Atheist!
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slippedhalo
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Pure said:SSSI don't think I'll ever get rid of the doubt
P: are you sure?
lol, cute.
The best students are the ones who ask questions the teachers were never even prepared to answer. Keep questioning as a student of life and I think we'll all learn as we go.
amicus
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"...and the painted ponies go round and round..." partial lyrics from a Judy Collins song...if memory serves, "The Circle Game"
Hoy, hoy, the altrusitic Pure rushes to the defense of the indefensible SheReads and our little typo (relevent vs relevant) incident a few threads the other way; how nice of you Pure to give me spelling lessons.
That was a pretty good rant, Pure, in your usual style, name calling, stone throwing, insult tossing...and gee, I thought somewhere along the line I tossed a fig leaf your way.
You keep meticulously avoiding the basic premise and issue, (on purpose of course) so, I will name it for you since you seem loathe to do so.
Human morality, the issues of good and bad, is a rational and logical study that can be known and practiced. There is a reasonal means to comprehend the morality of killing another human and taking his possessions.
All the examples you continually throw in my face about, 'well it has never been shown to be that way, see! see! see! here and here and here! You are wrong Amicus and in addition to that, you are unread, a 'believer' yourself, nothing is real, nothing is absolutely right or wrong, nothing is real and how dare you say that it is! (even though, as stupid as you are, I do grant you the right to be that way!)
As I said, another usual Pure rant when he comes up against reason.
For those of you who can see beyond Pure's posturing as a devil's advocate, praying that someone can show him the way to faith in something, anything; to you I say, keep up the good work of searching for truth via reason, logic and rationality. Join the long parade of men and women who have sought answers to the perplexing dilemma's of human life and have arrived today at a much better place than ever before in terms of knowing intimately the reality we live in and the 'real' function of the human mind and body.
Just as Pure would not enjoy living in my world of reason and logic, I sure as hell would not enjoy his world of doubt and uncertainty in all things.
the only slightly amused amicus...(ellllllipses and all) as illustrative illusions elude me continually.....(chuckles)
Hoy, hoy, the altrusitic Pure rushes to the defense of the indefensible SheReads and our little typo (relevent vs relevant) incident a few threads the other way; how nice of you Pure to give me spelling lessons.
That was a pretty good rant, Pure, in your usual style, name calling, stone throwing, insult tossing...and gee, I thought somewhere along the line I tossed a fig leaf your way.
You keep meticulously avoiding the basic premise and issue, (on purpose of course) so, I will name it for you since you seem loathe to do so.
Human morality, the issues of good and bad, is a rational and logical study that can be known and practiced. There is a reasonal means to comprehend the morality of killing another human and taking his possessions.
All the examples you continually throw in my face about, 'well it has never been shown to be that way, see! see! see! here and here and here! You are wrong Amicus and in addition to that, you are unread, a 'believer' yourself, nothing is real, nothing is absolutely right or wrong, nothing is real and how dare you say that it is! (even though, as stupid as you are, I do grant you the right to be that way!)
As I said, another usual Pure rant when he comes up against reason.
For those of you who can see beyond Pure's posturing as a devil's advocate, praying that someone can show him the way to faith in something, anything; to you I say, keep up the good work of searching for truth via reason, logic and rationality. Join the long parade of men and women who have sought answers to the perplexing dilemma's of human life and have arrived today at a much better place than ever before in terms of knowing intimately the reality we live in and the 'real' function of the human mind and body.
Just as Pure would not enjoy living in my world of reason and logic, I sure as hell would not enjoy his world of doubt and uncertainty in all things.
the only slightly amused amicus...(ellllllipses and all) as illustrative illusions elude me continually.....(chuckles)
Pure
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The problem of objectivists:
thanks for bring up the 'key issue,' and avoiding any topics on which you have no evidence or argument, such as the alleged beneficence of 'reason.'
amiHuman morality, the issues of good and bad, is a rational and logical study that can be known and practiced. There is a reasonal means to comprehend the morality of killing another human and taking his possessions.
I don't see any argument here, but a slightly different example, re killing will illustrate the problem.
Ayn Rand, using 'reasonal'[reasonable] means to comprehend morality said a woman has a right to terminate the life of a fetus, at least early on. Further that such a fetus was not a person. Most objectivists find her 'rational' approach compelling.
Amicus, John X, using a 'reasonal' means to comprehend morality says that a woman does NOT have a right to terminate a fetus. Further that the fetus is a person. Some 'objectivists' agree that THIS is the more rational analysis.
I think Ayn is correct here, but not necessarily more reasonal.
---
Extend this to the state. One 'reasonal' set of rulers wants laws that allow abortion. Another reasonal set wants laws the forbidding abortion. (Of course conservative religionists are happy to find the latter reasonal types, like Ami, in bed with them. Together they may be a majority and can impose their reasonal views on everyone else.) Seems reasonal to me.
thanks for bring up the 'key issue,' and avoiding any topics on which you have no evidence or argument, such as the alleged beneficence of 'reason.'
amiHuman morality, the issues of good and bad, is a rational and logical study that can be known and practiced. There is a reasonal means to comprehend the morality of killing another human and taking his possessions.
I don't see any argument here, but a slightly different example, re killing will illustrate the problem.
Ayn Rand, using 'reasonal'[reasonable] means to comprehend morality said a woman has a right to terminate the life of a fetus, at least early on. Further that such a fetus was not a person. Most objectivists find her 'rational' approach compelling.
Amicus, John X, using a 'reasonal' means to comprehend morality says that a woman does NOT have a right to terminate a fetus. Further that the fetus is a person. Some 'objectivists' agree that THIS is the more rational analysis.
I think Ayn is correct here, but not necessarily more reasonal.
---
Extend this to the state. One 'reasonal' set of rulers wants laws that allow abortion. Another reasonal set wants laws the forbidding abortion. (Of course conservative religionists are happy to find the latter reasonal types, like Ami, in bed with them. Together they may be a majority and can impose their reasonal views on everyone else.) Seems reasonal to me.
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Pure said:SSSI don't think I'll ever get rid of the doubt
P: are you sure?
amicus
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reasonal...reasonal...reasonal...egads, nag, nag, nag, pick, pick pick....just like a woman...
I guess to pacify you, I could go back and edit the typo...but since it gives you such pleasure Pure, dine at your leisure.
ah...the old abortion thing...never mind the 30 million (give or take a million, does it matter?) babies legally murdered since 1973; never mind the millions of destroyed lives of women who realized, after the fact, that they had done a 'wrong and immoral' thing; never mind the this bastard fruit of the Women's movement, which will eventually overturned and reversed, will destroy the legitimate gains of women in society because of this gross moral error.
And it does come right back to that, doesn't it? All your posturing about the relativistic nature of human actions appears to me to be rooted in your adherence to your 'belief' that morality does not pervade the right of a woman to kill a baby.
A sad state of affairs that you remain so rigidly locking into your faith.
I suppose, as long as no one challenges you, you are as comfy as a bug in a rug believing as you do and extending that belief to cover all aspects of human life that depend upon the existence of that life to define the values of that life.
But then, oh, no, you can't see past the end of your beliefs.
"OH! Give me proof Amicus that human life has any intrinsic value at all!! You can't, you can't, you can't, so there! Neener, Neener, Neener, you ain't got no weener!" (paraphrasing Pure)
Sighs...how childish, sophomoric and inane your claim of the uselessness of human life.
amicus...
I guess to pacify you, I could go back and edit the typo...but since it gives you such pleasure Pure, dine at your leisure.
ah...the old abortion thing...never mind the 30 million (give or take a million, does it matter?) babies legally murdered since 1973; never mind the millions of destroyed lives of women who realized, after the fact, that they had done a 'wrong and immoral' thing; never mind the this bastard fruit of the Women's movement, which will eventually overturned and reversed, will destroy the legitimate gains of women in society because of this gross moral error.
And it does come right back to that, doesn't it? All your posturing about the relativistic nature of human actions appears to me to be rooted in your adherence to your 'belief' that morality does not pervade the right of a woman to kill a baby.
A sad state of affairs that you remain so rigidly locking into your faith.
I suppose, as long as no one challenges you, you are as comfy as a bug in a rug believing as you do and extending that belief to cover all aspects of human life that depend upon the existence of that life to define the values of that life.
But then, oh, no, you can't see past the end of your beliefs.
"OH! Give me proof Amicus that human life has any intrinsic value at all!! You can't, you can't, you can't, so there! Neener, Neener, Neener, you ain't got no weener!" (paraphrasing Pure)
Sighs...how childish, sophomoric and inane your claim of the uselessness of human life.
amicus...
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You ain't got no weener?
slippedhalo
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Peace, My Peeps
Wow, Amicus, I take back my earlier comment about stone throwing. You've gotten mean. I don't think I like reading your contributions because of it. When people are feeling defensive they don't listen to (or read carefully) the point the insulting one is making. Let's try to keep this a debate and not an arguement, folks. It's much more enjoyable to 'discuss' that way.
Wow, Amicus, I take back my earlier comment about stone throwing. You've gotten mean. I don't think I like reading your contributions because of it. When people are feeling defensive they don't listen to (or read carefully) the point the insulting one is making. Let's try to keep this a debate and not an arguement, folks. It's much more enjoyable to 'discuss' that way.
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sad tirade,
ami ah...the old abortion thing...never mind the 30 million (give or take a million, does it matter?) babies legally murdered since 1973; never mind the millions of destroyed lives of women who realized, after the fact, that they had done a 'wrong and immoral' thing; never mind the this bastard fruit of the Women's movement, which will eventually overturned and reversed, will destroy the legitimate gains of women in society because of this gross moral error.
And it does come right back to that, doesn't it? All your posturing about the relativistic nature of human actions appears to me to be rooted in your adherence to your 'belief' that morality does not pervade the right of a woman to kill a baby.
A sad state of affairs that you remain so rigidly locking into your faith.
I suppose, as long as no one challenges you, you are as comfy as a bug in a rug believing as you do and extending that belief to cover all aspects of human life that depend upon the existence of that life to define the values of that life.
But then, oh, no, you can't see past the end of your beliefs.
"OH! Give me proof Amicus that human life has any intrinsic value at all!! You can't, you can't, you can't, so there! Neener, Neener, Neener, you ain't got no weener!" (paraphrasing Pure)
Sighs...how childish, sophomoric and inane your claim of the uselessness of human life.
P: I think you should send this to Peikoff and the Objectivists, who, on rational grounds, dispute your conclusion, and have made the case a number of years back. Indeed Rand herself, rationally looking at the problem, decided that the issue about 'human life' ( e.g, a wart on my toe) is not key: She declared that the key issue is the human person. Reason tells us that a potential person is not a person, just as a potential oak (an acorn) is not an oak.
All the Jerry Fallwell rhetoric about mass murder is childish. No persons, no murders. Got it? That's called reasoning.
---
It is quite sad that your self said moral reasoning powers take no account of something so basic as the autonomy of the person, including their own decisions about what happens to, or in, their own bodies. Kind of a gap in your system. As I said, Ayn's position is clearly the more rational, here (as indicated in your emoting).
ami ah...the old abortion thing...never mind the 30 million (give or take a million, does it matter?) babies legally murdered since 1973; never mind the millions of destroyed lives of women who realized, after the fact, that they had done a 'wrong and immoral' thing; never mind the this bastard fruit of the Women's movement, which will eventually overturned and reversed, will destroy the legitimate gains of women in society because of this gross moral error.
And it does come right back to that, doesn't it? All your posturing about the relativistic nature of human actions appears to me to be rooted in your adherence to your 'belief' that morality does not pervade the right of a woman to kill a baby.
A sad state of affairs that you remain so rigidly locking into your faith.
I suppose, as long as no one challenges you, you are as comfy as a bug in a rug believing as you do and extending that belief to cover all aspects of human life that depend upon the existence of that life to define the values of that life.
But then, oh, no, you can't see past the end of your beliefs.
"OH! Give me proof Amicus that human life has any intrinsic value at all!! You can't, you can't, you can't, so there! Neener, Neener, Neener, you ain't got no weener!" (paraphrasing Pure)
Sighs...how childish, sophomoric and inane your claim of the uselessness of human life.
P: I think you should send this to Peikoff and the Objectivists, who, on rational grounds, dispute your conclusion, and have made the case a number of years back. Indeed Rand herself, rationally looking at the problem, decided that the issue about 'human life' ( e.g, a wart on my toe) is not key: She declared that the key issue is the human person. Reason tells us that a potential person is not a person, just as a potential oak (an acorn) is not an oak.
All the Jerry Fallwell rhetoric about mass murder is childish. No persons, no murders. Got it? That's called reasoning.
---
It is quite sad that your self said moral reasoning powers take no account of something so basic as the autonomy of the person, including their own decisions about what happens to, or in, their own bodies. Kind of a gap in your system. As I said, Ayn's position is clearly the more rational, here (as indicated in your emoting).
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amicus
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I suppose I should just let off the hook to bask in your self proclaimed moral superiority as you compare a toe wart to a human embryo....but I won't.
Even hardened soldiers when face to face and legally authorized to take a human life, suffer forever when they see life spilled from another human being. Some people even blanch at taking the life of an animal, for food or for sport or even in self defense as they too realize, innately that life, has value.
That you can cold bloodedly advocate the morality in taking a human life disgusts me to no end and for you to claim a superior morality, almost a righteous one in defense of the perpetrators is obscene.
amicus..
Even hardened soldiers when face to face and legally authorized to take a human life, suffer forever when they see life spilled from another human being. Some people even blanch at taking the life of an animal, for food or for sport or even in self defense as they too realize, innately that life, has value.
That you can cold bloodedly advocate the morality in taking a human life disgusts me to no end and for you to claim a superior morality, almost a righteous one in defense of the perpetrators is obscene.
amicus..
Pure
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sorry, Joe, dr mab, etc., if this appears a threadjack. obviously the bugbears of Amicus are a neverending source of amusement.
BUT, in a larger sense, i have shown that some 'apostles of reason', when scratched, get pretty emotional. it's a logical inference that, in power, some of us who work with both reason and doubt, might be forcibly suppressed by said 'apostles'-- a bit like becoming the enemy of Robespierre!
BUT, in a larger sense, i have shown that some 'apostles of reason', when scratched, get pretty emotional. it's a logical inference that, in power, some of us who work with both reason and doubt, might be forcibly suppressed by said 'apostles'-- a bit like becoming the enemy of Robespierre!
slippedhalo
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Blah, blah blah, both of you.
This thread was interesting until the spears came out.
This thread was interesting until the spears came out.
amicus
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[QUOTE=slippedhalo]Blah, blah blah, both of you.
This thread was interesting until the spears came out.
[/QUOTE]
~~~
Come down from your cloistered ivory tower my new acquaintance and get into the trenches as the battle for the human mind proceeds....or are you too aloof and above all that?
amicus...
This thread was interesting until the spears came out.
[/QUOTE]~~~
Come down from your cloistered ivory tower my new acquaintance and get into the trenches as the battle for the human mind proceeds....or are you too aloof and above all that?
amicus...
slippedhalo
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amicus said:[QUOTE=slippedhalo]Blah, blah blah, both of you.
This thread was interesting until the spears came out.
~~~
Come down from your cloistered ivory tower my new acquaintance and get into the trenches as the battle for the human mind proceeds....or are you too aloof and above all that?
amicus...[/QUOTE]
I am.
I honestly enjoy rich debate more than insult flinging. If I feel encouraged to give my opinion, I give it. If I feel I'll be attacked for it, I keep it to myself and speak about it with those who might want to hear it. I'm not a fighter, I'm a lover, my dear.
slippedhalo
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amicus said:
Nice to know I have friends in low places,lol.
Pure
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moral:
whether it's a fellow telling you he's acting on God's orders, or according to Reason, the key thing is (IMO)
1) whether he'll concede that he *might* be wrong, and the other fellow right, AND,
2) if he will, particularly from a position of power, TOLERATE the other person's views and way of life.
whether it's a fellow telling you he's acting on God's orders, or according to Reason, the key thing is (IMO)
1) whether he'll concede that he *might* be wrong, and the other fellow right, AND,
2) if he will, particularly from a position of power, TOLERATE the other person's views and way of life.
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slippedhalo
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By that definition, Pure, I like 'moral' people,lol, I mean the people who are in your story's moral.
amicus
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[/I][I said:
~~~~~~~~~~
By the way SlippedHalo...that was from Oasis...friends in low places? Guess I'm not the only one to use song lyrics occasionally...
and...Pure, "I oughta leave the young thing alone...." sighs...and I should but...
!. Just how you expect to get away accusing someone of moral rigidity when they insist on knowing that 1 plus 1 equal two, every time, never fails and that A is A, everytime...I will never know. Perhaps it is a virtue to you to be continually uncertain of your moral position on issues, but most people prefer a certain absoluteness in their understand of right and wrong.
2. Individuals and society in general do not 'tolerate' rapists and murderers, they take action to punish the guilty and protect the innocent. Since you claim a 'way of life' that takes innocent life and cannot even find logic to defend taking the life of a child following birth, I think you have no foundation to claim that others should be tolerant of your lack of morality.
whether it's a fellow telling you he's acting on God's orders, or according to Reason, the key thing is (IMO)
comparing faith and reason is not even like apples and oranges, more like apples and kangaroos or giraffes, if you wish. But then, in your eyes nothing is any better than anything else, so why not toss a coin and live by the results...works as well as anything for subjective moralists.
amicus...
( I suppose you can have the last word if you wish...someday...even though I have asked this for years now...you might enlighten us as to your moral foundation for taking an innocent human life as a matter of convenience...not that I will hold my breath until you do)
toodles...
Pure
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ami,
[Pure said] whether it's a fellow telling you he's acting on God's orders, or according to Reason, the key thing is (IMO) [whether he's tolerant]
ami: comparing faith and reason is not even like apples and oranges, more like apples and kangaroos or giraffes, if you wish.
there are differences, but from the pov of those on the receiving end of lethal certainty, killed for God or Reason matters not so much.
--
as to 'taking life' (abortion), read Ayn Rand sometime. she'll explain it to you.
[Pure said] whether it's a fellow telling you he's acting on God's orders, or according to Reason, the key thing is (IMO) [whether he's tolerant]
ami: comparing faith and reason is not even like apples and oranges, more like apples and kangaroos or giraffes, if you wish.
there are differences, but from the pov of those on the receiving end of lethal certainty, killed for God or Reason matters not so much.
--
as to 'taking life' (abortion), read Ayn Rand sometime. she'll explain it to you.
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P
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amicus said:
Interesting... in general, hm, perhaps. And then come all the "exceptions". For instance, until very recently, rape in marriage wasn't considered rape and still isn't in a lot of "societies" around the globe. Rape and murder is still condoned and even expected, if you wear a uniform and fight "for a greater good".
A short story from my life to give a little context: In Germany military service is still compulsory, although you do have the choice to do social (civil) service instead, if your conscience doesn't allow you to kill.
At the time that became an issue for me, we still had two Germanies and that choice was being "tested" in front of some sort of tribunal, where your "conscience" was being tested by hypothetical scenarios. One famous example was:
You are at a train station, terrorists are holding hundreds of people hostage, they start killing the hostages, there is a struggle and a submachine gun is falling right in front of your feet. What do you do? This was of course an attempt to tell you that you would pick it up and kill to protect the innocent - the morale of the story being to show you that serving in the military is nothing else.
Knowing about these stories, I decided to serve, because I was pretty sure that I would pick up the weapon. However, following a clear line of reasoning, in a crunch I would have had to shoot at family members, who just happened to live across the border, who, in turn, would do nothing else but their duty "for a greater good". As I learned later, that was a hypothetical scenario too, as I happened to live in a stretch of land that was supposed to become a nuclear wasteland in order to stop a conventional advance of the "red forces" according to NATO strategy. So, it would seem, "protecting the innocent" is quite a relative term, protecting some (or an idea/system?) by sacrificing others obviously an interesting twist in the "rationale" of power.
After WWII, there was the famous speech of a German politician who said "that if any German would pick up a weapon again, his arm should fall off", after what we had done, a wonderful clear moral statement - funnily enough, the same politician opted to advance the reinstatement of armed German forces, unfortunately, to the best of my knowledge, we have no one-armed soldiers in service.
Looks like moral and conscience becomes a matter of circumstance, and more often, political agendas. Nowadays we have people in power, whom God tells to advance "democracy" or "a God's state" in the middle east, in order to "protect the innocent" - maybe someone should prompt these people to ask for a clear "how?" the next time they are chatting.
NoJo
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Here's a review of Dawkins' new book (The God Delusion) by the very wise Mary Midgley:
(I have to paste the text rather than post a link, as the site I got it from is subscription only):
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------THIS book is one of many that celebrate an allegedly bitter war between Science and Religion, two epic figures representing rival forces between which we must choose.
Different people understand this "war" differently. In the US, the default attitude (that of normal people) is increasingly assumed to be Religion, because a scientific or Darwinian world view is still taken to mean social Darwinism, the brash, brutal doctrine of the survival of the fittest that Herbert Spencer taught so successfully in the US and which deeply influenced the Nazis. In recent times, the sociobiological rhetoric of "selfishness" and "ruthlessness" in natural selection has served to reinforce this impression of meaningless brutality, leaving religion as the only tolerable option.
In the Middle East, however, talk of a scientific or Darwinian attitude stands for something different but no less hateful. It means primarily western materialism: the brash, greedy, uncaring lifestyle of people whose rulers trampled over oriental cultures and who trample them with increasing vigour today. Traditional religion appears as the only alternative to this odious attitude.
Thus, once the scene is polarised, once the two vast abstractions are set up, their ideologies turn the debate into incurable conflict. In that spirit, the preface of this book cries out for the abolition of the enemy: "Imagine, with John Lennon, a world with no religion. Imagine no suicide bombers, no 9/11, no 7/7, no Crusades, no Gunpowder Plot..."
These examples are, of course, endless, and the thought that removing religion would end such large-scale atrocities accounts in large part for the rise of anti-religious movements. However, the regimes they gave birth to during the 20th century included the governments of Nazi Germany, Pol Pot's Cambodia and Stalin's Russia. It is still not clear how it was possible for these regimes to commit the three most monstrous crimes of the epoch, but what does emerge is that removing religion had not helped at all. The roots of great crimes plainly lie far deeper than the doctrines people use to justify them.
In any culture, rogues defend their actions by professing whatever standards their society respects. Until recently, of course, Christianity was the norm in the west, but Marxism and fascism proved just as effective. Science, too, it turns out, can easily be used this way, as both Germany's and South Africa's justification of racism demonstrates. Religion is not really relevant at all, unless we carefully define "religion" to link it necessarily with atrocities.
This, of course, is the tendency of Dawkins's book. Dawkins is no rogue though; indeed, he is sincere in regarding God and religion the enemies of rationality - and in arguing that they are linked to atrocity to such an extent that they must be resisted. So much so that he is forced to assert that faiths which do not use the concept of God, such as Buddhism, Confucianism and Taoism, are not really religions at all. He also works hard to exclude scientists, such as Einstein, who firmly and repeatedly used religious language to express what are plainly central elements in their thought, from the taint of religion.
Dawkins is irritated by the Einstein phenomenon, and complains of a "confused and confusing willingness to label as 'religion' the pantheistic reverence which many of us share with its most distinguished exponent, Albert Einstein". He insists that this reverence has "no connection with supernatural belief". Pantheism, however, is unmistakably a religious attitude. And when, like Einstein, you speak of an immanent god, a divinity pervading the world, and when, like Spinoza, you equate God and Nature, words such as "supernatural" do not mean much.
Einstein understood this well. His language is only surprising if you assume, as Dawkins seems to, that science is the only possible source of knowledge. Thus in quoting Martin Rees's remark that such questions as why anything exists lie "beyond science", he simply cannot see what this might mean.
Similarly, when he cites NOMA - "nonoverlapping magisteria", the acronym coined by Stephen Jay Gould to describe how, in his view, science and religion could not comment on each other's sphere - and Freeman Dyson's description of himself as "one of the multitude of Christians who do not care much for the doctrine of the Trinity or the historical truth of the gospels", Dawkins declares flatly that they cannot mean what they say. As scientists, they must be atheists.
It seems not to have struck Dawkins that academic science is only a small, specialised, dependent part of what anybody knows. Most human knowledge is tacit knowledge - habitual assumptions, constantly updated and checked by experience, but far too general and informal ever to be fully tested. We assume, for instance, that nature will go on being regular, that other people are conscious and that their testimony can generally be trusted. Without such assumptions neither science nor any other study could ever get off the ground, and nor could everyday life.
When we build on these foundations we necessarily use imaginative structures - powerful ideas which can be called myths, which are not lies, but graphic thought-patterns that shape and guide our thinking. This is not irrational: the process of using these structures is a necessary preparation for reasoning. Thus the selfish gene is a powerful idea, so are the Science-Religion war, Gaia, natural selection, progress, and the hidden hand of the market.
With the largest, most puzzling questions, we have no choice but to proceed in mythical language which cannot be explained in detail at all, but which serves (as Einstein's did) to indicate what sort of spiritual universe we perceive ourselves to be living in. This is the province of religion. Adding God is not, as Dawkins thinks, adding an illicit extra item to the cosmos, it is perceiving the whole thing differently.
For a long time, this kind of language was reasonably well understood. Since the mid-19th century, however, there has been a disastrous attempt to get rid of it, keeping only literal statements of fact. This is, of course, the root of religious Christian fundamentalism, which tries, absurdly, to treat the whole of that strange compilation, the Bible, as literal fact. Yet in so doing it is only responding to a less obvious fundamentalism on the scientistic side, which claims that our knowledge reduces to one fundamental form - the literal statements of science. Both extremes show a similarly crass refusal to admit the complexity of life.
Dawkins is, of course, quite right to express horror at Biblical fundamentalism, especially in the neocon form that centres on the book of Revelation. But it is not possible to attack this target properly while also conducting a wider, cluster-bomb onslaught on everything that can be called religion. Since this particular bad form of religion is spreading rapidly in the world, we urgently need to understand it: not just to denounce it but to grasp much better than we do now why people find it attractive. It is not enough to say, as Dawkins does, that they are being childish.
We also need to ask why they have found the other attitudes that are open to them inadequate. As I have suggested, this means becoming more aware of the inadequacies of our own way of life, which are obvious to them and which put them off the opinions that we profess. What we need, in fact, is a bit more self-knowledge.
(I have to paste the text rather than post a link, as the site I got it from is subscription only):
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------THIS book is one of many that celebrate an allegedly bitter war between Science and Religion, two epic figures representing rival forces between which we must choose.
Different people understand this "war" differently. In the US, the default attitude (that of normal people) is increasingly assumed to be Religion, because a scientific or Darwinian world view is still taken to mean social Darwinism, the brash, brutal doctrine of the survival of the fittest that Herbert Spencer taught so successfully in the US and which deeply influenced the Nazis. In recent times, the sociobiological rhetoric of "selfishness" and "ruthlessness" in natural selection has served to reinforce this impression of meaningless brutality, leaving religion as the only tolerable option.
In the Middle East, however, talk of a scientific or Darwinian attitude stands for something different but no less hateful. It means primarily western materialism: the brash, greedy, uncaring lifestyle of people whose rulers trampled over oriental cultures and who trample them with increasing vigour today. Traditional religion appears as the only alternative to this odious attitude.
Thus, once the scene is polarised, once the two vast abstractions are set up, their ideologies turn the debate into incurable conflict. In that spirit, the preface of this book cries out for the abolition of the enemy: "Imagine, with John Lennon, a world with no religion. Imagine no suicide bombers, no 9/11, no 7/7, no Crusades, no Gunpowder Plot..."
These examples are, of course, endless, and the thought that removing religion would end such large-scale atrocities accounts in large part for the rise of anti-religious movements. However, the regimes they gave birth to during the 20th century included the governments of Nazi Germany, Pol Pot's Cambodia and Stalin's Russia. It is still not clear how it was possible for these regimes to commit the three most monstrous crimes of the epoch, but what does emerge is that removing religion had not helped at all. The roots of great crimes plainly lie far deeper than the doctrines people use to justify them.
In any culture, rogues defend their actions by professing whatever standards their society respects. Until recently, of course, Christianity was the norm in the west, but Marxism and fascism proved just as effective. Science, too, it turns out, can easily be used this way, as both Germany's and South Africa's justification of racism demonstrates. Religion is not really relevant at all, unless we carefully define "religion" to link it necessarily with atrocities.
This, of course, is the tendency of Dawkins's book. Dawkins is no rogue though; indeed, he is sincere in regarding God and religion the enemies of rationality - and in arguing that they are linked to atrocity to such an extent that they must be resisted. So much so that he is forced to assert that faiths which do not use the concept of God, such as Buddhism, Confucianism and Taoism, are not really religions at all. He also works hard to exclude scientists, such as Einstein, who firmly and repeatedly used religious language to express what are plainly central elements in their thought, from the taint of religion.
Dawkins is irritated by the Einstein phenomenon, and complains of a "confused and confusing willingness to label as 'religion' the pantheistic reverence which many of us share with its most distinguished exponent, Albert Einstein". He insists that this reverence has "no connection with supernatural belief". Pantheism, however, is unmistakably a religious attitude. And when, like Einstein, you speak of an immanent god, a divinity pervading the world, and when, like Spinoza, you equate God and Nature, words such as "supernatural" do not mean much.
Einstein understood this well. His language is only surprising if you assume, as Dawkins seems to, that science is the only possible source of knowledge. Thus in quoting Martin Rees's remark that such questions as why anything exists lie "beyond science", he simply cannot see what this might mean.
Similarly, when he cites NOMA - "nonoverlapping magisteria", the acronym coined by Stephen Jay Gould to describe how, in his view, science and religion could not comment on each other's sphere - and Freeman Dyson's description of himself as "one of the multitude of Christians who do not care much for the doctrine of the Trinity or the historical truth of the gospels", Dawkins declares flatly that they cannot mean what they say. As scientists, they must be atheists.
It seems not to have struck Dawkins that academic science is only a small, specialised, dependent part of what anybody knows. Most human knowledge is tacit knowledge - habitual assumptions, constantly updated and checked by experience, but far too general and informal ever to be fully tested. We assume, for instance, that nature will go on being regular, that other people are conscious and that their testimony can generally be trusted. Without such assumptions neither science nor any other study could ever get off the ground, and nor could everyday life.
When we build on these foundations we necessarily use imaginative structures - powerful ideas which can be called myths, which are not lies, but graphic thought-patterns that shape and guide our thinking. This is not irrational: the process of using these structures is a necessary preparation for reasoning. Thus the selfish gene is a powerful idea, so are the Science-Religion war, Gaia, natural selection, progress, and the hidden hand of the market.
With the largest, most puzzling questions, we have no choice but to proceed in mythical language which cannot be explained in detail at all, but which serves (as Einstein's did) to indicate what sort of spiritual universe we perceive ourselves to be living in. This is the province of religion. Adding God is not, as Dawkins thinks, adding an illicit extra item to the cosmos, it is perceiving the whole thing differently.
For a long time, this kind of language was reasonably well understood. Since the mid-19th century, however, there has been a disastrous attempt to get rid of it, keeping only literal statements of fact. This is, of course, the root of religious Christian fundamentalism, which tries, absurdly, to treat the whole of that strange compilation, the Bible, as literal fact. Yet in so doing it is only responding to a less obvious fundamentalism on the scientistic side, which claims that our knowledge reduces to one fundamental form - the literal statements of science. Both extremes show a similarly crass refusal to admit the complexity of life.
Dawkins is, of course, quite right to express horror at Biblical fundamentalism, especially in the neocon form that centres on the book of Revelation. But it is not possible to attack this target properly while also conducting a wider, cluster-bomb onslaught on everything that can be called religion. Since this particular bad form of religion is spreading rapidly in the world, we urgently need to understand it: not just to denounce it but to grasp much better than we do now why people find it attractive. It is not enough to say, as Dawkins does, that they are being childish.
We also need to ask why they have found the other attitudes that are open to them inadequate. As I have suggested, this means becoming more aware of the inadequacies of our own way of life, which are obvious to them and which put them off the opinions that we profess. What we need, in fact, is a bit more self-knowledge.
slippedhalo
author, medium, witch
- Joined
- May 11, 2006
- Posts
- 16,007
My Two Cents
How did we get onto abortion anyway? I thought we were talking about Athiesm and belief in religion...I think this thread is getting off track.
How did we get onto abortion anyway? I thought we were talking about Athiesm and belief in religion...I think this thread is getting off track.
amicus
Literotica Guru
- Joined
- Sep 28, 2003
- Posts
- 14,812
[QUOTE=past_perfect]Interesting... in general, hm, perhaps. And then come all the "exceptions". For instance, until very recently, rape in marriage wasn't considered rape and still isn't in a lot of "societies" around the globe. Rape and murder is still condoned and even expected, if you wear a uniform and fight "for a greater good".
A short story from my life to give a little context: In Germany military service is still compulsory, although you do have the choice to do social (civil) service instead, if your conscience doesn't allow you to kill.
At the time that became an issue for me, we still had two Germanies and that choice was being "tested" in front of some sort of tribunal, where your "conscience" was being tested by hypothetical scenarios. One famous example was:
You are at a train station, terrorists are holding hundreds of people hostage, they start killing the hostages, there is a struggle and a submachine gun is falling right in front of your feet. What do you do? This was of course an attempt to tell you that you would pick it up and kill to protect the innocent - the morale of the story being to show you that serving in the military is nothing else.
Knowing about these stories, I decided to serve, because I was pretty sure that I would pick up the weapon. However, following a clear line of reasoning, in a crunch I would have had to shoot at family members, who just happened to live across the border, who, in turn, would do nothing else but their duty "for a greater good". As I learned later, that was a hypothetical scenario too, as I happened to live in a stretch of land that was supposed to become a nuclear wasteland in order to stop a conventional advance of the "red forces" according to NATO strategy. So, it would seem, "protecting the innocent" is quite a relative term, protecting some (or an idea/system?) by sacrificing others obviously an interesting twist in the "rationale" of power.
After WWII, there was the famous speech of a German politician who said "that if any German would pick up a weapon again, his arm should fall off", after what we had done, a wonderful clear moral statement - funnily enough, the same politician opted to advance the reinstatement of armed German forces, unfortunately, to the best of my knowledge, we have no one-armed soldiers in service.
Looks like moral and conscience becomes a matter of circumstance, and more often, political agendas. Nowadays we have people in power, whom God tells to advance "democracy" or "a God's state" in the middle east, in order to "protect the innocent" - maybe someone should prompt these people to ask for a clear "how?" the next time they are chatting.[/QUOTE]
~~~~~~I
I quoted this...because it should be posted twice at least and so I could just scroll up and reread as I think and write...a moving post, past_perfect, very moving...
Since you give a personal anecdote, I shall do the same...not in the same vein at all but self explanatory, I hope...
I visited Germany in 1970 aboard a little honda moto, with saddlebags loaded with a change of clothes, ID and local breads, sausages and wines, upon which I dined daily for nearly three months across Europe.
I managed to finance the trip, although I was on a very tight budget, by fraudulently taking real estate license examinations in the names of my two half brothers who were quite clever in business, but not very well educated. So I spent a few days with the books, memorized what I needed, passed the exams and signed their names. quid pro quo, I guess...
I wrote a poem about the castle in Heidleberg, thought about the Neander Valley, from which 'Neaderthals' apparently got their name...and decided to visit the birthplace of Goethe, to fulfill a promise to a German professor I met at the U of Hawaii, who had been a Luftewaffe pilot in WW2.
When I got to the division point between West and East Germany, I navigated my moto down a narrow corridor lined on both sides with barbed wire to two guard towers with Russian Soldiers armed with machine weapons staring down at me. There were a few cars in front of me and a few behind, not that many.
Trying to shorten this a little, I was advised by a Dutchman that it was not wise for an American tourist to go by himself into the Eastern Zone, he was in the car behind me and made an effort to get out and come talk to me.
But I was reluctant to change my plans...until I got closer to the actual guard post and looked into the cold blue eyes of a Russian guard and saw death in those eyes. I turned around and went to Suisse, instead...
So, my German friend and poster, one never knows whom one will meet even in a dinky little place like this forum. I offer an apology of sorts, for any unintended slights to your postings because you minded me of what I saw in the eyes of that Russian guard and in the eyes and the behavior of the people in the countryside as I approached the Eastern Zone, a palpable fear...I wrote of that when I returned but you reminded me...thank you...
I also thank you for reminding me that not all the people on this forum have lived in free or relatively free nations. That does make a difference in how one thinks, I believe...
I think there is no real way to express the difference that we 'brash' Americans display in our disdain for anything less than total freedom...I know, I will hear from minorities and such, but...yes, in general, as I prefaced my earlier remarks.
Although it was 25 years after the destruction of Europe when I visited in 1970, I think I still expected to see the remnants of that holocaust; I saw only the endless cemetaries until I approached the Eastern Zone, then I felt it and it struck me to the core and I thought I would never forget...but I have...with the passage of time...
I leave this here...having much more to say...but choosing to offer that acceptance and regret, if necessary...perhaps another time we can lock horns...
amicus...
A short story from my life to give a little context: In Germany military service is still compulsory, although you do have the choice to do social (civil) service instead, if your conscience doesn't allow you to kill.
At the time that became an issue for me, we still had two Germanies and that choice was being "tested" in front of some sort of tribunal, where your "conscience" was being tested by hypothetical scenarios. One famous example was:
You are at a train station, terrorists are holding hundreds of people hostage, they start killing the hostages, there is a struggle and a submachine gun is falling right in front of your feet. What do you do? This was of course an attempt to tell you that you would pick it up and kill to protect the innocent - the morale of the story being to show you that serving in the military is nothing else.
Knowing about these stories, I decided to serve, because I was pretty sure that I would pick up the weapon. However, following a clear line of reasoning, in a crunch I would have had to shoot at family members, who just happened to live across the border, who, in turn, would do nothing else but their duty "for a greater good". As I learned later, that was a hypothetical scenario too, as I happened to live in a stretch of land that was supposed to become a nuclear wasteland in order to stop a conventional advance of the "red forces" according to NATO strategy. So, it would seem, "protecting the innocent" is quite a relative term, protecting some (or an idea/system?) by sacrificing others obviously an interesting twist in the "rationale" of power.
After WWII, there was the famous speech of a German politician who said "that if any German would pick up a weapon again, his arm should fall off", after what we had done, a wonderful clear moral statement - funnily enough, the same politician opted to advance the reinstatement of armed German forces, unfortunately, to the best of my knowledge, we have no one-armed soldiers in service.
Looks like moral and conscience becomes a matter of circumstance, and more often, political agendas. Nowadays we have people in power, whom God tells to advance "democracy" or "a God's state" in the middle east, in order to "protect the innocent" - maybe someone should prompt these people to ask for a clear "how?" the next time they are chatting.[/QUOTE]
~~~~~~I
I quoted this...because it should be posted twice at least and so I could just scroll up and reread as I think and write...a moving post, past_perfect, very moving...
Since you give a personal anecdote, I shall do the same...not in the same vein at all but self explanatory, I hope...
I visited Germany in 1970 aboard a little honda moto, with saddlebags loaded with a change of clothes, ID and local breads, sausages and wines, upon which I dined daily for nearly three months across Europe.
I managed to finance the trip, although I was on a very tight budget, by fraudulently taking real estate license examinations in the names of my two half brothers who were quite clever in business, but not very well educated. So I spent a few days with the books, memorized what I needed, passed the exams and signed their names. quid pro quo, I guess...
I wrote a poem about the castle in Heidleberg, thought about the Neander Valley, from which 'Neaderthals' apparently got their name...and decided to visit the birthplace of Goethe, to fulfill a promise to a German professor I met at the U of Hawaii, who had been a Luftewaffe pilot in WW2.
When I got to the division point between West and East Germany, I navigated my moto down a narrow corridor lined on both sides with barbed wire to two guard towers with Russian Soldiers armed with machine weapons staring down at me. There were a few cars in front of me and a few behind, not that many.
Trying to shorten this a little, I was advised by a Dutchman that it was not wise for an American tourist to go by himself into the Eastern Zone, he was in the car behind me and made an effort to get out and come talk to me.
But I was reluctant to change my plans...until I got closer to the actual guard post and looked into the cold blue eyes of a Russian guard and saw death in those eyes. I turned around and went to Suisse, instead...
So, my German friend and poster, one never knows whom one will meet even in a dinky little place like this forum. I offer an apology of sorts, for any unintended slights to your postings because you minded me of what I saw in the eyes of that Russian guard and in the eyes and the behavior of the people in the countryside as I approached the Eastern Zone, a palpable fear...I wrote of that when I returned but you reminded me...thank you...
I also thank you for reminding me that not all the people on this forum have lived in free or relatively free nations. That does make a difference in how one thinks, I believe...
I think there is no real way to express the difference that we 'brash' Americans display in our disdain for anything less than total freedom...I know, I will hear from minorities and such, but...yes, in general, as I prefaced my earlier remarks.
Although it was 25 years after the destruction of Europe when I visited in 1970, I think I still expected to see the remnants of that holocaust; I saw only the endless cemetaries until I approached the Eastern Zone, then I felt it and it struck me to the core and I thought I would never forget...but I have...with the passage of time...
I leave this here...having much more to say...but choosing to offer that acceptance and regret, if necessary...perhaps another time we can lock horns...
amicus...
