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No this is definitely not a troll. I actually sortof hate the (blatantly inverted) myth that religious people can't be scientists, but I think it illustrates my point really well, so here goes:
You can have a devout Catholic particle physicist, astronomer, biologist, etc. These things are completely compatible with each other. Consider the breadth of experience that a devout Catholic astronomer has. They are able to tap into both the beauty of the universe, as well as integrate this into a broader (in my opinion richer) understanding about how humans and our morality fit into that universe. They get the "stars are cool" side of things, but they also get the divine "this is bigger than me" philosophical side of things.
To a devout Atheist, only part of this is available. You certainly get the "stars are cool" part, but you have to remain intentionally ignorant of the rest of the human experience.
Another example could be: I am a musician, and because of my understanding of music, I hear a drastically different thing when listening to it than somebody who isn't. Things which are "clever" in music just aren't apparent to a person who doesn't understand what is happening. Because I am willing to explore the idea that music is more than just patterned noise, my experience is richer. It's why the listening experience is richer for a musician than it is for a non-musician.
The same is true for cooking, painting, sculpting, etc. If you're a chef, you get to tap into a better understanding of what another chef is making for you and why it is interesting.
An atheist sees thousands of years of human history, art, and philosophy and (to stay in my metaphor) they just see the patterned noise that a non-musician hears when listening to music. It's pretty colors on a canvas, but that's kindof it.
A Catholic visiting Saint Peters Basilica sees something more than an atheist.
But the Catholic misses out on nothing.
The Atheist retort to this is, of course: but what if its all fake? Okay that's a fine question, but that starts driving into a question that I think causes the snake to sort of eat its own tail: what's real? Is the love I feel for my wife and children "real"? etc. etc. (this is a well trodden discussion that I don't think I need to remap)
I disagree with your point, but have to admit this is a well written and thought provoking way of promoting religion. I’d say it only holds water for the major/standard religions, but still.
How would you feel about a religion that hasn’t led to major art, or at least that wouldn’t give understanding. Something like shamanism or animism?
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Actually, the Catholic misses out on an awful lot. An accomplished buddhist monk who visited the Basilica would doubtless experience something more than a purely materialist perspective - and all of those doors would be closed to the papist. A practicing Christian hermeticist would see entire extra layers of meaning and teaching contained within the art as well, to say nothing of an orthodox Christian.
Your argument only really works if Catholicism is the One True Faith, but when you take into account the diversity of religious experiences and perspectives that can be found in the world it falls apart. From my personal perspective, your faith keeps you intentionally ignorant of vast swathes of human experience in much the same way that you claim atheism does.
Maybe the Buddhist seems more (although I don’t think so), but the Buddhist, the Muslim, the Jew, and the Catholic certainly see more than the atheist.
I recently spent some time in Abu Dhabi, and visited The White Mosque there. Because of my willingness to explore or accept the validity of the divine, I see more there than an Atheist would.
I am Catholic, and won’t lie about my biases. To the general point about the necessary ignorance of Atheists, however, the specific religion is irrelevant. Somebody elsewhere made a comparison to a nationalist visiting a national monument and feeling differently than a globalist. I think that approaches the same point I’m making
Actually, it is relevant. In this case you made the claim that the Catholic misses out on nothing, but that's absolutely not true. The Catholic misses out on multiple different interpretations of the same root phenomena - he has no appreciation for the ways that the eternal Dao reveals and unfolds itself in the construction of the Basilica, no understanding of how it serves as an expression of Krishna's glory, nor does he understand how it is a reflection of the sublime beauty of Melek Taûs. You haven't made an argument against atheism, you've made an argument against all religions. My own spirituality views Catholicism as a partial revelation, a single perspective that, while valuable, does not contain the entirety of the truth. To me, your own understanding of the beauty of the basilica is just as flawed and limited as that of the atheist in your original argument, and I simply do not accept Baruch Spinoza (whose work was actually banned by the Catholic church for 'atheism' among other things) necessarily had a lesser capacity for the appreciation of beauty than Fred Phelps. Again, your argument is only valid if the other person already accepts that Catholicism is true - it might be convincing to people who are already papists, but that's not going to actually convert or win anyone over. As a weapon of persuasion, it isn't going to reach anybody who you haven't already won over, because it relies on them accepting your premises already.
No you do not undertake my point, or are willfully misinterpreting it.
Yes he does. Yes I do, and that is my point.
No, he actually doesn't, and I do not believe you do either - how can you claim to be a Catholic while simultaneously appreciating the Dao? Daoism makes a series of claims about the universe that are fundamentally incompatible with Catholicism... which means that if you can appreciate the divinity of the Dao without being a Daoist, then nothing stops an atheist from doing the same to your Catholic understanding of the divine. There are real and serious differences between Buddhism, Catholicism, Daoism, Hinduism and Yezidism - they paint very different pictures of the nature of the underlying reality. The Buddhist draws different lessons from the Basilica than the Daoist who draws different lessons again from the Catholic, and while they are all religions, "the divine" means incredibly different things within each of them, and if you want to put them all into a generic category then you cannot actually keep atheism or pantheism from joining that category as well (see Spinoza once again).
If I've continued to misunderstand your point, please explain it to me in simpler terms.
Have you considered that your model of religious people is simply wrong?
How, exactly, are you capable of simultaneously being both a Daoist and a Catholic? These are two sets of competing beliefs about the world that cannot be held simultaneously, and I am fairly certain that the Catholic church will excommunicate you if you loudly talk about how other religions are also true and correct. If you can appreciate and understand the Eternal Dao without being a Daoist, then an atheist can appreciate and understand the divine significance of the Basilica without being a Catholic.
If my model of religious people is wrong, and people are capable of belonging to any number of religions which make mutually incompatible claims about the world with no worry, then I'll concede that point - but you're going to have to do a lot more work to convince me of that.
Don’t I remember something about pope Francis blessing a pagan idol, or is my long lost inner prot just fabricating reasons to stick it to the papists?
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If it's fake though, your better understanding is at best just noise. If you think you are psychic and can see auras, you will think you have more to say about people's words and truthfulness and the multi colored auras may even add beauty to their speech. But if you have a brain tumour then none of that information is true. If you call the FBI and tell them you know Bob Smith is going to kill someone, whether you have true or fake information is critical.
The same for an astronomer, if you think the reason for some phenomena is God and it is not, then you are further away from the actual truth.
You are correct that the Catholic has additional context and information, but that is only a good thing if they are actually correct. If not it may well be actively harmful. If it was only taken within the aesthetic context than that isn't really a problem. But I would argue that history shows that people are really very bad at keeping their beliefs in that sphere.
If Catholicism is wrong that gay sex is sinful and instead Gay God thinks it is the most virtuous act and gets you into Heaven, then that additional information being taught may have doomed hundreds of thousands of people to Hell. Whether your additional information is accurate or not is basically the whole point, if you are going to try to teach and pressure people into following it.
Catholics can certainly be scientists however no question, the ones that are generally focus on the fact that God created a universe that He wants to be explored with reason. So while God might be the ultimate cause of a super nova, the proximate cause was running out of hydrogen or whatever. Whether the sense of wonder of Godly creation outweighs the materialistic sense of wonder about a vast universe of chaos and beauty does not seem to be proven though.
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Yeah, but no one is actually arguing that? Not here, anyways. I'll argue that religious people engage in some level of compartmentalization when it comes to science, but not that they couldn't do it.
You can do all those things even without religion. You can have a sense of "this is beautiful" or "this is cool". People can, for example, experience many of the same feelings about nations instead of religion, where they get some awe or wonder from tying things to their people as opposed to God.
What you're saying just doesn't happen, and I know that because I've personally had the kind of moments where I felt many of the same things you described while also being an atheist.
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