Subsequent to this you say:

The genuine God (if such exists) allows almost all humans who ever lived to be born into a society that has false gods. — Art48

And this suggests that one or more faith’s are not invented but genuine.

Nice :up:

Criminals need a fast getaway!

I’m just a guy taking things to their logical conclusion — Art48

Remind me what the conclusion is again, if you don't mind.

Baden sets the price of participation at being nice to fools. — Banno

No, that doesn’t appear to be the price. The price seems to be not being over-the-top hostile and bigoted. A very low bar, actually.

Religion is only a small, and rather silly when you think about it, part of the world.

Imagine a larger world
It may prove hard to do
Other things to kvetch about
With no religion, whoo-hoo!

Someone told me Steely Dan's 'Only a Fool would Say That' was written in response to John Lennon's Imagine.

Figures.

//even found a ref!// — Wayfarer

:lol: I don’t need to imagine a world without religion. Only fucking fools can’t imagine such a world though, I would say.

Actually there is a rather strict social hierarchy in Buddhism.

I still believe the idea provides a naturalistic basis for ethics. — Wayfarer

Indeed, what could be more natural than a social hierarchy and subjugation of the underclass.

I think the OP has nothing to do with any religious or spiritual doctrine about karma; I think it is rather a very philosophical question, but it creates some confusion because of the use of the word “karma”, that immediately sends us to religions and spiritualities. — Angelo Cannata

It I immediately sends us to “religions and spiritualities” because it is entirely religious in nature. The concepts of cause and effect aren’t religious, karma is entirely religious.

I suppose that folks are more apt to be twisted up by it the further down the caste system they’re born into. :confused:

I realized I had not applied what I learned to actually living so had nothing to share along those lines. — ArielAssante

Perhaps if you focus better you can post something actually lived and offering that kind of value.

What a shame. The forum is lesser now.

There’s also the possibility to have a mixture of both; a functional chair that also contains embellishments meant to please the eye. This is more of a gray area, and is probably determined by how it is marketed or used/displayed. — Pinprick

The way something is framed may influence how we see it of course, however, I think it’s possible to see anything aesthetically and we shouldn’t always rely on others, “thought leaders” or whatever, to direct our perception.

The Origins of Political Order: From Prehuman Times to the French Revolution
By Francis Fukuyama

Barbarian Days: A Surfing Life
By William Finnegan

Going into it I was very skeptical of a surfer autobiography but the Pulizer is well deserved.

The Plant Paradox: The Hidden Dangers in "Healthy" Foods That Cause Disease and Weight Gain
By Steven R. Gundry, MD

An important book if you care about your health, particularly if you have any autoimmune issues.

I didn’t say anything about craft, did I?

Many restaurants and homes have what I consider to be badly designed forks. I was in an Italian restaurant yesterday and ordered tagliatelle, but was shocked (shocked!) to see that my fork had short tines. Some might say that it was beautiful to look at, but if a tool is not fit for purpose, any beauty it might have is empty. Its eye-pleasing shape was superficial; for any tool, an important element in its beauty must be its functionality (and how it feels in the hand etc). — Jamal

I recall reading about a study which claims that people think, to some degree, that aesthetically pleasing tools work better, even though they may actually be inferior in function to ugly tools.

What it might say is that conceptual art is a mistaken or ill-conceived separation of the two, that it's the exemplar of a belief in the false equation, art = [craft, skill, and technique] + [vision, emotional investment, imagination]. And this belief could be the result of the inflated status of the artist as creator, which is an ecomonic and sociological phenomenon. — Jamal

I wouldn’t call this separation “ill-conceived”, I would simply tend to regard the result as commercial art, or art produced with the intent of making money, promoting some cause, or whatever. The ‘conceptual artist’ in this case is the capitalist or boss and in this way does hold a higher status position, and reaps the lion-share of profits. It’s not just artistic concepts though, like any business it’s having access to resources that the talent lacks.

Think for yourself.

And I got a word to spare. :grin:

With Roe vs. Wade squashed, we should expect a population explosion in the US in the coming few decades.
— Agent Smith

Between the defunding of social security, healthcare, daily mass shootings, and uncontrolled climate change (all Republican priorities), I kind of doubt that. — Mr Bee

If the decision mostly affects single mother’s of very limited means, there should be a significant uptick in crime in the areas most affected in about 18 years.

Then tell me what it means to you. — Jackson

Personal aesthetic expression, to put it broadly.

What does “making objects which convey meaning” mean to you? Dictionary’s are objects made to convey meaning, for instance, and you don’t seem to like those objects much.

Not sure what you're saying. Art for art's sake was a motto for decorative art. — Jackson

Forgive me for utilizing my common sense but wouldn’t that be art for the sake of decoration?

Art is not about beauty, it is about making objects which convey meaning. — Jackson

Art for art’s sake is not art then? That can’t be right, can it?

Tribalism always entails the enemy as the outsider. — Jackson

Heretics and infidels. :death:

Why does religion still hold humanity in its grasp and why is it so hard for most people to see through obvious truths? — enqramot

The core of it is tribalism, a survival strategy, and though religion may be the most potent expression of this it exists in many forms.

Hey brat a little tip, try showing some kind of maturity and mutual respect that way you can get the other person to actually have a conversation with you so that you might actually learn something for a change, the keyboard has been saving the smart mouth a brats for almost 30yrs now so it's to be expected, is all I ask is that you try to talk to others over the internet the same way your mother makes you talk to people in real life , if you keep talking like a little shithead you will end up creating a bad habit and might accidently smart off in real life and get a spanking for it. Just trying to help you but take it or leave it IDGF — MAYAEL

I suppose this means that you’re not going to tell me about your little tower now. :sad:

real Tower builders don't have pamphlets — MAYAEL

Oh, I get it now, if you had anything honest to say your little tower would fall like a card house.

well build one and see — MAYAEL

You go on a five paragraph diatribe about Towers and now you can’t say anything about the value, or curse, of them? WTF?!

build one and find out — MAYAEL

Why would I want to do that exactly?

you can reach the same knowledge and the same enlightenment without any narcotics — MAYAEL

Then why bother building a stupid Tower? :lol:

Nothing special about knowledge if it can be wrong. On my view, it cannot. — creativesoul

“What was once useful may no longer be useful.”

I'm trying to get Janus to explain what the difference is, according to his/her position, between feeling certain and being certain. Seems to me like that difference amounts to feeling certain being on par with belief whereas being certain is on par with knowledge. That difference is truth to some, warrant to others, and truth plus justification to some. Belief is required for all.

Clarity has not been forthcoming. — creativesoul

What’s so special about knowledge? Knowledge can be wrong and outlive its usefulness.

A spoon may be in my hand or I could just be hallucinating it. All that really matters is if it works, if it is useful in fulfilling my objectives. Adding belief will only trap me in some ideology that I rather be free from.

There is no spoon. :razz:

No need for people to fret much over this...

Your language use is very odd. You claim that feeling certain that 'X' is true is not equivalent to being certain that 'X' is true.

So what extra is needed aside from S's feeling certain that 'X' is true in order for S to be certain that 'X' is true?

Let 'X' be "God exists"... — creativesoul

I know I know! Meeting God.

Isn’t that just your associative memory at work, guessing it’s a phone, and if you put more thought into it you might think that I would try to make it hard to guess and deliberately not use a phone. I’d love to hold a cute little pig though.

Suddenly it occurs to me now how much belief is a story or personal narrative for ourselves, our ego, strengthening individual as well as group identity.

Well, for instance, I could ask you what I’m holding in my hand. You might well guess that I’m holding a phone. If you did guess that, would you believe it?

what do we believe when we experiece sensations but don't know what they are?
— praxis

Depends what you mean by 'know'. We always make a prediction as to what they are, we're never 100% sure. — Isaac

You’ve been saying that predictions are beliefs. If we always make beliefs (predictions), then what do we believe when we can’t recognize, understand, or make any sense of something?

Be that as it may, the framework is such that individual determinations contribute to a group determination. The individual determinations are determinations. In an election, I vote for the canidate that I determine will best serve my interests, and my vote contributes to a group determination. To claim that my vote isn't a determination is unfair and downright unAmerican.

On a related note, what do we believe when we experiece sensations but don't know what they are? Do we believe nothing, or do we beleive that we don't know? What do we believe when we can see two things, like the duck/rabit sketch?

Each column, therefore is processing data not yet in the form of a belief (a belief that...) because there's no 'that' until the predictions have been related (to whatever the belief is about) and that happens (in Hawkin's model) after the voting process, where the hippocampus (or the entorhinal cortex, or sub-cortex depending on the type of memory) make the association on which we can act. — Isaac

Seems an arbitrary distinction, as though saying that when holding a cup in hand we can believe it’s a cup but we can’t believe in the cups texture or weight, the individual elements it’s comprised of.

I’ve read Barrett’s book on constructed emotion theory, but I was more thinking of thousand brains theory.



Assuming this theory is good, at what point in the neural process is there belief? In each cortical column or in the consensus of columns?

I don’t see how they can change unless we are aware of them. If I have a belief that I’m unaware of it would never change.
— praxis

Why do you think that? — Isaac

Because I don’t think that subconscious predictions are beliefs.

I can't think where you've read such a thing into what I've written when I've mostly been arguing the exact opposite - that belief is dynamic and usually held in degrees of certainty. — Isaac

I don’t see how they can change unless we are aware of them. If I have a belief that I’m unaware of it would never change.

Trump was provided the facts, not that he accepted them. — Relativist

Americans don’t deserve a leader who accepts facts.