Slavof Zizek: God In Pain

[Amppax]

Sorry Era, I'm really having a hard time understanding what exactly you mean when you use the term reason. In honestly struggling with seeing how you consider what you describe to be reason.

[Era Might]

You call it a scholastic formulation, but it goes back so much further. Justin Martyr, Origen... I could keep listing Church Father's. How about St. Paul? Roman's 1-2, Acts 15 both illustrate the idea that belief isn't some fideistic keep of faith.

 

Yes, reasoning has always been part of the story, but that requires different conceptions of "reasoning." For example, "reasoning from the scriptures" is a theological exercise that does not mean, for example, questioning the scriptures themselves, but accepting their authority and from that assumption reasoning. Reason, in its strictest sense, has no authority except the process itself.

 

In "Humani Generis" for example, Pope Pius XII specifically rules out polygenism:

 

When, however, there is question of another conjectural opinion, namely polygenism, the children of the Church by no means enjoy such liberty. For the faithful cannot embrace that opinion which maintains that either after Adam there existed on this earth true men who did not take their origin through natural generation from him as from the first parent of all, or that Adam represents a certain number of first parents. Now it is in no way apparent how such an opinion can be reconciled with that which the sources of revealed truth and the documents of the Teaching Authority of the Church propose with regard to original sin, which proceeds from a sin actually committed by an individual Adam and which, through generation, is passed on to all and is in everyone as his own.

 

 

Any Catholic approach to evolution is going to "reason" around the assumption that there were first parents, etc. Reasoning of a scientific/technical/modern sort questions everything, puts everything to test, and judges nothing except the process.

 

Catholic "reasoning" can only go so far. And I'm not even against that, entirely, because I don't think we exist for method or technique. But ultimately, in order to reason as a believer, one has to either only "reason" within the set limits, or else accept that belief, in the Christian sense, is an abandonment to divinity, not a rational process.

[veritasluxmea]

Sorry Era, I'm really having a hard time understanding what exactly you mean when you use the term reason. In honestly struggling with seeing how you consider what you describe to be reason.

I'm confused too. Maybe this is about reasoning =/= logic? I always assumed reasoning to mean doing logic, but maybe Era means something else? 

Edited January 24, 2015 by veritasluxmea

[Era Might]

I'm confused too. Maybe this is about reasoning =/= logic? I always assumed reasoning to mean doing logic, but maybe Era means something else? 

 

What do you mean by logic? I admit I have no mind for logic, and the extent of my experience with it was the logic class I took in college in place of a math class. It was interesting and I'm sure has lots of intellectual value, but for me personally, would have absolutely nothing to do with whether I believe or don't believe.

[veritasluxmea]

If you're being serious, there, we've gotten to the "main issue" here and I'll deal with it later. If not, that's one of the best trolls I have ever seen on the internet, period. and I've been to a lot of places the internet. Hat off to you sir. 

Edited January 24, 2015 by veritasluxmea

[Era Might]

If you're being serious, there, we've gotten to the "main issue" here and I'll deal with it later. If not, that's one of the best trolls I have ever seen on the internet, period. and I've been to a lot of places the internet. Hat off to you sir. 

 

lol. I've been on Phatmass for more than 10 years. If I'm a troll then I deserve a reward.

[veritasluxmea]

Ok then.

 

Sorry I'm a newb, I'm not that familiar with you. 

[veritasluxmea]

I'm just going to lay this out here. This is the best I can offer at the moment. 

 

Basically, if you've ever asked yourself if something is true- anything from Does God Exist? to Does my cat like to eat fish?- and decided yes, no, or I don't know, you've used logic (reasoning). It's more than just a discipline or mathematical exercise or feeding your cat fish to see if she enjoys it (oh, see, she purred and pawed me for more- these are signs of her liking it, therefore she likes it!). Logic is the little voice running in your head trying to figure out if something is true or not. Of course I use it to decide what I believe- I want to believe what is true and reject what is false, therefore I use logic. 

 

In its bare form, logic can be pretty mathematical with stuff like K then Q, K, therefore Q. Technically that's true, and that's what's happening when you're thinking, but no one is going to recognize that until they recognize how they are already using logic in their daily life. Let's say I tell you your friend is in England. Then someone come up and asks, "Oh, is your friend in China?" No, you say, she's in England. How do you know that? 

 

Because you know the truth:

If she in in England, she is not in China. (geography fact which you have good reason to believe is true, England and China are two separate places and you know you can't be both places at once and you have good reason to assume this is true for every other human!)

She is in England. (I just told you that)

Therefore, you know she is not in China. 

 

(Mathematically put, it would be 

If K than not P

K 

Therefore not P but that's boring) 

 

That is logic. Of course you use logic to figure things out. I soon as I told you she was in England you knew she wasn't in China... Not because you've experienced this truth, not because you've memorized every geography fact, but because you knew if point A and B are different, she can't be in both at once. (And you know both places are separate.) That is how you know it is true she is in England, not China. Unless I told you...

 

Turns out in the town we live in "England" and "China" are the same names for one place, a club down the street. Well, you know that it is possible for one one place to have two different names. When I told you she was in England, you assumed I meant the country, but I didn't! I meant the club in our town! When the person asked if your friend was in China, she meant the club as well, not the country! 

 

So now we know the truth: 

If she is in England, she is also in China (They're the same place.)

She is in England (the club)

Therefore she is in China (the club)

 

"Yes," you tell your friend. "She's in China." How do you know that? "They're the same place." Both of you subconsciously reason the truth here- you both know she is in China, in England. They're one and the same, you now know. 

 

Logic is just spelling out in words the reasoning process. Unfortunately most people are not quite aware of how they figure out if something is true or not. They just kind of intuitively do it.

 

When you thought the club referred to the two countries, you knew she, your friend, was only in England. If you friend had pressed why, you might have said, "Because Veritas told me she was in England." So? they other person might say. "Don't be silly," you would say, "you can only be in one place at one time- she is in England right now, and can't be in China." (Ah yes, logic here.) No, your friend insists, she really *is* in both places at the same time. "This person is being ridiculous," you think (hopefully not say!) "This person believes you can be in two places at once. They must have no experience with reality." That person has a flawed start- you can not reason truth from a lie. Of course, you now know that there was a truth you did not realize at the moment- England and China are the same place, a club. So fortunately that person was not deluded by a lie. And once you knew that truth, you were able to figure out that yes, your friend is in England and China. And you all went clubbing, happy end to the story. 

 

In the end, logic is the question of what is true, and how do you know it is true? Everyone uses it, whether they know it or not. 

 

 

One thing you should note about this definition is that logic is concerned with the principles of correct reasoning. Studying the correct principles of reasoning is not the same as studying the psychology of reasoning. Logic is the former discipline, and it tells us how we ought to reason if we want to reason correctly. Whether people actually follow these rules of correct reasoning is an empirical matter, something that is not the concern of logic.

The psychology of reasoning, on the other hand, is an empirical science. It tells us about the actual reasoning habits of people, including their mistakes. A psychologist studying reasoning might be interested in how people's ability to reason varies with age. But such empirical facts are of no concern to the logician.

http://philosophy.hku.hk/think/logic/whatislogic.php

 

This website below is pretty fun, very, very informative, and very user-friendly and not at all complicated. I'd highly recommend checking it out.

https://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/

Edited January 25, 2015 by veritasluxmea

[Ark]

Peace be with you Era Might,

 

Zizek is an atheist but known for taking Christianity seriously, the video is worth a watch. I think he hits the nail on the head with his basic argument that faith in the modern world can only exist because people do not really believe, do not take Christianity seriously. To really believe in Christianity, as a cosmic story where God sends a victim to accomplish some sort of violent redemption, where angels come and go acting invisibly in the world, where saints wield miraculous powers in a mysterious zone only accessible by faith, etc. To really take all this seriously requires some kind of distance with reality, mental gymnastics and mystical leaps that keep these beliefs from really guiding life (as it did, for example, in the middle ages).

 

I didn't watch the video as it's far too long however it is rather presumptuous for one man to declare something impossible based on his personal perspective. Ironically that undermines the modern notion of relativism as we all have our own perspectives and can't live though eachother's eyes.

 

With that said I can understand how he would find faith impossible, being that he is a philosophical materialist and modernist, and is intrinsically against a supernatural understanding of the world. But I think what he may be trying to grasp at is the paradigm shift that occurs when a person evolves from a modernist mindset to a traditional one. There is a process of un-conditioning the decades of programming society has put us through, and in these early stages a person encounters many points of contradiction between worldviews. Unfortunately his pride fools him into believing no progress can be made.

 

 

[Era Might]

Peace be with you Era Might,

 

 

I didn't watch the video as it's far too long however it is rather presumptuous for one man to declare something impossible based on his personal perspective. Ironically that undermines the modern notion of relativism as we all have our own perspectives and can't live though eachother's eyes.

 

With that said I can understand how he would find faith impossible, being that he is a philosophical materialist and modernist, and is intrinsically against a supernatural understanding of the world. But I think what he may be trying to grasp at is the paradigm shift that occurs when a person evolves from a modernist mindset to a traditional one. There is a process of un-conditioning the decades of programming society has put us through, and in these early stages a person encounters many points of contradiction between worldviews. Unfortunately his pride fools him into believing no progress can be made.

 

I don't think anyone "evolves from a modernist mindset to a traditional one." You can't undo changes in how the world is shaped. A person today has no idea what it's like to live in a world where there is no electricity, or no inhuman speed, or no alphabet, or no centralized state, or (in a religious context) no real institutional structure.

 

And all of these things, in different ways, shape "faith" in the modern world. When you live in a world where flipping a switch makes light appear, it has profound implications on our existence in the world. It's no coincidence that in more "traditional" societies where modernity has not entirely taken over, superstition, magic, etc. are still real parts of the culture (e.g., shamans, legends, stories about what lives in the woods, etc.). Once electricity appears, suddenly the mystery of traditional culture (and religion) is extinguished, like the candles that made it possible.

[Ark]

Peace be with you Era Might,

 

I don't think anyone "evolves from a modernist mindset to a traditional one." You can't undo changes in how the world is shaped. A person today has no idea what it's like to live in a world where there is no electricity, or no inhuman speed, or no alphabet, or no centralized state, or (in a religious context) no real institutional structure.

 

And all of these things, in different ways, shape "faith" in the modern world. When you live in a world where flipping a switch makes light appear, it has profound implications on our existence in the world. It's no coincidence that in more "traditional" societies where modernity has not entirely taken over, superstition, magic, etc. are still real parts of the culture (e.g., shamans, legends, stories about what lives in the woods, etc.). Once electricity appears, suddenly the mystery of traditional culture (and religion) is extinguished, like the candles that made it possible.

 

Let me first emphasize that I'm referring to mindsets and not technology. Mindsets are plastic, as they can be molded, developed, and then conditioned into a person. It's a modernist mindset that identifies the mind with the brain, the individual as supreme, pragmatism as holding the only value, and reducing intellect to reason. The Traditional worldview on the other hand is one that recognizes the supra-human element in life and seeks to conform to it. From this single principle stem all the others, and anyone who is transitioning from a modernist worldview to a traditional one knows that this is a process. It takes a lot of time because the two views are mutually exclusive and one can not possess both simultaneously. 

[veritasluxmea]

Peace be with you Era Might,

 

 

I didn't watch the video as it's far too long however it is rather presumptuous for one man to declare something impossible based on his personal perspective. Ironically that undermines the modern notion of relativism as we all have our own perspectives and can't live though eachother's eyes.

 

With that said I can understand how he would find faith impossible, being that he is a philosophical materialist and modernist, and is intrinsically against a supernatural understanding of the world. But I think what he may be trying to grasp at is the paradigm shift that occurs when a person evolves from a modernist mindset to a traditional one. There is a process of un-conditioning the decades of programming society has put us through, and in these early stages a person encounters many points of contradiction between worldviews. Unfortunately his pride fools him into believing no progress can be made.

Again, this seems to be going from the basis that religion=fills gaps for unknown, and is dropped as soon as we learn more about the world or progress in scientific understanding. Which is partly false. I think a lot of "natural" based religions, like Native American shaman stuff and African tribal religions are somewhat used this way. Or it is just a form of cultural expression and is dropped as soon as culture changes and modernizes, like the ancient Greek and Roman religions. Catholicism is different in that it actually makes real-life truth claims (the Resurrection and transubstantiation are real events while anyone could walk to the top of Mount Olympus and see there's no one living there- well, better keep people away from the mountain and just live it as a religious myth), and while Catholicism is expressed culturally it's not culturally based. 

[Ark]

Peace be with you,

 

Again, this seems to be going from the basis that religion=fills gaps for unknown, and is dropped as soon as we learn more about the world or progress in scientific understanding. Which is partly false. I think a lot of "natural" based religions, like Native American shaman stuff and African tribal religions are somewhat used this way. Or it is just a form of cultural expression and is dropped as soon as culture changes and modernizes, like the ancient Greek and Roman religions. Catholicism is different in that it actually makes real-life truth claims (the Resurrection and transubstantiation are real events while anyone could walk to the top of Mount Olympus and see there's no one living there- well, better keep people away from the mountain and just live it as a religious myth), and while Catholicism is expressed culturally it's not culturally based. 

 

Not sure where religion filling in the gaps of the unknown comes from, if I came across as making such a point it was not intended. What I meant about modernist opinions being opposed to a supernatural view is that they are literally mutually exclusive. You can't reduce everything to matter and physical laws and still entertain the idea of the supra-natural. This is a way of thinking that was introduced by Newton and others who held a mechanistic view of the universe with God as watch-maker, but this is not the traditional Catholic view, nor the view of any traditional path or spirituality. 

[Oremus Pro Invicem]

This conversation makes me want type up an entire chapter from Fulton Sheen's book Old Errors and New Labels called The Lyricism of Science. Maybe I'll do it tomorrow regardless of knowing I'll be hit with "TL;DR"

[Amppax]

This conversation makes me want type up an entire chapter from Fulton Sheen's book Old Errors and New Labels called The Lyricism of Science. Maybe I'll do it tomorrow regardless of knowing I'll be hit with "TL;DR"