Jim Newman says:

Hmm, while I do see a lot of reason here and no hatred whatsoever,–maybe some random anger, disgust, and irrational defense–there seems to be a conflation of what we know versus what we believe. The degrees of certainty. Yes, indeed I used the phrase blatant and obvious bullshit because god faith has nowhere near the degree of certainty in the continuum of knowledge as science has taken us. In fact, religious scholars use a tremendous amount of science and reason, to take their faith up a notch or so on the scale of certainty–kudos for them they did not look at the stars or the entrails of a chicken, and say it’s so.

However, the idea that this is equal to a brain in a vat, or Descartes’ demon is tedious–do we have to go back to “if a tree falls and no one hears it..”. Whether we are in a matrix or multiple realities or the mind of a demon is pretty pointless since we have no access to that knowledge. Frankly the arguments in this direction are better stated by Islamist and Jewish scholars of Medieval times than anything we read now (with the notable exception of FH Bradley’s Appearance and Reality)–simply because their lack of science allowed them far greater imagination and they spent more time on what we would now call dead ends.

I mean it’s true that reality has some strange aspects. Our bodies are more space than solids, if you go fast enough time changes; the entire world of quantum mechanics is one nightmare of inconsistencies. Alice and Wonderland was written as a negative reaction to new math. How can you symbolize the infinite or zero or use it in an equation? What the hell does the square root of -1 mean? How can a number really go on forever. We can thank Muslims and Hindi, for the original exposition of zero or the infinite. Even iron in blood attaching oxygen is pretty weird. No question the commonality of the need for imagination. If you want a magic show look no further than reality.

My allusion to “does it grow corn” reflects my insistence that knowledge is also based on functionality and our notion of is or nous or the noumenous and any of the other seemingly teleological statements are inaccessible to any evidence whatsoever–kudos to Kant. In which case like the unknowable god we can say nothing whatsoever about what he is or what he does and any effort to do so would be entirely conjecture with no basis other than some assortment of words–in the same sense that a chimp typing long enough might type Romeo and Juliet, and we wouldn’t know it as Romeo and Juliet. Whoosh is the sound of god passing by.

I wouldn’t and don’t care what people believe for themselves. You can believe the world is on the back of a turtle. I find it fascinating to read the various accounts of reality and their creation myths. They just don’t match each other and the attempts of early ethnologists have failed in proving there is an Abrahamic commonality between them–as if they had all reflected an Abrahamic reality in some even tenuous way. So religious people use science and reason to compare interfaith narratives and tropes. I prefer an intrafaith discussion. What do we do without faith but with knowledge? Who’s hallucination is less important except politically, then what do we need to do to stay alive. You can pray or you can walk for help. You can beat your head against the brick wall or you can walk around it.

It is clear that all mythologies are all patently bullshit, and whether or not you believe in DNA is irrelevant to its existence and success in exerting its evidence upon us. God may exist but if he does it is so obtuse and distant as to be irrelevant except as an imaginary antidote. Certainly one can be a pantheist or whatever, praising the unknowable infinite if you will but who the fuck cares except those who didn’t have a choice whether by birth location or birth time. Even if you love Campbell’s Hero’s of a Thousand faces, what is common to a hero is common to mankind and not to mythology.

Aside from the mental masturbation of really wondering what an infinite god is or does, the entire point of all epistemology is action; hence why morality and knowledge are irresolvable intertwined. When the president prays for an answer I could hope he is trying to be inspired to think more clearly and that the voice he may hear is a reflection of some clear headed thinking and long analysis and not ignoring the situation while he prays for a voice, whatever that voice may be. If he just needs a voice, he should be a schizophrenic. We do choose presidents based on what we perceive the country needs, warrior, pacifist, economist, charismatic, or maybe even all around good guy (now, there’s a challenge).

Politically, in democracy I care not what one believes so long as the vote they supply is reasonable to the question at hand. When one says there can be no climate change from humans because they think god would not do that or that if he did it must be for a good reason or that it will always be a mystery so we should not question further then I have a huge problem with that person. I do believe in educated voters. A person who has lived in the world has more to add to the conversation than one who hasn’t–Forrest Gump is no hero. If innocents are wise it’s because we found the one innocent who happened not to be babbling.

I wouldn’t care if I had my own planet (lucky mormon bastards) where my decisions only affect me but in a world where your shit rolls onto my lawn I need to know that shit is really necessary and I may justifiable ask that it not be allowed in the creek that flows through my land. In fact I may even believe no one should own the property at all and still insist that the shit not be allowed to exist. Whether that shit is helpful or not, preventable or not, is going to be of heated negotiation once the nitrogen burns off the grass. Even if its benign I may not like the view of it simply because it is my view and has become in some ways yours. You’re shitting on me, stop it.

If we are to live together without geographic isolation–a sad state really as the cultural diversity we lost by amalgamating all of the cultures in the world into a few means we lost real world examples of wheat may work or not, which we could not otherwise examine. So while studying diverse religions may give us some clues on what works or not it also means there are going to be choices made.

In the largest sense theology is just another philosophy and can be discussed as such as to its relevance and effectiveness and yes, its truth. Even if there were no absolute truth there are many truths of the times and they can be compared, measured, and tested.

Whether it’s Muslims insisting there be only one god or Jews insisting that no pigs be eaten or Paiutes insisting that peyote is the source of true and sacred knowledge, we inevitably politicize our morality and knowledge. We have no choice once the other comes into our purview.

Once we begin to compare epistemologies all bets are off. I would be a fool if I were using an atl atl and another man from another tribe came to me with a bow and I chose not to use it–perhaps I would deny the bow but if resources became more distant and the reach of the bow allowed me to succeed then I can either die or accept the new technology. I might miss the atl atl, they are so cool, but hey, food is better and my kids are nipping at my heels.

Perhaps it is OK that the logical result is death. Extinction will kill us off as a species sooner or later anyway. However, I have the zealous and jealous desire to survive. My desire to survive is as patently obvious as the converse–that we should choose death sooner to allow for an ideology of death–is bullshit.

In this sense religions involving karma, reincarnation, or an afterlife do embrace the love of death, to get to an afterlife. This kind of passive suicide is not evidenced well as most people still fear death. Perhaps because death isn’t an instinctive choice for humans and we do not have an aptotic mechanism but rather a general decline–babies and children fight to survive; it’s the thinking adult that chooses death. Maybe its a repines to too m ugh suffering. A redwood tree has thousands of seeds sprout and only one or two survive. If I were a redwood tree I would have a negative fatalistic attitude towards life. Sadly, Abrahamic religions do have an aspect of negative fatality to them, which they still carry now that they are in total control of the planet. Damn I wish they could let that shit go. Life is not suffering. That there is suffering does not mean that life is suffering.

These technologies of epistemology have had useful histories. Thinking yourself to be a bear has its usefulness when you hunt. Thinking like a computer has its utility if you want to work through computer problems and design.

I harbor no ill will towards all of the worlds’ philosophies as a comparative philosopher. If were born 10,000 years ago, animism would be de facto acceptable. Aside from the use of religion to gain power, an all too common event, I can consider it no different than any other political or system of might used by some to gain advantage over others. It’s not special but that doesn’t make them all the same to each other. Indeed at some point degree of amount will leap to degree of kind and that is what happened to religion or theology.

The beauty of science is that it is for the most part accessible to everyone. It is inherently democratic. The difficulty is that as science gets more complex, more commodified, more commercialized it explodes into the realm of experts and tempts the intellectual fascism of a philosopher king as Plato requests (for different reasons). But in the end the people do need need to rely on the hidden visions of a few to live better.

I do admit that the great conquerers of the world succeeded by authority and not democracy. Democracy, other than the egalitarianism of most hunter-gatherer societies is relatively new. More new than Abrahamic religions. The reformation is a great example of what happens when you break down authority into individual beliefs. Almost every church community evolves a new religious culture. It’s cool in a way. Until you need everyone to pull together. Even appropriate political systems rely on environmental needs. The social cell is itself a codification of tradition such that change occurs slowly with protection. Conservatism is built in security useful in sieges of attrition. It is less useful in times when rapid adaptation is necessary.

If I can show you an atl atl is good for one thing but not another then you can decide whether it’s right for any particular use.

I farm with both horses and tractors. It is still true that 40 acre farm can be managed more cheaply with horse teams–the spreadsheets are out there. Large acreages need tractors. Really big farms need tractors that have wheels the size of my Suffolk Punch horses.

If a world calamity arose and all books and codified knowledge were lost we would again go to oral traditions and we would praise their best styles and when writing came along again, if it did, we would praise its merits, and some would bemoan how young people have no memory anymore.

The point is that all actions and their base knowledge are responses to the environment and are relevant based on their effect and the choices people make to use them. Assuming that survival, (or even more optimistically, well being) is the goal there are good choices and bad choices. Since we have puny brains at best, and many biases, mistakes will be made with consequences.

My hope, my fervent dream, is that we develop knowledge such that we can coexist peacefully on this planet for as long as possible. Someone else’s most fervent hope may be entirely different. Once we are forced to coexist we fight, negotiate, and politicize. Indeed, recent French anthropologists conjecture that rationality may be an evolved response to prevent physical fighting so that both sides may coexist longer. We agree to argue rather than shoot because we acknowledge it’s greater good, or those that argued simply survived while those that fought didn’t–sepsis or so called flesh eating bacteria was then a far more common way to die after simple wounds–thank goodness we learned about germs and didn’t continue to believe demons harmed.

Though I suppose the fear of demons was one way of discouraging battle, but for the wrong reasons, and better now that we understand why. Unless you believe that humans can’t control their populations in which case we should encourage war, pestilence, and disease so we won’t overbreed the resources.

Once there is contact with an other there must be communication of some sort to negotiate the success of existence, mutual, symbiotic, parasitic, isolated. It is hard but possible to evaluate this communication and work towards more effective communication. If we can’t kill each other handily maybe it’s best to talk it over or share the roast.

My point is that faith and god may have had more use in the past, may have some use now, may have some use in the future but for the most part it has been poorly used for issues of power–it truly has poisoned everything by encouraging hatred and exclusion that remains after the war is over. When it is used for personal comfort, there is often a better way. When the need for accuracy in dealing with the living in the modern colonized overpopulated world then it’s not so helpful anymore. I just don’t agree with Christians that send missionaries to Rwanda to balance the Muslim effect–here, lets through them some fanatical Christians to slow them down–though it’s tempting to say throw them a few Jainists or Buddhists but that’s not fair to them.

The digging stick is useful, I still use one, called a shovel, or a digging iron, but when I need to dig up more than a garden to survive I want a horse or a tractor or my rototiller–and I love the ability to choose. A teddy bear makes a great companion but a friend, partner, therapy, or psychologist may be better. But if a teddy bear works for you, OK, but I may need more or less.

The difficulty is the imposition of knowledge on the other. I wish I could let you use the bible to support antiabortion but the bible just doesn’t directly address that issue and it’s not really helpful to the woman, as that woman thinks and desires. Frankly women have been so oppressed I would give them extra lee way so they can catch up.

In this sense, my lack of tolerance towards intolerance does extend from a belief in the certainty of science or at least it’s a few notches up (actually a few orders of magnitude) from any faith based system. If there were just one true miracle, one true sign, I’d jump the first, as I am a creative person unbound by authority. I have rallied on science most of my life but when politics was becoming anti science I saw that result as leading to disaster, for people and the planet. I am not ready to sacrifice the planet for an unfounded mythology, no matter how attractive it may be to someone else. Besides who’s mythology would we use? Shall we take a vote now. If the Muslims, Hindus, and Buddhists formed a coalition they would win. That’s politics.

But when I look deeper, when I look at the philosophy they actually use and not what they espouse, the vast majority of the world uses empiricism and rationality. In fact, I defy you to find one person who does not use use empiricism or rationality. Show me one person who does not use empiricism or rationality. My desire is that people become honest with themselves and use these two great tools to everyone’s improvement.

My apologies for stomping on religion but unless we can get together right down here, your end of the world vision may come true and there is just no good reason that has to be. I like it here. I bet you do too. Lets make it a better place.