State your religion

[hyena]

There is no thing both empirical and sujective. Empirical is that which is open to be percieved by any similiar cognitive process, subjective is that which pertains to only one, specific such process as it pertains to it.

Lies, lies, them filthy lies!

Seriously now, have you ever heard of Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky? The former got the Nobel Prize in Economics in 2003, and the latter was his mentor (now dead). Kahneman started off as a physician, before expanding to philosophy and eventually getting also interested in economics. All his nobel-winning work hinges exactly on this idea of empirical subjectivity that we are discussing here, eventhough he called it differently.

His most famous scientific papers as a physician concerned the reaction of the optical nerve to variations in context: he actually proved that if you look at the same white square surrounded by, say, first a light yellow frame and then a black frame, the white square looks different eventhough it is the same, in the sense that it produces different measurable physical impressions on optic nerve and retina. This idea then made headway in the behavioral sciences; Kahneman's main idea in economics, ie people make economic decisions based on loss aversion rather than total utility, is also derived from the idea that the context is entirely relevant in determining the empirics of behavior.

Sorry for the long digression, but this is stuff I have worked with to great enjoyment - the idea that empirical subjectivity is nonexistent is just wrong and reflect an old idea of "real = constant" that applies at the macro level (the white square will always be perceived based on light frequencies that hover around white, never as purple, no matter what you frame it with), but is not exhaustively explanatory at the micro level.

 

[Taliesin]

You're still mixing two things there. The impression may be different, even the chemical reaction on the retina may be, but the wave length of the white square will always be the same, no? Basically, this teaches us nothing new: The human senses reproduce reality and make it a subjective impression, the apparatus that measures the square's wavelength will give you an empirical, objective answer.

 

[rahvin]

The human senses reproduce reality and make it a subjective impression, the apparatus that measures the square's wavelength will give you an empirical, objective answer.

If you contend [let it be known that I don't] that the apparatus can also only be interpreted by human senses, the answer is as objective as any other reproduction of reality. It's fairly easy to make the world seem surreal and subjective if one is determined to do so. The strongest argument to oppose such attempts, I believe, is: they serve no purpose. The codes and rules for human interpretation won't change dramatically if this life is just the dream of a beautiful butterfly, in this life's logic. So for all purposes they're to be considered objective and truthful, is what I'm saying.

 

[hyena]

Furthermore, God's direct intervention in worldly business clashes against the laws of physics, nature, common sense, and possibly even Ghana.

Yes, the keyword here would be "direct". I am not very well-versed in matters of supernatural events taking place on Earth, merely because I find there is too much sentimentality and superstitions hinging around those, but I found CS Lewis' "Miracles", an essay exactly on the point you are making (except for Ghana), pretty interesting. And while I am still not particularly concerned about miracles per se, I am wondering day in and day out about indirect intervention.

Of course, here I am overlooking the #1 direct intervention claimed by Christianity, ie the existence of Jesus, but I feel it would require a separate discussion.

 

[hyena]

You're still mixing two things there. The impression may be different, even the chemical reaction on the retina may be, but the wave length of the white square will always be the same, no? Basically, this teaches us nothing new: The human senses reproduce reality and make it a subjective impression, the apparatus that measures the square's wavelength will give you an empirical, objective answer.

Well, note that i was neither advocating complete subjectivity (Scientologists are still wrong) nor saying that you cannot measure wavelenghts independent of the human eye. I was just trying to show that the empiric, in the sense of the experienced through material senses, is not entirely devoid of subjective elements, even from the "cold" medical standpoint. If you are talking about human experience of the world through senses, "empirical subjectivity" is neither a paradox nor an absurdity.

 

[afz902k]

Why would a god just sit in his ass while he watches his own universe go in autopilot? What's the sense in it?

Maybe he just doesn't have the power to stop it anymore, as if you dropped a snowball down a (never-ending) snowy hill and you could only stare at it as it gets bigger and bigger on the way down.

 

[Dark_Silence]

When I was around 10 my parents left the Christian church (they never
went and decided not to bother paying tax to the fuckers)

What, you have to pay taxes for church?
There is no such thing in Belgium...

 

[QRV]

There is no thing both empirical and sujective. Empirical is that which is open to be percieved by any similiar cognitive process, subjective is that which pertains to only one, specific such process as it pertains to it. So while one epxerience will have both subjective and empirical elements, what is empirical about it is not subjective about it and vice versa.

And in my account (as little as there is of it), there is room for the religious in the domain of psychology. The very point here is that those religious psychological events require no extra-psychological cause that is again, itself religious. When I believe in the god, who loves me, my feeling loved is caused by my believe and not by the god. If materialistic reductionism is true, I can talk about the biological correlates of those psychological states and still have no problem. If determinism is true, those states are determined effects of the laws of nature plus the original starting state of the universe. It really doesn't matter, since the only things causally active are not "beyond" or mythical or religious in any way.

We call "empiricism" to any philosophical system based on the facts of experience. Now, how can you affirm that experience is not subjective at its core? I think it's been more than demonstrated that objectivity cannot exist in a pure state. Subjectivity and objectivity are not to be seen as separate constructs, but as a differenciation between two parts of one single thing. In any case, religious experience is not only felt by one single individual, but similar experiences can be felt collectively, and that makes the whole thing empirical. Scientific empirical methods cannot be applied here, however, because we're dealing with spirituality and not with a happening in the concrete world. But it doesn't mean it should be discarded just like that.

Again, the limitations of psychology here are evident, but they might point towards something else. Everything in this world is related and cannot be reduced to a single area or method of study, because in the first place we wouldn't be dealing with pure reason. Trying to explore the religious through reason and scientific method is completely futile, because religious experience trascends those boundaries and should be explored in a different manner. Then again, causality might not be the only active principle in this world. We're too constricted by conventions.

 

[t.a.j.]

To clarify my notion of "empirical" in my above two postings:
What is empirical about a perception or experience are those parts of it, which, if two distinct cognitive systems of similiar type (e.g. human) percieved the same phenomenon, would be the same (not strictly identical, but of the same type) in both perception events.
So imagine there is a cat moving between two pillars, from one to the other, being percieved by two cognitive systems, placed symetrically on either side of a line going through both pillars, so that both see each other in the exact middle of the two pillars. Now what is empirical about both experiences is what is the same about them: cat moving between two pillars. What is not empirical would be stuff like the identification of one pillar as the left and one as the right and the cat moving from left to right, nor things like one observers sense of joy when seeing a cat and one observers sense of dread.

This connects to objectivity and subjectivity in such a way that one would suppose that what is empirical can only be caused by ontologically objective entities, while it might be the case (leaving out reductionist theories of mind, that eliminate true subjectives) that some entities with subjective ontology (that exist only because there is some subject "having" them, typically emotions or hallucinations) are caused by other such entities. They could also, and (if the exist in such a way) often are caused by objective entities.

I hope that clears things up a bit. I am aware that I am not using "empirical" in the classic sense of "by experience" and that that has caused some trouble.

Sorry for the long digression, but this is stuff I have worked with to great enjoyment - the idea that empirical subjectivity is nonexistent is just wrong and reflect an old idea of "real = constant" that applies at the macro level (the white square will always be perceived based on light frequencies that hover around white, never as purple, no matter what you frame it with), but is not exhaustively explanatory at the micro level.

Well, if I see a white square surrounded by a black square as purple, and any other cognitive system of simliar type does so too, that does nothing to my account of empirical vs. subjective. Of course we do not percieve merely objects, but always objects in context and that context is highly relevant to what we percieve, but my account does not say that we should percieve one object in identical ways in different contexts.

 

[:.::zamijackyl]

What, you have to pay taxes for church?
There is no such thing in Belgium...

In Finland a member of the Christian church pays a tax from 1 to 2,25 percents (the average being 1,33) of their income to their congregation. It's added in the normal tax bill.

The tax is used to protect the position of the church in society. Many have questioned the tax and think that the church is only pursuing propaganda.

/translating poorly from wikipedia