Most of what I know about Catholicism I learned after becoming Orthodox. I've been seeing more Catholics here, which makes sense, as the history of Western thought is rooted in post-schism scholasticism, which eventually birthed rationalism and the Enlightenment and our modern presuppositions. So there is a sense that modern people will feel at home in the ancient expressions of the ideals we already have.
One worry I havr about the Catholic faith is that I see a lot of emphasis on miracles, which I think would astonish a lot of atheists and agnostics if they had the interest to look at it, and trust in the sources for those evidence. Hinduism is also known for this, and obviously occult practices and witchcraft is also real. But once you're past the point of incredulity, which I am, I would be interested in learning more about the framework that is used to discern between genuine holiness and deception.
Orthodoxy has a word for deception, "prelest", for example, and there are guidelines to not communicate with or pay attention to apparitions when they appear or to be skeptical of them, and to be mindful of whether the encounter is producing the fruit of repetance and humility, or if it produces pride— as a way of discerning if it is from God or something else. I have an orthodox friend who says thr miracle of Guadalupe which converted Mexico over night was genuine, but recent (relative to the age of the Church) saints displaying stigmata or the eucharist blossoming hear tissue in a test tube are treated with less eagerness. I'm not sure how this compares to the Holy Fire in Jerusalem, which is probably our most famous miracle.
I am also interested in the relationship between reason and trust, which I haven't figured out yet, since in the Christian worldview, reason is fallen, which I think denotes the danger of over-rationalizing the faith at least, but I am astonished by things like thr Christology unearthed by the Ecumenical Councils, which is only really motivated when the Church is forced to answer heresies with the Grace of correct explanations, so I don't quite understand the impulse to proactively crank the engines of reason, so to speak, to systemize things in the way the Latins have done.
This is the Orthodox perspective I've picked up in the past few years, but I am in awe of the feeling of irreducible belief that I think this touches on.
I skimmed through the first section of article and it seemed definitely focused on the constants and how they might prove existence of god and this is usually given by academics who believe in god
I do not really believe in the fine tuning argument or the first cause arguments, I know some people really love these arguments on both sides of the wheel atheism or religion but I think that another idea which is rather sheldom discussed is deism which states that the first cause may be something but that it doesn't really interact with us afterwards and especially not in the ways that any major religion follows
And so even if you believe in god or not, in the end, it doesn't really matter (deism/agnosticism/atheism). I like to believe in existenalism where one has to forge their own meaning in life and I like to think that some people can just take god as a boilerplate if they don't really want to deal with the emotional turmoil that it might generate within some people
Deism/agnosticism is severely under-rated and it solves many of the gatchas that atheism vs religious debates tend to follow and so, its just if you are a deist or atheist or agnostic, it really doesn't matter because the end result's the same in my opinion and I think more so that all of these are in bluriness between a complete yes, an idk/maybe and a complete no. But in the end nothing really changes if the answer's any of these unless one is theist itself but there are several arguments against theism itself.
Once again, to me, I feel like if someone's religious, its fine but its such a slippery slope because religion really doesn't want you to mix and match things (which one can do with existentialism and their own philosophy of life) but religion wants you to take everything usually and tries to create high stake emotional gambits and I find them extremely bad because they can be intolerant because intolerance towards certain things would be rewarded by what they presume as heaven so may be defined.
It's the intolerance within the religious community which drives off the scientific community because science isn't really trying to cherry pick certain things or not. Its impartial and will state clearly what's the truth. Religions have shown to be intolerant to certain parts of science and that intolerance is still pestering even modern science at times.
One should try getting a modern concensus of what it means to be religious, because what's happening is the peer pressure/echo chambers convert a longing desire for meaning into a pre-built package of opinions on capitalism/politics/religion in many places.
I once did a mild discussion with a religious person and that really just boiled down to, well you believe in it or not, they ended up agreeing to all my points and had to use chatgpt to counter or smth but like religion really doesn't favour modern science. It really just wants you to believe things the way they are or Religion is really really resistant to change and so its worth questioning what community one wants to be part of as well and if perhaps there are ways that one can connect to other people in similar manner like having a community while focusing on only certain parts and from a more secular point of view.
I feel like that everyone of us even secular can probably spin up some philosophical difference to any religion (some religions do in fact not believe in god as well) etc. but at that point, I don't really think one should call it religion but I guess we humans have evolved to have the need to be in part of a community.
Most of what I know about Catholicism I learned after becoming Orthodox. I've been seeing more Catholics here, which makes sense, as the history of Western thought is rooted in post-schism scholasticism, which eventually birthed rationalism and the Enlightenment and our modern presuppositions. So there is a sense that modern people will feel at home in the ancient expressions of the ideals we already have.
One worry I havr about the Catholic faith is that I see a lot of emphasis on miracles, which I think would astonish a lot of atheists and agnostics if they had the interest to look at it, and trust in the sources for those evidence. Hinduism is also known for this, and obviously occult practices and witchcraft is also real. But once you're past the point of incredulity, which I am, I would be interested in learning more about the framework that is used to discern between genuine holiness and deception.
Orthodoxy has a word for deception, "prelest", for example, and there are guidelines to not communicate with or pay attention to apparitions when they appear or to be skeptical of them, and to be mindful of whether the encounter is producing the fruit of repetance and humility, or if it produces pride— as a way of discerning if it is from God or something else. I have an orthodox friend who says thr miracle of Guadalupe which converted Mexico over night was genuine, but recent (relative to the age of the Church) saints displaying stigmata or the eucharist blossoming hear tissue in a test tube are treated with less eagerness. I'm not sure how this compares to the Holy Fire in Jerusalem, which is probably our most famous miracle.
I am also interested in the relationship between reason and trust, which I haven't figured out yet, since in the Christian worldview, reason is fallen, which I think denotes the danger of over-rationalizing the faith at least, but I am astonished by things like thr Christology unearthed by the Ecumenical Councils, which is only really motivated when the Church is forced to answer heresies with the Grace of correct explanations, so I don't quite understand the impulse to proactively crank the engines of reason, so to speak, to systemize things in the way the Latins have done.
This is the Orthodox perspective I've picked up in the past few years, but I am in awe of the feeling of irreducible belief that I think this touches on.
Background: I did YC back in 2006 and currently work as a data scientist, and I've been working on this website as a hobby since 2022.
I published the first version of this article in mid-2024, and since then I've significantly expanded it with new content, including:
- materials from recent talks by Harvard astronomy professor Karin Öberg
- findings from archaeology and modern academic biblical scholarship (for the section on the Resurrection)
- an entirely new section on Lourdes
- inline photographs & lab reports on Eucharistic miracles
- links to faith testimonies including my interview with Evan O'Dorney, a 2x IMO gold medalist and 3x Putnam fellow
Regardless of your religious views, I hope you find it interesting. Happy New Year everyone.
I skimmed through the first section of article and it seemed definitely focused on the constants and how they might prove existence of god and this is usually given by academics who believe in god
But some recent studies I think do show that the fundamental constant of physics aren't so much constant. I am not a physicist but it was something that I read. https://www.sciencealert.com/new-tests-suggest-the-fundament...
I do not really believe in the fine tuning argument or the first cause arguments, I know some people really love these arguments on both sides of the wheel atheism or religion but I think that another idea which is rather sheldom discussed is deism which states that the first cause may be something but that it doesn't really interact with us afterwards and especially not in the ways that any major religion follows
And so even if you believe in god or not, in the end, it doesn't really matter (deism/agnosticism/atheism). I like to believe in existenalism where one has to forge their own meaning in life and I like to think that some people can just take god as a boilerplate if they don't really want to deal with the emotional turmoil that it might generate within some people
Deism/agnosticism is severely under-rated and it solves many of the gatchas that atheism vs religious debates tend to follow and so, its just if you are a deist or atheist or agnostic, it really doesn't matter because the end result's the same in my opinion and I think more so that all of these are in bluriness between a complete yes, an idk/maybe and a complete no. But in the end nothing really changes if the answer's any of these unless one is theist itself but there are several arguments against theism itself.
Once again, to me, I feel like if someone's religious, its fine but its such a slippery slope because religion really doesn't want you to mix and match things (which one can do with existentialism and their own philosophy of life) but religion wants you to take everything usually and tries to create high stake emotional gambits and I find them extremely bad because they can be intolerant because intolerance towards certain things would be rewarded by what they presume as heaven so may be defined.
It's the intolerance within the religious community which drives off the scientific community because science isn't really trying to cherry pick certain things or not. Its impartial and will state clearly what's the truth. Religions have shown to be intolerant to certain parts of science and that intolerance is still pestering even modern science at times.
One should try getting a modern concensus of what it means to be religious, because what's happening is the peer pressure/echo chambers convert a longing desire for meaning into a pre-built package of opinions on capitalism/politics/religion in many places.
I once did a mild discussion with a religious person and that really just boiled down to, well you believe in it or not, they ended up agreeing to all my points and had to use chatgpt to counter or smth but like religion really doesn't favour modern science. It really just wants you to believe things the way they are or Religion is really really resistant to change and so its worth questioning what community one wants to be part of as well and if perhaps there are ways that one can connect to other people in similar manner like having a community while focusing on only certain parts and from a more secular point of view.
I feel like that everyone of us even secular can probably spin up some philosophical difference to any religion (some religions do in fact not believe in god as well) etc. but at that point, I don't really think one should call it religion but I guess we humans have evolved to have the need to be in part of a community.