It is, but 'taste' is also where the passion is. I'm fascinated by passion and commitment and why some ideas and not others. — Tom Storm
I think lots would agree. I have a sister in-law with terminal cancer. There are some friends of hers who have said - don't get treatment, all you need is prayer. This for me is when the supernatural becomes problematic. When it exceeds its speculative limitations and becomes a course of potentially harmful action. — Tom Storm
I think this is true but so hard when identity is often based on a community of shared values which often feels or is marginalized. — Tom Storm
Right, but people don't fight egregiously over whether Rembrandt was a greater artist than Leonardo or Jackson Pollock is better than Andy Warhol, or T S Eliot better than Wallace Stevens. — Janus
On the other hand the suffering that can be involved with chemo and radiotherapy may not be worth the trade-off in terms of the little extra life they are capable of offering — Janus
Of course the sovereignty of the individual must be balanced against the social responsibility that comes with that sovereignty, which is of course the respect for the sovereignty of other individuals. — Janus
A single act of charity or sacrifice can bring tears to the eyes, much like a piece of music. So I think there is something to the idea that morality, even basic manners, has a certain beauty to it. — NOS4A2
Actually they do. Well they did in my world - Melbourne arts scene. There were fights and feuds so bitter over issues like abstract versus figurative, — Tom Storm
No. They are saying you don't need pain killers or treatment if you have faith. They are cunts. — Tom Storm
... the gods themselves must conform to human values. — plaque flag
No, not at all. The latter is about an underdetermined, or stop-gap, idea (i.e. cipher) and the former concerns a precise mathematical model of nature with, so far, an unknown truth-value. There are more grounds than just "aesthetic reasoning" to favor e.g. string theory.So, if I make a statement like 'I give a high credence level to the basic premise of string theory,' PARTLY because I am attracted to it's aesthetic (or it's beauty). Would I, in your opinion, be as guilty of being 'romantic' about science, in the exact same way that I might accuse a theist of being irrational/romantic/unreasonable, about the credence level they assign to the existence of their god? — universeness
Of course. Symmetry and parsimony, for example, are salient indictators of 'beauty', conceptual or otherwise.Do you agree that some equations are more aesthetically pleasing than others?
I don't equate "inspires" with reasoning in any sense. For instance, motives themselves are not beliefs or judgments.If an aesthetic, inspires a person to learn more about a topic, is that an 'aesthetic reasoning,' that we should always guard against?
I prefer terms like sublime or, even better, ecstatic to more woo-like words "numinous" & "transcendent".Hitchens saw value in the word numinous as well, whereas I have always associated that word with other rather woo woo words like transcendent.
The only claim about theism I think is worthy of sustained, principled challenge is to the demonstrably untrue claim that 'theism is true'.Theists often claim a calling which is 'higher than any other calling,' including any call to human science, and I think we should NEVER forget to totally challenge that arrogant, unjustified claim.
It was Socrates who posed, “Is it good cause the gods like it or do the gods like it because it is good?” A world where suffering and hardship is supposed to be part of the cosmic game but is beyond the understanding of its participants, is not beautiful, perfect, or good. — schopenhauer1
The only claim about theism I think is worthy of sustained, principled challenge is to the demonstrably untrue claim that 'theism is true'. — 180 Proof
My world is a private language? — Tom Storm
Why can't the man simply write clearly? Why the fucking riddles and bloody obtuse prose style? — Tom Storm
... and whatever a man knows, whatever is not mere rumbling and roaring that he has heard, can be said in three words.
The whole sense of the book might be summed up in the following words: what can be said at all can be said clearly, and what we cannot talk about we must pass over in silence.
He [that is, "anyone who understands me] must transcend these propositions, and then he will see the world aright. (6.54)
It certainly seemed that way to me when I first read him. It took me a lot of time and work to see that there is a clarity to his style. — Fooloso4
What one who understands him gets from the book is a way of seeing in distinction from something said to be known. — Fooloso4
I do like the respect for people's suffering. But it can also cause people's suffering. I can hurt people by wrecking their final vocabulary (their spiritual substance, really) in the name of fixing them or waking them up. 'Don't you see that you should not have been born, sir ?'
I don't preach the gospel of ironic atheism, for instance, to people who might not be able to run that program in their lives. Whiskey for me is poison for them. — plaque flag
That was a dilemma in the context of the Greek gods, because they might disagree with one another about what is good. It is a false dilemma in the monotheistic context, because the theists can always say that it is good because God loves it and God loves it because it is good.
Suffering and hardship are not merely supposed to be part of the cosmic game they are part of it, as are joy and ease. Whether the world is thought to be beautiful, perfect or good is a matter of perspective, disposition, opinion. — Janus
The problem being that one doesn't affect others (more than being a bit sad at a philosophy) while the other has a major affect (a whole other person and stuff). — schopenhauer1
A single act of charity or sacrifice can bring tears to the eyes, much like a piece of music. So I think there is something to the idea that morality, even basic manners, has a certain beauty to it. — NOS4A2
From the theistic perspective, that you, a mere mortal, may think the creation is not good is just your (false) opinion and is irrelevant to what is not a logical dilemma or contradiction for the theist. Far greater minds that ours (Leibniz) have thought this is the best of all possible worlds, which is not to say he is right, but just to point out that there is no obvious fact of the matter. — Janus
A world where suffering and hardship is supposed to be part of the cosmic game but is beyond the understanding of its participants, is not beautiful, perfect, or good. At best it’s as indifferent and amoral as a Cthulhu. Possibly unable to make much more than a suffering world. At worst, he wants this scenario. Is an entity that uses people thus good because it is godly to want to see people suffer? Even worse is the notion that the world could be worse and we should be thankful our world wasn’t made in an even more suffering version. Everything about it is suspect.
In an inversion of our norm, if humans are the cruelest animal because we know what we do, and do it anyway, how much more so is something infinitely more knowing? Again, if there is one, signs point to a cosmically indifferent Cthulhu perhaps. — schopenhauer1
If I'm not really going to change things, then what am I gaining by persisting in talking about it ? — plaque flag
Our fundamental tactic of self-protection, self-control, and self-definition is not spinning webs or building dams, but telling stories, and more particularly connecting and controlling the story we tell others - and ourselves - about who we are. — plaque flag
I'm partial to the Good Samaritan story. It opened up a broader notion of morality to me when I was a kid. — Tom Storm
Think of the aesthetic ugliness of the imagery here. Trapped, horrible death via crucifixion, resident inside low creatures such as dogs (a creature that most of us actually love dearly and many consider a family member). We created gods, yes, but only because we have yet to consider ourselves as worthy of our own existence. That's also why such ridiculous idea's as antinatalism and nihilism get any oxygen at all, imo. Why do some feel like 'gods trapped in crucified dogs?' I think it's because such people are not in communication with their own core HUMANISM (or Samaritan, to project Tom as a kid!).We created the incarnation myth because we feel like gods trapped in crucified dogs. — plaque flag
I fully endorse and 'live within,' the 'my world that IS mine alone,' as you depict it in the above quote BUT it is not solipsistic! There are other worlds/universe's, currently, over 8 billion of them and I can join in common cause with as many of them as possible.My world is solipsistic. It is mine alone. It is the world as I see it. As I experience it. — Fooloso4
Conversely atheists may claim that a calling to science is higher than a calling to religion, which would be an equally arrogant claim. — Janus
Over the years, I have often heard people debating god versus no god - and the argument I seem to hear from many theists is that the world is uglier and less enchanted without a god and/or without contemplative practice. The person expressing such a view appears to regard atheism and humanism and the privileging of science over the 'supernatural' as unattractive, mean and an example of bad taste. — Tom Storm
I agree.There are more grounds than just "aesthetic reasoning" to favor e.g. string theory. — 180 Proof
I don't get that. What motivates you to 'reason' something, surely you must have been 'inspired' to?I don't equate "inspires" with reasoning in any sense. For instance, motives themselves are not beliefs or judgments. — 180 Proof
Yeah, as replacement terms, those would also work for me but I wonder if we are missing an important point here. Is it not important for science to claim as much right to 'positively' employ words such as numinous, transcendent, faith, belief, etc, in contextually accurate (but still positive) ways?I prefer terms like sublime or, even better, ecstatic to more woo-like words "numinous" & "transcendent". — 180 Proof
I agree but I think you underestimate the power of a claim of 'follow me, as I absolutely speak for the highest power in the universe.' This is what the biblical Jesus combinatorial character is depicted as claiming. Many people WILL follow that pied piper clarion call, blindly. Should we just accept that, or is it vital to challenge the claim that theism occupies the highest ground and highest aesthetic, that it is possible to imagineer?The only claim about theism I think is worthy of sustained, principled challenge is to the demonstrably untrue claim that 'theism is true'. — 180 Proof
All of these in whose eyes though ? — plaque flag
And their eyes were opened and they became like one of us.
I fully endorse and 'live within,' the 'my world that IS mine alone,' as you depict it in the above quote BUT it is not solipsistic! — universeness
There are other worlds/universe's, currently, over 8 billion of them and I can join in common cause with as many of them as possible. — universeness
We created gods, yes, but only because we have yet to consider ourselves as worthy of our own existence. ...Why do some feel like 'gods trapped in crucified dogs?' I think it's because such people are not in communication with their own core HUMANISM (or Samaritan, to project Tom as a kid!). — universeness
Suffering is real. People are not just fictive driftwood when they suffer. There is a Subject behind it. The “story” is covering this up and dressing it up. Now we are in fantasy and not what is the case. — schopenhauer1
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