civil religion, and so on. What they all have in common, when thus made a matter of "true belief," is that an ideological nexus is wedded to one's qualifications for immortality.

I believe this generates a peculiar, secondary psychodynamic: since one's immortality prospects hang on the veracity of the ideological nexus, the nexus as a whole can be critically examined only with the greatest of difficulty. Thus, when the normal and unavoidable moments of uncertainty or disbelief occur (magic: is this dance really causing rain? mythic: was the world really created in six days? scientistic: what happened before the big bang? etc.), the questioning impulses are not long allowed to remain in the self-system (they are threats to one's immortality qualifications). As a result, the disbelieving impulse tends to be projected onto others and then attacked "out there" with an obsessive endurance.

....

On the more benign side, belief can serve as the appropriate conceptual expression and codification of a religious involvement of any higher degree (faith, experience, adaptation). Here, a belief system acts as a rational clarification of transrational truths, as well as the introductory, exoteric, preparatory "reading material" for initiates. When belief systems are thus linked to actual higher (authentic) religiousness, they can be called, not because of themselves but because of association, authentic belief systems.


Faith

Faith goes beyond belief but not as far as actual religious experience. The true believer can usually give you all the reasons he is "right", and if you genuinely question his reasons he tends to take it very personally (because you have, in fact, just questioned his qualifications for immortality). His belief system is a politics of durability. The person of faith, on the other hand, will usually have a series of beliefs, but the religious involvement of this person does not seem to be generated solely, or even predominantly by the beliefs. Frequently, in fact, the person cannot say why he is "right" (faith), and should you criticize what reasons he does give, he generally takes it all rather philosophically. In my opinion, this is because belief, in these cases, is not the actual source of the religious involvement; rather the person somehow intuits very God as being immanent in (as well as transcendent to) this world and this life. Beliefs become somewhat secondary, since the same intuition can be put in any number of apparent equivalent ways ("They call Him many who is really One"). The person of faith tends to shun literalism, dogmatism, evangelicalism, fundamentalism, which define almost solely the true believer.

Paradoxically, the person of faith is often in great and agonizing religious doubt, which the true believer rarely experiences. The true believer has projected his doubts onto others and is too busy trying to convert them to pay attention to his own inner status. The person of faith, however, begins to transcend mere consoling beliefs and thus is open to intense doubt, which the person frequently takes to be a sign of a lack of faith, which worries him sorely. But this is not usually the case.

....

In fact, the greater the faith-intuition, the greater the doubt. Zen has a profound saying on this:

Great doubt, great enlightenment;
Small doubt, small enlightenment;
No doubt, no enlightenment.
​

How different that is from the literal and dogmatic certainty of the true believer.

There seems to be only two ways fundamentally to alleviate this doubt and yearning. One is to revert to mere belief and clothes the doubt in more rigid and external forms (i.e., immortality symbols). The other is to act on the yearning and advance to experience.

Experience

Experience goes beyond faith into actual encounter and literal cognition, however brief. Experience, as I am using it, means peak experience, a temporary insight into (and influx from) one of the authentic transpersonal realms (psychic, subtle, causal). In my opinion, authentic religious experience must be differentiated from mere emotional frenzy, from magical trances, and from mythic mass-enthusiasms, all of which result in a temporary suspension of reason via regression to pre-rational adaptations, a slide that is altogether different from trans-rational epiphany. Pre-rational frenzies are usually chthonic in mood, emotionally laden, body-bound, and non-insightful - an emotional short-circuit that sparks and sizzles with unconscious orgiastic current. Trans-rational epiphany can be blissful, but it is also numinous, noetic, illuminative, and - most importantly - it carries a great deal of insight or understanding.

...


Structural Adaptation

A peak experience, however authentic, is nonetheless merely a glimpse into those transpersonal realities that can be actually and permanently realized via higher transformative growth and actual structural adaptation.

Prior to the influx of Eastern religions to the West, most religious scholars, psychologists, and sociologists tended to look at religion solely in terms of belief and/or faith. Largely through the influence of Eastern religion, but also due to an increased interest in Christian mysticism, Neoplatonism, and so on, the idea of actual religious experience (usually mystical) was added to belief and faith.

...

It has been a mixed blessing. However appropriate and necessary the peak paradigm was in helping scholars see beyond belief and faith to direct experience, the paradigm itself has blinded us to the fact that actual adaptation to these higher realms is a permanent and stable possibly, and not merely a fleeting experience.... We do not speak of such stable adaptations as "experiences," just as we do not say, of the typical person, "He's having a linguistic experience" - his at the linguistic level, as that level, more or less continuously.

...

On the other hand, if we understand the yogic, saintly, and sagely knowledge-claims are based, not on belief, faith, or transitory experience, but on actual levels of structuralization, cognition, and development, then the deep structures of their truth-claims assume a perfectly appropriate, verifiable, and replicable status.
​

We can talk in depth about these in particular, as I find it important in speaking about religious faith and beliefs in the contexts we often encounter in discussions. Sadly, faith and belief are confused and conflated so badly that there is nothing other than just beliefs being talked about, and equating that as what qualifies as religious faith.

Other references that coincide and support the above can be found in Jennifer Hecht's book, Doubt, which I feel perfectly fits into Wilber's explanation of Faith. Doubt is an agent of faith to move us toward growth, very much different than the true believer who discards and projects doubt to maintain belief as the source of security.

Also, James Fowler's, Stages of Faith fits in with this definition of faith, particularly in his Stage 4 faith, the Individuate reflective stages which can see the meaning of the symbol in other symbols outside one's own religious structure. The 'true believer' cannot do this, where meaning and the symbol are fused together. That is why they will say, "If you don't believe in God, what keeps you from killing someone", for instance.

I'll reply later as time permits to the points from the other thread in this new thread.

 

[Jeremiah Ames]

I am areligious, yet I have a spiritual system I live by.

In my system, the order, from lowest to highest, is: faith, (fact finding), experience, belief/adaptation.

I look at “faith” as being an internal desire to know what is true and what is good. (How can I, on my own, know these things?)

I place another step here, which I call the gathering of facts, or knowledge, or wisdom. (Whichever you want to call it). These facts are truths which will guide me to goodness. (Or love)

Then, your word “experience” probably equates closely with what I call understanding. This would be the subsequent state, following the assembling of facts or knowledge. It’s where my rational mind is put to use, in order to understand the truths, and how they should be applied to my life.

I put belief and adaptation as the same, because I think you are saying that adaptation is like your actions in life. I see that as belief, since that which we believe in, we will do. For example, those who say they believe in kindness and love, but are not nice people, really don’t believe in those things.
So, for me, once understanding is complete, the task is to apply that understanding to life.

The purpose, or goal (from step 1) is a life of goodness and truth.

The result is found in step 4.

I hope I made some sense.

Very thoughtful thread, btw.

 

[Windwalker]

As promised in the OP, this is picking up a discussion from a separate thread for the purpose of focus. If you haven't read it already, please wade through the OP first.

Resuming our discussion here:

Whoa, whoa....don't misquote me. I didn't say anything about atheism, I was strictly speaking about science and the view that the universe is natural.

The context was you replying in agreement to my stating this, "This original comment was the belief that the universe always existed with no need for God. That's not a non-belief. That's a belief." I thought in your response you were agreeing with me. That's not just non-belief, that's a positive belief statement, which had declared 95% certainty no god existed before the big bang, for which he would have scant to no evidence to support that claim.

The other questions about god is up to those claiming that one or many exists and up to them to prove it.

I think the only criteria for the theist needing to prove God with evidence, is if they are trying to use God to explain the natural world as a challenge to what science exposes, as an alternative science, such as Ken Hamm's fantasies about the Bible as a book of science. Aside from that, do you feel that someone claiming faith in God (as per the explanation of faith offered above) needs to prove it? For what reason?

Even if it's merely a belief in God (as per the above explanations) because of tradition, does that belief need to be supported by scientific evidence? If so, why?

Actually no they don't. Multiverse isn't "philosophy" at all. It's still a hypothesis yes, but not sure if you know, a hypothesis is still based upon observations or evidence and then comes up with an idea to explain what they see.

As much as I am fond of the multiverse hypothesis, I based what I said upon what physicists themselves have said. They debate whether or not it should be considered science, because it lacks the ability to be falsified. I've heard that and read that many times. For instance:

Given that a multiverse beyond our universe is not currently (and perhaps never will be) empirically testable or detectable, the multiverse concept is very controversial. This is especially so within and among the science, philosophy, and religion communities. There is disagreement regarding the question of the existence of the multiverse and whether the multiverse is a proper subject of scientific inquiry. Some argue that a multiverse is a philosophical concept, rather than a scientific one. Alternatively, some scientists believe that most or all multiverse proposals present a deconstructionist science that avoids providing answers grounded in meaningful science.

Multiverse Theories: Philosophical and Religious Perspectives | Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Religion
​

I like the idea of one personally. But I recognize that as more a matter of faith. Rationally speaking, it does seem to fit the domain of faith, meaning what you intuit with the "heart", or your gut feeling (not a literal bodily organ). Once, and if it is scientific, then you could say faith is replaced by experience, though not in the religious sense of peak experience described above in the OP.

Everything since people claim that this god or gods either created or interacts with the universe. That's a truth claim about the natural universe and one that should be born by the evidence, but is not.

I did qualify that a mature theist doesn't make the claims of fundamentalists, or the "true believer", meaning those who lack faith as described above. Yes, if they are claiming that their reading of Genesis proves science wrong, they are guilty of bad science, and bad faith as well.

I'm not sure why you believe you need to have faith? Again, faith is not of value to anyone, but the person who thinks it's valuable. You cannot get to truth strictly through faith. Faith is believing something is true, but not caring if it actually is. I care whether it actually is.

And this is why I started a separate thread giving a better more fleshed out and supportable view of the distinctions of belief, faith, experience, and adaptation. These are based upon research and the works of many scholars and philosophers, who are not pre-rational, pre-modern, fundamentalist believers. This is academic in nature. Which I feel has far greater support and explanatory power than just letting the lowest rungs of the ladder define what these terms mean, viz., fundamentalists or other true believers.

With that said, faith, as explained above, why is that not valuable? Even Einstein recognized the nature of what this was, which he terms that 'emotion'. See below:

“The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and science. He to whom the emotion is a stranger, who can no longer pause to wonder and stand wrapped in awe, is as good as dead —his eyes are closed. The insight into the mystery of life, coupled though it be with fear, has also given rise to religion. To know what is impenetrable to us really exists, manifesting itself as the highest wisdom and the most radiant beauty, which our dull faculties can comprehend only in their most primitive forms—this knowledge, this feeling is at the center of true religiousness.”

- Albert Einstein, Living Philosophies​

That, is exactly what is meant by faith, that intuition. Not believerism. And it is the heart of not just religion, but true science and art as well, thought Einstein, as well as many other great physicists.

https://www.amazon.com/Quantum-Ques...8&s=books&sprefix=quantum+ques,aps,177&sr=1-1

No one can disprove a negative. How could anyone ever disprove something that has no evidence for it to begin with.

Regarding no evidence for the Divine, or "God" to put a term loaded with unfortunate baggage upon it. I would say there is quite a lot of evidence for it, in the form of mystical experience and epiphany. These are real, tangible, verifiable, and measurable experiences (such as doing brain scans of experienced meditators). As in the OP, experience is beyond belief, and beyond faith, into actual substantive experience. Experience is not nothing.

But to qualify again, this evidence is not to suggest that science has it wrong, as the true believer projects their doubts with (see explanation in OP). That evidence does not deny science. But it offers a different set of evidences that can be in fact studied, and has been. That is what these works are based upon, which researchers examine using scientific standards, such as the works of developmentalists mapping out patterns. These experiences can, and have been mapped out. So it does offer an objective, not solely subjective thing.

Something real, something measurable, something with common patterns emerges when examining the accounts of many who claim these experiences. But again, this is NOT at all trying to say what goofballs like Ken Hamm claim has any veracity at all. They are true believers, who do not have authentic religious faith, let alone actual experience at a peak level (at best it's just emotionalism, as explained in the OP).

And to emphasize clearly hear, NONE of this means we deny what legitimate science reveals about the natural world and its workings. We are not discussing the claims of the lowest rung on the ladder of believerism here as having veracity.

And for full disclosure here, I fit into the experience category in the OP, and to some small extent, adaptation. Oddly, my whole religious experience began there, but then stepped into a belief system to try to make sense of that. I later shed that belief, as you yourself did, claiming atheism for 10 years following that.

My point is that the universe operates as if there wasn't one.

Frankly, that's a perspective of it. I look at the same thing, and I see Divine radiance through every molecule of this natural system. I do not imagine "God" as a magician, sneaking around behind the scenes. I view the natural order, as the Divine itself. It is Love, Life, and Light. And that is a perceptual shift, not a belief, or even mere faith. It's the set of eyes I translate Reality through, embracing the knowledge we have of it through a rational perspective, yet not stopping there. It's more than scientific, it's Beauty, it's Poetry.

Do we need science to explain poetry in order to respond to it with our whole being, or is poetry just an intellectual affair and meter and phrasings, and it stops there? You see my point?


I'm going to pause here, and circle back around to the rest. Thanks for taking the time to wade through all this heavier stuff. I'm putting the effort in here, as I have 'faith' you may find some intriguing ideas in it beyond your typical forum type discussions.

 

[Windwalker]

Continuing with my responses. I'm looking forward to your well-considered thoughts on all of these, when you're time permits.

So proposing a god is kind of pointless unless you can actually provide some kind of reasonable argument and then support it with evidence. Until then, at best, you can say "I believe there's a god, but I can't prove it" and then everyone stops listening because there's nothing to go over or examine. In science if you have an unproven idea...they will say "interesting idea, now prove it" and then walk away. I still can't understand why we give "gods" so much attention when they aren't even testable.

Out of curiosity, if someone says they believe in God, but are not using it to say they don't believe what science says about the natural order of the universe, do you think they need to provide evidence? Do you see that belief in God is only about explaining cause and effect relationships? Is the evidence for belief criteria, really necessary if it's not about that?

It's not one in the same. One idea has evidence for it, one does not.

Both have evidence for them. One is empiric analytic, the other is spiritual evidence. Buddhist meditators (or any sufficiently developed and advanced mediator), is describing direct, first-hand experience. Not just one, but many. That qualifies as evidence, in the broad sense of the world. It's not 'merely subjective', when you can compare and analyze the insights of qualified practitioners and see they agree with and support each other after taking into account cultural influences and language.

I'm going to focus this reply on different modes of knowing. For instance, you do not use the empiric-analytic sciences to discover the meanings of Shakespeare's plays. You use hermeneutics. That is a mind to mind mode of inquiry. In the empiric-analytic sciences, you use a mind to matter mode of inquiry. When it comes to spiritual matters, you use mind to spirit modes of discovery, or a soteriological mode of discovery, mind interpreting spirit. In the advanced stages of meditative practices, it is a spirit to spirit, or gnostic mode of inquiry. (see Adaptation section in the OP for brief explanation of how this is considered beyond mere subjectivity).

Basically, our knowledge of truth does not come from just one mode of knowing, but multiple modes. What I am describing here is known as epistimological pluralism. That to me provides a far more balance, and objective, view of reality than simply reducing understanding down to the mind --> matter empric-analytic approach in science. There is more to accessing and understanding truth and knowledge, than just that alone. For instance:

We access truth from matter to matter exchange, or sensorimotor perception (Sensibilia). We access truth from mind to matter (empiric-analytic), or mind's ideas about the sensorimotor world. We access truth from mind to mind, or hermeneutic, introspective, and phenomenological knowledge, or mind's knowledged about mind (Intelligibilia). We can access truth from mind to spirit, or paradoxical or mandelic reason, or mind's attempt to think about spirit. We can access truth from spirit to spirit (Transcendalia). (cf.
Jürgen Habermas, Ken Wilber, Eye to Eye, pgs. 157-58)

You will note that science is only one of the above modes of perception? Why is it so many discussions seem to limit everything down to mind to matter modes of knowing? When asking for evidence of spirit, is that mode the correct set of eyes to turn to? Do we use science to interpret Hamlet?

For example your statement about the divine. You are invoking something unproven, so while anyone can make statements using magic as the answer...it's not factual in any way.

It is factual in certain ways, yes. But not using the tools of the science, which is a mind to matter mode of perception. You need to use the right toolset, in this case, gnosis. Meditate.

It is as absurd to say "Meditation has shown to me that black holes have an event horizon", as it is to say "Science has shown me that only the material universe is real". Wrong sets of eyes. Wrong modes of perception. Wrong set of tools. And definitely, wrong-headedness.

Same goes with the rest of your statements with "god", it's something you cannot hope to prove.

Scientifically, no. Experientially, yes. But let's drop the word "god", as the average mind imagines that as an entity like a magical yeti or something, not Spirit, or the Divine which has no form, and is in all forms). That is something sensed and known through spirit within us - something accessed through moving beyond thoughts and conceptualizations, much in the way an infant doesn't reason his environment but perceives through sensorimotor interactions.


I'll pause here. Hopefully, you'll take the time to consider these points and offer a considered response to them in return. I consider these well-researched and supported, as well as something my own direct experience can attest to. If nothing else, this is good for me to flesh out for others who are curious to dig deeper into this, as arguments for 'show me your evidence' fall flat when you move beyond mere believerism, or the bottom rung on the ladder of knowledge.