Secular Intolerance

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Nick_A
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Re: Secular Intolerance

Post by Nick_A »

Harbal wrote: Mon Jul 17, 2017 9:52 pm
Nick_A wrote: Mon Jul 17, 2017 9:43 pm Rorty states:
Forget Rorty, Nick, listen to me. There is stuff out there, some of which your senses give you direct access to. There is stuff out there that science has deduced. You / I / everybody takes these two categories of stuff and paints a picture with it, this is our subjective view of existence.
A good description of life in Plato' cave. However there is this minority of seekers of truth like Simone Weil who seek the truth behind and at the core diverse secular opinions. They are willing to annoy the Great Beast during their search. I support them.
davidm
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Re: Secular Intolerance

Post by davidm »

Plato's Cave and the Great Beast are just nonsense, stuff you lean on and refer to repeatedly because you can 't make an independent argument.
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Harbal
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Re: Secular Intolerance

Post by Harbal »

Nick_A wrote: Mon Jul 17, 2017 9:57 pm A good description of life in Plato' cave. However there is this minority of seekers of truth like Simone Weil who seek the truth behind and at the core diverse secular opinions. They are willing to annoy the Great Beast during their search. I support them.
There is only your own personal truth, it's up to you what you come up with. You are locking yourself in the cave by letting Simone and Plato dictate to you. Free yourself from these shadows of the past and create your own paradise. Be your own person, Nick, don't be a slave to myth.
Nick_A
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Re: Secular Intolerance

Post by Nick_A »

davidm wrote: Mon Jul 17, 2017 9:55 pm What does it mean, that “universal laws are the cause of creation”? What “laws?” How do “laws” create anything?

The so-called “laws of nature” are not laws at all. They are not prescriptions of how the world must behave. They are merely descptions of how the world does behave.

Rorty’s stance is Tarskian, the correspondence theory of truth, that truth inheres in descriptive statements or propositions about the external world, uttered by humans. Remove humans or any other kind of sentients and truth and morality vanish. There is no truth or morality in grains of sand, in Saturn, in the sun, in the Milky Way, in eternity.

Weil’s absolute good rooted in something external not only to us but to space and time (!) is nothing but a mirage. She did utter a truth-valued proposition about the world. Unfortunately the value returned for her utterance is “false.”
Laws don't create but are responsible for creation when the ONE intentionally allows for NOUS producing the law of "BEING" which also become the laws of physical reality. Anyone interested is welcome to read on Plotinus. If you are looking for self justification you won't find it here.

http://www.iep.utm.edu/plotinus/#SSH2a.i

i. Emanation and Multiplicity
The One cannot, strictly speaking, be referred to as a source or a cause, since these terms imply movement or activity, and the One, being totally self-sufficient, has no need of acting in a creative capacity (VI.9.8). Yet Plotinus still maintains that the One somehow 'emanates' or 'radiates' existents. This is accomplished because the One effortlessly "'overflows' and its excess begets an other than itself" (V.2.1, tr. O'Brien 1964) -- this 'other' is the Intelligence (Nous), the source of the realm of multiplicity, of Being. However, the question immediately arises as to why the One, being so perfect and self-sufficient, should have any need or even any 'ability' to emanate or generate anything other than itself. In attempting to answer this question, Plotinus finds it necessary to appeal, not to reason, but to the non-discursive, intuitive faculty of the soul; this he does by calling for a sort of prayer, an invocation of the deity, that will permit the soul to lift itself up to the unmediated, direct, and intimate contemplation of that which exceeds it (V.1.6). When the soul is thus prepared for the acceptance of the revelation of the One, a very simple truth manifests itself: that what, from our vantage-point, may appear as an act of emanation on the part of the One, is really the effect, the necessary life-giving supplement, of the disinterested self-sufficiency that both belongs to and is the One. "In turning toward itself The One sees. It is this seeing that constitutes The Intelligence" (V.1.7, tr. O'Brien). Therefore, since the One accomplishes the generation or emanation of multiplicity, or Being, by simply persisting in its state of eternal self-presence and impassivity, it cannot be properly called a 'first principle,' since it is at once beyond number, and that which makes possible all number or order (cf. V.1.5).
davidm
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Re: Secular Intolerance

Post by davidm »

Nick, why should we believe any of the things that the ancient Greeks made up?
fooloso4
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Re: Secular Intolerance

Post by fooloso4 »

Nick_A:
First things first. If you don’t appreciate the difference between the secular (sustaining the status quo of cave life) and the sacred (the means of escape from the human condition creating cave life into the potential for human being) you will never understand Simone or Christianity.
First thing first, and it is a big hurdle you are unwilling to face: unless you have escaped the human condition you have no idea what you are talking about. It is by definition unrelatable to anything you do know or have experienced. You cannot discuss difference if you only know one of the things you are claiming are different. You may believe you can escape from the cave. I don't think anyone here has a problem with you trying, but as long as you are in the cave with the rest of us, stop telling us what you imagine it to be like outside the cave, and stop faulting others who may find happiness and joy and meaning and purpose right here in the cave you are still in together with the rest of us.
Nick_A
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Re: Secular Intolerance

Post by Nick_A »

davidm wrote: Mon Jul 17, 2017 9:55 pm What does it mean, that “universal laws are the cause of creation”? What “laws?” How do “laws” create anything?

The so-called “laws of nature” are not laws at all. They are not prescriptions of how the world must behave. They are merely descptions of how the world does behave.

Rorty’s stance is Tarskian, the correspondence theory of truth, that truth inheres in descriptive statements or propositions about the external world, uttered by humans. Remove humans or any other kind of sentients and truth and morality vanish. There is no truth or morality in grains of sand, in Saturn, in the sun, in the Milky Way, in eternity.

Weil’s absolute good rooted in something external not only to us but to space and time (!) is nothing but a mirage. She did utter a truth-valued proposition about the world. Unfortunately the value returned for her utterance is “false.”
Comare Rorty with Spinoza. I'll stick with Spinoza
"--Things are conceived by us as actual in two ways; either as existing in relation to a given time and place, or as contained in God and following from the necessity of the divine nature. Whatsoever we conceive in this second way as true or real, we conceive under the form of eternity, and their ideas involve the eternal and infinite essence of God..." - Spinoza (The Ethics)
davidm
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Re: Secular Intolerance

Post by davidm »

Got any evidence that what Spinoza said is true?
Nick_A
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Re: Secular Intolerance

Post by Nick_A »

The final victory for Greta and fooloso4.
"... Love towards a thing eternal and infinite feeds the mind wholly with joy, and is itself unmingled with any sadness, wherefore it is greatly to be desired and sought for with all our strength." - Spinoza (TEI)
Secularism will seek to destroy this love through intimidation and replace it with self love furthered by a desire for what the Beast produces through technology. Secularism will destroy this love. It cannot be stopped but at least we can discover why its victory is inevitable.
"even if we can't prevent the forces of tyranny from prevailing, we can at least "understand the force by which we are crushed." Simone Weil
Partial stisfation for seekers of truth.
Dubious
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Re: Secular Intolerance

Post by Dubious »

Nick_A wrote: Mon Jul 17, 2017 9:24 pm So if an asteroid strikes and destroys the earth killing all life upon it, the truth of universal existence existing only as a creation of Man's mind will also be destroyed. The end of the Milky Way and all other galaxies. Since we are no longer alive to argue about it, the universe doesn't exist. I didn't know I was that important.
When Rorty writes...
Truth cannot be out there—cannot exist independently of the human mind—because sentences cannot so exist, or be out there. The world is out there, but descriptions of the world are not. Only descriptions of the world can be true or false. The world on its own—unaided by these describing activities of human beings—cannot.
...it's a rooted fact unmodifiable by science, religion or philosophy. You haven't understood a single sentence of this quote as your response proves. It's always the most idiotic posts which get the most feedback; types like you at least know that much and how to take advantage of it.

Trying to penetrate your mind beyond what it's programmed for, in this instance, the kindergarten logic of Simone Weil, - though I doubt you even understood that correctly - is like trying to conquer a mountain of ice on roller skates. Every argument far more intelligent than anything you came up with is immediately vaporized before it has any chance to function not unlike code that was written for a different operating system.

I expect the first true generation of AI machines will be more mentally flexible since it will have no hermetically sealed barriers wrapped around doctrines and dogmas which is really how totalitarianism commences when centered in power.

How can one expect anything worthwhile from someone who can't be bothered to understand what secular or secularism really denotes! If you can't learn then don't preach.
Nick_A
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Re: Secular Intolerance

Post by Nick_A »

davidm wrote: Mon Jul 17, 2017 10:42 pm Got any evidence that what Spinoza said is true?
No. I don't have proof of the following either.
The millions are awake enough for physical labor; but only one in a million is awake enough for effective intellectual exertion, only one in a hundred millions to a poetic or divine life. To be awake is to be alive. I have never yet met a man who was quite awake. How could I have looked him in the face? - Thoreau, Walden
All you can do is prove it to yourself through efforts at self knowledge that you are not awake and live in opposition to yourself. If you ever get to experience that you are not awake but have the potential for awakening you will appreciate the purpose of all the ancient traditions initiating with a conscious source as well as the harm of secular intolerance that denies the potential for experience.
Nick_A
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Re: Secular Intolerance

Post by Nick_A »

Dubious wrote: Mon Jul 17, 2017 10:51 pm
Nick_A wrote: Mon Jul 17, 2017 9:24 pm So if an asteroid strikes and destroys the earth killing all life upon it, the truth of universal existence existing only as a creation of Man's mind will also be destroyed. The end of the Milky Way and all other galaxies. Since we are no longer alive to argue about it, the universe doesn't exist. I didn't know I was that important.
When Rorty writes...
Truth cannot be out there—cannot exist independently of the human mind—because sentences cannot so exist, or be out there. The world is out there, but descriptions of the world are not. Only descriptions of the world can be true or false. The world on its own—unaided by these describing activities of human beings—cannot.
...it's a rooted fact unmodifiable by science, religion or philosophy. You haven't understood a single sentence of this quote as your response proves. It's always the most idiotic posts which get the most feedback; types like you at least know that much and how to take advantage of it.

Trying to penetrate your mind beyond what it's programmed for, in this instance, the kindergarten logic of Simone Weil, - though I doubt you even understood that correctly - is like trying to conquer a mountain of ice on roller skates. Every argument far more intelligent than anything you came up with is immediately vaporized before it has any chance to function not unlike code that was written for a different operating system.

I expect the first true generation of AI machines will be more mentally flexible since it will have no hermetically sealed barriers wrapped around doctrines and dogmas which is really how totalitarianism commences when centered in power.

How can one expect anything worthwhile from someone who can't be bothered to understand what secular or secularism really denotes! If you can't learn then don't preach.
Regardless of all the righteous indignation Rorty did write:
Only descriptions of the world can be true or false.
That means according to Rorty that there is no objective truth - no "thing in itself" or a relationship with anything else can be an objerctive truth. Only descriptions can be true or false. I'll stick with Simone.
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Greta
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Re: Secular Intolerance

Post by Greta »

Nick_A wrote: Mon Jul 17, 2017 2:02 pm
Nick_A wrote: Mon Jul 17, 2017 2:02 pm
Nick_A wrote: Mon Jul 17, 2017 3:57 amYou cannot find one expression of hatred on any of my posts.
Hello?? I've been the target of a lot of your hate. It's not just one comment but an avalanche.

I remember when your target was "atheists". You could not stop deriding them. Then I said that doesn't include me as I'm an agnostic and referred to atheists and agnostics as "secularists". Ever since you've latched on to that tag so as to include me in your regular slew of bitter complaints and put-downs.
Nick_A wrote: There is nothing wrong with secular love. Anyone can help another. But Christian love serves a conscious purpose selective secular love remains unaware of.
The Greeks claimed there were seven types of love. No mention of "secular love" as a category. This may be because billions of people cannot be the same, although they can be reduced to two-dimensional targets by haters.
Nick_A wrote:
That is your way and the way of the world. One moment we hate and then emotionally love on the next. This is the norm for cave life but is that all a human being worthy of the name is capable of or is it possible through conscious evolution to open to the experience of objective conscience which reveals the triviality of our normal emotional states?
The take home message here: You do not stoop to hatred. Rather, you cling to a deeper hatred, the clinging being a mark of character rather than those darned secular flibbertigibbets.

If you hope to evolve to higher forms, Nick, the first thing that has to go is the hatred. You know that is true but you won't give me the satisfaction :lol:
Hate is an intense emotional reaction. I'm not the emotional type. There is no motive for me to hate as you describe it. You are the emotional one here who is capable of expressing hatred. Secular intolerance is an emotional reaction to a perceived threat to ones imagined inner supremacy. You have created a fictional character that doesn't exist. It is a characteristic which many have that is the source of bigotry. The bigot creates a character or a group in their mind worth hating.
The take home message is I am too small to hate, but you'd hate me if I was of sufficient stature :lol:

This "inner supremacy" is an interesting comment. Tell us more about your inner supremacy.

You are convinced that all of us here at the forums suspect you of actually being a better human than we are. In what ways are you superior? Enough generic chest beating, Nick - make clear the assets that you possess that others on the two forums lack. Tell us where you excel and where we all are lacking.
davidm
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Re: Secular Intolerance

Post by davidm »

Nick_A wrote: Mon Jul 17, 2017 10:59 pm
davidm wrote: Mon Jul 17, 2017 10:42 pm Got any evidence that what Spinoza said is true?
No. I don't have proof of the following either.
The millions are awake enough for physical labor; but only one in a million is awake enough for effective intellectual exertion, only one in a hundred millions to a poetic or divine life. To be awake is to be alive. I have never yet met a man who was quite awake. How could I have looked him in the face? - Thoreau, Walden
All you can do is prove it to yourself through efforts at self knowledge that you are not awake and live in opposition to yourself. If you ever get to experience that you are not awake but have the potential for awakening you will appreciate the purpose of all the ancient traditions initiating with a conscious source as well as the harm of secular intolerance that denies the potential for experience.
Nick, why should anyone care what Thoreau said? Do you have anything else but empty appeals to authority?
davidm
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Re: Secular Intolerance

Post by davidm »

Nick, why should anyone care what Plato, Plotinus, Aristotle, Thoreau, Weil said? Can't you think for yourself? Must you hobble around on the crutches of people from the past who may or may not have been good thinkers but were often just wrong? How much of what Aristotle said do you think he got right?

Why should anyone listen to Weil whose entire argument consists of a big fat contradiction in the very first paragraph of her faith statement? Why?
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