Statement of Position

[scameter]

I would like to make a statement, if I may, regarding my spiritual position/beliefs for those who will listen. Over the past year or so, I have alternated between being agnostic, being Christian, and being scientistic pretty regularly, not remaining with one for very long. But, with the latter two as I am trying to be one or the other, I feel as if I'm forcing myself to be it and trying to convince myself of it, rather than simply discovering it or having the smooth faith most adherents have. I think that the reason I have been trying to fit myself into a particular religion or philosophy is because I have such a passion for the truth that often times, my desparation to find it makes me try to force myself into something people claim to be true, such as Christianity or scientism. But, I cannot do that; I try, and with Christianity I do feel a closeness to it, I simply cannot deny my intellectual doubts and philosophical reason. I am a philosopher, first and foremost, and I think I need to come to realize that. I have a passion for wisdom, the kind that is knowledge of the truth both of lifestyle and of life, and so philosophy is my path. When I embrace, as I have recently done, I feel much more at home and true to myself than I do otherwise. Now, certainly I do have my own particular philosophical opinions, as any philosopher does, which I shall list below. But, I would simply like to reaffirm that I am a philosopher first, that is who I am and it is what I am going to embrace. Alright, as for my current views:

God: I do not certainly believe in God, especially the specific varieties as they are portrayed in the various world religions, but I do speculate that there is some kind of intelligence, whether personal or impersonal, behind existence that gave it it's specific character, as I stated elsewhere recently. If this intellect does exist and is called God, alright; if no, alright.
Truth: I believe that there is ultimate truth, and truth is the complete and true nature and purpose of existence. But, I think that people, as experiencing selves, come to that knowledge differently, with some people complete ignoring the topic, and some people never knowing it. Personally, I feel that I cannot truly make undoubtable claims about the truth without experiencing it personally, and I doubt if that can occur in this lifetime, though I have faith that I will eventually know the truth, whether now or after life.
Logic/Reason: I believe that every healthy person at birth possesses natural attributes that give us everything we need to handle our lives and the issues posed in them, including ethics and knowledge of the truth, though that doesn't mean every person will know the truth in their lifetime, or be correct in what they think is the truth. I think the main tool for living well and knowing the truth people have is reason-guided wisdom, which I think gives us the ability to perform and believe objectively in life.
Religions: I think that all religions, from Christianity to Buddhism, derive from traditions of people who feel that their founder grasped the truth that almost everyone seeks and desires, and thus were worthy of emulation and study. Whether or not these claims are true I think are determined by the individual, and thus I cannot say which is true and which isn't. For me personally, as I said I currently am philosophical because no ultimate truth has been given to me as of yet. But, that doesn't mean I deny the possibly of others knowing the truth.
As for other issues, you merely have to ask. :)

I hope this wasn't too long but I really think I needed to post this to clarify my position on this forum and in life. Thanks for your time. :)

[Jiraiyathesage]

I am interested ergo I read. It's very dangerous pigeonholing things that easily, this isn't a few centuries ago when religion and science were pretty much rival groups of thinkers, seperate from each other. Although I point out there was Christians who were scientists and vice versa, even moreso to this day. You force yourself to do something like you said, and you make the conflict in your own mind worse. Quite simply it might help you if you think about the various beliefs and make your own path out of all the ideas available. Do not assume the truth is in one place, the truth is more likely to be fragmented into different places, if the truth was in one place there would likely be much less conflict in the world. What the hell is scientism? Also think about it this way: whatever Gods or God is yours, surely they put your thinking faculties there for a reason? Why would an all loving God(s) consider it blasphemous to consider all the possibilities? I am a philosopher by definition, just like you. I love wisdom but I don't see why my quest for more knowledge would get in the way of my beliefs.

Good to see you are thinking. If a God is capable of doing anything then there's no reason it can't appear in different forms. It is hard to imagine a God to look a certain way, because it is not very intelligent to accept blindly the descriptions of Gods, we didn't see them like that ourselves. The Gods might purposefully appear to different people in different ways, but we can't really say since we are not Gods ourselves, so we don't know the way their minds work. We can claim to have felt them, I know this since that is the basis of my belief. We cannot claim to know what they are thinking because they are not us if you follow me.

Philosophers are philosophers because they question what is, Theologians are theologians because they question what they know exists. It takes some balls to be either: philosophers because they are more inclined to admit they could be entirely wrong that they don't really know, and theologians because it takes some conviction indeed to have concrete belief of Gods beyond any argument posed. A philosopher might argue if Gods exist, whereas a theologian might argue not the existence of Gods but their attributes. :)

[Taeguk]

I am interested ergo I read. It's very dangerous pigeonholing things that easily, this isn't a few centuries ago when religion and science were pretty much rival groups of thinkers, seperate from each other. Although I point out there was Christians who were scientists and vice versa, even moreso to this day.

Pigeonholing is a very dangerous pursuit indeed. And I think the "Christianity vs Science" business is a lot more complicated than it seems. I think that quite a few of the prevailing attitudes we have about science developed as a result of theological concerns, which in turn were underpinned by sociological concerns. Descartes and Newton, the philosophers who laid the foundations of modern science and Enlightenment thought, were both Christian. And their ideas had as much of an effect on religion as they did on science. Unfortunately, while I think their scientific and mathematical ideas were essentially progressive, the effect of their theology has been in my opinion mostly regressive. Granted I'm speaking as a non-Christian here but I think that the conflict many people see between religion and science is largely due to the poor quality of philosophcal and theological ideas that emerged during the Enlightenment. Had things gone differently, and different ideas been granted more credence, we may not have fundamentalists on one side and people like Richard Dawkins on the other.

What the hell is scientism?

I don't know how scameter was using the word, but scientism is basically the proposition that all that exists is quantifiable and empircally observable matter/energy, and that therefore science is the only valid form of knowledge and that science either has given us or will give us the answers to any question worth asking. The Oxford Dictionary of Philosophy summarizes it as:

Pejorative term for the belief that the methods of natural science, or the categories and things recognized in natural science, form the only proper elements in any philosophical or other inquiry. The classic statement of scientism is the physicist E. Rutherford's saying 'there is physics and there is stamp-collecting.

In other words, scientism is making metaphysical assumptions out of science. It's a philosophical position that often masquerades as scientific truth. Interestingly enough, I don't think very many scientists subscribe to scientism. And you can find experimental science to be extremely valuable without endorsing the metaphysical position of scientism.

A philosopher might argue if Gods exist, whereas a theologian might argue not the existence of Gods but their attributes. :)

That's a good way of looking at it. Theologians are by definition operating out of a more or less fixed framework when it comes to God(s). Of course, you can be both, arguing about both the existence of God(s) and her/their attributes.