In my latest post, I was trying to make the point that in order to get to paradise, you have to die first. That's literally what most christians by far believe. If you wanted to make a point that paradise is a "perfect" state of mind and that religion is the only way to reach it or somesuch, then I disagree. I don't think of religious people as particularly more harmonius than atheists.

Your metaphor about the shadows in the cave possibly bewilder and confuse more than they help. If you wanna make a point, you could perhaps try not be so abstract.

I don't know what you mean by "shadows", but if you substitute it for something like "reality" or "empirically proven truths" and that you can get "lost" in that, well .. I would say how can figuring out stuff about the universe we live in, where we come from, why we are here - make us lost? That people get enstranged from whatever beliefs they may have used to replace that knowledge with from before (religion), yes, there I agree with you .. and I think it's a good thing.

Its a reference to Plato's Allegory of the Cave.

Well, then the point becomes that by doing science, we waste time studying something which is not real, only representations of it. Yet here we are, sending rovers to Mars .. Obviously, we are able to take scientific knowledge and put it to practical use and even if you believe it's somehow wrong, the fact we can do these things should prove that it does in fact have a practical use and, I think most would agree, a value.

We're sitting here writing on a forum for example. Is that a result of studying shadows on the wall?

Needless to say, I think it was a bad metaphor and a poor comparison.

edit :

Plato was talking about philosophers as the ones who see more than just the shadows on the wall, the reality. Philosophers, not religious people. Thus, it's also a bit cheeky to use the cave allegory by Plato, academia's grandad, in such a way.

naturally they have practical value, because they allow us, as an individual organism, to adapt to our environment so that we can better sustain ourselves in it. the crux of the scientific reality is, however, to see the individual organism as separate from the environment, which is always an arbitrary boundary. the religious truth which i am hinting at is the collapse of that boundary, which renders science effectively futile. however, operating in the realm of sensuous experience, science is a very useful tool that allows us to play a variety of games which together consitute the experience known as 'life.' the problem is when rather than using science to adapt to our envionrment, we use science to disfigure our environment into reflections of ourselves, because we try to use scientific and logical understanding to pinpoint our own identity, which is futile since it operates on a schism in our identity. again, i'm sorry for being so abstract, i can't really help it, at this point i'm talking about things like mass entertainment and communications and increasing global corporate control, which i feel harbor self-destructive tendencies and convince people to want only what they can't have. as such, though there is an obvious divide between religion and science, science without any sort of aim or direction is probably the biggest threat imaginable to humanity.

very well said

Unless I'm mistaken, it seems to me you're talking about something like the disintegration of the "me" and subsequent fusion with "everything" (God?). It seems that this is something we should strive for and when attained, we don't need science .. I guess that would mean elimination of all "me"-related personal goals etc., so perhaps that makes sense.

The only problem about your argument is that without extensive doses of psychoactive drugs or some intense religious experience or something else out of the ordinary, what you're talking about here is basically incomprehensible. Since people don't experience such things or live lives in this state, there doesn't seem to be a practical value to the religious truth you're hinting at.

The other stuff about how we can't use science to identify us with science, well, not even a scientist would exclusively define him or herself with science. I identify myself with opinions, enjoyments, dislikes etc. that I think have little to do with science.

i think as far as "all is one" amounts to "love thy neighbor as you love yourself" has an extraordinary practical value that many people leave unexplored in their lives... of course this might not apply to you but i might suggest that perhaps you live more religiously than you realize.

also, i guess i should make clear that I'm using "religiously" as a contrast to science, not philosophy. in the sense i'm using them both qualify as philosophical perspectives.

So the "collapse of that boundary, which renders science effectively futile" is simply love thy neighbour. I don't think that leaves science futile because while loving our neighbours, we're still living our practical lives with our cars and computers. Also, as you've guessed, I don't think love for others exists solely within the confines of "religious experience".

If you think I live religiously, then you're using the term in a different way than I do. I think of it as something like living your life intentionally according to a religion. I don't think of it as being capable of love, morale or spirituality.

From your post, it seems you're now blaming science for a lack of empathy and love in society. Since science doesn't tell us how to live or love, I think that topic is more at home in a religious debate or in a discussion on society. In other words, instead of blaming science, maybe one should look to those areas instead to find the culprit.

I'm not blaming science, I'm really blaming the lack of religious feeling that allows science to spiral out of control. I think a large part of this is, however, the lack of philosophy and religion in general education, which leads to a misconception in a lot of people that 'science is finding all the answers,' when science only really finds itself. As Einstein said, "nature is simple, it is we who are complex." We can spend the rest of eternity reading complexity into the Universe, but ultimately we're only studying our own capabilities of studying.

Sounds like everywhere to me... Point please?