Jenyar said:
That depends on the scale of your perspective. Simply from the perspective of entropy, chaos has been ruling for millions of years. The universe is running down, moving from order into disorder. From the perspective of human harmony, chaos has ruled on earth since the first sin.
If a mathematical equation/description can be produced to describe the motion of something -- can that thing still be regarded "chaotic"?
And don't they have mathematic equations/descriptions even for the movement of birds picking on a heap of seeds?
Where exactly is the chaos then?
How do I find chaos, when for everything, mathematical descriptions can be produced?
They did come up with some kind of order. We call it justice. Left to itself, everything will eventually return to the way it was, but like an engine that keeps on running while its fuel last, people can perpetuate disorder as long as they have a will to. People only settle when they're dead. Death is nature at rest, since itself is a temporary suspension of chaos. Since we're not isolated systems, we can only reach such equilibrium spiritually (some would prefer to say 'psychologically') - when we reach it naturally, we die.
No no no. Living systems, as long as they are living systems, are organized by some kind of order, and this order emerges from them being living systems.
(Note: we are making these statements while observing the system from the outside. System elements don't have this sort of perspective available.)
There is no such thing as "Left to itself, everything will eventually return to the way it was". From an extrasystemic perspective, every system is always "left to itself".
* * *
WANDERER said:
I don’t know Bush either but I can still make evaluations about him.
Only about what you think you know about him.
Who knows, he could be a payed actor.
Is this all part of some Socratic method, a-la-water?
I am just being thorough.
But it depends on the situation.
Some respect does come at a high cost to self-respect but it must compensate the loss with another gain, if it is healthy.
See, those things I wouldn't call respect. I don't have "respect" for the man who looks like robbing me, even though I behave "respectfully" (trying to get away) -- the same I have respect for a friend.
“ What does it take for you to love someone? ”
A bottle of vodka and an erection.
“ How does one earn your love? ”
By paying $200
“ By becoming worthy of you? ”
By becoming my bitch
You are such a whore.
“ How do you earn other people's love? By becoming worthy of them? ”
Well I guess it depends if we are talking about Eros or Agape.
There is purely instinctual emotion and then emotion born of reason.
I would say that being as close to their ideal or fulfilling a need, whether physical or psychological, is how one earns love.
Again a cost/benefit analysis is necessary.
So for you, it is something like, "Being a buxom brunette who can speak Greek and knows a lot of stuff *earns* you my love".
Yes, I have done so before.
First of all, what does it mean to "defend or support or explain your religious convictions"?
Since we’re playing 200 questions… It’s when you can offer rational, logical arguments or empirical evidence in support of….
That would be nice, were it not that the empirical method is so unclear. Gathering empirical data and analyzing it depends on a certain methodology, and that methodology is itself an object to further empirical inquiry ...
Exactly. So ignorance results in the sense of mystery and creates the mystical.
Now imagine a faith where not even the “experts” can offer you anything but this.
There you have religion.
But I think the mess with religion doesn't come from the religious being unable to "explain" religion.
It is the multicultural discourse, the mixing of discourses that we now have, more intensely for the past 200 years or so, that brings in so much confusion.
What needs to be clarified and distinguished are the discourses.
If you have Culture A, living all by itself, leading its religious discourse DA, to its members, there is nothing mystical about it, they understand it.
But upon clashing with Culture B, which is leading religious discourse DB (which to the members of B is also fully understandable) -- to B, DA is mystical and inexplicable, while to A, DB is mystical and inexplicable.
Be it so that the two cultures become to live together (for whatever reason), they develop a common ground, while at the same time, the sphere of the "mystical and mysterious" emerges.
As DB is *not native* to A, A is likely to not develop an understanding for DB, and vice versa.
This is the nature of the mixture we are facing nowadays.
From my perspective most religious thinkers or the faithful in general don’t live up to the rules of their faith. They expect all the benefits and gifts but always fall short in paying for them or for sacrificing for their attainment.
In that case, it is wise to rethink your labelling them to be members of certain religions.
First of all, for an individual to be able to live a what he considers a decent life, a certain social harmony and cultural stability are necessary.
It does not happen that one could live happily in one's smug little house, while the world outside is at war.
In other words, most popular religions depend on a utopian environment and speak to an idealized human.
Out of touch with reality.
No, that was not my point at all. You were arguing for the individual, while I argued that the individual depends on society. An individual cannot prosper if the society (which is made of other individuals) is in decline.
“ Who are you to them that they should care what you think of them? ”
Who are you to me, to ask?
Who are they to me, for me to care if they care?
This line of questions is very revealing -- answers to them point at the general outlook one has towards people, the default position towards others.
(You are interested in the relation between individual and society, yes?)
“ On what grounds can you make any assertions about what should be believed? ”
A question is not an assertion.
I am a thinking human being.
On what grounds do you not make assertions or ask questions?
Why are you even here, then?
"I am a thinking human being." Strange, how rarely this is regarded as a valid justification to do something.
“ Can you be trusted? ”
It depends.
“ Do you trust anyone? ”
With difficulty and in time.
These questions were in relation to your demand to always be willing to renounce everything you believe. Namely, if one embraces such complete relativism, it becomes impossible to trust such a person, this person has difficulties trusting others, and such a person also loses trust in himself.
Of course, there is discordance between what we think and how we act.
Even a nihilist lives as if the world matters.
A sceptic acts as if there are absolute truths, even if he might reject them intellectually.
That's dreadfully inconsistent! How can one be both an empiricist and a relativist at the same time?
So why not have a god that exalts warfare and bloodshed?
If you read the Bible, you'll find plenty of kill-your-enemy.
The problem is that with the mixing of cultures and discourses, it has become unclear who exactly the enemy is. So whom to kill?
Just because someone does something in the name of God does not mean that God approves of this, or that God has ordered it. It also doesn't mean that those actions done in God's name can be put against God.
Why should man seek anyone’s approval to live out his nature or to create his own ideals?
You are assuming that God and man are foreigners, and don't really have anything to do with eachother.
That man is oppressed by God.
My line of thought was about ascribing responsibility. It happens someone says "God told me to do it", and people believe this, never questioning if the person's claims can be believed. As a result, both God and the person's claim are discarded.
History is full of this: The Christian Church conducted the Inquisition, and said they did it in God's name. What happened is that God was automatically blamed for what the Inquisition did in His name, and then some who did not agree with the Inquisition, discarded God on the basis of the claims that the Inquisition made.
As if it were automatically true that if someone says he is doing something in God's name, then it is true that God has ordered it, and God is responsible for it.
Few bothered to inquire whether the Inquisition truly did God's work, or whether it didn't and simply just said so while it had other motives.
You are speaking from the perspective of a belief in a God that disapproves of violence and hatred. A Christian god.
Not at all! There is this hippie Golden Retriever Syndrome notion of the Christian God being all lovey dovey to everyone and everything, no matter what. This is not true.
When talking about any ideology, we always have to distinguish between what the texts supposedly propose and what has been declared as that ideology by historically existing people.
For example, Christianity is often looked down on because people who call themselves Christians aren't what the Bible supposedly says they should be. Those are arguments made from perfectionism of performance.
And that's just it: Just because someone calls himself to be Christian does not make him one, and we should not simply blindly accept everyone to be what they say about themselves.
Yet a popular argument against Christianity is based excatly on this fallacy: "If someone calls himself a Christian, then he is a Christian. If this person lies, cheats, etc., then this means that Christianity approves of lying and cheating etc. Therefore, Christianity is to be discarded as immoral." -- This is fallacious thinking, based on the avoidance of personally finding out whether a person is what they proclaim to be.
I come to it from the perspective of acquiring an ideal’s or an ideology’s worth by observing its results.
Again, you are letting the object of your observation define what it is, without you inquring whether its claims are true or not.
If someone SAYS he is a Christian, you automatically regard him to be a Christian, without further investigation. This is bad investigatory work on your part.
Sure, Christianity and Communism are systems better suited for ant-like creatures but should we then make humanity into this ideal and should we expect humans today to live up to these standards?
Better suited for a certain kind of creatures. So, per you, people with a certain mentality exist, and THEN, on the basis of this mentality, they accept Christianity or Communism?
The Bible is purposefully written in ambiguous and easily reinterpreted language.
This is hard to support, if at all. It suggests a conspiracy theory. Of course, no conspiracy theory is refutable, but it also cannot be proven. It's better to drop the issue due to being unresolvable.
Why should the social system take precedence over the single individual?
Where do you get this from?!
The system are the members/individuals, the members/individuals are the system. It is them, they are it.
What will become of the individual, in time, if this social pressure persists?
He'll develop a more internal sense of what it means to be an individual (ie. he will feel special or unique without displaying much external signs of uniqueness), or he'll perish.
It's evolution, baby, only the strong survive.
Why do larger social constructs exude more influence over us than smaller more immediate social groupings?
This is so: If we are observing one single individual in his striving to survive, then this has little or no effect on the whole of society he is living in.
A certain group may have some influence.
But when a large group is striving to survive, this is more apparent. Even though the principles of its survival (making decisions, choosing, having values and preferences, ...) are the same as in a single individual, when applied on a grand scale, it looks far more drastic.
If an individual is striving to survive, it is no big thing. If a big company or corporation is doing the same thing, the effect can be enormous -- while the principles are the same.
And here is the problem: rampant procreation, a defence of the weakest within the herd, and an absence of frontiers.
Rats trapped in a cage.
Then certain ideologies and faiths become important to the harmony of the whole.
A recipe for disaster.
Why a recipe for disaster? Disaster strikes because individuals don't actually keep to the rules they otherwise claim to be keeping to. Not because the rules would be too hard too keep -- but because one, as an individual, in the short term perspective, CAN get away with not keeping them.
People like to forget that they are not alone here, so they act is if they were alone and as if they can do just whatever they please. THIS IS the recipe for disaster.
This has nothing in particular to do with specific ideologies. An ideology is good if it enables the society keeping that ideology to prosper without endangering the environment they live in.
I’m more concerned about the individual member within the system.
And I'm saying the individual won't survive if the society won't survive. That is, one can't live alone, all by himself. One needs others, or the products of their work in order to survive -- at this state of technology.
I mean life itself punishes stupidity and uncooperative behaviour.
The group chastises and quarantines disruptive individuals without the need for greater retribution.
The creation of a Hell is only essential for people that cannot be controlled through reason because they have so little of it, and so require a greater threat.
It itself is the result of a weakening herd.
You allow weakness to procreate, you defend it and offer it rights and you get a population dominated by individuals with no self-discipline or little rational thought.
This leads to the requirement for more powerful methods of coercion.
This is where the movement for human rights lead to.
No no no. For example, discpline can be practiced, and practicing it does have its benefits. But I don't see why temporarily failing to live up to it should end in "disgrace and self-loathing". This happens only if the ideal is to be held to be more important than the person holding that ideal.
And isn’t this what the popular religions do?
No. This is what the popular understanding of religion does.
I don't see why that would be needed. I said "the way we *treat* God should be more approachable, more earthly and real". Instead of treating God like a foreigner and something unknowable, God shouldbe treated as something that can be known.
How can such an alien creature ever be known?
If you define it as "alien creature", then it indeed cannot be known. Such a definition excludes any progress of knowing God.
How can the imperfect even attempt to define perfection?
Why would they need to?
There’s nothing earthly about the Christian God, for instance.
They had to come up with Jesus to make him more real, more human.
You still insist on denoting the object to be "unearthly", while I've been going on about how we *treat* God, the way we *approach* God.
One can have a very earthly relationship even with divinity.
Stop thinking that the object defines the relationship: already observational distance tells you this is impossible. The relationship between two is defined in an interplay of one with another.
With God, you do your earthly, human part, and God does his divine part.
One mans justice is another’s injustice.
Reap the what the human rights movement has sown.
But it’s true that any social organization entails the need for discipline to particular ideas.
The question is which ones will lead to better results?
In this case, you have to specify what "better results" are. Greater population? Smaller population? Complete robotization? Immortality provided with scientific means?
That’s why I posited the question about which type of god would best serve mankind’s aspirations.
It's not clear what mankind's aspirations are. After all,
One man's justice is another’s injustice.
-More unconsciousness than consciousness.
-An animal, training itself.
-A wonderful hypocrite.
-Nobility, pretending.
-A beast with table manners, a silk coat or gown and manicured fingers.
-A potty-trained pet.
-A fucking-machine with an overzealous imagination.
-A clown with a painted-on serious face.
-A great King, with a sock stuffed down his pants.
-Struggling neurosis, beneath; calm, confidence, on the surface.
-A zit waiting to be popped.
-A thespian that forgot his lines.
-A whore with dignity.
-A horrified imbecile hiding behind the walls he erects.
-An evolutionary experiment gone wrong.
-A terrible mistake gone right.
-A quadruped, standing on its hind legs raising its head to the air in arrogance and flashing its genitals.
-A poet with fetishes.
-A busy-body.
-Ennui creating its own entertainment.
-A genetic freak.
-An intellectual infant searching for a teat.
-Blind instinct, using what mind it has to explain itself.
-A puzzle solver that cuts his own pieces.
-A pawn thinking itself special because it sits one square in front of the queen.
-A barbarian with a sense of style.
-Hormones with humour.
-A shit-hole, calling it fertilizer.
-A moron with attitude.
-A dancer in an invisible ballet.
-God/Satan in the making.
-A wishing well.
-A road builder with a made-up destination.
-Neurons with too much time on their hands.
Oxymoronic analytical reductionisms ...
* * *
Bells said:
For example, the Christian Right has the power to make Bush dance and do as they bid.
Prove it.
It frightens me that so many people can allow themselves to be ruled by something that is totally unproven and frankly hearsay of the beliefs of others.
Everything, all human knowledge has the nature of hearsay.
But for them, it means they all belong. It means that their pitiful life on this planet will end and paradise awaits them behind the pearly gates.
Religion and a belief in a deity gives them something to look forward to and it also gives them something and someone to blame when it all goes invariably wrong.
It is not true that the reasons you think they have for being religious are necessarily the reasons they think they are religious.
What you have stated above is what you think that it would take *you* to become religious. It does not mean that those same reasons operate in other people who are religious.
Personally, I think none. Mankind can only benefit itself when it frees itself from the shackles of religion and sees the potential to exist and improve by its own hands and means. Religion is a constraint preventing mankind from reaching it's full potential. We are restricted by religious dogmas.
What is mankind's full potential?
Man created and invented God to keep man in check.
Prove it.
Scientifically.
And who are you to determine or critique any other religion?
And who are you?
The fact that he does not participate in the religious forum does not deny him the right or ability to ask the question.
Where did you get this from? Who is denying him anything? You are making up a case that is not here.
On the contrary, he is approaching the subject with open eyes, untainted by the psychotic religious fervour that we are always witness to in this forum. If you believe a religion is worthy of following then you follow it because you are free to do so. If Wanderer disagrees, he is free to voice that opinion. Just as you have your prejudices of others and their religion, does not mean that others will not critique you and your own.
Your point?
Sigh... Chaos is constant Water.
Prove it, honey-boney.
Give me one example where human society has come up with some kind of order? Just one. An appearance or semblance of order does not mean that order exists. There is always a constant flow of chaos. After all, without chaos, we would never be able to recognise even a semblance of order. Order is a wish, a want for a calm in the storm that is life and society. But while order may be placed in one aspect of society, next door chaos reigns.
That something is described as "ordered" or "organized" is a matter of the methodological grid which we put on objective reality when observing it.
The human mind is a pattern-finder, it will find patterns, and thus (some kind of) order anywhere.
To claim that objective reality is chaotic would be to claim that 1. one has direct knowledge of it, and 2. that the human mind is not a pattern-finder.
If anything, the term "chaotic" makes sense when we are trying to say that we don't like the order in which we have found something.
It is always "up to the people", it's not like some unearthly entity comes and regularly gravely interfers with people's lives.
That's where you are wrong. Some unearthly entity does regularly interfere with people's lives.
Wow. So you do believe in unearthly entities gravely interferring with people's lives?
It is the person's belief in such an entity that makes the interference in their own lives and the lives of others.
That's not the same:
A: Some unearthly entity does regularly interfere with people's lives.
B: It is the person's belief in such an entity that makes the interference in their own lives and the lives of others.
A and B are not the same.
I'll give you an example. I don't believe in religion or in any religious deity for that matter. I was brought up a Catholic by very strict Catholic parents and when I began to regonise and understand the world around me, I realised that I did not 'just believe'. I have other family members who've converted to all these other faiths that I've lost count. But that's their concern and I'm happy being an atheist. It's who I am. Now 2 months ago, I found out that my boyfriend of 3 years and myself were expecting a child. It came as a shock to us as I was not supposed to be able to have a child, but it's become a welcome shock (morning sickness aside that is) and we are now getting our home ready and prepared for this child of ours. However this is where 'some unearthly entity comes and gravely interfers with' my life. I have one cousin who's unfortunately married to a religious fanatic who now thinks that his farts are blessings from his God. This man has become the bane of my existence. Last week, I was resting after some complications with the pregnancy and short and constant hospital stays and my significant other had gone to buy some grapes as they are the only thing that I can currently keep down. So there I was lying in bed, trying to will myself into thinking that I really did not want to throw up regardless of what my stomach was doing, when someone knocked on my apartment door. I stumbled to said door and opened it to find my dear fanatical relative standing there with Bible thrust forward as though it were a shield and his nostrils flared like a bull in heat. To say I was shocked to the point of forgetting that I wanted to vomit would be an understatement. I attempted to shut my door in his face when he barged in and pushed me aside and started screaming that I was an evil heathen who needed to be prayed on to ensure that the poor child I'm carrying would not be a devil heathen like myself. I asked him to leave and he refused and the next thing I knew all these other people started streaming into my apartment, people I'd never met before, telling me that I must let God in. He'd bought half of his equally fanatically religious prayer group to my house to drive God into me. My attempts to get to my phone to call the police were prevented when they grabbed hold of me and forced me to sit on my couch and they then tried to 'lay their hands on me'. Usually I'd have been kicking and screaming like a wild animal at this point but I was in a lot of pain and frankly not my best at that point... they'd caught me at my weakest. My neighbour who'd often in the last few weeks seen me leaving in an ambulance due to complications with this pregnancy thankfully heard them ranting and my repeated pleas for them to leave and came rushing into my flat with a cricket bat. My neighbour is a sweet 70 year old gentleman who thankfully managed to appear maniacle enough to drive them out of my house. I have reported the incident to the police and thankfully they're treating it seriously. I can laugh about this now, but these freak's beliefs in that unearthly entity and what their particular religion dictates is what drove them to interfer with my life and my freedom to live my life as I see fit. Their belief in that deity is what dictated their actions. Therefore in a way, that unearthly being did interfer with my life. While we can say yes it is up to the people, people are also driven by their beliefs in their God and their religion and will act as what their religion says their God dictates. Do you see the connection there? While a God or deity does not interfer directly in people's lives, it and belief in it interfers in other ways through the actions of others.
Relegation of responsibility.
They could also say that, for example, Satan is driving you to do the things you do.
And they would be equally right about you as you are about them.
If you agree that everyone is entitled to have his opinion and to hold his own values and preferences -- then what the hell are you complaining about?
Man always changes. We would not have evolved if it were not for change. You'd still be rubbing two stones together in a cave if your ancestors did not change and adapt to that change.
But you have not answered WHY man MUST change.
* * *
cole grey said:
Your point that humans need to evolve, and our perspectives of God must evolve is correct. That doesn't show that God must change, by any means.
We could make coherent claims about how God has to change only if we claim full knowledge of God. This is not the case.
* * *
WANDERER said:
“ Why void? ”
Irony, sarcasm, playfulness, facetiousness, escape you.
No. My mind is just set to investigate.
Only good that I'm wearing my
pink shirt. Or I'd be as sarcastic as you are, ironically.
All beliefs should be your own and the product of your own personal journey and struggle, with the usual influences and pressures from without.
This happens anyway.
Current religions take an empty mind and shape it.
What exactly do you mean? Adult converts, or children being brought up religiously by religious parents?
It’s surprising that anyone manages to break free at all.
For me it was a case of chance.
I was brought up in an Orthodox Christian environment by my mother, but my father’s voice of dissent placed the germ of doubt in me early on.
I had two opposing world views available to me and this prevented whatever indoctrination occurs in others.
No matter how you are brought up, you are brought up with some ideology that defines your mind to a greater or lesser extent, depending on how consistent your experience of that ideology was. No matter what that ideology was.
Changing paths, turning away from that ideology has little to do with that particular ideology, but much more with character.
This is, of course, only an observation I have made so far.
A non-religiuos upbringing is just as ideolgically determined as a religious; only that it is determined in some other way, with another content. People "escape" non-religious burgeois snobbery, small-town negativism etc. with the same kind of effort it takes to "escape" Orthodox Christianity or Buddhism -- and embrace some other ideology.
One cannot be ideologically neutral.
True religion is one of the cultural elements that bind us to one another.
In that case, the distinction between
institutionalized and
personal religion is useful.
Note that most religions can be practiced in both ways, and to the outiside, both kinds of practices look the same.
The distinction is in how the individual experiences his own religion: whether he sees it a form, a set of rules he is used to obey; or whether his own religion is to him a personal choice, something he has embraced into his heart.
Maybe a distinction must be made here, if any can be, between religion and spirituality.
Of course! What is usually regarded as "religion" -- by this, it is often meant the institution of religion itself. Which is impersonal, abstract, a philosophical construct that resides only in theory.
Spirituality would then be a person's *living* his faith, his belief.
Man created and invented God to keep man in check.
Funny thing is that for most this is the only thing “keeping them in check”.
To say
Man created and invented God to keep man in check. -- this reveals what the mind which has produced this statement thinks of God. As if God were some watch dog, a necessary evil.
If the usual methods of population control cannot be allowed to function and the creation of larger and larger amounts of idiots becomes a way of maintaining cultural viability, then some form of a simplistic deity is important for the masses.
But I am not talking for them. I am talking about the rest that find these spiritual dogmas as too simple or constricting and are looking for something else.
People tend to do what pleases them, and they will interpret any rule so that it suits them best. This is not the rule's fault. The rule cannot supervise the way it is followed or set in practice.
I know why religion is attractive because I've felt the attraction.
So?
It is still a matter of your specific individual experience. It does not mean that the way it was for you is also for everyone else.
The economic structures which keep us glued to material concerns and force us into a nine-to-five existence, benefit the overall social structure but do they sacrifice the individual for it?
But what would the individual do if he had more time on his hands?
Nowadays, he would shop, play videogames, eat fast food or watch tv even more than he already does.
* * *
Actually, I have an answer to your question:
"What type of deity will benefit mankind and raise him above what he is?"
It is not about "type of deity" but about
the way man approaches deity.
I swear, if I were God and people would come drooling to me, crawling before me, feeling sorry for themselves, asking me for things while not having the least trust in me -- I'd bloody smite them and teach them a lesson. If I were God, I would despise those who would behave like wosses towards me.
