Now is a time when things are shifting. We're going to — there's going to be a New World Order out there, and we've got to lead it

Joe Biden talks about 'new world order' in Business Roundtable address - YouTube — Apollodorus

History is repeating itself. People watched on as Nazism grew, and did nothing.

I'm open to improvement. What do you suggest? Russian-Chinese hegemony, or perhaps free-for-all regional conflicts throughout the planet, either of which destroying and subjugating all weaker nations including yours? — magritte

People need to learn the worth of life and property, because they have clearly either forgotten that, or never learned it to begin with.

But, of course, this isn't likely going to happen, at least not anytime soon.

As things stand, people generally defend their egos, and they do so with their lives and property, and the lives and property of others.

Yay, better to die proud, than do something that would actually protect one's life and property!!

What are we discussing really?
— Tzeentch

Basic principles of morality.
— baker

Are we, though?

Then what moral actors' actions are we discussing here? Putin's? Biden's? Those of every individual engaged in the war?

That either sounds like it would be overly simplistic or unimaginably complicated. — Tzeentch

The basic principles of morality are what is at stake here. They are what underlies every individual assessment, every individual response, every post.

Discussed directly instead through particular examples, what some people have as their first principles of morality would be too egregious to state.

The pull of political discussion is that it allows people to express their first principles of morality indirectly, and thus still feel the pleasure of doing something that would sometimes be unacceptable in polite society.

Freddy — 180 Proof

Freddy, Freddy, Freddy, like the two of you have a bromance.
You think he'd approve of your intimate advances?

Sorry, but your "solutions" sound like pipe dreams.
What you're suggesting would all need to happen from the top down. It's clear that those at the top are not going to do anything that would in any way endanger their position of power.

What part of the following quote are you too trifling to understand or dispute?
Those who can make you believe absurdities, can make you commit atrocities.
— Voltaire — 180 Proof

You make for one shitty übermensch.

Come on, answer my question.

So what? What is it to you if other people believe falsehoods?
— baker

I'd prefer my bridges be supported by sound engineering principles as opposed to devout prayer. — Hanover

Construction engineers who also happen to be religiously affiliated generally aren't known to forego the principles of sound engineering in favor of prayer. In contrast, you have more to worry about from an atheist capitalist engineer who tries to cut corners everywhere.

In fact it seems that all virtues can be turned to evil — Gregory

How?

Why do people come to a philosophy forum to talk about religion? — Jackson

Because that's what philosophy is for.

Well, a religion which one can profess and yet disregard so blithely, as most Christians do, is bound to be popular. — Ciceronianus

Awww.

Gratitude, it seems, is an attitude from/of fulfillment, of abundance, of surplus. — skyblack

Actually, it should come from a sense of lack, from a recognition of one's insufficiency and indebtedness.

Like anger (à la Buddha), ingratitude is a double-edged sword. — 180 Proof

Not for the self-confident, self-assured.

I once had a brief and unsettling exchange with a psychologist who researches gratitude. On his blog, I asked how to express gratitude when I feel thankful for things where I can't direct the thanks to any specific person, such as being grateful for good weather, that we didn't have a hailstorm, that plants grow at the expected rate, that a strange spot on my skin disappeared.

He replied per email, and expressed his suspicion that I was merely trolling him. I tried to explain myself, to no avail. Apparently, scientifically, the only thing that matters about gratitude (and gratitude is a posh research field recently) is that it makes one feel good, and to hell with whoever provided the good stuff that one is grateful for.

My solution: abolish or minimize plutocracy. Keep and strengthen democracy. — Xtrix

How, and how?

Si vis pacem, para bellum. — ssu

Then stop complaining about Russia.

Bossiness. The craving to get the upper hand.

What are we discussing really? — Tzeentch

Basic principles of morality.

And those seeking justifications for starting wars or defending them can go to hell. — ssu

How ironic, coming from someone who wishes his country would join an organization that exists for one purpose only: war.

Not everyone living in the "west" fits into your preconceived notion of "Westerners". — creativesoul

*sigh*

Talk about bad faith. You look to interpret my words in such a way as to make them easily dismissable.

I use the term "Westerner" in a cultural sense, not a geographical one. I've explained that more than once.

We're no longer living in those archaic times. We are interdependent social creatures, and we've no choice in the matter. We know this.

Except the Ukrainians and those who support them.

What I meant is nothing like what those self-proclaimed "Christians" meant. — creativesoul

But you do. It's exactly what you do, what the whole anti-Russian propaganda is doing. Long, long ago, they unilaterally declared the Russians to be the enemy.

From what I see, your tendency seems to be to "forget" historical events that undermine your argument, but selectively remember events you think support it. — Apollodorus

Heh. This year, June 6 went by, no mention of the Invasion of Normandy. Normally in the time around June 6, national televisions show documentaries about D-Day, the daily film is "Saving Private Ryan", and such. But not this year.

These are reasons why it's not absurd to hold ALL humans to highest standards of individuality, seeing that's what they are. — ucarr

It's still not clear what those standards are.

It's delusional to believe that patent falsehoods are true or factual. — 180 Proof

So what? What is it to you if other people believe falsehoods?

I've had this experience, and it left me disheartened. My trust in finding support through stories has been eroded.
— baker

My question was about how you'd know. I mean, it's not as if Frodo had a party throughout the book. His journey was, if I recall correctly, pretty much one trial after another without let up even up to the last chapter and then he had to leave anyway. I don't see how someone in mid-life could possibly say "well, I tried it and it hasn't worked". — Isaac

True. But I'm talking about the belief, or faith, that acting in a particular way is worth the effort.
It's this belief or faith that can be eroded.

After that, only a deliberate taking up of this approach remains. Like with so many things, when doing something deliberately, it loses its power somehow. Like if you deliberately try to fall asleep, you can't; if you deliberately try to be "more spontaneous", you're even more uptight.

I think that the trust in stories that you're talking about is what is sometimes termed "states that are essentially by-products". Ie. they cannot be achieved deliberately.
— baker

Yes, I sympathise with that, it is difficult to get out of the idea that one's first thoughts are somehow more authentic. But there really is no reason to think they are. They just happened to have arrived first. There's nothing special about them.

No, I'm not talking about one's first thoughts, I'm talking about mental states that cannot be brought about deliberately.

What are you babbling about, baker? — 180 Proof

*sigh*

I'm not babbling. Don't be so superficial.

I'm asking you to explicate why you think there's something wrong with some people believing that "snakes talk and the young flat earth is the center of "creation" and statues bleed".

That would be practical if it had a name, given the number of times I want to point it out in people I talk to… — Skalidris

That's bosiness.

Certainly, the clergy think highly of themselves. — Art48

The clergy think highly of themselves.

Lol!

But you seem to be confirming the OP's view about "folk" versus theological views.

Yes.

So, what is your point?

You said

I lack a theologian’s understanding of heaven and hell. — Art48

and I began to address that.

Good people living forever in heaven and evil people living forever in hell is a common, widely held belief in Christianity. It’s fair, I think, to judge Christianity on its common beliefs, not the beliefs of a relatively small group of scholars. (Two billion Christians versus how many Christian theologians?)
It would be unfair to do otherwise.

What about that, if anything, do you disagree with?

For one, there is no unified Christianity. Different Christian sects espouse different things.

For two, if we're supposed to ignore the actual religious doctrine, and just focus on what "the majority" of members of some religion espouse, then we're potentially committing the fallacy of appealing to the majority, whereby it's not even clear what this supposed majority actually believes (we'd need to find out empirically).

I lack a theologian’s understanding of heaven and hell.

So what?

I was describing the view of the great majority of Christians. Why should the “subtly nuanced” understanding of the theologians matter?

The view of the theologians represents the official doctrine of a religion. (Which also happens to be the one that the common members at least nominally assent to.)
If you think that the official doctrine of a religion is something that can be done away with, or that it's something that yet needs to be established, in every time and place, empirically, by polling those who profess to be members, then this makes religion an unintelligible concept.

Uh huh. And "for a religous person" as you say, snakes talk and the young flat earth is the center of "creation" and statues bleed and ... :pray: :roll: — 180 Proof

Yes. So?

Who or what is really offended here?
What is really at stake here?

Can you explicate?

What counts as insufficient evidence? By virtue of calling something insufficient you're already saying belief isn't justified. Who determines that. Who determines justified belief. — Moses

Poor William Clifford, the author of that pithy saying, worked himself to death, at the prophetic age of 33.

As for your questions, I'm with William James on this matter.

Just because acting in a particular way worked out fine in the end for Frodo, doesn't mean doing something similar will work out fine for me as well.
— baker

How would you know? — Isaac

I'm not a hobbit. Nor an elf. Or even a man, for that matter (notice how there are very few strong female characters in much fiction).

In other words, the ideology put forward in a text of fiction may come with some assumptions about requirements that need to be met in order for acting in line with said ideology to be morally satisfying. Whereby these requirements might never be explicitly stated in the text itself.

Imagine reading a work of fiction, agreeing with the ideology in it, feeling inspired, confident about life because of it, only to some time later discover that it was meant to apply only to a particular category of people (or not even to people at all).

One can read through a book of philosophy or religion, find it appealing, and only later discover that the author intended it only for men. Even though he might never say a bad word about women in the text; but one might later discover that when he speaks of men, he doesn't actually mean humans, but specifically men, males. Or that it's intended only for white people, or only for Indians, or only the upper class, etc.

I've had this experience, and it left me disheartened. My trust in finding support through stories has been eroded.

we need the support of others believing what we do. The solution to that is that those others do not have to be real for this effect to work. Stories.
— Isaac

As long as this is merely a description of what works for people, that's one thing. But to take it as a prescription?? To _deliberately_ pick a work of fiction and use some of the characters in it as one's "support group"? In my experience, this doesn't work.
— baker

What has failed about it?

Like I said above, the intuitive trust in stories is gone, for me.

After that, only a deliberate taking up of this approach remains. Like with so many things, when doing something deliberately, it loses its power somehow. Like if you deliberately try to fall asleep, you can't; if you deliberately try to be "more spontaneous", you're even more uptight.

I think that the trust in stories that you're talking about is what is sometimes termed "states that are essentially by-products". Ie. they cannot be achieved deliberately.

Here from Jon Elster:
States that are essentially by-products

Faith : superstition :: imaginary hope : imaginary fear.
Let's not to conflate – confuse – "faith" (or "superstition") with pragmatic trust-ing (or pragmatic distrust-ing). — 180 Proof

The concept of such conflation can only exist for a non-religious person.

For a religious person, believing in God/having faith in God/trusting God is epistemically the same as believing/having faith/trusting that the ariplane one is about to board isn't going to crash.

The point is that worldviews which seek to completely discount the role of faith and instead advocate for a dogmatic narrow-minded commitment to "evidence" or using one's own reason to follow up on everything are bullshit.
— Moses

Can you give an example? — Jackson

William Clifford is one of the leading examples.

"It is wrong always, everywhere, and for anyone, to believe anything upon insufficient evidence."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Kingdon_Clifford#Ethics

Were you graded on a bell curve?

But prosperity is all about absolute terms. Do you have enough and good food? Good service and medical treatment. All those machines and opportunities to make things easy. That is the start point.

You are looking at a different problem, income and wealth inequality, not prosperity itself. — ssu

Even two thousand years ago, and before that, they had the notion of "prosperity". They just didn't define it in terms of indoor plumbing, fancy kitchen appliances, or availability of top trauma surgeons who could sew back a detached limb.

Then look at the poor people. And you can see that they are better in every country in the World than they were two or three hundred years ago. You simply cannot deny that.

Irrelevant. Is the relative difference between the rich and the poor that makes the relevant difference.

In my native language, the offical, politically correct word for "being poor" literally means 'socially weak'.
What matters is that Tom has less than Harry. It doesn't matter how much each of them have per se, as long as the difference between them is big enough. Middleclass people are to the elite what beggars are to middleclass people.

And that has been always the problem since the birth of our species. There hasn't been any time in history when natural resources were bountiful. They look only "untapped" for us as the technology wasn't there to for us to use them. Our technology that we have had made the limits of what are obtainable resources.

Maybe some time (soon!) we can learn to eat plastic. Yay!

Well, people who genuinely say that they are disgusted by living solely for the sake of living may have other problems. Just ask yourself, what do other animals do?

For all our supposed superiority, we should do better than worms.

For a strong example of individuality (& its gnarly complications), please click the link below. It connects to a short story on this website by 180 Proof. — ucarr

It's not clear what in this story sets a "strong example of individuality". Could you sketch it out?

That catechism view is the minority view. — Art48

You do realize that if an adult person wants to convert to Roman Catholicism, they have to pass a program called https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rite_of_Christian_Initiation_of_Adults, and that this program is based in the Catechism?

They are simply two different views. — Art48

The RCC doesn't share your opinion. Neither does the pope, not even Pope Francis.

merely a narcotic (Marx) to balm their despair. — 180 Proof

A "narcotic to balm their despair" that resulted in world domination.

An existential coping strategy (e.g. Pauline Christianity) for those who already had been vanquished by perennial "class warfare" (e.g. Roman Slavery-Imperialism) was not itself "class war" (e.g. revolts by Spartacus et al) — 180 Proof

In terms of motivations, it was class war. At first, they just didn't have the sticks and stones for it, so it might at first not look like much of a war at all, but they more than made up for it later on.

Baker: Ordinary Roman Catholics are usually not fluent in the Catechism of the RCC; they have their own folk beliefs.

You ignore the beginning of my post.
IN CATHOLIC SCHOOL, I was taught 1) if you died with an unforgiven mortal sin, you went to hell forever, 2) a child over the age of reason (i.e., 7 years old) could commit a mortal sin, 3) intentionally missing Mass on Sunday was a mortal sin. — Art48

Which means that you were taught in accordance with RCC doctrine as codified in the Catechism of the RCC.

I didn’t learn the above from kids on the street. I learned it from nuns and priests. If fact, most Catholics do not believe intentionally missing mass, using contraception, etc. are mortal sins that could send them to hell.

Baker: I asked you which Roman Catholicism you think is the right one. I think this is the question you need to answer in order to address the OP.

They are simply two different views. That catechism view is the minority view.

You don't seem to understand how Roman Catholicism works. In RC, the institution of the Church comes first, it's above the individual person. The individual person is expendable. The individual person cannot unilaterally decide to be a member of the RCC; it's up to the RCC to either grant such membership to a particular person or to refuse it. The RCC can excommunicate a person.

The fact that many people who consider themselves Roman Catholics believe all kinds of things that are not in the Catechism of the RCC doesn't change RC doctrine or the supremacy of the RC institution.

Christianity isn't really codified in the new testament is it? It's hardly an unambiguous watertight legal document. — bert1

The subtopic here is specifically Roman Catholicism, whose doctrine is codified in the Catechism of the RCC.

but I wanted to know the subtle reasons why people chose Christianity over other religions in the first place. — guanyun

By now, we can only speculate. The craving to feel special, to view oneself as morally superior to others (_eternally_ morally superior to others at that), the craving to see oneself as victorious over life likely played a part.

All I can add is that "the subtle reason" is also (primarily?) historical: in the early centuries of the Common Era, Pauline Christianity had offered a more optimistic "by faith, not deeds" alternative to the non-Christian cults of "fate" which provided very little "hope" to the vast majority of people who were poor, sick, homeless, orphaned, women, prisoners and/or enslaved that they could be "saved" from their "fate". — 180 Proof

IOW, yet another instance of the class war.
It's the one theme that persists throughout Christian history: Christians as the innocent victims, Christians as the martyrs, Christians as the righteous. The prospect of being in the gutter, and yet superior to others has got to be one of the strongest ego boosts there is.

yes, our textbook is explained by Marxism, but I don't want to read only one interpretation, because then I can't reach a full understanding. — guanyun

How many different sources do you think you need to consult before you will reach full understanding?

instead of just believing in the one answer that was put in front of me. — guanyun

If your aim is to pass exams and complete your degree, then you should probably stick to "the one answer that was put in front of you" or at least show that you prefer it.

This principle for academic success is the same everywhere.