Secular Intolerance

For all things philosophical.

Moderators: AMod, iMod

Locked
davidm
Posts: 1155
Joined: Sat May 27, 2017 7:30 pm

Re: Secular Intolerance

Post by davidm »

Greta wrote: Mon Aug 21, 2017 5:57 am
davidm wrote: Mon Aug 21, 2017 4:32 amBecause the concepts of “more evolved” and “culminating apex” have no place in evolutionary theory. If you think such things exist you have to reject evolutionary theory and replace it with something that accommodates these concepts.

This is because evolution is a blind watchmaker and does not have a target. It can’t have a target because it’s a mindless process. So an advanced mind is not a goal of evolution. Neither is anything else.

To say that humans are “more evolved” than other species is not a concept in evolution but an anthropomorphic bias.
Certainly not "more evolved" - there's only been 4 billion years to evolve for all of us.

Still, Gould's "evolution is a bush" assumption has been demolished by humanity's continued exponential rise. There is no doubt whatsoever that humans are much more sentient than any other species, even accounting for anthropocentric bias.
The anthropocentric bias is not that we are cognitively more sophisticated than other species. We are. The bias is the idea that we are more evolved than other species, because of our cognitive advantages. All species are equally "well evolved." They just fit different niches.
The evidence is in - over 4 billion years of evolution has demonstrated a persistent tendency towards greater sentience of the biosphere, and that is what I think those who claim that humans are "more evolved" are trying to get across. Some time ago dinosaurs were the most sentient beings on Earth, the apex species of the time. Now it's our turn. In the future it will probably be someone else's turn.
It must be pointed out, however, that since life started as extremely simple, there was only one broad evolutionary direction to go in -- that of greater complexity, including cognitive complexity. But even today, the bulk of the biosphere remains bacterial. Many species evolve to simpler, not more complex. And human-level intelligence, so far, is a one-off -- just like the elephant's trunk and the giraffe's neck. The eye has evolved independently about 100 times. Human-level intelligence has evolved just once. This suggests we are a highly unlikely accident, and helps explain why Seti has failed -- there are no other intelligent species in the Milky Way, and maybe not anywhere else in the universe.

To put in perspective the utter insignificance of humans in the scheme of things, if the entire history of earth were compressed into a single calendar year, with the formation of the earth occurring on Jan. 1, then modern humans make their first appearance at one second to midnight on the final day of the year, Dec. 31. The earth got along quite fine without us before we arrived, and will be just fine after we are gone. Human-style intelligence is probably a baroque accident that is unlikely to be repeated.
User avatar
Greta
Posts: 4389
Joined: Sat Aug 08, 2015 8:10 am

Re: Secular Intolerance

Post by Greta »

davidm wrote: Mon Aug 21, 2017 7:27 am
The evidence is in - over 4 billion years of evolution has demonstrated a persistent tendency towards greater sentience of the biosphere, and that is what I think those who claim that humans are "more evolved" are trying to get across. Some time ago dinosaurs were the most sentient beings on Earth, the apex species of the time. Now it's our turn. In the future it will probably be someone else's turn.
It must be pointed out, however, that since life started as extremely simple, there was only one broad evolutionary direction to go in -- that of greater complexity, including cognitive complexity. But even today, the bulk of the biosphere remains bacterial. Many species evolve to simpler, not more complex. And human-level intelligence, so far, is a one-off -- just like the elephant's trunk and the giraffe's neck. The eye has evolved independently about 100 times. Human-level intelligence has evolved just once. This suggests we are a highly unlikely accident, and helps explain why Seti has failed -- there are no other intelligent species in the Milky Way, and maybe not anywhere else in the universe.
It's a interesting feature of people's perceptions of evolution that emergence is devalued by lack of ubiquity. That is, if emergence only occurs in certain populations, then the fact that the other organisms did not progress so is considered to render the idea fragile and flaky. Hence the clueless theist arguments against evolution - "why didn't the other apes evolve into human?" *

However, while the autotrophic LUCA was busily converting geology into biology, you will note that most of the Earth remains geological - a base on which other organisms can live. In context, its no surprise that the dynamic is repeated between prokaryotes and eukaryotes, between invertebrates and chordates, between other chordates and humans. Twenty years ago I would not have considered humanity to be much more than an empowered ape, but humanity's advancement is now simply too bizarre and powerful to ignore. Note that humans are no more capable of building all this as individual ants can build a nest - but a colony can make a nest and humanity's capabilities are increasing so quickly it's hard to keep track.

I think of humanity as "the pointy end" of the biosphere's sentience, a niche that trilobites and as dinosaurs (amongst others) once filled. Nothing is forever, including our dominance.
davidm wrote:To put in perspective the utter insignificance of humans in the scheme of things, if the entire history of earth were compressed into a single calendar year, with the formation of the earth occurring on Jan. 1, then modern humans make their first appearance at one second to midnight on the final day of the year, Dec. 31. The earth got along quite fine without us before we arrived, and will be just fine after we are gone. Human-style intelligence is probably a baroque accident that is unlikely to be repeated.
I think you grossly underestimate our species, which is perfectly understandable, given what dickheads so many of us can be (no, not you :).

Say, if humans disappeared from the planet tomorrow, how long do you think the Earth would be capable of sustaining complex life? We know that the Sun will expand in five billion years. In about a billion years the oceans will boil away and the Earth will experience a runaway greenhouse effect, resulting in a surface like Venus. Given that just a 7C increase in the Earth temperature would make life on the surface very difficult, even without humans the Earth would be largely sterilised in a matter of millions of years - out of 4.6 billion years. The biosphere is approaching its dotage, so to speak.

Thus, biology is on the way out anyway, to be slowly roasted away. All the creatures, the evolution, humanity's achievements? All due to be completely obliterated by the expanding Sun. Humans, however, can at least salvage something by sending the Earth's biological material with AI cultivators to inhabit other worlds.

Where human evolution goes as we increasingly meld with technology may impact on this too but I won't speculate because it's very much a case of wait and see. (Note that, as with above-mentioned emergences, most likely only a small minority of humans will meld with machines with most remaining en naturale, and probably very much controlled and exploited by the enhanced humans).

* Also, human intelligence did not emerge once, but numerous times. However, Homo sapiens out-competed, and probably killed and ate, their competitors, with any remainders no doubt killed off by the ice age 60,000 years ago that nearly put paid to humans altogether.
User avatar
Arising_uk
Posts: 12314
Joined: Wed Oct 17, 2007 2:31 am

Re: Secular Intolerance

Post by Arising_uk »

seeds wrote:...
Which sub forum do you think would be most fitting? Philosophy of Religion?
_______
Well it should be Metaphysics but given you're both godbotherers maybe that would be more apt.
Nick_A
Posts: 6208
Joined: Sat Jul 07, 2012 1:23 am

Re: Secular Intolerance

Post by Nick_A »

Dubious
Nick_A wrote: ↑
Sat Aug 19, 2017 3:45 pm
You’ve lost me here. Are you suggesting that the universe is a process created by a process? If so, what is this process?

What I meant was simply a process unknown to us and likely to remain so forever. The point was there being no intent or purpose to it...certainly not by any terms defined by us.
The importance of your response in relation to this thread is that if neither the universe or Man has any objective meaning and purpose, then spirit killing of the young is not only justifiable but necessary for the young to free themselves of their imaginary calling to eros. So where I am opposing metaphysical repression that destroys a natural human impulse in them, spirit killers are right to do so for the mental health of the young. So you see it is an important question.
What Plato called “forms” are outlines of reality which the mind creates to make it perceivable to itself. There’s nothing otherwise particularly universal about them. They are variables to be filled with a specific kind of value in which the “object” is made to fit the mental paradigm. It may sound paradoxical but it was through the objective "instances" of the Form concept which created the Platonic Forms from which the so-called "instances" derived.
Does this mean that neither objective justice or a perfect circle exist as forms? The idea of them came from a being who had no reason or purpose to exist in the first place. Do you have n explanation of why this would happen?
I find this to be a total misconception! Calling ourselves a microcosm just because someone decided on that description long ago does not by any stretch imply that we are “constructed just as the great cosmos”. This is an inference between two conditions with a void in-between. It doesn’t connect! You can’t create a universe from human DNA...in a manner of speaking!
When we understand that the Source by whatever name is the unity of three essential forces – yin, yang, and qi, as the first cosmos, then lesser cosmoses are the same but exist within the first cosmos but at lower levels of vibration. If you play high C, middle C, and low C, on the piano they are the same in pitch but are related by vibratory frequency. It isn’t that there is a void between them but we don’t hear the transition between notes. Our senses recognize temporary unities. Man is a cosmos. It is three and one and the smallest part of a higher cosmos. But we are not Man. We are fallen Man and do not exist as an inner unity but as a plurality. We are not ONE, we are many. I AM is the goal of conscious human evolution. The potential for human conscious evolution is inner unity..
…..Value is measured by whatever we experience as meaningful. Obviously you are convinced of the truth of what you find meaningful at THIS time. However long it takes, those values will change but only if you’re willing to scrutinize what you currently accept as objective truth. You’re not the only one who would gradually and organically have reversed themselves in successive years!

It’s a common belief, which intelligence itself defaults to, that given its abilities, some supreme agency commands it to accept what amounts to purpose and intent. That agency exists, though far less supreme, originating in us as the very Leitmotiv upon which intelligence grounds itself.
Since for you we live in a universe without objective meaning and purpose there is no living machine to serve so consequently there is no value in anything but pragmatism. There is nothing to objectively serve. The ultimate for human being is striving to be capable of the “Will to Power” Nietzsche wrote of. Man is a creature that accidentally arose for no reason that creates its own values for no reason. Is this what you believe?

A person doesn’t pursue truth because it is true but because it is good. Secularism wants to define the good in accordance with cave life. Universalism wants to consciously evolve so as to experience the objective good – the love of wisdom. Spirit killers support defining the good in accordance with its beliefs and universalism seeks to transcend blind belief and blind denial through becoming open to remembering the good which was always known and humanity is a part of.
Belinda
Posts: 8034
Joined: Fri Aug 26, 2016 10:13 am

Re: Secular Intolerance

Post by Belinda »

Nick-A wrote:
The importance of your response in relation to this thread is that if neither the universe or Man has any objective meaning and purpose, then spirit killing of the young is not only justifiable but necessary for the young to free themselves of their imaginary calling to eros. So where I am opposing metaphysical repression that destroys a natural human impulse in them, spirit killers are right to do so for the mental health of the young. So you see it is an important question.
But I would have thought that spirited children are all the better better equipped to make their own meanings. The practice of killing the spirits of children in order to render them docile is uncommon in free countries. On the contrary , those having the spirit to make their own meanings is the sort of citizens that a nation needs. The alternative is citizens who react to crowd control, their own unconsidered emotions, or political agitators.
fooloso4
Posts: 281
Joined: Mon May 01, 2017 4:42 pm

Re: Secular Intolerance

Post by fooloso4 »

Nick_A:
The importance of your response in relation to this thread is that if neither the universe or Man has any objective meaning and purpose, then spirit killing of the young is not only justifiable but necessary for the young to free themselves of their imaginary calling to eros. So where I am opposing metaphysical repression that destroys a natural human impulse in them, spirit killers are right to do so for the mental health of the young. So you see it is an important question.
This is a load of crap! We have no idea whether the universe or Man has any objective meaning and purpose, but even if we assume it does not that in no way either justifies or makes necessary “spirit killing” or freedom from eros. The eros or desire for wisdom is a pursuit, and, as Plato makes clear in the Symposium, the beloved is always to a greater or lesser extent a product of the imagination of the lover. We desire wisdom but unless one is wise he or she have no knowledge of whether or not there is an objective meaning and purpose, and, if that meaning and purpose exists, what it is remains a matter of the imagination.
When we understand that the Source by whatever name is the unity of three essential forces – yin, yang, and qi, as the first cosmos, then lesser cosmoses are the same but exist within the first cosmos but at lower levels of vibration.
But you understand nothing of the sort. They are just things you read about. Just ideas you glom onto like Plato’s Form of the Good. Except the two ideas cannot be reconciled with each other without doing damage to both. The Good is not a unity of three essential forces or the first cosmos.
If you play high C, middle C, and low C, on the piano they are the same in pitch but are related by vibratory frequency.


They are not the same pitch. The pitch is the frequency. They are the same scale tones in different octaves in a tempered tuning. Relating the three pitches to the three essential forces is arbitrary. For one, a full piano keyboard has 8 C notes, with middle C being the fourth. Any of the 8 octaves has the same relationship to all the others. For another, since Chinese music is based on ratios of a vibrating string there are no true octaves. The notes do not stand in the same relationship of larger to smaller or higher to lower or lower to higher or one to three or three to one. Neither the tempered tuning of the piano nor the choice of three octaves has any relationship to the three forces. In addition, any claims about harmony built on a tempered scale is equally suspect. Non-western music and even early western music sounds dissonant and out of tune only because our ears are not familiar with in and trained to hear according to a tempered scale. This is just another example of you mangling ideas in order to make them fit into your ill-informed view.
Since for you we live in a universe without objective meaning and purpose there is no living machine to serve so consequently there is no value in anything but pragmatism. There is nothing to objectively serve.
More nonsense. To use the example above the value in music is not pragmatic and does not serve anything beyond itself. The value of human relationships, which you seem to have not the foggiest notion of, is not determined by anything outside those relationships. Those of us who love do not love because of an objective meaning and purpose we have no knowledge of.
Man is a creature that accidentally arose for no reason that creates its own values for no reason.
Man creates his own values because they are of value, some as a means and some as an end. They have purpose and meaning for us, not to serve some cosmic fantasy.
A person doesn’t pursue truth because it is true but because it is good.
In your own case, you pursue something you imagine to be good and call true, while shunning truth if it threatens your beliefs. Some prefer the truth to a lie while others, both those who tell them and those who believe them to be the truth, prefer "noble lies".
Secularism wants to define the good in accordance with cave life.
No, it is rather that secularism prevents people like you from deciding for everyone else what the good is.
Universalism wants to consciously evolve so as to experience the objective good …
Unless you have consciously evolved so as to have experienced the objective good then, as it has so elegantly been said STFU. It you have not experienced the objective good then you do not even know there is such a thing. You are just defining it according to the shadows of images on the cave wall. This is a truth that you are willfully blind to. You have chosen religion rather than philosophy, revelation over reason, what you have heard over what you have seen.
… universalism seeks to transcend blind belief and blind denial through becoming open to remembering the good which was always known and humanity is a part of.
You appeal to your own blind belief and blind denial, imagining that you “remember” the good that you have always known. Are you merely “open to remembering the good” or do you remember and thereby know it? If you know the good then according to the Platonic myths you are not a lover of wisdom but one who possesses it and thus is no longer in pursuit of it. With knowledge of the good you have knowledge of the whole and are no longer in the cave. But you have admitted that you are in the cave and thus have no knowledge of the good. You have not remembered it and only believe that you have always known it.

And now, once again, the dance of equivocation …
Nick_A
Posts: 6208
Joined: Sat Jul 07, 2012 1:23 am

Re: Secular Intolerance

Post by Nick_A »

Belinda wrote: Mon Aug 21, 2017 5:19 pm Nick-A wrote:
The importance of your response in relation to this thread is that if neither the universe or Man has any objective meaning and purpose, then spirit killing of the young is not only justifiable but necessary for the young to free themselves of their imaginary calling to eros. So where I am opposing metaphysical repression that destroys a natural human impulse in them, spirit killers are right to do so for the mental health of the young. So you see it is an important question.
But I would have thought that spirited children are all the better better equipped to make their own meanings. The practice of killing the spirits of children in order to render them docile is uncommon in free countries. On the contrary , those having the spirit to make their own meanings is the sort of citizens that a nation needs. The alternative is citizens who react to crowd control, their own unconsidered emotions, or political agitators.
What you are calling spirited is the result of animal emotional energy blended with sex energy. It is a product of the earth and can lead to either subjectively good or bad results. A mob for example is spirited but what it produces isn't considered beneficial.

Spirit killing refers to blocking a person from receiving the energy of the spirit necessary to nourish our higher parts which comes from above in contrast to emotional and sex energy which has the earth as its origin. Secular intolerance has this effect through intimidation of blocking spiritual energy in schools and is a horrible form of child abuse.
User avatar
Arising_uk
Posts: 12314
Joined: Wed Oct 17, 2007 2:31 am

Re: Secular Intolerance

Post by Arising_uk »

Nick_A wrote:... A mob for example is spirited but what it produces isn't considered beneficial. ...
I'd have thought that that would depend upon what they are being a mob about?
Spirit killing refers to blocking a person from receiving the energy of the spirit necessary to nourish our higher parts which comes from above in contrast to emotional and sex energy which has the earth as its origin. ...
Above where?
Secular intolerance has this effect through intimidation of blocking spiritual energy in schools and is a horrible form of child abuse.
In comparison to to the actual physical abuse by the spiritual it's a mere bagatelle.
Last edited by Arising_uk on Tue Aug 22, 2017 11:08 am, edited 1 time in total.
User avatar
Greta
Posts: 4389
Joined: Sat Aug 08, 2015 8:10 am

Re: Secular Intolerance

Post by Greta »

fooloso4 wrote: Mon Aug 21, 2017 8:26 pm
If you play high C, middle C, and low C, on the piano they are the same in pitch but are related by vibratory frequency.


They are not the same pitch. The pitch is the frequency. They are the same scale tones in different octaves in a tempered tuning. Relating the three pitches to the three essential forces is arbitrary. For one, a full piano keyboard has 8 C notes, with middle C being the fourth. Any of the 8 octaves has the same relationship to all the others. For another, since Chinese music is based on ratios of a vibrating string there are no true octaves. The notes do not stand in the same relationship of larger to smaller or higher to lower or lower to higher or one to three or three to one. Neither the tempered tuning of the piano nor the choice of three octaves has any relationship to the three forces. In addition, any claims about harmony built on a tempered scale is equally suspect. Non-western music and even early western music sounds dissonant and out of tune only because our ears are not familiar with in and trained to hear according to a tempered scale.
Yes, and Indian music is based on quarter tone scales. The moods and dissonances of music are interesting in context, noting that some churches had issues with the dissonance of "The Devil's Tritone", even when within a normal diatonic scale. The concern comes from the desire to hear resolution in music (mush as we like to see stories resolved) and unresolved dissonance invokes a little edginess.

Anyway, we'd better get back to spirit killing or Nick will be bored without dragons to slay. Besides, we still need to corrupt the last remaining pious humans before the apocalypse, and now time's running short. When the planet is dead and spiritless then our sacred work for the almighty Great Beast and Glorious Satan be complete! MWUHAHAHAHA! *cough*

Curse life and hail the glorious void! :twisted: :twisted: :twisted:
Dubious
Posts: 4000
Joined: Tue May 19, 2015 7:40 am

Re: Secular Intolerance

Post by Dubious »

There's no point in continuing. You have enough people knocking at your door already! Don't know what everyone is getting so grumpy about! Believe as you like since there doesn't seem to be any possibility of you rethinking some of your conclusions which puts the whammy on conversation. To continue means constantly moving back & forth on the same track! In short, this thread is going nowhere fast like an elevator stuck at ground level!

For me it defaults to an absolute non-sequitur conceit that the universe should provide for intent or purpose or what its motive would be in having such. None of these "ingredients" are required in any of its functions. Not by any method imaginable is it conceivable why its creation should come replete with scripture as if inflected by some god to express "meaning" for whatever comes after! That mission is left to its subsidiary creations who have need for it; but as Be-all and End-all IT remains mute, unconnected to any such improvisations.

The Universe negates nothing because it ignores everything guided only by its own logic! It's actually refreshing with no burden imposed by way of intent or purpose except those we burden ourselves with.
Nick_A
Posts: 6208
Joined: Sat Jul 07, 2012 1:23 am

Re: Secular Intolerance

Post by Nick_A »

F4
This is a load of crap! We have no idea whether the universe or Man has any objective meaning and purpose, but even if we assume it does not that in no way either justifies or makes necessary “spirit killing” or freedom from eros. The eros or desire for wisdom is a pursuit, and, as Plato makes clear in the Symposium, the beloved is always to a greater or lesser extent a product of the imagination of the lover. We desire wisdom but unless one is wise he or she have no knowledge of whether or not there is an objective meaning and purpose, and, if that meaning and purpose exists, what it is remains a matter of the imagination.
If the universe has no meaning or purpose and just a functioning machine, what you see is what you get. Eros doesn’t exist other than as a fantasy and there is no objective conscious direction to be drawn to. There is no wisdom. There can be only a knowledge of mechanics. There is no sense of valuing imagination unless it is a beginning for contemplation into a higher relationship or reality. If this is true it is better just to eliminate anything not directly pertaining to the subjective good of cave life and scientific fact defined by secular experts and enforced by their police..
But you understand nothing of the sort. They are just things you read about. Just ideas you glom onto like Plato’s Form of the Good. Except the two ideas cannot be reconciled with each other without doing damage to both. The Good is not a unity of three essential forces or the first cosmos.
Of course they are reconciled. As a secularist you are not open to how. When I post the Panentheism thread it is one thing I hope to discuss with Seeds; how God is simultaneously one and three. Why does the world have to stop because you refuse to understand it?
This is just another example of you mangling ideas in order to make them fit into your ill-informed view.
I am referring to Pythagoras perception of the diatonic octave and how it is a universal law

http://www.sacred-texts.com/eso/sta/sta19.htm
While the early Chinese, Hindus, Persians, Egyptians, Israelites, and Greeks employed both vocal and instrumental music in their religious ceremonials, also to complement their poetry and drama, it remained for Pythagoras to raise the art to its true dignity by demonstrating its mathematical foundation. Although it is said that he himself was not a musician, Pythagoras is now generally credited with the discovery of the diatonic scale. Having first learned the divine theory of music from the priests of the various Mysteries into which he had been accepted, Pythagoras pondered for several years upon the laws governing consonance and dissonance. How he actually solved the problem is unknown, but the following explanation has been invented.

One day while meditating upon the problem of harmony, Pythagoras chanced to pass a brazier's shop where workmen were pounding out a piece of metal upon an anvil. By noting the variances in pitch between the sounds made by large hammers and those made by smaller implements, and carefully estimating the harmonies and discords resulting from combinations of these sounds, he gained his first clue to the musical intervals of the diatonic scale. He entered the shop, and after carefully examining the tools and making mental note of their weights, returned to his own house and constructed an arm of wood so that it: extended out from the wall of his room. At regular intervals along this arm he attached four cords, all of like composition, size, and weight. To the first of these he attached a twelve-pound weight, to the second a nine-pound weight, to the third an eight-pound weight, and to the fourth a six-pound weight. These different weights corresponded to the sizes of the braziers' hammers.

Pythagoras thereupon discovered that the first and fourth strings when sounded together produced the harmonic interval of the octave, for doubling the weight had the same effect as halving the string. The tension of the first string being twice that of the fourth string, their ratio was said to be 2:1, or duple. By similar experimentation he ascertained that the first and third string produced the harmony of the diapente, or the interval of the fifth. The tension of the first string being half again as much as that of the third string, their ratio was said to be 3:2, or sesquialter. Likewise the second and fourth strings, having the same ratio as the first and third strings, yielded a diapente harmony. Continuing his investigation, Pythagoras discovered that the first and second strings produced the harmony of the diatessaron, or the interval of the third; and the tension of the first string being a third greater than that of the second string, their ratio was said to be 4:3, or sesquitercian. The third and fourth strings, having the same ratio as the first and second strings, produced another harmony of the diatessaron. According to Iamblichus, the second and third strings had the ratio of 8:9, or epogdoan.
The key to harmonic ratios is hidden in the famous Pythagorean tetractys, or pyramid of dots. The tetractys is made up of the first four numbers--1, 2, 3, and 4--which in their proportions reveal the intervals of the octave, the diapente, and the diatessaron. While the law of harmonic intervals as set forth above is true, it has been subsequently proved that hammers striking metal in the manner
People who are open to these ideas have a plausible explanation as to the cosmological structure of the universe and the mathematics separating individual cosmoses. But why concern yourself with arguing a mindset you are opposed to? Stick with arguing about things like abortion and gender rights along with new age escapism which captivates the secular mind.
More nonsense. To use the example above the value in music is not pragmatic and does not serve anything beyond itself. The value of human relationships, which you seem to have not the foggiest notion of, is not determined by anything outside those relationships. Those of us who love do not love because of an objective meaning and purpose we have no knowledge of.
Music is vibration. You are closed to both the potential detrimental and healing effects of vibrations we interpret as music.

Animal or subjective love is a result of universal influences which are part of universal meaning and purpose. There is nothing conscious in it. It just happens because of the effects of force on animal life and these forces are an aspect of universal meaning and purpose.
Man creates his own values because they are of value, some as a means and some as an end. They have purpose and meaning for us, not to serve some cosmic fantasy.
This is true for fallen Man as a creature of REACTION in Plato’s cave. Conscious Man is capable of conscious ACTION which fallen man is incapable of so is forced to live values by hypocrisy.
In your own case, you pursue something you imagine to be good and call true, while shunning truth if it threatens your beliefs. Some prefer the truth to a lie while others, both those who tell them and those who believe them to be the truth, prefer "noble lies".
You deny the objective good so are limited to arguing pragmatic partial truths which make you feel important.
No, it is rather that secularism prevents people like you from deciding for everyone else what the good is.
If you ever acquire an open mind it will become obvious that when Plato introduced the good it isn’t to be blindly believed or denied. It is only valuable for those open to impartial conscious contemplation. They can receive its benefits.
Unless you have consciously evolved so as to have experienced the objective good then, as it has so elegantly been said STFU. It you have not experienced the objective good then you do not even know there is such a thing. You are just defining it according to the shadows of images on the cave wall. This is a truth that you are willfully blind to. You have chosen religion rather than philosophy, revelation over reason, what you have heard over what you have seen.
Unless a person has prematurely spiritually died inside they can open to the third direction of thought which leads towards the Good. Becoming aware of and experiencing the vertical conscious direction is not experiencing the Good. It is the beginning of the path. Secular intolerance is dedicated to destroying the beginning of the path for the young not yet able to stand up to adult secular intimidation. Thank the powers that be for the exceptions – those who recognize secular blindness for what it is. They eventually may learn what Simone did.

"
To believe in God is not a decision we can make. All we can do is decide not to give our love to false gods. In the first place, we can decide not to believe that the future contains for us an all-sufficient good. The future is made of the same stuff as the present....

"...It is not for man to seek, or even to believe in God. He has only to refuse to believe in everything that is not God. This refusal does not presuppose belief. It is enough to recognize, what is obvious to any mind, that all the goods of this world, past, present, or future, real or imaginary, are finite and limited and radically incapable of satisfying the desire which burns perpetually with in us for an infinite and perfect good... It is not a matter of self-questioning or searching. A man has only to persist in his refusal, and one day or another God will come to him."
-- Weil, Simone, ON SCIENCE, NECESSITY, AND THE LOVE OF GOD, edited by Richard Rees, London, Oxford University Press, 1968.- ©
You appeal to your own blind belief and blind denial, imagining that you “remember” the good that you have always known. Are you merely “open to remembering the good” or do you remember and thereby know it? If you know the good then according to the Platonic myths you are not a lover of wisdom but one who possesses it and thus is no longer in pursuit of it. With knowledge of the good you have knowledge of the whole and are no longer in the cave. But you have admitted that you are in the cave and thus have no knowledge of the good. You have not remembered it and only believe that you have always known it.
This just silly and not even worthy of the status of Oprahism
Nick_A
Posts: 6208
Joined: Sat Jul 07, 2012 1:23 am

Re: Secular Intolerance

Post by Nick_A »

Dubious wrote: Tue Aug 22, 2017 1:24 am There's no point in continuing. You have enough people knocking at your door already! Don't know what everyone is getting so grumpy about! Believe as you like since there doesn't seem to be any possibility of you rethinking some of your conclusions which puts the whammy on conversation. To continue means constantly moving back & forth on the same track! In short, this thread is going nowhere fast like an elevator stuck at ground level!

For me it defaults to an absolute non-sequitur conceit that the universe should provide for intent or purpose or what its motive would be in having such. None of these "ingredients" are required in any of its functions. Not by any method imaginable is it conceivable why its creation should come replete with scripture as if inflected by some god to express "meaning" for whatever comes after! That mission is left to its subsidiary creations who have need for it; but as Be-all and End-all IT remains mute, unconnected to any such improvisations.

The Universe negates nothing because it ignores everything guided only by its own logic! It's actually refreshing with no burden imposed by way of intent or purpose except those we burden ourselves with.
One quick question
Newton's first law of motion- sometimes referred to as the law of inertia. Newton's first law of motion is often stated as. An object at rest stays at rest and an object in motion stays in motionwith the same speed and in the same direction unless acted upon by an unbalanced force
Before the big bang, what is the unbalanced force that put matter into motion?

When the universe dies and its matter is at rest, is that all there is? You would seem to need an unbalanced creative force to act on it again which appears from nothing to justify its existence. Yet it cannot exist if the universe is merely a self sustained machine.
User avatar
Greta
Posts: 4389
Joined: Sat Aug 08, 2015 8:10 am

Re: Secular Intolerance

Post by Greta »

Nick_A wrote: Tue Aug 22, 2017 4:35 amOne quick question

Before the big bang, what is the unbalanced force that put matter into motion?
Sure Nick, of course we all know that "God musta dunnit", but you have to admit that it is logically possible that that "unbalanced force" was not actually the deity described by deeply superstitious Abrahamic people in ancient times.
Belinda
Posts: 8034
Joined: Fri Aug 26, 2016 10:13 am

Re: Secular Intolerance

Post by Belinda »

Nick_A wrote:
When the universe dies and its matter is at rest, is that all there is? You would seem to need an unbalanced creative force to act on it again which appears from nothing to justify its existence. Yet it cannot exist if the universe is merely a self sustained machine.
Just as you have posited God to balance Yin and Yang as you view them, so you have posited God to balance your own cognitive dissonance.

And yet, don't you see that dissonance that's to say, change , is the basis of existence itself?
Nick_A
Posts: 6208
Joined: Sat Jul 07, 2012 1:23 am

Re: Secular Intolerance

Post by Nick_A »

Dubious asks:
Don't know what everyone is getting so grumpy about!
“hell hath no fury like a woman scorned”
If the fury of a secular intolerant when doubted isn’t as intense as a woman scorned, it is a close second. The belief in their secular superiority simply cannot be questioned. It is an intolerable offense.. At least on a philosophy site a secular intolerant can only get grumpy. Imagine what a kid has to suffer in a school setting when he begins to ask politically incorrect questions concerning “meaning” and the needs of the heart in terms of God. The kid will quickly discover that scorned women are preferable.
Locked