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Fox
Joined: 04 Mar 2009
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 Posted: Sat Jun 13, 2009 7:01 pm Post subject: |
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| Koveras wrote: |
| a repudiation of spirituality and of everything in man that is more than animal. |
But nothing in man has ever been "more than animal," so there's nothing to repudiate in that regard. Accepting our animal status can only enrich us, because it involves a greater understanding of who and what we really are. It doesn't demand sacrificing our goals, ethics, or aspirations to do so; we lose nothing. The same goes for spirituality.
To be honest, this is why during my own Philosophy education I developed some measure of distaste for most "famous" Philosophers; some of what they say has some merit, but a lot of is is total rubbish. |
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Tiger Beer
Joined: 07 Feb 2003
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| Posted: Sat Jun 13, 2009 7:37 pm Post subject: |
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WOW!
The author of that piece had one huge RANT against CAPITALISM....and then blamed it on Marxism.
| drudgereport article wrote: |
| First, the population was dumbed down through a politicized and substandard education system based on pop culture, rather then the classics. |
This is IRONIC part of the article.
American Education has deterioted to all new lows...and apparently so low that the writer and his readers don't even know that slams on McDonalds, pop culture and everything else is anti-capitalist rantings, NOT anti-marxist rantings.
Oh well. |
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Koveras
Joined: 09 Oct 2008
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| Posted: Sat Jun 13, 2009 9:17 pm Post subject: |
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| RufusW wrote: |
| this would be a socialist democratic society, not necessarily Marxism but very close to it - this is the end result of true democracy. |
Yes. The socialist, democratic, and globalized society is the more efficient means for reaching Marx's true goal: the last man. Every other part of Marx's philosophy was contingent to this. In the USSR it was systematized and enforced; in the West the same movement has been spontaneous, "free". |
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Koveras
Joined: 09 Oct 2008
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| Posted: Sun Jun 14, 2009 7:20 pm Post subject: |
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| Fox wrote: |
| Koveras wrote: |
| a repudiation of spirituality and of everything in man that is more than animal. |
But nothing in man has ever been "more than animal," so there's nothing to repudiate in that regard. Accepting our animal status can only enrich us, because it involves a greater understanding of who and what we really are. It doesn't demand sacrificing our goals, ethics, or aspirations to do so; we lose nothing. The same goes for spirituality. |
Then I find it strange that people now - who have stripped off all their spiritual pretensions, and discovered "who and what they really are" - are more disaffected, lost, nihilistic, and slavish than ever before.
Man is a bridge between animal and God. If for you being an animal does not demand sacrificing your goals, ethics, or aspirations, then perhaps you should consider that your standards are low.
| Quote: |
| To be honest, this is why during my own Philosophy education I developed some measure of distaste for most "famous" Philosophers; some of what they say has some merit, but a lot of is is total rubbish. |
Who exactly? Sure, lip-service is paid, but Parmenides, Plato, Plotinus, Berkeley and their like are not taken seriously in any philosophy department I know of. Nietzsche is, but predictably only in his worst aspects. Most famous philosophers are just utilitarians and rationalists, and I wonder what problem you could have with them. |
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Koveras
Joined: 09 Oct 2008
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| Posted: Sun Jun 14, 2009 7:41 pm Post subject: |
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| Koveras wrote: |
Man is a bridge between animal and God. |
I should explain how this is relevant to the topic at hand. The implication is that a man - or a civilization - can orient himself in one of two ways. That is, there are ultimately only two directions he can move in. I don't mean to gloss over the many differences between communism and social democracy; it's just that from a higher perspective, their fundamental similarity overshadows all their differences. From this perspective it doesn't matter if one calls the modern West Marxist, or capitalist, or individualist, or collectivist, because they all go the same way. |
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ManintheMiddle
Joined: 20 Oct 2008
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| Posted: Sun Jun 14, 2009 10:11 pm Post subject: |
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| descent |
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Fox
Joined: 04 Mar 2009
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| Posted: Mon Jun 15, 2009 12:34 am Post subject: |
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| Koveras wrote: |
| Fox wrote: |
| Koveras wrote: |
| a repudiation of spirituality and of everything in man that is more than animal. |
But nothing in man has ever been "more than animal," so there's nothing to repudiate in that regard. Accepting our animal status can only enrich us, because it involves a greater understanding of who and what we really are. It doesn't demand sacrificing our goals, ethics, or aspirations to do so; we lose nothing. The same goes for spirituality. |
Then I find it strange that people now - who have stripped off all their spiritual pretensions, and discovered "who and what they really are" - are more disaffected, lost, nihilistic, and slavish than ever before. |
What hard data is this being based upon? I'm not particularly disaffected, lost, nihilistic, or slavish, and few people I know are either. What time period are you referring to, when people demonstrated substantially less of each of these attributes, and what hard, quantifiable data are you basing that upon? Further, how are you proving said hard data is caused specifically by a decline in religion as opposed to, say, a substantially more comfortable lifestyle allowing for far more introspection and forcing us to make far more choices about what to do with both our time and our lives?
I feel like you've made a very grand claim here.
| Koveras wrote: |
| Man is a bridge between animal and God. |
Given God probably doesn't exist, are you saying Man is a "Bridge to No Where?" 
| Koveras wrote: |
| If for you being an animal does not demand sacrificing your goals, ethics, or aspirations, then perhaps you should consider that your standards are low. |
Perhaps consider the possibility that a remarkably intelligent animal like a human can be possessed of incredible goals, praise worthy ethics, and noble aspirations. It's a far more rational and data-based conclusion than "Man is great because of a magical man that lives in the sky."
| Koveras wrote: |
| Quote: |
| To be honest, this is why during my own Philosophy education I developed some measure of distaste for most "famous" Philosophers; some of what they say has some merit, but a lot of is is total rubbish. |
Who exactly? Sure, lip-service is paid, but Parmenides, Plato, Plotinus, Berkeley and their like are not taken seriously in any philosophy department I know of. Nietzsche is, but predictably only in his worst aspects. Most famous philosophers are just utilitarians and rationalists, and I wonder what problem you could have with them. |
A better question would be which ones do you truly believe should be taken seriously regarding the majority of their work? Most go far beyond "Utilitarianism and Rationalism," -- particularly when they branch into Metaphysics or Religion -- and honestly I don't think all that much of Utilitarianism.
As I said, there are pieces of certain philosophers' work that seem reasonable. To give a few easy examples, Sartre had some very interesting and accurate things to say about human perception and the mind, Spinoza had the potential to write a very interesting metaphysical account had he not tainted it with religious rubbish, and Kant did some interesting work on knowledge, but in each case the vast majority of what each man said was more than questionable. |
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Julius
Joined: 27 Jul 2006
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| Posted: Mon Jun 15, 2009 1:31 am Post subject: |
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| "descent". |
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Sergio Stefanuto
Joined: 14 May 2009
Location: UK
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| Posted: Mon Jun 15, 2009 1:56 am Post subject: |
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| RufusW wrote: |
| this is the end result of true democracy |
Well, it would be the end (as in, the goal) of true democracy if that's what the voters voted for (perhaps it also might be the end, as in 'no turning back')
Which 'end' would it be if, say, a socialist government were miraculously elected into power and, then, they achieved nothing more or less than runaway inflation, mass unemployment and turning back production levels a decade or two (as socialists governments have done on many occasions)? And then, after that, the electorate voted them out?
Would that be.....
end (1) - the goal of socialism? or
end (2) the finish, the decline, the see-you-later-pal-(much later) end?
The end result of true democracy is whatever the electorate vote for. That, logically, is what it means. If the electorate vote for a bunch of baboons (and, hey, they have, many times) then that is true democracy. Any other conception of democracy must come via an external and abitrary decree. What could be more undemocratic than that?
Totalitarianism is the 'end' (sense 2 above) of democracy, but it is the antithesis of its 'end' (sense 1) |
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RufusW
Joined: 14 Jun 2008
Location: Busan
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| Posted: Mon Jun 15, 2009 3:26 am Post subject: |
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| Sergio Stefanuto wrote: |
| RufusW wrote: |
| this is the end result of true democracy |
Well, it would be the end (as in, the goal) of true democracy if that's what the voters voted for (perhaps it also might be the end, as in 'no turning back')
Which 'end' would it be if, say, a socialist government were miraculously elected into power and, then, they achieved nothing more or less than runaway inflation, mass unemployment and turning back production levels a decade or two (as socialists governments have done on many occasions)? And then, after that, the electorate voted them out?
Would that be.....
end (1) - the goal of socialism? or
end (2) the finish, the decline, the see-you-later-pal-(much later) end?
The end result of true democracy is whatever the electorate vote for. That, logically, is what it means. If the electorate vote for a bunch of baboons (and, hey, they have, many times) then that is true democracy. Any other conception of democracy must come via an external and abitrary decree. What could be more undemocratic than that?
Totalitarianism is the 'end' (sense 2 above) of democracy, but it is the antithesis of its 'end' (sense 1) |
wat?
True democracy means a truly rational and highly educated group of people deciding what's best for the society over the long term. I believe both rich and poor will vote for a society tending towards equality of outcome. The poor majoirty, let alone rich people willing to sacrifice for the poor, should create that in a true democracy (where the will of the majority is truly represented). |
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Koveras
Joined: 09 Oct 2008
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| Posted: Tue Jun 16, 2009 1:15 am Post subject: |
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| Fox wrote: |
| Koveras wrote: |
| Fox wrote: |
| Koveras wrote: |
| a repudiation of spirituality and of everything in man that is more than animal. |
But nothing in man has ever been "more than animal," so there's nothing to repudiate in that regard. Accepting our animal status can only enrich us, because it involves a greater understanding of who and what we really are. It doesn't demand sacrificing our goals, ethics, or aspirations to do so; we lose nothing. The same goes for spirituality. |
Then I find it strange that people now - who have stripped off all their spiritual pretensions, and discovered "who and what they really are" - are more disaffected, lost, nihilistic, and slavish than ever before. |
What hard data is this being based upon? I'm not particularly disaffected, lost, nihilistic, or slavish, and few people I know are either. What time period are you referring to, when people demonstrated substantially less of each of these attributes, and what hard, quantifiable data are you basing that upon? Further, how are you proving said hard data is caused specifically by a decline in religion as opposed to, say, a substantially more comfortable lifestyle allowing for far more introspection and forcing us to make far more choices about what to do with both our time and our lives? |
First, these attributes are not susceptible to quantification. If I were to try to indirectly quantify them, I might turn to rates of violent crime, drug use (illegal, legal, prescription), depression, and suicide. But in order to establish a general trend I would need numbers reaching back to well before the Industrial Revolution. If these stats existed I believe they would bear me out. But they don't. And that doesn't mean I'm wrong.
Second, you've confused the issue by substituting 'religion' for 'spirituality'; they are not the same. Some people make the mistake of thinking that the modern world needs more religion. That's not the point. What it needs is more God. Membership in a decadent or merely formal religion won't provide that.
But I'll try to clarify the meaning of my claim. I've always thought it was self-evident. But apparently you're still optimistic about how things are going. So, the method is to extrapolate, from modern currents of action and thought, the general condition of modern man, and to compare this to conditions in former times, as extrapolated from their currents of action and thought. This method is actually better than using numbers; the modern obsession with quantifiability (as exemplified in numerical measurements of "freedom" and, more hilariously, "quality of life") is a representative current of our times. This is cursory:
Disaffected, lost: Plurality of unrealist ideologies: Romanticism, art for art's sake, Impressionism, Existentialism, Pragmatism, Dadaism, Theosophy, Absurdism, Postmodernism, the Beat Movement and Hippies, Anarchism, Feminism, New Age Spirituality, modern physics, drug culture, etc. etc. Relativism, the cults of "self-expression" and abritrary creativity and mushy subjectivity, which have overtaken our schools, our art, and our thought, are the strongest indicator that we are lost. Compare this to the mimetic arts, maths, and beliefs of ancient Egypt, pre-Hellenic Greece, Rome, or in some ways the Middle Ages of Europe, which remained objective and impersonal, pure in style for hundreds, maybe thousands of years at a stretch. We can call ours a civiliation of Becoming, and theirs, civilizations of Being.
Nihilistic: Nietzsche made a valid distinction between active and passive nihilism. When I call people nihilists, I don't mean that they're out causing mayhem and destruction like a villain from Batman. I mean that they're passive, small-time hedonists and relativists who live for no higher purpose.
Slavish: The modern division of labour, as invented by men like Adam Smith, is slavery by definition. Free men of pre-modern times would not stoop to the labour that most men and women do today. You can read Plato or Aristotle or Aquinas for the pre-modern idea of work (craft, art); you'll notice that for them it has a spiritual nature, lacking which all work is just wage-labour. If lately working men have bowed to their situation, or even become content with it, this comes from a de-spirited disposition. One can essentially chart out the life of our contemporary man thusly: when young and energetic he rebels and adheres to some fashionable new ideology; later, he gets a job and settles down for a lifetime of slavery, punctuated by pointless hedonistic leisure.
| Quote: |
| I feel like you've made a very grand claim here. |
Yes.
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| Koveras wrote: |
| Man is a bridge between animal and God. |
Given God probably doesn't exist, are you saying Man is a "Bridge to No Where?" |
I'm not sure what it means to say that God probably doesn't exist. God is existence, God is the source of everything that is, and the glue that holds everything together. God is Being. He's not a "magical man in the sky". Like so many atheists you've accepted at second-hand a gross, caricaturized idea of God - one which I don't blame you for rejecting.
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| Koveras wrote: |
| If for you being an animal does not demand sacrificing your goals, ethics, or aspirations, then perhaps you should consider that your standards are low. |
Perhaps consider the possibility that a remarkably intelligent animal like a human can be possessed of incredible goals, praise worthy ethics, and noble aspirations. It's a far more rational and data-based conclusion than "Man is great because of a magical man that lives in the sky." |
What is noble?
Without God, our goals, ethics, and aspirations can never encompass what is sacred, immortal, beautiful, or true. All of these derive from God; if they continue to exist as ideas today, in a secular world, it is only as residues from our spiritual past. They, and everything they imply - like the idea of nobility - will in time be lost.
| Quote: |
A better question would be which ones do you truly believe should be taken seriously regarding the majority of their work? Most go far beyond "Utilitarianism and Rationalism," -- particularly when they branch into Metaphysics or Religion -- and honestly I don't think all that much of Utilitarianism.
As I said, there are pieces of certain philosophers' work that seem reasonable. To give a few easy examples, Sartre had some very interesting and accurate things to say about human perception and the mind, Spinoza had the potential to write a very interesting metaphysical account had he not tainted it with religious rubbish, and Kant did some interesting work on knowledge, but in each case the vast majority of what each man said was more than questionable. |
Okay. This seems unrelated to what we're talking about. This post is already long enough, and I find unfocused "let's talk about philosophy" discussions a bit tiresome anyway. |
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Fox
Joined: 04 Mar 2009
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| Posted: Tue Jun 16, 2009 2:04 am Post subject: |
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| Koveras wrote: |
| First, these attributes are not susceptible to quantification. If I were to try to indirectly quantify them, I might turn to rates of violent crime, drug use (illegal, legal, prescription), depression, and suicide. But in order to establish a general trend I would need numbers reaching back to well before the Industrial Revolution. If these stats existed I believe they would bear me out. But they don't. And that doesn't mean I'm wrong. |
No, it doesn't mean you're wrong. It does mean you are making a very bold claim without solid data behind it, though, which makes it unpersuasive; only someone who either all ready believes it or has no opinion but is inclined to believe it will accept it.
I see no proof of what you say, personally, nor any special reason to believe it.
| Koveras wrote: |
| Second, you've confused the issue by substituting 'religion' for 'spirituality'; they are not the same. Some people make the mistake of thinking that the modern world needs more religion. That's not the point. What it needs is more God. Membership in a decadent or merely formal religion won't provide that. |
I'll accept your distinction; it changes nothing about my own case.
| Koveras wrote: |
Disaffected, lost: Plurality of unrealist ideologies: Romanticism, art for art's sake, Impressionism, Existentialism, Pragmatism, Dadaism, Theosophy, Absurdism, Postmodernism, the Beat Movement and Hippies, Anarchism, Feminism, New Age Spirituality, modern physics, drug culture, etc. etc. Relativism, the cults of "self-expression" and abritrary creativity and mushy subjectivity, which have overtaken our schools, our art, and our thought, are the strongest indicator that we are lost. Compare this to the mimetic arts, maths, and beliefs of ancient Egypt, pre-Hellenic Greece, Rome, or in some ways the Middle Ages of Europe, which remained objective and impersonal, pure in style for hundreds, maybe thousands of years at a stretch. We can call ours a civiliation of Becoming, and theirs, civilizations of Being.
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Firstly, taking 1000+ year old civilizations and talking about them as if they were monolithic "civilizations of Being which existed in pure style" seems more than questionable.
Second, if anything, these things seem like humanity taking steps towards actually understanding itself, in and of itself, rather than in terms of some made up divinity figure (and I include your "God" in that category, I'm sorry if that causes offense, I don't mean it to). In that light, we're less "lost" than ever before.
| Koveras wrote: |
| Nihilistic: Nietzsche made a valid distinction between active and passive nihilism. When I call people nihilists, I don't mean that they're out causing mayhem and destruction like a villain from Batman. I mean that they're passive, small-time hedonists and relativists who live for no higher purpose. |
I see no reason to accept this is more true now than at any time in history.
| Koveras wrote: |
Slavish: The modern division of labour, as invented by men like Adam Smith, is slavery by definition. Free men of pre-modern times would not stoop to the labour that most men and women do today.
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Counterfactual that's impossible to prove and that I would further say is very likely untrue. It's easy to romanticize people dead for 2000+ years (particularly based on the very few works we have from a very tiny percentage of their total population), and I understand why you want to do it, but it's not persuasive.
| Koveras wrote: |
| You can read Plato or Aristotle or Aquinas for the pre-modern idea of work (craft, art); you'll notice that for them it has a spiritual nature, lacking which all work is just wage-labour. |
That your case uses these men as representative of the average men of their time says a lot, I think.
| Koveras wrote: |
| Quote: |
| Koveras wrote: |
| Man is a bridge between animal and God. |
Given God probably doesn't exist, are you saying Man is a "Bridge to No Where?" |
I'm not sure what it means to say that God probably doesn't exist. God is existence, God is the source of everything that is, and the glue that holds everything together. God is Being. He's not a "magical man in the sky". Like so many atheists you've accepted at second-hand a gross, caricaturized idea of God - one which I don't blame you for rejecting. |
First let me say that my response in this particular quote was a joke referencing Alaska's so called "Bridge to Nowhere." That said, if the God you are talking about is sentinent, there's probably no God. If the God you are talking about is not sentinent, I see no reason to call it God and not just the totality of what is. We have a word for that all ready: the Universe. Calling that "God" just sounds of an attempt by a religious person to cling to some aspect of their religion while moving beyond the obvious problems that were inherent in it and into an even more vague, even less meaningful belief system.
There's probably no God.
| Koveras wrote: |
| Quote: |
| Koveras wrote: |
| If for you being an animal does not demand sacrificing your goals, ethics, or aspirations, then perhaps you should consider that your standards are low. |
Perhaps consider the possibility that a remarkably intelligent animal like a human can be possessed of incredible goals, praise worthy ethics, and noble aspirations. It's a far more rational and data-based conclusion than "Man is great because of a magical man that lives in the sky." |
What is noble?
Without God, our goals, ethics, and aspirations can never encompass what is sacred |
False, we can set things as sacred of our own volition (and have been for thousands of years, given anything that's ever been considered sacred has been such because of the will of Man labelling it as such).
Assuming you mean timeless, false, we can strive towards timeless ideals without God. Assuming you mean literally "living forever," I don't understand, so I think you mean the former.
Definitely false; it's in the human character to find beauty all around us and create more of it.
I don't even know what to say to this one. Our aspirations can't encompass what is true without believing in your God?
| Koveras wrote: |
| All of these derive from God |
No they don't, because God probably doesn't exist. Beauty, sanctity, and nobility are man-made concepts. Truth and timelessness are simple aspects of the world, which probably wasn't made by God and probably isn't held together by God. God is a faerie tale. If you want to call the universe God, fine. If you want to worship that God, that's cool. That makes you a very imaginative animal, and I give you credit for that because imagination is another of mankind's finest traits.
None the less, you're probably wrong. |
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dmbfan
Joined: 09 Mar 2006
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| Posted: Tue Jun 16, 2009 2:19 am Post subject: |
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It's about time someone saw that.
dmbfan |
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Koveras
Joined: 09 Oct 2008
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| Posted: Tue Jun 16, 2009 3:22 am Post subject: |
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| Fox wrote: |
| Koveras wrote: |
Disaffected, lost: Plurality of unrealist ideologies: Romanticism, art for art's sake, Impressionism, Existentialism, Pragmatism, Dadaism, Theosophy, Absurdism, Postmodernism, the Beat Movement and Hippies, Anarchism, Feminism, New Age Spirituality, modern physics, drug culture, etc. etc. Relativism, the cults of "self-expression" and abritrary creativity and mushy subjectivity, which have overtaken our schools, our art, and our thought, are the strongest indicator that we are lost. Compare this to the mimetic arts, maths, and beliefs of ancient Egypt, pre-Hellenic Greece, Rome, or in some ways the Middle Ages of Europe, which remained objective and impersonal, pure in style for hundreds, maybe thousands of years at a stretch. We can call ours a civiliation of Becoming, and theirs, civilizations of Being.
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Firstly, taking 1000+ year old civilizations and talking about them as if they were monolithic "civilizations of Being which existed in pure style" seems more than questionable.
Second, if anything, these things seem like humanity taking steps towards actually understanding itself, in and of itself, rather than in terms of some made up divinity figure (and I include your "God" in that category, I'm sorry if that causes offense, I don't mean it to). In that light, we're less "lost" than ever before. |
Your first objection is that these ancient civilizations were like ours in their pluralism. Your second objection is that our pluralism demonstrates our superiority to these ancient civilizations. Which is your real objection? Which do you want me to address?
EDIT: As I said, man is a bridge. Understanding oneself as an animal means understanding only part of oneself. Rejecting God means killing part of oneself. Ancient people were aware that they were, in part, animals, and had a physical nature and physical needs. Are you saying they weren't?
| Quote: |
| Koveras wrote: |
| Nihilistic: Nietzsche made a valid distinction between active and passive nihilism. When I call people nihilists, I don't mean that they're out causing mayhem and destruction like a villain from Batman. I mean that they're passive, small-time hedonists and relativists who live for no higher purpose. |
I see no reason to accept this is more true now than at any time in history. |
Okay, and you won't consider it without certain statistics that don't exist. Let's leave off then. Beside it being necessarily cursory, what's your problem with my method?
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| Koveras wrote: |
Slavish: The modern division of labour, as invented by men like Adam Smith, is slavery by definition. Free men of pre-modern times would not stoop to the labour that most men and women do today.
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Counterfactual that's impossible to prove and that I would further say is very likely untrue. It's easy to romanticize people dead for 2000+ years (particularly based on the very few works we have from a very tiny percentage of their total population), and I understand why you want to do it, but it's not persuasive.
| Koveras wrote: |
| You can read Plato or Aristotle or Aquinas for the pre-modern idea of work (craft, art); you'll notice that for them it has a spiritual nature, lacking which all work is just wage-labour. |
That your case uses these men as representative of the average men of their time says a lot, I think. |
The slave class existed for a reason: labour was despised by free men. I'm not romanticizing anything. To a large extent I'm considering things in their essential aspect, and I see nothing wrong with that.
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| That said, if the God you are talking about is sentinent, there's probably no God. If the God you are talking about is not sentinent, I see no reason to call it God and not just the totality of what is. We have a word for that all ready: the Universe. |
Except that the universe is material, and God is immaterial, the Unmoved Mover. Far from being vague, He is a logical necessity. What I say to describe Him is vague, but it couldn't be precise, because neither I nor language are up to the task of describing Him. No, I don't pray to Him; did Plato pray to the Forms?
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What is noble?
Without God, our goals, ethics, and aspirations can never encompass what is sacred |
False, we can set things as sacred of our own volition (and have been for thousands of years, given anything that's ever been considered sacred has been such because of the will of Man labelling it as such). |
There is nothing sacred in a world of becoming. Your atheism stops halfway.
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Assuming you mean timeless, false, we can strive towards timeless ideals without God. Assuming you mean literally "living forever," I don't understand, so I think you mean the former. |
There are no timeless ideals in a world of becoming. Timelessness requires Being, with a capital B. Your atheism stops halfway. I should know.
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Definitely false; it's in the human character to find beauty all around us and create more of it. |
If anything, this should indicate to you that we're not just animals. But I have to make a distinction: there is beauty as modern aesthetes understand it, which is a pathological, sexual, even auto-erotic excitement of feeling; and there is Beauty classically understood, as part of a supra-logical celestial harmony. You may think I'm being thick, but I hope the real differences between your humanistic idea of these things, and mine, are becoming visible.
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I don't even know what to say to this one. Our aspirations can't encompass what is true without believing in your God? |
The naturalistic worldview is one of probabilities, not truths, which are certain by definition.
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| Koveras wrote: |
| All of these derive from God |
No they don't, because God probably doesn't exist. Beauty, sanctity, and nobility are man-made concepts. Truth and timelessness are simple aspects of the world, which probably wasn't made by God and probably isn't held together by God. God is a faerie tale. If you want to call the universe God, fine. If you want to worship that God, that's cool. That makes you a very imaginative animal, and I give you credit for that because imagination is another of mankind's finest traits.
None the less, you're probably wrong. |
I addressed all of this above. I don't worship anything.
It's obvious that you aren't really considering what I say. But I'll keep trying for the benefit of the gallery.
EDIT: Let me take back that final comment. Far from offensive I find this quite enjoyable. Instead I was a bit peeved because, as I saw it, your quick response didn't do my post justice. |
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Fox
Joined: 04 Mar 2009
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| Posted: Tue Jun 16, 2009 4:32 am Post subject: |
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| Koveras wrote: |
| Fox wrote: |
| Koveras wrote: |
Disaffected, lost: Plurality of unrealist ideologies: Romanticism, art for art's sake, Impressionism, Existentialism, Pragmatism, Dadaism, Theosophy, Absurdism, Postmodernism, the Beat Movement and Hippies, Anarchism, Feminism, New Age Spirituality, modern physics, drug culture, etc. etc. Relativism, the cults of "self-expression" and abritrary creativity and mushy subjectivity, which have overtaken our schools, our art, and our thought, are the strongest indicator that we are lost. Compare this to the mimetic arts, maths, and beliefs of ancient Egypt, pre-Hellenic Greece, Rome, or in some ways the Middle Ages of Europe, which remained objective and impersonal, pure in style for hundreds, maybe thousands of years at a stretch. We can call ours a civiliation of Becoming, and theirs, civilizations of Being.
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Firstly, taking 1000+ year old civilizations and talking about them as if they were monolithic "civilizations of Being which existed in pure style" seems more than questionable.
Second, if anything, these things seem like humanity taking steps towards actually understanding itself, in and of itself, rather than in terms of some made up divinity figure (and I include your "God" in that category, I'm sorry if that causes offense, I don't mean it to). In that light, we're less "lost" than ever before. |
Your first objection is that these ancient civilizations were like ours in their pluralism. Your second objection is that our pluralism demonstrates our superiority to these ancient civilizations. Which is your real objection? Which do you want me to address? |
Your portrayal of my first objection is correct. Your portrayal of my second objection I take issue with in 2 regards. First, my "second objection" is more related to to the specific content of our "plurality" (such as the various philosophies and ideologies you listed in your post) than its mere existence. Second, I didn't use the term superior, simply the term "less lost." One might say that it is superior to be "less lost" in that regard, but I'm not going to advance that argument here.
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| Koveras wrote: |
| Nihilistic: Nietzsche made a valid distinction between active and passive nihilism. When I call people nihilists, I don't mean that they're out causing mayhem and destruction like a villain from Batman. I mean that they're passive, small-time hedonists and relativists who live for no higher purpose. |
I see no reason to accept this is more true now than at any time in history. |
Okay, and you won't consider it without certain statistics that don't exist. Let's leave off then. Beside it being necessarily cursory, what's your problem with my method? |
I considered it even despite a lack of data, I simply arrived at a conclusion after considering it: that I remain unconvinced.
Honestly my main problem with your methodology is that, due to its lack of both data and deductive chains from facts we could perhaps agree upon, it lacks persuasiveness to those who don't all ready agree. If one's intuition all ready tells one what you are articulating here, one might find it quite agreeable. Because my intuition says otherwise, I'm not particularly moved. That doesn't mean it's wrong, just that I don't feel it's a solid proof that you are correct.
| Koveras wrote: |
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| Koveras wrote: |
Slavish: The modern division of labour, as invented by men like Adam Smith, is slavery by definition. Free men of pre-modern times would not stoop to the labour that most men and women do today.
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Counterfactual that's impossible to prove and that I would further say is very likely untrue. It's easy to romanticize people dead for 2000+ years (particularly based on the very few works we have from a very tiny percentage of their total population), and I understand why you want to do it, but it's not persuasive.
| Koveras wrote: |
| You can read Plato or Aristotle or Aquinas for the pre-modern idea of work (craft, art); you'll notice that for them it has a spiritual nature, lacking which all work is just wage-labour. |
That your case uses these men as representative of the average men of their time says a lot, I think. |
The slave class existed for a reason: labour was despised by free men. I'm not romanticizing anything. To a large extent I'm considering things in their essential aspect, and I see nothing wrong with that. |
The slave class was also a sizeable portion of the "pure Being" society you are extolling the virtues of here. Further, it's easy to despise labor when you have slaves who can labor for you. I'm not going to condemn these men for partaking in the social norms of their time, but at the same time I'm not going to recognize them as superior to us in any way because they had a certain attitude about labor that derived from a slave-owning culture, either.
| Koveras wrote: |
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| That said, if the God you are talking about is sentinent, there's probably no God. If the God you are talking about is not sentinent, I see no reason to call it God and not just the totality of what is. We have a word for that all ready: the Universe. |
Except that the universe is material, and God is immaterial, the Unmoved Mover. |
Thank you for clarifying for me what you meant by God.
| Koveras wrote: |
| Far from being vague, He is a logical necessity. |
This deserves it's own post. I would adore seeing the deductive proof that shows the Unmoved Mover is a logical necessity.
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| No, I don't pray to Him |
I believe you.
| Koveras wrote: |
| did Plato pray to the Forms? |
Plato's forms probably don't exist, either.
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What is noble?
Without God, our goals, ethics, and aspirations can never encompass what is sacred |
False, we can set things as sacred of our own volition (and have been for thousands of years, given anything that's ever been considered sacred has been such because of the will of Man labelling it as such). |
There is nothing sacred in a world of becoming. Your atheism stops halfway. |
I simply disagree. So long as sanctity is a man-made concept (and I assert that due to the fact that God probably doesn't exist that it must be), we can set aside things as sacred at our pleasure. No God required.
| Koveras wrote: |
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Assuming you mean timeless, false, we can strive towards timeless ideals without God. Assuming you mean literally "living forever," I don't understand, so I think you mean the former. |
There are no timeless ideals in a world of becoming. Timelessness requires Being, with a capital B. Your atheism stops halfway. I should know. |
Again, I disagree. In a Godless world, it is Man that conceived of timelessness, and that shows Man certainly has the mind to engage in it.
| Koveras wrote: |
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Definitely false; it's in the human character to find beauty all around us and create more of it. |
If anything, this should indicate to you that we're not just animals. But I have to make a distinction: there is beauty as modern aesthetes understand it, which is a pathological, sexual, even auto-erotic excitement of feeling; and there is Beauty classically understood, as part of a supra-logical celestial harmony. |
Your distinction is noted. My only response is that clearly animals are able to find and create beauty, given the human animal is capable of it. I'm further reminded of the famous bower bird, the male of which attempts to create lovely arrangements of objects to attract mates. Some of the results are quite endearing, and to call this something other than using works of beauty to attract a mate seems unjust to me.
| Koveras wrote: |
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I don't even know what to say to this one. Our aspirations can't encompass what is true without believing in your God? |
The naturalistic worldview is one of probabilities, not truths, which are certain by definition. |
The naturalistic world view includes within its purview deductive logic, which deals in truths, not probabilities.
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| Koveras wrote: |
| All of these derive from God |
No they don't, because God probably doesn't exist. Beauty, sanctity, and nobility are man-made concepts. Truth and timelessness are simple aspects of the world, which probably wasn't made by God and probably isn't held together by God. God is a faerie tale. If you want to call the universe God, fine. If you want to worship that God, that's cool. That makes you a very imaginative animal, and I give you credit for that because imagination is another of mankind's finest traits.
None the less, you're probably wrong. |
I addressed all of this above. I don't worship anything.
It's obvious that you aren't really considering what I say. But I'll keep trying for the benefit of the gallery. |
Please don't feel I'm dismissing what you say out of hand. Don't get me wrong, I don't agree with what you've said thus far. Most specifically, I don't agree at all that an immaterial God from which all beauty, truth, and so forth spring is even remotely probable, much less a logical necessity. None the less, I admire both the thought you've put into it and the courage involved in defending your case, and I don't want to come off as mocking, insulting, or not considering your words. I know my own words are blunt at times, and I apologize for it. |
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