At each point the proper remonstrance from his colleagues could have been, “Richard, stop stooping down to their level! Your zeal for science is only harming it.” — Leontiskos

But nomen est omen!

And clearly, people apparently want and need this type of discourse, otherwise there wouldn't be such things as scientism.
— baker

Want certainly. Need? I find that questionable.

In what sense do you mean "need"? — wonderer1

People have the uncanny ability to make a religion out of pretty much anything. Some people go about it systematically and explicitly, so there are the traditional religionists, and those who "created their own religion". Fans of celebrities, fashionistas, scientism, foodism, etc. etc. All these have in common a characteristic dogmatism that is of existential importance to the members, a community of devotees, a place of worship, the lives of those devotees revolving around certain persons, characters, objects, or ideas, and the willingness to defend them even by endangering their own existence.

Many people are not that systematic and explicit, but they still have that need for prevailing, for being right in what is of existential importance to a them and also having at least some other people on one's side, which is characteristic for religiosity.

IOW, what I mean here by "religious discourse" is a type of discourse that is characteristically dogmatic, of existential importance, and bound to a particular community. People generally do seem to exhibit this as a matter of a need (which, when unmet, manifests as narcissism/egotism).

I'm saying how do you justify social entities like community outside of individual perceptions of what the community is, means, etc. — schopenhauer1

You don't justify them, you take them for granted, axiomatically.

Everyone puts down their flag somewhere I guess. — schopenhauer1

And it helps to acknowledge that, otherwise we're stuck on a wild goose chase.

If there is such a thing as "moral facts", then there is nothing to discuss, no room for philosophy, only for pedagogy, dogma, and proselytizing.

Further, moral realism in its crudest form is the principle "might makes right". This means that what is right depends on whoever happens to have the upper hand, at any given time. This is a type of situational morality, transient and unpredictable. Philosophy is useless for such things.

You, too operate with axioms just not necessarily the same ones as other people's.

Hinge propositions can’t just stop theorizing as that hinge needs to be grounded further. — schopenhauer1

No. Hinge propositions are axioms, that's the point.

Of course. We need to navigate between the extremes of solipsism and non-individualism.

Other people is a reification of an idea. — schopenhauer1

That's solipsistic.

It’s just a jab at McCain which you construed as a jab at those who were captured. Why should anyone care? — NOS4A2

There is no society, right, there are only individuals doing their jobs, trying to survive.

"I like people who weren’t captured."

That's not a statement about only John McCain. It's not a leap. It's his words. — flannel jesus

Textbook example of doublethink on part of the Trumpistas.
But doublethink isn't hypocrisy, though.

A community is not made up of individual perceptions but of shared beliefs, practices, and language. A common form of life. — Fooloso4

But what exactly does this "shared" mean?

Is it an active and deliberate sharing, like when you offer someone an apple if you have two?

Or is it a kind of sharing we're simply born into, which is imposed on us, without having any say in it?

Why does the limit have to be how we use language and not how it is grounded in the world or our minds? — schopenhauer1

What else do we have to express ourselves but language? And who else can we communicate with if not other people?

Just as religions must conflict if each claims to be the only correct ideology, science and religion must conflict when their domains overlap if either wants to be seen as legitimate. — finarfin

It seems that in the minds of most people, religion and science are not equals to begin with, by default, one is given more legitimacy than the other.

On the other hand, many old-world religions constantly encroach on science's legitimate territory, promoting preposterous and destructive claims.

For one, religion was there before science, so it can claim primacy.

When this occurs, science has a responsibility to disprove religion and put it in its place. That is the only way for the two to coexist.

Such disproving would be possible only if science and religion were equals. But they're not.

And if they cannot, science will inevitably win, because it is adaptive and produces tangible results that benefit all of society.

There is more to "tangible results that benefit all of society" than just technological advancement through science. Offering answers to the meaning of life question is one such other tangible result.

That's why I think religious liberalism is weak compared to religious fundamentalism. — praxis

The way I understand the qualifier "weakness" here is that it refers to what can also be called "minimal or minimalist theism". Such minimal/ist theism requires only "a belief in God or gods". This, however, is so minimal that no actual theistic religion veritably fits it, because it is such a gross oversimplification.

Holding "a belief in God or gods" doesn't make one an actual theist, such as a Catholic or a Muslim or a Vaishnavite or a Mahayani.

The god that many vocal atheists deny or are skeptical about is believed in in none of the major theistic religions. As such, the arguments of those atheists don't address the God that believers in the major theistic religions actually believe in. Those atheists aren't arguing against a strawman, they are arguing against what is a non-typical representative.

Do you think that the degree to which religion stunts people's ability to engage in critical thinking is not something to be concerned with? — wonderer1

Religious discourse is a special type of discourse. It's meant to instruct the people in religious themes, praise the religious doctrine and the religious figures, proselytize to outsiders. It's not meant to encourage critical thinking as critical thinking is understood in secular academia.

And clearly, people apparently want and need this type of discourse, otherwise there wouldn't be such things as scientism.

I think Wayfarer's idea of extended naturalism does offer potential insights into how we co-create the reality we experience and how it might benefit us to realise the tentative nature of many of our positions. — Tom Storm

Can you list 3 ways in which it might benefit us, in real, daily-job terms?

For many people, "realizing the tentative nature of many of one's positions" amounts to plain old self-doubt and lack of confidence. Which are, of course, generally, bad and undesirable.

Look, I'm not disagreeing, I'm the first to point out the complex nature of what is called "experience." It's just that in day-to-day terms, such insights appear to be more burdensome than they are useful.

In Theravada Buddhism, they even say that the existence of an enlightened being (that is, one who, among other things, "sees how things really are") is too weak to support itself (ie. too weak to earn a living etc.), and that if a lay person attains enlightenment, they have to ordain as a monastic or die within days.

But the problem is, how do you distinguish the model from the world?
How can you, on the one hand, look at 'the model', and, on the other 'the real world'?
That already assumes a perspective outside the model - that you're able to compare one with the other.
But if your experience-of-the-world IS the model, and you're inside it, then how do you step outside it to compare it with the world itself? — Wayfarer

You don't, you follow your guru.

And I don't mean to be uselessly confrontational. It's that you're introducing conceptualizations from a philosophical-spiritual tradition in which formally joining a lineage of teachers and submitting to one in particular is essential. You're trying to do on your own, individualistically what was never intended to be done that way (even as it is often advertised as such). The condition for the "Eastern" way of "knowing things for yourself" is to submit to a lineage.

How does one perceive without logic? — L'éléphant

With the proverbial "heart". It seems to be perfectly possible to live a good life without any self-reflection or philosophical contemplation. You just "follow your heart".

What I’m calling attention to is the tendency to take for granted the reality of the world as it appears to us, without taking into account the role the mind plays in its constitution. — Wayfarer

Of course. And where would we be without such taking for granted?
Can you imagine yourself functioning as a human without such taking for granted?

Thank you, but I'll do what I think appropriate, regardless. Why, indeed, shouldn't I? De gustibus non est disputandum. — Ciceronianus

The question is, how well does this outlook hold under the pressure of life's difficulties.

If you were put in a concentration camp, or even just the daily grind taking a toll on you, would you still be confident in yourself, still sure that you know what is appropriate and what isn't?

However, I have begun to be suspicious of the benefits of moral realism—to the point of outright claiming it is useless to the normative discussion even if it is true. — Bob Ross

From the perspective of moral realism, the very discussion of morality (and philosophy in its entirety) is useless. By its nature, moral realism is opposed to a reflexive, meta-view of morality.

Too much sugar coating and the fact you needed medicine is too easily forgotten. — DingoJones

All those self-appointed doctors!

The pressure of debate brings out the weasel in people, and civility is often the means by which they avoid accountability. — DingoJones

There can be no accountability among equals to begin with.

Note here how it’s commonalities of discourses that defined the orientation under which the theory was interpreted and integrated into personal contructs. The directionality of travel had already been established by the prevailing (sub)cultural context in a way the various groups of intellectuals were clearly not aware of;

otherwise, they would have had the means to challenge their assumptions! — Baden

Or else: It's unthinkable to them that what they make could be mere assumptions (and as such subject to revision); but rather, they believe that what they claim about another person is the ultimate truth about that person.
It's not about having the means to challenge one's assumptions; it's about allowing for the possibility that what one has might in fact be merely assumptions.

Yes. I very much prefer polite, abuse free discourse. I have rarely seen disrespect serve the interests of an argument. Sound reasoning is unaided by calling someone a moron or grotesquely impugning motivations. That said, people come from different worldviews, cultures and sensitivities, what may be intended as a conversation in good faith may be perceived as unreasonable. Sometimes people become enraged by phrases or approaches which for them hold special resonance (in a bad way). And sometimes we are rude without intending to be. This can then provoke reactions and you know the rest... — Tom Storm

It all goes back to what one hopes to accomplish through talking.
I think talking is mostly overrated anyway.

But if one can operate under the pretense of civility then it must be possible to operate based upon genuine civility. — Pantagruel

But some people defend stances which are criminal, and as such if one remained talking to those people in a civil manner, one would in fact be supporting those criminal stances or displaying immorality.
This is not to suggest that one should be uncivil sometimes; it's that some conversations should be terminated.

I'm a bit younger than you, but I've been outdated for a long time already. I grew up in the country, and there we're about 20 years behind the mainstream to begin with.

I think you highlight here how the process of commodification neutralises the effectiveness of self-development by appropriating it under its rubric, fostering an instrumental attitude towards it that tends to undermine its proper logic, almost as if partaking in the commercial aspect of the process (buying a book, paying for a course) is the solution and partaking in whatever therapy offered just more work to get through to get our money's worth. — Baden

That would be the case if the goal would be individuality as it was conceived in let's call that "old-fashioned" culture. It now seems that consuming self-help/self-improvement materials is itself the goal, is what individuality is now all about. It's not anymore about "building character" the way early self-help of the Benjamin Franklin type would have us do (where they had definitive ideas about what "having character" means and there was wide agreement what "being a person of character" means). Per modern self-help, "building character" is still important, it's just that "being a person of character" can mean all kinds of things. It seems to me that modern self-help is, essentially, meta. And yet the people who do it that way seem to be happy, satisfied, productive, self-confident.

Since several posters said they don't watch television or follow social media (or only minimally), I'm not sure how much reference material or examples from the self-help movement are needed for illustration. For those who are not familiar with the phenomenon, it would probably take quite a bit.

No, explain: Why should happiness and truth be mutually exclusive?

In sum, hostility on the part of someone I’m engaged in debate with get me motivated not because I want to ratchet up the ill feelings , but on the contrary, because it tells me there’s a large gap between their thinking and mine , and it’s a valuable challenge to me figure out how I might close this gap by building a bridge between their perspective and mine. Usually when we focus on the other’s ‘incivility’ we have already decided that such a task is impossible , that our opponent is irrational, uninterested in learning from us , closed-minded. And we’re usually wrong. — Joshs

Then why do you consistently ignore my replies to you?

do you feel an obligation to treat someone respectfully in a philosophical discussion? — Pantagruel

Yes, but I also think this is a thing of the past, a mark of the social dinosaur. People outrude me all the time, so I always lose and they win.

To me this is a binary concept - someone has trans identity or they don't. People are cis or trans. — fdrake

I think people want to be special in whatever way is available to them, or they don't.
Some people primarily want to avoid trouble, and some don't.
I think this whole gender/sex issue is just one of the expressions of this.

Life is hard enough as it is, why make it more difficult for oneself?

The antithesis of psychosis is the prevalent mentality, the prime driver of inequality: People are tranquil of unjust societies and at peace with being controlled by severely corrupt, if not absolutely evil, governance. Most "sane" people blindly comply or consent to the mistreatment of themselves and others. Most people deemed "insane" placed faith in friends, family, and authorities undeserving of trust and were devastated by betrayal. — Bug Biro

I think sane people are more cunning than you give them credit for. It seems they only pretend to "blindly comply or consent to the mistreatment of themselves and others"; they only pretend to be "tranquil of unjust societies and at peace with being controlled by severely corrupt, if not absolutely evil, governance". They have a vibrant inner life and they choose their battles wisely. They know how to "hide in plain sight".

At that point, we arrive at a fork in the road: atheism lies on one side, a personal search for genuine knowledge and experience of God lies on the other. — Art48

There are more roads at that intersection than just those two. There's also "I'm tired of all this, let's do something else". Possibly others as well.

Do you think people are becoming deeper, more thoughtful and more in touch with themselves? Do you think modern societies are progressing away from frivolousness, stupidity, and superficiality towards character, intelligence and creativity? Do you think there is less and less evidence of mental conflict evidenced through reduced levels of mental illness, unhappiness, anxiety and drug use? — Baden

I think there are now new standards for what it means to be "deep, thoughtful, in touch with oneself". It's not that old-fashioned European ideal anymore.

Let's not forget that the self-help movement has made self-improvement into another commodity, yet another thing to consume. And the ease and flexibility with which matters of self and identity are approached in the self-help movement suggest that old ways of thinking about them just don't apply anymore. At least not in discourse with the proponents of self-improvement.

Do you think there is less and less evidence of mental conflict evidenced through reduced levels of mental illness, unhappiness, anxiety and drug use? — Baden

It seems the modern way is to externalize conflict (blaming others, demonizing others), the normalization of hatred and contempt, drug use is for the purpose of pleasure and peak experiences and not as self-medication. There is a strong sense of "everyone is solely responsible for themselves". In short, narcissism and sociopathy are becoming normalized. And with this as the new normal every other standard needs to be recalibrated.

The arrangement always means that you are still a unit and treated as a means. The package is not because you are you, it is contingent on how valuable they think you are.. When you are not valuable, they will just fire you because you are no longer a means for their end. — schopenhauer1

Sure, as the nature of life in this world is one of eating.

You, too, eat others. But how concerned are you about the morality of that? You think that being lower on the food chain makes you more innocent?

What is most reasonable for you? Truth in the expense of happiness or happiness in the expense of truth? — TheMadMan

How could it even be possible to have one at the expense of the other??

If it's true that NDEs are veridical (as per my thread- https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/1980/evidence-of-consciousness-surviving-the-body), then they give hope to millions of people who have lost loved ones. NDEs also give hope to those who fear death, who are dying, and who are suffering. — Sam26

Unless one had a NDE oneself (and a life-affirming one at that), one would still have to take other people's word for gold in order to get that hope to meet with loved ones in the afterlife. One might as well believe in Jesus.

I believe NDE's exist, but they don't inspire any hope in me.

Now, that being said, to be a bit of devil's advocate, I can agree with you that ALL interactions are using people but then this would simply provide more evidence for Cabrera's point that human life ENTAILS being immoral. — schopenhauer1

Why is it immoral to use people? What does Cabrera say, what do you say to this?

So?

Science tells us that life is a struggle for survival. How does religion not fit this struggle for survival?