Marx was not a racist, and certainly not an antisemite. You seem a bit confused.

Thanks, I liked it too. :smile:

Your point was that Nazi's were only possible because they removed the Judeo Christian tradition from culture — Tom Storm

That is not my point. I am rather saying that the Nazis themselves removed the judeo-christian tradition from their own (personal) thinking, and even hated it. They hardened their own hearts against their religious upbringing. They could not possibly remove Christianity from the German culture at large. But they started by trying to arianize Jesus. At issue here was the obvious fact that Jesus, Mary, Joseph, Paul, Petter and all the first followers of Jesus were Jews, which would imply they were, you know, bad folks, so some pronazi theologians started to pretend that Jesus was in fact a good Arian (persecuted by them Juden, as one would expect). They tried to put a Nazi spin on the whole JC drama, in short. Not the first nor the last one to do that; religious myths are eternally being reshaped and retold to suit new purpose and the historical data on Jesus is meagre and vague enough that one can brand him a stoic, a socialist, a feminist, whatever one likes, so why not a Nazi after all. And yes, Luther's disgusting writings on Jews helped them Nazis. But the final solution was not inspired by religion. It was inspired by an ideology that was resolutely modern and secular, a form of social Darwinism.

where in the Bill of Rights? — tim wood

Sorry, it's in the Declaration of Independence -
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

Traditional Christians did pretty well. And Muslims. As to the modern industrial scale, that took modernity. But the potential for murderousness, it appears, has always been there. — tim wood

Yes, the potential for mass murder was always there, and remains. The question is how we guard against it in modern secular societies. I believe this takes a bedrock of common values that need to be held as normatively good, and treated as such. The fact that we cannot or rather will not rely on religion to ground those societal values has profound consequences, some obviously positive (like, freedom of conscience; we can have sex with a lot more folks etc.) and others more problematic, like the inability to ground human rights in gods' will anymore. Human rights were historically introduced as god-given and therefore sacred in both the French Déclaration des droits de l'homme and in the American Bill of rights. You can't do this anymore. You can't say in a secular framework: "Human life is sacred", although it is still said of course, including by secularists. And the reason it is still said, is that we modern secularists miss a sense of the sacred to ground our values.

Why? Law in an orderly country like the USA takes care of the lost religious ethics. — god must be atheist

For instance, to justify the need for the rule of law, its importance and value.

I think you read too much into it. The old uniforms had it and the Nazis didn't order the army to change it to a new model. That's all there is.

My point remains that it is harder to imagine, plan and implement the murder of millions of people on an industrial scale -- e.g. the Holocaust -- within a traditional Christian (or Jewish, or Muslim) context than it is to do so within a secular context.

GOTT MIT UNS on the belt buckles of the Wehrmacht forces convincingly suggests otherwise. — 180 Proof

Are you sure this detail was introduced by the Nazis? It could just as well be a pre-existing German tradition.

Edit (from Wiki):

At the time of the completion of German unification in 1871, the imperial standard bore the motto Gott mit uns on the arms of an Iron Cross.[4] Imperial German 3 and 5 mark silver and 20 mark gold coins had Gott mit uns inscribed on their edge.

German soldiers had Gott mit uns inscribed on their belt buckles in the First World War.[5] The slogan entered the mindset on both sides; in 1916 a cartoon was printed in the New York Tribune captioned "Gott Mit Uns!", showing "a German officer in spiked helmet holding a smoking revolver as he stood over the bleeding form of a nurse. It symbolized the rising popular demand that the United States shed its neutrality".[6]

In June 1920 George Grosz produced a lithographic collection in three editions entitled Gott mit uns. A satire on German society and the counterrevolution, the collection was swiftly banned. Grosz was charged with insulting the army, which resulted in a 300 German Mark fine and the destruction of the collection.[7]

During the Second World War Wehrmacht soldiers once again wore this slogan on their belt buckles,[8] as opposed to members of the Waffen SS, who wore the motto Meine Ehre heißt Treue ('My honour is loyalty').[9] After the war the motto was also used by the Bundeswehr and German police. It was replaced with "Einigkeit und Recht und Freiheit" ("Unity and Justice and Freedom") in 1962 (police within the 1970s),

don't see how you can argue that when the Nazi's drew on centuries of Christianity's antisemitism even Martin Luther's well known fulminations against Jews. — Tom Storm

Centuries during which the Church was more often than not trying to protect Jews from the greed of the powerful and the prejudice of the masses.

Not to mention a 99% Christian nation supported Hitler.

So, since China is in majority atheist and their people support a ruthless and racist dictatorship, it reflects poorly on atheism?

even Martin Luther's well known fulminations against Jews

Just because warmongers often brandish religious reasons does not mean they are motivated by religion. The Nazis used Martin Luther to rally the masses, instrumentally, like they used Darwin or Wagner. It does not follow that their ideology was inherently Lutheran, Darwinian or Wagnerian.

I've met a number of people who were fundamentalists and de-converted following exposure to Hitchens, Harris and co, amongst other things. — Tom Storm

That's news to me, and I would like to read some testimonials if you know of any.

Religion's consequences: witch-trials, shunning of gay people, anti-semitism, pogroms, Crusades, the Inquisition, the persecution of men of learning, slavery and numerous wars. The Nazi's had significant support from Christians and even had 'God with Us' on army belt buckles. — Tom Storm

That's a tangent. My point is rather that, now that "God is dead", we need a secular form (or several) of ethics. This point is not nonsense. It is essential to our civilization's survival. And it has zilch to do with a comparison between the crimes committed by atheists vs those committed by religious folks.

The rejection of the judeo-christian tradition by the Nazis is what allowed them to do what they did. I am not rooting for a return of the inquisition, just flagging that during the 20th century the freedom from religious tradition afforded by Marx and Nietzsche, combined with the immense powers generated by science and technology lead to both positive and negative consequences.

We have yet to learn how to use our new powers, before we blow ourselves off this planet misusing them. A new ethics is what we need. It needs to be rooted in some respect for the human person. In some respect for life, including non-human life. And no materialist philosophy will ever explain to you why a bee, a flower, or a child are inherently far more worthy of love and respect than any machine, however sophisticated.

The unfortunate fact in Western culture is that much of the best of ‘pagan philosophy’ was incorporated into Christian theology by the Greek-speaking, early Christian theologians. So the rejection of Christianity often amounts, in effect, to the rejection of many elements of traditional philosophy along with it. — Wayfarer

Interesting observation. I suppose one could say something similar about al-Fārābī, Avicenna and Maimonides, two Muslims and one Jew among many many others who built upon Aristotle and Plato within their own religious framework. Note that the Greek philosophers were often monotheist, at least in the way they wrote about God, so their incorporation into a monotheist faith is not particularly problematic from that standpoint.

think the alleged New Atheists were brash and strident and unacademic and pithy and polemical and for the most part they got their pitch right. — Tom Storm

They were just a rehash of Comte's tired positivism. Their pitch was wrong in the sense that it was an ineffective caricature. I am not against caricatures. They have a role to play when well crafted and effective in a "truer than truth" kind of way. But a contempt-drooling caricature is rarely effective. Not a single Muslim fundamentalist, or Jewish or Christian for that matter, was ever deterred or convinced by their pro domo arguments. On the contrary, I suspect that their aggressive form of no-godism put off quite a few well-meaning folks among their audience.

More importantly, there are political consequences to the death of the god(s): the French revolutionary terror, Stalin, Hitler, are reminders that men need ethics and that historically their ethics was derived from religion. So once religion is dead (at least for the West, it is), whence come ethics?

Clue: certainly not from constant bashing of religion. More from learning a thing or two from religion.

Agreed. I was never impressed by any of them new atheists, whom I see as characterized by facile hatred of religion. An atheist myself, I know better than brand all religious folks as idiots and all religious message as fake. Theirs is an "us vs them", make no prisoners mentality. I would rather try and see what is good in religion, what heritage from it needs to be carried forward in a more secular mind frame.

Godless grifters: How the New Atheists merged with the far right
What once seemed like a bracing intellectual movement has degenerated into a pack of abusive, small-minded bigots
By PHIL TORRES
PUBLISHED JUNE 5, 2021 12:00PM (EDT)

... New Atheism appeared to offer moral clarity, it emphasized intellectual honesty and it embraced scientific truths about the nature and workings of reality. It gave me immense hope to know that in a world overflowing with irrationality, there were clear-thinking individuals with sizable public platforms willing to stand up for what's right and true — to stand up for sanity in the face of stupidity.

Fast-forward to the present: What a grift that was! Many of the most prominent New Atheists turned out to be nothing more than self-aggrandizing, dogmatic, irascible, censorious, morally compromised people who, at every opportunity, have propped up the powerful over the powerless, the privileged over the marginalized. ....

https://www.salon.com/2021/06/05/how-the-new-atheists-merged-with-the-far-right-a-story-of-intellectual-grift-and-abject-surrender/

We must believe in spring.

Ultra deep song about acculturation, the Italians, and all that... ;-)

Boy went back to Napoli
because he missed the scenery
The native dancers and the charming songs
But wait a minute, something's wrong....

Hey! Hey!
Now it's hey Mambo, Mambo Italiano!
Hey Mambo, Mambo Italiano!
Go, go, Joe, you mixed up Sigiliano.
All you Calabrese do the mambo like crazy.
And hey Mambo! Don't want to tarantella,
Hey Mambo! No more-a moozzarella.
Hey Mambo! Hey Mambo Italiano.
Try an enchilada with a fish-a-barcalada.

Hey goombah!
I love-a how you dance rumba.
But take-a some advice paisano,
learn how to mambo.
If you're gonna be a square,
you're never gonna go nowhere.

Hey Mambo, Mambo Italiano!
Hey Mambo, hey Mambo Italiano!
Go, go, Joe, shake-a like a Gioviano.
Hello quesadicha,
you getta happy in the feets-a
when you Mambo Italiano!
Shake-a baby, shake-a,
'cause I love-a when you take-a me.

Hey Jagool!
You don't-a have to go to school,
just make a little beef flambino.
It's-a like-a vino.
Kid you're good-lookin',
but you don't know what's-a cookin' till you

Hey! Hey! Hey! Hey! Hey! Hey!
Shake-a baby, shake-a,
'cause I love it when you take-a me
by the pizzeria down-a where I'm gonna be-a.
Don't ya tell your mama.
Mama's gonna tell-a papa.
There's-a nothin' to it.
Come on baby let's-a do it!

Hey Mambo, etc

Not really a fan of his political philosophy, which my French schoolboy memories limit to the idea of a social contract between inherently free individuals, accepting to live in society and the rules that go with it.

I want to read the Confessions though, because he had such a strong and funny personality and style. He was a rockstar of philosophy: brilliant, mesmerizing, physically beautiful, sexually active, and vain.

Meanwhile, James Boswell [a friend and biographer of Hume], then in Paris, offered to escort Thérèse Levasseur [JJ's steady girlfriend] to Rousseau.[52][51] (Boswell had earlier met Rousseau and Thérèse at Motiers; he had subsequently also sent Thérèse a garnet necklace and had written to Rousseau seeking permission to occasionally communicate with her.)[52] Hume foresaw what was going to happen: "I dread some event fatal to our friend's honor."[52][51] Boswell and Thérèse were together for more than a week, and as per notes in Boswell's diary they consummated the relationship, having intercourse several times.[52][51] On one occasion, Thérèse told Boswell: "Don't imagine you are a better lover than Rousseau."[52]

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean-Jacques_Rousseau

Of course JJ was behaving as a provocateur in the querelle des bouffons, courting scandal, and that's what he got, but as you said he also opened a breach in the Parisians' cultural mépris for those funny Italians. So he was excessive in his pamphlet but maybe that's what it took to make an impact.

Jean-Jacques Rousseau was a composer, with some modest success. Two pieces written by him:





I got interested in the querelle des bouffons, in which Rousseau successfully defended Italian opera against a bunch of narrow-minded Frenchmen, including Rameau. I basically agree with Rousseau that melody trumps harmony, especially if one cares for the taste of the people. The people want something they can sing, not several intertwined melodic lines and complex harmonies. Rameau and all the other French musicians at the time were performing for Versailles, first and foremost, while Vivaldi was playing for the general public.

Now listening to Rousseau's compositions to try and figure out if he was worth anything as a musician. Jury is still out. It is simple alright, but that's part of the idea to write for the people rather than for the court. It does sound like a mishmash of Italian and French influences, not terribly original.

Je crois avoir fait voir qu'il n'y a ni mesure ni mélodie dans la musique française, parce que la langue n'en est pas susceptible ; que le chant français n'est qu'un aboiement continuel, insupportable à toute oreille non prévenue ; que l'harmonie en est brute, sans expression et sentant uniquement son remplissage d'écolier ; que les airs français ne sont point des airs ; que le récitatif français n'est point du récitatif. D'où je conclus que les Français n'ont point de musique et n'en peuvent avoir ; ou que si jamais ils en ont une, ce sera tant pis pour eux.

... that there is neither measure nor melody in French music, because the language is not capable of them; that French singing is only continual barking, unbearable to all unprejudiced ears; that its harmony is brutal, without expression and feeling uniquely like schoolboys' padding; that French airs are not airs; that French recitals are not recitals. Hence I conclude that the French have no music and can have none; or that if ever they had some, they would be so much the worse for it.

– Jean-Jacques Rousseau (Lettre sur la musique française)

As per a hadith (a saying of the prophet Mohammad), honorable men are those who treat women honorably. The basic idea is that the strong must respect the weak, as in the OP:

you should never use your physical strength to harm those weaker than you, — BigThoughtDropper

Would you enjoy playing a game of chess against a grandmaster other than to say you did so? — Outlander

This happened to me once, in an airport lounge. I had hours to wait and the old gentleman next to me in the lounge was reading a chess magazine. I asked him if he wanted to play. He did, though he did not look particularly excited about it, like if playing chess was a bit boring to him... Anyway, I looked around the airport shops for a set, found one, and came back to the lounge with it.

What followed was rather humbling. I could not make it pass 20 moves in any of the six or seven games we played. When I congratulated him, he said he was a grandmaster.

Sorry, didn't see that.

unless that biological account has learned from constructivists like Piaget, Maturana and Varela. — Joshs

Exactly. A non reductionist account, an account that would start from the innate, pre-theoretical assumption, axiom, presupposition or a priori -- however you want to call it -- that our capacities for observation, perception and logic help us notice patterns, and thus give us a modicum of understanding and control over things and events. The non reductionist account would then use these capacities to explore and explore further the world, until such a point when one could propose a well-evidenced, logical theory for animal perception, how it emerged in evolution, how it works, what's its bag of tricks, and why it is indeed so useful to us.

(IOW, the exact opposite of what most materialists have been busy doing)

Such an exploration and validation of perception by itself may look circular, but I rather see it as an outward spiral, that starts from a kernel of intuition and explores the surroundings by going around in a spiral.

For me it's just a good example, maybe the best, of a metaphysical presupposition, if we even want to call something so typically automatic a presupposition. — j0e

Yes, it's a good example of what Collingwood called an absolute presupposition, although you are right that it looks more basic. Perhaps Kant's a priori is a better way to look at it, like our sense of space and time?

As an aside, note that the use of 'they', speaking of oneself, is spreading in the language, which points to the idea that the unity of the mind is not always a given.

Now that is deep.

I Me Mine is a great entry on the subject, thanks.


All through the day
I me mine, I me mine, I me mine
All through the night
I me mine, I me mine, I me mine
Now they're frightened of leaving it
Everyone's weaving it
Coming on strong all the time
All through the day

I me mine
I me me mine, etc.

All I can hear
I me mine, I me mine, I me mine
Even those tears
I me mine, I me mine, I me mine
No-one's frightened of playing it
Everyone's saying it
Flowing more freely than wine
All through the day

I me mine
I me me mine, etc.

All I can hear
I me mine, I me mine, I me mine
Even those tears
I me mine, I me mine, I me mine
No-one's frightened of playing it
Everyone's saying it
Flowing more freely than wine
All through your life
I me mine

Thanks. This posting was prompted by

How did Descartes know that he was alone in his mind? Why not "We think, therefore we are."? ... How much confusion in philosophy results from reifying the 'I' which we learn to use in ordinary life? — j0e

Me, myself and I do like Lady Day: we always use the "royal we".

Me, myself and I
Are all in love with you
We all think you're wonderful
We do

Me, myself and I
Have just one point of view
We're convinced
There's no one else like you

It can't be denied dear
You brought the sun to us
We'd be satisfied dear
If you'd belong to one of us

So if you pass me by
Three hearts will break in two
'Cause me, myself and I
Are all in love with you
We all think you're wonderful
We do

unless that biological account has learned from constructivists like Piaget, Maturana and Varela. — Joshs

Exactly. A non reductionist account, an account of the mind that gives justice to it rather than try to eliminate it, is not logically impossible, whereas a reductionist account of the mind would be self-contradictory

Only the implementation details (gene-editing, synthetic gene drives, cross-species fertility-regulation, etc) are a modern innovation. — David Pearce

Exactly. Yahweh has given way to Science as the Supreme Being in many modern minds, and therefore science is now required to deliver the same stuff that Yahweh was previously in charge of, including paradise. The Kingdom of God has been replaced in our imagination by the Kingdom of Science.

following Husserl and Merleau-Pontus, the ‘physical’ is a higher order derived product of constitution, and can’t be used to ‘explain’ the fundamental basis of color in perception. . — Joshs

It cannot be used to 'explain away' perception in an eliminative manner -- one cannot say on the basis of one's perceptions, that perception is an illusion -- but I see no reason why one could not provide a reasonable account of biological processes involved in color perception, in an affirmative manner: "Perception works, and this is how it works, based on my perceptions" may be a circular argument but not self-contradictory.

Base-editing is better than CRISPR-Cas9 for creating invincibly happy, healthy babies: — David Pearce

It seems to me that you are indulging in a vision of a paradise, that probably serves the same purpose as the Christian paradise: console, bring solace. It's a form of escapism.


Isaiah 11:

6 The wolf will live with the lamb,
the leopard will lie down with the goat,
the calf and the lion and the yearling together;
and a little child will lead them.
7 The cow will feed with the bear,
their young will lie down together,
and the lion will eat straw like the ox.
8 The infant will play near the cobra’s den,
and the young child will put its hand into the viper’s nest.
9 They will neither harm nor destroy
on all my holy mountain,
for the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the Lord
as the waters cover the sea.

Fans of Lewis's Narnia books may wish to check this precursor: The Magic World, by Edith Nesbit.

Researchers call for greater awareness of unintended consequences of CRISPR gene editing
9 APRIL 2021
by The Francis Crick Institute

Researchers at the Francis Crick Institute have revealed that CRISPR-Cas9 genome editing can lead to unintended mutations at the targeted section of DNA in early human embryos. The work highlights the need for greater awareness of and further research into the effects of CRISPR-Cas9 genome editing, especially when used to edit human DNA in laboratory research.

https://www.crick.ac.uk/news/2021-04-09_researchers-call-for-greater-awareness-of-unintended-consequences-of-crispr-gene-editing

We could start with something easier, like improve human and animal welfare and combat climate change.

It's hard to imagine, I know. — David Pearce

It's also very hard to do, I know.

My point was rather that no centralized decision making system can be perfect in its implementation (although they tend to look perfect on paper, but that's often due to their naivety) and that such systems tend to fossilize or at least age poorly over time. Too conservative, not addaptative enough. Darwinian systems are better from this point of view, more evolutionary and more creative.

Critics protest that a notional civilisation with a hedonic range of +90 to +100 would "lack contrast" compared to the rich tapestry of Darwinian life. — David Pearce

I suspect that, were we to live in such a civilisation, our mean hedonistic expectation will simply adjust to somewhere around 95. Anything below 95 will be deemed a disappointment if not a "micro-agression", and anything above 95 will get recorded as satisfying and truly a pleasure. In short, I suspect the gradient is relative, not absolute.

the parasitic worm Onchocerca volvulus that causes onchocerciasis aka river blindness? — David Pearce

While it is possible to eliminate viruses or parasites that play no ecological role, to try and change a whole ecosystem is very risky. Perhaps you can understand why with a metaphor. Darwinian life is akin to capitalism. It's ugly, but it works. It works without anyone telling the system how to work, it self regulates. Your imagined life would be akin to centrally planned economy: it's nicer in theory but it doesn't work very well in practice because it relies on a few people at the top making the right decisions at all times, and they sometimes do mistakes, or just abuse of their position.

A decentralized, self-regulated system is more resilient than a centrally regulated system. And that's a dimension on which Darwinian life will always trump engineered life.

Yes, humans are "playing god". Good. We should aim to be benevolent gods. — David Pearce

If we manage to survive the storm that's coming, that is.