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Politics "Under democracy, one party always devotes its chief energies to trying to prove that the other party is unfit to rule -and both commonly succeed, and are right." -H.L. Menken

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Old 12-10-2011, 12:30 PM   #51
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The thing with physics though is that you work on the best information you have and be ready to drop what you previously thought was true when new evidence contradicts.

I'm talking more about personal ethics than philosophy discourse, how logic gets to two different conclusions is a different can of worms. With ethics a lot of it has to do with personal appeal that isn't really examined often. Like Despanan has said that the result of religion doesn't matter, because anything done in the name of religion is based on delusion and that is wrong. Whether someone is happy or a better person because of religion doesn't matter, it goes against his personal ethics that everything must be based purely on empirical evidence. Where does this ethic come from? How do we know that rule is a good rule?

You're mistaken.

My judgement is that behavior motivated by religious belief is inherently unreasonable, and unreasonable behavior is bad because it can very easily become dangerous anti-social behavior. Even when the intent is good and the person is happy and behaves in a "more ethical manner" because of it, they are still surrendering their reason and logic in favor of an unprovable hypothesis which they have decided to take as fact.

For instance, When someone gives food to the hungry because they love Jesus, and not because it is the "right" socially responsible thing to do, their priority is not to aid their fellow man, but instead to impress an imagined authority figure. Because the person's priorities are out of whack (due to a faulty assumption about reality) this can very easily lead to a good, kind person denying that same aid to non-Christians, or using that aid as a bribe in order to coerce conversions. (Both of which we saw on a national scale during the Hati response)

Religion certainly has the capacity to make a "bad" person "good" (ie: behave in a more socially responsible manner) through it's mythological system of supernatural punishments and rewards, but it just as easily makes "good" people "bad" by removing their sense of responsiblity, their reasoning faculties, and skewing their perception of reality in such a way that they are able to behave monstrously while still believing they're doing the right thing.

My ethics are not "personal" in the slightest. My ethics are based upon my own innate sense of morality, (which is hardly arbitrary and based around the emotional reaction which we as human beings have evolved to have to certainbehaviors) combined with the cultural and philosophical background which produced me, and my own logical conclusions about the world based upon my reasonable understanding of the data which has been presented.

I will agree that many people don't think about ethics to this extent and instead choose to base their morality on something easier (like a religious text) but this is largely due to indoctrination, a lack of education, and/or good old-fashioned intellectual laziness.

My ethics are not faith-based in any way shape or form.
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Old 12-10-2011, 03:20 PM   #52
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You're mistaken.

My judgement is that behavior motivated by religious belief is inherently unreasonable, and unreasonable behavior is bad because it can very easily become dangerous anti-social behavior. Even when the intent is good and the person is happy and behaves in a "more ethical manner" because of it, they are still surrendering their reason and logic in favor of an unprovable hypothesis which they have decided to take as fact.

For instance, When someone gives food to the hungry because they love Jesus, and not because it is the "right" socially responsible thing to do, their priority is not to aid their fellow man, but instead to impress an imagined authority figure. Because the person's priorities are out of whack (due to a faulty assumption about reality) this can very easily lead to a good, kind person denying that same aid to non-Christians, or using that aid as a bribe in order to coerce conversions. (Both of which we saw on a national scale during the Hati response)

Religion certainly has the capacity to make a "bad" person "good" (ie: behave in a more socially responsible manner) through it's mythological system of supernatural punishments and rewards, but it just as easily makes "good" people "bad" by removing their sense of responsiblity, their reasoning faculties, and skewing their perception of reality in such a way that they are able to behave monstrously while still believing they're doing the right thing.
I'm not talking about religion making people do good things. For one, it can work the other way around. As a personal example, now that I'm more educated about war, violence and aggression, and more exposed to feminist writers such as bell hooks, I see more need for society to demilitarize and embrace revolutionary love. And it has put more fervor in my religious practice, which I see as a useful tool to train myself to be that kind of person who can practice what she preaches.

Audre Lorde had a similar approach. She reclaimed traditional African religion for her own, and while it had an emotional appeal to her, to reinforce her sense of heritage and going beyond what a racist patriarchal colonialist society could offer her, but it was also an act of resistance against that society. For religious feminists I don't think reclaiming feminine traditions is just merely dabbling in essentialism like Alan seems to think, its resisting the notion that anything traditionally considered feminine is irrational and emasculating and therefore inferior, and so unlike liberal and conservative feminists who think that society is fine, women just need to be more like men are raised to be and be free to take on their values, reclaiming emotion and love as strengths is an important part of truly showing the gender binary as the fraud it is.

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My ethics are not "personal" in the slightest. My ethics are based upon my own innate sense of morality, (which is hardly arbitrary and based around the emotional reaction which we as human beings have evolved to have to certainbehaviors) combined with the cultural and philosophical background which produced me, and my own logical conclusions about the world based upon my reasonable understanding of the data which has been presented.

I will agree that many people don't think about ethics to this extent and instead choose to base their morality on something easier (like a religious text) but this is largely due to indoctrination, a lack of education, and/or good old-fashioned intellectual laziness.

My ethics are not faith-based in any way shape or form.
No, but they have more base in emotion than you give credit for. You probably wouldn't argue so strongly about things if you didn't feel so strongly and get angry so strongly.
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Old 12-10-2011, 05:18 PM   #53
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I'm not talking about religion making people do good things. For one, it can work the other way around. As a personal example, now that I'm more educated about war, violence and aggression, and more exposed to feminist writers such as bell hooks, I see more need for society to demilitarize and embrace revolutionary love. And it has put more fervor in my religious practice, which I see as a useful tool to train myself to be that kind of person who can practice what she preaches.
That's your humanism improving your faith, not your faith improving you. You're doing the opposite of what Despanan is talking about. You didn't find that wisdom in your faith, you found it in bell hooks, even IF your faith said go out and expand your mind and consume the wisdom of the philosophers; it is the teachings of that thinker that you brought into and integrated INTO your faith. Your faith doesn't make you a better person, Saya. You are the nurse keeping your faith alive, not the other way around. The difference between you, your faith, and what Despanan is talking about is that you are NOT dependent on your faith. Feminism defines you. Your humanism defines you. At the end of the day, you could very well wake up and decide that you no longer require your faith and everyone here knows you're capable of that. But what you've done is you've taken something such as your faith, put it on a dialysis machine and then used it as a hammer. In other-words, YOU DEFINE what you believe and not the other way around. You aren't an unfortunate slave.

Despanan and I find you frustrating BECAUSE you use your status as a person of EASTERN FAITH to defend the status of Western believers. You guys aren't even close to the same thing and not only that, but you are NOT a slave to your faith. We don't have to worry about how you behave because it's your modern humanist philosophies that guide HOW you use your faith. Like you said, your faith is a tool, but NOT a dependency. You can't use yourself as a shield against an indefensible position such as what Desp is talking about.
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Old 12-10-2011, 05:33 PM   #54
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That's your humanism improving your faith, not your faith improving you. You're doing the opposite of what Despanan is talking about. You didn't find that wisdom in your faith, you found it in bell hooks, even IF your faith said go out and expand your mind and consume the wisdom of the philosophers; it is the teachings of that thinker that you brought into and integrated INTO your faith. Your faith doesn't make you a better person, Saya. You are the nurse keeping your faith alive, not the other way around. The difference between you, your faith, and what Despanan is talking about is that you are NOT dependent on your faith. Feminism defines you. Your humanism defines you. At the end of the day, you could very well wake up and decide that you no longer require your faith and everyone here knows you're capable of that. But what you've done is you've taken something such as your faith, put it on a dialysis machine and then used it as a hammer. In other-words, YOU DEFINE what you believe and not the other way around. You aren't an unfortunate slave.
What I read in bell hooks I've read before in Buddhism, infact my first introduction to her was in an interview with Thich Nhat Hahn. If you don't know much about Buddhism, Buddhism has told me all this before, what I found was validation from a outside opinion.

And "faith" is a hard thing for Zen Buddhism, a non-theistic religion of mysticism. What I have faith in is humanity, which is something I often have to deny evidence against willingly in order to keep on being a good person and getting my work done.

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Despanan and I find you frustrating BECAUSE you use your status as a person of EASTERN FAITH to defend the status of Western believers. You guys aren't even close to the same thing and not only that, but you are NOT a slave to your faith. We don't have to worry about how you behave because it's your modern humanist philosophies that guide HOW you use your faith. Like you said, your faith is a tool, but NOT a dependency. You can't use yourself as a shield against an indefensible position such as what Desp is talking about.
Isn't this for a play about vikings? I assume the character in question isn't talking about Christianity. We're talking about faith in general.
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Old 12-10-2011, 07:08 PM   #55
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What I read in bell hooks I've read before in Buddhism, infact my first introduction to her was in an interview with Thich Nhat Hahn. If you don't know much about Buddhism, Buddhism has told me all this before, what I found was validation from a outside opinion.

And "faith" is a hard thing for Zen Buddhism, a non-theistic religion of mysticism. What I have faith in is humanity, which is something I often have to deny evidence against willingly in order to keep on being a good person and getting my work done.



Isn't this for a play about vikings? I assume the character in question isn't talking about Christianity. We're talking about faith in general.
It's a badassed play about Vikings. Like if Jesus Christ came back after the ressurection and totally kicked EVERYONE'S asses.

Because of where I am I want to see the world through the eyes of a theist. I want to believe in faith and I want to make a real defense for it, because straw-men are boring.

What's funny about this, is the character who argues for faith is probably a proto-atheist.

Also: definitely NOT a Christian. Though christianity is really imp
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Old 12-11-2011, 06:23 AM   #56
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Why is Faith good? Is there anything endemic to faith, anything positive about it that you can't get anywhere else?
Much of the time, people base their reality on observations. For example, "My job is going really well, and I'm about to get a raise, so life is peachy." Or, alternatively, "My best friend died, and I'm drinking too much, so my life is going to shit." However, faith adds an element that's not quite quantifiable, yet seems to help. "I just lost my job, and things look terrible, but my deity is on my side, so I'll undoubtedly get another job soon."

Of course, whether or not said deity will actually help is up for debate, but in the mean time, such faith can indeed help to raise one's spirits, which might just very well mean the difference between improving one's lot.
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Old 12-11-2011, 01:07 PM   #57
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It's a badassed play about Vikings. Like if Jesus Christ came back after the ressurection and totally kicked EVERYONE'S asses.

Because of where I am I want to see the world through the eyes of a theist. I want to believe in faith and I want to make a real defense for it, because straw-men are boring.

What's funny about this, is the character who argues for faith is probably a proto-atheist.

Also: definitely NOT a Christian. Though christianity is really imp
I was about to say to Judas that "not all religious faiths are theist", but I also don't think the Norse had the same kind of faith everyone is talking about even though they were theists.

What set Judaism and then Christianity apart from pagan religions was the idea that God actually loves his creation. I don't think the religion started off that way, we talked a lot in class about dating different sections of the Old Testament and placing them in the northern kingdom (Who worshipped God as Elohim, and he was mysterious, disembodied and beyond our reasoning) and the southern kingdom Judah (who whorshipped God as Yahweh and he was more anthropomorphic, sat on top of the Ark, angry, more like a pagan god who protects Israel). The Elohim idea seems to be more dominate in the later writings, even though Judah outlived Israel, I guess after losing the Ark and being sent to Babylon the idea of a god who was everywhere and watching out for you was a lot more popular than an angry war god, save for when they like to talk about how God is going to do horrible things to the Babylonians in revenge. My point is, Yahweh is different than other pagan gods at the time, especially when you look at the Babylonian creation myths, Yahweh actually meant to make humans and blesses them and has a terrible temper when they do evil things, and he eventually evolves and becomes more and more different. The Norse gods are no exception, they don't exactly love mankind, they can die, they aren't reliable, they do a lot of morally questionable things, in Ragnarok they plan to take us down with them, its not exactly a faith of comfort.
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Old 12-12-2011, 10:20 AM   #58
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That's your humanism improving your faith, not your faith improving you. You're doing the opposite of what Despanan is talking about. You didn't find that wisdom in your faith...your faith doesn't make you a better person, Saya...
This was the point of my suggestion: the poor's only hope is that they are equal in the end, and the rich can afford to hedge their bets by donating to charity, "buying" a ticket to heaven. This demonstrates faith making people better, or at least comfortable with their lot.
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Old 12-12-2011, 10:35 AM   #59
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That is only a very specific and inconsequential show of faith in your religion. There are tons of religions that don't require people to buy their ticket to a heaven, and you're defending them all through a contingent outcome of yours.
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Old 12-12-2011, 12:50 PM   #60
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This is a bit off topic, HP, but doesn't that also disingenuously insist upon pacification?

If the poor believe that they are equal to the rich because of God, and the rich must voluntarily give to charity to reach the paradise that the poor man already has by virtue of his poverty, it would seem to encourage the poor to not work for a better world and to allow themselves to be exploited because they think "the shoe will be on the other foot in the next world".

Atheism doesn't say anything one way or the other about equality because it is simply a lack of belief in gods. Humanism is what demands universal equality, and one can easily be an atheist/secularist humanist.

The very existence of a deity, and the notion of another world which doles out supernatural rewards/punishment according to ondividual merit enforces the ideas of heirachy and exceptionalism - not the other way around.
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Old 12-12-2011, 04:22 PM   #61
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That is only a very specific and inconsequential show of faith in your religion. There are tons of religions that don't require people to buy their ticket to a heaven, and you're defending them all through a contingent outcome of yours.
Granted, Des did not specify what faith his character believed, and his question infers good planning: that he must evaluate to select the best of breed of all faiths to put the character's best foot forward.

But my example not only provides an example of faith leading people towards improved outlooks and actions, but it also shows induction is possible in this issue, because Christianity makes up a significant percentage of the world's faiths. It can be inferred (induced) that

"A religion (Christianity) with a large number of adherents helps people behave in a positive way. Since the large number of adherents is equal to the same number of examples of positive influence, we may infer that faith improves people by the large representative sample. This does not include Islam or Buddhism so we cannot say majority, but a significant percentage still supports the conclusion."

Induction is possible.
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Old 12-12-2011, 04:31 PM   #62
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Damn 5 minute limit.

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This is a bit off topic, HP, but doesn't that also disingenuously insist upon pacification?
Yes. The individual must surrender their obedience to God for the whole thing to work.
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If the poor believe that they are equal to the rich because of God, and the rich must voluntarily give to charity to reach the paradise that the poor man already has by virtue of his poverty, it would seem to encourage the poor to not work for a better world and to allow themselves to be exploited because they think "the shoe will be on the other foot in the next world".
It enables the poor to endure their condition, and in many cases (such as mine) enables them to lift themselves up by their bootstraps and achieve success because they believe they have the power of God behind them, giving them not only endurance but great strength and insight.


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Atheism doesn't say anything one way or the other about equality because it is simply a lack of belief in gods. Humanism is what demands universal equality, and one can easily be an atheist/secularist humanist.

The very existence of a deity, and the notion of another world which doles out supernatural rewards/punishment according to ondividual merit enforces the ideas of heirachy and exceptionalism - not the other way around.
Correct. Instead of dissatisfied and frustrated men claiming the rich are equal to them, it becomes God who makes the rules, giving a divine morality and justification for the believer's perspective. As Alan said, a superstructure above men that by virtue of it's heavenly altitude above all men, is easier to accept in its pacification. If it were from men it would be "Fuck you and the amazing horse you rode in on!"
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Old 12-12-2011, 04:49 PM   #63
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So you just accepted that religion is an opiate that discourages people from demanding justice.
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Old 12-12-2011, 06:05 PM   #64
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So you just accepted that religion is an opiate that discourages people from demanding justice.
Yes, for those who endure. No for those it empowers.

Martin Luther King Jr. was empowered by his faith to effect change.
So was Jesus. These two men had huge impact on justice for believers, because of their faith.
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Old 12-13-2011, 10:20 AM   #65
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What I read in bell hooks I've read before in Buddhism, infact my first introduction to her was in an interview with Thich Nhat Hahn. If you don't know much about Buddhism, Buddhism has told me all this before, what I found was validation from a outside opinion.
That would make sense. Fromm proposed that Eastern faith "invented" equality. Because of that, I don't find myself in immediate opposition to those that follow eastern faiths. But yes, we may have gone off topic here.

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And "faith" is a hard thing for Zen Buddhism, a non-theistic religion of mysticism. What I have faith in is humanity, which is something I often have to deny evidence against willingly in order to keep on being a good person and getting my work done.
Exactly. Because of its mysticism, it's not exactly about pleasing external forces but maintaining something personally internal. Again Saya, I'm actually not anti-eastern faith. I think perhaps that would be a good thing to consider in the future cause I'm sure we're gonna butt heads on religion again. It's like intellectual rugby. The only thing that I can really say about eastern faiths is that I don't have any evidence that proves that I am an inescapable constituent of your faith and as far as it goes, the usefulness is a bit... questionable as in I don't exactly conclude that your faith is a pre-requisite or mandatory. But that's about as far as my contention goes with your brand of faith.



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Isn't this for a play about vikings? I assume the character in question isn't talking about Christianity. We're talking about faith in general.
Yeah.
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Old 12-13-2011, 10:24 AM   #66
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Yes, for those who endure. No for those it empowers.

Martin Luther King Jr. was empowered by his faith to effect change.
So was Jesus. These two men had huge impact on justice for believers, because of their faith.
I fully disagree. I don't think their faith MADE them do anything. I think their humanity made them do what they did. The faith was just an excuse and an endorser of their idea, not exactly a miraculous mandate.
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Old 12-13-2011, 12:00 PM   #67
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I fully disagree. I don't think their faith MADE them do anything. I think their humanity made them do what they did. The faith was just an excuse and an endorser of their idea, not exactly a miraculous mandate.
This. Both these guys were basically reformers operating within the belief systems their own times.

Not to mention that "If someone catches you with a right hook, turn your face and let them show off their wicked left" isn't exactly the most empowering of edicts. If the message is supposed to be that retributive violence achieves nothing, he really should've qualified that shit - as it stands, as much as I want to like its "Take the high road" message, I also can't help picturing residents of Gaza lying down for the tanks.
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