However, intelligent beings do not automatically understand their relationship to the rest of the universe. Instead, they conceptualize that relationship in ways that serve to rationalize their own immediate perceptions and motivations. Thus, spiritualists project a universe in which neither energy nor entropy but discarnate consciousness is ontologically primary but has somehow become entangled in material bodies. People to this day live and act on the basis of diametrically opposed conceptions of reality. When alleged evidence of survival, reincarnation etc is presented, my response is always: "More research needed." Human minds have an amazing ability to interpret their experiences differently and we are under no obligation to rush to judgement. Maybe there will be more agreement in understanding when society is less divided?
(Currently too busy to reread so just reflecting on past reading, including recent reading of arguments for a hereafter which is something that does appear in Anderson's fiction but only as a premise for works of fantasy.)
13 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
That mantra, "More research is needed," is fine as far as it goes. But it becomes increasingly unconvincing when applied to certain types of events, such as the cures recorded at Lourdes or the possible miracle attributed to St. Charbel's intercession. Then it starts looking looking like a refusal to accept the simplest explanation, divine intervention.
I fail to see how a man dying of bone cancer or a woman dying of ALS, both instantaneously cured when placed in the waters at Lourdes, can convincingly be said to have occurred by natural means.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
But divine intervention is not the simplest explanation for people who do not believe in God or who even believe that the concept of monotheism is logically incoherent.
Faith healing can work. I saw a book with before and after photographs of a man's legs with a horrific skin condition that looked like fish scales. A hypnotist who believed that the condition was psychosomatic cured the man by hypnosis alone even though the condition really had an organic cause.
I do not claim that the Lourdes cures occurred by natural means, just that we do not know the means. There is a lot that we do not know and we are not obliged to present an instant explanation for everything.
A Philosophy lecturer told me that an animal injected with Lourdes water did not die whereas an animal injected with chemically similar water from somewhere else did die, suggesting that there might be something in the water. I do not really believe that but it might be a clue and shows that observations and measurements should continue to be made, however long it takes. Would a shrine where large numbers of people believed that Kali or Venus was responsible for cures generate a comparable number of inexplicable cures?
God could, presumably, cure everyone instantly or not allow disease to exist in the first place. Some religious believers suggest that skeptics are morally in the wrong for not believing on the strength of the few recorded cures alone but there are many other perfectly reasonable factors preventing belief. If God really is doing all this after all, then He knows that, given the "evidence" provided, many skeptics will in perfect honesty continue not to accept Christian belief but will also continue to enquire. That is where we are at now.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
Then I can only hope for this much: that cases such as those recorded at Lourdes makes people who think as you do at least uncertain. Also, there are other philosophers who don't agree that arguments for the existence of God are incoherent. Meaning philosophy alone cannot resolve this question.
What is called faith healing can work, at least sometimes. Without any wish to minimize the case of the gentleman with the skin disease I think I can say that was not a fatal disease, unlike the two cases I mentioned above. And many other such cases.
I do not agree with that philosophy lecturer. Because the cures recorded at Lourdes was not because of the water per se but because of the power of
God working thru that water by the intercession of the BVM.
But we have never had any solidly recorded and studied reports of cures at temples of pagan gods. Because such shrines were/are founded on erroneous beliefs.
Your last paragraph touches on points we have discussed before, that you disagree with, the Fall of the human race. The ailments and diseases mankind suffers from is one of the consequences of that Fall. Nor do I agree skeptics are "morally" in the wrong unless they did come to believe but refused to act on that new belief.
Not a few cases of cures. Lourdes alone has had many cases of possible cures. The 72 cures accepted as miraculous by the Church were those the Lourdes medical board which investigates them agreed by a two thirds majority had no known natural causes.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
Of course philosophers disagree. Each argument has to be considered on its merits, not on the basis of how many philosophers agree with it. The medical board has a two thirds majority so there can be disagreement there.
The power of God and the intercession of the BVM are precisely the points at issue.
Diseases consequences of the Fall? An unscientific diagnosis.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
Rival philosophers can only propose arguments and possible solutions which will often be disagreed with.
If two thirds or more out of 21 (which seems to be the standard number) agrees a case like that of the woman cured of ALS has no known natural cause, that is good enough for me (and the Church).
And I believe that is what happens at Lourdes, God using His power at the intercession of the BVM.
Yes, consequences of the Fall. Again, we will have to agree to disagree.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
Two thirds or more out 21 is good enough for me to accept that there is no known natural cause. I would also be interested to hear the minority opinions, if there are any.
It always feels as if we are embattled here instead of just discussing an issue.
Philosophers do not merely propose arguments of comparable credibility or incredibility ad infinitum. They gradually clarify conceptual issues. There is an increasing appreciation of the depth of the mystery of the mind-body relationship. No one who knows the subject suggests simplistic solutions any more.
Yes, you believe it.
Would any new findings about human evolution, pre-history or anthropology count as evidence against the Fall or is the Fall doctrine theoretically unfalsifiable? I think that patriarchal monogamy was imposed to ensure that male heirs inherited accumulated property in herds and slaves and thus that matrimony was not instituted by God in the days of men's innocence.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
By all means, write to the Bishop of Lourdes re access to to those case reports.
But "debate" is also a legitimate form of discussion. I'm reminded of complaints I've seen of how the peer reviewing of scientific papers has been taken too far, being used to suppress work critical of the dominant "consensus."
My point was only that philosophy alone cannot definitely the ultimate questions. That does not contradict what you said about the mystery of the mind/body problem.
What new findings? If anything, the new findings Stirling has discussed here, both archeological and in genetic analyses, supports my views, not yours. He mentioned how archeological evidence of battles thousands of years ago, before any kind of record keeping, involving many thousands of warriors, were found. And analysis of DNA evidence has shown many instances of nearly total population turnover by genocidal invaders.
One book I've read, FOSSIL MEN, by Kermit Pattison (William Morrow/Harper Collins: 2020), discusses how the paleontologists discussed there found evidence from as long as 2 million years ago that hominins/humans were just as prone to violence and as they are today. Including evidence being found of cannibalism. What I summarized in these two paragraphs sure looks like Fallen behavior.
I think it's time to let go of obsolete, too simplistic 19th century speculations.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
You don't get it. If the evidence shows that the earliest human beings were violent towards each other, then it shows that they did not start out in a Paradisal state from which they Fell. This feels not like a debate but like a continual reaffirmation of a dogma.
Paul.
Who is pushing obsolete simplistic speculations?
My point is that any full public report of findings should include a summary of minority views and they probably do, in which case anyone who is citing the findings for polemical purposes should acknowledge the minority views as well. We should all be discussing the full picture, not promoting apologetic agendas.
We have developed higher motivations but our most common motivations are animal self-preservation and species-propagation with mental complications. We identify with a self-image, a belief, a tribe etc. This is continued animality, not a Fall from Paradise. Where is the evidence for the Paradise?
Expulsion from a Garden (as opposed to early life in an uncultivated wilderness) was a mythical "origin story" which was incorporated into a scripture and thus became a doctrine. The simplest explanation of human origins is that we inherited some basic motivations directly from animal ancestors without any Paradisal interlude.
Kaor, Paul!
Then we cannot agree. I'm going to continue to believe that long ago, even millions of years ago, the first man with an infused soul faced a test, and failed it. The consequences of that Fall includes human violence.
There are many books about Lourdes. So I am sure the best of them discusses both the majority and minority views of those case reports.
Ad astra! Sean
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