I wonder if you could break this down some? Materialist Christians could refer to those in the sway of prosperity preaching or perhaps it links to what you say here:
I think this is sometimes the perspective of those who internalize science to dismiss the importance of feeling, intuition and even conscience in favor of elevating cognition to explain the experiential as “nothing but” biological noise in the machine they view our bodies to be.
But be that as it may I especially resonate with this last sentiment though I’m not quite sure we make the same sense of it.
I see talk of a personal afterlife as a preference for perpetuating the differences which set us apart rather than returning to the eternal around which the particular circumstances of our life have congealed to give us the perspective we have. If you mean becoming one with God again to mean wiping away just that which sets us apart, I agree entirely.
Without pointing to one of the many comments, I’m in favor of maintaining the moniker Science, Scientist, Scientific. While science is getting some bad press lately, mainly from people who don’t seem to understand it or have an alternative agenda, the term “Reality” drifts too close to “Certainty.” The Apostle Paul loved the word, “Hope.” While the loudest voices are pushing against science, time, innovation, and climate change will eventually bring less attention to “know nothing” and more attention to paradigm shifts.
That is not correct. Never once in my in my study for a masters degree in physics and beyond has the word “reality” even been mentioned. And I think it obvious that physics comes closer to the study of reality than any other science. But no, the study of reality, IS NOT the subject of physics or science in general. By the very nature of scientific methodology science concerns itself with things which can be tested and physics with things that can be measured. Never once is the question of whether this can capture reality ever even considered. That is simply the presumption of those accepting a naturalist philosophy which should never be equated with science.
Nevertheless this conclusion is correct even if the reason for it is wrong. The division into the objective and the subjective is crucial here. There is little doubt that science has provided the one reliable way of getting at an objective study of reality. The addition of that one word “objective,” makes a huge difference. For even if science never speaks of reality in general, it has provided the only way we know of getting beyond the fundamentally subjective nature of our access to reality to an aspect of reality which is demonstrably objective. Thus without presuming this to be the sum total of reality, we can assert science does study the only portion of it which we can be assured is objective.
And to know oneself objectively to be a sinful person… There are many things that I may be convinced of, but not being radically to the root corrupted and in need of a salvation apart from my own righteousness, not a chance.
Logic is perfectly capable of drawing conclusions about things which not even real. And since logic relies upon the acceptance of premises there is no way in which its conclusions are objective unless the premises can first be established as objective truths.
I don’t see any way in which you can establish such a conclusion objectively. The closest you can come is to establish that some of your habits are demonstrably self-destructive.
In general I do not think any of the things of religion are objective. I simply refute the idea that reality is purely objective. One of the things I say quite frequently is that science consists of objective observation but life requires subjective participation, therefore science is utterly inadequate for the living of our lives and that is where religion comes in.
This question is confusing to me because I thought that is what I just explained in my post above. Can you explain to me why the post above does not answer this question for you? Maybe I am not understanding the question in quite the way you intend.
Thus the difference between necessary and sufficient conditions. Logical coherence is a necessary condition for reality but not sufficient.
Really? I never heard such a claim. There is a difference between saying something is possible and saying that we do not know. This is something we do not know. We know no reason why it should be concluded that such a thing is impossible. And I certainly see no reason why it is in any way similar to claiming they were once a married bachelor. In fact, I think your premises for that must rather complex, highly subjective, and from your own personal philosophy.
Sounds like a very different meaning of infinity than what any scientist would understand by your question. They will certainly take the meaning to be numerical. And what do you know about the numerical meaning of infinity? Are aware that there is more than one numerical infinity?
I am aware the natural and real numbers cannot be put in a one to one correspondence. That doesn’t mean there is a numerical difference between them, at least not one that I have been able to see.
That is exactly what it means, and there are higher orders of infinity than those two. What do you think the word “numerical” means? Though I suppose we have different words, but they are synonyms.
The order of a set defines the number of elements a set is having . It describes the size of a set. The order of set is also known as the cardinality. The size of set whether it is is a finite set or an infinite set, said to be set of finite order or infinite order, respectively.
Sorry. I clearly missed this part, when I looked before. I think this makes the distinction I was asking about.
To be clear: you are contrasting any portion of reality that can be studied scientifically (objectively) with the sum total of reality, which is beyond the scope of study. Is that right?
Thanks.
That’s right. Only the philosophical position of naturalism presumes that these are the same thing. Rejecting naturalism does not mean we think that what science studies isn’t real, but only that this is not the limit of reality.
The fact that science doesn’t study reality also leaves open the possibility of taking an instrumental approach to the philosophy of science, which denies that any metaphysical claims are being made (i.e. claims about reality), but that it is only about predicting the results of measurements. While most scientists are not instrumentalist (myself included), most don’t think that science precludes such a possibility.
Thus reality remains a question for philosophy rather than science – more specifically the branch of philosophy called metaphysics. Though some might consider this a joining of science and philosophy because the attempt to do metaphysics without expertise in physics seems a bit foolish.
Distinguishing metaphysics (pure reason) from theology is also an important step.
I used to comment on the internet infidels forum a while back, and would explain to atheists who claimed metaphysics was meaningless, those three statements for the world. It’s hard to imagine a better introduction, and the trick is that all three are empirically unverifiable.
There was even one from there who claimed to have a PhD in math and argued at considerable length that it is logically possible to form an infinite set through successive addition.
Stuff like that just makes you wonder what people are thinking.
Some people would like the science to be limited to the investigation of the physical reality and hope that the study about the impact of intercessory prayer would never have been done. The point is that people say that the metaphysical can impact the physical world, thus it makes it subject to scientific study. The odd thing is that we use metaphysics to investigate the physical reality, such as mathematics and logic.
The problem is in the use of the word natural and supernatural as most people conflict this with natural and not natural e.g. unnatural subconsciously whilst to me the supernatural is perfectly natural.
The clash between science and religion comes from a similar confusion as religion, in particular Christianity, is often based on wishful thinking that our God manipulates reality in our favour. And this were it becomes embarrassing as it becomes logically incoherent. but then we declare our self-centred subjective reality to become a human right, leading reality ad absurdum by decree. “My will be done” is the core message of the fall as it sets self against self, thus guarantees conflict, the essence of sin.
English becomes a broken tool when multiple meanings of the same word are used. I prefer the primary academic definitions such as this one.
Metaphysics is the philosophical study of the nature of reality.
I am not sure what “pure reason” might be, I wonder if Kant defines it his “Critique of Pure Reason.” If it is as one definition I found: the faculty that embraces the a priori forms of knowledge and is the source of transcendental ideas. Then I don’t blame Kant for criticizing it. I don’t think I believe in such a thing.
The philosophy that metaphysics is meaningless is called logical positivism. I consider both this and the more recent philosophical claim that there is no such thing as meaning to be completely meaningless.
Science is limited to physical reality. There is no like about it. Science only works because of the space-time structure of the physical universe which make things which are a part of it measurable. Things outside that structure are not measurable and thus inaccessible to science. All the study of the impact of intercessory prayer shows is that it makes no alteration of natural law.
The use of “metaphysical” with multiple definitions renders this incoherent to me.
