Why the Need for Religion?

[Magic Man]

Also, I see no difference between God existing and my thinking god exists.

You can think you have millions of dollars, but when you try to spend it, it doesn't work.

 

[Magic Man]

By the way, Stephen, your avatar is fantastic!

 

[sandandfoam]

I don't know how to do this the other way, and don't have time right now to figure it out, sorry.

This's fine.
Science and religion are addressing different questions. Science doesn't get into metaphysics, what caused the big bang etc.
If your history is objective why would you need to pick and choose ?
Regarding objectivity and your earlier reply about both understanding and not understanding you talked about looking at religion objectively.
In my opinion there is no such thing as objectivity all there is, are subjective attempts to understand our external environment which we all construct in our own unique manner. Your subjective understanding is constructed by you as objective. But it cannot be so. There is no objective reality, just subjective experience trying to make sense of itself.

 

[sandandfoam]

You can think you have millions of dollars, but when you try to spend it, it doesn't work.

Depends where I try.
I could have a walletfull of 'real' dollars here and they wouldn't get me a pint of milk. Euro's only . My Euro's won't bring me far in your place either. I mean if you think about it we're exchanging goods for small pieces of paper with questionable artwork. The value of money isn't intrinsic, it's constructed.
Same as religion.

 

[BucephalusBB]

Science and religion are addressing different questions. Science doesn't get into metaphysics, what caused the big bang etc.

I am not so sure if the same aplies to me. In your example, it's science that let to the planets going away from it's middlepoint to "know" it could have a beginning. It's science that says that all that mass couldn't be at one point in it's original state and it's science that wants to find out how exactly mass can emerge out of one point. In fact, it's exactly science what should do the task of religion in my head.

 

[Magic Man]

Depends where I try.
I could have a walletfull of 'real' dollars here and they wouldn't get me a pint of milk. Euro's only . My Euro's won't bring me far in your place either. I mean if you think about it we're exchanging goods for small pieces of paper with questionable artwork. The value of money isn't intrinsic, it's constructed.
Same as religion.

The point is that there is a difference between having a huge sum of money and thinking that you do. In one case, you can use it, while in the other you can't.

 

[sandandfoam]

Stephen Hawking says "questions such as who set up the conditions for the big bang are not questions that science addresses"
Edit - In reply to Bouncing Ball

 

[Magic Man]

This's fine.
Science and religion are addressing different questions. Science doesn't get into metaphysics, what caused the big bang etc.
If your history is objective why would you need to pick and choose ?
Regarding objectivity and your earlier reply about both understanding and not understanding you talked about looking at religion objectively.
In my opinion there is no such thing as objectivity all there is, are subjective attempts to understand our external environment which we all construct in our own unique manner. Your subjective understanding is constructed by you as objective. But it cannot be so. There is no objective reality, just subjective experience trying to make sense of itself.

But that's exactly what science is doing, trying to answer all of those questions, including the big bang, etc.
I think that looking at something objectively means looking at it as if it were false. If I look at atheism that way, I prove it to be true with logic. If I look at Christianity that way, it just doesn't make sense without presupposing I believe.

 

[Magic Man]

Stephen Hawking says "questions such as who set up the conditions for the big bang are not questions that science addresses"
Edit - In reply to Bouncing Ball

With all due respect to a genius, I have to say that I think he's wrong here. I know that a lot of scientists have said that even if the big bang did happen, it's hard to deny that something had to initiate it. That doesn't mean that they won't try to find out all they can about it to figure that out.

 

[sandandfoam]

But that's exactly what science is doing, trying to answer all of those questions, including the big bang, etc.
I think that looking at something objectively means looking at it as if it were false. If I look at atheism that way, I prove it to be true with logic. If I look at Christianity that way, it just doesn't make sense without presupposing I believe.

I think religion, Christianity and existence should be considered qualitatively not quantitatively. I think it is correct to doubt things and attempt to be rational. Some look at religion applying the same tools as you do to your atheism and understand the same phenomena differently.
I for example am a Christian of sorts, my views seem logical, reasoned and coherent to me. I didn't presuppose, actually I started thinking about things as an atheist.
Subjectivity rules :yes:

 

[Magic Man]

I think religion, Christianity and existence should be considered qualitatively not quantitatively. I think it is correct to doubt things and attempt to be rational. Some look at religion applying the same tools as you do to your atheism and understand the same phenomena differently.
I for example am a Christian of sorts, my views seem logical, reasoned and coherent to me. I didn't presuppose, actually I started thinking about things as an atheist.
Subjectivity rules :yes:

You say "a Christian of sorts". What does that mean and what are your views exactly? I'd be interested to see how an atheist goes progresses through logic to a form of Christianity.

 

[Willamena]

The point is that there is a difference between having a huge sum of money and thinking that you do. In one case, you can use it, while in the other you can't.

The difference, would you agree, lies in "imagination"? From the subjective perspective all things are constructed in imagination, even the "real-world" transaction with money.

The significant difference, then, becomes how far one is willing to stretch one's imagination to carry through on the "imagary" transation. The real difference is that when we fly with our "imagination," we stop, and when we coast through the "real world," we don't.

 

[Magic Man]

The difference, would you agree, lies in "imagination"? From the subjective perspective all things are constructed in imagination, even the "real-world" transaction with money.

The difference is that it is considered a real transaction when more than one person constructs the transaction in their imagination/mind as a real event.

 

[Willamena]

The difference is that it is considered a real transaction when more than one person constructs the transaction in their imagination/mind as a real event.

Right. The difference is what we consider to be the difference. "As if a real event."

 

[Magic Man]

Right. The difference is what we consider to be the difference. "As if a real event."

I just meant "real event" as opposed to two people imagining something as imaginary. I can describe a mythical creature to you, and we can both imagine it, but that doesn't by any account make it real. OTOH, I can do a monetary transaction with you in the physical world and we can both create in our imaginations as a "real event".

 

[Willamena]

I just meant "real event" as opposed to two people imagining something as imaginary. I can describe a mythical creature to you, and we can both imagine it, but that doesn't by any account make it real. OTOH, I can do a monetary transaction with you in the physical world and we can both create in our imaginations as a "real event".

Imagining something as a "real event" as opposed to imagining something as "imaginary"; right. More of the "real world" exists in that manner than not. Imaging is what our minds do, it's how we interact with the world of information. We are builders, contractors in "the idea of a thing." Information comes in bits; we each build the world we live in using those same bits.

You're a builder, baby,
Here I am, a stone. (Bob Marley)

Now, God, most people place him as the bit apart from all the bits (apart from the universe, per se). They call him unknown/unknowable, ineffable, beyond substance, beyond human capacity to comprehend, beyond everything, etc. So if such a thing exists it must necessary be no different for us than the idea of the thing.

I agree with Stephen on that.

 

[Magic Man]

Imagining something as a "real event" as opposed to imagining something as "imaginary"; right. More of the "real world" exists in that manner than not. Imaging is what our minds do, it's how we interact with the world of information. We are builders, contractors in "the idea of a thing." Information comes in bits; we each build the world we live in using those same bits.

You're a builder, baby,
Here I am, a stone. (Bob Marley)

Now, God, most people place him as the bit apart from all the bits (apart from the universe, per se). They call him unknown/unknowable, ineffable, beyond substance, beyond human capacity to comprehend, beyond everything, etc. So if such a thing exists it must necessary be no different for us than the idea of the thing.

I agree with Stephen on that.

Well, if you went to my house right now, you'd meet my dogs. You wouldn't meet my perception of my dogs because they're objects that can be experienced with something other than the mind. So there is obviously a difference between my imagining my dogs and my dogs existing "in reality", if you will. That's the way I look at the God idea, too.

 

[Izdaari]

You say "a Christian of sorts". What does that mean and what are your views exactly? I'd be interested to see how an atheist goes progresses through logic to a form of Christianity.

In C.S. Lewis' autobiography, Surprised by Joy, he details how he gradually moved from being an atheist to being a Christian (and not just to "a form of Christianity", but to orthodox Anglicanism). You might find it interesting.

 

[Magic Man]

In C.S. Lewis' autobiography, Surprised by Joy, he details how he gradually moved from being an atheist to being a Christian (and not just to "a form of Christianity", but to orthodox Anglicanism). You might find it interesting.

Thanks, I'll check it out. I would still like to hear how this progressed for Stephen, too.

 

[Willamena]

Well, if you went to my house right now, you'd meet my dogs. You wouldn't meet my perception of my dogs because they're objects that can be experienced with something other than the mind. So there is obviously a difference between my imagining my dogs and my dogs existing "in reality", if you will. That's the way I look at the God idea, too.

I wouldn't meet your perception of the dogs, right; I would meet my percpetion of them, because they are objects in the world that *I* experience, as I experience it. My mind is the cumulation of interpretations of shape, size, density, colour, number, distance, behaviors, predictions, relations, memory comparisons --all the values that are assigned in conscious awareness. Those interpretations come about via the faculty of imagination.