II. How We Know - "Sense and Goodness Without God"

This thread is for the discussion of the section entitled "How We Know" in "Sense and Goodness Without God."

II. How we know --
1. Philosophy: what it is and why you should care --

Carrier gives a general outline of philosophy and why it is important. We each have a worldview, and it is constructed philosophically whether we realize it or not.

2. Understanding the meaning in what we think and say --

Carrier gets a fair bit pedantic in this section. Although I think it's not only important, but necessary. We construct our worldviews using words as the basic building blocks, and he does a fair job of piecing together a working framework of how we gather knowledge. There are different strengths and weaknesses to different sources of knowledge, and he runs through them in order. I'm listening to an audio book, so don't have the list to copy over here.

3. Method --

Throughout the section, he emphasizes one key facet; that to arrive at proper knowledge, we follow proper process. Not process that is fabricated or manufactured post hoc, but one that produces continually reliable results.

In essence, we've had a history of creating and testing various processes. The ones that have lead to truthful conclusions are the ones we keep, while we discard the rest. It is the evolutionary algorithm applied to processes of filtering knowledge. Most of the processes are technical tools in logic and philosophy, many of which converge to form the process of science.

He takes a shot at faith in this chapter as well, arguing that it is self-defeating. If faith is belief without process, and the number of possible beliefs far outweigh truthful beliefs, then faith will necessarily lead to more false beliefs than true beliefs.

Throughout the section, he emphasizes one key facet; that to arrive at proper knowledge, we follow proper process. Not process that is fabricated or manufactured post hoc, but one that produces continually reliable results

Yes and no.

Feyerabend would perhaps disagree with a "proper process" being followed to assure arriving at proper knowledge. One need look only at history to falsify that claim. Galileo's development of the heliocentric hypothesis is a perfect example here.

Galileo's usage of ad hoc rules to maintain the heliocentric model was not seen as following a proper scientific process. Quite frankly, it was the Church that insisted on strict adherence to empirical methods:

"The church at the time of Galileo was much more faithful to reason than Galileo himself, and also took into consideration the ethical and social consequences of Galileo's doctrine. Its verdict against Galileo was rational and just, and revisionism can be legitimized solely for motives of political opportunism - " - Feyerabend

The rest is history of course, but the point Feyerabend makes in " Against Method" is that proper processes do not always provide proper knowledge. the annals of science are littered with hypotheses that led nowhere. Those that did were often developed into proper knowledge by unorthodox means.

I read Feyerabend's "Against Method" The Galileo heliocentric matter was the most interesting to me.
Putting aside the socio-political issues the Church was experiencing at the time, it is interesting that Galileo had to defy the Church's demand for empirical evidence he did not have at the time and used propaganda to keep the heliocentric model alive.

I'm starting the book. I've already seen where the author is narrowly defining religion and am not liking it.
It might be true that religious practice as a community event is ritualized and the reciting of scripture. But that is not all what religion is.
Theology is very much about the continuous rational questioning of belief in God.
Its not the naive and over ly simplistic characterization that it is made out to be by some atheists - "Oh well! GOD did it. Now lets all get our bibles out and sing a couple of hyms to Him"

Science does not tell us God exists or does not exist.
Each man's philosophy does.


I know of no theology that has ever asserted the question of God can be answered otherwise.

Feyerabend would perhaps disagree with a "proper process" being followed to assure arriving at proper knowledge. One need look only at history to falsify that claim. Galileo's development of the heliocentric hypothesis is a perfect example here.

Galileo's usage of ad hoc rules to maintain the heliocentric model was not seen as following a proper scientific process. Quite frankly, it was the Church that insisted on strict adherence to empirical methods:

Galileo or anyone else can arrive at the truth by throwing a dart at the epistemic board. Justification of his ideas after the fact require process. In this case, observation of many individuals of his work, and the testing of observations.

"The church at the time of Galileo was much more faithful to reason than Galileo himself, and also took into consideration the ethical and social consequences of Galileo's doctrine. Its verdict against Galileo was rational and just, and revisionism can be legitimized solely for motives of political opportunism - " - Feyerabend

There's nothing wrong with this. The church and religious people can and do use proper process all the time. Neither Carrier nor myself implied anything different. It is the beliefs they've arrived at that haven't gone through the filter of process that are the issue. Heliocentrism may not have been arrived at through proper process, but it has passed through that filter since it's proposition.

Faith is not belief without process. Faith also obeys an evolutionary algorithm, in that as a communal agreement faith measures belief by the standard of social consensus, discarding views that do not resonate emotionally with a social group.

Faith is belief without proper process. There is nothing wrong with that other than the belief would not be justified. The deviation in this case would be argumentum ad populum.

The process of assessing belief against evidence is more reliable than faith as a basis for knowledge, but has narrower coverage.

Faith is not a basis for knowledge. You cannot justify beliefs using faith.

Robert Tulip wrote:Metaphysics is mostly wrong, as it seeks to justify supernatural fantasy.

I copied this over from the other thread because it belongs here. Carrier mentions how words should be used as they are understood, not as they are wished to be understood. With that said, I looked up the definition of Metaphysics and the first sentence of the first hit was this: "Metaphysics is a traditional branch of philosophy concerned with explaining the fundamental nature of being and the world that encompasses it, although the term is not easily defined."

Faith and certainty are also discussed.

Chapter Two
I identify with Carrier’s description of his childhood. His avid reading, his Christian culture, his rejection of Christianity, and his discovery of Taoism are all things I share.

Carrier found the Bible shallow, confused, uninformative, contradictory and lacking in support for the core values of democracy, equality and science. I can see how he formed that view, but now to me it appears excessively prejudicial and superficial. The challenge in reading the Bible is to consider the possibility of a deeper coherence behind the surface jumble.

The values that Carrier fails to find in the Bible are actually very much present. Democracy is grounded on the Christian doctrine that the last shall be first. Equality arises from the idea that there is neither male nor female, neither Jew nor Greek, but all are one in Christ. Science is supported by the core idea that the truth will set you free.

I also discovered Taoism in my teens, and found the Tao Te Ching and the Chuang Tzu to be sublime works of natural wisdom. The romantic idea of the wisdom of the east as providing a radical critique and challenge to dominant western values was something that appealed to me, in Taoism and also in the Buddhist Dhammapada and the Hindu Upanishads. These books contain a rational psychology that sets humanity within nature, in a way the transcendental supernatural metaphysics of Christianity fail to do on the surface. So Carrier defines the core message of the Tao as that life is good and natural, in contrast to the Christian theories of original sin.

Next Carrier tells about his powerful mystical visions, perceiving everything as one unified whole, a magnificent and calming sense of the real. Far out to sea, watching the stars like a New Age shaman, Carrier says he felt he left his body and his soul expanded to the size of the universe in perfect and total clarity, seeing a beautiful, vast, harmonious and wonderful universe all at peace with the Tao.
But this cosmic vision had no place for God. In the dance of thesis and antithesis he came to his own synthesis, a science based secular humanism rooted in metaphysical naturalism. This led to again reading the Bible, but instead of finding it better than in his childhood reading, he found it far worse, sinful, nonsensical and unenlightening.

Reading the Bible inspired Carrier’s atheism, as part of a movement devoted to defeating lies, correcting errors and informing the unknowing, traits conspicuously absent from Christianity, which poses a great superstitious immoral threat to society.

The values that Carrier fails to find in the Bible are actually very much present. Democracy is grounded on the Christian doctrine that the last shall be first. Equality arises from the idea that there is neither male nor female, neither Jew nor Greek, but all are one in Christ. Science is supported by the core idea that the truth will set you free.

From "the last shall be the first", we're supposed to recreate the entire institution of a democratic government? How would anyone have any sense of what you think this sentence means? It unpacks into a thousand possible interpretations, most of which are rubbish, and are only selected between after you've developed a coherent democratic government.

For equality, you're selecting one passage and ignoring the rest. Regarding women, there is much more that contradicts your cherry picked statement. How about ""In sorrow thou shalt bring forth children. ... Thy husband ... shall rule over thee." from Genesis?

Regarding equality, what about condemning all non believers or slaves or gays? More cherry picking on your part.

The passage regarding how the truth will set you free. You take that to mean science will set you free, as if that is precisely what was intended by the original authors. That's bull and you know it. The atomic sentence in question means nothing until you combine it with other information through the process of interpretation. The "other information" in this context is your understanding of modern science, and the role of modern science on enlightening our society. What happens to this modern understanding when you force it through an interpretive lens is like what happens to light when it passes through water. There is a slight deviation from it's proper path.

I've asked this many times over the years - why not simply have a comprehensive set of modern wisdom that isn't forced through the interpretive lens of the bible? It would be more truthful, and much much easier for others to accept and adopt.

Interbane wrote:

The values that Carrier fails to find in the Bible are actually very much present. Democracy is grounded on the Christian doctrine that the last shall be first. Equality arises from the idea that there is neither male nor female, neither Jew nor Greek, but all are one in Christ. Science is supported by the core idea that the truth will set you free.

From "the last shall be the first", we're supposed to recreate the entire institution of a democratic government? How would anyone have any sense of what you think this sentence means? It unpacks into a thousand possible interpretations, most of which are rubbish, and are only selected between after you've developed a coherent democratic government.

Thanks Interbane. Carrier said he could not find the values of democracy, equality and science in the Bible, and I have pointed out that they are there, even if they are somewhat hidden by the rubble of conflicting ideas. The point here is that as we separate the scientific wheat from the supernatural tares, we should distinguish between the valid messianic message within Christianity and the invalid institutional corruption of the church.

The Sermon on the Mount says the meek will inherit the earth. In the early church, such ideas were a beacon of hope for the oppressed, celebrating the dignity and worth of all people, against the imperial view that only the Roman rulers had any human rights. As the church grew, the empire recognised it as a potential doctrinal basis for social stability, and took it over, using Jesus as an anthropomorphic symbol for its traditional worship of the sun in the cult of Sol Invictus.

The institutional church was anti-democratic, but the original message of the Gospels and Epistles is highly democratic. The democratic messianic vision was suppressed as presenting a seditious threat to imperial stability, but is very much present within the texts.

Interbane wrote: For equality, you're selecting one passage and ignoring the rest. Regarding women, there is much more that contradicts your cherry picked statement. How about ""In sorrow thou shalt bring forth children. ... Thy husband ... shall rule over thee." from Genesis?

Again, the point is to discern the essential message of Christ from within the dross of church tradition, using what Malachi calls the refiner’s fire. As well as promoting equality between men and women and between Jews and Greeks, the quote I cited from Saint Paul says that in Christ there is neither slave nor free. The point is to see the essential message, and to recognise how conflicting messages arose from the transformation of the Christian message into a basis for imperial stability rather than its original messianic vision of an eschatological kingdom in which divine values will rule. Equality is a highly complex topic in Christianity, with the original message having more to do with what we now call equality of opportunity rather than equality of outcomes. This can be seen in the Gnostic vision that inspired the Christ Myth, with Christ portrayed as a Platonic philosopher king. The Gnostic trove at Nag Hammadi included Plato’s Republic, which presents a structured society comprising philosopher rulers and military and commercial classes. Within this ordered vision, equality is a central idea, enabling change of position based on merit.

A thesis at https://etd.ohiolink.edu/ap/10?0::NO:10 ... 1147887701 explains that From the Guard Dog Analogy (Republic Book II), the Equality Argument (Republic Book V), and the Myth of Er (Republic Book X) Plato’s equality claim is based upon his metaphysical conception of the soul. In part, Plato’s conception is that souls are equal in their origin and design; souls are the source of life and knowledge in the bodies they incarnate; and souls are asexual. From this foundation Plato makes his claim that men and women are equally capable to serve as Guardians inasmuch as the requirements of Guardianship have to do with features located in the soul, not the body.

Interbane wrote: Regarding equality, what about condemning all non believers or slaves or gays? More cherry picking on your part.

The condemnation of homosexuality is mainly in the Old Testament, which is superseded in the New Covenant of Christ, which presents a far more complex and nuanced picture, for example in Christ’s instruction not to condemn a woman guilty of adultery. The issue of belief is raised by Carrier in citing the texts which say non-believers will be damned. The point here is that if belief, in its real deep allegorical meaning, reflects a true understanding of human nature, then a failure to understand how Christ connects history to eternity places society on a path to destruction.

The church simplified and distorted this myth through its supernatural political agenda, but a better way to read it is by comparison with modern scientific knowledge. We could now say that those who do not believe in evolution and physics are damned, in the sense that they promote a delusory vision of reality. Obviously such language is extreme, but the context for the Gospels was that the Roman Empire presented a worldly message which completely excluded the idea that Christ provided a path to connect to divine values, so this theme of salvation through belief was part of the inversion of the warped values of empire. It was then taken and twisted by the Empire as a basis for doctrinal unity and stability, in a way that ignored its core ethics.

Interbane wrote: The passage regarding how the truth will set you free. You take that to mean science will set you free, as if that is precisely what was intended by the original authors. That's bull and you know it. The atomic sentence in question means nothing until you combine it with other information through the process of interpretation. The "other information" in this context is your understanding of modern science, and the role of modern science on enlightening our society. What happens to this modern understanding when you force it through an interpretive lens is like what happens to light when it passes through water. There is a slight deviation from it's proper path.

Well, science is the truth, and believing falsehoods is a path to bondage, and the Gnostic origin of the Christ Myth in Platonic philosophy was actually scientific. The distorting lens was the failure of the church to comprehend the original sublime vision, which can be recaptured by recognition that science is at the core of truth.

Interbane wrote: I've asked this many times over the years - why not simply have a comprehensive set of modern wisdom that isn't forced through the interpretive lens of the bible? It would be more truthful, and much much easier for others to accept and adopt.

Evolution is about cumulative adaptation, building upon precedent with new more effective and productive ways. Modern wisdom that ignores its precedents is not wise. By transforming Christianity into a true scientific religion, its resources and vision can be put to productive use as a basis for social improvement.

Carrier’s argument that religion is intrinsically wrong in method is a recipe for leaving atheism in an intellectual ghetto, failing to engage with social and political change in a constructive evolutionary way.

The point is to find the truth within Christianity, and keep the truth like gold while discarding its accumulated dross. Constructive dialogue should start by assessing what is good and bad within faith, and what is true and false, not simply condemning faith as an obsolete and false social ritual.

Carrier himself in On The Historicity of Jesus, his great new book, accepts the basic argument of Earl Doherty in Jesus Neither God Nor Man that the Christ Myth originated as a cosmic vision. The next step should be for him to accept Acharya S’s argument that this cosmic vision originated in detailed astral and cross-cultural parallels that the Gnostic authors used to construct the myth.

The point here is that as we separate the scientific wheat from the supernatural tares, we should distinguish between the valid messianic message within Christianity and the invalid institutional corruption of the church.

The method you use to separate the wheat from the chaff is a comparison to modern ethical and scientific understanding. You can't distinguish between ideas without a rubric or method or system for comparison, and what you use is modern whether you realize it or not. Why not just appeal to modern ethics or science? You're still not making sense to me Robert.

Carrier discusses this later in his book, using medicine as a metaphor. It's as if you're still wanting to use willow bark to treat a headache, meanwhile we have a distilled form of the active ingredient on store shelves called Aspirin. Your argument is that we should pay homage to the ancestry of aspirin with every headache we cure. But why is that necessary for curing a headache?

Distilling wisdom from the bible will never result in a pool of wisdom more profound than what could be found in comparative modern texts. Because modern texts pull from the wisdom of other religions as well, taking the best of each and mixing them into a comprehensive whole, while discarding the chaff. Your efforts will not be able to discard the chaff. You're stuck with it, if continue to use the bible as your source.

http://www.amazon.com/Ways-Wisdom-Steve ... 0819133884

Well, science is the truth, and believing falsehoods is a path to bondage, and the Gnostic origin of the Christ Myth in Platonic philosophy was actually scientific. The distorting lens was the failure of the church to comprehend the original sublime vision, which can be recaptured by recognition that science is at the core of truth.

Are you saying the original message is that science shall set us free? That empirical method shall set us free? Is that what the biblical authors actually meant? You're left with too much word-wrangling to rehabilitate this. The only way in which the passage makes sense is through a comparison to modern understanding. And once again, why not use modern understanding to build a worldview, rather than running the modern understanding backwards in time, through the bible as a lens, to gain your meaning? The same meaning is already here Robert, in the world around you. You don't need to search the bible to find obscure correspondences. Anything you "find" is only found because the requisite understanding is already in your head, you've already learned it from a modern source. By appealing to the bible as the focusing lens for such wisdom is to obscure it beyond anyone else's reach. You may have people who nod their heads when you discuss your ideas, and even a few more who are on board with you. But beyond a small circle, it's simply too convoluted of an approach to pragmatic wisdom.

Evolution is about cumulative adaptation, building upon precedent with new more effective and productive ways. Modern wisdom that ignores its precedents is not wise.

Modern wisdom is not a thing to anthropomorphize. The people who adhere to modern wisdom do not need to know the precedents to gain the full benefit of the wisdom. This is like saying we should know the etymology of every word we use before we can effectively use the word. But even then, your analogy doesn't match what you're doing. You're not merely paying tribute to precedents, you're using them in place of modern wisdom, post interpretation. It would be one thing if you had a coherent comprehensive set of modern ethics all your own, with footnotes to the bible. But instead it's the other way around. You use the bible, with footnotes to modern interpretations.