Science & Atheism

[ChadT]

 

Leo,

I have found many of your videos very thought provoking.   Kudos to you for putting yourself out there the way you do.  You have started to lose me lately though...  

It appears you have recently decided to attack science and atheism and defend religion.   Generally speaking,  I completely disagree with this.   Science is the best tool we have for understanding reality.   Sure it isn't perfect, but what's the alternative?  Mystical stories?  Mythology?  Personal experiences others are expected to take on faith?  You seem to put these on the same level with the scientific method?

Of course there is beauty and truth to be found in many religions.   There is also a ton of dogma, oppression, fanaticism and corruption to be found there as well.  

I think you have also been unfair to Sam Harris, Neil deGrasse Tyson and Hitchens.   All personal heroes of mine.  Harris and Tyson are more agnostics than what I would consider atheists.   I concede Hitchens was a more in your face atheist, but his goal was noble IMHO.  He was brilliant at pointing out the absurdity of so many religious beliefs.  

I would argue the world would benefit from less religion and more scientific minded thought.   One side appeals to reason and logic and the other tends to oppress it.  

Anyway, that's my 2 cents.   Felt compelled  to post after watching your last few videos

[Prabhaker]

The very methodology of science prevents it from going in. It can go only outwards, it can study only objectively. 

Meditation is a knack, is certainly not a science, because it has no fixed methods.

[ChadT]

1 minute ago, Prabhaker said:

The very methodology of science prevents it from going in. It can go only outwards, it can study only objectively. 

Meditation is a knack, is certainly not a science, because it has no fixed methods.

But science has found clear value in meditation.   Art and science don't have to be in opposition.

[Prabhaker]

1 minute ago, ChadT said:

But science has found clear value in meditation. 

For the outside world, science is a valid approach. Unless science accepts meditation as a valid method of inquiry, science and spirituality will not meet.

[Leo Gura]

9 hours ago, ChadT said:

Science is the best tool we have for understanding reality

This is false. Why do you assume this a priori without empirical validation? Rather unscientific of you. Have you examined all of reality? Then why jump to that conclusion? What percent of reality have you seen or understood? <0.000000000000001%

The problem is that you are using science unscientifically, turning it into an ideology. That is a bastardization of science.

What you're not understanding about science is that it only studies one dimension of reality, at one level of consciousness.

At higher levels of consciousness, science is untrue.

In fact, it is impossible to reach truth with science because the map is never the territory.

Please stop believing in Sam Harris and his ilk. Their understanding of reality and consciousness is very crude and demonstrably wrong. They are not even close to understanding reality, consciousness, or science. It's just another ideology.

Despite the title of his book, Sam Harris is not awake and he does not understand what awakening really is. He is a dogmatic rationalist. And his fanbase is a rationalist cult. It's just another religion.

If you really care about science, you should start to study philosophy of science and epistemology. And contemplate the foundations of all knowledge. You are not conscious yet of what knowledge or science are.

Just to trigger the Sam Harrisite in you, what if I told you that you can access deeper facets of reality with witchcraft than science?

That happens to be true. Check out witchcraft

[Torkys]

8 hours ago, ChadT said:

Science is the best tool we have for understanding reality.

Science, as Leo said, assumes that the map is the territory. It turns reality into symbols and the symbols aren't the reality they represent, thus rendering all analyses, all scientific knowledge false.

8 hours ago, ChadT said:

...what's the alternative?  Mystical stories?  Mythology?  Personal experiences others are expected to take on faith?  You seem to put these on the same level with the scientific method?

 

You seem to be committing a black and white fallacy here (science vs mythology). There are not only 2 ways of understanding reality.

The problem with anecdotal evidence starts with misinterpretation. If you point to a bird and say "This is proof that Xenu threw hydrogen bombs on us and brainwashed us 75 million years ago." then you are fucked.

8 hours ago, ChadT said:

Sure it isn't perfect [...] There is also a ton of dogma, oppression, fanaticism and corruption to be found there as well.  

There is alot of dogma, oppression, fanaticism, and corruption in science as well.

Just watch a Rationality Rules video about New Age methods and his video about free will. In his video of free will, ironically he commits the same fallacy as he accuses of religious people having - appeal to authority. He points to scientific studies without self-reflection.

8 hours ago, ChadT said:

I would argue the world would benefit from less religion and more scientific minded thought.   One side appeals to reason and logic and the other tends to oppress it.  

Again, the black and white fallacy.

You are assuming that reason alone can get you to Truth. Question that assumption.

Even though science is a step up from blind faith and complete rejection of evidence, it still takes things on faith and is not as open-minded as it should be.

[Nahm]

@ChadT Approaches culminate and reveal, so try the approach that nothing is or isn’t science, is or isn’t spirituality, is or isn’t reality. Instead, these are labels you are labeling you with. Let go of details of what is observed, and focus on how you are observing. Consider the lens itself, rather than the image in it.  If there were no labels in play, what would there be?  Zoom in with distinctions for clarity, and use of knowledge in life, zoom out for peace & acceptance and realizations. 

[SOUL]

Yup, people want to believe that they know the ultimate and absolute "truth" by dismissing people who don't agree with their personal perception of it as deluded. Try not to let them distract you with their petty egoic ideological animosity from you finding fulfillment in awakening to being at peace with presence.

[robdl]

Some famous atheists like Sam Harris and Hitchens have a laser-sharp skepticism toward religious belief, but then had a naive credulity toward U.S. government military action during the Afghanistan/Iraq wars.  That's when you see that in their own lives they've substituted faith in the authority of religion for faith in the authority of the political establishment.  If you want to be an atheistic skeptic, you kind of undermine your cause when secular western state power becomes your religion.  They were on the right track in terms of questioning religious ideology and belief, but didn't take it far enough.

Edited April 3, 2018 by robdl

[ChadT]

14 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

 what if I told you that you can access deeper facets of reality with witchcraft than science?

I'm sure this is going to surprise you but... I would be highly skeptical of that claim.   I haven't looked into witchcraft in any real depth.  Perhaps I will.  When I get sick, I'm pretty sure I am still going to look to medical science for help and not a witch doctor.     Guessing that's not what you mean by "deeper facets of reality" though.

I have checked out Buddhism in some depth.  I still have Buddhist sympathies.  Although, much of the mystical tradition is lost on me.

I can only speak to my current level of consciousness.   I don't claim to be enlightened, or know the "truth" in any absolute sense.  I'm not even convinced that such a thing exists, or is attainable.  I'm certainly open to the idea though.  

When I said that "I believe science is the best tool we have for understanding reality", perhaps I should have said that I have found it to be an extremely valuable tool for understanding reality and of great value to mankind.   I'm not immune from making overreaching claims from time to time.

Lastly, the Harrisite in me has the add...  I don't see being a dogmatic rationalist as all that bad of a thing to be.   Maybe not the dogmatic part of the label, but I wouldn't argue if someone called me a rationalist.  It wouldn't capture the totality of who I am, but it wouldn't be a bad start.

Clearly we see things differently and you may not believe this, but I hear a lot of what you are saying.   It's something I will continue to consider as I navigate my way through this life.

 

 

[ChadT]

10 hours ago, Nahm said:

@ChadT Approaches culminate and reveal, so try the approach that nothing is or isn’t science, is or isn’t spirituality, is or isn’t reality. Instead, these are labels you are labeling you with. Let go of details of what is observed, and focus on how you are observing. Consider the lens itself, rather than the image in it.  If there were no labels in play, what would there be?  Zoom in with distinctions for clarity, and use of knowledge in life, zoom out for peace & acceptance and realizations. 

Thank you!

[Nahm]

@ChadT ❤️

[Joseph Maynor]

Why not add Leo’s voice to the chorus of voices you listen to?  Why do you assume there has to be a single right perspective on these matters that you want to cling to?  None of these ideas are pre-conceptual reality.  You can’t be harmed or helped in essence by any of these ideas because all unchanging Awareness cares about is awareness in the present moment.  Why are you getting defensive at all in a serious way?  That’s a sign of Ego.  You’re clinging to conceptual-truth about reality while being unchanging Awareness.  See the absurdity in that?  All conceptual-truth is a map to the territory of BE-ing.  Have fun with the diverging ideas and your ideosyncratic preferences thereof.  Reality laughs at the conceptual-truth project that aims to encircle and capture it.  All arrows point to BE-ing.

Edited April 5, 2018 by Joseph Maynor

[ChadT]

10 minutes ago, Joseph Maynor said:

Why not add Leo’s voice to the chorus of voices you listen to?

I have.

I just disagree on this issue.  I don't really think I was being "defensive".   Just trying to argue my point.  If I came across that way, that certainly wasn't my intent.  I ain't mad bro.

[WaterfallMachine]

I agree with you. Science is an amazing tool on reality, and much of religion is dogma. I grew up reading kids’ science books and have heard of skeptics like Harris and Tyson growing up. In one of Leo’s videos I recall — he did say he loved much of science, but believes there’s a better alternative.

Though I’ve been following Leo for a year, and what he’s advocating is not blind belief in religion or science, but in pure first hand observation. That’s really what they mean by the Truth — it’s less something to blindly believe and more for a tool to remove beliefs or assumptions. I dislike that they make it sound so vague — when that’s what it really is in particular.

I’d trust science if I can’t experience it directly, and it’d always be something I’d look at more tha religion. It’s just that skepticism in science often means you have to trust in the experiments of science — even if the research supported are often controlled by who’s able to collect the most funds or the most status for it — and so some personal experimentation could add to the perspectives.

Truth, like I said, isn’t a belief though. And since it requires removing assumptions, that can mean trusting science or religion more if you’d lead to it. Truth is a very subjective thing since we all look through the world to limited worldviews, and being able to expand our worldviews by first admitting what we don’t know helps.

I’m a science student, and in my perspective, mixing science and the spiritual together have made me enjoy science more. The ideas here are not trying to remove science — but to add something to it.

Edited May 11, 2018 by WaterfallMachine

[Erlend K]

Science is not a dogma. Science is founded upon the recognition most of our believes are flawed. Science is just the systematic search for these flaws. It's not about ending up with absolute knowledge, but rather about the journey of constantly weeding out incorrect assumptions.

Introspection is a useful tool, but it has it's limitations. The main problem with introspection is that it's easily corrupted by our unconcious biases. Many biases work subconsciously, are undetectable and thus often uncorrectable, despite our efforts.

I would argue that reading a scientific book like Kahnemans "Thinking fast and slow" will bring greater self-insight than hundreds of houres of introspection, becourse of the way it forces you to face your own biases.