I think your idea of critical thinking and mine are different. — T Clark

Well just out of curiosity, what is the proper emotion to motivate critical thinking? Do other modes of thought require specific emotional motivation?

As I see it, the criticism of "them" I've seen in this thread hasn't constituted critical thinking. Seems more motivated by fear, hatred, and contempt, just like we accuse them of. — T Clark

As I see it, critical thinking needs to be critical of everything and everyone, including oneself.

Critical thinking can be motivated by fear, hatred, contempt, love, envy, and many other emotions and combinations of emotions.

The advantage my solution has over yours is that it's something you, I, and all people of good will can do right now. Treat people with respect. — T Clark

Well, no, your initial requirement for a democracy is a sense of common purpose (and not critical thinking). People can share a common purpose without respecting each other.

The problem with uncritical thinkers and a desire for purpose is that they’re easily lead by people with divergent purposes.

We have much more in common than we do in conflict. — T Clark

Indeed, but again the problem is that the easily lead are easily divided.

NOS doesn't support anything that has the potential to infringe on his FREEDOM. :razz:

There is no evidence. Her claims of sexual assault can be discarded along with her accusations of rape. Believing such accusations without evidence says a lot about character. — NOS4A2

He practically confessed to it in the deposition, saying something like ‘*stars* have been sexually assaulting women for millions of years, unfortunately or fortunately’, and he regards himself as a star.

I really can't see how the kamikaze pilot could be interpreted as self-centred when the entire narrative was created around self sacrifice. Same for jihadis (and even though I think their zealotry is tragically warped.) They are indoctrinated to believe that they will receive their just rewards in the hereafter. — Wayfarer

As I said, I disagree that they’re motivated only by the promise of reward in the hereafter. I think a large part of their motivation comes from believing in whatever cause they’re fighting for, as well as social pressure. If it were only the promise of reward it would be entirely self-centered and not based on principles or values beyond self-interest. Nothing matters but me is a rather nihilistic attitude, if you asked me.

Also, the example that Tom mentioned about Catholicism abandoning all moral values in order to protect pedophile priests promotes nihilism because it indicates that the tradition is meaningless (without exceptional moral values).

I'm sure that many suicidal mass shooters firmly believe that when they die, there are no consequences in any kind of life beyond. That is what distinguishes nihilism from religious indoctrination. — Wayfarer

I just looked it up and mass shooters seem to have a really consistent profile. “Early childhood trauma seems to be the foundation, whether violence in the home, sexual assault, parental suicides, extreme bullying. Then you see the build toward hopelessness, despair, isolation, self-loathing, oftentimes rejection from peers. That turns into a really identifiable crisis point where they’re acting differently. Sometimes they have previous suicide attempts.” — Jillian Peterson, an associate professor of criminology at Hamline University

I’m not sure if it makes a lot of sense to say that such people are nihilistic. It could certainly be said that they’re focused on their own interests (not unlike how you say that kamikaze pilots and jihadis are focused on their personal reward) and not the well being of others.

I have no interest in the sexual lives of politicians. — NOS4A2

I think most people would agree that sexual assault says something about a persons character.

Plainly I will agree that such fundamentalism and extremism are abhorrent, but I don't think that makes them nihilistic as such. — Wayfarer

Abhorrent but not nihilistic? Not sure how to interpret that. Bad but not meaningless? Meaningful but not right? Do you think abhorrence can be meaningful?

kamikaze pilots and jihadi suicide bombers are both motivated by a belief in the afterlife. — Wayfarer

If that were the only motivation, and I don’t think it is, wouldn’t that be self centered and essentially nihilistic in the sense that their actions aren’t based on values or principles but merely selfishness?

Christianity was originally about questioning Pharisaic Judaism, especially the emphasis it placed on ritual over the well-being of real people. — frank

Religion is not about the well-being of real people. It's about creating and maintaining a strong group bond or 'tribe' through a shared narrative, values, rituals, etc.

Time to donate again, @NOS4A2 Write your check to E. Jean Carroll.

Enough bickering chaps. — Jamal

Gladly. It's not always easy to tell when someone is genuinely interested or just trolling.

Somehow I managed to get your goat. — frank

You certainly didn't manage to get an example.

I think we've trashed up the topic enough, btw.

Religions endure because people love their traditions. Not sure which part of the earth you're from that you didn't know this. :grin: — frank

I didn't say anything about people loving their traditions, troll.

Dorothy Day represented the Catholic Church. She worked to liberate minorities. Minorities are human beings. So she wasn't trying to make human beings as dependent as possible. She was trying to help them become independent. — frank

I see your misunderstanding and how I wasn't clear enough. I meant dependent on the tradition and that would mean within the tradition. I don't know how anyone could be considered dependent on something that they may have never even heard of.

I was just curious. — frank

You thought it was important enough to ask. Just trolling?

She's the representative of religion here. She worked to help emancipate minorities. — frank

How does that demonstrate independent thought or action from within that tradition?

Real question: where did you first learn about Dorothy Day? — frank

Planet Earth. Why is that significant?

PS: if you're just trolling for fun, please stop.

Generally speaking, a good exemplar would think and/or act in a way that demonstrates independence within a religious tradition. If you're suggesting that fighting for women's suffrage somehow defied the church, then you appear to be wrong.

That doesn't make sense.

I don't follow.

In an address before the United States Congress, Pope Francis included her in a list of four exemplary Americans who "buil[t] a better future".

The Catholic Church has opened the cause for Day's possible canonization, which was accepted by the Holy See for investigation. For that reason, the Church refers to her with the title of Servant of God. — Wikipedia

Hardly seems at odds with the church in any way. Can you explain?

That's not always true. — frank

Example?

Enlightenment, understood in the widest sense as the advance of thought, has always aimed at liberating human beings from fear and installing them as masters. — Adorno & Horkheimer, Dialectic of Enlightenment

And religion is hellbent on making human beings as dependent as possible, necessarily limiting their moral development and any other sort of development that would result in more independent thought and action.

I've attended Zen groups here in Australia where there was virtually none of that. You commit the fallacy of over-generalizing. — Janus

There are all sorts of zen groups, and even some teachers who are less orthodox, such as Brad Warner, though they’re not well respected within the tradition. Indeed, Warner describes himself as an entertainer.

I was not talking about the mindful ritualization of ordinary activities like eating, drinking and so on, which I don't count as "pomp and ceremony". — Janus

Never heard of the tea ‘ceremony’ or oryoki?

I’ve attended zen pomp and ceremony, just like in the picture that I posted. It’s actually far stricter and elaborate than a typical church service. Your characterization of that tradition is quite wrong. That’s my point.

That you’re very hard to impress when it comes to ceremony, I guess. It’s Vatican level or your puny “ceremony” is meaningless and don’t count.

Does this count?

when attracted to religious ideas it has been to teachings like Daoism and Zen, which are mostly without pomp and ceremony. — Janus

:chin:

The materialistic consumer neoliberalist hell that we have is a result of this nihilism. — Christoffer

Some seem to think that the development of the state, capitalism, etc., lead to this nihilism. Not the other way around.

I don’t think there’s any deficiency of non-religious traditions and rituals, btw. Social dance at a neighborhood nightclub, with a group of people dancing to the same beat in coordinated patterns, can be as zen as sitting still with a group at a temple. It’s all there, we’re saturated in meaning, purpose, community… anything a church could offer. To think that we need to be spoon fed like children is ridiculous, and actually impairs growth by design, because religion is designed to make followers dependent.

Some even question whether Daoism or Buddhism qualify as religions. — Janus

Many don’t realize the nature of religion.

I wonder too what counts as transcendence? — Tom Storm

Well, for instance, and to put it as simply as possible, I think that we're like fish in a fishbowl, limited and unable to see reality beyond the fishbowl. I also think (and have experienced to some degree) that we can alter our mental state and perceive... I'll say differently.

Thus I am a religious person? :brow:

The belief in something transcendent is the essence of religion as I would define it. (Note, I draw a distinction between thinking the transcendental and believing in some form of transcendence). — Janus

Obviously, people can believe in something transcendent without belonging to a religion, without knowing anything about any religion. I suppose you would call that a personal religion?

Religious thinking is always hierarchical thinking.

Which indicates that its essence is about order and control.

I think the need to believe in something transcendant can only be satisfied by religion, and I think that need is inexplicably there in some people and absent in others. I think if you could somehow wipe out all existing religions and knowledge of them, religion would be reinvented. — Janus

You need to explain why religion is needed to believe in something transcendent.

Some people are simply attracted to that way of life, and others not. — Janus

I used drug as an analogy but it could have been anything. If we’ve never known something then we can’t miss it.

The point being that religion is not the only way to fulfill human needs of any kind. We seem to agree about that.

As long as the need for religion is felt, humanity will not be better off without it. I doubt that need is going to disappear. — Janus

That’s like saying that if the need for a drug is felt humanity will not be better off without it. If the drug was never know it would not be missed.

If you mean something else I think you may need to elaborate on the nature of the need that you mention, and why only a religion can fulfill it.

Let the world get rid of all of them - the requirement would remain. — Wayfarer

No loss then. :up:

You can't kill a religion. As beliefs are not killable. They resurface from natural thought, exploration and desire for fundamental answers. — Benj96

Of course you can, simply eliminate every trace of it, and that would include its adherents. Not that that would be easy, especially if it were a popular religion. As Janus pointed out though, you'd essentially be replacing one ideology for another, which is beside the point.

By claiming that a religion is fundamental, natural, and discoverable with exploration, you're basically saying that it's true or that you're a believer.

If everyone was a scientist, some of them would move away from science in a quest for an alternative. If everyone was religious, many of them would move away towards something alternative (science). Neither subjective nor objective views of reality can ever be fully eliminated (killed). — Benj96

You seem to be saying that religion and science merely fulfill a desire for an alternative view of the world. I think there's more to it than that.

Yep, I don't believe religion is going away any time soon. And I also don't hold the view that humanity would be better off without it. — Janus

I’m curious about your reasoning that humanity wouldn’t be better off without religion. Can you explain why?

:up:

Well, you could make it illegal I suppose, or brainwash people against religion from childhood. Might not be totally effective, but would no doubt vastly reduce the ranks of the faithful. — Janus

I honestly don't see the point of that, other than control, and control is the basic point of religion. It would essentially be replacing religion. I say let it die and DON'T TRY TO REPLACE IT.

I wasn't talking about killing people. — Janus

How else would one go about killing a religion?

What if it won't die? Kill it? — Janus

Killing people because of their beliefs is what religious folks do.

So science will not replace religion. But it would be an excellent development if ethics did. — Banno

You think it would be a good thing if ethics were based on faith and a social hierarchy?

I say let religion die.