theological statements like "God loves the world" being rejected as meaningless precisely because they are unverifiable.

Here the implied challenge to those of a verificationist disposition is clear: in your condemnation of religious language as meaningless, have you perhaps assumed too quickly what religious language is and does and how it actually functions in the lives of believers?

I may not be able to define 'love' in a totally watertight manner, but I'm pretty sure loving doesn't include inventing childhood leukaemia. One thing we know for a fact is that god, if he exists, doesn't love the world. Otherwise, the word is meaningless.

And this, of course, applies just as much to religious language as to any other. Here the implied challenge to those of a verificationist disposition is clear: in your condemnation of religious language as meaningless, have you perhaps assumed too quickly what religious language is and does and how it actually functions in the lives of believers?

"God loves the world" is a perfect example of deepity. This sentence and others like it are meaningless, for, as the robe mentions above, why "invent" infectious diseases if you "love the world"?

@OldBathrobe

I'm pretty sure loving doesn't include inventing childhood leukaemia.

Perhaps what God loves is life, and life progresses through mutation and natural selection in a limited resource environment. Such life cannot exist without childhood leukemia - you can't have good copying errors without bad copying errors as well, and indeed without the bad copying errors being the vast majority.

Thus God loves through nature and the manifestation of God's love is the will to survive - as per Schopenhauer.

But hey, you were the guy who, on the pages of CIF, dismissed the whole of the millenia old thought of Kaballah and Buddhism as new age clap-trap.

While the idea that language is a practical tool with a wide range of uses may have come as a surprise to Wittgenstein, it's something that most other people tend to take for granted.

in your condemnation of religious language as meaningless, have you perhaps assumed too quickly what religious language is and does and how it actually functions in the lives of believers?

I regard statements about God as meaningless in an empirical cosmological context, because it's clear that God is imaginary. Religious statements are statements about what's going on in the imaginations of believers, and as such can be both richly meaningful and very revealing. When we understand this, we can start trying to understand religion from an anthropological and psychological perspective.

Such life cannot exist without childhood leukemia - you can't have good copying errors without bad copying errors as well, and indeed without the bad copying errors being the vast majority.

So God is fallible, then. Kinda puts paid to the idea that he/she/it subscribed to the notion D.I.R.F.T, doesn't it....

Geoff01:

Thus God loves through nature and the manifestation of God's love is the will to survive - as per Schopenhauer.

Sounds like a needless and unappealing anthropomorphic metaphor to me.

Perhaps what God loves is life,

You may have a point, Geoff. Since suffering is part of life, then god loves the suffering of others. I'd buy that.

To fatpants:

As per Spinoza, God is nature. It is meaningless to say that nature is fallible - it implies that nature has an intent and that intent is not being met.

On the contrary it is more meaningful to say God is infallible, because God loves life, and life is present and successful.

God is nature

How do you know this.

@gilesfraser

interesting account. I admit to being pretty rusty on all this but is it true that

Wittgenstein was himself a driving force of the Vienna Circle that popularized the idea that the meaning of a sentence is to be found in how that sentence is verified against reality

as I recall and as portrayed in Logicomix (dare I admit this as a source!) the Tractatus was a driving inspiration for their logical positivism however Wittgenstein was off doing other things (teaching etc) and when he met them he told them they had all completely misunderstood him

This gets to the heart of an issue which interests me namely the rehabilitation of metaphysics, which seems necessary for supporting a religious world view, and how to protect metaphysics from incoherence (whence it becomes mysticism, take note @Geoff!)

It seems to me that Dawkins et al have rehabilitated a form of logical positivism through their view that the world is entirely amenable to scientific analysis and their implicit rejection of the non-scientific (which includes religion but also includes poetry and myriad other subjects) as meaningless and worse.

This is why Wittgenstein is important. However, his view in PI seems reductionist in another sense to me in that (if I understand it) he rejects any form of Platonic idealism. In that this is the basis for a number of forms of essentialism which I dislike I have some sympathy for this, but I wonder how maths works without this for example. It isn't clear that Wittgenstein accepted Godel's theorem never mind its implications e.g. see http://philmat.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/abstract/9/3/257

One final more banal thought is that it is an everyday miracle that we can communicate and understand each other at all - though on forums such as these one wonders how effective this mechanism is sometimes!

@OldBathrobe

I refer you to the Book of Job!

@fatpants

How do you know this?

Because that is what I mean by the word. Honestly! Didn't you read the article?

if words are tools, then, like tools, they can be used for very different purposes and work in very different ways.

and

have you perhaps assumed too quickly what religious language is and does and how it actually functions in the lives of believers?

@LWOJ -

the rehabilitation of metaphysics, which seems necessary for supporting a religious world view, and how to protect metaphysics from incoherence (whence it becomes mysticism, take note @Geoff!)

Huh!

Kaballah provides answers to the questions posed by metaphysics, but the answers are generally given through psychology.

For example, the metaphysician asks "is there freewill? The Kaballist answers, that depends whether you can identify and overcome your subconscious urges. If you cannot then you are bound by these urges and your freewill is merely illusiory.

But the Kaballist will teach you a method of getting to know, understand and ultimately overcome your subconscious so that you do achieve free will.

Incidentally, a virtually identical method is used worldwide by psychiatrists to train for psychoanalysis.

With this list, Wittgenstein is trying to break the idea that language all functions the same way according to one preset pattern. His advice to "look and see" how it actually works, insists that thinking ought to take place in the midst of activity rather than on some lofty intellectual platform suspended outside of life and beyond lived activity. And this, of course, applies just as much to religious language as to any other.

Very well put and I agree entirely.

I was watching The History of Christianity (as it covered the Orthodox Church), and Dr Gus Casely-Hayford's excellent series The Lost Kingdoms of Africa and I was once more reminded of the way in which for most of our history, our religiosity has been essentially highly ritualistic, mystical and engaged the whole person, not just the dry, lofty intellectualism. The modern notion of religion being defined by people's beliefs misses so much of what religion is about. To me, we should heed Wittgenstein's advise and be careful how we analyse and judge religion and in doing so we need to question our own assumptions about epistemology. If we start from a position of demanding scientific verification for the 'truth' of icon veneration; the mystical union in the reading of scriptures; the circumambulation of temples or other sacred places, then we fail utterly to understand not just what it means, but we miss the opportunity to see that our lives, in this so called rational age, may be lacking something rich, deep and connected.

Geoff

Because that is what I mean by the word. Honestly! Didn't you read the article?

if words are tools, then, like tools, they can be used for very different purposes and work in very different ways.

and

have you perhaps assumed too quickly what religious language is and does and how it actually functions in the lives of believers?

I did read the article.

The ATL author asks us if we've assumed too quickly if this type of language is meaningless.

My response is no, I don't think those not so inclined have assumed to quickly; you (and the ATL author) basically suggest that what is true for you is so, and how (using meaningless language aka Deepity*) can you (I and others like me) say its not?

Again, that which you've posted are perfect examples of why deepity is to be ignored as meaningless claptrap.

*Deepity. From Why Evolution is True:

"Dan Dennett talked about interviews with active priests and ministers who are atheists, and also mounted a hilarious attack on theologians like Karen Armstrong, who mouth pious nonsense like, ?God is the God behind God.?

Dennett calls this kind of language a ?deepity?: a statement that has two meanings, one of which is true but superficial, the other which sounds profound but is meaningless. His exemplar of a deepity is the statement ?Love is just a word.? True, it?s a word like ?cheeseburger,? but the supposed deeper sense is wrong: love is an emotion, a feeling, a condition, and not just a word in the dictionary."

To Fatpants,

"God is nature" is equivalent to "love is an emotion".

"Love is just a word" is indeed a deepity,

Otherwise Dennet has just made Spinoza disappear into the proverbial puff of logic. I think Dennet would be rather surprised at such a conclusion from his work.

"God is nature" is equivalent to "love is an emotion".

Errr, no.

"God is nature" is an refutable statement. We do not know that God is nature; to suggest so requires a leap of faith. No faith required to know that love, as an emotion, is a chemical reaction within our bodies.

Granted, neither of us knows for sure if this is a true statement (God is nature) or if it isn't, but seeing as there is no evidence that supports your proposition, whilst sounding profound it ultimately ends up as a meaningless phrase - a deepity.

God is nature

How do you know this

At the risk of sending you into an apoplectic fit of rage and contempt Fatpants, some of us would testify to this because we have experienced some mystical knowledge of a sacred or divine dimension that is in creation itself.

Fatpants, some of us would testify to this because we have experienced some mystical knowledge of a sacred or divine dimension that is in creation itself.

[SIGH]

The above is little more than "its true for me, how can you say its not!?".

Once again, why do the religious not afford the same reverence to those who have been abducted by aliens? If their experiences of "mystical knowledge of a sacred or divine dimension" are extremely similar, why are they not afforded the same respect as Christian's, Muslim's, Jew's, Hindu's?

In my experience here, they (the religious) dismiss such propositions out of hand, ignoring the fact that they're based on exactly the same premises - supposition, heresay, conjecture and an ad hoc "personal experience". The only responses I've been given to the above proposition being dismissed in favour of the established religions being the more "credible" delusion[s], are an argument from authority, an argument from popularity and an argument from personal incredulity - a pretty poor three-for-one offer if ever there was one.

And excuse me for using this word again, but you are providing yet another example of deepity with your post, donella.

To Fatpants

We do not know that God is nature; to suggest so requires a leap of faith.

On the contrary, we know what nature is, and we extend that meaning to God.

Geoff01

To say "God is nature" is not actually to say anything, you might as well say that "nature is God" or that "God is God" or that "nature is nature". In fact what you are doing is simply making nature a synonym for God and visa- versa thus making one of these two words redundant. You need to define what you men by "nature " and what you mean by "God" and show why these two concepts are not simply interchangeable. Otherwise you are just use a grand sounding expression that is ultimately empty of any real meaning, apart from its eloquence as a slogan.

@Redmullet,

Nature is a term used for the sum total of the laws of physics, chemistry, biology, astronomy, psychology, etc that govern the world we know

God is a term used for an unbounded entity that somehow is the mind or soul or defining entity of the universe.

I am equating the two to make a statement about what God is, and also about what God is not, namely some supernatural sky pixie who exists in some physical sense.

Nice account Giles, takes me back...

It's strange to think the Wittgenstein's ideas on language from PI were revolutionary, given the immediate common sense appeal they have. Philosophers of language had been going on for such a long time about sense and reference, translating English (or German) into first order logic and that kind of thing. Meanwhile, the essential qualities of language were almost completely ignored - the communicative, 'pragmatic' aspect, that is. Seen as somehow beneath academic interest - or rather, unamenable to scientific investigation.

This is what gets me about scientific accounts of human subjects - what's often left out, because they're "unamenable to scientific investigation", or unfalsifiable, or whatever, is those aspects of experience that are the most interesting, or perplexing. That's not to do down scientific method, just to point out that it's overapplied, and doesn't work all that well in trying to understand large chunks of human experience.

The above is little more than "its true for me, how can you say its not!?

No fatpants I didn't say that, please don't put words in my mouth. My truth is true for me, but you are entirely free to believe what you like - I am not trying to tell you your position is wrong.

Once again, why do the religious not afford the same reverence to those who have been abducted by aliens? If their experiences of "mystical knowledge of a sacred or divine dimension" are extremely similar, why are they not afforded the same respect as Christian's, Muslim's, Jew's, Hindu's?

I understand that this is a convenient and much used move to discredit religious mystical claims. Not dissimilar to equating all religious behaviour and belief with madness, which in one fail swoop disrespects the sufferings of people who have mental health problems and completely misunderstands what religion is about. I am spectaculary unimpressed by the use of such 'moves'.

However to address your points.... I can't speak for all 'the religious' (whatever that hackneyed term might mean), nor can I speak for all those who feel they have communed with aliens (never done it myself) but I would suggest that there is a vast difference in such claims - I have never heard it being suggested that they are similar. Furthermore, I do think it is possible to discern the difference between variations in experience - but it becomes necessary to actually listen and compare what people are saying.

GilesFraser - very happy with your overall project here, but I think it is wrong to describe Wittgenstein as "a driving force of the Vienna Circle". The latter were, rather, people who had bastardised his work missing 'the most important element'. When he went to Vienna to meet with them he ended up sitting in his chair with his back to them and reciting (if memory serves) the poetry of Rabindranath Tragore (sp?).

@leftwingorthodoxjew you might be interested in some material that I've written on this subject: "Wittgenstein, Plato and Pickstock: the sense of religious language" http://elizaphanian.blogspot.com/2006/10/wittgenstein-plato-and-pickstock-sense.html
and
Wittgenstein's Mystical Method http://elizaphanian.blogspot.com/2006/11/wittgensteins-mystical-method.html

I regard statements about God as meaningless in an empirical cosmological context, because it's clear that God is imaginary. Bubblecar

Statements about most things are meaningless judged by those criterion (empirical / cosmological).

As with the last article it's hard to argue with Wittgenstein. Even if you take the bachelor argument it's clear bachelors can be married because bachelor describes a behaviour type as well as a boolean marital status.

Most constructs we use are prosaic and probably relate little to the actual feelings they describe. So it is with the construct "God is love" it has little meaning external to the context it is being used neither alluding to God nor love particularly but a religious construct possibly a feeling we have or a allusion to a construct that gives us control. Whatever it is linguistically it has no relevance to it's meaning but has meaning in common usage or by context.

It's clearly not meaningless unless you are of the view that everything is empirically valid and the language we use reflects that fact.

In which case you are welcome to join me at the bottom of the garden talking to the pixies - I call mine God and you can call yours empirical, cosmological pixie thingy erm ..... ok whatever floates you boat.

Imagine the members of one well established Christian denomination, all following the same rituals and saying the same prayers in public. If meaning is use, can a distinction be drawn between on the one hand the orthodox and the simple faithful, who would reject the idea their faith did not make true claims, and on the other, members who do and say all the same things, but agree privately with Giles Fraser's interpretation?

Does meaning = use imply the orthodox do not actually believe what they think they do? (Strange, but possible.) Or is there more to meaning than use?

Solocintrotutti:

Statements about most things are meaningless judged by those criterion (empirical / cosmological).

The point is that various statements about God appear to be cosmological in nature: e.g., "God created the universe". In the context of scientific cosmology, this statement can't actually be translated into empirically meaningful language. But that doesn't matter, because it's not a statement about the real universe at all. The universe that was created by this God is an imaginary, human-centred universe that the believer installs in his mind as part of the payoff for subscribing to "belief in God". This imaginary cosmos revolves around the believer and his hopes and fears, and provides him with the comfort of a parental figure who looks after him and his loved ones, while punishing his enemies and people he doesn't like. And promises him a blissful and eternal afterlife in exchange for obeying certain rules and observing various rituals.

DavidShariamadri

It's strange to think the Wittgenstein's ideas on language from PI were revolutionary, given the immediate common sense appeal they have. Philosophers of language had been going on for such a long time about sense and reference, translating English (or German) into first order logic and that kind of thing. Meanwhile, the essential qualities of language were almost completely ignored - the communicative, 'pragmatic' aspect, that is. Seen as somehow beneath academic interest - or rather, unamenable to scientific investigation.

Yes it has always seemed strange to me that what late Wittgenstein was saying about language seemed, in a common sense way, so obvious that I was sure that I was missing something and that in his impenetrable prose there was something more that, because of my lack of knowledge and intelligence, I simply could not decipher. Perhaps there is, I wait impatiently to be told what it is but expect that it will simply be God at the bottom of my garden.

The point is that various statements about God appear to be cosmological in nature: e.g., "God created the universe". In the context of scientific cosmology, this statement can't actually be translated into empirically meaningful language.Bubblecar

It can be translated into empirically meaningful language it may not be translated into empirically meaningful research.. which is a different thing. Language is not subject to empiricism, which is what you alluded to above but anything can become empirically meaningful language.

People research the impact of God (or religious belief) on various issues and presumably you could measure external stimuli (electro magnetic waves etc) when someone has a religious experience. These are all valid and currently being researched.

You could also posit the view that God didn't create the universe (or similar), which would be empirically meaningful - I'm sure you agree.

But that doesn't matter, because it's not a statement about the real universe at all. The universe that was created by this God is an imaginary, human-centred universe that the believer installs in his mind as part of the payoff for subscribing to "belief in God". This imaginary cosmos revolves around the believer and his hopes and fears, and provides him with the comfort of a parental figure who looks after him and his loved ones, while punishing his enemies and people he doesn't like. And promises him a blissful and eternal afterlife in exchange for obeying certain rules and observing various rituals.Bubblecar

Well if you insist but that still doesn't justify your point that religious language is meaningless because language isn't subject to the empirical and it can conform to empirical research anyway.

On the contrary, we know what nature is, and we extend that meaning to God.

Again, no. We know what nature is, you extend that meaning to god, even though to do such a thing requires a leap of faith - which I do not wish to partake in.

Yes it has always seemed strange to me that what late Wittgenstein was saying about language seemed, in a common sense way, so obvious that I was sure that I was missing something and that in his impenetrable prose there was something more that, because of my lack of knowledge and intelligence, I simply could not decipher.

Agree totally but wait till the cut and paste philosphers get on here. You think you feel small now - it's going to get worse!

Responding to Redmullet above

It is hard to appreciate Wittgenstein's critique of verificationism unless one bears in mind what the verificationists were saying. When they said "God exists" is nonsense, they weren't comparing it to statements like "Pigs can fly" or "Fox News is the only reliable sources of news about American politics" which are absurd in the sense of being obviously false. There were comparing it to strings of words like "buffalo unmentionable time hello what blinking" A. J. Ayer explained that he was not an atheist or agnostic, because these positions involve denying or doubting the existence of God, whereas he thought the word "God" simply lacked any meaning. This is quite different from the position of Richard Dawkins, and indeed most atheist commentators on CiF. To argue that "God loves the world" is false presupposes that it means something.

Solocontrotutti:

It can be translated into empirically meaningful language

I'm not aware that anyone has ever really done so. There's nothing observable in the real, external universe that corresponds with "God", let alone a God that can somehow bring the rest of the universe into being. God is a character inside people's heads.

You could also posit the view that God didn't create the universe (or similar), which would be empirically meaningful - I'm sure you agree.

No, I don't. You'll find that most scientific cosmologists won't even discuss such notions. They really do have no scientific meaning.

Well if you insist but that still doesn't justify your point that religious language is meaningless

I'm not saying that religious language is meaningless - on the contrary, it's chock-full of meaning, but this meaning relates to religion's key function of imaginitively transforming one's perception of the nature of the world into a more human-centred experience, for those who find the real world too cold ,abstract, and irrelevant to human hopes and fears. And, just as importantly, transforming public perception of the nature of the world via anthropocentric templates favouring certain ideas of political and social order.

Bubblecar

I'm not saying that religious language is meaningless - on the contrary, it's chock-full of meaning, but this meaning relates to religion's key function of imaginitively transforming one's perception of the nature of the world into a more human-centred experience, for those who find the real world too cold ,abstract, and irrelevant to human hopes and fears.

Why would you make that assumption? And would you still hold your assumption to be true in the face of a religious person steadfastly denying that this does not ring true to their expereince?

I can't speak for all 'the religious' (whatever that hackneyed term might mean), nor can I speak for all those who feel they have communed with aliens (never done it myself) but I would suggest that there is a vast difference in such claims - I have never heard it being suggested that they are similar.

Ad hoc experiences, one and all, are just that; ad hoc experiences. I would direct you to this thread on Cif, where such a thing has already been debated.

Two possibilities as to how the universe came into being; God was the creator or it was naturalistic event. Science attempts to use language as in the 'singularity' and a profusion of words to back up their claims but God is not something which can be satisfactorily explained by words since we cannot appreciate the 'nature' (for want of a better word) of God. We are of course left floundering when trying to describe God.

The 'singularity' sounds impressive as a word to describe the origins of the universe but it is meaningless because scientists admit that they cannot put forward a theory of where the matter or energy of the singularity originated from. It does require a leap of faith as does abiogenesis which is a fine word which provides an explanation for life spontaneously coming into being from non-life form. Again an act of faith is called into play since science has yet to provide any testable proof of this.

Science may have conjured up more descriptive words with regards to the origins of the universe and the onset of life but, arguably, they remain words without real meaning if they cannot be substantiated by proof. Whereas 'God' is a word which I admit defies a neat description but that is because we can only view our universe from our natural experience.

Spiritual revelations and supernatural experiences do shake the faith in a 'naturalistic' basis for the creation of the universe and opens up to an understanding of a sort, although the nature of God is still something which remains probably impossible to describe in mere words.

Ad hoc experiences, one and all, are just that; ad hoc experiences. I would direct you to this thread on Cif, where such a thing has already been debated.

And there was I thinking that some atheists get frustrated at the way 'the religious' never open up their claims to scrutiny and debate! Silly me, I should have known that our religious claims are dismissed without even being considered. Quite a neat and tidy atheist move really....all things religious heaped into one big bag of 'unintelligible things' which we can reduce to the patently absurd and chuck it all in the scrap heap!

Laughable.

Did you read the thread donella, or just decided to rant at the suggestion I made?

That wasn't even nearly a rant Fatpants - you'll know when I get really wound up and angry.

fatpants:

Again, no. We know what nature is, you extend that meaning to god, even though to do such a thing requires a leap of faith - which I do not wish to partake in.

Fine. God is nature is the classic pantheist outlook, it is a leap of faith, as much as saying that god doesn't exist - the atheistic outlook which require a different leap of faith: the belief ( with reasonable certianty or whatever way you want to call it ) in the non-existence of a god.

Any metaphysical position ( that's including metaphysical naturalism which i would suspect is your position ) requires some leap of faith (although off course a reasonable one) because they all have their own limits and caveats...

Fatpants

Ad hoc experiences, one and all, are just that; ad hoc experiences. I would direct you to this thread on Cif, where such a thing has already been debated.

Ad hoc experiences are, of course, not sufficient proof to those who have never had such experiences. I can understand this totally and would not suggest that anyone should have a blind faith in something because of others' experiences. But to dismiss such experiences outright because you have personally not had such experiences does nothing to disprove to those who have experienced.

Donella:

Why would you make that assumption?

Because this is very clearly what religion has always been for. Extending the ordinary athropomorphism associated with our ancestral hunter/gathererer habits (in which the observed lives and characters of other animals are conceived in human psychosocial terms, both in order to help make sense of them and conveniently codify one's knowledge of them) to cover more abstract aspects of the universe such as the elements, the stars, fate, energy etc and bind them to human experience of life and death, morality, grief, conflict, dreams etc. Thereby transforming the cosmos into a more humanly meaningful place that can imaginitively be "controlled" via various rituals and behavioural constraints, while providing social groups with an over-arching ethical/political/existential cosmology that can be handed down from generation to generation.

And would you still hold your assumption to be true in the face of a religious person steadfastly denying that this does not ring true to their expereince?

I'm sure most religious people would be able to make meaningful connections between their experience and what I'm describing above.

Its a simple yes/no answer, donella. Did you read the thread I've linked to?

plasticgypsies

Fine. God is nature is the classic pantheist outlook, it is a leap of faith, as much as saying that god doesn't exist

I do not need to take a leap of faith to suggest that it doesn't exist, as I'm not the one suggesting it does exist. The proposer and all that.

No faith required to not believe.

radicalchange

But to dismiss such experiences outright because you have personally not had such experiences does nothing to disprove to those who have experienced.

Steady on, I've said no such thing. I am suggesting that if you want your ad hoc experience to be taken seriously, you have to take other ad hoc experiences as equally seriously, such as those made by alien abductees, witch believers, leprechaun chasers and unicorn jockeys. Which is why, using ad hoc experiences as means to base assertions about reality, is as close to futility as one could get.

As yet, I've not had any argument put to me refuting this point that didn't rely on the three logical fallacies mentioned in my post at 12:04.

Bubblecar,

You're not going to go far basing your arguments around anthropological/sociological causes of religion - what matters here is the fundamental difference of the two opposing views of reality on whether or not everything can be reduced to the perceivable physical world of time and space.

Bubblecar

I don't discount an athropomorphic/psychological/sociological explanation of religion - indeed I think it has quite a lot of merit. Nor would i discount that many religious people find a great deal of existential comfort and security from being religious. What I am contending is that all religious experience can be understood in this way. Some people have had spontenous experiences that are not mediated by the use of religious ritual/prayer etc and they speak of an awareness of 'something' that cannot be properly described in words for to do so shatters the unity - as Tao Te Ching supposedly said "The tao that can be told is not the eternal Tao", or Meister Eckhart calls this ineffable unity the Godhead. For me, it is these spontaneous experiences that are the most difficult to explain in rational terms - (in any terms I would argue). I certainly would not want to dismiss the veracity of mystical experiences just becuase we do not have an adequate theory of knowledge within which to comprehend them. It may well be that neuroscience will help in some way and I look forward to that.

ts a simple yes/no answer, donella. Did you read the thread I've linked to?

Cripes Fatpants, you sound like my controlling ex-husband on a bad day. For the sake of everyone else on this thread, a stalemate might bea good idea?

You made a comment....

Quite a neat and tidy atheist move really....all things religious heaped into one big bag of 'unintelligible things' which we can reduce to the patently absurd and chuck it all in the scrap heap!

...to which I asked if you'd actually read the thread, specifically that which I've proposed. I've answered your statement above with a reasoned argument, outlining my pov in that which I've linked to and here. I asked you if you'd read what had been written, to which you reply...

Cripes Fatpants, you sound like my controlling ex-husband on a bad day. For the sake of everyone else on this thread, a stalemate might bea good idea?

I understand the two of us have been at loggerheads before, where you wilfully misrepresented what I had written, but now you're using evasion tactics to ignore a simple question. Bad form, donella.

@revsamnorton

Hi I agree with your comments re the Vienna Circle - I imagine that Giles Fraser meant to say that the Tractatus was rather than Wittgenstein himself.

Thanks for the links plenty of food for though there! I see that this relates to your MA thesis - these are deep waters. Fwiw, my own background is as a maths student and then a mid-life crisis MA in Hebrew and Jewish studies at University of London. My MA thesis was about attitudes to non-Jews in the Talmud, so not strictly relevant here! However, fwiw, some of my thoughts on these issues are at http://lvor.blogspot.com/2007/09/dawkins-god-delusion.html in the context of my reaction to The God Delusion ... follow up article will appear some time in response to Christopher Hitchens God is not Great which was better but also pretty poor in my view...

Anyway, the issue here seems to be around the limits of rationality and how we deal with the non-rational or even irrational components of human experience.

I do think there is a difference here between mystical (which I see as non-rational) and philosophical approaches (which are at least based on reason!)

The key issue is that there are aspects of the human condition which from any perspective are inaccessible to purely rational thought - not least poetry, music and the rest. And religion to some extent fits into this however the danger is not to throw away the rationalism if one chooses to accept religious truth.

Some scholars of Maimonides work (e.g. the late Marvin Fox) suggest that he saw revelation as necessary to complement rather than replace our human reason and this is the sort of approach that appeals to me!

I was also interested to see in your article a mention of orthoxpraxy - I wonder if a rationalist approach to religion has a strong tendency to lead towards this, this has emerged in Judaism as well as I discussed here a few months ago - key issue here being that if one throws away rationality in the light of a mystical experience then one opens to the floodgates to "fundamentalists" of all stripes...

@Geoff01

hi isn't that a rather anachronistic way to read kabbalah which contains all sorts of other baggage as well, e.g. Ptolemaic astronomy for a start, not to mention an essentialist view of souls which I find unappealing. One suspects that modern kabbalah learned from Freud far more than the other way round...

and on pantheism, this is a Spinozist view (ok by me btw I won't excommunicate you!) however this is just essentially a metaphysical "philosophical god" rather than God. Judaism as I understand it is panantheism, hence the need for some form of metaphysics!

I understand the two of us have been at loggerheads before, where you wilfully misrepresented what I had written, but now you're using evasion tactics to ignore a simple question. Bad form, donella.

I you wish to make a point about a previous blog, then go ahead and give summary of these ideas so that we can all engage in this conversation. If you do that, I might then consider remarking upon your argument or I might not depending upon my own rules of engagement and civility in discussions on Cif. I have no responsibility or duty to do what you tell me to do. It's quite simple really. This is my final word on the matter.

@ fatpants

Clearly you have never had any supernatural or religious experiences and I can understand why you lump these together with alien abductions, leprechauns etc. because for you they are all one and the same i.e. scientifically untestable ad hoc claims to experience. I can only speak from personal experience and since I have no experience of aliens, leprachauns, unicorn jockeys, witches I cannot say I believe in them.

Leprachauns and unicorn jockeys I would argue do not seem to have many claims made for them, if any though as compared with religious revelations from Biblical times to the present day. Do you personally know of anyone claiming such experience or are you just throwing them into the mix in order to muddy the waters?

Witches, how are these defined? Is it through supernatural powers, in which case maybe science might concentrate on those who purport to be witches in order to test such, that is if such powers are sustained rather than ad hoc occurrences.

Aliens are another area in which scientists may or may not be able to determine evidence for or against since aliens from what I have gathered are supposed to be physical life forms which use physical properties such as space craft and implantable devices.

Ad hoc experiences involved in religious revelations and supernatural phenomena which provides proof for an 'afterlife' I can separate from your other examples because of my personal experience and the the joint experience with others purely because I/we have experienced them and not any of the others. Though my experiences are given to scientific proof they remain evidence enough for me. Because I have been privileged to such evidence, I can extrapolate that others will be able to have such experiences themselves. Not everyone, apparently, has such experiences or if they do they prefer to rationalise them away as flights of fancy, not being able to trust their senses or various arguments in order to cling to their faith in the pure physical nature of the world and the universe.