No worries - these are all good questions. And yes, I have used this very argument about art (I think we both did on here somewhere...)

If they think philosophically I would say they are philosophers. — Janus

A big if. Janus we just disagree on this. No point in going on. Take care.

But don't you think people are free to define themselves in ways differently than you would? — Janus

It's not about me or you Janus I would have thought. People are free to call themselves philosophers without ever having read or undertaken any actual philosophy. I have no problem with that, but are they philosophers?

So, what beliefs exactly do you think are indispensable for one to hold in order to qualify as a Christian? — Janus

Who knows? But it's more than just an ethical system. I follow almost all Christian moral values - but I do not consider myself Christian - perhaps culturally Christian... If you leave out the supernatural component and the numinous, it could be said you leave out the raison d'être.

If the guy you spoke about follows the moral principles as given in the sermon on the mount, then he is a Christian in my book. — Janus

I can't get there.

It's not simply an "obsession with purity", but a matter of efficacy. Can the newer developments that are occuring under the banner of Buddhism deliver, or at least promise what the older one(s) did? — baker

I think that's right too. What do you think of contemporary Wester secular Buddhism in its various expressions?

What drives me is the question whether the Buddha of the Pali Canon as I know him was in fact not trying hard enough to find satisfaction in "life as it is usually lived" (and that such satisfaction can indeed be found, by everyone) and that his teaching on dependent co-arising is wrong. — baker

This is more or less the question that preoccupied me 30 years ago. I personally have never felt dissatisfied by life, even though it has often been difficult, so the question lost urgency. A different question if you live in more dire or horrific conditions, no doubt.

Interesting, thanks. So often people are fixated by identifying a practice in its purity or as originally intended. Hence pietist movements like Hasidism or Islamic State (not that the two are comparable).

Buddhism has a way of dealing with that in terms of calling them the 'second' and 'third' turnings of the wheel of dharma. It managed to retain the core principles through otherwise massive changes. — Wayfarer

Would you contend that Buddhism has incorporated this ongoing dialectic or evolution in its approach? Do you have a view about phenomenology and how it might resonate with Buddhism?

As David Loy, another Buddhist writer, says, 'The main problem with our usual understanding of secularity is that it is taken-for-granted, so we are not aware that it is a worldview. It is an ideology that pretends to be the everyday world we live in. Most of us assume that it is simply the way the world really is, once superstitious beliefs about it have been removed.' And among those 'superstitious beliefs' are the fundamental principles of Buddhism. — Wayfarer

Yes, I've been struck by this aspect of modern secular Buddhism too. Do you consider what Wright et al practice to be Buddhism or is it simply secularism inspired by some Buddhist principles?

I met an earnest Liberal Catholic some years ago who insisted that he was a practicing Christian. Except he thought Jesus did no miracles, died on the cross, was not resurrected and that much of the New Testament was 'an insult to the intelligence'. (shades of the Jefferson Bible) I told him that I considered him to be a secularist with some handpicked Christian cultural values, but not a Christian. This irritated him greatly.

When do calculated changes and omissions made to a belief system transform that system into something else?

I understand your argument and it has merit. Humans see red so it matters almost nothing that a bee sees something different. Why would it not - it has entirely different sensory equipment? I think this is what indirect realism affords.

Similarly, have you seen human skin under an electron microscope? It looks like the surface of the moon and is full of living creatures (mites) roaming over it, like marauding aliens. Does this mean that I am not seeing the same human skin as the microscope sees? If you say no then for me this is entirely a poetic use of the word.

If the perception of the bee of the flower is blue and the perception of the flower to me is red, what color is the flower? — Hanover

Red.

I feel like having this put on a T-shirt and sending it out to Christian apologists of the motherfuckin' presuppositional variety.

I think this is a good summary. What the bee is experiencing is of an entirely different nature to what the human experiences. Such a distinction is still at the level of common sense.

I'm a little puzzled by the term faith in humanity. Does this mean a trust in people to do the right thing (however this looks)? I don't generally have faith in anything. But in some instances I have 'reasonable confidence' that something is the case or is not the case.

I have no real answer to whether humans are good or bad. I wonder if the question is meaningful given all the variables and potential descriptions of this vast territory.

Probably it comes down to: do you like people or not? And depending upon your personal experiences and how you have made sense of them, you are likely to respond emotionally and instinctively to this kind of poll. I went with option 3.

Sounds like a very challenging situation. Hard to comment on specifics unless one knows the ins and outs. I've worked in the area of mental health for many years.

In most countries few people stay in a psychiatric hospital for more than a few days or months. In my country, Australia, the average stay in a psychiatric facility seems to be 7-15 days.

In the latter half of the 20th century most countries practiced deinstitutionalization. The approach is treatment in the community.

Generally paranoid schizophrenia may respond well to anti-psychotic medications and mood stabilizers. If treated, people can generally manage their own affairs in their own apartment in the community. I have known many people with the symptoms you describe who respond well to medication and were happy to receive this treatment. But not everyone wants to take medication and this aspect may present its own challenges.

Do people of higher intelligence in real life feel obligated to make the world a better place, or are they as self serving as the rest of us? — TiredThinker

Why? Couldn't it just as well be the other way around?

How does one even understand 'make the world a better place?' In what sense 'better'? This same idea has been put in a myriad of different ways - i.e., wealthy people should feel obliged to make the world a better place. I've heard this applied also to artists; musicians; Westerners; Americans...

Is your idea that with great intelligence there's an enhanced moral awareness?

I wonder how much musical taste is nature or nurture. — Jack Cummins

Pretty sure we are socialised into Western musical taste. Seems likely to me that the music we know would just be a series of sounds - wails, booms, thumps, moans, whoops and whirrs to the uninitiated. It's a type of language isn't it? Personally I have never much enjoyed rock or pop music - for the most part I find it ugly and dull - so personal taste clearly plays a roll.

I remember listing to Mozart's Eine Kleine Nachtmusik for the first time around the age of 6. I found it hilarious and remember hearing it as a series of amusing sound effects, without a narrative or melody.

Having sat in the bush listening to bird song, it's pretty clear that sound can take us places (it doesn't have to be music). Think of the meditative effect of falling rain, or the sound of a waterfall, or an old steam train.

I didn’t mean to sound preachy here. I am just expressing my views of Christ and how I see the world through my own eyes. — TheQuestion

That much is clear. But we can find exactly the same kind of 'preachy' subjective speculative views from Hindus and Islamic believers. Although their views would point to different conclusions. The issue isn't that people have imaginative opinions. We know this. The issue is what evidence do you, or they, have for such views. If none, why should anyone take notice?

Which is the common denominator in all types of faith. — TheQuestion

The common denominator of faith is that it is the excuse people give when they don't have good reasons for their belief. What can't be justified through an appeal to faith? Slavery... homophobia... capital punishment... clitorectomies. The problem with faith is it is not a reliable pathway to truth.

Yep, but the idea that one should not reduce work because it somehow confers a sort of virtue, is what I mean.. — schopenhauer1

Here is Australia in some sectors there are people that have reduced their hours per week. Working 25 to 30 hours a week is common enough and is encouraged. But the big problem is the idea of an hourly rate. If you are paid by the hour the incentive to cut back diminishes. This is an option taken by people who own their own homes and have money in the bank.

I've met a few wealthy people (business owners) who brag about only working 20 hours a week - so there is no inherent taboo against this. But they are still making huge money despite the moderate effort.

Most people I know would like to work 20 hours a week but can't afford it.

Fair question. I don't think it is the Protestant Work Ethic that holds this in place so much as capitalism and faith of free market economics - every bit as religious as Religion.

Mind you, as David Graeber (Bullshit Jobs: A Theory) points out that there are many, many men and women in 40 hour a week jobs that do 7 hours of actual work.

I did understand this and you are right to highlight this as a difference.

Yet none of the people who believe "there's an invisible man in the sky who created the universe" do so because George Carlin told them so. He's just making misleading hyperbole. — baker

Are you being too concrete with his one liner? I'd say Carlin is an acute observer of how skepticism is used by people. They accept some claims (without ever thinking to question them) and these are often spectacular claims, like a God or some fulsome conspiracy theory. And yet, in another situation these same folk like to have evidence. As per the paint example. Yes it's hyperbole (he was a comic, after all) but I've certainly observed this inconsistency many times. The beauty of Carlin's quote is that he says it like an aphorism of Nietzsche, by way of the Bronx.

But being skeptic doesn’t always having to mean I don’t believe in God it just means I choose to use skepticism to think and solve a particular objective. — TheQuestion

Of course, I have met many Christian skeptics. Most people use skepticism in daily life, it's just that they are selective (and often inconsistent ) in how they apply their skepticism.

Hence this:

“Tell people there's an invisible man in the sky who created the universe, and the vast majority will believe you. Tell them the paint is wet, and they have to touch it to be sure.”
― George Carlin


Personally my definition of a skeptic is someone who requires good evidence before they believe something. Skepticism isn't denialism.

Statements like these below for instance -

I see the Universe as God’s canvas and energy that exist is his paint on a palette and gravity as his paint brush.

With each stroke of his brush he makes galaxies, stars, the cosmos and reality.

And like the sand mandala in traditional Buddhist fashion the Universe will be re-created again in God’s image. In “the Cyclic theory”. — TheQuestion

- say nothing about the world and simply describe the writer's imaginative use of words.

I personally have no reason to believe in god/s - none of the reasons presented have been convincing.

Nicely put and I think that's right.

Crossing the floor is hard to do. I see another independent candidate in the making.

I smell an election. — Banno

No, the man's a national hero and a savior of.... some shit.

What I am sure is that people tend to love to zone out, and then call that "bliss", or "a sense of the numinous" or some such. — baker

Yes. People I have known have called this meditation.

Pffft. Westerners, a sense of the numinous? When an aged Western celebrity chants some Eastern mantra, and does so for "inner peace", that isn't "a sense of the numinous", that's just commercialisation, consumerification of religion. She might as well pray Our Father, but, oh, those words she understands!

Unless, of course, having no clue what one is doing should pass for "a sense of the numinous". Yes, Westerners are very good at that when it comes to Eastern religions. — baker

I didn't mention Richard Gere... :gasp:

When I say 'numinous' I simply mean people's sense of mystery, awe or majesty when out in nature, say, or listening to some music. I meant nothing philosophically or spiritually intricate. I'm pretty sure this feeling of wonder is hard-wired in humans. Even in crass Westerners who buy books written by Herman Hesse or Jack Kornfield.

Buddhism appears to be especially vulnerable to this type of exploitation, probably largely due to its foundational scriptures being unknown and not readily available for a long time. — baker

I have no doubt of this. And I've noticed that for many Westerns who are rebelling against the religious culture of their parents and grandparents, Eastern faiths, particularly Buddhism, give them an opportunity for retaining a sense of the numinous whist virtue signalling their penchant for cultural diversity.

I think most people are not such relativists and "to interpret" is usually taken to be pejorative, derogatory. "Those who don't know the truth or who don't want to know or tell the truth, interpret." — baker

I think this is true but does it not also remain that any account of anything becomes an interpretation? So much more ironic when people are not aware they are holding on to a particular expression of a religion . I can't think of many or any traditions that don't have a plethora of sects or sub-groups, hardliners and liberals.

One of the great myths of spiritual traditions is that of the immutable truth. The truth (whatever that is) may well be immutable but the pathway there is as bent and conflicted as a Vegas pawnbroker.

Thanks James I just got the question. Yes. :up:

I don't understand what you just wrote.

Question: why people say, man made things are unnatural ? — Nothing

I think they simply mean that human made is not something that occurs in nature, like rocks or trees and is, by contrast, 'manufactured' and the process of consciousness. But I agree it is not as if anything made by people is unnatural.

Would we say then then climate change and plastic bags floating in the ocean are totally natural....?

It's been an impressive and amusing discussion. Sometimes like a colonoscopy of the mind but I think I have retained my girlish enthusiasm. I just wish I understood it... :groan:

I can see that.

And then, of course, there's the option that what some people believe is "evil", is actually good. — baker

Indeed.

If we believe in an omniscient God (which I do not) would it not be the case that human understanding of good and evil is severely limited and that our attempt to pin what we think of as evil onto God's list of responsibilities is a fraught and shallow affair?

It would help me to understand your thinking if you used fully formed sentences and appropriate punctuation.

I think most of what you say here sounds dubious. Here are some problems:

as a subject goes through the objective facts — Qmeri

You are not going to get agreement on what objective facts are. Even the term 'objective facts' is a contestable anachronism.

in most eyes make it quite obvious that one of them is doing things way worse than another... — Qmeri

This seems naïve.

. current way of teaching just says very directly: creationism is wrong, which it is... but does that actually convince indoctrinated children? — Qmeri

Current teaching does not say this. Some teaching says, 'creationism is right. science is wrong.' Reconcile this? We are back to world views and ways of seeing.

teaching them to learn by themselves by cultivating their method and that that method would be a big part of what you would need to justify to get high scores at least in that subject. — Qmeri

You haven't provided a method yet or substantively addressed my question. You seem to be just making claims or motherhood statements about education which are not backed up with a method.

It wouldnt be more, it would be less. That is, the ‘a’, ‘b’ and ‘c’ presume too much about the minimal condition for ‘presencing’. — Joshs

Epoché?

Please, give me an example of teaching anything to anyone without affirming any values in any way. — Qmeri

That's my point. It can't be done. Your whole project is predicated on a critique of people's current worldview and values. This is bound to generate resentment.

Why not provide an example of your idea in action because so far it is just a series of not so clear principles. Let's take one issue, let's say a political issue. Can you drill down into this and demonstrate how it would work? How would you balance out a religious worldview - perhaps Evangelical Christianity versus a scientific view?

I can't see this working. The so called scientific method is problematic even to philosophers of science. This is a worldview - you affirming its value is just you valuing what you already value. Teaching people the right way to think implies there is a right way to think. (It also has Stalinist overtones) The matter of divergent views is considerably more nuanced that this.

Thank you. I don't quite get what this more might be either.