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The Righteousness Fix

orionmagazine.org

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Re: The Righteousness Fix

#121

Post by jimbokun »

welshwelsh wrote: post #119
cwoolfe wrote: post #115

This is the natural consequence of killing God, as Nietzsche observed. Without an objective basis, there's no objective truth about what's valuable, right, or good. But we desperately want to be right, so we ignore what God says is right and invent our own version. "For, being ignorant of the righteousness of God, and seeking to establish their own, they did not submit to God's righteousness." - The apostle Paul's le…

But was there ever an objective basis? No two believers could ever agree on what God wants, even back when Jesus was alive. Because God is nothing but an invention of man, what God thinks is merely a reflection of what each individual person thinks. Even if you go off a text like the Bible, there is no objective interpretation of what it means. >has zero pride, was so humble Jesus literally claimed to be the son of G…

> That's about as arrogant as you can get.

Unless he actually was.

Re: The Righteousness Fix

#122

Post by edmcnulty101 »

memling wrote: post #95
edmcnulty101 wrote: post #14

Competition is great, differences of opinion are great. Differences of values are great! All of this keeps the marketplace of ideas healthy! The problems comes in when people start to develop a righteousness about their ideas and demonize the 'other' and try to force their ideas upon the 'other' because they believe they know better. That's why I think states rights in America are so great, because they allow places…

> When the federal government begins to force values upon the country en masse problems begin. What is your opinion about the US Civil War? I'm curious about this because it is in part an abrogation of states' rights over a question of utmost moral importance. Are there some values that are so valuable that we should make them universal by any means necessary, including a war?

Slavery is one of those things that violates the fundamental principles of the declaration of Independence: all men are created equal, life liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

So of course it should have been abolished and shame on the states that fought a war to preserve it.

Even in the most limited federal government has fundamental requirements.

Re: The Righteousness Fix

#123

Post by danschumann »

I find for me, looking at feelings wheel, "valued" is the emotion I feel regarding addiction. If an activity makes me feel valued, I come back and back and back. This is true also if the activity makes me feel inferior sometimes ( such as losing a game ). Addictive activities also have an infuriating component ( whereby I want to control more than I can control ). They also have a thankful component (relief after winning a hard game).

Re: The Righteousness Fix

#124

Post by jimbokun »

cwoolfe wrote: post #115

This is the natural consequence of killing God, as Nietzsche observed. Without an objective basis, there's no objective truth about what's valuable, right, or good. But we desperately want to be right, so we ignore what God says is right and invent our own version. "For, being ignorant of the righteousness of God, and seeking to establish their own, they did not submit to God's righteousness." - The apostle Paul's le…

Also:

“Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye?"

https://biblehub.com/matthew/7-3.htm

Avoiding self righteousness was very central to Jesus teachings.

Re: The Righteousness Fix

#125

Post by tanseydavid »

dragonwriter wrote: post #58
narag wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Paul Graham's essay What You Can't Say contains a great piece of advice: One way to do this is to ratchet the debate up one level of abstraction. If you argue against censorship in general, you can avoid being accused of whatever heresy is contained in the book or film that someone is trying to censor. You can attack labels with meta-labels: labels that refer to the use of labels to prevent discussion. The downside i…

> Downside is sometimes people doesn't understand what you meant. But the explicit purpose is to conceal what you actually mean to avoid criticism. So, you need to be more specific about “people”: one downside is that the intended audience sometimes doesn't understand what you mean (another is that the audience you are trying to bypass sometimes does.) PG is referring to the long-recognized practice of political dog-…

>> PG is referring to the long-recognized practice of political dog-whistles here.

Serious question: what exactly do you mean by "political dog-whistle"?

No similar term is contained in the Paul Graham piece that was linked and I am genuinely curious what it is you are implying by this.

I have heard this term "political dog-whistle" thrown around over the past few years and for me it has somewhat poor metaphorical quality -- but that's just me.

Can you help me understand this term in the way you seem to understand it?

Re: The Righteousness Fix

#126

Post by jimbokun »

xibalba wrote: post #118
cwoolfe wrote: post #115

This is the natural consequence of killing God, as Nietzsche observed. Without an objective basis, there's no objective truth about what's valuable, right, or good. But we desperately want to be right, so we ignore what God says is right and invent our own version. "For, being ignorant of the righteousness of God, and seeking to establish their own, they did not submit to God's righteousness." - The apostle Paul's le…

Of course, belief in "God" also requires the belief in the supernatural and random acts of magic. In other words, the opposite of science and rationality. Belief in "God"/Jesus Christ (as a supernatural being) is not "objective", in itself, since there isn't any empirical evidence (funny how the claims of witnessing supernatural events have steadily declined as the ability to easily capture and widely share informati…

Yes but hopefully you can still appreciate much of the wisdom of Jesus' teachings even if you disagree about the theology.

Re: The Righteousness Fix

#128

Post by aaroninsf »

cwoolfe wrote: post #115

This is the natural consequence of killing God, as Nietzsche observed. Without an objective basis, there's no objective truth about what's valuable, right, or good. But we desperately want to be right, so we ignore what God says is right and invent our own version. "For, being ignorant of the righteousness of God, and seeking to establish their own, they did not submit to God's righteousness." - The apostle Paul's le…

Let me fix that for you:

Seriously, look at this character. Within the context of the stories told about him, he opposed...

Re: The Righteousness Fix

#129

Post by jimbokun »

zzzeek wrote: post #32

I would question the author's casual belief that a so-called "righteous" attitude , where one has decided that they have more wisdom on a particular topic than some other particular group of people, necessarily means they therefore lose all their empathy for that group. This is a huge leap and I personally don't believe there is any such necessity: > Viewing ourselves as “good,” in fact we become grievously toxic, li…

> where one has decided that they have more wisdom on a particular topic than some other particular group of people, necessarily means they therefore lose all their empathy for that group.

I certainly see a lot of this on Twitter.

Re: The Righteousness Fix

#130

Post by jimbokun »

bloopbloop10000 wrote: post #111

I don't like this idea that feelings of righteous indignation need to be moderated like some kind of proverbial addictive substance. If you believe things, you will feel righteousness when they are (or are perceived to be) challenged. The better question is: why do we believe what we believe? And why have these beliefs done so much harm?

Righteous indignation can lead to dismissing data conflicting with your current beliefs, and wishing harm on those who disagree with your beliefs.

That is why humility and tolerance are important.

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