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Post by Deleted on Jun 29, 2010 17:57:50 GMT -5
What worries me about too many atheists is that a LOT of them seem to suffer from the same attitude towards religion as Nietzsche, who said:
'If there were Gods, how could I endure not to be God? Therefore there are no gods.'
Arrogance of that nature is as indefensible as the most absurd theistic claims!
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Erasmus
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Post by Erasmus on Jun 29, 2010 19:00:46 GMT -5
True. One kind of atheist annoys me in particular (and one particular example even more, though most of the time I can't work out what his melange of long psychological terms is supposed to mean). That is the kind whose concept of 'God' is strictly Fundamentalist Bogyman and will let no theological argument change it. Richard Dawkins is one such. They actually give support to the more serious theologies by showing complete ignorance of what they are about. Theologians like Hans Küng and John Spong are not talking about an invisible friend in the sky If an atheist case is to be made against them, then it must be made against them, not against some straw man hoicked out of a Bible Belt still. The impression comes across that no such case can be made, so the arguer is simply hoping his audience is as ignorant of them as himself. Personally, I don't give a hoot because I regard the question of God's existence as 'improper'. That is, to determine whether God exists or not first requires to determine what is meant by God - which by definition cannot be done* - and second requires to clarify the meaning of ExistRevert to mathematics: We all learnt at school that negative numbers can't have square roots. That bloody quadratic formula won't work when it comes up with a negative. Those of us who went to college learnt that square roots of negative numbers are all over the place. They are particularly all over nuclear physics and the less exotic electrical theory since there is a square relation between angle of a generator and current - so what happens when the current is negative? It's there in the 4-D expansion of Pythagoras as well: Z 2=(X 2+Y 2-T 2) ½ and it is an absolute gift for explaining how all those blasted trigonometric ratios fit together and can be expressed as infinite series and where the ones with an H in their name came from (though I've never known what they might be actually used for). So do square roots of negative numbers exist? Do negative numbers even exist? There was a lot of mathematical outcry when (1-1) was first presented as ([ +1]+[ -1]) - No No No, monster in the works, the man's insane! Just like in secondary school you just couldn't do the formula when it went negative, so in elementary, you couldn't do (3-5) (Accounting is a relic of this since ir precedes the concept of negative numbers, so keeps everything as positive credit or debit) Obviously these mathematical monstrosities exist along with fractional dimensions that give fractals their name and multiple infinities of multiple infinities (see Cantor - and if you do might have you a jibbering wreck praying to Lucifer). Of course they do not exist in any conceivable sense of the term. God appears to fall into the same category. Obviously there is some substrate of which everything is a 'materialization' but it looks highly likely that this god-thing cannot actually exist in any meaningful sense, or it would be possible to push the regression back and ask what that is a 'materialization' of. The best we can manage is something along the lines that God cannot exist in any terms comprehensible to us because what is comprehensible to us is 'smaller' than us in the noosphere (which also has no 'real' {material} existence of course): to exist, God would have to cease to be God. Woops! That's exactly what mystic tradition says! On the other hand, as an abstraction, God has as much right to exist as Beauty, Justice, Warmth and any others not necessarily bound to human experience. I think that Christianity originally taught this and it is why Christians were considered atheists. Not that atheism was particularly criticized in the Roman world - as long as you performed your rites to the gods you didn't believe in. In fact there's a couple of Jews mentioned in an ancient synagogue as civic officials whose job entailed rites to the gods. *Because by definition God is beyond comprehension.
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Post by liberaljoe on Jun 30, 2010 1:28:59 GMT -5
......there is no rational basis for us sharing in their beliefs, still less for attempting to structure a society on the basis of mythology. I find this statement irrational as a belief in God can be entirely rational, and there is indeed a raetional basis for such a belief. Societies are almost without exception based on mythology, a far more powerful force than mere facts. Mythology is one of the strongest elements in the cohesion of a society.
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Post by beth on Jun 30, 2010 10:37:08 GMT -5
Societies are almost without exception based on mythology, a far more powerful force than mere facts. Mythology is one of the strongest elements in the cohesion of a society. I agree with this, Joe. Comparative Mythology is one of my favorite subjects. Mythos has brought us to where we are now and will doubtless carry us on.
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Erasmus
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Post by Erasmus on Jun 30, 2010 17:19:09 GMT -5
The understanding of Mythology has changed over time. That is why there was such a hell of a rumpus when Ahmedinajad spoke of The Mythology of the Holocaust. We have come to use it in a simple sense of a false explanation for something like Kipling's Just So Stories.
That's not the basic sense at all. The best description I've had is A true story that never happened. The reason writers like Shakespeare and Goethe achieve the veneration they do is that they are mythicists. Others might write entertainment but they wrote stories fixed upon individuals and places that somehow managed to apply generically to The Human Condition. No doubt France had one too but they were more into direct philosophizing. In modern times, Sartre, Anouilh and Camus have written mythically and the first two used actual Greek myth to apply to modern context, even when keeping it within the original setting. Jean Cocteau did similar filming Orpheus. I had to do these buggers at school but I can't remember all the details 45 years on! Myth is a specific example of a general truth.
A Myth is a kind of template. It is a situation summarized in a specific story where it is easy to see how the mythic roles re-enact in real situations. George Lucas said that he intended Star Wars to be mythic but in fact he made a right pig's ear of it distracted with special effects. The Dune series is mythic (which doesn't make it any less boring or more comprehensible!) It is mythic because the same situations and characters appear down the ages in different settings and often make the same sort of mistakes. Some kind of voodoo-science version of reincarnation is involved to explain it.
Not everybody knows Dune but most know essence of Shakespeare. Hamlet is mythic, Lear is mythic, Macbeth is mythic and Richard III may be. Othello is not mythic, Coriolanus could be mythic but probably isn't. What's the difference?
Othello tells the (in real terms quite unbelievable) tale of the Great General whose heart rules his head and is [too] easily convinced that his new wife he has barely had time to be with is having it off with his lieutenant. The villain with the Welsh or Spanish name of Iago (James, Jacob) is a villain because he is written that way; he has no credible motivation. It is a story that might apply to certain kinds of people but we can't really see it as fundamental to types. We can't
Macbeth is different. It almost follows Greek tragedy where trying to avoid a predicted Fate causes it to happen. Macbeth's career is predicted and yet when it works out, the predictions are true, but not the obvious interpretation that would be understood. It is a tale of ruthless ambition and of trust in taking prediction in its most obvious and preferred terms and being too complacent,even as a villain, to think that others may not be on the level either or as dim as you imagine them. Macbeth is a myth because we can take the types in it and apply them to - right now - any number of corrupt businessmen and politicians who imagined they were the only ones doing the dirty and outraged to find that others have been just as dirty as them.
Myths today usually call themselves ~isms. They present their version of how the world is and interpret everything to fit, no matter how much more that needs warping or ignoring the evidence than changing their belief. Democracy is a myth, so are Rights, The Market, Freedom, Independence - and the feminist myth of 'patriarchy'. Taken to task, they all amount to How we like to believe society works but only does when we make it so
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Post by Deleted on Jul 1, 2010 10:24:04 GMT -5
So, liberaljoe, you believe that we should run our societies on the basis of falsehood.
Perhaps you ought to enter the political arena where the regular participants certainly adhere to that point of view!
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Post by liberaljoe on Jul 1, 2010 11:26:27 GMT -5
So, liberaljoe, you believe that we should run our societies on the basis of falsehood. Perhaps you ought to enter the political arena where the regular participants certainly adhere to that point of view! What nonsense! I have said no such thing.
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Post by Jessiealan on Jul 3, 2010 11:06:23 GMT -5
So, liberaljoe, you believe that we should run our societies on the basis of falsehood. Perhaps you ought to enter the political arena where the regular participants certainly adhere to that point of view! What nonsense! I have said no such thing. I don't see you said that either, liberaljoe. It made sense to me.
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Post by Deleted on Jul 5, 2010 9:13:03 GMT -5
He said that we should run our societies on the basis of mythology.
Myths, by definition, are NOT true.
I appreciate that my preference for arguments based upon logic and facts is not popular here but it remains the ONLY method of establishing the TRUTH of a statement.
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Post by liberaljoe on Jul 5, 2010 11:53:52 GMT -5
He said that we should run our societies on the basis of mythology. Myths, by definition, are NOT true. I appreciate that my preference for arguments based upon logic and facts is not popular here but it remains the ONLY method of establishing the TRUTH of a statement. No he didn't! For someone who professes to be a philosopher you seem to have an inadequate grasp of reading and interpreting langauge. A mathematical philospher I suppose.
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Post by beth on Jul 5, 2010 18:40:56 GMT -5
He said that we should run our societies on the basis of mythology. Myths, by definition, are NOT true. I appreciate that my preference for arguments based upon logic and facts is not popular here but it remains the ONLY method of establishing the TRUTH of a statement. There seems to be some misunderstanding here. Mike, if you combine mythos, logo and symbolism, you'll find quite a lot of truths that involve the foundations of society. Doubtless you'll find junk, too, but it's easy to differentiate the good from the crap. Joseph Campbell's studies in comparative myth are fascinating and eye-opening. Carl Jung weighs in on this as well ... especially the symbolism aspect. Myth and folk stories are not usually meant to be fact, but metaphor.
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Erasmus
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Post by Erasmus on Jul 5, 2010 20:11:20 GMT -5
Myths are truer than truth. They are the equivalent to a formula or a template that can be applied to multiple instances. It is when the parables around them are taken literally that they lose their real meaning and become problematic. Often the word Myth today has been replaced with reference to individuals who have come to be seen mythically, with Icon. Princess Diana has become a Myth in that sense. The real woman was a rather dim spoilt brat with attention-seeking psychological problems liable to throw a tantrum if she wasn't reassured of how much she was loved every five minutes with the social graces of a lobster. One recent society that ran itself entirely on myths it created for and about itself was Nazi Germany. Powerful myths they were too! See Occult Reich and a number of articles in Nexus. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wewelsburg
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Post by liberaljoe on Jul 6, 2010 0:19:36 GMT -5
Myths are truer than truth. They are the equivalent to a formula or a template that can be applied to multiple instances. It is when the parables around them are taken literally that they lose their real meaning and become problematic. Often the word Myth today has been replaced with reference to individuals who have come to be seen mythically, with Icon. Princess Diana has become a Myth in that sense. The real woman was a rather dim spoilt brat with attention-seeking psychological problems liable to throw a tantrum if she wasn't reassured of how much she was loved every five minutes with the social graces of a lobster. One recent society that ran itself entirely on myths it created for and about itself was Nazi Germany. Powerful myths they were too! See Occult Reich and a number of articles in Nexus. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WewelsburgI agree. Not to mention Isreal, the US and , of course, Britain
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Post by Deleted on Jul 6, 2010 10:39:25 GMT -5
In a couple of days time when I return I can see that I shall have to start a new thread on the nature of truth.
Myths may contain important aspects of truth but by definition they are NOT true.
As such, any form of social, political or cultural organisation that is founded upon a myth - religious or otherwise - is inevitably in danger of sinking into tyranny.
As Montaigne once famously (and IMHO, justly) remarked: 'it is valuing our conjectures too highly to burn people at the stake for doubting them.'
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Post by liberaljoe on Jul 6, 2010 11:13:10 GMT -5
In a couple of days time when I return I can see that I shall have to start a new thread on the nature of truth. Myths may contain important aspects of truth but by definition they are NOT true. As such, any form of social, political or cultural organisation that is founded upon a myth - religious or otherwise - is inevitably in danger of sinking into tyranny. As Montaigne once famously (and IMHO, justly) remarked: 'it is valuing our conjectures too highly to burn people at the stake for doubting them.' And do not forget your English comprehension lessons too - it is important a philospher understands English
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