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In response: The idea of Reclaiming
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Lyn Farel
Societas Imperialis Sceptri Coronaeque
Khimi Harar
#41 - 2012-04-11 11:25:24 UTC
It is possible to prove God's existence as it is mostly a matter of cosmological definitions. It is however currently impossible to prove the existence of any supernatural being.
Nicoletta Mithra
Societas Imperialis Sceptri Coronaeque
Khimi Harar
#42 - 2012-04-11 15:23:52 UTC
Arkady Sadik wrote:
If I believe that the atmosphere on Amarr Prime is not breathable, then it is true that I believe that, but it is not factually true (as we can check).

If I believe that the Fairy Unicorn has eight legs, then it is true that I believe that, but we can not know whether it is factually true (as we can not check).


Well, Captain Sadik, but if that is true, the assertion that the 'evil god' of Matari mythology is identical with the God that the Amarr venerate can't be 'stating things as they are' but merely 'as they might be but we won't ever know if they are like that'. Cpt. Rhiannon was asserting the first thing though, that if she follows the Rhiannon way and said that the 'evil god' and the 'Amarrian god' are the same, she states [i]things as they are[i]. That isn't quite saying that she believes what she believes (but doesn't know if that's how things are), an assertion that is a quite trivial truism.

Luckily, I think we can - contrary to what you imply with your examples - check whether her proposition can be true or not. Of course, it's not empirically checkable, but just because there is no room for checking things empirically, it doesn't follow that there is no way to check the truth value of propositions. True, the truth value of the claim of that the Fairy Unicorn is 8 legged isn't in itself checkable. But then this is not quite the kind of proposition I've been denying here. That proposition was more akin to the following assertion:

"The eight legged Fairy Unicorn I believe in is identical with the six legged Fairy Unicorn you believe in." Or, another analogous assertion: 8 = 6. Even though you can't go to the space of numbers to look up if 8 and 6 are identical, just as you can't go to the fairy Unicorn land to check whether the six legged and the eight legged one and the same, we have ways to check whether these assertions are true or not.

That 8 is not equal to or identical with 6 follows logically and if you insist on something else, you just fail to understand what the terms "8" and "6" as well as what the predicative phrase "x is y" mean.

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The difference between our cultures is that Amarrian Six Leggers, upon hearing of the Eight Legged Heresy, will likely come over in rage to try and enslave me for nine generations until I agree that Fairy Unicorns have six legs, while Minmatar Six Leggers will shrug and go "oh-kay" (and probably think I'm a bit silly).

Maybe. Maybe the difference is, that we think that someone who can't see that 6 doesn't equal 8 should get a proper education and someone to watch over him, while you get angry that someone took the freedom from your kin to believe that "6 = 8" and that squares have three edges and go on to bash their heads?

Probably though, it's somewhere in between the two.
Elsebeth Rhiannon
Gradient
Electus Matari
#43 - 2012-04-11 16:32:51 UTC  |  Edited by: Elsebeth Rhiannon
Nicoletta Mithra wrote:
Ah, I'm really confused now. The question whether "the Amarrian hardliner that subscribes to agressive Imperialism, who states that the Rhiannon way is the primitive fantasy of a sub-human tribalist community, does he state things as they are" you answered with yes, but now you say that it's not true?

I say it is not true, and I am correct, because that is my way. But when the hardliner says it is true, he is also correct, because that is his way. That is the way spiritual truths are: they are true only relative to the speaker. It is possible for contradictory things to be spiritually true without this being a contradiction, as long as the things are believed by different people. The only way you can argue that a spiritual belief is untrue is to show either that it is not a purely spiritual claim but also a factual one, or show that the beliefs of any given clan are internally contradictory.

(Here we could maybe argue that the concept of "subhuman" does enter the realm of the factual; at least it is a concept for which a definition could be formulated that is possible to check. But that's beside the point. Let's for the sake of this argument accept it as a spiritual claim. The claim that Minmatar people are tribalist is obviously factual, but since is it factually true, this also does not matter for the argument.)

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In regards to the development of your myths and legends, that's roughly what I know about it. I ask myself though, why you insist on the literal interpretation of those myths that this 'evil god' is identical with the God venerated by the Amarr. Standing by that, as you appear to do, strikes me as quite irrational.

I do not actually insist that a literal interpretation of any myth is necessary here. I do not even believe in the literal existence of the God, call him evil or not. Myths and legends do not describe the factual realm. When I say that the Amarrian God is our Evil God, what I mean is that this belief tells us something about how we see your beliefs, something that is easier to express in a legend than in factual words. Our legends very clearly talk about the Amarrian God being the Evil God, and to claim this isn't so is what sounds to me irrational.

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Also, I'd really see that definition of yours that holds that spiritual matters are necessarily irrational.

"Irrational" is maybe too strong a word. What I meant is that while it is sensible to require that a spiritual belief held by any one person or clan does not contradict itself, requiring that spiritual beliefs are "proven" the same way as scientific claims does not lead anywhere. Mostly because I do not believe the purpose of spiritual beliefs is to say something factual about the world itself, but to resonate with emotions and history in a way where whether God really exists matters less than what we say about Him.
Nicoletta Mithra
Societas Imperialis Sceptri Coronaeque
Khimi Harar
#44 - 2012-04-11 17:48:38 UTC
Elsebeth Rhiannon wrote:
I say it is not true, and I am correct, because that is my way. But when the hardliner says it is true, he is also correct, because that is his way. That is the way spiritual truths are: they are true only relative to the speaker. It is possible for contradictory things to be spiritually true without this being a contradiction, as long as the things are believed by different people. The only way you can argue that a spiritual belief is untrue is to show either that it is not a purely spiritual claim but also a factual one, or show that the beliefs of any given clan are internally contradictory.

So, if I get you right here, you say those two statements only appear to be contradictory, while they actually are, because in 'spiritual statements' subjectivity is always implied? That is, the proposition "Your 'God' is the 'evil god' of my myths." should be understood, in an explicit form, as amounting to "Relative to me, that is, according to my belief system, your 'god' is the 'evil god' of my myths."?

If that is so, the assertion that this spiritual belief is true does say nothing more than that there are people believing it. This, really, is quite a trivial observation. It also holds for what you call "factual claims". If I say that the universe has the size of a pea and you point out that this is empirically wrong, I can as well say: "But I'm not speaking empirically, I say that it is true in relation to me, that is, according to my belief system about the world, that the universe is pea sized."

There is, of course something wrong with this kind of response, I think. Just as it is with your spiritual relativism or subjectivism. Because subjectivism and relativism fail to establish, in my opinion, any truth at all: It's a flawed understanding that truth can be simply established like that. If one is a competent speaker and realizes the function of the word "truth" or of any normative word at all, one has to realize that it doesn't make sense to talk of 'my truth' versus 'your truth' - whetehr spiritual or otherwise - if not in a heuristic, analogous sense. Otherwise one is gnawing at the root of the 'tree of truth', so to speak.

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I do not actually insist that a literal interpretation of any myth is necessary here. I do not even believe in the literal existence of the God, call him evil or not. Myths and legends do not describe the factual realm. When I say that the Amarrian God is our Evil God, what I mean is that this belief tells us something about how we see your beliefs, something that is easier to express in a legend than in factual words. Our legends very clearly talk about the Amarrian God being the Evil God, and to claim this isn't so is what sounds to me irrational.

I happen to notice that you seem to use 'factual realm' as being identical with the term 'physical world' or 'material realm'. So, would you say that 2 = 2 isn't factually true?

Also, I don't claim that your Myths do not claim that the 'Amarrian God' is the 'evil god'. I claim that it is a false claim, and that this can be easily shown by logic. Just as it is with the idea that 6 = 8 or that a six legged being is identical with a eight legged being.


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"Irrational" is maybe too strong a word. What I meant is that while it is sensible to require that a spiritual belief held by any one person or clan does not contradict itself, requiring that spiritual beliefs are "proven" the same way as scientific claims does not lead anywhere. Mostly because I do not believe the purpose of spiritual beliefs is to say something factual about the world itself, but to resonate with emotions and history in a way where whether God really exists matters less than what we say about Him.

So, emotions, history and the like are nothing factual? Or is it that spiritual beliefs don't hold any reasonable content about these things?

Of course spiritual beliefs aren't subject to the same methodical testing as propositions brought forth by natural science. But does that really mean that there is no need to justify them? At least over here in Amarr, and as I know from studies abroad at UoC, they are very much held to the criteria of reason and that this leads somewhere, as can be seen by the progress the fields of theology and - if you're more inclined towards the secular - philosophy of religion show.
Elsebeth Rhiannon
Gradient
Electus Matari
#45 - 2012-04-11 18:48:45 UTC
Nicoletta Mithra wrote:
If that is so, the assertion that this spiritual belief is true does say nothing more than that there are people believing it.

I do not think this is quite true. In a simplistic view, yes, it seems so, but the truth in spiritual truth goes further than simple belief. There can be "superstitious" beliefs that are not spiritual truths, I think - where such belief is simply held by an individual, without it having a deeper meaning, without it "talking to the soul" of the individual.

But here we get to the reasons why spiritual truths exist at all: describing these things in words is hard; describing them through stories is easier.

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I happen to notice that you seem to use 'factual realm' as being identical with the term 'physical world' or 'material realm'. So, would you say that 2 = 2 isn't factually true?

I do not know what made you think that I mean by "factual" merely "physical" or "material", but that is wrong. "2 + 2 = 4" is a factual statement, as I understand if (for the usual mathematical notation and definitions, for the technical nitpickers out there).

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Also, I don't claim that your Myths do not claim that the 'Amarrian God' is the 'evil god'. I claim that it is a false claim, and that this can be easily shown by logic.

I believe that can be done only if you start by certain assumptions, which themselves are spiritual beliefs. Thus the logic holds if one shares your premises. This serves to show that your spiritual truth is real: it is internally consistent. It does not serve to show it is factually true.

If you think you can prove the existence of God from facts that are easily verifiable, by all means explain how.

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"Irrational" is maybe too strong a word. What I meant is that while it is sensible to require that a spiritual belief held by any one person or clan does not contradict itself, requiring that spiritual beliefs are "proven" the same way as scientific claims does not lead anywhere. Mostly because I do not believe the purpose of spiritual beliefs is to say something factual about the world itself, but to resonate with emotions and history in a way where whether God really exists matters less than what we say about Him.

So, emotions, history and the like are nothing factual? Or is it that spiritual beliefs don't hold any reasonable content about these things?

No; history and emotions are or can be factual too. But the purpose of myths is not to describe history or emotions - factual statements can do that better - but reveal something about them that does not easily render itself to everyday speech.

Nicoletta Mithra
Societas Imperialis Sceptri Coronaeque
Khimi Harar
#46 - 2012-04-11 19:23:59 UTC  |  Edited by: Nicoletta Mithra
Elsebeth Rhiannon wrote:
I do not think this is quite true. In a simplistic view, yes, it seems so, but the truth in spiritual truth goes further than simple belief. There can be "superstitious" beliefs that are not spiritual truths, I think - where such belief is simply held by an individual, without it having a deeper meaning, without it "talking to the soul" of the individual

But here we get to the reasons why spiritual truths exist at all: describing these things in words is hard; describing them through stories is easier.

Oh, I don't deny that - I just say that this truth isn't something that's expressed explicitly by the proposition - the propositional content - is reduced to that trivial truism. The other truth isn't really something that's in the proposition, but in it's interaction with the recipient that is formed by certain experiences and thus susceptible to get this meaning evoked by that proposition: That's a property of the recipient though, not of the proposition

So, given that, the propositional content "Amarrian God = evil god" might be false while the evoked meaning might be true and incommunicable by propositional means. One has to distinguish the one from the other, though: While the use of a switch might turn the light on, the switch is not the light. While a proposition might evoke a spiritual truth, the proposition isn't true because of that

Still, the fact that some spiritual truths are incommunicable by propositional means, doesn't mean that all of them have to

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I do not know what made you think that I mean by "factual" merely "physical" or "material", but that is wrong. "2 + 2 = 4" is a factual statement, as I understand if (for the usual mathematical notation and definitions, for the technical nitpickers out there).

So what makes you think that the principles of reasoning applied here aren't fit to be applied to at least some spiritual truths

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I believe that can be done only if you start by certain assumptions, which themselves are spiritual beliefs. Thus the logic holds if one shares your premises. This serves to show that your spiritual truth is real: it is internally consistent. It does not serve to show it is factually true.

Yah, but if you make a statement like your God is what we call the 'evil god' you don't stay within your system. If you make such statements that are connecting two systems, then you've at least see to it that the proposition is consistent with both systems. If you say "the God the Amarr believe in" you've to hold that to the standards of Amarrian belief, not to the standards of what Matari believe that Amarr believe in

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If you think you can prove the existence of God from facts that are easily verifiable, by all means explain how.

Well, I did claim that the claim that the 'Amarrian God' is the 'evil god' is a false claim and that this can be easily shown by logic. That's, by the way, something else than claiming to be able to prove God. Whether or not God is provable is an entirely other discussion

So, as to the claim of identity of the God the Amarr believe in and the 'evil god'

(P1) If the 'Amarrian God' is the 'evil god', then there is evil in the God the Amarr believe in
(P2) There is no evil in the God the Amarr believe in
-----------------------modus tollendo tollens---------------------
(C3) The 'Amarrian God' is not he 'evil god'

q.e.d.
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