Religion is, in a sense, simply an organized narrative around which groups of people orient their lives, beliefs and values. You are no different than a muslim in this way. That's why I think the concept of "usefulness" in regards to "religion" (you're actually using it in regards to a set of beliefs) is misleading. Religion is not the opiate of the masses; rather, belief is what keeps people going, religious or secular. — Noble Dust

A Muslim has faith in their religious authorities.

I suppose that you could say that I have tentative faith in people and things but nothing like religious faith. You said it yourself that religious faith isn’t needed to orient life, beliefs and values.

Like many people today I’m not bound by faith in religious authority and can think for myself and not be constrained in moral development. I would not willingly go on jihad or crusade, speaking of the Middle Ages and progress, merely because a religious leader constructed some narrative that rationalized it.

I think "useful" is the wrong way to think about it. — Noble Dust

It's the wrong way for believers or followers to think about it, certainly, because if they do it will tend to be less useful. When people realize that they're being manipulated by a false narrative they tend to be less cooperative with those that try to use it.

Otherwise, there's value in tradition, sure, though things do change and not changing with circumstances can be maladaptive and harmful.

People are brought together by communally held beliefs (communism, for instance) because they give life meaning, from which value is derived. This isn't unique to religion.

Which only underscores the superfluousness of religion.

Religion has always been handy for uniting people with common values and purpose in mass. That capacity is particularly useful in war. It was useful during the middle ages and the Crusades, for instance. I highly doubt the Pope could start a similar crusade today. That's progress, baby.

As a philosopher how do you reconcile these two seemingly contradictory notions of being given existence but only for a limited time? Does it not sometimes make one feel powerless or at worst nihilistic in the face of it? — invicta

Not at all, because in a sense we are always dying or never existed, and in the same way even God is always dying or has never existed. Everything changes, and if it doesn’t change then it is not alive. If God doesn’t change then Nietzsche was right about him.

Not sure how it covers the right to be free while infected with a, shall we say concerning, virus.

One could argue that religious pluralism has de-progressed, but ironically this isn't even something the progress narrative generally considers, because it begins with the hubristic assumption that religion itself is in the same camp as war, famine, etc; something to be cast off and left behind. — Noble Dust

If the enlightenment freed people from the constraints of religion then wouldn’t they also have the capacity to think independently about the progress narrative (pseudo religion)?

Agree? — Art48

Yes and no. Yes that the existence of atheists can be used to strengthen religious identity by highlighting their otherness, but otherness can just as easily be applied to hieratics (those who question the Good Word).

This fits with what I was saying recently about meritocracy. Whatever its… merits (and I question those), the idea functions as ideology to obscure existing inequality or even to justify it by implying you got to the top on merit, and I’m still poor because I’m lazy and talentless (though the latter is less often stated openly). — Jamal

It can be seen as progressive in the sense that as civilization developed at some point (I think China was first) power was given based on merit rather than kinship, which may have resulted power exercised more competently.

It’s been years since I read the book but the takeaway that lingers is that, because of headline news and our habit of focusing on the negative, I may not have realized progress was occurring, and to see an argument that it is occurring is hopeful and perhaps motivating. Also motivating is the threat of anti-enlightenment movements.

It isn’t me who is denying you your fundamental right to defend yourself. — NOS4A2

No, it’s the govament. Speaking of which, they just forced Americans to be prisoners in their own homes for over a year, wear masks etc, and all the 393 million guns in the nation did nothing to stop it. Australia’s Covid response was similar in strictness. What needs to happen before the guns come out? Death camps?

Are you an Auster fan too?

I’ve exhausted my courtesy allotment, in other words. Fine, be that way. :lol:

I discovered in the 20s that they were much more intellectually sophisticated than I had given them credit for. — T Clark

Perhaps prohibition resulted in clearer heads.

I don’t know how to answer that because the problems or grievances you mention won’t be solved any time soon. In fact I think they’re likely to only deepen. I can’t decipher what you’re trying to say about wokeness. That it only distracts or leads to complacency? Why not just say what you mean?

Exactly. And he might well gain a fair bit of support from it. Because the white working class do have a legitimate grievance if they're referred to as 'privileged' by folk with significantly more opportunity than they could even dream of. — Isaac

I’m no political analyst but one of DeSantis’ tactics seems to be redefining ‘elite’ to mean anyone, anyone with a pulse, who merely upholds the tyrannical woke progressive pseudo religious ideology in some way.

For the rest, I don’t see how either of your choices could prevent a DeSantis from gaining more power, if I’m honest. Trump and DeSantis don’t appeal to facts or reason. For politicians, on both sides of the aisle, who just want power and wealth it’s not in their interests to actually tackle the problems of the people.

When I look up “open borders” just now to reassure myself that I have a clue to its current meaning the results are what I assumed, unrestricted access, like going from one state to another. I don’t think that any American politicians support that level of access, but I could be wrong. Politics in America grow increasingly nutty by the day.

BUT contrarily I am opposed to open borders. — BC

I think you missed the point. I seriously doubt you believe someone like Trump when they say that the border is currently open and this fear inspires you to act (vote or donate) in a particular way.

If you say so.

I suspect that people with a high level of personal confidence, self-efficacy, agency, and so on are less likely to seek social shelter in conservative groups. They are more likely to be comfortable with change and risk taking. Some people seem risk-averse early in life, and some are more likely to seek risk. — BC

Your suspicions don't entirely correspond with my experience. Though I'm on the independent side I've always lacked self-confidence and as much as I'd like to shelter in conservative circles there are aspects of it that I can't abide due to the aforementioned independent nature. Also, I'm risk-averse. I don't like to gamble, for instance, and in sports I've always erred on the side of caution.

I very much like new experiences though, pleasant ones of course, and I think that I'm open-minded, so I think it has more to do with openness than riskiness. I think this is why, for example, the threat of 'open borders' is so motivating for conservatives. So much disinformation surrounds the issue that it's hard to determine what a sensible policy is anymore.

It was just a matter of time before the Great Chain was unleashed. Should we want to be chained up?

In this thread, I am wanting to understand why I see life so differently today! Has this happened to anyone else? I read that as we age we gain a sense of meaning to all those facts we learned. The young absorb the facts but don't have a sense of meaning until they experience what the facts mean. Like a young person volunteering for military service and knowing nothing of the meaning of being in war. The old warrior may answer the call to duty but will do so with a very different sense of what he is getting himself into. — Athena

My father was a staunch conservative and I've always thought that I would be more conservative with increased age, just as folk wisdom suggests. That has not happened though. If anything, the more I learn the more progressive I become, even venturing into the woke end of the pool.

I think people may be born with a kind of nature that predisposes them to one way or the other and no amount of learning has much impact on changing it. They say it has to do with openness to change or willingness to try new things.

There's also the dismissal of the white working class, the demonisation of dissent... — Isaac

I was just reading DeSanctimonious's new book and this seemed to click into place. In it he claims with emphatic repetition how the woke progressive elite ruling class that now dominates the nation (with the exception of Florida of course) looks down their nose at anyone who fails to uphold their pseudo-religious ideology.

Part of me hopes that he runs against Trump because the shitshow could be spectacular.

The huge money giveaway we have just been through resulting in inflation and talk of doing more of the same — Athena

How do you figure?

Rocks are beings. Are rocks sentient beings, like human beings? No.

Flowers are beings. Bach’s fugues are beings. Numbers are beings. Parachutes are beings.

At least according to what I — and traditional ontology — mean. You seem to understand this. But if you do, then what’s the problem here? — Mikie

If I’m following right, basically that it devalues sentience, which is kind of ironic because Buddhists are intent on extinguishing sentience.

It was Lincoln's call. The rest of the government wasn't involved. — frank

All I'm saying is that the country was divided. Can we agree on that?

There was Lincoln up in Washington all by his lonely self and down south there was 'govament' also involved.

Am I really speaking in riddles? Nevermind.

The EP was issued per the constitutional war power of the president. It was Lincoln's call. The rest of the government wasn't involved. — frank

Granted it's unlikely the South would have ever won but if they did I don't think that Lincoln would have remained in power. But I see your point about the people.

I said that the EP and the civil war is an instance of responsibility being imposed by force. The majority of the people and government won, fortunately.

The nation professes to value liberty and is therefore duty-bound to uphold it. Slavery isn't in accord with that duty so force must be used to stop it. The United States has never forced another nation to free its people because it's not duty-bound to do so. It's not responsible for the people of other nations. It's responsible for people who live within the nation.

What are you thinking?

How so? — frank

I don’t think you can claim to value liberty if you deny it to others.

responsibility can only be taken up voluntarily — Tzeentch

And I’m not disagreeing. We (as a people) can chose to be responsible.

That would be irresponsible. — Tzeentch

So you feel that is their right? What about the rights of the nearby residents who are getting poisoned? They can leave? Or they can legally sue the industry? You have to admit it wouldn’t be a fair fight if the residents were poor.

It seems like it comes down to you favoring those with wealth and power. It does make sense to align yourself with wealth and power in a self interested sort of way.

That suggest that you believe the Southern slave owners were being responsible in the way they conducted their businesses.

What if a business dumped toxic chemicals into a nearby river in order to avoid the cost of proper disposal and the pollution had a negative effect on the environment and the health of nearby residents, would that be responsible or irresponsible?

I have been 15 years in the US and I don't remember a single day when liberal media did not provide some info about black people. You can search CNN at the time you read my comment, if you don't trust me. There definitely will be something about black people somewhere (it has been like that the last 15 years, and the odds are too small that it will not be the same at the time you read my comment). It's like they are trying to educate people all the time about accepting blacks, and definitely they keep making it one major political issue. — Eros1982

:lol: Ironic.

The Emancipation Proclamation and the civil war is an instance of responsibility being imposed by force isn’t it?

Then you are opposed to the Emancipation Proclamation?

Enslaving people has nothing to do with responsibility?

Responsibility is taken (up voluntarily by the individual), not imposed (through governmental threat of violence). — Tzeentch

You know that’s silly. If you actually believed that, I could go to where you live and take all your liberty by force, make you my slave, and because you’re philosophically opposed to forcing others to be responsible or whatever your hands would be self-tied and you would be a compliant slave.

So what’s your address?

First time that I heard the expression “white trash” was when I was around 11 years old. Some cranky old Hawaiian woman had stepped into the bus at school for some reason, I don’t recall everything about the incident, and called me and the only other haole (white person) on the bus white trash. Later I had to ask my mom what it meant. Anyway, can you imagine the level of hostility you must have to feel in order to randomly insult children? Another oddity is that my family was middle class and the other haole’s family was quite affluent.

The backstory is that the Hawaiians got fucked over good by people who had the choice to not fuck them over. The old lady also had a choice but wasn’t doing what they did and what they continue to do.

That apparently not everyone thinks they go hand in hand.

A tricksters job is only to show us what’s important. So what’s more important, freedom or responsibility? A libertarian will scream like a blue faced antisemitic berserker…

However, I don't think pursuing responsibility is what "modern liberalism" does. It simply tries to force people into acting in ways it considers "responsible" - that is not liberal. That is authoritarian. — Tzeentch

Affordable healthcare isn’t responsible? Regulations aren’t responsible? Etc.