Tjol, I feel we are all over the map on this issue, talking around each other, and likely misunderstanding each other. That’s okay; it’s often the case between people of divergent world-views. And it’s especially understandable when we’re talking about something so fundamental as the nature of reality. The words themselves speak of universals—though our particular interpretations turn them into things specific to each of us.
By “relativism,” I mean several different things. On one hand, it’s a view of morality; namely, that there aren’t absolute, logically necessary nor intrinsically essential features of reality that can be called “good and evil.” There are no universal standards of good or bad. We choose that stuff ourselves, or have someone choose it for us (which still technically requires our choice, though not our authenticity).
There's another sense in which "relativism," means "there can exist no objective knowledge outside of the knower." This is only partially true. Certainly, there is knowledge of ontological structures of our being—those features of our being which are necessary constituent structures, structures without which we couldn’t exist (space and time, for instance). And there is the specfic ontic fact of our being in the world, which is known through living a specific life. However, knowledge of the physical properties of the universe is something we participate in “creating” by our act of observation, from the standpoint of either collapsing quantum proxy waves of possible states of actuality, to the standpoint of taking measurements of celestial objects from a particular reference frame. Quantum theory and relativity, respectively. Science began giving up a concept of an absolute solution over 100 years ago.
So perhaps this also explains our differing views of “science.” Science is looking for the Grand Unification Theory—but that’s not an absolute answer. It still wouldn’t give absolute, objective, certain knowledge of the world because intrinsic uncertainty and relativity will be necessary parts of that GUT. It will not, for instance, allow us to calculate the motions of every particle in the universe, past and future, even though it will (potentially) explain every phenomenon in the universe.
The curiosity into divinity in general, I guess what would be called 'magic' to an atheist, is enough, wherever you start from, so long as you don't stop at the first answer in my opinion.
Well, “divinity” is a tricky term. I believe an atheist can use it in a sense close to how Einstein used the word “religious.” Or how he used the word “god.” For him, it was metaphorical of the transcendent wonder aroused by deep knowledge of the world . In his famous quote, “God doesn’t play dice with the universe,” he didn’t mean a literal god any more than he meant literal dice. The entire image of a dice-throwing God was a metaphor which meant roughly, “Randomness does not lie at the heart of all things.”
I think divinity can be used in the same way. The curiosity into “divinity” doesn’t have to lead one away from world into the supernatural, especially when it’s not the supernatural which arouses it in the first place. The supernatural can’t be observed. What we
observe, is what arouses the curiosity. The beauty and complexity of the world. This can include how a woman’s eyes remind you of a fond memory--that’s not supernatural. Letting one’s imagination fly away from this reality altogether, in order to find an explanation for something IN this reality, is a retreat into fantasy whether you’re talking about Zeus’s lightning or Yahweh’s dirt sculptures (i.e. us). Supernatural explanations always make the world smaller and less wonderful, because it anthropomorphizes reality into a simple story, complete with bad guys, good guys, a central conflict, and a wonderful, fairytale ending. Surely we can do better than looking at the world and seeing fairytales. That’s not an appreciation of reality, that’s a retreat away from it. Supernatural is something fantastical added onto what we observe, and in no way contained within the observation.
I said nothing less than absolute truth being missed by any and every possible human intellectual endeavor. Was that not clear?
Much of what you have said here isn’t clear, which is surprising because your posts are razor sharp in the Think Tank. What makes your position unclear is
precisely the way you talk about every possible human intellectual endeavor having an absolute truth it is seeking (as above). Certainly you don’t mean that there are separate absolute truths for each endeavor, not after spending so much time accounting for the differences in religion in terms of “approximations” of the absolute truth. So you must mean that science and religion—and every possible human intellectual endeavor--are converging upon the same absolute truth. This is quite literally impossible. You can’t understand science and religion and think they are just different approximations toward the same absolute. If so, you’ve got to say science and the Lord of the Rings are merely two different approximations of the same absolute. They are that much different. There’s no way they can end up at the same place, when science seeks a natural explanation and theology seeks a supernatural non-explanation.
The supernatural is no longer necessary as an explanatory model. It’s completely
ad hoc.
God as an explanation explains nothing. It merely removes the uncertainty to something even more improbable, inexplicable, and unknowable than the universe itself.
All intellectual thought springs from seeking an explanation and an evaluation for a feeling. Theology is an extension of philosophy. Science is an extension of philosophy. Philosophy is an effort to define and approximate absolute truth..... including the defining of absolute truth as a non-existent entity as relativism does.
This is a simplification of 1000s of years of history. Sure, temporally and perhaps even substantively, these intellectual endeavors followed from each other (though not as linearly as your simplification implies), but that doesn’t mean that there is nothing necessary about this progression. It was largely contingent and accidental. We could have skipped that religious phase and gone straight to science if factors had been different. Much of it was simply political. Like it is today, unfortunately.
Ahhh... I always thought you were a more an absolutist. Granted I see people in general operating from an abslute set of beliefs, and only retreating to relatavism when they are not confident in their advocacy of their own ideas... which I don't find to be the case with you.
So Einstein was not confident of his ideas? Nietzsche wasn’t confident of his ideas? The subtlety of your ad hominem ploy makes me smile. Relativism doesn’t necessarily mean lack of certainty. (And that’s not a contradiction, either.) Nor does my confidence mean I’ve stopped looking for an answer. You can be certain that your
methodology is correct, even if your current reseach isn’t final—or even if your research indicates that no final answer can exist. Nonterminating series don’t stop mathematicians from mathematically manipulating infinite sets, for instance. And uncertainty in individual measurements don't stop physicists from being certain (and quite astonishingly accurate) in the statistical laws of quantum mechanics.
If there is no absolute truth, then the whole scientific method is a sham. If truth is relative and due to perception rather than actuality, observed and recreated events are only coincidental perceptions and really have no validity beyond the two people who end up having the same perception of the events they've witnessed.
Again, this is resolved by merely looking at real world examples. According to the view implied by these questions, the uncertainty principle is a sham. And general relativity is a sham. And yet, quatum mechanics and relativity are the two most accurately and frequently confirmed theories in the history of science.
And I’m sure you know these things. That’s why I suspect we’re using these words so differently. Because on another view, you do recognize relativity to some extent. At least, you don’t strike me as the type who thinks 20th century science was a sham.
And all the above explains our disagreement on an “absolute.”
Whether you give credit to it or not, theology, especially christian and muslim theological thinking, are what even made arriving at atheism a possible conclusion.
Well, that’s true only in the sense that I couldn’t have been atheistic about Manwe in Tolkien’s mythology before I heard of Manwe. But that doesn’t mean I have to give Tolkien any credit for me arriving at my “Manwe atheism.” My stance toward this fictional character wasn’t agnostic or theist beforehand. In fact, not having a conception of his existence was the “default setting” or attitude—the same we have toward any hypothetical entity before we’ve heard of it. Adding a name to our list of concepts doesn’t significantly modify our stance toward reality, because nothing in the real world has changed. It only further populates the list of characters we’ve read about. My attitude towards the world would have been exactly the same as it is now if religion had never existed. I wouldn’t be any less atheist. In fact, I imagine I’d be quite a bit more, because then I wouldn’t have this nagging agnosticism which I’m beginning to suspect is incorrect. One thing’s for sure: I’d be a lot less bitter and angry about this subject. And humanity would have considerably less strife.
You seem to have a very simple minded definition of theology though, you perhaps scratched your head about my prior theological questions in relationship to the actual nature of agnostic belief and atheistic belief, maybe if I called Theology by it's secular name Metaphysics, you might not be digging through more books looking for more clever, yet empty, quotes?
While there is much in metaphysics which isn’t “true to the earth,” in Nietzsche’s terms, or must “be committed to the flames,” as Hume says, metaphysics can be done without any theological elements at all. Metaphysics can be purely logical, and avoid the supernatural completely.
And while theology contains its own metaphysical models, this in no way means that it partakes in the logic, consistency, or rigorous construction which philosophers engage in when constructing metaphysical models.
Metaphysics is NOT theology, and theology is NOT metaphysics, though there is confusing common ground. They both tend to deal with ideas which go beyond matters of fact. This single confusion is perhaps the foundation of our talking around each other, affecting all the other words we’re using in this conversation.
I deliberately reject some of the teachings, beliefs and actions of the church because they're incompatible with my moral sense.
(Irony intentional.) Seriously, I thought that was obvious.
But I, too, thought that there was a rather empty purpose underlying it.