The Reality Of Progressivism
Betruger wrote:"Who cares if it's not the real thing?"
I find that revolting, but it's probably just me. I also don't buy that you need a religious pacifier to be happy. Everyone's got the means to overcome most of the difficulty in their lives. There's no excuse needed to be happy, or at least to have a clear conscience if you're giving your life everything you've got.
I think your perception is suffering from a common malady. Ego-Centricism. Not being able to see the world from any but your own perspective. Many people believe that if it works for me, it must work for everyone else, or if it doesn't bother me, it shouldn't bother anyone else, etc.
The evidence about you indicates that religion works decently for most people in History. It tames the viler passions, albeit not perfectly. Humans and perfect are mutually exclusive. Suffice it to say, it tends to optimize.
Some don't need it at all, but they don't live in a world that is full of people like them. They live in a world where the human population spans the gamut of thinking and perception, and Religion (I think because we are genetically predisposed to it) is the method that seems to work with the most.
kcdodd wrote:If your goal is to simply to control a population, then religion has historically been a very effective tool at doing that.
The goal isn't to control people, it's to oblige them to control themselves, and leave it for them to decide whether they are doing a good job or not. They are their own Judge and Defendant.
kcdodd wrote: However, control and ethics are independent. The ethical content of such a religion is at the behest of whomever is leading the religion. They could say "give me your money for it is gods will" or "kill thy enemy for it is gods will" as easily as "treat each other with kindness for it is gods will". There is no inherent ethical content in religion, at least from the argument you are making.
Suppose this is true. How does this play out Macroscopically? The Head priest says " So and so needs to be killed." So they kill so and so. Then they go back to their lives. It appears that so and so wasn't very important to the everyday lives of most people. That is of course a cold blooded way of looking at it, but it is true. The benefits of religion can outweigh the detriments of abuse, provided it doesn't become too excessive.
If you think that is horrible, our legal system does something very much like it all the time. We put up with it because we have religiously been taught to believe certain things about the legal system. Instead of invoking the will of God, they invoke the will of the court, distinguishable from religion only insofar as the person making pronouncements think they are God.
I guess my point is that the Authority of Religion is sometimes abused, but these abuses have become rarer, and in any case don't weigh very heavy against the benefits.
kcdodd wrote: How you determine ethical behavior is independent from your delivery method. One has to enter into a circular line of reasoning to escape this truth. For example, "the divine prophet of Suchandsuchanity was given the will of god". Gods message would include the statement that god exists and that the message in divine, which proves the existence of god, which allows the prophet to promote the message as being from god and not from their own reasoning.
Circular reasoning is no problem at all for people who aren't trying to follow the reasoning anyway. People are not always rational creatures, and they often don't worry at all that they are doing something irrational. Most of us are driven by instinct. Religion is believed because people want to believe in it. In many cases it was handed down to them through their parents, and as children when young will accept that their parents have their best interests at heart, so will they believe when their parents behave as though they believe. They don't need rigid proof or intellectual explanations.
kcdodd wrote: Is all of that necessary? Well, I certainty don't believe it. Some people do have difficulty with reasoning skills, I will grant you that, but most are capable, especially if it is started at an early age, as religious doctrine typically is.
One of the neat tricks they teach you is that to question God's will is blasphemy.
Actually, I think the most important people running the country are conservatives. They are the ones that grow the food and pump the oil. The ones that make and distribute goods and build things. They enforce the Laws and Defend the Nation. They heal people.kcdodd wrote:Poor conservatives are just at the will of progressiives. Nixon had no choice but to step up the drug war because the progressives tricked him. And regan was tricked too! My god they are like evil geniuses!
The Liberals have a lock on the public Megaphone. They own the movie and entertainment industries. They own the Airwaves (except Fox News) and print media. They own the Education system from K-12 and the Universities. They own the bureaucracy. They own the legal system.
Though they are a smaller part of the population, they have a far greater influence than they should. The most recent example of this is how they managed to convince the dumbest 52% of the voting public that a pathologically lying moron ought to be leading the nation. Fortunately some of them are starting to wake up. The guy that wrote that article is a well known Denver Liberal. May the scales fall from more eyes.
I've been trying really hard to stay out of this (getting involved in this sort of discussion on a message board eats huge amounts of time and usually does no good), but...Diogenes wrote:The Head priest says " So and so needs to be killed." So they kill so and so.
...
One of the neat tricks they teach you is that to question God's will is blasphemy.
...you're overgeneralizing. There are religions that do that, or so I gather, but the Catholic Church (just to pick an example at random...) teaches the primacy of conscience. If an authority figure, even a religious authority figure, tells you to do something your conscience tells you is wrong, don't do it. If you're under oath and your oath requires you to do something wrong, don't do it. If your conscience contradicts Church teaching, by all means work and study to resolve the discrepancy - but in the meantime, go with your conscience.
[Yeah, stuff like the Fourth Crusade sometimes happens (not so much nowadays; people are starting to get the picture). But when it does, neither the perpetrators nor those who obeyed them can legitimately claim this particular religion as cover.]
It also teaches that the precursor of faith must be what the Catholic Encyclopedia calls "motives of credibility" - ie: actual evidence that God exists and has spoken. After you've established that to an adequate degree of probability, you can talk about trusting what God says because He says it. For a child, the word of one's parents is an adequate motive of credibility, but one should obviously not stop there...
"Faith" does not mean believing in something in the face of contradictory evidence. Faith holds on to something of which the intellect is convinced in the face of emotions and temptation. If actual evidence comes up that causes doubt, the proper response is not "blind faith" but intellectual honesty in attempting to resolve the doubt.
Common sense, basically.
Last edited by 93143 on Tue May 18, 2010 5:25 am, edited 1 time in total.
Anyone who "interprets" gods will is in fact simply puting themself in gods shoes, and seeing how they would have things. It is a way of abstracting the world, which is something humans are good at. But all they are doing is reinterpreting their own desires for the world.
It is a very hard case to make, the existance of god. Harder now than ever, because we are increasingly able to describe the world without resorting to god as an explanation. However, even if you are able to make a credible case, as you put it, then what? How does one go from simple existance to motives etc etc? It is like talking about whether aliens exist out there somewhere. It seems likely they would, but how does that transalte automatically to stating they must be grey, and travel in disk shaped spaceships, etc. It doesn't. Even if god does exist, you are stuck at that. This leads back to simply projecting your own desires, prejudices, images, etc on an entity that, otherwise, is imperceptible.
It is a very hard case to make, the existance of god. Harder now than ever, because we are increasingly able to describe the world without resorting to god as an explanation. However, even if you are able to make a credible case, as you put it, then what? How does one go from simple existance to motives etc etc? It is like talking about whether aliens exist out there somewhere. It seems likely they would, but how does that transalte automatically to stating they must be grey, and travel in disk shaped spaceships, etc. It doesn't. Even if god does exist, you are stuck at that. This leads back to simply projecting your own desires, prejudices, images, etc on an entity that, otherwise, is imperceptible.
Carter
We will never be able to come up with a closed explanation for the universe or any superset thereof. Gödel's work on the incompleteness of formal systems seems to me to be adequate proof of that.kcdodd wrote:It is a very hard case to make, the existance of god. Harder now than ever, because we are increasingly able to describe the world without resorting to god as an explanation.
Read the rest of the sentence. Evidence that God exists and has spoken. In other words, to trust in the God of the Bible, you have to first be convinced that the Bible is for real. To trust the teaching authority of the Magisterium as guided by the Holy Spirit, you have to have grounds for believing that the Magisterium is in fact guided by the Holy Spirit.How does one go from simple existance to motives etc etc? It is like talking about whether aliens exist out there somewhere. It seems likely they would, but how does that transalte automatically to stating they must be grey, and travel in disk shaped spaceships, etc. It doesn't. Even if god does exist, you are stuck at that. This leads back to simply projecting your own desires, prejudices, images, etc on an entity that, otherwise, is imperceptible.
I'm not going to try to convince you of anything right now, because... well, on these very forums I once tried to convince a veteran engineer with tube experience of a very basic fact about electrostatics. It took nearly a week, and involved finite element simulations. It's almost impossible to convince somebody of something in an Internet argument, never mind something having to do with religion, so I think I'll save us both a lot of time and temper and leave it at that. You'll probably do better on your own, and anyway I don't have the time to sink into doing the issue any kind of justice...
Last edited by 93143 on Tue May 18, 2010 5:59 am, edited 1 time in total.
You do know that the drug war was a progressive idea? Started in 1914. It was a prototype for alcohol prohibition. Another progressive success.kcdodd wrote:Poor conservatives are just at the will of progressiives. Nixon had no choice but to step up the drug war because the progressives tricked him. And regan was tricked too! My god they are like evil geniuses!
Nixon didn't get any new laws. He just enforced the progressive laws on the books.
BTW wage and price controls are NOT a Republican thing. Nixon was a progressive in Republican drag.
Engineering is the art of making what you want from what you can get at a profit.
Believe in the Bible? I don't have to. I've actually seen one.
As to the "Risen God" theme. Osiris beat Jesus to it by some several millenia. And the resurrection of a revered leader? It seems rather common in human history. See the followers of Rabbi Schneerson in modern times.
http://www.nytimes.com/1998/06/29/nyreg ... chers.html
There was a Jewish historian who visited our Temple and expounded on this.
I'm down with much of the philosophy of Jesus. The Cult of Jesus not so much.
As to the "Risen God" theme. Osiris beat Jesus to it by some several millenia. And the resurrection of a revered leader? It seems rather common in human history. See the followers of Rabbi Schneerson in modern times.
http://www.nytimes.com/1998/06/29/nyreg ... chers.html
There was a Jewish historian who visited our Temple and expounded on this.
I'm down with much of the philosophy of Jesus. The Cult of Jesus not so much.
Engineering is the art of making what you want from what you can get at a profit.
I watched that go down. ;-) IIRC it was more like ten days of heated argument. I also remember the guy on the other side was rather convincing.I'm not going to try to convince you of anything right now, because... well, on these very forums I once tried to convince a veteran engineer with tube experience of a very basic fact about electrostatics. It took nearly a week, and involved finite element simulations.
Engineering is the art of making what you want from what you can get at a profit.
kcdodd wrote:Anyone who "interprets" gods will is in fact simply puting themself in gods shoes, and seeing how they would have things. It is a way of abstracting the world, which is something humans are good at. But all they are doing is reinterpreting their own desires for the world.
It is a very hard case to make, the existance of god. Harder now than ever, because we are increasingly able to describe the world without resorting to god as an explanation. However, even if you are able to make a credible case, as you put it, then what? How does one go from simple existance to motives etc etc? It is like talking about whether aliens exist out there somewhere. It seems likely they would, but how does that transalte automatically to stating they must be grey, and travel in disk shaped spaceships, etc. It doesn't. Even if god does exist, you are stuck at that. This leads back to simply projecting your own desires, prejudices, images, etc on an entity that, otherwise, is imperceptible.
Here's how i'm fond of explaining it.
In economics there is Adam Smith's invisible hand.
"God" performs the same function in Societies moral interactions.
To perhaps make my point clearer, what often times appears to be divine intervention or retribution, is in fact the naturally occurring consequences of certain types of human behavior, but people think it is "God" intervening.
Here's a story that I just ran across which touches on this point.
http://www.fumento.com/misc/bizarre_things.html
Philosophically, from a theistic perspective, there isn't actually a difference. (Leaving miracles out of the discussion, of course...)Diogenes wrote:To perhaps make my point clearer, what often times appears to be divine intervention or retribution, is in fact the naturally occurring consequences of certain types of human behavior, but people think it is "God" intervening.
Not really impressed with his treatment of the Toyota acceleration thing. Something caused it. Cosmic ray bit flipping is a perfectly reasonable explanation, though unfortunately difficult to test...