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High Fructose Corn Spirit
Gym climber
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Dec 22, 2017 - 02:43pm PT
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Analogies? Metaphors? Comparisons?
"Again, humanity, like nature itself, tends to cruelty. There is no need for religion in the practice of that cruelty and in many respects that cruelty is simply humanity's natural state. If anything religious practice acts as a mediation to the terrible things humans are capable of." -Paul
(Good grief! criticizing religion is for calcified ingrates!)
Again, humanity, like nature itself, tends to sluggishness in transportation. There is no need for horse n buggy in the practice of that sluggish transportation; and in many respects that sluggishness is simply humanity's natural state. If anything horse n buggy transportation acts as a multiplier to the snail-pace sluggishness humans are capable of.
(Good grief! criticizing horse n buggy is for calcified ingrates!)
Again, humanity, like nature itself, tends to sluggishness in communications. There is no need for the telegraph in the practice of that sluggish communication; and in many respects that sluggishness is simply humanity's natural state. If anything telegraph communication acts as a multiplier to the direct ear to ear sluggishness humans are capable of.
(Good grief! criticizing telegraph is for calcified ingrates!)
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The telegraph, horse n buggy, and religion served their important roles in history. Of course they did. But this is the 21st century, and we Sapiens - "like Nature Herself" - are envelope pushers, and in this century we improved, and continue to improve, on the telegraph, horse n buggy and religion. Yes we can!
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"For those of us in the Northern Hemisphere, the days start getting longer now. What a beautiful, provable cause for celebration. Happy #WinterSolstice!!!" -Sasha Sagan
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paul roehl
Boulder climber
california
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Dec 22, 2017 - 06:02pm PT
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The telegraph, horse n buggy, and religion served their important roles in history. Of course they did. But this is the 21st century, and we Sapiens - "like Nature Herself" - are envelope pushers, and in this century we improved, and continue to improve, on the telegraph, horse n buggy and religion. Yes we can!
The problem with this comparison is that religion addresses those human concerns of a grave and constant nature that remain outside the purview of progress in science, technology or even politics. The inevitable nature in each human life of birth, childhood, the transformation into adulthood, love, commitment in love, aging, decrepitude and death are with us no matter how wonderful the technological, scientific or even political environment. Religion reconciles us to these occurrences which are deeply affective to the psyche through a process of myth and its metaphor that touch that psyche directly. As well it's important to remember the engine of improvement in the western tradition has so often been religion: the celebration of humanism so influential to later generations in the work of Dante or later in Michelangelo is a direct result of the deepest kind of faith.
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WBraun
climber
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Dec 22, 2017 - 06:10pm PT
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we Sapiens - "like Nature Herself" - are envelope pushers
You haven't done anything as far pushing envelopes.
Now you are comparing yourself to nature which is even more egomaniacal.
You've only gone backward and even far worse .....
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MikeL
Social climber
Southern Arizona
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Dec 22, 2017 - 06:19pm PT
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Paul: . . . in many respects . . . cruelty is simply humanity's natural state.
I like my serving of reality a bit dark and ironic, but cruelty goes beyond the pale for me. If there is cruelty, there is also compassion, and they both seem in proportion. That's what makes life art to me. No bunnies.
You walk by a pond, and you see a young girl drowning. You jump in and rescue her. Twenty years later, she becomes the next Hitler. You rethink your efforts. Would you regret and wish for a do-over?
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WBraun
climber
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Dec 22, 2017 - 06:27pm PT
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cruelty is simply humanity's natural state
Humanities natural state is always positive, blissful and full of life.
When it comes in contact with material nature all that changes.
Cruelty is a symptom of the living entity operating in the mode of ignorance due to heavy material contamination .....
The egomaniacal gross materialist always thinks it can do as good or better than Nature and it's own self.
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Byran
climber
Half Dome Village
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Dec 22, 2017 - 07:47pm PT
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To think that aesthetic refinement is but the vestige of some primeval condition is to dismiss its importance and humanity's importance as well.
"Importance" isn't a property of objects in the world, like temperature or mass. It can only be ascribed by an agent, and is entirely subjective, like beauty or humor. So obviously, YOU think that if the human mind and "aesthetic refinement" evolved by unguided natural processes, that it somehow reduces our importance in the cosmos. But that's just, like, your opinion, man. To view the human mind as the pet project of some creator deity is to dismiss humanity's importance, others might say.
Arguing over subjective topics is the reason religious and political threads will never die. There's no bottom to it, and so it just goes round in circles.
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paul roehl
Boulder climber
california
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Dec 22, 2017 - 11:14pm PT
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"Importance" isn't a property of objects in the world, like temperature or mass. It can only be ascribed by an agent, and is entirely subjective, like beauty or humor. So obviously, YOU think that if the human mind and "aesthetic refinement" evolved by unguided natural processes, that it somehow reduces our importance in the cosmos. But that's just, like, your opinion, man. To view the human mind as the pet project of some creator deity is to dismiss humanity's importance, others might say.
Arguing over subjective topics is the reason religious and political threads will never die. There's no bottom to it, and so it just goes round in circles.
If beauty is completely subjective and therefore anything to anyone then it is nothing: it does not exist. What you ignore is consensus. We agree x is beautiful and y is ugly. A rose is beautiful, a piece of road kill several weeks old not so much. Likemindedness validates the reality of a human perception of beauty. The science contingent often seems to have a peculiar misunderstanding of beauty and its nature and the consensus that gives it life.
There can be no "unguided aesthetic refinement" because evolution, like all else is guided by the laws of physics (and where did they come from?). My point is that dismissing human
achievement as an insignificant attribute of evolutionary processes for the purpose of demonstrating our own insignificance is to ignore the developments born of our own cultural effort. It is a mistake to think "we are an insignificant bit on an insignificant speck in a vast universe and no more important than the local bacteria."
"Subjectivity/Objectivity" is a dicey issue which few here seem to understand. My argument is that we are remarkably important and our actions count for something important .
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MikeL
Social climber
Southern Arizona
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Dec 23, 2017 - 08:04am PT
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Bryan: "Importance" isn't a property of objects in the world, like temperature or mass. It can only be ascribed by an agent, and is entirely subjective, like beauty or humor.
Bryan, there are sociologists, epistemologists, and psychologists who have provided plenty of studies and arguments which indicate that even temperature and mass have been “subjectively ascribed” (socially constructed). Most all of us are living in a fantasy world.
Paul: "Subjectivity/Objectivity" is a dicey issue which few here seem to understand. My argument is that we are remarkably important and our actions count for something important .
What Paul says. (Also, see Viktor Frankl: man appears to search naturally for meaning and value.)
narrative.
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High Fructose Corn Spirit
Gym climber
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Dec 23, 2017 - 08:34am PT
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Byran, excellent post. (hfcs liked.)
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Good grief! criticizing religion is for calcified ingrates!
- If not horse n buggy, then what? (1800s)
- If not telegraph, then what? (1800s)
- If not deity and religion, then what? (2000s)
Paul, do you have much of an inventor's mind?
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paul roehl
Boulder climber
california
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Dec 23, 2017 - 09:54am PT
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Paul, do you have much of an inventor's mind?
Perhaps an understanding mind as opposed to an inventor's mind.
What does the crucifixion mean in psychological terms? The virgin birth? The earth touching posture of the Buddha? What is it that so many naturally subscribe to in these metaphors?
The understanding of these stories is not simply, "well, they're fuggin booshet man."
Religious ideas communicate to people, they touch the psyche as an anodyne to the strangeness of being and as such should be understood.
Invention? No. Understanding and empathy? Yes.
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High Fructose Corn Spirit
Gym climber
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Dec 23, 2017 - 09:59am PT
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"What does the crucifixion mean in psychological terms? The virgin birth? The earth touching posture of the Buddha? What is it that so many naturally subscribe to in these metaphors?" -Paul
Well, to the ignorant, a faction not to be ignored, imo, it could me an effective torturing device, effective at silencing dissent. The virgin birth could mean, yeah, once in awhile virgins actually get pregnant (what do the expert biologists know?) (2) to enough of the ignorant ruled by a despot that could mean, under the right circumstances, social impotence if not war... No?
Tell me, non-calcitrant one, Did you gather any reflection (even 1%) from my post? or from Byran's post? Is there just no chance you might be running interference for the maintenance of archaic old-school ways in the matter of belief (that bears on behavior) as the world at large struggles to deal with 21st century problems with 21st century approaches?
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paul roehl
Boulder climber
california
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Dec 23, 2017 - 10:42am PT
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Well, to the ignorant, a faction not to be ignored, imo, it could me an effective torturing device, effective at silencing dissent. The virgin birth could mean, yeah, once in awhile virgins actually get pregnant (what do the expert biologists know?) (2) to enough of the ignorant ruled by a despot that could mean, under the right circumstances, social impotence if not war... No?
You read these stories only in factual terms and in doing so miss their point and their factual reality completely. Why are the stories of the virgin birth and the dead and returning deity so prevalent in mythologies throughout the world? What do these stories mean in psychological terms? A biological interpretation of the virgin birth is nonsense leading directly to not knowing which I would assume is hardly the goal of science.
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High Fructose Corn Spirit
Gym climber
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Dec 23, 2017 - 10:52am PT
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You read these stories only in factual terms...
I do? lol
I do not.
Have you learned nothing from all these exchanges?
I do not. But others do. Plenty of others. That is the point. Do you consider only yourself. You're fantasizing if you think you can get 100% of the masses on board with your adjulation of the metaphor and (2) its effectiveness as a metaphor with your reconciliation. As William Wallace said: You must open your eyes.
Thank goodness, though, the 21st century info age is changing that. Enough of it at least. Therein is the hope. Soon enough among the reasonably educated theology-based belief sysems (religions) will be moot, as moot as astrology.
Will there be holdouts. Of course. But not among the "reasonably educated".
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paul roehl
Boulder climber
california
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Dec 23, 2017 - 11:09am PT
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I do not. But others do. Plenty of others. That is the point. Do you consider only yourself. You're fantasizing if you think you can get 100% of the masses on board with your adjulation of the metaphor and (2) its effectiveness as a metaphor with your reconciliation. As William Wallace said: You must open your eyes.
Those metaphors have a richness and insight into the human condition that science and technology simply cannot offer. That you refuse to consider them in any way seems a bit stubborn. Perhaps it's more difficult than you imagine to "see" exactly whose eyes are open and whose eyes are shut.
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sempervirens
climber
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Dec 23, 2017 - 11:31am PT
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Those metaphors have a richness and insight into the human condition that science and technology simply cannot offer. That you refuse to consider them in any way seems a bit stubborn. Perhaps it's more difficult than you imagine to "see" exactly whose eyes are open and whose eyes are shut. Here
Agreed. But what if some of us do consider these metaphors? I can see their value. You are also stubborn in refusing to consider all the harm that religion has done and continues to do. And the harm in blind faith.
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High Fructose Corn Spirit
Gym climber
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Dec 23, 2017 - 12:03pm PT
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and then there's this angle...
Religion's fine for religious people.
But what about all those who aren't religious?
It's time they had something to support and reflect their
evidence-based beliefs, their reason-based beliefs, their
needs and wants, cares and concerns.
Don't you think?
Something codified. Something
institutional. Something providing community support.
Something incorporating scientific understanding, something
science-respecting.
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https://www.samharris.org/podcast/item/the-change-artist
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jogill
climber
Colorado
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Dec 23, 2017 - 01:02pm PT
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Re: Yay Hegelian Dialectic
Excellent, sullly!
Cuts through all the reams of babble usually found in philosophy and goes directly to the main ideas. Thanks.
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jogill
climber
Colorado
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Dec 23, 2017 - 08:54pm PT
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Thanks, John. The continuous vs the discrete, a never-ending conundrum.
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Largo
Sport climber
The Big Wide Open Face
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Dec 24, 2017 - 02:06am PT
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I think it's a conundrum if you try and posit reality as one or the other. Duality is overcome through coming to see they are two sides of one coin, and that both are inherent to the coin. The tricky part, experientially, is to see one is the other, form is emptiness, emptiness is form - exactly.
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