The vote is in: SCIENCE vs RELIGION......who won?

by Terry 171 Replies latest watchtower beliefs

• 

  Narkissos

  Well thought (!) Terry.

  You might be surprised (or maybe not) how far I share your analysis even though I do not share your conclusion. My view, simply put for once, is that there is a time to think and there is a time to drop thinking; both are real, both are human, as much as human wake and sleep are. Furthermore, I submit that one is not possible (or, would not be what it is) without the other. Language, logic, and henceforth thought implies departing from the immediate, unseparated, overwhelming "real" so as to deal with it through the artificial mediation of symbols. One type of relationship with reality implies switching off the other. They simply cannot exist simultaneously. So I friendly disagree with you and JamesThomas when you both (symmetrically of course) suggest that one is good and the other is bad. I think you are wrong when you say:

  Thinking is man's only basic virtue. On the other hand, the source of all of man's evils is the act of blanking out. This is the deliberate failure to pay attention to what is real in all its detail while substituting what one wishes was real in its place and then basing decisions on the false reality .

  The nazi socio-political machinery, for instance, worked as it did with thousands of "thinking" people focusing on the detail of their task in a very binary logical manner, each of them being unable to "zoom out" and perceive the absurdity and horror of the overall structure. But it was helped, perhaps, by the incapacity of the few "dreamers" who did "zoom out" and see, to "zoom in" again into effective thoughtful action.

  We haven't learn to breathe in and out of "thinking," except in a collective and tragic way, where some play "reason" and others play "irrational," with oversimplification on both parts and much suffering.
• 

  Terry

  The nazi socio-political machinery, for instance, worked as it did with thousands of "thinking" people focusing on the detail of their task in a very binary logical manner, each of them being unable to "zoom out" and perceive the absurdity and horror of the overall structure. But it was helped, perhaps, by the incapacity of the few "dreamers" who did "zoom out" and see, to "zoom in" again into effective thoughtful action.

  We haven't learn to breathe in and out of "thinking," except in a collective and tragic way, where some play "reason" and others play "irrational," with oversimplification on both parts and much suffering.

  I think you are really describing three things.

  1.Perspective (seeing the whole picture rather than a part of it)

  2.Objectivity (removing the "desire for outcome" from the observation and conclusion)

  3.Maintaining a telelogical corrective mechanism.

  The #3 is vital! (Your Nazi example demonstrates this.)

  What you have described as an IN and OUT oscillation between thinking and not thinking is, in my opinion, in need of refinement. Your "dreamers" are postulating a better alternative by creating those alternatives as choices. They aren't falling asleep and waking up with brain farts.

  This is a failure of language. What you describe is failed by word choices and not by intent.

  Nazi Germany suffered (and the world as well) not from a lack of dreamers. It suffered from a willingness of too many German citizens incapacitated by philosophy of altruism, to do their "duty" in setting aside personal individuality and merely plugging in to a leader. (Personal responsibility was short-circuited by switching off the individual opinion.) Not-thinking for themselves did the damage.

  Our planet and our personhood is plagued by laziness of perserverance in COMPLETING the job of thinking through from cause to effect. A great idea has a consequence. All too often it is an UNintended consequence.

  Unintended consequences demonstrate how unfinished the job of planning was in the first place.

  NOT thinking is just that: not THINKING.

  It is like suggesting not breathing as superior to breathing IN and breathing OUT.

  I'm certain that is what you are intending to say. The reversal of polarity is vital in thinking through a problem.

  Richard Feynmann calls it a "tool box". He had a different toolbox from his fellow physicists in tackling a problem because he had invented his own methodology and mathematical approach to things. His individuality served him well in seeing things differently and explaining them idiomatically.

  Einstein had his own individual approach as well with "thought experiments" inasmuch as his math was weak compared to other theoretical thinkers. His toolbox took him an alternative route.

  This is surely what you are saying.

  I agree.

  But, it isn't the NOT THINKING that works; it is the alternative approach with the different set of heuristics which creates the fresh view.

  Chess masters excel beyond the mundane because they conceptualize in a context of individuality. They bring a personal view to problem-solving that mere hacking away by the numbers does not improve on.

  When Kasparov defeats Big Blue it is an enormous intellectual achievement. Why? Because it is the equivalent to a man outrunning a sports car. What Kasparov's toolbox has that Big Blue did not have was the X-factor of a "personal viewpoint". Beating a computer at chess is not accomplished by NOT thinking. It is achieved through the intense effort at thinking creatively and personally as an individual.

  Agree?
• 

  Narkissos

  Terry,

  You make very good points.

  What I actually mean is that change, in thinking or action, involves a negative moment. You don't take a dangerous curve at full speed. You don't reverse without stopping first. You don't change gears without declutching. To breathe in you have to stop breathing out. The pause may be infinitesimal, yet it is vital.

  I submit that the core of "spirituality" has to do with this "pause" or "interruption" moment which is necessary but very frightening to most of us as we are led by our own "cinetic energy," going on with the flow, in the course of social life, no matter how absurd it would look should we stop and zoom out (hence we generally don't until we have to). That's what the mystical (not exoterically religious) understanding of shabbath, repentance, cross, non-willing, non-acting, is about imo. It is the "null" point where you have to halt, over and over again, as you come and go, Not another "land" in which you could stay, walk or build, in spite of the superficial religious imagery. It is scary because when you stop you are never sure you will start again, or how, and it is much easier to keep on moving as you are. It sure looks a lot like death and has its own risks of definitive inertia. It is the very emptiness of the sanctuary, so disappointing if you go there looking for "something," yet wonderful when you "get it" -- in laughter or in tears.

  (Hermann Hesse's) Siddhartha crosses the river a number of times before he understands what the river means to the boatman. Down to this point the river was just an obstacle to pass and the boatman a necessary means to get to the other bank.
• 

  Terry

  That's what the mystical (not exoterically religious) understanding of shabbath, repentance, cross, non-willing, non-acting, is about imo. It is the "null" point where you have to halt, over and over again, as you come and go, Not another "land" in which you could stay, walk or build, in spite of the superficial religious imagery. It is scary because when you stop you are never sure you will start again, or how, and it is much easier to keep on moving as you are. It sure looks a lot like death and has its own risks of definitive inertia. It is the very emptiness of the sanctuary, so disappointing if you go there looking for "something," yet wonderful when you "get it" -- in laughter or in tears.
  

  (Hermann Hesse's) Siddhartha crosses the river a number of times before he understands what the river means to the boatman. Down to this point the river was just an obstacle to pass and the boatman a necessary means to get to the other bank.

  Narkissos,

  You eerily described the creative process precisely!

  When I write music I go from the "forward" mode of output to the pause, reverse polarity; and become my own worst critic! Over and over again. The pause, reverse of polarity; and change of viewpoint allow me to switch gears to avoid the crime of inertia. You've targeted inertia and its remedy quite keenly.

  The inertia of starting off with a laser focus and overshooting your mark is inherent. How often we burn our way through the target and end up damaging it!

  Religion softens us into humility and readiness to listen UNTIL the inertia takes over and we are seeing only the enemy (in others) and our own rightness poisons us into hubris.

  Science objectifies all it surveys beyond what is held dear and humane. Animals are mistreated to benefit humanity rather than stopping to consider another way around. The "can we?" is seldom tempered with a "should we?"

  What a dear man you are, Narkissos for showing me the brake pedal before I lurch around that curve full speed!

  This elements of pause and reverse polarity are key elements in the benefit of thinking to a point and then reassessing the purposes and consequences in the long haul.

  I think I've got it!
• 

  Narkissos

  Wow.

  Thanks g0d
• 

  Satanus

  Okay, here is your basic primer on THINKING. You'll probably fall asleep reading it.

  Thanks for that, finally.

  Thinking is the act of placing before the mind objects of consideration. Thinking consists of isolating identities, discovering causal connections, separating "something" from the everything and defining it. Thinking is not an automatic function. Man is free to evade this effort. Thinking requires a state of full, focused awareness. Focusing one's consciousness is volitional; you must decide to do it and actually maintain the doing of it.

  Sounds like a form of meditation.

  Simply put, when we think; we are human.

  Yes, the mind is the human part of us. But, lets not forget that we are also animal, ie the body and it's urges. I maintain that we are also spirit. The wt had us living through our minds as much as we could, and forgetting our 2 other facets.

  Consciousness requires consciousness of "something". How much of something is a matter of paying attention to details.

  Again, like focussed meditation. When we sleep the brain activity we call dreaming is inchoate, illogical and often absurd because there is no true awareness. Thinking is man's only basic virtue. On the other hand, the source of all of man's evils is the act of blanking out. This is the deliberate failure to pay attention to what is real in all its detail while substituting what one wishes was real in its place and then basing decisions on the falsereality.

  This is done by means of thinking, the negative side of it. So often, thought is used as a defence against truths or for justifying a negative act that one feels is wrong. A person who stops thoughts completely when he runs up against an idea that shakes his world will see deeper inside himself the reason why the idea is unwelcome. This act of seeing truths about oneself is not accomplished w thought, but by stopping thoughts and looking deeper, becoming more conscious.

  The refusal to think, the refusal to see, the refusal to reason and the refusal to define accurately only leave the imagination to supply information and facts for consideration. By choosing not to think (for whatever reason) you engage in an act of annhilation; negating existence and wiping out reality.

  When you have shut out reality you leave room only for UNreality. The irony here is enormous! Instead of choosing to think about what IS and what is real and true and actual the abandonment of the intellect leaves us prey to daydreams, wishful thinking, hallucination, whim and disconnection from rational conclusions. We are then in the grip of our subconscious primitive brain (reptile brain) which is mostly reactive. (Emotional in the extreme with fear, hatred, ecstacy, transcendance and profound physical resonances. Mental masturbation.

  Yeah, we have a lot of stuff in our subconscious. Meditation is a way of discovering those things, recognizing them, and neutralising or intigrating w them. This is an increase of consciousness. It is accomplished through changing from being a thinker all the time, to being an observer some of the time.

  It is much easier to abandon our higher rational focus than it is to turn inward and masturbate a bio-feedback response of "oneness" with the Universe. Non-thinking stretches concepts away from true definitions and retrofits them with fuzzy non-definitions where anything can mean anything. There will be lots of amorphous language used to describe "feelings" as profoundly meaningful while actually saying nothing.

  If a person stops his thoughts, what happens?
  Three levels: 1.Conscious focus 2.Detached unawareness (daydream) 3. Unconscious random images and dreaming Meditation detaches you and allows you to generate any hallucinated state you care name.

  Pure meditation strives not generate, but to be passive to see only what is there.

  Mystics assert all knowledge is already self-contained and turn inward to achieve "enlightenment". This is like keeping your textbook closed and imagining what it must say and then declaring what you imagine to be superior to the text itself!

  It sounds like you are saying that truth can only be found outside of oneself, that looking inwards is leading to delusion. Yet, the action of thinking is internal. It is a process of feeding outside information back through the sense organs, through the nerves into the brain. It is a building of an internal construct which is based on captured information. It may be merely the observation of this construct to see what is, what is reality. It may be a mental manipulation of the construct to see how it relates to other things. This fact blurs, or perhaps damages the claim that inward looking is a futile masterbation.

  Devotion to truth is the hallmark of morality. Distorting reality by evading it is the hallmark of immorality because we abandon what is real and build our on substitute and call it transcendant. There is no greater, nobler and heroic act of human morality that the act of a man who assumes the responsibility of thinking!

  S
• 

  ringo5

  Narkissos - I submit that the core of "spirituality" has to do with this "pause" or "interruption" moment which is necessary but very frightening to most of us as we are led by our own "cinetic energy," going on with the flow, in the course of social life, no matter how absurd it would look should we stop and zoom out (hence we generally don't until we have to). That's what the mystical (not exoterically religious) understanding of shabbath, repentance, cross, non-willing, non-acting, is about imo. It is the "null" point where you have to halt, over and over again, as you come and go, Not another "land" in which you could stay, walk or build, in spite of the superficial religious imagery. It is scary because when you stop you are never sure you will start again, or how, and it is much easier to keep on moving as you are. It sure looks a lot like death and has its own risks of definitive inertia. It is the very emptiness of the sanctuary, so disappointing if you go there looking for "something," yet wonderful when you "get it" -- in laughter or in tears.

  Ok, now this is put into terms (technical) I can relate to, thanks.

  I would suggest this "nulling" process is what James Thomas is always on about.

  JT - There is a REALITY that does nor require or need our meager religious or scientific mental constructs and paradigms

  The process of simply "seeing" for the sake of appreciating reality in that context would be a good "nulling process", in that once in a while our minds may need calibrating to avoid dangers of polarized thinking that "inertia unchecked" would otherwise cause.

  How often a person needs this "nulling" is another subject, but most of us are probably overdue

  Edited to add -

  What a dear man you are, Narkissos for showing me the brake pedal before I lurch around that curve full speed!

  Terry, does this mean you're calling the debate a draw?
• 

  Terry

  Terry, does this mean you're calling the debate a draw?

  Narkissos and I never debate. I'm the white keys and he's the dark keys and together we play our version of Ebony and Ivory!

  He has a beautiful mind and a pleasant manner of presentation that gets his point across.
• 

  Terry

  It sounds like you are saying that truth can only be found outside of oneself, that looking inwards is leading to delusion.

  Not a bit of it!

  TRUTH is a concept; not an actually existing thing.

  Truth conforms to reality. Reality is everywhere simultaneously. It is in the processing of reality and making it meaningful to our lives where the friction is.

  Inside/outside...doesn't matter. It is the non-contradiction we are after.
• 

  onacruse

  If I may interject a response to a snippet of one of Terry's posts:

  I was eaten alive by the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society and crapped out the backend of a Kingdom Hall.

  If I'm pissed; it is because of the journey from fang to fart.

  Yes, and, though I never expected it, and though I do still demonstrate a considerable degree of angst about it...the fact of the matter is that, thanks to the thoughts of topics like this, and posters like Terry, I've come to be very comfortable feeling like a fart!

  Actually, I mean that seriously. There have been a whole lot of steps along the way, but one evening about 3 years ago, I started a thread about it ("An epiphany," or some such nonsense LOL), because it was like a semi had hit me right square on. All of a sudden, it was: "Geez, almost nothing I ever believed was true, and nothing I ever will believe is true...but that's the way 'life' is, and ain't a durn thing I can do about it." Instead of making me angry at life, or God, I felt a sense of relief.

  It isn't so bad being a fart.