Sarbajit,
I think I believe that everybody HAS a philosophical system. The variables
are how explicit it is and whether the holder of the system is capable of
engaging in analysis and critique.
If somebody says they don't have a philosophical position, it generally
means that they have one and they don't want to talk about it. A
non-philosophical person is just a person who is rigid in his philosophy.
As to religion, can I be religious if God plays no part in my thought or
discourse, either as an assertion or a denial? Here I am prone to
confusion
because I may confuse religion with metaphysics. I definitely believe that
there are principles operating in the universe that are not in my immediate
experience yet can be called upon to explain my experience. I would be
hard
pressed to say what those principles ARE, but I am pretty sure they are
back
there somewhere. Some of them are the kind of things that physicists
know,
but I don't. But not all. One of them might be The World is an OK Place,
and that, if we keep tinkering and poking at it, things will get better.
Another is the idea that, on average, thinking about stuff is better than
not thinking about it. A third is the idea that Things Have Causes. These
are all certainly elements of metaphysics, but are they religion?
Nick
I think that this way of being
-----Original Message-----
From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On
Behalf
Of Sarbajit Roy
Sent: Monday, September 17, 2012 10:42 AM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] just faith
Well atheism would only convey a negation of belief (in God) to me. My
religious model has no problem accommodating atheists, and contrawise I
have
no problem with an atheist's belief model built around no-God (or Gods or
gods or GOD ...). As long as it functions its irrelevant whether a car (or
religion) runs on gasoline or horse-manure or hot air.
My religion (loosely called "Adi Dharm") originally reduced the 330 million
"gods" of Hinduism down to one ("Brahma" the absolute reality). Having done
that very successfully we were forced to go underground in the previous
century, and a not insignificant portion of our adherents became "godless"
Communists. Today we don't have a conception of a God as a father / creator
figure. Instead we conceive God as "the" principle which regulates
existence/ the uinivers/ multiverse/ parallel worlds or whatever. Deus is
the "mechanism behind the clock" and not the "clock maker". The issue is
whether atheists also acknowledge that there is a principle (or law . or
set
of laws) which govern "their" universe.
I agree with Eric, newer generations are not interested in philosophical
systems any more or artificial religious categories.
There are too many other things going on in their lives.
On 9/17/12, Nicholas Thompson < <mailto:[email protected]>
[email protected]> wrote:
Sarbajit,
Given your range of experiences with the religious, I am curious for
your reflections on atheism as a religion. When push comes to shove,
are we atheists any the less religious, in the very broadest senses of
that term?
In what ways?
Nick
-----Original Message-----
From: <mailto:[email protected]> [email protected]
<mailto:[mailto:[email protected]]>
[mailto:[email protected]] On
Behalf Of Sarbajit Roy
Sent: Monday, September 17, 2012 8:51 AM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] just faith
Platinga's view is fairly well aligned with the beliefs of my own
faith even though our "God" may be different. We all develop our own
models of reality, apparently the trick is to ensure that these models
are robust enough accommodate everybody else's gremlins, devils,
zombies, or maulvis and still continue to function.
I probably know more Muslim's personally then half the members on this
list.
My neighbour is a Muslim and I also employ Muslims. India is a secular
country whose 13% Muslim population is free to migrate anywhere in the
world
which will take them in - not many do. India's Muslims when asked (by
foreigners such as the BBC or the NYT) usually volunteer they consider
themselves to be better off in India vis-a-vis their brethren in Muslim
countries like Pakistan or Iran (notwithstanding the occasional bouts of
communal frenzy which develop over pigs feet or beef entrails being
thrown
by the butchers of each community).
India was ruled for over 200 years by Muslims as was China (Yuan
dynasty).
America probably needs to experience Muslim rule for some time to develop
a
sustainable and robust reality model. The "Dune" SF series was heavily
influenced by Islamic models.
OT: Interestingly, "Islamic science fiction" is an emergent discipline in
the Arabic world to attract younger followers to the world of the Taliban
and Al Qaeda.
Sarbajit
On 9/17/12, Roger Critchlow < < <mailto:[email protected]> mailto:[email protected]>
<mailto:[email protected]> [email protected]> wrote:
Reading
<
<http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2012/sep/27/philosopher-defen>
http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2012/sep/27/philosopher-defen>
<http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2012/sep/27/philosopher-defen>
http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2012/sep/27/philosopher-defen
ds-religion/
was
a rather odd experience this week, mixed in with Sam Bacile, the
Salafists, the zombies, and whatever.
The review is by a non-believer (Thomas Nagel) who finds the book,
written by a believer (Alvin Plantinga), very interesting, even though
he doesn't believe it. Plantinga's day job is analytic philosophy, so
he gets very precisely into what he thinks it is that his faith and
his beliefs do for him. Finally, the main argument is sort a grand
slam of creationism: we wouldn't be able to correctly figure out how
the world works if the deity, more specifically the deity that Plantinga
believes in, wasn't helping us
along the way. Why would natural selection by itself care anything
about
the truth?
As the reviewer says: "The interest of this book, especially for
secular readers, is its presentation from the inside of the point of
view of a philosophically subtle and scientifically informed theist-an
outlook with which many of them will not be familiar."
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