/* First Draft */ added some ideas about choice/discovery experiment subjective/objective
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At [[Sol 2012]], we asked ourselves what a [[Religious Method]], equivalent to the [[Scientific Method]], would look like.
[[Science]], in the sense of testing ideas by experiment, was done for thousands of years before it got its scientific method. But most of humanity's progress in science has been achieved in the 400 years or so since it got its method. Perhaps religion could begin a period of rapid progress if it had a method of its own.
== Questions that would be answered by a Religious Method ==
* What does religion do? What must a religion have to be a religion?
* What do religions not do? What should religions be forbidden from doing by the method?
* What is a religious question? What kind of questions do religions ask and what do their answers look like?
* What steps are there to answering religious questions?
== First Draft ==
[[Image:Science and religion.JPG|450px|right]]
This was presented by [[Eric]] and [[Brandon]] on the second day of [[Sol 2012]].
* Originally we said science is about discovery and religion is about choice; we then decided that the Religious Method is about both discovery and choice.
* Components needed for a complete religion:
** Practice and stories (Brandon thought this was the most important)
** Community and comfort
** Purpose and meaning (Eric thought this was key)
*** This is discovered inductively through experience, not chosen.
**** [Added 2012/07/09] Eric is reconsidering this. Behind this concept was a whole discussion on whether there is a universal purpose and meaning to life or whether there are only general purposes and meanings. I am starting to think that neither of these questions matters. Either there is a universal meaning and purpose to life but because it is always seen through a mirror darkly we can never be certain we have discovered what it is or we are chosing meanings and purposes for our lives and trying to discover by trial and error a meaning and purpose that speaks to us as individuals. Either way, it is a process that involves experiment and as with science, the process requires freedom in order to achieve results. The difference between a scientific experiment and a religious experiment is related to the dichotomy between objective and subjective. Scientific method, to be properly implemented, requires scientists to maximize their objectiveness. Religious method, because religion explores subjective questions, can not require objectiveness. Each individual becomes the sole judge of whether or not a religious idea speaks to them.
*** Therefore it's always provisional and "seen through a mirror darkly." Certainty is illusory.
*** Recognizing this means religions have to tolerate other religions. From another frame of reference, your purpose and meaning could be obviously wrong.
=== Discussion ===
* [[Ben]]: Traditional religions' adherents will equate this attitude to moral relativism
** Brandon: Is tolerance a fruit of religion?
** Eric: We can decide not to accept intolerant groups as [[kindred]]
** [[Hank]]: Most religions consider any belief that's new and different to be a "heretic cult"
** Eric: That's a bad way to do religion
* [[Paul Krafel]]: A lot of what religion did was try to explain the world before we had science
** Religions are cluttered with explanations that don't make sense to science
** Do we want to start fresh without all that clutter?
*** Eric: We're trying to give people a method as something helpful, not punish people for not following it
*** To use this method, you do need to throw out all claims about objective truth
* Brandon: Concentrated resonant action is a fruit of having a religious purpose
* Eric: Science, religion, art, philosophy, etc are all parts of human thought, but you should know which one you're doing
** For example, the New Atheists are trying to use scientific method to do religion
* [[Lion]]: Purpose and meaning come from your desires
** Focus on your desires, including desires for the actions of other people
* Lion: I have no interest in religion if it steps away from truth
** You're trying to fit new ideas into old categories
** I'm religious but I don't want to participate in any religion
* Hank: Religion is a method of control of your population and your culture to maintain it as a homogenous group
** There are many different, usually mutually intolerant, religions
*** [[Ben]]: In contrast to the unity of science?
** Ex. slaves were allowed to have religion so they could imagine a better afterlife and put up with their current existence
* Hank: Science is looking for how things happen and why, to use it for the benefit of humankind (or sometimes the detriment)
** There is no inherent right or wrong to it, ex. dynamite creates both benefits and harm
** Eric: Biologists and physicists don't disagree the same way that adherents of two religions would disagree ... categories vs. factions
==== Distilling ====
* Brandon: I'm interested in the essence of the sphere of human experience that I call religious ... that essence is connected with super-individual purpose, and how we go about molding our lives to actually point toward and align with that super-individual magnetic north that exists ... the individual necessities of life can expand like a gas to fill all available capacity ... religion is a regular and systematic creation of room for the super-individual purpose ... this is a huge effort if I'm by myself ... if I'm in a community that supports me, it's joyful and effortless to be what I aspire to be
** To sum up: Religion is the practices, the stories, the stuff that allows me and others like me to devote a significant portion of ourselves toward that which we find highest in our calling
* Paul: That's exactly how I feel too ... religion has been a means of control, a way to define a national or ethnic group and justify conquering another group, a source of pre-scientific truth ... if we cut all that away, where are we? ... the essence of the Scientific Method is that you have direct experience and then you explain it, and the direct experience always trumps the explanation if they conflict ... what I find intriguing is to bring that over to what Brandon is talking about ... what's the direct experience of this yearning? ... just as scientists analyze direct experience, developing this Religious Method is looking for direct experiences that thwart or amplify that yearning and for matching explanations that can arise from that, so we can find a way to get more direct experiences of that nature
* Hank: I think this is the same thing I feel, but I don't know that I would call it religion ... it sounds more like the spirit of community or of the tribe: the stories that guide our behavior ... religion is a guiding thing, giving you power and enthusiasm to support these positive ideas that affect the community ... I didn't hear Brandon mention priests with more authority than others ... that eliminated a bunch of the extra things I associate with organized religion ... if you get rid of the "mine is better than yours," you could unite larger groups of people
** Example: We have a big oak forest to the west of our solar panels ... we lose several hours of sun at certain times of year as a result ... our consensus was to cut those trees down ... but I watch the squirrels, and if we cut down those trees, we break the path of the squirrels through there ... my history of watching the squirrels is a story that affects the community and nature
** Dichotomy between religion as controlling force that leads to killing enemies and subjugating women, and religion as guiding principle ... I appreciate the opportunity to see the word "religion" in a new way
* Eric: "Chooses" is a hugely important word for me with respect to religion ... when we recognize that choice is involved, then the idea that someone should control religious views (theocracy) is completely wrong from our perspective ... we have to throw out theocracy because it denies choice ... we have to throw out determining factual truth with pseudoscientific religious pronouncements, i.e. using religion to do what science does well ... in science you're not supposed to get emotional; if you do, you've left the realm of science and you won't do proper experiments ... I prefer "barbed wire" as a metaphor for what we want to remove from religion, to give people a tool that frees them to explore new ideas and follow their desires, rather than remaining trapped in tradition
* Ben: What worries me is that we're setting ourselves up for a David vs. Goliath conflict ... even as a suggestion (take or leave), our method is going to threaten people ... religions do terrible things some timmes and I don't know how to stop it ... It's like the UN human rights document (everyone signed ... but not much progress has been made toward implementing it) ... difference between theory and practice ... as to what the word Religion should mean, I'm between Lion and Eric ... I don't even know what the word Truth should mean ... I don't know whether religion is separate from science or could somehow could be considered to encompass it (with Science being one unusual method of seeking truth) ... I don't know whether only religions should be allowed to say they've found [[wisdom]] and only science can say that they've found [[knowledge]] (dubious because of uncertainty inherent in scientific knowledge) ... I don't know if the Good and the good (that's a good painting) come from the same basic process (like Brandon asserts about aesthetics) ... that doens't mean we shouldn't make methods ... there are two kinds of methods (philosophy from first principles, and best practices (this is something from experience that has been shown to work))
* Lion: I'm a science anarchist ... there is no one scientific method, people use all kinds of methods ... it's clear that reproducible results are important ... sometimes we discount an experience because it's an outlier ... but so many times science is driven by emotion, ex. obsession with a certain kind of bug ... I'm somewhat sympathetic to Religious Method because I was trained in "alchemical" schools, that explore desires and dreams through materials like clay ... I'm acid, melting categories; I bristle when you say that in science you can do this, and in religion you can do that ... I want to talk with Eric about art, which I see as a hole in the English language: "we don't know what that is, we'll call it art"
==== Categories etc ====
[[Image:Circles and categories.JPG|450px|right]]
* Paul: There's a quote by David Orr: "the goal of medicine is health, not disease; the goal of economics is abundance, not poverty; you can be very emotionally attached to achieving a vision for the world, but as a scientist you must be objective ''in your treatment of the data'' as a tool to get to your vision"
** Eric: Scientists are human beings ... you're not going to bother doing science unless it's part of being a whole human being ... science and religion (or whatever you want to call what we're discussing as "religion") are two out of about a dozen things one can do with one's brain ... don't be Spock all the time, but when faced with data that your instincts tell you should turn out a certain way, you have to be Spock and objectively accept what the data actually says ... what you do with scientific results will involve art, politics, etc ... narrowing yourself to just one field doesn't work ... I do science even though I don't do lab work, I do religion but I've never been to theology school, I do art that I'm proud of although I haven't done art
** Lion: My problem is with the shape of your categories, not your labels
** Ben: Yes, scientists are emotional, and they introduce bias that they shouldn't, and that bias often goes into defending traditional beliefs, meaning the standard current of theory that they are in ... and this is against the principles of science, sure ... but the young scientists are eager to find newer theories ... even though we don't have "true" objectivity, science manages to survive our method of implementing it; it doesn't mean that the method doesn't exist, ... So, when Lion says that there's no something like the scientific method, and Eric says that you have to be Spock when you're doing science, I want to believe something in between
* Brandon: Hank mentioned that religion controls people ... I felt that there was almost universal agreement that that's a bad thing ... what I'm saying very strongly is that religion is a control that creates space in a life of consumption and desire, etc, for something more than that ... religion is the way that the Rider can create a different Elephant ... it's very much about control ... it's a power like dynamite, in that it can be used for good or ill ... that force has often been abused ... Eric's concept of choice could be the antidote to those abuses ... how do you train yourself in the direction you choose, and train your group in the direction your group chooses? how do we channel the power that exists in a direction that creates more of what we yearn for?
** Hank: The Scientific Method is abased by money, ex. Monsanto hiring researchers and paying them only if they produce the results that Monsanto wants ... what modifying force do we have that makes it so the human is interested in sharing, supporting, caring, rather than selfish desire for money and material goods? ... there are (almost) universally agreed-on things that religions tell us not to do, like murder and adultery, so there is a place for religion ... [a bunch of stuff that I missed]
** Lion: I don't need to refer to discipline as religion ... if I want something powerfully, I will start figuring out ways of restructuring my life to pursue it ... I agree with the desire to change things ... when I say "desire," it means "we should do what we want when we want," but only to a degree ... I don't need to define ethics, because I desire ethics ... I think defining things in abstract detail leads us astray
* Paul: Is the Golden Rule a truth? How did that idea come into existence? ... there's a Scientific Method by which we discover truth ... what do we do in this other area, "religion," that makes it grow?
** Eric: The Golden Rule comes from religion trying to discover meaning and purpose ... when I say religion has been done badly, I don't mean there haven't been good fruits of it
** Ben: I don't think ethics like the Golden Rule are meaning
** Paul: The Golden Rule ''is'' the Scientific Method, doing an experiment over thousands of years with millions of variables ... the general pattern is that when you follow the Golden Rule, it works out better than when you don't
*** Ben: So it's a best practice, not a first principle
* Hank: If we want healthy happy humans, why do we allow people to smoke? ... do we apply a control?
** I took a class with mostly 7th Day Adventists that was about what certain behaviors do to your health, even though most of the audience don't do them in the first place
** My father-in-law died because a truck driver was taking drugs and ran him over ... how to build a society where you don't do things that endanger your fellow man?
** I'm a member of Willamette River Watchers, checking for pollution and jumping on people who are disturbing the ecosystem
** Is it the responsibility of government to post danger signs, or should kayakers do the best they can with the situations they encounter?
** How to avoid having young people who replace outgoing leaders perpetuate the old ways?
==== Epilogue ====
* Paul: How do you come to a purpose or meaning or truth that changes your life?
** Lion: I love to have that conversation
** Paul: It's at the heart of a lot of what we're talking about
** Lion: If someone feels that something's off, you can work with them ... ex. if someone's really meek, create an environment where that person can express him/herself