But religion does have a material effect. It affects what I think and feel, which then affects what I do. This is one thing I mean when I say subjective reality is not as different from objective reality as many people would say.
It doesn't do a whit to change the fact that the only material effect of religion can be described by the words 'placebo effect.' Subjective reality vs Objective is interesting, but ultimately the objective reality has primacy.
Yes. You seem to assume I want or need answers to the question about god's (or gods') existence. I do not.
Some of us consider this an almost criminal lack of curiosity.
I think this is why I equate atheism to fundamentalism, in some ways: both traditions claim to have the answer about god/s. I think the question about god/s is largely irrelevant and impossible to answer anyway.
Really? But if a lot of the god-theories were true, they would represent a fundamental alteration in the underpinnings of the world. Even the weakest deistic system represents something very different from a universe without a god. If you have any desire to understand the way the world is, this is a fundamental question.
Also, I am coming at this from a philosophical perspective influenced by the classical skepticism of Sextus Empiricus, which says, IIRC, that definitive answers to metaphysical questions A) are probably illusory, B) are unnecessary, and C) can lead to dangerous dogmatism. So what you see as a gaping hole, I see as flexibility and an ability to prioritize and not get caught up in what I consider a side issue.
Jeez lousize. I see from online biographies and summaries of his philosophy that Sextus seems to have been opposed to knowing anything through reason, inference, and possibly anything other than direct sensory evidence at this exact moment. Even for an 1800 year old Roman, that's a little extreme. Yeah, approaching things skeptically is generally good practice, but it is quite harmful to remain skeptical. He apparently recognized this, and recommended that people basically mooch off the opinions and lifestyles of others without consideration. And you consider this a worthy example of how we should lead our lives and make life shaping decisions?
I am willing to define materialism as a religion. I am willing to define Marxism as a religion too, if it comes to that. I know this is not a commonly accepted definition, but I think that such belief systems do and must consider religious issues, even if the conclusions they reach are, in the traditional sense a-religious or anti-religious.[/quote] Uhh, what? Are you denying the possibility of a non-religious worldview? Your definition in this case is not only questionable, but laughable.
[quote]The fact that they are addressing non-scientific questions at all (by which I mean ones that cannot be disproved via experiment, such as ethics) makes them religions in some sense. If materialism has no explicit answer to 'why bad things happen,' it has an implicit one, which is 'the universe is random like that; deal.' I consider that a religious and ethical viewpoint.
Religion is not anything that deals with ethics. Hell, the Divine command theory of ethics is so vastly inadequate as to completely invalidate all insistence that ethics and religion are in any way related. Religion does not equal ethics, in fact it should have no bearing on ethics at all.
Your problem isn't that you've got a faulty definition of religion. You've mislabeled philosophy as religion.
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Date: 2009-10-30 05:10 pm (UTC)It doesn't do a whit to change the fact that the only material effect of religion can be described by the words 'placebo effect.' Subjective reality vs Objective is interesting, but ultimately the objective reality has primacy.
Yes. You seem to assume I want or need answers to the question about god's (or gods') existence. I do not.
Some of us consider this an almost criminal lack of curiosity.
I think this is why I equate atheism to fundamentalism, in some ways: both traditions claim to have the answer about god/s. I think the question about god/s is largely irrelevant and impossible to answer anyway.
Really? But if a lot of the god-theories were true, they would represent a fundamental alteration in the underpinnings of the world. Even the weakest deistic system represents something very different from a universe without a god. If you have any desire to understand the way the world is, this is a fundamental question.
Also, I am coming at this from a philosophical perspective influenced by the classical skepticism of Sextus Empiricus, which says, IIRC, that definitive answers to metaphysical questions A) are probably illusory, B) are unnecessary, and C) can lead to dangerous dogmatism. So what you see as a gaping hole, I see as flexibility and an ability to prioritize and not get caught up in what I consider a side issue.
Jeez lousize. I see from online biographies and summaries of his philosophy that Sextus seems to have been opposed to knowing anything through reason, inference, and possibly anything other than direct sensory evidence at this exact moment. Even for an 1800 year old Roman, that's a little extreme. Yeah, approaching things skeptically is generally good practice, but it is quite harmful to remain skeptical. He apparently recognized this, and recommended that people basically mooch off the opinions and lifestyles of others without consideration. And you consider this a worthy example of how we should lead our lives and make life shaping decisions?
I am willing to define materialism as a religion. I am willing to define Marxism as a religion too, if it comes to that. I know this is not a commonly accepted definition, but I think that such belief systems do and must consider religious issues, even if the conclusions they reach are, in the traditional sense a-religious or anti-religious.[/quote] Uhh, what? Are you denying the possibility of a non-religious worldview? Your definition in this case is not only questionable, but laughable.
[quote]The fact that they are addressing non-scientific questions at all (by which I mean ones that cannot be disproved via experiment, such as ethics) makes them religions in some sense. If materialism has no explicit answer to 'why bad things happen,' it has an implicit one, which is 'the universe is random like that; deal.' I consider that a religious and ethical viewpoint.
Religion is not anything that deals with ethics. Hell, the Divine command theory of ethics is so vastly inadequate as to completely invalidate all insistence that ethics and religion are in any way related. Religion does not equal ethics, in fact it should have no bearing on ethics at all.
Your problem isn't that you've got a faulty definition of religion. You've mislabeled philosophy as religion.