Comments

  • The beginning and ending of self
    ↪Paine
    My ignorance of big John is profound, but Yes to the drama. It emphasises what I need to get to next, which is the social interplay of mutual and antagonistic identifications. "If you're not one of us, you must be foreign."

    {I just googled that made up quote, with slightly random results - visas taxes and death feature.}
  • The beginning and ending of self
    Given enough of that, the person could very well believe that they are more considerate of others than they actually are/were... — creativesoul

    People do that too. "I am totally innocent". Sound familiar?

    I am telling a meta-story which I believe to be – Let's say 'realistic', instead of 'true', . It's an abstract metaphorical account of the human condition intended to cover Jesus and Hitler and Richard the Lionheart, and Uncle Tom Cobbley and all. You seem to be telling a different story, of what someone ought rationally to say or feel or not in relation to a past and future which by my account are created by the story. Past then present then future; that is the narrative of every narrator, including you and me both.
  • The beginning and ending of self
    I think that this state of conflict you describe is artificial, contrived, because there is no need to consider alternatives for the past narrative, like you suggest, because we have no choice at this time. — Metaphysician Undercover

    Well I would say that there is no need for any of the stories; but people do make theses stories and identify with them and they feel guilt and shame in relation to the past, because they identify with the past, and in fact I think that this identification with the past is the necessary first step to a projection into the future. It is the self constructed out of the past that ought to do better next time. There can only be any idea at all of the future as a projection from the past. that is the story from the bible of the fall from the paradise of the present into time, full of regrets of the past and worries for the future. the two arise together.
  • UFOs
    Intelligence is not enough, you need hands. Or equivalent extendible manipulators. Ask any large brained marine mammal.
  • The beginning and ending of self
    Isn't there such a thing as a first person narrative, in which the narrator is part of the story? — Metaphysician Undercover

    Yes indeed. Take a simple example: "I went to the shop and bought a bar of chocolate, and ate it all on the way home."

    No doubt this story could be expanded to Proustian proportions, but never mind that. I am in the story, but I am also telling the story. Present is relating Past, so I am both in the story acting, and outside the story relating. but now I'll add another sentence: "I should have saved some for my wife."

    Now there is another, counterfactual story, where I went to the shop and bought a bar of chocolate and ate some of it on the way home but saved some for my wife. And it is a better story than the true story.

    Where am I now? In a state of conflict between narrative and meta-narrative – between is and ought.

    But the options continue to multiply. That second sentence could be part of the story, a thought I had when I got home, or it could be a new thought I had as the narrator not merely telling the story, but also hearing myself tell it, as if it were someone else's story.

    Such is the tangle of identity produced by two short sentences; and I have a seventy year long narrative... according to my mother, my first word was "More!" I won't inflict the rest on you.
  • The beginning and ending of self
    If the self is a story comprised of an imaginary character, why then do we create fictional stories on top of it with extra imaginary characters? And where do they come from? — Changeling

    It's not an imaginary character, necessarily. One can be more or less honest in one's thoughts about oneself. But I think the internal monologue, once established, just tends to go on and on. There seems to be no situation, except extreme shock, where it does not think it worth commenting on things in some way. The nature of identification is that it is always social because it is linguistic. In identifying myself as human, I also Identify the non-human - I am English, they are foreign - I am good, the Nazis are bad. My narrative is as much about the world as about myself, and because it is possible in language to swap things abound to produce counterfactuals, one can make judgements and plans, which one can then try to act out. Or perhaps one does not act them out and they remain just fictions...
  • The beginning and ending of self
    The scientific/philosophical problem with that religious notion, is "where is the personal history/memory recorded for self and posterity, if not in the brain?" — Gnomon

    Thanks for your interest. I assume it is recorded in the brain and the highlights written on the flesh, but also perhaps in the state of the world, the way the famous flap of the butterfly's wing is recorded in the subsequent hurricane. Beyond that I cannot speculate. But perhaps there is no record. Why should there be a record? I have made a story out of a very old story that echoes in your brain for a day, and mine for a week, and dissipates, or maybe in a thousand years someone will be talking about the mythic unenlightened one in conversation with the great Gnomon. and the profound wisdom they displayed.

    But The story i am telling here is that the preservation of the story - of the self - is of no importance; what matters is the completion of the story, in which once is for all.
  • Boris Johnson (All General Boris Conversations Here)
    The unfortunately rare triumph of principled democracy over party politics.
  • Boris Johnson (All General Boris Conversations Here)
    Johnson leaving in disgrace - Chris Bryant
    Labour MP Chris Bryant, the chair of the Commons standards committee, has been on BBC Breakfast this morning.

    He says that Johnson has been forced out by a report from a committee that had a Tory majority, and during a period where the Commons also has a Tory majority, shows he is leaving as a “disgraced” former prime minister.

    In all the breathlessness of this it’s easy to forget quite how significant a moment this is.
    I presume he’s resigned because he, being the only person who has seen the draft copy of the report from the privileges committee, knows that the house is going to decide that he has lied to parliament and that that is a serious contempt of parliament, therefore he should be suspended from the house.
    That has never ever happened to a prime minister. So he was not only ousted as prime minister but then thrown out of the House of Commons… by a committee that had a conservative majority and by a house that has a significant majority.
    So he is leaving as a disgraced prime minister.
  • My eyes are windows upon the world.
    My lived experience is of being my body, within a public, externally existing world. — Inyenzi

    So far, so good. My skin connects me to the world; my hands play with the world.

    When I open my eyes, it is as if I have opened the 'blinds onto the world'.

    "As if." The visual world is remote; the eye touches, not the objects it sees, but the light reflected from them. The contact is indirect but conducted at light-speed. Skin can feel the sunshine, but eyes cannot look at the sun without burning. But there is no real problem – one sees the glass with the eyes, picks it up with the hand, and tastes the wine as it slips down the throat. Remote and direct senses are integrated seamlessly into a convenient, delicious whole.

    It is only the analogy of the window, that suggests that the eye is not an eye, but behind it is another body with another eye looking through it as a window. This has to be nonsense because it recreates the eye to explain the working of the eye and recreates the body within the body. Seeing is indirect in relation to objects that one can touch directly, but it is direct in relation to the informative play of light that is also an aspect of the world, just as sound is. But somehow the idea of one's ears as the telephone system through which one listens to the world hasn't caught on.
  • Atheist Dogma.
    It is a dogma that dogma is bad.

    Dogma is the bedrock of one's understanding; the bars on the cage of the mind that stop one falling out into the bliss of total ignorance. To imagine oneself without dogma is to imagine oneself as God.


    The only avowedly atheist governments I know of are the old Soviet regime and Modern China. One might also include Japan, but not 'avowedly'.

    It's a very small sample, but not a great record. the assumption seems to be that dogma makes for intolerance, but perhaps it is more related to power, and dogma is simply 'certainty'.
  • The Modern ‘Luddite’
    Extinction Rebellion.

    Only the devil wants to make work; luddites want to make a living. they have the reputation of being against progress, but they were against starving in the street because the price of the cloth they produced had collapsed.
  • Donald Trump (All General Trump Conversations Here)
    Dogma warning: Donald is not Jesus.
  • Atheist Dogma.
    Could there not be reasons we are unaware of, or dimly ware of? We are attracted to people for reasons that are, possibly, hard wired in us. We go for certain types of people or genders and we are attracted to certain types of appearances, — Tom Storm

    I like reason, and I use it. It keeps our thinking straight. What you say about unconscious desires, hard wired or not, may very well be true. but to call that a function of reason is to equivocate rather badly. Having a fetish for large breasts may be hard-wired by natural selection to favour generous feeders, or it may be an internet induced perversion of ordinary male desire, or just a random fixation, but what it most certainly is not is the result of conscious reasoning from premises to conclusion – nothing like.
    And this is the kind of reasoning that the religious are being accused of not following. I think they are still mostly just about capable of eating when hungry, despite the impediment of faith, as can other non-reasoning beings like frogs and horses.
  • Atheist Dogma.
    Why did you choose to ignore this part of my rationale for the emotion of human love? — universeness

    Because saying something is natural is simply saying it is; life evolves so as to survive but for what reason does it survive? No reason, it just does. Reasoning is something people can do but often don't. it is a way of thinking dispassionately Ie without passion. One brackets off how one feels, what one wants and so on and leaves them out of account in order to be dispassionate and thus rational.

    People in human communities who do not do so, are considered less sociable and less able to be a useful partner, such people are often ostracised and that can mean there is less chance of them surviving or reproducing.
    This happens all over the animal kingdom as well.     — universeness

    And for what reason does one want to survive and reproduce etc? For no reason except one happens to be made that way by the blind watchmaker, who as you know does not care about anything.

    But this is boring now, I'll leave it there and stand with idiot Zizek in opposition to your reasonable love which is what we used to call 'cupboard love' - the love of personal advantage.
  • Atheist Dogma.
    ↪Vera Mont
    That is not an argument. I am not interested in who is eviler than whom, because it is not relevant, nor is who by and large has had the political power historically.

    Do you really feel like that? — universeness

    It's a foolish question to my mind because rationality is about reasoning verbally mathematically and conceptually in a logical way. Feelings are an attitude one has to things. So to feel hungry is to want some food. there is no argument that convinces someone to be hungry, any more than there is an argument that convinces it to rain. Loving is commonplace and normal for humans; it's a feeling that comes over one as a response to another. But your rationalising of your response to these feelings makes no sense to me. They are your thoughts about your feelings not any reason for having them.

    love is a very powerful/dangerous/wonderful human emotion. That's my rationale of love. — universeness

    That's not a rationale, that is a conflicted feeling about your feelings.

    So yes, love is an emotion, and does not arise out of arguments and measurement of ratios. There is no reason to care but we do, there is no reason to love, but we do. That it promotes the survival of the species is perhaps why such attitudes have evolved in us; but that could only be the cause, not a reason. What you are calling rational and irrational feelings are distinguishing feelings you are happy to try and fulfil, from those you prefer to suppress.

    If you truly believe 'caring is not rational,' then how would you ever be capable of experiencing love? — universeness

    Having the feelings I have is no effort at all for me, I love my wife and my children unconditionally or a Zizek says, 'for no reason' - unreasonably. And when one of them screams at me and rushes off slamming the door, it hurts, and I still love them. And there is no reason why.
  • Atheist Dogma.
    What about peanut butter? Or electric cars? Or Hemingway? May one judge them according to one's inclination? Where there is no authority, or set criteria, how can there be dogma? — Vera Mont

    Of course, Dogs like dog food, but it's not a dogma, because if you don't like dog food, no dog will argue with you. But the position here is that religion is evil, not that someone personally would rather be without it, but help yourself if it floats your boat. If there were no authority being asserted, there would be no atheist dogma being exhibited and the thread would have been quite short. But the authority of science and of rationality is very much being claimed and asserted against any form of religious talk, even and especially talk that embraces metaphorical meaning.
  • What constitutes evidence of consciousness?
    If there is evidence for anything, it is evident to someone who is conscious. Therefore, all and any evidence is evidence of consciousness.

    This will not satisfy, because you do not want evidence of your consciousness, but of mine. But then you are trying to make my subjectivity objective, and visible to you, which would be to deprive me of my consciousness and make it yours. Don't be so greedy. :razz:
  • Atheist Dogma.
    Whaaaaat? Do you really feel like that? Is that unenlightened or just sooooooo sad?
    If you truly believe 'caring is not rational,' than how would you ever be capable of experiencing love?     — universeness

    What do you feel? Do you feel rational? It appears you are incredulous that I even mean what I say. But perhaps you can tell me the rationale of love? I would be most interested...
  • Atheist Dogma.
    I mean in your OP you explicitly state that atheist dogma created fundamentalism; are you now backing away from that? — Janus

    No, I'm not backing away, but that is a matter of fact, not a matter of argument, which I support with a wiki link. Clearly there are other sources (psychological) of dogmatism, fundamentalism and literalism which are to do with identification. But that happened and was noticed at the time as wiki says. And you can see the same process at work in reverse too. I make a criticism of some atheist argumentation, people take it personally and their position hardens, even to the point of my explicitly being blamed for setting them up, for some trollish reason. This is what happens when someone's identity is felt to be attacked, because people are not nearly as rational as they would like to think they are - that is an identification, that also leads to dogmatic thinking.

    My moral position is that this is a 'good thing', because rationality becomes robotic and dehumanising, because human nature, and the nature of all living things is to care about things, and caring is not rational.
  • Atheist Dogma.
    ↪180 Proof
    Yes, you are on the side of the angels! Hurray for you! So rational and freethinking.Thank goodness you have put us all straight at last! Hang on while I nail you to this cross.
  • Atheist Dogma.
    I think what unenlightened (he can correct me if I am getting this wrong) was aiming at in creating this thread was anti-theism, and that is dogma, just as much as theism is, taking both as political stances; as claims as to what others should believe. This kind of theistic or ant-theistic dogmatism from either side is socially divisive, and is part of the problem, not part of a solution. To put it plainly, an anti-theocracy is as bad as a theocracy. — Janus

    No. Not my argument at all. I have said more than once, that I am not even interested in who the good guys are. On the contrary, that is the vacuous argument I am complaining about. But It's unsurprising that you get drawn into it even as a non dogmatic atheist.

    My argument is very simple, and resolves to the question of by what authority is theism judged? If one sticks to the facts, and to the fact/value distinction, the judgement cannot be rationally made. That it is made, and has been made throughout this thread, is the dogma of atheism. It was all laid out in the op and not a word has been said against it that I have seen. I have no criticism of the judgement, it is the claim to fact and rationality that I dispute.
  • Atheist Dogma.
    ↪Moliere
    Let's get personal:

    My dogma is the stuff you have to already assent to to even make sense what I'm saying. The disbeliefs you have to suspend.

    What's yours?

    Some people's dogma seems to be that only the other chap has dogma.
  • Atheist Dogma.
    ↪Tom Storm
    And when confidence is lost, the economy goes to hell.
  • Atheist Dogma.
    I studied economics back in the 1990's and what I found was a largely faith based dogma. — Tom Storm

    [The rich] consume little more than the poor, and in spite of their natural selfishness and rapacity…they divide with the poor the produce of all their improvements. They are led by an invisible hand to make nearly the same distribution of the necessaries of life, which would have been made, had the earth been divided into equal portions among all its inhabitants, and thus without intending it, without knowing it, advance the interest of the society, and afford means to the multiplication of the species. — Adam Smith

    Of all the criticisms one might make of this, and they are serious and fundamental, I think the weakest and most pointless would be to argue that invisible hands do not exist. But the comparison is apt and you are right. Economics is entirely faith based - but they call it "confidence".
  • Atheist Dogma.
    unlike you, I would add religion as one of humanity's many problematic ideas. — Tom Storm

    I think religion is highly problematic. This is very binary, and rather the problem with this thread - and that is my fault for framing things that way. But pointing out a binary conflict that leads to sterile arguments, I did not honestly expect a dozen pages rehearsing the the sterile arguments.

    I have made no defence of religion. I am appealing for an attempt at understanding the meaning of religious texts to people, which I believe is rather more than mere the commercial advertising bullshit of the marketplace. Just as I would recommend understanding the Communist Manifesto, or The Rights of Man.

    Do economists really believe in the invisible hand? This is a fatuous ignorant insulting question, surely.
  • Atheist Dogma.
    Science does not do politics very well. Margret Thatcher was a chemist. she had opinions about what was wrong with society - which was that people thought it existed.
    I think we’ve been through a period where too many people have been given to understand that if they have a problem, it’s the government’s job to cope with it. ‘I have a problem, I’ll get a grant.’ ‘I’m homeless, the government must house me.’ They’re casting their problem on society. And, you know, there is no such thing as society. — Thatcher, 1987

    Rationalist politics is necessarily dehumanising, because the defining feature of life is emotion. to be alive is to care about something. Having a home, for example. Accordingly, a worldview that rejects everything that is not rational or factual, is inimical to life.

    I do wonder what Maggie thought a government was for, if not for solving people's problems - her personal hobby, I suspect.
  • Atheist Dogma.
    Here is a relevant modern lesson gleaned by an atheist from Saint Paul.

    ... there exists a despicable complicity between the globalized logic
    of capital and French identitarian fanaticism.

    What is being constructed before our very eyes is the communita-
    rization of the public sphere, the renunciation of the laws transcendent
    neutrality. The State is supposed to assure itself primarily and perma¬
    nently of the genealogically, religiously, and racially verifiable identity of
    those for whom it is responsible. It is required to define two, perhaps
    even three, distinct regions of the law, according to whether the latter are
    truly French, integrated or integratable foreigners, or finally foreigners
    who are declared to be unintegrated, or even unintegratable. The law
    thereby falls under the control of a “national” model devoid of any real
    principle, unless it be that of the persecutions it initiates. Abandoning all
    universal principle, identitarian verification—which is never anything
    but police monitoring—comes to take precedence over the definition or
    application of the law. This means that, just as under Petain, when min¬
    isters saw nothing wrong in surreptitiously defining the Jew as prototype
    of the non-French, all legislation would be accompanied by the required
    identitarian protocols, and subsets of the population would come to be
    defined each time by their special status . This arrangement is taking its
    course, as successive governments each bring to it their own special
    touch. We are dealing with a rampant “Petainization” of the State.

    How clearly Pauls statement rings out under these conditions! A
    genuinely stupefying statement when one knows the rules of the ancient
    world: “There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free,
    there is neither male nor female” (Gal. 3.28)! And how appropriate, for
    we who will unproblematically replace God by this or that truth, and
    Good by the service this truth requires, the maxim “Glory, honor, and
    peace for every one that does good, to the Jew first and also to the Greek.
    For God shows no partiality” (Rom. 2.10).

    https://archive.org/stream/BADIOUSaintPaulTheFoundationOfUniversalism/BADIOU%20-%20%20Saint%20Paul%20The%20Foundation%20of%20Universalism_djvu.txt

    Link repeated from @Paine back on page 3, who seems to be about the only person to have noticed that the thread is primarily about atheists' understanding of religion, or the lack thereof.
  • Atheist Dogma.
    ↪Vera Mont
    Absolutely nothing!

    But try telling them that!
  • Atheist Dogma.
    At this point, I think I'll take a break before starting a new thread.

    But the conclusion of this thread for me at least, is that personal identity is always a narrative, always questionable, and always made out of whatever social constructs are available. And social constructs are fictions we have to believe. You know like money, property, government, marriage, and who the good guys are.

    To live in time is to live a narrative that is always negotiated, never entirely free or original. This is of course the story that I am telling, and I am illustrating it with a cultural artefact of undeniable power that is also a story of personal identity – an identity that changed the world.

    Most of us live in an uncompleted story, the hero or heroine has yet to triumph, yet to meet their nemesis. But as a hint or a tease, I suggest the universal complete story of the story of human identity is to be found in outline, beginning in genesis and concluding in the crucifixion and resurrection. Next time...

    The story, which is what each person is, is radically subjective - "my priority". As such it is not in the purview of science, or of rationality, those are priorities one might have, but their priority cannot be 'objective'. All of this is my story, which i have borrowed and relay to anyone who has ears, "let them hear." Nothing to see here, you've heard it all before.
  • Atheist Dogma.
    The book is holy, but the what the priest says, goes. — Vera Mont

    “Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye are like unto whited sepulchres, which indeed appear beautiful outward, but are within full of dead men’s bones, and of all uncleanness.” (Matthew 23:27) — Jesus

    I'm not in the business of defending any church, priest, or book. But look, the story says what you say! Only it says it more forcefully. That is interesting, is it not? Either you are influenced by the story, or the story has something to say about humanity that is universal. Or perhaps you can think of another explanation story about the story.


    My priority remains ensuring that I don't surrender my skepticism and critical thinking to unsupported conjectures and the esoteric imaginings of others alive today or in the past. — universeness

    Yes, I rather gathered that was your story that you live by and defend. I certainly don't want to force another on you, but I'd be grateful if you could see your way to letting us talk about some other stuff.
  • Atheist Dogma.
    Are the traditional Judaic scriptures any more reliable than the bible, as a guide to how a human should live their life? — universeness

    On the whole, I prefer Lao Tzu and Zen Buddhism, personally. But when one is brought up within a Christian and post Christian culture, one has to wrestle with the local mud one was born in first, before one can get to the calm waters of comparative religion. But you're not actually asking seriously, are you? I think you are just carrying right on with your rhetorical defence of your own fiction that you have identified with.
  • Atheist Dogma.
    When a thread suggesting that arguments about the existence or nonexistence of gods entirely misses the point of religion which rather is about how to live, nevertheless becomes dominated with a back and forth argument about the existence or non-existence of gods, I feel like the proselytisers on both sides are being rude and domineering in insisting that they continue to make that very argument over and over. It's not as if we never hear these arguments is it?

    IT'S OFF TOPIC, CHAPS! GO AWAY!
  • Atheist Dogma.
    The Lord of the Flies taught me that people can also descend into violent barbarity and cruel superstition when their civilising restraints are removed by circumstance.
  • Atheist Dogma.
    Winnie the Pooh taught me that people can be all different and all have different weaknesses and strengths, and yet be good friends to each other and live lovingly together even if they all make mistakes.
  • Atheist Dogma.
    That's a fairly small snapshot — Vera Mont

    It is. As if we have overcome already, which of course we have not. Other religions are also available.

    But I am waving vaguely at a story, not a fact about the world. It is (I claim) a story, rather than a fact, an act by a pioneer, that makes forgiveness a possible move in life. Other stories are available...

    I have in mind another thread that might attempt to tell a story of human nature - of individual identity as an incomplete story, and the completion of the story as the purpose of a human life. Maybe.
  • Have you ever felt that the universe conspires against you?
    I don't know you, except that you are alive and have access to the internet, and have decent literacy skills.

    But that is already a couple of things that not everyone has. (This is called 'counting your blessings'.) I guess, that you also have enough to eat, shelter, and do not live in a war zone. Hopefully, you are not suffering constant physical pain.

    If that is the case, then your dissatisfaction is not a physical matter, but dispositional. Now one does not have to be rich, or famous, or hugely successful to be happy, and those things when obtained, do not always result in happiness.

    I think happiness comes largely from making a connection with others.

    But all I see in your post is a comparison with others, and one focused on those who have something you do not. This leads to ambition, envy, resentment, and a sense of failure and inadequacy. If you turn your attention to those who lack something you have, and see if you cannot help them a little, you will be more likely to make a connection, feel significant to another, and have some satisfying success on a small scale. You will start to feel privileged and fortunate in relation to those who have almost nothing.
  • Atheist Dogma.
    ↪creativesoul
    No. I think I just used it in my last post.

    Observation: there is a Story of a man who taught love and was killed and lived again. That story has permeated the culture of what its inhabitants like to call 'the civilised world', and transformed millions of lives.

    Conclusion: it may not be true, but it certainly has huge significance. Use the razor to outline the significance, not to to chop away the fact of it.
  • The Naive Theory of Consciousness
    If that's all Apo is saying then I agree, probably. — bert1

    He's saying a whole lot more than that. But the cell as a self-defining self, as membrane and contents seems to be the beginning of that caring that gives meaning to anything. Cells have attitude! From that plus many more layers comes the predictive model that includes a self-model that becomes human consciousness
  • Atheist Dogma.
    ↪jorndoe
    I'm sooooooooooo not interested in the scoreline.

    But there is a story, sometimes called "The Greatest Story Ever Told", of a unique moment - but every moment is unique - yes but this was different - an injection into history of a new factor, a new start that made every moment thereafter also potentially a new start. Like the way no one can run a mile in under 4 minutes, everyone knew that, until Roger Bannister did, and thereafter, it became possible. Like the way society was caught in an eye for an eye mutual blindness, until someone invented forgiveness.

    And the question that interests me is not whether the story is true; the story reverberates through history for 2,000 years, and that a made up story can have such power is more miraculous than the miracles it recounts. that it can change a life at this great a remove is utterly fantastic, and an everyday occurrence.

    History is broken and remade by - fiction? That much is undeniable. And that is worth consideration by any philosopher.
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