daddy1gringo wrote:BigBallinStalin wrote:daddy1gringo wrote: To a great degree, the intellect is the prostitute of the will: giving it what it wants, performing the tricks that it wants done, and telling it what it wants to hear. Of course it’s easy to apply that to those other people.
How do you explain that people across the world came up with similar "god(s)" stories to explain things?
Was there ever a spontaneously emerging society of atheists in early history? It's the demand for religion, i.e. the demand for a meaning beyond what we can be understood at that time. The smarter people supply that demand with an explanation that's passed through the generations. Seemed good enough, so why not? Making up shit is acceptable if there's no scientific method or developed epistemology available . "The rocks have spirits, when it's thundering the Gods are angry, or you better behave because god is watching (principal-agent problem solved), etc."
I'm glad you brought that up in just this way, because it's an excellent example of what I am talking about.
How do I explain it? Now remember, I'm not claiming to prove any of this at this point; you asked for
how I explain it, and this, grossly oversimplified, is it:
There is a God who created us and wants relationship with us. He communicates the truth about himself and that relationship that he desires in many and various ways, some more clear and specific than others. He basically went from the less clear and specific to the more so. He communicates some of it through the natural world which he created. (Romans 1:20, Psalm 19:1) He communicates some of it through things that we sense intuitively in our spirit. He revealed more about himself and this relationship when he chose and spoke to one man (Abraham) to be the forefather of a people who he would treat as his own and be a reflection of himself on earth. Roughly 500 years later he revealed more by a code of law and accompanying covenant he gave them. Mostly after that time, he inspired other works to be written (though Job is from Abraham's time or before) to communicate more about himself and that relationship. He gave the most specific revelation yet when he, spirit that he is, inhabited flesh, expressing his nature in a human being. (John 14:8-9: Philip said, “Lord, show us the Father and that will be enough for us.” Jesus answered: “Don’t you know me, Philip, even after I have been among you such a long time? Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, ‘Show us the Father’?" ) Finally, he got even more clear and specific when he inspired various of his early followers (including everything from simple working men to a brilliant rabbi familiar with both the Jewish law and Greek philosophy) to write about him and the new covenant.
People in every time and place who seek for answers to the deep questions of life perceive the truth through nature and within themselves. Without the more specific revelation, that truth is mixed with various guesses and reasonings, some better than others. As you sort of mentioned, one thing that they usually, though not always, perceive is that there is a personality, or more than one, behind it all (god{s}). The similarities in the "god(s)" stories, as you put it are the result of the fact that there is a truth which they are all perceiving.
The "fact that there is a truth which they are all perceiving" doesn't imply that the one truth is God. This phenomenon only shows a multiplicity of "truths." People who have no proper substitutes (like science) will still seek some explanation. That explanation is provided by the entrepreneurial suppliers. You explain an "origin" of Judaism, if you only base it on the Old Testament + Torah. If you use the New Testament, substract some of the Torah, then you get Christianity, whose validity is confirmed by the concept of Jesus; otherwise, it wouldn't be believable. If you update those Books, you get the Quran, whose messenger was as divinely inspired as Jesus, oh but wait, isn't there a pattern here? .... Savvy entrepreneurs are at it again!
There's still human action at play. You can posit that God "expresses" himself to all these people through various means, but in the end, people are
perceiving those expressions and coming to different conclusions: God, spirits in the trees, Jesus, the Roman/Greek gods, etc. If God was the truth behind it, then why didn't everyone come to the conclusion that there is one God? Because God isn't the truth; the truth is merely perceived and produced into various religious goods. Your explanation in favor of God is just as unfalsifiable as the Flying Gnomes or Flying Spaghetti Monster explanation (I'll explain farther below)).
The variance in religions is explained by the differing preferences of demanders for religion. These demanders live within different social institutions, which will shape the content of the religion demanded. The suppliers are the savvy enough entrepreneurs who provide the explanations/religious goods. Are these goods true? They have no validity unless the supplier claims that he was divinely inspired, so there's that incentive to "make shit up." Thus, we have many different religions which are all "true."
Which one is true? It doesn't matter to the believers because they
know that they are correct. People perceive their goods as true and will disagree with religions which aren't their own.
daddy1gringo wrote:Now here's my point: Even when I try to be unbiased and treat our conclusions equally, I still come up with that we both look at the same facts and draw a conclusion that is in accord with our preference. You that there is no (G)god and people made up the stories, and I that there is one and he is communicating. Frankly, I think any decent detective would have to choose mine as making more sense: if there is a commonality to the stories, it is because there is something to them, and specifically something to the parts they have in common. It amazes me that you have put forward those commonalities as proof or evidence that it was all made up, such that you expect me to have trouble explaining them, when I see them as evidence that it was not made up. Seems to me like intellect is turning her tricks.
Your fitting an outcome to a conclusion which you already refuse to accept as false. You observe this multiplicity of truths, then conclude that it must come from God. The premise can also support the conclusion the Flying Gnomes are the ultimate cause--not God. You can fit many religious deities into your conclusion, and they're all
unfalsifiable. You can't verify that God did it and not the FSM nor Ra nor whatever. That's a big problem with your argument.
daddy1gringo wrote:So to back up a bit, you said that my discussion of whether “the product”, (the god{s} stories) is true or not is irrelevant because you are just discussing if your proposition (if there were no {G}god, people would make it up) were true. For me it’s the other way around because whether your question can be known, and whether it matters at all, is dependent on the truth or falsehood of “the product”. In other words, if there is a God, then not only can it not be known what people would do it there weren’t, it doesn’t matter. Since you are asking me what my answer is from my point of view, and my point of view includes a God who does indeed exist, my answer has to be, “Maybe; who knows, and who cares.”
It bears repeating:
Religious goods are supplied by people who are aware of the demand for a god(s)-based explanation. This explains the variance and formation of religions over time and across different people. In order for the religious goods to be acceptable, the suppliers have a strong incentive to claim "divine inspiration" as the source of their supplied goods; otherwise, the religious good is not accepted in the exchange (because it would be perceived as false). "Validity" came also be confirmed by the social status of "village wise man," i.e. appeal to authority.
This is why the production of religion and the exchange of religious products/goods matters:
The objective truth of a good doesn't matter because people are satisfied by the perceived
value of the good --not just its validity. Valuation is subjective. The truth is evaluated subjectively, but it's only one aspect of the product's value. There are benefits in believing in a community's beliefs; otherwise, (1) one can be ostracized and/or be killed, which was a common reaction to non-believers, thus providing non-believers a strong incentive to believe in the "truth" of any religious good. Religious organizations also provide goods which benefit the community. (2) Even if you don't believe as true the religious idea of god, gods, spirits, etc., you can still reap the benefits of being in the club.
(1) and (2) increase the perceived value of the religious goods; therefore, the truth of the good itself doesn't explain the acceptance of the religious product.
People turn atheist or agnostic because the value of religious goods has been decreased--i.e. their perceived value has changed due to their perception of the religious goods' falsehood. This doesn't mean that God exists or doesn't exist, objectively. In ancient times, people demanded an explanation, and since the "science" and epistemology of that time was a poor substitute or was unavailable, other people supplied the demanders with religious goods (i.e. books, explanations, whatevs) and claimed divine inspiration, or were given the status of "wise man" plus the benefits of appeal to authority.
With the rise of substitutes like science, the religious suppliers now face competition. No longer can the "divine inspiration/take my word on it" argument remain believable since it is no longer the only valid alternative. When Karl Popper introduced the concept of falsifiability, it threw a monkey wrench into the religions, which have to retreat into
daddy1gringo wrote:But I think if you are honest, you have to admit that you are proposing that statement as something which, if it is true, is, let’s not use the word “proof” or even “evidence”, but reason to believe, that the stories of God are false. As such I have dealt with that aspect.
I worked all night and need to go to bed. TTYL
Your explanation in favor of God is just as unfalsifiable as the Flying Gnomes or Flying Spaghetti Monster explanation.
But why would you or anyone reject the value of believing in the FSM religious good?
(1) it lacks the appeal to the authority
"It can't be true; it hasn't been around for 2000 years and before that in other forms because God was."
"These guys don't wear funny hats and have a cool book like ours; therefore, it must be false. (It's not a coincidence that Christianity and Islam base their origins in the old testament; it's a smart strategy to win over other believers."
(e.g. Bible, Quran, Torah, Bhagavad Gita, take your pick, they're all divinely inspired, yet can contradict each other. That's weird...)
(2) lacks the divine inspiration argument (which is also number 1 but produces different incentives)
"Ha, their prophet of FSM is some guy. Our prophet is the true son of God because this Book says so. Never mind those other books which claim different prophets either, for they are false, because our Book and our Organization say so."
(3) and the value of its economic club goods are relatively much lower
(e.g. more benefits in being a Christian than being a FSM believer). Social networking, network externalities, etc.
Also, the FSM concept arrives at a time when there are substitutes like science and developed epistemology which can be used to separate fact from fiction. People back then didn't have those alternatives; therefore, the relative value of religious goods were much higher, thus more readily acceptable/believable.
I didn't realize... )
