Atheist Dogma.
How atheist dogma created religious fundamentalism.
1. Make a strong fact/value distinction, as per Hume.
2. Establish the scientific method with truth as the only and unquestionable value.
3. Apply this 'philosophy' to ancient texts, and demonstrate that they are factually inaccurate.
4. Pretend not to notice that religious texts, although they do not clearly make the fact/value distinction, are primarily concerned with 'first philosophy' how one should live, what virtues to cultivate and what vices to resist, and what values to hold to one's heart and live by.
5. Prove that Aesop's fables are not true because foxes cannot talk, and dismiss them as therefore worthless. Do the same with the Bible and serpents, and so on.
[quote=John 3]16 For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son, that everyone who believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life.
17 For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through Him.[/quote]
By focussing on the facticity of God's and Jesus's existence, rather than the nature of love as a value that makes a willing sacrifice of self, not only is the critique fatuous and misdirected, but it pushes followers of these values into a defence that turns them into dogmatic literalists.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biblical_literalism#:~:text=Biblical%20literalism%20first%20became%20an,product%20of%20the%20scientific%20revolution%22.
Edit: This thread was intended as a precautionary preamble to a more complex topic to be explored in another thread. If you are already capable of seeing the word "God" used in a sentence without going into an existential meltdown, the main course can be found here.
1. Make a strong fact/value distinction, as per Hume.
2. Establish the scientific method with truth as the only and unquestionable value.
3. Apply this 'philosophy' to ancient texts, and demonstrate that they are factually inaccurate.
4. Pretend not to notice that religious texts, although they do not clearly make the fact/value distinction, are primarily concerned with 'first philosophy' how one should live, what virtues to cultivate and what vices to resist, and what values to hold to one's heart and live by.
5. Prove that Aesop's fables are not true because foxes cannot talk, and dismiss them as therefore worthless. Do the same with the Bible and serpents, and so on.
[quote=John 3]16 For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son, that everyone who believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life.
17 For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through Him.[/quote]
By focussing on the facticity of God's and Jesus's existence, rather than the nature of love as a value that makes a willing sacrifice of self, not only is the critique fatuous and misdirected, but it pushes followers of these values into a defence that turns them into dogmatic literalists.
Biblical literalism first became an issue in the 18th century, enough so for Diderot to mention it in his Encyclopédie.[ Karen Armstrong sees "[p]reoccupation with literal truth" as "a product of the scientific revolution".
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biblical_literalism#:~:text=Biblical%20literalism%20first%20became%20an,product%20of%20the%20scientific%20revolution%22.
Edit: This thread was intended as a precautionary preamble to a more complex topic to be explored in another thread. If you are already capable of seeing the word "God" used in a sentence without going into an existential meltdown, the main course can be found here.
Comments (644)
When groups became larger and encountered cultural difference and the potentials of war and trade, religion became about unification and inspiration as a means to maintain the power of the community against external threats. Religions adept at this spread and became dominant. There were other options then--though most people still lived and died under one ideology, there were conversions (even if more often coerced than voluntary). And so some fluidity was introduced into the notion of self.
When technology became a clear edge in war and trade, the scientific and rational thinking it implied gained hegemony, and so now there was a universal "religion" that was a practical reality of everyday life and this implied potentially no religion or every religion. It was up to the philosophers/scientists to sort it out. But of course they could never agree and "selves" were left to pick up the pieces.
The basic movement then would be from Religion/culture to science (as "religion") + religion + "culture". And from Selves to "selves". But "selves" always long to be Selves and in order to do that there must be a movement back to Religion/culture (fundamentalism).
It is more for me than just atheist dogma though, it's cultural fragmentation and the individual fragmentation that that implies.
We are cultural beings. In homo sapiens, evolution has offloaded part of the process that determines how we act from instinctual algorithms (fixed outside of gene-evolution) to knowledge that can be transmitted via language over generations (adaptable via meme-evolution). Because evolution has offloaded a part of our survival-strategy to culture, we are incomplete without it.
The point of a culture however is not only to know precisely what things are, but more importantly to know how we should act. In mytho-religious societies, however imperfect one may think that was, everything was fused into one overacting story... things made sense and actions had meaning in a larger whole.
Socrates thought he was smart to point out (over and over again) that no one could give a reason for why they believed such and such. No individual knows however, because it is a communal process that spans generations, and not a matter of dialectical reason only.
Dialectics are a dissolvent of tradition. In the west however we ran with that, and we (mis)took this purely critical, reductionist and predominately left-brained mode of thought as the only viable way to arrive at anything of value.
Fast forward a couple of millennia, and we more or less got there, we dissolved most of our traditions and also killed god in the process.... Hooray! The problem with this picture however is that we are cultural beings, incomplete without it, and so the void created by dialectics, has to be filled someway somehow. And what better to way to fill the void than with all things our hearts desires, provided in the most effective and efficient way possible, via the markets. Why determine what to value and where to go as a society, if we can just leave that to the invisible hand?
This is also key. We've outsourced most of the magic of reality into economic efficiency and the consumerism therein implied. Technology lends a hand through the manifestation of media that do what's left of this magic for us. Our function is reduced to survival and etiquette.
I agree, with the caveat that truth ought to be replaced with objective fact or measurable outcome as the sole arbiter of reality.
However I also think a case can be made that religious authoritarianism and sectarian conflict is what gave rise to the reaction against religion that characterised the Enlightenment. The Articles of the Royal Society, the first true scientific society, specifically prohibited fellows from involvement in questions of metaphysic which were the province of the religious. In part this was because making pronouncements on such matters could result in serious consequences. But these are all very complicated historical matters.
(edited down, because my initial response was a bit too on fire)
Too on fire? As opposed to a completely useless comment that contributes absolute zero?
I think I prefer too on fire. Lets hear it.
This all seems plausible. Is there justification that it's true, or is it just a general sense of history, society, and culture?
I'll say to you what I said to @Baden - This all seems plausible. Is there justification that it's true, or is it just a general sense of history, society, and culture?
It's a summary of my understanding of longer and more justified material. I'm going to wait to see what @unenlightened says before going further into it. It's a very broad brush relative to the OP.
I have no problem with that. I was just curious.
:up:
Yeah from me its the same T Clark. It comes from a broad understanding of history and philosophy... but mainly through a Nietzschian lens I suppose, because he was one of my earlier influences. And that made me look for other, specific things in later readings.
I used to ask myself the same question as you are posing me here now, but about Nietzsche views, about this broad historical arc he seems to be painting. He does seem kinda loose and poetic at times, which makes one wonder, is this just fiction or is this based in reality? But he did have a very deep understanding of history, especially the Greeks through his philology studies.
This question in particular was basically what his entire philosophy was focused on in its different aspects and implications (the value of truth, scientific and the ascetics values, the dead of God etc). From the beginning, even before his first books, in his courses in Basel on the pre-platonics, this was the question he was concerned with, as he uncovers the progression of pre-platonic philosophy becoming more and more materialist :
https://www.amazon.com/Pre-Platonic-Philosophers-International-Nietzsche-Studies/dp/0252074033
And then as you track back his sources, you come across all kinds of material you otherwise wouldn't have. For instance the work of relatively unknown and forgotten philosopher who was a direct predecessor and influence on Nietzsche, Friedrich Albert Lange who wrote a whole book on the history of materialism. This was the question, between Kant, Hegel and Schopenhauer, where the whole of German philosophy was apparently revolving around at the time.
But you know, there's a lot to be said on this.... and you can't really paint with a broad brush and go into all the details at the same time.
It's interesting you choose to quote from John. "I am the way, the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me." 14.6. It strikes me there isn't much in the way of love to be focused on here, and it sounds very much like those who don't accept Jesus--who are not saved thereby--are condemned.
Like the Devil, we all can quote scripture for our own purposes. If that's the case, are we to focus only on the "good" parts, for fear of provoking fundamentalism?
I think religious fundamentalism has been around a very long time. I doubt atheism, however virulent, has been a significant cause of it. I think the exclusive nature of Christianity (as expressed in the quote from John above) and the resulting intolerance is the primary cause. What Scripture says, and its interpretation--the correct interpretation--has been the subject of dispute and violence for centuries, and not because atheists ridicule it, but rather because there were, and are, people who don't accept it or fail to accept it's "true" meaning.
I don't consider myself an atheist, virulent or otherwise, but if we focus on the love expressed in the Gospels or elsewhere, what I would find most offensive is the remarkable lack of it in those who profess to be Christians in the present and in the past.
I disagree with the OP. I think the writers of the Bible would have been able to make the distinction between fact and value. The question of whether these things "really happened" came up and was important to ancient people, and there was skepticism among them. That was around long before Hume. Religion wasn't only about the 'first philosophy' of how to live a good life, it was also making claims about reality and what happened. Ancient people were able to distinguish between parables, myths, or lies versus reality. Otherwise, you wouldn't have passages about the doubting Thomas or reassurances that Noah was a real person and the Flood really happened.
As modern atheists we are not being dogmatic in asking if the claims in the Bible are supported by facts and evidence. Modern theists should have the same attitude. We should all want to know the facts, whether or not they agree with a particular religious tradition.
Quoting GRWelsh
Why is that?
I might eliminate point one in favor of point two. Point one is where the philosophically interesting action is at, at least as I can tell, but I think point two is a far more common point of atheist dogma, and that it is frequently not even viewed as dogma -- making it behave more like an ideology and a dogma in that it's unquestioned by many. And the philosophy has already been written on the questions of science, at least at this level of comprehension -- 20th century analytic philosophy made some great inroads into understanding the beast that is science. But it doesn't look like the pure method of unquestionable truth and value when it comes out after the process of questioning.
Yet even theists will treat it like that.
No claims on causes -- but atheists create ideas, including ideas about fundamentalism. This is how I read the OP.
So.... all the bad religious shit listed above is caused by ideas, and since ideas fall into the purview of atheists.... ? I'm not following.
Shouldn't chains of causation have a designated starting-point before they're given credence?
The OP is strictly speaking about atheist dogma, rather than the other dogmas.
Ah! Some atheists are said to adopt a certain pattern of thought, which renders that pattern of thought "atheist dogma" and that is the cause of religious fundamentalism. IOW, "atheist dogma" historically precedes religious dogma and atheists precede religionists, which would at least suggest that atheism caused religion.
I guess I'm still finding that line of thought hard to follow.
Nicely put. :clap: I suspect that religion has increasingly appeared more fundamentalist and inadequate as education and human knowledge have expanded, while the role of god has diminished. No doubt many practitioners of religion have had to double down, become louder and more truth denying in order to justify their unwarranted value systems and supernatural beliefs against reason and scepticism.
My grandma, who was born in the 1880's, was a typical European Christian of her time. In the 1970's she told me no one had ever gotten to the moon because God and heaven 'are in the sky and people can't get there until they die'. So much for post-Nietzschean, death-of-God nihilism. She was a sweet lady, but like most of her kind, celebrated ignorance because it glorified her scriptures and reinforced that faith alone was the right answer to every question. She got there without the help of any atheists.
:flower: Reminds of my Granny ...
I take this analysis as possibly descriptive of Western social secular evolution, but I don't know how applicable it is to Near East, Far East, African, South American, and maybe even some even European countries as well. I don't know if you meant it more generally, or whether you were trying to describe just one idiosyncratic system.
I also don't necessarily see religious thought as dominated by secular reasoning as you do, as if it became generally subservient to it, but I see an emergence of separate cultures (religion vs the state) to greater and lesser degrees at odds over time. I also think there have been religious cultures that never wavered and never embraced secular reasoning within this Western culture you describe.
I like the metaphor of the divergent roads of thoughts, one attributed to Athens and the other to Jerusalem. Philosophy versus faith.
I don't deny attempts at melding these positions over time, but I don't accept the notion that the roads ever fully merged but then later diverged again. I see two separate roads with the travellers of each having varying levels of political influence over one another over time, often imposing their values over the other.
I don't place Granny outside the time period described by @unenlightened in his reference to the rise of Christian fundamentalism. It's dated to beginning in the late 1800s, so Granny doesn't serve as an example of more long standing fundamentalist tradition.
Wiki offers support for this:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_fundamentalism#:~:text=In%20its%20modern%20form%2C%20it,theological%20liberalism%20and%20cultural%20modernism.
The Christian fundamentalist movement, which is a naive literalism that tries to limit interpretation to the actual text, specifically denying that it requires special understanding, is a new idea.
Using Judaism as its ancient predecessor in interpreting religious text, even though they did believe the Torah the inerrant word of God, never took such a simplistic literalism for interpretation.
Midrashic interpretations are far (far far far) from literal.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Midrash
Her chronological time is incidental, her faith came from a direct line going back to before the middle ages. :wink: Nevertheless she was unspoiled by media and modernism. And I wouldn't say she was a fundamentalist, more of a primitivist.
The way I would prefer to start is that religion was abstraction, where abstracts were personified as gods, - wisdom, war, sex, death, etc, because personhood is the natural explanation for everything. The river floods because it is angry, or because it is bountiful, depending on the circumstances. Motion is always the result of motivation. The tide is the slow breathing of the Sea...
Climate, for the ancients is the disposition of Gaia.
The idea of unmotivated motion - of things just rattling around for no reason is a peculiar modern perversion. No, this is nonsense, there is no difficulty about self, and no belief or establishment required. Quite the reverse, that difficulty is created as the result of the Cartesian depersonalisation of the world, that leaves one with thoughtless things, and thinking things, and seemingly no connection between them.
And so in the end there is no reason but my reason Self has replaced the gods. The Nietzschian Abyss of Self become vacuous arbitrary god.
In this case, critical intelligence is literal minded ignorance, because its is directed at questions of what is and what is not, when the topic is how to live.
"Foxes cannot speak, therefore the fox did not say that the grapes were sour."
"Foxes can so speak, because Aesop says, and Aesop is the fount of all wisdom."
Literal minded ignorance producing literal minded ignorance. This exchange did not happen, and therefore can be ignored.
Unfortunately, there does not seem to be much appetite for the reflexivity of critically understanding modernity itself, or the roots of its catastrophic destructiveness. The topic arises as I reflect on the question - "how has humanity gone so terribly wrong, that we can control everything except ourselves?"
We burned witches and apostates, as I recall, and enslaved the heathen. More tolerant and open minded than who, though? Are you seeing the triumph of open-minded tolerance all around you?
I'm seeing supposedly civilised countries that are poisoning the world and so concerned with perfecting their weapons that they cannot even feed and house their own citizens. I tolerate it, though.
Quoting unenlightened
In the world I experience directly, yes. In the world provided to me through media, not much. Although tolerance is a funny word; do I want to be 'tolerated' or understood and accepted?
The language of human psychology is always mythological, because psyche cannot contain a complete understanding of itself. The scientific mythos is so impoverished as to be useless - mind as malfunctioning computer. Switch yourself off and on again, or take yourself to a technician.
I'm not saying that you did.
Quoting unenlightened
What do you mean by scientific mythos (and perhaps avoid fundamentalists like Dawkins in this)?
Quoting unenlightened
I often think all language is metaphor, whatever it might be.
Quoting unenlightened
This is an interesting thesis. I've often argued that we replaced the worship of god with the worship of 'reality' and I don't think we have access to reality or can even define it, except in the shallowest terms.
Where do you see the solutions to these problems you have described?
What do you mean by "reality'?
If we are real, how can we not "have access to reality"?
Any reason to doubt that you are real, Tom? :eyes:
IME, all atheists seek "how to flourish without gods ghosts demons & magic?" and some come to "Begin by learning 'how to discern what is from what is not and then align expectations beliefs with what is'". In this regard, as far as I'm concerned, 'religious fundamentalism' like e.g. psychosis or incontinence is non sequitur. :mask:
I agree. It's all pattern recognition; a cat is a thing like another thing called a cat, and a big cat is another thing like a cat, only bigger. An engine runs like man runs, with rhythmic movement.
Quoting Tom Storm
The way I sometimes put it for modernist consumption is that something or other must be the most important thing in your life, or else nothing is important. That thing, or nothing is your god. From there, I will say that the worst thing to put at the centre of your life is Self, and the best is Love.
And then I would like to forbid any discussion about the existence or non-existence of these, because the game is to realise them in one's life. One might believe in 'truth, justice, and the American way', but no serious person could claim they exist, only that they seek to manifest them in the way they conduct own life. Gods such as Sophia, that we claim to be lovers of here, are our own potential, aspired to, and sought after.
"Where are these gods?", the literalist asks; and whatever answer they are given, they will go and not find them; not in the sky, and not on Mount Olympus. For the literalist, wisdom is the belief in its own non-existence.
Quoting unenlightened
This reminds me of my friend John (who is a priest) who says 'Forget Jesus, be Christlike!' Is this the kind of thing you mean?
Quoting unenlightened
Ok, there it is again. I think I get it. Does this come from a broader philosophical system or school? It seems to be focused on practice and virtue.
That's where we differ. I come from a family of architects, and the architect functions by imagining a building that is not and then seeking to realise it.
Yes indeed. If you love historical research, you might look into the origins of the Jesus story, why not? But the meaning of the story is that love is taking pains; painstaking research, or painstaking self-sacrifice. The results of research do not change the meaning.
Quoting Tom Storm
Not really. I might wave vaguely at Maurice Nicoll, and J Krishnamurti, along with the usual philosophical suspects there's nothing very original in what I'm saying.
I agree difficulties with the self are leveraged by Cartesianism and the subsequent history of instrumental reasoning. The modus operandi of homo economicus is manipulateforadvantage rather than engagewith. It's to look to ends / goals for satisfaction rather than processes. It's a mindset that fuels boredom, frustration, and emptiness especially as it spills into social relations.
Psychologically, the problem with belief is that even this becomes a tool for manipulation and exchange--commodified. So that we believe what we ought because we know what we ought believe and whether or not what we believe is worth, in a more holistic sense, believing in, the formula seems to work, and what works becomes the yardstick for belief. E.g. Atheism in its most unsophisticated form works. Snakes do not talk, as you said, and there is no old man with a beard in the sky. "Everyone" knows that.
And such that we have a self left in that morass of oughts, we're positioned more and more to believe against it so that even when we do do the right thing we often do it for the wrong reason and lose the value in doing it, the good-in-itself of it. This is the peculiar modern perversion as I see it. We rattle around without reason because at least we know how one rattles around. What we seem to have lost is the sense of how not to rattle around. How to do the "wrong" thing for the right reason.
It's a Moloch-type situation applied to self-relationship. There are material advantages to compromising the self and so it becomes a social necessity. But so is a belief in freedom. We believe against ourselves because we must believe in a "freedom" that negates the self, but the self really is freedom. This dynamic serves to make us feel responsible insofar as we are "free" for the increasing unfreedom that it itself fosters. And as "free" individuals we perceive ourselves as ill and the solution a means / end one. And we are ill because we neither understand freedom nor the solution to unfreedom because we "ought" not. Our oughts are a closed system that's obscured from itself. So, yes we are responsible but not in the way presented to us, as if we must repair our social wrong of not being happy; on the contrary, we must repair our happiness at being socially wrong.
+ Kierkegaard, e. g. The Sickness into Death. Currently reading. Very apropos, it seems to me.
Edit:
Quoting unenlightened
Christian existentialism, as I understand it, solves this by dissolving the distinctions between Self / love/ freedom.
The meaning of some words may change over time, and it could be that we have a shifting in the principal significance of "truth" here. This is indicated by Ciceronianus' quotation:
Quoting Ciceronianus
Notice here that "truth" is represented as a way of life, a way of being, instead of as fact . This is the distinction we find today between the two basic definitions of "true". The primary definition today is 'fact, corresponding with reality', while the secondary and sub-definitions are 'genuine, honest, faithful'.
So what is at issue is your primary premise, the "strong fact/value distinction". This distinction drives a wedge between the two definitions of "true" by associating it with "fact", and assuming that facts are independent from values.
We can see the very same issue with the separation between moral "values" and quantitative, or mathematical "values". It is often assumed, or simply taken for granted by people, that mathematical values are completely distinct and unrelated to moral values, instead of being seen as two different members (types) of the same set (category), "values". This way of taking for granted that mathematical values are completely distinct from other values, like moral values, and are somehow objective while other values are subjective, thereby categorically distinct, contributes to this delusional fact/value distinction.
In response to college educated liberal Christian theologians. It was a backlash of illiteracy. Atheists as a class of scapegoat hadn't been invented yet.
That approach I think works for any religion, and I think it adds tremendous depth to the religious text and it removes the simplistic objections from the atheistic camp.
Taking what you say further. If you ignore the physical, actual Jesus, but instead focus on what he represents, you have to ask yourself what to do with all the theology surrounding his existence. That is, God supposedly literally gave his only son to assist humankind in cleansing itself from the original sin of Adam eating from the tree of knowledge, a rejection of which results in eternal damnation.
This changes the discussion from a simple tale of snakes in a heaven like Eden to an elusive metaphor, asking why consuming knowledge casts one out of Eden, and why the possession of knowledge without an acceptance of an object of absolute love from a creator would lead to such a condemnable existence.
And this story I've just told is uniquely Christian. Jews, reading the same text, don't place signficance on the fall of man, continue to believe humans are born into perfection, believe atonement for sins occurs by asking for it and not by accepting any Jesus like messiah, and they have no theology of eternal damnation, traceable to inherited sin, personally caused sin, or otherwise.
So this is the same story, but with very different results, begging the question of what the text actually means. And this is where I think the atheists miss the point. They either say the text is absurd in its literal sense in that it demands the acceptance of talking snakes or they think the text is meaningless because it means whatever anyone says it means.
Thousands of years spent analyzing a text through different contexts is certain to yield varying results, but the point is that everyone is using it to consistently find meaning applicable to their existence, which is how the interpretation should be judged, not the literal words of the text. So, when you say "be Christlike," what you mean at a more meta level is to search for our purpose and meaning, whether that be through figuring out the metaphor of Christ, figuring out the necessity of following the legalistic rules of Judaism, or understanding the metaphor and underlying purpose of any religion.
That's the search fundamentalists - the real literalists - are all about rejecting. "Don't ask questions. Don't think abut it. Just obey the rules." In fact, the modern ones more or less ignore or actually despise the whole notion of christlike behaviour and go directly to stoning blasphemers.
The simplistic objection from atheists is not about the fanciful language, it's about the moral and legal aspects of imposing 1500BCE laws on post-Enlightenment societies.
Isn't this the pattern pointed out in the OP?
I think I'd accept that dogma is truth-apt, and therefore can be true -- at least insofar that it's a declarative belief.
So a piece of Christian Dogma may be "Jesus Christ rose from the dead". What makes this dogma? I think I'd say that its position within the web of beliefs is what makes it dogma -- it's the sentence that, if you flip its truth-value, you also flip the truth value of a large section of beliefs which holds the way of life together.
And then there's a social component to dogma, which I suspect is how we all excuse our own beliefs as not-dogmatic. Insofar that we subject them to questioning, we might say, then our beliefs are not dogmatic. But I'm not sure. Because of the social nature of belief, in terms of enactment, the act of questioning doesn't really change dogmatic activities. There's this other, non-truth value which keeps the dogma attractive: which is a way of life.
So the ancient texts, if we follow Alasdair Macintyre, don't have a strong fact/value distinction -- and for those reasonable theists who do care about such things, they'll integrate the values that are important with the facts as we learn them. That's part of the tradition is to re-interpret the ancient texts with respect to how one lives in an everchanging world.
Does that make it clear [s]now[/s]how truth, while important, isn't at issue?
None of this is the fault of atheists. Religion hasnt had a good track record of allowing people to live as they please and those who stood against it generally paid the price.
Religion is about control, that seems to be the nutshell here.
Now that it doesnt hold such a strong position anymore I can not worry (well not so much these days) about being gay. If anything its religions fault that its even a problem today.
Also IMO Religion doesnt answer how to live so much as tell/force you to live as such or else.
Even Christ wasnt exactly a good guy in the book itself. There is a reason a lot of atheists say they became atheists by reading the Bible.
Personally I think wed be better off without religion as I think its done more harm than good. But at least today you have to option to practice or not unlike the past.
also the problem with interpretation of a text is that people can use it to justify just about anything they want to so youre not really helping your cast but more illustrating a huge problem with religion.
I am necessarily oversimplifying so I take your points. But another way of saying this is that the progress of human social life has involved the gradual outsourcing of meaning and connection that tended to characterize smaller and more isolated cultures largely because ideologies were more easy to control and more crucial to immediate survival (not to say that we can find an obvious reason for every ritual or superstition but that they tended to have crucial functions in allowing for coherent joint understanding to maintain social cohesion and/or direct practical consequence). The downsides were plenty, of course, and their rigidity ossified the negatives along with the positives.
I think what the OP is pointing to is not a romanticization of historical alternatives but a recognition that progress along one axis: technological / scientific / logical = "rational" thinking can leave behind and obscure other human values and part of the reaction to that may be phenomena such as modern religious fundamentalism. If you look at it that way, the dogmatic atheist and the religious fundamentalist can be seen as dual symptoms of an imbalanced/asymmetric form of progress.
I'm afraid I don't quite understand what you mean. Is it something like "the importance of truth is not at issue" (which I agree with)? But surely it's obvious that what is true - whether a particular proposition is true or not and even which propositions are capable of truth or falsity - is often at issue?
It seems to me that the distinction between religion and science is usually over-simplified. Religion often includes claims that are supposed to be facts about the world which provides what is most important to it - an account of the world that provides purpose and meaning - I prefer structure - to life. Science includes ideas about what is valuable, primarily truth, of course, but a great deal about how to live life, what is worth pursuing and how it is to be pursued (which, of course, is the stock in trade of religion). Incidentally, how far modern capitalism is an outcome of science is unclear to me, but I would like to think that alternative outcomes of the primacy of science are available.
But anything that provides a basis for a way of life and justifies certain practices and is available to large numbers of people, is going to find lots of different kinds of people amongst its followers. So whatever was originally proposed or recommended is going to find different tendencies developing. So all religions have fundamentalist tendencies, liberal tendencies, intellectual tendencies, practical tendencies, missionary tendencies, quietist tendencies, and on and on. That includes the way(s) of life that exist around science. So I'm inclined to see dogmatic atheism as a tendency within the practice of science which is bound to develop.
I find grand narratives like the conflict between religion and science very difficult. They tend to evaporate when looked at too closely.
Quoting Baden
I would go along with that. But let's not be too pessimistic. Perhaps progress happens by over-correcting imbalances.
This objection is irrelevant to my point, which is that the intepretation is what is relevant, not the text. I highlighted that point in my last post.
That you can show me the text is contradictory says nothing of the interpretation, which is where humans are deciphering meaning. If your point is that the text in inconsistent, vague at points, and clearly the result of a cobbling together of many ancient documents, I know that.
Quoting Darkneos
Interpretation necessarily involves imposing some sense of wisdom and logic upon the text in order to obtain palatable results. Do you not impose your wisdom and logic when describing your ethical conclusions? Can't you manipulate whatever secular means you use in determining your ethical conclusions to justify whatever result you want? It's not like religion has a monopoly on justifying bad acts.
:clap: Absolutely! and often it's about malicious and evil control. I don't blame any god for that as
1. There is no evidence that they exist and 2. If they do exist, they, or it, seems to have no ability to control the bad behaviour of horrible theists such as Kent Hovind and Ken Ham and sooooooo many others, in those 'in the name of god' factories, who have duped their followers out of millions and became rich themselves.
Quoting Hanover
Wrong. Religion tends to have a monopoly on justifying bad actions. Its kinda where that quote religion can make good people do bad things comes from. Its also why theres no real arguing with them because when your ethics are divinely inspired you cant logic it. Why do you think they default to god works in mysterious ways. The majority of negative events in human history can be traced back to religion. The current trend of homophobia for one, nazi Germany, etc.
I dont manipulate secular means. I dont have the heart to contradict and lie like religious people tend to do.
You really do seem to be ignorant about human history.
Of course not, why suggest it? It is a very common reaction, in my experience, when someone attacks one's way of life, to become defensive and reactive. You can see it happening in this thread, and a glance at history will yield many examples. It's not a matter of blaming atheists, but of a misdirected argument that leads to an unnecessary conflict. It is perfectly possible to be a Christian atheist.
If that's so, there would be no need to make reference to "the way" or "the life." They become mere surplusage as we lawyers would say; irrelevant and unnecessary. It would seem kinder to the author to assume he wasn't claiming that Jesus said "I am the truth, the truth and the truth" but drew a distinction between "the truth" and "the way" and "the life." Regardless, though, it's clear that Jesus is portrayed as claiming he alone is the way, the truth and the life. I don't think it's possible to reasonably construe these statements otherwise, so I don't believe this is the result of a literal, fundamentalist interpretation which can be considered a reaction to "atheist dogma." It isn't necessary to be an atheist to maintain that such statements are the foundation for the intolerance which has characterized Christianity during the 20 centuries of its existence (which is also characteristic of other religions which make claim to being the one true faith).
Even today its sort of like that. Try running for US president while being an atheist. In fact it was only recently that being atheist was not considered some moral failing or black mark on a person.
Like OP just seems woefully ignorant, same with a lot of others in this thread, about what religion is and has been historically. You cant blame atheism for what religion does. Religion wants control, plain and simple. And it has punished those who want other options.
Like my existence would not have been an option solely due to religion.
Quoting unenlightened
Indeed, why suggest it unenlightened?
Uhh you suggested it.
Also Christian atheist has to be the most laughable example of how nonsensical religion can be.
No one is being defensive and reactive, though that seems to have been your goal. IMO atheism hasnt really done anything but exist. So there really was no need to include it, but you did because you knew what it would do.
It was fairly obvious.
Why interpret the text with a goal of palatable results? Seeking palatable results sounds to me like a recipe for appeals to consequence.
So many people rely on duped followers for the status, power and wealth they have been able to amass.
Becoming a religious authority is one way to become very rich and very powerful and once you have established your 'holy', 'sacred' and downright pernicious 'god buildings and structure,' they can become an 'empire' that lasts at least a thousand years, just like the organisation that inherited the legacy of the Roman empire, ie, Vatican City, in, no surprise, Rome!
The rise of theosophist horrors such as scientology, demonstrate how the system works, from inception to rich and powerful.
Yes, they will (or at least would like to) kill/destroy anyone who they think threatens their wealth, power and position. Religion is not the only such pernicious structure but it's certainly in the top 5 of the most dangerous threats to human freedom and human progress imo.
It makes a difference when you divinely chosen as opposed to elected
Quoting Darkneos
The Nazis didn't murder the Jews because of religious differences. A Jew who disclaimed his Judaism was no safer than a devout one.
Nazi Germany is a good example of a war that was not about religion. It was about ethnicity.
Mao, Stalin, Pol Pot, Kim Jong Un, Putin, all devotly religious folks I suppose, trying to impose their brand of religion on the masses. I'll have to read up on that. I wasn't aware of that.
Alexander the butcher, Julius Caesar the butcher, Napoleon the butcher, and more modern butchers such as Stalin. Hitler, Pol Pot, Idi Amin, and the current wannabee butchers such as Trump, Putin et al, have and still do employ religion, to move towards their narcissistic, autocratic, totalitarian wet dreams but not exclusively.
I know you probably will easily see through such as: Quoting Hanover
Factually incorrect. Nazi ideology was religiously motivated, as fascism tends to do. Also I said most not all.
Also you dont have to believe the ideology just weaponize it, trump is an example of this. They invoke religious language with their message. Stalin did it too, though he was kicked out of the orthodoxy for stealing for the church.
Like I said before, folks here seem ignorant of how this works in real life.
This is spectacularly ignorant. Up your game.
Yes! Not an abandonment of truth or anything like that, only a difference in emphasis. One can believe, for instance, that Jesus did not rise from the dead, and yet believe that the Christian way of life is a good way of life regardless, and feel a connection to it through the stories and community.
The power of the stories to enhance people's lives and give them meaning -- that's what's important. And upon finding out they are somewhat fantastical stories that doesn't mean one has to put down what is good in them.
With ancient texts I'd say that this is close to a kind of truth. Not the kind of truth we mean when talking about the fact/value distinction, or the kind of truth we mean when talking about propositions -- but this more fuzzy notion of truth that dithers facts with values.
Well, yes.
And truth is still important.
There's just more to these texts than a literal grouping of facts. They are products of the human imagination and will, and so speak to those parts of us.
Quoting Ludwig V
I agree that the distinction between religion and science is usually over-simplified. There are overlapping concerns of both human practices. As science has become more predominant (I don't know about primacy, but the church certainly doesn't have the primacy it once did either) so religion has changed. The literal truth of the scriptures is often very important to people, and that literal truth cannot be preserved in the face of a scientific worldview.
But for some that literal truth is entirely missing the point.
For that viewpoint I think I can see what @unenlightened is getting at. Atheists have a dogma, and that dogma is that scripture must be interpreted in accord with scientific truth.
But surely that's false.
I'll also note that with the preponderance of biblical literalists who are theists there's something understandable in taking this tactic. There are dogmatists who are theists, too. The version of Un's story which is more sympathetic to the atheist points out that this dogmatism was transferred from the theistic literalists to the atheistic literalists, which is often the case.
I agree that the grand narratives evaporate upon close inspection. It's too big to make anything but a hasty generalization
I like your notion of tendencies. I'm not sure that I'd put dogmatic atheism with science -- usually my feelings on dogmatic atheism is that it's anti-scientific. But the notion of tendencies is really helpful, I think, in this conversation in particular between all of us. Dogmatism as a tendency that spans the human spectrum means that neither theist nor atheist are somehow exempt from that tendency. Under this rather idealistic model it's the theist that should be most concerned about theistic dogmatism, and the atheist that should be most concerned about atheistic dogmatism.
Alain Badiou wrote an interesting study of St. Paul, presenting him as a contemporary in terms of the dynamic where values are lost or established. Badiou does not view this as connected to the religious content itself but how it breaks with both Greek and Jewish traditions. From the introduction:
Quoting Alain Badiou, SAINT PAUL, The Foundation of Universalism
The tension between a self that decides what is true and institutions that constrain it is never completely released and becomes a catalyst for change at different moments. In the Reformation, for example, the primacy of divine judgement in each personal soul freaked out Luther when his followers saw that as a green light to topple their rulers. For the Americans who appealed to the equality of all men as creatures made by God, a universal principle could restrain the necessity for Hobbe's Monarch.
From Badiou's perspective, 'scientific truths' are a restraint upon valuation recognized as personally meaningful but that this process takes place in the larger context of the struggle for this ground supporting the universal and forces that would dismantle it. Badiou points to right-wing identitarians who want to depose the equality for all with the privilege of being a certain people.
In the matter of White Christian Evangelists, the abandonment of judging for oneself is the bridesmaid of the primacy of previous levels of social rank.
In the interminable litany of nastiness perpetrated by humans, most examples will be of religious people and religious groups simply because most people are assumed to have been religious for most of history. Atheists have done their worst, but haven't had long enough as an avowed group to remotely match the religionists.
It is entirely possible that religion makes folks horribler, and atheists are a nicer bunch of people just because of their atheism. But what I want to talk about is the phenomenon of literalism in particularly Christianity and Islam, but also Hinduism and even Buddhism, that seems to have begun in the 18th Century and and reaches something of an extreme in Modern US with stuff like this:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicago_Statement_on_Biblical_Inerrancy
This to my mind is mad, ridiculous, politically motivated and dangerous, and a perversion of the Christian tradition. (Add extra negative epithets to taste.) I think it is clear that it is reactionary, and specifically reacting against science, particularly evolution. But also the deep time of geology, that predated evolutionary theory This is not Darwin's fault. :grimace: It is also probably a reaction trying to defend against loss of authority and power, the connection with conservative politics is clear enough. Literalism attracts the ire of atheists, judging by this thread, and it also attracts the ire of liberal, psychological, esoteric or moral interpreters of religious traditions and texts.
With regard to truth, consider The Handmaid's Tale, by Margret Atwood. A fictional account of somewhere a bit like N. America in which the religious right has taken over, so appropriate to this thread.
It paints a sufficiently dark portrait of the religious right wing in terms particularly of sexual politics an misogyny, that it has been banned in parts of the US.
One can speak truths in fiction that would get one into serious trouble if not fictionalised. See also Rushdie's Satanic verses for the serious trouble one can still get into even with fiction. See also, Orwell's 1984, a prophetic warning against totalitarian Marxism.
These are all 'not true'. But they tell important truths in story form. But the op already made this point using Aesop. I clearly should have made a much longer and more confusing op with lots of quotes and links, to slow folk down a bit.
[quote=Badiou]Why invoke and analyze
this fable? Let us be perfectly clear: so far as we are concerned, what we
are dealing with here is precisely a fable. And singularly so in the case of
Paul, who for crucial reasons reduces Christianity to a single statement:
Jesus is resurrected. Yet this is precisely a fabulous element [point fabu-
leux ], since all the rest, birth, teachings, death, might after all be upheld. [/quote]
I never liked Paul, I was always happier with the parables as teachings. But Paul is the fundament of the fundamentalist, and as Badiou is an atheist, I'll have to engage with this. Tomorrow...
This article addresses this question, making the interesting point that literalism as we know it today, has its roots in the Protestant Reformation. It was then that the power of the Church was supplanted with the power of the Bible because they took away the Church's authority in offering any clarifications. Once the Bible became the final word, it's word couldn't be questioned.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/belief/2011/feb/21/biblical-literalism-bible-christians
This explanation also offers an explanation to who pointed out that a priest friend of his suggested looking to be Christlike as opposed to applying a strict adherence to the text. The priest was obviously Catholic and would not have been as influenced by the Protestant traditions.
It is a peculiar fact about the Christian fundamentalists that they deny their clergy special elevated status (as you might see in the Catholic Church or even among orthodox rabbis), but everyone is offered the same status in the eyes of the community in their ability to interpret scripture, with everyone with the same right to go back to the text and argue their point. I see that here as well among the religious critics, where they ask how in the world can a particular passage be interpreted in such a way when it says what it says, trying to decontextualize a thousands of years conversation to just looking at a few limited words on the page.
This is Protestantism in general, not just fundamentalism. Its why there are thousands of Protestant denominations.
We spend a lot of time talking about radical priests - Thomas Merton, Richard Rohr - who are not always well liked by the church hierarchy and often influenced by mystic and Eastern spiritual traditions. The Catholic church is also engaged in a nasty internal culture war between progressives and conservatives. Doing good and making change in the world is far more important than doctrine for the progressives.
An interesting and paradoxical thing about many fundamentalists I have known is that they are not particularly familiar with the Bible - apart form a few frequently recycled quotes. Pastors may in theory have the same status as others in the congregation, but generally hold a degree of power over interpretation and the culture of their church, often through charisma or personality.
Ah. As opposed to the literalism which resulted when the early Church through Councils and otherwise tossed out what's been called the Apocrypha, or which resulted through the Protestant Reformation, or the division of the Church into western and eastern Christianity, for example. Well, that at least makes the claim regarding literalism as a reaction to peevish scientists and atheists somewhat more credible, as they haven't been all that much around until fairly recently. But I think modern fundamentalism is more a function of the Protestant evangelical tradition, which began during the Reformation. The stranger of the evangelicals, like the Puritans, took ship to God's Favorite Country as they didn't like and were shunned by the Church of England, a kind of quasi-Catholic Church established to satisfy the vanity and cupidity of Henry VIII. And here the tradition flourished, sometimes clashing with science, as in Tennessee and other states. But again, literalism even of this variety isn't merely a reaction to atheism or science.
They're not radical priests. The Berrigan Brothers were, and the one that got the guy who sang "Me and Julio Down by the Schoolyard" out of jail and on the cover of Newsweek. Even Father Groppi.
Oh no. This comment probably isn't pertinent, is it?
The claim is an authoritative yet wholly unsubstantiated opinion, no?
Quoting Darkneos
Quoting Darkneos
:100:
That's so... epistemic. Gross. :D
Our two theories of dogma could align. Also, I'm open to changing mine. I mostly just wanted to open up a conversation on what we mean by dogma, since it seemed important to understanding one another. What do we mean by dogma?
The way I'd rephrase mine to be as short as yours -- dogma is a primary belief in a web of beliefs that fulfills an important social function that is not truth-functional.
I offer the Mormons as a counterexample of a Protestant denomination with a hierarchical structure, with its President afforded the status of prophet, much like the Catholic Church, thus providing an authority outside its sacred texts.
Branch Davidians being another, but that didn't end well.
This is partly explained by the time periods they grew up in, as well as personal temperament. The argument you list here is quite an accurate description of a vulgar kind of atheism, which needn't be the only variety one pays attention to.
In my own case, getting rid of religion was quite freeing, it just didn't make much sense to me and the questions I asked were never answered, or answered very poorly. So that sense of liberation can certainly cause some to think that others would feel the same if they had the same experience, which needn't follow.
Of course, once you realize that for some, a belief in some kind of God sustains them through very brutal circumstances, to condemn that is to be a jerk.
One major issue is that there is nothing like a "spiritual equivalent" in science, and this is a need people tend to have, as temporal, fragile, self-conscious beings. Until some kind of rational belief system(s) is developed, these issues will remain in some fashion.
I think it is pertinent to the idea of resistance to present evils. So, Merton was a quietest when measured against 'Liberation Theology' and Bonhoffer resisted the Nazis when others did not.
The altar of sacrifice turns out to be a moving target and timing is key.
This is a wild misunderstanding of atheism.
Its a non position. Also you dont need gods to be an atheist.
Like this is just wrong
I would prefer to believe that Christ was speaking from a universalist perspective, rather than proclaiming the requirements of a sectarian religious affiliation ("Yo! Christians! Form a queue to the right! Others - outer darkness!'). The question is, does the I in Jesus statements about himself refer to that particular individual at a specific time and place? Recall the statement of Gods identity in Exodus,I AM THAT I AM (Ex 3:14) and Jesus 'Before Abraham was, I AM (John 48). Advaita Vedanta would interpret those statements as affirmations that 'the Truth, Light and Way' just IS the Self (?tman) which is the ground of being of every individual, to which it is the task of their religious discipline to awaken. (The fact that Christians might not concur is irrelevant from a philosophical perspective.)
Quoting Moliere
Dogma is not only religious. 'The central dogma of molecular biology is a theory stating that genetic information flows only in one direction, from DNA, to RNA, to protein, or RNA directly to protein.' Political orthodoxies have their dogmas, as do many other disciplines - Soviet Communism was notoriously dogmatic. Dogma is simply the regular form of an accepted principle or axiom. In itself it is not necessarily problematic, but becomes so when it is allied with authoritarianism, which is often is.
Quoting Manuel
Listening to many of the voices on this forum, you'd be convinced that the history of religion is the history of evil and that all we can do is struggle to free ourselves from it. What that doesn't see is what calls forth the need for religion in the first place (because anthropology and history have shown that it is utterly ubiquitous in human culture). That is invariably depicted by atheism as a kind of sense of dependency which also needs to be thrown off. This is a quote from an analysis of the philosophy of religion of Josiah Royce which I think captures more of the original impetus towards spiritual belief:
And that quote is by itself perfectly sensible, not everybody has a constitution to think that all there is, is this universe here, following some laws and blind chance let us to be here. I mean, there's a lot we do not know, so I suspect even this scientistic version is bound to be missing crucial information.
Is this life enough? I don't think we can seriously say that to the face of many, many people who live in the most miserable and wretched conditions we can imagine. Because it isn't - or shouldn't be at least.
For others more fortunate, we can agree with Descartes and say:
"I have no cause for complaint on the grounds that the power of understanding or the natural light which God gave me is no greater than it is... I have reason to give thanks to him who has never owed me anything for the great bounty that he has shown me, rather than thinking myself deprived or robbed of any gifts he did not bestow." (Italics mine)
Of course, non-religious people would call this "nature", not God. But it's a valid perspective.
Even with this, some people won't be satisfied, and that's OK too.
Too bad hes wrong about that. Its not a valid perspective but rather a naive one.
Thats kinda a misunderstanding of what dogma is. Especially trying to liken it to molecular biology.
It depends on how one uses the term. For instance, I use atheism as the claim that 'theistic claims' are not true without asserting anything about g/G, simply demonstrating that 'what theists say about their g/G' is incoherent and/or false (which, if that's the case, entails that 'theistic deities' are fictions). Anyway, in the main, atheism is not a "theological position" any more than celibacy is a sexual position.
It effectively is as you can find thousands of examples of that, even to this day. Religion was an old form of trying to understand the world but as time moved forward it became evident that it wasnt as more scientific explanations proved better. But given that power structures are entrenched in our society that operate on it and people dont like change it persists.
It served its purpose for a time but now needs to be let go.
They're not equivalent. Science provides a wealth of quantitative data, better adaption to circumstances, and so on, but it is not concerned with existential truths.
Ok.
:up:
Though IMO there are no existential truths, just opinions.
Nature works. Just go out in the woods, or walk along a beach; gaze at stars or learn about coral reefs. Our earliest conscious, reasoning connection to the universe was through the earth, air, water and other life all around us. Urban civilization creates artificial barriers between our inner life and the sources of life. We need to reconnect for full physical, mental and spiritual wholeness. We don't need supernatural or philosophical intermediaries.
Amen! I'd add, develop some expertise in some aspect of interacting with the natural world, whether that be fly fishing, growing bonsai trees, sailing, or motorcycle maintenance.
You don't need to tell me about it, I very much agree with that.
But just because it may satisfy me or you, doesn't mean it will work equally well with everyone, for some it doesn't cut it.
I mean, sure mountains, beaches, jungles, the night sky, are all wonderful, but if one's child dies from starvation or one's whole family was killed, then these things have more limited utility.
I still feel the inclination to some philosophical framework, it does provide me with the "religious" equivalent, and is very interesting, at least to me.
But sure, nature can be great, on occasion.
From a certain standpoint nothing is alive, it's all just matter and how it's arranged. That what looks alive is just an illusion since it's really all just matter, nothing dies matter just rearranges.
Also that reconnection isn't a real thing it's just a fantasy we made up in our heads.
It actually does. The Japanese, some of the most modern-stressed people in the world, prescribe forest therapy for burnout, grief, recovery from illness.
Quoting Manuel
As do the gods, whose followers cause most of this suffering. The cruelties of humans to one another compensated-for by clinging to gods made in the image of men? Limited, at best. And limiting, in that the believer also surrenders his own agency in return for scant solace. As for natural disaster, I find it more spiritually and rationally acceptable that bad things just happen in an unreasoning, amoral universe than that a god causes them to happen as punishment for something a distant ancestor may or may not have done. Maybe that's just atheist dogma....
Quoting Manuel
Is that a spiritual yearning, though, or an intellectual desire to make sense of things?
What isn't?
Maybe you have this mixed up though. Jesus was anti-religion. He rebelled against the Jews. You must recognize that there was no Christianity at that time, so he was not promoting a religion called Christianity, he was simply rebelling against religion. So when, if, he said "I am the truth", then it was in an anti-religious context.
Quoting Ciceronianus
Interpretation is everything in this context. Within the religion, it really doesn't matter at all what Jesus himself said, it only matters what those who came after him, and constructed the religion said he said. But since Jesus himself spoke in an anti-religious context, it is important to understand what Jesus himself said rather than what the religious people said he said, because they are not speaking from an anti-religious context. So it's really not the statements made by Jesus which are the foundation of intolerance, unless we're talking about intolerance of religion (which is an equal form of intolerance), it is the statements of others which are. The most difficult thing about understanding the New Testament is to discern what Jesus actually said, and did, when all that is provided is hearsay.
Quoting Jamal
An interesting fact about many of the churches of Southern Appalachia is that they're entirely unaffiliated with any denomination. Unlike major denominations with founding theologians and stated ideologies, these rural churches lack that. They were formed by traveling pastors, often with limited education, with fire and brimstone speeches in their distinctive barking voice, with the powers of heaven causing wild gyrations, speaking in tongues, and protecting them from the serpents they handle.
The religion of the common man.
I don't think we disagree on the large picture, but we seem to differ on the scope of the solution. That's right, Japan has the highest, if not one of the highest, suicide rates in the world. And nature can provide much needed help and relief.
What I am saying, is that it may provide a complete relief for some - for some period of time anyway - maybe for most. But what I'm adding, is that even if those people get relief from nature, it is not enough to ward off suicide, or waves of meaninglessness or depression for many.
It's a fantastic help, but not a total one, for man's conditions. For nature is beautiful and also lethal.
Quoting Vera Mont
I don't disagree that it is easier to handle in this way for us, which doesn't make it easy.
I've seen cases of people who live near, often in nature, for all effects and purposes, that live pretty harsh lives, they have no income, no healthcare, no way to feel meaningful in life, because they have virtually no opportunity to get out of poverty and telling them you have mountains and rivers and hills, isn't going to help much.
I very much think it's circumstance dependent.
Quoting Vera Mont
I kind of take existence and the world to be a kind of (secular) miracle, so in this specific case, I cannot disentangle them. Most people would consider it an intellectual desire, but for me, it goes a bit beyond that.
Quoting 180 Proof:100:
Quoting Darkneos:up: Quoting Darkneos
This is too simplistic. Organized religion is inevitably political, that is, concerned with control, like any collective ideology. I believe there are also countless people who are religious in various personal senses, and provided they don't attempt to foist their own beliefs on others I can see no harm in that.
Some people are simply not satisfied with this life; they just can't accept that this life is all there is. If it makes them happier and healthier, and hence more socially benevolent, to believe something for which there can be no evidence for or against, what's the problem?
Religious institutions should be judged, not on the basis of their doctrines, but on the basis of their actions. Are they more beneficial overall than otherwise or not, and do they stand in the way of socially progressive and inclusive values and environmental healing and sustainability or not: those are the salient questions.
:up:
Except it is that simple, sorry you can't accept that. Religion overall has been a net negative for society, it's stagnated progress, and as we have seen recently it has reversed it in some ways.
It was useful for a time but if people aren't satisfied with this life, that is their problem. Life has more than enough in it but people don't know how to see it. It doesn't make them happier or healthier as it's more like a drug that you have to keep pumping to feel like it's all ok. But look at stuff like Buddhism which works to peace by accepting things as they are rather than trying to make them what we want them to be.
You're kinda just proving my point on why it's not good.
Well for one I just explained why it's a fiction. Nothing is really alive, it's just matter. Life is an illusion.
There is no such thing as a spiritual yearning.
Something not often commented, is that nature has a different meaning for moderns. In the past, nature was not only nurturing but also destructive, and it was widely understood that everything in nature is subject to death and decay as well as birth and life. The point of the idea of salvation whether in Semitic or Asiatic religions, was to transcend nature, to realise one's identity with what is beyond coming-and-going, birth-and-death. Whereas for our culture, having rejected any idea of the supernatural, nature herself now becomes the only real representation of purity, through the 'awe of nature' and the supposed innocence of the natural environment and first-nations peoples.
[quote=Max Horkheimer, The Eclipse of Reason, P11]In traditional theology and metaphysics, the natural was largely conceived as the evil, and the spiritual or supernatural as the good. In popular Darwinism, the good is the well-adapted, and the value of that to which the organism adapts itself is unquestioned or is measured only in terms of further adaptation. However, being well adapted to ones surroundings is tantamount to being capable of coping successfully with them, of mastering the forces that beset one. Thus the theoretical denial of the spirits antagonism to nature even as implied in the doctrine of interrelation between the various forms of organic life, including man frequently amounts in practice to subscribing to the principle of mans continuous and thoroughgoing domination of nature. Regarding reason as a natural organ does not divest it of the trend to domination or invest it with greater potentialities for reconciliation. On the contrary, the abdication of the spirit in popular Darwinism entails the rejection of any elements of the mind that transcend the function of adaptation and consequently are not instruments of self-preservation. Reason disavows its own primacy and professes to be a mere servant of natural selection. On the surface, this new empirical reason seems more humble toward nature than the reason of the metaphysical tradition. Actually, however, it is arrogant, practical mind riding roughshod over the useless spiritual, and dismissing any view of nature in which the latter is taken to be more than a stimulus to human activity. The effects of this view are not confined to modern philosophy.[/quote]
I suspect that might be more accurately stated as "I have not experienced a spiritual yearning, and therefore do not believe that anyone has or can."
Quoting Manuel
I didn't offer it as a solution to anything I consider a problem. Just a possible approach to some "spiritual" dimension people might miss if they wean off religion.
Quoting Manuel
Nor does religion.
Can you cite some sociological studies that show that religion has been a net negative for society? What leads you to think your unargued opinions are true? On what basis do you think you can speak for others as to what makes life worth living or bearable for them? And what makes you think Buddhism is not a religion? If you think that, you are woefully ignorant.
Inasmuch as they thought that, then so much the worse for traditional theology and metaphysics. Such an attitude could never be beneficial for this life, this life which is all we really know, and hence all we should really care about.
Yah, the whole exceptional, we're above-all-that, reality-can't-get-me cuz I made up a supernatural protector delusion. I got that. But in order for salvation to take place, first you have to be damned. For pissing off that same supernatural entity you then rely on to save you from death - at a price. Just throw a couple dozen babies off the battlements; just burn a pile of your best cattle; just cut the hearts out of your most virile young warriors, just torture this demigod to death....
I don't like it. So I became an atheist.
(without any dogma)
Considering that some of the happiest countries on the planet are atheist and some of the worst aren't that's a good start. Buddhism is a religion but not to the extent others are, if anything even Buddhists themselves wouldn't call it that.
Sounds like you're just scared.
Again, that's a simplistic assessment, as though there are no other political and economic factors in play which could determine which are the happiest countries (a metric which is itself contentious, because hard to measure).
Many Buddhist traditions are just as religious as Christianity or Islam. It seems you don't want to educate yourself, but prefer to confine yourself to hasty, simple-minded judgments. As such you will remain part of the problem, not the solution.
It's laughably ironic that someone who has displayed so much resentment and self-righteous attitude, should resort to ad hominem and accuse me of being "scared"; all it shows is your apparent lack of ability to mount a cogent argument. Religion, it seems, is your own personal bogeyman. I suggest you take a good look at your motivations and try to be more measured in your assessments of both sociological phenomena and your interlocutors.
Sounds like you don't understand Buddhism that well, which is understandable, most don't.
It just sounds like you really don't want to accept the facts that overall it looks like religion is a net negative, especially given how a lot of the social issues in the US are rooted in it.
If anyone here isn't forming a cogent argument, it's you. You keep insisting it's not when the evidence is plain to see. All you have is indignation, and that ain't worth much.
I'd be glad to see religion phase out over time, at least then you'd be able to reason with folks better.
That's all "salvation" can be.
Religion may provide many benefits besides eternal life for the chosen believers: it can provide tribal unity, community, emotional and material support, relief from labour via festivals and holy days, some minor protections from the depradations of overlords, rites of passage, guarantee of bloodline descent of property via marriage laws, supremacy of a caste or gender, education of a sort, moral guidelines for the making of legal systems (uneven, at best, justice-wise), work for builders, artists, artisans, third sons and sadistic thugs, escape for the marriage-averse, comfort, merriment and feasts.
I mean, I've seen many people hang on to life due to a belief that there will be a better life after this one.
It's not true of course, nor does it resonate with me in any way. But my experience just shows me that for some people it does work, like nature does to you, and to me, to some extent.
That sounds like a contradiction. Why would someone who believes he'll keep living after he dies hang on to a life he finds hard to tolerate? Why, for that matter, are so many Christians hanging on so hard to this sinful world, when their lord is calling them home?
Yes, the jealous god dies hard.
Plenty of atheist dogma on display in this thread, but then, that's what you're going to get as soon as post an OP with such a title. Like tossing bloodied meat into the Piranha River.
That doesn't sound like a religion thing that sounds like a community thing, which you can have without religion.
The minor protections from overlords is laughable though as the faith in question historically was often such a thing. Education is a bit complex as with the religion in charge you got what they said you should know, which was an issue with church folk in the past usually being among the few learned folk.
Not to mention the hundreds of years of persecution of minority groups because of it: blacks, asians, native americans, LGBT people. As I said before, it was only recently that being atheistic isn't some blight on your character. Growing up you're pretty much taught that those without religion are evil or backwards (heard it alot in my faith as a kid).
There really isn't a good reason to keep it around. You can have all that stuff without religion, but a lot of the evil in the world had religion at it's heart. You'd be surprised what those who believe they are "God's chosen" can be capable of.
I'm honestly shocked this is even up for debate.
Atheist dogma is an oxymoron.
Providing facts isn't dogma last I checked.
I agree, if by salvation you mean securing a place in heaven (or at least believing you have). Your list of social benefits is well thought out.
They invent the problem and sell the solution.
There's a bit more history to this stuff.
The founder of Protestantism wrote On the Jews and Their Lies around 1543.
The Church of England also published a report in 2019 on the topic.
In a way, the Holocaust was part of a wretchedly long (sub)culture, an abominable "tradition", that you could hope ended, though it doesn't quite seem like it. :/
Some religion, yes. Id be reluctant to categorize all religion as anti-LGBT though.
Here in the US, theres a particularly vocal and powerful group of the evangelical persuasion thats behind a lot of this as well as being anti-abortion.
But you see it elsewhere, too. Uganda just passed a highly restrictive law, for example.
American expressions of culture and religion fascinate me. ( I say that as an Australian).
Most people are afraid to die. Also, I think for some of those who yearn for eternal life, the only negative thing about this life is pain and dying. Some people are lucky and die in their sleep without pain. I also don't believe most faith is without its share of doubts, but the phenomenon of religious fundamentalist suicide bombers demonstrates that if the faith is strong enough fear of pain and death can be overcome.
Yep. "Salvation seeking" is a self-abnegating Stockholm Syndrome hostage fantasy older than the oldest "sacred" scripture. "Spiritual" savants, spooked in their cribs by "spirits" and since having learned helplessly to "hope" for permanent escape from their "wretched" bodies in order to become / return to being "happy spirits" for a price, deny natura naturans e.g. "angels", "astral projections" & "perpetual motions". I'm sure @Wayfarer et al will (dogmatically) misrecognize my take on "spirituality" ... :halo:
Youd be hard pressed to find one that doesnt. Most religions have something against it.
Among the Abrahamic religions, certainly. Not so sure about eastern religions.
And the thing is that religious institutions can change their official policies over time. Bigotry exists in every sphere of human life, some more than others, obviously.
Religion is not going to go away, and like anything that you cannot change, there is little point in whinging about it; if you really care then the point would be to try to educate those who are not too recalcitrant to be made to see reason to let go of their prejudices.
The promise is that of a better life in the afterlife, with no suffering, joy, bliss and happiness. It's especially prevalent in people who are very poor - I live in the Dominican Republic, I think the only country which has a bible in the shield of the flag - and whose loved ones have died, or have committed crimes - there's murders here all the time, every day, quite dangerous, nowhere near the levels of Haiti, but that's a bad comparison, cause Haiti is the worst country in the hemisphere in terms of poverty and life expectancy, but it's not a picnic here.
As for your other answer, I do not know. And have asked myself such questions. I can only assume that the biological drive to survive is so strong, that it overrides such thoughts and actions.
Again, I don't believe in any of this, and we have lots of evidence for all the bad things religions have done, but it has plenty of value for believers.
The ones that are are pretty far removed from Christian teachings.
But that doesnt change the fact that the reason the current environment in the states is hostile to most progressive attempts is due to Christianity. Without that there wouldnt be anything in the way, or rather a significant roadblock would be gone (though Id argue the only one since the roots are God based).
I know that without Christianity my childhood could have been spared soooo much grief and many others too.
"The opium of the masses" makes them junkies and perpetually keeps them down-and-out, dog-eat-dog ... A 'sacramental' vicious cycle. :pray: :sad:
Quoting 180 Proof
I have an alcoholic neighbour who is a Christian, who gets angry with his god at times ( when shit happens in his life) and he goes on a bender, and becomes a problem for the locals.
He has had a dark past and a lot of jail time. He said to me once that it's only god and 'drink' that keeps him alive.
God fantasies play that role in many lives but there are far better ways to go. God and 'drink' are quick but bad solutions in the long term, they are synthetic highs, they are FAKE.
So although I agree that theism/religion can help stabilise many unstable humans, it achieves this in the same way as substance abuse, imo.
A junkie will tell you, accurately, that drugs make him/her/hesh, feel freakin fantastic!
A Christian speaking in tongues, writhing on the ground in 'faith' ecstacy, 'feeling the spirit' inside them, at an evanhellical preacher show/spectacle, no doubt feel a similar high to a junkie.
The trouble is that its a SYNTHETIC HIGH, just like god. A natural high is soooooooo much healthier. 180 proof says it quite succinctly with the words I underlined from his above quote. @Darkneos is soooooooo correct with:
Quoting Darkneos
Quoting Darkneos
Quoting Darkneos
Quoting Darkneos
Quoting Darkneos
The first printed bible was in latin mid15th century; Tyndale's English translation was 1522-35. It is my contention that though the great and the good might agree amongst themselves a definitive canon and ritual and so on, and enforce that upon the great unwashed, a religion founded on inerrancy and literalism cannot become a popular religion until the masses can read the text in a language they can understand. Up until at least the 16th century, the Good Book was a closed book to almost all, interpreted and translated on the fly by the local priest at his whim.
[quote=google]While there appears to be some uncertainty about when and which Bibles were first brought to America, authors generally agree that the first complete Bible printed in America was in 1663 at the Cambridge, Massachusetts printing house of Samuel Green and Marmaduke Johnson.[/quote]
Before one can start hitting people over the head with the Bible, one needs a Bible.
Anti-semitism predates the Protestants and Christianity itself.
As to whether Hitler used prior prejudices against Jews to his advantage, he did, but the argument that Hitler himself was religiously motivated is not supportable given his clear views on Aryan ethnic superiority and his classification of Jews based upon genetic lineage and not upon belief.
This attempt to present him as a misguided Christian soldier seems pretty strained to make the point that it is religion that leads to all evil.
As to his personal religious views, Hitler was not clear or consistent and debate remains over exactly what they were. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religious_views_of_Adolf_Hitler
He wasn't a nuanced thinker obviously, and it is clear that religious ideology was neither central nor even a piece of the puzzle informing his actions.
I'm not discounting moments of religious terror like the Crusades, but the Holocaust wasn't one of them. The argument that religion is the source of all evil is just not a reasonable thesis, and that is what motivated this line of conversation.
Martin Luther wrote the following - and it does sound suspiciously like most steps taken from Kristallnacht to the Final Solution:
Hitler described Luther as a great German - hence:
The writing says:
Hitlers fight and Luthers teaching are the best defense for the German people.
No, I wouldn't. I've listed and cited enough examples enough times to have internalized the list of atrocities - well, the European ones, anyway. I do, however, try be mindful of the opposing opinion and why so many otherwise reasoning, intelligent people desire to hold on to a faith, to ritual, the notion of sanctity, holy writ and the mythology of various cultural traditions.
Quoting Darkneos
Of course. Organized religion is a social mechanism. That is its main purpose and main (only?) benefit.
Quoting Janus
But if they truly believed that death is not dying, but a passage to something better, why would they be? (Indeed, the interdict of suicide was invented by the RCC to prevent Christian serfs escaping from their masters.) They're okay with their saviour suffering and dying to enable them to live, but they'll buy kidneys from organ-leggers to put off following Him? It does happen that true believers let go of a spent life with grace and dignity (of course, so do some unbelievers). But I'm a bit skeptical regarding professed Christians' depth of faith. (especially the ones with those teeshirts)
Quoting Darkneos
"It" doesn't make obedient little believers. "It" is regarded as providing some people freedom from hostages to the state (which has been synonymous with church) and thus their noses to the indentured grindstone. But the Catholics found a loophole - clever them! : monasticism. At a price.
The bastard has thus far shown no inclination to die at all. https://shepherd.com/book/towing-jehovah He's got more adherents now than ever before, coz they kept on keep on multiplying at His behest and for every suicide in His name, a hundred women are forced to make new ones.
Who was killed for the sport of pirhana-baiting this time?
This is probably a better, more neutral way of putting dogma. But I'll protest on the central dogma -- I had the thought and put it down because the central dogma is pedagogic. Everyone knows that it's not strictly true, so it doesn't really fit in the same way. It's almost the opposite of dogma -- called that because it's useful for students who are beginning to learn, but known that it will be disbelieved in the long run if the student keeps studying.
But "Dogma is simply the regular form of an accepted principle or axiom" -- I think I'd switch out "axiom" for "belief", because I don't think dogma is a part of formal systems of inference. Or, at least, that would be very strange if it were (harkening back to the myths of Pythagoras) -- but that works for me too. And it's a more value-neutral way of putting it, which I think is important if there's to be a way of talking about dogmatic tendencies which can be shared by either atheists or theists.
I still think placement of Nazi nationalism as a religious movement is a specious argument, fully understanding Hitler's use of whatever was available to him to promote his brand of nationalism.
The first line of Luther's writing you cited states, " First, to set fire to their synagogues or schools This is to be done in honor of our Lord and of Christendom, so that God might see that we are Christians." That is not something that would uttered by Hitler or that is part of Nazi ideology.
In reference to Kristallnacht, that erupted over the murder of a German diplomat by a Polish Jew in retaliation for the displacement of Jews of Polish descent from Germany. That had nothing to do with showing the world "we are Christians."
Like I said, the thesis that all organized social evil is somehow traceable back to religion is just not supportable, and it seems quite a stretch to apply it to Nazi Germany. I also can't see how you could extend it to the various other oppressive governments over time, especially communist ones that considered themselves atheist. It just seems an attempt to force the facts to fit the conclusion that religion is inherently evil, which I see as an ironic turn in and of itself. It's a black and white good/evil dichotomy positing a Satanic force, much like you'd expect to be argued from a religious perspective.
I think Mr Hitchens backs up your claim here in this 1 min clip:
Did you grow up in the U.S. South? Mormons have historically been especially disfavored in that region, although that is changing.
Mormon theology is unusual enough to wonder where it should be properly placed. I guess it goes under the general heading of "Protestant" just because it's Christian and not Catholic and it's doubtful it could have emerged without the Protestant Reformation.
Their acceptance of Jesus as savior places them in the Christian camp I'd think, but I agree, they are an unusual lot.
True. Ive softened my stance on religion over the years its too big a category to make generalizations. On the other hand, things like the Christian evangelical movement in the US still angers me. I was one of them, once upon a time.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religious_views_of_Adolf_Hitler#:~:text=In%20Hitler's%20eyes%2C%20Christianity%20was,the%20survival%20of%20the%20fittest.
They are, as I have said, inconsistent and varying over time. He was not a religious ideologue or zealot. It's just not a credible argument to make that Nazism was just yet another iteration of religion gone wrong. He is known for genocide, the murder of those based upon their genetic heritage without regard to belief. A fully devout German Christian, sworn to uphold the ideals of Nazi ideology, lock step in every way with Hitler, willing to lay his life down for the German God, whoever that might be, would have been murdered alongside the Chasidic rabbi if he were born of a Jewish parent.
:100:
Yeah, just like opium, it makes them feel good, but it could shut down options that they would otherwise pursue, maybe getting into political activism or something along those lines, because why bother? We are going to a better place, etc.
And then start a thread about them somewhere where I don't have to read about it. Recruit for your enemy's team somewhere else, please.
Quoting Hanover
I am already quite familiar. He weaponised religion and USED religion as aid to his narcissistic rise to autocracy. I already highlighted that use of religion by the vast majority of evil leaders, past and present.
I also made it clear that I do not assign blame to god posits, for such abuse of god posits, by nefarious humans. My annoyance and Mr Hitchens annoyance is manifest by absurd claims (or just plain lies) by theists, that the Hitler regime was atheist.
In what countries do religious entities and their congregants stay out of politics?
Yes. I just have fond memories of the '60s and the pre-disco '70s, though I was too young to be an actual hippie.
Isn't that was the great ideological battles in the 20th century were, a search for some kind of (secular) replacement after the dead of God?
The question to me isn't whether religion is bad or not, the question is whether the role religions or myths used to play in societies can adequately be replaced by something else, or indeed by nothing at all? And I'd say the jury is still out on that one... as a wider sociological phenomenon this plays out over centuries. We will have to see, but I'm doubtful because secularism is certainly a peculiar exception in world history.
As a side note, and maybe to piss of militant atheists some more, secularism specifically came out Christianity. It was in the times of Augustine, that a split was conceived between the worldy/temporal, i.e. the seaculum, and the eternal, the church. Only from then on a division in power between state and church was thinkable in the west. In all other non-christian societies the idea of a secular state made little sense, there was one way society was organised and religion was integral part of that... so really atheists should thank Christianity that it made secularism and atheism possible.
No secularism before Jesus Christ? Really? :rofl: Did every human on Earth that existed before Jesus Christ (who himself probably never existed), believe in gods? Did no tribe ever live without a god to worship? Do you know for sure they didn't?
No you probably had the odd atheist/sceptic, but there was no societal organisation that was outside of the religious/mythical, i.e. no secular state. Secularism is not the same as atheism.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
I don't know that he was anti-religion. Perhaps he was. All we have to judge him by are writings made decades after his death. As to those, they were written at a time Christianity was developing. John's Gospel was the last to be written, by my understanding--at least the last of the four Gospels which have been accepted (though it's possible this particular excerpt was made later; Christians were known to edit writings to suit their purposes, as they did to those of Flavius Josephus, or indeed fabricate them, as in the case of the supposed correspondence between Seneca and St. Paul).
In John's Gospel we see the seeds of what Christianity the religion was becoming and became. More sophisticated by the rather clumsy insertion of the ancient pagan concept of Logos into Christian discourse (this was followed by the wholesale assimilation of the works of pagan philosophers, most notably Plato and the Neo-Platonists, Aristotle and the Stoics). More exclusive in its claims to be the one true faith.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
I'm not sure if this can be done, though. Unfortunately. We can interpret what it's claimed he said to suit our preferences, we can point out inconsistencies in the Gospels and seek to resolve them or argue in favor of one version over another, but we can't do more than that.
[I hope I don't offend, but when it comes to interpreting what Jesus said I can't help but think of the scene in Monty Python's Life of Brian where one of those at the outskirts of the crowd listening to the Sermon on the Mount thinks Jesus said "Blessed are the cheese makers" and another responds "Well you can't take him literally, you know. What he must be saying is "Blessed are all those who make dairy products" or words to that effect.]
I know what secularism is. How about the tribes that lived by the seasons, and had pagan based celebrations? What are you calling a state? The early city states? Nomadic tribal communities?
Much early worship was based on nature and animism. Such societies could be quite secular in the sense that respecting the forest or even manifesting a forrest deity, did not necessarily affect how you shared the forrest provided food amongst your tribe. We don't have a great deal of knowledge on how early civilisations separated their pagan beliefs from how the tribe/state functioned.
Epicurean Communes were not ran under religious dictates for example.
Well, I'd prefer to believe he never said such things. But we know what the Gospel says he said. Either he said it, or he didn't. In the latter case, the author(s) of the Gospel thinks he said it or would like us to believe he did. In either case, I think, there's no ambiguity in what's said.
OK. And "the masses" probably didn't read until the 19th-20th centuries. I see your point.
Ok, in written history, that is as far as we know, every state-organisation was fused with some kind of religion. So yes the early city-states in Sumer, sure.
This is speculation of course, but I would presume that most of these tribes also had some kind of mythos (a kind of mostly made up origin-story to pass on the wisdom of the tribe).
Language-use is speculated to have evolved because we are an eusocial species. That is to communicate, to share knowledge that we then can pass on over generations. Because we are social species, we are also specifically interested in all these rather mundane social happenings... and so a narrative form with characters is easier to remember and pass on over generation in an oral tradition. These eventually turned into stories about great men ancestors, semi-gods and gods etc etc.... But to return to point of the OP, you can see that if the function is to pass on wisdom in an easy to remember form, it doesn't matter so much that it isn't literally true in the details.
Of course it matters! It remains almost critical as interpretation of what non-existent gods want, has plagued our species since it came out of the wilds. Theism, was a side effect of the primal fears early hominids experienced under the survival rules of the jungle, that was still fresh in the minds of early more settled and less nomadic tribal communities. It was from these mental schisms that the superiority of one human over another was manifest, alongside xenophobia, conquest and territoriality. This had it's most horrific consequences in such as the divine right of kings, messiahs and so called prophets and our entire species still suffers from this terror. For anyone to suggest that the 'truth' of preached religion does not matter, is irrational, provocative and irresponsible.
But it's not about truth, it's about values, which do not have a truth-value (as in something that can just be verified empirically). I know this is a whole other can of worms where there is much disagreement, so maybe we should park it here.
I don't doubt some of the things you alluded to were part of it, but I think there is more to it than that.
Not if you count the witnesses described in the Gospels. Of course, those are not unbiased sources.
But one of the awkward issues around these old and significant stories is that they are sometimes contain a nugget or two of truth. Homer's epics are an example, as I'm sure you know. The line between history and myth is not clear.
Even if you accept the witnesses, it would not prove the resurrection. It seems not impossible that Jesus might have been in a coma when they buried him. The Resurrection was just a recovery from coma. Not that that explains everything, but it shows something about how the argument might go. And that's the point. If it's dogma, argument is not allowed or frowned upon.
Quoting MoliereI'm glad you like "tendencies" - it's helpfully vague. I'm sure there are many varieties of dogmatic atheism and one of them may be anti-scientific. But I think science is not exempt from dogmatism quite apart from the atheistic variety. Dogmatism is a tendency (!) in people, including scientific people to protect what they believe in, and there is a temptation to rule difficult questions out of court because they are inconvenient and to confuse that motive with more respectable justification for rejecting a question. I would agree that it's not part of what science should be. But then, one needs agreed starting-points to start any research. Is temporary or provisional dogmatism ok?
Quoting unenlightened
Quite so. Truth is not just facts.
In REAL life, not philosophy, your values come from what you experience and what you learn.
If those values are based on lies peddled as divine truth, the people get seriously messed up.
Some get so messed up that they behave like Stepford wife stye automatons, in their inability to question the religious doctrine being peddled to them. However, as you suggested, we can 'park it' there for now, if you want.
Your values come for a large part from the society you get raised in. Experience feeds into it, but not in this direct factual way one maybe might presume. To put it simplistically, one experience usually doesn't suffice to evaluate a value. For that we usually tap into a larger ongoing societal dialogue. We can question those values we get passed on, sure, but it helps that we can at least start from something and that we don't have to all individually devise them out our experiences as we stumble through life. If we want to get across these larger points about values, the factual details usually are no that important.. it's the larger story-arc where it is at.
I was more midwest, but we spent some time in both Kentucky and Texas too -- it may have been in those states. The memory is too vague to remember exactly where it was at.
Quoting Ludwig V
Fair, this makes sense to me. Science ought not be dogmatic, but it's done by people so it, too, can be subject to this human tendency. And many a scientist has gone to their grave defending an abandoned theory -- scientific change happens because new scientists are born, not because people change their minds. So I'm definitely painting an ideal picture rather than a real one in saying dogmatism is anti-scientific.
This is a new feature of dogmatism that hasn't been mentioned yet: dogmatism as a tendency to protect a belief. Maybe to combine two theories put forward, yours and @Wayfarer 's -- dogmatism is a tendency in human beings to protect the regular form of an accepted principle. And dogma is whatever is being protected.
Then the atheist dogma would just be those beliefs which atheists tend to accept and want to protect. Similarly so with any other person.
Here the commonly accepted bit of dogma is literalism of scripture -- interpreting scripture with respect to factual truth. I don't know if this is a principle as much... but there is a tendency among atheists to interpret scripture with an eye towards factual knowledge. Maybe not quite a principle? But close enough to count as dogma, for my purposes at least, which is to avoid becoming dogmatic.
I think that emphasis upon factual knowledge comes in some portion from the emphasis upon the confession of belief that is expressed through creeds. Contrast the significance of repeating the Nicene creed with providing an offering to Athena at her temple. Athena is not testing if you have a correct set of beliefs. She might help you if you honor her properly.
This is from an old Grauniad review.
I think Grayling quite rightly holds that sophisticated theologies like those held by David Bentley Hart are not a great concern to anyone in daily life. No one is at risk from the God of Paul Tillich. I have no doubt Grayling can explore more sophisticated philosophical accounts of god if pressed. But these are not a significant problem.
There's no question that in a world packed with various forms of religious fundamentalism, which can significantly damage a culture and disrupt the world - from Trump's evangelicals, to Modi's Hindu nationalists (and let's not forget Islam) - these ideas are worth resisting, debunking, challenging. Just as the ideas of secular dictators are also worth debunking and challenging.
I wouldn't say I'm a sceptical ironist, but I sure as hell ain't no champion of the enlightenment.
:up:
Nazi racism and the Holocaust rode in on (age-old) existing anti-semitism, adding another level of horror.
Also keep in mind, some 95% of Nazi Germany were Christians.
It's not as if our theologically inclined brethren have a monopoly on metaphor and allegory, and certainly not on wisdom. Interestingly it was Grayling who pointed out that Christianity is not Christianity but borrowed Greek philosophy.
But from same article: "Many historians believe that the Nazis intended to eradicate Christianity in Germany after victory in the war.[17]"
"Nazi ideology could not accept an autonomous establishment whose legitimacy did not spring from the government. It desired the subordination of the church to the state.[38] Although the broader membership of the Nazi Party after 1933 came to include many Catholics and Protestants, aggressive anti-Church radicals like Joseph Goebbels, Alfred Rosenberg, Martin Bormann, and Heinrich Himmler saw the Kirchenkampf campaign against the Churches as a priority concern, and anti-Church and anticlerical sentiments were strong among grassroots party activists.[39"
This is an example of an atheist dogma, certainly an example of the enforced secularism and not a religious evil.
Excellent point! I defend the right of individuals to hold any religious faith that suits them, and to congregate and commune with like-minded individuals, but when dogma arrogates to itself the right to trespass on the political realm it deserves to be critiqued and resisted, and hopefully, put back in its place.
I agree. My own departure from The Rod of Truth involved both factual and emotive forces. The factual bits were important because they made me feel like I had a point, and they were also important because people would insist that this or that is true.
I don't think this quite counts as dogma though. This is more emotive narrative and personal. Maybe it's such a common feeling that it's dogma in the sense that we want to protect it, and believe it? Which would surprise me.
As I said earlier there is no faith without doubt (or at least it is extremely rare).
Could be. Doesn't mean the Nazi's didn't make consistent and effective use of Christianity in 'productive' ways, tapping into associated anti-Semitism and nationalism, which so often accompany religious dogma. It's worth noting that Hitler killed allies and associates when he had strategic changes (e.g., Ernst Rohm and the SA, who were so useful in establishing Nazi power at the start). Even if Hitler was an atheist and even if Hitler wanted to vanquish Christianity after the war was won - has little bearing upon the cultural uses of Christianity in galvanizing the German Volk and supporting the Nazi worldview and plans. After all, even an assassin is likely to dispose of the rifle once the killing is done.
Right. So... They believe that their God is all-powerful, all-knowing, loving, merciful and benevolent. Except they're not sure enough to trust him/them with their lives. Ordinary guys in the trenches have more confidence in their comrades, children in parents and spouses in each other. Hm.
That part isn't about non/theism, it's power politics.
Authoritarians use larger/influential organizations or them' begone.
(We can speculate on religion in the area if the Nazis hadn't lost; I'm guessing (pure conjecture on my part) that there'd have been some moves toward occultism or Germanic paganism of sorts.)
The earlier point, however, was that Nazi anti-semitism didn't appear out of the blue, but was part of a larger (sub)culture/tradition that Luther also was part of, another proactive part.
An established precedence in 1939's Nazi + Christian Germany.
They really want to believe all that, but perhaps even the least critical of us have trouble really convincing ourselves of that for which there can be no solid evidence. That said, there may be some who are wholly convinced and can face death with equanimity, feeling assured of their place in heaven.
Our faith in people is put in place by some solid evidence; they haven't failed us in the past and so on, but with a god who is unknowable there is no past experience to draw upon.
Do I have to point out that this is the doctrine of original sin? Turns out the atheists are Christian too, because there is no escape from history, and there is Grayling, expounding Christian doctrine in his attack on it.
On the atheism of the Nazis, there seem to be roughly two positions from the capital "A" Atheists here: (a) National Socialism was a religious movement; and (b) National Socialism was not an atheist movement, shown by the fact that it was happy sometimes to use religion to gain and maintain power.
Position (a) can't really be taken seriously, but position (b) (which seems to be where @universeness is coming from) is usually just a defence against those militant theists who claim that atheism is inherently evil. I think (b) is fair enough. The Nazis emerged from a still quite religious milieu, which most of them did not care enough about to give it much thought for or against, thus they were neither religious nor atheist in general, and there was probably a diversity of opinion among Nazis on the issue.
But some leftist atheists during and just after the war came to believe that there was something in the secularized culture of modern Europe that allowed totalitarianism to happen. European antisemitism at the time of the Nazis had become scientific in character (it was pseudo-scientific, of course). It took up the older religious tradition of antisemitism and ran with it in a racialist direction, so it was motivated and justified differently than it had been in previous centuries. So some pessimistic atheist social theorists blamed the very historical evolution of which the loss of religion's social importance was a central feature. From this point of view, it is something in the process of secularization that led to totalitarianism and genocide (the instrumentalization of reason and all that). In other words, religion was being lost, and without anything to take its place, bad things happen.
This seemed to be further supported by the existence of another of the worlds most brutal and totalitarian regimes, one which was atheist and which engaged in the persecution of religion, namely Stalin's government of the Soviet Union.
Me, I certainly wouldnt say that atheism or secularism necessarily result in totalitarianism. The minimal point I suppose is that society can end up in oppression, war, and violence whether its religious or not, and therefore that these evils have other causes. The idea that it's all caused by religion is no better than a conspiracy theory.
I made a similar point earlier, namely that secularization may in fact have created the space for these events in the 20th century. If religion has been a part of all but one civilization since the beginning of written history, it only seems a fair question to ask what functions it serves in society, and whether you can just cut it out without adverse effects.
I dunno, this whole idea, that religion is bad and that we therefor should just do away with it, seems rather shallow to me.
Quoting Jamal
There have been totalitarian religious regimes too, yes, so maybe that's not the axis we should be looking on. What I would say is that religions have heavily curated traditions that only change slowly and are therefor typically more a force for stability than the other way around (Although Christianity may be a bit of a special case). As this influence wanes, you supposedly have more of a chance for societies to oscillate into extreme and unpredictable directions, like we have seen in the 20th century. Mao's cultural revolution is maybe the best example of this kind erasure of the past.
I enjoyed reading the article you linked to. That's the biggest benefit I get from TPF in that I can take such small steps, in improving my knowledge of philosophy, by reading such linked articles. I had not heard of A. C Grayling, but I now, really like him. The one word that I did not read in Mr Ree's review was the word 'socialist.' That's a more important label for me than 'secular' or even 'humanist.' But that in no way dilutes the importance of 'secular' or 'humanist.' Is Mr Grayling a professed socialist?
Quoting Tom Storm
Yes, that's a good mission statement. Perhaps even a good contribution to 'general guidelines' for establishing a palatable secular morality that's 'fair and just,' for all stakeholders, and, what I especially like about such statements from 'HUMANS' is that imo, such demonstrates NO IRREFUTABLE NEED for the divine source of moral guidelines/dictates that theists claim, humans need, to escape a 'guaranteed!' return to purely instinct driven, feral behaviour, devoid of any palatable morality.
But then what, is the real question? It's not as if we, once we get rid of tradition, once we get rid of these controlling evil forces, that we magically start living peacefully all together. Something does need to come in its place. And since we erased the past, in the short term, it can only come in the form of some ideological artifice, top-down imposed... and untested, unproven and unrefined in the real world. Is it really a surprise then that these experiments have invariably been worse then what they sought to cure?
No, It's not, it's yet another example of a human's wish to kill off any competition to their own rise to god status, in the minds of their followers. How many dictators believe and promote a cult of their own personality? EVERY SINGLE ONE OF THEM, past and present imo. Hitler is just one of the modern examples. Alexander the butcher was no different. Hitler manipulated religion, yes, such always does. If the nazis won, then I agree that they would not have tolerated dictates from ANY religious organisation that 'competed' with nazi dictates about how people MUST live and WHO will be allowed to live.
They certainly would have killed any religious leader who dared to challenge their absolute power.
BUT, this is a religious position! All totalitarian, cult of personality, autocratic control level of a large mass of people, are IDENTICAL imo, to the rule of a king or a messiah who claims to have gods sanction, (the so called, divine right of kings) to BE what they/he/she/hesh wants to be, ie, YOUR GOD!
Dead Roman emperors were often raised to god status. We even see a diluted version of this today in the catholic tradition of raising some 'personality,' THEY approved of highly, by declaring them a 'saint.' :rofl:
As a democratic socialist, I am forced to broadly agree with your quote above but how do you suggest we prevent such horrors and such horrific final solutions as the branch Davidians (Waco Texas), the Jim Jones mass poisoning in Guyana, the heaven's gate mass suicide in 1997, etc, etc? Even this May, I heard in the news about:
Children were targeted as the first to be starved to death in the final days of a Christian doomsday cult in Kenya, according to fresh accounts emerging.
Yes, I would agree that my pushback here IS against the argument from theists/religious groups, that atheism MUST dictate a return to amoral human behaviour.
Quoting Jamal
Yes, that seems quite balanced to me. Even if I am labelled as a 'militant atheist' and that is considered a negative label by some ( I don't consider it negative, but it is probably inaccurate in many ways) I DO NOT claim that all horrors humans face are caused by religion BUT I DO list it in the top 5 of the biggest barriers to human ability to individually 'be all you can be!' whilst we still have the very short lives we do.
COME ON science! We wait impatiently for those extra options that increased longevity and robustness might offer us! AND f*** off theism! stop holding us back!!!!!
Careful what you wish for. Inasmuch as human thinking progresses through the dying off of people whose thinking has ossified, increased longevity might hold 'us' back.
In relation to the op then, can you put your finger on the "dogma" or even the ideology involved here, which could motivate this sort of atheist politicism. Surely the issue is more complex than the "fact/value" distinction of the op. It appears to me like the proper subject matter would be better described as the power/money relation. The relation of fact over value does not seem to have the same motivating force as the relation of power over money. "Value" and "money" are comparable, which would mean that the dogma which motivates such an atheist movement is power based rather than fact based.
It might be useful to consider Plato's description of the evolution/devolution of the state, in "The Republic". He describes a specific order of descent, which corresponds with a distinct attitude of the individual. Each of the successive forms of government, in what he calls the corruption of government, are described in terms of the attitude of an individual. And some form of explanation is provided as to how one gives way to the next. The three principal levels of distinction are the divine (by moral reason), the honourable (power), and the money (material goods, all sorts of chattel and property).
Or you could think that given enough time, that which has ossified or petrified maybe softened.
The USSR, and China are just another two failed attempts to 'get it correct.'
If the people at the time had managed to recognise and kill/stop a personality cult such as Stalin or Mao gaining totalitarian control, their attempt might have succeeded. No point in crying over failed attempts.
WE MUST TRY TRY TRY and then ......... TRY AGAIN! Until we succeed, on a global scale.
If you can't offer an example of an atheistic leader who is evil even in the hypothetical because definitionaly their exercise of power is "religious" in an essential way, this is all tautological. I'll stop offering counter examples to disprove your argument so that you can tell me there are no married bachelors.
Quoting universeness
Let's first focus on eliminating the ongoing repercussions of the last failed attempts before we start rolling out the next five year plan.
Oh we have many many millions of years, not 5 more years (Hear D. Bowie below).
So how about a 100 year or thousand year or ...... year plan?
We just have to avoid extinction events and causing such ourselves.
Quoting Hanover
"either the ball is green, or the ball is not green" is always true, regardless of the colour of the ball.
I don't care about your concern with logical tautologies. In REAL human life, ALL totalitarian dictators past and present are god wannabees, and you holding up an irrelevant shiney from propositional logic, in a futile attempt to dilute from the observed behaviour I am referring to, is part of why I claimed earlier that your theism manifests in you at times, in rather sinister ways.
The reference was to Stalin, hoping to illustrate that these attempts are not benign.Quoting universeness
Yes, logic is just a shiney diversionary tactic. I'll try to avoid it.
God is dead! God remains dead! And we have killed him! How shall we console our selves, the most murderous of all murderers? The holiest and the mightiest that the world has so far possessed, has bled to death under our knife, who will wipe the blood from us? With what water could we cleanse ourselves? What purifications, what sacred games shall we have to devise? Is not the magnitude of this deed too great for us? Shall we not ourselves have to become Gods, merely to seem worthy of it? There never was a greater event and on account of it, all who are born after us belong to a higher history than any history so far!
No, logic can be abused and used out of context, just as you sometimes do.
Don't avoid it, just employ it correctly/honestly. Perhaps It's your dalliances with theism that is causing the jamming signals! Something for you to logically ponder perhaps, but only if you can gain sufficient control over your own personal primal fears, instead of allowing them to force you to theism.
I accept that this is merely my personal interpretation that you will of course reject.
All addictions are hard to admit to, especially when its only others who are trying to convince you, that a particular one is harming you, when you are convinced, it is one of your most fundamental supports.
"Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds."
So yeah, in some ways it hasn't gone very well so far, despite N's optimism.
FREE AT LAST! Now, we just have to rid ourselves of
1. Money
2. Capitalism
3. Preoccupation with the primal fears we experienced via natural selection.
[s]4. Religion.........theism...........theosophism[/s] (if Mr Hanover's last post is correct. I wish it was! as it would mean we can focus on stopping humans like Stalin, Trump, Putin et al, who are wannabee gods on Earth, and we no longer have to worry about what nefarious humans, dressed in religious uniform, tell us that their imagined gods demand of us)
5. Acceptance of or lack of recognition and treatment of mental aberrations in others such as narcissism, cult of celebrity, cult of personality, a need to follow others blindly without question.
The last 3 of my top 5 barriers to humans becoming all they could become are interchangeable in position based on personal experience.
In a cosmic calendar scale, we have only been here a few seconds. You honestly don't think we have achieved much in the small time we have been here????
All the books, words, songs of hope for a better human future? Wars in which millions died to free others or bring down/end so called god sanctioned dictates delivered by fake prophets and messiahs. The divine right of Kings sanctioned by gods has at least been replaced with god wanabee humans who cannot convince very many now that 'god is with them and sanctions their rule.'
You seem to accent the negatives more than you accent the positive achievements of humankind.
Are you another pessimist?
I don't have an issue with that. But there is another point to take into account. Some people talk about "hinge" propositions - ideas around which the debate turns, but which are never the focus of debate. I don't understand the ins and outs of this idea. A related idea is that of conceptual or grammatical propositions. Most people are happy to talk about analytic or a priori propositions. These relate to the language in which debate is carried on or to the ideas that frame the debate.
However that may be, for a debate to occur, there needs to be an agreement about what is at issue and what isn't and what counts as evidence or argument. These things are not dogmas merely because they are not at stake. They can be challenged at any time, but that amounts to changing the subject and that's the difference.
My point is that these are also protected, but legitimately. On the other hand, they can be challenged at any time, and to refuse such a challenge would be dogmatic.
Following this a little further, "dogma" used to mean simply doctrine or principle, but it now has a a value built in to it, so it means something like unreasonable resistance to a reasonable challenge (where what is reasonable can itself be open to challenge). That's my basic point. Unfortunately, one person's dogma is another person's evident accepted truth. So I wouldn't necessarily feel upset if someone called me dogmatic. I might just feel that the discussion was over and about to degenerate into abuse.
Quoting jorndoe
No need to speculate. The Nazi party was very keen on occultism and especially German paganism and actively promoted it. To be fair, paganism is still around; I have a friend who describes himself as a pagan. He is a perfectly decent, liberal, nice guy. There's a good deal of information about this (including about the Nazis) at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modern_paganism
The Jews were blamed for creating a world order that produced the Communists as well as those Capitalists who crafted the Versailles treaty. They were so effective wielding this invisible power that the only way to defeat it was to wipe out every last one of them. Does that logic work as a 'theism'?
My sentiments exactly, except that none of the people and dogs I've learned to trust over the years ever asked me to bomb, burn, stone or chop the heads off anybody else, so I detached from the god, but kept the people and dogs.
You ask me this because I attempted to confront the reality of the twentieth century? Why should I be an optimist? Seriously, why? This is a venue for philosophical thinking and discussion, not for atheist proselytizing or rousing the masses into revolutionary fervour.
Optimism is often facile and banal.
[quote=Terry Eagleton, Hope Without Optimism]The optimist cannot despair, but neither can he know genuine hope, since he disavows the conditions that make it essential.[/quote]
The title is where I'm at: hope without optimism.
Or is it the other way around? :chin:
I realize that you've had a long dialogue about this already. Perhaps you're bored with it. But if I'm right that psychopathic behaviour is part of the human condition, removing religion may reduce the opportunities, but won't cure the problem. Those personalities will just find other ways to wreak havoc on the rest of us. I'm not saying there's nothing we can do about them, just that it's will be a continuous battle. Remember the slogan that freedom is not a place you arrive at and relax. It always needs defending.
Quoting Paine
It depends on your god.
Quoting Vera Mont
I'm always in favour of people and dogs (and I've nothing against cats, rabbits and horses).
Dunno that I would trust a rabbit with my life... But horses very often and cats sometimes have saved the lives of their human companions. I hear Jesus scores the odd goal in soccer; a cat couldn't do that.
That would make sense. But the cycle of humiliation and violence wears many different masks. Like the weird theological party within Billiards at Half Past Nine. You are what you eat.
It doesn't matter. When we lose interest or belief in one kind of madness, we always find another to take its place.
"To live is to suffer, to survive is to find some meaning in the suffering (Nietzsche)"
I think we want to see our actions framed in a larger whole ideally, so they become infused with some kind of meaning.
He was a poor, sick man. I wasn't. Different experiences lead to different conclusions.
Quoting ChatteringMonkey
Some do, some don't; some find it, some receive it, some invent it; some join organizations, armies, movements to be "part of something greater than themselves", some prefer interactions on a small scale, some are loners; some crave ideals, or truths or certitudes; some crave power, wealth or social status; some crave love but will take revenge instead; some cry, some laugh, some lie, some work, some pray, some fight; all die.
No , I commented earlier on a balanced viewpoint you posted. So, I am asking about YOUR interpretation, that YOU label 'confront the reality of the twentieth century.'
A lot of good work done by humans that improved the lives of many, happened in the 20th century, same with the 19th and 18th and hopefully it will be the same for the 21st.
Quoting Jamal
Wow! why the passion? It sounds like you give a f***! Maybe that's why we will, and can do better despite past failures such as the USSR and RED China, both now ruled by capitalist elites, and current failures such as the UK and the USA, who are also ran under uncontrolled/very poorly constrained capitalism. Why should you be an optimist? How about, to add to our chances of doing better.
Just another voice that says 'yes we can' as opposed to 'nah, were all doomed.' helps imo.
Quoting Jamal
Does philosophical thinking and discussion not include discussing atheism versus theism?
Anything that comes out of such discussion that some would label 'proselytizing' or 'rousing the masses,' others may interpret, as the welcome output/results of honest debate. I am personally with the latter group.
Quoting Jamal
Is this your honest answer to my question 'are you another pessimist?'
Quoting Jamal
I will leave you and Terry Eagleton to debate that one.
I am BOTH hopeful and optimistic, so I don't understand the use of a notion such as 'hope without optimism,' but perhaps you have read more on such philosophy than I.
It what way does a 'hopeful optimist' disavow the conditions that make such essential.
In what way do you assume that I personally disavow conditions that would help improve the human experience?
1939 Germans were both, though not because one implies the other.
1929 Fascist Italy made Catholicism the State religion; in 1938 they made some moves against Jews, Evangelicals, Pentecostals.
Quoting Vera Mont
Sure, I'm an atheist and I don't have any particular need for religion, I just think a lot of people probably do.
I think this is fair to an extent. I would just change the need to want, meaning I could live without religion. I just don't want to.
Part of the assumption many make is that the religious irrationally rely upon the impossible in order to cope, as if they possess a fragility non-believers don't have. That's really not the case, and I think it's why some religious people try to persuade non-believers to their point of view because they feel that non-believers are missing out on something meaningful. I'm much opposed to proselytizing because I think it's annoying, condescending, and generally ineffective. I don't think people come to religion through badgering and I don't think it matches many people's personality types. If an atheist tells me they are fully happy without religion, I would have no reason to doubt that.
Yeah, well you know my views on this, which is radical optimism.
It would be more accurate to say, "That's not always the case.", rather than, "That's not really the case."
My own mother has told me that she thinks she would go insane if she didn't have her (Christian) religious beliefs. Of course that's merely an anecdote, and I wouldn't want to venture a guess as to what percentage of Christians might think similarly, but there are certainly cases where inability to cope (or at least fear of inability to cope) plays a role.
I have a huge amount of experience over the past 15 years of engaging in what I'll call "long game internet forum dialog with Christian apologists". On the basis of that large amount of experience (but with a biased sample due to the fact that the Christians I was engaged in discussion with were particularly motivated to try to present effective apologetics for their beliefs) my impression is that that subpopulation of Christians sincerely believe that their Christianity was much more reasonable to believe than not believe.) There is a lot of unwillingness to question intuitions on the part of that set of Christians, but I don't see emotional fragility as playing any huge role in their thinking.
Another large group I would point out, is people whose beliefs are to a substantial degree tribal, and believing as they do is just part of what their tribe does. There is definitely an element of emotional vulnerability for that group, and while they may not fear for their sanity if they were to stop believing they do face a significant threat of loss of their support network if they were to stop believing.
Undoubtedly there are many other psychological factors that could be brought up, but I think that is a sufficient sample to show that your statement above is an overgeneralization.
In the case of Christianity, which is the religion I have by far the most experience with, there is the matter of the "great commission", or a moral obligation to try to save one's fellow man from going to hell. Not to say that believers don't tend to think non-believers are missing out, but that there are factors that vary from religion to religion. (And denomination to denomination.)
I've heard a similar perspective from every Jew I can remember having a relevant discussion with, and it is certainly something I can appreciate, about discussing religion with Jews as compared to Christians. (Although I typically enjoy discussing religion with anyone if I am not feeling pressed for time, and I have the impression that the person I am engaged in discussion with can handle it if I don't 'pull my punches'.)
Again though, there is the matter of different religions motivating different attitudes to the issue of proselytization.
Sounds all right. Its the triumphal rhetorical banalities I dont like.
Why waste it on those who have lived in a religious environment and rejected it? Very few people have been complete strangers to religious ideas and need to be informed. Most unbelievers came to their unbelief through experience and do know exactly what they're missing - what they often feel they have escaped from. In many cases I know of, atheists had simply stopped believing over time because they found the doctrine unconvincing. None of these people will be lured back into the fold by someone saying, "But it works for me."
But there is a story, sometimes called "The Greatest Story Ever Told", of a unique moment - but every moment is unique - yes but this was different - an injection into history of a new factor, a new start that made every moment thereafter also potentially a new start. Like the way no one can run a mile in under 4 minutes, everyone knew that, until Roger Bannister did, and thereafter, it became possible. Like the way society was caught in an eye for an eye mutual blindness, until someone invented forgiveness.
And the question that interests me is not whether the story is true; the story reverberates through history for 2,000 years, and that a made up story can have such power is more miraculous than the miracles it recounts. that it can change a life at this great a remove is utterly fantastic, and an everyday occurrence.
History is broken and remade by - fiction? That much is undeniable. And that is worth consideration by any philosopher.
The optimist thinks it will happen, come what may, thus nothing already experienced matters at all. In contrast, the hoper wants it to happen, despite everything.
It was partly your posts that prompted me to write this hammily rhetorical stuff a few months ago:
Quoting Jamal
I'm in favor of whatever reason proposed for not trying to proselytize, so if that's another reason, then that's good by me.
I've known people of all stripes: those that never considered religion, those that had it and left it, those that left it and returned, those that never left it, and those that weren't ever totally sure where they stood.
Like I said, it's really none of my concern to figure out where you are and to try to move you.
Likewise! Now, if only we could translate that healthy attitude to the political arena....
But who wouldn't be a hoper in your scenario? It would seem I could think the past has borne nothing of worth or value but stil hope tomorrow it will. Hoping is just wishing. I wish I would win the lottery, even though I never play it.
For hope to have any value, you must have the optimism it can happen. That is what causes you to act. The thought it can occur is what motivates you. Without it, you never ask that girl out, apply for that job, are do whatever you think is a risk taking venture that might pay dividends.
Quoting Hanover
No, thats still just hope. The way Im using the terms right now, optimism is when you believe it will happen. When you believe it can happen, and you want it, thats hope.
Hopes value doesnt come from some will to believe or some such personal courage, but from ones experience of bad stuff.
"Thank God!"
This sort of thinking completely neglects or completely misunderstands causality, and completely neglects to focus upon and consider the active everyday efficacious primary role that one plays in one's own life.
One silver lining of hope accompanied by unwavering optimism is that hopeful people do tend to be happier and more positive, generally speaking(whether delusional or not). Positive mindsets and positive thinking can be the crucial difference between recognizing potential opportunities or not. One drawback, is that when one does take advantage of an opportunity that presents itself, if they "walk by faith", that person will give all the glory to God and take no credit, thereby reducing their own ability to recognize how important their own role was in making it happen. It also further reinforces both, a misattribution of causality, and the tendency towards seeing oneself as an extra in their own life(God is in control after-all, and when unexpected bad stuff happens, it's all somehow a part of God's plan).
Understanding one's own role helps one to be more positive, hopeful(well-grounded), and most importantly... prepared. The last bit is the key often neglected by those who 'walk by faith', particularly if they do not have a decent grasp upon how the world works(causality).
Good luck is when preparation meets opportunity.
No... just to support their religious leaders' right to do those things. Much like the political extremists: most of us don't actually do it; all we do is vote for it, finance it and defend it.
To the OP...
Would Occam's razor be considered "atheist dogma"?
:brow:
Observation: there is a Story of a man who taught love and was killed and lived again. That story has permeated the culture of what its inhabitants like to call 'the civilised world', and transformed millions of lives.
Conclusion: it may not be true, but it certainly has huge significance. Use the razor to outline the significance, not to to chop away the fact of it.
I dont think theyre competing explanations. Id say that the power/money ideologies build upon the fact/value separation, because the reduction of values to subjective preferencesthis being the corollary of the triumphant objectivity of science and the profit-driven progress of technologyentails, through its removal of meaning from the social and natural whole, a norm of rational behaviour where the means are paramount, and the ends are the unexamined personal preferences conditioned by a socially stratified society, i.e., status, power, wealth.
Obviously this is not to say that power and wealth were not pursued in the era of enchantment.
Of course, you are right that this sometimes happens, and that some of us vote for, and defend military action and spending on "defense". But I think it should be acknowledged that some of those who vote for political leaders who opt for military involvements in other countries and promote massive defense budgets, may not have specifically voted for those things, but voted on the strength of agreeing with their favored party's policies on other issues that concern them more.
I think it's about reducing injustice and creating a more equitable and balanced experience for all humans from cradle to grave. For most or perhaps all of the last say, 10,000 years, the battle for fair and just treatment for all, has indeed been a continuous battle. But irrefutable improvements have been achieved. Life for most is not as bad as it was in say, the days of Spartacus imo.
I think the human experience will be much better in the future than it was in the past, because for many, its much better now than it was in the past. I don't think the 'continuous battle' you seem to be suggesting MUST be a permanent state of life for most humans due to some obscure dictate that humanity is too inherently flawed.
I don't value or garnish anything compelling from your depiction of optimism or hope in the way you present them in the above quote. This approximately 3 min offering from a holocaust survivor, talks a little about the future and he employs no religious doctrine, in doing so.
Do you think that I agree with what he says due to some 'temperamental,' 'unearned' notion of empathy?
I have never experienced anything like he did, but I think his optimism shows him to be someone who believes that humans can and WILL do better in the future by learning from the horrors he describes. He even says he wishes he had spoken about what he went through/witnessed, much earlier in his life. Optimism and hope feed determination to get more involved in the day to day fight to make things better for people in anyway you can. It is not some 'idealistic' and distant platitude that is ignorant and powerless "in the midst of the lived and felt reality of hell on Earth," that some people are experiencing as I type. It is the opposite of the pessimism that bystands at a distance and exclaims 'well, I am sorry, but that's just the way things are and will always be and there is nothing I can do about it!"
Which of these possible responses to "the horrors that people experience,' do you think is most likely to prevent such horror repeating and expanding to others?
Let me see if I unravel the mysteries of this brief, but extremely complex piece of writing. What I see here, is that you portray the fact/value separation as releasing value from the realm of fact, making values subjective rather than objective. So for example, religion would hold moral values as objectified by God (despite the Euthyphro problem), but the stated separation (apprehended as required by the Euthyphro problem) grounds values in the individual, therefore making them subjective. If we maintain objectivity as the defining feature of "fact", then we drive a wedge between fact and value.
This places the ends (which in Platonic terms would be the goods, as what is desired) firmly within the individuals as inherent within, and intrinsic to the individuals. You characterize them as "unexamined personal preferences", but allow me to qualify this by saying that the ends have varying degrees of having been examined. We might find that people with a lot of ambition, will and determination, practise some degree of self-examination to form and maintain those types of goals you speak of, "status, power, wealth". For these people, with strong will and determination, the ends may remain paramount.
On the other side, "the triumphant objectivity of science", "progress of technology", and the "removal of meaning from the social and natural whole" is accomplished by the very fact that "the means are paramount". By providing (i.e. providing the means) for the fulfillment of natural needs, wants, and desires of the people, the flock is satisfied, satiated, and very rulable. Only the relatively few who develop those higher goals through some degree of self-examination slip through the cracks of those provisions, because these personalized goals require strategy and specialized means.
I believe, this puts "the norm of rational behaviour" in limbo. The reason why I say this is that "rational behaviour", meaning the behaviour of the rational mind in the act of thinking, is an activity of the individual subject. And, rational thinking in its natural state is intentionally directed, directed toward ends. However, the described situation, where "the means are paramount", as the norm, directs the thinking toward the means rather than toward the ends. The result is that "the norm" for rational behaviour is to direct the thinking toward the means rather than the ends. So the type of self-examination, described above, which seeks the true ends (we could say subjective ends are true ends, therefore objective), is outside the norm of rational behaviour, though it is really the natural state of rational behaviour. This leaves a discrepancy in "rational behaviour".
Of course the ensuing issue is the matter of the objectivity of what is called "fact" in the first place. Maintaining that "fact" is objective while value is demonstrated as necessarily subjective, is what allows the wedge to be driven between fact and value in the first place. So to support this division, the objectivity of "fact" must be justified.
Sure. They signed up for the tax cuts, but stayed for the invasions. Exactly like religion. They converted for the promise of eternal life, but stayed on for the witch-burning.
I shouldnt have said a norm of rational behaviour where the means are paramount. What I meant was the social situation in which it is the means that are susceptible to rationality, rather than the ends. At the personal level, ends may remain paramount, but these tend to be seen as subjective, a matter of taste or whatever. At the social level, political parties campaign on how best to run the economy, not on what kind of economy there should beand there too, ends may remain paramount (winning elections for the party, profits for owners of capital) but the rationality of basing a society on the profit motive is not questioned, thus the ends here are unexamined.
What Ive just written might be a bit of a mess, but since your hermeneutic track record is so good, Ill lazily leave it to you to work it out.
That's a fairly small snapshot of a fairly large world. One little 'developing' nation as all "society"; one instance of ritual sacrifice to a vengeful tribal god for the very invention of forgiveness....
It is. As if we have overcome already, which of course we have not. Other religions are also available.
But I am waving vaguely at a story, not a fact about the world. It is (I claim) a story, rather than a fact, an act by a pioneer, that makes forgiveness a possible move in life. Other stories are available...
I have in mind another thread that might attempt to tell a story of human nature - of individual identity as an incomplete story, and the completion of the story as the purpose of a human life. Maybe.
I see. It doesn't need to be a true story.
Sorry, I missed this reply somehow. I think it's a bit more complex than that, I mean there is no doubt that being a religious fanatic can be very problematic and even dangerous, we have plenty of examples throughout history that exemplifies this side of religion.
On the other hand, I don't agree about "synthetic" or "fake" experiences. I don't think they are this and would have trouble imagining what a "fake experience" could be. You can say, afterwards, that your judgement about an experience was mistaken, the experience itself wasn't false.
And there's a lot of variety too, you are right that some Christians go overboard when they start speaking in tongues. But there's also plenty of people who have a religious experience that don't do extreme things.
So it's a bit too broad-brush to say that all of this is fake or illusory, as I see it anyway.
The point is often missed that fiction and truth are not opposites. The point of most fiction, or at least the well written sort, is that it contains much truth.
That is where most truth, or at least the wisdom sort, is found.
And if we can glean deep meaning from the complex tales from the imaginations of great storytellers, surely we can do the same from turning that analysis onto the stories of our own lives and those around us.
This is to say, if we can find deeper truths in fiction, surely we can do the same with non-fiction. Science doesn't have a monopoly on analysis of the world, but the world is as much subject to literary analysis as are the creations of our minds.
How do you gauge the "depth" of a truth? Quoting Hanover
It does on some aspects of the world. You don't get much useful information about space travel from Jules Verne or medical knowledge from R.L. Stevenson.
Quoting Hanover
Human psychology and sociology, certainly. The world itself, not so much.
I hear this point made regularly (not least by a friend of mine who is a novelist) and I think it was Gore Vidal who used to say 'we only tell the truth in fiction.' Nevertheless, in my own experience, I can't think of anything I have gained in wisdom from a work of fiction. What I have learned, perhaps, is how words can be used to 'dress up' and develop ideas and evoke a mood or tone. The spectacular fiction of Saul Bellow and Vladimir Nabokov come to mind.
The reduction of truth to facts and information is characteristic of our age, with its strong fact/value distinction (quoting the OP).
Its kind of frightening that the idea of artistic truth seems so alien to people now. Worthy of a separate discussion Id think.
[quote=Wittgenstein, Culture and Value]People nowadays think, scientists are there to instruct them, poets, musicians etc. to entertain them. That the latter have something to teach them; that never occurs to them[/quote]
And an offshoot of theism, which is that there is an intentional creator, is that the non-fiction is as much a creation as the human fiction, allowing both the same sort of analysis. That is, read the tales of your life as you would a novel.
And we should assume in the best written of novels, no word is superfluous, but adds something to the novel. That is, every event matters and you matter., meaning the world could not exist without you.
And none of this requires some leap of faith. It's just a perspective (either culturally instilled or by personal decision) of how you look at things.
How much of the available literature is best-written? Or, indeed, has any value at all?
Does it follow from this that the creator is created too? Anyway, as you might expect, Id go a bit further and say that the creator is also a fiction. A meaningful one.
Quoting Hanover
Thanks.
Quoting Hanover
I think its a fundamental social perspective though. Its what underlies the idea that alongside science, we can investigate the world with the arts and humanities. The latter explore meaning, including the meaning of that which is investigated by the former.
I think your response to your own question was correct because your question implied a scientific response only to someone so programmed to look for one.
I think the great novelists are perhaps better phenomenologists than the phenomenologists; they are generally more readable at least, and they could be argued to be better at capturing the nature of human experience than the philosophers are.
It's the same with poetry' you can do close reading and textual analysis, but there is always ambiguity in the best work, so poetic meaning cannot be exhaustively explained. I suppose that means there is always an element of ineffability.
How about spiritual truth through scriptures? The non-literal sort. What truths do we find in scripture? I can see how parables are like fables. But in relation to Christianity, I can make no use out of sacrifice and resurrection. You?
In War and Peace Tolstoy occasionally leaves the story to expound non-fictionally on the causes of historical change, but its a common observation that these bits are less true to life and the world than the fictional bulk of the book. Its interesting to look at how this works.
I think there is a very good reason for this. Ends are only rational as means. This is the problem Aristotle addressed in his ethics. If we take any specific end, and ask why it is wanted, then to answer this question we go to a further end, because we ask for the sake of what. In the process of being comprehended as rational, the end simply becomes the means to a further end. This is why he sought something which would be in a sense self-sufficient, wanted only for the sake of itself, and not for a further end. So he proposed happiness as the end which puts an end to the chain of ends.
Notice though, that this ultimate end is not susceptible to rationality, because it cannot be transformed by rationalization into the means for a further end, and this is what is required to make it rational. But what this means is that no means are really properly susceptible to rationality, because they are only grounded rationally by the end, which only gets grounded as the means to a further end, until we propose an ultimate end, which itself cannot be rationally grounded. So this social situation in which means are rational is a sort of illusion, because they are only rationalized relative to an end, and ends are never really rational except as the means to a further end.
Quoting Jamal
So ends always end up being subjective, and objectivity here is just an illusion. Even if we could come up with something, like Aristotle's "happiness", which we think everyone ought to agree to, someone is bound to disagree and propose something other than happiness, something like flourishing, which is a concept of growth, and insist that growth is better than simple happiness which is more like basic subsistence. And the religious community might insist that there are objective ends, supported by God, but this runs into the Euthyphro problem. Then it becomes rather pointless to define the ends or goods in relation to God, when we need to understand what is good in relation to human existence, as we are human. Therefore the idea of objective ends, or objective goods really does not provide us any useful ethical principles, or even a starting point for moral philosophy.
Quoting Jamal
I think that at the social level the rationality which the society is based in, is generally taken for granted. So for example we take it for granted that democracy is the best form of government. And if asked why you believe this, on would answer "because...". But the "..." tends to just get filled with whatever one likes about democracy, so it's really more of a personal preference than a rational justification.
The problem of course is that as explained above, ends can never really get rationally justified, so we kind of create an illusion for ourselves, delude ourselves into taking for granted that they are already justified. This is the illusion of objective ends. It's not literally self-deception, but we just educate the children to stay away from these sorts of questions, by pretending that we firmly know the answer so there's no need to question. I know democracy is the best because I learned that from the elders who knew it to be the best. The religious way is pretend that God justifies the ends, and train the children not to question this, so when they become adults it's taken for granted. So it's not even a real pretense, just a matter of taking for granted (as known) what is unjustified. The illusion is that since it is the convention it must be already justified. But justification is not necessary for a convention to be accepted.
Resurrection, no...not sure exactly what you had in mind with "sacrifice". but some sacrifice I think is intrinsic to human relationship.
Quoting Jamal
:up: I think Roland Barthes tried to get at some of this with his semilology; but it's a long time since reading him, so I might be mistaken.
A thread on this would appeal greatly.
You take away whatever you take away; you interpret however you want to interpret; it says whatever you want it to mean; it's as exactly as profound as you want it to be.
Bah! Good fiction doesn't yield to "textual analysis" - it says what it means to say and you either get it or you don't.
All substance abuse is a fake or synthetic experience in the sense that they don't produce a natural high.
A religious high, is the same imo, if god has no existent.
Quoting Manuel
In my opinion, for someone to have a REAL religious experience, the supernatural would have to be real.
If atheism is correct (and I think it is,) then a religious experience is induced, in the same way that a heroin high is induced, so I choose to compare that with the concept of 'fake' or 'synthetic,' to contrast it with 'real'. I accept that you could argue, (as you choose to,) that anything physically or mentally experienced is a REAL experience, whether or not it is induced. The religious experience would then be a mistake, as you suggest, regarding it's source and cause. That 'mistake' is made, due to 'fake' news (such as gospel) and 'made up' or a 'synthetic,' 'rousing of the masses,' (to borrow a recent phrase used by @Jamal,) by the emotive preaching spectacle of some evanhellical staged performance.
It's just like the hysterical screaming or hysteria that was demonstrated in the past, at a pop concert by Elvis or the Beatles, except that they admit they were just singing songs and not revealing / interpreting / imparting the TRUE word of god.
But not the temporary death of god?
Lolita taught me that pedophilia is unacceptable, especially if you are an ironist with a baroque prose style.
I don't disagree with most of this paragraph, including this sentence.
I wasn't suggesting that the continuous battle MUST be a permanent state, just that our past experience suggests that it will be. Things might change. But I don't see how. World government based on human rights with effective enforcement? As things stand, many people would experience that as a tyranny. But perhaps we wouldn't care?
Nor did I mean to say that the battle with psychopaths has always involved everyone. But it seems to me that there has always been someone involved in it. Sure, it doesn't follow that there always will be someone fighting. But I do think it will always be dangerous not to be willing to battle (which means suspending normal life!)
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
From the context, I'm guessing that you think that's problematic. Depending what you mean by "justified", that's true. For example, one could argue that our practices, which define "rational" as well as "fact", themselves are not exempt from the challenge of justification, hopefully of a kind different from the justification that they define. The only alternative is some kind of foundationalism.
But if the objectivity of facts is in question, it follows, doesn't it, that the subjectivity of values is also in question. But the means to a given end is already subject to rational justification, so it is presumably "factual", if a conditional can be factual. So it all turns on the status of ends.
As a preliminary, I observe that individuals are what they are within a society, which develops the rational capacities they are born with and, in many ways, defines the world in which they will live and do their thinking and make their choices. I'm happy to agree there is no reason to assume that what we are taught is a consistent or complete system, either for facts or for values.
There are four possibilities that I am aware of:-
1 God's commandments do not help us. The Euthyphro problem is one difficulty. The question which god is another.
2. What is comprehensible as a final end in the context of human practices and ways of life. Martha Nussbaum uses this criterion in "The Fragility of Goodness". This one is particularly interesting because it adopts the Wittgensteinian approach of rational justification as based on practices and ways of life, and so would be either identical to, or parallel with, the concept of rationality.
3. The idea that some activities are "intrinsically worth while". This is a popular concept in philosophy of education. I learnt of it from R.S. Peters' work, but I don't know if he originated it. This amounts to declaring that some ends need no justification, though if you look at the examples (art, music, philosophy &c.), there is a widespread fondness for turning them into the means for other ends. Perhaps those are intrinsically worth while. I think the idea is that these are axioms, from which it is rational to deduce means. So this too amounts to incorporating means into a rational framework.
4. Naturalization of values. By this I mean argument from what are posited as human needs or instincts, shaped by the natural and social context. This has the merit of being very likely true, but suffers from all the arguments that established the fact/value distinction in the first place. It could be a variant of either of the other alternatives.
I don't know whether these approaches amount to abolishing the fact/value distinction and I don't suppose for a moment that they would abolish the issues you and @Jamal are discussing. But I think they might help.
Interesting. The challenge is how do we determine what is intrinsically worthwhile and what is not? This has to be based on a value system which is open to challenge. We all hold presuppositions as the building blocks for our views and actions. Some would say God is a necessary presupposition to explain why there's something rather than nothing, why there's intelligibility, morality and goodness. Christians and Muslims often argue this way. Kant and CS Lewis did.
Quoting Ludwig V
Can you think of anything available to humans that is not natural? I don't know how far this gets us in practice. I tend to think that if we can do it or make it, it's natural... Whether it is 'good' or not is a separate matter.
Quoting universeness
Whatever. :cool:
A tyranny? Can you give me an example of what you think their main complaint might be?
Quoting Ludwig V
Yes, as a final resort, and if you are under attack or absolutely sure that you are about to be, then I agree. Self-defence is also a human right and natural imperative.
This is just the basis for the Kalam Cosmological argument, yes? Which has been fairly convincingly debunked, yes?
Quoting Tom Storm
Do you think that it does not matter, either way? If so, why?
Or is it more just a personal .... 'I just don't care about such details of the claims of individual organised religions?'
Careful Tom! Think of what folks could throw into that statement and by doing so, claim justification in declaring any lie or evil act, 'natural.'
The concept of natural can be so strongly related to 'moral' by nefarious individuals.
No. I am referring to a type of apologetics that is called presuppositional apologetics. Quite sophisticated and the best of them are provided by philosophy professors - like Alvin Plantinga. As a subsidiary argument, they also use the evolutionary argument against naturalism which is pretty cool too.
I always remember that whether an argument is debunked depends a lot on whether you are susceptible to or agree with the arguments made.
Quoting universeness
I don't care enough about theology to hairsplit the gradients of Nazarene identity and purpose.
Quoting universeness
Indeed - some forget that arsenic, heroin and melanomas are perfectly natural.
One persons truth is another persons lie, is a fair definition of subjective truth, but I think if your epistemology is the scientific method or scientific empiricism, then I think increasing your credence level to a level of an (to you) acceptable truth, based on demonstration of a process with observable predicted outcomes, is valid. If this is your foundation then posits like the Kalam and 'presuppositional apologetics,' such as 'talking about god, presupposes one exists,' can be dismissed as highly unlikely to be true which is what I would accept as 'debunked.' Based on a definition such as:
'to expose or excoriate (a claim, assertion, sentiment, etc.) as being pretentious, false, or exaggerated'
Quoting Tom Storm
Yeah, but does that make guns, atom bombs, gods and murder, natural, merely because they are products of the human mind and also, would it follow that the word unnatural has no existent.
Would it be unnatural for example, for a human to try to live life as if they were an ant or a fish or a god?
No. It would be futile. Someone might have a very natural mental illness which makes them attempt this. But perhaps we are using the term natural in different ways.
Quoting universeness
I'm mostly there, but some subjects are not so neat and the 'evidence' is contested. Personally I don't think humans have access to reality or absolute truth, just provisional little truths which are useful for certain goals (or not). But this is for another thread.
Quoting universeness
How could they not be natural? If beaver's damns and bird's nests are natural, then guns and highways are too. The matter of human intervention on nature upsetting the natural balance may well be a fair point, but takes the discussion in a different direction. But I am willing to be corrected on this.
Well, that's an interesting pair of examples to choose and compare. I think emulating the actions of a beaver by building something like the hoover dam can be paralleled as a 'natural' act by humans or the creation of a highway as many animals can 'clear a path,' to move more easily from place to place. Ants will clear obstructions in their path, on occasion, for example. No other creature on Earth, past or present has ever produced anything like a gun however. So I see no parallel in 'nature.'
I accept that some other species make use of a projectile action (an aquatic that spits a water jet at an insect on an overhanging tree branch, to knock it into the water, for example) but I don't think this parallels the invention of the gun or the atom bomb.
Are you content to accept that other species use of projectile actions and natures ability to equal or surpass the destructive power of an atom bomb, are sufficient parallels, for the human inventions of guns and atom bombs to be declared natural?
If so, do you consider AI natural? considering the A stands for artificial?
SUBTOPIC: The relevance of the basis for the Kalam Cosmological argument.
?? universeness, et al,
The specific argument for the existence of the Supreme Being, First Cause, or Creator (God) ([I]in this case the Kalam Cosmological Argument[/i]) and (?) "Atheist Dogma" (something not clearly defined) is confusing at best.
(COMMENT)
.
Atheism [the denial of the existence Supreme Being, First Cause, or Creator (God)] ? and ? the belief in the existence of same "sound," at first, to be polar opposites. Belief 'vs' Disbelief But they are not. There is no commonly held contemporary definition of what a Supreme Being, First Cause, or Creator (God) might be in terms of qualities or characteristics.
A faith-based concept in the belief in the Supreme Being, First Cause, or Creator[/i] (God)] is not required to be sound and valid. "What I believe" to be a Supreme Being, First Cause, or Creator[/i] (God)] and "what you believe" may vastly differ. But that does not preclude the belief in the existence. However, to hold the opinion that something does not exist, one must understand what it is that does not exist.
You and I can agree that there is something called a car. However, my concept of a car (a VW Beetle) and your concept of a car (an Aston Martin) may differ greatly. The believers may disagree on what constitutes a "car" as many times as there are makes and models. Although they only have to come to an agreement once for the belief to be true (T). But in the mind of the Atheist, you cannot disagree on something for which you cannot define. Thus, in atheism, there is no common ground for a dogma on what it is that they disagree (because it doesn't exist).
A believer and a non-believer can never agree on what a void is. Why? Because, for them, to disagree with one another they must exist and be recognized by one another. But IF that is true (T) THEN the existence of a void cannot exist.
.
Most Respectfully,
R
I am trying to understand your style of post. Is your quote above, a request for me to comment on your statement above? or are you just indicating a reference to the comments I have already made previously, regarding the Kalam?
The objectivity of fact only requires justification if one intends to maintain the separation between fact and value. A practice can be held up as evidence in an attempt to justify a fact as objective, but such a practice is only successful in relation to an end, or a variety of ends, and so the extent of the justification is limited to the extent that the end or variety of ends is justified.
Quoting Ludwig V
The status of ends I covered in the next post after the one which you quoted, here: https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/812893
The means cannot be truly "factual" if this is supposed to mean objective, because the means are justified by the end, and the end is justified as being the means to a further end. So we get either an infinite regress or a subjective "ultimate end". This is explained in Aristotle's "Nicomachean Ethics" where he proposes "happiness" as the ultimate end.
Quoting Ludwig V
I can't quite apprehend the premises you use to come up with only four possibilities. If ends are truly subjective, merely personal preferences, then the possibilities appear to be endless. So the only way to reduce the multitude of possibilities into something more reasonable would be to somehow make ends/values objective. This is why I proposed that we start with the objective fact, the truth, that ends are subjective. This is a sort of objectivity by proxy, because it does not get to the objectivity of any particular end, to say that such an end is objective, but it produces the general objective premise, or true proposition (as true as a proposition can get, I would say) that all ends are subjective. If this general statement was not true, then an objective end could be produced which would disprove it, and we'd have our objective end. Until then we must accept the truth of the general proposition that all ends are subjective, as a working principle for our purpose.
From this perspective we can construct a proper hierarchy of values. The fact/value separation is denied because supposed "fact" is always supported by, or justified by, pragmatic principles, which in the end become subjective. Now all proposed facts are reduced to values, ends, and we can consider their individual merits, and position them as related to other ends. As general philosophers, we might just want to understand how all the various ends relate to each other, but as moral philosophers we might question the general proposition, that all ends are subjective, and try to understand what could bring some form of objectivity into any end. This would involve a defining of "objective". Either way, we must understand that moral philosophy is the highest philosophy when all knowledge is related in a hierarchy of values, because moral philosophy is directed toward that task of understanding values.
No, they are both cars and we can agree that a bike is not a car, although you can create a hybrid between the two. Variations in the attributes of gods, do not, in anyway, challenge the atheist claim that there is no evidence that ANY god exists.
Quoting Rocco Rosano
Quoting Rocco Rosano
A person can try as they may to conceive or perceive the notion of nothing, but always fail in the attempt.
This does not prevent an individual rejecting the proposal, that 'nothing' is or has ever been an existent state.
The 'common' ground between atheists IS sound in their insistence that there is insufficient, or no compelling evidence that ANY god exists. You are merely choosing to accept that some of the arguments put forward in presuppositional apologetics have some validity, based on the rules of propositional logic, when propositional logic itself, is burdened by such as paradox, logical infinities and the concept/context of nothing. 'Nothing' is not a valid state, under any known condition of the universe. BUT zero still exists as the absence of a contextual quantity, in that there are zero penquins, living in my ear.
God proposed as having omni attributes is far more problematic, when it comes to logic, than any proposal that presuppositional christian or moslem apologists can present to atheists imo.
IT'S OFF TOPIC, CHAPS! GO AWAY!
Dictates/commands about how to live, delivered via uniformed humans in representation of their chosen organised 'faithdom,' is rejected by many as pernicious, not only atheists. If you post 'unenlightened,' provocative sentences such as:
Quoting unenlightened
Don't feign surprise and annoyance when you got exactly the responses you incited.
Since the value of the work of fiction is in its interpretation in terms of what it evokes from the reader and not as much in the literalism of the text, those works that have been most subject to interpretation and analysis would offer the greatest amount of wisdom.
While you might learn something of value from spending months dissecting the Grapes of Wrath, it would pale in comparison to other works that have been subjected to thousands of years of analysis, especially if those offering that analysis were the best and brightest of their time.
In other words, why would I ever select the Bible, with all its absurdity, contradiction, and violence as a fictional centerpiece of wisdom? I didn't. Others did and I benefit less from its black and white text as I do its interpretation. But that's somewhere where fiction has led to meaning.
Are the traditional Judaic scriptures any more reliable than the bible, as a guide to how a human should live their life?, in accordance with: Quoting unenlightened
So the story goes, at Mt. Sinai, not only was the written law handed down (the Torah, meaning the five books of Moses), but also the oral law, which was passed down by word of mouth and eventually written down (the Talmud). They are read and interpreted together, neither having higher authority than the other.
This leaves open rabbinic interpretation as important as the text is itself.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oral_Torah#:~:text=According%20to%20Rabbinic%20Jewish%20tradition,threat%2C%20by%20virtue%20of%20the
It is also why criticisms related to simplistic literalism apply only to limited theological systems, like contemporary Christian fundamentalism, but really not to others.
On the whole, I prefer Lao Tzu and Zen Buddhism, personally. But when one is brought up within a Christian and post Christian culture, one has to wrestle with the local mud one was born in first, before one can get to the calm waters of comparative religion. But you're not actually asking seriously, are you? I think you are just carrying right on with your rhetorical defence of your own fiction that you have identified with.
Do you accept all of 'the story' as true? Did moses spend 10 years in a pit, as the captive of Jethro, before he marred Jethro's daughter Zipporah? Did an angel of god???? Come to kill moses for not cutting off part of his childs penis, and Zipporah, saved him by doing the deed there and then with a sharp stone?
[i]In the words of the Torah:
Now he was on the way, in an inn, that the L?rd met him and sought to put him to death. So, Zipporah took a sharp stone and severed her son's foreskin and cast it to his feet[/i]
I assume you accept critical assessment, as to the likelyhood of such events and further critical assessment of the rationale, behind such events when it comes to how such should be interpreted by uniformed Rabbi's regarding how you should live your life and inform your children accordingly?
DO such events and Rabbinical translation of them, inform you how to live your life? Did you circumcise your male children for fear that an angel of god would come down and kill you if you didn't?
I assume you don't consider those who are not guided by the Torah and the Talmud on how they should live their lives, religiously damned and amoral. As an atheist we can both exist on this planet and hold such differing views, BUT, it will never ever be left like that. Many in the next generation of humans will ask anew! 'You believe what? why? How do you know that's true? what is your evidence? etc, etc.
Can you put a percentage on how much of the content of the Torah and Talmud is complete nonsense?
I assume you will not be willing to? I think it's reasonable for atheists to keep asking you what your personal version of theism compels you to believe is true, and why you believe it's true, in the face of such poor evidence. If you don't answer or give poor answers then I think the assumption will continue to be that your primal fear controls your need for some supernatural protector/arbiter.
I am not assuming that the content of the torah and talmud guides your life via rabbinical interpretation but to whatever extent it does defies my own sense of rationality?
How do you know which religious scripture it REALLY wants you to follow. How do you know it's not the Islamic ones or @unenlightened's buddhism or some other theosophist flavour?
The book is holy, but the what the priest says, goes.
Quoting unenlightened
Unless I disagree with the priest, and the book, and go shopping for a different one.
Well, at least it's not dogmatic.
I'm not sure what you're suggesting you're summarizing, my view or a simplified view of Orthodoxy? It sounds like neither.
Is that personal wrestle still on going in your head or is the fight settled and buddhism or it's 'zen' variety won?
Quoting unenlightened
I can only insist that I am!
Quoting unenlightened
Exactly which of us is guided by fiction when choosing how to live their own life is for others to assess.
My priority remains ensuring that I don't surrender my skepticism and critical thinking to unsupported conjectures and the esoteric imaginings of others alive today or in the past.
My awe and wonder and how I choose to live my life, remains credited to me, and not imagined esoterics, interpreted by so called religious humans, who assume they have the authority to do so, based on the illusion that some non-existent god or buddha caricature speaks through them.
Pay attention or leave the conversation. This entire conversation revolves around my position that the literal truth is irrelevant and the historicity of the account highly doubtful. You're a one trick pony with your only ability to point out that Christian fundamentalists have an unsustainable position.
Quoting universeness
Pay attention. I've offered no special status to the text, nor suggested it is of any more divine origin than any other text.
I'm not going to restate it. Just scroll up and see if you can follow how I've placed the value in the interpretation. These are people looking for meaning, not inerrant gods decreeing truth and who can't be defied.
If the wisest if rabbis utters bullshit, it remains bullshit.
Quoting Hanover
Nonsense! Stop just spitting at me for the sake of it and debate me instead.
Give me examples from the torah or talmud OR ANY OTHER SCRIPTURAL SOURCE, that you use to guide your own life and the life of your progeny but make sure the example is theistic in content or in 'spirit' and let it be held up to critical assessment by others.
Quoting Hanover
I UNDERSTAND what you have already claimed but you HAVE NOT exemplified your theism from that which is written or interpreted by others into how you employ such in your life!
Your poor attempts to insult me are ineffective, debate me instead or YOU leave the conversation.
I wasn't summarizing; I was interpreting:
The book tells us how to live, but we can't understand it, so we need a priest/ rabbi/ pastor / imam to tell us how to live.
If that's not what it means, what does it mean?
Quoting Hanover
Didn't you? If an interpretation does not prove the existence of an interpreter then I shall consent to be called a fool.
If defer to rabbinic interpretation as much as you'd defer to a literary critic.
[quote=Jesus]Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye are like unto whited sepulchres, which indeed appear beautiful outward, but are within full of dead mens bones, and of all uncleanness. (Matthew 23:27)[/quote]
I'm not in the business of defending any church, priest, or book. But look, the story says what you say! Only it says it more forcefully. That is interesting, is it not? Either you are influenced by the story, or the story has something to say about humanity that is universal. Or perhaps you can think of another [s]explanation[/s] story about the story.
Quoting universeness
Yes, I rather gathered that was your story that you live by and defend. I certainly don't want to force another on you, but I'd be grateful if you could see your way to letting us talk about some other stuff.
I have been involved in discussing many topics in this forum, AI, Politics, Physics, Cosmology, Logic, Socialism, secular humanism, theism, religion, trans rights etc, etc. There are one trick ponies on this site, especially of the antinatalist variety, but I am certainly no one trick pony, or only capable of defending my atheist viewpoints alone. I assumed you would be happier that I was trying to connect the theism being espoused by some, to your OP that claims atheism is a dogma that causes religious fundamentalism when all religion is trying to do, is assist people to live moral lives in some benign way. :roll:
Quoting unenlightened
Do you consider dictates that start with 'thou shalt' or 'thou shalt not,' open for discussion, gentle moral guidance, benign advice?
What 'other stuff' do you suggest I am preventing discussion on?
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
I thought that's what you meant. Alternative strategies are 1) to find a way of "desubjectifying" values or 2) undermining the distinction between objective and subjective. Which one is best, I'm not sure.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
If "if p then q" can have a truth value, does that not mean that it is objective. It is certainly true that if want to catch a train, you should go to a station. Why is that not factual - and objective?
Quoting universeness
Loss of freedom. Being forced to do what they don't want to do.
Quoting Tom Storm
I don't know what people say now. I think in Peters' time it was thought that an activity would qualify if there was universal agreement. That is weak because you can pursue the same activity both for its own sake and for some further end. I see two possibilities, which are the explanations offered in math and logic. First, there is the medieval view that axioms should be "self-evidently" true, as in Euclid. That's less popular nowadays. Second, they are arbitrary, but in effect justified by the usefulness or interest of the system they produce.
Quoting Tom Storm
That's a perfectly tenable view. I'm no fan of the idea that certain practices are "unnatural". What I had in mind is the idea that we have certain motives built in and will therefore pursue them come what may. The idea is that these are the things that we need to do to survive (or reproduce). It is hard to reject the idea that for an organism to pursue it's own survival (and, by extension, flourishing) does not require justification. Whether it is rational for other organisms to allow that, is another question.
I wouldn't consult either on how to live, any more than I would consult them on water filtration.
But the conclusion of this thread for me at least, is that personal identity is always a narrative, always questionable, and always made out of whatever social constructs are available. And social constructs are fictions we have to believe. You know like money, property, government, marriage, and who the good guys are.
To live in time is to live a narrative that is always negotiated, never entirely free or original. This is of course the story that I am telling, and I am illustrating it with a cultural artefact of undeniable power that is also a story of personal identity an identity that changed the world.
Most of us live in an uncompleted story, the hero or heroine has yet to triumph, yet to meet their nemesis. But as a hint or a tease, I suggest the universal complete story of the story of human identity is to be found in outline, beginning in genesis and concluding in the crucifixion and resurrection. Next time...
The story, which is what each person is, is radically subjective - "my priority". As such it is not in the purview of science, or of rationality, those are priorities one might have, but their priority cannot be 'objective'. All of this is my story, which i have borrowed and relay to anyone who has ears, "let them hear." Nothing to see here, you've heard it all before.
It seems, after all, that we do have similar aims - escaping from the infinite hierarchy. That has to be promising.
I'm afraid I find myself a bit confused and lost amid all the messages. I've taken a screenshot of one of your messages which seems to explain what you're after. I shall take some time to read it and think about it.
Quoting Ludwig V
But this claimed 'loss of freedom' would have to be justified in a global system where all stakeholders can take their basic needs for granted, for free, from cradle to grave.
I am positing a resource based global economy, administered by a global democratic, secular authority of, for and by the people, which demonstrates fully open governance, under strongly entrenched checks and balances, which ensure that any nefarious, narcissistic, autocratic intrigues are revealed and countered asap. I don't think such a system is infallible or impossible. I think it would actually be very simple. The initial way that the almost money free USSR Gosplan worked, was a good model, that was soon corrupted by greedy, nefarious managers and politicians.
I don't see why individuals would lose any fundamental freedoms or have to be forced to do anything, but I have discussed this before in other threads.
What's that to do with dogmatic atheism?
But try telling them that!
Whom?
I became an atheist directly through the Jesus story. "They" may have had other reasons. We really are none of us reading from the same chapter of the same edition of the same book in the same language.
I just wondered, idly, as one does when not painting signs, how this all relates to the title of the thread.
The dogmatic dullard atheist cocksuckers, of course. :wink:
Quoting Vera Mont
Was it Twain who said, 'The best cure for Christianity is reading the Bible?' Anyway it's a common path. The Bible when read does convert a lot of folk to atheism - you encounter this is secular circles all the time. But of course the key is to find the right sophisticated interpretive framework to transmogrify the book from a lowbrow literal interpretation to efficacious exegetical insight - Marxists would say the same thing about Marx. You just need the right interpretative framework, Comrade.
IOW Turn a straightforward tribal mythology with a heretical post-Greco-Roman twist, into convoluted apologetics for an odiously oppressive death-cult. I guess you could... but I doubt it would convince me.
Quoting Tom Storm
I haven't heard them do so. And I don't see why they'd need to.
Neo-Marxism is the name for this school - usually an attempt to provide a more modern, sophisticated account. But amongst the Marxists I've known getting 'the correct' interpretation/reading was often the topic du jour and a source of acrimonious debate.
That whole aspect of Christianity has never made any sense to me either.
Quoting Vera Mont
Great literature is often characterized by ambiguity, by layered allusions, by the possibility of multiple interpretations. Textual analysis can unpack some of the imaginable interpretive possibilities. Perhaps the author had in mind just one interpretation, perhaps not. If the author is not around to ask then we can only make more or less educated guesses as to whether the author intended just one meaning or not, and it she did, what that meaning is. Perhaps the author did not know precisely what she meant when she wrote.
Their problem, not his. Marx made his observations and wrote what he saw in his own world, in his time. A lot of what he wrote is not relevant today, because it was disputes with thinkers and critics who didn't last. But he wasn't coy or obscure in his ideas.
Quoting Janus
Yes, they did, or they wouldn't have drudged out the third draft to make every word fit just where it's most effective. If you read what they wrote, get the veiled references, hidden jokes, allusions - terrific, you're the ideal reader, the one they were addressing all along. If not, and you get something different, that's okay too, if a bit disappointing. Being "unpacked" like a dodgy traveller going through Customs is no fun at all.
Close reading will always reveal more layers than a single "literal" reading; and that is all I mean when I say "unpacking". You could call it 'excavating' if you find that more palatable.
That's not the point. Author's intentions are transcended. The point is we have texts which are consistently reinterpreted and subjected to new understandings. That's how texts are generally situated across time. The idea that an important text only has one interpretation would be naïve. However the Bible stories began or were intended, they have have ended up something else, in fact many things over the generations. This is an unstoppable process.
Along those lines, generally the interpretation of a poem isn't accomplished by cross examining the poet. That would imply the poem is a puzzle with a single answer for us to see if we can get it right
Can you imagine a biologist or lawyer or horticulturist or historian doing a day's work for the sake of a general more or less vague sense of allusions and associations - let alone a year's work? Why do you think writers live in some kind of Cloud Coo-coo-land, incapable of composing a coherent idea, living in the hope that their steaming pile of meaningless verbiage will be laid out neatly and interpreted by some intelligent life-form?
Quoting Janus
I call it reading while awake. In some cases, it may be necessary to do it twice, because the author is smarter, wittier, better-informed or more subtle than I am. I never assume he just didn't understand what he wrote.
Quoting Hanover
Of course not. You either geddit or you don't.
He says (I think it's attributed to Browning) "When I wrote that, two of us knew what it meant, myself and God. Now, only he does."
Excavating, unwrapping, decoding, deconstructing or blasting it with dynamite may uncover something, maybe even something you find satisfactory - but not what was in the author's mind.
Quoting Tom Storm
IOW Don't matter what he wrote; I read into it what I need.
Quoting Tom Storm
I guess it gets to be important by somebody appropriating it to a timeless cause.
Quoting Tom Storm
Okay. Have at it! All those dead guys can't stop you or save their work, any more than they could from the Council of Nicaea.
Of course they're possible! Probable, maybe inevitable, especially if any amount of time passes from one reading to the next. And I'm sure each one serves a purpose. Sometimes, each interpretation serves a different purpose, a different agenda, from the last.
What I object to is reducing the author of a literary work to the unconscious amoeba at the bottom of its evolutionary pond.
Behind every original story is a person - somebody with a name, an identity - an aware, intelligent, purposeful individual. His or her story may be adopted by other people; it may be commenated, interpreted, changed, distorted, disfigured, transmogrified or whatever. But that shouldn't make the creative originator of an idea a mere passive conduit from one ear and one era to another.
Golding didn't understand Pincher Martin until Professor Eberheardt published that monograph on it... I just don't buy that!
When I studied aesthetics briefly back in the 1980's the dominant thinker was Monroe Beardsley. It was commonly held in lectures that the writer/artist may not always know what matters in their work or what their work is really about, or what makes it great or s/he may be unaware of a range of subtexts, humour or biases present in the work.
The idea that there is one interpretation - the author's conscious intention - is not often a key navigational tool for texts. Also times change and the work is necessarily understood differently - a work which starts as history may end up as literature (with the history no longer being considered relevant). Gibbon springs to mind. Some classic works are fecund in possible meanings and interpretations - like Shakespeare - and can be (and are) understood or contextualised quite differently with each new generation.
Quoting Vera Mont
I think the choice of wording here is needlessly negative. It might instead be put that a classic work may be so fecund in aesthetic possibilities that it allows us to generate interpretive prospects and evolves in meaning and nuance over generations, staying relevant in new ways as culture changes.
There are two problems with this perfectly reasonable idea. Both are already at work in our world. I don't argue that the project is hopeless, only that the dimension of effective enforcement is critical, and that the tension between resolving problems within a legal and democratic framework and the exercise of force is inescapable.
I live in a country that adopted precisely this principle some 75 years ago. Ever since, nearly everybody had accepted it. But the welfare state had been a battle-ground over the question what "basic needs" are. One party tends to squeeze and erode it, the other tends to support and extend it.
By the way, the welfare state is not a matter of left vs right or socialism vs capitalism. It began in 1883 when Bismarck introduced the first welfare state legislation in Germany/Prussia. This was no socialist programme. It was implemented by aristocrats who recognized that it was the best way to keep the working classes in line. But perhaps you know that.
The idea of human rights, articulated and supported by a legal framework, has been a reality ever since 1945. There's an on-going debate about what exactly they should be. But powerful lobbies, religious and political, have never really accepted the idea and they are able to repress demands for their effective implementation over a very large proportion of the world.
Maybe consensus and acceptance of enforcement will be possible one day. I would love to be around when it happens, but I don't think I will.
Quoting Janus
I agree. But I think it is not just an odd doctrine. It seems to me to be actually immoral to destroy an innocent life in order to escape from guilt, (even if the victim volunteers). Once the sin has been committed, nothing can alter that fact. There are various things, practical and symbolic, we can do in order to go on living, but what really amounts to a resolution of the problem is a mystery to me. Time's a great healer, I suppose.
IOW, if it outlives its historical/cultural context, it will be appropriated by the generations that follow and put to their own purposes. That may be inevitable: those generations don't experience the circumstances to which the original text relates. The author doesn't experience the situations in which later readings will take place, and doesn't know how his work may apply to those times and people.
If future readers can relate it to their own lives in some way, fine. But that does not mean that the author himself didn't know what he meant when he wrote it; that he was a mere tool of the idea, rather than the other way around. (I'm not mad keen on scavengers of other people's creative output.)
God Omega creates A, B and C, then invents the concept of sin.
A&B commit a sin facilitated by C. This sets in motion a chain of events wherein J,K,L etc. must inevitably commit fresh sins that are invented along the way by the god and his agents.
The only means of relief from those sins is through the blood sacrifice of sinless entities: a bull, a young boy, a ram, a lamb....
The cumulative sins of a nation grow so enormous in the eyes of this grudge-holding, compound interest hoarding god that no amount of animal sacrifice can atone for them, and every individual member of the species of AB, down to the newborn babes, becomes guilty through the procreative act.
Solution: Omega implants within an unwitting virgin M a new entity, X, which is therefore born free of sin.
X must be sacrificed by R in order to appease the wrath of Omega on behalf of whatever may remain of the human alphabet - as long as they're duly grateful and obedient.
However it's spun - unpacked, excavated, commentated-on, encyclicaled or eviscerated - this story doesn't work for me. It is morally repugnant and aesthetically dissonant.
(The fact that this idea is not exclusive and original - to the nation which popularized it doesn't render it any more palatable.)
True. And there's a sense in which looking for The Definition of something as vague as dogma, with its evaluative and emotive dimension, is foolish. It's not a precise word. As the various ideas put forward show! :D -- and you're right that dogma isn't necessarily bad, and just because something is unquestioned or in the background that also doesn't make it dogma. Which complicates identifying someone else's dogma even more!
Thanks. There's no smoking gun. One sign may be an undue willingness to find other people's opinions dogmatic. Another is undoubtedly avoiding engagement with the opposition's arguments (without good reason). But nothing is simple. On the whole, I prefer to avoid the term. It is used far too often as rhetoric - giving a dog a bad name.
But this just again misses the point. It's not that I'm evasive at all. You're just not following the argument or you're choosing not to. If I were to spill out massive amounts of theology (which I will for the sake of argument), am I really going to be interested in your cursory take of it, and do you not see that your take on it would be entirely irrelevant to the question at hand, which is whether I subjectively find value in what I cited? That is, the question is not whether it passes muster for you, but you've got the impossible task of convincing me that it's subjectively valueless to me despite my insistence otherwise
By analogy, can you not see the folly in trying to convince me I'm not actually inspired by the sunrise? That you may just see the cycles of time and planetary movement isn't relevant to me.
But, since you asked, let's look at Leviticus 19:16. This sets off the prohibition of not being a talebearer among your people, which, at first glance appears to simply be a simple proscription against gossip. Let's turn though to the Chofetz Chaim, the seminal volume on Leviticus 19:16 and see what it has to say. But, let's jump ahead to Chapter 10 for the hell of it, and see when such speech is permissible. Sometimes it's permissible you say? Yes, read on: https://torah.org/learning/halashon-chapter10/
Take a look at that and outline it for me. Your task isn't to show me where it's not valid or where the analysis comes short, but it's to explain to me why it's of no significance in my life, even if I insist that it is.
Quoting Vera Mont
:clap: :clap:
This quote above is imo, an admission that your current theistic viewpoints are completely petrified/ossified. That's fine by me. I agree that no matter what logical or rational counter points I offer you, you will dismiss them in automode, before they even land or can impact any memory of skepticism you once had.
If your critical thinking can no longer assault your theism then yes, you are fully cooked.
Debating you on the area then, is only of value to any readers, of the exchange who may be in danger of theistically ossifying as you seem to have. That possibility alone is worth my effort and my attempt.
Quoting Hanover
Can you calm your sense of your own primary importance for a second or two, and realise YOU were never my main target in this exchange/this forum/ this thread or this life?
Quoting Hanover
Now that's far more interesting! However, I think you are being rather arrogant with your preamble about what you have dictated 'my task as,' but I will analyse your offering, and respond asap.
So we basically have 'what to do, if ....... happens and what do to next depending on the outcome of this suggested action or that suggested action. Do's and dont's, based on various circumstances a person might encounter when dealing with a neighbour or someone in your immediate community.
I have so many questions for you that have nothing to do with the content of the text you offered or whether or not, I find it fit for purpose. We can discuss my opinion of it as moral guidance if you wish, but first.
Moses is supposed to have personally wrote Leviticus but I assign high credence to the proposal that Moses never existed. So have you looked at evidence from folks such as Dr Richard Carrier? and a list of other highly qualified biblical scholars who are convinced Moses never existed and neither did the biblical Jesus Christ.
Could a tribe of humans that have never heard of judaism or any other human religion. A tribe that has had no communication with the 'outside world.' But they have been a tribe for many centuries and they have experience of the idea of having, and dealing with, neighbours. Do you think they could come up with a list of do's and don'ts to advise their new generations about how to best deal fairly with neighbours and what is and is not acceptable behaviour when dealing with neighbours?
Why are you convinced only a god can advise you on such matters via an interpreter or his/her/hesh writings?
How do you know Rabbi Kagan did not make many errors when he was interpreting what his god wanted you to do when dealing with neighbours?
Why does your god not just tell you how to deal with neighbours directly?
If we took all mention of theism from Mr Kagans old book and removed such poorly conceived, almost 'silly' sentences and titles such as:
[b]3. Speakers with the same sins cannot speak
All this applies if the witness is a better person than the transgressor. If, however, the witness is just as bad a sinner, sick with the same immoral behavior, it is forbidden to publicize the incident.[/b]
Could almost any group of secular humanists come up with at least as good as a set of guidelines, for dealing with gossip and neighbours in general. Why do you need 'god said this?' When you have no evidence that your god exists and it remains divinely hidden to you.
Why is it not communicating with you directly?
So, maybe coherence is not really to be expected (unlike rigorous philosophical texts). Passages are often ambiguous or vague enough to allow for any number of readings.
In that respect, it is then up to readers to extract lessons, wisdom, value, etc.
I'm guessing moderate religious readers often have sentiments along those lines, though different from what you hear in temples, churches, mosques, synagogues, whatever clubs, by altars, from tv evangelists, adhan announced by muezzin from minarets. I've also come across a lot of not-so-moderate readers.
Some such texts have become trendsetters and embedded as cultural traditions. Someone, can't remember who, said something like "History is our greatest teacher". Too much adherence/belief or too much denying is dogmatism alike?
Theism isn't just one thing. The elaborate religions/faiths have those sumptuous texts, rituals, commands/rules, fate designations, gods/God being various narrated (individuated) characters, adherents claiming divine intervention/participation, with distinct public aspects, mutual incompatibilities, etc. At first, these could be contrasted by some spiritual traditions. Further on, they could be contrasted by unassuming nondescript deism, panpsychism, Platonism, simulation / virtual world hypotheses, Zhuangzian butterflies, or even just "the unknown", heading firmly into metaphysics. Probably not hard to find people leaning towards atheism with respect to the elaborate religions, and agnosticism (or apathy for that matter) towards whatever in the latter categories. Anyway, without making the distinction, things like dogmatism (along with a/theism, agnosticism) become muddled.
https://archive.org/stream/BADIOUSaintPaulTheFoundationOfUniversalism/BADIOU%20-%20%20Saint%20Paul%20The%20Foundation%20of%20Universalism_djvu.txt
Link repeated from @Paine back on page 3, who seems to be about the only person to have noticed that the thread is primarily about atheists' understanding of religion, or the lack thereof.
Reading comprehension tends to go out the window when some types of atheists are triggered.
And so far I think I've been clear enough in agreeing that a literal interpretation of the scriptures when a non-literal interpretation is offered is dogmatic. Pointing out that snakes cannot talk in response to a non-literal interpretation of the fall of man really seems to miss the point. (unless you're dealing with someone who insists on its truth -- which is common! -- but in this OP that's clearly not an issue)
The truth of the stories isn't at issue, though. Carrier reads the Bible with a historian's interpretation. This is one (very interesting!) way of reading the Bible.
But it's not the only way.
I've mentioned throughout that it's partly the fault of literalist theists who insist on the truth of the scriptures that this is a common line of attack. Many an atheist, and I include myself in this group, has been dissuaded [s]by[/s]of theological convictions on the basis of literal interpretations of scripture being a central part of a particular community.
It's just that the group of my birth isn't representative of the whole tradition of scriptural interpretation. People read these things for a reason, even after figuring out that it's a story. And if we're convicted physicalists, then it's fascinating that a literal work of fiction holds more meaning for so many people than the entire library of Nature (the literal publication, not the metaphorical book of nature).
So to insist on the truth of talking snakes or the existence of Jesus is to miss out on what makes these stories compelling.
Quoting Ludwig V
Yes, the very idea that the sacrifice of a human. god life could atone for the sinfulness of human nature seems not just absurd but profoundly wrong, and as you say, immoral. The only answer apologist can give is "God moves in mysterious ways": which is not even close to being morally satisfactory.
I think believers generally don't think too hard on these matters; they just want a comforting story to live by. I support their right to do that, or believe whatever they want, provided they do not try to force their ideas onto others, and their beliefs do not in some way necessarily cause social, personal or environmental harm.
They are a 100% certain about it. What makes it worth their while to make the effort - and believe me, constructing a novel is a lot of hard work! - is that they have something to say. The "no idea" nonsense is not an option... except maybe for some juveniles with a vague notion about maybe sorta writing, but they don't actually finish anything.
Okay. Just saying there are very few insults you can offer a wordsmith graver than "I understand what you say better than you understand it yourself."
I also acknowledge that this would also depend on how "literal" the work is. Some of the best poetry and prose literature is highly ambiguous. I believe the unconscious feeds into much of the greatest literature and of course the other arts as well, which should not be surprising since much of our own lives are lived unconsciously, which certainly does not necessarily mean without intelligence. That's my understanding anyway.
Well, whoever's fault it is, the fact remains that many theists are literalists. In America and Saudi Arabia (Islam) that group is so huge that they determine social policy and governments. So for me, there is justification for secular humanist education and some forms of assertive atheism. I've met too many atheists who left fundamentalism after hearing better arguments during their time as apologists.
Quoting Moliere
Interesting. Talking snakes is one thing. But dismissing the existence of Jesus would undermine Christianity, surely? How many practicing Christians would there be who think Jesus never lived? If everything comes down to compelling stories rather than truth then Hamlet or David Copperfield may was well be worshiped (actually I think Harold Bloom did just that).
How exactly does an allegory work to provide sustenance to a believer, any suggestions?
Your objection seems more pointedly towards theocracy than a literalist fundamentalism. You don't need to counter the religious efforts at political control by enforcing some sort of atheist control. I'd think disallowing either would be the goal.
Quoting Tom Storm
Sure, I think it a fascinating story that posits that there is nothing is more condemnable than to have the power to discern good, evil, and knowledge and not know love.
Is that not the story of Jesus, whose necessity arose from the eating of that impregnated apple?
But that's not a story I focus on, but I get it. We don't need any actual apples, serpents, or crucifixions for that to have meaning.
Importantly, that story has the attention of a culture, and so it matters. That is where we look for meaning, so that's where we find it.
A quote from the Reform Jewish prayer book:
"Help us to see, wherever we gaze, that the bush burns unconsumed .
And we, clay touched by God, will reach out for holiness, and exclaim in wonder:
How filled with awe is this place, and we did not know it ."
That is, the miracle of the burning bush is all around us, but, obviously, there is no real burning bush. I don't see how literalism (as opposed to allegory) could work. Do we look for real burning bushes and actual parting seas?
That's exactly why I'm defending the dead authors - seems like nobody else will. Nothing is privileged.
When you read something, anything, even the user's manual for an electric toothbrush, you bring something to that text and you take something from that text: it becomes partly yours, just as it becomes part of you. If it's something significant, like War and Peace, it occupies a fair bit of space in your head. Of course you take ownership of that - it's your head the thing's taken up residence in! You interact with it; you add your own ideas to it; the result is an edifice of thought that never existed before and can never exist anywhere else, ever again.
But it's not always a symbiotic relationship.
Once a work is in the public domain, you can say anything you like about it. You can appropriate it to any purpose, dissect it, lecture on it to your heart's content, discuss, write monographs about the characters' significance to stereotyping of the period, entire books about the author's sexual shortcomings as expressed in the following passage, read in subtexts and secret spy codes, say Hitler was influenced by it, whatever. Have at it!
The only thing I will not countenance is : "He didn't know what he meant."
Thanks for this account. It doesn't personally resonate with me but I get it. Sort of. Much human behaviour and many beliefs make no real sense to me, including Free Masonry, libertarianism, sport, fishing, and progressive religious beliefs.
It's not that simple. I worked as a published writer for 20 years (side hustle) - mainly non-fiction but some fiction and drama. I have often encountered people who have commented upon what I wrote and come to me with interpretations of my work I did not consciously intend but, on reflection, where defiantly there. I might have gone in wanting to say X (and partly achieved that) but what the story really demonstrated is Y. I think writing often works that way and certainly the other writers I've known - and there's been a good dozen - mostly find the same. We tell richer or poorer stories than we intend to.
Somebody else can add an insight, see an extra dimension. That's great. But are you really telling me you didn't know what you intended to write, that you just had some kind of vagae association, when you were writing it?
Right, but I haven't been saying the author did not know what they meant in the sense of had no idea what they meant but that they may have meant more than they were consciously aware of. My own experience of writing (both poetry and prose and a little fiction) has been that much of the time the work seems to write itself. It certainly is not as if I start with a clearly and exhaustively worked out intention and then set pen to paper and consciously make it all manifest.
I see has made pretty much the same point. Perhaps it's different for different writers. Anyway, I'm happy to leave it there and agree to disagree, because neither of us is going to be able to prove their point.
I think you are missing the nuances. I probably can't explain it to you any clearer.
I once wrote a magazine story about the art of writing sitcoms - my intention was to describe how they were written and produced. What people got out of it was a different story - how the talent of a comic actor can make bad material come alive through interpretation. Sure it was in there, but I wasn't trying to write about that. It's what most people told me they took from the piece. My editor didn't even register what I thought the piece was about; he saw it as an amusing analysis of the role of performance. If you were to read that 20 year-old piece today, you'd probably talk about how it was about the days before streaming, when network TV called the shots and when they produced shows in house in powerful TV studios - a microcosm of that era. Sure that's there too, but I didn't intend to focus on that. By now my original intention for writing the piece has been eclipsed. It has new life as a historical document about how TV used to work, certainly not the art of sitcom writing. My experience as a writer and from knowing writers is that this is often how a work ends up being reinterpreted and shaped by time and individual readings.
Quoting Janus
Maybe it's one of those points you either see or don't. A bit like god... :razz:
For what its worth, my own meagre experience writing stories aligns with what youre saying, Tom. To a surprising extent, I dont know what I wrote until someone else points it out, or I see it later on when Im revising it. Working on it to get it right is not an exercise in consciously sharpening the intended meaning of the piece; its a formal or intuitive activity. This is why writers, musicians, and other kinds of artists often talk about channeling a greater force, rather than commanding all their resources in an explicit and conscious way.
It certainly does. If it does anything, it emphasizes difference in the interpretation of "interpretation". The difficulty is that sometimes interpretations sometimes exclude each other - or seem to. They certainly reflect different presuppositions and different interests.
I suspect two different uses of interpretation here. One is a use in which interpretations do not exclude each other; each is valid or invalid on its own terms. The other is a use in which a rule is applied to a case. (Yes, I'm channelling Wittgenstein). Each application of a rule is an interpretation, so it may be applied in different ways. Sometimes, we can agree that the rule might be applied in different ways; then we seek a "ruling". But if the rule is to have any meaning, we need to be able to say that one way of applying the rule is right and another is wrong.
It seems to me that the conviction that one has the right, correct, true answer is the source of dogma, and consequently the most pernicious view. I don't think that atheism or religion are necessarily pernicious, it is the conviction that does the harm.
Yet, if there is any truth to be found in this chaotic world, and even if there is none, one has to take a stand somewhere. How can one do that and avoid becoming dogmatic?
Quoting Tom Storm
That might be a surprise, but, so long as X and Y are compatible, not a problem. Surely it's only a problem if X and Y are not compatible. Your use of "really" suggests that's what you have in mind. That's a situation that post-modernists particularly enjoy(ed).
My experiences of writing philosophy include the slightly weird experience of finding an argument taking charge and leading me down a path I didn't intend to go down and don't want to go down.
It's always worth understanding what the author's intentions were (or might have been) and what a text means (or might have meant) to the author's audience (i.e. in the relevant social and cultural context). But sometimes people forget that many texts are read and are important to audiences far beyond their original context The question of interpreting them in those circumstances must go beyond their origins. Indeed the problem starts to arise as soon as the text is published.
(Plato was scathing, in the Phaedrus about written texts for exactly that reason. He ("Socrates") says (from memory) that "they do not know to whom they should talk and when they should be silent.")
Quoting Janus
Quite so. That's the classic. When I first started asking awkward questions, I was told that "we don't worry about those questions". That produced the same result. I went and asked the questions where people do ask them - mostly in philosophy, with the obvious result.
I prefer what scientists do. They file the question under "pending", basically meaning "to be worked out later". That's the undogmatic response.
I can see that. Characters in fiction often do the same thing.
Quoting Ludwig V
Yes. I am a reluctant post-modernist.
Quoting Ludwig V
Yes. I've always held that any text is redolent with potential meanings so settling on a 'right' one suggests a paucity of imagination and joy.
The vague generality of intention, along with the uncertainties associated with the media, combined, produce the great mysteries of art.
There is an experimental procedure which the artist can do, which demonstrates very clearly that what is produced is not necessarily what was intended. One can approach the canvas with no intent of painting anything in specific, and just start applying colours to it. There is of course, some degree of intent involved, but that is minimized to the point of allowing the nature of the medium (paint and canvas in this case, but it could be another form of art like music or rhyming) to dictate the outcome. This experiment demonstrates very clearly that it is possible for an author to not know what one intends to write, when it is written.
The unintentional results of an intentional act are known as accidents. In the artistic world accidents are very important, and have great significance because they teach us about the unknown aspects, the mysteries, of the medium. So in the specific artform you are discussing, the medium is a form of communication, writing. There are many unknown aspects, and much mystery inhering within this medium, and this allows great possibility for accidents. And since writing is a form of communication and communication gets granted a high degree of significance, in general, this allows the accidents to have great importance.
I'm not sure of the Christian demographic, but the Universalist Unitarian church has been on my mind as an example of a church organization that doesn't put emphasis on the literal truth of scripture -- it even allows multiple faiths within its structure. I've gone to some non-denominational churches which were similar in their emphasis that the story of Jesus is a transformative story which centers love -- and God is love.
Hamlet or David Copperfield sort of do fit within a holy pantheon of literature :D -- we sort of worship them, but in this different way that's more revering than as a supplicant to them. (though I have to mention -- future isolated society organized around Hamlet religiously sounds like a Trek episode)
In the United States I think this is more a minority position, but I'd prefer it weren't. I'd prefer more people treated the texts like historical objects with stories from a time far away from now and relate to them at a emotive, rather than literal, level. Non-literalists always seem more peaceful to me.
once a work is in the public domain, anyone can bring anything to it, put it to any use and make their contribution as important as or more important than the original and turn it into something quite else from what it was intended to be.
That's a pity. You're missing out. The original guys enjoyed it. (The dialogue between Searle and Derrida is a good example.) It was having a sure-fire way of tweaking the lion's tail - where the lion was the orthodox academy. The sense of fun that I found in them was part of the appeal. (I also realized that it must have been part of Socrates' appeal when he revealed Socratic method to his friends. I suspect that it was one of the reasons he lost the trial.)
Quoting Vera Mont
I wouldn't go as far as that. It's probably true to say that one cannot limit in advance what interpretations might be found in a text. But I think there is a distinction between valid and invalid, difficult though it is. Could one find an interpretation of Hamlet that saw him as a man of action? I would take a lot of persuading. I hope I'm not being difficult.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
The experiment does show that a text can have meanings that the author did not intend. So does the practice of improvisation in music. But that's not quite what's at stake - or so I thought. What was at stake was whether a text could have meanings that were not intended, despite the writer having different, even incompatible, intentions - or rather, whether it is legitimate to attribute to the text meanings that the author did not intend. In one way, that is clearly possible, but we often think (in other contexts) that such attributions are misinterpretations. If a teacher says "That's all" because that's all there is to say on the topic in hand, and the class leaves the room, it might well be a misinterpretation if the teacher was merely moving on to the next topic.
I'm sure. A brutal execution can morph into a ritual of sharing bread and wine, because, that, too, was written. A wrathful deity turns into a benign one, because you can juxtapose the passage about his loving the world. Appeasement sacrifice becomes the very invention of forgiveness through the correct interpretation. I comprehend it. But as available as all that is for embracing, it is equally open to rejection.
I have read the bible cover to cover, twice. First in my mid 20's, next in my mid 30's. I am 59 now.
I was an atheist before, during and after. There are many stories in the bible that have a useful moral relevance to any intelligent human, which can and has been used to assist humans in formatting secular moral code.
ALL STORIES, past or present can have this slant/relevance towards humans, thinking about how they should respond in hypothetical scenario's. The Scorpion and the frog story for example, is not from theism, but can equally inform secular moral code. The claim by some theists that we have NO source of morality, other than gods, is utter nonsense.
I have no issue with reading the bible in a similar way to reading marvel comics or Lord of the Rings or the Epic of Gilgamesh and garnishing some position, on an issue of modern secular morality. BUT,
It just becomes 'silly' at best and 'irrational/backwards/regressive/ridiculous/embarrassing/dangerous/nefarious/deadly,' at worse, to claim, similarly to your own comment; Quoting Moliere
that the bible or ANY written text or relayed story, that has ever existed, contains the memorialised communications of the creator of the universe.
Are these the types of atheists you are referring to?
I can list many more if you like.
These are serious biblical scholars, who know more about theism that anyone on TPF, I'd wager.
BUT they DO! Constantly, they preach, many of them will actually knock on your door, at home!
The decisions made by religious organisations and the many many people in authority they directly influence and in many cases fully control, DO very much! 'cause social, personal or environmental harm.' Are you fully comfortable with yourQuoting Janus
When you can offer NO guarantee, that they will comply, in any way, with your conditions. How will you assist the victims of their dictates?, since you have given them your support, but you do not say how you scrutinise the actions/policies/influences of the religious organisations involved.
No, an example of what Im talking about would be you.
Ive read Ehrman, hes great.
No, that's human wonder and awe at the universe we observe. 'Look at the trees!' or wow! look at the stars, is not evidence for the existence of god. I know you have already denied you feel that way with stuff like:
Quoting Hanover
But then why type such words as "the miracle of the burning bush is all around us," what exactly are you referring to?
It seems to me, that theists are so afraid to take FULL ownership of their own existence and experience this life as a truly free individual, who has learned that they no longer have to cower themselves, due to a kind of PTSD residue from what we inherited, instinctively from our ancestors experiences in the wilds.
We don't need your god. We create, we intelligently design, we create purpose and meaning, we are OF the universe, a universe not created from a thinking agent, but one in which thinking agents evolved.
You want to credit everything we are to a non-existent esoteric! You continue to downplay, downgrade and dismiss your own species as CHRISTopher Hitchens tried to explain to you.
"Once you assume a creator and a plan, it makes us objects, in a cruel experiment, whereby we are created sick and commanded to be well. I'll repeat that: created sick, and then ordered to be well. And over us, to supervise this, is installed a celestial dictatorship, a kind of divine North Korea. Greedy, exigentexigent, I would say more than exigentgreedy for uncritical praise from dawn until dusk and swift to punish the original sins with which it so tenderly gifted us in the very first place. However, let no one say there's no cure: salvation is offered, redemption, indeed, is promised, at the low price of the surrender of your critical faculties."
Right back at you! With bells attached pilgrim!
So how does that particular church, explain the maniac god of the OT, who commanded the ethnic cleansing of some tribes, sends she bears to kill children, smites a guy for accidently dropping one side of the box with the stone tablets in them, supports human slavery and considers women inferior to men. I seem to be unable to associate such a monster with the concept of 'god is love.'
If none of these biblical stories are to be taken literally, then perhaps the story of god should not be taken literally, and we could just see such, as a creation of the Freudian ID.
I think you're inadvertently agreeing with me here :D
Yes, that's what a non-literal interpretation of the Bible would indicate, wouldn't it?
Hence why talking about God as a literal being who exists like a sky wizard who punishes children for making fun of their elders by feeding them to bears is to miss the point. (honestly it sounds like a story one might tell a child to make them fear, and thereby act like they respect, their elders -- these are ancient stories from a time long past, after all. We have no idea what the original context really was)
The confusion is understandable because there's a lot of theists who basically go along with the literalist interpretation. But, in this case, since literalism is being put out to pasture, these are non-starters.
So why not recommend the final step and recommend that if you are a theist or you are religious or you are a theosophist then you are irrational, as you are conflating fables and myth with reality. The supernatural has no demonstrated existent and never has had. If you agree with that then WE agree.
This is great stuff.
I think keeping your question open is a good aporetic point. I am tempted to answer, but as I do I am unsatisfied with my answers. At least the ones I've attempted so far.
A reflection though: I wouldn't want to lump all conviction together as dogmatic because then we'd become Buridan's Ass. And I'm not sure what conviction is other than believing that one has the right, correct, or true answer. But there is this other side of conviction which seems equally undesirable, where we blind ourselves to the views of others, or cease to listen to people, or stop questioning.
I agree that neither a/theism is pernicious, all unto itself, though. Generally I prefer to promote tolerance of others on the basis that we can't know these things. Maybe that's the better route towards understanding dogmatism critically.
I don't think that follows. Especially if one is using the text non-literally -- then that person is being pretty explicit about what is real and what is myth, rather than conflating the two.
Then what is the difference between the bible and any other book of old stories? If anyone can interpret any meaning (even opposite to what the words say cuz..interpretation) from it, why not rely on all the other much better quality books that have improved and expanded on everything the bible has to teach us?
The arguments about the bible being valuable because of its interpretive value actually undermines the bibles value because if the bible is just a book of helpful stories then its a terrible source of helpful stories. Morality? What the ten commandments? Please, the bible is a source of morality like a rotting corpse is a source of food. There are plenty of much better sources than the bible, and so by relegating the bible to the status of Aesop fables we should feel very justified putting in the shelf next to tales of Zeus and Odin and Far Side cartoons and then from there to the garbage can (or floor if you have to level a table).
Also, the interpretists argument has really nothing they can say to someone justifying evil by their interpretation of the bible. That is the consequence of the interpretive free for all being advocated.
What conviction level do you personally assign to the proposal that the supernatural has one or more existents?
None. Though I'll note I don't think "supernatural" stands up to scrutiny, here it's a non-starter because this is looking for what is true and what exists, when the non-literal interpretation isn't concerned with either.
Probably historical.
We have other ancient books that fulfill similar roles to the Bible. It's ancient wisdom literature, which tends to mish-mash concepts and even kinds of stories which we hold distinct today.
And I certainly wouldn't say the Bible gets to be the only book in that category. The reason we focus on it here has more to do with cultural history, I think.
Quoting DingoJones
I wouldn't speak against reading more. And, more importantly, the types of people who usually advocate for non-literal interpretations are usually open to reading more books. It's the theistic literalists that tend to focus on the Bible as a singular source of wisdom.
And it one or more decide to declare their god variant REAL, regardless of what is stated or written by anyone? Then what?
We agree on that at least.
Quoting Moliere
So what is it concerned with that is representative of theism?
You seem to be trying to find some 'pointless' use for the concepts of theism/religion/theosophism,
when secular humanism is standing right in front of you, screaming at you but you remain too busy, searching at the bottom of an empty vessel, trying to find value in musing over that which remains divinely hidden because it is non-existent.
Your efforts are mere exasperations, for those of us who are impatient for the human race to grow up, take hold, and build a better world, which utterly refuses to show deference to any BS threats or guidance from non-existent deities, described via the mouths and writings of nefarious, delusional or frightened humans.
There is no 'negotiated settlement' possible between the supernatural and the natural as any scientific discovery makes the hitherto unknown process, effect, substance etc, natural.
If god shows up, then it becomes natural, if it does not then it's either non-existent or utterly irrelevant.
Give me one of YOUR examples of a theistic claim, that might be made by a non-literal theist?
Your example from the non-denominational church (a.k.a 'HOUSE OF GOD,') you attended, that from a non-literalist pov, god is love. :roll: was just awful!
The question of 'what evidence do you have?' would remain, as it always has!.
God is love, still posits a prime mover that created this universe as an act of it's will.
Is god + universe greater/better than god? If you think it is then you have just identified something greater than or better than god! So god alone cannot be 'greatest,' can it? If god + universe is greater/better.
Not really. God is love, and the church is its people -- it's a communitarian ethos. And it's not really conceptual in the sense of making a claim. The evidence would be in how the people treat others rather than in a game of epistemic justification or textual analysis.
Yes, and he's not anti-Christian. Much of what he says is consistent with what has been said here in terms of his finding value in Scripture. His atheism is based upon his inability to harmonize evil with there being a perfect creator, but he's very clear that it's not based upon the incredibility of reigious doctrine.
In what way is this different from the moral code of an atheist humanist? The world has over 8 billion people in it and we need a global system that is as equitable as possible towards them. How's that for a non-church communitarian ethos, no god required, and how about answering the questions I have put to you instead of cherry picking.
I repeat:
Quoting universeness
Quoting universeness
Quoting universeness
I can certainly empathize with the desire to build a better world.
And I even believe that people ought not assign supernatural causes to what is natural -- it's one of the tenets of the tetrapharmakos. It causes anxiety to believe that your everday actions have cosmic import, and what's more, they don't have cosmic import. I don't believe in a theology of heaven or hell, nor do I think it likely to really help people live better lives.
But I see allies where you see enemies. I've known too many good people who are deeply motivated by religion, and who are also rational, to discount it -- from activists who are morally badass, to scientists who are rationally badass.
Quoting universeness
Would it surprise you to hear that it's not? :D
I've been at pains to point out that we're not enemies, so it shouldn't be.
I'm not comfortable here because... well... I'm not?
And I'm trying to point out how the appeal is not an epistemic game or debate.
Quoting universeness
From my vantage it seems like a way of life, more than anything. People know where they are, where they're going, and their place in the world. It brings them meaning to their life. Those are the concerns.
I'm not an atheist and I carefully read the OP instead of immediately blaring an anti-religion foghorn, so I'm not sure what you're sending right back at me.
That's very ..... human of you, well done!
Quoting Moliere
:up:
Quoting Moliere
Now you are making assumptions about me. Would it confuse you, if I said some of my best friends are theists. Including one who recently lost his father, and said to me that he gained more strength from my chats with him than he got from his church.
Quoting Moliere
No, what is exasperating is your 'glossing over' of the pernicious effect of religious doctrine, as practiced in REAL life. Is the god you support others believing in an atheist secular humanist, because if that is the notion you are playing with, in your 'don't break any eggshells as you walk on them' philosophy, then we can end our exchange on that.
Quoting Moliere
It's ok to be discomforted at times, it gets them neurons firing sir, that's all part of the adventure of human life, no god required.
Still one to go! Are you finding this one hard to deal with?
Quoting universeness
Your love for me of course! :kiss:
No.
Quoting universeness
It seemed off topic to me on the basis of focusing on truth/existence rather than truth/meaning. Is God + Universe greater/better than God? If God is love, then the two aren't mutually exclusive.
This was in response to @Hanover but it struck me as especially deluded, so Im butting in.
You give the impression of someone who has waded into a conversation without understanding what the conversation is about, but decides to rant and rave anyway. If I were undecided on the God question, and if your posts had any effect at all, I think youd turn me towards God. As it is, Im an atheist, but still think Hanovers position is far more interesting than yours.
Atheism as such is not a religion, but your sort of atheism is fanatical. Earlier on in this discussion, people including me and you were discussing the causes of oppression, totalitarianism, and genocide, and we broadly agreed that religion could not be identified as the central cause. Better candidates for that cause would be fanaticism and absolute certainty.
What do you mean? That's no answer at all. Are you playing the 'redraft the question' or 'avoid the question,' game of theism? If god 'willed' the universe then whether or not that act, was an act of love or hate(considering views like antinatalism, xenophobia, racism, sexism, capitalism, etc, human suffering and all the woes on this planet) is not the question.
Is it atheist dogma to ask if god + universe in greater that god alone?
I am just asking for you to analyse the proposal I am suggesting considering god as omni this and omni that. You want to find a place god can nestle with/exist with atheism yes?
So, does this god you wish to support belief in, not have any attributes other that some rather fanciful notion of what humans call love?
How do you know who and what god loves?
What do you mean by god IS love. Can an existent fully occupy a human emotion?
Can I be wrath and you be envy?
:clap:
So you are declaring for Hanover's pov, so what?
Quoting Jamal
Well if that happens then I have brought you and Mr Hanover closer to each other and god. Would that not mean all three of you should be grateful to me?
Quoting Jamal
I know atheism is not a religion. Quote where you think I have typed something fanatical?
I have given my credence level regularly, for the non-existence of god as 99.999%
This is a similar credence level as folks like Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens, Sam Harris, Daniel Dennet, Matt Dillahunty, Jimmy Snow, Forrest Valkai, Shannon Q, most scientists in the cosmology and astro-physics community, Roger Penrose, Sean Carroll etc, I could list many many more from the on-line atheist community and the science community. Do you consider all of them fanatics as well?
There is no absolute certainty about ANYTHING, just very high credence levels.
I am no fanatic and you saying I am has no value at all, until you provide convincing evidence for your spurious claim, which I think comes much more down to you trying to defend, your floundering friend and his weak attempts to justify his theism.
No.
Quoting universeness
I'm not a believer, so it's a little weird to analyse things as if I were. Further, anything said by people who are believers of this sort doesn't really rely upon the ontological argument or classical philosophical notions of God.
So I am lead to believe that you're not understanding, but you're acting like I'm not understanding.
Perhaps we've come to our little spot of dogma in the conversation.
This was my favourite bit.
Perhaps. I am trying to 'appreciate' where you are coming from in your support of non-literal theism.Quoting Moliere
'God is love,' is the only offering you seem to have favoured so far from the musings of 'non-literal' theism. Can you offer some more?
lol
I was just making a mild joke that many of us are postmodernists reluctantly through the influence the ideas have had on our culture. I tend towards anti-foundationalist skepticism myself. I've done some desultory reading, but I have never privileged any philosophy in my life as I've had other priorities. Which is why I am here; to get a taste of what I might have missed.
I am glad I typed something in this thread you are not offended by!
You accused me of being a fanatic Mr Jamal. Quote where, or have the honesty to withdraw your accusation.
Quote me your idea of my fanaticism dusty!
Well, I expect every current member of YOUR site, is rushing right now to confirm your request.
I doubt I will even have enough time to type this response and post it before EVERY current member of YOUR site confirms that they think I am a fanatical atheist! :scream:
I used to teach netiquette to classes from S1 to S3, and you can use capitals for emphasis rather than as an indication of shouting. I try never to shout but I do try to emphasize on occasion.
In netiquette, whole sentences of capitals are indeed considered shouting, as are capitalised expletives etc.
For me it frequently comes down to the political pull. If we can act in concert together in pursuing knowledge or justice or pleasure, then I don't particularly care about the frame that a person lives by. That's for them to decide. If they are interested they can ask me what I think, and we all do from time to time, but for the most part I just don't feel it's much of my concern.
And Universalist Unitarians just aren't the literalists you're targeting, if you want a bigger organization that you can investigate on your own. IMX, they're good people. It's not my thing, but hey -- that's OK.
There is a lot of 'netiquette' guidelines out there. There are even ones for in-house use, written by a particular company or organisation.
A guideline such as: Netiquette and capital letters.
When writing emails or any web content on the internet, theres a general rule that frowns upon the use of blocks of capital letters. It's seen as shouting and as such deemed aggressive behaviour or poor etiquette. There are exceptions to the rule, most commonly for short headings, where uppercase type can bring focus to a specific section.
mentions 'blocks of capital letters' and identifies some exception. So in the school I taught computing science in for 30+ years, we taught that there were some exceptions to a blanket ban on the use of capitals in electronic type. Capitalisation for the purpose of emphasis was ok if the content was not threatening. I am quite willing to switch to the preferred use of bold for emphasis.
Well thanks for the info but I think I will leave that personal investigation of IMX for now.
I will happily work cheek by jowl with theists of any variety to gain a more progressive politics.
I will still counter theistic claims in the same way I have always done, especially when they are presented as absolute truths hidden behind stealth tactics and camouflage.
Maybe we have our own form of netiquette here. At least, I think it looks bad too if done regularly. You might be misunderstood as being intemperate and there's nothing lost by switching to bold or italics.
If you can't see that, then of course you won't agree, but that would say more about you than about religion. All of those I've ever encountered with your kind of anti-religious fanaticism were once devout, or at least heavily conditioned by religion when they were young, and I'm betting you fit in that category.
Right, that is the undogmatic response, but it may also be an evasion or deflection in the form of an implied promissory note that it will all certainly become clear later. Of course, "later" may never come. I think this evasion or deflection happens in science just as it does in religion.
I am glad that you found Badiou useful for you.
I am not sure if the following relates to your OP but here it goes:
The 'rationalists' tradition developed the idea of seeing reason as different from theology in various ways. Hegel is interesting as someone who viewed the 'concepts' of religion as something integrated into a larger understanding of reason. Rational premises are the ground for dispensing with theological registers. Badiou's approach is he doesn't take the Hegelian view that such a trajectory of thinking can be resolved or is the large tendency of the world seen through a teleology. For Badiou, the vitality of reason is tied to an asymmetry it cannot go beyond. And it is kind of an accident.
By "atheist dogma", are you referring to a critical rejection of literal theism and/or interpretation of "revealed" scriptures or something else?
I really do need to read Badiou then. Sometime.
Damnit.
Im referring to how the OP defines it. Everyone seems to have forgotten what this thread is about.
I thought it was about the atheist dogma of interpreting scripture with a literal lense in the same way that one might interpret "the cat is on the mat".
Or, more open: about how interpreting scripture with respect to how we use language with respect to making true statements is not a good way to interpret scripture when talking to people who don't do it like that.
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/811827
I assumed that by page fifteen a more defensible notion than "atheist dogma causes religious fundamentalism" was being discussed. My mistake for not reading the last several pages of the thread.
I feel your pain.
I can't think of any specific major problems caused by magical thinking, and I think it, delusion and willful ignorance are primordial features of human psychology.
The percentage of humanity motivated by rational thought is probably rather small, and i don't think this necessarily has much to do with religion. religion may be one of the manifestations of this predominent irrational element in human nature, and also may feedback into it to some extent.
Probably most people don't care to much about science as aworldview motivator, they just want to enjoy its technological benefits, while also fearing its destructive potentials; more destructive weaponry, including most notably the horrors of chemical, biological and nuclear weapons.
Also, chemical pollution is seen as a major problem, and even the benefits of increased prosperity and medical technology have contributed to the burgeoning population that is, in itself contributing to the depleting of resources, destruction of habitat and so on.
I think the major problems humanity faces are the result of selfishness, greed, indifference to others, lack of compassion, complacency, addiction to comfort, habitual behavior, resistance to change and many other contributing negative traits.
I think religion will fall away when and if people no longer need it.
As William James says, "The ultimate test for us of what a truth means is the conduct it dictates or inspires."
This I would apply to the moral more than the mundane. I realize a bridge can be built only a certain way.
So even should a belief in God be entirely delusional, if it should lead to greater happiness, and should its disbelief lead to misery, you'd be hard pressed to explain why we should accept the cold hard scientific misery unless you hold that adherence to empirically motivated beliefs is always righteous. Such would be a basic tenant of your dogma.
And should you suggest that the acceptance of the scientifically unprovable as fact will necessarily lead to misery, then you again are only asserting dogma.
Belief is a choice and a choice is a judgment and judgments are based upon criteria. If your sole dogmatic criterion for choice of what to believe is whether the fact is empirically justified, then such is your dogma.
Explain why the person who lives a fulfilled life, positively contributing in every way to society, and who does that as the consequence of his deluded belief in the most basic anthropomorphic God and simplest literal interpretation of scripture, is worse than the strict scientific empiricist who suffers terribly from the hard knowledge that life is devoid of purpose.
So will science, but neither will happen.
This is a great post.
And so that's your dogma, which is a corruption of the Mill quote. Mill didn't suggest the swine were those who willed to believe a particular way to advance their happiness, but the swine were the ones who chose a hedonistic path of physical pleasure as opposed to the intellectual path of Socrates.
You metaphor is Biblical by the way, with the unkosher being the pig. Socrates is what in this metaphor, pure intelligence, God himself, your ideal?
This is just to say that choosing a worldview that leads to a more meaningful life need not be represented by swine. That is just your dogmatic bias.
Intentional ambiguity is a common tool. In this case, what is intended is ambiguity, meaning that the author intends that multiple readers will produce a multitude of distinct interpretations, each interpretation suited to one's own purpose. It is useful because it allows the author to appeal to a wider audience. The various interpretations from the work may very well be incompatible with each other, but this does not mean that they are incompatible with what the author intended. The author intends that no particular meaning is the correct meaning, so it is only the attitude that my interpretation is the correct interpretation, or more precisely the belief that there is a correct interpretation, which is the incorrect interpretation.
Not at all. I extrapolated from your "dogma" :smirk:
Quoting Hanover
Quoting Revelation 22:18-19
(incidentally, self-entitlement/bolstering is one of the tricks of the trade)
I go back and forth on that. Who wants to be depressed, but the thought of losing my intellect horrifies me.
'Thou shalt not think for thyself' no thanks.
Whereas the infinitely intepretratable, adaptable, reframable, malleable, divisible, re-inventable, religious narrative never can be, since it instructs each believer in believing whatever he wants to. Aesop is a static pedant in comparison, even if he did teach better lessons.
:up:
You are correct, I absolutely don't agree.
Quoting Janus
Pay up, You lost your bet, perhaps donate some of your money to the on-line atheist community. I have been atheist since I could think about the topic of god posits. All my family were non-believers to a lesser degree and in the case of my mother, around the same 99.999% conviction level as I.
I wont start to list and post evidence to respond against your:
Quoting Janus
I realise I would be wasting my time.
I would put Gandhi or perhaps such as Martin Luther King as exemplar lives that you attempt to describe above. I consider both of these men to be exceptional human beings.
I remain saddened that neither man could understand that their motivation/drive to try to improve the lives of their fellows, was fully credited to themselves and not a god.
There are many such exceptional men and women and hesh who have contributed as much of themselves to assist others as Gandhi or MLK, who were totally godless.
Life was never devoid of purpose to humans who are alive. We created purpose.
I suppose the main difference between us is that I care a lot more about what is true than you do.
Quoting 180 Proof
:clap:
Quoting RogueAI
:clap:
Quoting Vera Mont
Best exemplified every time science makes a new discovery about the universe. Folks like William Lane Craig tries to play catch up and search for another gap he can run to and find god can still be reshaped into it.
Of course, that's fine for you, and for me. What percentage of the population do you think can, and wants to, think for itself?
Quoting universeness
Quoting universeness
That's all right; there is always the odd "exception that proves the rule". (Come to think of it, I don't know what that little ole chestnut means, but it sounds nice).
Sounds like an admission of inability to me, given that you are always crowing about arguing against those who you believe won't change their minds, for the benefit of other readers. A real evangelist you are, but unfortunately without substantive evidence or argument, which is not an uncommon attribute with evangelists.
Rationalist politics is necessarily dehumanising, because the defining feature of life is emotion. to be alive is to care about something. Having a home, for example. Accordingly, a worldview that rejects everything that is not rational or factual, is inimical to life.
I do wonder what Maggie thought a government was for, if not for solving people's problems - her personal hobby, I suspect.
Your bad attempts to goad me are just that, bad attempts, but then you do use a two faced god as your representation image. Perhaps you are just trying to live up to that image.
I think that's a good point, my list of things that cause frequent harm to humanity include, nationalism, scientism, marketing, capitalism, materialism. And, unlike you, I would add religion as one of humanity's many problematic ideas. Do I want to ban it? No. Do I hate religion? No. But I admit to often being bigoted about it. And bigoted about capitalism, marketing, materialism, etc. I feel similar shudders whether I am driving past a church, an advertising agency or a shopping mall.
I think religion is highly problematic. This is very binary, and rather the problem with this thread - and that is my fault for framing things that way. But pointing out a binary conflict that leads to sterile arguments, I did not honestly expect a dozen pages rehearsing the the sterile arguments.
I have made no defence of religion. I am appealing for an attempt at understanding the meaning of religious texts to people, which I believe is rather more than mere the commercial advertising bullshit of the marketplace. Just as I would recommend understanding the Communist Manifesto, or The Rights of Man.
Do economists really believe in the invisible hand? This is a fatuous ignorant insulting question, surely.
Cheers, yes. I think this is also a good point.
Quoting unenlightened
Hmm...I studied economics back in the 1990's and what I found was a largely faith based dogma.
Quoting unenlightened
I think this forum is full of folk who want the best for our planet - they proffer answers based on their own experience, intuitions and judgements. It all seems so 'self-evident'. Then there's the issue of tribalism and dualistic thinking and it can get messy. Not your fault.
[quote=Adam Smith][The rich] consume little more than the poor, and in spite of their natural selfishness and rapacity they divide with the poor the produce of all their improvements. They are led by an invisible hand to make nearly the same distribution of the necessaries of life, which would have been made, had the earth been divided into equal portions among all its inhabitants, and thus without intending it, without knowing it, advance the interest of the society, and afford means to the multiplication of the species.[/quote]
Of all the criticisms one might make of this, and they are serious and fundamental, I think the weakest and most pointless would be to argue that invisible hands do not exist. But the comparison is apt and you are right. Economics is entirely faith based - but they call it "confidence".
And when it works, it's a 'confidence trick'.
Hmm, are these two synonymous, in the sense of exchangeable with each other in usage, "faith" and "confidence"? Or, does one have a broader range of usage than the other? I would say that "confidence" is often directed towards oneself, internally, as an attitude toward one's own actions, while "faith" is most often directed outward, as an attitude towards what is external to oneself.
If that is the case, then how is it that the health of "the economy", which is an attribute of the community as a whole, can be dependent on an attitude which the individual has toward oneself? There is something missing here, a hidden premise or something like that, which links the attitude which the individual has toward oneself (confidence or lack of confidence) to the wealth of the community as a whole. "Confidence" is just as easily directed in competitive directions as it is directed in cooperative directions, so it could be destructive to the community. So it cannot be confidence alone which supports the economy, there is a missing ingredient. Therefore it's not only a loss of confidence which could make the economy go to hell, but confidence maintained, along with the other ingredient missing, will also make the economy go to hell.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
I generally have confidence in things outside myself - relationships, the sun coming up, catching a plane, my roof holding the rain back.
I suspect most want to, but not enough can.
The question dealt with what harm there was from the good acts that resulted from the belief in god, and your response here is that it makes you sad. Other than that consequence, you need to describe the negative impact of their religious motivation. If there isn't one, then you have a pragmatic justification for a belief in God. It's entirely irrelevant whether one could have done the same thing without such a belief. What is relevant is that in those instances, that was that motivation.
If people do right for what you designate as the wrong reason, you are left with an absolutist definition of wrong, which suggests consequences are irrelevant, but that there is a over-riding principle that determines what is a right reason. This over-riding principle has already been identified in other posts, and it is what we are referencing as "atheistic dogma." That dogma holds that any belief not empirically justifiable is to be discarded, regardless of the utility it might have in bringing about good to the world or to the individual believer.
If you don't feel you must give justification for this principle I have just identified, then that is the very definition of dogma.
If you suggest that any use of non-empirically based justifications for beliefs will necessarily result in some negative consequence, you will have to show empirically what that it is. If you can't, you will be in violation of your own principle, and you will actually be invoking faith as your basis. That is, if you are sure that at some level the acceptance of belief without empirical proof will lead to negative consequences somewhere down the road, and you have no empirical basis for that belief, you are simply bowing down to your principle as infallible without proof.
Quoting unenlightened
It's very convenient to misdirect criticism to the metaphor - look, look, is that in an invisible hand? - no, it's a moving finger, writing... or picking your pocket... - so that one may ignore the blatant lie at its core.
Just as Leviticus gives a nice little nuanced example of why not to tattle on your neighbours, and while we focus on that, we ignore the smoking pile of horribly slaughtered sacrificial cattle behind it.
Both canons tell us how to live - so long as we interpret them "correctly" - which is to say, just fluidly enough.
E.g. I'm certain that I do not believe any of the deities described by any of the religions I know about actually exist. I do not believe that the directives attributed to these gods should be the rules by which I live my life, except insofar as they correspond with my concept of good behaviour. I know that this is the conviction that I hold.
Would you count the convictions that you know you hold as opinion or knowledge? I'd expect you to know what your convictions are. I know some of my convictions, but I would say they are an opinion which I know I hold rather than something I know is true.
I'm attempting another distinction, other than fact/value, in an effort to understand dogmatism as a universal human tendency. In this way I wouldn't exempt myself from having dogma. I have opinions, and conviction is what motivates one to make an opinion true. We are creatures which care, whether we like it or not. And if dogma is just opinion being treated like it's not opinion then we all do that when we care about it.
The negative connotation of dogma probably comes from thinking one is exempt, that one has knowledge of what is properly thought of as opinion. At least that's what the morning thought was.
My dogma is the stuff you have to already assent to to even make sense what I'm saying. The disbeliefs you have to suspend.
What's yours?
Some people's dogma seems to be that only the other chap has dogma.
I count them as convictions. This a separate class of mind-content from either opinion or knowledge: it is far more complex than any single instance of either opinion or knowledge; built over time from facts, experience, learning, examples seen and read, results of actions witnessed, emotional responses, opinion, reasoning and evaluation, it become part of one's moral structure, which then guides one's actions. If the convictions are inconsistent, so is the behaviour.
I don't particularly care about religion - though I find it very interesting, I don't much mind who believes in it, which one or how sincerely. I mind when religious beliefs impinge on the secular legislation that limits my freedom. It plays only a marginal role in my life, since I don't live in a theocratic state. For people who do, the religious/political dogma (Oxford: "a principle or set of principles laid down by an authority as incontrovertibly true.") is overweeningly important, one way or the other: they impose it on others or have it imposed on them by others.
The only certainty I express is what I accept and reject: on that subject, I have no more doubts than does my friend the bolded union activist.
(Another certainty brought to my attention by the number of edits i just had to make is the necessity of cleaning this keyboard.)
That's a remarkably bare list :D
Quoting unenlightened
Oh I have all kinds of dogmas, in this way of talking. Strictly speaking atheism would count since it's not an aspect of knowledge, but mere belief. So I suppose you could say I'm strictly an agnostic, though I know what I believe.
But just as Hume pointed out that he strictly disbelieved in causality, [s]so[/s]but he continued to believe in it the moment he stopped doing philosophy.
Also I'd say that my Marxist and Anarchist tendencies count as dogma.
EDIT: I should also mention Feminism, and Epicureanism -- I mean I like philosophy and I think about philosophy and freely let my mind wander, so many many dogmas are a part of my life. (I'm no rationalist, though. I just like rationality) There's also this lovely book I have called Zen Anarchism that I feel gets close to my kind of dogma.
Note that James refers to "what a truth means..." That isn't a statement regarding how we determine what is or is not true. It sounds to me like a Jamesian effort to express Peirce's Pragmatic Maxim (how to determine what we mean by a concept or idea).
So, what a belief in God or what a particular belief in God means may be determined by "the conduct it dictates or inspires" (regardless of its truth).
It's not clear to me that "happiness" is a kind of conduct; nor is it clear to me that we can ascribe any particular kind of conduct as being dictated or inspired by a general, undefined "belief in God." So, I doubt that James' statement can be of much use to you in the point I think you're trying to make.
If we add a bit of context, and explanation, we may be able to determine the type of conduct a belief in God dictates or inspires. A belief that "X is the one, true God" for example might result in conduct of a certain kind.
Regardless, though, if your point is that what makes us happy should be preferred to what makes us miserable, the truth or meaning of that claim would also seem to call for some context in order for it to be determined.
The more context is significant in making a judgment, the less it is a matter of dogma, I think.
Perhaps that's because I don't take things at face value. I consider the possible ramifications of my personal decisions, on the lives and well being of others.
I think folks like Gandhi and MLK did as well, but they got the source of their humanism completely wrong.
I am sure some members of the proud boys or the KKK have performed 'good acts' but I still wish to dismantle their organisations and any influence they have as completely as possible.
Quoting Hanover
I have already stated what I think are the negative impacts of the religious aspect of the motivations of folks like MLK. There is no evidence that the source or main support of his motivation, exists. That harms everyone, as the truth matters.
Quoting Hanover
On the contrary, it's very relevant indeed, as it demonstrates, no god required.
Quoting Hanover
No, what you are left with is a person doing something for a wrong reason, not an absolutist definition of wrong. You are exaggerating again. Helping another human because that's what you think god wants you to do, is an inferior moral position imo, compared to helping another human because that's what you want to do, no god sanction required.
Quoting Hanover
Yes, and I strongly disagree with your and others description of atheistic dogma, because atheism is a response to theism. God has to be posited before it can be refuted. Theism is the original dogma. Atheism seeks to defend against that original and continuing religious dogma.
No, any belief, not empirically justified, should be considered pure speculation at best, and as such, would by no stretch of rationality, ever be allowed to influence so many peoples lives in the very negative ways it is allowed to, in this 21st century.
Quoting Hanover
What 'principle' are you assuming you have identified?
I have already dealt with that, in stating that I strongly disagree with the descriptions offered so far in this thread, that you are attempting to pool together, as valid descriptions of atheistic dogma and I have already explained why.
Quoting Hanover
Such certainly can and absolutely does result in negative consequences. All current organised religions are non-empirical justifications for belief in a god and have no evidence or valid justification at all, for daring to base and impose, a moral code on humankind, that claims to be the revealed wants of a creator of this universe. If you want evidence of the harm done then you should seek out the live testimony of those who describe such harm done to them. I am sure they can produce further and further evidence that demonstrates what happened in their life due to religious pressures applied to them, alongside all this 'good' you claim the 'religious' mindset does.
Try watching something like:
I am in violation of no principle I hold to be important, and you have so far, exemplified nothing of consequence that challenges that position imo.
Whereas imo, you have yet to even begin to justify the theistic views you maintain. If you need full guidance/advice on how to deal with everyday human issues such as gossip, and interacting with neighbours, then secular humanism can do that for you, as well, or probably better, than passages from Leviticus and the writings of Mr Kagan, as god and god threats for non-compliance will have been removed.
Quoting Hanover
Quote where I suggested that atheism or secular humanism is infallible!
It's the religious fanatic that claims god is beyond question and is absolute fact.
Atheism makes no such equivalent claim. I think folks such as @Jamal, kens this fine.
:rofl: I love that logic as akin to the kind of logic peddled to people by monsters such as M Thatcher via her admiration for Smith. When will all the people understand that you cannot see an invisible hand by looking! They still seem able to fool some of the people all of the time and that still seems to be enough for the nefarious to get rich on.
Quoting universeness
Yes, I was trying to goad you, though not to defensiveness or anger but to attempt to make an actual argument and come up with some actual facts instead of continuing to present mere assertions. Apparently, you can't do that, so the rational thing to do would be to admit that, let go of your baseless and ugly fanaticism and take a more reasonable and humane approach; but that will take some humility...and resorting to defensive ad hominems won't help you get there.
I think what @unenlightened (he can correct me if I am getting this wrong) was aiming at in creating this thread was anti-theism, and that is dogma, just as much as theism is, taking both as political stances; as claims as to what others should believe. This kind of theistic or ant-theistic dogmatism from either side is socially divisive, and is part of the problem, not part of a solution. To put it plainly, an anti-theocracy is as bad as a theocracy.
Well said as always.
False equivalence (like anti-fascism "is as bad as" fascism ... anti-sexism "is as bad as" sexism...) :roll:
Then you're a lukewarm or moderate atheist, or else at the lower end of the agnostic spectrum. Both are perfectly acceptable and recognized positions, with zero requirements for dogmatic adherence. People slide up and down that scale all the time. http://researcherslinks.com/current-issues/The-NonReligious-NonSpiritual-Scale-NRNSS-Measuring-Everyone-from-Atheists-to-Zionists/9/16/119/html
Quoting Janus
There is also a range of anti-theism, which tends to depend on the subject's proximity to toxic, repressive and highly political centers, either currently or in their formative years. People who have experienced more pain, humiliation, discrimination and social rejection on the basis of their lack of faith do tend to be more strongly outspoken against the religion which subjected them to those experiences - though they are often more lenient toward exotic religions in other parts of the world. That's not dogma: it's not dictated to them by an authority: that is anger and sometime bitterness.
Quoting Janus
No, it's far more often derision or contempt of what other do believe - or hypocritically claim to believe but do not act if they believed. And it is a political stance, because the issues in which they were/are the victims are politically enacted.
Quoting Janus
The social divisions are deep and long-standing; they were here long before any of us. And they are not open to "solution" when the oppressor doesn't merely refuse to yield an inch, but is presently, relentlessly, tightening its stranglehold. https://www.aclu.org/legislative-attacks-on-lgbtq-rights
Of course it's politically motivated; not remotely due to Jesus or Moses or or Paul. But the bible and religiosity in general are their cover story, their banner and rallying cry.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5665159/Quoting Janus
I really don't think that's either currently nor historically accurate. (FFS, don't go down the Stalin-hole!)
No. Not my argument at all. I have said more than once, that I am not even interested in who the good guys are. On the contrary, that is the vacuous argument I am complaining about. But It's unsurprising that you get drawn into it even as a non dogmatic atheist.
My argument is very simple, and resolves to the question of by what authority is theism judged? If one sticks to the facts, and to the fact/value distinction, the judgement cannot be rationally made. That it is made, and has been made throughout this thread, is the dogma of atheism. It was all laid out in the op and not a word has been said against it that I have seen. I have no criticism of the judgement, it is the claim to fact and rationality that I dispute.
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/811827
Quoting unenlightened
Nor am I; I thought you were identifying the dogmatic aspect of anti-theism as being no better than the dogmatic aspect of theism, and basically identifying dogma, which is always based on literalist reading, as being the problem in the sense that it creates fundamentalism. I mean in your OP you explicitly state that atheist dogma created fundamentalism; are you now backing away from that?
Quoting Vera Mont
Maybe there's more of that in the US than here in Australia; I haven't encountered it to be honest, except perhaps among extremist sects like the Plymouth Brethren. And I haven't been referring to people who have experienced that and are justifiably angry; I have been referring to people on both sides who dogmatically they know what humanity would be better of with. Of course, we all know humanity would be better off without extremist sects, but that is not what I'm addressing.
Quoting Vera Mont
I don't believe that the kinds of victims that you are referring here constitute the majority of anti-theists.
Quoting Vera Mont
I've already acknowledged that theocracy, or the politization of religion in any form is a problem, so that's not what I'm referring to. I agree the divisions are long standing, but it doesn't follow that deepening them will be a move towards social harmony.
Quoting Vera Mont
What I say there may have come across the wrong way due to a possible terminological ambiguity. What I meant was that a government that enforces law in accordance with religious dogma is not worse than a government which enforces law in accordance with anti-religious dogma. The kind of government I am talking about would be the opposite of a theocracy which mandates religion, and its involvement in politics by banning religion altogether, and disallowing any political opinions which are religiously motivated.
It's one thing to disallow the legal enforcement or political mandating of religiously motivated discrimination against, for example LGBT people, and another to legally enforce disallowing anyone to even hold or express such personal views publicly. The latter, no matter how distasteful you might find the views to be, is anti-democratic.
To put it plainly, an anti-theocracy, as I intended the term, would be one which banned religion altogether. Would you want that?
I think all of the frustration is coming from your words, not mine. You only offer pantomime style responses, you offer no supporting evidence or examples or valid counter arguments.
Janus: "Universeness! Make an actual argument." :cry:
Me: "I already have, many of them, many times" :roll:
Janus: "Oh no you haven't, admit it!" :groan:
Me: "Oh yes I have, so you need to read my posts again and try harder to understand them" :smile:
Janus: "Oh no you haven't, and oh no I wont, I wont, I wont, I wont! You're a fanatic!! Universeness!" " :broken:
No, I'm not backing away, but that is a matter of fact, not a matter of argument, which I support with a wiki link. Clearly there are other sources (psychological) of dogmatism, fundamentalism and literalism which are to do with identification. But that happened and was noticed at the time as wiki says. And you can see the same process at work in reverse too. I make a criticism of some atheist argumentation, people take it personally and their position hardens, even to the point of my explicitly being blamed for setting them up, for some trollish reason. This is what happens when someone's identity is felt to be attacked, because people are not nearly as rational as they would like to think they are - that is an identification, that also leads to dogmatic thinking.
My moral position is that this is a 'good thing', because rationality becomes robotic and dehumanising, because human nature, and the nature of all living things is to care about things, and caring is not rational.
:up: I agree that people are not as rational as they imagine. Also, rationality as a principle of argumentation is really just being consistent and coherent in your thinking, and says nothing about the premises. A rational argument can be based on unsound premises; many are. The premises themselves are often emotionally driven, and in any argument are not rationally supported by the argument itself, lest the argument be circular.
No one on this thread, has ever suggested banning religion or theism or theosophism, that would only increase it's status and offer it an underground cool status.
I advocate for neutralising it's ability to influence people, in the same way as I advocate against people being given medication, they really don't need. Nefarious big pharma owners make so much money from doing so, that they demonstrate clearly, that they prefer profits to the well being of people.
Horrors like the Sackler family and their wonder, but in fact horror opiate drug OxyContin, would be an example, of the analogy, I would cite.
Theism/religion plays a similar role in sooooooo many peoples lives. It can help you in the short time but the side effects and long term ramifications are problematic for most, at best, and downright disastrous, when it controls the mindset of so many powerful people/politicians, in positions of authority. Even in so called secular political systems, who claim to have separated theism from politics. :roll:
A god 'fearing' politician is a danger. I would not call for a law that only allows non-believers to hold political office, because I am a socialist and that would not be acceptable. I rely on the people to become educated enough to be able to see the dangers of religious zealots, and be able to recognise them by being able to penetrate the stealth tactics and camouflage used, and not vote for them or even learn that no-one should ever ever ever, send any of their money to such nefarious characters as TV evanhellists.
Whaaaaat? Do you really feel like that? Is that unenlightened or just sooooooo sad?
If you truly believe 'caring is not rational,' than how would you ever be capable of experiencing love?
I know most members on this site are not too keen on cheerleading but that was a 'knock out' sentence imo. I think even William Lane Craig would have felt the pain of that one!
I think that it's valid to state that it does not definitively follow, that anti-theism is as bad as theism.
Thanks. :up:
Yes. But I don't think that anything goes. "Valid" is the word I think of as correct.
Validity depends on context. By asking different questions, one sets a context. There's an old question about whether Epicurus anticipated modern atomic theory. For me, the answer is no, since he didn't know modern science and his atoms are very different from ours. Not everyone feels the same way. But I don't argue with them. I just ignore them. Again, some people think that Berkeley anticipated relativity theory. There are striking resemblance and connections, but I think that "anticipated" is far too strong. Our relativity is very different from his.
The complication comes with "meaning". In ordinary language, we do get involved with what the speaker/author intended; we divine those by the context. If I'm a soldier on parade, the words of command mean (intend when uttered) a precise response. Alternative interpretations are frowned on. Flexibility of interpretation is appropriate in response to the kinds of case that we have been talking about, but that's a different context.
That's fair. There's a very fine line between parking the question what burning (as in fire) is when you are an alchemist and don't have the theoretical context to explain the phenomena (which turned up eventually in molecular theory) and dodging the issue, as when Aristotelians ended up characterizing matter as pure potential.
Quoting 180 Proof
Strange that you should that what I said was a change of subject.
:up:
Quoting universeness
Insofar as either stance dictates to others, or indoctrinates them, as to what they should believe, they are as bad as each other.
Point taken.
Not recognizing a bit of fun when I was talking about the role of fun in philosophy is a bit of a mis-step.
Quoting Tom Storm
I'm very taken with Hume's distinction between excessive scepticism and moderate scepticism. He condemns the former and recommends a dose of ordinary life as a cure, but recommends the latter as the best approach to life, including philosophy.
PS added later. Hume describes moderate acepticism as "judicious" which I think is a splendid and spot on. I couldn't remember it when I wrote the last paragraph.
It's a question of one's attitude to others. Subject to the paradox of tolerance and provided tolerance doesn't mean one cannot listen to others and take them seriously, your route seems the only tolerable option.
I once knew someone who was passionate about the Enlightenment. Unfortunately, he took this to mean that when someone disagreed with his argument, he should repeat the argument. He was perfectly patient, never dogmatic, but never responded properly. He was dogmatic, but not offensive - just boring.
I think you have this backward. Validity is logic based, and relies on interpretation. Definition is essential to validity, as the fallacy of equivocation demonstrates. So interpretation is prior to logical proceeding, as prerequisite and necessary for it. Therefore interpretation cannot be judged in terms of valid and not valid, which are standards of logic, it must be judged by some other standards.
Quoting Ludwig V
Based on what I said above, I think this is incorrect. Logic is designed to be context independent, that's the beauty of it. Definitions and such release it from the confines of context, and this is what gives it such a wide ranging applicability. Context serves to ground any premises which are not clearly defined. And of course, since we cannot have an infinite regress of words defining words, there will always be an appeal to context, ultimately, for complete understanding. But this has to do with the soundness of the logic, not the validity. So soundness may depend on context, but validity does not.
I would propose a distinction between two forms of context, primary and secondary context. "Context" in the primary sense refers to the mind of the author, what the author was thinking about. "Context" in the secondary sense refers to the author's surroundings, one's environment. We mut be careful not to conflate or confuse these two because this would leave us susceptible to deception. In general, we have access to the author's environmental conditions, to a large extent, through our sensory capacities, and we assume to an extent that the author's mind reflects one's environment to an extent. But this is really a mistaken assumption, because the author's writing is an expression derived from one's intention, which is not necessarily a reflection of that person's environment. Therefore it is necessary to establish the author's mind, with its intention, as primary context, and allow that there is no necessary relation between this and the secondary context, the author's environment.
What do you feel? Do you feel rational? It appears you are incredulous that I even mean what I say. But perhaps you can tell me the rationale of love? I would be most interested...
What about peanut butter? Or electric cars? Or Hemingway? May one judge them according to one's inclination? Where there is no authority, or set criteria, how can there be dogma?
Exactly. But you should start to be afraid.
and, of course, lest we forget
You figure an emotional, raggle-taggle bunch of unbelievers on a sliding scale poses an equal threat?
More educated in how to prevent the more nasty affects religion can have on a person individually and on the society you are trying to exist within, as a whole. I have never suggested that there are no good people who are religious. I do however, believe personally, that theism produces a net loss for the human race. I want to bring the detailed evidence available for such a claim to the top 5 of the list of what global humanity is discussing.
There is an ever growing list of 'educated' theists rejecting their religious beliefs. How do you account for such current examples as Bart Ehrman and so many others. I don't want to type a long list of current names, but I will if you need me to. There is even lists on wiki, such as 'converts to non-theism.'
Quoting Janus
Imho, @180 Proof has destroyed this argument. It is very very possible that the 'anti' position can absolutely be the better position for the stakeholders involved. The examples he gave were too strong to be denied, if you are a decent human being. Being an anti-fascist is better than being a fascist. Do you agree? I assume the only people who might disagree would be fascists!
So anti-theism 'could' be a better position than theism but! Those people like me, who suggest it is, do have to convince others by empirical evidence. That is the 'fanatical,' :roll: suggestion I am trying to make, on threads and sites such as this one. I further accept that you are of the opinion that I am having very little success in my efforts against theism, religion and theosophism.
You will not be surprised that I disagree with your assessment.
Are you claiming that you never try to 'dictate' to any other human, that they have a belief, that you are convinced they need to stop believing?
What if they believe that white people are superior to black people or vice versa?
Of course, Dogs like dog food, but it's not a dogma, because if you don't like dog food, no dog will argue with you. But the position here is that religion is evil, not that someone personally would rather be without it, but help yourself if it floats your boat. If there were no authority being asserted, there would be no atheist dogma being exhibited and the thread would have been quite short. But the authority of science and of rationality is very much being claimed and asserted against any form of religious talk, even and especially talk that embraces metaphorical meaning.
I was please that you like my previous post. I have to say, you have a way of putting things that I simply cannot help responding to. And it seems, we are capable of conducting a dialogue. It's not every day that one finds that.
To the quotation:- Well, yes. But then, it is a context, if a special one. I don't want to get trapped into defending my use of "valid" - which, by the way, has uses in many context apart from logic. I was trying to say that not every madcap idea counts as an interpretation. There are limits. The text is flexible, but only up to a point.
As to your primary and secondary context, I think we need a few more. The author's environment, social, physical, intellectual, etc. is certainly one context. The readers' environment is another one, and of course that may break down into a number of sub-contexts; it may overlap, to a greater or lesser extent with the author's environment. Finally, there are the multifarious contexts of posterity. This is relevant because when the text is read in a different context different questions, issues, priorities may come up and lead to a need for interpretations that go way beyond anything the author could have meant or thought. But still, it is not the case that anything goes.
That's a widely-held opinion, very much akin to witchcraft is evil. But I've never heard an atheist leader write into law: "Thou shalt not suffer a religionist to live. "
Quoting unenlightened
Could you cite the constituted authority which determines atheist policy?
It would be better if you attempted to answer the questions you were asked before asking your own questions. I will be more balanced, and answer your questions first, before repeating mine.
I feel a myriad of emotions, instincts, wants, needs, preferences etc. Some seem very rational at the moment I cognise them, such as 'I feel hungry, so get food!' Some feel irrational, such as, I am really attracted to that 32 year old, very pretty, rich, female pop star. I wonder if she would go on a date with me if I contacted her and asked. That is something that I would consider an irrational thought. So, I experience rational and irrational thoughts. I tend to act on the rational ones and rarely act on the irrational ones unless the circumstances involved, offers very little choice.
The basis of love imo, comes from the natural imperative to continue our species, nurture our children co-operate closely with others, as a motivational aid to help generate cause, purpose, and meaning in our lives
I don't value love above all else in any way whatsoever.
I think only species like humans, who live very short lives, could believe that love is most important of all.
I do think however that love is a very powerful/dangerous/wonderful human emotion. That's my rationale of love. Now I have answered your questions perhaps you could attempt to answer mine.
I repeat:
Quoting universeness
Quoting universeness
Are you looking for the opinion of others regarding this quote, before you offer your own?
Is another way of putting this:
If you love someone then you must have no reasons to!
That's hillariously in character -- Disagree with me? Why, you must not understand! :D
Quoting universeness
It's a foolish question to my mind because rationality is about reasoning verbally mathematically and conceptually in a logical way. Feelings are an attitude one has to things. So to feel hungry is to want some food. there is no argument that convinces someone to be hungry, any more than there is an argument that convinces it to rain. Loving is commonplace and normal for humans; it's a feeling that comes over one as a response to another. But your rationalising of your response to these feelings makes no sense to me. They are your thoughts about your feelings not any reason for having them.
Quoting universeness
That's not a rationale, that is a conflicted feeling about your feelings.
So yes, love is an emotion, and does not arise out of arguments and measurement of ratios. There is no reason to care but we do, there is no reason to love, but we do. That it promotes the survival of the species is perhaps why such attitudes have evolved in us; but that could only be the cause, not a reason. What you are calling rational and irrational feelings are distinguishing feelings you are happy to try and fulfil, from those you prefer to suppress.
Quoting universeness
Having the feelings I have is no effort at all for me, I love my wife and my children unconditionally or a Zizek says, 'for no reason' - unreasonably. And when one of them screams at me and rushes off slamming the door, it hurts, and I still love them. And there is no reason why.
Maybe none of that is at issue for you. And that's fine. However, nor was it my argument.
Quoting Vera Mont
You see, it wasn't a question of which is more evil, religion or witchcraft.
I was contrasting opinion with dogma.
I also have yet to see you make the case for a reaction causing an action.
Quoting Janus
The operative word there appears to be : insofar
which makes the equation
theist dogma = atheist dogma
a damned lopsided one.
Quoting unenlightened
Quoting universeness
Why did you choose to ignore this part of my rationale for the emotion of human love? Is it because that part was obviously nothing to do with 'feelings about my feelings,' The quote you did use is also not feelings about my feelings, it's love as I have observed it and interpreted it, affecting others, and myself, and it is based on what others have said to me, regarding the various experiences they have had with their 'other half.'
Quoting unenlightened
You are soooo far of the mark with this! If you show you care and you are capable of love then there is more chance of you receiving such in return. People in human communities who do not do so, are considered less sociable and less able to be a useful partner, such people are often ostracised and that can mean there is less chance of them surviving or reproducing.
This happens all over the animal kingdom as well.
There are very clear reasons for caring and loving for pack/social creatures such as humans, as such enhances the possibility that cooperation and collaboration between individuals, will be successful.
Quoting unenlightened
So you are able to act like most jungle based species then. Good for you. You contradict yourself. There is no reason to love but we love anyway merely means that the nurturing mother or father instinct is the 'natural' or 'normal' state in most humans. Such are reasons why you love your spouse and your offspring. The Zizek quote is nonsense imo. The difference between a reason to love and that which causes you to love is too small to be of any significance at all, imo.
Because saying something is natural is simply saying it is; life evolves so as to survive but for what reason does it survive? No reason, it just does. Reasoning is something people can do but often don't. it is a way of thinking dispassionately Ie without passion. One brackets off how one feels, what one wants and so on and leaves them out of account in order to be dispassionate and thus rational.
Quoting universeness
And for what reason does one want to survive and reproduce etc? For no reason except one happens to be made that way by the blind watchmaker, who as you know does not care about anything.
But this is boring now, I'll leave it there and stand with idiot Zizek in opposition to your reasonable love which is what we used to call 'cupboard love' - the love of personal advantage.
There may also be room, in the questions about love, for "Would you love any woman who was given to you in an arranged marriage (yes, they are real) exactly the same way as any other - for no reason, not even the biological reason that she's the legitimate mother of your genetic offspring?"
Or is there, perhaps, one you chose because you preferred her to the available others?
I have to I am sympathetic to this view. Love and reason do seem unconnected to me too. However to say categorically there is no reason may be pushing things. Could there not be reasons we are unaware of, or dimly ware of? We are attracted to people for reasons that are, possibly, hard wired in us. We go for certain types of people or genders and we are attracted to certain types of appearances, personalities and behaviors. It isn't a rational process, I agree, but there are still reasons. I am attracted to generosity and kindness and intelligence and humor. If the people I am attracted to hang around long enough, I may also grow to love them.
I am interested in you critiquing reason several times on this thread. Do I take it you believe the enlightenment project was largely a failure and that reason (which became a new god) has acquired a poisonous dimension under secular materialistic culture?
I like reason, and I use it. It keeps our thinking straight. What you say about unconscious desires, hard wired or not, may very well be true. but to call that a function of reason is to equivocate rather badly. Having a fetish for large breasts may be hard-wired by natural selection to favour generous feeders, or it may be an internet induced perversion of ordinary male desire, or just a random fixation, but what it most certainly is not is the result of conscious reasoning from premises to conclusion nothing like.
And this is the kind of reasoning that the religious are being accused of not following. I think they are still mostly just about capable of eating when hungry, despite the impediment of faith, as can other non-reasoning beings like frogs and horses.
I agree, I am bored to.
I have a friend who has been a friend for most of my life. He had an arranged marriage and has two sons from that marriage. Over the years he has explained to me all the different financial and 'family connections,' established as a result, that allowed various business ventures to go ahead, that resulted in more prosperity for all the family groups involved.
He has had affairs and I think he always will. My friend is not really religious, but he does what he has to do to 'fit in' with what's expected under the muslim rules. He will never leave his wife, as the consequences would be too much for him and his boys. His 5 brothers and two sisters all had arranged marriages and the family cooperations, are well engrained and very strong.
I don't know if he has ever really loved his wife. I could never be a part of such a system, but then, I was of course, not born into it.
I personally think that I could pick any city in the world at random or even most large towns and I could find a woman there that I could fall in love with, for all the usual reasons people do.
Friendship, love, loyalty, responsibility etc are all variations on a theme imo.
Love can result in some of the best moments in your life and some of the worst, but it's not anything near to the all powerful force that many claim it is, imo. It grows or arrives and it leaves and dies.
I always kinda liked the old Glasgow idiom, I used to hear all the adults say when I was young
'when trouble comes in, through yer door, love leaves the hoose, right oot the windae.'
As I already posted, the Zizek quote does not resonate with me at all, I think it's BS.
I already pointed out that 180s argument, by implication, equates fascism with theism, and by extension anti-fascism with anti-theism., and he claimed I was changing the subject. It is not a given that theism, per se, is an evil, whereas it is a given that fascism is. In any case why are you talking about fascism when the subject is theism? It is not me who is changing the subject.
Quoting Vera Mont
Theist dogma has been around longer than atheist dogma, and has, of course, historically done more harm. Perhaps it is still doing more harm today, since atheist dogma is not institutionalized like theist dogma is. The Catholic and other churches apparently have covered up an endemic practice of pedophilia, and that is a horrible practice that should be condemned. But I don't see that as a reason to condemn the catholic church as a whole, and certainly not theism as a whole.
It's a very complicated and nuanced issue and I don't believe it is possible to accurately measure the current net harm of theism vs atheism. As an atheist myself, my main point is that people should be allowed to make up their own minds about what they believe, so I think, for example, that children should not be indoctrinated either way, although it is inevitable that they will be influenced by their parents. I actually think it should be illegal for parents to force children to go, or not go, to church, although of course that would be a hard law to enforce adequately.
Human life is messy and will remain so into the future I believe. I just don't see religion as a major part of the huge suite of problems humanity currently faces.
The rise of religious nationalist movements in countries where poverty is rampant is no surprise given the human propensity under adversity to turn to religion. The only thing that could go towards solving this problem that I can think of would be increased general prosperity and given that that is a pipe dream in a world of rapidly diminishing resources and growing population, there would not seem to be much that militant atheism could contribute to the situation.
I actually think there is little point to this whole subject, at best it is a diversion from the really pressing issues, and at worst it contributes to divisions that are already growing everywhere due to the inevitably increasing hardships humanity is facing..
That's true, but it appears to have become part of - indeed has insinuated itself to the very center - of the pressing issues.
Quoting Janus
And your suggestion as to how to diminish the division is to shut down opposition to rising militant religiosity?
Quoting universeness
Well, it seemed relevant to your debate with unenlightened, and I agree with it.
Of course, maybe you can come up with reasons if you think about it, and this doesnt necessarily negate the love. So, sure, it might be an exaggeration
[quote=Adorno]But only exaggeration is true.[/quote]
What this means is that sometimes you have to exaggerate to speak the truth. Its a way of uncovering the essence of an object by pushing against the limitations of reason. Or, its a way of cutting through the bullshit, directing your thought in a motivated way that has no time for trivial counterexamples. A dangerous game, but probably important to insight in general.
But it could also be interpreted not as an exaggeration. What is it to have reasons? If its to have arrived at the love through ratiocination, or if it means that reasons are somehow constitutive of it, or are the motivation for it, then the statement is accurate. I dont decide to love someone based on a deduction.
So under that interpretation, giving or thinking of reasons post hoc is not what having reasons means.
Neither does it mean the causes of your love. An omniscient psychologists discovery of the objective reasons that you love a personwhich would mean the causes of your loveis not what is being discussed. What its about is having reasons of your own, as justification for your feeling.
Its a rich insight (though hardly an original one), so try to understand before rejecting. Be curious.
No, I think rising miltitant ideology in any form should be opposed.
I think that's a useful frame and it is insightful. I've generally held that most of the things I am passionate about did not come about through reasoning - music, art, books, films, people. Much of my reasoning about things is post hoc - I'm not sure if these are 'justifications', since I feel they are true to or integrated with my thinking and beliefs. I am fairly sure in life we have emotional impulses (inclinations/interests) and we fill these in with reasoning after the fact. My wording is a bit clumsy, but you know what I mean?
This is not addressed to me, but I think I know what you mean, and I agree.
Nice. Yes, I can see how this might get messy.
By whom?
:up:
Why must there be such limits? A madcap interpretation is still an interpretation. On what bases can you argue that just because the interpretation is so radically different from your interpretation, and the norm, it is therefore not an interpretation. Suppose for example that a person hallucinates and sees a tree as a monster. That is the person's "interpretation". The thing we perceive as a tree is perceived as a monster. We can argue that the interpretation is wrong because it's not consistent with the norm, but we have no basis for the argument that it's not an interpretation.
Quoting Ludwig V
I do not agree that the reader's environment ought to be allowed to enter as a factor in the interpretation. One must attempt to completely place oneself into the author's position, the context of the writer, to properly interpret, and this means negating one's own place. Of course this is impossible, in actuality, hence subjectivity enters the interpretation, but it ought to be held in principle because if it is not, then subjectivity is allowed into the interpretation, as a valid (your meaning of valid here) aspect. So, the reader's position, or environment is not a valid consideration in interpretation. For example, when interpreting your post, I would not assume that you must be using "valid" in the way that I would want you to, and insist that my interpretation is correct when I impose my understanding of " valid" on your writing, in my interpretation of your writing. For these reason's I would say that when interpreting the true meaning of an author's work, one's own environment must not be allowed to be a contributing factor. Incidentally, this is very evident in fiction, one must allow the author to describe the environment, and the reader must allow oneself to be transported to that environment, leaving one's own. In school we start by learning fiction, and it's good practice.
Quoting Ludwig V
This is the matter of subjectivity. it cannot be avoided. And this is simply the nature of language, interpretation is subjective. Further, there are two subjects, the writer and the reader, so subjectivity enters from both sides. Just like the reader must put oneself in the author's context to properly understand, the author must put oneself into the reader's context to be properly understood. Now, writing is not a one on one form of communication, but the author intends to be read by many, so the author's task is much more difficult.
What, like atheists?
Well, I'd agree that in part it is a matter of personal preferences, but that's kind of the tip of the iceberg, of subconscious factors impacting our reasoning.
Of course! Why haven't we thought of that? You start and show us how it's done.
(A) Show me evidence that g/G is true, or more likely true than not true.
(B) True or not true, I believe in g/G.
(C) It is usually more adaptive to not believe 'not true g/G' than to believe 'not true g/G'.
(D) Whether true or not true, you ought to believe g/G because we believe g/G (because g/G commands us to believe g/G].
(E) Think for yourself. Learn by doing. Trust but verify, etc.
(F) Obey g/G (via pronouncements by its representatives).
I agree that what might seem like personal preference is not free from other influences, but that is a whole different can of worms.
Quoting Vera Mont
What you've never thought that you should acknowledge that your reasoning is based on premises which are not unbiased? Are you unable to do that without my help?
Quoting Vera Mont
If the militant ideology is anti-theist, then it should be opposed by atheists if they are opposed to militant ideologies tout court. If they are not opposed to militant ideologies tout court then of course they won't oppose a militant anti-theist ideology. You really should have been able to work that out for yourself.
No, not that bit! I've got that down cold. It's the rapprochement with bible-thumpers I don't know how to do and am not sure I could stomach.
Quoting Janus
Oh, right. Oppose universeness. Yah, done that. Lost the argument. Retreated in disarray. Been called Brave Sir Robin by my pseudo-friends ever since. Not an experience I care to repeat.
I don't expect to be able to reason with fundamentalist theists any more than I do with miltitant anti-theists.
Quoting Vera Mont
I'm going to treat the above response as serious. If I'm mistaken about that then more fool me.
I'll grant that universeness is an ideologue, a fanatical anti-theist, but I don't think I'd call him or her a militant anti-theist. I doubt you lost the argument, because I don't believe any cogent or non-simplistic arguments have been presented by the person in question. I am curious as to which "pseudo-friends" you are referring to.
In any case if you can't reason with someone, you can't reason with them, and it's not your fault. For example, if someone says that religion has been and still is a net negative for humanity that is just an opinion unless backed up with data from extensive case studies. If it's just an opinion, the opiniated person is entitled to it, but as I see it are not to be taken seriously if they won't or can't provide convincing argument or evidence to support their opinions.
Could'nt resist this one @Jamal Do you think this statement by Janus makes him a fanatic?
A militant atheist who is a threat to innocent theists everywhere? Honest and honourable theists, who care that their children get exposed to the god inspired, support and love of their church. The intention of the parents is to morally guide the child correctly, yes, whether or not that 'religious experience' has been consented to by the child before every church attendance.
If the comply or threat, threat, threat message of the church does not get through then such children could become fanatic atheists!!!! Is that a fair concern?
Does the above statement from Janus, add to his evidence, that justifies his typing such as:
Quoting Janus
On the other hand, even in those circumstances, I can't really see how militant atheism would be either effective or necessary, since for most Muslims, their religion is just what gives shape and meaning to their lives at the ordinary everyday level. It's a luxury for me to say it, but it still looks to me like religion as such is not the problem, but the social and geopolitical situation in which religious divisions take on greater significance than otherwise.
He did not equate them, he compared them. He simply tried to explain to you that it is not fanatical or militant and is in fact 'reasonable' to suggest that an anti-theism position such as atheism! (that you yourself claim to be!) is a more reasoned position to hold than a theistic one. Theism is a net loss, in the atheist viewpoint, as an atheist population is one that is far more able to pursue the truth, in all circumstances, as they will not accept being told to be quiet and accept the word and laws of some unproven god. The message from most religions is:
'Don't worry your pretty little human brain with trying to answer the big questions, just do as we say, believe as we tell you, hate who we tell you and you will get your reward'after you are dead!!!'
You then state;Quoting Janus
How would you respond to a fascist that called you a fanatic and a militant due to your anti-fascist views.
I am sure this was quite a common occurrence between neighbours, in 1939 Germany.
It would be a BS claim against you yes? Just like your claim that I am an atheist fanatic is in fact you just throwing your toys around, because I have a high conviction level (as does many prominent atheists and scientists and more and more highly intelligent and highly qualified theologians/theistic scholars) that theism is simply based on proposals which are untrue.
:grin: But seriously... there is another variety of dogmatism, which is not quite the same. It starts from exactly the same response - "you must not understand me.", but does argue, properly at first. But when it becomes apparent that the proposition at stake will not be abandoned, (for example, as in ad hoc explanations), the debate is over - unless one can agree on a solution such "hinge proposition" or axiom, in which case a solution has been reached. Those solutions are a bit of a problem.
The key, though, is that proper engagement requires that one put one's own beliefs at stake.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
That's true. I'm happy to accept that a madcap interpretation is an interpretation, but only in the sense that a broken watch is a watch.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
You are quite right, of course. But fiction is a particular context. Even so, Aristotle says that a story must be plausible. I think that's too restrictive, yet there's something in it.
Can I give the same liberty to, say Berkeley's immaterialism/idealism? Assuming that it is a consistent and complete system on its own terms, I could have no objection. Could I object to Putin's interpretation of the history of Eastern Europe?
Another example (legal in this case) based on ancient memories of "The West Wing". Suppose a country has a constitution written more than 200 years ago. There is a provision that each geographical division of the country should send to the legislative body an number of representatives proportionate to its population. It is taken for granted that women do not count. It is further provided that slaves shall count as a fraction of a person (say 2/5th). Fast forward to the present. It is clear, isn't it, that something must be done. No-one is a slave any more, so perhaps that provision can be simply ignored. The provision about women was so obvious that it is not even mentioned, so perhaps one could simply include women. But it would be safer to delete the slave clause and add a definition of "person". You might not count that as re-interpretation, but it surely demonstrates that it is sometimes necessary to take account of the contemporary context as well as the historical context.
Quoting Jamal
Basically I agree with you. But the local religion is also part of the social and geopolitical situation. So perhaps it might be more accurate to say that religion is only part of the problem, or one factor in the problem. Or, perhaps still more accurate, that the local interpretation of the religion is a factor in the problem.
Religion's an enabler of those prejudices though innit. Not in the abstract. But would the world have had Qutub without an amenable Islamic ideology? I doubt it. Female genital mutilation without the religious practices that mandate it? I also doubt it.
Being strongly critical of politically ascendent religion is an attempt to create a liberal notion of freedom, which must be affirmed to make more radical freedom possible. IMO anyway.
Quoting Jamal
I think the content of your post that I took the above quotes from is fair enough but I think the assumptions made in your last sentence are inaccurate. You assume I don't understand before rejecting.
I disagree.
Quoting Jamal
My point is that identifying reasons for falling in love with someone is not post hoc. They are present in your thoughts during the very moments that the experience starts imo, the reasoning is just very fast and 'flash like'.
You, and imo, Zizek are suggesting that such as 'oh my goodness look at her over there, I think I'm in love!!' has no reasoning behind it. I think that's untrue. It's just that all the reasons are happening at top speed in your head.
It starts with.
Aesthetically stunning ....... tick
Posture alluring (sitting or walking) ...... tick
Body language ....... tick
These reasons are manifest in parallel thought.
These are enough reasons, to attempt initial contact and it can build from there or die quickly when one of her first questions is 'are you a fanatical, militant atheist?, because if you are then you can just f*** off, right now!'
Now if you still think I don't understand the Zizek quote, then I will admit to having a 'craft' (can't rationalise a f****** thing) moment and I would appreciate more assistance from TPF members in revealing to me, what it is about the Zizek quote I am still not getting! :grimace:
I agree. But being strongly critical of politically ascendent religion is not the same as being critical of belief in God as such. Militant atheism seems precisely too much "in the abstract". I mean, it doesn't seem fit for purpose in undermining fundamentalism and female genital mutilation; these might be better undermined by variant interpretations of scripture.
But I'm not strong on that point. I'd probably applaud a stronger anti-theistic movement in those parts of the world where theocracy is strong.
Oh shit! I hate/love tests like this. I am so good/bad at them, especially when written by a wordsmith.
F*** it, I'm just gonna go for it, I say (G) alone is fully dogmatic!
:gasp: :worry: :yikes: :death: :flower:
[hide="Reveal"]Only kiddin, I was not trying to suggest that it is that which is hidden that is most dogmatic, I of-course meant (F).[/hide]
Perhaps a better strategy.
Quoting Jamal
It helps though. I had a friend in Iran, there is a sizeable anti-theist anarchist black metal scene there. There'd be no way of mobilising that demographic with alternative interpretations of scripture.
But yeah. Anti-theists and anti-fundamentalists are good bedfellows.
I'm not in Russia right now BTW
K.I.S.S (Keep it simple stupid!) :kiss:
Quoting Janus
Yeah, do your own research lazy bones/brains, as has been typed many times on TPF, we cannot spoon feed everyone, all the time. There is not enough time to do so.
:up:
Yes, that was unnecessary. I was probably just trying to wind you up. It's a Scottish tradition; you can take it.
Quoting universeness
This is the issue and I think you're wrong. It reminds me of something that Bertrand Russell said about perception somewhere. He said something like, perception is inference from sense data to an image or model of the environment, and when it's automatic--because the environment is familiar and doesn't contain any surprises--it just means that the inferential process has just got really quick. This idea works no better for perception than it does for love, and I just think you're misunderstanding your own feelings.
Quoting universeness
So you might be conflating causes and reasons.
Quoting universeness
This is quite comical though. You don't fall in love using a checklist.
But what you're talking about here is an assessment of attractiveness, which I accept might have a checklisty character, although even then I think it's probably post hoc. In any case, the assessment of attractiveness is not falling in love.
:up: butyerbumsootrawindae!
The last two words of that sentence reminded me of a very pleasant email exchange I had with Joseph Atwill, who is the author of Caesars Messiah.
In his final email he commented:
Be careful when dealing with many, who claim to be atheists, they often make strange bedfellows with theists.
Speaking as a US Bible Belt preacher's kid*...
I appreciate you noticing that.
* 60 yo
I find it easier not to try. But I still recognize the main difference between them: the first holds it as his own inalienable right to force other people, through indoctrination, legislation and intimidation, to live as he believes they ought to live; the second holds as his inalienable right to live his life as he thinks he ought to, and defends the rights of other to live as they see fit.
Quoting Janus
OK.... um... ideologue, fanatical don't sound all that different from militant to me, but no quibble. whatever. I know he holds strong opinions, and expresses them forcefully. I disagree with some of them to various degrees, but I respect the hell out of his consistency of conviction and his right to express them any way he wants to.
Quoting Janus
Of course I did. Didn't sway him one iota, while I did revisit my own position on a couple of issues. The disarray was a facetious exaggeration; I am usually quite orderly in retreat.
Just watch.
You wouldn't know them. They live in the orange crate I use as a footstool; only I have seen or spoken to them. The upside is, we were in the same isolation bubble, safe from the antii-vaxx militant anti-maskers all through Covid.
I do believe I have said - up to four times each - everything I can possibly contribute here, and so it's time to retire from the field.
Cheers Vera! :flower: :flower:
I assume you are referring to a small part of our exchange on the 'culture is critical,' thread, yes?
We had plenty of common ground in that thread. You are a very honest and honourable interlocuter.
:rofl:
I hope you just mean this thread and not TPF Vera! :fear:
This is an interesting method for determining dogmatism!
It is interesting because the content of beliefs isn't referenced at all -- it's the character of the person at the moment rather than the beliefs, whether in content or even in relation to other beliefs. So any belief could serve as an example of dogmatism, depending upon the attitude of the person.
You may well be right. So I will retreat to saying that it depends on the details of the case and I won't argue about what "significance" means. I assume that if the people involved find religion significant in their context, it is significant.
Quoting Moliere
I'm glad you find it interesting. Now, I'm interested that you think that the content might be relevant. I never considered the possibility, because you find dogmatists everywhere. Atheists, priests, philosophers, football fans, etc. One could look at the status or role of the belief. But I'm reluctant to call axioms or "hinge" (or similar) propositions dogmas even though they are beyond argument, because they can be evaluated indirectly, through the system that results.
Originally, I was closer to considering content because I was thinking about dogma as a relationship between beliefs, which would be partially content-dependent -- if flipping the truth-value of a belief flips the truth-value of other beliefs that could only be judged if we knew what the beliefs are and their (informal) inferential relationships to one another.
Also I have been thinking about Kant throughout the discussion and his notion of dogmatism relies upon what can or cannot be justified -- so insisting that space is infinite, for instance, is dogmatic due to the place that "space" fits within the scheme of reason.
Quoting universeness
Why would thinking that children should not be forced to do what they don't want to make me a fanatic? And why appeal to @jamal for support?
Quoting Jamal
I agree, and I can understand being fanatically opposed to fanaticism, which has actually been my main point. It's the same as being tolerant of everything but intolerance.
Quoting universeness
He equated theism with fascism and sexism in the sense that what he said assumed that theism is an evil just as fascism and sexism are evils. Read it again.
Quoting universeness
So, you think fascism is, only relatively speaking, an evil? I certainly wouldn't have picked you for being a relativist.
Quoting universeness Sure, keep it simple if it's a simple topic or you are addressing simpletons, and don't unnecessarily complicate any explanation. In any case 'simple' does not have the same meaning as 'simplistic'.
Quoting Vera Mont
That's not how I would define a miltant anti-theist. A militant anti-theist is against all religion and will fight to eradicate it. A fanatical anti-theist may not fight to eradicate religion but will speak disparagingly against all theism. It's not a case of "live and let live" with fanatics, they will be in your face if you represent what they oppose, even if they don't attack you, or what you represent, physically. Bear in mind I am not opposing fanaticism being opposed by fanaticism.
Quoting Vera Mont
Sure, I respect his right to present his views too. Do you respect the right of others for calling out his views for being fanatical?
Quoting Vera Mont
Fair enough, but I wouldn't characterize that as losing the argument.
Quoting Vera Mont
:up: I feel pretty much the same at this juncture.
I wouldn't even accept this analogy. A broken watch does not do what it is supposed to do, keep time, a madcap interpretation does what it is supposed to do, provide an understanding of meaning. The madcap interpretation is just different, in the sense of being outside the norm, so to make the analogy good, the watch would not be broken, but giving you the wrong time. In theory there would be a way to "translate" the interpretation, like relativity translates different ways of keeping time, because as a translation it must be ordered in some way and not completely rendom.
Quoting Ludwig V
That depends on what you mean by "plausible". If it makes sense, it's plausible isn't it? But writing goes far beyond that, as lyricists in music and poetry for example string together disassociated ideas, to make a strange story. When interpreting a piece of writing we tend to look for consistency, and adhere to consistency as a principle, while overlooking the fact that the author could very easily stray from consistency even intentionally. So in philosophy for example, if we read something, and we cannot find a way to make it plausible, there is just too much inconsistency or nonsense, then we simply reject the material as unacceptable.
But even in these cases of rejecting the whole because it is incoherent as a whole, certain parts of the writing may be very insightful and illuminating. So the writing is rejected as a whole, but certain parts are very intelligible. And this can be reflected in the "madcap" interpretation. The interpretation itself is an expression, a piece of writing, and it is incoherent as a whole, but certain parts may be very intelligible. This is because the madcap interpreter releases the need for coherency, and this is actually very important because coherency is context dependent. We learn in school to think in certain ways. So when a modern person interprets an ancient writing, the person's ideas of coherency must be dismissed prior to proceeding, because the ancient people lived in a different environment of coherency. So the ancient person could very well be writing in a way which would appear incoherent to us today. Then the interpreter who tried to put things in coherent terms would br doing a faulty interpretation.
Quoting Ludwig V
I don't think this is a good example. This is not a matter of re-interpretation, it is a matter of rewriting the rule to better reflect modern values. What you seem to be saying, is that the rule as written is not applicable today, because of societal changes, so it needs to be rewritten.
A better example probably is the ongoing discussion around the second amendment in the US constitution, the right to bear arms. A common subject for debate is the intent of that amendment, and how that intent ought to apply in the modern day. It might seem sort of irrelevant to focus on th ancient intent, because we could simply change the wording if needed, as you suggest. But this is exactly where the problem lies, we look to these ancient laws as "authority", and so we make sure that it's not easy to change them. Therefore instead of looking to change them it just becomes a question of the intent behind them, and how to apply that same intent today. Once the intent is established it can be applied to the modern society. But to allow the condition of the modern society to influence how one interprets the intent of the authors would be a mistaken (subjective, because one's personal position would influence the) interpretation. The objective interpretation would be to look solely for the authors' intent, and not allow one's own intent to influence the interpretation.
Is there some sort of tribal purity requirement to being an atheist? Am I at risk of losing my atheist card for being friends with theists - for considering fellow social primates to be brothers?
Dogma is the bedrock of one's understanding; the bars on the cage of the mind that stop one falling out into the bliss of total ignorance. To imagine oneself without dogma is to imagine oneself as God.
The only avowedly atheist governments I know of are the old Soviet regime and Modern China. One might also include Japan, but not 'avowedly'.
It's a very small sample, but not a great record. the assumption seems to be that dogma makes for intolerance, but perhaps it is more related to power, and dogma is simply 'certainty'.
"Giving the wrong time" makes some sense. I'm not sure in advance that all madcap interpretations provide an understanding of meaning. On the other hand, I can see that you don't want to rule out radically unorthodox interpretations in advance. Perhaps we should lump all madcap interpretations into the same trash-heap.
I don't quite understand your last sentence. If it means that all interpretations must be mutually reconcilable, that undermines the point of different interpretations - unless the reconciliation is simply the original text, which all interpretations have in common.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
That doesn't seem obviously true to me. Philosophy has produced several theories which, in my view, make sense, but aren't plausible. My dream that I can jump/fly over tall buildings makes sense, but isn't plausible.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
Well, as usual, you have a coherent position. Revealing the incoherence of a text on its own terms is a perfectly coherent project. But would you say that Locke anticipated modern physics, or that Berkeley anticipated modern relativity theory?
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
But can we always divine the intent of the author? We can't always discern the intent of even modern authors from the text alone. But I accept that the intent of the author, so far as we can divine it, is always important in interpreting a text. The same applies to the context in which they are written. But if that's the only correct way to read them, I'm left puzzled by the fact that some texts remain relevant long after times have changed, and we continue to read and discuss them. Your approach seems to consign all historical texts to a museum.
I thought the starting-point of this discussion was the issues around the fact that there's no single authoritative (privileged) interpretation.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
You are right, that is a better example.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
Fair enough. But the catch is "how to apply that same intent today". That means interpretation in a context the author(s) didn't know about. There's a narrow line there between divining the intent of the author and speculating.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
I'm not well-informed about jurisprudence, but I believe that the Supreme Court in the UK has a rule that the intent of Parliament does not determine the meaning of the Act; it will only consider the words on the page. There's a notion of objective meaning at work there which philosophy would find troublesome, but nonetheless, lawyers seem to be able to work with it, and if meaning is use, that validates the principle, at least in the context of the law.
Quoting Moliere
I certainly agree that dogma is a relationship between beliefs, in that dogma is in some way protected against refutation, with the implication that other beliefs can go to the wall. But that status is attributed by the believer, so I don't see that I can delineate any content in advance.
Quoting Moliere
Yes. Kant is using "dogma" in its traditional, non-rhetorical use. Which is not wrong, just very unusual. One of my problems here is precisely to distinguish "respectable" dogma from the disreputable kind.
No, Mr Atwill was talking about the various clashes he has had with atheists such as Dr Richard Carrier, regarding the veracity of the content of his book.
See https://www.richardcarrier.info/archives/4664 from Carrier, and see Atwill's response at:
https://web.archive.org/web/20140327024645/http://caesarsmessiah.com/blog/2013/12/richard-carrier-the-phd-that-drowned-at-gadara/
Carrier supported a lot of the criticisms of Atwill's book made by theists but I think the reason Carrier did that was that he was becoming a bit jealous regarding Mr Atwill's rise to prominence. Some atheists enjoy the public limelight they have built, so much, that they will become bedfellows with anyone to attack another atheist they see as a threat to their standing/status. It's just another unpalatable part of the human psyche that can arise in some folks.
Theists who experience your law preventing them from compelling their children to experience their gods glory by attending their church, would definitely label you a fanatic, you fanatic!
:rofl: You think my post to Mr Jamal was a request for his support!
Quoting Janus
I think @180 Proof is the person who best knows what he posted, it certainly is not you. I suggest you read his posts again and again and again, until the penny drops.
Quoting Janus
Do you actually answer questions or can you only respond by asking other questions which are just really bad attempts to twist my questions?
If it makes my initial point any clearer for you, @Janus, I reiterate that your equating "anti-theism to theism" is as much a false equivalence as equating (e.g.) anti-dogmatism to dogmatism (or anti-supernaturalism to supernaturalism).
The point though is that I do not want to throw all madcap interpretations in the same trash-heap. As I said, the madman still expresses glimpses of insightful intelligence. And different madmen express different forms of insight. So their interpretations cannot all be classed together.
Quoting Ludwig V
That's right, they are all reconcilable through the original text, as "the object". But this implies that I affirm that there is nothing absolutely random which is added by the subject. If the subject added something which was absolutely random, it would be unintelligible through reference to the text, as completely unrelatable to it. So as much as we have free will and freedom to interpret however one pleases, I deny the possibility of an absolutely random act of interpretation. You can see how this makes sense, because such an act could not be related to "the object" and therefore could not be an interpretation.
Quoting Ludwig V
Sorry, but without some more information, such as the apparatus you would use to propel yourself, this idea of you flying over tall buildings makes no sense to me at all. How does it make sense to you?
Quoting Ludwig V
No, I would not say that at all, I do not use "anticipate" like that. But some people seem to use the word in a way which implies that this would make sense to them. I do not understand such a use of "anticipate". One can "anticipate" a defined future event, in the sense of prediction, but this requires that the event be defined. Also, one can have "anticipation" in a most general sense, without any definition of the future event which is causing the anticipation. This is better known as a general anxiety, and it can be very debilitating in some situations, because it is an anxiety which cannot be dealt with, as having a source beyond the usual "deadline" as a source of the stress.
But to mix these two senses of "anticipate" into some equivocated mess is just a category mistake. That is to name some particular event which was in the future at the time, "modern physics", or "modern relativity theory", and say that the person anticipated the particular, in the general sense of "anticipate". That, to me is an equivocated mess of category mistake. It is incoherent and makes no sense, even though some people like to say things like this.
Quoting Ludwig V
No, we can never "divine the intent of the author". That's why all interpretations are fundamentally subjective rather than fundamentally objective. We strive toward the objective interpretation, if truth is our goal, but we cannot deny the reality of the context of the interpreter, which is primary to the interpretation. The context of the author is primary to the object (written material), but the context of the subject is primary to the interpreter. Primary context is reducible, and simplified by representing it as intent. So the context which is primary to the author is the author's intent, and the context which is primary to the interpreter is the interpreter's intent. Since the interpreter's intent is primary in the act of interpretation, it is impossible for the interpreter to actually put oneself in the author's shoes, and "divine the intent of the author". This can never be done.
Quoting Ludwig V
I'll say that the author's intent is the "ideal". It is what we seek in "meaning", as meaning is defined as what is "meant" by the author, and this is defined as the author's intention. The problem is that there is no such thing as "the author's intent". "Intent" is just a descriptive word which refers to some unknown, vague, generality, rather than a particular "object". We can formulate simple examples of an "object", as a goal, like Wittgenstein does with "slab" and "block", etc.. If my intent, object, or goal is for you to bring me a slab, I will say "slab", and this expression represents a very specific, even particular goal (object), if it is a particular slab that I want. But these are very simplistic examples, which lend themselves well to simple fiction writing where the goal of the author is to create an imaginary scenario in the reader's mind. That's a very simple goal or object, which is easily determined as the objective of the fiction writer.
But when we get to philosophy, the intent of the author is not exposed in this way. This is because the intent of the author of philosophy, the author's goal, or objective, is often actually unknown to the author. We can express it in general terms like the desire for truth, or knowledge, or an approach to the unknown. But notice that since it is just a general "unknown" which the author is describing, or directing us toward, there can be no particular object which is being described by that author, so the intent remains veiled. This is the subjectivity of the author.
Notice the two forms of subjectivity, author and interpreter, and how they establish a relationship between "the object" in one sense as the goal or intent, and "the object" in the other sense as the physical piece of writing. Subjectivity of the interpreter is the veiled, unknown intentions of the interpreter, which influence the interpretation regardless of efforts to remove them; the interpreter cannot proceed without personal intention, and this will always influence the interpretation as subjectivity. Subjectivity of the author, is the veiled unknown intentions of the author, which influence the author's writings regardless of efforts made by the author to know, understand, and be true to one's own intentions; their are unknown aspects of one's own intentions (motivating forces) which cannot be apprehended despite all efforts of introspection.
Quoting Ludwig V
The issue, I believe is that it is all speculation. There is no science of "diving the intent of the author". So the art of interpreting can go in two very distinct directions. Remember what I said about the madcap interpretation, that parts are intelligible and insightful. We can consider the work of the author in the same general way, as parts. We can focus on distinct parts which seem to have very clear and distinct intention (meaning), and bring those forward in the interpretation, and have as the goal of interpretation a very "objective" interpretation. But this would ignore all the author's subjectivity. Or, we can focus on the aspects where the intent of the author is not clear at all, because the author was not truly aware of one's own intent. This allows the intent of the interpreter to represent the intent of the author in various different ways, and the goal here is a subjective interpretation. Then we have many options in between these two extremes.
Quoting Ludwig V
I don't see how "meaning is use" validates that principle. The word "use" implies a user, and the user of the words is the author. If meaning is use, then we must look for the intent of the author to see how the author was intending the words to be used. Words are tools, and tools have no general "use", as use is a feature of the particular instance where the tool is put toward a specific purpose.
Whew, I was afraid I was going to stop getting invitations to the baby roasts.
Thanks for letting me know where that came from, but a spat between Jesus mythicists seems too like a tempest in a teacup for me to be very interested.
Out of those three, only dogmatism (defined as the belief that one knows what others should think) is arguably an evil, per se. So anti-dogmatism thereby is arguably a good. Theism and supernaturalism are not necessarily dogmatisms; people may believe in those without thinking that others should believe in them. If anti-theism and anti-supernaturalism are dogmatic, then they are arguably evils and worse than non-dogmatic theism and supernaturalism. If anti-theism and anti-supernaturalism are merely positions that one holds personally and does not claim that others should hold those positions, then they are morally equivalent to non-dogmatic theism and supernaturalism, I hope that makes clear for you what my position is. And note I don't require you to agree with me, but in my view if you don't then your thinking is narrow-minded if not dogmatic, because you are assuming that theism and supernaturalism are evils tout court.
Quoting universeness
Right, but I don't think it is dogmatic, but rather I think that not forcing children to do what they don't want to except in practical life matters where it may be necessary, is fair-mindedness towards children and even if I am being dogmatic, I have already acknowledged that I think it is OK to oppose dogma with anti-dogma, intolerance with anti-intolerance and fanaticism with anti-fanaticism. Now you might characterize those "antis" as dogma, fanaticism and intolerance respectively, but if they are they are of the good kind in my view, because they uphold the principle of "live and let live" and I think of that as applying to all but those who will not live and let live.
Atheist dogmatist confirmed.
Some chickens have been fully cooked. We both know it's futile to try to reverse the cooking but as I have typed many times, demonstrating how deep the cooking can penetrate into some chickens, can help others get out of the ovens in time. I think this thread is dead!
I was thinking that if there is some truth in the madcap interpretation, it isn't madcap. But still, there is the point that interpretations may be mixed. Perhaps all interpretations will be found to be mixed. In any case, perhaps a trash-heap, as such is not such a good idea. Still, I'll want to know what to spend my time on. Difficult.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
No. Tools do have a general or standard use. It is true that bricolage can develop other uses, which may even become standard, but that doesn't undermine the point. I don't see why a particular view of interpretation should not be adopted in a particular context provided that practitioners are able to work with it.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
There's certainly a spectrum of the kind you indicate and important difference between "simple" cases and "complex" ones.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
That exactly my bother about the "intent" criterion and why I can't accept the definition of a speech act in terms of intention. Plus there's the objection that "meanings just ain't in the head" - who was it who coined that?.
I don't think we should use "truth" here. I tried to distinguish subjective and objective features, but since the subjective was described (by me) as primary, I don't think there is a good place for that word.
Quoting Ludwig V
This is a very problematic position to take. Any claim of such a "general or standard use" will miss out on a whole bunch of non-standard usage which is just as real as that contained by the general description. Making such a claim, is just a generalization intended to facilitate some argument. "The standard use of a hammer is to pound nails". That statement, although one might agree that it is "the standard" use, does not validate any rigorous sense of "the use of a hammer", in a general sense.
In other words, we have invalid inductive logic at play here. Generalizations are produced through inductive logic, and exceptions are evidence that the induction is invalid. So every example of an exception to the rule of "general or standard use" is proof that the generalization is composed of invalid logic. In the case of word usage, the proof is overwhelming. Therefore the problematic position you propose is not at all philosophically useful because the invalidity of the inductive reasoning is very strong.
Quoting Ludwig V
That the intent is sometimes simply not there, is no reason why we ought to look somewhere else to find "the true meaning". The lack of intent only reinforces the claim that the meaning is subjective. That we ought to look somewhere else for the true meaning is completely unwarranted. Such a procedure, to seek objective meaning when the meaning is subjective, can only produce can only produce false or fictitious meaning.
You ought not think of meaning as in the head. It's far easier to understand meaning as being in the writing itself, but put there by the author. So for example, when the writing is judged as unclear, vague, ambiguous, incoherent, or inconsistent, this is a judgement against the artistic capabilities of the author. However, some of these features may be placed intentionally into the work, by the author, and if the interpreter does not apprehend this it is actually the capabilities of the interpreter which are at fault. The writing itself is the object, and meaning is in the object, as a representation of the author's objectives. That the meaning is subjective implies that it is "of the subject" as in from the subject, not in the subject.
Quite right. I was careless. I should have said, "I was thinking that if there is some validity in the madcap interpretation, it isn't madcap". However, doesn't "objective" means capable of unqualified truth or falsity? "Subjective" is more complicated. I think that some people would say ¬"subjective" means not capable of either truth or falsity, while others would say it means "true or false for someone".
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
I didn't say or imply that non-standard uses of a tool are not uses. On the contrary, they clearly are.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
Sorry, I was't careful enough, again. A normal claw hammer is designed and manufactured for people to pound nails (and to pull them out). (There are other kinds of hammer designed to pound other things.) Most people use their hammers most of the time for the designed purpose - they perform better than most alternatives. I agree that's an empirical generalization.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
Well, I understood "in the head" to be metaphorical for "in the mind", which is itself a metaphor. To my mind, so is "in the text". But it is true that the text expresses the author's intention or even is what the author intended to write - curiously even if certain parts/features were not intended, but developed as the text was written. It all gets hideously complicated. I think the rest of that paragraph is OK.
But I think you may be too restrictive if you are saying that the meaning of a text is limited to what the author intended. I don't see how anything can prevent other people from finding meanings (or quasi-meanings?) in the text which are not misinterpretations but which the author had not noticed. Plato was right - a text does not know who to speak to, but speaks to everyone equally.
Right... if we have reputable dogma then my dogma is good and their dogma is bad.
Quoting Ludwig V
True.
Though I wouldn't propose content could be understood in advance -- only after reading or understanding or listening or something like that. The informal inferential relationships come to be known through reading scripts or through conversation, and can partially define dogma.
Though that's very cumbersome in comparison to:
Quoting unenlightened
Which is succinct and manages to lay out what's meant. I'm understanding better what is meant by dogma at this point.
This clicked:
Quoting unenlightened
I've been expressing my own disdain for certain patterns of thought, a certainty which I've acquired through experience.
I was thinking of dogma differently before, but I think I can get along with this way of talking.
Well, yes - if you don't have a definition of "reputable" that's not subjective.
Quoting Moliere
I like unenlightened's first sentence. I don't understand the second.
Quoting Moliere
Dogma includes "certainty", in the psychological sense. But psychological certainty is a trap, precisely because it leads to dogma and there's nothing like power for fostering certainty beyond what's reasonable.
Oh, Lord, please don't let me be misunderstood.
This...[quote="unenlightened;814272"] the assumption seems to be that dogma makes for intolerance, but perhaps it is more related to power, and dogma is simply 'certainty'./quote]
...I now see is badly phrased and confusing. Let me remove the ambiguous "it" and replace it thus:
The assumption seems to be that dogma makes for intolerance, but perhaps intolerance is more related to power, and dogma is simply 'certainty'.
This hopefully aligns fairly well with your"...there's nothing like power for fostering certainty beyond what's reasonable."
I'm sorry. Those pronouns like "it" are very easy to misunderstand. This version is fine.
Heh. I think the people I read and like would say you cannot have that definition :D. Or suggest it, in various ways that doesn't assert it.
I'll grant differences, though. While NIST is ultimately a maker of subjective definitions, they are inter-subjective and checked and about as good as you can get for those purposes. That's not the same as me claiming this or that brand of peanut butter is better though; we'd call that obviously subjective.
Quoting unenlightened
Quoting Ludwig V
So I'm just going to ask the obvious: Did we actually find a description of dogma that three of us are fine with?
I'm sorry, I can't decipher NIST. What does it mean?
One could claim that one brand of peanut butter is better than another on objective grounds - that it is organic or doesn't use palm oil. Sure, the fact/value distinction would kick in, but the argument about whether those grounds are appropriate is at least not straightforwardly subjective. Whereas making that claim on the ground that "I like it" is quite different; that would be subjective. (But "I like it because it is organic" is different.)
"Reputable", it seems to me has objective elements, because (in normal use) it would be based on reasonably objective grounds. The question would be about the worth of, for example, relevant social status (relevant professorship or other mark of success).
Quoting Moliere
It looks like it. :grin:
I accept that if we dig in to it, we'll find differences of opinion.
I'm sorry! I should have posted a link and not just assumed we might use the same acronyms. The National Institute of Standards and Technology has a peanut butter reference standard.
Quoting Ludwig V
Yup, I think I can go along with this. I'm not hardline on how I use the objective/subjective distinction. There are other ways of expressing the same without it.
But, yes, the examples were meant to highlight exactly that one can claim this peanut butter does or does not fit a standard, or has so much oil concentration in it, or is organic and that'd be the "objective" example with NIST, and the "subjective" example is the "I like Brand A over Brand B", though in normal usage there are fuzzy cases (which is why I'm not hardline on how we use objective/subjective).
Surely with dogma, though, there'd have to be a shared other dogma which would allow for a third party to be relevant? Which is where the subject would come back into the mix -- we can poison the well ahead of time and claim our dogma is good, and their dogma is bad objectively because we have chosen a judge. This process can be repeated so as to bury the foundations, so that the judge is also chosen on objective grounds -- philosophers would be tempted to call this ground "reason".
But reason speaks differently to different people, and people are motivated by passion before reason so subjectivity has a way of coming back around even as we try our best to adhere to objective reason.
But in normal use, yes I agree. Relevant social status, and also I think a general sort of trust in our social designations gets us over the intellectual hurdles. If my doctor was right about a sickness before then she's probably right about this one. Being in a safe social environment which allows for that kind of trust is a very important feature of being able to have reasonably objective grounds for everyday use, though. If we trust our third parties and they have the relevant social status then there are objective grounds.
Quoting Ludwig V
True.
I'm still happy. Progress!
Originally I wanted to have a kind of rule for classifying dogma, but this way of looking isn't really like that. It's probably better that way.
Thats a problem. If there is to be a discussion, there needs to be shared ground. Wittgenstein would talk about shared practices and ways of life. IMO thats not wrong, but too vague for specific applications. For example, discussing something is a practice (or, a collection of practices, since discussions can range from gossip and banter to legal procedures and rules of evidence to academic theories of different kinds). But it would be a start to say that the practice needs to be shared. (A practice does not need to be correct; its only wrong if it isnt practical, in the sense of enabling the discussion) In one way, the practice needs to be objective, but we dont really need that inter-subjective or at least allowing space for each party - will do.
Quoting Moliere
Tell me about it!
Subjectivity has a way of reappearing whenever we think weve got rid of it. Why do we want to get rid of it? Perhaps because objectivity is a way of making interesting disoveries and resolving disagreements, and we put quite a high (but not supreme) value on that.
Theres a sense of reason in which reason moves nothing as Aristotle said. Humes version was, of course, the is/ought distinction. That means, as Hume pointed out, that reason is a slave to the passions good only for working out means to the ends (values) set by the passions). (Spoiler alert only in one sense of reason, IMO)
In another part of the jungle, the is/ought distinction shows that theoretical reason is not relevant to the passions. But that doesnt need to mean that they are irrational. There are reasonable fears and unreasonable fears, reasonable joys (winning the race) and unreasonable joys (preventing an opponent from winning the race unreasonable because it undermines the point of the practice of racing.) (Actually, reasonable is useful also in theoretical contexts, when formal conclusive proof is not available.)
Quoting Moliere
Rules are fine in their place. They are best developed after one understands the relevant practice(s). Sometimes, as in the rules of a game, we have a more or less free hand what we say goes. But we are nevertheless constrained, if we want people to play the game, by what people find worth-while and/or amusing. In addition, rules can only be effective if there is agreement on how they are to be applied (i.e. in the context of a practice). It is important to be aware that every rule can (and mostly likely will, eventually) encounter circumstances in which the appropriate application may be unclear or disputed.
Quoting Ludwig V
Hence one has recourse to dogma: "The referee's decision is final." Or the Supreme Court's, or the Central Committee's, or whatever.
Right, even when wrong unquestionable.
We can debate the meaning of any word, but only by not debating the meaning of the words we use to debate it. Thus even a debate on the meaning of dogma requires a dogmatic understanding of 'meaning', 'debate' etc. One might say that dogma is the (perhaps temporary) still, fixed point of the mind.
My thread, my rules; this is what dogma is, and this is my dogma. :rofl:
Yes. Maybe this will be merely annoying, but there is a difficulty when we cannot appoint a referee. We look for a substitute - something that will determine the decision. This applies to truth, as in science. We look for facts, or we look to reason - even logic. It doesn't work very well. Hence fact and reason begin to get a bad name. Pity. There's no better authority.
Quoting unenlightened
So, paradoxically, we are modifying what "dogma" has meant through most of this thread. Now, we are distinguishing between good dogma and bad dogma. I can live with that. I still reckon I can tell the difference.
The thing is, "the still, fixed point of the mind" can change status and become the subject of a discussion. That's what preserves us from arbitrary authority.
Quoting unenlightened
:wink: That seems reasonable and I will defer to your judgement. If I don't like it, I can always go away.
If you don't like it, you can appeal to the mods, whose dogma is final, subject to the terms and conditions of the service provider, that are subject to the various laws of the countries involved, subject to anyone giving enough of a damn to set about enforcement.
[quote=Lao Tzu]If men are not afraid to die,
It is of no avail to threaten them with death.
If men live in constant fear of dying,
And if breaking the law means that a man will be killed,
Who will dare to break the law?
There is always an official executioner.
If you try to take his place,
It is trying to be like a master carpenter and cutting wood.
If you try to cut wood like a master carpenter,
you will only hurt your hand.[/quote]
I take your point. Life is complicated, isn't it? However, your last clause hints at the basis of success for a dogmatic person. Keep the people quiet, because if they get really riled, you're in trouble.
Your quotation is an excellent example of the genre. Lao Tzu always steers neatly between the bleedin' obvious and the intriguingly mysterious. Each element is perfectly clear, but why they are arranged like that is completely mysterious. But I guess you quote it because there is a connection with what we're talking about. Power, and its ultimate form, death, is the ultimate weapon of dogmatics; its limitation is that it only works when people fear death; when people lose their fear of death the dogmatic can wreak terrible destruction, but will lose in the end. Philosophers seem to hate talking about power in human society and loath to acknowledge its role.
Because then we can be more correct than the other guy, objectively ;). "He can carry on with his thoughts, but I know the truth, and here are my reasons, and here are the people who will respect me for this belief", to interpret "objective" as a more competitive desire than a cooperative one. If my beliefs are objective than I can state them proudly, declaring their truth in spite of opposition. Or I can choose to quietly move on. Either way I am invulnerable to my interlocutor whose beliefs are wrong or dogmatic or subjective.
If my beliefs are subjective then while they are important to me they aren't important to others except insofar that they take an interest in me, and likewise in order to find out what's important to them I'd have to listen. But that's no fun in comparison to being right so we get rid of the subjective in favor of the objective in order to win the game of being right, and having been right all along.
At least this is another motivation for the game of reasons that lives alongside the cooperative motivations. And the subjective, in relation to that motivation, is a position of vulnerability rather than invulnerability. Whether either is called for depends upon circumstance, though -- I don't think that can be decided ahead of time. And, however we might spell out objective/subjective, we'll always be both of these things at once.
Quoting Ludwig V
"Reasonable" works well. I think that's more or less our limit as human beings -- we can be reasonable within a particular practice which requires reason. I have to say it's a particular practice because I'm skeptical about reason in general. I think reason gets re-expressed and re-interpreted depending upon what we're doing rather than having it act like an arbiter or judge of the reasonable.
I'm in full agreement that the passions are not necessarily irrational, though. That's one reason why the distinction is fuzzy in normal use. There are frequent examples which touch on both the objective and the subjective, such as the category of "reasonable emotions" -- which I endorse as a good way of looking at one's emotions under certain circumstances, but in others I'd say it's inappropriate such as what someone feels while watching a play.
Reasonable passions are what decent, {ie English} people feel. The Continentals cannot control themselves, and the savages don't even try.
I think it goes like this : Given fear of death, fear of tigers and poisonous snakes is 'reasonable' in the sense that they are capable of causing death, whereas fear of mice is not. But as Hume famously didn't say, "you can't get an emotion from a fact". Fear of death is not reasonable, merely common. Lay on, Macduff, And damned be him that first cries Hold! Enough!
I agree. There has to be something aside from the emotion in order to be able to say that a fear is unreasonable or reasonable (it can even be another emotion about the emotion). One environment where I think this classification can be appropriate is the therapeutic environment. If a person fears death so much that they aren't able to live life, and they want to live life, then it is unreasonable, by that desire, to fear death (that much). This is a simplification, though, for how we evaluate desires as being reasonable or unreasonable. There's truth to your:
Quoting unenlightened
Not only because we compare back to ourselves in judging others reasonable, but also because of the notion of self-control: a peculiar notion which always feels contradictory to me. As if anyone could be other than who they are (when the notion is usually invoked to say that a person lacks self-control, which is to say, they dislike how that person behaves -- rather than it being a character trait)
The flexibility of all this is quite tiresome. Philosophers, at least, regarded the subjective ("introspection") as preferable because they thought it was immune to error - the same reason as their preference for mathematics. Aiming for something objective meant risk to them - something to be avoided at all costs.
Quoting Moliere
You're right about that. But people do hunger for something decisive. Not knowing makes for anxiety.
Quoting unenlightened
Well, emotions and values are ineradicable (saving certain ideas like Buddhism (nirvana) or Stoicism/Epicureanism (ataraxia)) from human life. We need to understand them whatever their status. Human life is a good place to start to identify what's valuable (and therefore to be desired or avoided, loved or hated, feared or welcomed. Where else would be better?).
Quoting Moliere
To me as well. It's just a manifestation of the preference for hierarchy. I think competing emotions and inability to decide (not necessarily irrational - sometimes there is no rational answer) are enough to explain the phenomena. No need for an arbiter.
For fear of being tiresome (but admitting that I hold things flexible and open, and it can be tiresome): Is that not the desire to be invulnerable?
Here the philosophers cast the objective as vulnerable, the subjective as invulnerable -- so we have a certitude from which we can build towards the objective. Or vice-versa, for thems who think that measurement is invulnerable, and introspection is vulnerable, we can have certitude from measurement and build towards introspection.
Usually I opt to drop subjective/objective as a distinction because it's more confusing than helpful. Within a practice it's fairly easy to differentiate. But In general, like in a philosophical discussion, especially a general philosophical discussion, I've noticed the terms are worm-like. (to use a vague but hopefully accurate metaphor)
Quoting Ludwig V
And even with those ideas, depending on how we interpret emotion and values they are [s]not[/s] ineradicable as much as they can be "tamed" to live a certain way. Marcus Aurelius certainly felt things, as demonstrated by his meditations -- he just addressed his feelings from a stoic perspective. (though I'll note I even interpret Kant as emotion-driven in this sense -- since respect for others is an emotional attachment, and that's a simplified but close interpretation of what holds his ethics together on the emotional side)
I think the question I'd ask is -- human life is a good place to start, but how do you get there in such a way that one can understand emotions and values? And is it even wise to try? Don't we have a kind of understanding of emotions and values through our commitments and emotions we carry? Why do we need to understand these things at all?
Quoting Ludwig V
True. Though have you ever wondered why not knowing makes for anxiety? And why are some people comfortable with how little we know? Is this hunger for something decisive worth feeding?
Going back to dogma, amazingly (thank you for your patience!): Kantian dogma might be that set of beliefs which he thought were contrary to reason but which people believed mostly due to this hunger for something decisive where nothing decisive could be said.
****
Also, an afterthought @unenlightened -- while I at first thought it more important to focus on science as dogma, and dropping point 1, now I can see how fact/value is atheist dogma in your sense.
As a person with a (mild) tendency to anxiety, I have never wondered that.
What relieves my anxiety is not so much feeling in control as confidence that I can adapt to whatever happens and partly by feeling that most outcomes don't matter much. (Some people think I'm easy-going!) Getting absorbed in philosophy helps - and quite a lot of other things, as well.
Anxiety gets bad when you speculate on possible outcomes and can't work out what you would do, but feel that you couldn't cope with it. Then a vicious spiral begins and fantasy takes over and things can get bad. I've always believed that many, if not most, people work like that, and failed to understand those for whom it doesn't.
In support of my feeling, I cite the obsessive discussion of anxiety in existentialist circles and the fact that most living creatures seem to live with it - have you ever watched a bird feeding, the continual pauses for a quick look round? - they are terrified. (Dogs seem mostly over-confident.) Evolution would likely favour a certain level of paranoia.
So my question is the mirror of yours - how do people who don't get anxious cope with not knowing? Confidence can be soundly based, but nonetheless is liable to failure, so it seems to me that people who don't get anxious are living in denial or under an illusion or myth.
Which is all off-topic, except perhaps to note that fear seems to rule many apparently confident and arrogant (dogmatic) people.
Quoting Moliere
Very plausible. As to Kant's emotion life, I've always thought that anecdote about him going for his constitutional walk at exactly the same time every day spoke to obsessive control, which suggests strong and dangerous emotions. Anyway surely a passion for philosophy and devotion to the pursuit of truth are emotions as well as values - and strong ones at that? (Some would-be rational people need to be reminded of that, IMO.)
Quoting Moliere
I prefer "balanced", but the crucial bit is the difference from repression and from indulgence. I suppose you know about the motto of the oracle at Delphi - "nothing in excess". Which can itself be overdone, of course. (Never forget about Dionysus - he'll come and get you if you do.)
Quoting Moliere
Yes and no. By which I mean that, as well as provoking and inspiring us, they sometimes puzzle or frighten us. Though, to be honest, I'm not at all sure what "understanding" means. Certainly, knowing about my hormonal system explains nothing, in the relevant sense.
I'm not sure that many people live entirely without anxiety, so hopefully this clarifies: [s]my confusion.[/s] Anxiety seems pretty common to me. I'm not sure it's as universal as the existentialists stress, but I'd go as far as to say it's a cross-cultural and cross-species phenomena. It's reasonable to tie the phenomena of anxiety to the evolutionary story, as you do.
A possible path might be curiosity, but I'm not sure that's a passion as much as a habit or character trait (and many a scientist would fit "curious" when in fact "anxious" applies, hence my hesitation to name it a passion). Even with a joyful attitude towards the unknown I don't think this is a total lack of anxiety, either. The joy of discovery works as kind of temper to the anxiety of not-knowing, to continue a theme. While there's a certain amount of anxiety there's also joy in finding out things -- but what I remain uncertain of is why some things I don't know about cause anxiety, and other things I don't know about don't.
For instance, it's not like I worry that I don't know how many grains of sand Mars contains. And with a far out fact like that I'm sure we could come up with all kinds of irrelevant questions which ask after answers but clearly aren't related to the anxiety of not-knowing. We worry about a small portion of all that we do not know.
The part that's curious to me is that often times knowing doesn't really cure the anxiety. The vicious circle you mention can spiral even with knowledge because the imagination is captivated by something more than just the knowledge (or, rather, the lack thereof).
So, yes -- it makes sense to want to know. I didn't mean to be that obtuse. :D That's a natural desire which helps us cope with the world around us. Only that it's curious that it does do so, given how there's so much we do not know (and it can even be fun to not know), and a lot of what we do not know doesn't matter to us, and how even after we know the imagination can continue its anxiety spiral regardless of that desire for knowledge being satiated.
All off-topic to atheist dogma, but I found the topic interesting to continue. Sorry un.
Quoting Ludwig V
Right!
And so the ancient wisdom from the religious traditions still has an appeal because it deals with this non-factual understanding that's hard to really articulate.
For the modern Humean such stories are thought to be nothing but falsity, but this non-factual understanding is a part of their attraction, I think.
Does it help to say that we have to start somewhere and the things around us and affect us are not a bad place to start? But there's always more to be known and so anxiety is always a possibility.
Quoting Moliere
You're right. I've taken a lot more interest in this kind of discussion since I read Cavell, especially on the question what lies behind scepticism, since it seems impossible to put it to bed (or, better, the grave.)
Quoting Moliere
We live by and in stories. Arguably, it's the first kind of understanding and even science has one. (It's called history, but it serves the main purpose of orienting us towards life).
When I was young and knew everything, I was what you call a modern Humean. It took a long time and much actual life to get the point.
Interesting discussion guys, and not off topic at all. It connects this thread neatly to my follow-up thread. It is my working definition of life that to be alive is to give a fuck. Thus a virus is an uncaring replicator, not alive, whereas a bacterium actively absorbs food and ejects waste and 'knows the difference'. See Bateson's 'difference that makes a difference'.
Attraction/ repulsion is the beginning of emotion as judgement that arises out of sensory discrimination. And this primary division persists in every feeling and every judgement being positive or negative. but as senses multiply, and discrimination becomes more nuanced, feeling and judgement become matters of reasoning and calculation and conflicts can arise.
Anyway, I would suggest that animals are wary, not anxious. I think anxiety is very much verbal in origin.
Birds have to be constantly wary of cats, and other birds, whereas anxiety always seems to arise in a place of safety, the dis-ease of armchair philosophers rather than rock-climbing philosophers. But that story of the difference between animal and human is fleshed out in the other thread in more detail.
Thanks. I'm afraid I have a problem - I don't know which thread is your other thread.
Quoting unenlightened
Isn't there a third possibility? Neither positive nor negative, i.e. irrelevant to me.
Quoting unenlightened
Perhaps. I would hope that a rock-climbing philosopher would be at least somewhat fearful. It shouldn't be a surprise if there were few anxious people among them. Anxious people will tend to avoid rock-climbing, won't they?
I fear I'm nit-picking.
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/14393/the-beginning-and-ending-of-self/p1
Quoting Ludwig V
Sure. :up: :down: :meh:
Is "meh" a feeling? The feeling of not having a feeling?
Quoting Ludwig V
Yes, whereas rock-climbers seek out and confront fear and thereby avoid anxiety. (Perhaps.) I could almost define anxiety as the fear of fear, but I wouldn't defend that if it doesn't fit.
That's a helpful distinction, and I accept this correction. There is something about being able to articulate an emotional life that changes it -- discriminations between the discriminations. The fear of things not present is what I was thinking about with anxiety, and relating that to the bird. But the verbal dimension compounds this fear through the imagination.
At least this gets along with my understanding of Epicurean psychology.
Anxiety of death, in particular, seems to me to require verbalization since we never experience death. The bird is wary of being eaten, and the evolutionary story would say this is because animals which are wary tend to reproduce more, but the bird is not anxious about the end of their existence. They cannot hoard to fight off the inevitable impending death. That requires planning.
Quoting Ludwig V
To remove the idea of danger I'd suggest that the anxiety of rock-climbing is similar to the anxiety of dancing. Absolutely nothing harmful will happen if you dance in front of people, but people have so much anxiety to let loose and go in front of others that they exempt themselves from this simple pleasure.
But if you start to dance it's not like the anxiety goes away. It's still there. But then there's an excitement in the creation of the moment -- you don't know how the dance will end, but that's not the point. It's the self-expression and creation in light of anxiety that drives the thrill.
Eventually the anxiety fades away.
This is easier with dancing because there's a positive element. It's harder with pain because no one wants to feel pain. That's sort of its function. But there's truth to the notion that we can accept pain, be wary of it, but not anxious in the sense of building it up as something verbal. Letting go of the anxiety is how pain is easy to endure. Or, well -- easier. Because pain with anxiety about more pain is even more unpleasant.
But that's easier to say than do, I think.
Then there's the odd phenomena of becoming accustomed to dangerous situations. I think thrill-seekers go through this -- the fear is the point. It's an adrenaline ride which powers you through fear to do more than you would have. The fear is still there, of course, otherwise the thrill wouldn't be there.
A bit meandery, but these are the thoughts that came to mind.
By the way, I'm still thinking about "wary". It's not the same as fear or anxiety, not obviously an emotion or a mood, more like a policy. https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/wary defines it as "having or showing a close attentiveness to avoiding danger or trouble". The lists of synonyms and antonyms is interesting. No emotions or moods occur, yet clearly "fear" and "anxiety" are related.
Quoting unenlightened
That fits with my impression. But I'm not at all sure I've really understood it properly - which may be framing it wrongly. My impression includes the impression that it is as much a speech act as an emotion.
Quoting unenlightened
That makes sense.
I think the standard distinction between anxiety and fear in academic discussion is that anxiety is said to be a mood, rather than an emotion. Part of the difference is supposed to be that anxiety doesn't necessarily have an object, whereas fear does. I tend to think of it a fear looking for an object. But that's not the whole story. If I'm anxious about rising prices, it's not the same as fearing them. Perhaps because the danger is a possibility/probability rather than real.
Quoting Moliere
That seems perfectly true. But there's a big and difficult problem, compounded by the idea that emotions are introspectible, so that second/third parties have limited authority. Yet we do not accept first person reports as entirely authoritative. This ambiguity fuels the difficulty in understanding the rationality of emotions. The problem is particularly acute when we want to apply the framework of emotion where language is missing (yet the framework of action is at least partially applicable). I'm talking about what some people call embedded beliefs.
Shades of grey, on the border between categories. Partly empirical, partly conceptual. Hence difficult for philosophy. Nonetheless, important for understanding human beings.
Quoting Moliere
Yes. It is convenient for understanding this that adrenaline supports both fight and flight. Hence the term "adrenaline junkie".
Exactly. The adrenaline junkie fights the urge to flight and wins, and that becomes their 'habit'.
Quoting Moliere
It was all going so well, until the last sentence, and I thought, first of squirrels hoarding their nuts, and then of The ant and the grasshopper. One might suggest that even plants hoard sunlight as sugars and other carbohydrates in seeds or bulbs. In this case the evolution of DNA informed by consistent long term environmental pressures does the 'planning' - " Make hay while the sun shines, and make seed (or bulb, or tuber) when it starts to shine less." Thus the rationale that we make for what plants do because the ones that didn't died out. We understand:- plants just grow and make seed.
I'm content with changing the locution from "wary" to something else -- it's the verbal aspect of fear and anxiety that I was picking up on as the important distinction. There's an emotional relationship between ourselves and other life, for sure, but being able to verbalize is what changes the emotional life of a being to have anxieties which compound upon themselves through the imagination.
Quoting Ludwig V
Definitely. Also why I like it :D -- I'm usually attracted to the ambiguous and uncertain concepts. And even though I know in trying to clarify the ambiguous I usually lose what I was attempting to understand, I just do it again anyways. Failing better every day.
Quoting unenlightened
Good point.
That's what I get for importing ancient psychology -- that's the Epicurean explanation for anxiety. Epicurean psychology hints at the irrational, but ultimately it is a rational psychology. So it has weaknesses.
I didn't mean to suggest that. On the contrary, I think that "wary" is perfect (as near as one ever gets, anyway).
Quoting unenlightened
Yes. But that doesn't mean there's anything wrong with it. After all, who else is going to make explanations and seek to understand?
Ah! Then another blunder on my part here.
The picture of hoarding, to explain the psychology I'm thinking through, comes from anxiety as explanation for why people seek power and money beyond even what their needs are -- the thought is that conceiving of our non-existence is to treat death like a person which, if you amass enough wealth or power, you can defeat them. Obviously no one really believes they can kill death, but the craving for wealth and power beyond what one needs can serve as a kind of substitute for defeating death.
But you are right to say the action of hoarding isn't right for the examples you listed, and then I thought of how crows demonstrate the ability to plan too. Also while that psychological story makes a kind of sense, it only makes a kind of sense from afar. I'm not sure to what extent I could determine that really the fear of death built up into an anxiety spiral is what is driving someone to amass wealth and power. Also it should be noted that wealth and power aren't the only ways to attempt to satisfy the unsatisfiable desire to escape mortality.
So I'm trying again:
Anxiety of death seems to me to require verbalization since we never experience death. The bird is wary of being eaten, and the evolutionary story would say this is because animals which are wary tend to reproduce more, but the bird is not anxious about the end of their existence.
I'm sticking to "verbalization" because I want to simultaneously maintain the distinction between Writing and writing -- I think it's a very helpful way of looking at language. Here I'm thinking it's writing in the small sense which seems to make the emotional life different. The bird is wary because that's how birds feel and it generally directs them to move their eyes about and that just so happens to help them avoid predators. But the homo sapien is anxious because they know that they will die, and that this is the only life they have, and they had better do something with it given that you only have one chance -- give it your all, experience it all, dominate it all. All are worthy distractions from the inevitable.
Except it makes us anxious, and that's unpleasant. But in the face of death anxiety is fine!
:smile: I'm going to take that as a joke.
Quoting Moliere
I'm sorry. I haven't heard that distinction before. Could you explain, please?
No worries. It's my interpretation of Derrida. Which is informed but... I'm an autodidact and Derrida is hard.
Writing in the big sense is the cliche: Everything is text. Writing in the small sense is what we're doing to communicate as homo sapiens -- with words we usually recognize as writing.
What I like about it is how it relates and differentiates us from other animals -- meaning is in the world, every creature is Writing, and we write about it.
Oh, and no joke -- I thought you were uncertain about the locution since it invokes various meanings, but your later post suggested that you were uncertain about the concepts, so I thought I was off-base.
If you mean the concepts of "wary", "fear", "anxiety", you were right, not in the sense that I don't know what the words ordinarily mean, but in the sense that I was working out what to say about them in this philosophical context.
Hence, there was no blunder on your part. I couldn't see why you thought it was a blunder, which suggests something that you should have avoided. That back-and-to was, for me a normal part of the process.
Being an auto-didact is neither here nor there. I'm out of date. Hopefully, we're both learning. That's the point of the exercise.
Quoting Moliere
That makes sense. How far it interprets Derrida, I couldn't say. I read some of his earlier work carefully and thought it made sense, at least in the context of Wittgenstein. The later work lost me completely and I had other preoccupations, so I never read it carefully.
If you are a master of interpreting texts, everything is text. But isn't that like thinking that everything is a nail because you've got a hammer?
I have a prejudice against "what differentiates us from other animals". I'm constantly finding that proposed differentiations don't work. As in this case. A dog interprets certain of my behaviours as threatening and others as friendly - or so it seems to me. (They are also like a horse and not like a horse). Animals are both like humans and not like humans, in ways that slightly scramble our paradigm ideas of what a person is (i.e. a human being). So, philosophically at least, slightly confusing. Mammals are seem to be more like us that fish or insects, never mind bacteria and algae. Those living beings seem so alien that it is much harder to worry about what differentiates "us" from "them". Yet they are like us (and the mammals) in many ways - the fundamentals of being alive apply to them as well. (But what about whales and dolphins?)
Cool. :)
Quoting Ludwig V
I've read Of Grammatology deeply, and Voice and Phenomenon through a reading group here. Some other stuff to help understand, but my interpretation is just my memory of these two -- and they're both dealing with language and the sign -- one of Saussurean linguistics and the other of the sign in Husserlian phenomenology.
I once thought what you end with -- I thought it was turning things on its head to make the world look like language. But now I think it's turning language on its head to make it begin with the world -- and our inscriptions on dead leaves or the phonic substance are special cases of this more general meaning.
Or, rather -- it's how I interpret it because it makes sense of these relationships which language has to animal life. Basically I'm thinking of Writing as a living creature -- to strive, to mark, to differentiate -- is the transcendental base for writing of the homo sapien. Or, at least, this is how the deconstructive process would go by first setting up the transcendental condition and then knocking it down to allow something between the categories to shine through.
At least, that's my head cannon.
Quoting Ludwig V
I share this distaste. And actually I am hesitant to utilize evolutionary explanations for our emotional life, in spite of that. What a bundle of contradictory impulses.
I'm often uncertain about how to go about this territory. It, too, is ambiguous. Hence its attraction to me! But your questions here are the questions I ask!
Looking at the evolutionary story philosophically it seems we couldn't maintain an ontological distinction between ourselves and the other creatures. Even "Species" is not a hard category because the evolutionary story shows that creatures morph over time into other creatures due to environmental pressures on sexual reproduction(EDIT: I should say, in our case. There's the even more curious case of asexual reproduction, at least curious to us sexual creatures).
But then I think: do dolphins have laws? Or is the homo sapien the only creature sick enough to treat its own babbling as more important than its basic needs on a regular basis?
I think evolutionary explanations are useful from time to time. But to think they are THE explanation is to fall for the myth of origins (Derrida? or someone else?). We are equipped with ears, and their evolutionary usefulness is the best explanation (short of an account of the evolutionary process) that I can think of. But what we make of them is a different matter.
Quoting Moliere
Yes. I once read "Origin of Species" all the way through. The biggest takeaway for me is that he spent vast amounts of time arguing that species are not hard and fast; he argues it every which way he can think of. It is the foundation of evolutionary theory. What's more (as Darwin points out) we mostly know it already. Evolution takes our practice of selective breeding and pushes it through centuries and millennia.
Quoting Moliere
I don't know enough about them. Bees and ants seem to have rigid practices which do not need enforcing. Mammals are more complicated and do seem to need to enforce the rules - which are made and enforced by the alpha dog/lion/chimp. Are they sufficiently like laws to count? I'm not sure whether it is important to give a definite answer. Perhaps noting the similarities and differences is enough.
Cool. I think we're pretty close in our understandings then.
It took me a long time to even acknowledge evolutionary forces on the human psyche because of how awful evolutionary psychology is. Or, at least, what I encountered of it. But simultaneously I didn't believe we were created by God as a distinct ontological category, so that's the needle I thread in thinking through.
It wasn't that I want to tear us away from our evolutionary heritage as much as I'm suspicious of Bad Faith, in Sartre's sense -- I do such and such because evolution being a perfect example of Bad Faith. (in the language of causes it may be true, but in the language of intent it's a way to defer responsibility)
Quoting Ludwig V
I'm impressed! I've only done selections, though I always feel that's a failing. I learned about evolution in the text book way rather than the proper, historical way.(well, proper to me)I was persuaded by the information provided, though. Due to my background I didn't know the theory of evolution when I went to college, and being an inquisitive sort I'd ask questions after class to make sense of it all.
But yup! "Natural selection" was a metaphor for what we've been doing for a long time, but then noting how nature can act in a similar fashion over a long period of time.
Quoting Ludwig V
Fair. To really answer the question we'd have to do more research. One thing I'd push against is bees and ants, though -- they have rigid practices, but since they do not need enforcing then that's not an example of law. Laws are made to punish people who break them. And, in a more general sense, we frequently prioritize our social life over our basic needs life. People wouldn't go through hazing rituals, among other things, unless they cared about what their fellow homo sapiens would say or think about them -- it's not their immediate needs that matters, it's how the other members babble that is prioritized.
And you're right to point out that social hierarchies are established by other species. That's similar to law, but not quite the same I think because we can dig up old laws, re-interpret them, and people will prioritize that re-interpretation for whatever reason (sometimes material, sometimes spiritual). That dance among the ideals which turns a homo sapien against its own happiness -- well, it seems like a strange thing in the animal world to me.
Still: noting the similarities and differences is probably enough.
There's much I don't know about it, but, like many other people, I encountered sociobiology (E.O. Wilson) when it was fashionable. I live in liberal - even woke - circles. Do I need to say more? But I'm not assuming that that's all there is to evolutionary psychology; I do assume that it's not appropriate to speculate without a good understanding of the field and evidence.
Quoting Moliere
Sorry, I wasn't clear. I agree that ants and bees don't have enforcers, so don't have laws.
Quoting Moliere
Mammals do have a kind of enforcement, but they don't have legislation (partly, they can't have that because it requires writing). But there is at least one alternative. The Icelandic parliament used to appoint people to memorize the laws and recite them when the Thing (Parliament) met; I believe that was down to widespread illiteracy and the scarcity of writing materials. Anyway, what matters here is that somehow you have to ensure that everyone knows what the law is; writing, on stone or paper or whatever, is good. But if that's not practical, appointing a Memory person can fill the gap. I conclude that we have identified two things that are essential to human law - one is a means of enforcement and the other is a reliable source for what the law is.
I can't find enough in law -- but counting sea-shells that aren't even collected but "printed" by governments and forcing people out of their homes because they can't give enough fake sea-shells -- how does that sit in your judgment? (EDIT: not ethically -- I think I know the answer -- I just mean with respect to animal/human distinctions and finding something we do that could only be done with writing, in the small sense)
Before I get to the economy, some thoughts on the question what distinguishes humans from other animals. Each species of animal is similar to and different from every other species. It's not very exciting, philosophically speaking.
I suspect that even though other animals are perfectly aware that they are different from other animals, they don't care very much about that. It's not just that they can't (so far as we can tell) because they don't have a language like ours, but what they care about is whether the other animal is something to eat or be eaten by, whether there is competition for food and living space and so on. Cross-species friendships are not unknown.
The question has a long history. In some ways, of course, it is like the questions that other animals can ask an answer, but it seems to carry some weight for humans that it doesn't carry for other animals. I don't really know the answer, but I fear that it may carry the some unspoken weight:-
1 the weight of assuring us humans that we are superior in some moral sense to other animals (as shown by the fact that "animal" is used as a term of abuse in some contexts) and that the reason people sometimes feel that other animals are superior is because of their "innocence" (cf. children), which is ambiguous praise
2 the weight of justifying our dominance over other animals in the sense of justifying our abuse of them or at least our practices of treating them as means to our ends.
We don't think very much, do we, about the various ways that various animals are superior to humans? We think they are not important. That's telling. Like me feeling superior to you because of X, while failing to acknowledge that you are superior to me because of Y.
So I'm uneasy about this game we have got into. Still:-
It is true that animals don't have money and live in an ecology rather than an economy. Money is a key feature of economics; so is property. Neither can exist without the law.
But what makes money work is not the law, but people's confidence in it as a store of value. It doesn't matter whether the sea shells are fake or not. What matters is whether people are confident that they will be able to exchange them for "real" things, like food and shelter at some point in the future.
Don't think of money as value, think of it as a symbol - a claim - on resources. We don't value the empty promise to "pay the bearer"; we value the promise of being able to obtain the things we want and need.
I'm hopelessly idealistic because I think that every citizen has 1) a claim to a basic standard of food, shelter and other necessities irrespective of how "useful" they are and 2) a duty to contribute to the shared costs and labour of the social organization they live in. (And every human being has a right to be recognized as a citizen of some society/nation.)
I don't think those principles are left wing or right wing. They are principles of enlightened self-interest.
PS Of course, human beings are special in all sorts of ways. But I'm human and so inclined to pay special attention to them. My problem is that I don't understand what the significance is of the differences and similarities between humans and other animals.
I don't know, but it seems orcas don't object to their kids being juvenile delinquents.
You're right to point both of these things out. I hope to avoid both. We share uneasiness about both justifications/beliefs/thoughts.
Quoting Ludwig V
I think there's something of a romanticization going on, but it's not a bad one. The human notices how other animals, though they fear they do not worry as we do. The significance is therapeutic rather than in search of a justification. Rather than moral superiority the idea is that human beings are inferior in some way to how other animals live. The other animals seem to get by without worrying about their non-existence, for instance. The ability to verbalize is posited as a kind of fruit of the tree of Knowledge between Good and Evil -- we reach for verbalization naturally and find that it has a cost associated (but we'd surely reach again), namely, anxiety about things that are not only not-present, but can't be present.
At least so the story goes. Empirically I wouldn't be surprised if there are some other species which have similar odd-problems with their emotional life due to various capacities of the mind shaped by evolution. I just wanted to note what seems significant in making the distinctions here.
Quoting Ludwig V
I agree! As Marx said -- money is a claim on future labor. In a sense there's reciprocity between animals, so a kind of economy where production is concerned, but I don't think that ability to tabulate as we do -- and its consequences of absurd power over others -- would be possible without writing in the small sense.
In a way it's a problem of having too much information to wade through, rather than relying upon a social instinct of reciprocity, and getting lost.
I agree that the ambiguous role of money as a medium of exchange - a measure of value (in a practical sense) - and as a good to be exchanged leads to all sorts of problems, which might be better avoided. And I agree that it is hard to see how money could be what it is without writing.
But there are advantages to the ability to plan and organize that you get from having writing. (Most of the earliest writing is mundane stuff like inventories and records.)
And there's a good case for saying that a lot of what we get up to is the result of (over-)elaboration of our thinking which depends at least on language and very likely on writing.
There are advantages to writing -- and just like the fruit from the tree of knowledge between Good and Evil, there's no going back anyways, so it's a groundless desire to become-animal, in the imagined innocence we perceive sense.
Just a few quirks about it that, if I'm correct, have philosophical ramifications.
You're right. That's remarkable. :smile:
Good chat! I think I thought to the end of my thread.
Yes. I think it's important to be able to recognize the end of a chat. Then one can look forward to the next one.