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What Is Enlightenment? (1784)

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Re: What Is Enlightenment? (1784)

#31

Post by FrankyHollywood »

jl6 wrote: post #13
svnt wrote: post #8

And Jung refined it, 150 years later: “our age has a blindness without parallel. We think we have only to declare an acknowledged form of faith to be incorrect or invalid, to become psychologically free of all the traditional effects of the Christian or Judaic religion. We believe in enlightenment, as if an intellectual change of opinion had somehow a deeper influence on our emotional processes, or indeed upon the un…

Proven, IMHO, by the ease with which many atheists have fallen into alternative faith-based belief systems. 21st century America is increasingly atheist, but no less religious.

Indeed, I was never aware of it, until Covid... millions of people believing in nano-bots raining from the clouds programmed by Bill Gates and many other unbelievable far fetched idea's, people just believed it like it was common knowledge.

And the false believes have far reaching impact, like polarization in society and deaths. Just today I read that Dutch vaccination rates are lower than ever [1]. Diseases like polio are no longer a 3rd world problem, but could revive in Europe as well.

[1] https://nos-nl.translate.goog/artikel/2512681-vaccinatiegraa...

Re: What Is Enlightenment? (1784)

#32

Post by dennis_jeeves2 »

Quote from link:

This enlightenment requires nothing but freedom--and the most innocent of all that may be called "freedom": freedom to make public use of one's reason in all matters. Now I hear the cry from all sides: "Do not argue!" The officer says: "Do not argue--drill!" The tax collector: "Do not argue--pay!" The pastor: "Do not argue--believe!"

For developers:

Agile coach: "Do not argue--believe!"

Re: What Is Enlightenment? (1784)

#33

Post by genman »

jl6 wrote: post #13
svnt wrote: post #8

And Jung refined it, 150 years later: “our age has a blindness without parallel. We think we have only to declare an acknowledged form of faith to be incorrect or invalid, to become psychologically free of all the traditional effects of the Christian or Judaic religion. We believe in enlightenment, as if an intellectual change of opinion had somehow a deeper influence on our emotional processes, or indeed upon the un…

Proven, IMHO, by the ease with which many atheists have fallen into alternative faith-based belief systems. 21st century America is increasingly atheist, but no less religious.

Not proven, but illustrated, in number of cases.

Re: What Is Enlightenment? (1784)

#35

Post by Anotheroneagain »

n4r9 wrote: post #29
Anotheroneagain wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Rationalism is the rejection of the idea that knowledge needs to be gathered, rather than intuited. A rationalist, in practice, necessarily derives his worldview either starting from some gut instict (that something just has to be a certain way, because it feels that way), or from preexisting texts, be it a religious scripture, or a scientific theory that is treated as inviolable.

Which scientific theory or theories do you perceive being treated as inviolable?

It depends more on the person who does it, rather than a specific theory, but I will pick obesity in particular - there has hardly been any idea so widely contradicted by practical experience, yet it is still treated as an indisputable fact, to the extent that all the further work aims at resolving why people "lie" and how to make them eat less, rather than coming up with something else.

Re: What Is Enlightenment? (1784)

#37

Post by mbivert »

emblaegh wrote: post #30
mbivert wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's deeper than that: the vast majority of people believe in science in the exact same way as the used to believe in Christianism. Try asking around for bulletproof proofs of the Earth's roundness. Or communicating the idea that time and space aren't really distinct entities. Side note, but horoscopes aren't fully to be thrown away[0]. IIRC the main idea was that the month of birth is/was related to seasonal human a…

> It's deeper than that: the vast majority of people believe in science in the exact same way as the used to believe in Christianism. Try asking around for bulletproof proofs of the Earth's roundness. Or communicating the idea that time and space aren't really distinct entities. I'm not so sure. The common person definitely cannot give scientific explanations for most things, but between modern medicine, computers an…

I think religions played a too often underestimated positive role in past societies, and I say that I someone who isn't particularly fond of what I would call the "religious mentality".

For example in Buddhism there's the notion of karma: if you do something bad/good, you'll meet bad/good things in return. Now, there's the "fantasist" interpretation, with reincarnation & cie, but there's also a pragmatic approach: if you keep doing bad things, people will want to get back at you, you'll get a bad reputation, and others won't want to deal with you anymore.

Or, frowning upon sodomy, considering that feces are a transmission route[0] for many common infections. Same thing with advanced promiscuity and STDs. Or the importance of sturdy couples (marriages, Confucianism) for kids's well-being (see e.g.[1]).

What I mean to say is that, we may have a very hard proof that religions were effective to help societies, at least to persist.

[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fecal%E2%80%93oral_route

[1]: https://ifstudies.org/blog/children-first-why-family-structu...

Re: What Is Enlightenment? (1784)

#38

Post by agumonkey »

FrankyHollywood wrote: post #31
jl6 wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Proven, IMHO, by the ease with which many atheists have fallen into alternative faith-based belief systems. 21st century America is increasingly atheist, but no less religious.

Indeed, I was never aware of it, until Covid... millions of people believing in nano-bots raining from the clouds programmed by Bill Gates and many other unbelievable far fetched idea's, people just believed it like it was common knowledge. And the false believes have far reaching impact, like polarization in society and deaths. Just today I read that Dutch vaccination rates are lower than ever [1]. Diseases like pol…

I experienced and saw it with the crypto bubble too. It was near guru level of mania and belief. Very telling.

Re: What Is Enlightenment? (1784)

#39

Post by zogrodea »

t1tos wrote: post #14

"Nature, then, has carefully cultivated the seed within the hard core--namely the urge for and the vocation of free thought." Kant may be referring to the liberation of political nonage. The illusion of open discourse with the necessity to obey is the mark of a slighted man in the sovereign. So he urges us: "Caesar has no power over grammarians."

That might be the content of what Kant is speaking about, but I think the method/process of what he is speaking about is interesting and deserving of attention too.

"Thanks be to Nature, then, for the incompatibility, for heartless competitive vanity, for the insatiable desire to possess and to rule! Without them, all the excellent natural capacities of humanity would forever sleep, undeveloped. Man wishes concord; but Nature knows better what is good for the race; she wills discord. He wishes to live comfortably and pleasantly; Nature wills that he should be plunged from sloth and passive contentment into labor and trouble, in order that he may find means of extricating himself from them. The natural urges to this, the sources of unsociableness and mutual opposition from which so many evils arise, drive men to new exertions of their forces and thus to the manifold development of their capacities. They thereby perhaps show the ordering of a wise Creator and not the hand of an evil spirit, who bungled in his great work or spoiled it out of envy."

From https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Idea_for_a_Universal_History_... (under the heading "FOURTH THESIS").

I can certainly relate to his statement that labour and trouble have enhanced my capabilities and others here likely can as well.

Re: What Is Enlightenment? (1784)

#40

Post by bazoom42 »

anthk wrote: post #20
jl6 wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Proven, IMHO, by the ease with which many atheists have fallen into alternative faith-based belief systems. 21st century America is increasingly atheist, but no less religious.

That happened in Europe from the 60's. A lot of people replaced Christianism with Horoscopes, which is a similar irrational bullshit to feel yourself better. Or buying lottery tickets depending on where they bought it, as if the place were magical or so.

I dont think people into astrology would call themselves atheists. They would probabably identify as “spiritual”.

“Atheist religion” is more like NPL, scientology, UFO cults, The Singularity, simulation universe etc.

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