Conclusions from valid and sound arguments do precisely the same, establish a necessary about an outlook.

Thus it takes some aspect of faith and converts it to knowledge... if it's logically valid and sound... all arguments for God aren't...so it's the case no conversion is actually achieved... — DifferentiatingEgg

I’m going to do my best and say where I agree with what you are saying.

Sound valid arguments establish a necessary conclusion. 100%
Let’s call this knowledge.

Assertions can be posited not as conclusions, but just as premises, like “if X…”. We don’t need a reasoned argument to identify an observed premise. Let’s call an assertion that is not a conclusion of a reasoned argument, a belief (or an article of faith). If someone removes the “If” and just asserts “there is X” and is unable or unwilling to give a sound valid argument to support that assertion, they are not providing knowledge and we can call this a belief.

I’m fine with all of that.

Next, when Aquinas and Anselm were arguing for the existence of God, they were attempting to make logical arguments. They weren’t doing any preaching; they weren’t talking about their faith; they were trying to say the God they believed in was also the entity proven to exist at the end of their syllogism. I think they failed.

And with all of that said, I think we basically agree.

But you didn’t say it like that, and in the process, I think, you are misrepresenting reason and faith, and their relationship to knowledge, and you misconstrued the motivations of Aquinas and Anselm, and you implied that it is contradictory for someone to believe something (make a simple assertion) and be reasonable at the same time; you made it seem like reason can only be found at the end of a syllogism and that no one who was reasonable could possibly take God as a premise or conclusion. I disagree with all of that.

The attempt however points to a desire to convert belief to knowledge because the person feels knowledge is more substantial than faith, at least in the regards of the argument...

Aquinas and Thomas both show us that they had more of a desire to move God to a realm of absolute truth, rather than a belief...regardless of the quantum of force behind their faith is. — DifferentiatingEgg

See, I don’t think we have any knowledge of, nor do we need to raise the issue, of what Anselm or Aquinas desired. And you say they feel knowledge is more substantial than faith - all if that is irrelevant to the part of your argument that I agreed with. And I think it’s bullshit.

I also think think faith has been an imprecise word here. You are talking about knowledge, belief and reason and their relationships to assertions (premises, syllogism, conclusion, preaching). And I agree with some of how you line them up.

But comparing faith to reason (as opposites) is like comparing reason to beauty; it’s just not necessary or necessarily logical, and possible nonsense.

Don’t get me wrong, faith versus reason is a simple catch-phrase that has been expressly around since the enlightenment (and I guess Anselm and Aquinas). I get the popular soap-box point. I agree with that part of your point.

But if you aren’t careful, as I am trying to be by distinguishing faith from belief and belief from knowledge, and knowledge from reasoning, you end up making muddled statements like Anselm was just preaching and that faith by necessity is unreasonable.

If, by the sum total of faith you mean “the belief that God exists” - then yes, Anselm was trying to replace belief with knowledge.

But articles of faith are more like a premise. They aren’t something we conclude. We just know. Like the fact that my wife loves me. I just know it. I could never create a syllogism that shows “therefore wifey’s love for FireO exists.” Does any love exist? What is love? Well when it comes to what I know, to what is reasonable for me to say, my wife’s love for me exists. Faith belongs as a word in those types of conversations, not analyses of reasoned knowledge versus unsupported beliefs.

Anselm and Aquinas blew the argument. I haven’t heard anyone ever make an argument that, by force of mere logic and words, proved anything exists. You can doubt you are reading this right now! You can’t prove existence, but you can be logical and reasonable about the things you believe exist. Anselm and Aquinas were trying to move one of those things from the asserted belief column to the asserted logical conclusion column, yes. But even if they succeeded there would still be vast oceans of faith needed to know God, like knowing another person takes.

And everyone doesn’t have to be nuts to know the baby Jesus. Just some of us.

bear in mind, any series or collections of tones is only a tune when somebody recognises it as such. — Wayfarer

I agree. I’m also saying identifying one single tone is a collection recognized as such as well.

I’m chillin. I think we are getting somewhere. Will get back to DifferentiatingEgg shortly.

Even though I have no faith
— Fire Ologist

I highly doubt you have 0 faith. That's just your clumsy handling. — DifferentiatingEgg

Emotional handling. I guess I see a glimmer of hope. So point taken.

boil it down — DifferentiatingEgg

For you? Even though I have no faith you want to see what I’m saying, kind of like you know I don’t see what you are saying? Well ok.

The scale you built in your OP put faith on one side and reason on the other. But more precisely you meant faith on one side and knowledge on the other.

So the main point I’m making is that reason cannot be on that scale if it is to be the vehicle that moves somebody from one side (not-knowledge, or faith) to the other (knowledge).

If you see that, that’s enough to show how the faithful and the knowledgeable both need to avail themselves of reason if they are to make pronouncements, posit arguments supporting knowledge, or preach something.

Your whole post was a shoddy insult. “Rubbish” was an appropriate response.

So you asserting that reason is other than faith is true, but you missed the point that reason is other than knowledge just as well.

This is analysis of what you said and what you appear to think, as close to your language as I can make it.

From what I can tell, faith and knowledge do not belong on the same scale; they are wholly different things and exercises. Both use words to be expressed and so both use reason (like any wording requires a reasoning), but knowing my wife will never preclude trusting my wife. I can’t trust what I don’t first know. Trust and faith speak is wholly other than knowledge and ignorance speak.

And none of this thread is very Nietzschean because, Nietzsche didn’t defend his thoughts and arguments - and wisely so,as that takes a reification of reasoning and knowledge, and yirlds “right and wrong” speak. That’s why I noted above, if you are so sure you know me and Nietzsche, why do you bother?

You dragged Nietzsche into this. In my opinion, he would entertain neither your opinion nor mine, at least not for this long.

Last word, is it possible to you for someone to know Nietzsche deeply (as you do, and I mean that) and also disagree with him? I think, if you are honest, you would say no, that once you see the lies that Nietzsche uncovered there is no returning to the false zombie state those lies spawned - you are too fully enlightened to disagree with Nietzsche.

I think Nietzsche was one of the top five most important philosophical thinkers, and that, on many conclusions, just like the others in the top five, he was talking out his ass.

Most people only talk out their asses. Even one truth sets one apart greatly. Nietzsche had quite a few truths. But not enough, and citing him doesn’t help your argument with me.

FAITH IS KNOWLEDGE IS A LOGICAL FALLACY DUMBASS — DifferentiatingEgg

Well then “spewing logical fallacies” can’t be “just preaching”

So which is it? In your fallacy spotting opinion.

Spewing logical fallacies for the existence of God is just faith based preaching — DifferentiatingEgg

That contradicts your whole “opinion”.

I thought logical fallacies, identified only by using reason, had nothing to do with faith.

Try again.

Jung is right. The point he is making is epistemological/pshychological. But that point is, it is always objectively wrong to assume “X is nothing but this.”

I’m not going to get into the weeds with someone who says they know what I think already and supports that observation “FireOlogist is nothing but this” with “my opinion”.

and also why you'll never be able to really love Nietzsche, — DifferentiatingEgg

Wandering off into the mountaintops again…

You made the objective statement faith precludes reason.

Bonehead.

Perhaps for some, but not me — DifferentiatingEgg

I thought you were trying to say something for Christians who are just people lying, so saying something about people in general - sifting the faithful liars from the reasonable folks like yourself. If we can all just resort to “not for me” then why are you bothering to say something for all people in the first place?

“Not for me”. Conversation ended.

The tone moved up, or down. Which tone moved up? That one. Then it moved down. The tone of that tone changed... The first "tone" is an individual, the second an attribute. The attribute of that individual changed - perhaps in pitch, perhaps in timbre, perhaps in volume. — Banno

I think I’m saying the same thing but would say it like this:
In a field of overlapping fields, I gather or isolate tone A. Then I put it down and subsequently isolate tone B, which is higher in pitch. I’ve identified two individuals: low tone A and then high tone B. Next I gather tone A and subsequent tone B together as one Tune. So calling it a single changing tone is possible by gathering differently from the well of overlapping fields, and seizing two tones in one tune. I’ve still just gathered one thing, but that one thing is two tones.

Close to what you were saying. I’m just not putting the agency in the tone, I’m not saying “the tone moved up or down”. And I’m not making it so that I have to explain how, because of the language I’ve used , how A becomes B, how A becomes not-A. I’m recognizing that identifying tone A is the same as identifying subsequent higher tone B, is the same as identifying the changing Tune C. It’s identifying anything at all. To explain the change you need to fashion a seemingly wider, longer single unit, namely, the single tune, fashioned or identified with the many different single tones it is. It’s all singles, whether it is identity (tone) or identities with motion (tune).

There is a probably terrible song in there somewhere called “singles only” or maybe “nothing changes”.

Just to slow “things” way down and see if I know what you mean (or if you know what my questions are getting at, either way.)

In a discussion framed in time, you said:

their practicality. It's what can be done with such language that counts. — Banno

Are you drawing a distinction between language on the one hand and practicality, the what can be done on the other?

Continuity … Instantaneous velocity … things confuse — Banno

Do these things refer to a practicality within language, or a practicality among things being done?

What counts? The one (ie. velocity, continuity, practically any thing), its other language, or both?

Yes. Even in science, man places much faith. — DifferentiatingEgg

This sounds like knowledge (science/reason) has to be on a different scale than a faith would. Otherwise you couldn't "place faith IN science"; some faith is already in there. If faith/belief and reason/knowledge are all on opposite ends of the same scale then you don't place faith in science, you reduce science and increase faith, or you reduce faith and increase science.

So this is just a muddled way of equating faith with not-knowing, and a muddled way of equating reason with knowledge. Your using faith as the antithesis of reason, but talking about faith like it's the antithesis of knowledge.

I get the scale of reason versus faith - but maybe this is imprecise, and they aren't on the same scale.

If reason, faith and knowledge are more complicated and just different, one may be able to place faith in science (your phrase now) or faith in God, as the distinctions would allow one to be reasonable about objects of faith or objects of science or any posited things. We can wonder if reason itself is reasonable for instance.

If you want scales, I see the scales are:
knowledge/knowing ---- ignorance/questioning,
reason ----- absurdity/irrationality
believing/faith ----- denying/no faith
(minding intention ---- mindless passivity, should probably be here, but we aren't wondering how reasonable or religious a rock can be, nor what someone who is intoxicated makes of a math problem or tree elves - mind can be everywhere on all scales).

If you don't know something as you know the conclusion of a syllogism, you can still believe or deny it. That's where the objects of faith come in - believing something you don't know. But you can use reason to shape your belief just the same as using reason to shape your knowledge - or absurdity to shape either. There is such a thing as bad science, as using reason to argue for an object of knowledge and just being wrong. Reason might stay reasonable despite erroneous facts causing the wrong conclusion.

In order for you to keep faith and reason apart on opposite ends of the scale, you could never tell whether your knowledge was reasonable, or it was not-knowledge, and you could never tell your faith was absurd. And the "scientist" would just be another word for "the person who says what they think", like a religious person, or an ignoramus. Maybe that is what you are saying - we are all priests and scientists and ignoramuses' bouncing between knowing reasons and un-knowing irrationality (you call faith). But then we are all as guilty of the same bad faith you accuse of Anselm and Aquinas, sound logic or not.

Or maybe you are saying the only thing worth saying is absolute knowledge and given our predicament (utterly blind to absolute knowledge) we are all liars, some version of a mad priest, lying to the extent we ever say "I know". Again, why pick on the "faithful" then - as they are the same as you, somewhere in the middle of the same scale.

faith is never entirely independent of reasoning — Tom Storm

That's what I was pointing to when I said we have faith in our senses when we follow them to cross the street. I put it the other way and said reasoning is never entirely independent of believing. Reasons and the logical connections we make between them, the reasoning, is either a blessing or a curse that our mental activity is never entirely independent of, including the activity of believing something regardless of how well we might know it.

what we call faith when it comes to religion is a way of knowing we use in all aspects of our lives. You call it "will." I would probably call it "intuition." — T Clark

Yes - it's all hard to say so maybe I'm making sense and maybe I understand you. But yes, knowing anything involves believing something, and it involves reason. It's one package. Faith allows us to know things our sense experiences may resist, or faith may allow us to assign meaning to things that may mean other things to others as well, but we are still using reason, and concepts, in minds, like any act of knowing does.

And no worries on the response time. I cannot case a stone on that one either.

Basically I'm saying you either have absolute faith in something everything less than absolute faith brings some knowledge with it. — DifferentiatingEgg

But does that also mean you either have absolute knowledge of something and everything less than absolute knowledge brings some faith with it?

So all of us scientists who admit we do not have absolute knowledge but have to live our lives and make our theorems anyway MUST mix in faith to do so. Is that right also?

The more knowledge I have the less faith — DifferentiatingEgg

So you have some knowledge all along the process, more or less cards counted.

And so you are saying that faith (maybe in an extreme blind form) includes zero knowledge (zero cards), whereas knowledge (like certainty or truth) is based on all the cards.

And so I take it you think that everything you know and say is part knowledge, and part faith, unless you think you have all the cards?

I am just trying to understand your response to what I am saying about believing aligning with judgment and action (will), and knowledge aligning with math, reason, step one, two three, like counting cards. I need two scales if we are looking for sliding scales. You keep referring to one scale to account for all the moving parts.

I don't know, I can't ask him, so I suppose I will just have to have faith in my opinion — DifferentiatingEgg

All the moving parts of my analysis are right there.

I know.
I don’t know.
I have faith.
And I act - namely, express an opinion.

So since you have faith in your opinion are you saying you didn’t use reason here? There is no reason for your opinion?

The more I know/understand that my wife won't cheat on me the less faith I have in her? — Count Timothy von Icarus

So to tell a person who believes in God they might be jeopardizing their faith-based belief by seeking logical proof, or that logical proof replaces and usurps this belief, is like telling me the fact that I trust my wife must mean I don’t really know her (or. I know her “without reason based thought” or something), and if I really knew my wife, there would be no place or need for trust anymore. — Fire Ologist

Diff - you haven’t addressed the above on your scale of faith versus “reason based thought.”

So when you are believing, knowledge and reason are absent? And when you are knowing, belief is absent? Is that how it all works in your view?

Exactly the human spirit is the rope between two opposites faith and reason... - DiffEgg

The more I know/understand that my wife won't cheat on me the less faith I have in her? This seems bizarre to me. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Me too.

It’s because faith isn’t the opposite of reason.

If you made the two opposites Reason and No-reason or Irrationality, then faith or belief would represent the judgment of where one was standing in relation to those two poles.

Faith is not opposite reason; faith/believing is opposite having no opinion or not judging, or not yet ready to act - if we have to create a continuum to understand the concept of faith.

If we do a long complicated math problem, spanning several pages of calculations, and check our work twice, all along trying our best to use only reason and logic as only they can ensure the math problem is addressed, we can now separately adjudge “the problem is complete, correct, and the answer is valid and sound.” We now KNOW the answer, because we now BELIEVE we have already checked our work and know how to use reason, etc. Belief is an act, at the moment of judgment.

It takes knowledge, or some knowable object, and consents to that object’s existence.

This is how one could make sense out of faith alone bringing justification, while faith without works is dead. Having faith is the work of knowing - it is an act of judgment not the mere result of the process before it (be that process a reasoning through an argument, or experiencing the transfiguration). So sola fide points to the act of consenting to the conclusion of the argument - by grace we only need the conclusion and don’t need the premises and the reasoning processing among them. But the nature of the conclusion here, that Christ is God, and Christ gave his life for his friends. So if you say you have faith but would not give your life, then you do not know faith, you do not have faith, faith is dead. The key epistemological point being, you do not KNOW faith if what you know isn’t an act, an acting, a believing, like walking on a path takes judgment, not the science that might be behind it that judgment.

Everything is on a scale for you. Very rigid, linear thinking.

Faith in God requires belief without reason-based thought.
— DifferentiatingEgg

Rubbish. — Leontiskos

Wise choice of word.

There is no mental act without “reason based thought”, without intellect, in the mix. So it is rubbish to talk of a mental act like “faith” or believing “without reason based thought”.

I think the confusion here is thinking knowledge is more powerful than belief. For example, we can believe the car is in the driveway, but once we look and see it, we don’t have to merely believe it, we can know it more certainly and don’t need faith or belief. But that’s also rubbish.

It is belief that is the more powerful of the two. It is belief that moves us to act, that empowers us to stop deliberating or reasoning among the things we know, and actually act. We consider what we know using reason and just before we act upon that reason and knowledge, we make a judgement, and that judgment is a choice, namely, that we’ve seen enough, we’ve done all the logical calculations necessary, we’ve judged between what we know and what we do not, and now we finally believe enough we can cease that whole merely mental process, and act.

Knowledge is what minds think about, what they know; believing is what minds are actually doing, judging, finished thinking, and understanding. Faith, knowledge, understanding are different moments in all of our chosen acts, and what we believe is behind everything we knowingly do.

We don’t know something strong enough to act on it; we know something well enough that we can make arguments about it and syllogisms about it, but when we believe something, when we judge the argument concluded, and just say “therefore x” we are pointing to what we believe, as now demonstrated in the syllogism we merely know. When the syllogism is sound, we still say we believe there is nothing more that needs to be said. Once we have the conclusion, once we have the belief, we’ve already judged and don’t need any more arguments.

And we can strip knowledge from our actions, or act with little knowledge, and no certainty of what is behind the action nor where it will lead; but at the moment of acting, regardless of any knowledge, always our actions follow the moment of belief. We take the plunge based on our deepest convictions. We must believe what we do, what we say we know before there could ne anything we would testify to as what “I know.”

Belief is more essential to our lives than knowing. Belief is like our testament to knowledge.

So to tell a person who believes in God they might be jeopardizing their faith-based belief by seeking logical proof, or that logical proof replaces and usurps this belief, is like telling me the fact that I trust my wife must mean I don’t really know her (or. I know her “without reason based thought” or something), and if I really knew my wife, there would be no place or need for trust anymore.

One more point here - we don’t prove existence. Anselm and Aquinas, God bless them, didn’t make the proof they hoped for. We take existing objects and we prove things about them. The substance of the proof is in the motion from premises to function/relation, to conclusions. The conclusion, like the premise, is all based on “if there exists…”. All first premises that start with “There exists…” start from belief. If starting from what we merely know, we need to start “If there exists…”. So a conclusion like “therefore x exists” has forgotten it was based on “if”.

I probably needed to spend a lot more time on this but you should see my two or three points here.

If you chop down my reasoning, I might still believe my conclusion anyway. But if you also show a better reasoning, and new object for me to understand, to adjudge “there I see it”, I might actually change what I believe.

The issue being discussed is whether or not use of reason in arguments for God undermines the credibility of faith. — T Clark

That’s right. He’s saying “positing a logical credibility to an argument for God undermines the credibility of faith for that same God.

I think arguments for the existence of God can only impress those who already believe in God, because they are not clear (and I think, ultimately fail).

Mind you, I believe in God. But I believe in reason too, and my reason tells me my reason cannot deliver existence in some other object. It’s like reverse ontological proof that my ideas are not the things they are ideas of, and anything that is reasonable in syllogism is, ontologically, my idea, not some other things, such as God.

If I know the earth revolves around the sun and can prove it, and if you previously believed the earth revolved but did not know how to prove it, now, with my great syllogism, what you believed is what you can prove. But I’ve not shown you that the earth exists, or revolving is actually happening.

People see that proof (about objects) as obviating the need for faith. But faith is faith in the existence or truth of things, whereas logic and reasoning is about how truly existing things relate to one another.

Not even Descartes, who proved at least one thing existed (himself to himself), not even he proved anything else existed.

The answer to this is not that Anselm’s proof is a logical perfection of God as syllogism - it is that we need faith no matter which object we pick up to fashion proofs about. Faith (will) is essential not only to finding God, but to following a reasonable argument, whatever objects that argument is about. We don’t prove things exist; we prove things about existing things we already chose to believe in, or as the more empirically bent put it, we already posit as an object of knowledge.

we shouldn't use "we ... have faith in" where we don't have grounds to doubt makes more sense. — 180 Proof

Like it.

“We do have faith…” becomes
“We do not have grounds to doubt…”.
Puts a bit of a negative spin on it, but if it is more precise to you it still works for me.

This highlights the difference between using the word “belief” which aligns with “faith” and using the word “grounds” (or in the negative, “no grounds to doubt”) which aligns better with “knowledge.”

Again, big picture, you already made your point. But now, if we want to draw the distinction between “believing” and “knowing” a bit further, we have to refocus on the distinctions between the object believed in, versus the object known of; we can’t draw a distinction just between believing and knowing anymore since “have faith” has been supplanted by “do not have grounds…” (to doubt or otherwise).

Now religion (pure faith objects, fairies and gods) becomes theology, the rational and exposition of objects believed in (fairies gods) as if they were objects we had no grounds to doubt. Now reason is applied to faith objects.

But again, theology never leaps to philosophy/science. We can’t prove gods or fairies exist.

Unless we someday can make a tool to measure the difference between believing in God, and knowing what God is.

And again, whether any of these objects actually exist or can be doubted, or must be doubted, whether they be named “Gods” or “streets” or “cars”, whether they exist at all, the ontology of it, will never be proven at the end of syllogism. That’s my little contribution here. Arguments for God and arguments for that car that almost hit me crossing the street, ultimately are all useless as proof of anything ontologically.

Telling you about my experience in the street, or walking on water, on an ontological level, is another conversation, than a conversation demonstrating how the logic between all the street happenings and all the god happenings is logical.

We always take something, some thing, an object, for granted. This taking for granted, is what I meant by “faith” when I said “I have to have faith in my senses.”

Something needs to hit us in the face before we might ever ask whether we believe or we know “something” or “face” or “hitting.”

point regarding topics that have no strictly objective or easily proven right or wrong? — Captain Homicide

I make this sort of argument a lot — Leontiskos

This same subject is all over so many different threads. It’s the central issue of philosophy if you ask me.

Here posed with a moral object “good health” as opposed to a “consonance” or an “essence” or the uses of “existence” without essence - the same predicament turned around and around. It’s Plato as much as Wittgenstein as much as Aristotle as much as Harris.

We can’t quite sum up in words what “summing it up in words” is without using words. We can’t eliminate essence without drawing essentially distinct parts. And we can’t see being without already “looking.” So we just keep starting over and try, trying again.

And the PNC reference is spot on. If the skeptical conclusion is objects are not objective, there is no essence in the way of existence, believe that if you must, but then, speaking serves no purpose, it moves nothing. “Meaning”, like the rest of this sentence, must then be left hollow, as if this sentence could really have a beginning somewhere and will come to some end. (Which it just did! Go figure…)

I agree with the spirit of your argument, with what you are trying to say. But I think you draw too stark a line inside the mind of the person who would believe in God, and who would also be a reasonable, reasoning, logical thinker.

If someone says they base their faith on the soundness of some logical syllogism, they aren't doing the faith thing, and they are probably working off a faulty syllogism as well. There's where I agree with you.

But that said, I don't agree the faithful person must not be using their reason when they assert they believe in God. We can't escape our reason. It's always there in every syntactically correct sentence. If I "know" God, I must employ the same epistemological processes as knowing math or empirical things.

The faithful person just has other experiences, other objects, which, like empirical objects, can't be proven to exist by logical syllogism.

I don't think anyone, in the history of philosophy, has ever proven any object must exist through any syllogism. This is the reason after 3000 years of our scientia, we still have to ask the first question about all of it - what exists?

Maybe Descartes was onto something when he realized "I am" can both be known as knowledge while it simultaneously was happening ontologically, while "I am thinking" was actually (ontologically) happening. So he did fashion a demonstration of sorts (not a syllogism) that proved the existence of an object as known. But unless you knowingly conduct his little demonstration for yourself, he hasn't proved the existence of anything besides himself to anyone besides himself.

We can't prove by logic that anything exists.

This is why I agree with the spirit of your post. I don't like Anselm's and Aquinas' and Descartes' or any arguments purporting to demonstrate the existence of God. They can be shown invalid and/or unsound.

But you said: "Faith in God requires belief without reason-based thought."

Another translation of this sentence could be "You have to be crazy to believe God exists." Because I don't really know what "belief without reason-based thought" means.

As a non-sequitur, assume some man walked on water, pulled say, a guy named Peter, from drowning, to walk with him on the water, then he was destroyed on a cross to death, and buried, and then... rose from the dead and said to Peter, "I am God, trust me," - whether you or me believe any of that actually happened, for Peter, faith in God at that point is sort of reasonable, logical conclusion for a person having those experiences. Right? So to say "faith in God requires belief without reason-based thought" may not be logically necessary, and for Peter, is ontologically false (because what they hell else is he supposed to think while he is still wet from walking on the water with Jesus?) Maybe he was hallucinating the whole thing - that's a better empirical explanation - but you can continue to use reason to come to conclusions about an object like a man walking on water, or a God, or a hallucination, and so must Peter.

So the phrase "without reason-based thought" is a nit I would pick here. I see your point overall, but I wouldn't say it how you said it.

I think it's impossible to live a life of pure reason. It's okay to have faith in things. Faith is a powerful tool. — DifferentiatingEgg

Exactly, we aren't just robots with calculator minds. And we need to have faith in our senses to navigate crossing the street, and faith in our logic to navigate a conversation.

the Alt-Right (and indeed, the intensely DEI crowd) pigeon hole people by observing behaviour, and tying it race. — AmadeusD

:100: although I’d say we need to remove the word “indeed” and pull that parenthetical out of the parentheses in line with the rest of the statement.

And if we changed “pigeon hole” (a putting down) to “set equal persons on a pedestal” (a respect for the uniqueness of individuals and peoples), we have our statement of an honorable goal for this conversation.

“The alt right and the intensely DEI crowd pigeon hole people by observing behavior and tying it to race.”

That’s bad, so let’s talk with the goal that “the right and the left only seek to set equal persons on a pedestal by observing behavior and tying it to race (or culture, or sex, or class, or intelligence, or physical beauty, etc, etc..)”

Purely in evolutionary terms diversity is more adaptive because you have a wider range of attributes that can fit changing circumstances. — ChatteringMonkey

Every stance in these discussions is precarious.

I see a tension between inclusion of diversity (yielding adaptability, other goods, etc) and exclusion (yielding the lines that frame the diverse) when it comes to race. You don’t get diverse things if you don’t keep things exclusive of each other. You don’t get the authentically Asian or Pacific Islander without exclusivity. Should we want all the races to blend into one, or all people to realize we single people are a single people of many different races?

The equity-inclusion crowds then, in practice, build an anti-diversity world; inclusion is at odds with diversity. The racist crowds are anti-human, so self-defeating, and much worse, but inclusiveness has to be grounded in a respect for exclusivity, or it may also tend away from the better world we seek.

So the first thing to settle in the discussion of race, to me, from all sides, has to be whether people, as people, are already homogeneous, with no significant diversity yet to speak of, as people. We shouldn’t start the conversation by grappling with diversity versus inclusion. We need to first address who must be included in the conversation about different races (namely, all people, which is redundant with all races of people) before we can really have that conversation.

If someone can’t accept that, they need to explain themselves before the conversation can move anywhere.

It should be as good that there are many different personalities at one table in one family, as it is good that the Asian and the African and the European, etc are so different as one people, in the one human race. It’s obvious who the people are (in all races) and only a racist could be confused about that.

The real problem isn’t people accepting all the differences, it’s people accepting they are no different than other people, and no matter what the race, we’re all at bottom only people, and as people, there really isn’t a such thing as white people or black people or green people. We need to accept all the samenesses, not the differences first.

The only real surface dividing people, is between this particular individual, and that one, and when seeing the differences between individuals, in their uniqueness, skin color tells us so little it should barely make the discussion.

Odd, that folk might think one form of education, one type of schooling, one way of learning, will work for everyone. — Banno

I agree that a good teacher will have to find different ways to teach different students, that there isn’t one form of education, one way of learning, that will work for everyone. But if there is a renewed interest in classical education and the Great Books, I see this as a reaction to the current content being taught, not the form of education.

the way yesterday's alarming impulse becomes today's enlivening insight, tomorrow's repressive doctrine, and after that subsides into a petty superstition.

That is interesting. Occurs to me it probably describes the scientific method of the modern sociology department.

The whole conversation about race, to me, should be “why are you afraid of your brother?”
— Fire Ologist

Because he stood on my neck in the middle of the street until I was dead? It's a complicated issue. — frank

My question is actually for the guy with the boot, not the guy with the boot on his neck. The guy who persecutes other people based on race is the chickenshit afraid of his own shadow, and ignorantly looking to his own brothers to blame for his insecurity. It’s a complicated question.

Yet [Russell’s History] sufficiently impress the Swedish Academy that they awarded Russell the Nobel Prize for Literature.

Something that Zarathustra, with his swollen, distended prose, did not achieve. — Banno

Without any judgment on the merits, couldn’t that lack of award simply point out that more folks besides Russell misunderstood Nietzsche? Or maybe the Academy is wisely highlighting Nietzsche’s genius by not putting his work in the human award-worthiness box? I think more likely the former, because who doesn’t like a good award.

but Nietzsche points to "them" flipping it over — DifferentiatingEgg

So he’s flipping it back. It’s the flip that’s my point. In order to show how the shallow lovers of form (Plato, Socrates, slave moralists) built a world based on facade and ignored rhe undercurrent that gives birth to these forms, he flipped 2000 years since Plato/socrates back over. He revealed the repressed underbelly.

You are nit-picking me about which version of Socrates we are taking from Nietzsche to sustain the narrative that your deeper understanding of Nietzsche can mean something to anyone else but you.

Look I see your neck-deep into Nietzsche, maybe intoxicated a bit with it.

Thanks for trying to elevate my understanding.

I do wish you would point out some limitations he had, if any in your view. Since you don’t like my criticisms, I am curious of the degree critical thinking you would apply. It’s fairly not-Nietzsche to find no flaws in anything some other human does. I’m sure you have some criticisms.

He had rejected the whole of the Jewish doctrine of repentance and atonement; — Nietzsche, The Antichrist § 33

This is as much theology as it is Nietzsche-ology, but Nietzsche was wrong here. In my free-thinking, adult, pre-schooled, considered, tested, humble opinion.

Jesus didn’t reject the law which creates judgment of sin and the need therefore of repentance - Jesus was sinless, so unable to be judged and so remained free to make his own laws and show us what to become of ourselves. But he walked a particular path and did not skip around in the mountaintops. Although Jesus never needed the law to guide him in his life, his life not once deviated from the law. That means something. And Jesus flat out said he was not to abolish the law. That means something too. Nietzsche didn’t bother to explain how Christ could be beyond the law AND subject to it. The overman Christ, though he did not need any law, ended up honoring his parents, not ever lying, not ever stealing, no adultery, etc etc. He commanded us to live God and seek God’s will. Jesus could use himself (more precisely, his Father) to seek what to do, and did not need the law as guide, but what he actually did was not whatever he wanted to do - he had to eat when hungry because his stomach demanded it, and bleed when broken, like anyone, subject and enslaved. Jesus still IS the law by taking form, making an appearance.

So there is analysis of the meaning of the Jesus story, and a psychology of Christ, that Nietzsche didn’t address that precisely misunderstands Christs relationship to his Father, himself and to us. The law set out before Jesus was born is in the mix of what Jesus meant.

But so what - because of Nietzsche we are digging deep into our relationship with ourselves and what we are to make of the limitations we encounter, like other’s laws.

I’m hopeless. I still hope you aren’t hopeless.

You could muster up a criticism of Nietzsche.

I hope someone else is enjoying this. I am to a degree. Are you?

Why is OK to acknowledge the non-arbitrary existence of a “consonance” but not a tree or some other self-identical spatial object? — J

This question is the nut of philosophy to me, reframed since before the time of Plato’s cave.

You just raised an analogy with water to describe the flow. Thales ears perked up.

The fact that we haven’t been able to answer it plainly after all this feeds the predicament. It may be instructive that we seem to have beat around the bush here but continually miss the target.

Because of the linear function of logical thought that we can’t escape in order to even merely form a sentence (or just say “consonance” as “not-flow”), when we speak or think of this question, we automatically separate consonance from the flow. And, we make a new consonance out of the flow itself and pit it against consonance itself. All so we can speak of whatever we are speaking of.

But it is one thing, any one moment, we first and plainly sought to speak of, so we contradict ourselves and our goals by merely positing the question and identifying a subject to examine (such as “consonance”), and by trying to say just one thing “consonance” we have to say two things “consonance in flow”.

So there will never be a satisfactory answer to this in the form of linear thinking and our concepts. This, to me is why this basic question has remained unanswered.

Although not an answer, I see what Heraclitus said as addressing this in a plain way, because he wasn’t being linear in his words (“the path of writing is both crooked and straight.”). We aren’t drawing a line between consonance and flow; we have to see them together at once to see either at all.

Heraclitus said “it rests from change”. This would be the most analytic framing of this observation, but it might also just be taken as mysticism or nonsense. So what does it say?

His best description of what to make of the appearance of consonance was this: “the barley-drink stands still, only while stirring”. ) This is a a more faithful translation of his aphorism at 125.

The barley/ drink is a mixture of barley, wine, cheese and maybe some oil. It’s a like a vinaigrette you can drink. And like a vinaigrette, if it sits in a cup or bottle it separates. In order to bring the barley-drink into existence, for a consonance to appear, you must stir the ingredients and only while the ingredients are stirring in motion can the barley drink be drunk - otherwise you still have not-barley-drink, but cheese and barley, or wine and oil.

Flow and consonance reveal each other in the instant of experience.

So the barley-drink, the consonance, stands out in existence as a “thing” for the first time, only in the motion.

Linear thinking places the motion first and the barley-drink second. But they have to be seen together in the moments the stirring is happening. There is no prior or post or cause or effect between them. The consonance points immediately to its stirring in the instant the stirring is consonant as a barley-drink.

So this doesn’t really answer the question, but I think it reframes the object we are investigating.

Another observation here is that this is paradox. We are trying to nail down nailing down - or undo doing by doing something as if it was already done. We are cracking open what neither can be cracked nor is it not already open. It rests is the same as it changes now in our speech, so how on earth can we be logical about things grounded in illogical paradox?

So I don’t have an answer, but spiral towards one anyway treating the above moving parts.

We always try to grab a subject, a motionless object, and then predicate it, fixing properties to it. But the fixing, the predicating is as much before the object predicated, as the object predicated appears first in out sentences.

In the end, I don’t think these are linguistic tricks hiding self-delusion, nor do I think Plato fee ally explained the existence of essences, nor Aristotle though he did better to account for the flow, nor Nietzsche though he did even better to account for the flow. But I do think consonance is something we minded-beings sense, from out in the flow; even though we do not see the thing in itself as it is in itself, we see that it is, that it is flowing, that there is consonance and flow.

It is a different thing to say that we do not know what any of the phenomena in experience really are by continuing to use the eyeballs and minds that make them phenomena, from saying “separate, self consonant things apart from us do not exist.”

It’s a triangulating dance we dance when we say “consonance” at all.

I dont need to know what you think, I know what you said. Saying Nietzsche was a metaphysician when he wasn't doesn't matter what you think about that. It's like trying to explain why 2+2 = 5. I don't need to know the logic behind it. — DifferentiatingEgg

“…he wasn’t…”

You said what is not. You didn’t say what is. So nothing to discuss in this whole passage besides me.

The point being you should revisit Nietzsche's works, not disclose what I know. Especially when you're going to try and write a half shitpost on Nietzsche from a base dialectical perspective. — DifferentiatingEgg

“…you should….”

No new content. Oh, “…shit post…”. Too vague.

Actually if we go back, we can clearly see you're the one who denies Nietzsche's correct evaluation of Christ's equation with the Judaism in the rest of the Bible... You won't allow Nietzsche's interpretation to be the case. This is one way you start twisting Nietzsche. You should try self abnegation before handling his works. — DifferentiatingEgg

Haven’t twisted one word. Nietzsche was a lot of things - like all other great ones, he was profound, insightful, revealed truth, and blew the punchline, got it wrong - he was all of those. He was a social critic, a critic of academia, a critic of western thought and art, a psychologist, a crappy scientist, etc. Bit most of all, he changed the game, made it new again.

Not inclined to offer specifics with someone who just asserts “ correct evaluation of Christ's equation with the Judaism in the rest of the Bible” both as if I didn’t know that and as if it was enough to support your overall assessment of what there is to know about Nietzsche.

Are you saying if I only understood Nietzsche as deeply as you, I would understand the Bible better or something?

Thus his understanding of beauty is so far beyond you comprehension it's alien to you. — DifferentiatingEgg

Or maybe I ate Nietzsche’s beauty for breakfast and used it to make my “shit post.”

What can I say to make you see something more than you are seeing?

Plato saw appearance and reality where the appearance was the world of objects and all illusion; reality is the formal, the permanent and fixed. Nietzsche turned this upside down. The appearance is the Apollonian, the flashing facade, where people like Socrates build their formalities and “truth” all of which is more akin to lies, to mask their weakness, unpossessed of the deeper source of truth, the Dionysian, not rigid and reified, but alive as instinct, this life, the raw existential beast of life, and only tamed honestly as will, not truth, and as art, made most beautiful in the tragic and in intoxication.

The dance is real. We need both Apollo and Dionysius to discern the human (therein lies the metaphysics, but forget I said anything if “metaphysics” is such a dirty word in Nietzsche’s mouth - I’m sure Nietzsche would curse me for accusing him of ever saying something metaphysical, right?.). But, the world tended too far away from the Dionysian, and Nietzsche reset it all. Every institution that hinted at truth, took blows and many lies were uncovered.

That’s my own take of course. I could be wrong. Or maybe you think I’m correct, only shallow? Hard to tell how little I know about Nietzsche from what you are saying.

So there is some more actual content for you to pillory and dismiss, more content than you’ve provided in this whole exchange. And you’re the expert.

Oh that’s right, you said “Nietzsche was correct” and “I didn’t know that.” About Jesus and God. And I twist words. Maybe actually saying something about him, and maybe not for the sake of refuting something I said, but just to share something you love about him. Just a thought. I mean does everyone you know say they love Nietzsche? Maybe I’m a dime a dozen to you. That’s probably it. You must really be a teacher. Do you treat all of your students this way?

you choose not to see Nietzsche from his modality, rather through your own caricature. — DifferentiatingEgg

Is it even possible that you are choosing to read my words through your modality? Through the lofty perch beyond good and evil (even though you are making me feel like a sinner against your St. Nietzsche).

Logic dictates — DifferentiatingEgg

Careful, that could be a mask creeping in. Who is logic? Whose will be done? It’s not logic, it’s you brother. Own that driver. What would Nietzsche do?

I told you to revisit Nietzsche and do so under the forces that brought him about.. — DifferentiatingEgg

Show me how my brother, like a chorus, sing to me of his forces. Or, wait, you want me to just revisit Nietzsche. You point is just “wrong, see Nietzsche.” Not helpful as Inalready did and obviously that’s not been enough for you to deign to share something you think. Besides I’m wrong.

…your own, from the slave moralist's point of view. — DifferentiatingEgg

That’s an assumption. That’s your mask showing again. You have no idea of how I work out my will. You can’t know who is a slave and who isn’t by some posts here.

And of course this is all cursory, prompting your accusations of “shallow” on any given point. I’m not writing my thesis here, and we aren’t fashioning a Platonic dialogue. At least your make a shitty Socrates to my mere Thrasymachus.

I wish you’d answer one question: is there anything you don’t like about Nietzsche - no loose ends or nits to pick anywhere? Because I don’t think anyone in history has said enough while avoiding all missteps. Do you? (Maybe Heraclitus, the greatest of the great ones. But Nietzsche is by far my favorite one to read.

And seriously, the metaphysician thing is a small piece, who cares, ignore it. It’s the point you stuck on, not more than 10 percent of what is great about Nietzsche. Don’t I get any credit towards my final grade for spelling his name right so many times?

How about some content that isn’t about me, not posted for the sake of refuting me, just a quick piece of something important about Nietzsche that the novice can understand. That’s what the thread was for wasn’t it? I gave a bunch. You called it shit, but actually you mostly just shit on it. So it’s hard to tell whose shot is who anymore. Start us over how about it?

You wouldn't want to imagine a better world just for the people in it? — fdrake

Depends on what you mean by the world.

If you mean my family and neighbors and friends and the 50 yards of space that follows me around everywhere I go - I absolutely try to imagine how to make things the best I can think of for everyone I can.

If by world you mean the US, the Middle East, or the earth, or the future of mankind, I’ve given up on those people - all are free to join my 50 yards and see if you like it here with me, but as soon as it gets bigger, and less and less people are influenced by my magnanimous ability to make things great, and no one is in control and everyone resorts back to savagery, and nuclear deterrents, and detente, and real politic, and questions about who is better and who is worse and who is victim and who is perpetrator - there is no hope that one of us or some group of us or some set of laws will ever make that go smoothly.

I exaggerate a bit here, but you see my point.

and not having on-topic posts be constantly drowned out by nonsense? — Mikie

I picked up on that bit from your OP. Sounds like a new rule for all posts.

There’s either God, or no reason to imagine a different world.
— Fire Ologist

I find this quite sad. You wouldn't want to imagine a better world just for the people in it? — fdrake

Sad that I think this way, or sad for the state of human beings?

I hope you can find a way to improve things, or rid yourself of the task to do so.
— Fire Ologist

I already have rid myself of that responsibility, as have most of us. And we're right to. And we're falling. — fdrake

Ok, so if you’ve rid yourself, then you aren’t sad that I think this way, you do as well.

We are falling. It is sad.

There is hope. Wish people saw that.

We need a diagram. — frank

And maybe some non-culturally appropriated refreshments.

I'm not a believer and have no interest in eschatology. Well that's a lie, I like eschatology.

The biggest things, like the world, remain, as always, in God’s hands. And that’s ok.
— Fire Ologist

Good sir, I believe this is cope. — fdrake

Or just realism, meaning the fate of the world improvement certainly is not in our hands, no matter how much we think of our abilities - we are the ones who are tearing things apart.

There’s either God, or no reason to imagine a different world.

I can’t tell if you are having a sort of crisis over this question or not.

If not, I’ll leave you to it, as I see a proponent of any ideology qua ideology as a placeholder for an individual who isn’t taking responsibility for their own life.

If you are, I hope you can find a way to improve things, or rid yourself of the task to do so.

Because he stood on my neck in the middle of the street until I was dead? It's a complicated issue. — frank

So matters involving people are complicated?

Helpful tip.

Then maybe the first question should be, do we really want to take the time to have this conversation? Cause it’s a slog.

I suppose more precisely I'm saying something like:

There are things which will not improve without some acts of supererogation. If someone believes that those things must improve, then they believe some acts of supererogation are required. The model I have of this is giving up your life as an activist for a noble cause — fdrake

You seem to be at a real crossroads because of this issue.

I’m going to step way, way back for a second.

What if one’s only obligation is to please God? To attend to the fact that God loves you personally? What if the opportunity to perform a superogatory act for your fellow man’s sake was just that, an opportunity, a gift to you, allowing you to assist in God’s creation of the world?

I do not think any of us are called to make the world a better place. We have to trust God on all of that.

This is not to say we don’t have ample time on our hands to serve others, and must consent to many obligations to do so. This is not to say it doesn’t please God when we love our neighbor or lay our lives down for them. But if our service and love actually improves the world, that is God’s doing, and he has only joined my act to his act of creating this world.

St. Francis was wrong if he really thought he had to worry about the birds. The biggest things, like the world, remain, as always, in God’s hands. And that’s ok.

Without God, that’s not ok, because we are the causes of the world needing improvement (I sort my plastics wrong all the time for instance, or otherwise sin). But as far as I can tell, without God, there is no hope for any improvement, no superogatory or other act that we could devise on our own to move any actually important needles in the direction of world improvement.

There may be more people that have easier lives today than did 100 years ago, or 1000 years ago, etc, but the world hasn’t improved one bit since Cane quarreled with Abel, at least not on our own account. It’s always been easy to lie, to steal, to murder and overall, it’s possible things are worse than ever.

If one gives one’s life to save others, it is not the death that makes this act superogatory. Death is just one body moving through its changes like a seed falling from a tree. It is the person’s choice to give his or her own life - the choice, that is the ingredient that makes the act superogatory. So if we add circumstances that would diminish this free choice, like coercive ideology, we simply don’t have a superogatory act anymore.

So the notion of requiring superogatory acts as in coercing them, turns those acts into the act of the commander, not the agent who acts, unless the agent freely consents anyway, which makes it not a commanded act, but solely the agent’s act.

True faith and trust in God is a handing over of your life and this whole world with it, handing it back to God, be that a superogatory, obligatory, or better, magnanimous, act or otherwise.

Conversations should start from "what do you want to achieve" and taken at face value. — AmadeusD

I agree wholeheartedly.

We are too quick to ignore the individual we engage with on the issue of race, and too afraid to be the individuals we are when talking about race, and instead hide ourselves in the rightness of our side of history (as if we actually know the truth of where we are and where we are headed) and force individuals back into their ugly groups - facists, haters, leftists, rightists, sub- humans unworthy of being heard.

We remain fearful cavemen, which is the irony of the racist. The racist must view all of us as animals first because it is the animal, the physical, alone, which grounds a category like race. Superior race? How is that even possible?

And the immense contradictions of setting one race apart from others only follow.

We need to venture out of the cave and realize we are as different from our own parents as we are from the farthest “race” of person who might exist in Asia, or Canada, or the Ukraine, or Qatar, or 10,000 years ago.

There are no races of human beings. Once human, we have the cake, and the deepest description of racial realities only adds color to the icing. And what would life be like without color? Such a shame.

The whole conversation about race, to me, should be “why are you afraid of your brother?”

Tim asked “what”. The question seeks a noun, a quantifiable entity one might point at. You answered with an adjective, like “weak” or “evasive”.
— Fire Ologist
I don't understand what you are talking about. Could you please be more specific? — MoK

Tim asked what changes.

You answered “physical”. That’s not a clear or precise answer.

Physical what? Changes in what way?

The change occurs at a proper time otherwise we could not observe such a fantastic relation between motion and time. — MoK

Change occurs in time. But “at a proper time” - what does that mean - why introduce “proper”?

This is the crux of the argument you are trying to make and I haven’t seen anyone here who understands the word “proper”.

In your thought experiment, I could perform the act at 1:00 accidentally. I could nail the change right on the “proper” time without knowing I did so. You aren’t explaining how change is not possible without some condition of “knowing the proper” present in the moment of change. Your thought experiment doesn’t clarify.