• Culture is critical
    I would first, again clearly state, my lack of academic qualifications in philosophy. — universeness

    It is not knowledge that is the end all but how we process our thoughts. Anyone can be valuable in the discussions providing the individual has had preparation for logical thinking and is not 100% driven by emotions. Today most arguments are nothing but emotionally driven conflicts. Especially in politics.

    The conflict Athenians had with those who taught rhetoric skills and the old-school philosophers tickles me.

    Plato and Socrates believed these teachers and their rhetorical teachings were dangerous because they promised anyone the ability to make compelling arguments in courts and the assembly without a clear sense of the values that should guide this kind of speech.

    Chapter 2: The “Origins” of Rhetorical Theory
    https://open.lib.umn.edu/rhetoricaltheory/chapter/chapter-2/#:~:text=Plato%20and%20Socrates%20believed%20these,guide%20this%20kind%20of%20speech.

    Wouldn't Plato and Socrates have a cow if they saw today's advertisements and political campaigns?
  • Culture is critical
    That being said, there will be those who haven't even noticed it, tucked away as it is.
    I haven't read it all. Only sampled a few pages. That was enough for me to 'pipe in'.
    I felt the need to question. But that's me being me. Avoiding housework.     — Amity

    This thread has wandered all over the place and I hadn't noticed it was moved to the lounge but I can live with all that because I think the few of us who stayed with the thread have made progress. What is happening here will seep into other threads and eventually, the movement may change the world because this is not the only place that is part of the movement. The whole notion of democracy and logos has been around for thousands of years, but right now that knowledge seems seriously limited.

    The priority purpose of education in the US was good citizenship that would make our republic united and strong. We prepared everyone for good moral judgment without the Church! As the Athenians did we created an American mythology and this was part of preparing our young to be good citizens. That is education transmitted a culture that is essential to democracy and our liberty. Only when democracy and liberty are defended in the classroom is it defended. That is what makes culture critical.
  • Culture is critical
    Yes, I agree. — Vera Mont

    Okay, I now hope we can bring Universeness around to the possibility that is the foundation of our democracy- humans will do as well as they know how to do and if we want to change things, we need to begin with education, including the education of adults. That is the importance of this forum.

    We need to make some agreements about how things should be and then how we can achieve it. People breeding like rabbits was great when most of us died before our 40th birthday but it is not a good thing today. Waiting for a God to solve our problems is not an option if we destroy this planet, He is not going to give us another one to mess up and we will mess it up as long as He gives us free will.

    :heart: Humans are intelligent animals and that is best when they are well educated but that is not thinking of the young as products to prepare for industry or education for technology that makes them dependent on authority over them.
  • Culture is critical
    Your generalised historical description of those events are accurate and you know I fully agree that they cannot be justified. My question to you then becomes. Do you think many more humans, all around the planet, now utterly condemn those events, than ever have in the past? If you agree, then does that not speak well for the progression of the general enlightenment of our species? I would also say to Athena, that I think such improvements in general enlightenment, are happening, despite regressive god posit influences or old Greco/Roman fables. My main argument with you Vera , is, as you know, your at times, general disdain of your entire species, because of the vile actions of a nefarious few. — universeness

    Thank you for the mention. You made me think of today's news about national leaders who appear to benefit themselves by exploiting others. To jump on universeness's side of the argument, CEOs who get million-dollar salaries are no better than those terrible leaders who use force to silence unhappy citizens. I am really quite amused right now by the unions demanding the workers get the same pay raise as the millionaire CEOs have gotten. Auto workers, nurses, the entertainment industry.

    :chin: How long do you think it will take the capitalist to realize their is a problem with their formula for wealth?

    I was a caregiver for a while and my wages were so low I could provide my children with a decent standard of living. Doing my very best was not good enough for the children's well-being and they turned against the values they were taught. They came back to those values, but not before having children of their own and really messing up their lives.

    If I were king, all decisions would be based on what is best for the children and living sanely within the limits of nature. It would be a law that the population can not exceed the resources of the community. Diverting a river that many states must use, to provide for overpopulated places would be forbidden.
    Laws would be based on laws of nature!!!
  • To be an atheist, but not a materialist, is completely reasonable
    Thomas Jefferson is a favorite American hero of mine. His time on the planet was a special period of human history. So it's interesting that you would mention his definition of pursuing happiness in relationship to the non-material.

    In terms of a more robust historical type of education, I'm aware that medieval universities taught something known as the "quadrivium". Which was the effort to create well-rounded and balanced thinkers by focusing on arithmetic, geometry, astronomy, and music; cosmic languages. Today, as you point out, we are limited in our learning; at least when compared to the past.

    So it is indeed the responsibility of the individual to seek out knowledge and wisdom, in order to find this sacred middle space.     — Bret Bernhoft

    I love you. :love: And our democracy will continue to self-destruct until we all know what you said.

    Fortunately, someone was wise enough to introduce convicts to the classics and it was discovered these classics could be life-changing. Unfortunately, the Christian understanding of humans and God keeps us in the dark ages before the Renaissance brought back the knowledge of the Greek and Roman documents. People who study only the Bible are not literate enough to protect and defend democracy. They are waiting for a kingdom. :grimace:
  • Culture is critical
    They were rights under American law. You have no power to rescind them, and they continue to go unpunished. Indeed, many of the fortunes acquired then, by those methods, continue in the possession of similar people through inheritance and consolidation. The privilege accruing to those robber barons is still enjoyed by their descendants. — Vera Mont





    What about voting for the opposing party, writing to representatives and the newspaper, and unions?
    The State took my grandchildren and I joined with other Grandparents fighting for their grandchildren and our effort became a radical change in the Department of Children's Services flipping the department's relationship with extended family. Making change depends on how much someone wants that change and the person's ability to mobilize the public for change. :lol: That is not easy, no one pays attention to what I have to say about logos, education, or democracy, and some days I get really discouraged but fighting for change is what a democracy is about and we have made progress. We would make even more progress if we understood a few things differently.

    Horsefeathers! When you kill someone they end up dead - you can't fail to notice. You can't not know that someone chained up in the damp, dark, rat-infested cargo hold of a ship is unhappy. You don't whip them to make them feel better: you do it to hurt them.
    People were not any dumber than we are. Human brain capacity hasn't changed much since Neanderthal man. And morality wasn't invented in 400BCE Athens: stone age people knew right and wrong. They also knew that what is detrimental to one person may benefit another, so as long as the benefit is to them and the harm - no matter how much or how grievous a harm - is to a designated scapegoat, it's fine.
    People then, just like the people now, just like the people in ancient times, knew what they were doing. They didn't care, just as they don't care now, what damage results from serving their short-term gains.
    Who gives a damn what happens three generations down the line?
    Much worse, they very often go out of their way to do harm when they have nothing to gain, out of hate, fear, resentment, to satisfy a lust, or simply for entertainment.     — Vera Mont

    Being dumb and having a different understanding of life are two different things. Your understanding of life is based on your experience of life and those who have a different experience will have a different way of understanding life. Our experience of life and our understanding of what government can and should do has changed greatly in the past 200 years.

    Yes, morality was invented by the Athenians. A moral is a matter of cause and effect and it goes with an understanding of logos. I do not think the word moral can be found in the Bible. Christians have Christianized the concept of moral and they like to take credit for our democracy which no one saw in the Bible until there was literacy in Greek and Roman classics. We have a serious problem with Christians but that goes in another thread.

    If we had the understanding of morality that began in Athens we would understand it means to know the law (universal law) and that violating the law leads to problems that get worse if the wrong is not corrected. This understanding is very important to democracy. The concept also emerged in Asia and to some degree all humans who survived had ideas about what would harm them or benefit them. But knowing what will hurt or benefit us, is not that useful without a notion of logos. It is as it is because of universal law, not because of gods that make it so.

    The Bible explains slavery and believing people who look different are not humans equal to ourselves is a lie. But also speaking of slavery as though all slave owners brutalized their slaves also creates a lie. Their awareness was different from yours and today if you run across a brutal person, it is very likely that person had a different experience of life than yours, and has a whole different story of life in his/her head. What we think of that person and how we treat that person, depends strongly on the story we tell ourselves. In some persons the guards are brutal and there is agreement this is necessary because the brutal person must be dealt with brutally. In some counties, the brutality is tolerated and in some counties, it is not.

    This is what philosophy is about, comparing our stories of life with other people's stories of life and arguing until we have an agreement on the best reasoning.

    What is the life story in a person's head when the person is intentionally brutal? What was the life experience that led to that?
  • To be an atheist, but not a materialist, is completely reasonable
    Religions shape cultures and that is not matter but is conceptual. Our concepts have power. That power can lead to us sacrificing human hearts to a god, or giving charity to people in need. It is as we make it.
    — Athena

    No, significantly it is what religious leaders make it. Religious followers can only follow.     — praxis

    I am sorry, I do not follow what you are saying. You are saying "no" to what? You do not think religion is a story that shapes our thinking and behavior? Even atheists are sure what a god is and it is not possible to discuss logos and the prime mover with them because they absolutely can not give up their understanding of a humanized god. They absolutely insist all discussions of god match the Christian notion of a god and therefore it is impossible to discuss a notion of god as forces of nature with no human qualities.

    Cicero said our failure to do well was a matter of ignorance because we would do right if we knew the right thing to do. That requires an education that is about good citizenship and good moral judgment and education for technology does not do that. I repeat there is more to life than matter.
    — Athena

    The purpose of religion is to bind groups with a shared narrative, values, etc., not to teach ethics. In fact, religion limits moral development.

    There is more to life than antiquated concepts and beliefs.

    I agree that the materialist and the Christian prevent us from knowing truth and developing our concepts of the law. However, there is more to religion than worshipping a false god and the only way that antiquated problem will be resolved is to adjust the understanding of god and religion and therefore what we can talk about.

    : a cause, principle, or system of beliefs held to with ardor and faith — Webster Dictionary

    Democracy can be a religion. We can make truth our goal by changing the conversation about god and religion. Coming out of the Age of Enlightenment, that is what was happening and how we came to have a democracy. No one saw the principles of democracy in the Bible until there was literacy in the Greek and Roman classics and literacy in the classics unleashed human potential. In the Capitol Building of the US, there is a mural of the gods that make a democratic republic great. At that time in history, no one literally believed in those gods, but they were understood as concepts.

    What is wrong today, is the 1958 National Defense Education Act prepared the young to be very literal and uncompromising. The materialism of some of them is as bad as interpreting the Bible literally. Democracy does not work today because we stopped teaching with the Conceptual Method and it is almost impossible to have open and meaningful discussions than advance our awareness of logos. Anyone who does not hold our understanding of truth is an idiot, right? And the way to deal with those idiots is to tell them their faults as flannel jesus did in his reply to my post.
  • To be an atheist, but not a materialist, is completely reasonable
    My disagreement with philosophical Materialism is that it ignores or trivializes the immaterial power that allows homo sapiens to post on forums like this. — Gnomon

    :lol: That is preposterous that an evolved species would think itself the ultimate ruler of the universe and so they make a god in their own image.

    Unfortunately, Logos and Prime Mover might be rejected by Materialists*1 as unprovable Transcendent beings or forces. For me that's not a problem, because they are merely hypothetical philosophical conjectures (thought experiments) or Axioms*2, with no need for empirical proof, only logical consistency. And, since they have no "favorite people", they provide no reason for slavish religious worship. They also have no need to "violate" natural laws, since they are essentially the LawMakers. :smile: — Gnomon

    Exactly, however, it might help if we resist using human pronouns when referring to logos or a prime mover. As I see it, humans imaged gods in their own image as she's and his's being happy or mad. With the Greek gods and goddesses, we can be aware of helpful concepts and reasoning, which may not be as true for some of the imagined beings in other cultures. I think the Sumerian story of our creation is about an extremely long drought and the return of climatic conditions that made returning to the valley possible. There is geological evidence of this. So we might not want to relate to the spirit of the river that was humanized in the story. Our ancient past is full of such imagined beings because it appears to be our nature to humanize what we experience, such as calling logos and the prime mover "they". Doing that makes what we are saying easier to understand than say, an explanation of quantum physics.

    We are not naturally mathematically literate and many of us have a problem remembering complicated equations, whereas we easily remember the story of Little Red Riding Hood and the Wolf. There is a survival element in the stories of rocks that used to be beings and now mark the spot where water can be found. But how about this, even materialists have stories to explain our existence. We might want to believe these stories are true because they can be validated, but it is not uncommon for a scientific explanation to be proven wrong and it is prudent to keep our minds open and that possibility. That is why I like what you said, "hypothetical philosophical conjectures (thought experiments) or Axioms*2,".
  • To be an atheist, but not a materialist, is completely reasonable
    ↪flannel jesus
    Considering how rude you were, I can ignore you.
  • Culture is critical
    "We" - white protestant males - had freedom to kill and displace Indians, extirpate entire species of plant and animal, blast holes in mountains, clear-cut hillsides, drain swamps, divert and dam rivers, disrupt ecological balance, claim land and mineral rights. — Vera Mont

    Those bad things were not rights. They were a failure to know better. Greek philosophy, if it gets good results it is good/moral. If it gets bad results it is bad/immoral. When our understanding is limited to knowledge of ourselves, we can think everything that benefits us in the moment is good, however, if it harms another animal or human or the environment, then it is harmful and not good/immoral. We may be unaware of the harm we have done, but sooner or later it becomes a problem. It may take 3 generations before the problem is so bad we are made aware of it. For example, slavery benefitted a handful of people and they knew they were facing a problem but they did not end the wrong and now we are dealing with that wrong daily. This is the importance of understanding logos rather than believing in a god who punishes and rewards people depending on whether he is pleased or angered. That belief stands in the way of good reasoning.

    Sure... assuming there is an eventuality in store for any humans at all. I'm quite convinced there isn't one for the united states of America... unless, of course, it's reconfigured into several separate unions. The current arrangement isn't working and has never worked for more than a few decades at a time, and even in those periods, for only part of the population. — Vera Mont

    And this is why I argue so passionately! Immediately, we would see huge improvements if we replaced autocratic Industry with a democratic model and we had education for democracy preparing the future generations to be self-ruling no matter what happens. They could be reduced to a small band of people wandering the earth and sharing it with other nomadic tribes and they would know how to best organize for the best chances of surviving and maybe even thriving.
  • To be an atheist, but not a materialist, is completely reasonable
    I know that was one thing one person brought up in the conversation once. I didn't realize that was the central focus. Is it?

    "I don't know, but do you want to discuss sacred math?"
    — Athena

    Not particularly.     — flannel jesus

    You are right. We are not focused on how what we believe relates to how we behave and that is a problem because we are not developing self-awareness as we plunder the earth and kill plants and animals and each other.

    The best way to discover the problem with being a materialist is to discuss sacred math because then we can see how what people believe about sacred things, limits what they can know.
  • To be an atheist, but not a materialist, is completely reasonable
    Why would a materialist have a hard time accepting an unknown energy? — flannel jesus

    I don't know, but do you want to discuss sacred math? Perhaps we can discover why a materialist has a hard time accepting an unknown energy.
  • To be an atheist, but not a materialist, is completely reasonable
    Why would a materialist have a hard time accepting an unknown energy? I'm quite certain that every materialist I know is completely comfortable with the idea that we haven't discovered all that's true about the universe.

    I fear you've built up this very narrow idea of what materialists think, that isn't actually what materialists think.     — flannel jesus

    You do know we are talking about how we use this planet, right? Indigenous people held a spiritual relationship with the land, and our lives and the planet would be very different if we all had a spiritual relationship with our home in the universe. Many people lived with the idea that it was their duty to take care of the earth and our oldest civilizations used math to keep things in order. Kings were replaced when natural phenomena destroyed crops because that was seen as a failure to please the gods. :lol: The extreme weather events we have had and increasing water shortages could be understood as a failure to please the gods, or a failure to understand science. Either way, our failure to live in harmony with nature does seem to threaten us.

    The prediction of end times predates Christianity because human populations kept increasing and the people could see in time there would be more people than the earth could support. Thinking a god causes this or a god can protect us from the destruction of our planet seems problematic to me. Thinking we can do whatever we want, seems problematic to me. The materialists have impressed me as being out of touch with reality.

    Can we have an economy based on oil and not run into trouble? No.
  • To be an atheist, but not a materialist, is completely reasonable
    So, my philosophical curiosity naturally wonders about the original Source of that all-important creative & animating power. I don't imagine the origin of the world as a biblical Genesis, but Plato/Aristotle's abstract notion of LOGOS & Prime Mover suits me for philosophical purposes. That gives me a point from which to reason about our temporary sojourn in a habitat suitable for matter-transcending living & thinking creatures. :smile: — Gnomon

    Thank you so much! I think our discussions would be much improved the the notions of logos and prime mover. And from there, even the gods were subject to logos.

    Stories of a god and angels having favorite people and violating the laws of nature and a Satan and demons are a problem and we might change the discussions we have by asking if this or that story is a valid explanation of reality, rather than the very old and stale arguments about the existence of a god who can be manipulated by our behaviors. Going to war, invading another country because a god wants us to fight the war is totally wrong and should never happen. Presidents manipulating citizens with words like "evil" and "power and glory" is wrong! Religion should not be used to support oil companies and maintain our economy.

    A religion that is about a kingdom, is not good for democracy.
  • To be an atheist, but not a materialist, is completely reasonable
    Doesn't seem to follow though, does it? That "spiritual dimension" sneaks into the picture. Is that "spiritual dimension" a part of Nature? If so, a Naturalist may accept it as a part of reality, like everything else, including energy. The question would then seem to be whether if it's part of the Universe it is corporeal. — Ciceronianus

    Oh my, what a delicious field of exploration you have opened for us. Our mental state has a lot to do with our physical state. Being spiritual can literally extend our lives. Prays work because our thoughts can affect our physical being.

    Religions shape cultures and that is not matter but is conceptual. Our concepts have power. That power can lead to us sacrificing human hearts to a god, or giving charity to people in need. It is as we make it. There is more to life than matter. :smile: Cicero said our failure to do well was a matter of ignorance because we would do right if we knew the right thing to do. That requires an education that is about good citizenship and good moral judgment and education for technology does not do that. I repeat there is more to life than matter.
  • Culture is critical
    I meant it as refutation of the nice popular mythology of the rugged individualist, Davy Crockett spirit of America: barely constrained personal freedom; unbounded national ambition.
    Of course it was never true: of the 2.5 million American citizens, only adult white unindentured males had any freedom at all, and for most of those men, freedom was limited by economic and social constraints.

    The notion of individual liberty was false then and is even more false now, but people keep waving flags and supporting antisocial policies in defense of the illusion.

    It's nothing to do Gilgamesh or ancient Mesopotamia.     — Vera Mont

    Gilgamesh and the present have something to do with human nature. We need to be careful about our understanding of freedom.

    We have more agreement than disagreement. In early adulthood, I realized I knew nothing about economics and that knowing something about economics was essential to success. Our ignorance keeps us slaves to those who provide our labor and the bankers. The best reason I can think of for schools neglecting this important part of our education is we are not attracted to economics. High school students want economics classes as much as they want math classes. Sure some nerds want that information but not the average student.

    However, as long as we had a wilderness to the west, we had real freedom. I think that is something we should be aware of when considering economic matters. We no longer have that wilderness and we might want to update our thinking with today's reality.

    Almost daily, where I live, the homeless are in the news. When Reagan was our President he said we don't have homeless people, just bums. That was a lie and people loved it. Reason scapegoated the poor so he could slash domestic budgets and pour all resources into military spending. Today the pressure is to do something about the growing homeless problem. A totally different reality from Reagan's day.

    We need to wake up to reality and I think that is as likely as high school students demanding a class in economics. But as things keep getting worse there is hope we will eventually want to understand our changing world and new realities.
  • To be an atheist, but not a materialist, is completely reasonable
    Yes. Absolutely. In my mind there is little reason to exclude the thinking, intuition and conclusions of others outright; especially if the work being done is about balance and hybridizing extremes. Being able to challenge myself with diverse sources of knowledge does indeed make living a wondrous thing. This is a hallmark of a good life, in my observations. — Bret Bernhoft

    That is what Thomas Jefferson, and Cicero before him, meant when they spoke of the pursuit of happiness.

    Before we focused education on the advancement of technology for military and Industrial purposes, we had education for conceptualizing, and being overly materialistic was deemed inferior. Learning a technology is for the working class, not the ruling class.

    Concepts are not matter and yet they can be very powerful. Some concepts are very spiritual in nature and this can improve our health. Clearly, there is more to reality than matter.
  • To be an atheist, but not a materialist, is completely reasonable
    Both leaf and stone are spinning on the surface of a giant sphere at a thousand miles per hour. They don't fly off of the earth because its mass is so great that it pulls them towards it. The earth is spinning around a star. The solar system is spinning in a galaxy. The galaxy is expanding with the universe... Going the other way, there's a bunch of atomic and quantum movement too, so I'm told. — praxis

    That sounds like a familiar explanation. What are the forces that cause the motion? What is gravity?
    If nothing counterbalances gravity why doesn't the whole universe get sucked back together? Why is the universe expanding?
  • Culture is critical
    Is without purpose, if that's all you do! I did a lot of weekend pub/disco, adventure/indulgence etc but I worked hard during the rest of the week and managed to complete an apprenticeship, study at night schools, complete an honours degree course at uni, a postgrad in education and had a 30 year teaching career. I was never unfaithful to anyone in that time and only had two serious relationships in my life. I was engaged twice but both relationships failed. No kids, thank goodness. I am not against having kids but I agree that it's important to have as stable and as strong a support system established, as you can possibly achieve, before you do. Including contingency plans.

    The trouble with the main quote above, is that the 'god' label is so soiled with woo woo, and pernicious scriptures, that it's use in any paragraph, which is designed to make a moral statement or give moral advice to others, simply totally fails, imo.
    I would reword the quote above as:
    "A person of grace is a person of strength and humility. Human grace, is a definition of excellence, not a supernatural being, but a human potential. I believe we are healthier with a concept of grace, that brings out the best in us. This is possible without superstition. This possibility depends on knowing truth. Truth is in harmony with nature. Superstition is not."

    The Greeks had their three charities/graces. Three goddess inventions. Wiki describes them.
    Aglaia represented elegance, brightness and splendor
    Thalia represented youth, beauty and good cheer
    Euphrosyne represented mirth and or joyfulness

    Education should utterly remove the need for such child like notions, imo.
    Notions of Yahweh, Jesus, Allah, Brahma etc, are absolutely no different to these three Greek metaphors, for desired human states/ predilections.     — universeness

    As usual, your post is so profound I am a bit overwhelmed. My thought seems very little compared to the concepts of your explanation however for the sake of discussion I will proceed with my peppercorn of a thought. :smile:

    What is important here is the concept. Without a god/concept how do we think about our higher potential? How do we lift ourselves above the animal kingdom? :heart:

    When I write of logos as "reason, the controlling force of the universe", I am cutting short the Webster Dictionary explanation of logos. The fuller explanation says, "made manifest in speech". I stop there because I want to avoid notions of the Creator (noun)while speaking of the creation (verb). But you kind of push me in a corner where the power of a concept must be explored. :heart:

    I keep putting in hearts to convey I love it when I am forced to think about what I think. Does it exist before there is a concept of it, or does the concept come first? Was it made manifest when a god spoke? Do we manifest it when we become aware of the concept?

    I think stories to explain our concepts are essential and perhaps we should be more tolerant of our human condition of having to learn so much because we are not born knowing it all. All the gods and goddesses are concepts and we learn of these concepts through stories. Rather than saying they do not exist, I would say they are real but this does not mean they are individual supernatural gods. A concept is not a being. A concept is of the mind. The separate concepts must be named before they can exist in our consciousness. :chin:

    We need a god so we can project all our notions of goodness into the god. Their projection of goodness is what makes supernatural beings so real to those who believe in them, and their belief can work miracles. The concepts are real and can be effective. :grimace: Does any of this work for you?
  • To be an atheist, but not a materialist, is completely reasonable
    I personally wouldn't word it as "energy is material", but I'm not prepared to say that's explicitly wrong either. In any case, it's clear that a contemporary "materialist" world view includes energy. — flannel jesus

    Might it be possible that our understanding of energy and matter is culturally biased and also lacks more recent information about quantum physics and the center of the universe?

    The existence of dark energy is still in question and a materialist would have a hard time accepting an unknown energy but we can see, balance is essential, and it seems quite obvious to me, if the only energy that mattered was gravity then the whole universe would be sucked back together.


    Astronomers theorize that the faster expansion rate is due to a mysterious, dark force that is pulling galaxies apart. One explanation for dark energy is that it is a property of space. Albert Einstein was the first person to realize that empty space is not nothing.

    Dark Energy, Dark Matter | Science Mission Directorate     — NASA
  • Culture is critical
    It was about how Americans regard individual freedom of action and what they're willing to sacrifice for it. — Vera Mont

    Let me begin by telling you know how much I appreciate how your post pushed me to a new realization of a better way to explain the importance of education transmitting a culture.

    What you said is a nice popular mythology. Let us check it out with a Sumerian story.

    Gilgamesh, the best known of all ancient Mesopotamian heroes. Numerous tales in the Akkadian language have been told about Gilgamesh, and the whole collection has been described as an odyssey—the odyssey of a king who did not want to die.

    Gilgamesh | Epic, Summary, & Facts - Britannica     — Britannica

    In this odyssey is a character from the back woods who is not civilized. He behaves more like an animal than a citizen of the city. This uncouth, backwoods person wants his freedom and will live or die for his freedom. Is this something to be proud of, to be like an animal rather than a civilized person who understands the reasoning of law and is willing to give up some of his freedom for the benefit of living in a civilization?

    Uneducated people are not honorably defending freedom because they know nothing of the principles on which honor is built. They know what they want and like a dog will fight to have what they want. This is the mentality of Trump followers. They have permission to be so uncivilized from Neitzche, who they never read but thanks to colleges Neitzche has penetrated our shared consciousness. His Superman who is superior and does not have to follow the rules is very attractive to men like Trump, they have disdain for the civilized whimps. Their understanding of making America great again is contaminated by Neitzche or just raw backwoods mentality. "I want it so I will take it."

    Please give me feedback so I can know if I am getting close to a good explanation or not. Thank you.
  • To be an atheist, but not a materialist, is completely reasonable
    "Everything" which causes changes is material, ergo "energy" is material, no? — 180 Proof

    What are the differences between mater and energy?
    MATTER
    • Matter has mass.
    • Matter takes up space (called volume).
    Thus, matter is anything that has mass and takes up space.
    ENERGY
    • Energy is not like matter.
    • Energy does not have mass.
    • Energy does not take up space.
    • Energy MOVES matter.
    Therefore, energy is the ability to make things move.
    https://grove.ccsd59.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2015/03/1.-Matter-Vs.-Energy-.pdf
  • To be an atheist, but not a materialist, is completely reasonable
    NB: ... "yinyang" ... "atoms swirling swerving in the void" ... "E=mc²" ... "fermions & bosons", wtf are woo-ologists talking about? :sweat: — 180 Proof

    You have done nothing but insult. Good reasoning requires following some laws of logic and your post is not a good example of that. Name-calling such as "woo-ologist" is destructive to the communication process that I expect of people in the philosophy forum.
  • To be an atheist, but not a materialist, is completely reasonable
    This is the second time in my life that I've seen someone suggest materialists don't believe in energy lmao. How is that supposed to work? All materialists believe that matter moves around, right? And matter requires energy to move and interact and change directions and so forth, right?

    I've never met a materialist who doesn't believe in energy. I have, however, met non-materialists who say materialists believe that. THAT'S what's truly mind-blowing.     — flannel jesus

    No matter does not move around. If my computer desk decides to move itself to the other side of the room, I will scream and run out of the door. Not many materialists are in agreement with Native Americans about the sacred land and the wrong of exploiting it. Matter constantly changes but the leaves do so much faster than rocks and neither the leaf nor a stone has the power of moving. So exactly how do you understand the energy of which you speak?

    Materialists do not see reality like this...

    The earth, in a very real sense, is our mother. We are born from this mother, from Gaia; we are extensions of the earth and the cosmos of which it is a part. This means that our conceptualizing and our spirituality also extend from the spiritual dimension of the cosmos and the earth. — Thomas Berry

    I am not sure but I think the big divide between materials and the spiritualist is disagreement about the source of the energy that makes life possible.
  • To be an atheist, but not a materialist, is completely reasonable
    Thank you for the recommendation. I have added it to my list of books to consider buying in the near-future. I am a big fan of literature that seeks to fuse seemingly incompatible paradigms, into a new coherent understanding of the universe. — Bret Bernhoft

    The book "Great Thinkers of the Eastern World" is easier to read than Fritjof Capra and prepares us to understand Tao which is great for reading Greek philosophy and thinking of things such as Democritus’s ideas of changing physical phenomena. :wink: All the sources of knowledge we have to choose from make living a wonderful thing. It appears you want to enjoy it all as I do.
  • Culture is critical
    You're welcome Athena, but I think Tim Booth should get all the credit, for writing such good lyrics.
    I found this wee website, with this introductory comment about the song. I don't think it's far away from our interpretations:

    "This song is very much open to interpretation, and depending on they way you process the words, it could can be a warning against overindulgence, a look at surviving life on the edge, or a commentary on how you can always turn your life around. James vocalist Tim Booth, who wrote the lyrics, has explained that the character Daniel in the song saves a woman named Grace from drowning, and adds, "He doesn't realize that in saving her he's really saving himself."     — universeness

    Philosophically I am seeing a question about what makes us good. Most ancient people used a notion of family for social order. Going out and drinking and catering to one's impulses in the moment is a life without purpose. Family and saving Grace gives one's life purpose and this might be better than indulging one's impulses at the moment.

    I can not read or hear the word "grace" without thinking of the "grace of God".

    Here are some definitions of grace and they are fitting in this thread about culture being critical because graces calls out the goodness in ourselves and others.


    Grace Definition & Meaning

    Merriam-Webster
    https://www.merriam-webster.com › dictionary › grace
    grace implies a benign attitude and a willingness to grant favors or make concessions. by the grace of God. leniency implies lack of severity in punishing.
    ‎Synonyms of grace · ‎In a state of grace · ‎With good grace · ‎Grace period

    Grace Definition & Meaning

    Dictionary.com
    https://www.dictionary.com › browse › grace
    the freely given, unmerited favor and love of God. · the influence or spirit of God operating in humans to regenerate or strengthen them. · a virtue or excellence ...

    GRACE | definition in the Cambridge English Dictionary

    Cambridge Dictionary
    https://dictionary.cambridge.org › dictionary › grace
    the charming quality of being polite and pleasant, or a willingness to be fair and to forgive: She always handles her clients with tact and grace. grace noun ...

    Grace - Definition, Meaning & Synonyms

    Vocabulary.com
    https://www.vocabulary.com › dictionary › grace
    The related word gracious originally meant "filled with God's favor or help." Grace was borrowed from Old French, from Latin gratia, "pleasing quality, favor, ...

    What is Grace? Bible Meaning and Definition



    BibleStudyTools.com
    https://www.biblestudytools.com › dictionary › grace
    An accurate, common definition describes grace as the unmerited favor of God toward man. In the Old Testament, the term that most often is translated "grace, " ...     — several

    Going from the last definition, being a person of grace is being god-like. In this case, the god is a definition of excellence, not a supernatural being and truly I believe we are healthier with a concept of god that brings out the best in us. This is possible without the superstition that destroyed one other religion, Zoroastrianism. This possibility depends on knowing truth. Truth is in harmony with nature. Superstition is not.
  • Culture is critical
    It's not my freedom. It's the American conservatives'. Yes, they are intent on tearing down the federation. https://www.commoncause.org/resource/u-s-constitution-threatened-as-article-v-convention-movement-nears-success/ — Vera Mont

    I read some of your link and do not understand how it applies to concerns about our freedom. Do you want to explain what concerns you?
  • Culture is critical
    It's one of those songs that leave the interpretations of the lyrics to the listener but does set a definite base focus, as your words that I underlined above, indicate. My personal interpretation was a variation on yours. I took the song writers to be suggesting that the images they were invoking were accurate for many people but the fact they were 'getting away with it,' was 'messed up.' The writers could also have been admitting that this is what is 'messed up' about themselves and aspects of their own life experience, so far. — universeness

    I understood the song to say that being human is being messed up. I don't know what we might get away with because sooner or later the consequences of our actions catch up with us. It might not be us personally who face the consequences of our actions because the damage may take three generations to be felt. At least that is what Socrates explained in the debate about justice. Sooner or late those we exploit will become a problem for us. We can most easily see that as we deal with racism and a history of slavery. Our forefathers screwed up and we are paying for that today.

    I don't think the song meant the whole of society but as individuals, unless we got super good parents and all the advantages of society, we will be screwed up. That is just how it is for humans.

    "Are you aching for the blade?" (are you violent, or attracted to violence or attracted to being the victim of violence?), "Are you aching for the grave?" (Do you have no fear of death, but in fact welcome it and don't give a flying f*** for anyone else life?) — universeness

    I appreciate those words and how you presented them. That is youth. I was a Greaser and that included risk-taking and willingness to fight. I kept a notebook from one high school year because I had a sense I was going through a crucial life-changing time in my life. On the cover of it, I drew a creepy hand representing death and a tree stump representing life. I see in the song that period of transformation.

    "Daniels saving grace, she's out in deep water, hope he's a good swimmer"
    Grace as a person Daniel is trying to save or grace imaged as a feminine aspect of Daniel, which is currently saving Daniel.
    Whichever image you choose, that 'grace' is in trouble, as it is in deep water so, the writer hopes Daniel is a good swimmer and he and his 'grace' can mean, he can survive his own inner turmoil.     — universeness

    Being both male and female is Jungian. I think the stage of determining our sexuality justifies restricting any medical treatments for our sexuality until we have that status of adults. Preferably this would be 30 years of age. This is a little off-topic but perhaps interesting enough for its own thread? Perhaps we could pull more people into the discussion if we start a new thread. What you posted here is a great way to start that new thread.

    Oh, how familiar this line is for me. My youth spent doing exactly this, in the pubs and night clubs of Glasgow. I was also a good dancer and did very well, attracting female attention. My main two friends were also good looking guys and we did not often, go out to a night club without ending up going home with a girl. But, what did we achieve, absolutely nothing, shallow, hollow, but seemed fun at the time. Getting away with it all, but basically 'messed up.' That's why the way the lead singer Tim Booth emphasised and stretched the word 'Now,' a little, spoke so clearly to me, as pub and club escapism fun, is very much of the moment, and can seem very 'mis-spent,' when looking back. But, I do think that the reality is more nuanced, than such a conclusion would suggest. — universeness

    I very much appreciate your explanation of this. It could have been my X out dancing with you, while I stayed at home alone with our son that he thought he had to have to prove he was a man. Unfortunately, he was not interested in being a father and eventually abandoned us. And so we spread human suffering from one generation to the next, but when I was young I resented civility and wanted to be on the wild side when I married the guy with the biker's jacket and boots. Hey love, I don't know the best words to convey how good I feel looking back at that past from the wonderful perspective of old age and with that song in mind. Thank you so much for this wonderful gift.
  • Culture is critical
    See US gun lobby/ gun laws/ mass shootings. See Munroe Doctrine. See the unending wrangle over health insurance. The argument against doing what's good for most people is: "Freeeedomm!!!!"

    And the US is a christian country, formed and constituted and ruled in the Abrahamic tradition of might makes right. Plato did not sign the Declaration of Independence.     — Vera Mont

    I am not sure but I think your freedom may be, anarchy and I think anarchy is intolerable. On the other hand, understanding culture and the importance of education is vital to human beings being ruled by reason rather than authority over them.

    I agree that the Abrahamic tradition of might makes right is problematic! It was not demons or a fallen angel that made humans behave like animals. We evolved to be as we are. It was not a god who made us good, but knowledge and full bellies and a sense of security. Take that away and quickly we degenerate back to animals fighting for our survival, running on hunger and fear, not reason.
  • To be an atheist, but not a materialist, is completely reasonable
    I am a true atheist (as well as humanist and capitalist); someone who does not believe in or give legitimacy to the traditional concepts of gods. At the same time, I am not a materialist. Because I observe there is a happy medium between these two absolute extremes. Somewhere "a something", which is closer to the highest truths, can be unearthed, studied, understood and applied. — Bret Bernhoft

    You might enjoy The Tao of Physics by Fritjof Capra. It is mind-blowing to me that we are still materialists. Everything is energy. Logos, reason, the controlling force of the universe makes matter possible.

    Western thinking since Rome has been very materialistic, but not so much the East. Without India we would not have a concept of zero and without zero we could not have the maths we have today. The materialism we have is a cultural problem and :lol: leaves the believers of the God of Abraham, that is Jews, Christians, and Muslims with a big problem! How do we explain the existence of God and the Holy Spirit when every is made of matter?

    Back to math, if we all learned quantum physics we might not be able to maintain our notion of separate material and spiritual realities.
  • Culture is critical
    ↪Vera Mont


    I am sorry I do not know what you mean.
  • Culture is critical
    ↪universeness
    I liked James song. Last night I saw a show about ethnicity and how rape music gives these victims a voice. James is a good counter to that. Like being all messed up is part of life.

    Like oh my God, I am White and I am all messed up and there is no one for me to blame for this. Well, I am female. I suppose I can blame men for oppressing me but now that women are "liberated" who can we blame?

    Back to the topic of this thread- we need a culture that resolves more problems than it creates but when people want to maintain ethnic differences how can we achieve a culture that unites us? Boo hoo hoo, those ugly white people took me from my alcoholic mother and cared for me and put me in a White school where I was treat treated like one of them because they hatefully won't let me have the culture of alcoholism, rape, stealing, and self-pity. Help me with this. I am angry about all the divineness and victim mentality and the lack of identity with a multi-ethnic democracy and united effort to raise the human potential.
  • Culture is critical
    If panspermia is prove true then perhaps we all come from Mars. I can confirm that you do have valuable points of view. I think it's just that many many words are very over-burdened. Many words are also considered as 'strictly belonging to,' a particular umbrella subject. Spirituality is one of those words that is traditionally associated with theism or theosophism. Even though the etymology of 'spirit' is, 'breath'.
    To be spiritual originally meant, to be alive, to breath and be animated. It had nothing to do with ghosts or gods.     — universeness

    Yeah! :grin: What you said is so agreeable to me. I remember spiritual concepts such as "He is in good spirits today". Meaning the man was happy. Sometimes the happiness was related to drinking spirits meaning he got drunk.

    The Spirit of America and the Spirit of the West are portrayed as women leading the way forward. These are not beings but representations of concepts.

    When I realized there is no Santa Claus I was unhappy with my mother for lying to me. She explained Christmas is a spirit, a feeling we have and it is real. For me being spiritual is about a feeling. We can nurture positive or negative feelings and happy or unhappy thoughts. That is actively being spiritual.
  • Culture is critical
    If you say so... But logos doesn't catch the bombs before they hit Baghdad! — Vera Mont

    You are right. Logos is the laws of nature that can not be violated without bad consequences.

    And that's why they value their individual freedom over any collective benefit. — Vera Mont

    That is nuts! :rage: I am unsure of what you mean to communicate but I put that problem squarely on Christianity and believing in a god that can violate the laws of nature and be controlled by human behaviors such as reacting to human rights and wrongs. We are so vain, deluded, and ignorant. That is not logos, the laws of the universe.

    Abstract. Plato regards education as a means to achieve justice, both individual justice and social justice. According to Plato, individual justice can be obtained when each individual develops his or her ability to the fullest. In this sense, justice means excellence.

    "Plato's philosophy of education: Its implication for current ...     — Myungjoon Lee

    Education in the US was based on an understanding of logos and what men like Plato and Cicero said, not the Bible or German philosophy. It is not Christianity that made America great, but the ancient world and those who came to us from the past.

    That "rage" of the no-longer-privileged has been carefully nurtured by a succession of political and religious manipulators, continuously since 1865. — Vera Mont

    That is agreeable but not the whole story. The story is not complete without awareness of the harm done by well-meaning Christians who believe it is them and their god that made the US great and their interference with education as they worship a god who has favorites and blesses his favorites with slaves and wealth. It is an old problem starting with Judaism and a god telling them they can not be slaves because of their special relationship with Him, but they can owe someone their labor for 7 years and they can own slaves for life and their children will inherit them. This just gets their head in the wrong mindset and instead of acknowledging the wrong of such a belief, they use denial and counter statements such as we are all God's children. Rationalizing away much of what the Bible actually says.
  • Culture is critical
    Universeness, look at what I found about language-

    Though many people take language for granted, the reality is that the words we use say as much about the way that concepts are arranged within our brains as they do about the things they actually denote; they assign meaning to phenomena by picking out those attributes that seem most worthy of meaning to us. Subsequently, the fact that different languages use words to assign meanings in different ways has led to a long-running debate about whether humans naturally conceptualize the world in culturally relative – rather than universal – ways. — Ben Taub

    I am very excited because it sort of explains how my understanding of words is not the same as everyone else's. In the private world of my head, thoughts are arranged differently.
    This leads to a lot of arguing and frustration. Hopefully, by learning better communication skills I can overcome the problem. :lol: Maybe someday instead of feeling like I landed from Mars, I will feel like I belong here and have a valued point of view.
  • Culture is critical
    Your first quote above imo, should be used by Jamal to promote TPF.
    Your second quote is is very well put, and makes me feel a little regretful that I just posted an attack on you personally :yikes: for your willingness to accept the use of the word 'sin ,' as an accusation against humans, ignorant or otherwise. :grimace::lol: /quote]— universeness

    :lol: I am glad I read this. I hate it when I make an ass of myself and I have not always been as courageous and honest as you. I have been listening to a long explanation of better communication and you have practiced a principle of better communication.

    As for not accepting my use of a word, I am constantly in a battle with Grammarly. It tries to correct me constantly and that feeds my concern that this technology is a huge evil! It can not think conceptually and when I want to speak of a concept like "industry" or "education" it wants me to use "the". Grammarly wants to turn all concepts into tangible nouns. The horror is, what that does to our thinking when we think everything is a tangible thing, rather than an intangible concept. :lol: I was once banned from a science forum for using the word "God". The moderator could not get past "God" being a being instead of a concept such as logos. It is not a false God until you add mythology to it. Whatever, a large part of our communication/thinking problem is our understanding of words and tendency to think everything is a tangible reality instead of a concept or metaphysical matter and Grammarly is part of the problem!     — universeness
  • Culture is critical
    impersonal emotionalism, — Vera Mont

    That is a very interesting term. Is that mob rule? Being caught up in impersonal emotionalism. If it is impersonal, the individual is not responsible but caught up in the wave, no longer alone but part of the mass, as happened on January 6, 2021, when the US Capitol was attacked by Trump supporters. Those people who attacked the Capital were so happy to be a part of something bigger than themselves. I don't think any of them thought they could be held personally responsible.

    That is exactly the mentality and emotionalism of the Nazis. Those tried for war crimes were shocked when they were held accountable for what they did. They thought of themselves as the good guys and part of something much bigger than themselves.
  • Culture is critical
    Why is it so important that we have the freedom to do as want?
    — Athena
    Because you are a or the major world power.     — Vera Mont

    I believe that concept of power is a delusion because no group of humans no matter how create their numbers or their wealth and technology, that power is not the ultimate power. Above the gods and humanity is logos. Those who do not understand it correctly and live in harmony with it will eventually fail. Democracy is not rule by the powerful over the powerless. When correctly understood, democracy is rule by the people and for the people to rule successfully they must be well educated and capable of good moral judgment. Moral being a matter of cause and effect.

    In history, Britain was able to exploit less advanced peoples, but Britain failed because they were thrown out of those countries. The US stepped in and tried to take the place of Britain and it is failing too. Let us hope this delusion and failure does not bring us to a nuclear world war.
  • Culture is critical
    Few if any! And that's the worst part of it. Just look at the history: People really wanted change after the Bush years and got Obama. Then other people really wanted change and we got Trump. — ssu

    Ah, I got you. Wanting change and depending on someone else to change things, is like being a good Jew, Christian, or Muslim praying to God to fix things. In the 60s we said, "If you are not part of the solution, you are part of the problem".

    In many countries with stagnant political systems, when new parties finally come and win elections, do reforms and then years later people decide to vote for the old parties. Because many times the old parties still have competent politicians if the party isn't totally tarnished and politically dead. — ssu

    :chin: The topic of this thread is culture because there are two ways of having social order, culture or authority over the people. To have liberty and a strong nation, we must rely on culture. Authority over the people is not democracy. So now what is it that political people need to know and what are they supposed to do?
  • Duty: An Open Letter on a Philosophy Forum
    Why do I hear marching music in my head when I read this? — Joshs

    As a woman who was a daughter, mother, and grandmother, I strongly believe we need the concept of family duties. I dearly wish the people who deliver my mail had the sense of duty that they had in days of old. I strongly wish our journalist would return to understanding their duty, to tell the truth so we can make good decisions.

    When people understand their duties, we are defending our democracy and that is something the military can not do.
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