• The American Gun Control Debate
    OMG THEY'RE GOING TO TAKE AWAY ALL OUR GUNS FOR EVER AND EVER. What kind of response is that? It's paranoid delusional. — StreetlightX
    SOOOoOoOOo bizarre. — StreetlightX
    How queer, I came on a forum thread and ended up in the zoo...
  • Problem of Evil (Theodicy)
    But you just said: — Noble Dust
    Yep, what I said above doesn't contradict that. Except that I'm guarding against a possible misunderstanding that I sense in you, namely that there is a separation between sin and blame, and there is not. So who puts the blame? Man through his actions. But this isn't to say that the blame is something in addition to the sinful actions that is actually put on top of everything else. It's already included in the package.
  • Boris Groys on Kojeve
    Kojeve — t0m
    My problem with Kojeve, much like Hegel, is that they are both largely responsible for the collapse of order in Western civilization and the return of barbarism in one form or another. Both create a politics that authorizes the use of force - makes it legitimate and necessary in the progress of consciousness and self-consciousness. To them, the 20th century with all its wars and violence was absolutely necessary.

    It's evident from the very basic conceptions - of desire, of freedom, etc.

    For Kojève, the necessity of revolutionary violence follows from the ineffectiveness of persuasive speech. — Groys
    For example this. What could be more incriminating? It is clear that they advocate the use of force, so long as force is used for truth - but in that very process, truth becomes untruth. Persuasive speech isn't ineffective due to a fault of its own or due to the times - it's ineffective because people are free - free to disagree.

    Indeed, throughout its history philosophy tried to operate by persuasion. It measured its effectiveness by the influence that it exercised on listeners or readers. — Groys
    Sure but the underlying point here should be that philosophy cannot be effective. Goodness and Truth cannot be effective except in their very expulsion and victimhood and failure.

    The principle of the new post-historical, post-philosophical politics is the principle of inclusion. — Groys
    The principle of inclusion fails for the very same reason that desire itself fails. Namely it turns back on itself and ends up being a very restrictive form of totalitarianism. Nothing excludes as much as or as well as inclusion.
  • Problem of Evil (Theodicy)
    But man puts that blame, not God? — Noble Dust
    There is no putting of blame, blame exists according to actions. Sinful actions entail blame, the same way you entail your shadow.
  • Problem of Evil (Theodicy)
    ↪Noble Dust
    Absolutely.
  • Problem of Evil (Theodicy)
    "God puts the blame on us"; is that true? — Noble Dust
    No. I've clarified that that claim means that God reveals that blame is on us.

    But where does sin stem from? — Noble Dust
    Man's actions.
  • Problem of Evil (Theodicy)
    So who "puts" the blame here? — Noble Dust
    Man through his actions. Vice and sin are their own punishments.
  • Problem of Evil (Theodicy)
    When you create a piece of music; is that an act of love? — Janus
    That would depend on the music, obviously :P - it could be a work of violence too.
  • Problem of Evil (Theodicy)
    How exactly are God and blame connected in your view? — Noble Dust
    They are not, blame belongs to man, not to God. Man is the author of his acts, which, being sinful, carry blame with them like a shadow.
  • Problem of Evil (Theodicy)
    So God doesn't "put the blame on us"? — Noble Dust
    That's a figure of speech meant to show that he reveals that the blame is on us. So no, God doesn't take this thing called blame that isn't already on us and puts it there.
  • Problem of Evil (Theodicy)
    What? I quoted a post from a few days ago. Specifically, the quote upon which my response to you was based. Now you quote something you said a few minutes ago. Which is it? — Noble Dust
    Both are it. I've clarified what I meant by explaining that blame cannot be laid on someone, it is an objective fact, at most it can be revealed. To lay it on someone would be to lie presumably.
  • Problem of Evil (Theodicy)
    that is merely an expression of speech — Agustino
  • Problem of Evil (Theodicy)
    the other an action of God — Noble Dust
    No. Blame cannot be put - that is merely an expression of speech. Blame always exists on the guilty party - the guilty party places it themselves through their actions. God merely reveals it to us, because we cover our eyes and ears not to see it.
  • Problem of Evil (Theodicy)
    ↪Noble Dust
    That it is not God who expels men, but men who expel God.
  • Reconciliation and Forgiveness
    When you say love is a choice. Click the link, buddy. — TimeLine
    Ahh okay. Well I don't remember disagreeing with you about that in the first place :P
  • Problem of Evil (Theodicy)
    Now, are you going to respond to my response to you that was on topic? — Noble Dust
    No. Because your response ignored my basic premise and argued as if it was false. God's love is perceived to be the greatest threat by those who are unloving and violent - just like it was by the Pharisees. This doesn't mean they are correct though, they just have a distorted perception and they input their own violence to God.

    At this they covered their ears, cried out in a loud voice, and rushed together at him. They dragged him out of the city and began to stone him. — Acts 7:57-58
  • Problem of Evil (Theodicy)
    ↪Noble Dust

    There is a wine industry in NYC? :-O Where's them vineyards?
  • Reconciliation and Forgiveness
    I spoke with you not to long ago about this subject and am quite surprised at your interest — TimeLine
    Why surprised?

    Lacanian mirror phase during childhood — TimeLine
    Lacan was wrong. The mirror phase isn't only during childhood, it is for your entire life. Human beings, as per Aristotle, are imitative creatures. All of life is imitative actually, not just humans. Humans are just more imitative than other animals. What psychoanalytic theory tries to deal with rather unsuccessfully are the results of the decoupling of desire from the object (which Aristotle analyzed) and its refocus on the model of imitation. Its fascination with the model is what gives rise to psychopathology. Kierkegaard had some understanding of this too.

    The trouble with Lacan was that he could never drop Freud's reifications to understand things clearly.

    I feel like you are quietly adapting to the things that I say. — TimeLine
    I don't actually share your view on this issue (at least I don't think so), there are some family resemblances though.

    It makes me wonder why you always seem to be antagonistic to my views and then sometime later you suddenly have the same ones. — TimeLine
    So you classify yourself as a determinist too? :P
  • Emergence is incoherent from physical to mental events
    See response to JupiterJess for emergentism. — schopenhauer1

    In philosophy, systems theory, science, and art, emergence is a phenomenon whereby larger entities arise through interactions among smaller or simpler entities such that the larger entities exhibit properties the smaller/simpler entities do not exhibit.

    Emergence is central in theories of integrative levels and of complex systems.     — schopenhauer1
    The problem with this is that it's not at all clear what emergence is. Apparently, you say that non-existent properties will arise from existent ones. I can see how this would happen in certain cases. For example, I can see how the uniform distribution of molecules in a closed container will occur over time out of their initially random motion. So I can see how uniform distribution emerges out of the conditions of random motion in a closed container. But I cannot see how something entirely new - like imagine a physical force - emerges from absolutely nothing. For example, we know that gravity is very weak in quantum mechanics so it's not even detectable. But it still exists - if it didn't exist, I couldn't see how it was possible for it to emerge - and become noticeable - on the macro scale.

    In other words, nothing really emerges unless it is simply constructed out of pre-existent things. The notion of emergence in any other sense implies that something comes out of nothing, which is impossible.
  • Reconciliation and Forgiveness
    ↪Baden
    >:O
  • Reconciliation and Forgiveness
    "To not forgive is neither right nor wrong" — Baden
    Only in that particular situation you have presented. And I wouldn't necessarily say that if a criminal goes to jail you haven't forgiven them.
  • Emergence is incoherent from physical to mental events
    ↪schopenhauer1
    Interesting thread!

    Emergence — schopenhauer1
    First let's establish what emergence is from a metaphysical point of view. It's not as simple as saying that a phenomenon suddenly starts happening that never happened before. That still entails something coming from nothing and seems quite incoherent. So how do you conceptualize emergence?

    But I would probably agree with you that I cannot see the mental emerging from the physical (whatever that is supposed to mean).
  • Reconciliation and Forgiveness
    Ok, so in this case being unforgiving would not be wrong — Baden
    Asking for the just punishment isn't necessarily being unforgiving though. And in either case from unforgiving not being morally condemnable, it doesn't follow that unforgiving is morally laudable (or right).
  • Problem of Evil (Theodicy)
    So eating the fruit of knowledge is equivalent to man doing violence? Disobedience perhaps, but violence I think not. — Frank Barroso
    What if the story is told from the perspective of man, and thus from the perspective of the criminal? What if man expelled God but transfers this expulsion onto God? The Prologue to John's Gospel does reveal that the Logos was expelled by man - that He was rejected and refused, and it asks us to read the OT in light of the NT.
  • Reconciliation and Forgiveness
    And I doubt most rapists can convince themselves the woman wants to be raped any more than someone who punches you in the face can convince themselves you wanted them to do it. — Baden
    Well many of them do cite that the woman really wanted it as justification for their actions. That the woman seduced them, etc. So either we believe that they think that and then we can understand why they did what they did, or we disbelieve them, and then evil becomes somewhat of a mystery. Of course by believing that this is what they think we are not also entailed to thinking that what they think is true (because it's not).

    Evil always involves some sort of self-deception, in the case of the rapist, this would be the self-deception that the victim, for whatever reason, wanted it or somehow deserved it.

    As for someone who punches me in the face, it's not difficult for them to convince themselves that I deserve it. Maybe they start thinking that I've stared at their wife for too long. Who knows - violence always finds reasons and justifications when it needs them.

    Let's presume the punishment is just. For example, the woman hopes the rapist will be sent to prison for a period of time as outlined under the law. So, what then? — Baden
    If the punishment is really just, then obviously that wouldn't be wrong.
  • Reconciliation and Forgiveness
    Does anger not have in common with love the fact that is an emotional state though an opposing one? Can we not talk of anger vs acts of anger as well as love vs acts of love? — Baden
    We can absolutely talk like so, and there is a sense in which love is an emotion. I fell in love with a girl, there is a certain emotion associated with it.

    But Christian love as recommended by Jesus - love your neighbor as yourself - isn't a feeling, it's a choice. Even if you feel like hating your neighbor, you should put your hatred to one side and love your neighbor. This propagates further on in other relationships such as your relationship with your wife or partner.

    I remember the story of Bertrand Russell on his bike one day, when he realised he no longer felt attracted to his wife. So he divorced her. He failed to see that there is anything more to love than feeling. So when the feeling was gone, so was his love. That's also why life-long marriage vows are hard to conceive in our Western society today - because the conception of love given to us by our society is no longer the Christian one.
  • Problem of Evil (Theodicy)
    God is like an angry ex-gf that slashes your tires after you told her you were gonna go hang with that other smexy bihh? — Frank Barroso
    No, that's ironically the mythical image of God that Christianity exposes. Violence belongs to man, not to God. So the one who slashed the tires is man.

    So all people who believe in Christianity readily admit we are all evil, will continue to be evil since we have fallen, but will be forgiven, its all ok, keep doing evil? — Frank Barroso
    Nope.

    All mythology being Satan's work, does this mean Satan works through us to produce evil work? Could you elaborate on that a little? — Frank Barroso
    Yes, what's the problem with that? All the works of evil are man's (and Satan's) not God's. That's what the Bible shows.

    This is telling, does this mean God is just an idea to make us feel better about our actions and actions done to us? — Frank Barroso
    That is a mythological hypothesis, because God doesn't make us feel better about our actions or what is done to us, but quite the opposite - God puts all the blame on us - it is revealed that we are behind the evil that is around us. That is precisely what makes the Biblical God different from the gods shown by mythology.
  • Reconciliation and Forgiveness
    I mean name an emotional state. — Baden
    Meaning? Anger is an emotional state for example.

    In other words is not forgiving someone for harming you but seeking a just punishment somehow immoral? — Baden
    And I go back to the phenomenology of the experience. If you seek an unjust punishment you're never going to think the punishment is unjust are you?! You'll be 100% sure it is just, like how the rapist feels 100% sure that the woman really wants to be raped. Then you'll go ahead with your punishment thinking it is the most just thing in the world. You're never going to think "Ah I want this really unjust punishment for he who harmed me".

    That is why there is a forced choice between love and violence, and why I cannot answer your question. If I say "yes" (to seeking a just punishment) all the criminals in the world will think they're justified in punishing their victims, because their punishment is just (in their minds) - hence more violence. If I say "no" then it will seem like there is no justice in the world, hence again more violence. So I cannot answer your question and subvert the logic of violence. I can only outline that logic and force you to choose between violence and love.
  • Reconciliation and Forgiveness
    Love is not an emotional state? What is then? — Baden
    I already told you - a choice.

    Also, do you agree we can be unforgiving without wanting to unjustly punish the one who harmed us? — Baden
    Oh, of course you won't want to "unjustly" punish the one who harmed you. That's precisely how the logic of violence works - the victim always deserves it. "The woman asked to be raped", and so on. What Jesus reveals is precisely that "the victim deserves it" is a lie, but it is precisely this lie which gets the logic of violence working and sustains it in motion.
  • This Debunks Cartesian Dualism
    What sort of thing is a concept, apart from what shows in behaviour? — Banno
    It is difficult to provide non-circular definitions because all things are immanent within experience. So our whole conceptual puzzle will, in the end, be circular. It is impossible to create a non-circular but complete philosophical account of reality.

    But that behavior illustrates that the monkey understands that banana is food and rocks are not. What does food mean? Food means something that nourishes the body and satisfies the desire expressed through hunger. So the monkey feels hungry and sees that banana satisfies that hunger by - as apokrisis tells us - imitation. I suppose the first time baby monkey feels hungry, they don't quite know what that feeling is supposed to be about, because to understand what it is about means precisely to understand how it fits in with other things - when it begins, when it ends, etc. - to understand its place in the causal chain.

    And the baby monkey doesn't yet understand this. But it sees mother monkey eat banana. It imitates mother monkey and eats banana too. Then hunger disappears. This experience is repeated with regularity over and over again, and soon monkey starts to form a conception of what hunger, food, etc. are. How does it do this? By seeing the regularities and patterns to be found between those aspects of experience.

    It's similar to how we learn a language. We go from speaking no language at all, to becoming quite capable to speak one language. And it's a bit miraculous when you think about it, because we essentially learn to speak from nothing. Language is nothing else but the identification of patterns between sounds and other experiences. When you say "fire!" I go back in my memory and seek for the experience associated with you saying fire.

    All this has to do with memory. It is memory that makes conception of any kind (including linguistic conception) possible to begin with.
  • Reconciliation and Forgiveness
    Do you not acknowledge that we can be in an emotional state without approving of it? — Baden
    Yes, we can be in an emotional state without wanting to be. That experience is quite common.

    To me, what's important, morally speaking, is not the emotional state, which is often beyond our control, but our reaction to it. — Baden
    Sure. Forgiveness and love are not emotional states, they are precisely choices. Jesus always presents it as an alternative choice between violence and love.

    but responsibility for violence must be laid at the feet of the violent (and their enablers) not at those of their victims regardless of whether those victims forgive the violent or not. — Baden
    It's not so much of where responsibility must be laid - responsibility cannot be laid, it exists. It must only be revealed to be at the feet of the violent.
  • Reconciliation and Forgiveness
    However I must admit that I had always held in my mind that you believed in determinism, so it is good to know that is not the case. — TimeLine
    Well it is the case that I am a determinist of the Spinozist kind in the sense that I take that things are determined, things have causes to be what they are. But there is no predeterminism/fatalism and the like because you yourself are part of the causal chain. Determinism isn't incompatible with free will.
  • Reconciliation and Forgiveness
    the intensity of a parent hurting you is more than a sibling, in as much as it is easier to forgive a sibling for hurting you than it is a friend. — TimeLine
    That is because a child takes the parent as a model of imitation. Even when the parent hurts the child, the child is still attached to the parent, because the very hurt signals a superior sufficiency of being in the parent that the child is shown to lack, so the child paradoxically seeks to imitate and become even more like the parent. This double bind is painful. The more violent the parent, the more attached the child becomes. The interiorized sense of lack always propels the child forward in seeking dominating models - the masochistic desire of course isn't because the child takes pleasure in pain, but rather because the proximity of the pain signals a self-sufficient model that the child can imitate and hence achieve the same self-sufficiency of being. The child cannot forgive the parent easily because the parent as model becomes rival - it is precisely in its rivalry that the parent is shown to have superiority of being. And the child wants this superiority of being. It is propelled by the desire to become invincible - of course a desire which is impossible and self-defeating.
  • Reconciliation and Forgiveness
    What is the difference between predestined and predetermined? — TimeLine
    No difference. But predestination and fatalism and predeterminism are different from determinism.
  • This Debunks Cartesian Dualism
    Buddhists will generally say that body and mind are two aspects of a whole, but what that 'whole' is, is an open question, in my opinion, as it is neither body nor mind. — Wayfarer
    Right, but this sounds more like neutral monism (much like Spinoza and Schopenhauer) rather than substance dualism or Platonic/Aristotelian hylomorphism. Neutral monism is very popular today in the West.

    Anyway, from the viewpoint of Buddhism, many modern people are 'Cārvāka', i.e. materialists, because they believe that with the death of the body, the elements return to the earth, etc, and there are no karmic consequences ('fruit of action') which is of course not the Buddhist view. However Buddhism also doesn't believe there is a sub-stratum or enduring kernel of consciousness which migrates from life to life, rather that the causes which give rise to a given life, will give rise to another life in future, which will experience itself as 'I and mine', up until the point where all identification with, and attachment to, the causes of rebirth cease. — Wayfarer
    Yeah, but this doesn't have much import to me, the same way that Schopenhauer's argument for immortality doesn't have much import. To say that consciousness continues which will experience "I and mine" isn't t say that I continue in any shape or form (unless I identify myself with that consciousness which says "I and mine"). Also what you're putting down here as the Buddhist view isn't the view of all forms of Buddhism. What is meant by many through reincarnation is that your thought patterns, desires, tendencies, atoms and the like reincarnate - the Five Skandhas. This can be a very materialist doctrine in itself, as much as it can be spiritual. Depends what you consider your "self" ;) .
  • Reconciliation and Forgiveness
    I'm outside now so I'll come back to it later. Hopefully, we can move on to more sensible territory. — Baden
    Okay yes, I see what you mean. My apologies, I didn't mean it that way, as should have been clearer after my second reply.
  • Reconciliation and Forgiveness
    the law — TimeLine
    "having canceled the debt ascribed to us in the decrees [of the law] that stood against us. He took it away, nailing it to the cross!" Colossians 2:14
  • Reconciliation and Forgiveness
    There is no sense in which a raped woman approves of her rapist's actions because she doesn't forgive him. — Baden
    Okay, let's see. Approve means to have a positive opinion of something or someone. Forgive means:

    to stop blaming or being angry with someone for something that person has done, or not punish them for something

    With that definition, yes there is no way in which she approves of his actions. But if she doesn't forgive him she would approve of the mode of being in hatred and anger. To forgive means precisely to renounce the will to do violence to the other or punish them. If there is no forgiveness, then there is approval (ie having a positive opinion) of the mode of being that entails that violence and punishment are useful and good. That mode of being is the opposite of the mode of being entailed by forgiveness.

    What you seem to be getting at, which I understand, is the idea that we should eventually get past our negative emotions towards those who have done us harm as that is psychologically healthy. — Baden
    Yes, I am getting at that, but not only at that. My point is that if there is no radical forgiveness and renunciation of violence, then there can be no peace on Earth. My point is that violence tends to spread because each party ends up seeing itself as justified to reprisal. Do you follow that?

    You weren't just saying it's preferable you were saying if they don't they are guilty of approving of the horrific acts that were inflicted upon them. — Baden
    No, not of the acts. I never said of the acts. In fact, I said the opposite:
    To forgive someone doesn't mean you approve of their actions. — Agustino
    I did say that they would be guilty in approving of the mode of being of hatred and violence, in at least some of its manifestations, if they don't forgive. This isn't "moral guilt", just "guilt" in the sense that they would be responsible for that, it would be a consequence of their actions. It shows that they think the mode of being of hatred and violence can be good - for example in punishing wrong-doers.

    Not forgiving is not equal to hating — Baden
    + Not forgiving is not equal to wishing violence on someone etc — Baden
    Does being angry involve hating? Not forgiving per the definition above entails wanting to punish someone and/or being angry with them. That sounds to me like hating someone or wanting to punish them (do violence to them).
  • Reconciliation and Forgiveness
    also seems to presume that victims of harmful acts are fully capable of forgiving those who have harmed them (otherwise how could it be wrong for them not to do so?). But that could only be claimed by someone ignorant of the psychological affects of trauma. — Baden
    No, I don't think @Agustino presumes this. Someone may be unable to forgive for psychological reasons, but this doesn't change what it would be preferable that they do. These things can take time. It can take time to forgive your enemies. I never said it's easy.
  • Reconciliation and Forgiveness
    Wasn't it you that said everything is determined? — TimeLine
    No, I don't think I ever said that :s - when did I say that? Believing that everything is predestined is against my spiritual position, and I don't believe I would ever have said that.

    I may have said in the context of Spinozist philosophy that everything is determined, in the sense that everything has causes for it. However, I distinguished this from fatalism which holds that everything is pre-determined.
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