At least us philosophers are above that vile pit of filth.

One of the great learning experiences of this war is just how fickle people's claim to being 'anti-war' is. — StreetlightX

I wonder how anti-war one can be while also spewing so much constant anger and hatred.

Back on my bullshit

:up: Some would argue that this type of thinking doesn't belong on a philosophy forum. To the extent that philosophy has become what it has in the modern age, I would consider this criticism justified. But to the extent that the "love of wisdom" has turned into a set of fractal linguistic circus games, criticisms against intuition and common sense begin to look like using quotes from a David Lynch film in a courthouse.

One thing intuition is very good for is setting off alarms when you hear something that doesn't fit. That happens to me all the time. When I go to check, I'm usually right. — T Clark

Same. I've argued (badly) for intuition over the years here, but I eventually realized it's self-evident that the vast majority of people in the world use intuition primarily, and it's only the smaller minority of analytically-minded people who would bother to join a philosophy forum that deride it's primacy. Then it becomes a twofold question of 1) are the vast majority of people deluded and only a select few understand how truth is obtained, and 2) alternatively, is this criticism of intuition just a prejudice of the intelligent against the less intelligent? And where does that path logically lead? The ivory tower is tall indeed.

lol

:up:

Scratch that, found one. Ordered! I also saw below your review that @jamalrob is a fan. Extra motivation to read.

Sounds like I need to order it. It was in the Ballantine Adult Fantasy series, of which I once had a hair-brained goal of collecting them all...but I can't find a cheap Ballantine copy. Guess I'll have to settle for something else.

"Titus Groan" by Melvyn Peake — T Clark

This has been on the back burner for awhile; should it move up?

St John of the Cross — Bitter Crank

One of the most beautiful things I've read in a long time (to me at least, highlighting the sentiment in the thread here) was from his "Spiritual Canticle":

Return thou, dove,
For the wounded hart appears on the hill
At the air of thy flight, and takes refreshment.

Late to it, but RIP Taylor :cry: :cry: :cry:

Re-reading The Silmarillion :brow:

Perhaps our fascination with art (beauty), which is to a fault, is a sign that we yearn for a female deity — Agent Smith

Does that "we" include women?

What sort of thing is a concept? — Banno

What sort of thing is a thing? What sort of thing is a sort? What sort of thing is a what? What sort of what is a what? What?

At one stage, I was worried about ideas of hell and damnation. That lead me to question and think my way out of my Catholic or Christian background. However, atheism seems too stark and even though the images of God which I grew up with aren't helpful, — Jack Cummins

I think we've had similar experiences; this has been mine as well. I sometimes think that my interest in philosophy, mysticism, and etc., are all simply a form of mental disease and a reaction to trauma instilled by fear of Hell. Weirdly, this still hasn't lead me to become "anti-religion", so to speak. To the contrary, I find religion fascinating to study, and I think the bashing of religion will always make me uncomfortable. Maybe someday I'll gather all the thoughts and make a thread, who knows.

Anyway, to try to come back to the OP, which I think hasn't really been properly addressed, yes, I think the arts deal with religion more appropriately than science does. But it's not clear at all to me what the relationship is between religion as it's practiced, religious symbolism, and art and it's lineage of being largely descended from religious symbolism. I think religious symbolism is rooted in something much more ancient that we aren't fully able to grasp. I'm reminded of Owen Barfield's "Saving the Appearances". I'm too tired at the moment to dive into it to give you a proper summary, but essentially the idea is that, in ancient times, the human experience of reality, sans technology as it we know it now, was a different experience, one of "direct participation" in the natural world. Imagine the best moments you've had of being out in nature and experiencing its beauty, experiencing a sense of transcendence (and not to mention being out in a thunderstorm or dangerous weather); and then imagine that as your day to day, minute to minute experience of life...paired with the constant struggle for survival. I think religious symbolism might have it's roots in an idea like this. We project our modern understanding of symbolism on the past, to our detriment. It was a different experience at the time. We shouldn't assume we understand what the experience of the ancients was, in relation to the things they expressed in a religious manner that have survived in modernity.

The covert point of the OP I suspect is to prove that the religious believe in a meaningless concept, striking a fatal blow against religion. My reply to that is it may be that religious beliefs are false, but that they might have no referent and that they may be defintionaly elusive doesn't make them meaningless. — Hanover

:clap:

Can you provide a link to a reliable resource? — Agent Smith

Of course not; The reliable source is you. If you want to inject mysticism, then start here.

Anyway, I didn't mean that as a joke or an affront. I just think we're talking past one another here.

It's not new, you just missed out on it.

To say "I understand" is to claim I can see how the propositions in question are logically connected. — Agent Smith

Not at all. What a sad education.

Let's make progress! — Agent Smith

Yes, let's...

Explain to me why logic is the nexus through which comprehension moves.

No.

I don't know what "the essence of comprehension" is, but it's not logic.

Logic is the essence of comprehension, oui? — Agent Smith

No.

No; I understand it but you don't. You think too logically, so you can't understand it.

It's so simple that you can't understand it. That's all I have, sorry.

Why is anything simple? "Define simple". :roll: Anyway, it's a simple description of concepts that people make ridiculously complicated, hair-brained arguments for. I don't particularily care about how simple or not simple it is.

I just did:

There is an intelligence ("god") that emanates the functions that we then observe and describe as science. We make art about it all. That's why art is the best. — Noble Dust

I never said that. — Agent Smith

I may have hastily projected that on you; sorry. But if I did, I only projected a view that I read on here a lot, even if not from you specifically.

What, in your view, is the nexus between science, art, and god? — Agent Smith

A big question that I don't have the answer to. Off the top of my head, it's way simpler than we think. There is an intelligence ("god") that emanates the functions that we then observe and describe as science. We make art about it all. That's why art is the best.

in which science was doing all the heavy lifting and art simply tagging along for the ride. — Agent Smith

Not true at all. The assumption here is that whatever it is that science is attempting to understand, art inherently doesn't understand and never will. So the statement is misguided by nature.

I think this is a great topic, especially in comparison to the hoards of boring Theism threads; In fact I really never engage in these discussions anymore, but here I go.

Part of my enthusiasm is because, while reading your OP, I came to a realization that I think is relevant to the topic. I was raised in a Christian environment, and no longer identify with that or any religion. But the typical anti-religious, anti-theistic rhetoric we see so much here still rubs me the wrong way, and I think I finally know why. Hopefully this could be useful to the discussion.

Very simply, the God that atheists criticize on a philosophy forum is not the God that the masses pray to in church. There's a complete lack of communication between the two camps. They talk past one another. Armchair TPF atheists generally don't know much about Sunday morning aunts, and Sunday morning aunts generally don't know much about armchair TPF atheists. And I think you brought up a few pertinent points as to why this is, i.e.

the philosophy of religion developed in a different era. Influential writers, like Augustine and Aquinas were writing with a different understanding of the universe, as were the Biblical writers. — Jack Cummins

people being encouraged to focus on happiness in an afterlife, has lead to many rejecting the idea of 'God'. — Jack Cummins

there are still questions about where life came from and why did consciousness evolve. — Jack Cummins

This is a complex milieu. There are no easy answers, no smart-ass one-sentence (or one emoticon) responses so common to some of the atheist regulars here.

To me, the question of whether God exists is not important. I don't care. But I'm not an atheist. What I do care about is the Sunday morning aunts, and the armchair TPF atheists. I worry about the lack of communication, the complete otherworldliness of their dispositions, despite the fact that they're all the same type of human being. There's a grave misunderstanding underlying this whole theism/atheism debate, and it's costly.

:up:

Imagine a world in which everyone is a moron according to someone else. :chin:

I like that they drop the last beat in the 4 bar phrase in the intro. Otherwise not my thing. Reminds me of Muse for some reason.

Nadja's not for everone.

Getting weird

So far, the god's appear to have said "no". You may be a changeling yourself; one who changes with the tide; and yet, you cannot change into a changeling, according to the obscure will of the gods. I'm reminded of C.S. Lewis's late masterpiece TIll We Have Faces. You rail and rail, and yet...you're faced with the blank will of a force you don't understand. You long to change, and yet, you're simply...The Opposite...

Always changing, you are. Agree?