How are the totals coming out?
Is JPP mostly religious or not?
And seriously, what does "spiritual" mean?
I think its one of those words arrived upon to purposely be cryptic.
Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel. Samuel Johnson, 1775
Religion....is the opiate of the people. Karl Marx, 1848
Freedom's just another word for nothin' left to lose. Kris Kristofferson, 1969
I don't know... Trying to cram an octagonal peg into a triangular hole sometimes requires you tell the test giver "This won't fucking work..." That is to say, what do you answer when all the answers totally suck? There were at least a couple of questions on that quiz that referenced the bible directly. How should someone who isn't Christian answer that question? Even many Christians would have a hard time with it. If you were say, Eastern or Greek Orthodox?
Whoever developed that quiz didn't put much thought into it. It asked about going to heaven and hell but there was nothing about reincarnation for example. Same thing. The fit was so poor many questions were unanswerable for someone who isn't Christian.
Cypress (02-07-2023), Phantasmal (02-07-2023), ThatOwlWoman (02-07-2023)
Doc Dutch (02-07-2023), Phantasmal (02-07-2023)
Phantasmal (02-07-2023)
Some theologians think the "God of the Gaps" approach is ultimately corrosive to faith. That with each new discovery God gets smaller and smaller and smaller. At some point the questions we can't answer will be so esoteric that proposing "God" as the answer will actually provide no valuable insights to anything.
So they prefer that people believe in an invisible force that listens to their pleas, directs their lives, and takes them home when they die, is that what you're saying?
I suppose if you quit believing, you quit going to church, you quit donating to church, and that's very bad for the god business.
"Conservatism is the blind and fear-filled worship of dead radicals." -- Mark Twain
^ This is a proposal which has been tested out by a few physicists.
The fact is, a only a minority of the questions we have involve protons, quarks, quasars, biochemistry.
Socrates and Plato knew there was more to the human experience than study of nature.
On a day to day routine basis, very few humans are asking questions about quantum mechanics, chemistry, or zoology.
The most important questions routinely on people's minds are questions about fairness, equality, justice, morality, freedom, charity, mercy, pride, humility, and just how to live a meaningful life.
christiefan915 (02-08-2023)
I was thinking more "cosmology" and ultimate origins. I have little doubt that given the state of physics one day we will be able to answer many questions about protons, quarks etc.
There is definitely a place for philosophy in trying to understand the nature of what is around us. But it's also possible to explain most of our experience using physical aspects of the world alone. A good analogue would be taking psychedelics. They play around with the serotonergic systems in your brain and, with just the addition of a chemical one can wind up seeing and feeling (with absolute certainty) things that are in no way based on reality around them.Socrates and Plato knew there was more to the human experience than study of nature.
There is no "ineffible soul" which is our core being. All we need do is look at cases where the physical brain is damaged. Take the case of Phineas Gage who had a large pole driven through his head and he survived. But he apparently became a diametrically opposite type of person. Which version of Phineas was the one reflected by his "soul"?
Just go into any nursing home. See people who used to be one thing now rendered completely unrecognizable all because their brains are slowly decaying.
ANd therein lies the role of philosophy. We have this brain which is processing information and guiding our behaviors. Those are the things we want and the things which make for a stable social network which provides a survival advantage for the kind of animal that gathers in groups (like humans). That's when philosophy becomes important: how should one act in given setting?The most important questions routinely on people's minds are questions about fairness, equality, justice, morality, freedom, charity, mercy, pride, humility, and just how to live a meaningful life.
But even then philosophy can't answer all those questions either. That's when the anthropological, psychological and sociological sciences become important. We are, after all, just another animal making its way on the globe. We are still beholden to all the natural drives animals have. We are just the ones blessed with this level of self-awareness and as such we are able to (occasionally) moderate our hungers.
Phantasmal (02-07-2023)
I don't even think it's a matter of organized religions. I think people naturally gravitate to the "God of the Gaps". The reason God was even invented in the first place was an attempt by early man to understand everything around him.
People will always invest those areas of their own ignorance with the imprimatur of God because it's an easy "placeholder", especially for questions that don't necessarily impact every day survival. (And by that I mean understanding how one's predators behave rather than assuming God will guide the predator to kill you when it is time for you to die. We don't usually just let it be "God's will"....we will investigate and learn what the predator is going to do.)
Science doesn't deal with teleology or answer teleological questions.
I will defend science against any holy roller as humanity's best method of acquiring and interpreting empirical information.
But it's an open debate whether science can give us universal, necessary, and certain knowledge about which we cannot be wrong. Not that philosophy or religion can either.
Wrapping up, questions about how to live a meaningful human life and to what metaphysical moral vision one is obligated to practice is not in the realm of test tubes, mathmatical equations, or particle accelerators. They are necessarily going to be in the realm of moral philosophy, religion, and social custom.
ThatOwlWoman (02-08-2023)
And teleology is often meaningless. WHY does gravity obey in the inverse square law format? No reason.
MANY aspects of teleology CAN be addressed by science. Quite a few.
Agreed.I will defend science against any holy roller as humanity's best method of acquiring and interpreting empirical information.
The unknown can be unknowable. But simply imagining something to be one way or another is not an improvement in knowledge.But it's an open debate whether science can give us universal, necessary, and certain knowledge about which we cannot be wrong. Not that philosophy or religion can either.
I disagree.Wrapping up, questions about how to live a meaningful human life and to what metaphysical moral vision one is obligated to practice is not in the realm of test tubes, mathmatical equations, or particle accelerators.
And there's a very high likelihood it will largely be "imaginary" unless there is a way to "ground proof" it in reality.They are necessarily going to be in the realm of moral philosophy, religion, and social custom.
Don't get me wrong: I love philosophy. I just don't think that it is some non-overlapping magisteria with science. I think the value comes when science provides the supporing framework for philosophy.
I think it was Murray Gell-mann who was attracted to his 8-fold classification system of subatomic particles because he was heavily into Buddhism and the 8-fold Way. It is extremely unlikely that there is some necessary link between the two. In this case the "philosophy" was a pretty metaphor. Not necessarily reality.
Cypress (02-07-2023), NiftyNiblick (02-07-2023)
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