dispatches from the edge of revelation (a facebook debate)

haha, that's pretty good

except.. if you get far enough with it, man.. religion is a very important experience on an individual level.

altho I don't agree with orthodox and organized Christianity or Islam, the doctrines when seen as allegories and taken in the course of each religions particular mystics is a very beautiful and important experience that organized orthodoxies try to monopolize for the sake of control

I dunno. I just don't really agree with the activist and violent atheistic approach (not physically violent.. intellectually violent)

we shouldn't be destroying organized religion. we should be unmasking the truth and allegory behind their particular mystic teachings in order to allow people to understand said allegories, this causing the organized religious attempt at CONTROL to collapse of its own flaw

I completely understand your standpoint on the matter

but I respectfully disagree

to be blunt, I see it as naive preaching

especially considering I used to do the exact same thing and feel the exact same way

militant atheism is a part of the problem

All great ideas are shunned until they work.

it's just a more sophisticated version of fundamentalist Christianity.. based on the same weird militant principles

shoving it down peoples throats

and not allowing things to speak for themselves

Ahh

but that's not how I'll operate

I'll gladly let the opposition speak

and, via intellectual conversation, I'll also gladly destroy their argument.

the way you say 'destroy' though

that's militant

you allow them to speak so you can speak, not to listen.

all the while maintaining an utmost amount of respect for the individual

nay

Scientific Method Kyran

You never try to prove yourself right

you always try to prove yourself wrong

the scientific method should be a tool, not a worldview.

that's exactly what it is and will forever be

in terms of disagreeing with the orthodox principles you're trying to openly oppose, I agree. I just don't find it much of a challenge to make the obvious point that a literal interpretation of the Bible or the Quaran is wrong

there's something more important within each book, though

if taken as pure allegory and symbolism

it's an artful and important representation of the cosmos. a 'finger pointing at the moon'

the scientific method is the same thing, just down to a more refined detail

Off the top of my head, I disagree for one reason.

There's an element of humility in science that religion will never understand well enough to effectively implement.

That 'finger pointing to the moon' from the perspective of a holy book says "God made that - I'm sure of it"

well, God did make that

from the perspective of science

It says "I wonder how that was made"

God, as a representation of the greater incomprehensible universe

I understood your context of the word

not God as in a man with a beard in the clouds

I agree, as comparing philosophies, I prefer science for its openness

but there are just as many fundamentalist scientists and atheists as there are Christians and Muslims

scientists who believe that our emotions are nothing but chemical reactions.. serotonin release, dopamine, etc.

forgetting that naming and separating parts of a whole and giving them the entirely human name of 'chemical' or 'serotonin' or 'dopamine'

is only important as a tool.. and nothing more than a linguistic representation for the sake of study.. not something to internalize and create a mechanistic worldview USING these labels as literally as fundamentalist Bible thumpers internalize and take literally the idea of God

saying that something called 'serotonin' literally exists, is in the same vein as saying that an old man named God literally sits in the clouds and determines our destiny.

but FIGURATIVELY, as REPRESENTATIONS, I agree with both

Except that serotonin has been discovered as a chemical and has been an identified part of how our brain functions for a long time. Serotonin levels can be measured; they can fluctuate or be completely removed in the brain.

I feel like you know where I'm going with this: Serotonin can be physically manipulated, proving its existence.

okay, let me make this clear: there is a different between religion and science. both are important as representations.. but religion is not worried with measurements, science is

difference*

comparing them is like comparing water to a solid, and debating which is better.

have you ever heard of the Greek conception of time? Chronos and Kairos?

Yes

so you know about Chronos being the quantitative measurement of time.. as in, you put said amount of hours in, get paid said amount of dollars. it's all about measurement.. it's relative to something. the sun sets, the sun rises

right?

Yes

whereas Kairos is the qualitative intangible.. the unpredictability, the holy lack of measurement.. as Einstein said, put your hand on a hot stove for a minute and it feels like an hour, spend an hour with a pretty girl and it feels like a minute.

okay, so, the difference between science and religion is the different between Chronos and Kairos

science is Chronos.. the quantitative measurement, separating 2 things so they are relative to each-other and can be measured as a result

religion (spirituality), is Kairos

the qualitative intangible

That comparison portrays the very idea of arguing which is better as extremely futile, and to leave each be. I disagree with that almost as much I do religion.

now, I agree with your opposition to organized religion

organized religion is the fundamentalist idea of MAKING Kairos into Chronos.. for the sake of expediency and convenience of explanation, and to remain ignorantly grounded within a worldview

bu this same orthodoxy exists within SCIENCE as well

now, science, as a spiritual tool, is a good thing. unorthodox science steeped in mysticism

in the same way that religion, as a spiritual tool, is a good thing. unorthodox religion steeped in mysticism

in fact, the two really need each other

you can have the spiritual without the scientific, but you can't have proper science without the spiritual

I disagree with your earlier statement "there are just as many fundamentalist scientists and atheists as there are Christians and Muslims". We're vastly outnumbered and vastly underrepresented.

but I continue to disagree with what you're saying, that they're essentially two sides of the same coin

you're not vastly outnumbered, nor vastly unrepresented. I see as many preachy Dawkins books as I see preachy Bibles, and meet as many preaching Christians and I meet preaching atheists

20% of America defines themselves as without religion

and LESS THAN 1% of congress does the same

politics is a whole other ball game. and I'd say we should separate church and state, but you can't separate spirituality and state.

Hell yeah you can!

but you shouldn't!

for the record

I'm not correlating the term 'spirituality' with 'morality'

I agree that we should be removing the irrationality inherent within those who practice fundamentalist and orthodox religions

and neither am I.

two different things imo

but we should also just as soon be disallowing the fundamentalist scientist who believes our emotions are NOTHING BUT a chemical reaction to preach this kind of rhetoric or let it affect his decision making abilities

buuuut

The things is Kyran baby

They are only chemical reactions

we are basically legos

we can be taken apart piece by piece

but the damned thing is

those reactions make us feel

I think this is where we come back to each other

so they are important to us as individuals

and crediting those feelings and emotions to a deity is fucking disgusting

it reeks of cowardice and impotency

I agree, but what also reeks of cowardice and impotency is the scientist attributing his feelings and emotions to 'chemistry' in a literal context

we are more than the sum of our parts, right? we may be legos, we may be able to be taken apart piece by piece.. but these pieces have existed forever, exist now, and will continue to exist for eternity

and we ARE those pieces. those pieces are not separate from the entirety of existence or the universe

and the representation of that continuity is the IDEA of GOD! it's so beautiful!

That's the idea of 'speaking to the universe' I take it.

the fact that we ARE God, we ARE the universe. you can't have a part without the whole and vice versa

a part is only a part when it is distinguished as such and put in relation to the whole. otherwise, it's a whole no matter what

and in reality, it's always the whole, any separation is a false dichotomy

every explicit duality is an implicit unity

I understand that the greatest illusion in life is the illusion of separation, but I am not the tree across the street.

One of my favorite NDT quotes is "We are connected to each other biologically, to the earth chemically, and to the stars atomically."

but you are the tree across the street

the only reason you're not

is because you've been culturally condition to define yourself as the part you can voluntarily control

if you are your foot

you are that tree.

and you grow your bones and beat your heart in the same way that you shine the su

sun*

#alanwatts

unconsciously. but that's all you.

exactly

he's who converted me from a militant atheist into what I'm talking about right now

"Omnipotence is not knowing how everything is done; it's just doing it."

just shining the sun

just beating the heart

you don't have to think about and calculate all that