Ha ha.

I can easily imagine myself being busy for all eternity planting plants and never getting bored or tired of it. Trees, bushes, grasses, flowers. But mostly trees. I'd love that.

Religions regularly provide strong opposition to progressive ideas — Tom Storm

Progressive toward what?
What are those ideas (that religions tend to oppose) progressing to, leading to?

An untreated disease can also be said to "progress", as in 'worsen the person's health status' but we don't view that "progress" positively.

I like it. But this is hard to put into practice. Particularly if the world largely rejects this. Speaking personally, I like to blame and judge (to some extent) and the way I make sense of the world has been shaped irrevocably by concepts I can't transcend. How could one escape? Because even in recognizing the accuracy of your account, the temptation to stick with familiar patterns is irresistible. I wonder how one can be a human being and not be bound by a bunch of contingent and culturally constructed bullshit? — Tom Storm

Why should it be otherwise?
What is the ideal you're trying to live up to?
And why?

Since then, we've learned that bacteria and viruses cause disease.
But the false teachings of Jesus are enshrined in scripture.
The result? Google “Christian parent deny medical treatment child dies" — Art48

This sounds like a rather modern phenomenon.

There are characteristic differences between Christians of the Old World and Christians of the New World.

Refusing medications, denial of evolution, and such on "religious grounds" are unheard of in Europe, until very recently.
It's in the Americas that Christians can be extremely strict in following religious rules.

In Europe, if a Catholic priest has a girlfriend and children (even though he is supposed to be celibate), nobody bats an eyelid; or at least until very recently it's been like that. If a Catholic woman uses contraceptives or has an abortion, nothing happens, even though those are grounds for excommunication. In the US, however, they seem to actually follow the rules, though, and they excommunicate people for such things.

Because of these differences, I wouldn't blame religion itself like the OP; something else is going on. I don't know what exactly that is, but something needs to account for the way religiosity is practiced "the old way" vs. "the new way".

A Christian "friend" once said to me, "A truth that doesn't condemn the one who speaks it is no truth at all."

I mean if you only accept what you like then damn man, that's some straight prejudice right there. And tells me you're pretty much only down to see the world through your own perspective, fuck everyone else, fuck the fundamental condition of all life. — Vaskane

Which is so ironic, coming from someone with a position like yours.

But here's a quick summary of Nietzsche's views on the Jews from The Antichrist. Which Highlights the value of resentment within Judaism -- to say Nay to every former valuation that represented an ascending evolution of life.

All this says something about Nietzsche, but not necessarily about anyone or anything else.

Where as your argument is "you're not accepting their God argument and that's not fair! Which makes me feel atheism is the cause of anti-semitism."

That's not my argument. You won't even correctly capture what I'm saying.

You, Nietzsche, and much of mankind are doing this same thing, acting by the formula:

"You are whatever I say that you are.
You think whatever I say that you think.
You feel whatever I say that you feel.
Your intentions are whatever I say that your intentions are.
You actions mean whatever I say that your actions mean.
You words mean whatever I say that your words mean.
I am the boss of you."

Pretty much every parent, kindergarden nurse, teacher, psychiatrist, social worker, boss, police officer, IRS agent, anyone with any bit of power over the other person does this.

I suppose that's "master morality": imposing one's own image of others upon those others, holding others responsible to this image, and punishing them if they don't.

I mean okay, then explain Christian anti-Semitism.

They are competing religions. Just like Christians are opposed to Islam, Hinduism, or Buddhism, or any other religion that isn't Christianity. Competing religions cannot peacefully coexist (other than in the sense of negative peace, where the parties involved simply don't have the material means for warfare). There is no profound reason for religions being intolerant of eachother. It simply comes from being different religions (regardless of what they actually propose to teach; for example, they can teach "non-violence" or "love thy enemy" but given the opportunity, they go on killing sprees just like everyone else, as long as material circumstances permit).

If you don't hear much about, say, Christian anti-islamism, anti-buddhism, or anti-hinduism, etc. that has to do with those not being in such close geographic proximity to Christianity as Judaism. On the other hand, go to Asia and look at the arguments Christian missionaries have against the native religions there, and there's full-blown Christian anti-islamism, anti-buddhism, or anti-hinduism, etc. We just don't hear much about that here in the West, ti doesn't exactly make it to the news.

For comparison, you could also try to look into various Asian supremacisms and the negative view they have of Christianity, European history, being white, being "Western" etc. It's tempting to ascribe that to the bad colonial history, of course. But Asian supremacisms are older than that, and go deeper.

If you look at the bigger picture, it offers a very different perspective on the matter.

Oh wait, it follows the same formula as Judaism ... Just like Anti-Semitism follows the same formula, which is highly Ironic that an anti-semite is what he hates.

So the Jews that favorably received Nietzschean theories about Judaism and anti-semitism were actually originally interested in finding ways to undermine anti-semites? As in, "Look at them, they hate us for nothing!" This actually makes sense.

There is a popular theory that people who hate others do so out of their own insecurity, weakness, because they feel threatened by them.

But, and this isn't mentioned very often, it's also possible that they hate (or more like, despise) others because they feel entitled to do so, because they feel entitled to what those others have.

Of course, it's more ego-friendly to think that those who hate one do so because of their own insecurity, weakness.
It's far less friendly to one's ego to think that one is being hated or despised because the haters feel entitled to do so.

fuck the fundamental condition of all life.

Given what Nietzsche seems to have meant by "affirmation of life", I simply think that he was wrong, operating out of some romantic ideal, failing to account for the existential boredom that results from hedonic pursuits.

So?

If the OT says the weak are uplifted and the mighty are humbled, that's slave morality. And yes, Jesus' message is definitely slave morality as well. — frank

But only if they are slaves to God. Not to just anyone. That's the point, and the difference between being slave to man and being slave to God.

Now go on and read mate — Vaskane

It's not about merely reading it, is it. It's about liking it, agreeing with it.

And if hate and resentment are important to them, then they can hold on to it and expect the same formula to be applied to them. — Vaskane

To what end?
Can you tell?

God said it was okay for me to ignore their revelations, see how that works? — Vaskane

This is disgracefully facile. It goes to show you have no respect for those you presume to analyze.

Basically any argument that asserts God gave me X is dumb af as it can't be proven.

Irrelevant. What Nietzsche is doing (and now you, along with him) is plain old authoritarianism, a kind of cultural imperialism.

You could read Theodor Lessings Der Jüdische Selbsthass, or Jacob Golomb's Nietzsche and Zion. You may actually come into a more informed opinion rather than just basing your opinion on emotional reactions.

It's not an "emotional reaction". It's about fairness.

I'm not a theist, nor do I particularly like theists in general. So I'm not defending them on this count. But to go so far as to presume to analyze someone, and yet dismiss as irrelevant that which they consider important to them?? I would not do that. Perhaps this disqualifies me from being an Übermensch such as yourself.


So here's an Übermensch for you:

It stems from a weird inverse of morals whereby if a group is perceived to be an underdog they must be morally the right side. As long as they are "fighting" a "hegemon" and who are "occupiers" they are then "justified" is somehow the thinking. — schopenhauer1

Where I live, this is exactly the strategy of right-wingers.

On a general note: I'm not American and like some others here, I don't quite recognize "leftists" in your descriptions.

If a religion teaches, for example, humility, does this have any other significance but to paint a particular self-image? It seems more like an act of mimicry, deliberately pretending to be harmless. Or, on the other hand, an attempt to control the other person by (in)directly instructing them to be humble ("_You_ should be humble and let me do whatever I want").
— baker

Indeed. Self-righteousness becomes its own smug example of non-humility. — schopenhauer1

No, that's not what I mean. I'm talking about the importance of _t_talking the _t_alk.

There are many things in life that one is supposed to understand on one's own, without anyone explaining them to one. There is a whole art to saying things for the sake of saying them, and all involved know one doesn't mean them and isn't even supposed to mean them. And it's taboo to point this out.

A common example is to always answer "Fine, thank you" when someone asks you "How are you?" Because that "How are you?" is not actually a question. It's a cue sentence, meant to show that the person saying it is playing by the rules, and testing the other person whether they do so too, a test they pass if they reply "Fine, thank you".

My contention is that this phenomenon goes far further than that, that it extends to many ideological claims.

Otherwise I suggest contemplating why you questioned me (not that it's not allowed, hell I encourage it to the fullest, because I always seek to affirm my own abilities by a good challenge) to say "no," to me, or to challenge yourself, or perhaps even both? — Vaskane

Here is a thread that has to do with Jewish people. As an analysis of them and some phenomena related to them, you have been offering the arguments of someone who flat-out denies or ignores what is central to Jewish people, namely, the existence of God and God's revelation to the Jewish people. And who instead, basically, implies that the Jews merely invented their morality and religious doctrine as a reaction to certain challenges.

Does this seem fair to you?

With his analysis of the Jews, Nietzsche is imposing his own atheism on them, taking for granted that atheism is the only correct way to see things.

If anything, this discussion leads me to conclude that the origin of antisemitism is atheism.

Rule number 1: if you want to understand a philosopher -- you need to remove your lens and put theirs on. Otherwise your preconceived notions leave no room for learning. — Vaskane

I don't seek to understand Nietzsche per se. I am skeptical about how relevant his input is to understanding the origin of antisemitism, given that as an atheist, he dismisses the possibility of divine revelation -- all the while proposing to analyze people who believe to have received divine revelation.

Does religion perpetuate and promote a regressive worldview? — Art48

Of course. But the greatest trick that religion ever pulled was making the non-religious believe that the religious actually believe all that they openly profess to believe.

In other words, it's quite naive and wrong to take religious claims at face value. By this it is not meant that they are to be taken "metaphorically". It's that one needs to rethink whether one correctly understood the purpose with with those religious claims were made to begin with.

Can you say some more on this and the role of emotion in reason? — Tom Storm

I think of it this way: emotions are the tl;dr of reason. Or, more nicely: an emotion is a summary of a thought-through stance.

When you think about or study through a topic, you then summarize it, and this summary is then captured in a particular emotion. Later on, you don't revisit your thoughts or your study notes on the topic, you just have an emotion about it.

metaphorically that mental aspect which protects you from living life to the fullest, from taking those risks, breaking out of our comfort zones — Vaskane

This sounds like something from a self-help book.
I have trouble believing that what you're saying is really what Nietzsche meant. It sounds just so plebeian. Do aristocrats really think of themselves in such terms? Do they think of themselves as "living life to the fullest" and "breaking out of one's comfort zone"?

for a responsible drinker being less pissed off and more jovial is not an "illusionary" state. — Outlander

If a person requires to consume particular substances to display or practice certain mental, emotional, and behavioral skills or traits, this means that they are unable to practice those skills or traits *deliberately*. This is a weakness, a disadvantage.

Who would you trust more to access the value of things, your sober self or your drunk self?
— Skalidris

This question reveals a big gap between yourself and the matter at hand. As if 'trust' or 'value' have anything to do with the use of alcohol. — Tom Storm

Of course they do. Although probably not to people who are more emotional than they are philosophical.

To illustrate this difference: I once had a brief exchange with a psychologist who wrote for Psychology Today about gratitude. I struggled to understand his points because he seemed to think that *feeling* grateful is all that matters, and that everything that has to do with *whom* one is grateful to and how one *expresses* one's gratitude are unimportant or tertiary at most. What is more, right away, he accused me of trolling and repeated this several times, in every reply to me.

I think it's absurd to talk about gratitude solely in the framework of how it makes one feel. But apparently for some people, this is entirely enough. How, is beyond me, other than to try to explain it with the difference between emotionalism and philosophy.


I, too, am one of those people who doesn't like alcohol. I don't like the way it goes into my head, I don't like the way it adversely affects my motor skills. It makes me drowsy, sleepy. I'm actually in awe of people who can drink and somehow feel better for doing so, who can "enjoy art" and such better when they are under the influence than sober. To me, alcohol just makes everything flat and makes me bored.

Christianity, became a philosophy of the "weak" because it emphasized humility, charity. It was a sort of philosophy of the slave, and not of the aristocrat which he championed. — schopenhauer1

But then this doesn't take into account, well, to put it in gross terms, the value of "keeping up appearances."

It seems to me that in many religions, there are 1. the things that you're supposed to say, 2. things that you're actually supposed to believe, 3. things you're actually supposed to do, and all three are different. There is an art to reading between the lines.

It's not clear that, for example, the Christian emphasis on humility is supposed to be taken beyond verbal affirmation. Yes, humility should be talked about, it should be preached, but not actually done.

It seems naive to take religious doctrines simply at face value. It often seems they are intended as sand thrown in the eyes of the enemy, or a means to cull the weak (who actually believe the doctrines and try to behave accordingly).

If a religion teaches, for example, humility, does this have any other significance but to paint a particular self-image? It seems more like an act of mimicry, deliberately pretending to be harmless. Or, on the other hand, an attempt to control the other person by (in)directly instructing them to be humble ("_You_ should be humble and let me do whatever I want").

Nietzsche is taking for granted that there actually is no God, right?
And that as such, no religion has ever received any "divine revelation", but instead made its own religous doctrine?

I would suggest, though, that there are other ways of understanding the emergence of the morality of Good and Evil besides that of a weakness or sickness. This implies some sort of pathology or regression occurred in human history with respect to a prior period of a healthy Will to Power. — Joshs

It also implies that a human can and should find ultimate satisfaction in an unending consumption and constant conflict and struggle. Eat, drink, make merry, fight, and never get bored with any of it.

Let me get this straight. You don’t want to single the jews out as the only recipients of discrimination. But you do want to single the jews out in the follow way:

“When one religion claims to have superior knowledge of "how things really are", this is an automatic declaration of war to all other religions.” — Joshs

I'm not even singling them out.
Every religion normally believes it is the superior one, this religious supremacism is not special.
What is rarer is the combination of religious supremacism and national/racist supremacism. Some examples of this are Judaism, some schools of Hinduism, and national Catholicism.


As for my comparison with poor people being discriminated against: How come so few people cry foul when it comes to discriminating against poor people?

Up until the mid 20th century, Jews in the U.S. refused to integrate into social institutions such as country clubs, summer camps and Ivy league schools, and instead founded their own clubs, camps and even schools (Brandeis). Oh wait, that was because they were barred entry into those places. — Joshs

How is that different from the situation for poor people who have been barred from even more places?

In other words, the Jews haven't been the only ones facing that kind of predicament. So it's misleading to single them out, as if everyone else was having a great time.

I'll just repeat: everyone engages in othering. — unenlightened

If only.

In other words, more blaming the victim. — 180 Proof

It would be strange if religions wouldn't fight.

When one religion claims to have superior knowledge of "how things really are", this is an automatic declaration of war to all other religions.

Religions are in constant competition with one another. They differ only in how they engage in that fight. Things just get more bloody the more guns one side has.

Just because the members of two religions aren't currently shooting at eachother doesn't mean they are not at war. What they have is "negative peace", a tense state without open armed combat, but with a war-like mentality of hatred and contempt for the other side.

@schopenhauer1

Washington asserted that every religious community in the United States would enjoy freedom of worship without fear of interference by the government. /.../ — Mount Vernon

But what was the purpose for this state-issued and state-protected religious freedom?

Did Washington believe that all religions are equal, equally true, equally valuable in some profound spiritual way?

Or was the reason for this state-issued and state-protected religious freedom more prosaic, namely, to get the various religions and factions to stop fighting with eachother for supremacy? Given that in those fights, there can be a lot of collateral damage, general civic unrest, etc..

I think it is potentially useful to recognise what oneself and everyone else is doing with our lives and our deaths. — unenlightened

Not everyone engages in othering, though, it doesn't come naturally to all people. This is a problem, for them at least.

It might be possible to do it less vehemently at least, and it might be possible to modify societies so that the fault lines of identity become more blurred.

But to what end?

War and strife are massive mid-term incentives for economic growth, as crude as this sounds.

What point is it to save the body at the cost of destroying the spirit?

People are responsible for their actions — Tzeentch

Responsible to whom?

What is that higher standard? — Paine

Granted, perhaps that higher standard seems to be justified because of the centuries of persecution. Victims tend to be assumed innocent and morally superior.

As I previously observed, your view of history, in this regard, is very selective.

What other religio-ethnic group has been targeted worldwide and for so long as the Jews? They are unique in this regard.

Oh. I have the book in translation in my native language, so that's awkward to backtranslate the terminology. So I looked up some reviews in English that I think are fitting.
Besides, I seem to be the only one here in this thread following this theme. You did say any thoughts on the state of web applications and websites are welcome. Perhaps a separate thread is in order.

People have been killing eachother over religious supremacy for a long time.
The history of antisemitism makes the Jews liable to a higher standard, though.

I am Jewish btw. I have never heard this idea -- that Jews are superior to gentiles -- uttered by anyone. — BitconnectCarlos

I've heard it many times. It's not polite to say it, though.

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

If Jews are so superior why are they constantly getting humbled by other nations in the bible?

Presumably other nations are testing them, testing their claim.

Just read it.

Or else, I selected three reviews/summaries:

https://blog.rescuetime.com/digital-minimalism/
https://www.techtarget.com/whatis/feature/Digital-minimalism-explained-Everything-you-need-to-know
https://www.samuelthomasdavies.com/book-summaries/business/digital-minimalism/

Is it so hard to understand the visceral reaction that many people have when somebody claims to be superior to them?

But what is your point? — unenlightened

That it is pointless to criticize othering as long as one engages in it oneself, and even profits from it.

Is it? Or is that an act of faith on your part? You put your trust in it being possible without the case being demonstrated. — Banno

When a scientist tells me that "it's all just chemicals/atoms" and apparently expects me to believe it, what are my options?

Elsewhere, I just wrote this:
Odd, isn't it, that when some folk discover that the chair they are sitting on is composed of atoms, and is overwhelmingly space, they sometimes decide that therefore it's no longer really a chair.
— Banno
The same happens when a Chemist claims that
"there is no love, there are only chemicals in the brain"
— baker
As if love vanished after such explanations.

I dare you to tell that to a scientist! I double dare you!

What does Cal say, and why do you think it's important? Is it something like, stop scrolling through Instagram and go for a walk instead? — Jamal

Cal Newport is Professor of Computer Science at Georgetown University.

Digital minimalism is a philosophy that helps you question what digital communication tools (and behaviors surrounding these tools) add the most value to your life. It is motivated by the belief that intentionally and aggressively clearing away low-value digital noise, and optimizing your use of the tools that really matter, can significantly improve your life.
/.../
The bottom line of this general thinking is that a simple, carefully curated, minimalist digital life is not a rejection of technology or a reactionary act of skepticism; it is, by contrast, an embrace of the immense value these new tools can offer…if we’re willing to do the hard work of figuring out how to best leverage them on behalf of the things we truly care about.

https://calnewport.com/on-digital-minimalism/

And he wrote a book about it. (Which I actually bought last week, and I rarely buy books. This one's a keeper.)

Notice how I talk about not taking concepts out of their native contexts?
— baker
Oh, yes. How you square this with semantic holism remains unexplained. — Banno

By ignoring your commitment to semantic atomism (or at best, semantic molecularism) ...

Mental (or semantic) holism is the doctrine that the identity of a belief content (or the meaning of a sentence that expresses it) is determined by its place in the web of beliefs or sentences comprising a whole theory or group of theories. It can be contrasted with two other views: atomism and molecularism. Molecularism characterizes meaning and content in terms of relatively small parts of the web in a way that allows many different theories to share those parts. For example, the meaning of ‘chase’ might be said by a molecularist to be ‘try to catch’. Atomism characterizes meaning and content in terms of none of the web; it says that sentences and beliefs have meaning or content independently of their relations to other sentences or beliefs.

One major motivation for holism has come from reflections on the natures of confirmation and learning. As Quine observed, claims about the world are confirmed not individually but only in conjunction with theories of which they are a part. And, typically, one cannot come to understand scientific claims without understanding a significant chunk of the theory of which they are a part. For example, in learning the Newtonian concepts of ‘force’, ‘mass’, ‘kinetic energy’ and ‘momentum’, one does not learn any definitions of these terms in terms that are understood beforehand, for there are no such definitions. Rather, these theoretical terms are all learned together in conjunction with procedures for solving problems.

/.../

https://www.rep.routledge.com/articles/thematic/holism-mental-and-semantic/v-1

The other is at least our moral inferior, but at the same time an existential threat. Both aspects are essential for our unity; without the other we fragment into internal conflict. The other necessitates, justifies and takes the blame for the burden of suffering entailed by the individual's subjugation to the group, and there can be no group that is not defined in terms of its other. 'Othering' thus becomes a process, the threat of which controls us. If you demonstrate insufficient revulsion and hatred for the other, you may be seen as, and so become, other yourself. This loss of identity is a fate worse than death. Such a fate worse than death gives rise to the martyr - one who dies to maintain their identity. — unenlightened

Thing is, this othering can go both ways.

Others expect me to stop othering them, but they refuse to stop othering me. What does it matter if I stop othering others if they still other me?