Could you explain Apo's point to me? — bert1

It is almost certainly impossible to explain @apokrisis's point to his satisfaction, but I might manage to provoke him into saying something more, just to put me right.

The fundamental unit of consciousness is the 'fuck given', or as Gregory Bateson put it, "a difference that makes a difference". The negative space of this is a difference that doesn't make a difference. Thus for example one might say "I don't mind whether the cheese in my sandwich is cheddar, or cheshire." It makes no difference to me. So the beginning of mind is not the particle that doesn't mind what happens to it, but the living cell, that for yeast, say, tells the difference between sugar that it ingests and alcohol or CO2 that it excretes. The difference makes a difference to the cell response, which is an active one rather than the inanimate passive reaction that happens differentially between molecules.

But lovers of freedom might be at least interested in the idea of a personal, individual, liberation from history, through the lovely economic concept of 'redemption': the Idea that though history grinds on, you yourself, or Mr Grayling himself even, can be relieved of the burden of history, and be renewed, because self is history.

Of course the Church of Rome is Greek, and if the Nazis are Christian, then the Nazis are Greek.

Do I have to point out that this is the doctrine of original sin? Turns out the atheists are Christian too, because there is no escape from history, and there is Grayling, expounding Christian doctrine in his attack on it.

The distinction between believers and unbelievers may be far less important than Grayling and the New Atheists like to think. At any rate it cuts right across the rather interesting difference between the grim absolutists, such as Grayling and the religious fundamentalists, who think that knowledge must involve perfect communion with literal truth, and the sceptical ironists – both believers and unbelievers – who observe with a shrug that we are all liable to get things wrong, and the human intellect has a lot to be modest about. — Grauniad

I wouldn't say I'm a sceptical ironist, but I sure as hell ain't no champion of the enlightenment.

We have forgotten the root meaning of disease. In the good old days folk went to the doctor with a "complaint", for which they sought a "remedy".
I'd suggest that it is something of a fundamental freedom that anyone who has a complaint about their condition, or is un-easy or dis-eased in their relation to themselves, has the right to seek a remedy.

Which does not entail that anyone else is obliged to provide them with satisfaction on that score, even if they have the means.

However, in matters neurological, it can be the case that a cure, while solving the immediate problem, leaves the patient with a sense of incompleteness. It is as if without what one feels as an impediment or a difficulty, one feels somehow incomplete. I seem to recollect Andrew Oliver Sachs recounting such a case in relation to ticks.

So the right to seek a remedy, and the equal right to reject one, and beware of getting what you want.

↪universeness If you guys are interested in Hitler's religious beliefs, you can read them here: — Hanover

And then start a thread about them somewhere where I don't have to read about it. Recruit for your enemy's team somewhere else, please.

But what I want to talk about is the phenomenon of literalism in particularly Christianity and Islam, but also Hinduism and even Buddhism, that seems to have begun in the 18th Century
— unenlightened

Ah. As opposed to the literalism which resulted when the early Church through Councils and otherwise tossed out what's been called the Apocrypha, or which resulted through the Protestant Reformation, or the division of the Church into western and eastern Christianity, for example. — Ciceronianus

The first printed bible was in latin mid15th century; Tyndale's English translation was 1522-35. It is my contention that though the great and the good might agree amongst themselves a definitive canon and ritual and so on, and enforce that upon the great unwashed, a religion founded on inerrancy and literalism cannot become a popular religion until the masses can read the text in a language they can understand. Up until at least the 16th century, the Good Book was a closed book to almost all, interpreted and translated on the fly by the local priest at his whim.

While there appears to be some uncertainty about when and which Bibles were first brought to America, authors generally agree that the first complete Bible printed in America was in 1663 at the Cambridge, Massachusetts printing house of Samuel Green and Marmaduke Johnson. — google

Before one can start hitting people over the head with the Bible, one needs a Bible.

I need to look at that more carefully, I'm not sure yet what you or Badiou is saying.

Why invoke and analyze
this fable? Let us be perfectly clear: so far as we are concerned, what we
are dealing with here is precisely a fable. And singularly so in the case of
Paul, who for crucial reasons reduces Christianity to a single statement:
Jesus is resurrected. Yet this is precisely a fabulous element [point fabu-
leux ], since all the rest, birth, teachings, death, might after all be upheld. — Badiou

I never liked Paul, I was always happier with the parables as teachings. But Paul is the fundament of the fundamentalist, and as Badiou is an atheist, I'll have to engage with this. Tomorrow...

In the interminable litany of nastiness perpetrated by humans, most examples will be of religious people and religious groups simply because most people are assumed to have been religious for most of history. Atheists have done their worst, but haven't had long enough as an avowed group to remotely match the religionists.

It is entirely possible that religion makes folks horribler, and atheists are a nicer bunch of people just because of their atheism. But what I want to talk about is the phenomenon of literalism in particularly Christianity and Islam, but also Hinduism and even Buddhism, that seems to have begun in the 18th Century and and reaches something of an extreme in Modern US with stuff like this:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicago_Statement_on_Biblical_Inerrancy

This to my mind is mad, ridiculous, politically motivated and dangerous, and a perversion of the Christian tradition. (Add extra negative epithets to taste.) I think it is clear that it is reactionary, and specifically reacting against science, particularly evolution. But also the deep time of geology, that predated evolutionary theory This is not Darwin's fault. :grimace: It is also probably a reaction trying to defend against loss of authority and power, the connection with conservative politics is clear enough. Literalism attracts the ire of atheists, judging by this thread, and it also attracts the ire of liberal, psychological, esoteric or moral interpreters of religious traditions and texts.
—————————–
With regard to truth, consider The Handmaid's Tale, by Margret Atwood. A fictional account of somewhere a bit like N. America in which the religious right has taken over, so appropriate to this thread.
It paints a sufficiently dark portrait of the religious right wing in terms particularly of sexual politics an misogyny, that it has been banned in parts of the US.

One can speak truths in fiction that would get one into serious trouble if not fictionalised. See also Rushdie's Satanic verses for the serious trouble one can still get into even with fiction. See also, Orwell's 1984, a prophetic warning against totalitarian Marxism.

These are all 'not true'. But they tell important truths in story form. But the op already made this point using Aesop. I clearly should have made a much longer and more confusing op with lots of quotes and links, to slow folk down a bit.

None of this is the fault of atheists. — Darkneos

Of course not, why suggest it? It is a very common reaction, in my experience, when someone attacks one's way of life, to become defensive and reactive. You can see it happening in this thread, and a glance at history will yield many examples. It's not a matter of blaming atheists, but of a misdirected argument that leads to an unnecessary conflict. It is perfectly possible to be a Christian atheist.

'Forget Jesus, be Christlike!' Is this the kind of thing you mean? — Tom Storm

Yes indeed. If you love historical research, you might look into the origins of the Jesus story, why not? But the meaning of the story is that love is taking pains; painstaking research, or painstaking self-sacrifice. The results of research do not change the meaning.

Does this come form a broader philosophical system or school? — Tom Storm

Not really. I might wave vaguely at Maurice Nicoll, and J Krishnamurti, along with the usual philosophical suspects – there's nothing very original in what I'm saying.

"Begin by learning 'how to discern what is from what is not and then align expectations – beliefs – with what is'" — 180 Proof

That's where we differ. I come from a family of architects, and the architect functions by imagining a building that is not and then seeking to realise it.

I often think all language is metaphor, whatever it might be. — Tom Storm

I agree. It's all pattern recognition; a cat is a thing like another thing called a cat, and a big cat is another thing like a cat, only bigger. An engine runs like man runs, with rhythmic movement.

This is an interesting thesis. I've often argued that we replaced the worship of god with note worship of 'reality' and I don't think we have access to reality or can even define it, except in the shallowest terms.

Where do you see the solutions to these problems you have described? — Tom Storm

The way I sometimes put it for modernist consumption is that something or other must be the most important thing in your life, or else nothing is important. That thing, or nothing is your god. From there, I will say that the worst thing to put at the centre of your life is Self, and the best is Love.

And then I would like to forbid any discussion about the existence or non-existence of these, because the game is to realise them in one's life. One might believe in 'truth, justice, and the American way', but no serious person could claim they exist, only that they seek to manifest them in the way they conduct own life. Gods such as Sophia, that we claim to be lovers of here, are our own potential, aspired to, and sought after.

"Where are these gods?", the literalist asks; and whatever answer they are given, they will go and not find them; not in the sky, and not on Mount Olympus. For the literalist, wisdom is the belief in its own non-existence.

I'm not saying that Christianity has the answers, or that any religion has the answers. I'm not saying that things were better in the good old days. Humans live in conflict because conflict lives in them. Mainly what I am attacking is the implied moral superiority of the modern mind. It is the same mind as the primitive mind, but has lost the language with which to even talk about the conflict, never mind resolve it.

The language of human psychology is always mythological, because psyche cannot contain a complete understanding of itself. The scientific mythos is so impoverished as to be useless - mind as malfunctioning computer. Switch yourself off and on again, or take yourself to a technician.

Was its concern with how people should live exercised with more tolerance and open mindedness? — Tom Storm

We burned witches and apostates, as I recall, and enslaved the heathen. More tolerant and open minded than who, though? Are you seeing the triumph of open-minded tolerance all around you?

I'm seeing supposedly civilised countries that are poisoning the world and so concerned with perfecting their weapons that they cannot even feed and house their own citizens. I tolerate it, though.

Well that's put me in my place, Cartoon god. Leaving Irony to reign supreme.

Thanks for your interest everyone; excuse me for not responding to all individually. I hope to have covered above the two main themes of the responses: the attempt to understand the primitive mind, and the attempt to defeat the primitive mind.

Unfortunately, there does not seem to be much appetite for the reflexivity of critically understanding modernity itself, or the roots of its catastrophic destructiveness. The topic arises as I reflect on the question - "how has humanity gone so terribly wrong, that we can control everything except ourselves?"

So critical intelligence is the cause of literal-minded ignorance? Freethinking causes unthinking violence? Logical thinking causes magical thinking? — 180 Proof

In this case, critical intelligence is literal minded ignorance, because its is directed at questions of what is and what is not, when the topic is how to live.

"Foxes cannot speak, therefore the fox did not say that the grapes were sour."
"Foxes can so speak, because Aesop says, and Aesop is the fount of all wisdom."

Literal minded ignorance producing literal minded ignorance. This exchange did not happen, and therefore can be ignored.

From a broader perspective though the way I see the process is that Religion was culture; then it became politics; then it became science. Culture itself was fundamentalist in isolated groups and Religion couldn't be separated from it. In order to have a Self at all, you believed and your belief was your Self. There was no other option or reality. — Baden

The way I would prefer to start is that religion was abstraction, where abstracts were personified as gods, - wisdom, war, sex, death, etc, because personhood is the natural explanation for everything. The river floods because it is angry, or because it is bountiful, depending on the circumstances. Motion is always the result of motivation. The tide is the slow breathing of the Sea...

Climate, for the ancients is the disposition of Gaia.

The idea of unmotivated motion - of things just rattling around for no reason is a peculiar modern perversion. No, this is nonsense, there is no difficulty about self, and no belief or establishment required. Quite the reverse, that difficulty is created as the result of the Cartesian depersonalisation of the world, that leaves one with thoughtless things, and thinking things, and seemingly no connection between them.

And so in the end there is no reason but my reason — Self has replaced the gods. The Nietzschian Abyss of Self become vacuous arbitrary god.

Behold the unholy trinity of unenlightened!

Verily I say unto you, there is an old fart in the mythical realm of Wales, who does a bit of gardening. And it came to pass that the old fart sent his only seagull avatar even unto the old philosophy forum, and he was called "unenlightened". And behold, unenlightened was made administrator and did perform many wonders of banishment and casting out of trolls, calming the storms, and editing the 5,000. And His task being accomplished with the passing of the old forum, he did resign his post, and did not take it up in the new philosophy forum. But he did send his frog/horse avatar to be a discomforter, and to lead his people from the back-benches in the ways of philosophy. And though the gardener is not the administrator, and the administrator is not the annoying poster, yet they are the same person. This is a mystery unfathomable to mere mortals, and must be accepted on faith.

Holy shit, man. Why not just totally flip out about something that really doesn't matter? — frank

Why not just retire disgracefully? Why go on defending something you think doesn't matter? Why try and make out that I've got a problem, because I dare to question your bullshit?

Is your ego that fragile?

I predict a triumphant and decisive victory for Ukraine, that does not extend to severing the land bridge, retaking Mariupol, re-taking Crimea, or re-establishing the old borders at any point. Russia utterly humiliated, and yet undefeated, and undeterred.

I hope I am wrong.

The term started out as a derogatory term. — frank

Wiki says not. Do you have any evidence that wiki is wrong?

I'm not sure what you're asking. — frank

I'm asking as politely as I can whether you have any evidence of its being used as a derogatory term, aside from the derogatory attitude sensible folks have subsequently taken to the online self- styled internet groups?

And I think I have my answer; you got nothing.

My give a damn is busted. — frank

I give a damn, though, that you are peddling blatant untruths on the forum, and thereby derailing and undermining a proper discussion.

a derogatory term for a guy who can't get laid. — frank

https://www.google.com/search?q=Is+%22incel%22+a+derogatory+term+for+a+guy+who+can%27t+get+laid.&client=safari&rls=en&ei=N1pzZOexOZCR8gKkppHIDA&start=20&sa=N&ved=2ahUKEwinqYCbkpj_AhWQiFwKHSRTBMk4ChDy0wN6BAgFEAc&biw=1252&bih=598&dpr=2

There are two meanings of "incel.". One is a derogatory term for a guy who can't get laid. The other is a self-applied term for guys who think there's something wrong with our society that would be corrected by reducing the autonomy of women. — frank

Can you provide anything to suggest that you have not just invented this? Wiki has only the second meaning :

An incel (/ˈɪnsɛl/ IN-sel, a portmanteau of "involuntary celibate")[1] is a member of an online subculture of people who define themselves as unable to get a romantic or sexual partner despite desiring one.[2][3][4] Discussions in incel forums are often characterized by resentment and hatred, misogyny, misanthropy, self-pity and self-loathing, racism, a sense of entitlement to sex, and the endorsement of violence against women and sexually active people.[5][17] The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) described the subculture as "part of the online male supremacist ecosystem" that is included in their list of hate groups.[18][19] Incels are mostly male and heterosexual,[13][15][20] and are often white.[21][22][23][24][25] Estimates of the overall size of the subculture vary greatly, ranging from thousands to hundreds of thousands of individuals.[26][27]

Since 2014, multiple mass killings have been perpetrated by self-identified incels, as well as other instances of violence or attempted violence. Incel communities have been increasingly criticized by scholars and commentators for their misogyny, the condoning and encouragement of violence, and extremism. — wiki

Ukrainian Counteroffensive is Coming Soon
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wCrZ-FqMyDg&ab_channel=TheInfographicsShow — RogueAI

As pro Ukrainian propaganda goes, that video was pretty depressing. Ukraine has some 2000 new armoured vehicles, hurrah. But Western enthusiasm and supplies are running out, Russia has 400,000 new troops, arms from abroad, hardened defences, and now help from China. Oh, and they're busy in the occupied territories annihilating any trace of a resistant Ukrainian population, and Ukraine have just given away all their troop dispositions in an intelligence loss.

That's going to have to be a completely stunningly impressive counteroffensive.

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/childhood-adverse-event-life-expectancy-abuse-mortality/#:~:text=A%20difficult%20childhood%20reduces%20life,large%2Dscale%20epidemiological%20study%20finds.

https://www.cdc.gov/genomics/disease/epigenetics.htm#:~:text=Epigenetics%20is%20the%20study%20of,body%20reads%20a%20DNA%20sequence.

I commend to you all the film, The Sessions. It is about a man paralysed from the neck down who wants to have sex. This is no more an incel than I am an involuntary non-climber of Everest. Allow your compassion free rein.

https://www.imdb.com/video/vi2836703001/?ref_=tt_vi_i_2

An old joke - Shut up he explained. — T Clark

I don't think this is a joke at all. Feeling disempowered doesn't imply anything. It is a common and understandable reaction to an unsatisfying life.

Then you need to start being a bit more clear what it is you disagree with and on what basis.

Perhaps, but it doesn't imply "...that there is a male need/right to heterosexual sex that society, (women specifically,) ought to provide and does not. — T Clark

No, that's implied by the other half of the word IN(voluntary)CEL(ibate). The complaint is that they are disempowered from heterosexual sex. Dude, It's looking like you have no idea what is being talked about. 8 pages in that is not a great look.

Feeling disempowered doesn't imply anything. — T Clark

Feeling disempowered implies feeling a desire or need for power. Do you feel wingless? Probably not unless you wish you were a butterfly or an angel or a pilot or something.

Modern liberal democracies, while remaining patriarchal, no longer see fit to so self-describe. — Baden

if you take the incel movement as a filter to view society you get neither an entirely clear nor an entirely distorted view. — Baden

If you listen to the rhetoric, you get a totally distorted view where Kings and queens and politicians and functionaries are all selflessly "serving" civil society.

If you listen to the rhetoric, rape is a terrible crime that must be a top priority to investigate and prosecute.

If you listen to the rhetoric, God, himself is a suffering servant, and He has appointed the great and the good to wisely rule over the people.

The way doublespeak works is that the preaching is "It doesn't matter whether you win or lose, it's how you play the game." but the practice is that it doesn't matter if you cheat as long as you win. This is mainstream culture, and as old as politics and patriarchy. Rape is a terrible punishment for wayward women, that is rarely itself punished because it 'encourages the others'. The incel movement is patriarchy without the bullshit – patriarchy exposed. OF COURSE, no patriarch will admit this, even to themselves. We are lovers of women, not haters.

Here's a question, would you say what ideologies are in power, what is culture and what is counterculture, can change over time? And what then would be the criterium by which we judge that? I'd say that criterium would be power. — ChatteringMonkey

Sure, culture changes. I presume that matrilineal culture was dominant in prehistory, simply because we knew where babies come from - between the legs of a woman. Somewhere about 1-2 millennia BC. patriarchy came to dominate. But I don't know how you measure power in this context. The ruler needs an army; the chess player needs pawns, and the little people are what the culture is made of, more so than the powerful's ablity to control it.

To change the mix of metaphors; the powerful can only blow the dog- whistle that the dogs have already been trained to respond to.

Power is a vital aspect of the patriarchy. I don't think Incels have much power, on the contrary, they seem very much a marginal group. — ChatteringMonkey

But appearances are deceptive. Compare with the case of the poor white racist:

The deputy sheriffs, the soldiers, the governors get paid
And the marshals and cops get the same
But the poor white man's used in the hands of them all like a tool
He's taught in his school
From the start by the rule
That the laws are with him
To protect his white skin
To keep up his hate
So he never thinks straight
'Bout the shape that he's in
But it ain't him to blame
He's only a pawn in their game. — Dylan

Maybe counter-culture vs mainstream is not the right binary — Baden

But it is the right binary.
1. The culture is patriarchal.
Therefore:
2. The counterculture is feminist.

3. The incel movement is aligned with and has the same goals as the culture.
Therefore:
The incel movement is aligned with mainstream culture.

I think this is step one for understanding and dealing with the situation. Conflating those two groups isn't helpful. Both may experience self-loathing but the characteristic trait of incels is that they see women as animals to be used and abused for their pleasure and resent any social structure that prevents that. — Baden

what I think is important to understand is that the incel movement is not part of the counter-culture, it is part of the mainstream, just as rape is, and just as laws against abortion are. They all function to control women's sexuality in society in support of patriarchy. They are part of the system of punishment for women that are not under the control of a man.

One might look at the defining features of such a group and the direction in which it seeks to influence society.

The incel is male, and self-defining as disempowered ( because 'involuntary') as a sexually active person. This immediately implies that there is a male need/right to heterosexual sex that society, (women specifically,) ought to provide and does not.

Incels demand vaginas like wheelchair users demand ramps, and parents of infants demand changing facilities, and black people demand fair policing. If one felt great sympathy with this deprived group, one might suggest state funded sexual social workers, to fill their needs. No one seems to have suggested that here , though. Ordinary private prostitution is the other obvious option for a freedom loving capitalist society, but again, that hasn't been put forward here, and is not indeed considered a solution by the movement itself.

What is left to agitate for, but the enforced subservience of women such that they do not have the right to refuse? This is called "rape culture".

Patriarchy is the necessary accompaniment to patrilineal inheritance. It is important to understand this because the essence of patriarchy is the control of women's sexuality. It is easy to see this in how attitudes to promiscuity differ between the sexes — "Boys will be boys", but girls must never.

And the reason is that fatherhood is uncertain ( short of the very modern DNA test) unless the man has control over the woman. There is very rarely any question of who a child's mother is, and for this reason, a matriarchal society is by no means an inversion of patriarchy; the need to control sexuality simply does not arise.

The logic is very straightforward: IF men inherit property, name, and status from their father, THEN the father must be confident that his son is his; and therefore that his woman is exclusively his. Therefore marriage, therefore virginity, therefore monogamy, therefore patriarchy, therefore rape culture.

Matrilineal inheritance means that a woman's daughters inherit property, name, and status from their mother, then biological fatherhood loses its importance former and women alike. A man's allegiance is as much to his sister's children as to his wife's, and maybe more so. Thinking through the implications is difficult, and needs great care because the patriarchal model is the default, and almost none of its needs regarding sexual politics are needed in matrilineal matriarchy.

It's a protest against the liberation of women. A man without a woman is like a bully without a victim.