It's actually the 'no true scotsman fallacy' - it means you are redefining what something means (here religion) in order to provide your own exculpatory definition. Like you seemed to do above. If I am wrong about that, apologies. — Tom Storm

Let's review.  Your definition was:

Religions are organized social groups based around rituals, community and transcendent beliefs. — Tom Storm

You did not cite a source, so I can only assume you invented it yourself.

I did not invent a definition for myself, instead pulled the definition of religion directly from google (which is about the most basic source one can find for definitions):

the belief in and worship of a superhuman controlling power, especially a personal God or gods.

It is glaringly obvious who is redefining religion here.  No apologies necessary.

Anyways,  enough nonsense

Obviously all beliefs, from politics to religion begin as personal values, but they are practiced in community as public expressions of personal belief. Or are you going to argue somehow that the umpteen millions of people who belong to churches and synagogues and mosques and ashrams and who follow the teachings of their faith leaders in community groups don't count? — Tom Storm

You are confusing the culture of religion with religion proper.  The religious individual does something quite different than religious culture does, it is a qualitative difference.  The goal for the religious individual is to cultivate his faith. Whereas the purpose of religious culture is, among other things, to provide a place where a religious individual can go to cultivate his faith.
Now, the setting of religious culture is dependent upon the participation of religious individuals to merely exist, and it is not the only means by which a person can cultivate his faith.  If you strip away all the community groups, public expressions, and faith leaders, religion can continue to exist for the individual.   But take away the religious individual,  and there can be no religion amongst community groups, public expressions, faith leaders &c. 

What occurs for the religious person in the cultivation of faith is an exceedingly personal experience that is impossible to explicate in terms of religious culture.

Sesame Street is the best thing to come out of America, ever. — Olivier5

Jim Henson is like Jesus in the the states

Secularism and religious freedom are in the interests of religious diversity but fundamentalists don't like it when they realize the practices of other faiths they dislike have equal protection and status. — Tom Storm

Fundamentalists are the lamest strawman for dismissing religion. It's like evoking Elmo's pedophilia to demonize all muppets

Not so. Some would argue that truly religious is the opposite of fanatical. I can think of many very religious people (including preachers, priests and nuns I have known who do have this trait at all. This is a fundamentalist trait, not a religious trait. — Tom Storm

The demands of one's faith are beyond reason... that sounds quite fanatical to me.

Perhaps you mean 'should be' the domain of... Not sure that this gets to the problem of religions in practice however. We know they help decide elections and change governments and help pass laws and put people in jails and enforce world views and what can be taught at schools so I would not see how your argument works except in theory. — Tom Storm

Sounds like another argument in favor of campaign finance reform. I say, go for it.

Religions are organized social groups based around rituals, community and transcendent beliefs. Sounds to me like you are changing the definition to suit a viewpoint or is it a no true Scotsman fallacy? You tell me. :wink: — Tom Storm

google definition of "religion":

"the belief in and worship of a superhuman controlling power, especially a personal God or gods."

I emphasized personal. So, who did you ask was committing the Scotsman fallacy? You obviously

You jest! :snicker: — Agent Smith

If you insist...

According to legend, Gautam descended from...paradise? The penny drops, oui? — Agent Smith

His father must have said that. Get it ... *crickets*

Gautama, in my humble opinion, was cursed with hyperalgesia (his pain threshold was low) and hence, I suspect, his description of existence as hellish (1st Noble truth: Life is suffering). It could be the other way round of course: Most folks are, in this case, gifted with hypolalgesia (high pain threshold). According to legend, Gautam descended from...paradise? The penny drops, oui? — Agent Smith

:rofl:

That is genius stuff. :clap: :clap: :clap:

Quite, although 'substantially extant' is a rather awkward way of describing it. Do you mean for them it is 'real, in spite of what anyone says about it'? — Wayfarer

Exactly. Excuse my lexicon, I was simply attempting to speak the strange language of philosopher.

Don't forget that religious folk are far from certain what is moral and what is not moral. It is never an easy question unless you belong to the same fundamentalist church. The debate about what god wants and how to interpret religious doctrine often turns into conflict between theists. — Tom Storm

A truly religious person will likely have a fanatical certainty of the general law that is to be observed. And if you are referring to fundamentalist churches, you are then pointing towards the theoretical morality into which the so called "law of god" is formulated for easy digestion. What I am saying is that all that collectivist religiousizing is edifying for many, but at the core of it all, religion is the domain of the individual and nobody else. I would go so far to say that there are exceedingly few examples of truly religous individuals, which unfortunately makes the church the only sample we can draw from for examples of what religion is. Too bad for us.

Including other religious expression of the same faith or different faiths. Religions do not agree on what god/s will. Whether it's Protestants fighting Catholics or a Sunni vs Shia brawl. Some Christians fly a rainbow flag, others hate fags...

What's wrong with hating fags? ... Just kidding, being facetious.

Again, none of that is religion. They, look like religion, because, sadly, that is the example the world presents to us, but these are merely adulterations of religion. The universal goal of each is the salvation of the individual practitioner, nothing else.

We, paradoxically, pay considerable sums of money to be fooled (movies, books, magic shows). It perhaps keeps us sane in a world that is dukkha (unsatisfactory). Remember Gautama was looking for an exit (from samsara). He, it seems, wasn't into magic (maya). Too bad. — Agent Smith

If I remember correctly, dukkha is suffering and it is due to our dependence on maya, which ultimately keeps us stuck in samsara. So, following that thread, the great illusions of life are a sort of drug that keeps us sane by by distracting us from the eternal suffering that Guatama sought to escape. You must admit, given the buddhist perspective, what Guatama attempted is an insane task by all worldly standards. Religion is a tricky thing.

Our instinct to be free (read as, in extremum, the ability to do what we want with our lives) rebels against restrictions which ethics boils down to. — Agent Smith

Absolutely. That is the core essence of postmodernism. Of course, as in most everything, a healthy balance of freedom and restriction is probably the optimal route.

my hunch is that at the heart of this conundrum lies a very powerful illusion that leads us astray. — Agent Smith

I can't argue against that. Illusion is what makes the world go round, we can't escape it. At best, we can only make best out of how it all seems to be.

Religious morality is faith based. It all has to do with ethical doubt. That even if we do what is considered right, there is no way to determine if that right is morally good. So in a secular society, human laws determine morality, and such morality can be imposed in various ways. Whatever the case, the law of man is exceedingly relativistic, and fleeting as the time passes.

For the religious individual, it is different because morality is derived from a divine principle that is believed to be the law of god. For such an individual, morality is substantially extant and he is held accountable for his conduct whether or not it is seen by others.

The problem arises when a group of individuals who derive their morality through a percieved common faith decide to impose their religious morality on others. It is especially problematic when it is enforced through theocracy as history shows. Theocratic morality is inherently flawed because of its veiled hypocrisy, that it passes its ethics off as religious morality, when it is really a secular morality that lies to itself.

Lastly, religious morality is only for the individual, for no other reason than that it requires faith, and no other than the individual alone can have actual faith.

Because theocracy never works. — Jackson

Never ever? It works for the theocrat.

However, ruling that you cannot teach creationism in particular could be seen as an unfair attack on creationists, thus also violating the separation of church and state. — Paulm12

It also violates the modern trend of society becoming all inclusive and catering equally to all possible identities. Eventually all identities will be included in the social program. It will only be possible to eliminate the "undesirables" (like those who identify as creationists) through iconoclastic censorship.

I'm aware everyone hates each other and we are possibly in an episode of Sesame Street where Big Bird beheads Snuffleupagus and hangs the Cookie Monster from a lamp post, but can we dial things down a notch, please? — Baden

Awww really... do we have to?

Personally, I feel like a debate on war, especially an active war, should be as aggressive and vitriolic as possible. How else will we be able to identify which side people support?

For example:

I support the right of an aggressor state to invade another, and occuppy it if possible. I also support the right of a victimized state to repel its aggressors, and sanction the fuck out of them if possible...you motherfucker!

See, it works great :ok:

@Streetlight
And you do your useless stereotypical rant as you usually do. — ssu

I like his rantings. It's like a gadfly

Incidentally, I'm not sure he would have agreed with NATOISM either. — Apollodorus

I'm sure he would have criticized it in his special way for its derived morality and general collectivism.

Wrong! Richard Dawkins had a time machine and he did it. Because he's an asshole! — frank

He is an asshole. The time machine couldn't help him, he was born that way.

Nietzsche was no idiot and he is basically at the root of Nazism. — Olivier5

Wrong! Nietzsche's philosophy is not at the root of nazism. You probably think that because of how his racist cunt of a sister intentionally misinterpreted his works after he died. His philosophy actually represents a cry of the individual against the collective...and nazism is fundamentally collectivist. If any philosopher can be credited with inspiring the nazi ideology, it is Hegel.

Can't wait till the dems do literally nothing about this so they can use the subjection of women as a campaign opportunity. — Streetlight

It's been a campaign opportunity for both parties for a while now.

Women with money will be able to travel to the states to obtain abortions, poor women will not. — Relativist

No surprise here, wealthy women have the benefit of being able to afford sexual promiscuity without the downside of an undesired pregnancy. It is simply the case, as with virtually everything in life...wealthy people always have more options than the poor.

Poor women will just have to stick with what they can afford and settle with not getting randomly knocked up.

Economy isn't as important as it is in American or Western politics. — ssu


That does not compute. — frank

I think he means to say economy is not as important to them as, say, control.

China has 370 million people on lockdown. :grimace: — frank

Bunch of suckers.

So a woman only needs to be a good housekeeper and breeder? — praxis

That kind of lady is a keeper.

Most people who see someone dressed as a woman will call them a woman. — I like sushi

Interesting. I suppose that is the reason we should not put dresses on pigs

So the first task is to determine which cases are black and white and which aren't.

Is that decision black and white? — Isaac

It's actually a question of absolute morality. Seems unlikely regarding the global geopolitical stage.

If the Nazis didn't exist the West would have to invent them in order to exculpate themselves for all the horror they have ever committed. — StreetlightX

You are the Voltaire of modern political theory.

We were right, the Nazi's were wrong. — RogueAI

The Nazis were definitely wrong. Im not so sure "We" are right. The world is not so black and white.

Everyone has a right to exist. — FreeEmotion

That's a funny notion: existence as a right.

Some people need to be put down for what they do. — RogueAI

That's what Hitler thought about the Jews.

It's like this stuff follows a script. — StreetlightX

Indeed

We might as well just nuke each other now and get it over with. — Isaac

The suspense is killing me. At this point the West would be well advised to begin seriously addressing the mineshaft gap.

Are there determinate entities we might call "thoughts". I would say 'no' because thinking is a process. There is certainly thinking. When we say there are determinate entities it is usually because we can look at and examine them. Can we do this with thoughts? I don't think so, thoughts are known only in the thinking of them, or reflexively known only in remembering that we have thought them; which amounts to thinking them again. — Janus

Great point. In phenomenology, thought is a negative, meaning it has has no actuality. In other words, thought belongs to possibility and is that which determines what is possible. The only connection that thought has to the actual is in approximating its possibilities (with more or less certainty).

Should he have just focused on Kiev instead of surrounding the whole country? — frank

I heard that was the original plan, but there is a nice sandwich shop in Odesa that he really wanted.

Ukraine is bigger than what is shown on the standard map of the world (Mercator projection)
USA is more than half the size of Russia
China is one and a half times the size of the USA. — FreeEmotion

That is funny stuff. The three greatest producers of mediocrity always comparing their dick sizes. I must admit, watching China, Russia and US terrorize the world is really getting tiresome.

Maybe. I was going for pure rational thought, as that which everybody does, or the manifest appearance of a purely rational thinking subject, as that which everybody seems to be, and that having ethical decision-making subsumed under it, so..... — Mww

I see :eyes:

I thought the same whenever I was taking part in this thread. Kierkegaard is one of the most important philosophers ever. His existentialism is very important to get along in some personal issues. Apart from his ideas, the personal life of Kierkegaard is interesting too and we can see what he was suffering back in the day to write all his essays later on. My favorite work of him is "the concept of anxiety" but I am looking for a good edition of "fear and trembling" — javi2541997

I agree, he is definitely one of (if not "the") most underrated philosophers of all time. I think this is because of his heavy emphasis on religiousness, which is a major turn off for most thinkers who are aligned with the modern ethos. I also think that modern philosophy has a heavy disdain for his unrestrained, plato-esque style of reasoning. Its unfortunate because, as you say, his existentialism is very important to get along in some personal issues, it has certainly impacted me in positive ways I could have never concieved.

I've read both of "the concept of anxiety" and "fear and trembling"...genius stuff. But my favorite is "Concluding Unscientific Postscript".

Oh yes... We were run out of stock because of their negligence. When I saw this situation I thought: "the humans are not ready to face a catastrophic situation" — javi2541997

Indeed :blush: The humans have a long, long long way to go.

they reflect something that is not dependent on the mind at all. — Janus

Yes, the mind does reflect pure being. And reflecting implies a relationship. Perhaps discord in that relationship (the inability to cope with reality in an edifying manner - not cognitively as with schizophrenia, but emotionally) is the source of existential anxiety/depression.

It seems that it must be the skin; you cannot have diversity of skin without skins which differ. Of course you could have genetic diversity which explains the diversity of skin. But you would need genes in order to have genetic diversity, so we've just kicked the can back down the road. — Janus

Exactly what I was thinking. But my logic differs a bit :wink: . For me, diversity is a universal, hence it belongs to the mind. As such, it is not the skin (and genetics) that determines the categories whereby diversity is perceived, but the mind, which articulates (and apprehends) the very categories by which diversity comes to be.

Yes, it is unbelievable. Two years ago everything was messed up due to Covid. In just 24 months we normalize the situation and it looks like is no longer a problem — javi2541997

It is unbelievable. I come away astounded at how insatiably and incredibly desperate the masses are for something exciting in their lives, a crisis, a reason to live...to the extent that they are willing to abide with some of the stupidest and most ridiculous rules ever imposed on adult humans. Looking back on it all, it is painfully hysterical. Remember when the lunatics mobbed the stores and horded all the toilet paper and water?

Insulting me just makes you look more like someone who doesn't have an argument. — Garrett Travers

I believe th @theRiddler is positing a riddle there, whereas Diogenes was the master of arguing with insults. I think we can all learn something from both of them.

Of which no two are exactly the same. — Janus

Now we are getting somewhere. The next question: which is primary, the skin or the diversity?

No, being diverse is the human default. — Janus

I disagree. Having skin is the default.

One more thing, I forgot to mention how Kierkegaard speaks extensively on Socratic ignorance, which holds an uncanny resemblance to the innocence and happiness of the child.