Dear Members

Seskis, in his message ‘Daniel Dennett and Religion’ (dated 09 December 2006), wrote that ‘...religion consists of three parts: ethics, teleology and theology.’ Having considered religion from a teleological perspective, I thought that the subject might be of some interest to members of this group.

I wrote up my conclusions in a paper headed ‘The Origin and Evolution of Culture’, basically that we are in fact born in sorrow as stated in Genesis, and religions express the truth. The paper was published in an e-journal called ‘Journal of Psycho-Social Studies’ at:

http://www.btinternet.com/~psycho_social/Vol2/JPSS2-GB1.html

The members of the Editorial Board, including thirteen Professors from related disciplines, are listed at:

http://www.btinternet.com/~psycho_social/ed.htm

Anyway, hoping that the subject-matter will be found of interest,

Gunars

This article is just another attempt to take a small part of the human experience, birth imperfection, and tries to make it as the foundation of human exixtence.  There are plenty of other examples.  Freud said that everything revolves around sexual desire, Adler - desire for power, Marx - economic problems,  Buddha - desire in general, Confucius - lack of civility. The list can be expanded endlessly.  I believe that all these converge to a quest for the meaning of life, for the answer to the questions of where we came from, where we are going, and what we should do in the meantime. Since we have no sure way to find out, we simply have to adopt the asumptions that are most palatable to us, and live according to them.  Refusing to make and adopt any assumptions is the surest way to a meaningless life.

It looks as if we might be ‘on the same wavelength’, more or less, but I am not sure what you meant by the expression ‘birth imperfection’. Could you please explain?

Gunars

“Birth imperfection” is the impression that stuck in my mind after reading your published article.

I used the expression ‘imperfect birth’, ‘birth imperfection’ suggesting some defect that goes with human birth, wheras ‘imperfect birth’ conveys the impression that in some sense the entire outcome of giving birth is defective. But I don’t want to create an issue of this matter, since both expressions suggest much the same thing.

By the way, I arrived at the general idea of the teleological imperfection of human birth in the course of studying Hegel’s understanding of teleology, which is more or less that all events are guided towards a distant goal (the ‘telos’), largely by a dialectical method where new pictures confront existing ones, a struggle ensues, and eventually a synthesis arises. But Hegel did not apply his schema to the evolution of species, particularly the emergence of our species, since he did not believe in the evolution of species. This shortcoming in Hegel’s understanding led me to consider the likely (teleological) situation in connection with the descent of our species

Gunars

Life is a process, not a product.  Humankind, or, for that matter, any living species, are not constant, but evolve with time to a more capable, to a better fit, to a more survivable form.  In a million years we are going to become something we can’t even conceive, sensitive to ineffable stimuli, capable of controlling unimaginable forces.

Accoding to dictionary, in one sense ‘process’ is a systematic series of actions directed to some end, which is not incompatible with teleology as the study of final causes or ends. 

The concept ‘teleology’ has a long history, a teleological world view being one of the characteristics of the philosophy of Aristotle from Ancient Greece. Aristotle begins his argumentation by stating a non-teleological view of natural history, but then goes on to develop a series of arguments against that view. In more recent times teleology was studied by Immanuel Kant (described in Part two of his ‘Critique of Judgement’), followed by Hegel’s efforts to demonstrate the existence of something like a driving agency behind the life process which he called Geist, loosely translated as ‘spirit’.

Hegel’s famous book ‘Phenomenology of Spirit’ has been understood by some commentators as an effort to demonstrate the reality of the spirit by examining the historical development of it’s works, but his analysis was limited to considering the history of civilizations, religions, empires, etc,  since he (along with Kant)  did not believe in the evolution of species, and thus was not in a position to study any conceivable (teleological) complications in the descent of our species from its immediate predecessor. as I have tried to explain in my ‘culture’ paper. Hegel lived earlier than Darwin, and it has been argued by philosopher of science Errol E Harris (in his paper ‘How Final is Hegel’s Rejection of Evolution?) that had the empirical facts known to Darwin been available to Hegel, then he would have had no problems accepting the evolution of species as a fact, although adding a teleological dimension to the Darwin’s picture.

Gunars

Events can be directed or random.  It is difficult to see evolution as a random process because it is obvious that it has a direction toward creativity, higher sensitivity, more control, better adaptability.  Even if individual steps in evolution are proved to be random events, those steps can have a direction if a ratchet is present.  That ratchet in evolution is the law of the survival of the fittest.  The question remains as to who or what laid down that law, who created that ratchet.  Was it some higher intelligence, a metaphysical law, or a God?  It is not explainable by any physical laws known to man.

The scientific understanding of the ‘survival of the fittest’ law has undergone a change since Darwin’s time, when it was seen simply in terms of the physically fittest. By now the idea has been refined and restated as ‘survival of those with best reproduction rates’.

As regards the nature of the ‘driving agency’ behind the (teleological) life process, I have given up trying to reach full clarity on that question, and am content to go along with Genesis that in the beginning God separated light and darkness, thereby originating the life process.

Gunars

Maybe God separated matter from antimatter!  Then, whqt did he do with the anitmatter?

I prefer a picture where the biblical ‘separation’ refers to what some philosophers, particularly of the ‘continental philosophy’ orientation, have referred to as Being - Being’s Other coexistence.  On that picture the Other is understood as existing all around us, but in our ordinary, practically-oriented mindedness, we are not aware of its existence and presence. A philosopher who devoted much attention to that subject was the Lithuanian-born Jewish-French thinker Emmanuel Levinas, author of the book ‘Time and the Other’ and other works.

Gunars

Religion from a theological perspective?
Theological perspective means what? Human interpretation? Haughty high minded intelligencia?
Religion?

What is religion and how do you seperate that from FAITH?

A totally useless subject matter for this blog. It takes God immediately out of the discussion and replaces it with human intrepretation and apothesis.

Nothing else to say. Useless crap being discussed here.

The concept ‘teleology’ has to do with the nature of the life process. Does it have a goal, or is life part of a meaningless ‘dance of atoms’. According to the teleological perspective there is distant goal, clearly expressed symbolically in religious thought, and referred to in philosophy as ‘telos’. In Christianity the goal is resurrection, as achieved by Christ and hoped for by the faithful. In Buddhism the goal is the state of nirvana, the faithful there leading their lives so as to be reborn into a higher station along the road to nirvana. Although ‘teleology’ is not something tangible, it certanly makes sense - it is a concept that enables us to orient ourselves in the confused times the world is passing through at present.

Gunars

Someone who believes that life has a purpose will definitely act differently than someone who believes tha life has no purpose.

I agree that ‘someone who believes that life has a purpose will definitely act differently than someone who believes that life has no purpose’ but, depending on religious (or religion-related) orientation, all believers in teleology will not, under a given set of circumstances, act in the same way. The nature of the telos, and the best route towards it, is understood differently by different peoples.

Our Western culture evolved over the last two millennia under the guidance/constraints/pressure of Christianity, and therefore our best route forward seems to be by gaining a better understanding of the foundations of Christianity - more in terms of rational thought and less through unquestioning faith.

Gunars

Is that at all possible Gunars - in that much of what is available to the general public has many traslations that may be inacurate. Which versions of documentation would be valid in such an undertaking. Maybe I am wrong that actual historical documentation would be rare at best. Many of the written information is most certainly biased, and in all probability - most of the reliable data was likely destroyed in some some religious purge centuries ago. Not knocking the idea - but where does the search begin, and how can anything be verified with questionable data only.