Dogma

Recently enjoyed a few email exchanges with a well-meaning, good-natured friend.

The communications included ideas concerning "God".

Now, as I have found in many such "arguments" there are entrenched views that aren't often swayed by counter-arguments -- here's one example where simple straight-forward reasoning didn't change this person's belief one bit, it seems.

Be that as it may, there is a very helpful technique that enables one to see the bias in beliefs.

Dear me. It's so predictable.

According to an article in the New Scientist1, a highly respected psychologist has done experiments that reveal a slight ability to 'feel the future' (as in precognition).

Superstition - "a belief or practice resulting from ignorance, fear of the unknown, trust in magic or chance, or a false conception of causation."

While sharing various ideas on a forum recently, it became evident there are many people (including and especially atheists, scientists and the religious) who still very deeply rely on superstitious beliefs.

And by "superstitious" beliefs, none are more evident than when the topic of Zeno's Paradoxes is considered.

To put things in context:

Imagine we have a number of belief-systems, let's call them BS1 and BS2. Let's now see how well they match a particular set of evidence (facts and observations, as can be readily experienced on planet Earth).

In his entertaining TED presentation Simon Sinek1 explains what it means to be a laggard (they're the late late-adopters): "The only reason these people buy touch tone phones is because you can't buy rotary phones anymore."

A curious phenomenon is occurring. And it is extraordinarily fascinating to be in the middle of it, observing it live, as we speak! What's so fascinating is that the great bulk of scientific theory is now lagging well behind the advances in quantum fact.2 But for those who are lagging none of this is at all fascinating. Not in the least. Indeed, it's something else entirely.

Some years ago I attempted to correct some errors on Wikipedia concerning Zeno's Paradoxes.

Having reread my contributions I've reprinted here. It's interesting reading, in particular the bias by some towards repeated dogmatic assertions that have no evidence in fact.

From this Wikipedia archive page (I've highlighted all my contributions for convenience of reading):

While at a social function recently I got chatting with some religious people who started to talk about how we're all 'fallen', sinners in need of saving, and how we're all needing His forgiveness, and so on.

Now, from a systems perspective this all makes no sense.1

So I asked, "if God is infinite, isn't all necessarily WITHIN God? After all," I added, "if we and all else, including evil is not of God, then we're outside and beyond the infinite -- and that would make us and evil bigger than God. That would make God small relative to us, and relative to evil."

"Best not do that," I said.

Think of it this way, God is infinite ... literally that means "He" has no limits -- he's everwhere, and in everything, everyone, every spirit, including Evil. In other words, everything and everyone is of God.  It's His energy that's behind all the muck-ups, and the beautiful wonderful things, and ...

If it's not His energy, then it's someone elses, but that again means, He has limits to where His energy goes.2

Pretty straight-forward, I would think, to understand all this.

I recently had a number of highly interesting discussions with various people.

Briefly (more later) they were

• with a good friend on the subject of self-development courses, and where most go wrong.
• with a man who's a 'hard-nosed' engineer, and who spoke standard ideas of a mechanical, objective reality, not realising the 'hard-facts of science' are but a house-of-cards, reliant on some very very poor (and incorrect) assumptions about the detail and minutia of life.
• with another good friend on the the Enneagram and on the subject of tribalism.

All were quite set and confident in their beliefs, until I asked some awkward questions.

Recently I was reading an interesting book, and it advised one to wake early one morning (in the dead of night, around the 3.30am mark) and quietly ask what is really important in one's life. As was explained in my Letting go post, I've drifted in recent years, not exactly sure how I can best be of benefit and service to people.

Yesterday had an interesting, somewhat intense discussion with someone who confessed to being a Christian.

It seems to me that there are some very simple, fundamental errors in thinking by Christians (as a general rule -- and don't get me started on rules, systems, probabilities, and individuality. "We're all individuals"  yeah, yeah, I'm not. Kudos to Monty Python. But i digress).

Yesterday while chatting over coffee at Avalon, the conservation turned to world-views, politics, anthropology, evolution, masculine-feminine natures, immunization, and the different cultures of chimpanzees versus Bonobo monkeys (patriarchal and matriarchal, resp.)

Throughout it all I was amazed at how little supporting evidence there was for each particular view that was discussed. In particular was the subject of immunization and the need for it.