Yes, it really makes one question the normality of pornography.... or rather, if it is normal, whether normality is even desirable. Perhaps in a strange and perverted way, there is a positive to come out of it all. I mean, it makes you start wondering what the Good Life might be once you've experienced how miserable it can become, and in questioning one addiction we might start questioning others. Arguably, consumerism in general is an addiction.
It would be nice to see religious and non come together and have a normal conversation, but it always turns to hurling insults and fighting with one another. One side always seems to get offended or annoyed about something and then the arguing starts all over again, even in posts where it was just a simple question.
I do see this happen, especially in politics. And for sure that's the flaw of the system. People could be more open to ideas and perspectives. We are not always willing to entertain the idea that there sometimes might be more than one right way how to look at things. Sometimes people see things as very two dimensional, so they can not see other side of a coin. It looks flat. But then you go up a dimension and coin turns into a sphere which does not have a side. Then you keep going up a ladder of dimensions until eventually you lose all structure, all boundaries and all logic. And because of that naturally all that is left is possibility of belief. Or maybe not even that, because everything is and is not certain at the same time, everything is false belief and is scientific fact at the same time. Paradoxes all around the place. I guess I can't argue with that really. What I disagree is that the view is beautiful. It might be that the beauty is in the eye of a beholder. But to me I think it's quite ugly. If you go up to a place where there is no certainty then there is no structure, everything is just a one big mush of nothing. To me logic and reason is beautiful because it defines and compartmentalizes things as much at it does. Things can be beautiful only in relation to other things. It is weakness of scientific logic in a sense that it may leave many beliefs unexplored without ever realizing that behind them might be hiding truth. Science can be somewhat close minded and arrogant. But at the same time it is it's greatest strength. Because if not for so strict relation to logic, reason and objective proof the tool of science would not be so powerful and valuable. I think it balances the other side of irrational belief quite nicely. Of course it can. Philosophy and recently also sciences of biology and psychology has been doing that for a while now quite nicely. That's irrational belief that is based on pure assumptions and not objective facts that you are describing. Will is the most important component and reason is least important. So it would go - will ---> belief ----> reason. In other words, first there is will to believe something and then we backwards rationalize to make facts fit our already established beliefs. And we stay willingly ignorant to any other facts that goes against our already established irrational beliefs. And then we have "rational beliefs" or what I would like to call "reasonable assumptions". These go - reason ----> will ---> belief. Making reason the most important factor. And whether we hold a belief depends of whether we have a will, and that further depends of whether we have reason to have a will. So when new data arises that goes against our current belief we won't be willingly ignorant to them and instead change our belief to fit the reason, keeping it a "reasonable belief" based on logic and knowledge. So while will is definitely important component in what we choose to believe it is not always central.
Other than his point about the segregation of beliefs, he's pointing out that not everything which is true and worthy of belief is rational or logical, but that some things, like love, transcend logic and reason. That it would be wrong to not believe in love just because it cannot be comprehended fully by our intellect. That there is a point where we reach the precipice of our intellect and have to continue the journey by faith through an expression of our will.
What would be the goal of these converstations? Because if the goal is to get to know each other better then it shouldn't matter what I believe and we can have a perfect conversation without being annoyed or insulted. The problem is when we try to convince each other. In this case converstations turn into a (never-ending) discussion which drive people away and cause enmity and hatred.
I guess whatever the goal was in the first place? Whenever I see a religious post asking atheists a question it quickly decends into madness and hatred, both sides get frustrated and there's always a person that pushes too far.
I just wanted to respond to this, in case anyone thought this was what I was doing, because I definitely was not. I don't care it atheists have their own group, or Christians, or whatever. I don't think Buzz does either. It's just a strange trend in society these days, that everyone needs to separate into groups so they don't have to hear any ideas that might be different than how they think. It's not exactly a healthy way to live, if someone were to take that to the extreme.
I wouldn't say always. I've had plenty of good conversations with atheists here, yourself included, that I didn't feel turned ugly.
True, not always. I just feel it's always one person that comes in and starts something, and ends up tainting and ruining what was being said. Could just be me reading something at the wrong time, I dunno. lol
Well yeah, there's usually at least one stupid person in a bunch. But I don't think that has to ruin everything for everyone.
Ah. That makes sense. Maybe Buzz should say that next time, so we common folk can actually understand what the heck he's talking about.
I think in general (not just with religious/atheist views) it does a disservice to a topic at hand which could be looked at from an objective view when it is moved to a certain section. It creates a groupthink mentality that starts to venture into extreme territory over time, and anyone who disagrees with them is looked at as almost despicable. There is another section in these forums that I see as an example of this. I’m not going to say which section because I don’t want anyone to feel singled out. But whenever I go to that section, I’m surprised to see how one-sided some of the comments end up being. Some of these people in question seem to gang up on any differing opinion as if the contrarian is some horrible human being. The funny thing is, if these topics were in any of the main sections, you’d get a much more balanced discussion. It’s almost worth avoiding altogether, as the content barely matches the name of the section anymore. But that’s what happens when you constantly categorize everything.
Yes, close-mindedness, of whatever persuasion, is the greatest threat to us today... in so far as people still see our civil freedoms as a fragile achievement. Personally, I find it a little disconcerting when the ideologue of the day slams their fist on the table, demanding their freedoms with an abstract right in mind, and little to no regard to a political pragmatic compromise and unity. This kind of fanaticism spells the death of politics not its consummation. The death of politics, the death of criticism, the death of tolerance... coming soon to a town near you... Yes, theoretical reason can only ever be flat, two-dimensional, and antithetical. Real life is three dimensional... and practical reason [as opposed to theory] should always have this distancing and critical character about it. I think history helps us here in so far as it both provides the sequence of events by which we arrived where we are, and provides a counter-point and contrasting perspective with which to look at the present. So if we travel back, to say the medieval ages, you have various 'transcendentals' counterbalancing each other... and hence various cultures and ways of thinking. Besides Truth, we have Unity, Goodness and Beauty... none is a tyrant over the other... all inter-relate in tolerance... until of course Truth, in the form of literalism and puritanism gets the upper hand in the Reformation. And of course this is secularized in the rationalism that followed. Yes, I say let science be science. It is a method, a tool, a means to read the book of Nature. But there is more to life than science. This is not to negate science, but to add to it in other forms of life. Of course, the addition will always be critical of a science which seeks to be reductive and dehumanizing. I guess my point in putting will central is to state that all scientific endeavor is creative... it is essentially the product of our own imaginations... and yet, when we lose sight of this, it takes on all the proportions of the disappearing grin of a Cheshire cat, or a Baron Von Munchausen, with his attempt to pull himself from the bog by his own pigtails.
Yes, due to the inherent nature of the internet, which practically promotes the individuation of thought, I'd advocate a policy of idiosyncrasy in order to avoid groupthink. It is no paradox that individuation of thought leads to groupthink as people will naturally gravitate to the like-minded.
One wonders if this is deliberate. The goal should be to explain complex ideas in simple language. Not to explain simple ideas in complex language. Ah, I'm being snarky because I'm in a bad mood.
Language is never simple. A small essay: Language Illusion Money illusion, that observation of the economists, exists when people confuse the units of a currency with money itself. They will cling to their notes even as their power to purchase goods erodes away, and will exclaim with exasperation how something like a house once cost only half as much as it does today. The illusion is in the numbers, in the particular measurement which is the currency [as contrasted to the universal idea of money], and then in the functions of that currency, of the measurement of value and of its storage come into conflict, as the increase in its quantity leads to a decrease in its quality. And in similar manner we have language illusion. Words are coined with a meaning within a certain context. Particular words are thought to have a particular identity, just as a note of currency is thought to actually be the money. But the reality is this note, or this word, represents, within a context, a contingent value or meaning. Just as the monetary value of a note transcends it, so too the meaning of a word transcends itself. The sign is representative or symbolic of that which is signified. And just as we have various currencies all within a state of flux, so too we have various discourses minting their own meaning [what has to be a pertinent fact is that Sir Isaac Newton was both the Exchequer of the Mint and the creator of a cosmology]. They are language games for sure, but not just games, for even if they are of an arbitrary nature and contingent on their context, they still relate in a symbolic manner to the field of meaning. It would only be those laboring under language illusion, under an ideology, that might be disconcerted about this relative relativism [relative because relativism can never be absolute]. For like their monetary counter-parts in neglecting the universal aspect, they cling to the particulars. In seeing the relativism of language, we also see its figurative function. Blind to this function, language illusion is that puritanical attitude to language known as literalism, that inability or unwillingness to think in terms of images. Instead, we find the willful restriction to think only in terms of ideas. And in thinking literally toward the language, we find meaning increasingly eroding from language, to the point that meaning, externally orientated, is lost altogether in the specialization and segregation of the disciplines from each other. Now meaning is constructed tautologically in terms of the inner and arbitrary rules of its fundamentals principles and assumptions – language truly becomes a language game. With the loss of the links of language to its universal of meaning, it derives its meaning solely and inwardly within its context. And then without an understanding of both the universal and contingent aspect of words, any semblance of unity, or synchronicity, between discourses and disciplines is lost. In the development of analytical philosophy we see reflected this process a posteriori at the wider level. It now remains for the figurative language of fiction and imagery to rescue words of their emasculation and meaninglessness. But to do this, we must first see through language illusion, literalism, ideology, that which would keep language tied in at port, in order to allow it to once again embark on the sea of meaning.
Dammit Buzz you're doing it again, lol. Understand your audience my friend. You have a lot of great ideas which are just going to be lost because you frustrate your audience, especially by your refusal to meet your audience on a level of understanding. Think of yourself as a teacher. If you explained something to your students and they were all left scratching their heads, would you continue to the lesson in the same way?
Well, along with Jon Stewart of the Daily Show, my opinions are as yet not fully formed and a work in progress. Part of the reason I post involves an attempt to interface high culture with popular culture[if we are still allowed to use such terms]. It is experimental in a sense. As for teaching, perhaps it involves a sweet spot, where the ideas remain challenging though still with an element of tongue in cheek.
