221–230 of 267 posts
Such is the wisdom of Zen and some other Buddhist philosophical flavors.
It is interesting that you have marked a philosophy that moves people to lead lives of monastic asceticism as a philosophy that encourages a small identity.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
My mistake. I changed it to "a biblical literalist."
My mistake. I changed it to "a biblical literalist." Whether it was intentional or not, your [2] paragraph there seems to reveal part of your own identity with the scientific community, primarily because of the way it was phrased. It reads as if the scientist is completely and entirely committed to the rational, while cleverly mentioning that those identifying with religion clearly toss the evidence out of the window…
I believe the scientific community is defined by complete commitment to the rational. Sure, there are people who claim to be scientists, but the scientific method is an exercise in pure rationality.
As well, generally speaking, ultra-religious people tend to discount evidence that contradicts their faith.
In contrast, ultra-scientific people accept new evidence that contradicts their previously-held beliefs. They update the model and move on.
I'm sure there are examples to the contrary and I do see a "No true Scotsman" fallacy looming on the horizon of this line of argument.
"There is only a perspective seeing, only a perspective 'knowing'; the more affects we allow to speak about a thing, the more eyes, various eyes we are able to use or the same thing, the more complete will be our concept of the thing, our 'objectivity'."
In other words, Nietzsche says in order to be more objective we should maximize the things that we identify with.
All very good points you make here. The biggest challange for most people will be refusing to identify themselves with the nation-state in which they live. People who don't share their fellow citizens' patriotism and national identity risk alienation and shunning. Plus, there is the issue of what we 'owe' our country, in return for all the many benefits we enjoy by living here. Some say we owe our loyalty.
This confluence of religion and politics was especially prominent in the recent gay marriage debate. Really, the entire issue revolves around the word "marriage" having a dual meaning in a religious sense and a (government) civil contract sense. When the government "redefines" civil marriage (e.g. with the inclusion of interracial couples), religious organizations can still retain their own definitions of marriage. I…
At the popular level, yes. But there are other concerns, like the practical basis of marriage rights for procreation and that it is contrary to the American experiment to mandate gay marriage for all states.
2. I wish that you would define what you mean by "contrary to the American experiment." No one is advocating gay marriage for all states. Many people are demanding their own state government recognize civil marriage as distinct from religious marriage, and that all citizens have equal rights to civil marriage.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Just for some context, are people much more religious than when you were a kid? I had figured this was a relatively stable number. Or maybe you were referring to how fervent people have become with their religious views? I'm curious about the actual trend of religiosity, and I'm somewhat skeptical of anecdotal data (for the very reasons in your article). What is the general trend from someone who's been following thi…
are people much more religious than when you were a kid? Yes. It was very noticeable when I went back to Pittsburgh recently. When I was a kid, people went to church, but it didn't spill over into everyday life. They did it more as a matter of form. Now people's conversation is filled with religious references. Someone who 30 years ago would have said "we have two children" now says "we've been blessed with two child…
For instance, say someone takes a jab at some aspect of another person's identity like their ability to comprehend a complicated philosophical concept or programming construct (or something). At this point the second person may feverishly try to defend herself, reading all about this construct and related constructs. Even if she reads to defend herself, and in the process gets a somewhat skewed view of what is more or less objectively decidable, is it the case that she's dumber than before for having read all that? Another option is to have not been involved in the argument and perhaps as a result less prone to bias on the issue, but also less likely to have just done all that reading to clarify and defend herself.
This isn't necessary in contradiction with what Paul wrote, but it does add a little nuance to what was stated pretty bluntly: that the bigger your identity becomes, the dumber you become.
As an aside, I see a tiny bit of irony that the spirit of what Paul is saying is similar to that of Buddhism, which says that attachment and identification results in suffering (not just stupidity). Buddhism rules! Your religion sucks!
Edit: okay, so after going through a few more posts, my Buddhism crack isn't so original or funny. Doh!
Earlier quoted context omitted.
My mistake. I changed it to "a biblical literalist." Whether it was intentional or not, your [2] paragraph there seems to reveal part of your own identity with the scientific community, primarily because of the way it was phrased. It reads as if the scientist is completely and entirely committed to the rational, while cleverly mentioning that those identifying with religion clearly toss the evidence out of the window…
> It reads as if the scientist is completely and entirely committed to the rational, while cleverly mentioning that those identifying with religion clearly toss the evidence out of the window. I believe the scientific community is defined by complete commitment to the rational. Sure, there are people who claim to be scientists, but the scientific method is an exercise in pure rationality. As well, generally speaking,…
You would do best to rephrase that statement in far less concrete terms, because scientists (more specifically -- "scientists" trying to answer "why" and "how" our existence came about) are hardly playing in the arena of complete and total rationality.
As I linked before, scientists far smarter than myself have noted that the rational scientific method used in empirical observation oversteps its rational boundaries when it attempts to answer existential questions -- those are the only real questions that are even disputed between religion and science. No intelligent religious person questions the complete rationality of empirical observation and the scientific method behind that, so the only domain were talking about here is that which is under dispute.
In this domain of dispute between religion and science, where it's pretty evident both world-views are in fact NOT completely rational (i.e. conjecturing about the unobservable and unmeasurable), it would only be fair to say that neither the scientist or religious believer has a completely rational answer that explains their own existence. This is a distinct difference from how the scientist and religious believer are subjectively viewed as concretely rational vs. irrational, when it is crystal clear that is not the true big picture of the differing world-views.
Nevertheless, the major problem here is that these questions of existence are answered in the name of Science. The common person understands science to be the authority on all things rational, because they've seen it in practical use on all things empirical. The only problem is that most fail to realize that the scientific method only has true rational authority in the domain of the empirical. Can't you see the inherent problem here? Science has no more authority in answering existential questions than any other world-view, because all of science's rational authority comes from the empirical, where things can be measured, observed, modified, etc.