Spiritual demographics of PowerSwitch

[UndercoverElephant]

I'm interested in this because I think there is a big ideological change coming, and big ideological changes inevitably get mixed up with religion.

all this metaphysics goes over my head a bit (and I voted "practicing Christian!). So, UE, what is the idealogical change you're expecting, and how do you expect religion to relate to that?

The question is too big. I wouldn't know where to try to start answering it. All I know is that business as usual cannot continue for very much longer.

[Adam1]

I posted atheist. I was brought up by non-believing parents and when I read Richard Dawkins' book, I thought it articulated my view much better than I could ever do myself. From memory, Dawkins doesn't deny that a god could exist, he just argues that it is very, very unlikely that one does. My view is that, even if a god existed, it does not logically follow that one must adhere to a particular religious creed.

I have always felt rather uninterested in religious matters and therefore I've never applied myself to theological argument. My ex and I used to have to walk over Tower Bridge in London on our separate ways to and from work. I always used to accelerate away from the occasional groups of proselytising christians on the bridge. My ex, on the other hand, arrived home one day with a triumphant look in her eye, telling me how she'd so successfully argued a theological point with one of the proselytisers, such that they'd been the one wanting to walk away from the encounter.

There may be some correlation between peak oil awareness and a secular world view but all of us hold beliefs that are not evidence based, even if we think we have based our ideas about peak oil on the evidence. It is in our nature.

[goslow]

we've seen changes in the past that are of a comparable scale to PO/climate change (black death or the colonisation of the Americas probably more so), and religions survived. But for sure, religious beliefs and practice have evolved over time. I wonder what might happen to the prosperity gospel idea (more popular in the US and Africa than the UK) if we enter a phase of shrinking economies?

[Ludwig]

There may be some correlation between peak oil awareness and a secular world view but all of us hold beliefs that are not evidence based, even if we think we have based our ideas about peak oil on the evidence. It is in our nature.

Good point. Have any of us been and studied the amount of oil actually coming out of the ground?

We have to believe something about the way the world is and so we make judgments on the validity of competing claims. If scientists weren't telling us otherwise, I think we would be believing that the sun goes round the earth - because that's what it looks like, and there'd be no reason to think otherwise.

Maybe it sounds perverse to say this, but at bottom we are taking what scientists tell us on trust.

[caspian]

I'm not sure that pragmatism would lead you to atheism if philosophy leads to agnosticism. How is it any more pragmatic to be atheist than agnostic? Agnosticism doesn't compel anyone to do anything.

No, it doesn't, but I tend to view agnosticism as weak-willed fence-sitting. If there is no objective evidence to support the existence of a deity or deities, why profess uncertainty about the question? My point was that there is as much evidence for God as there is for the Flying Spaghetti Monster, i.e. none. Ergo, it seems reasonable to me to say that there is no God. Otherwise, you'd have to profess agnosticism on all kinds of ridiculous notions.

[caspian]

Maybe it sounds perverse to say this, but at bottom we are taking what scientists tell us on trust.

To a certain extent, yes, we have to take many scientific matters on trust. There simply isn't enough time, even if one had the motivation, to learn anything but a tiny fraction about the world from first principles. But I don't think it comes down to "faith" as such, because in principle, one could investigate the truth of most scientific theories for oneself. That isn't true for non-scientific theories, such as whether God exists.

[Ludwig]

Maybe it sounds perverse to say this, but at bottom we are taking what scientists tell us on trust.

To a certain extent, yes, we have to take many scientific matters on trust. There simply isn't enough time, even if one had the motivation, to learn anything but a tiny fraction about the world from first principles. But I don't think it comes down to "faith" as such, because in principle, one could investigate the truth of most scientific theories for oneself. That isn't true for non-scientific theories, such as whether God exists.

You're right. The point I was making is that the same it isn't really possible to believe nothing, and the feeling of belief is probably similar for all of us, regardless of what it is we believe.

I think it may actually be possible to investigate supposedly non-scientific theories, via altered states of consciousness. Things can happen in these states that our current scientific model says are impossible. (Well actually it doesn't say that: just very improbable.) I don't have enough personal experience to have formed unequivocal conclusions about this, but enough to question the materialist view of reality.

[UndercoverElephant]

we've seen changes in the past that are of a comparable scale to PO/climate change (black death or the colonisation of the Americas probably more so), and religions survived. But for sure, religious beliefs and practice have evolved over time. I wonder what might happen to the prosperity gospel idea (more popular in the US and Africa than the UK) if we enter a phase of shrinking economies?

I'm not even sure the US will remain as a whole entity, but I can see the religious areas becoming even more extremist.

[UndercoverElephant]

I'm not sure that pragmatism would lead you to atheism if philosophy leads to agnosticism. How is it any more pragmatic to be atheist than agnostic? Agnosticism doesn't compel anyone to do anything.

No, it doesn't, but I tend to view agnosticism as weak-willed fence-sitting. If there is no objective evidence to support the existence of a deity or deities, why profess uncertainty about the question? My point was that there is as much evidence for God as there is for the Flying Spaghetti Monster, i.e. none. Ergo, it seems reasonable to me to say that there is no God. Otherwise, you'd have to profess agnosticism on all kinds of ridiculous notions.

I'm not sure the idea that God exists is quite as ridiculous as you think it is. Sure, there are some concepts of God which are either self-contradictory or have been ruled out by science, but if that is the God you are refering to then all you are doing is ignoring the educated, sophisticated wing of the opposition. It would be almost the same as creationists attacking a naive, uneducated version of evolution and then claiming it is silly to believe in evolution.

The fact that there is no scientific or objective evidence for the existence of God does not provide sufficient justification for hard atheism with respect to the sort of Gods defended by most philosophers and many theologians. It doesn't even rule out the possibility that some sort of personal, subjective justification may be possible.

Why should God be scientifically testable? If you could test for God, then it would mean God just reacts to human actions like a deterministic physical system does. If he (it) didn't react deterministically, then the test could not be scientific. But if it does react deterministically, then what you are testing for is not deserving of the name "God."

[UndercoverElephant]

Maybe it sounds perverse to say this, but at bottom we are taking what scientists tell us on trust.

To a certain extent, yes, we have to take many scientific matters on trust. There simply isn't enough time, even if one had the motivation, to learn anything but a tiny fraction about the world from first principles. But I don't think it comes down to "faith" as such, because in principle, one could investigate the truth of most scientific theories for oneself. That isn't true for non-scientific theories, such as whether God exists.

That depends what you mean by "investigate."

[Yves75]

God, reading this thread I feel like being back in the middle ages or something! I guess the gap between "analytical philosophy" and what is refered to as "continental one" is not a legend ...
But, Nietzsche is as much an artist as a philosopher, and Rimbaud is also a great thinker/philosopher.

For me a paradigm shift has already occured (even if it needs to be "relived" for everybody to be known maybe), this shift being best represented by (at around the same time), and in fact saying quite the same thing :
Rimbaud (one season in hell, the illuminations)
Nietzsche (la gaya scienza, Zarathoustra, beyond good and bad, almost all his books)
Lewis Caroll (Alice in wonderland, through the looking glass)

Maybe Mallarmé should be added

[UndercoverElephant]

God, reading this thread I feel like being back in the middle ages or something! I guess the gap between "analytical philosophy" and what is refered to as "continental one" is not a legend ...
But, Nietzsche is as much an artist as a philosopher, and Rimbaud is also a great thinker/philosopher.

For me a paradigm shift has already occured (even if it needs to be "relived" for everybody to be known maybe), this shift being best represented by (at around the same time), and in fact saying quite the same thing :
Rimbaud (one season in hell, the illuminations)
Nietzsche (la gaya scienza, Zarathoustra, beyond good and bad, almost all his books)
Lewis Caroll (Alice in wonderland, through the looking glass)

Maybe Mallarmé should be added

The paradigm shifts start with Kant. The greatest thinker who ever lived and most people have never even heard of him.

[RevdTess]

Very interesting thread. I'm probably with UndercoverElephant as far as I can tell from the brief exchanges so far.

I tend to get overly interested in the whole 'who/what caused the universe' question - and does causality have any meaning if time doesn't exist?

ie does talking about a 'cause' for spacetime make any sense?

Is it the same as asking 'what came before the big bang' when the whole idea of 'before' is dependent on the big bang?

Or is causality not dependent on spacetime (but rather spacetime is dependent on causality)? Is there any way to test?

Not sure if there's any value in looking at things in this way.

I've always found the intellectual approach to religion to be a very dry well. The larger part of the religious experience for me has been letting go of my need for intellectual satisfaction in order to be able to engage more emotionally (lovingly) with the world. I feel most content when I accept that I don't know, and yet choose to have faith in a creator.

I have sympathies with the Dawkinsian position that truth is truth, regardless of what might make us happy or sad or cold or indifferent. I guess in the choice between being happy or being right, they prefer to be right.

But the thing is, if they're correct, it doesn't matter if I choose to ignore it in favour of a crazy emotional world of irrational faith where I feel like I'm loved, where I'm most content, and where I can most easily be myself.

I went all hardcore atheist a few months back but discovered I prefer hanging out with vicars rather than humanists. Go figure. I'm doing the 'alpha' course now.

[madibe]

I prefer hanging out with vicars rather than humanists. Go figure. I'm doing the 'alpha' course now.

Plain speaking: Tess, it will feck with your head.

[Ludwig]

I went all hardcore atheist a few months back but discovered I prefer hanging out with vicars rather than humanists. Go figure. I'm doing the 'alpha' course now.

The poet-vicar RS Thomas had very sophisticated theological views. He wasn't sure he believed in "Heaven" as a literal afterlife and certainly didn't believe God was a man with a beard. He had many doubts. But for him, it was all part of the challenge of the path he had chosen. He said that in his sermons, he presented things in very black-and-white terms, not because he believed things were like that, but because it was his job to teach what the Church said he should, and because most of his congregation simply weren't sophisticated enough to profit from knowing the subtlety of his real thoughts.