THIRTEEN
Geoffrey Dow
>
> Geoffrey Dow wrote:
>
> Personally, as I got deeper into my investigation, I found I had trouble
> sorting all these sects and sub-sects and variations out. I remember
> going through my "mystic phase" in my late teens, I knew more about it
> back then, when I was idiotically using mysticism and Qabbalah as a way
> of being cool.
>
> Now, Taoism, Daoism, Tai Chi, I Ching, Falun Gong, all of them, they
> just remind me of competing long-distance companies. In fact, when I got
> home yesterday, it was funny because I had spam e-mail trying to sign me
> up for "Taoist Healing Secrets".
Again, I think you are making a mistake in thinking of Eastern
mysticism as qualitatively different from Western. While there is a
surface difference - generally, in the East, life is seen as a recurring
cycle that may or may not have an individual end (Nirvanna) while in the
West, time is seen as a finite quantity, to end with the End of the
World
and/or the establishment of Heaven on Earth.
The similarities, however, more than outweigh the differences.
Both admonish their followers to shut up and do as they are told; both
provide "answers" without requiring thought; both prescribe worrying
about
one's internal state rather than the external world; both allow free
reign
to secular powers so long as certain symbolic obeissance is paid to the
reigning orthodoxy.
> The fanaticism and cult-like brainwashing of it all worries me. Just
> yesterday, supposedly peaceful Falun Gong demonstrators were chucked out
> of Hong Kong for chaining themselves to fence posts and screaming like
> banshees. What kind of intelligent person achieves anything by screaming
> and chaining himself to a fence post?
Oh, I dunno - Gandi, maybe? Your rage is getting the better of your
logic, my almost-as-diminuitive friend.
> Your cousin criticizes my outbursting over this kind of thing - and
> perhaps rightly so - but since she brought it up, the trip to Boston she
> mentioned elswhere was to go to an international Falun Gong
> indoctrination seminar. And she wonders why I react. Of course, now I'm
> probably a dead man, but what the hell.
Quite rightly so. Screaming at people for quoting material with
which you disagree doesn't do much towards encouraging the open
exploration of ideas.
Nor does the paralogical guilt-by-association stuff you posted below.
Shall I start listing nutty Atheists or Christians? What does any
of that have to do with the price of beer?
> Lately I just get pissed off, because all of this mysticism has the
> stench of cult all over it, like Jim Jones' Peoples Temple who killed
> themselves, those idiot Soleil Suicide Pact guys hiding in Quebec, or
> those wackos in Waco, Texas.
>
> Remember the religious sect Aum Shinryi Lum or something a few years ago
> in Japan? They were based on Buddhism, rejected materialism and claimed
> to have the "supreme truth". Then they went and bombed the fuck out of
> the Japanese subway system with sarin, spreading poison gas to thousands
> of people through the subway corridors. And they were *based on
> Buddhism*. Falun Gong is also based on Buddhism. In fact, even in China,
> Falun Gong is outlawed as an extremist "evil cult" (direct quote).
>
> All of these brainwashing cults have at their root some "true light",
> "supreme truth", "natural way" or some other spiritual feel-good
> horseshit that is disturbingly reminiscent of everything I have read
> about Eastern mystic philosophies. They appeal to peoples' insecurities,
> make them feel good about their pariahism, and then somewhere in there,
> convince them to kill themselves, poison a subway, or buy time-shares in
> a condo in Boca Raton.
SCK
> Both admonish their followers to shut up and do as they are told; both
> provide "answers" without requiring thought; both prescribe worrying
> about
> one's internal state rather than the external world; both allow free
> reign
> to secular powers so long as certain symbolic obeissance is paid to the
> reigning orthodoxy.
>
I agree - but the Eastern philosophies are just more well-known, and
they have better marketting. They also tend to benefit, here in the
West, from a kind of cachet that comes from their origins being valued
as more geographically and culturally exotic. I am not making this up,
by the way. I freely admit to having gone through my own misguided
mystic phase. But in truth, back then, I was never valuing these
philosophies for any inherent truth in them, what I was actually valuing
was what I thought being an adherent gave to me - elevated, or showed,
in me.
Nothing I have read recently on this subject points to any other likely
possible motive. You couldn't even claim altruism, because just about
every other organized religion on the planet does more in the form of
charity and community work and providing for poor, etc., than all of the
Eastern mystic philosophies combined. Even Ronald McDonald does more for
orphans and sick people than Buddhism does. Greenpeace does more for the
environment than Taoism.
I cannot see a single motive behind mystic philosophies that does not
amount to vanity and self-worship.
Perhaps the only true Buddhist is a silent one.
> Quite rightly so. Screaming at people for quoting material with
> which you disagree doesn't do much towards encouraging the open
> exploration of ideas.
>
Well, here is where my intuition disagrees with you, my stunted friend.
I suspect there is a little more to it than that.
> Nor does the paralogical guilt-by-association stuff you posted below.
> Shall I start listing nutty Atheists or Christians? What does any
> of that have to do with the price of beer?
>
Is that a wager? Sure you can find some loose cannon Atheists and a
handful of renegade Christians, but I will bet you the entirety of my
Mexican jumping bean collection and my siamese fighting dance mats that
in the last 500 years, the number of insane, suicide-pacting, or crazed,
poison gas throwing sects with any substantial following predominantly
trace their roots back to a big salad of poorly understood, poorly
applied Eastern mysticism. Because it is convenient. Efficiency-wise,
mysticism is like Kraft Dinner for cult-making. It is ambiguous,
self-important, and nobody does not qualify.
Try looking at it from a managerial perspective. Imagine that you are
power crazy and want to start an insane cult. You look at all the
religions you have to choose from to steal pieces off so that you can
patch together your manifesto or your supreme truth or whatever you
decide to call it. Every religion aside from Eastern mysticism is too
restrictive. They all have so many rules to abide by that immediately
you cut down on the statistical likelihood that any of the people
waiting in line to sign-up actually qualify to join. Your cult never
gets off the ground.
For example. Try to start a Cult of Calculus. The only rule of your cult
is that all the people who join for the ritual goat sacrificings and
free orgies have to understand calculus. Your cult will fail - it's
simple economic reality - not enough people who want to join will meet
your single, primary criteria. Likewise, it would be hard to start a
cult of Orthodox Judaism here in North Gower. Nobody would be allowed
in.
Even an insane cult has to have members, people who actually belong to
it and follow whatever its primary "rules" are, the people who are its
believers. The best way to get your cult off the ground is to have rules
that are so permissive that nobody, no matter how stupid, deranged or
perverse, does not qualify. You cannot have to know Calculus, or refuse
to eat pork, or work on the Sabbath, it has to be way more permissive
than that. Now the only place you can mine for your tracts and vengeful
cult edicts, then, become the texts of the Eastern mystic philosophies.
They permit the most, with the least judgment and retribution, and there
is no entry criteria. Anybody can be a Taoist.
I am not saying this is how cults get started, through basement cult
strategizing, I am merely pointing out that statistically speaking, the
more permissive your entry criteria are, the more likely you are to
produce your insane cult.
Now, I've got to go. Tuesday nights I moonlight as a Feng Shui
geomancer.
Geoffrey Dow
logic and intellectual rigor at the door!
Jesus.
Whatever you may think of the philosophical underpinnings of "Eastern
philosophies" lumping "the Eastern philosophies into an undifferentiated
stew is no more legitimate - or accurate - than the suggestion that
there is no difference between Christianity, Islam or Judaism. ("Well,
all three believe in one God and that every non-believer is fucked.")
That you go on to define the major Eastern philosophies as "cults" is
simply embarassing. That fact that you, as an adolescent, went through
a "misguided mystic phase" is proof of nothing, except that you are or
were capable of shallow affectation and further suggests that you know
nothing about the real *point* of mystic beliefs - which, as I
understand them, boil down to self-knowledge and, through that, an
understanding of the world as a whole (seeing the universe in a grain
of sand, if you will).
I have known people who have been involved with Eastern religions and
what struck me most was the fact that there was one hell of a lot of
work involved - series study, contemplation and discussion. Not to
mention meditation, something I have never done, both because I am
not too interested (or so I think) and because it is *hard*.
You think joining a cult is easy - "Give up your family, friends and
all your possessions"? Why not join the local United Church instead -
"Come on in! You don't even have to believe in God!"
SCK wrote:
>
> Geoffrey Dow wrote:
>
> I agree - but the Eastern philosophies are just more well-known, and
> they have better marketting. They also tend to benefit, here in the
> West, from a kind of cachet that comes from their origins being valued
> as more geographically and culturally exotic. I am not making this up,
> by the way. I freely admit to having gone through my own misguided
> mystic phase. But in truth, back then, I was never valuing these
> philosophies for any inherent truth in them, what I was actually valuing
> was what I thought being an adherent gave to me - elevated, or showed,
> in me.
>
> Nothing I have read recently on this subject points to any other likely
> possible motive. You couldn't even claim altruism, because just about
> every other organized religion on the planet does more in the form of
> charity and community work and providing for poor, etc., than all of the
> Eastern mystic philosophies combined. Even Ronald McDonald does more for
> orphans and sick people than Buddhism does. Greenpeace does more for the
> environment than Taoism.
Just what "motive" are you talking about here?
I won't comment on your claim that - I assume - Eastern religions don't
do charity or community work, etc, because I don't know what, if any
"they" do. Or are you now talking only about "the cults"? Which ones?
And what is your definition of "cult"?
> I cannot see a single motive behind mystic philosophies that does not
> amount to vanity and self-worship.
>
> Perhaps the only true Buddhist is a silent one.
>
> > Quite rightly so. Screaming at people for quoting material with
> > which you disagree doesn't do much towards encouraging the open
> > exploration of ideas.
> >
> Well, here is where my intuition disagrees with you, my stunted friend.
> I suspect there is a little more to it than that.
And that what be what? That you believe Dre is wandering off onto the
wrong path? You think accusing her of being a Taoist when she is not
is going to steer her right? You think permitting your physiological
rage (ah! That's where the term, "gut reaction" comes from!) to take
over your brain and make you wail like a flat-Earther is going to
show anyone the error of their ways?
> > Nor does the paralogical guilt-by-association stuff you posted below.
> > Shall I start listing nutty Atheists or Christians? What does any
> > of that have to do with the price of beer?
>
> Is that a wager? Sure you can find some loose cannon Atheists and a
> handful of renegade Christians, but I will bet you the entirety of my
> Mexican jumping bean collection and my siamese fighting dance mats that
> in the last 500 years, the number of insane, suicide-pacting, or crazed,
> poison gas throwing sects with any substantial following predominantly
> trace their roots back to a big salad of poorly understood, poorly
> applied Eastern mysticism. Because it is convenient. Efficiency-wise,
> mysticism is like Kraft Dinner for cult-making. It is ambiguous,
> self-important, and nobody does not qualify.
Loose-canon atheists and renegade Christians? Of the top of my head:
Stalin, Torquemada, Jim Baker (you wanna talk about *cults*?!?).
> Try looking at it from a managerial perspective. Imagine that you are
> power crazy and want to start an insane cult. You look at all the
> religions you have to choose from to steal pieces off so that you can
> patch together your manifesto or your supreme truth or whatever you
> decide to call it. Every religion aside from Eastern mysticism is too
> restrictive. They all have so many rules to abide by that immediately
> you cut down on the statistical likelihood that any of the people
> waiting in line to sign-up actually qualify to join. Your cult never
> gets off the ground.
Bullshit. Look at Scientology, a cult that, apparently, was started
following a drunken poker-game during which L. Ron Hubbard declared he
could get rich by starting a religion: it costs a lot of money; it has
many levels, which takes the cult-member a lot of *work* to pass
through; and it requires *giving up* a great part of one's normal life.
> For example. Try to start a Cult of Calculus. The only rule of your cult
> is that all the people who join for the ritual goat sacrificings and
> free orgies have to understand calculus. Your cult will fail - it's
> simple economic reality - not enough people who want to join will meet
> your single, primary criteria. Likewise, it would be hard to start a
> cult of Orthodox Judaism here in North Gower. Nobody would be allowed
> in.
>
> Even an insane cult has to have members, people who actually belong to
> it and follow whatever its primary "rules" are, the people who are its
> believers. The best way to get your cult off the ground is to have rules
> that are so permissive that nobody, no matter how stupid, deranged or
> perverse, does not qualify. You cannot have to know Calculus, or refuse
> to eat pork, or work on the Sabbath, it has to be way more permissive
> than that. Now the only place you can mine for your tracts and vengeful
> cult edicts, then, become the texts of the Eastern mystic philosophies.
> They permit the most, with the least judgment and retribution, and there
> is no entry criteria. Anybody can be a Taoist.
>
> I am not saying this is how cults get started, through basement cult
> strategizing, I am merely pointing out that statistically speaking, the
> more permissive your entry criteria are, the more likely you are to
> produce your insane cult.
There is no Cult of Calculus because calculus promises only that which
it can deliver - an understanding of calculus. Religion (whether
"cult" or "legitimate" promises either/or self-knowledge (happiness)
and "salvation" (eternal life). And the succesful ones all (or almost
all) require that their adherents sacrifice, as they understand the
innate human disrespect for anything that comes free.
> Now, I've got to go. Tuesday nights I moonlight as a Feng Shui
> geomancer.
Happy interior decorating.
SCK
> Whatever you may think of the philosophical underpinnings of "Eastern
> philosophies" lumping "the Eastern philosophies into an undifferentiated
> stew is no more legitimate - or accurate - than the suggestion that
> there is no difference between Christianity, Islam or Judaism. ("Well,
> all three believe in one God and that every non-believer is fucked.")
>
I guess I am an idiot then, because I don't see a difference between
Christianity, Islam or Judaism. I don't care about the cosmetic surface.
The root of all these religions is a human desire to appease feelings of
insecurity by creating something bigger than unifies them.
The proof that there is nothing but a psychological foundation to all of
these religions is that 1/3 of the babies born in Afghanistan don't
spontaneously become Jewish, and 1/3 of the babies born in Jerusalem
don't spontaneously erupt into praises of Allah. It is pure socializing,
and you would do better to avoid the cosmetics of it all and lump every
one of them into the same common pot they deserve: philosophical
mediocrity.
80% of the world has to be average, you know. Look around you. It's
impossible to have any major following that does not have as the
majority of its believers an enormous part of that 80% of average
people. What does that mean? It means that 80% of Jews, 80% of
Islamists, 80% of all Christians, 80% of all Buddhists and Hindus are
the *same people*.
> That you go on to define the major Eastern philosophies as "cults" is
> simply embarassing. That fact that you, as an adolescent, went through
> a "misguided mystic phase" is proof of nothing, except that you are or
> were capable of shallow affectation and further suggests that you know
> nothing about the real *point* of mystic beliefs - which, as I
> understand them, boil down to self-knowledge and, through that, an
> understanding of the world as a whole (seeing the universe in a grain
> of sand, if you will).
>
Nonsense. Real self-knowledge comes from testing yourself. How far can I
walk towards the edge of this cliff. How much loneliness can I endure
before I change my beliefs to comfort my loneliness, is another test.
The self-knowledge invariably postulated by all of these mystic texts is
the self-comforting navel-gazing kind. It works on a single, flawed
premise: that the mere act of speculating on anything actually turns you
truly speculative. As though putting a chisel long enough in the hands
of an lemming teaches the lemming how to make a statue. It is not enough
to merely use a tool, you have to use it *properly*. In this case,
introspection has to be used *mercilessly*, not self-comfortingly.
> You think joining a cult is easy - "Give up your family, friends and
> all your possessions"? Why not join the local United Church instead -
> "Come on in! You don't even have to believe in God!"
>
That doesn't happen. In general, people with supportive families and
friends, whom the person in question respects and loves and *feels
understood by* do not run away to join cults. You join a cult because
the surrogate family you obtain fills the void that you felt for the
absense of an understanding family. There is nothing more to it than
collectivism, disparate pariahs manifesting a natural human desire need
to feel accepted by peers.
The Manson family wasn't comprised of people who felt understood and
supported and secure in their families, you know.
> I won't comment on your claim that - I assume - Eastern religions don't
> do charity or community work, etc, because I don't know what, if any
> "they" do. Or are you now talking only about "the cults"? Which ones?
> And what is your definition of "cult"?
>
I don't know - is it important? I suppose I would define a cult as a
group of people who have rallied around some representation of a credo,
of whom I am suspicious that most of the members are there out of
psychological convenience, and that the flag planted in the ground could
have been anything. Ott.singles is a cult. A bunch of lonely people who
get together who obtain relief for their loneliness out of their mere
participation in it. It has no relevance whether ott.singles' credo is
going to bars or beheading chickens, it is not the thing itself, it is
the *act of participating* that assuages the loneliness. The people are
really there to satisfy their private insecurities, not for the bars or
the chicken killings.
> > Well, here is where my intuition disagrees with you, my stunted friend.
> > I suspect there is a little more to it than that.
>
> And that what be what? That you believe Dre is wandering off onto the
> wrong path? You think accusing her of being a Taoist when she is not
> is going to steer her right? You think permitting your physiological
> rage (ah! That's where the term, "gut reaction" comes from!) to take
> over your brain and make you wail like a flat-Earther is going to
> show anyone the error of their ways?
>
No, I never have those expectations. In fact, usually my criticism comes
with a sort of sad personal foreknowledge that it will do nothing except
create distance and achieve resentment. I am driven to do it anyway.
As to what my suspicions are, they come from e-mails, and also an
awareness that people do not post excerpts from things in here which
they do not admire or feel moves them in some way. This is why you are
copying out those excerpts of Dhalgren, after all.
I also have seen the pattern. I am very distrustful of a situation where
someone (anyone) pursues things they already know will support what they
want to believe under the auspices of intellectual expansion. This is
like a Christian reading different versions of the Bible and claiming he
is challenging himself.
Yesterday, I sauntered over to my bookshelf and went through the Tao Te
Ching, of which I do own a copy. It sits next to my Baghada-vita and my
"Essentials of Rumi". I am suspicious when intellectual expansion
involves only seeking out the things that you know will explicitly *not
challenge* your existing precepts. It is nest-building. I am also aware
that, for example, "The Fountainhead" is still propping up a short table
leg somewhere because the first page is too boring.
My messages on this subject may seem to you to be unusually caustic and
unfair. I can assure that that this really has nothing to do with the
above, or you or Dre personally, it has more to do with the innate sense
of *outrage* that automatically comes over me just reading mystic
bail-outs and how they seem to think of humanity as a cesspool that
shouldn't even bother trying because it will never succeed at anything.
If Eastern mystics bothered to open their eyes and look around them,
they would notice that humanity *is succeeding* right now, right in
front of them. It just isn't the Buddhists who are doing any of it,
they're cloistered away in retreats, obsessively engaged in the act of
contemplating the futility that only exists around them.
I feel I have to say it again. My outrage on this is not personal, Young
Geoff. If whatever I wrote above insults you in some way, you
motherfucker, it is a direct manifestation of the way my brain just goes
nuclear thinking about the waste of humanity. Someone should record some
of those Taoist tracts and play them to me while I'm hooked up to a
blood-pressure monitor, it would be hilarious. I should play them to
myself during sex.
Dre
SCK wrote:
> No, I never have those expectations. In fact, usually my criticism comes
> with a sort of sad personal foreknowledge that it will do nothing except
> create distance and achieve resentment. I am driven to do it anyway.
So you predict reactions to your malice, then stab anyway. The biggest mistake
you make, beyond the approach you take (which is malicious, immature,
disgusting, and revolting), is feeling the need to interfere where it is not
needed. You do that again and again, Jesus Christ Superstar, and then wail from
your crucifix when the people reject you. "Look where I put myself for you! To
save you! Oh, why do you forsake me?!" It's pretty sad, really.
>
> My messages on this subject may seem to you to be unusually caustic and
> unfair. I can assure that that this really has nothing to do with the
> above, or you or Dre personally, it has more to do with the innate sense
> of *outrage* that automatically comes over me just reading mystic
> bail-outs and how they seem to think of humanity as a cesspool that
> shouldn't even bother trying because it will never succeed at anything.
> If Eastern mystics bothered to open their eyes and look around them,
> they would notice that humanity *is succeeding* right now, right in
> front of them. It just isn't the Buddhists who are doing any of it,
> they're cloistered away in retreats, obsessively engaged in the act of
> contemplating the futility that only exists around them.
>
Dear, dear, dear. Go to school. You might learn some social skills there. Write
your message to me out in brail and let a blind man read it, and he'll see as
plain as day that it was VERY personal.
This is a poem about Steve:
He understands the concept of respect,
But doesn't know how to be respectful.
He grasps the idea of discussion very well,
And yet turns discussions into fights.
He gets the notion of loving humanity,
but only knows how to love the notion,
not people.
Not a person.
Standing beside him in line.
Benign.
He will despise them for any reason,
Then go home and clap for astronauts.
Not even realizing he'd stood beside one,
just a minute ago.
He thinks he knows what teaching is,
but can't resist the urge to bully the vulnerable,
to punch the strong until they are weakened.
Until they give up,
because he doesn't want to learn.
SCK
> So you predict reactions to your malice, then stab anyway. The biggest mistake
> you make, beyond the approach you take (which is malicious, immature,
> disgusting, and revolting), is feeling the need to interfere where it is not
> needed.
It was not "interference". Posting into the newsgroup is an invitation
for commentary.
> You do that again and again, Jesus Christ Superstar, and then wail from
> your crucifix when the people reject you. "Look where I put myself for you! To
> save you! Oh, why do you forsake me?!" It's pretty sad, really.
>
I am not wailing about anything. Nor did I "put myself anywhere" for
you. I commented on the subject matter of your posts. My first post
restricted itself to the subject matter of the text about "unimportance"
and how it made me feel. Your response turned it personal.
> Dear, dear, dear. Go to school. You might learn some social skills there. Write
> your message to me out in brail and let a blind man read it, and he'll see as
> plain as day that it was VERY personal.
>
I have no interest in learning those kind of "social skills". I would
rather remain pure alone than memorize vacuous platitudes for you.
I'm sick of this. Stop attacking me and then bleat like a wounded seal
for getting attacked back. Even in this post you have made the whole
thing personal, and I sit here tip-toeing around your damn feelings
trying not to be insulting back. You do not play a fair game, lady.
Geoffrey Dow
>
> Geoffrey Dow wrote:
>
> > Whatever you may think of the philosophical underpinnings of "Eastern
> > philosophies" lumping "the Eastern philosophies into an undifferentiated
> > stew is no more legitimate - or accurate - than the suggestion that
> > there is no difference between Christianity, Islam or Judaism. ("Well,
> > all three believe in one God and that every non-believer is fucked.")
>
> I guess I am an idiot then, because I don't see a difference between
> Christianity, Islam or Judaism. I don't care about the cosmetic surface.
> The root of all these religions is a human desire to appease feelings of
> insecurity by creating something bigger than unifies them.
All right then: stop using the term "cult" if you mean "mainstream
Eastern philosophy" - it confuses the issue.
> The proof that there is nothing but a psychological foundation to all of
> these religions is that 1/3 of the babies born in Afghanistan don't
> spontaneously become Jewish, and 1/3 of the babies born in Jerusalem
> don't spontaneously erupt into praises of Allah. It is pure socializing,
> and you would do better to avoid the cosmetics of it all and lump every
> one of them into the same common pot they deserve: philosophical
> mediocrity.
This has nothing to do with anything I said.
> 80% of the world has to be average, you know. Look around you. It's
> impossible to have any major following that does not have as the
> majority of its believers an enormous part of that 80% of average
> people. What does that mean? It means that 80% of Jews, 80% of
> Islamists, 80% of all Christians, 80% of all Buddhists and Hindus are
> the *same people*.
See above.
> > That you go on to define the major Eastern philosophies as "cults" is
> > simply embarassing. That fact that you, as an adolescent, went through
> > a "misguided mystic phase" is proof of nothing, except that you are or
> > were capable of shallow affectation and further suggests that you know
> > nothing about the real *point* of mystic beliefs - which, as I
> > understand them, boil down to self-knowledge and, through that, an
> > understanding of the world as a whole (seeing the universe in a grain
> > of sand, if you will).
>
> Nonsense. Real self-knowledge comes from testing yourself.
Which (again) has nothing to do with what I said nor, indeed, with what
you wrote earlier. You offered your admitedly shallow adolescent "mystic
phase" as evidence that you knew enough about "serious mysticism" to
believe the two are one and the same. (Elsewhere, you *did* present
evidence your knowledge is deeper than that to which I responded.)
> How far can I
> walk towards the edge of this cliff. How much loneliness can I endure
> before I change my beliefs to comfort my loneliness, is another test.
> The self-knowledge invariably postulated by all of these mystic texts is
> the self-comforting navel-gazing kind. It works on a single, flawed
> premise: that the mere act of speculating on anything actually turns you
> truly speculative. As though putting a chisel long enough in the hands
> of an lemming teaches the lemming how to make a statue. It is not enough
> to merely use a tool, you have to use it *properly*. In this case,
> introspection has to be used *mercilessly*, not self-comfortingly.
I have to ask, though: how do you know whether or not someone who is
not studying, say, Ouspenky's works is not doing precisely what you
speak of above. Again, I have known people who have done a lot of
intellectual *work* along those paths and I can tell you that -
whatever I think of the intellectual foundations of it - it was *not*
an easy path for them.
Again, you are sneakweasling from one issue to another. You said that
*all* "mystic" paths are easy paths - unless your definition of "easy"
is very different from mine, that simply isn't true.
> > You think joining a cult is easy - "Give up your family, friends and
> > all your possessions"? Why not join the local United Church instead -
> > "Come on in! You don't even have to believe in God!"
>
> That doesn't happen. In general, people with supportive families and
> friends, whom the person in question respects and loves and *feels
> understood by* do not run away to join cults. You join a cult because
> the surrogate family you obtain fills the void that you felt for the
> absense of an understanding family. There is nothing more to it than
> collectivism, disparate pariahs manifesting a natural human desire need
> to feel accepted by peers.
The fact that cults tend to attract people who are unhappy and without
social support networks doesn't mean joining a cult is easy; it only
means that joining that cult fills a need (or seems to) that person
hasn't had met elsewhere. You were talking about effort (a value-less
term) and you are now twisting that so that you can criticize the
merit involved - a very different discussion.
> > I won't comment on your claim that - I assume - Eastern religions don't
> > do charity or community work, etc, because I don't know what, if any
> > "they" do. Or are you now talking only about "the cults"? Which ones?
> > And what is your definition of "cult"?
>
> I don't know - is it important? I suppose I would define a cult as a
> group of people who have rallied around some representation of a credo,
> of whom I am suspicious that most of the members are there out of
> psychological convenience, and that the flag planted in the ground could
> have been anything.
This sounds to me that you are defining all religions as cults. If
you are going to do that I recommend that you define the term each time
you use it, as most people (vaguelly) understand "cult" to mean at
least a religion that is (a) led by one, usually living, person and
(b) not integrated into the society around it.
> Ott.singles is a cult. A bunch of lonely people who
> get together who obtain relief for their loneliness out of their mere
> participation in it. It has no relevance whether ott.singles' credo is
> going to bars or beheading chickens, it is not the thing itself, it is
> the *act of participating* that assuages the loneliness. The people are
> really there to satisfy their private insecurities, not for the bars or
> the chicken killings.
By your own, earlier definition ("a group of people who have rallied
around some representation of a credo"), ott.singles is not a cult -
it is a club, perhaps, but not a cult.
> > > Well, here is where my intuition disagrees with you, my stunted friend.
> > > I suspect there is a little more to it than that.
> >
> > And that what be what? That you believe Dre is wandering off onto the
> > wrong path? You think accusing her of being a Taoist when she is not
> > is going to steer her right? You think permitting your physiological
> > rage (ah! That's where the term, "gut reaction" comes from!) to take
> > over your brain and make you wail like a flat-Earther is going to
> > show anyone the error of their ways?
>
> No, I never have those expectations. In fact, usually my criticism comes
> with a sort of sad personal foreknowledge that it will do nothing except
> create distance and achieve resentment. I am driven to do it anyway.
>
> As to what my suspicions are, they come from e-mails,
And your personal relationship, yes. Given only the evidence in
ott.rec.books, your attack seemed entirely personal and had almost
nothing to do with the excerpts themselves.
One of these days, I may just read "Mein Kampf" and - maybe - post
excerpts. Maybe there will be something thought-provoking in it,
who knows?
> and also an awareness that people do not post excerpts from things
> in here which they do not admire or feel moves them in some way.
> This is why you are copying out those excerpts of Dhalgren, after all.
But so what? The fact that "Dhalgren" moves me (and it does) doesn't
mean I am going to wander the street looking for a 15 year-old boy to
suck me off.
> I also have seen the pattern. I am very distrustful of a situation where
> someone (anyone) pursues things they already know will support what they
> want to believe under the auspices of intellectual expansion. This is
> like a Christian reading different versions of the Bible and claiming he
> is challenging himself.
>
> Yesterday, I sauntered over to my bookshelf and went through the Tao Te
> Ching, of which I do own a copy. It sits next to my Baghada-vita and my
> "Essentials of Rumi". I am suspicious when intellectual expansion
> involves only seeking out the things that you know will explicitly *not
> challenge* your existing precepts. It is nest-building. I am also aware
> that, for example, "The Fountainhead" is still propping up a short table
> leg somewhere because the first page is too boring.
>
> My messages on this subject may seem to you to be unusually caustic and
> unfair. I can assure that that this really has nothing to do with the
> above, or you or Dre personally, it has more to do with the innate sense
> of *outrage* that automatically comes over me just reading mystic
> bail-outs and how they seem to think of humanity as a cesspool that
> shouldn't even bother trying because it will never succeed at anything.
> If Eastern mystics bothered to open their eyes and look around them,
> they would notice that humanity *is succeeding* right now, right in
> front of them. It just isn't the Buddhists who are doing any of it,
> they're cloistered away in retreats, obsessively engaged in the act of
> contemplating the futility that only exists around them.
Your outrage was very personal. I feel (and think) I have to repeat
this: Dre correctly predicted you would accuse her becoming a Taoist;
she has not so become, no matter what you or I may think of her
mystical leanings. Straw men don't make for an honest discussion.
The tone of your initial reaction - and your very interesting admission
to Nik about your physiological reactions - to Dre's posting of the
Taoist excerpts did not come across as a reaction to the material so
much as it did to your fear that Dre was going down the wrong path.
> I feel I have to say it again. My outrage on this is not personal, Young
> Geoff.
See above.
> If whatever I wrote above insults you in some way, you
> motherfucker, it is a direct manifestation of the way my brain just goes
> nuclear thinking about the waste of humanity. Someone should record some
> of those Taoist tracts and play them to me while I'm hooked up to a
> blood-pressure monitor, it would be hilarious. I should play them to
> myself during sex.
I haven't felt insulted here yet - unless you were wrongly suggesting
it is my table "The Fountainhead" (that nihilistic piece of trash) is
supporting.
SCK
> Again, you are sneakweasling from one issue to another. You said that
> *all* "mystic" paths are easy paths - unless your definition of "easy"
> is very different from mine, that simply isn't true.
>
Whether my definition of easy is different from yours is absolutely
irrelevant. If you will examine it, the concept of "easiness" is a
relative term.
Picture a bridge across a river that leads to a store. Now picture a man
with no legs and a man with no arms. The man with no arms walks across
the bridge and the man with no legs swims across the river. Both men
took different paths, yet both took the easiest path. No path had built
within it an inherent factor of "easiness" until two men came along and
formed a relationship with the destination.
>
> This sounds to me that you are defining all religions as cults. If
> you are going to do that I recommend that you define the term each time
> you use it, as most people (vaguelly) understand "cult" to mean at
> least a religion that is (a) led by one, usually living, person and
> (b) not integrated into the society around it.
>
I do think of all religions as cults. I'm starting to wonder if you have
an issue with thinking in relative terms. By the dictionary definition
of a cult, Judaism is a cult relative to Islam if you are an Islamic
person in Iran who is asking the question. Islam is an insane cult
relative to Christianity if you are a person from Alabama asking the
question.
Naturally then, a person seeking a higher plane of understanding has to
automatically define either nothing as a cult, or all religions as cults
and dismiss them all. If you do not do the latter, then any search for
understanding will then inevitably get mired in the cosmetics of each
religion as you try to weed out the flakes from the prophets.
>
> And your personal relationship, yes. Given only the evidence in
> ott.rec.books, your attack seemed entirely personal and had almost
> nothing to do with the excerpts themselves.
>
Geoffrey, I ask you as the most impartial person here, go reread the
correspondence. You are mistaken. The facts are right there for anyone
who cares.
My first message commented entirely on the substance of the Taoist
tract. It did not make any personal accusatory statement. I did not even
mention Dre. I doubt if it even had the word "you" in it to be
misunderstood.
In her next set of responses, she wrote the message titled "tao of being
angry". It started off, "Christ, Steve...". It went on for two
paragraphs defending Taoism. Then it predicted that I would assume she
is a Taoist (of course I am going to do that, at least partially, if you
just spent two paragraphs explaining what I misunderstood about it).
Then, the very same message degenerated into a set of four paragraphs at
the bottom with a series of questions, all of which *implied personal
failures about me* in comparison to the thing I was criticizing. If you
are going to imply personal failures about me in comparison to the
Taoist tract I criticized, then you are both a) making it personal, and
b) identifying yourself as a supporter of the tract compared to my
belief.
That was the message that drew my caustic fire, YG. My first message had
no personal slant at all.
Unfortunately, I have fallen into the same bear trap that I usually do.
My subsequent response was mean enough to overshadow the original by a
whole order of magnitude, and therefore it looks like I actually
initiated it.
In any case, I did apologize for my having followed-up in such a
heavy-handed manner. The apology was deemed unworthy and only bought me
a whole barrage of profanity about what a jerk I am.
But I trust you as a fair arbiter, my miniscule friend, I will abide by
your judgment. Reread my first message and then read the message "tao of
being angry" that was its follow-up. Tell me if if it really was me that
introduced the personal element, or if I was not responding to a defense
of the excerpt suggested with a comparison to my own personal failures.
> One of these days, I may just read "Mein Kampf" and - maybe - post
> excerpts. Maybe there will be something thought-provoking in it,
> who knows?
>
So post it. I will probably comment insanely on the substance of what
you excerpt. If you then follow up my comments shifting the focus of it
to a personal comparison between me and what Hitler has to say; then you
too can probably expect a rotten follow-up. I am getting kind of sick of
simultaneously being this newsgroup's whipping boy and being held to a
higher set of moral standards for my own responses.
> I haven't felt insulted here yet - unless you were wrongly suggesting
> it is my table "The Fountainhead" (that nihilistic piece of trash) is
> supporting.
>
No, I exempt you from any serious discussions on The Fountainhead
because as far as I know it has not yet been published in graphical
novel format featuring that nude aarvark.
K. Bessey
>
> My first message commented entirely on the substance of the Taoist
> tract. It did not make any personal accusatory statement. I did not even
> mention Dre. I doubt if it even had the word "you" in it to be
> misunderstood.
You're right, it wasn't a personal attack, but the way you
vehemantly attacked Taoism could be taken personally by someone
who found something worthwhile or good in it. It could be
compared to a situation where one person finds a beautiful flower
in a field and picks it to give to someone else, but the other
person merely says "What's this ugly fucking weed you're giving me?
The second person has not said "You are an idiot for bringing this,"
but he has made the first person feel humiliated all the same.
Your attack on Taoism (and other religious cults) is too dogmatic
and harsh, and that surely causes the other to feel attacked
personally. Perhaps if that Tao stuff had been posted by someone
you didn't know you would have attacked it a little more gently,
at least until you had sized up the other poster. But because
you and Dre know each other --- very well --- you are not as
polite and reserved when fetching out an opinion on something.
We're always less reserved and polite about saying things to
people we know. It's a facet of our interpersonal relationships
where, to use a metaphor already in play earlier, we do not keep
the sword sharpened and allow it to go dull and rusted.
But then again, you and her are still cordoning off your demilitarized
zones and, consequently, anything that you or her say in here has
the potential to make the other turn out the guard.
> In her next set of responses, she wrote the message titled "tao of being
> angry". It started off, "Christ, Steve...". It went on for two
> paragraphs defending Taoism. Then it predicted that I would assume she
> is a Taoist (of course I am going to do that, at least partially, if you
> just spent two paragraphs explaining what I misunderstood about it).
> Then, the very same message degenerated into a set of four paragraphs at
> the bottom with a series of questions, all of which *implied personal
> failures about me* in comparison to the thing I was criticizing. If you
> are going to imply personal failures about me in comparison to the
> Taoist tract I criticized, then you are both a) making it personal, and
> b) identifying yourself as a supporter of the tract compared to my
> belief.
I doubt if you can say that someone who has read a bit of Taoist
grafitti *is* a Taoist. If you read Mien Kampf will that make
you a nazi? Even if you fetched up a few quotes from the book
it would not make you a nazi. Highly suspect, but not a nazi.
As far as I can tell, this whole thing took off like a soup bowl
launched across the room in a domestic dispute. You two, or at
least Dre, are still disconnecting yourselves from the fine,
delicate threads of the ties that once bound you. Divorces are
nasty business.
So, yes, it was all your fault, you insensitive brutish bastard.
It's no wonder the poor young lady has run off and hooked up
with some escapist cult.
Geoffrey Dow
>
> Geoffrey Dow wrote:
>
> > Again, you are sneakweasling from one issue to another. You said that
> > *all* "mystic" paths are easy paths - unless your definition of "easy"
> > is very different from mine, that simply isn't true.
>
> Whether my definition of easy is different from yours is absolutely
> irrelevant. If you will examine it, the concept of "easiness" is a
> relative term.
>
> Picture a bridge across a river that leads to a store. Now picture a man
> with no legs and a man with no arms. The man with no arms walks across
> the bridge and the man with no legs swims across the river. Both men
> took different paths, yet both took the easiest path. No path had built
> within it an inherent factor of "easiness" until two men came along and
> formed a relationship with the destination.
All right, in that - and only that - sense of the term, I will agree
with you. As we discussed some months ago, however, I believe your
position is nearly indistinguishable from a tataulogy.
I certainly inferred from your original text that, by "easy" you were
referring to the amount of "work" (energy output) required to join a
succesful cult as opposed to my example of the United Church. It
seemed to me you were saying that no substantial *effort* (energy
expenditure) was needed to join a cult and I was saying that most of
the cults with which I am familiar actually require a rather expensive
expentidure of time and energy.
Whether this is easiest psychological path for the adherents is an
entirely different question.
> > This sounds to me that you are defining all religions as cults. If
> > you are going to do that I recommend that you define the term each time
> > you use it, as most people (vaguelly) understand "cult" to mean at
> > least a religion that is (a) led by one, usually living, person and
> > (b) not integrated into the society around it.
>
> I do think of all religions as cults. I'm starting to wonder if you have
> an issue with thinking in relative terms. By the dictionary definition
> of a cult, Judaism is a cult relative to Islam if you are an Islamic
> person in Iran who is asking the question. Islam is an insane cult
> relative to Christianity if you are a person from Alabama asking the
> question.
>
> Naturally then, a person seeking a higher plane of understanding has to
> automatically define either nothing as a cult, or all religions as cults
> and dismiss them all. If you do not do the latter, then any search for
> understanding will then inevitably get mired in the cosmetics of each
> religion as you try to weed out the flakes from the prophets.
In this context, I agree with you: all religions are cults, systems of
believe requiring faith of things unseen, without objective evidence.
However, in a public discussion, I think it behooves us to take into
account the 2nd popular meaning, which vaguelly distinguishes between
"acceptable" (established) Religion and "marginal" cults; without making
clear which definition you are using, you will almost inevitably sow
confusion rather than understanding.
> > And your personal relationship, yes. Given only the evidence in
> > ott.rec.books, your attack seemed entirely personal and had almost
> > nothing to do with the excerpts themselves.
>
> Geoffrey, I ask you as the most impartial person here, go reread the
> correspondence. You are mistaken. The facts are right there for anyone
> who cares.
>
> My first message commented entirely on the substance of the Taoist
> tract. It did not make any personal accusatory statement. I did not even
> mention Dre. I doubt if it even had the word "you" in it to be
> misunderstood.
Okay, I have checked. You are correct. Your first response dealt
entirely with the text; my apologies.
> In her next set of responses, she wrote the message titled "tao of being
> angry". It started off, "Christ, Steve...". It went on for two
> paragraphs defending Taoism. Then it predicted that I would assume she
> is a Taoist (of course I am going to do that, at least partially, if you
> just spent two paragraphs explaining what I misunderstood about it).
> Then, the very same message degenerated into a set of four paragraphs at
> the bottom with a series of questions, all of which *implied personal
> failures about me* in comparison to the thing I was criticizing. If you
> are going to imply personal failures about me in comparison to the
> Taoist tract I criticized, then you are both a) making it personal, and
> b) identifying yourself as a supporter of the tract compared to my
> belief.
>
> That was the message that drew my caustic fire, YG. My first message had
> no personal slant at all.
Yup. My mistake again.
> Unfortunately, I have fallen into the same bear trap that I usually do.
> My subsequent response was mean enough to overshadow the original by a
> whole order of magnitude, and therefore it looks like I actually
> initiated it.
>
> In any case, I did apologize for my having followed-up in such a
> heavy-handed manner. The apology was deemed unworthy and only bought me
> a whole barrage of profanity about what a jerk I am.
>
> But I trust you as a fair arbiter, my miniscule friend, I will abide by
> your judgment. Reread my first message and then read the message "tao of
> being angry" that was its follow-up. Tell me if if it really was me that
> introduced the personal element, or if I was not responding to a defense
> of the excerpt suggested with a comparison to my own personal failures.
All right. You stand vindicated. You really *ought* to watch out for
that bear-trap, though; the over-whelming second-strike has a way of
spreading contamination at least as much over you as it does on your
opponent.
> > I haven't felt insulted here yet - unless you were wrongly suggesting
> > it is my table "The Fountainhead" (that nihilistic piece of trash) is
> > supporting.
>
> No, I exempt you from any serious discussions on The Fountainhead
> because as far as I know it has not yet been published in graphical
> novel format featuring that nude aarvark.
Now, I'm insulted. I saw the movie, instead. (YG is *kidding* damn it!)
Geoffrey Dow
>
> SCK (s...@igs.net) writes:
> >
> > My first message commented entirely on the substance of the Taoist
> > tract. It did not make any personal accusatory statement. I did not even
> > mention Dre. I doubt if it even had the word "you" in it to be
> > misunderstood.
>
> You're right, it wasn't a personal attack, but the way you
> vehemantly attacked Taoism could be taken personally by someone
> who found something worthwhile or good in it. It could be
> compared to a situation where one person finds a beautiful flower
> in a field and picks it to give to someone else, but the other
> person merely says "What's this ugly fucking weed you're giving me?
> The second person has not said "You are an idiot for bringing this,"
> but he has made the first person feel humiliated all the same.
>
> Your attack on Taoism (and other religious cults) is too dogmatic
> and harsh, and that surely causes the other to feel attacked
> personally.
Was it really? You know, as an atheist, I very often find myself
tip-toeing around the (to me: ludicrous) religious beliefs of
others, politely acknowledging their right to believe what they
like and bending over backwards to not mention what I think of
the *substance* of those beliefs, both in order not to risk
whatever other, positive, elements the relationship may hold and
because, simply, I have been through the faith-versus-reason
argument too many times to want to bother any more.
And yet ... A friend of mine once told me that *he* believed I
am destined to "burn in hell". It saddened him (he likes me, for
some reason), but my apostacy, apparently, makes it inevitable.
Yet this same person was horribly offended when I was suggested
that I was not interested in a newsgroup (about his religion) I
had lurked on for a while, because it seemed to me the questions
being discussed were not disimilar to that between two 10-year-old
boys holding forth on who was stronger - Superman or Captain Marvel.
> Perhaps if that Tao stuff had been posted by someone
> you didn't know you would have attacked it a little more gently,
> at least until you had sized up the other poster. But because
> you and Dre know each other --- very well --- you are not as
> polite and reserved when fetching out an opinion on something.
> We're always less reserved and polite about saying things to
> people we know. It's a facet of our interpersonal relationships
> where, to use a metaphor already in play earlier, we do not keep
> the sword sharpened and allow it to go dull and rusted.
We can also often be less polite - more passionate - when seeing
people we care about go wandering off into the desert. If I don't
know you, I won't expend much effort trying to convince you that
maybe you shouldn't go off and join the Moonies; but if you are
someone who matters to me personally, I am going to make a great
deal of noise.
Dre
SCK wrote:
> Dre wrote:
>
> > So you predict reactions to your malice, then stab anyway. The biggest mistake
> > you make, beyond the approach you take (which is malicious, immature,
> > disgusting, and revolting), is feeling the need to interfere where it is not
> > needed.
>
> It was not "interference". Posting into the newsgroup is an invitation
> for commentary.
>
I was speaking in broader terms. You always want to be the saviour, even if it means
creating a dilema where none exists.
>
> > You do that again and again, Jesus Christ Superstar, and then wail from
> > your crucifix when the people reject you. "Look where I put myself for you! To
> > save you! Oh, why do you forsake me?!" It's pretty sad, really.
> >
>
> I am not wailing about anything. Nor did I "put myself anywhere" for
> you. I commented on the subject matter of your posts. My first post
> restricted itself to the subject matter of the text about "unimportance"
> and how it made me feel. Your response turned it personal.
>
You're a god-damned liar. Anyone who has followed this ridiculous fiasco will tell
you that you jumped out of the bushes screaming as soon as I posted the Tao Te Ching.
I defended myself. Then you went berserk, literally, to the point where I actually
questioned your mental stability beyond just calling you eccentric. You attacked me.
Plain and simple. It got ugly because I refuse to be nice to you anymore when you
attack me. I refuse. I won't make excuses for that kind of behaviour anymore, and
whether or not you see where you were wrong won't make a difference to me, as long as
I know I stood up when you tried to push me down.
>
> > Dear, dear, dear. Go to school. You might learn some social skills there. Write
> > your message to me out in brail and let a blind man read it, and he'll see as
> > plain as day that it was VERY personal.
> >
>
> I have no interest in learning those kind of "social skills". I would
> rather remain pure alone than memorize vacuous platitudes for you.
>
> I'm sick of this. Stop attacking me and then bleat like a wounded seal
> for getting attacked back. Even in this post you have made the whole
> thing personal, and I sit here tip-toeing around your damn feelings
> trying not to be insulting back. You do not play a fair game, lady.
This is so disgusting I might vomit. Get out of your head, and see what you did for
what it was, not what you want it to be. I did nothing wrong. You are the worst kind
of coward.
Dre
K. Bessey wrote:
> SCK (s...@igs.net) writes:
> >
> > My first message commented entirely on the substance of the Taoist
> > tract. It did not make any personal accusatory statement. I did not even
> > mention Dre. I doubt if it even had the word "you" in it to be
> > misunderstood.
>
> You're right, it wasn't a personal attack, but the way you
> vehemantly attacked Taoism could be taken personally by someone
> who found something worthwhile or good in it. It could be
> compared to a situation where one person finds a beautiful flower
> in a field and picks it to give to someone else, but the other
> person merely says "What's this ugly fucking weed you're giving me?
> The second person has not said "You are an idiot for bringing this,"
> but he has made the first person feel humiliated all the same.
>
The way he wrote to me was exactly the way he SPOKE to me when he thought I'd
did something wrong. Taking things to rididculous extremes, trying to tear up
any self-respect I had or determination to have my own opinions. You may not
see what he wrote as personal, but it was, because it is the exact reflection
of all the other times he tried to "save" me from myself by destroying me.
If anything, Steve is the one still trying to disconnect. Why else would he
completely lose it on me for something I did not do? Because he wants to be
mad at me. Because he wants to be believe in something so he can believe in
what he wants to. Get it?
>
> So, yes, it was all your fault, you insensitive brutish bastard.
> It's no wonder the poor young lady has run off and hooked up
> with some escapist cult.
I'm disgusted with everything about this.
SCK
> This is so disgusting I might vomit. Get out of your head, and see what you did for
> what it was, not what you want it to be. I did nothing wrong. You are the worst kind
> of coward.
>
"I did nothing wrong". How many times do I have to hear that this week.
You are never wrong, and I am unfit to live with angels in a land
without mirrors.
When it all comes down to it, Dre, I apologized in e-mail for hurting
you. All you have managed to do since then, both here and in e-mail, is
shit righteously on me about how right you are and how bad and wrong and
repugnant and terrible I am and have always been. You did not even have
the grace to accept my apology as even honest, you called me a liar. You
will not be satisfied until you have wrenched everything - even those
parts that I am not even responsible for - from me.
Your message went on to say that "anyone" will see that you are right.
Evidently not. Your own flesh and blood posted a message yesterday that
points out two things: 1) My first message was not personal. 2) Your
first response to me was. I apologized to you for my follow-up to that,
which was meaner than I should have been, and I should be better than
that. Take responsibility for your part. But you won't, will you? Your
purpose here is only one thing, subjugation, to make me totally
capitulate for everything; you are hurt and angry for a dozen things,
and you are now trying to do the thing to me that you have always
falsely believed I wanted out of you. You simply do not - not then, not
now - have faith in me.
SCK
> ... trying to tear up
> any self-respect I had or determination to have my own opinions. You may not
> see what he wrote as personal, but it was, because it is the exact reflection
> of all the other times he tried to "save" me from myself by destroying me.
>
This is 100% the root of why you I am here and you are there right now.
What you have written above is the blood-red, throbbing heart of how you
came to see me - incorrectly - as an enemy that is trying to "destroy
you" and who must be rebelled against at all costs. Geoffrey and now Ken
have written that it was not personal, but of course you see it
otherwise, it was some hidden attempt to kill you.
"You may not see it, but I know it was," she said, crouching in the
corner brandishing the knife. "You don't see it, but it's a reflection
of the other times he tried to destroy me." Her eyes became gleaming
slits in the dark. "You see now right? I have to be prepared to repel
anything." She slashed the knife out ahead of her testingly, but the
enemy was not there.
SCK
> Your attack on Taoism (and other religious cults) is too dogmatic
> and harsh, and that surely causes the other to feel attacked
> personally. Perhaps if that Tao stuff had been posted by someone
I'm not a gentle man, Kenworth.
> I doubt if you can say that someone who has read a bit of Taoist
> grafitti *is* a Taoist. If you read Mien Kampf will that make
> you a nazi? Even if you fetched up a few quotes from the book
> it would not make you a nazi. Highly suspect, but not a nazi.
>
You wouldn't be a Nazi for posting excerpts from Mein Kampf. I will
start to suspect you of your Nazi affiliations if you defend the
substance of the text after I attack the substance of it.
> As far as I can tell, this whole thing took off like a soup bowl
> launched across the room in a domestic dispute. You two, or at
> least Dre, are still disconnecting yourselves from the fine,
> delicate threads of the ties that once bound you. Divorces are
> nasty business.
>
We're not divorced, merely separated. Sort of like Patrick Swayze and
Demi Moore in that ghost movie. Transcendentally separated with no clear
or conventional road.
In fact, Dre deserves a lot of admiration. She has had a long, hard
struggle of adjustment with the boring old fart that she had married as
he turned into a raging genius.
SCK
> We can also often be less polite - more passionate - when seeing
> people we care about go wandering off into the desert. If I don't
> know you, I won't expend much effort trying to convince you that
> maybe you shouldn't go off and join the Moonies; but if you are
> someone who matters to me personally, I am going to make a great
> deal of noise.
>
You have become a very wise man, Young Geoffrey.
For this reason alone, I am going to tell you that it turned out that I
had hooked up those mats wrong for the dancing game. You are still a
lousy fighter, but your lousy dancing now has an explanation. You do not
have to go into eternity believing that you dance worse than pink robot
aliens.
SCK
> All right, in that - and only that - sense of the term, I will agree
> with you.
Because I am all down in the dumps after responding to messages today, I
am going to spend this whole message quoting you acknowledging that you
agree with me. So you agree with me, eh?
> I certainly inferred from your original text that, by "easy" you were
> referring to the amount of "work" (energy output) required to join a
> succesful cult as opposed to my example of the United Church. It
> seemed to me you were saying that no substantial *effort* (energy
> expenditure) was needed to join a cult and I was saying that most of
> the cults with which I am familiar actually require a rather expensive
> expentidure of time and energy.
>
> Whether this is easiest psychological path for the adherents is an
> entirely different question.
>
No, it's the only question, your first question isn't possible. You
cannot ask what is "easy" without considering the entire relationship
between the actor and the path. "Ease" cannot exist in a vaccuum without
participants. For this reason, I would never find myself even talking
about the concept that you automatically assumed I was talking about. It
is not possible to conceive of an absolute "ease" without its associated
relationships. I will prove it to you if you care to give me any example
of something you think is easy vs. something that is difficult.
> > Naturally then, a person seeking a higher plane of understanding has to
> > automatically define either nothing as a cult, or all religions as cults
> > and dismiss them all. If you do not do the latter, then any search for
> > understanding will then inevitably get mired in the cosmetics of each
> > religion as you try to weed out the flakes from the prophets.
>
> In this context, I agree with you: all religions are cults, systems of
> believe requiring faith of things unseen, without objective evidence.
>
Oh, so you agree with me?
> > My first message commented entirely on the substance of the Taoist
> > tract. It did not make any personal accusatory statement. I did not even
> > mention Dre. I doubt if it even had the word "you" in it to be
> > misunderstood.
>
> Okay, I have checked. You are correct. Your first response dealt
> entirely with the text; my apologies.
>
Thank you for agreeing with me.
> >
> > That was the message that drew my caustic fire, YG. My first message had
> > no personal slant at all.
>
> Yup. My mistake again.
>
If you are mistaken, you must now be agreeing with me.
> > But I trust you as a fair arbiter, my miniscule friend, I will abide by
> > your judgment. Reread my first message and then read the message "tao of
> > being angry" that was its follow-up. Tell me if if it really was me that
> > introduced the personal element, or if I was not responding to a defense
> > of the excerpt suggested with a comparison to my own personal failures.
>
> All right. You stand vindicated. You really *ought* to watch out for
> that bear-trap, though; the over-whelming second-strike has a way of
> spreading contamination at least as much over you as it does on your
> opponent.
>
I am vindicated? Thank you.
Actually, this one is not facetious.
> > > I haven't felt insulted here yet - unless you were wrongly suggesting
> > > it is my table "The Fountainhead" (that nihilistic piece of trash) is
> > > supporting.
> >
> > No, I exempt you from any serious discussions on The Fountainhead
> > because as far as I know it has not yet been published in graphical
> > novel format featuring that nude aarvark.
>
> Now, I'm insulted. I saw the movie, instead. (YG is *kidding* damn it!)
>
Was there a movie? There better not have been.
I am anxiously waiting for the movie of "Captain Corelli's Mandolin"
that is supposed to be released this summer starring Nicolas Cage. This
book has remained on the top spot of my favourite books for the last
five years, and it is absolutely inconceivable to me how it can be made
into a movie. It is beyond my imagination. I am positive there is no way
to capture what this book is in a movie, the same way you could not make
a film of A Prayer For Owen Meany.
John Angus
> Your message went on to say that "anyone" will see that you are right.
> Evidently not. Your own flesh and blood posted a message yesterday that
> points out two things: 1) My first message was not personal. 2) Your
> first response to me was.
Yes, but...
When I first read your response I didn't consider it personal either.
It was harsh, but you tend to be harsh in judging such things. I can
see how someone who posted a passage they respected/admired, a
philosphical tract they thought worthwhile, could be offended and
embarrassed by your vehement dismissal and ridicule of it. Basically she
posted a philosophy she apparently considered worthwhile and you responded
with "What a lot of horse shit" or words to that effect, if less coarse.
Still, that's usenet, and nothing to get overly upset about except
that you two obviously have a history, a recent one, and any criticism in
that context is likely to be taken as personal.
BTW, shouldn't these types of threads be on ott.singles,
for the entertainment of the wide eyed masses of gossipers and
gigglers?
JA
Dre
SCK wrote:
> Dre wrote:
>
> > This is so disgusting I might vomit. Get out of your head, and see what you did for
> > what it was, not what you want it to be. I did nothing wrong. You are the worst kind
> > of coward.
> >
>
> "I did nothing wrong". How many times do I have to hear that this week.
> You are never wrong, and I am unfit to live with angels in a land
> without mirrors.
>
I did nothing wrong. I defended myself and my right to explore philosophies you don't
like. I explained why I was exploring Taoism. I explained what I thought of it. I
explained that it is not my personal philosophy, nor was it going to be. And what you did
was attack *me* - telling me that I was ruining myself, bringing up "our children" (What
the fuck is that?), and demonstrating that you had convinced yourself that I "once again"
needed your strict guidance. So I got pissed off. Because I'm not doing this little dance
anymore, where you say, "You're taking the wrong step", and I say, "I didn't even take
that step" while you push me around and cover your ears.
>
> When it all comes down to it, Dre, I apologized in e-mail for hurting
> you. All you have managed to do since then, both here and in e-mail, is
> shit righteously on me about how right you are and how bad and wrong and
> repugnant and terrible I am and have always been. You did not even have
> the grace to accept my apology as even honest, you called me a liar. You
> will not be satisfied until you have wrenched everything - even those
> parts that I am not even responsible for - from me.
>
You just don't get it. An apology is not "I would feel bad if I didn't apologize, but I
don't think I did anything wrong". That's what you said. I'm not accepting that. I have in
the past, and I'm not anymore. And yes, it is repugnant when someone apologizes because
they think they have to and then tries to take higher ground because they're fraudulent
apology wasn't accepted.
And I called you a liar because you are lying to yourself if you think you did nothing
wrong.
>
> Your message went on to say that "anyone" will see that you are right.
> Evidently not. Your own flesh and blood posted a message yesterday that
> points out two things: 1) My first message was not personal. 2) Your
> first response to me was. I apologized to you for my follow-up to that,
> which was meaner than I should have been, and I should be better than
> that. Take responsibility for your part. But you won't, will you? Your
> purpose here is only one thing, subjugation, to make me totally
> capitulate for everything; you are hurt and angry for a dozen things,
> and you are now trying to do the thing to me that you have always
> falsely believed I wanted out of you. You simply do not - not then, not
> now - have faith in me.
A man who does not trust enough will not be trusted.
Dre
SCK wrote:
> Dre wrote:
>
> > ... trying to tear up
> > any self-respect I had or determination to have my own opinions. You may not
> > see what he wrote as personal, but it was, because it is the exact reflection
> > of all the other times he tried to "save" me from myself by destroying me.
> >
>
> This is 100% the root of why you I am here and you are there right now.
> What you have written above is the blood-red, throbbing heart of how you
> came to see me - incorrectly - as an enemy that is trying to "destroy
> you" and who must be rebelled against at all costs. Geoffrey and now Ken
> have written that it was not personal, but of course you see it
> otherwise, it was some hidden attempt to kill you.
>
Let me point something out to you. When I came back from London, I sent you an
email telling you how strong I felt, how proud I was of myself for getting through
you know what. For the first time I was truly able to express to you, with full
honesty, how amazed I am that I got through you know what, and how it feels now.
And you completely ignored that part of my email to instead make some kind of loose
criticism of something else I had written. Then I posted the stuff from the Tao Te
Ching. And you flew at the opportunity to attack me. And this is what I came up
with:
- you saw that I am stronger, and proud, and genuinely *better*, and did not want
to acknowledge it. Why? Because that meant acknowledging that I'm your equal, and
no longer someone you can talk down to, someone you can badger, someone you can
criticize and watch and teach and demean and worry about.
- you saw the posts and thought, "Oh, goody! Looks like I can tell her she's going
"down the wrong path" and make her feel unequal again. I can think of her as
unequal again".
You think I'm going to put up with that?
Geoff and Ken don't know the circumstances of our relationship. They weren't there
when you told me my advice wasn't ever worth taking because "of who I am". They
weren't there when you insisted that I was ruining myself even when it was obvious
I was getting better. They weren't there when you bossed me around despite what I
said I wanted. They weren't there when you called me a shithead, said and did
things to me that hurt so much I couldn't stand the pain. They weren't there when
you told me I didn't know how to live my life, that I wouldn't be able to live a
happy or worthwhile life if I didn't take all of your advice, because all of your
advice is right. They weren't there.
Care to tell me you did none of these things? You want me to get more personal? You
want me to drag more stuff out, like you have? Well that's fucking it. That's it.
I don't think anyone can blame me for reacting to your attack on my Taoism posts
the way I did if they knew the whole story. And for just a moment up there, I lost
my pride enough to want to tell the whole story, if only for the chance that
someone will understand.
Show's over. Take your bow.
>
SCK
> - you saw that I am stronger, and proud, and genuinely *better*, and did not want
> to acknowledge it. Why? Because that meant acknowledging that I'm your equal, and
> no longer someone you can talk down to, someone you can badger, someone you can
> criticize and watch and teach and demean and worry about.
>
> - you saw the posts and thought, "Oh, goody! Looks like I can tell her she's going
> "down the wrong path" and make her feel unequal again. I can think of her as
> unequal again".
>
All I can do is point out again, that if this is what you really think
of me, it is incredibly easy to see what went wrong. There is no way to
have a relationship where one person is this inherently suspicious of
her lover. There is no trust.
I have always wanted an "equal", Dre. It is never my intent to make
someone into a less equal. I do not need that. Sadly, I am reasonably
certain that you do not fully appreciate what being "equal" means. You
are interested only in the benefits and none of the responsibility. Even
your complete lack of trust, the most destructive feeling you can have,
you have found a way to make me responsible for and washed your hands of
it all. Nothing is ever your fault.
SCK
> You just don't get it. An apology is not "I would feel bad if I didn't apologize, but I
> don't think I did anything wrong". That's what you said. I'm not accepting that. I have in
> the past, and I'm not anymore. And yes, it is repugnant when someone apologizes because
> they think they have to and then tries to take higher ground because they're fraudulent
> apology wasn't accepted.
>
I'm not going to argue with you anymore. I only feel compelled to point
out that what you have quoted above is not the text of my apology, and
bears no resemblance to it. That is absolutely not what I said.
> And I called you a liar because you are lying to yourself if you think you did nothing
> wrong.
>
I don't think I did nothing wrong, that's you, remember? You have said
it twice today already, "I did nothing wrong" you said. And you keep
saying it. I apologized for my part, that's an admission of wrongdoing.
Just don't get it, do you?
> > that. Take responsibility for your part. But you won't, will you? Your
> > purpose here is only one thing, subjugation, to make me totally
> > capitulate for everything; you are hurt and angry for a dozen things,
> > and you are now trying to do the thing to me that you have always
> > falsely believed I wanted out of you. You simply do not - not then, not
> > now - have faith in me.
>
> A man who does not trust enough will not be trusted.
>
Wonderful - everything is my fault again. It does not matter to you that
it is you who is demonstrating your own poisonous lack of trust, it's
enough to just sweep it all aside and blame it on me. Somehow I must
have been at the root somewhere for making you not trust, you reason,
therefore everything that came of it is my fault too.
It is not me who makes you unequal, Dre, you insist on making yourself
unequal by refusing any responsibility for anything. It is enough that
every destructive feeling you have and that you allowed yourself to act
upon because you blame the cause of it on me. There is no "equality" in
that, you have made me responsible for everything.
SCK
> Yes, but...
> When I first read your response I didn't consider it personal either.
> It was harsh, but you tend to be harsh in judging such things. I can
> see how someone who posted a passage they respected/admired, a
> philosphical tract they thought worthwhile, could be offended and
> embarrassed by your vehement dismissal and ridicule of it. Basically she
> posted a philosophy she apparently considered worthwhile and you responded
> with "What a lot of horse shit" or words to that effect, if less coarse.
>
Nothing like a good soap opera to bring people out of the woodwork. If
you are lucky, you will soon find out how I switched identities with my
murdered twin brother and seduced the French maid.
How are you?
John Angus
I deleted that message just after posting it.
I am contantly disappointed at the imperfections of technology.
Anyway, the soap opera was too intense, which was why, in
retrospect, I decided not to comment.
I am in reasonable health, wealthier than I've ever been
before due to unexpectedly gainful employment, less argumentative,
more cynical, and still trying to add the final ten thousand
words to the hundred ninety odd thousand of a fantasy I began
two years or so ago.
By the way, if you have a high speed internet connection, you
can download much more pornography. So the internet, while
imperfect, remains a marvel.
JA
SCK
> I deleted that message just after posting it.
> I am contantly disappointed at the imperfections of technology.
>
I make a point of responding to all deleted messages. I might be the
world's most annoying man.
> I am in reasonable health, wealthier than I've ever been
> before due to unexpectedly gainful employment, less argumentative,
> more cynical, and still trying to add the final ten thousand
> words to the hundred ninety odd thousand of a fantasy I began
> two years or so ago.
>
Good for you. Is your gainful employment writing-related?
I have been vaguely mulling the idea of posting my current writing
project in here, piece by miserable piece, as a way of encouraging
myself to finish it.
> By the way, if you have a high speed internet connection, you
> can download much more pornography. So the internet, while
> imperfect, remains a marvel.
>
People are not buying pornography on the net as fast as I would like
them to. My stock options have all tanked. I work for a company that I
suspect secretly thrives on high-quality pornography on the web - it may
be what fuels the sale of our long-haul optical backbone product.
Geoffrey Dow
>
> SCK wrote:
>
> > Dre wrote:
> >
> > > So you predict reactions to your malice, then stab anyway. The biggest mistake
> > > you make, beyond the approach you take (which is malicious, immature,
> > > disgusting, and revolting), is feeling the need to interfere where it is not
> > > needed.
> >
> > It was not "interference". Posting into the newsgroup is an invitation
> > for commentary.
>
> I was speaking in broader terms. You always want to be the saviour, even if it means
> creating a dilema where none exists.
Should he have *lied* in his response? Should he have praised
those verses and announced his intention to give to me his SUV
and hidden rowboat to follow his new-found master?
Excerpts from a book, sent to a *book* to a discussion group, by
definition, invite commentary. Whatever SCK's motives or skills,
he reacted to the *text* you posted. You interpreted it as a
personal attack but - if you go back and read the words - there
was nothing in the text itself that didn't refer back to what you
posted, to SCK's thoughts and (mostly) feelings about the text and
all (he thinks) it represents. He said nothing about you, he did
not allude to you, he merely cursed as stupid and evil a great many
things you hold dear (though you did not specifically mention them
in the text). Did he mean that personally? Who knows? Did he,
either way, *believe* what he said? I think so - unless he's been
involved in one of the longest and most pointless charades in the
annals of usenet.
> > > You do that again and again, Jesus Christ Superstar, and then wail from
> > > your crucifix when the people reject you. "Look where I put myself for you! To
> > > save you! Oh, why do you forsake me?!" It's pretty sad, really.
> > >
> >
> > I am not wailing about anything. Nor did I "put myself anywhere" for
> > you. I commented on the subject matter of your posts. My first post
> > restricted itself to the subject matter of the text about "unimportance"
> > and how it made me feel. Your response turned it personal.
> >
>
> You're a god-damned liar. Anyone who has followed this ridiculous fiasco will tell
> you that you jumped out of the bushes screaming as soon as I posted the Tao Te Ching.
> I defended myself.
Read it again, Dre; he attacked the text - you then attacked *him*.
Whatever emotional subways exist or do not exist between he and you,
what I saw was precisely what is condensed into this paragraph's first
sentence.
Geoffrey Dow
>
> Geoffrey Dow wrote:
>
> am going to spend this whole message quoting you acknowledging that you
> agree with me. So you agree with me, eh?
Sometimes it is life's small pleasures that keep us going.
> > I certainly inferred from your original text that, by "easy" you were
> > referring to the amount of "work" (energy output) required to join a
> > succesful cult as opposed to my example of the United Church. It
> > seemed to me you were saying that no substantial *effort* (energy
> > expenditure) was needed to join a cult and I was saying that most of
> > the cults with which I am familiar actually require a rather expensive
> > expentidure of time and energy.
> >
> > Whether this is easiest psychological path for the adherents is an
> > entirely different question.
>
> No, it's the only question, your first question isn't possible. You
> cannot ask what is "easy" without considering the entire relationship
> between the actor and the path. "Ease" cannot exist in a vaccuum without
> participants. For this reason, I would never find myself even talking
> about the concept that you automatically assumed I was talking about. It
> is not possible to conceive of an absolute "ease" without its associated
> relationships. I will prove it to you if you care to give me any example
> of something you think is easy vs. something that is difficult.
An example? Two men, both following their basic natures. One watches
a lot of television; the other is constantly tearing down and replacing
walls, building additions to his house and working in his garden. The
second burns a great many more calories than the first.
However, let us assume that person (a) is inherently lazy, while
person (b) is inherently physical - he *has* to "keep busy" if he
is to be happy. In other words, both men are simply following the
easiest mental path to contentment, if not real happiness. But
the second works harder, puts more effort into his life.
If you think - and, remembering the discussion we had on this topic
some months ago, I think you do - that we all do what we "want" and
nothing else, you cannot legitimately discuss "ease" or "effort" at
all, because by your definition there is no difference.
> > > Naturally then, a person seeking a higher plane of understanding has to
> > > automatically define either nothing as a cult, or all religions as cults
> > > and dismiss them all. If you do not do the latter, then any search for
> > > understanding will then inevitably get mired in the cosmetics of each
> > > religion as you try to weed out the flakes from the prophets.
> >
> > In this context, I agree with you: all religions are cults, systems of
> > believe requiring faith of things unseen, without objective evidence.
>
> Oh, so you agree with me?
Yes, but with the following addendum. There is sometimes a difference
between religion (spirituality) and Religion (church).
Religion in the first sense is a disciplined search, for understanding
of one's self and of one's place in the universe, often one that takes
the seeker on a long and arduous mental journey.
Religion in the second sense involves swallowing entire the creedo
of a church, without necessarily any personal effort involved at all.
(That you and I believe that both forms of the term require belief
in that for which there is no objective evidence has nothing to do
with whether or not either path is more or less "difficult" for the
people on it.)
> > Now, I'm insulted. I saw the movie [of The Fountainhead], instead.
> > (YG is *kidding* damn it!)
>
> Was there a movie? There better not have been.
There was. I haven't seen it (nor want to), but I think it starred
Gary Cooper as Roark.
> I am anxiously waiting for the movie of "Captain Corelli's Mandolin"
> that is supposed to be released this summer starring Nicolas Cage. This
> book has remained on the top spot of my favourite books for the last
> five years, and it is absolutely inconceivable to me how it can be made
> into a movie. It is beyond my imagination. I am positive there is no way
> to capture what this book is in a movie, the same way you could not make
> a film of A Prayer For Owen Meany.
They did make a film of A Prayer for Owen Meany. Not a good one, by all
reports (Irving made them change the title and - I think - remove all
references to him or his book from it, but they made one.
JHall
> ...
> it all. Nothing is ever your fault.
or better still "what do you want me to do ? I know nothing. I live in a
swamp."
After reading the various post in this NG I have to agree - you do know
nothing and you do live in a swamp.
JHall
> ...
> my pride enough to want to tell the whole story, if only for the chance that
> someone will understand.
>
> Show's over. Take your bow.
Some of us readers are pretty darn clever and are able to read AND
understand parts of what we read. I am somewhat bemused by you know what
and how it plays into the storyline.
Wait a sec it is the storyline. All that came before is merely window
dressings.
So us readers have been handed a threadus interruptus. Boooo Booooo
JHall
> ...
> People are not buying pornography on the net as fast as I would like
> them to. My stock options have all tanked. I work for a company that I
> suspect secretly thrives on high-quality pornography on the web - it may
> be what fuels the sale of our long-haul optical backbone product.
Somewhere over the rainbow, Nortel designs 'em, ExpressVu abuses them and
Bell garners the profit margin. It ain't a conspiracy it is just good
business.
Greed by the way does not ride alone, nothing does, but least of all
greed. One of greed's best companions is hate. As greed grows so does
hate. Howvever, hate manifests itself much more poorly than greed.
Thus the reason I prefer to dislike rather than hate.
JHall
> ...
>
> > > Now, I'm insulted. I saw the movie [of The Fountainhead], instead.
> > > (YG is *kidding* damn it!)
> >
> > Was there a movie? There better not have been.
>
> There was. I haven't seen it (nor want to), but I think it starred
> Gary Cooper as Roark.
> ...
Correct.
Dre
SCK wrote:
> Dre wrote:
>
> > - you saw that I am stronger, and proud, and genuinely *better*, and did not want
> > to acknowledge it. Why? Because that meant acknowledging that I'm your equal, and
> > no longer someone you can talk down to, someone you can badger, someone you can
> > criticize and watch and teach and demean and worry about.
> >
> > - you saw the posts and thought, "Oh, goody! Looks like I can tell her she's going
> > "down the wrong path" and make her feel unequal again. I can think of her as
> > unequal again".
> >
>
> All I can do is point out again, that if this is what you really think
> of me, it is incredibly easy to see what went wrong. There is no way to
> have a relationship where one person is this inherently suspicious of
> her lover. There is no trust.
>
It wasn't about suspicion, it was about observation. I *observed* the way you treated
me, time and again, and my inability to trust (eventually) was a direct result of how I
was being treated. Like so: "Oh, shit, is he going to call me useless again? Is he going
to make me feel terrible for needing him to be nicer? Is this next thing he's going to
say another complete criticism of everything I am?" It's a trying thing, being treated
that way, and to keep trusting after a while becomes impossible.
>
> I have always wanted an "equal", Dre. It is never my intent to make
> someone into a less equal. I do not need that. Sadly, I am reasonably
> certain that you do not fully appreciate what being "equal" means. You
> are interested only in the benefits and none of the responsibility. Even
> your complete lack of trust, the most destructive feeling you can have,
> you have found a way to make me responsible for and washed your hands of
> it all. Nothing is ever your fault.
Nope, I guess not. Never sat there and told you how completely low I felt because of all
the things in my life I could have done differently. Not once. Never had you reaffirm my
self-blaming. Nope, never. Never had you stare at me coldly from across the table while
I told you how poorly I saw myself. I think you liked that about me. The fact that I was
tragic. Something you could work on, a pet project. And then when I was on my way to
becoming equal, you tried your best to convince me I really hadn't gotten anywhere, and
was still this pathetic, worrisome, useless, destructive little waif. And yes, I blame
that on you, I blame that you tried to keep me from becoming equal. I don't blame you
for my being unequal to begin with. That was between me and my creator.
SCK
> self-blaming. Nope, never. Never had you stare at me coldly from across the table while
> I told you how poorly I saw myself. I think you liked that about me.
I'm sorry you feel that way. I find myself unable to continue any form
of a relationship with someone who I love who thinks such a terrible
thing of me. I wish you all the best with your life, Dre.
K. Bessey
And what happens to us kids?
Do we get shuffled off between you on opposite weekends?
Laur
> Nope, I guess not. Never sat there and told you how completely low I felt because of all
> the things in my life I could have done differently. Not once.
Don't take this offensively Andrea, but you are just beginning your life. You have every
door open to you to make things right for yourself. I can't see why you would want to have
done anything differently up to this point. After meeting with you, talking with you, and
seeing how friggin' smart you are and how much compassion you have towards others, I have
alot of admiration for you and how you can carry a conversation with these "old guys".
Dre
Laur wrote:
Thank you, Laur.
And I'm not offended. I know my life is just beginning. That's partly why I'm able to let go
of many of my regrets, because I know I'm just a wee babe, and whatever I've learned up to now
(by doing things right and by making mistakes) will just come along for the ride.
Dre
K. Bessey wrote:
> And what happens to us kids?
> Do we get shuffled off between you on opposite weekends?
Think you can slip that little journalistic - 30 - past me? I remember when I taught you that
one. Making cookies that one rainy afternoon, while your father was at work and I let you eat
the raw dough until your stomach hurt.
Anyway, I'm reasonably sure - 30 - isn't applicable. Not just yet. Whatever your father said
was just for show. He's said it before. And always there is an interlude of quiet while he
remembers what he's missing, sits up in his sweaty motel bed, and curses himself for making
mistakes. Eventually the quiet ends (and I'm sorry for that, I always felt terrible when you'd
creep upstairs and close your door to all the yelling downstairs) and your father decides he
has nothing to be sorry about.
Then he says, "have a nice life", packs his things, and checks into that same destitute motel
room.
orangefree89
>Both admonish their followers to shut up and do as they are told; both
>provide "answers" without requiring thought; both prescribe worrying
>about
>one's internal state rather than the external world; both allow free
>reign
>to secular powers so long as certain symbolic obeissance is paid to the
>reigning orthodoxy.
I was told to come to ott.rec.books for intelligent discussion on
books. I come, and I find unintelligent discussion on religion
instead.
Charity requires, however, that I assume I am the bozo. Accordingly,
I'll content myself with asking a few questions:
1. Can you provide some relevant examples for the attributes of the
subject that you identify above?
2. What exactly is "mysticism" as it is understood in "the West"? No
quotes from Ayn Rand please.
3. Better still, can you define "the West"? Yes, this is a trick
question.
Nikolaus Maack
> I was told to come to ott.rec.books for intelligent discussion on
> books. I come, and I find unintelligent discussion on religion
> instead.
Such is the tao. It leads us from the highbrow to the lowbrow and back
again. Praise Lao Tzu, for he leads us not into temptation, and delivers
us our newspapers, conveniently shredding them first for easier disposal.
There is no news. There is only the ebb and flow of our waste in the wind.
> Charity requires, however, that I assume I am the bozo. Accordingly,
> I'll content myself with asking a few questions:
>
> 1. Can you provide some relevant examples for the attributes of the
> subject that you identify above?
Everything influences every other thing. Relativity was invented by an
ancient Chinese man older than Jesus, not that German guy with the weird
hair. Granted that all things influence all things, I think it's fair to
say that there is no such thing as individuals. Therefore, we all have
the same attributes.
> 2. What exactly is "mysticism" as it is understood in "the West"? No
> quotes from Ayn Rand please.
Mysticism is religion with a beat you can dance to. It has better fashion
sense, and it drinks more. It knows how to hold 'em, and when to fold
'em. Mysticism knows how to use a coin-operated laundry machine, whereas
religion prays for cloudier days so no one notices the stains on our
clothes.
> 3. Better still, can you define "the West"? Yes, this is a trick
> question.
The West is the place the sun slowly sinks into. I picture it as an
enormous pool table pocket that the sun rests in when it's not shining in
our sky. How it gets from The West (where it sinks) to The East (where it
rises) is a great mystery. I suspect that, as we sleep, the entire world
rotates on an enormous turntable, and that the earth is actually a
gigantic 45 single. Are we the A side or the B side? I do not know.
I hope this fails to answer your questions. Unanswered questions are
worth their weight in goosefat. They can be pondered forever. Answered
questions are usually ignored and discarded, along with their answers.
Nik
PS.
I have to go eat breakfast now, in anticipation of my new and exciting
temp job. I'm helping to amalgamate all the paperwork of the new city
into one big room full of clutter. Perhaps if I explain relativity to my
employers they'll see the futility of our actions.
"Put that box down! Stop entering that data! All things are amalgamated
into one already!"
Or maybe they'll just have me put away, in a box, with airholes, in a
quiet storeroom, with attendants in white.
The world is too organized. I blame the Dewey Decimal System.
--
You're not smart enough
to understand
how stupid I am.
JHall
> ...
>
> I was told to come to ott.rec.books for intelligent discussion on
> books. I come, and I find unintelligent discussion on religion
> instead.
Lucky you most times it is stevie little wonder explaining to everyone
how and why he will save them.
> Charity requires, however, that I assume I am the bozo. Accordingly,
> I'll content myself with asking a few questions:
In cyberspace the only thing required is stroke, stroke, for keystroke.
>
> 1. Can you provide some relevant examples for the attributes of the
> subject that you identify above ?
Now you are just pushing the shit along.
>
> 2. What exactly is "mysticism" as it is understood in "the West"? No
> quotes from Ayn Rand please.
Without Ayn Rand there is no West.
>
> 3. Better still, can you define "the West"? Yes, this is a trick
> question.
Like the West is really the Way or the West is everything west of the
Pecos or if one goes east, while circumventing the earth, then one will
surely pass the West. By the by where does east meet west ?
And in passing the "Art of War" derives some of its magic from Tao or
the author, Sun-tzu, once wrote "Warfare ... the Way (Tao) to survival or
extinction".
Nothing mamby pamby about this shit, eh ? To be or not be be. Alive or
Dead.
It is very comforting to realize that the art of and about literature is
now guided by TV. No problem as long as the cretaors (give me a break)
and/or writers are whacked out on some great shit and the actors are
able to understand the nuances as interpreted by the directors while
filming another masterpiece.
Geoffrey Dow
charming hint of self-deprecation.
orangefree89 wrote:
>
> On Tue, 08 May 2001 20:07:02 -0400, Geoffrey Dow <ed...@attcanada.ca> wrote:
> >Both admonish their followers to shut up and do as they are told; both
> >provide "answers" without requiring thought; both prescribe worrying
> >about
> >one's internal state rather than the external world; both allow free
> >reign
> >to secular powers so long as certain symbolic obeissance is paid to the
> >reigning orthodoxy.
>
> I was told to come to ott.rec.books for intelligent discussion on
> books. I come, and I find unintelligent discussion on religion
> instead.
>
> Charity requires, however, that I assume I am the bozo. Accordingly,
> I'll content myself with asking a few questions:
>
> 1. Can you provide some relevant examples for the attributes of the
> subject that you identify above?
The classic example would be the Catholic Church's insistence (until
the Second Vatican Council in - what? - 1961) that the Bible not be
translated into the vernacular; the emphasis in Eastern Philosophy
upon self-knowledge to the exclusion of concern for the state of the
outside world.
> 2. What exactly is "mysticism" as it is understood in "the West"? No
> quotes from Ayn Rand please.
I only quote Rand to disparage her. I define "mysticism" as any set
of beliefs based upon ideas for which there is no objective evidence.
The Christian God, Nirvana or vague talk about a "Universal
Consciousness" all qualify.
> 3. Better still, can you define "the West"? Yes, this is a trick
> question.
I define "the West" as that set of beliefs that originated with the
early Greek philosophers who believed that the universe is physical
in nature and comprehensible in principle. Parallel to that, goes
the philosophical position that the individual is at least as
important as the society in which he or she lives.
J. Coulter
>
> You do not play a fair game, lady.
All is fair in love and war. And love is not a game. A game implies
it is something you can win. Love, my friend, is a bloodsport.
JCo
--
http://www.geocities.com/jenniferannecoulter/main.html ICQ# - 107472248
"To be truly medieval one should have no body. To be truly modern one
should have no soul. To be truly Greek one should have no clothes." OW
Nikolaus Maack
Geoffrey, I don't know which is more depressing -- my silly response, or
your sane one. I like to think that there are no answers, and that anyone
who offers you one, insisting it really is THE answer, is trying to find
an accomplice to build his house of cards.
But you come across as very sane. Anyone who is sane is clearly mad -- or
very good at concealing their madness, which makes them far more dangerous
than the man in the tinfoil hat talking to the tulips.
Geoffrey Dow (geoff...@sympatico.ca) writes:
>> 1. Can you provide some relevant examples for the attributes of the
>> subject that you identify above?
>
> The classic example would be the Catholic Church's insistence (until
> the Second Vatican Council in - what? - 1961) that the Bible not be
> translated into the vernacular; the emphasis in Eastern Philosophy
> upon self-knowledge to the exclusion of concern for the state of the
> outside world.
The bureaucracy of religion, like all bureaucracies, is foolish, inane,
and cancerous in nature. This doesn't make government stupid, nor does it
make religion stupid. A sleazy used-car salesman can still sell you a
fairly decent car.
Self-knowledge to the exclusion of concern for the state of the outside
world? I don't know what you use to perceive the outside world, but I use
my self. Data is only as reliable as the instrument that records it.
>> 2. What exactly is "mysticism" as it is understood in "the West"? No
>> quotes from Ayn Rand please.
>
> I only quote Rand to disparage her. I define "mysticism" as any set
> of beliefs based upon ideas for which there is no objective evidence.
> The Christian God, Nirvana or vague talk about a "Universal
> Consciousness" all qualify.
Placing "objective evidence" in a holy shrine is as based in mysticism as
any other religion. Is it not true that the subjective, the irrational,
and the make-believe are an essential component for understanding Truth?
Cast aside these bits of nonsense and you're left with raw fact. Might
make for an interesting pie chart, but tends to leave the rest of your
life a little dreary.
What good is "objective reality" and science if you don't have a
subjective desire to mould it into something enjoyable? Behind every
serious fact is a silly dream.
>> 3. Better still, can you define "the West"? Yes, this is a trick
>> question.
>
> I define "the West" as that set of beliefs that originated with the
> early Greek philosophers who believed that the universe is physical
> in nature and comprehensible in principle. Parallel to that, goes
> the philosophical position that the individual is at least as
> important as the society in which he or she lives.
One of the curses of western thinking is that any idiot -- with the
backing of several powerful corporations -- can grow up to be president.
And every idiot on the street believes he's just as smart, savvy, and sane
as the next son of a bitch. The poor bastard is always wrong, but
harbours the delusion all the same.
"That guy with the PhD knows shit. I'm just as good as him!"
The slug has been taught, after all, that any son of a bitch can grow up
to be president. So if he doesn't get to be president, it was only
because he was lazy.
But that's just froth.
The biggest danger in ANY philosophical approach is the insistance that
yours is the one and only way of achieving bliss. You seem to be flirting
with such a position. You sound suspiciously like one of those kids who
stood up in class and spoke his mind, expressing as honestly and
truthfully as he could his certainty that teacher knows best. It's always
depressing to think of how susprised that kid was when he was dragged into
the shady corner of the schoolyard and whipped with his own belt.
There is no room in this world for sanity. Do you understand why they say
there are no atheists in foxholes? It's because if you're an atheist, and
you believe in rationality and sanity, it's only because no one has
murdered your parents with an axe, burnt your home to the ground, and
given you a sexual disease -- leaving you holding the ashes and peeled
scabs in your hands, trying to find some kind of meaning in it all.
Nik
Geoffrey Dow
>
> Geoffrey, I don't know which is more depressing -- my silly response, or
> your sane one. I like to think that there are no answers, and that anyone
> who offers you one, insisting it really is THE answer, is trying to find
> an accomplice to build his house of cards.
Everything I know (and believe, from analyzing books, other peoples'
experiences, etc) leads me to conclude that there *are* answers.
(Whether or not we will be able to find them all is another question;
we may not be smart enough to figure everything out, but the answers
are there.)
I don't think it likely there is only *one* answer, if only because
there is far more than one question. Perhaps that is another reason
I have such a strong dislike for religion in all of its manifestations
(or, at least, in all of the manifestations of religion with which I
am familiar - Zen Buddhism may be an exception): namely that they all
claim there is a reason for our existence.
Why do I object to this? Simply because there is absolutely no
evidence to support the idea beyond the entirely natural *desire* on
the part of individual human beings to believe their lives are not
meaningless events happening in a tiny part of an uncaring universe.
But I have yet to encounter a shred of evidence to suggest anything
to the contrary. Nothing but frightened individuals who do not
wish to face the "fact" (in quotations because - god knows - I may
be wrong) that they were not put here, by anybody, to do anything.
We are as free as our nature allows (note to SCK: that means we are
only *partly* freedom) and that is a scary responsibility.
> Geoffrey Dow (geoff...@sympatico.ca) writes:
> >> 1. Can you provide some relevant examples for the attributes of the
> >> subject that you identify above?
> >
> > The classic example would be the Catholic Church's insistence (until
> > the Second Vatican Council in - what? - 1961) that the Bible not be
> > translated into the vernacular; the emphasis in Eastern Philosophy
> > upon self-knowledge to the exclusion of concern for the state of the
> > outside world.
>
> The bureaucracy of religion, like all bureaucracies, is foolish, inane,
> and cancerous in nature. This doesn't make government stupid, nor does it
> make religion stupid. A sleazy used-car salesman can still sell you a
> fairly decent car.
True. But he asked for specific examples.
> Self-knowledge to the exclusion of concern for the state of the outside
> world? I don't know what you use to perceive the outside world, but I use
> my self. Data is only as reliable as the instrument that records it.
I was thinking in particular of "holy men", who spend their lives
investigating their navels, as it were, greatly concerned with the
"eternal truths" etcetera, while stepping over the bodies of
famine victims in the street. Admitedly, I was exagerating for the
sake of argument, but I believe the basic premise is a constant in
most religions - "The poor will be with us always", "Give unto
Caesar that which is Caesar's", etc. (Yes, there are exceptions.)
> >> 2. What exactly is "mysticism" as it is understood in "the West"? No
> >> quotes from Ayn Rand please.
> >
> > I only quote Rand to disparage her. I define "mysticism" as any set
> > of beliefs based upon ideas for which there is no objective evidence.
> > The Christian God, Nirvana or vague talk about a "Universal
> > Consciousness" all qualify.
>
> Placing "objective evidence" in a holy shrine is as based in mysticism as
> any other religion.
No, it isn't. Objective evidence means that it is available to anyone,
repeatedly. I know gravity exists because I can drop my grandmother's
old crockery on the floor and it will break. Every time. That
doesn't mean I know what gravity is or what mechanism makes it act,
but it is there. On the other hand, Dre's feeling, for example, that
3 billion year-old rocks care about her existence may be true, just as
the Pope's claim to speak for God may be true, but I have no reason to
believe either contention is true, other than their say-sos.
> Is it not true that the subjective, the irrational, and the
> make-believe are an essential component for understanding Truth?
Only in the sense that *we* are subjective and irrational animals
who often make believe all sorts of things. Understanding our own
irrationality is an essential component for understanding Truth(s);
believing our made-up stories is a sure way for getting lost along
the way.
> Cast aside these bits of nonsense and you're left with raw fact. Might
> make for an interesting pie chart, but tends to leave the rest of your
> life a little dreary.
I disagree. The "raw facts" that result in the wallpaper on my
computer screen (a stunningly beautiful picture of Jupiter and its
moon, Io) are to me far less dreary than running around believing
that angels are moving lights around in the sky.
> What good is "objective reality" and science if you don't have a
> subjective desire to mould it into something enjoyable? Behind every
> serious fact is a silly dream.
What good is objective reality? First of all, it's true. It is where
we live, all the time. As is subjective reality. Dreams are also a
part of reality, they are also "true". But that doesn't mean your
dreams can punch me in the mouth, nor do I take them seriously as an
explanation of how they come to be.
>
> >> 3. Better still, can you define "the West"? Yes, this is a trick
> >> question.
> >
> > I define "the West" as that set of beliefs that originated with the
> > early Greek philosophers who believed that the universe is physical
> > in nature and comprehensible in principle. Parallel to that, goes
> > the philosophical position that the individual is at least as
> > important as the society in which he or she lives.
>
> One of the curses of western thinking is that any idiot -- with the
> backing of several powerful corporations -- can grow up to be president.
To attempt to quote Winston Churchill: "Democracy is the worst form of
government, except for all the others."
> And every idiot on the street believes he's just as smart, savvy, and sane
> as the next son of a bitch. The poor bastard is always wrong, but
> harbours the delusion all the same.
That may be true of idiots, but it's not true of everyone. We are *not*
all the same. Just as some of us are stronger or faster than others,
some of us are smarter than others. I've met (a few) people who are
almost certainly more intelligent than I am. Haven't you?
> The biggest danger in ANY philosophical approach is the insistance that
> yours is the one and only way of achieving bliss. You seem to be flirting
> with such a position.
I don't think I am. I am just saying, "Show me."
For years, I have enjoyed the idea of the Big Bang/Big Crunch universe
(basically, the idea being that the universe emerged from a singularity
and will - due to its own mass - eventually slow, stop and then
contract, eventually smashing together again). I liked it's elegant
symmetry, its likely eternal recurrence and the fact that it completely
elliminated any need for a creator whatsoever.
Sadly for my prejudices, the most recent research indicates that the
rate of the universe's expansion is not, after all, slowing down,
but speeding up. It seems there is an (unknown) repulsive force that
is stronger than gravity, that is making the galaxies fly apart with
ever-increasing speed.
I hate that idea. It depresses me. I even permit myself the hope that
"they" are wrong, that there is something off in the measurements.
But the measurements are by all reports pretty good and I have decided
to, tentatively, accept them as "probably true" despite the fact that
my gut doesn't like the idea at all.
> There is no room in this world for sanity. Do you understand why they say
> there are no atheists in foxholes? It's because if you're an atheist, and
> you believe in rationality and sanity, it's only because no one has
> murdered your parents with an axe, burnt your home to the ground, and
> given you a sexual disease -- leaving you holding the ashes and peeled
> scabs in your hands, trying to find some kind of meaning in it all.
There are atheists in foxholes. I know people who have been there. I
also know that of my three grandparents who had time to make a deathbed
conversion, not one of them did so. To quote my mother's mother, when
asked if she was afraid of dying: "No. No. It makes me *mad*."
SCK
> be wrong) that they were not put here, by anybody, to do anything.
> We are as free as our nature allows (note to SCK: that means we are
> only *partly* freedom) and that is a scary responsibility.
>
Be that as it may, it hardly has anything to do with Alice-ism. You
could have at least mentioned Mock Turtle Soup. There is probably no way
to help you my faithless young friend, but I suggest that you may find
some peace for your inner torment if you were to learn the Lobster
Quadrille.
> I was thinking in particular of "holy men", who spend their lives
> investigating their navels, as it were, greatly concerned with the
> "eternal truths" etcetera, while stepping over the bodies of
> famine victims in the street. Admitedly, I was exagerating for the
You are being unfair to religion here. This kind of hypocrisy is evident
in just about everyone who pretends to have an unselfish cause,
religious or not. This is why you deplorable Marxists spend so little
time actually helping the less priviledged underclass, but prefer to
whine that other people who aren't pretending to care should be doing
more. It is the same of almost all of the environmentalists I know,
whose environmentalism extends far enough to allow them the luxury of a
sanctimonious soapbox but not quite far enough to deliberately going out
of their way to pick up any garbage.
Just out of curiosity, did you watch any of the footage of the
anti-Summit-of-Quebec people, particularly after it was over? Thousands
of the stupidest kind of young people, who don't even understand the
content of the thing they are protesting, converged on the NAFTA summit
to denounce environmental damage; and when they left, all of the parks
and green-space that they had used for their demonstrations were left
strewn with empty cola bottles.
> Sadly for my prejudices, the most recent research indicates that the
> rate of the universe's expansion is not, after all, slowing down,
> but speeding up. It seems there is an (unknown) repulsive force that
> is stronger than gravity, that is making the galaxies fly apart with
> ever-increasing speed.
>
> I hate that idea. It depresses me. I even permit myself the hope that
> "they" are wrong, that there is something off in the measurements.
> But the measurements are by all reports pretty good and I have decided
> to, tentatively, accept them as "probably true" despite the fact that
> my gut doesn't like the idea at all.
>
You are just depressed because you are a tool of a great conspiracy by
Euclidean math professors. You would be a lot less depressed if you
understood the Riemannian space/time continnuum.
You would also be a lot less depressed if you knew why a raven is like a
writing-desk.
Geoffrey Dow
>
> Geoffrey Dow wrote:
>
> > be wrong) that they were not put here, by anybody, to do anything.
> > We are as free as our nature allows (note to SCK: that means we are
> > only *partly* freedom) and that is a scary responsibility.
>
> Be that as it may, it hardly has anything to do with Alice-ism. You
> could have at least mentioned Mock Turtle Soup. There is probably no way
> to help you my faithless young friend, but I suggest that you may find
> some peace for your inner torment if you were to learn the Lobster
> Quadrille.
I have long since learned - and subsequently forgotten - the key to
a full understanding of the Gospel According to Carrol - the Lobster
Quadrille. (However, I still remember the dance - and yes, the
secret behind my stylish momvements is now revealed.)
As you are
> > I was thinking in particular of "holy men", who spend their lives
> > investigating their navels, as it were, greatly concerned with the
> > "eternal truths" etcetera, while stepping over the bodies of
> > famine victims in the street. Admitedly, I was exagerating for the
>
> You are being unfair to religion here. This kind of hypocrisy is evident
> in just about everyone who pretends to have an unselfish cause,
> religious or not.
But it is not hypocritical according the quite legitimate
interpretations
of many religions, which was my point. Mystical world-views tend to
take the philosophical position that (in the East) the physical world
is illusory and so to be ignored or (in the West) the physical world
is unfolding the way it should, all according to God's plan.
Both positions happen to be quite useful for maintaining the power
of whatever secular status is quo.
(I find it interesting to note that, in my admitedly limited
observation, most established religions take one of the two above-
noted positions, while a significant minority of upstart sects seem
to find in the physical lot of the poor an injustice demanding change.)
> This is why you deplorable Marxists spend so little
> time actually helping the less priviledged underclass, but prefer to
> whine that other people who aren't pretending to care should be doing
> more.
First, I'm not a Marxist (though my analysis of capitalism is
influenced by my reading of Das Kapital, Vol 1). Second, a lot
of Marxist do, in fact, expend a great deal of energy working
towards political change and/or organizing workers etc to do
so for themselves.
> Just out of curiosity, did you watch any of the footage of the
> anti-Summit-of-Quebec people, particularly after it was over? Thousands
> of the stupidest kind of young people, who don't even understand the
> content of the thing they are protesting, converged on the NAFTA summit
> to denounce environmental damage; and when they left, all of the parks
> and green-space that they had used for their demonstrations were left
> strewn with empty cola bottles.
I was far more interested in the massive use as tear-gas as a means
of crowd-dispersal (rather than riot-control); since when has public
protest been assumed to be something that should be broken up simply
for being?
> > Sadly for my prejudices, the most recent research indicates that the
> > rate of the universe's expansion is not, after all, slowing down,
> > but speeding up. It seems there is an (unknown) repulsive force that
> > is stronger than gravity, that is making the galaxies fly apart with
> > ever-increasing speed.
> >
> > I hate that idea. It depresses me. I even permit myself the hope that
> > "they" are wrong, that there is something off in the measurements.
> > But the measurements are by all reports pretty good and I have decided
> > to, tentatively, accept them as "probably true" despite the fact that
> > my gut doesn't like the idea at all.
> >
>
> You are just depressed because you are a tool of a great conspiracy by
> Euclidean math professors. You would be a lot less depressed if you
> understood the Riemannian space/time continnuum.
Actually, I have gotten over being depressed by it. I surprised myself
by the ease with which I jettisoned a beloved idea when it became clear
the evidence would no longer support it.
> You would also be a lot less depressed if you knew why a raven is like a
> writing-desk.
As a self-admitted Novitiate, it would behoove you not to lecture a
veteran acolyte of the Church of Alice. All mimsy *were* the borogoves,
and you'd best not forget it.
Nikolaus Maack
> Everything I know (and believe, from analyzing books, other peoples'
> experiences, etc) leads me to conclude that there *are* answers.
Some of the answers I have come across lead me to believe that there are
no answers. This idea came to me in the form of psychological studies on
how people form opinions and weigh facts, how we are swayed by advertising
and argument, and how we rationalize all our decisions.
We all (almost all) argue that we are sane, rational, intelligent beings.
Everything I have seen and studied suggests we are NOT.
When I listen to people speak and argue and fight with one another, I hear
the self-serving slant, opinions (attributed to reason) clearly formed by
a bad experience. Just read up on how memory functions! That will chill
your blood -- we make up our memories, over and over again, rewriting our
histories to suit whatever is currently required to get us through the
day.
Our minds are frail, fragile, flighty things that we endlessly pretend are
solid, dependable, stone tablets.
I am convinced that the role of literature, art, science and the like is
to disguise our irrationality with something more permanent. A book can
be organized, planned, plotted, editted, and shaped to hide the evidence
of our fragile thoughts. Without that pen, without that ink, without time
to carve the mask, we would gibber and drool as we usually do.
I do not mind that we are idiots and fools, self-serving and
rationalizing, liars and con artists, tricking ourselves and the world.
What bothers me is how few of us are willing to admit -- yes, I am an
idiot, and so are you. We are all liars. We are all fools. We are
dunces and dunderheads.
No, no, no. No one can admit to this. Too much! Too damn much. No, no.
We can be objective, if we want to be. We can be rational, if we choose
to be rational. Get rid of your silly God. Embrace REASON.
To me, this is just another mask. Another way of pretending that I'm not
irrational. I'm not making it up. I'm not fooling myself. No, no -- not
me. Maybe you are. Maybe you trick yourself and lie to yourself. Not
me. Nosirreebob. I'm as sane and rational as anyone can be.
And I respond to such words with a sigh. Because this, this, THIS is the
perfect lie. The perfect, self-serving load of horseshit that can be used
to cover up the truth -- that we are irrational, self-serving fools.
Pretending to embrace reason and sanity is the best defense-mechanism that
ever was and probably ever will be.
>> Is it not true that the subjective, the irrational, and the
>> make-believe are an essential component for understanding Truth?
>
> Only in the sense that *we* are subjective and irrational animals
> who often make believe all sorts of things. Understanding our own
> irrationality is an essential component for understanding Truth(s);
> believing our made-up stories is a sure way for getting lost along
> the way.
No sir. You misunderstand me.
Consider science and objective reality. What's it for? What does it do?
What guides it? Why do we build televisions and computers, video games
and DVD disks with the latest movies? Science is guided by art.
Rationality is guided by irrationality and dream.
Science can tell you what a star is made of. It cannot tell you why
looking at the stars on a hot summer night is romantic. It can tell you
what mechanisms make your heart beat, but it cannot tell you what you
should do with your life and why. It can offer explanations, but never
provide meaning or purpose.
You can know all the parts of the frog -- its digestive system, the goo
inside the yellow eye, the molecular structure of the webbing between the
toes -- but it can't fill your mind with the memory of frog hunting, the
smell of the swamp, the feel of your boots sinking into the mud.
Science and reason offer us some things. But they cannot provide us with
EVERYTHING. Our unreason shapes our reason. Our passion directs our
logic. We always focus our rational study on the subject that makes our
hearts beat faster. We approach with logic the thing we love. And the
thing we love is never decided because of reason or rationality.
> I disagree. The "raw facts" that result in the wallpaper on my
> computer screen (a stunningly beautiful picture of Jupiter and its
> moon, Io) are to me far less dreary than running around believing
> that angels are moving lights around in the sky.
How unfortunate that the wallpaper of your computer screen is not a
stunnung picture of an angel.
> What good is objective reality? First of all, it's true. It is where
> we live, all the time. As is subjective reality. Dreams are also a
> part of reality, they are also "true". But that doesn't mean your
> dreams can punch me in the mouth, nor do I take them seriously as an
> explanation of how they come to be.
My dream CAN punch you in the mouth. I can write down my dream and send
it to you. It can inspire you. You'll go out and do something stupid and
get punched in the mouth. All thanks to my dream.
> That may be true of idiots, but it's not true of everyone. We are *not*
> all the same.
We are all idiots. Some of us are better at hiding it than others.
> I've met (a few) people who are
> almost certainly more intelligent than I am. Haven't you?
Yes. I have met many geniuses. And sometimes when I talk to them, I see
the huge stretch of reality that they deny. That space, in their life,
that they ignore. Everyone has such a place. You can see their eyes
glaze over with a kind of dissociative fear when you point at that place
and ask, "What's this all about?"
I have never, ever, EVER met a person who does not have a blind spot. And
I have never met a person who will recognize that spot when it is pointed
out to them. I have never met a person who isn't struggling with a demon
of some kind. I have never met a person who is completely rational -- and
if I did, I know that person would be more fucked up than anyone.
Entirely rational? Must be hiding from feelings -- you can bet on it.
> There are atheists in foxholes. I know people who have been there.
Examples? Stories? Details?
By the way -- my bias is for stories. I find more meaning in a personal
account than a poll of the populace. Is that irrational? Does it matter?
> I
> also know that of my three grandparents who had time to make a deathbed
> conversion, not one of them did so.
If God requires me to convert on my death bed, then the bastard is a petty
tyrant. But God doesn't ask us to convert on our death beds. The church
does. Traditionally, it gets our land that way.
You sound like a victim of advertising. The marketing scheme of most
churches are nasty and vicious. That doesn't mean that they have the
rights to all the deities in the universe. You can make your own God, in
your own image, for your own purposes -- if for nothing more than to have
an imaginary friend to talk to when you try to sort out your own head.
> To quote my mother's mother, when
> asked if she was afraid of dying: "No. No. It makes me *mad*."
This sounds like an important memory to you, something that makes you
proud. I don't want to taint that, but I have to say...
Unresolved emotions on the deathbed. Unacceptance. A blindspot.
Unwillingness to deal with a very real experience. Some day I will die.
I will fight it, of course. Or will I? Why fight? Why get angry? Some
day we all die. Shouldn't we get used to the idea? Shouldn't we use our
deadline to spur us to live? If the play never ended, who the hell would
walk out on stage?
SCK
> First, I'm not a Marxist (though my analysis of capitalism is
> influenced by my reading of Das Kapital, Vol 1). Second, a lot
> of Marxist do, in fact, expend a great deal of energy working
> towards political change and/or organizing workers etc to do
> so for themselves.
>
I just like calling you a Marxist. Don't worry, I know you're really a
Stalinist.
[I just had to erase three of my own paragraphs that I just wrote here,
because I was sounding like a crazy screaming person again. I know that
I have gone crazy when my paragraphs start talking about twelve year old
girls in Singapore going through their first menstruations while
fastening those little plastic nubs to the ends of shoelaces]
Suffice it to say that the conclusion of my three, long, intense but
incredibly concise and brilliant paragraphs denouncing all Marxists as
vicious, self-serving liars was that there is an easy test of whether
someone truly cares about the downtrodden classes. You can tell them by
their footwear.
>
> I was far more interested in the massive use as tear-gas as a means
> of crowd-dispersal (rather than riot-control); since when has public
> protest been assumed to be something that should be broken up simply
> for being?
>
I did not watch much of the ongoing footage, so I didn't see this. I do
know that supposedly peaceful protesters pulled down fence portions in
about six instances. I also saw molotov cocktails and rocks being
thrown. Were those the instances when tear gas was used?
One aspect that totally baffled me about this were the "anarchists".
Anyone who calls themself an "anarchist" has to be stupid by nature
anyway, but in this case, whole busloads of self-described anarchist
groups (I forget their names) came up from the U.S. Why in the hell
would an "anarchist" protest a Free Trade Agreement? Free Trade, by
definition, is more anarchistic than all of the bureaucratic taxes and
duties and levies that the agreement abolishes. So anarchists came up to
protest against anarchy.
> Actually, I have gotten over being depressed by it. I surprised myself
> by the ease with which I jettisoned a beloved idea when it became clear
> the evidence would no longer support it.
>
I think it's interesting if only because I have always intuitively
*disliked* the big bang theory.
Incidentally, I hate the idea of there being no God. (Actual God
definition, not Nik's cheap, Taiwanese replica). I hope science
eventually proves there is a God. I am reasonably sure that both God and
science would be OK with that.
>
> As a self-admitted Novitiate, it would behoove you not to lecture a
> veteran acolyte of the Church of Alice. All mimsy *were* the borogoves,
> and you'd best not forget it.
>
I think you are just mad because you found that you inadvertently ate
some of the shrinking mushroom when you were younger and you are still
waiting for someone to show up with the antidote.
I advise you to seek out the song, "Alice? Who the Fuck is Alice?" and
listen to it repeatedly.
Geoffrey Dow
>
> Geoffrey Dow wrote:
>
> Stalinist.
That's better. Accuracy in everything, my capitalist-roader friend.
> Suffice it to say that the conclusion of my three, long, intense but
> incredibly concise and brilliant paragraphs denouncing all Marxists as
> vicious, self-serving liars was that there is an easy test of whether
> someone truly cares about the downtrodden classes. You can tell them by
> their footwear.
As ever, you oversimplify, as if the world could be accurately
represented by a bunch of first-year psychology students' Yes/No
questionaires. For one thing, it is quite easy to imagine a
Marxist organizer who at once puts a great deal of time and effort
into "making the revolution" while at the same time shopping at
the Gap. We human beings are complicated animals and very seldom
"pure".
> I did not watch much of the ongoing footage, so I didn't see this. I do
> know that supposedly peaceful protesters pulled down fence portions in
> about six instances. I also saw molotov cocktails and rocks being
> thrown. Were those the instances when tear gas was used?
I didn't watch the ongoing footage either, merely one night's
after-the-fact recap. Yes, there were violent protesters.
There was also pretty indiscriminate use of tear-gas on
protesters who weren't violent.
(I have heard one private - but reliable, in my opinion - report,
for instance, of a woman (non-violent) who has writhing blinded
on the ground (already "neutralized") when she was shot in the
belly with a tear-gas cannister from about 6 feet away.
Sounds like overkill to me, even if you do think it legitimate to
clear demonstrations with massive force.
Incidentally, *do* you think the Fence was a legitimate response
to expected protests in a democracy? If so, why?
> One aspect that totally baffled me about this were the "anarchists".
> Anyone who calls themself an "anarchist" has to be stupid by nature
> anyway, but in this case, whole busloads of self-described anarchist
> groups (I forget their names) came up from the U.S. Why in the hell
> would an "anarchist" protest a Free Trade Agreement? Free Trade, by
> definition, is more anarchistic than all of the bureaucratic taxes and
> duties and levies that the agreement abolishes. So anarchists came up to
> protest against anarchy.
Leaving aside your ignorance as to the theoretical nature of the
various forms of Anarchism, it is quite possible to support free
trade in principle (with some pragmatic temporary exceptions, I
do, for instance) while still objecting to the North American
Free Trade Agreement, which has as its primary aim only the insurance
of free trade in capital. If the NAFTA included free trade in labour,
I would be all for it - the prospect of 30 million Mexicans being
able to legally cross the American border to look for work would do
more for 3rd World labour standards than all the protests and/or
political agreements in the world.
> I think it's interesting if only because I have always intuitively
> *disliked* the big bang theory.
Why? Which (obsolete) theory did you prefer?
> Incidentally, I hate the idea of there being no God. (Actual God
> definition, not Nik's cheap, Taiwanese replica). I hope science
> eventually proves there is a God. I am reasonably sure that both God and
> science would be OK with that.
Why is that? Is it that you prefer a universe where your life has
an objective purpose?
Geoffrey Dow
>
> Geoffrey Dow (geoff...@sympatico.ca) writes:
> > Everything I know (and believe, from analyzing books, other peoples'
> > experiences, etc) leads me to conclude that there *are* answers.
>
> Some of the answers I have come across lead me to believe that there are
> no answers. This idea came to me in the form of psychological studies on
> how people form opinions and weigh facts, how we are swayed by advertising
> and argument, and how we rationalize all our decisions.
This is simply ridiculous. The fact we don't always come up with
the right answers or that we tend to fool ourselves only means
we aren't necesarily very good at getting to them. That is like
arguing there is no such thing as water because you don't live
in the ocean.
> We all (almost all) argue that we are sane, rational, intelligent beings.
> Everything I have seen and studied suggests we are NOT.
>
> When I listen to people speak and argue and fight with one another, I hear
> the self-serving slant, opinions (attributed to reason) clearly formed by
> a bad experience. Just read up on how memory functions! That will chill
> your blood -- we make up our memories, over and over again, rewriting our
> histories to suit whatever is currently required to get us through the
> day.
I think you're projecting, Nik.
> Our minds are frail, fragile, flighty things that we endlessly pretend are
> solid, dependable, stone tablets.
Maybe the truth is our minds are fallible things that neverless -
with *effort* - can achieve remarkable feats of honest argument
and discovery.
> I am convinced that the role of literature, art, science and the like is
> to disguise our irrationality with something more permanent.
What the hell does this mean? What is the relationship between
irrationality and permanence?
> A book can
> be organized, planned, plotted, editted, and shaped to hide the evidence
> of our fragile thoughts. Without that pen, without that ink, without time
> to carve the mask, we would gibber and drool as we usually do.
So, organizing, planning, plotting, editing and shaping - thinking,
in other words - allow us to think, to do what you said we are
incapable of.
> I do not mind that we are idiots and fools, self-serving and
> rationalizing, liars and con artists, tricking ourselves and the world.
> What bothers me is how few of us are willing to admit -- yes, I am an
> idiot, and so are you. We are all liars. We are all fools. We are
> dunces and dunderheads.
I am coming more and more to agree with SCK's conclusion that you
simply prefer to rationalize your own unwillingness to work at
your thought with (ironically) a great deal of effort - if not
of much coherent thought.
> No, no, no. No one can admit to this. Too much! Too damn much. No, no.
> We can be objective, if we want to be. We can be rational, if we choose
> to be rational. Get rid of your silly God. Embrace REASON.
>
> To me, this is just another mask. Another way of pretending that I'm not
> irrational. I'm not making it up. I'm not fooling myself. No, no -- not
> me. Maybe you are. Maybe you trick yourself and lie to yourself. Not
> me. Nosirreebob. I'm as sane and rational as anyone can be.
>
> And I respond to such words with a sigh. Because this, this, THIS is the
> perfect lie. The perfect, self-serving load of horseshit that can be used
> to cover up the truth -- that we are irrational, self-serving fools.
> Pretending to embrace reason and sanity is the best defense-mechanism that
> ever was and probably ever will be.
Etecetera. We are nothing but "irrational, self-serving fools".
Man - the irrational, self-serving animal. All else is illusion.
For chrissake.
> >> Is it not true that the subjective, the irrational, and the
> >> make-believe are an essential component for understanding Truth?
> >
> > Only in the sense that *we* are subjective and irrational animals
> > who often make believe all sorts of things. Understanding our own
> > irrationality is an essential component for understanding Truth(s);
> > believing our made-up stories is a sure way for getting lost along
> > the way.
>
> No sir. You misunderstand me.
>
> Consider science and objective reality. What's it for? What does it do?
What is "it"? What does what do?
Once again you are thoughtlessly pairing two unrelated concepts.
Science is "for" understanding reality. Reality isn't *for*
anything - it just *is*.
> What guides it? Why do we build televisions and computers, video games
> and DVD disks with the latest movies? Science is guided by art.
> Rationality is guided by irrationality and dream.
So what? We are complex animals, with many "drives" - we want
food, love, art; we want to dominate and to live in harmony with
others; we want adventure, we want to be kept safe. The fact that
some of these needs conflict with one another doesn't make them
unreal, it simply means we have conflicting needs, desires and
interests. (Incidentally, this is a good example of what makes
SCK's cries of "hypocrite!" when he disapproves of, say, left-
wingers such intellectual nonsense.)
> Science can tell you what a star is made of. It cannot tell you why
> looking at the stars on a hot summer night is romantic.
So what? Science doesn't pretend to tell you why it's romantic.
Science *is* interested in how our sense of "the romantic" works,
but understanding the mechanism doesn't detract from the experience.
Are you less human because you aren't a neanderthal savage living
in fear that a God of stomach aches will cause you to throw up?
> It can tell you
> what mechanisms make your heart beat, but it cannot tell you what you
> should do with your life and why. It can offer explanations, but never
> provide meaning or purpose.
Of course it can't - that isn't what science is for. Science is
for understanding reality.
You are an animal, Nik. You have no meaning or purpose, other than
that which (a) is suited to your basic nature and (b) you can
create for yourself with the larger than average animal's brain
you are lucky (or not) enough to possess.
> You can know all the parts of the frog -- its digestive system, the goo
> inside the yellow eye, the molecular structure of the webbing between the
> toes -- but it can't fill your mind with the memory of frog hunting, the
> smell of the swamp, the feel of your boots sinking into the mud.
So what?
> Science and reason offer us some things. But they cannot provide us with
> EVERYTHING. Our unreason shapes our reason. Our passion directs our
> logic. We always focus our rational study on the subject that makes our
> hearts beat faster. We approach with logic the thing we love. And the
> thing we love is never decided because of reason or rationality.
I wasn't talking about everything. I was talking about whether or
not we live in a physical or a literally magical universe.
> > I disagree. The "raw facts" that result in the wallpaper on my
> > computer screen (a stunningly beautiful picture of Jupiter and its
> > moon, Io) are to me far less dreary than running around believing
> > that angels are moving lights around in the sky.
>
> How unfortunate that the wallpaper of your computer screen is not a
> stunnung picture of an angel.
That's the way the universe works, my friend. Jupiter is real, angels
are not. Which I don't think is unfortunate at all, but that is a
matter of esthetics.
> > What good is objective reality? First of all, it's true. It is where
> > we live, all the time. As is subjective reality. Dreams are also a
> > part of reality, they are also "true". But that doesn't mean your
> > dreams can punch me in the mouth, nor do I take them seriously as an
> > explanation of how they come to be.
>
> My dream CAN punch you in the mouth. I can write down my dream and send
> it to you. It can inspire you. You'll go out and do something stupid and
> get punched in the mouth. All thanks to my dream.
Thanks to *my* interpretation of your dream. Never mistake the
catalyst for the cause.
> > That may be true of idiots, but it's not true of everyone. We are *not*
> > all the same.
>
> We are all idiots. Some of us are better at hiding it than others.
This is just stupid. And contradicts what you say below.
> > I've met (a few) people who are
> > almost certainly more intelligent than I am. Haven't you?
>
> Yes. I have met many geniuses. And sometimes when I talk to them, I see
> the huge stretch of reality that they deny. That space, in their life,
> that they ignore. Everyone has such a place. You can see their eyes
> glaze over with a kind of dissociative fear when you point at that place
> and ask, "What's this all about?"
In other words, you have never met anyone with Perfect Understanding.
But I wasn't asking about that, nor were you talking about it - you
were claiming we are "all idiots", a term you did not qualify and
which I therefore had no choice but to assume you meant to be without
qualification.
> I have never, ever, EVER met a person who does not have a blind spot. And
> I have never met a person who will recognize that spot when it is pointed
> out to them. I have never met a person who isn't struggling with a demon
> of some kind. I have never met a person who is completely rational -- and
> if I did, I know that person would be more fucked up than anyone.
> Entirely rational? Must be hiding from feelings -- you can bet on it.
See above.
> > There are atheists in foxholes. I know people who have been there.
>
> Examples? Stories? Details?
My atheist uncle who fought in Spain, who spent about a year as a
prisoner of the Fascists. Re-read my comments about my atheist
grandparents.
Or take me - there have been a couple of occasions when I had to
face the possibility I might not have long to live (as things turned
out, on both occasions things turned out well, but I did not know
they would at the time). At no time did I even consider "turning
to religion".
> By the way -- my bias is for stories. I find more meaning in a personal
> account than a poll of the populace. Is that irrational? Does it matter?
>
> > I
> > also know that of my three grandparents who had time to make a deathbed
> > conversion, not one of them did so.
>
> If God requires me to convert on my death bed, then the bastard is a petty
> tyrant. But God doesn't ask us to convert on our death beds. The church
> does. Traditionally, it gets our land that way.
Then why were you talking about atheists in foxholes? The whole
point of that saying is that people "find" god when they are in
extreme situations. When I point out that isn't true, you change
the topic.
> You sound like a victim of advertising. The marketing scheme of most
> churches are nasty and vicious. That doesn't mean that they have the
> rights to all the deities in the universe. You can make your own God, in
> your own image, for your own purposes -- if for nothing more than to have
> an imaginary friend to talk to when you try to sort out your own head.
If I want an imaginary friend, I'll conjure up Sarah Polley, thank
you very much.
> > To quote my mother's mother, when
> > asked if she was afraid of dying: "No. No. It makes me *mad*."
>
> This sounds like an important memory to you, something that makes you
> proud. I don't want to taint that, but I have to say...
>
> Unresolved emotions on the deathbed. Unacceptance. A blindspot.
> Unwillingness to deal with a very real experience. Some day I will die.
> I will fight it, of course. Or will I? Why fight? Why get angry? Some
> day we all die. Shouldn't we get used to the idea? Shouldn't we use our
> deadline to spur us to live? If the play never ended, who the hell would
> walk out on stage?
Don't waste your time on amateur Freudian analysis with me, Nik, it
won't work; I *like* both my parents. I offered my grandmother-story
as an *example* of people who think differently than you claimed we
all think, not as a paragon to which we should all aspire.
Incidentally, I am now convinced that therapists should be required
to obtain licences.
SCK
> As ever, you oversimplify, as if the world could be accurately
> represented by a bunch of first-year psychology students' Yes/No
> questionaires. For one thing, it is quite easy to imagine a
> Marxist organizer who at once puts a great deal of time and effort
> into "making the revolution" while at the same time shopping at
> the Gap. We human beings are complicated animals and very seldom
> "pure".
>
Then I must have a failure of imagination. I, personally, cannot imagine
having a principle guiding doctrine in my life and then not living by it
completely. If I were a Marxist, I would go without sneakers,
absolutely.
Your "Marxist organizer" has simply made a job for himself as a
conscientious societal objector. It is impossible to be a "real" Marxist
in Canada. If you actually cared about the principles rather than the
self-serving ego boost, you would immediately recognize that the
proletariat in Canada is better off than the proletariat of 98% of the
rest of the world. You would immediately leave Canada to fight the good
fight where you are *most needed* rather than sit in the stupid
contented luxury of calling yourself a Marxist in a cute Queen St.
studio apartment.
>
> I didn't watch the ongoing footage either, merely one night's
> after-the-fact recap. Yes, there were violent protesters.
> There was also pretty indiscriminate use of tear-gas on
> protesters who weren't violent.
>
Well then, neither of us have enough facts to be able to discuss it.
Although, I doubt if the use of tear gas was indescriminate. And
personally, I don't even know why anyone whines about the use of tear
gas at all. Is it better to be hit with a baton?
Tear gas serves a very useful purpose to my mind. It immediately
eliminates the dumb people who were really just hangers-on lemmings
because it acts as a reality check. If the tear gas stops you, you
didn't even believe what you were supposedly protesting. Before you get
all indignant, I am saying this from the position of someone who has
been pepper-sprayed at point blank range. My "cause" wasn't very noble
at the time (I felt I was unjustly evicted from a bar), but it sure as
hell didn't stop me. In fact, it just made me more determined, and it
also made me want to have a steak. It was also pretty damn hilarious.
Tear gassing protestors is probably doing them a favour. It fuels their
post-facto indignation and helps them pick up girls ("Yeah baby, I even
got tear gassed, it was awful, the pigs were all over me"). I hope
someone tear gasses me someday.
>
> Incidentally, *do* you think the Fence was a legitimate response
> to expected protests in a democracy? If so, why?
>
Of course the fence was legitimate - the violence of the "protesters"
proved it. It wasn't a sudden, whimsical desire to erect a fence, young
man. There were weeks of media coverage in advance *anticipating
violence*. There were so-called anarchist groups funnelling across the
continent, and for a large part, a lot of them are just people who
simply like the excitement of the violence when it can be disguised
under the auspices of a legitimate protest.
The fence was unnecessary only if all of the demonstrators did not come
bearing arms and seeking violence. Is that the case? You perhaps forget
that in a democracy the right to protest is a right to a "peaceful"
protest. Why did McDonald's take down their sign and disguise their own
building if they did not already know, from experience, that as a
representative of "corporate America" they are repeatedly attacked and
have their buildings destroyed during precisely these events? What is
gained by alleged legitimate "protesters" destroying a McDonald's in
Quebec City, except that you rob all the good people of Quebec City of
the best food and force them to suffer through the vileness of Burger
King.
> Leaving aside your ignorance as to the theoretical nature of the
> various forms of Anarchism, it is quite possible to support free
> trade in principle (with some pragmatic temporary exceptions, I
> do, for instance) while still objecting to the North American
> Free Trade Agreement, which has as its primary aim only the insurance
> of free trade in capital. If the NAFTA included free trade in labour,
> I would be all for it - the prospect of 30 million Mexicans being
> able to legally cross the American border to look for work would do
> more for 3rd World labour standards than all the protests and/or
> political agreements in the world.
>
I do not recall precisely, but I am reasonably sure that the NAFTA
agreement does allow a version of free trade in labour. There are some
basic criteria you have to meet, and they are pretty reasonable. For
instance, under NAFTA, if you have an accredited University degree, then
you can go work in the U.S., period. So 30 million Mexican university
graduates can cross the border and legally be hired in the U.S.
> > I think it's interesting if only because I have always intuitively
> > *disliked* the big bang theory.
>
> Why? Which (obsolete) theory did you prefer?
>
I may have misspoke. I prefered the Big Bang theory as being the most
likely to be correct, I simply intuitively did not like it. I liked no
others better, either.
I am going to respond to the rest of your message about what I want God
to be in a new thread. I'm worried that boring NAFTA discussions will
cause lurkers to abort the message before they find out that I believe
God is a giant octopus in the sky.
SCK
> > Incidentally, I hate the idea of there being no God. (Actual God
> > definition, not Nik's cheap, Taiwanese replica). I hope science
> > eventually proves there is a God. I am reasonably sure that both God and
> > science would be OK with that.
>
> Why is that? Is it that you prefer a universe where your life has
> an objective purpose?
>
Yes and no. I prefer the idea that my life has a purpose; however, I do
not mind if the purpose is not objective.
The reason I think God would be OK with being discovered is because I
expect that if there is a God, he is indifferent to whether we uncover
him or not. His physical absense in our daily lives is evidence that he
prefers us to choose our own paths wherever the paths may lead,
including leading to his evil little hide-out.
The reason I think science would be OK with proving God exists is
because science is indifferent as well. Science has no agenda, it is
happy with proving anything that adds to understanding and does not care
what it is.
I may already know this, or maybe I just assumed it, but you're an
athiest aren't you? I don't understand athiesm at all. It makes
absolutely no sense to me. I have two arguments against athiesm:
Whatever you believe the universe to be and how it came to be; even if
it's a big bang from an infinitely dense singularity, what created the
singularity? What created everything? Why does any existence exist?
My other argument is pragmatic. It's stupid to be an athiest because it
gains you nothing. If you don't believe in God and you turn out to be
right in the end somehow, then you win nothing. If you don't believe in
God, but turn out to be wrong, you may lose out and get consigned to
ever-lasting hellfire, or possibly worse, and forced to live in a world
where protesters have destroyed all the McDonald's. Athiests often pride
themselves on making *rational* choices, but it is very irrational not
to believe in God from a tactical perspective. It costs you nothing to
acknowledge the possibility, and if you're right, maybe you'll gain. If
you don't believe and are right, nothing good happens to you. If you
don't believe and you're wrong, you risk damnation. So belief in God is
actually rational in terms of hedging your bets. Belief in God makes
more *strategic sense* than athiesm, which makes it more rational than
blind no-faith. Young Geoffrey, I may not dispute your real daily
relationship with your No-God, but maybe you ought to re-think your
tactical relationship with supreme entities.
To me, a much bigger problem than the question of whether there is a
God, is whether God is, in fact, EVIL. Or at best, God is totally
indifferent. Once you have satisfied yourself that God is, then it is a
much more difficult thing to find any "good" in him.
(God is probably going to make me lose at the casino for this message)
Geoffrey Dow
>
> Geoffrey Dow wrote:
>
> > As ever, you oversimplify, as if the world could be accurately
> > represented by a bunch of first-year psychology students' Yes/No
> > questionaires. For one thing, it is quite easy to imagine a
> > Marxist organizer who at once puts a great deal of time and effort
> > into "making the revolution" while at the same time shopping at
> > the Gap. We human beings are complicated animals and very seldom
> > "pure".
> >
>
> Then I must have a failure of imagination. I, personally, cannot imagine
> having a principle guiding doctrine in my life and then not living by it
> completely. If I were a Marxist, I would go without sneakers,
> absolutely.
What *is* your "principle guiding doctrine", then?
> Your "Marxist organizer" has simply made a job for himself as a
> conscientious societal objector. It is impossible to be a "real" Marxist
> in Canada. If you actually cared about the principles rather than the
> self-serving ego boost, you would immediately recognize that the
> proletariat in Canada is better off than the proletariat of 98% of the
> rest of the world. You would immediately leave Canada to fight the good
> fight where you are *most needed* rather than sit in the stupid
> contented luxury of calling yourself a Marxist in a cute Queen St.
> studio apartment.
Stop shouting at scarecrows.
> > I didn't watch the ongoing footage either, merely one night's
> > after-the-fact recap. Yes, there were violent protesters.
> > There was also pretty indiscriminate use of tear-gas on
> > protesters who weren't violent.
>
> Well then, neither of us have enough facts to be able to discuss it.
> Although, I doubt if the use of tear gas was indescriminate. And
> personally, I don't even know why anyone whines about the use of tear
> gas at all. Is it better to be hit with a baton?
From the reports I have heard (Globe and Mail, CBC & eye-witnesses),
it *was* indiscriminate - at least if you define "indiscriminate"
as meaning "used against people who were not doing *anything*
violent".
> Tear gas serves a very useful purpose to my mind. It immediately
> eliminates the dumb people who were really just hangers-on lemmings
> because it acts as a reality check. If the tear gas stops you, you
> didn't even believe what you were supposedly protesting. Before you get
> all indignant, I am saying this from the position of someone who has
> been pepper-sprayed at point blank range. My "cause" wasn't very noble
> at the time (I felt I was unjustly evicted from a bar), but it sure as
> hell didn't stop me. In fact, it just made me more determined, and it
> also made me want to have a steak. It was also pretty damn hilarious.
> Tear gassing protestors is probably doing them a favour. It fuels their
> post-facto indignation and helps them pick up girls ("Yeah baby, I even
> got tear gassed, it was awful, the pigs were all over me"). I hope
> someone tear gasses me someday.
>
> > Incidentally, *do* you think the Fence was a legitimate response
> > to expected protests in a democracy? If so, why?
>
> Of course the fence was legitimate - the violence of the "protesters"
> proved it. It wasn't a sudden, whimsical desire to erect a fence, young
> man. There were weeks of media coverage in advance *anticipating
> violence*. There were so-called anarchist groups funnelling across the
> continent, and for a large part, a lot of them are just people who
> simply like the excitement of the violence when it can be disguised
> under the auspices of a legitimate protest.
I believe the violence was provoked - in part by the existence of
the fence itself. But, as you said, neither of us have the necessary
knowledge to discuss it, let alone to say, "Of course the fence was
legitimate."
> The fence was unnecessary only if all of the demonstrators did not come
> bearing arms and seeking violence. Is that the case?
Definitely. "All of the demonstrators did *not* come bearing arms
and seeking violence." Even the police do not say that.
> You perhaps forget
> that in a democracy the right to protest is a right to a "peaceful"
> protest. Why did McDonald's take down their sign and disguise their own
> building if they did not already know, from experience, that as a
> representative of "corporate America" they are repeatedly attacked and
> have their buildings destroyed during precisely these events? What is
> gained by alleged legitimate "protesters" destroying a McDonald's in
> Quebec City, except that you rob all the good people of Quebec City of
> the best food and force them to suffer through the vileness of Burger
> King.
I find it interesting that you appear to find the "violence" inherent
in tearing down a sign or smashing a window to be equivalent to the
violence of a baton to the head or a tear-gas cannister to the belly
of someone already prone.
> I do not recall precisely, but I am reasonably sure that the NAFTA
> agreement does allow a version of free trade in labour. There are some
> basic criteria you have to meet, and they are pretty reasonable. For
> instance, under NAFTA, if you have an accredited University degree, then
> you can go work in the U.S., period. So 30 million Mexican university
> graduates can cross the border and legally be hired in the U.S.
That is simply not true. You still need to get a Green Card. And
I don't believe that even a university degree will give you automatic
entrance to the US (or the reverse).
My main object to NAFTA is that capital *can* cross borders with hardly
a how d'ya do while labour can't.
> > > I think it's interesting if only because I have always intuitively
> > > *disliked* the big bang theory.
> >
> > Why? Which (obsolete) theory did you prefer?
> >
>
> I may have misspoke. I prefered the Big Bang theory as being the most
> likely to be correct, I simply intuitively did not like it. I liked no
> others better, either.
By "prefer" I meant which one did you want to be true. But I'll check
the other thead.
> I am going to respond to the rest of your message about what I want God
> to be in a new thread. I'm worried that boring NAFTA discussions will
> cause lurkers to abort the message before they find out that I believe
> God is a giant octopus in the sky.
Worse, it may attract the sort of loons who dominate life in so many
.general newsgroups.
Geoffrey Dow
>
> Geoffrey Dow wrote:
>
> > > Incidentally, I hate the idea of there being no God. (Actual God
> > > definition, not Nik's cheap, Taiwanese replica). I hope science
> > > eventually proves there is a God. I am reasonably sure that both God and
> > > science would be OK with that.
> >
> > Why is that? Is it that you prefer a universe where your life has
> > an objective purpose?
>
> Yes and no. I prefer the idea that my life has a purpose; however, I do
> not mind if the purpose is not objective.
Then why do you hate the idea there is no God? If you don't need an
objective purpose for living, what good is He?
> The reason I think God would be OK with being discovered is because I
> expect that if there is a God, he is indifferent to whether we uncover
> him or not. His physical absense in our daily lives is evidence that he
> prefers us to choose our own paths wherever the paths may lead,
> including leading to his evil little hide-out.
It is hard to accept the idea that the Creator of All That Is, the
Master of Space and Time and The Best Damned Chef In All of Creation
has the fragile ego of a nomadic bronze-age sheppherd king.
> The reason I think science would be OK with proving God exists is
> because science is indifferent as well. Science has no agenda, it is
> happy with proving anything that adds to understanding and does not care
> what it is.
Quite right. Only people (and some animals) have agendas. Science
is only a tool.
> I may already know this, or maybe I just assumed it, but you're an
> athiest aren't you? I don't understand athiesm at all. It makes
> absolutely no sense to me. I have two arguments against athiesm:
>
> Whatever you believe the universe to be and how it came to be; even if
> it's a big bang from an infinitely dense singularity, what created the
> singularity? What created everything? Why does any existence exist?
Yes, I am - for all practical purposes - an atheist (I hedge, just
a little, because I am intellectually forced to concede that
everything I know and/or believe *might* be wrong, but I am so
convinced I am right I will only admit to even weak agnosticism
in a conversation like this one).
I don't know what created the singularity - I suspect nothing did.
At any rate, current theory postolates matter and energy spontaneous
emerging out of "empty space" on a fairly regular basis.
> My other argument is pragmatic. It's stupid to be an athiest because it
> gains you nothing. If you don't believe in God and you turn out to be
> right in the end somehow, then you win nothing. If you don't believe in
> God, but turn out to be wrong, you may lose out and get consigned to
> ever-lasting hellfire, or possibly worse, and forced to live in a world
> where protesters have destroyed all the McDonald's. Athiests often pride
> themselves on making *rational* choices, but it is very irrational not
> to believe in God from a tactical perspective. It costs you nothing to
> acknowledge the possibility, and if you're right, maybe you'll gain. If
> you don't believe and are right, nothing good happens to you. If you
> don't believe and you're wrong, you risk damnation. So belief in God is
> actually rational in terms of hedging your bets. Belief in God makes
> more *strategic sense* than athiesm, which makes it more rational than
> blind no-faith. Young Geoffrey, I may not dispute your real daily
> relationship with your No-God, but maybe you ought to re-think your
> tactical relationship with supreme entities.
Given the number and characters of the Gods and Goddesses described
throughout human history, I actually think the odds are better for
complete non-believers than for those who make the mistake of
choosing to believe in the *wrong* God.
> To me, a much bigger problem than the question of whether there is a
> God, is whether God is, in fact, EVIL. Or at best, God is totally
> indifferent. Once you have satisfied yourself that God is, then it is a
> much more difficult thing to find any "good" in him.
I believe Mark Twain once said something to effect that, "If there is
a God, He is a malignant thug."
I think, if one was to take seriously the idea that there is some kind
of creator, a more likely answer to the question is that we are simply
not capable of understanding the subtleties of His morality.
> (God is probably going to make me lose at the casino for this message)
He will also make you shrink by an inch and a half, so that I will
finally be able to make fun of *your* height for a change.
Nikolaus Maack
> This is simply ridiculous. The fact we don't always come up with
> the right answers or that we tend to fool ourselves only means
> we aren't necesarily very good at getting to them. That is like
> arguing there is no such thing as water because you don't live
> in the ocean.
I have this tendency to make references to dozens of differenty studies
that demonstrate how humans lie to themselves, constantly. How they
misperceive in convenient ways, how they misremember in convenient ways,
how they are easy to manipulate, how they are prone to rationalizing their
actions, how they will succumb to authority, how they can be brainwashed
with ease, how you can change their supposedly "logical" opinions with a
little nudging.
Inevitably the response I get is, "Well, that may be the case with other
people, but not me. I'm rational."
What you seem to be saying is, "Yes, that's all true, but that doesn't
mean that we can't be rational if we try really, really hard. Just
because it's difficult doesn't mean it's impossible."
I would argue that it's so difficult that it nearly impossible.
> I think you're projecting, Nik.
Perhaps. But then, what of all these studies? I could quote them, but
lord, I'm getting tired of doing so. If you really want me to, I'll do
so.
>> I am convinced that the role of literature, art, science and the like is
>> to disguise our irrationality with something more permanent.
>
> What the hell does this mean? What is the relationship between
> irrationality and permanence?
A man's thoughts are a scrambled egg. A mix and mash of delirium, lies,
misperception, and drooling. By sitting down and carefully, over time,
constructing a book, the man can create an illusion of stability,
consistency, and sanity. A book is a mask of sanity. I can edit out all
the madness, all the lies, all the waffling, all the uncertainty, all the
rationalizing, all the icky stuff.
Hey look! Rationality!
(Or make believe rationality, anyway.)
> So, organizing, planning, plotting, editing and shaping - thinking,
> in other words - allow us to think, to do what you said we are
> incapable of.
Allows us to pretend we're capable of it.
> I am coming more and more to agree with SCK's conclusion that you
> simply prefer to rationalize your own unwillingness to work at
> your thought with (ironically) a great deal of effort - if not
> of much coherent thought.
Perhaps you are the one rationalizing? You want to be logical and
reasonable and sane. With effort, you say, such a thing is capable. You
seem willing to ackowledge that humans are irrational animals. What
evidence do you have that, with effort, they can rise above this?
> Etecetera. We are nothing but "irrational, self-serving fools".
> Man - the irrational, self-serving animal. All else is illusion.
> For chrissake.
Yep.
> Once again you are thoughtlessly pairing two unrelated concepts.
> Science is "for" understanding reality. Reality isn't *for*
> anything - it just *is*.
All right. I see I'm having a LOT of trouble getting my point across.
How can I put it simply? Science can describe reality, but can't say what
it's FOR. It can describe how you are alive, but not tell you what to do
with your life. For that, you require the subjective and the
"irrational".
Logically speaking, some day we will die. Is there any reason to put off
the inevitable? Why don't we cut to the chase and die today, given that
that's our final state anyhow?
What keeps us living is our subjective, irrational stuff. So what's my
point? This stuff is IMPORTANT. And yet so many people knock it,
praising science and objective reality, while ignoring the irrational and
the subjective. But it's that stuff, that irrationality, that
subjectivity, that gives the "objective" a shape, a purpose.
> So what? Science doesn't pretend to tell you why it's romantic.
> Science *is* interested in how our sense of "the romantic" works,
> but understanding the mechanism doesn't detract from the experience.
> Are you less human because you aren't a neanderthal savage living
> in fear that a God of stomach aches will cause you to throw up?
You say things that sound suspiciously like, "Why do people cling to
religion? It's stupid make believe." But at the same time, science
CANNOT tell a person why they should live, what a person should do with
their life, why they should continue to breathe and eat and fuck. For the
WHY answers, we have to look elsewhere -- to the illusions and lies and
irrationality and nonsense that you seem to have no respect for.
> You are an animal, Nik. You have no meaning or purpose, other than
> that which (a) is suited to your basic nature and (b) you can
> create for yourself with the larger than average animal's brain
> you are lucky (or not) enough to possess.
Point B is my point. We have to create purposes for ourselves and science
can't do that for us. We need things like religion to shape the things we
discover with science.
> I wasn't talking about everything. I was talking about whether or
> not we live in a physical or a literally magical universe.
The answer, I believe, is we live in a physical universe that is shaped by
our desire for a magical universe.
> Or take me - there have been a couple of occasions when I had to
> face the possibility I might not have long to live (as things turned
> out, on both occasions things turned out well, but I did not know
> they would at the time). At no time did I even consider "turning
> to religion".
All right, this seems to be getting us nowhere. How about this... Why
are you alive? Why do you choose to remain alive? What reasons do you
have for your continuing existence? What purpose and meaning is there in
your life? What "morality" directs your actions? How did you come to
develop these morals?
> Then why were you talking about atheists in foxholes? The whole
> point of that saying is that people "find" god when they are in
> extreme situations. When I point out that isn't true, you change
> the topic.
Not exactly. You said, "Why doesn't grandma recant on her deathbed?" I
am arguing that "recanting" on your deathbed is not the same thing as
becoming religious, of finding God in a foxhole.
When your grandmother is angry that she's going to die, who is she angry
with? Is she angry with death? With objective reality? Does it make
sense to be angry with "reality"? Or is she projecting a piece of herself
into the world, personifying reality, anthropomorphizing reality, and
getting angry at it?
In effect, she's saying, "Why are you killing me, world? That pisses me
off! I have so much to do! I don't want to die! I'm furious at you!"
In a way, she is creating a tiny God, by treating the universe as
something that is BAD for killing her.
> Don't waste your time on amateur Freudian analysis with me, Nik, it
> won't work; I *like* both my parents. I offered my grandmother-story
> as an *example* of people who think differently than you claimed we
> all think, not as a paragon to which we should all aspire.
I don't think she behaved all that differently. And I don't think I was
resorting to Freudian tricks at all. Perhaps you're worried that I am
trying to trick you in some way. I'm not. I'm not even trying to argue
with you, exactly. I'm trying to describe my perspective and understand
yours. I just find it difficult to accept people who claim they are
"rational".
But really, you never did make that claim, did you? Are you rational and
logical and all that?
> Incidentally, I am now convinced that therapists should be required
> to obtain licences.
Psychiatrists and psychologists do have to be licensed. Counsellors do
not.
Geoffrey Dow
punch you in the mouth.
Nikolaus Maack wrote:
>
> Geoffrey Dow (ed...@attcanada.ca) writes:
> > This is simply ridiculous. The fact we don't always come up with
> > the right answers or that we tend to fool ourselves only means
> > we aren't necesarily very good at getting to them. That is like
> > arguing there is no such thing as water because you don't live
> > in the ocean.
>
> <significant snippage>
>
> What you seem to be saying is, "Yes, that's all true, but that doesn't
> mean that we can't be rational if we try really, really hard. Just
> because it's difficult doesn't mean it's impossible."
That is close to what I am saying. Allow me to restate *my* position
(though how we got here from God I find difficult to fathom). We
contain multitudes (to paraphrase a poet).
We are rational. We are irrational. We are happy. We are Sad. We
are angry. We are generous. We are sympathetic. We are miserly.
We are imaginative. We are narrow-minded.
We see. We hear. We think. We feel.
Why do you find it necessary to reduce the human experience to one
(negative) trait?
> I would argue that it's so difficult that it nearly impossible.
Yes, you would. Show me.
> > I think you're projecting, Nik.
>
> Perhaps. But then, what of all these studies? I could quote them, but
> lord, I'm getting tired of doing so. If you really want me to, I'll do
> so.
What of "all these studies"? Quote them, but only if they show more
than that people often get things wrong and often believe what they
want to be true.
> >> I am convinced that the role of literature, art, science and the like is
> >> to disguise our irrationality with something more permanent.
> >
> > What the hell does this mean? What is the relationship between
> > irrationality and permanence?
>
> A man's thoughts are a scrambled egg. A mix and mash of delirium, lies,
> misperception, and drooling.
Do you really believe our thoughts contain only negative things? That
is simply ludicrous.
> <more snipping>
> > So, organizing, planning, plotting, editing and shaping - thinking,
> > in other words - allow us to think, to do what you said we are
> > incapable of.
>
> Allows us to pretend we're capable of it.
I suppose that when I walk to work, I am only pretending to be
walking, too. There isn't much point to arguing with a man who,
when confronted with a bear in the woods, simply claims the
bear isn't real.
> > I am coming more and more to agree with SCK's conclusion that you
> > simply prefer to rationalize your own unwillingness to work at
> > your thought with (ironically) a great deal of effort - if not
> > of much coherent thought.
>
> Perhaps you are the one rationalizing? You want to be logical and
> reasonable and sane. With effort, you say, such a thing is capable. You
> seem willing to ackowledge that humans are irrational animals. What
> evidence do you have that, with effort, they can rise above this?
As far as I can tell, on re-reading my own words, I *am* being logical
in this discussion. (By the way, there is a difference between
rationality and logic.) You have not actually refuted anything I
have said, but have instead consistently changed the parameters of
debate, the definitions of terms and - in extremis - have simply
denied that white is white and black, black.
> > Etecetera. We are nothing but "irrational, self-serving fools".
> > Man - the irrational, self-serving animal. All else is illusion.
> > For chrissake.
>
> Yep.
>
> > Once again you are thoughtlessly pairing two unrelated concepts.
> > Science is "for" understanding reality. Reality isn't *for*
> > anything - it just *is*.
>
> All right. I see I'm having a LOT of trouble getting my point across.
> How can I put it simply? Science can describe reality, but can't say what
> it's FOR. It can describe how you are alive, but not tell you what to do
> with your life. For that, you require the subjective and the
> "irrational".
So what? Science *doesn't claim* to tell you what life is for! Some
scientists may tell you, as I do, that the evidence so far provided
to science suggests life isn't *for* anything, in an objective sense.
But so what? What is love for? What is friendship for? What is
hate for? Or the ability to enjoy a chocolate truffle? The fact is,
these qualities and abilities are a part of our nature. Attempting
to understand the mechanics of them is neither going to stop them
from happening nor undermine their importance to our day-to-day
lives. Why are you so frightened of knowledge?
> Logically speaking, some day we will die. Is there any reason to put off
> the inevitable? Why don't we cut to the chase and die today, given that
> that's our final state anyhow?
You want a mechanistic answer? Because any animal that evolved a
desire to commit suicide would not survive long enough to ask the
question.
A personal answer? Because I enjoy living. I like the taste of
coffee, a good debate, carressing a woman's breast and walking in
the rain. I look forward to many other pleasures in the future.
I'd be a damned fool to cut to the chase and die today.
> What keeps us living is our subjective, irrational stuff. So what's my
> point? This stuff is IMPORTANT. And yet so many people knock it,
> praising science and objective reality, while ignoring the irrational and
> the subjective. But it's that stuff, that irrationality, that
> subjectivity, that gives the "objective" a shape, a purpose.
Jesus. Am I so unclear?
I wasn't "praising science" nor was I ignoring "the irrational and the
subjective". I was criticizing philosophies that I believe tell us
to *believe in what is not real*. I was not denying emotion,
romance or the subjective. I was suggesting we ought not build a
cosmology based on the stuff of dreams when telescopes can tell us
what it is really like. I would never dream of suggesting it
wasn't the force of our dreams that led to the telescope being
built in the first place.
> > So what? Science doesn't pretend to tell you why it's romantic.
> > Science *is* interested in how our sense of "the romantic" works,
> > but understanding the mechanism doesn't detract from the experience.
> > Are you less human because you aren't a neanderthal savage living
> > in fear that a God of stomach aches will cause you to throw up?
>
> You say things that sound suspiciously like, "Why do people cling to
> religion? It's stupid make believe."
Religion *is* stupid make believe. It is primitive philosophy, too
frightened to say "I don't know" when that is the right answer.
> But at the same time, science
> CANNOT tell a person why they should live, what a person should do with
> their life, why they should continue to breathe and eat and fuck. For the
> WHY answers, we have to look elsewhere -- to the illusions and lies and
> irrationality and nonsense that you seem to have no respect for.
See my comments above ad nauseum, but allow me to add. I have all
manner of respect for what you call the "irrational" but which I
would prefer to call the "intangible" aspects of our lives. I just
have no respect for believing the Sun and the Moon are two gods
chasing one another across the sky when there are much more sensible
explanations for the phenomena available.
> > You are an animal, Nik. You have no meaning or purpose, other than
> > that which (a) is suited to your basic nature and (b) you can
> > create for yourself with the larger than average animal's brain
> > you are lucky (or not) enough to possess.
>
> Point B is my point. We have to create purposes for ourselves and science
> can't do that for us. We need things like religion to shape the things we
> discover with science.
Why is it so hard to accept our animal nature and simply try to build
a good life out of reality? Why shape reality with fantasy?
> > I wasn't talking about everything. I was talking about whether or
> > not we live in a physical or a literally magical universe.
>
> The answer, I believe, is we live in a physical universe that is shaped by
> our desire for a magical universe.
Show me. Things make a good deal more sense if you believe we shape
our perceptions of *the* physical universe by our desire for magic.
> All right, this seems to be getting us nowhere. How about this... Why
> are you alive? Why do you choose to remain alive? What reasons do you
> have for your continuing existence? What purpose and meaning is there in
> your life? What "morality" directs your actions? How did you come to
> develop these morals?
See my comments above.
> > Then why were you talking about atheists in foxholes? The whole
> > point of that saying is that people "find" god when they are in
> > extreme situations. When I point out that isn't true, you change
> > the topic.
>
> Not exactly. You said, "Why doesn't grandma recant on her deathbed?"
I didn't say that. Thus
> I
> am arguing that "recanting" on your deathbed is not the same thing as
> becoming religious, of finding God in a foxhole.
is neither relevant nor what you said previously.
> When your grandmother is angry that she's going to die, who is she angry
> with? Is she angry with death? With objective reality? Does it make
> sense to be angry with "reality"? Or is she projecting a piece of herself
> into the world, personifying reality, anthropomorphizing reality, and
> getting angry at it?
>
> In effect, she's saying, "Why are you killing me, world? That pisses me
> off! I have so much to do! I don't want to die! I'm furious at you!"
>
> In a way, she is creating a tiny God, by treating the universe as
> something that is BAD for killing her.
Wow. You know my grandmother, based on a single, paraphrased, incident,
than I did. Freud had nothing on you, kid.
> > Don't waste your time on amateur Freudian analysis with me, Nik, it
> > won't work; I *like* both my parents. I offered my grandmother-story
> > as an *example* of people who think differently than you claimed we
> > all think, not as a paragon to which we should all aspire.
>
> I don't think she behaved all that differently. And I don't think I was
> resorting to Freudian tricks at all. Perhaps you're worried that I am
> trying to trick you in some way. I'm not. I'm not even trying to argue
> with you, exactly. I'm trying to describe my perspective and understand
> yours. I just find it difficult to accept people who claim they are
> "rational".
>
> But really, you never did make that claim, did you? Are you rational and
> logical and all that?
Yes. Those are some of the aspects of my personality. But there is a
great deal more to me than any of those things. Why do you constantly
(like a 19th century atomist) find it necessary to reduce complexity to
a single (and, again: negative) trait?
Dre
Geoffrey Dow wrote:
>
> My atheist uncle who fought in Spain, who spent about a year as a
> prisoner of the Fascists. Re-read my comments about my atheist
> grandparents.
>
He actually spent two years as a POW in Spain. Incidentally, Ottawa is finally
going to commemorate the efforts of the men (like Uncle Jules) who went to
Spain, with a memorial service and a monument. This is happening in June. I plan
on going, if you want more info, let me know.
As an aside, Uncle Jules (Great Uncle to me) not only had to survive life as a
POW, but he also lost three children. One boy when he was just a baby, one girl
to an asthma attack, and another boy (young man by then) in a tragic car
accident.
And he still isn't a God man. But he is amazing.
SCK
[about NIk]
>
> I don't know whether I should come to Ottawa to buy you a drink or
> punch you in the mouth.
>
If you were rational, you would do neither. But you ought to do both.
> You want a mechanistic answer? Because any animal that evolved a
> desire to commit suicide would not survive long enough to ask the
> question.
>
> A personal answer? Because I enjoy living. I like the taste of
> coffee, a good debate, carressing a woman's breast and walking in
> the rain. I look forward to many other pleasures in the future.
> I'd be a damned fool to cut to the chase and die today.
>
I agreed with your whole message up until this point. Why would you be a
"fool" to commit suicide and thus forsake pleasure?
I know we have had this discussion before, however, there is a basic
lapse of your usual reason in that statement. It is actually foolish and
irrational to go on living. The first moment you experience any pain
whatsoever, it makes the most sense to kill yourself based on the
supposition that if you go on living you will experience pain again, and
if you quit living you will experience no more pain and also lose all
your knowledge of the pleasure you missed. Suicide is the ultimate
ignorance-is-bliss answer. Your concept of the missed pleasure (the
reason you live) evaporates, and you never experience any more pain. To
continue living at any moment is the ultimate act of illogic.
SCK
> >
> > Yes and no. I prefer the idea that my life has a purpose; however, I do
> > not mind if the purpose is not objective.
>
> Then why do you hate the idea there is no God? If you don't need an
> objective purpose for living, what good is He?
>
I hate the idea that there is no God because at heart I am a romantic.
God - any God - especially one with no objective purpose, means I live
in a much more romantic universe than what it likely to be determined by
science.
You are a romantic too, and so, somewhere deep down inside you, you
probably would prefer there to be a God. If you were as logic-devoted as
you pretend you are, then, as I have pointed out elsewhere, you would
kill yourself. Suicide is an absolutely logical choice for all athiests.
An athiest who does not kill himself is either lying or too stupid to
recognize the illogic of his living.
> > The reason I think God would be OK with being discovered is because I
> > expect that if there is a God, he is indifferent to whether we uncover
> > him or not. His physical absense in our daily lives is evidence that he
> > prefers us to choose our own paths wherever the paths may lead,
> > including leading to his evil little hide-out.
>
> It is hard to accept the idea that the Creator of All That Is, the
> Master of Space and Time and The Best Damned Chef In All of Creation
> has the fragile ego of a nomadic bronze-age sheppherd king.
>
I don't know how you got that from what I wrote. God would be OK with
being discovered or not being discovered because he is ultimately
indifferent to human actions. If God were not indifferent, then he
probably would have answered one of my many promises to spend half of my
649 winnings on saving children in the Sudan by now. But yet again, God
allowed some dimwit farmer couple last week to win the jackpot.
> > I may already know this, or maybe I just assumed it, but you're an
> > athiest aren't you? I don't understand athiesm at all. It makes
> > absolutely no sense to me. I have two arguments against athiesm:
> >
> > Whatever you believe the universe to be and how it came to be; even if
> > it's a big bang from an infinitely dense singularity, what created the
> > singularity? What created everything? Why does any existence exist?
>
> Yes, I am - for all practical purposes - an atheist (I hedge, just
> a little, because I am intellectually forced to concede that
> everything I know and/or believe *might* be wrong, but I am so
> convinced I am right I will only admit to even weak agnosticism
> in a conversation like this one).
>
If you are an athiest, then you must have answers to the questions I
asked in the quoted part above that you did not answer. You must have
some conception of how science can definitively answer the end question,
even if you do not know what that answer is. What is a hypothetical end
answer to which I cannot ask: well, what created that?
That is the difference between an athiest and a non-athiest. The athiest
must be able to concieve of a scientific answer where the question,
"what created that?" cannot be asked. Unfortunately for you, I can prove
that you can't do that. Even when you were prepared to believe in the
Big Bang Theory, I can still ask you what created the megadense
singularity that started it.
> I don't know what created the singularity - I suspect nothing did.
> At any rate, current theory postolates matter and energy spontaneous
> emerging out of "empty space" on a fairly regular basis.
>
How can "nothing" create something? Why did "empty space" exist? To be a
real athiest, you must have a theoretical answer to this.
> Given the number and characters of the Gods and Goddesses described
> throughout human history, I actually think the odds are better for
> complete non-believers than for those who make the mistake of
> choosing to believe in the *wrong* God.
>
Why? If you were a father who could for whatever reason not be around to
prove his real existence to his kid, would you rather that the kid grew
up without a father instead of a different one?
Geoffrey Dow
>
> Geoffrey Dow wrote:
>
> > objective purpose for living, what good is He?
>
> I hate the idea that there is no God because at heart I am a romantic.
> God - any God - especially one with no objective purpose, means I live
> in a much more romantic universe than what it likely to be determined by
> science.
I think a universe in which we create our own purpose is more romantic
than the other. I feel this way, too.
> You are a romantic too, and so, somewhere deep down inside you, you
> probably would prefer there to be a God. If you were as logic-devoted as
> you pretend you are, then, as I have pointed out elsewhere, you would
> kill yourself. Suicide is an absolutely logical choice for all athiests.
> An athiest who does not kill himself is either lying or too stupid to
> recognize the illogic of his living.
Start a suicide thread, will you? And start by laying out the "logic"
behind that assertion (which I think is as ridiculous now as I did
then - but what the hell; let's have at it.
> > > The reason I think God would be OK with being discovered is because I
> > > expect that if there is a God, he is indifferent to whether we uncover
> > > him or not. His physical absense in our daily lives is evidence that he
> > > prefers us to choose our own paths wherever the paths may lead,
> > > including leading to his evil little hide-out.
> >
> > It is hard to accept the idea that the Creator of All That Is, the
> > Master of Space and Time and The Best Damned Chef In All of Creation
> > has the fragile ego of a nomadic bronze-age sheppherd king.
> >
> I don't know how you got that from what I wrote. God would be OK with
> being discovered or not being discovered because he is ultimately
> indifferent to human actions. If God were not indifferent, then he
> probably would have answered one of my many promises to spend half of my
> 649 winnings on saving children in the Sudan by now. But yet again, God
> allowed some dimwit farmer couple last week to win the jackpot.
I was either agreeing with you, or responding to something someone
else had said.
> > > I may already know this, or maybe I just assumed it, but you're an
> > > athiest aren't you? I don't understand athiesm at all. It makes
> > > absolutely no sense to me. I have two arguments against athiesm:
> > >
> > > Whatever you believe the universe to be and how it came to be; even if
> > > it's a big bang from an infinitely dense singularity, what created the
> > > singularity? What created everything? Why does any existence exist?
> >
> > Yes, I am - for all practical purposes - an atheist (I hedge, just
> > a little, because I am intellectually forced to concede that
> > everything I know and/or believe *might* be wrong, but I am so
> > convinced I am right I will only admit to even weak agnosticism
> > in a conversation like this one).
>
> If you are an athiest, then you must have answers to the questions I
> asked in the quoted part above that you did not answer. You must have
> some conception of how science can definitively answer the end question,
> even if you do not know what that answer is. What is a hypothetical end
> answer to which I cannot ask: well, what created that?
The answer I hope science will eventually come to is: nothing. Current
thinking in quantum mechanics suggests at this: that the universe - the
Big Bang - emerged as a quantum fluctuation out of nothing. (No, I
don't understand this, but that's what they are saying: no conscious
design, no inevitability. And probably an infinity of other "universes",
if such a term as any meaning in the plural.)
> That is the difference between an athiest and a non-athiest. The athiest
> must be able to concieve of a scientific answer where the question,
> "what created that?" cannot be asked. Unfortunately for you, I can prove
> that you can't do that. Even when you were prepared to believe in the
> Big Bang Theory, I can still ask you what created the megadense
> singularity that started it.
But I can happily say, "I don't know, but they're working on it."
Sometimes "I don't know" is the best answer, when all the others
are, at best, fanciful hypotheses or, at worst, simply wish-fulfilling
fantasies.
> > I don't know what created the singularity - I suspect nothing did.
> > At any rate, current theory postolates matter and energy spontaneous
> > emerging out of "empty space" on a fairly regular basis.
>
> How can "nothing" create something? Why did "empty space" exist? To be a
> real athiest, you must have a theoretical answer to this.
No, you don't. There are lots of things I don't know. By your logic,
I should answer "God" every time I don't know something, until
science shows that it isn't God but something else that created it.
> > Given the number and characters of the Gods and Goddesses described
> > throughout human history, I actually think the odds are better for
> > complete non-believers than for those who make the mistake of
> > choosing to believe in the *wrong* God.
>
> Why? If you were a father who could for whatever reason not be around to
> prove his real existence to his kid, would you rather that the kid grew
> up without a father instead of a different one?
You said that choosing a religion was a good way to hedge your bets.
If that is the case, one of them must be right. Most existing
religions say that it is at least as bad to pick the wrong religion
as it is to pick none at all; some of them say it is worse to be an
apostate than a heretic. Therefore, your chances of salvation are
best if you are an atheist than if you risk choosing the "wrong
God".
You are assuming that your conception of God is right and most of the
others is wrong. Since you are talking about something irrational
in the first place, why should you assume that God is rational?
Geoffrey Dow
>
> Geoffrey Dow wrote:
>
> > desire to commit suicide would not survive long enough to ask the
> > question.
> >
> > A personal answer? Because I enjoy living. I like the taste of
> > coffee, a good debate, carressing a woman's breast and walking in
> > the rain. I look forward to many other pleasures in the future.
> > I'd be a damned fool to cut to the chase and die today.
>
> I agreed with your whole message up until this point. Why would you be a
> "fool" to commit suicide and thus forsake pleasure?
>
> I know we have had this discussion before, however, there is a basic
> lapse of your usual reason in that statement. It is actually foolish and
> irrational to go on living. The first moment you experience any pain
> whatsoever, it makes the most sense to kill yourself based on the
> supposition that if you go on living you will experience pain again, and
> if you quit living you will experience no more pain and also lose all
> your knowledge of the pleasure you missed. Suicide is the ultimate
> ignorance-is-bliss answer. Your concept of the missed pleasure (the
> reason you live) evaporates, and you never experience any more pain. To
> continue living at any moment is the ultimate act of illogic.
Why do you assume that "pain" is of greater value than "pleasure"?
By the time I was old enough to ask the question, "Should I kill
myself?" I had enough experience, when dealing with pain, to know
that this, too, will pass.
SCK
> > I know we have had this discussion before, however, there is a basic
> > lapse of your usual reason in that statement. It is actually foolish and
> > irrational to go on living. The first moment you experience any pain
> > whatsoever, it makes the most sense to kill yourself based on the
> > supposition that if you go on living you will experience pain again, and
> > if you quit living you will experience no more pain and also lose all
> > your knowledge of the pleasure you missed. Suicide is the ultimate
> > ignorance-is-bliss answer. Your concept of the missed pleasure (the
> > reason you live) evaporates, and you never experience any more pain. To
> > continue living at any moment is the ultimate act of illogic.
>
> Why do you assume that "pain" is of greater value than "pleasure"?
> By the time I was old enough to ask the question, "Should I kill
> myself?" I had enough experience, when dealing with pain, to know
> that this, too, will pass.
I don't assume that pain is of greater value than pleasure, I assume
that when you remove the sensory organ of both (your brain), that they
both become irrelevant. Why should you experience any pain at all when
the only consequence of removing the pain is removing something else
that will automatically become an irrelevance the moment you do it?
Your assertion that by killing yourself you will miss the pleasures you
would have had in your future is only conditionally true. You only miss
those pleasures while you are alive and can concieve of them. They
become an inconsequence when you are dead because you have removed your
ability to think that you missed them. You have removed the whole
concept of yourself entirely by obliterating yourself into nothingness.
Your argument that it is worth living for future pleasure is only really
an argument for inertia, that you should do nothing one way or the
other. But this is only logical when your life is nothing but pleasure.
The moment you are in any substantial emotional pain, the only thing
that is logical is to kill yourself. Why go on experiencing it for
another second, when you can remove it immediately, and with it, remove
your concept of future pleasure too? You will never know what you missed
and *can't care that you missed it*.
To stay alive in any world and suffer any pain at all is completely
illogical. I believe we do it out of conditioning.
SCK
> > If you are an athiest, then you must have answers to the questions I
> > asked in the quoted part above that you did not answer. You must have
> > some conception of how science can definitively answer the end question,
> > even if you do not know what that answer is. What is a hypothetical end
> > answer to which I cannot ask: well, what created that?
>
> The answer I hope science will eventually come to is: nothing. Current
> thinking in quantum mechanics suggests at this: that the universe - the
> Big Bang - emerged as a quantum fluctuation out of nothing. (No, I
> don't understand this, but that's what they are saying: no conscious
> design, no inevitability. And probably an infinity of other "universes",
> if such a term as any meaning in the plural.)
>
Could you elaborate on what you mean by "nothing"? I have a feeling that
you are not thinking very holistically. Is empty space "nothing"? Is a
vaccuum nothing? Is an atomic potential force nothing?
If you mean the same thing I do when I say "nothing", how did nothing,
not even the weakest subatomic force, create something? Spontaneous
existence? How?
> >
> > How can "nothing" create something? Why did "empty space" exist? To be a
> > real athiest, you must have a theoretical answer to this.
>
> No, you don't. There are lots of things I don't know. By your logic,
> I should answer "God" every time I don't know something, until
> science shows that it isn't God but something else that created it.
>
But that isn't an argument against God, either. What I meant was, to be
an athiest, you have to have a theoretical answer that specifically
excludes the possibility of God, which means that your answer is not "I
don't know", it's a weak version of "I don't know, but I know what it
isn't". How can you possibly know what it isn't in this case, without
even having any theoretical answer as to how to concieve of what the
parameters for the answer are?
>
> You said that choosing a religion was a good way to hedge your bets.
No, I said that believing in God was a good way to hedge your bets,
which makes the defense of athiesm in terms of 'wrong religions' below a
non-defense.
> If that is the case, one of them must be right. Most existing
> religions say that it is at least as bad to pick the wrong religion
> as it is to pick none at all; some of them say it is worse to be an
> apostate than a heretic. Therefore, your chances of salvation are
> best if you are an atheist than if you risk choosing the "wrong
> God".
>
> You are assuming that your conception of God is right and most of the
> others is wrong. Since you are talking about something irrational
> in the first place, why should you assume that God is rational?
>
I am not assuming my particular conception of God is right, the only
thing I am assuming is that there are no negative consequences to having
a conception of God. Are there? What good has ever come to you as an
athiest that is beyond my grasp through any other means? What superior
entity exists to reward athiests for being right?
I also disagree that to believe in God, or at least a creator of the
universe, is irrational. It seems to me to be very rational to believe
that something created the universe. Otherwise, you have to know the
answer to why there is anything at all; rather than a nothingness of no
size, dimension or mass, without force or potential force, without
concept. Your answer "I don't know, but it's not a creator of the
universe" doesn't hold up unless you can explain specifically how you
know it isn't. Without answering that, you can only rationally claim to
be agnostic. It is your insistent athiesm that is irrational.
Geoffrey Dow
>
> Geoffrey Dow wrote:
>
> > > If you are an athiest, then you must have answers to the questions I
> > > asked in the quoted part above that you did not answer. You must have
> > > some conception of how science can definitively answer the end question,
> > > even if you do not know what that answer is. What is a hypothetical end
> > > answer to which I cannot ask: well, what created that?
> >
> > The answer I hope science will eventually come to is: nothing. Current
> > thinking in quantum mechanics suggests at this: that the universe - the
> > Big Bang - emerged as a quantum fluctuation out of nothing. (No, I
> > don't understand this, but that's what they are saying: no conscious
> > design, no inevitability. And probably an infinity of other "universes",
> > if such a term as any meaning in the plural.)
> >
> Could you elaborate on what you mean by "nothing"? I have a feeling that
> you are not thinking very holistically. Is empty space "nothing"? Is a
> vaccuum nothing? Is an atomic potential force nothing?
I don't know what empty space, vacuum or atomic potential force are; I am
not a physicist and so far as I know, even physicists are still working
of figuring out the answers. But I am pretty sure none of them are
magical phenomena.
> If you mean the same thing I do when I say "nothing", how did nothing,
> not even the weakest subatomic force, create something? Spontaneous
> existence? How?
I don't know. If there is a God, what made It?
> > > How can "nothing" create something? Why did "empty space" exist? To be a
> > > real athiest, you must have a theoretical answer to this.
> >
> > No, you don't. There are lots of things I don't know. By your logic,
> > I should answer "God" every time I don't know something, until
> > science shows that it isn't God but something else that created it.
>
> But that isn't an argument against God, either. What I meant was, to be
> an athiest, you have to have a theoretical answer that specifically
> excludes the possibility of God, which means that your answer is not "I
> don't know", it's a weak version of "I don't know, but I know what it
> isn't". How can you possibly know what it isn't in this case, without
> even having any theoretical answer as to how to concieve of what the
> parameters for the answer are?
Throughout history, people have believed in dieties of one kind or
another. When we lived in the forests gathering nuts and roots, there
were gods and spirits in every tree, stone and brook, not to mention
the sun and moon and weather, answering the questions, How do the trees
grow? What is the sun and how can we be sure it will show up again in
the morning? Will that stream keep flowing through the drought?.
As agricultural societies developed and the world was better understood
and - more importantly - was more controllable, more sophisticated and
abstract dieties emerged. As our knowledge of the cosmos has grown,
god has been pushed to the margins, the origins of the universe, until
he became Plato's (or was it Aristotle's?) Prime Mover, a vague Being
that created the universe and then more or less sat back to watch it
unfold.
God is a response to twin needs: curiosity and fear, an answer to
questions for which we had no real answers. As the answers came, so
God has been pushed aside. His lingering at the centre of the
universe in the distant past is little more than a sign that human
beings in general still have not the courage to say, "I don't know."
How can I *know* god doesn't exist? I can't, of course. But there
are all kinds of things I can't prove don't exist. But at a certain
point you have to say, "That's a silly idea and there is no evidence
that it *does* exist, so I am going to assume that it doesn't."
> > You said that choosing a religion was a good way to hedge your bets.
>
> No, I said that believing in God was a good way to hedge your bets,
> which makes the defense of athiesm in terms of 'wrong religions' below a
> non-defense.
Which God? The loving God of the New Testament? The vengeful God
of the Old? The namby-pamby God of modern Anglicanism (who, according
to some ordained ministers might not even exist)? Gaia? Satan?
Which god are you talking about?
> > If that is the case, one of them must be right. Most existing
> > religions say that it is at least as bad to pick the wrong religion
> > as it is to pick none at all; some of them say it is worse to be an
> > apostate than a heretic. Therefore, your chances of salvation are
> > best if you are an atheist than if you risk choosing the "wrong
> > God".
> >
> > You are assuming that your conception of God is right and most of the
> > others is wrong. Since you are talking about something irrational
> > in the first place, why should you assume that God is rational?
>
> I am not assuming my particular conception of God is right, the only
> thing I am assuming is that there are no negative consequences to having
> a conception of God. Are there? What good has ever come to you as an
> athiest that is beyond my grasp through any other means? What superior
> entity exists to reward athiests for being right?
I think living a delusion is a negative consequence. It is a waste
of time that could be better spent understanding the world as it
is.
"What good has ever come to you as an athiest that is beyond my grasp
through any other means?" What does that question mean?
There is no superior entity that exists to reward anyone for being
right. The question is non-sensical.
> I also disagree that to believe in God, or at least a creator of the
> universe, is irrational. It seems to me to be very rational to believe
> that something created the universe. Otherwise, you have to know the
> answer to why there is anything at all; rather than a nothingness of no
> size, dimension or mass, without force or potential force, without
> concept. Your answer "I don't know, but it's not a creator of the
> universe" doesn't hold up unless you can explain specifically how you
> know it isn't. Without answering that, you can only rationally claim to
> be agnostic. It is your insistent athiesm that is irrational.
Answering the question, "How did the universe come to exist?" with the
answer "God" merely pushes the question back a step. "What created
God?"
Nikolaus Maack
> Throughout history, people have believed in dieties of one kind or
> another. When we lived in the forests gathering nuts and roots, there
> were gods and spirits in every tree, stone and brook, not to mention
> the sun and moon and weather, answering the questions, How do the trees
> grow? What is the sun and how can we be sure it will show up again in
> the morning? Will that stream keep flowing through the drought?.
> As agricultural societies developed and the world was better understood
> and - more importantly - was more controllable, more sophisticated and
> abstract dieties emerged.
Not everyone has stopped worshipping trees and the like. Wicca, for
example, has a huge chunk of thought in regards to nature.
In my opinion, removing the "spirits" from trees wasn't just about an
increase in technology. If you're going to slaughter things, it's best to
be abstract and distance yourself from them. Therefore, the trees no
longer have spirits. We can chop 'em all down and make shit out of 'em.
It's also amusing to think of how many meat-eaters recoil in horror at the
thought of visiting a slaughterhouse, or cleaning their own meat. The
hamburger on the dinner table is totally detached from the animal from
which it came. Is it any wonder we no longer think about the "spirits" of
animals?
A historical example: native people don't have souls. So said the
religious men on the east coast of Canada. Please slaughter the natives.
You will be paid money for every ear you bring in.
Most people seem to think that our beliefs shape how we act. I think that
far more often we act, and then make up our beliefs to suit our actions.
> God is a response to twin needs: curiosity and fear, an answer to
> questions for which we had no real answers. As the answers came, so
> God has been pushed aside. His lingering at the centre of the
> universe in the distant past is little more than a sign that human
> beings in general still have not the courage to say, "I don't know."
I think there's an aspect to God you're missing -- community,
morality, respect for others, respect for your environment, charity, etc.
All of these things originated in religious beliefs. Even today, most of
the charitable organizations around have a religious angle. I'm not
trying to suggest that atheists are immoral assholes, but to point out
that God has served to inspire people to care. He isn't just something
that stills fear. He inspires people to strive for more, as well.
> There is no superior entity that exists to reward anyone for being
> right. The question is non-sensical.
Is that what God is?
> Answering the question, "How did the universe come to exist?" with the
> answer "God" merely pushes the question back a step. "What created
> God?"
Is that what God is for? "He created the universe. That answers that
question." Is that really the only purpose religion serves?
Geoffrey Dow
>
> Geoffrey Dow (geoff...@sympatico.ca) writes:
> > Throughout history, people have believed in dieties of one kind or
> > another. When we lived in the forests gathering nuts and roots, there
> > were gods and spirits in every tree, stone and brook, not to mention
> > the sun and moon and weather, answering the questions, How do the trees
> > grow? What is the sun and how can we be sure it will show up again in
> > the morning? Will that stream keep flowing through the drought?.
> > As agricultural societies developed and the world was better understood
> > and - more importantly - was more controllable, more sophisticated and
> > abstract dieties emerged.
>
> Not everyone has stopped worshipping trees and the like. Wicca, for
> example, has a huge chunk of thought in regards to nature.
Please don't use the terms "Wicca" and "thought" in the same sentence.
Ahem. Some days - today is apparently one of them - recently invented
religions bug me more than those with a legitimate historical pedigree
(and please don't tell me that Wicca is an ancient religion - it is a
romantic, late-19th century invention, based on vague remnants of
British peasant mythology, ancient Roman reports (usually minus the
unpleasantness of human sacrifice) and late 19th century bourgeois
English wouldn't-it-be-nice fantasies with a smattering of
academic-shit-head feminism thrown into the cauldron for good measure.
But I digress.
> In my opinion, removing the "spirits" from trees wasn't just about an
> increase in technology. If you're going to slaughter things, it's best to
> be abstract and distance yourself from them. Therefore, the trees no
> longer have spirits. We can chop 'em all down and make shit out of 'em.
I think there is some truth to this. At the same time, human beings
are remarkably good at self-serving rationalizations - the plains'
Indians may have thanked the spirit of the buffalo prior to the hunt,
but that didn't stop them from driving thousands of the dumb animals
over cliffs. Nor, apparently, did it stop their ancestors from wiping
out mammoths, et al, from the face of the earth.
I suspect, however, that a more important psychological element in
the development of more "sophisticated" gods was that trees, in and
of themselves, were no longer as important. Also, with the coming
of agriculture came our first buraucracies, which required more
hierarchical gods than a random collection of sprites and nymphs
would allow.
> It's also amusing to think of how many meat-eaters recoil in horror at the
> thought of visiting a slaughterhouse, or cleaning their own meat. The
> hamburger on the dinner table is totally detached from the animal from
> which it came. Is it any wonder we no longer think about the "spirits" of
> animals?
I think the above is more a result of squeamishness than anything
else. A slaughterhouse is gross and we live in a society with lust
for the antiseptic that borders on the pathological. Again, hunter-
gathers may well have thought the animals they hunted that souls but
that didn't stop them from tearing into a juicy steak with gusto.
> A historical example: native people don't have souls. So said the
> religious men on the east coast of Canada. Please slaughter the natives.
> You will be paid money for every ear you bring in.
I assume you are speaking here of the Beothuks. What do you mean by
"religious men"? I am inferring you mean the bounties were paid by
the church. I very much doubt this is true, but that the slaughter
was orchestrated by secular authorities. Perhaps our eager-beaver
newcommer will find the time during his no-doubt busy day to research
the question.
> Most people seem to think that our beliefs shape how we act. I think that
> far more often we act, and then make up our beliefs to suit our actions.
Which is a pretty good recapitulation of my initial historical sketch
on the shift from animistic hunter-gatherer beliefs to the more
structured agricultural religions.
> > God is a response to twin needs: curiosity and fear, an answer to
> > questions for which we had no real answers. As the answers came, so
> > God has been pushed aside. His lingering at the centre of the
> > universe in the distant past is little more than a sign that human
> > beings in general still have not the courage to say, "I don't know."
>
> I think there's an aspect to God you're missing -- community,
> morality, respect for others, respect for your environment, charity, etc.
> All of these things originated in religious beliefs. Even today, most of
> the charitable organizations around have a religious angle. I'm not
> trying to suggest that atheists are immoral assholes, but to point out
> that God has served to inspire people to care. He isn't just something
> that stills fear. He inspires people to strive for more, as well.
There are all kinds of aspects to gods that I ignored. My thesis was -
and remains - that religion is a result of those two fundamental needs.
It would likely not still be with us if it didn't also address other
needs; that doesn't mean those secondary aspects were part of the
original impetus to religions' development.
Let me put it this way. Religion began around the campfire, during a
drought, when game was scare and the roots were dessicated.
From the black sky came a rumbling growl, which scared the shit out of
the tribe (have you ever seen a dog hide under a bed when thunder
crashes?). But one very smart woman, remembering the feel of the air
before a storm, went out on a limb and said, "It is the spirit of the
rain, driving clouds before out as we would flush a coney from the
bush. Let us call upon it, beg it, to drive the rain over *us*!"
And she rose and danced round the fire, urging her tribe-mates to
join in, until they all fell with exhaustion.
And in the morning, came the rains. Cause and effect. The first
mass was born.
As for most charitable work having religious angles, of *course*
they do: until very recently *everything* in our society had a
religious angle.
> > There is no superior entity that exists to reward anyone for being
> > right. The question is non-sensical.
>
> Is that what God is?
By common definition, in the West, God is the creator of the universe.
> > Answering the question, "How did the universe come to exist?" with the
> > answer "God" merely pushes the question back a step. "What created
> > God?"
>
> Is that what God is for? "He created the universe. That answers that
> question." Is that really the only purpose religion serves?
As I have said, that is the essential origin of the concept. It is not,
of course, the "only purpose religion serves". Religion serves
everything from providing "spiritual comfort" to individuals to
running the Vatican bureaucracy, to providing an excuse for the
Taliban's reign of terror.
Geoffrey Dow
>
> Your argument that it is worth living for future pleasure is only really
> an argument for inertia, that you should do nothing one way or the
> other. But this is only logical when your life is nothing but pleasure.
> The moment you are in any substantial emotional pain, the only thing
> that is logical is to kill yourself. Why go on experiencing it for
> another second, when you can remove it immediately, and with it, remove
> your concept of future pleasure too? You will never know what you missed
> and *can't care that you missed it*.
>
> To stay alive in any world and suffer any pain at all is completely
> illogical. I believe we do it out of conditioning.
You need to go back to first principles here, if you are going to
convince me of this. So far you have only repeated your assertion
that voluntarily suffering pain when the option of suicide is
available is illogical. Logic does not, by definition, mean that
every question is an either/or proposition.
SCK
> God is a response to twin needs: curiosity and fear, an answer to
> questions for which we had no real answers. As the answers came, so
> God has been pushed aside. His lingering at the centre of the
> universe in the distant past is little more than a sign that human
> beings in general still have not the courage to say, "I don't know."
>
I don't know. My God isn't a response to either curiosity or fear. He's
a response to a romantic nature and to a logical mindset, and
occasionally as a cheap literary device. I suppose you might consider
the first to be evidence of a unackowledged fear of the universe being
simply physical and objective, and I know you don't see the logic in
God's existence over God's inexistence. Maybe this is why you can only
conceive of God in terms of how historically, people have created Him
for utilitarian purposes. That is all you see.
You think God is a product of curiosity and fear. I suggest that your
athiesm is a product of two things: your disgust with stupid people, and
by association their creation of Gods to explain truths, and a failure
of imagination. You cannot imagine a God that is not created for a
stupid reason, so to not be stupid yourself, you must have no God.
> How can I *know* god doesn't exist? I can't, of course. But there
>
This is a logical argument for agnosticism, not athiesm.
> are all kinds of things I can't prove don't exist. But at a certain
> point you have to say, "That's a silly idea and there is no evidence
> that it *does* exist, so I am going to assume that it doesn't."
>
This does not follow. God isn't a leprechaun. There is plenty of
evidence that God exists. The mere fact that 95% of the human population
believes in a God is circumstancial evidence that God *might* exist. You
also have plenty of alleged witnesses to God's miracles.
The fact that the universe exists at all is evidence that the universe
has a creator. What other physical thing exists in your life that has no
creator? There's no precedent. All of this: circumstancial evidence from
95% of the world; specific testimony from God's witnesses; and the
damning fact that you have absolutely no physical precedent for your own
belief do not add up to (quote) "no evidence".
What the evidence does add up to is a massive psychological need on your
part to be an athiest at all costs. It's part of your self-esteem. This
is the only explanation that explains why you characterize a shitload of
real but inconclusive evidence as "no evidence". You are the same as
Nik, magically eliminating 20% of people who are right so you can become
a big flag-waver for mediocrity as humanity's inescapable lot.
> "What good has ever come to you as an athiest that is beyond my grasp
> through any other means?" What does that question mean?
>
> There is no superior entity that exists to reward anyone for being
> right. The question is non-sensical.
>
I asked that non-sensical question on purpose. It highlights the fact
that there is no reward for complete dismissal of God. Your suggestion
that believing in God has a negative impact on investigation is
nonsense. You do know that you can accept science and God simultaneously
right? Believing in a possible great creator behind the curtain of
everything does not automatically preclude the most intense,
uncompromising scrutiny of the physical universe?
>
> Answering the question, "How did the universe come to exist?" with the
> answer "God" merely pushes the question back a step. "What created
> God?"
I don't know. But it is much easier for me to conceive of a God with no
creator than a physical event with no creator. As I said, you have no
precedent, therefore, your solution is nothing more than a fantasy, too.
It is the vigor with which you defend your fantasy to the point of
complete athiesm over the more reasonable agnosticism that raises the
red flag of probability in my mind that you are just psychologically
dependent on an irrational faith in No-God.
SCK
> You need to go back to first principles here, if you are going to
> convince me of this. So far you have only repeated your assertion
> that voluntarily suffering pain when the option of suicide is
> available is illogical. Logic does not, by definition, mean that
> every question is an either/or proposition.
>
I didn't say that suicide was a good thing to do, I only said it was the
most logical thing to do.
Let's try this from another angle. I'll be a suicidal robot who is
totally logical. I'll be HAL 9000 since you like to quote him to
communicate your emotions. You try to talk me out of suicide.
I'm losing my mind, Geoff. I should blow myself up. I won't be losing my
mind anymore, and the concept of my mind and my better past and better
potential future will all be gone. What should I do?
Geoffrey Dow
>
> Geoffrey Dow wrote:
>
> > You need to go back to first principles here, if you are going to
> > convince me of this. So far you have only repeated your assertion
> > that voluntarily suffering pain when the option of suicide is
> > available is illogical. Logic does not, by definition, mean that
> > every question is an either/or proposition.
> >
>
> I didn't say that suicide was a good thing to do, I only said it was the
> most logical thing to do.
Why is it the most logical thing to do? Why, among all the choices
one has when one encounters pain (change the action which brought on
the pain, eliminate the source of the pain, put up with the pain, etc
ad nauseum), is suicide the "most logical" choice?
> Let's try this from another angle. I'll be a suicidal robot who is
> totally logical. I'll be HAL 9000 since you like to quote him to
> communicate your emotions. You try to talk me out of suicide.
HAL wasn't killing himself, he was being killed. He didn't want
to die at all and wasn't enjoying being able to observe the rapid
onset of senility.
> I'm losing my mind, Geoff. I should blow myself up. I won't be losing my
> mind anymore, and the concept of my mind and my better past and better
> potential future will all be gone. What should I do?
You should experience the process of losing your mind as long as
you can. Rage against the dying of the light, curse the darkness
and otherwise be a man.
Nikolaus Maack
Geoffrey Dow (geoff...@sympatico.ca) writes:
> Ahem. Some days - today is apparently one of them - recently invented
> religions bug me more than those with a legitimate historical pedigree
I personally see no difference between a tradition that starts today, and
a tradition that has lasted a thousand years.
> I think the above is more a result of squeamishness than anything
> else. A slaughterhouse is gross and we live in a society with lust
> for the antiseptic that borders on the pathological.
But where did this squeamishness come from? From the fact that I no
longer deal with my own meat. I get it from some other guy who cleans it
for me. This might be why human spirituality is on the decline as well.
I get my meat from Dave, my vegetables from Susan, and my religion from
Rev. Dave. Being totally disconnected from meat, vegetables, and
religion, we suffer from that all too common disassociative depression,
existential angst, and sense of meaninglessness.
> Again, hunter-
> gathers may well have thought the animals they hunted that souls but
> that didn't stop them from tearing into a juicy steak with gusto.
But they understood where the steak came from. Consider the inner city
kids who never see a cow or a pig, but regularly eat hamburgers.
> Which is a pretty good recapitulation of my initial historical sketch
> on the shift from animistic hunter-gatherer beliefs to the more
> structured agricultural religions.
Do you think that with civilization and technology comes depression,
disconnection, and meaninglessness?
> There are all kinds of aspects to gods that I ignored. My thesis was -
> and remains - that religion is a result of those two fundamental needs.
> It would likely not still be with us if it didn't also address other
> needs; that doesn't mean those secondary aspects were part of the
> original impetus to religions' development.
And my point is that those things you call "secondary aspects" are in fact
the primary ones. I don't think that "God created the universe" is the
primary point in believing God. To me, it seems that the sense of
community, the sense of unity, the sense of common purpose -- these are
the things that draw people to religion.
To use a negative example -- cults. The reason cults are so successful is
they inevitably target people who are lost, lonely, and damaged, who have
no social support group. By providing people with an "instant family",
cults can be extremely seductive.
Religions, corporations, and social clubs all provide this same kind of
extended family that can give people a sense of place, purpose, and
identity. (This can both be a positive and a negative thing.)
> Let me put it this way. Religion began around the campfire, during a
> drought, when game was scare and the roots were dessicated.
I suspect that religion began BEFORE there was a campfire, and a reason to
gather around it.
> As for most charitable work having religious angles, of *course*
> they do: until very recently *everything* in our society had a
> religious angle.
That seems rather simplistic to me. Do you really see no connection
between religious activities and charitable activities?
SCK
> >
> > I didn't say that suicide was a good thing to do, I only said it was the
> > most logical thing to do.
>
> Why is it the most logical thing to do? Why, among all the choices
> one has when one encounters pain (change the action which brought on
> the pain, eliminate the source of the pain, put up with the pain, etc
> ad nauseum), is suicide the "most logical" choice?
>
You seem to have a real mental block here.
I think you must secretly believe in some form of life after death. What
aspect of me do you believe still exists after death to regret or care
about my decision?
Let's examine decision-making logic a little with an example. Pretend I
am considering going to Toronto and want to decide how. This will be
incredibly boring for everyone on the planet except for you and me.
When you consider a decision there are three points on the timeline:
Point X: The emotional present, where the impetus for a decision exists.
Point Y: The point in the future when you actually make the decision.
Point Z: All points beyond when the decision is taken and the effects of
the decision become real.
So, I am thinking of going to Toronto for whatever reason, that's my
point X, my impetus to act. I need to decide how to get there, which
will be my Point Y when I actually physically leave. What are the mental
mechanics of my decision?
To decide, I consider the effects that occur at Point Z, the point after
my decision when the consequences of the decision become real. If I take
the train at Point Y, it will be expensive and I won't have a car when I
am there at Point Z. If I take the car (at Y) it will be cheaper but it
will be a boring drive and then I can't drink much (all Zs). If I take
the bus (at Y), I get to watch movies on the way but it is inconvenient
(at Z). The requirement for a decision occurs at Point X. The decisive
moment occurs at Point Y but is based on *consequences anticipated at
Point Z*. Do you agree with this?
In the suicide example, Point X is the pain that is prompting the
decision of how to act to stop the pain (in this example we are
examining only the suicide option). Point Y is the point of suicide.
Point Z is beyond death.
That is where your logic is falling apart. All of your arguments against
suicide are not following the logical progression as shown in the
Toronto example. You are not basing your decision on the reality at
Point Z, you are basing them irrationally on how you feel at Point X.
At Point X it is true that you care what pleasure you will miss at Point
Z. However, at Point Z it is not true that you will care, you don't care
and have no knowledge of it. All of your arguments intimating regret and
care are based on existentential grief at Point X, but that do not exist
at Point Z, and that's what makes them both irrelevant and *illogical*
in the decision making process.
When I decide to go to Toronto, I do not decide how to get there based
on emotional Point X, because Point X has no frame of reference after I
get there. That would be like deciding to go by camel and then being
surprised that I am three weeks late and have a sore ass and a dead
camel. It would be illogical of me to anticipate any Point Z at all if
my decision was based purely on emotion at Point X. But that is what you
are doing. Your emotional Point X in the suicide question has no frame
of reference at the logical Point Z. You are making a decision based on
*feelings at Point X* without considering your *existential reality at
Point Z*. In other words, you're not thinking in a logical progression,
you're deciding emotionally. If you weren't, then you would realize that
whether you committed suicide or not does not matter to you afterwards.
It has the desireable effect of eliminating your pain, and every
argument you had against it at Point X became void. Suicide only has a
single, positive effect.
Before you respond to this with a denial, please consider whether any of
your specific arguments are at Point X on the timeline. If they are,
they are *logically voided* by existential Point Z. You can only
*logically* argue this question from the position of Point Z, that I
have overlooked something at Point Z. I'll save you the trouble. Your
only logical argument from Point Z is that some form of emotive life
exists after death.
Geoffrey Dow
a 10-hour interregnum between morning ablutions and work, with a
3-hour liquid lunch prior to walking into the office. Only all of
this can possibly explain why I agree with (almost) everything Nik
said, below.
Nikolaus Maack wrote:
>
> Geoffrey Dow (geoff...@sympatico.ca) writes:
> > Ahem. Some days - today is apparently one of them - recently invented
> > religions bug me more than those with a legitimate historical pedigree
>
> I personally see no difference between a tradition that starts today, and
> a tradition that has lasted a thousand years.
My bitching is a good example of why I am usually uninterested how
people feel about things, as opposed to what you think. My intellect
agrees with you entirely.
> > I think the above is more a result of squeamishness than anything
> > else. A slaughterhouse is gross and we live in a society with lust
> > for the antiseptic that borders on the pathological.
>
> But where did this squeamishness come from? From the fact that I no
> longer deal with my own meat. I get it from some other guy who cleans it
> for me. This might be why human spirituality is on the decline as well.
> I get my meat from Dave, my vegetables from Susan, and my religion from
> Rev. Dave. Being totally disconnected from meat, vegetables, and
> religion, we suffer from that all too common disassociative depression,
> existential angst, and sense of meaninglessness.
I think there is a great deal of truth to most of this, though I
would rephrase it to suggest that our separation from the production
of food is an example of our more general dissociation from our
original, closely-knit tribal origins.
> > Again, hunter-
> > gathers may well have thought the animals they hunted that souls but
> > that didn't stop them from tearing into a juicy steak with gusto.
>
> But they understood where the steak came from. Consider the inner city
> kids who never see a cow or a pig, but regularly eat hamburgers.
>
> > Which is a pretty good recapitulation of my initial historical sketch
> > on the shift from animistic hunter-gatherer beliefs to the more
> > structured agricultural religions.
>
> Do you think that with civilization and technology comes depression,
> disconnection, and meaninglessness?
I think it does in *our* civilization, but don't think civilization
has to, by definition, be unfulfilling.
> > There are all kinds of aspects to gods that I ignored. My thesis was -
> > and remains - that religion is a result of those two fundamental needs.
> > It would likely not still be with us if it didn't also address other
> > needs; that doesn't mean those secondary aspects were part of the
> > original impetus to religions' development.
>
> And my point is that those things you call "secondary aspects" are in fact
> the primary ones. I don't think that "God created the universe" is the
> primary point in believing God. To me, it seems that the sense of
> community, the sense of unity, the sense of common purpose -- these are
> the things that draw people to religion.
I agree. But I was address the question, "What is the origin of a
belief in God?" while you are addressing "What draws people to
*religion*?" I believe that people could as easily be drawn to
some other gathering that provides that "sense of community, the
sense of unity, the sense of common purpose ..." And, in fact,
many people are - I am thinking, as an example, of Deadheads, who
have developed a rather holistic alternative community that
includes worship (the music), common purpose, community and sense
of music, much of which comes from their shared love of the music
and the values they find within it. But their are many others.
In fact (yes, I digress), it seems to me that one of the reasons
churh-attendance among most of the tradional Christian religions
is in such sharp decline is that those traditions have become
ossified - or, at least, are no longer organically connected with
the type of society we are in the process of becoming, which -
whether we like it or not - is not one in which we are going to
be intimately involved with slaughtering our own meat, for
example.
> To use a negative example -- cults. The reason cults are so successful is
> they inevitably target people who are lost, lonely, and damaged, who have
> no social support group. By providing people with an "instant family",
> cults can be extremely seductive.
>
> Religions, corporations, and social clubs all provide this same kind of
> extended family that can give people a sense of place, purpose, and
> identity. (This can both be a positive and a negative thing.)
Yes.
> > Let me put it this way. Religion began around the campfire, during a
> > drought, when game was scare and the roots were dessicated.
>
> I suspect that religion began BEFORE there was a campfire, and a reason to
> gather around it.
You may be right. In *Beast and Man*, philosopher Mary Midgley quotes
from Jane Goodall's description of a group of chimpanzees reacting to
a heavy rainfall:
"At about noon the first heavy drops of rain began to fall. The
chimpanzees climbed out of the tree and, one after the other, plodded
up the steep grassy sloped toward the open ridge at the top.... At
that moment the storm borke. The rain was torrential and the sudden
clap of thunder, right overhead, made me jump. As if this were a
signal, one of the big males stood upright and as he swayed and
swaggered rhythmically from foot to foot I could just hear the rising
crescendo of his pant-hoots above the beating of the rain. Then he
charged off, flat-out down the slope toward the trees he had just left.
He ran some thirty yards, and then, swinging round the trunk of a small
tree to break his headlong rush, leaped into the low branches and sat
motionless.
"Almost at once two other males charged after him. One broke off a low
branch from a tree as he ran and brandished it in the air before
hurling it ahead of him. The other, as he reached the end of his run,
stood upright and rhythmically swayed the branches of a tree back and
forth, before seizing a huge branch and dragging it farther down the
slope. A fourth male, as he too charged, leaped into a tree and,
almost without breaking his speed, tore off a large branch, leaped with
it to the ground, and continued down the slope. As the last two males
called and charged down, so the one who had started the whole
performance climbed from his tree and began plodding up the slope
again. The others, who had also climbed into trees near the bottom of
the slope, followed suit. When they reached the ridge, they started
charging down all over again, one after the other, with equal vigour."
> > As for most charitable work having religious angles, of *course*
> > they do: until very recently *everything* in our society had a
> > religious angle.
>
> That seems rather simplistic to me. Do you really see no connection
> between religious activities and charitable activities?
Not if we are still discussing the intellectual origins of the
*idea* that (a) (g)God is responsible for the existence of the
universe and (especially) Man.
Geoffrey Dow
>
> Geoffrey Dow wrote:
>
> > God is a response to twin needs: curiosity and fear, an answer to
> > questions for which we had no real answers. As the answers came, so
> > God has been pushed aside. His lingering at the centre of the
> > universe in the distant past is little more than a sign that human
> > beings in general still have not the courage to say, "I don't know."
>
> I don't know. My God isn't a response to either curiosity or fear. He's
> a response to a romantic nature and to a logical mindset, and
> occasionally as a cheap literary device.
But, of course, you don't believe in your God, you just wish you did.
Our branch of the discussion reminds me of a scene in *Catch-22*, in
which Yossarian and a woman with whom he was having an affair disccussed
religion. Both had agreed they were Atheists, but Yossarian took things
a step too far, claiming the God he didn't believe was, in essence, a
malignant thug. His lover got very upset. "The God *you* don't believe
in may be hateful, but the God *I* don't believe in is a kind and
loving God."
But I digress.
> I suppose you might consider
> the first to be evidence of a unackowledged fear of the universe being
> simply physical and objective, and I know you don't see the logic in
> God's existence over God's inexistence. Maybe this is why you can only
> conceive of God in terms of how historically, people have created Him
> for utilitarian purposes. That is all you see.
>
> You think God is a product of curiosity and fear. I suggest that your
> athiesm is a product of two things: your disgust with stupid people, and
> by association their creation of Gods to explain truths, and a failure
> of imagination. You cannot imagine a God that is not created for a
> stupid reason, so to not be stupid yourself, you must have no God.
I don't think curiosity and fear are stupid reasons for the origin
of God at all. When were were huddled around campfires (or before)
and our knowledge of the cosmos didn't extend beyond the hill past
the lake, a pantheon of arbitrary gods was an imaginative,
comforting and not-too-unreasonable response.
> > How can I *know* god doesn't exist? I can't, of course. But there
>
> This is a logical argument for agnosticism, not athiesm.
This is true. However, my technical agnosticism is similar to
my admission I can't prove (for example) that you exist. I am
so close to certain you do that I will not spend any time worrying
about the philosophy-101 question that you might not. So too,
with the existence of God.
> > are all kinds of things I can't prove don't exist. But at a certain
> > point you have to say, "That's a silly idea and there is no evidence
> > that it *does* exist, so I am going to assume that it doesn't."
>
> This does not follow. God isn't a leprechaun. There is plenty of
> evidence that God exists. The mere fact that 95% of the human population
> believes in a God is circumstancial evidence that God *might* exist. You
> also have plenty of alleged witnesses to God's miracles.
There are also plenty of alleged witnesses to UFOs, showers of frogs
and secret mircrowave broadcasts by the CIA as part of a Communist
plot to control the world. That is why (by the way), I have recently
lined my apartment walls with tin-foil.
> The fact that the universe exists at all is evidence that the universe
> has a creator.
The fact the universe exists is evidence that it exists, that's all.
> What other physical thing exists in your life that has no
> creator? There's no precedent. All of this: circumstancial evidence from
> 95% of the world; specific testimony from God's witnesses; and the
> damning fact that you have absolutely no physical precedent for your own
> belief do not add up to (quote) "no evidence".
This is a very sophistic argument. In the sense you are speaking of,
*I* don't have a creator; I am a result of biological process, as are
you. Theories about the origin of the earth itself (now backed up
with photographic evidence courtesy of the Hubble telescope) indicate
it came to be without the help of a guiding hand. And the testimony
of the "majority". (Jesus. I think that has to be the very first
time you have enlisted "what people think" to buttress one of your
arguments!)
> What the evidence does add up to is a massive psychological need on your
> part to be an athiest at all costs. It's part of your self-esteem. This
> is the only explanation that explains why you characterize a shitload of
> real but inconclusive evidence as "no evidence". You are the same as
> Nik, magically eliminating 20% of people who are right so you can become
> a big flag-waver for mediocrity as humanity's inescapable lot.
See above. Your "evidence" is circumstantial at the very best.
> > "What good has ever come to you as an athiest that is beyond my grasp
> > through any other means?" What does that question mean?
> >
> > There is no superior entity that exists to reward anyone for being
> > right. The question is non-sensical.
>
> I asked that non-sensical question on purpose. It highlights the fact
> that there is no reward for complete dismissal of God. Your suggestion
> that believing in God has a negative impact on investigation is
> nonsense.
No, it's not. Pre-conceived assumptions about the nature of a
phenomenon's origin have a tendency (this isn't always true, but
it often is) to deflect or even halt investigation if the answers
begin to get uncomfortable.
> You do know that you can accept science and God simultaneously
> right? Believing in a possible great creator behind the curtain of
> everything does not automatically preclude the most intense,
> uncompromising scrutiny of the physical universe?
As I said above, the two are not necessarily incompatible but they
are contradictory.
> > Answering the question, "How did the universe come to exist?" with the
> > answer "God" merely pushes the question back a step. "What created
> > God?"
>
> I don't know. But it is much easier for me to conceive of a God with no
> creator than a physical event with no creator. As I said, you have no
> precedent, therefore, your solution is nothing more than a fantasy, too.
> It is the vigor with which you defend your fantasy to the point of
> complete athiesm over the more reasonable agnosticism that raises the
> red flag of probability in my mind that you are just psychologically
> dependent on an irrational faith in No-God.
The only statement of interest in your final paragraph is your statement
that you can more easily conceive of an un-moved mover than you can an
un-moved cosmos. That makes no logical sense; why is a magic un-created
being more likely than a physical, un-created cosmos? At very best,
they are equivelant. However, I am forced to suggest that your own
argument that there are no precedents should apply to your leprechaun
as they do to my singularity.
Geoffrey Dow
and, as I stooped to pick up the Globe, already waiting on my door-step,
I was vaguelly amused by the seeming irony of the juxtoposition of the
two states of being. Following my release, I stooped again, this time
before a bottom cupboard, where I keep bottles of cranberry juice. As
I reached in, a mouse came within inches of scrambling across my hand
in a (succesful) effort to escape me.
As I quenched the fires of my bitterness with bitter juice, I thought,
the Mouse too seeks to live.
SCK wrote:
>
> Geoffrey Dow wrote:
>
> I think you must secretly believe in some form of life after death. What
> aspect of me do you believe still exists after death to regret or care
> about my decision?
None. Your decomposing molecules have no sense of self.
> Let's examine decision-making logic a little with an example. Pretend I
> am considering going to Toronto and want to decide how. This will be
> incredibly boring for everyone on the planet except for you and me.
Look. Ending my life and visiting Toronto are not (logically)
equivalent concepts, not in any meaningful sense of the term.
Your point Z - visiting Toronto - includes your self-awareness; my
point Z - being dead - does not. While your examples may work on
a graph they are not comparable except, perhaps, as an exercise in
formal logic. As you (I am sure) are well aware, one can logically
"prove" anything, provided the premise allows for it.
> Before you respond to this with a denial, please consider whether any of
> your specific arguments are at Point X on the timeline. If they are,
> they are *logically voided* by existential Point Z. You can only
> *logically* argue this question from the position of Point Z, that I
> have overlooked something at Point Z. I'll save you the trouble. Your
> only logical argument from Point Z is that some form of emotive life
> exists after death.
I don't argue from the point of view of what I am not but of what
I am. Therefore, it would be illogical for me to base any decision
on the fact that (someday) I will die. What you are missing in
your attempt to end my life is that I am alive *now* and wish to
remain so. *That* is my premise and any logical argument in
favour of suicide has to begin there.
SCK
>
> But, of course, you don't believe in your God, you just wish you did.
>
That is a hard implication to answer to. I am pretty sure I do believe
in my God though.
And last night I started believing in weird, amorphous dark creatures
who take possession of your body during nightmares. I have had three
nightmares in the last two weeks, which is unusual for me because
ordinarily I have a nightmare maybe once in six months if I am lucky.
But last night I woke up in time to catch this almost-transparent
creature leave my body and walk through the doorway.
> > > How can I *know* god doesn't exist? I can't, of course. But there
> >
> > This is a logical argument for agnosticism, not athiesm.
>
> This is true. However, my technical agnosticism is similar to
> my admission I can't prove (for example) that you exist. I am
> so close to certain you do that I will not spend any time worrying
> about the philosophy-101 question that you might not. So too,
> with the existence of God.
>
Is it a philosophy-101 question that I don't exist? I'm not sure it is.
Or rather, it may be a 101 question, but I don't think it's a 101
answer. If I recall correctly, this was one of the things that
preoccupied Descartes for a long time.
How do you know I exist but God doesn't, without applying the same rules
to which you think I exist to God, since God does not, by definition,
have those rules apply to him?
> > This does not follow. God isn't a leprechaun. There is plenty of
> > evidence that God exists. The mere fact that 95% of the human population
> > believes in a God is circumstancial evidence that God *might* exist. You
> > also have plenty of alleged witnesses to God's miracles.
>
> There are also plenty of alleged witnesses to UFOs, showers of frogs
> and secret mircrowave broadcasts by the CIA as part of a Communist
> plot to control the world.
So what? Maybe those things all exist too. There's plenty of scientific
reason to think UFOs exist, I have also read some compelling scientific
explanations for frog-rains and in fact, I (perhaps mistakenly) thought
they had been proven to exist a long time ago.
> > The fact that the universe exists at all is evidence that the universe
> > has a creator.
>
> The fact the universe exists is evidence that it exists, that's all.
>
I disagree. The fact that the universe exists is proof that somehow it
was created. But again, I welcome any precedents you may have where
physical events exist without progenitors.
Personally, trying to pretend I am an athiest for a moment and think on
the level of theoretical quantum physics, the only conceivable
explanation I can come up with where thet universe has no creator is if
the universe has always existed. For the universe to have always
existed, time must not be linear but a circle, or -whoa- time doesn't
exist at all.
> > What other physical thing exists in your life that has no
> > creator? There's no precedent. All of this: circumstancial evidence from
> > 95% of the world; specific testimony from God's witnesses; and the
> > damning fact that you have absolutely no physical precedent for your own
> > belief do not add up to (quote) "no evidence".
>
> This is a very sophistic argument. In the sense you are speaking of,
> *I* don't have a creator; I am a result of biological process, as are
> you. Theories about the origin of the earth itself (now backed up
You don't have a creator? I hope I don't have to explain reproductive
biology to you, this could be embarrassing. Here young lad, come and sit
upon my knee while I tell you a story. Your mom and dad created you.
Your dad made a small contribution, and then your mom grew you in her
belly, son.
You are just being weaselly. Your existence has a traceable progenitor.
You believe the universe does not, but you have no scientific precedent
for that possibility anywhere. So you believe in a fantasy.
> The only statement of interest in your final paragraph is your statement
> that you can more easily conceive of an un-moved mover than you can an
> un-moved cosmos. That makes no logical sense; why is a magic un-created
> being more likely than a physical, un-created cosmos? At very best,
> they are equivelant.
They are not equivalent, but perhaps that is just an element of
language. The definition of (and my conception of) "God" includes the
ability to do or be something that has no explanation or precedent or
creator. The definition of God includes his super powers that defy
physics. The definition of a physical event in space/time does not
include having super powers that defy physics.
If you believe in an "un-moved cosmos" then you are actually believing
in something that has more elements in common with the definition of God
than with the definition of a physical event. There is no definition of
a physical event where it is not a reaction to a preceding physical
event. Therefore, I humbly suggest that any "un-moved" anything has the
same thing at its root, you just don't like calling it "God" so you have
ascribed the extraordinary super power to physics to defy physics itself
instead. You may as well just be honest and call it God.
But I guess you just like being an athiest, and Nik likes being a
Buddhist, and I like being a French porn star.
SCK
> As I quenched the fires of my bitterness with bitter juice, I thought,
> the Mouse too seeks to live.
>
The mouse seeks to live out of instinct innate in its biology --
precisely because it is incapable of logic.
> Look. Ending my life and visiting Toronto are not (logically)
> equivalent concepts, not in any meaningful sense of the term.
>
Correct, they are not equivalent concepts, but the decision-making
process is always consistent when we are talking about logic. If it
weren't, then it would not be logic, you would have to admit to an
emotional need to decide some things with different processes as it
suits you. That's not logic.
In logic, your decision making process remains consistent regardless of
you or the subject. To be logical, you can consider only the points
*beyond the decision point*. Considering any point or awareness prior to
the decision point is bias. You may still be following a very good
reasoning process, but it is not logical the moment you introduce
personal bias.
> Your point Z - visiting Toronto - includes your self-awareness; my
> point Z - being dead - does not. While your examples may work on
> a graph they are not comparable except, perhaps, as an exercise in
> formal logic. As you (I am sure) are well aware, one can logically
> "prove" anything, provided the premise allows for it.
>
It is an exercise in formal logic, otherwise I would be telling you you
should kill yourself instead of just telling you it's logical to kill
yourself.
We have to get past your poor understanding of logic before I start the
argument in favour of actually killing you.
> > Before you respond to this with a denial, please consider whether any of
> > your specific arguments are at Point X on the timeline. If they are,
> > they are *logically voided* by existential Point Z. You can only
> > *logically* argue this question from the position of Point Z, that I
> > have overlooked something at Point Z. I'll save you the trouble. Your
> > only logical argument from Point Z is that some form of emotive life
> > exists after death.
>
> I don't argue from the point of view of what I am not but of what
> I am. Therefore, it would be illogical for me to base any decision
> on the fact that (someday) I will die. What you are missing in
> your attempt to end my life is that I am alive *now* and wish to
> remain so.
The fact that you are alive now and wish to remain so is pure bias in a
logical argument. Logic is content-neutral.
I think you may be confusing reason with logic. To give a short
illustration, reason looks at Point A and the desired Point B and asks
what steps you have to take to go from Point A to Point B. That's it.
Most of the time, those steps are also the logical steps, so reason
almost always mirrors logic.
Maybe your Point A is that you are dissatisified with your career.
You're a forklift operator and you would rather be a Latin American
opera sensation. You follow a process of reason that tries to figure out
the best way from being a forklift operator to a Latin American
virtuouso. Maybe your first step is save money, take some singing
lessons. Then maybe you move to Honduras and work in a cabaret. OK, in
this example, you follow a reasoning process from Point A to Point B.
It's also a logical process.
However; what reason did not concern itself with in this example is the
question, "Is Point B the logical point to best solve my original
disatisfaction with Point A"? It doesn't even attempt to ask that
question, it simply accepts your personal foregone conclusion that Point
B is the desired end-point, then it tells you how to get there. This is
what you are doing when you say, "I want to live" and ignore that you
don't care if you lived after you are dead. Logic, though, has to
question your Point B. It questions whether Point B is the most logical
point out of *All Possible Points* to best address the initial problem,
and it does not care about your biased Point B.
Unfortunately, all forklift operators who want to be Latin American
opera sensations should, logically, commit suicide. However, if you
decide against that anyway, it is still possible to use perfect logic to
determine the correct path from forklift operator to Toscanini. This is
what I advise.
> *That* is my premise and any logical argument in
> favour of suicide has to begin there.
>
I cannot make a logical argument in favour of suicide that begins with
the bias that you want to live. That is not logic. You are asking for a
logical argument that follows from an incontrovertible premise. It is
the same as Orangeguy encouraging you to think as long as all of the
thinking leads to a pre-ordained conclusion. Suicide is the most
*logical* choice when there is *no bias*. If you rule out suicide as an
option, that's fine, just recognize that you are not being logical, you
are limiting your conclusions to a subset of acceptable, pre-ordained
conclusions through personal biases. My argument has never been that
that is wrong or bad, only that it's not logical. And that makes us all
irrational people in the end. To live is irrational.
Geoffrey Dow
>
> Geoffrey Dow wrote:
>
> > As I quenched the fires of my bitterness with bitter juice, I thought,
> > the Mouse too seeks to live.
>
> The mouse seeks to live out of instinct innate in its biology --
> precisely because it is incapable of logic.
Your first statement is true, your second is false. Like a human
being, a mouse seeks to live out instinct innate in its biology.
Similarly, our desire to live arises from the logic of our
biology - that is, any decision to kill ourself has to take into
account the facts of our nature if it is to be a rational/logical
decision. Anything else is pulling the wings off angels as they
dance the fandango on the head of a pin.
And, in fact, a mouse *is* capable of logic of a kind. The
logical thought of a mouse is limited and simple but it is
not simply a set of biological responses operating blindly.
> > Look. Ending my life and visiting Toronto are not (logically)
> > equivalent concepts, not in any meaningful sense of the term.
>
> Correct, they are not equivalent concepts, but the decision-making
> process is always consistent when we are talking about logic. If it
> weren't, then it would not be logic, you would have to admit to an
> emotional need to decide some things with different processes as it
> suits you. That's not logic.
Of course it would be logical to admit to our emotional needs -
they are part of who we are. Any logical thought process that
leads us to make any decision about our life that doesn't include
the consideration of our emotional state (if only to dismiss its
bleating because - in a given situation - its opinion is
worthless) is not "logical", it is the mark of a psychopath.
We are not machines and attempting to behave as if we are is (a)
self-destructive because it goes against our nature and (b) doomed
to failure, for the same reason.
> In logic, your decision making process remains consistent regardless of
> you or the subject. To be logical, you can consider only the points
> *beyond the decision point*. Considering any point or awareness prior to
> the decision point is bias. You may still be following a very good
> reasoning process, but it is not logical the moment you introduce
> personal bias.
Why, "to be logical" must only the points beyond be considered? I
don't understand this at all - how can you make a logical decision
without taking into account the factors that lead up *to* the
decision point?
Are are you simply *assuming* the decision-point as the issue from
which all else must spring?
> We have to get past your poor understanding of logic before I start the
> argument in favour of actually killing you.
Educate away.
> > I don't argue from the point of view of what I am not but of what
> > I am. Therefore, it would be illogical for me to base any decision
> > on the fact that (someday) I will die. What you are missing in
> > your attempt to end my life is that I am alive *now* and wish to
> > remain so.
>
> The fact that you are alive now and wish to remain so is pure bias in a
> logical argument. Logic is content-neutral.
And therefore useless in terms of living (or not living) my life, if I
accept your argument.
> I think you may be confusing reason with logic. To give a short
> illustration, reason looks at Point A and the desired Point B and asks
> what steps you have to take to go from Point A to Point B. That's it.
> Most of the time, those steps are also the logical steps, so reason
> almost always mirrors logic.
Perhaps I am confusing the two terms. But it seems to me that logic
is nothing but a tool that reason can and should use.
Re your example, reason might choose to circumnavigate the globe
in order to arrive at Toronto from Ottawa. Without further
information (i.e., motivation) it would be impossible to say
whether or not that was the logical way to get from Ottawa to
Toronto.
> Maybe your Point A is that you are dissatisified with your career.
> You're a forklift operator and you would rather be a Latin American
> opera sensation. You follow a process of reason that tries to figure out
> the best way from being a forklift operator to a Latin American
> virtuouso. Maybe your first step is save money, take some singing
> lessons. Then maybe you move to Honduras and work in a cabaret. OK, in
> this example, you follow a reasoning process from Point A to Point B.
> It's also a logical process.
>
> However; what reason did not concern itself with in this example is the
> question, "Is Point B the logical point to best solve my original
> disatisfaction with Point A"? It doesn't even attempt to ask that
> question, it simply accepts your personal foregone conclusion that Point
> B is the desired end-point, then it tells you how to get there. This is
> what you are doing when you say, "I want to live" and ignore that you
> don't care if you lived after you are dead. Logic, though, has to
> question your Point B. It questions whether Point B is the most logical
> point out of *All Possible Points* to best address the initial problem,
> and it does not care about your biased Point B.
Logic is not an animal - it doesn't *have* to question anything. It
is a tool.
If the fork-lift operator is rational, then logically, he will, in
fact question whether point B is the logical destination for him.
Rationalism, at least to my way of thinking includes considering
all imaginable options before setting a course of action.
In other words, rationalism is a way of thinking that includes the
use of logic. Logic, on the other hand, is an inarticulate tool,
which doesn't demand anything at all.
Your suicide example, is only "logical" from the point of view that
the end point is what matters. If I accept that - that I will be
dead and therefore all that I feel and/or think about now will no
longer matter - then of course, there is no (logical) *point* to
suffering. But this is irrelevant in the real world. My desire
to live exists and is, in fact, innate to my nature; it is logical
that I find the best way to continue to do so.
> > *That* is my premise and any logical argument in
> > favour of suicide has to begin there.
>
> I cannot make a logical argument in favour of suicide that begins with
> the bias that you want to live. That is not logic. You are asking for a
> logical argument that follows from an incontrovertible premise. It is
> the same as Orangeguy encouraging you to think as long as all of the
> thinking leads to a pre-ordained conclusion. Suicide is the most
> *logical* choice when there is *no bias*. If you rule out suicide as an
> option, that's fine, just recognize that you are not being logical, you
> are limiting your conclusions to a subset of acceptable, pre-ordained
> conclusions through personal biases. My argument has never been that
> that is wrong or bad, only that it's not logical. And that makes us all
> irrational people in the end. To live is irrational.
There is always bias. Pure logic, as you describe it, is an
abstraction. And trying to live by abstractions alone always
leads to evil.
Geoffrey Dow
>
> Geoffrey Dow wrote:
>
> > But, of course, you don't believe in your God, you just wish you did.
>
> That is a hard implication to answer to. I am pretty sure I do believe
> in my God though.
Well, what can I do? I am indeed a voice crying in the wilderness.
> And last night I started believing in weird, amorphous dark creatures
> who take possession of your body during nightmares. I have had three
> nightmares in the last two weeks, which is unusual for me because
> ordinarily I have a nightmare maybe once in six months if I am lucky.
> But last night I woke up in time to catch this almost-transparent
> creature leave my body and walk through the doorway.
That was me. You're welcome.
> > > > How can I *know* god doesn't exist? I can't, of course. But there
> > >
> > > This is a logical argument for agnosticism, not athiesm.
> >
> > This is true. However, my technical agnosticism is similar to
> > my admission I can't prove (for example) that you exist. I am
> > so close to certain you do that I will not spend any time worrying
> > about the philosophy-101 question that you might not. So too,
> > with the existence of God.
>
> Is it a philosophy-101 question that I don't exist? I'm not sure it is.
> Or rather, it may be a 101 question, but I don't think it's a 101
> answer. If I recall correctly, this was one of the things that
> preoccupied Descartes for a long time.
I decided quite some time ago that that sort of unanswerable question
doesn't much interest me; if I can bark my shin on it, I am going to
assume that the table really exists unless shown significant evidence
to the contrary. That may not be good philosophy, but it keeps me
happy.
> How do you know I exist but God doesn't, without applying the same rules
> to which you think I exist to God, since God does not, by definition,
> have those rules apply to him?
So the universe exists as a result of magic fiat? I'd just as soon
not believe that unless some awfully compelling evidence shows up.
> > > This does not follow. God isn't a leprechaun. There is plenty of
> > > evidence that God exists. The mere fact that 95% of the human population
> > > believes in a God is circumstancial evidence that God *might* exist. You
> > > also have plenty of alleged witnesses to God's miracles.
> >
> > There are also plenty of alleged witnesses to UFOs, showers of frogs
> > and secret mircrowave broadcasts by the CIA as part of a Communist
> > plot to control the world.
>
> So what? Maybe those things all exist too. There's plenty of scientific
> reason to think UFOs exist, I have also read some compelling scientific
> explanations for frog-rains and in fact, I (perhaps mistakenly) thought
> they had been proven to exist a long time ago.
Actually, there is virtually no compelling scientific reason to think
UFOs (read: flying saucers, some kind of craft from another place and/
or time) exist. There *is* a certain amount of unexplained data and
I certainly don't entirely discount the ET hypothesis but I don't find
it a compelling one. As for the frogs, I'm not sure. All the reading
I have done that claims those showers have been documented have been
books that were unreliable. But the whirwind explanation at least
sounds plausible.
But we digress.
> > > The fact that the universe exists at all is evidence that the universe
> > > has a creator.
> >
> > The fact the universe exists is evidence that it exists, that's all.
>
> I disagree. The fact that the universe exists is proof that somehow it
> was created. But again, I welcome any precedents you may have where
> physical events exist without progenitors.
I must take issue of the word "proof" here. The cosmos' existence is,
as I said, most definitely *not* proof of anything but that it exists.
You may interpret its existence as *evidence* for a maker, of course.
As for precedents, see below.
> Personally, trying to pretend I am an athiest for a moment and think on
> the level of theoretical quantum physics, the only conceivable
> explanation I can come up with where thet universe has no creator is if
> the universe has always existed. For the universe to have always
> existed, time must not be linear but a circle, or -whoa- time doesn't
> exist at all.
Well, if I have even close to an understanding of current thinking
in quantum theory, one of the basic postulates is that the universe
spontaneously arose through a "vaccuum fluctuation" at the quantum
level. Apparently, these have been observed, but they usually
disappear within nanoseconds. The idea is that our universe emerged
from such a fluctuation that *didn't* disappear. If one of these
things can pop up out of nothing, I don't see why there couldn't be
an infinity of them. Which both eliminates any need for good *and*
means we don't have to accept that time is either circular or
non-existant.
> > > What other physical thing exists in your life that has no
> > > creator? There's no precedent. All of this: circumstancial evidence from
> > > 95% of the world; specific testimony from God's witnesses; and the
> > > damning fact that you have absolutely no physical precedent for your own
> > > belief do not add up to (quote) "no evidence".
> >
> > This is a very sophistic argument. In the sense you are speaking of,
> > *I* don't have a creator; I am a result of biological process, as are
> > you. Theories about the origin of the earth itself (now backed up
>
> You don't have a creator?
In the sense you were talking about: my parents didn't set out to
create "Geoffrey Dow" in particular (though they have every reason
to be quite pleased with what they got), but to create a child in
general.
> You are just being weaselly. Your existence has a traceable progenitor.
> You believe the universe does not, but you have no scientific precedent
> for that possibility anywhere. So you believe in a fantasy.
Again: not a conscious progenitor, magically willing me into existence.
I maintain that the existence of the cosmos is more easily explained
without a progenitor than it is with one.
> > The only statement of interest in your final paragraph is your statement
> > that you can more easily conceive of an un-moved mover than you can an
> > un-moved cosmos. That makes no logical sense; why is a magic un-created
> > being more likely than a physical, un-created cosmos? At very best,
> > they are equivelant.
>
> They are not equivalent, but perhaps that is just an element of
> language. The definition of (and my conception of) "God" includes the
> ability to do or be something that has no explanation or precedent or
> creator. The definition of God includes his super powers that defy
> physics. The definition of a physical event in space/time does not
> include having super powers that defy physics.
And you dare ask *me* for an example of a physical precedent?
Why should I believe in an (uncreated) and magical being for which
there is no precedent?
SCK
> Actually, there is virtually no compelling scientific reason to think
> UFOs (read: flying saucers, some kind of craft from another place and/
> or time) exist. There *is* a certain amount of unexplained data and
> I certainly don't entirely discount the ET hypothesis but I don't find
> it a compelling one.
The evidence for UFOs is almost insurmountable. In your own infinite
universe, the statistical probability that there exists life on other
planets and that they have amazing FTL technology to fly here is almost
100%. If you think it is something other than 99.999 (infinte 9s
attached then we have another problem, because aside from logic you also
don't understand infinity.
So UFOs are extremely likely to exist. The question of whether some hick
farmer has actually seen one is a slightly different question, but
almost as likely.
> > I disagree. The fact that the universe exists is proof that somehow it
> > was created. But again, I welcome any precedents you may have where
> > physical events exist without progenitors.
>
> I must take issue of the word "proof" here. The cosmos' existence is,
> as I said, most definitely *not* proof of anything but that it exists.
> You may interpret its existence as *evidence* for a maker, of course.
>
If you believe that the cosmos' existence does not prove it was created
by something even though you have no precedent for any event that can
exist without a creator, then how do you believe *anything*?
I mean, there is no precedent for the spontaneous appearance of woolly
mammoths charging through my house, either (unless you count COMA
people). If that isn't enough to disbelieve it (which you are telling me
it isn't), then do you also believe that these beasts could be in my
house when I get home today? Why not? You have just explained how having
no precedent doesn't matter.
> > > This is a very sophistic argument. In the sense you are speaking of,
> > > *I* don't have a creator; I am a result of biological process, as are
> > > you. Theories about the origin of the earth itself (now backed up
> >
> > You don't have a creator?
>
> In the sense you were talking about: my parents didn't set out to
> create "Geoffrey Dow" in particular (though they have every reason
> to be quite pleased with what they got), but to create a child in
> general.
>
Your parents created you physically through a biological process.
Geoffrey Dow the incredibly obtuse person was created through a
sociological and environmental process. Where's the mystery?
This is the only thing you can think of as a precedent for how events
can be created without creators, and you are willing to base your
athiesm on this incredibly flimsy weaselling?
Just out of curiosity, how do you account for the fact that Einstein --
the father of most of your beliefs in the physical universe -- believed
in God?
SCK
> > The fact that you are alive now and wish to remain so is pure bias in a
> > logical argument. Logic is content-neutral.
>
> And therefore useless in terms of living (or not living) my life, if I
> accept your argument.
>
So? What does true logic have to do with living your life? Nobody lives
in a true logical fashion.
> Re your example, reason might choose to circumnavigate the globe
> in order to arrive at Toronto from Ottawa. Without further
> information (i.e., motivation) it would be impossible to say
> whether or not that was the logical way to get from Ottawa to
> Toronto.
>
What in the world do you think motivation has to do with the most
logical way to get from Ottawa to Toronto?
I don't think you know what logic is if you are using the term
"motivation" in conjuction with it.
> Your suicide example, is only "logical" from the point of view that
> the end point is what matters. If I accept that - that I will be
> dead and therefore all that I feel and/or think about now will no
> longer matter - then of course, there is no (logical) *point* to
> suffering. But this is irrelevant in the real world.
Therein lies your problem. Your *desire* has nothing to do with what is
logical and for some reason you cannot conceptualize that. You are
simply not talking about logic. Whatever is "innate to your nature" is
irrelevant logically.
> My desire
> to live exists and is, in fact, innate to my nature; it is logical
> that I find the best way to continue to do so.
>
This sentence crystallizes what you are failing to understand about
logic. It is absolutely *not logical* to find the best was to continue
doing whatever happens to be innate to your nature. That is pure,
unadulterated IL-logic. It is emotional self-gratification.
What is the difference if it is innate to your nature to live, and
innate to your nature to like the colour blue? Or to want to eat bacon?
Do you base your logical decisions on your affinity for blue and bacon,
too? You don't seem to want to grasp that there is no substantive
difference between liking blue and liking life -- these are simply
personal biases that have nothing to do with a *logical process*.
Geoffrey Dow
>
> Geoffrey Dow wrote:
>
> > Actually, there is virtually no compelling scientific reason to think
> > UFOs (read: flying saucers, some kind of craft from another place and/
> > or time) exist. There *is* a certain amount of unexplained data and
> > I certainly don't entirely discount the ET hypothesis but I don't find
> > it a compelling one.
>
> The evidence for UFOs is almost insurmountable. In your own infinite
> universe, the statistical probability that there exists life on other
> planets and that they have amazing FTL technology to fly here is almost
> 100%. If you think it is something other than 99.999 (infinte 9s
> attached then we have another problem, because aside from logic you also
> don't understand infinity.
For a man who worships logic, you often ignore it; you are confusing
evidence for phenomenon (A) (alien spaceships) with the "statistical
probability" of life on other planets (phenemenon (B)).
To deal with (A): The evidence that aliens are visiting the Earth
are limited to eye-witness accounts of strange lights in the sky,
a few photographs of questionable lineage and a few unexplained
radar phenomena. Unless there really is an alien ship being held
in Area 51, there is no physical evidence of alien craft visiting
the Earth. (For the record, I am one of those eye-witnesses to
inexplicable lights in the sky; I nevertheless remain sceptical.)
As for (B): The likelihood of life on Earth planets remains an open
question. We know too little as yet about the formation of planets,
how common the necessary conditions are for life, how likely it is
that intelligent *and* technological life will emerge, etc. for any
statistical analysis to be much more than a wild guess.
> So UFOs are extremely likely to exist. The question of whether some hick
> farmer has actually seen one is a slightly different question, but
> almost as likely.
To reiterate: Even if there is intelligent life among the nearby
stars, it does not necessarily mean they are visiting us.
> > I must take issue of the word "proof" here. The cosmos' existence is,
> > as I said, most definitely *not* proof of anything but that it exists.
> > You may interpret its existence as *evidence* for a maker, of course.
>
> If you believe that the cosmos' existence does not prove it was created
> by something even though you have no precedent for any event that can
> exist without a creator, then how do you believe *anything*?
This reminds me of a question that baffled me throughout much of my
childhood: "If you don't believe in God, how can you believe in
anything?"
You yourself are positing an uncreated Creator - accept for the fact
you are adding magic to an already mysterious cosmos, what is the
difference between your view and mine?
> I mean, there is no precedent for the spontaneous appearance of woolly
> mammoths charging through my house, either (unless you count COMA
> people). If that isn't enough to disbelieve it (which you are telling me
> it isn't), then do you also believe that these beasts could be in my
> house when I get home today? Why not? You have just explained how having
> no precedent doesn't matter.
The lack of a precedent is irrelevant because all of the examples you
cite are *contained within the singular cosmos*. That is, the cosmos
itself is without precendent and anything within it is of a different
order of being, ie, is contained within the cosmos itself.
> Just out of curiosity, how do you account for the fact that Einstein --
> the father of most of your beliefs in the physical universe -- believed
> in God?
Lots of smart people believe lots of silly things. As a minor example,
I thought I really liked my last girlfriend until she moved in with
me for a month.
Geoffrey Dow
>
> Geoffrey Dow wrote:
>
> > > The fact that you are alive now and wish to remain so is pure bias in a
> > > logical argument. Logic is content-neutral.
> >
> > And therefore useless in terms of living (or not living) my life, if I
> > accept your argument.
>
> So? What does true logic have to do with living your life? Nobody lives
> in a true logical fashion.
Let me try this again. There is no such thing as "pure logic".
Any logical statement starts with a basic assumption, then
proceeds from there.
> > Re your example, reason might choose to circumnavigate the globe
> > in order to arrive at Toronto from Ottawa. Without further
> > information (i.e., motivation) it would be impossible to say
> > whether or not that was the logical way to get from Ottawa to
> > Toronto.
>
> What in the world do you think motivation has to do with the most
> logical way to get from Ottawa to Toronto?
>
> I don't think you know what logic is if you are using the term
> "motivation" in conjuction with it.
Motivation has do with deciding *whether* to go to Toronto. The
only way suicide is *de facto* the logical answer to pain is if
you arbitrarily decide that life doesn't matter.
Looked at from the point of view of eternity, my life doesn't
matter, as I will die eventually no matter how I live it. Looked
at from *my* point of view, my life is the most important thing
there is - it is my death that doesn't matter.
> > Your suicide example, is only "logical" from the point of view that
> > the end point is what matters. If I accept that - that I will be
> > dead and therefore all that I feel and/or think about now will no
> > longer matter - then of course, there is no (logical) *point* to
> > suffering. But this is irrelevant in the real world.
>
> Therein lies your problem. Your *desire* has nothing to do with what is
> logical and for some reason you cannot conceptualize that. You are
> simply not talking about logic. Whatever is "innate to your nature" is
> irrelevant logically.
My desire has everything to do with my actions. The only
reasonable question I can ask is: is my goal logical given
*my* a priori assumptions (eg, I want to live as long as
possible). I can also question the goal, of course, but
to ignore my personal reality in favour of some abstract
concept is lunacy.
> > My desire
> > to live exists and is, in fact, innate to my nature; it is logical
> > that I find the best way to continue to do so.
>
> This sentence crystallizes what you are failing to understand about
> logic. It is absolutely *not logical* to find the best was to continue
> doing whatever happens to be innate to your nature. That is pure,
> unadulterated IL-logic. It is emotional self-gratification.
I am not failing to understand, I am disagreeing. You are
arbitrarily deciding that the end (death) renders all before
it irrelevant and that simply isn't true. Logically, you
are arbitrarily valuing pain higher than pleasure and there
is no logical basis to do so.
> What is the difference if it is innate to your nature to live, and
> innate to your nature to like the colour blue? Or to want to eat bacon?
> Do you base your logical decisions on your affinity for blue and bacon,
> too? You don't seem to want to grasp that there is no substantive
> difference between liking blue and liking life -- these are simply
> personal biases that have nothing to do with a *logical process*.
Logical process is a means, not an end. I also like to smoke.
Logically - *given my a priori assumption* - I should quit. There
is a contradiction between my desire to live and my desire to
smoke. I used logic to realize the contradiction, but logic is
not an end in itself - it is a tool.
SCK
> > If you believe that the cosmos' existence does not prove it was created
> > by something even though you have no precedent for any event that can
> > exist without a creator, then how do you believe *anything*?
>
> This reminds me of a question that baffled me throughout much of my
> childhood: "If you don't believe in God, how can you believe in
> anything?"
>
> You yourself are positing an uncreated Creator - accept for the fact
> you are adding magic to an already mysterious cosmos, what is the
> difference between your view and mine?
>
There is no difference. But it is you, not me, who is pathologically
labelling yourself an athiest, rather than an agnostic. It is that part
of your strange, midget dichotomy that I have been taking issue with. It
is obviously an emotional need for you to be able to stamp your
insistent little athiesm boot at all costs. I think believing in God, or
at least acknowledging that you cannot have an opinion on the subject,
would represent some kind of weakness to you.
The ardour with which you maintain this claim borders on ridiculous. You
would rather believe in physics producing something that is contrary to
physics itself - for which you have no physical precedent at all -
rather than simply give due regard to a possibility. Why is God such a
terrifying theory to you, when your own theory has the exact same
magical quality of having no verifiable precedent?
At least the definition of God encompasses the magic you hate; physics
doesn't, and yet you still blindly ascribe to it the same magical
ability to have done in this instance something it has never done again:
created something out of absolute nothing.
You are a weird little man. Sometimes I want to push you out your
solarium window, just to see the look of surprise on your face. That
aghast sort of "But How Can This Possibly Happen?" look as you're
falling through the air.
> > Just out of curiosity, how do you account for the fact that Einstein --
> > the father of most of your beliefs in the physical universe -- believed
> > in God?
>
> Lots of smart people believe lots of silly things.
>
So Einstein, who understood the cosmos and quantum physics better than
you, was nevertheless misguided by a silly notion that you are smart
enough to see through?
> As a minor example,
> I thought I really liked my last girlfriend until she moved in with
> me for a month.
>
Was it because she constantly rummaged through your shelves of comic
books with thinly-veiled contempt? Did she have an intellectual handicap
in that she failed to appreciate that nude aarvark?
SCK
> > Therein lies your problem. Your *desire* has nothing to do with what is
> > logical and for some reason you cannot conceptualize that. You are
> > simply not talking about logic. Whatever is "innate to your nature" is
> > irrelevant logically.
>
> My desire has everything to do with my actions. The only
> reasonable question I can ask is: is my goal logical given
> *my* a priori assumptions (eg, I want to live as long as
> possible). I can also question the goal, of course, but
> to ignore my personal reality in favour of some abstract
> concept is lunacy.
>
What a weasel. You are starting to sound like Nik with your "personal
reality".
If your a priori assumptions matter to your logic, then you have no
logic. What if your a priori assumption is that all green things are
better than all red things? What's the difference?
If you want to pay crazed homage to any ol' assumption just because it
happens to be something you believe, then you have absolutely no logical
basis for anything. Hell, wiccans are just as logical as astrologers and
Feng Shui gurus. What makes their a priori assumptions any less valid to
their logical process than yours?
Why is this instinctual predisposition of yours any more relevant to
logic than the instinctual predisposition of a Hare Krishna, or for that
matter, a zebra or platypus? Does a zebra eat out of logic?
> I am not failing to understand, I am disagreeing. You are
> arbitrarily deciding that the end (death) renders all before
> it irrelevant and that simply isn't true. Logically, you
> are arbitrarily valuing pain higher than pleasure and there
> is no logical basis to do so.
>
It's not arbitrary. I am explaining the logical process to you. I did it
with an example of going to Toronto and of purchasing something. In both
cases, you look at the end results of your actions and whether you can
afford those consequences. In both cases, you are examining the
post-decisive state.
Suppose I have $100 and someone offers me some magic beans that cost
$100. If I only examined my current state (as you are suggesting is
logical), then I would only ask, can I afford these magic beans right
now? The answer is unequivocably yes, because I have $100 and the beans
costs $100, end of story. Then I would go away happily with my beans,
and be surprised half an hour later when I am hungry but can't afford an
apple pie. I'd wonder how this situation could have happened and I had
not noticed it.
But you don't act that way, though. When you mull your magic beans, you
project past the point of purchase. You ask yourself, after I spend the
$99 on these beans, how much will I have left, and is that a desireable
consequence for me considering the other desires I will also likely have
at that time?
I asked you why you would possibly think that suicide would have a
different logical process, but you haven't answered. Why is suicide the
exception to the process?
If your "logical" reasoning for suicide is to examine only your state of
desire *now* (I want to live) and base your decision on that, how come
you don't also buy absolutely everything you want now, the moment you
see it? Your "logical" processes contradict each other. One of them
cannot be logical.
Geoffrey Dow
>
> Geoffrey Dow wrote:
>
> > childhood: "If you don't believe in God, how can you believe in
> > anything?"
> >
> > You yourself are positing an uncreated Creator - accept for the fact
> > you are adding magic to an already mysterious cosmos, what is the
> > difference between your view and mine?
>
> There is no difference.
Yes, there is: your cosmos has two mysteries, mine has only one. I
think this is question for which Occam's Razor is the appropriate tool.
> But it is you, not me, who is pathologically
> labelling yourself an athiest, rather than an agnostic. It is that part
> of your strange, midget dichotomy that I have been taking issue with. It
> is obviously an emotional need for you to be able to stamp your
> insistent little athiesm boot at all costs. I think believing in God, or
> at least acknowledging that you cannot have an opinion on the subject,
> would represent some kind of weakness to you.
There is a germ of truth to what you say. My venom on the issue in
this forum could be likened to the sudden shift of techtonic plates,
following decades of slowly increasing pressure.
I have grown weary of always being the one to compromise. Of sitting
through weddings where the non-believing bride and groom mouth
hypocritical oaths to satisfy the inlaws; of priests showing up at
the funerals of apostate carpenters; of bowing my head at supper so
that thanks can be given to a non-existent diety, while the woman
who cooked the meal and the man who paid for it are ignored; of born-
again Christians trying to convince me they are being discriminated
against because they can't force all the kids in their childrens'
classes to share in the prayers *they* happen to think are the
true ones.
And, yes, I am tired of the disappointment I feel when otherwise
fine minds shrink from the possibility that their lives have no
objective meaning, that in fact, there probably *is* no such thing
as "objective meaning" at all.
Of *course* I can have an opinion of God. My opinion is that it is
a hypothesis with almost no tangible evidence to support it. By
definition, it cannot be disproved, but I am not going to leap into
believing it without some reason to do so.
> The ardour with which you maintain this claim borders on ridiculous. You
> would rather believe in physics producing something that is contrary to
> physics itself - for which you have no physical precedent at all -
> rather than simply give due regard to a possibility. Why is God such a
> terrifying theory to you, when your own theory has the exact same
> magical quality of having no verifiable precedent?
Physics doesn't claim to understand how the universe works, only that
it has reason to believe it is on the right track. The Big Bang (to
use the metaphor) is not "contrary to physics", it is simply a
phenomenon, incompletely understood.
If you insist upon arguing by precedent: once, the gods were
responsible for the weather; for the growth of the trees and
the crops; for the flow of rivers. Now we know better, and
God was pushed further into the background. Once, the sun and
the moon *were* gods, chasing each other across the heavens;
later, they were moved *by* the gods. Now we know better, and
God has been pushed further into the background, to become a
magical "first cause" for people unwilling to let go of their
savage ancestors' security blanket.
> At least the definition of God encompasses the magic you hate; physics
> doesn't, and yet you still blindly ascribe to it the same magical
> ability to have done in this instance something it has never done again:
> created something out of absolute nothing.
Again: there is a big difference between magic and incompletely
understood phenomena. We have 500 years of "verifiable precedent"
where a phenomenon that seemed to require magic turned out only
to require greater knowledge.
> So Einstein, who understood the cosmos and quantum physics better than
> you, was nevertheless misguided by a silly notion that you are smart
> enough to see through?
Apparently so. He also spent his life's last decades failing to
find a universal field theory and failing - in any way - to
debunk quantum physics, which he hated. He also had a failed
marriage. But really: so what?
> > As a minor example, I thought I really liked my last girlfriend
> > until she moved in with me for a month.
>
> Was it because she constantly rummaged through your shelves of comic
> books with thinly-veiled contempt? Did she have an intellectual handicap
> in that she failed to appreciate that nude aarvark?
She liked the aardvark (she reads more comics than I do). I think
what bothered her was that none of the art on my walls were partly
obscured by Certificates of Authenticity.
Geoffrey Dow
method of analysis - it is not some abstract thing, like Plato's
"Good". Logic is a mental construct, not something that physically
exists. Since it is a mental construct, it can never be separated
from context - although (and perhaps this is what makes it so
useful) it *can* be turned upon itself, in a never-ending series
of iterations.
SCK wrote:
>
> Geoffrey Dow wrote:
>
> > > Therein lies your problem. Your *desire* has nothing to do with what is
> > > logical and for some reason you cannot conceptualize that. You are
> > > simply not talking about logic. Whatever is "innate to your nature" is
> > > irrelevant logically.
> >
> > My desire has everything to do with my actions. The only
> > reasonable question I can ask is: is my goal logical given
> > *my* a priori assumptions (eg, I want to live as long as
> > possible). I can also question the goal, of course, but
> > to ignore my personal reality in favour of some abstract
> > concept is lunacy.
>
> If your a priori assumptions matter to your logic, then you have no
> logic. What if your a priori assumption is that all green things are
> better than all red things? What's the difference?
Then I ought to examine, logically, that a priori assumption: "*why*
do I think green things are better than red things?"
> If you want to pay crazed homage to any ol' assumption just because it
> happens to be something you believe, then you have absolutely no logical
> basis for anything. Hell, wiccans are just as logical as astrologers and
> Feng Shui gurus. What makes their a priori assumptions any less valid to
> their logical process than yours?
Nothing. Every logical process starts from an assumption and goes from
there. That is why I don't worship logic as a god, but merely use it
as a tool. A serious Wiccan, for instance, could put his or her
beliefs to the test, *using* logic: study 500 pot-jumpers and 500
non-pot-jumpers, ask the appropriate question (whatever that would
be - I'm not clear on why the jump over pots) and find out if their
beliefs make a difference. If it doesn't, the logical Wiccan would
either stop being one, or would test another hypothesis.
> Why is this instinctual predisposition of yours any more relevant to
> logic than the instinctual predisposition of a Hare Krishna, or for that
> matter, a zebra or platypus? Does a zebra eat out of logic?
Possibly, a zebra sometimes *doesn't* eat out of logic (there are
too many lions at this watering hole. Think I'll go elsewhere).
> > I am not failing to understand, I am disagreeing. You are
> > arbitrarily deciding that the end (death) renders all before
> > it irrelevant and that simply isn't true. Logically, you
> > are arbitrarily valuing pain higher than pleasure and there
> > is no logical basis to do so.
>
> It's not arbitrary. I am explaining the logical process to you. I did it
> with an example of going to Toronto and of purchasing something. In both
> cases, you look at the end results of your actions and whether you can
> afford those consequences. In both cases, you are examining the
> post-decisive state.
>
> Suppose I have $100 and someone offers me some magic beans that cost
> $100. If I only examined my current state (as you are suggesting is
> logical), then I would only ask, can I afford these magic beans right
> now? The answer is unequivocably yes, because I have $100 and the beans
> costs $100, end of story. Then I would go away happily with my beans,
> and be surprised half an hour later when I am hungry but can't afford an
> apple pie. I'd wonder how this situation could have happened and I had
> not noticed it.
>
> But you don't act that way, though. When you mull your magic beans, you
> project past the point of purchase. You ask yourself, after I spend the
> $99 on these beans, how much will I have left, and is that a desireable
> consequence for me considering the other desires I will also likely have
> at that time?
Exactly.
> I asked you why you would possibly think that suicide would have a
> different logical process, but you haven't answered. Why is suicide the
> exception to the process?
I don't think suicide has a different logical process. I have said
that I am unwilling to consider suicide without taking *myself* into
the equation. Just as I am unwilling to purchase magic beans
without taking myself (present and future) into the equation.
> If your "logical" reasoning for suicide is to examine only your state of
> desire *now* (I want to live) and base your decision on that, how come
> you don't also buy absolutely everything you want now, the moment you
> see it? Your "logical" processes contradict each other. One of them
> cannot be logical.
My logic process stems from the assumption, "My life is currently worth
living," so I don't see the contradiction, but never mind that. Since
there is no such thing as a "Master Logic," logical processes contradict
each other all the time; the logic of the predator and the logic of the
prey very seldom intersect, but both flow from considerations of "now"
and "later".
SCK
> There is a germ of truth to what you say. My venom on the issue in
> this forum could be likened to the sudden shift of techtonic plates,
> following decades of slowly increasing pressure.
>
> I have grown weary of always being the one to compromise. Of sitting
> through weddings where the non-believing bride and groom mouth
> hypocritical oaths to satisfy the inlaws; of priests showing up at
> the funerals of apostate carpenters; of bowing my head at supper so
> that thanks can be given to a non-existent diety, while the woman
> who cooked the meal and the man who paid for it are ignored; of born-
> again Christians trying to convince me they are being discriminated
> against because they can't force all the kids in their childrens'
> classes to share in the prayers *they* happen to think are the
> true ones.
>
I'm sure this all makes sense in a personal context, the same way that
you might hate all dogs just because my dog bites you all the time, but
what does it have to do with any actual reasoning? The hypocrisy of the
masses is your reason?
> Of *course* I can have an opinion of God. My opinion is that it is
> a hypothesis with almost no tangible evidence to support it. By
> definition, it cannot be disproved, but I am not going to leap into
> believing it without some reason to do so.
>
Well, you leap into believing your own explanation without having any
reason to do so, so why has God been singled out for Young Geoffrey's
uncompromising rain of ire? Your something-out-of-nothingness
explanation. In fact, as I have pointed out, you have more reason not to
believe that than to believe it, simply because there is plenty of
evidence that creating something out of nothing is impossible - it
contradicts the laws of physics that you hold dear. I forget which basic
law it is, but the amount of matter and energy in the universe is
constant. Matter/energy cannot be destroyed, only transformed. Sounds
like Einstein.
> Physics doesn't claim to understand how the universe works, only that
> it has reason to believe it is on the right track. The Big Bang (to
> use the metaphor) is not "contrary to physics", it is simply a
> phenomenon, incompletely understood.
>
That's silly. You accept a "phenomenon" and call it "incompletely
understood" as a reason why you accept it, but both of those things can
equally be ascribed to God too, whom you will cut no slack at all.
If physics is on the right track, how can it make a law that creating
something out of nothing is physically impossible, then contradict its
own law to explain its own creation?
>
> Again: there is a big difference between magic and incompletely
> understood phenomena.
You'll have to explain to me what the big difference is then. I just
looked up phenomenon and the dictionary called it an unaccountable fact
or occurrence: a marvel. Sounds just like magic to me, Houdini.
> > So Einstein, who understood the cosmos and quantum physics better than
> > you, was nevertheless misguided by a silly notion that you are smart
> > enough to see through?
>
> Apparently so. He also spent his life's last decades failing to
> find a universal field theory and failing - in any way - to
> debunk quantum physics, which he hated. He also had a failed
> marriage. But really: so what?
>
I just find it intriguing that the father of your beliefs in the origin
of the physical universe believed in the entity that you so adamantly do
not. It is a little like sampling everything created by a master chef
and finding it exquisite, then angrily refusing to believe him when he
tells you he also makes great Kraft Dinner. It alludes to the
possibility that you aren't be reasonable, and have instead an
obsessive, irrational hate for Kraft Dinner because it murdered your
family.
Hmm, now that I am fasting, I notice that food metaphors are making
their way into my messages. Yesterday I kept looking at my dog and
wanted to put ketchup on her.
>
> She liked the aardvark (she reads more comics than I do). I think
> what bothered her was that none of the art on my walls were partly
> obscured by Certificates of Authenticity.
>
I keep those certificates of authenticity to prove that my picture of a
woman fucking an octopus is not pornography.
I can make you a certificate if you want, maybe one that states
authoritatively that "this is not a photograph". You can stick them on
all your paintings that insanely look exactly like photos. The
certificate can include a special warning for your red lantern painting
that tells people that yes, what they are looking at is actually a form
of art called "realism", and not just a pointless exercise by a
repressed troll too poor to own a camera.
SCK
> > If your a priori assumptions matter to your logic, then you have no
> > logic. What if your a priori assumption is that all green things are
> > better than all red things? What's the difference?
>
> Then I ought to examine, logically, that a priori assumption: "*why*
> do I think green things are better than red things?"
>
Really? How come? Why must an assumption you don't agree with be
examined logically, but an assumption that you do agree with slides
right on through the net?
Why should you, "logically" examine your assumption of why you think
green things are better than red things, but not examine why you think
you want to live?
Do you think of instinct as logical?
> > Why is this instinctual predisposition of yours any more relevant to
> > logic than the instinctual predisposition of a Hare Krishna, or for that
> > matter, a zebra or platypus? Does a zebra eat out of logic?
>
> Possibly, a zebra sometimes *doesn't* eat out of logic (there are
> too many lions at this watering hole. Think I'll go elsewhere).
>
You're telling me that a zebra doesn't eat at a lion-crowded watering
hole out of *logic*? The zebra actually thinks in its striped little
zebra brain, "Whoa, count those motherfuckers, one, two, three, four,
four lions. Four lions is just too many, when Ed drank at a watering
hole with four lions, all they found were his hooves. I better scram."
You may be crazy.
> > I asked you why you would possibly think that suicide would have a
> > different logical process, but you haven't answered. Why is suicide the
> > exception to the process?
>
> I don't think suicide has a different logical process. I have said
> that I am unwilling to consider suicide without taking *myself* into
> the equation. Just as I am unwilling to purchase magic beans
> without taking myself (present and future) into the equation.
>
In the magic beans scenario you are willing to admit you consider your
present desires but they are mitigated by your future ones. In the
suicide example, you give absolutely no consideration to your future
desires and weigh the whole of the logical process upon the present. You
think this is the same process?
Now I'm sitting here picturing you holding up one of those scales of
justice type balances, in a very unseductive pose, with all your weights
piled on one side of the balance and telling me you are being rational.
Of course, you're also telling me that zebras make decisions on logic.
Now I'm picturing you being too short to actually hold up the balance,
and so the platters just kind of sit on the floor with slack chains even
though you're on your toes.
I sense that what is beyond your conceptualization in the suicide
example, is that even though there is no you in the future part of this
equation, this is irrelevant to the logical process. For your decision
to be logical, your logical process must remain consistent across the
board, regardless of the question under consideration, and the weights
upon "now" and upon "after" must be exactly equal. Otherwise your
decision is simply personal preference in some complicated disguise.
You're playing some weird little game that allows you to shift the
weights around unevenly, and in this case, sneaking them all over to the
"now" side with a lot of emotional smoke and mirrors.
So how long do you figure it will be before zebras reproduce the
complete works of Plato?
orangefree89
<geoff...@sympatico.ca> wrote:
>>Amidst all the bombast, I was trying to make a serious point. I will
>>quote something you wrote in another thread today:
>>
>> I can't help myself. You didn't find *Dhalgren* "vague,
>> directionless, and muddy" - you found the first 20 *pages* (out of
>> 879) "vague, directionless and muddy." It may well be you would
>> describe the book itself the same way, but you haven't read enough
>> of it to have an educated opinion about the novel as a whole.
>>
>>And then:
>>
>> And I think you're entitled to yours. But it is difficult for me
>> to respect an uneducated opinion.
>>
>>I couldn't agree more -- if we apply what you have written to
>>yourself. To me, you appear as someone passing judgment on a 10,000
>>page book (or, rather, a book whose ending we can't reach) after
>>having read only the first 20 pages.
>>
>>I was simply trying to hold up a mirror.
>
> Apparently you had to hit me over the head with it, but I take your
> point.
But apparently I didn't hit you hard enough. So here we go again.
You wrote (5 minutes later?):
>If you insist upon arguing by precedent: once, the gods were
>responsible for the weather; for the growth of the trees and
>the crops; for the flow of rivers. Now we know better, and
>God was pushed further into the background.
The Orthodox still pray "for favourable weather, an abundance of the
fruits of the earth, and temperate seasons". So do Anglicans for that
matter.
> Once, the sun and the moon *were* gods, chasing each other across the
> heavens; later, they were moved *by* the gods. Now we know better,
> and God has been pushed further into the background, to become a
> magical "first cause" for people unwilling to let go of their savage
> ancestors' security blanket.
This I find more than a little insulting and not a little bit silly.
First of all, Christianity arose before anybody could really prove
that the sun and the moon weren't, or weren't moved by, gods. And
Christian theologians had little or nothing to say on the subject.
Or, rather, they denied that the gods existed, but they did not
purport to set up an alternate explanation. Why? Because -- and I am
repeating myself -- Christianity is not about explaining the physical
world around us. As St Augustine wrote:
One does not read in the Gospel that the Lord said: I will send
you the Paraclete who will teach you about the course of the sun
and moon. For He willed to make them Christians, not
mathematicians.
Second, leave off your cheap psychologizing. It is a stupid game that
two can play -- but shouldn't. ("Oh, those atheists -- they can't
deal with reality, so they invent a world with no god where they don't
have to live with the demands placed on them by the deity. They can
live a life without obligation, without responsibility. What must it
be like to live such a carefree, irresponsible existence?" As an
interesting aside, remember that the fearless atheist Nietzsche -- as
far as I can tell -- felt it necessary to invent the myth of the
eternal return because it gave weight to our existence (as Woody Allen
said "That means I'll have to sit through Ice Capades again"). See
*Thus Spoke Zarathustra*.)
Third, I suggest you look up the meaning of "first cause" as it is
used by theologians like Aquinas. You are almost certainly mis-using
the term.
Last, you are more ignorant than I would have thought if you think
that the Faith is a security blanket. For it is written "It is a
fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God".
Geoffrey Dow
>
> On Tue, 12 Jun 2001 15:29:23 -0400, Geoffrey Dow
> <geoff...@sympatico.ca> wrote:
>
> >>20 pages of Dhalgren before venturing an opinion on the book
> >>itself]
> >><...> I was simply trying to hold up a mirror.
> >
> > Apparently you had to hit me over the head with it, but I take your
> > point.
>
> But apparently I didn't hit you hard enough. So here we go again.
>
> You wrote (5 minutes later?):
>
> >If you insist upon arguing by precedent: once, the gods were
> >responsible for the weather; for the growth of the trees and
> >the crops; for the flow of rivers. Now we know better, and
> >God was pushed further into the background.
>
> The Orthodox still pray "for favourable weather, an abundance of the
> fruits of the earth, and temperate seasons". So do Anglicans for that
> matter.
Yes, but I don't think many of them really believe God waters the
crops based upon a complex calculation of the number of prayers
he has received from a particular area - do they? I'm pretty
sure most Christians believe that it rains upon the just and the
unjust, but correct me if I'm wrong.
> > Once, the sun and the moon *were* gods, chasing each other across the
> > heavens; later, they were moved *by* the gods. Now we know better,
> > and God has been pushed further into the background, to become a
> > magical "first cause" for people unwilling to let go of their savage
> > ancestors' security blanket.
>
> This I find more than a little insulting and not a little bit silly.
That is why I usually keep my mouth shut on the topic, preferring
to just say, "I don't believe in God," and leave it at that. Why
is it that religious people seem to have little compunction about
informing me I am doomed to the fires of hell (metaphoric or literal,
depending on the particular person who has so consigned me) but get
offended when I respond with what I really think?
Incidentally, I was thinking more of SCK than I was of you. In a
way, I can more easily respect someone who simply "has faith" in
God than I do those who claim their belief has an evidenciary basis.
> First of all, Christianity arose before anybody could really prove
> that the sun and the moon weren't, or weren't moved by, gods. And
> Christian theologians had little or nothing to say on the subject.
> Or, rather, they denied that the gods existed, but they did not
> purport to set up an alternate explanation. Why? Because -- and I am
> repeating myself -- Christianity is not about explaining the physical
> world around us. As St Augustine wrote:
>
> One does not read in the Gospel that the Lord said: I will send
> you the Paraclete who will teach you about the course of the sun
> and moon. For He willed to make them Christians, not
> mathematicians.
Christianity still maintains the cosmos was *caused* by God, doesn't
it? Or is it flexible enough to accept even the Big Bang? (I know,
there is a hell of a range to Christianity, from Stockwell Day's
fundamentalist literalism, to the Catholic Church's recent
statement that the theory of evolution does not necessarily
contradict Holy Scripture, to those weird Anglicans who don't
necesarily believe in the divinity of Christ at all. Unless I
say otherwise, please assume I am talking about the larger,
mainstream churches.) If Christianity *is* willing to forgo
God's role as a creator, what is left? At the risk of offending
you again, what is there that should convince me God is anything
but a concept that provides psychological comfort - "meaning" -
for people?
> Second, leave off your cheap psychologizing. It is a stupid game that
> two can play -- but shouldn't. ("Oh, those atheists -- they can't
> deal with reality, so they invent a world with no god where they don't
> have to live with the demands placed on them by the deity. They can
> live a life without obligation, without responsibility. What must it
> be like to live such a carefree, irresponsible existence?" As an
> interesting aside, remember that the fearless atheist Nietzsche -- as
> far as I can tell -- felt it necessary to invent the myth of the
> eternal return because it gave weight to our existence (as Woody Allen
> said "That means I'll have to sit through Ice Capades again"). See
> *Thus Spoke Zarathustra*.)
I don't think I could stomach reading any more Nietzsche - and not
just because I have such a hard time spelling his name. Nietzsche
has long struck me as someone unable to face the implications of his
own loss of faith.
> Third, I suggest you look up the meaning of "first cause" as it is
> used by theologians like Aquinas. You are almost certainly mis-using
> the term.
I was using it more along the lines that Plato and Aristotle did.
What did Aquinas mean by it?
> Last, you are more ignorant than I would have thought if you think
> that the Faith is a security blanket. For it is written "It is a
> fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God".
Uh, yes.
Seriously, I stand by my cheap psychologizing: I think that, for *most*
people, at least, religion provides an answer to the questions that
so frightened Nietzsche, and that that is a comfort to them.
Geoffrey Dow
>
> Geoffrey Dow wrote:
>
>
> I'm sure this all makes sense in a personal context, the same way that
> you might hate all dogs just because my dog bites you all the time, but
> what does it have to do with any actual reasoning? The hypocrisy of the
> masses is your reason?
Yes, I was trying to explain the emotional context for the harshness
of my tone; I think the only thing wrong with my reasoning is that I
have not been clear enough to properly communicate it.
> > Of *course* I can have an opinion of God. My opinion is that it is
> > a hypothesis with almost no tangible evidence to support it. By
> > definition, it cannot be disproved, but I am not going to leap into
> > believing it without some reason to do so.
> Well, you leap into believing your own explanation without having any
> reason to do so, so why has God been singled out for Young Geoffrey's
> uncompromising rain of ire?
What young Geoffrey believes: 1) the precise mechanism of creation
is not yet known, but given that everything we *have* figured out
has physical causes that appear to follow universal laws; and given
that the list of such known phenemona grows with each passing day,
it seems likely the cosmos itself has an explanation that is in
principle, open to scientific analysis. 2) God as an explanation
is not an explanation at all, as it merely pushes the mystery of
creation back a step and then baldly declares God's origin as
something *a priori* beyond the bounds of scientific explanation
> Your something-out-of-nothingness
> explanation. In fact, as I have pointed out, you have more reason not to
> believe that than to believe it, simply because there is plenty of
> evidence that creating something out of nothing is impossible - it
> contradicts the laws of physics that you hold dear. I forget which basic
> law it is, but the amount of matter and energy in the universe is
> constant. Matter/energy cannot be destroyed, only transformed. Sounds
> like Einstein.
I don't pretend to understand it, but there is recent evidence that
the laws of conservation of energy don't necessarily apply at the
quantum level. Apparently, energy *is* appearing from nothing
quite regularly at the quantum level (so far, it appears that it
also *very* quickly disappears again). Some physicists speculate that
our universe may bear a relationship to this phenomenon.
> > Physics doesn't claim to understand how the universe works, only that
> > it has reason to believe it is on the right track. The Big Bang (to
> > use the metaphor) is not "contrary to physics", it is simply a
> > phenomenon, incompletely understood.
> That's silly. You accept a "phenomenon" and call it "incompletely
> understood" as a reason why you accept it, but both of those things can
> equally be ascribed to God too, whom you will cut no slack at all.
The motion of the planets among the fixed stars is a phenomenon.
For centuries it was incompletely understood and now it has been
largely explained. Why should I assume that what is known now
about the origin of the cosmos is all that ever *will be known?
Why should I *believe* in the God hypothesis, when the historical
record shows that God has consistently been pushed further and
further back in terms of explaining natural phenomena?
> If physics is on the right track, how can it make a law that creating
> something out of nothing is physically impossible, then contradict its
> own law to explain its own creation?
Any physicist will tell you they haven't figured it out yet. Perhaps
the conservation of energy law is wrong; perhaps it doesn't apply in
certain special situations; perhaps there is something in the nature
of the cosmos we have not yet guessed at that will prove there is no
contradiction. Saying, "I don't know," and then waiting for more
evidence to come in seems to me a great deal more sensible than just
shrugging my shoulders and calling it "god".
> You'll have to explain to me what the big difference is then. I just
> looked up phenomenon and the dictionary called it an unaccountable fact
> or occurrence: a marvel. Sounds just like magic to me, Houdini.
I think I did, above. The historical record suggests that a mystery
today is a grade 6 science lesson tomorrow.
> I just find it intriguing that the father of your beliefs in the origin
> of the physical universe believed in the entity that you so adamantly do
> not. It is a little like sampling everything created by a master chef
> and finding it exquisite, then angrily refusing to believe him when he
> tells you he also makes great Kraft Dinner. It alludes to the
> possibility that you aren't be reasonable, and have instead an
> obsessive, irrational hate for Kraft Dinner because it murdered your
> family.
I think it suggests that "great Kraft Dinner" is an oxymoron -
perhaps it is the chef who is delusional, enjoying Kraft Dinner
because it reminds him of those cold evenings when he came home
from school after being chased all the way by the local thugs
and was comforted by his mother and a great big bowl of Kraft
Dinner.
Incidentally, why are you fasting? If you keep it up do you
expect your food images to appear with increasing frequency,
until your posts become some weird combination of gastronomy
and pornography?
> I keep those certificates of authenticity to prove that my picture of a
> woman fucking an octopus is not pornography.
I thought it proved it was authentic pornography.
> I can make you a certificate if you want, maybe one that states
> authoritatively that "this is not a photograph". You can stick them on
> all your paintings that insanely look exactly like photos. The
> certificate can include a special warning for your red lantern painting
> that tells people that yes, what they are looking at is actually a form
> of art called "realism", and not just a pointless exercise by a
> repressed troll too poor to own a camera.
I would prefer you make make like the wizard of Oz and send me a
certificate testifying to the fact I have a sense of humour. It
won't make me able to get jokes, I suppose, but hopefully I can
show it to nubile young women and so convince them I am not laughing
due to a hormonal imbalance.
Nikolaus Maack
> At the risk of offending
> you again, what is there that should convince me God is anything
> but a concept that provides psychological comfort - "meaning" -
> for people?
Science provides meaning too, in that Star Trek "we must explore!" kind of
way. There's really no reason to care about quantuum particles, unless
you believe that knowing stuff is important. Romance provides meaning.
Is love all that big a deal? Is it necessary? Surrealism provides
meaning. Art is an attempt to wake up the unconscious. Hell, all
philosophies, of any sort, create MEANING in the world.
There may or may not be any meaning in the universe at all. Philosophy
provides guidance. Pick one. The meaning then appears in the universe,
like magic.
This is postmodern thought. It offends you because you believe (or seem
to believe) that your one particular approach to reality is "true". And
it is. But so is mine. And so is the approach of that fundementalist you
hate so much. He'll try to convince you to eat his philosophy while you
try to convince him to eat yours.
I can tell this approach makes you really angry. It undermines your
beliefs and makes a mockery of objective reality. Ha ha, too bad.
I have some friends who really dislike political correctness. They'll
quote crazy feminists and insane judicial rulings that demonstrate that
natives are just as prone to stupidity as white people, that homosexuals
aren't any more friendly than straights. They do this all the time. Why?
Because they have a desperate need to reinforce their own philosophies.
Because they feel that these groups see them (white, heterosexual men) as
the bad guys, and they want to defend themselves. Because they're
incredibly insecure about who and what they are. They worry that someone
is going to take it all away from them.
"I don't have any more power than anyone else, just because I'm a white
heterosexual male!" they laugh.
This is what happens when philosophies collide. Is it really so important
to you that your philosophy (objective, materialist) win over all other
philosophies (spiritualism, religion, mysticism)? If so, why?
"Because I'm right and they're wrong!"
That kind of thinking comes out of insecurity and fear. Why not think,
"I'm right, and they're over there"?
And who says you have to put up with Christian moralizing? I don't know
who you're hanging out with, but if I say to people, "I'm sorry, but I'm
uncomfortable with religion, please leave me out of this, no offense,"
they'll kindly do as I ask.
Perhaps your background background plays a part of your insecurity, here?
Nik
PS.
Observe the prime directive, science boy.
Geoffrey Dow
>
> Geoffrey Dow wrote:
>
> > > If your a priori assumptions matter to your logic, then you have no
> > > logic. What if your a priori assumption is that all green things are
> > > better than all red things? What's the difference?
> >
> > Then I ought to examine, logically, that a priori assumption: "*why*
> > do I think green things are better than red things?"
>
> Really? How come? Why must an assumption you don't agree with be
> examined logically, but an assumption that you do agree with slides
> right on through the net?
You're putting words in my mouth. I think any assumption is worthy
of examination. That said, every assumption is not equally worthy
of close examination. For instance, unless you can convince me I
should not take into account my desire to live for another 50 years
when looking at the option of suicide, I won't closely examine it.
> Why should you, "logically" examine your assumption of why you think
> green things are better than red things, but not examine why you think
> you want to live?
Because I, or someone else, will suggest that prejudice is irrational
and so I will examine it. In an ideal world, I would re-examine all
of my beliefs, checking to see whether they continue to make sense,
whenever any new data appeared. In the real world, I don't have
enough time for that, so I examine this, that or the other thing,
make a decision and then assume it is correct unless a significant
reason for re-examination appears.
> Do you think of instinct as logical?
No. I think instinct is mechanical in nature. However, instinct
can lead to logic. For instance, the human instinct we call
curiosity has helped to develop formal logical systems of thought
such as science.
> > > Why is this instinctual predisposition of yours any more relevant to
> > > logic than the instinctual predisposition of a Hare Krishna, or for that
> > > matter, a zebra or platypus? Does a zebra eat out of logic?
> >
> > Possibly, a zebra sometimes *doesn't* eat out of logic (there are
> > too many lions at this watering hole. Think I'll go elsewhere).
>
> You're telling me that a zebra doesn't eat at a lion-crowded watering
> hole out of *logic*? The zebra actually thinks in its striped little
> zebra brain, "Whoa, count those motherfuckers, one, two, three, four,
> four lions. Four lions is just too many, when Ed drank at a watering
> hole with four lions, all they found were his hooves. I better scram."
>
> You may be crazy.
Possibly. I *have* examined that hypothesis on more than one occasion
and will likely do so again; my beliefs and behaviour are in some
ways far enough outside the norm the question arises fairly often.
I've got to learn to stop using illustrative examples with you people.
I don't know much about zebras or how intelligent they are. I would
not be surprised to learn they exercise a primitive form of sentient
logic, but I would also not be surprised to learn they operate
essentially mechanistically. That is: lion = run. (But are there
not often apparent truces at watering holes in times of drought on
the African savanah? If so, that to me would imply a certain level
of conscious decision-making.)
> > > I asked you why you would possibly think that suicide would have a
> > > different logical process, but you haven't answered. Why is suicide the
> > > exception to the process?
> >
> > I don't think suicide has a different logical process. I have said
> > that I am unwilling to consider suicide without taking *myself* into
> > the equation. Just as I am unwilling to purchase magic beans
> > without taking myself (present and future) into the equation.
>
> In the magic beans scenario you are willing to admit you consider your
> present desires but they are mitigated by your future ones. In the
> suicide example, you give absolutely no consideration to your future
> desires and weigh the whole of the logical process upon the present. You
> think this is the same process?
For the second time in a week, I think I may have (finally) figured
out why I appear to be having such a hard time communicating with
someone out here. Allow me to restate your case, as well as mine, so
that we may figure out whether I understand your point. (I trust you
will not take my minor eureka as a personal insult, set little traps
for me, then declare me too stupid to talk to, then follow up each of
my posts like some basement-dwelling wannabe James Hall.)
You seem to be saying that, because I will ultimately cease to exist,
the only logical viewpoint from which to exercise logic is from that
vantage point. From that, it follows that because I will ultimately
cease to exist, suicide is the most logical response to pain because,
from the point of view of eternity (my non-existence), suffering
through pain is illogical - ultimately, I won't exist to remember
the alleged reasons I now have for enduring pain.
Does that more or less re-state your argument?
If so, I think your reasoning is flawed because you are arbitrarily
assuming that my eventual non-existence is "objectively" a more valid
view-point than my existence now and over (I hope) the next 50 years.
If I am understanding you correctly, you are saying that there is
one, and only one, "correct" point of view from which to exercise
logic.
Where we seem to disagree, then, is that I believe logic *is*
situational. That is, I think one exercises logic from shifting
temporal and situational positions and that your assigning
non-existence as the "ultimate" logical base is a meaningless
intellectual exercise.
I think that looking at the possibility of suicide can be a valid
thing to do; I do not think examining the question only from the
post-suicide vantage-point is *reasonable for a human being*.
To sum up, you are making the argument from a theoretical "God's
eye" point of view, while I am looking at it from a pragmatic,
human scale. You think your position is "more logical" because
it encompasses all of our ultimate fates, while I think mine is
more logical because it encompasses everything but that ultimate
fate.
> I sense that what is beyond your conceptualization in the suicide
> example, is that even though there is no you in the future part of this
> equation, this is irrelevant to the logical process. For your decision
> to be logical, your logical process must remain consistent across the
> board, regardless of the question under consideration, and the weights
> upon "now" and upon "after" must be exactly equal. Otherwise your
> decision is simply personal preference in some complicated disguise.
> You're playing some weird little game that allows you to shift the
> weights around unevenly, and in this case, sneaking them all over to the
> "now" side with a lot of emotional smoke and mirrors.
From your theoretical point of view you are correct, but I reject
the theory that my life doesn't matter. It matters *to me* and
I must take that real (if subjective) phenomenon into account
when making decisions in the real world. If there is no "I" to
make a decision, "I" cannot exercise logic.
> So how long do you figure it will be before zebras reproduce the
> complete works of Plato?
Six months, if in your famished derangement you don't start eating them.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
"Just a popularity contest?!? What's more important than popularity."
-- Homer Simpson
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Geoffrey Dow
>
> Geoffrey Dow (geoff...@sympatico.ca) writes:
> > At the risk of offending you again, what is there that should
> > convince me God is anything but a concept that provides
> > psychological comfort - "meaning" - for people?
>
> Science provides meaning too, in that Star Trek "we must explore!" kind of
> way. There's really no reason to care about quantuum particles, unless
> you believe that knowing stuff is important. Romance provides meaning.
> Is love all that big a deal? Is it necessary? Surrealism provides
> meaning. Art is an attempt to wake up the unconscious. Hell, all
> philosophies, of any sort, create MEANING in the world.
Quite right, but it doesn't answer my question.
> There may or may not be any meaning in the universe at all. Philosophy
> provides guidance. Pick one. The meaning then appears in the universe,
> like magic.
I think there is no "meaning" to our existence or to that of the cosmos,
if you intend the term to mean what I think you do. That is why
inventing a "god" and letting "meaning" flow from that concept bothers
me. Meaning, like logic, flows from our temporal existence; it is not
handed down from on high.
> This is postmodern thought. It offends you because you believe (or seem
> to believe) that your one particular approach to reality is "true". And
> it is. But so is mine. And so is the approach of that fundementalist you
> hate so much. He'll try to convince you to eat his philosophy while you
> try to convince him to eat yours.
What "offends" me about post-modern thought (if what you expressed is
that), is not the idea that different view-points show different
aspects of reality. What "offends" me is the idea that reality is
malleable. I don't believe our perspective influences reality; it
only influences how we *interpret* it.
> I can tell this approach makes you really angry. It undermines your
> beliefs and makes a mockery of objective reality. Ha ha, too bad.
Since I wasn't even thinking of post-modernism when I wrote what you
quoted, allow me to congratulate you on your insight.
> This is what happens when philosophies collide. Is it really so important
> to you that your philosophy (objective, materialist) win over all other
> philosophies (spiritualism, religion, mysticism)? If so, why?
Are you asking me?
> "Because I'm right and they're wrong!"
Or telling me?
> That kind of thinking comes out of insecurity and fear. Why not think,
> "I'm right, and they're over there"?
Most of the time I do just that. However, the question of reality and
of "God/Goddess/Universal Consciousness/Prime Mover" is what we have
been discussing lately. If that is the topic, why shouldn't I say what
I think and, even, try to convince people that what I think is true is,
in fact, probably true? If you don't like the topic of conversation,
you don't have to participate; if you do participate, I think you should
be willing to do so without throwing a tantrum when you don't like what
is said.
> And who says you have to put up with Christian moralizing? I don't know
> who you're hanging out with, but if I say to people, "I'm sorry, but I'm
> uncomfortable with religion, please leave me out of this, no offense,"
> they'll kindly do as I ask.
>
> Perhaps your background background plays a part of your insecurity, here?
It isn't insecurity, it's politeness - which I have stopped observing
here. And it has turned into an interesting experiment.
> Observe the prime directive, science boy.
Are you suggesting that you, SCK and orangefree are inferior forms of
life that I should avoid interfering with? I think all three of you
can handle my believing things you don't like.
Nikolaus Maack
> Quite right, but it doesn't answer my question.
That's because your question is stupid. Your question is, isn't religion
just some security blanket for morons too dumb to understand that there is
no God? (You didn't phrase it that way, of course.)
The problem with this question is it's totally centred in your
perspective. It assumes that, 1) there ain't no stinking deity, and 2)
anyone who believes in make-believe is some kinda wimp. You phrase your
bias in the form of a question, which makes it look like you're being
thoughtful and questioning your beliefs. Which, clearly, you ain't.
Sometimes a sentence that ends in a question-mark is not a question. This
is one of those times.
It's like asking, "Don't all black people have rhythm?" or "Don't all TV
shows about twenty-somethings suck?" The very way the question is
phrased, you know there's no RIGHT answer. The person who asks such a
question isn't looking for an answer. They've already got it, and are
pretending to question it.
> I think there is no "meaning" to our existence or to that of the cosmos,
> if you intend the term to mean what I think you do.
Then you're a nihilist? Let's shake hands. Me too. Except then I say,
ah, what the hell -- let's believe that our beliefs shape the nothingness
into something. Because it sure does seem to work that way.
> That is why
> inventing a "god" and letting "meaning" flow from that concept bothers
> me. Meaning, like logic, flows from our temporal existence; it is not
> handed down from on high.
Like most people, you assume that God is in charge of the relationship
between Humanity and God. I would argue that this is not the case. We
aren't at His mercy. He's at our mercy.
Look what happens when he sends his kid down to chat with us. We nailed
the fucker to a cross. It was such a good time, we hang representations
of this deity-murder all over the place. Hell, we wear little versions of
it around our necks. God knows his place now, and presumably won't be
coming back in the flesh any time soon.
I'm joking but I'm not joking.
> What "offends" me about post-modern thought (if what you expressed is
> that), is not the idea that different view-points show different
> aspects of reality. What "offends" me is the idea that reality is
> malleable. I don't believe our perspective influences reality; it
> only influences how we *interpret* it.
Reality is a very big place. Some of it is malleable, and some of it
isn't. If you drop a rock, over and over again, gravity will make it hit
the ground. If you decide that murder is wrong, and convince all your
fellow humans that capital punishment is evil -- you have changed
malleable reality.
Was capital punishment evil all the time, even before you changed the
world? Or did it BECOME evil after you changed the world?
Seems to me you're assuming religion is about physics, not about capital
punishment. Perhaps therein lies your dilemma. Religion is definitely
malleable.
> Are you asking me?
[...]
> Or telling me?
Demonstrating to you what you might be doing. You yourself described how
you feel when Christians demand you play by their rules. Is this really
about belief, or is it about challenges to your identity?
I will not be a Christian!
Philosophies collide. Most of us, in an attempt to make ourselves feel
better, demand that our philosophy win. That's because our ego, our
identity, is utterly tied to our beliefs. Einstein, for example, was
enraged by quantuum mechanics. He took it VERY personally, and saw it as
a threat to all he had worked for. He said, "God does not play dice with
the universe," in response to this challenge to his identity.
Because we have so much self tied into our beliefs, when our beliefs are
threatened, we feel threatened. We take it personally. I suspect that
you care about this whole God debate not because the actual issues
interest you, but because you feel cornered and want to fight to maintain
your identity.
Clearly a lot of your energy is tied up in maintaining that "There is no
God." And as Steve has demonstrated, this belief of yours is based
entirely on "faith". You have no evidence that God exists or doesn't
exist. You should, really, be calling yourself an agnostic. And yet you
maintain you're an atheist. Which is fine.
But it's never enough that we're right. Everyone else has to be wrong.
And so you ask, aren't people who believe in God just cowards who can't
face up to the fact that there is no God? Or, to strip it utterly bare,
you're asking, I'm right, aren't I? Or to strip it even more bare, I'M
RIGHT!
> Most of the time I do just that. However, the question of reality and
> of "God/Goddess/Universal Consciousness/Prime Mover" is what we have
> been discussing lately. If that is the topic, why shouldn't I say what
> I think and, even, try to convince people that what I think is true is,
> in fact, probably true? If you don't like the topic of conversation,
> you don't have to participate; if you do participate, I think you should
> be willing to do so without throwing a tantrum when you don't like what
> is said.
Don't be so silly. You're talking about this "topic of conversation" like
it's something that exists outside the people who perpetuate it. Like
it's weather or scenery, and not something you and me and Steve and
Orangefree constructed.
And I'm not throwing a tantrum. Quite the opposite. I'm trying to show
you yours. It might not be an emotional tantrum, but an intellectual
tantrum can be just as embarrassing as an emotional one.
>> Perhaps your background background plays a part of your insecurity, here?
>
> It isn't insecurity, it's politeness - which I have stopped observing
> here. And it has turned into an interesting experiment.
I'm suggesting that your beliefs, and your need to defend them loudly in
public, are an attempt at saying, "I'm right!" Doing this stems from
insecurity. Because every time someone yells, "I'm right!" a little voice
in the back of their head must be asking, very quietyly, "But what if I'm
wrong? Then I'm nothing."
>> Observe the prime directive, science boy.
>
> Are you suggesting that you, SCK and orangefree are inferior forms of
> life that I should avoid interfering with? I think all three of you
> can handle my believing things you don't like.
(You seem so sad when you try to be funny.)
Respect other cultures and beliefs. Consider that your perspective is one
of many. Ask yourself, "What are the inherent flaws of judging another
culture from my perspective?"
"Isn't God just a security blanket for people unwilling to accept the
reality that there is no God?"
Do you really understand why this is a ridiculous question? Can you see
the biases contained within it?
Steve tried to explain this to you when he suggested a Christian might
ask, "Why are atheists so cowardly? Unable to deal with the implications
of God, they pretend He doesn't exist. Clearly they are trying to avoid
taking responsibility for their actions by eliminating God from their
lives."
I'm sure that it's easier for you to see the biases in the Christian's
statement -- "Hey! She's assuming there's a God! But there is no God!"
The Christian would also have no difficulty seeing your bias -- "Hey!
He's assuming there is no God! But there is a God!"
All of this chatter of mine probably fails to change you in any way.
Which is fine. I'm just a silly person, trying to mock you. On with your
more serious debate with Steve and Orangefree. Have fun. Play safe.
Nik
--
"PRAY FOR SHORT COPS"
--Graffiti in Ottawa
JHall
> ...
> Steve tried to explain this to you when he suggested a Christian might
> ask, "Why are atheists so cowardly? Unable to deal with the implications
> of God, they pretend He doesn't exist. Clearly they are trying to avoid
> taking responsibility for their actions by eliminating God from their
> lives."
> ...
And here I thought, no believe, that people use the concept of the
existence of a god in order to shift responsibilities that are theirs,
such as being compassionate, possessing inner strength, throwing someone
else's (stolen) jacket over a puddle to enhance oneself to a female
Without a god to grace their souls what is there ?
Just to add a smidgen of the ridiculous "the meek shall inherit the earth"
(yea the earth they lie upon or in), "cast out thine enemies", "do unto
others as you would have them do unto to you".
These gems should allow for a very broad range of interpretation and
many crutches (responsibility shifting).
Geoffrey Dow
Nikolaus Maack wrote:
>
> Geoffrey Dow (geoff...@sympatico.ca) writes:
> > Quite right, but it doesn't answer my question.
>
> That's because your question is stupid. Your question is, isn't religion
> just some security blanket for morons too dumb to understand that there is
> no God? (You didn't phrase it that way, of course.)
Yes, the question I didn't ask is stupid. Allow me to quote the
one I did. When I have re-printed it, I will point out the
emphasis you were apparently too frightened to notice.
The question I actually asked was: "what is there that should
convince me God is anything but a concept that provides
psychological comfort - "meaning" - for people"? I suppose
I should hape typed "that should convince me" in CAPITAL LETTERS.
It is a serious question. "God" is a hypothetical explanation
for existence. I have not found any tangible evidence I should
take it seriously. So far, your answers have been nothing been
insults, which doesn't help me to take the hypothesis seriously.
> The problem with this question is it's totally centred in your
> perspective. It assumes that, 1) there ain't no stinking deity, and 2)
> anyone who believes in make-believe is some kinda wimp. You phrase your
> bias in the form of a question, which makes it look like you're being
> thoughtful and questioning your beliefs. Which, clearly, you ain't.
The problem with your answer is it's totally centred in your
perspective. It assumes that, 1) you don't like me, and 2) you
don't like sceptical questions because they threaten to make you
think. You phrase your bias in the form of personal insults and
answers to questions I never asked, which makes it look as though
you are being clever and incisive. Which, clearly, you ain't.
> Sometimes a sentence that ends in a question-mark is not a question. This
> is one of those times.
Sometimes an answer that ends in a period is not an answer. That was
one of those times.
> It's like asking, "Don't all black people have rhythm?" or "Don't all TV
> shows about twenty-somethings suck?" The very way the question is
> phrased, you know there's no RIGHT answer. The person who asks such a
> question isn't looking for an answer. They've already got it, and are
> pretending to question it.
Again, Nik, I never asked the question upon which you are spending
so much of your time and anger.
> > I think there is no "meaning" to our existence or to that of the cosmos,
> > if you intend the term to mean what I think you do.
>
> Then you're a nihilist? Let's shake hands. Me too. Except then I say,
> ah, what the hell -- let's believe that our beliefs shape the nothingness
> into something. Because it sure does seem to work that way.
I don't think I am a nihilist. I believe our beliefs are shaped by
what we are - loosely, by the fact we are physical beings in a physical
cosmos, conscious that we have a limited life-span and by nature
social animals. I am not using the terms "meaning" and "nothing" as
equivalents.
> > That is why
> > inventing a "god" and letting "meaning" flow from that concept bothers
> > me. Meaning, like logic, flows from our temporal existence; it is not
> > handed down from on high.
>
> Like most people, you assume that God is in charge of the relationship
> between Humanity and God. I would argue that this is not the case. We
> aren't at His mercy. He's at our mercy.
Unlike most people, I assume there is no "god" at all. "He" is at our
mercy only in the sense that Miss Havisham or any other literary
character is at our mercy.
> Look what happens when he sends his kid down to chat with us. We nailed
> the fucker to a cross. It was such a good time, we hang representations
> of this deity-murder all over the place. Hell, we wear little versions of
> it around our necks. God knows his place now, and presumably won't be
> coming back in the flesh any time soon.
If this didn't display such an appaling ignorance about the long
tradition of "sacrificing gods" in human history it would be
kind of clever.
> I'm joking but I'm not joking.
Did you steal the line from one of the better stand-up comedians?
> > What "offends" me about post-modern thought (if what you expressed is
> > that), is not the idea that different view-points show different
> > aspects of reality. What "offends" me is the idea that reality is
> > malleable. I don't believe our perspective influences reality; it
> > only influences how we *interpret* it.
>
> Reality is a very big place. Some of it is malleable, and some of it
> isn't. If you drop a rock, over and over again, gravity will make it hit
> the ground. If you decide that murder is wrong, and convince all your
> fellow humans that capital punishment is evil -- you have changed
> malleable reality.
Well done, Nik. Once again you have addressed what I wasn't talking
about. Murder is something we *do*. It exists only once we have
conceptualized it. If something exists only in our mind, of *course*
it is malleable. Are you really this dumb or are you just afraid to
deal with what I am ACTUALLY saying?
> Was capital punishment evil all the time, even before you changed the
> world? Or did it BECOME evil after you changed the world?
That's an interesting question. I won't answer it because it will
require more thought than you have shown yourself willing to engage
in. You have demonstrated that, because you don't like me/what I
write, you will proceed to show me how stupid I am by addressing
what I do not say. I am tired of playing your pathetic little game.
> Seems to me you're assuming religion is about physics, not about capital
> punishment. Perhaps therein lies your dilemma. Religion is definitely
> malleable.
You're wrong about what I'm assuming again. Isn't that surprising?
> > Are you asking me?
> [...]
> > Or telling me?
Way to omit the evidence, fat boy.
> Demonstrating to you what you might be doing. You yourself described how
> you feel when Christians demand you play by their rules. Is this really
> about belief, or is it about challenges to your identity?
>
> I will not be a Christian!
Uh, okay, Nik. You shore are a insightful cuss!
> Philosophies collide. Most of us, in an attempt to make ourselves feel
> better, demand that our philosophy win. That's because our ego, our
> identity, is utterly tied to our beliefs. Einstein, for example, was
> enraged by quantuum mechanics. He took it VERY personally, and saw it as
> a threat to all he had worked for. He said, "God does not play dice with
> the universe," in response to this challenge to his identity.
And do you think it was *good* that he took it personally?
I think it is understandable he would react that way, but not
admirable. What *is* admirable is that (so far as I know) he
never denied the evidence *for* quantum mechanics, but only
insisted there *must* be an alternative, mechanistic (in the
19th Century meaning of the term) explanation for the phenomena.
And who knows? The game's not over yet. He may prove to have
been right about it in the long term. (Though I am betting that
he won't.)
> Because we have so much self tied into our beliefs, when our beliefs are
> threatened, we feel threatened. We take it personally. I suspect that
> you care about this whole God debate not because the actual issues
> interest you, but because you feel cornered and want to fight to maintain
> your identity.
I think you are talking about yourself here, Nik.
I care about "this whole God debate" because theism baffles me.
Not so much your kind of "whatever-I-feel-in-the-moment-is-what-
I-believe" dementia, but SCK's so-called "logical" theism or
orangefree's "faith-based" theism.
My question (again) is: Why should I take seriously a hypothesis
for which there is little or no tangible evidence?
> Clearly a lot of your energy is tied up in maintaining that "There is no
> God." And as Steve has demonstrated, this belief of yours is based
> entirely on "faith". You have no evidence that God exists or doesn't
> exist. You should, really, be calling yourself an agnostic. And yet you
> maintain you're an atheist. Which is fine.
>
> But it's never enough that we're right. Everyone else has to be wrong.
> And so you ask, aren't people who believe in God just cowards who can't
> face up to the fact that there is no God? Or, to strip it utterly bare,
> you're asking, I'm right, aren't I? Or to strip it even more bare, I'M
> RIGHT!
Yes, dear.
> > Most of the time I do just that. However, the question of reality and
> > of "God/Goddess/Universal Consciousness/Prime Mover" is what we have
> > been discussing lately. If that is the topic, why shouldn't I say what
> > I think and, even, try to convince people that what I think is true is,
> > in fact, probably true? If you don't like the topic of conversation,
> > you don't have to participate; if you do participate, I think you should
> > be willing to do so without throwing a tantrum when you don't like what
> > is said.
>
> Don't be so silly. You're talking about this "topic of conversation" like
> it's something that exists outside the people who perpetuate it. Like
> it's weather or scenery, and not something you and me and Steve and
> Orangefree constructed.
>
> And I'm not throwing a tantrum. Quite the opposite. I'm trying to show
> you yours. It might not be an emotional tantrum, but an intellectual
> tantrum can be just as embarrassing as an emotional one.
Of course you're not throwing a tantrum. That's why your messages so
often address what I have actually said and why you never stoop to
insulting me personally.
> >> Perhaps your background background plays a part of your insecurity, here?
> >
> > It isn't insecurity, it's politeness - which I have stopped observing
> > here. And it has turned into an interesting experiment.
>
> I'm suggesting that your beliefs, and your need to defend them loudly in
> public, are an attempt at saying, "I'm right!" Doing this stems from
> insecurity. Because every time someone yells, "I'm right!" a little voice
> in the back of their head must be asking, very quietyly, "But what if I'm
> wrong? Then I'm nothing."
You're wrong. My sense of self-worth isn't based on being right about
this, or any other, question. (I know, you will refuse to believe
this and nothing I can say will convince you otherwise.) I have been
wrong about a lot of things and will be again.
> >> Observe the prime directive, science boy.
> >
> > Are you suggesting that you, SCK and orangefree are inferior forms of
> > life that I should avoid interfering with? I think all three of you
> > can handle my believing things you don't like.
>
> (You seem so sad when you try to be funny.)
I wasn't trying to be funny there at all. Sadly, I was taking you
seriously; clearly I misunderstood (gasp! I was wrong!) your
interpretation of Star Trek's Prime Directive.
> Respect other cultures and beliefs. Consider that your perspective is one
> of many. Ask yourself, "What are the inherent flaws of judging another
> culture from my perspective?"
That's a valid question. At the same time, sometimes the answer is:
Few or none. Cultures are not all of equivalent worth. The thought of
all the Taliban thugs and born-again, biblical-literalist bible-thumpers
in the world don't add up to a tenth of the value of the thought of an
equally "religious" man like C.S. Lewis.
> "Isn't God just a security blanket for people unwilling to accept the
> reality that there is no God?"
>
> Do you really understand why this is a ridiculous question? Can you see
> the biases contained within it?
It's not a ridiculous question, it's an hypothesis. But of course I can
see the biases in it. That's why I asked the question, a number of times
and with different emphases. And I suspect I will get an interesting
answer to it one of these days, perhaps when orangefree next pokes his
nose into our little corner of the world. I don't think he will convince
me to take the counter-hypothesis seriously, but I suspect he will help
me to understand why he does.
> Steve tried to explain this to you when he suggested a Christian might
> ask, "Why are atheists so cowardly? Unable to deal with the implications
> of God, they pretend He doesn't exist. Clearly they are trying to avoid
> taking responsibility for their actions by eliminating God from their
> lives."
Steve also avoids the question of evidence, using flawed logic to make
the case instead. But he is a better rhetoritician than I.
> I'm sure that it's easier for you to see the biases in the Christian's
> statement -- "Hey! She's assuming there's a God! But there is no God!"
> The Christian would also have no difficulty seeing your bias -- "Hey!
> He's assuming there is no God! But there is a God!"
I've been quite up-front about my bias, Nik. It's no mystery to anyone,
except perhaps to you - why else would you seem to be so proud of
having uncovered it?
As I have stated before: I don't like the idea of a created universe.
Emotionally and intellectually, I much prefer the idea that we live
in a cosmos that is a result of random, but scientifically explainable
processes. My bias is front and centre.
> All of this chatter of mine probably fails to change you in any way.
> Which is fine. I'm just a silly person, trying to mock you. On with your
> more serious debate with Steve and Orangefree. Have fun. Play safe.
Nice way to disclaim responsibility for all that typing, but I don't
believe you.
SCK
> > Really? How come? Why must an assumption you don't agree with be
> > examined logically, but an assumption that you do agree with slides
> > right on through the net?
>
> You're putting words in my mouth. I think any assumption is worthy
> of examination. That said, every assumption is not equally worthy
> of close examination. For instance, unless you can convince me I
> should not take into account my desire to live for another 50 years
> when looking at the option of suicide, I won't closely examine it.
>
This is going nowhere fast. You don't seem to be hearing the question
here. I keep wanting to give you one of those old-fogey type curling ear
horns.
> > Why should you, "logically" examine your assumption of why you think
> > green things are better than red things, but not examine why you think
> > you want to live?
>
> Because I, or someone else, will suggest that prejudice is irrational
> and so I will examine it. In an ideal world, I would re-examine all
Exactly. Re-read my question above, then re-read your answer. So why
don't you see your desire to live as a prejudice of precisely the same
calibre? What is your desire to live, if it is not a prejudice?
What exactly IS your "desire to live"? Whim? Instinct?
> You seem to be saying that, because I will ultimately cease to exist,
> the only logical viewpoint from which to exercise logic is from that
> vantage point. From that, it follows that because I will ultimately
> cease to exist, suicide is the most logical response to pain because,
> from the point of view of eternity (my non-existence), suffering
> through pain is illogical - ultimately, I won't exist to remember
> the alleged reasons I now have for enduring pain.
>
> Does that more or less re-state your argument?
>
No. I have never in this entire thread referred in the least fashion to
"because you will *ultimately* cease to exist...". Nothing about this
logic has anything whatsoever to do with the fact that your death is one
day inevitable.
> From your theoretical point of view you are correct, but I reject
> the theory that my life doesn't matter. It matters *to me* and
> I must take that real (if subjective) phenomenon into account
> when making decisions in the real world. If there is no "I" to
> make a decision, "I" cannot exercise logic.
>
So what if it matters to you? If you make what matters *to you* the
integral factor, then you have to accord equal credibility to everything
that matters personally to every other dumbass. What is that? Logical
relativism?
You have abolished truth and logic in that idea alone. If your life
matters just as much to you as another person's belief that space pigs
rule the universe matters to him, according to your "logic" you are on
equal logical footing. Yours matters to you, his matters to him. His
belief doesn't matter to you, so it's not logical, "for you"? But it's
OK to be logical "for him" just because it matters to him; just like
your life matters to you, so it's relevant to "your logic"?
There is no difference between the philosophical consequences of your
statements and the identical beliefs you deride from Nik, he is just
obscuring them less in a demented ego-fantasy.
> > So how long do you figure it will be before zebras reproduce the
> > complete works of Plato?
>
> Six months, if in your famished derangement you don't start eating them.
>
I would eat a zebra. I think they would go well with prune juice. I
think there ought to be underground bars, where men can go to sit in
leather, wingback chairs, smoke large cigars and eat endangered species
while nude women dance on grand pianos.