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Sunday, Nov 8, 2009
I never knew that was a word.
Good article, good interview. I agree with the author's points about what's good about Maher, and what's lacking in his movie.
I do enjoy Maher in general. I like his intelligence and easygoing manner.
I'm not assuming anything. I ask people now and then and I find that they not only haven't done the work required, it never occurred to them that they should. That said, I'm interested that you have. If you feel like it, let me know your experience.
And no, I've never assumed the actuality of spiritual transcendence and then tried to justify my assumption. Quite the opposite in fact. I was an atheist for years until someone urged me to do a little meditation and lo and behold I discovered for myself what people were talking about and had written about all those centuries. I found it odd that I had always thought of myself as a pretty rational guy, rigorous in my thinking, but it had never occurred to me that to attain spiritual change, one must actually do some work in that direction. A simple concept really, but so few atheists get it.
I look forward to hearing your experience and what spiritual discipline you followed.
You're right, and you're not right:
If you are willing to learn a bit of mathematics and sit still for a few hours, a physics teacher can walk you through every single step of the theory that leads up to the paradox of Schoedinger's Cat. [...]There is absolutely no "faith" involved. [...]
if you find that it requires faith to accept a scientific theory, then you are doing it wrong.
But how did you ultimately resolve the paradox? How can the cat be dead and not dead? Ah, yes, the quantum probability "collapses". What does that mean? Well, Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle applies. Ah, yes. ... etc. That's as far I recall getting. Something about particles and wave duality, too, but I don't recall.
One suggestion I make, though, paradoxes never DO resolve completely in discursive thought. One should really ponder this fact. Why do we dismiss paradoxes so easily? They point to the circularity of our reasoning, and open the door to higher modes of logic.
Perhaps, in discussing Schroedinger's Cat, if one accepts that the the cat is dead/not-dead, a chain of dependent reasoning opens. I follow it until I'm satisfied I can pass the exam (until any question, couched in the same terms of reference, will obviously relate). The cat is dead/not-dead, Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle, I can regurgitate these facts, but it's only in their application that I demonstrate understanding.
Ethics and morality are the same: I can regurgitate platitudes, but only in action can I demonstrate understanding. I repeat: enlightened is as enlightened does.
Read Gödel and Wittenstein, Pierce: every formal system of logic is tautological, that is every fact relies upon another fact for truth value. Therefore, every logical statement in a formal system is tautological, and that includes our attempts at logical descriptions of phenomenal and spiritual experience.
What bothers some atheists so much about religious belief? There is real harm in snide comments like, "the truth hurts", "how sad". Maybe it's innocuous on a forum, but I suspect it's being repeated in classrooms and in homes.
A young friend of mine, studying political philosophy, bragged to me about how he and another conservative reduced a fellow student to speechless blubbering during a debate. I was honestly appalled and alarmed for him, but what to say? In the event, I said, "I'm not so sure I would be proud of browbeating a fellow student. Why do you feel it has merit?" In his answer, my friend said that it's all a game, winners and losers, politics and life, too. I find the attitude truly sad, distressing, for all the cynicism it implies.
Please, you're only harming yourself with such negative thoughts. It's not all a game. Life is truly just what it is, and we're all connected. Harming others, you harm yourself. I know this to be true for myself, although, in the past, I only "knew" this in a factoidal sense. I know it now, in my dotage, experientially, and apply it in my daily life.
I see many young persons who struggle with ethics. Some turn to religion, some to humanism. Both are fine, in my opinion.
Object, if you like, to blind faith, proselytizing and false prophets. But don't judge people by what you little you understand of other forms of thought. Most of the pseudo-logical arguments advanced on any Internet-forum are sophistries. Judge what you read for yourself to determine if the intent is mild and honest, or sarcastic and ego-driven.
I notice, btw, no one has presented niti (wheeling lights) witnessed in the 2nd and 3rd jhanas (trance states). Until CAT scans, no tangible evidence existed for the shared experience of many meditators, but art work and description suggests there are many such brain phenomena. The subjective experience, however, still eludes science (will always elude?) because science cannot observe itself observing, except obliquely, through parable, poetry, music... ie, in the desiderative mode of thought. Thus, S's Cat.
More truth:
Shall I say, I have gone at dusk through narrow streets
And watched the smoke that rises from the pipes
Of lonely men in shirt-sleeves, leaning out of windows?
What is your practice? Zen? Vipassana? I detect strains of both. Or best not to say in such forums, do you think?
You are very offensive.
Which is at base defensive and I can't say that I blame you, given the dirty little secret that sooo many have guarded.
It happens in a particlular segment of Indian society as well.
Dude that is just WAY cool you know that right?
www.privacy.es.tc
Andrew: This is a really good and thoughtful interview. I'm a Maher fan and watch his show regularly, but he is just out of his element in his rants against religion and not very funny. I'll probably watch his movie anyway. You got in some good jabs.
I am an 80 yr old protestant Christian life time church going person who has never been a Biblical fundamentalist and never ceased to read history, science, politics, philosophy, poetry, Shakespeare, etc. etc. When Bill says that being "religious" is by definition "ridiculous" or irrational there is nothing left to talk about. He has no respect for religious people of any type or any faith. He thinks that religious people by definition have no doubts and are all about "beliefs", about which they are certain. Not true. Moreover, the priest in the Vatican who said they were "all stories" is absolutely right. But Bill doesn't understand that such "stories", like great poetry, theater, art, etc. carry deep truths. He doesn't appreciate, for example, that both sacred scriptures, like the Bible, and theology itself is a language of mythos, of poetry, all of which convey "truths" that cannot be conveyed by science and rationality because that language cannot accommodate it. Religion is all about "meaning". That it gets seriously distorted and turned into "reliculosity" is just part of the human condition. We are not gods but we sometimes behave as if we are. Then things get really bad. Bill doesn't understand any of this. Andrew Sullivan has called him on this powerfully on Bill's show. You can't be a serious critic of something so pervasive in humanity as religion if you don't understand it and don't respect those who do.
Much of the initial coverage about Fort Hood turned out to be wrong. Is there anything wrong with that?
The accountability imposed by another country for the CIA's kidnapping and torture reveals much about our own.
Fox News' morning show plays to type, talking about whether Muslims in the Army should face "special debriefings"
The survivor and author is upset about comparisons some on the right are making to genocide
Once seen as a lunatic fringe, reactionary anti-women groups are courting respectability
Salon headlines in your mailbox
