Religion vrs Belief

Hi Barbara,
By George (not Bush..haha), I think you’ve nailed it! What we do with them afterwards (or during) can be just about anything but it’s tempting, in fact often mandatory to keep from going crazy, to fix on some belief system, whether it be anything whatever at all. The other alternative of course is to forget it all and go about our daily business unconcerned, but still with that nagging uncertainty underground as it were. Yes, your Paternal Grandmother may be content and sure, at least in her surface consciousness, but I think I’d rather be conscious…. as long as possible.

Boy, I’m with your old man there, Minds, “Any day above ground is a good one.”!

But let me expand a little on what I think Carse means by religion since I have now finished the book, as of late this afternoon, and ought to be able to explain it. Religion, according to Carse, is not belief, or a belief system, it is the result of people constantly debating over the centuries the fundamental questions: what happens at death?, why is there evil?, where did it all come from?, how will it end?, why is there something rather than nothing?, and never fixing on any one belief system as the final answer to these imponderables. These debates take different forms in the different religions such as Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, for example, and many specific belief systems spew out as it were from these religions. The fact that there are so many beliefs, none of which satisfy everyone, and a continuing debate, is what keeps these religions going, I think Carse says.

Of course, science has given us answers to some of these questions, but not in the deepest philosophical sense, not in the sense of why. The how maybe, but not the why.

Still, Carse is not anti-science. As you have pointed out elsewhere yourself, Minds, in the case of Galileo, Carse also uses Galileo as an example of someone who employs the human mind to find answers but is never satisfied with the answers he finds, never believes he has the final answers. Galileo would have gone on, Carse says, “with a continuing attempt to reimagine the universe” if he were not stopped by the authority of the so-called true believers!

In fact, science in the last hundred years has found more mysteries than could ever have been imagined by the scientists of the 19th century, or even Galileo, although he most likely would have been open to such possibilities. Many of these mysteries involve quantum mechanical effects at the micro level, while at the macro level many scientists are wrestling with the so-called Anthropic principle, i.e. the fact that physical constants appear to be fined tuned for life. So, yes, in addition to those fundamental questions mentioned above, there are many other mysteries which should keep us busy seeking explanations for an indefinite time in the future, and we’ll probably uncover even more mysteries in the process!

Thanks, Aileni. Yes, I forgot about the sense of the numinous, and the mystical experiences in general. I can’t really say I’ve had many of these, although I do feel at times the sense of the numinous, related to my “why is there something rather than nothing” feeling, or also generated by certain music. Interesting you believe in reincarnation. I’ve an open mind on whether there was some kind of creator god, but not one as described in the Christian bible.