nordmann wrote:

God made man make god make man make god make man make god ... and so what? Does it matter who gets the credit for Mercy, Love and Pity? They're the real constant. A wonderfully affirmative sentiment for faith in humanity.

Good grief, nordmann has said something a) that I really understand and b) I agree with!   


And I think both our poems are everso nice. (Let him off for "nice" just this once, Priscilla - he seems to be on the right track at last.   )

Thank you both for the poetry. Permission to fire the first shot though if any one comes up with Patience Strong. Trebuchet at the ready with broken fried eggs..... can't even do that well. But you have both made my day so who cares.

Regards P. Child of God for the day badge snatcher.

Total aside - but I had quite forgotten this until now;

At school in religion class (yes, they did try) we were ordered to write an essay centered on one of Gerard Manley Hopkins' pieces of doggerel (he is a fine example of how not to create sublimity from the above stated grand theme). In my contribution I referred to him several times as a "Christian poet". When it came back to me after correction each use of the word "Christian" had been struck through in red biro with increasingly aggressive strokes - excavating through the page towards the end. Then finally a comment had been written with such anger that its image had been indelibly impressed on every page underneath (and every subsequent essay in the copy book by the end of the year) - "Hopkins was NOT a Christian poet! He was a Catholic poet!"

My writing hand was temporarily disabled by six of the master's best for audibly chuckling at this gem in the classroom when first reading it. But it was worth the pain!

Nordmann, sorry, I will come to you in the next days...

Kind regards and with esteem, Paul.

Nordmann,

"I'm afraid you are missing the point about colour and perception, Paul. It is not about interpreting the same stimuli as two different things. It is about the same stimuli being interpreted the same way as far as the two interpreters can know. However this is not proof that it is so. The perception cannot be tested, only agreed.

If you find that difficult to grasp I won't even begin with the extrapolation of the idea into an infinite number of stimuli being interpreted by an infinite number of interpreters and the very real possibility that none of them share the same perception. But it follows the same logic."

Moment, moment Nordmann...

I will say it in my own words...and than you can judge if I understood you well...

We look both at the same l a b worth from the colour "red" (expressed in three values), we agree that we both see "red" and statistically it fits with what most people see as "red"...but we can never be sure how both our brains perceive that particular l a b worth of "red", as we also aren't sure how the brains from the rest of humankind perceive that particular "red"?

Send this because not sure if I will have the time to start the rest of my comments...

Kind regards and with esteem,

Paul.

Yes.

But Paul, forget "red" and any conventional test to ascertain what is "red". The existentialist argument applies to all perception so one could just as easily use "square" or even "alive" as example descriptors. The only important element in the argument is that reality is agreed, not proven.

And I suppose that applies to all Darwin's "perception", too - and Newton's? We cannot really rely on anything we think we perceive, even if we think we have landed on the moon? We may agree on all Newton's laws and Darwin's observations, but we could be fooling ourselves if we think we are talking about proof? Or even that we are agreeing on the same things? Or even that the moon exists? Or that Darwin existed? Perhaps we have conjured it all up? This is where my brain shorts out.

I'm really, really struggling to cope with this, and rather afraid to ask any more questions for fear of appearing utterly foolish. But that means all conversation about such things would dry up, unless one was a member of the Philosophy Department of some university. That would be a shame.

OK - I do not pretend to understand, but I shall venture to ask whether Bishop Berkeley and his tree in the quad and God as the "Infinite Perceiver" is relevant here. Probably not. And what about Dr Johnson's irritation at Berkeley and his kicking of the stone - "I refute it thus"? Was it Johnson who also mentioned the poo on his shoe? (Probably wasn't Johnson, but can't remember who it was now - it might have been Priscilla.)

EDIT: Listened to In Our Time about Berkeley this afternoon and was much comforted when Melvyn Bragg appeared to be as confused as myself. "I'm all right," he assured Professor Millican, "I'm holding on." Good old Melvyn.

Existentialism is not about declaring that nothing is real. It merely places existence at the centre of every definition of reality. This therefore places perception at the heart of everything we think we know and the acid test of what is actual becomes consensus. Without consensus the nature of the object cannot be determined. Existentially therefore, for example, one god cannot be said to exist. All gods can however (and there is no upper limit to how many since the concept is completely independent of commonly agreed perception).

I know that existentialism is not about declaring that nothing is "real".

But is this thinking now sadly out-of-date - very last century?

Whereas loopy old Berkeley was centuries ahead of his time -  didn't what he say actually anticipate Einstein and modern quantum physics? That's what I've been told at least.

But Berkeley is nothing to do with the thread, I realise, and because he was a mystic and a "believer", he is no doubt to be dismissed as of no consequence.

I keep thinking of that lovely shot from Creation - the film about Darwin - where he "talks" to Jenny. I feel very like Jenny at the moment. It's a clever image. But perhaps we all - philosophers, believers, non-believers - need a little more humility. We are all very like Jenny, after all, and perhaps we should "know our place" in the great scheme of things. Was it Marcus Aurelius who referred to our "monkey antics"? But, as Priscilla would say, I ramble.



EDIT: I was lying. I don't really know about existentialism at all, although I've read a bit of Camus and Sartre. I prefer Camus to Sartre, but I find them both unutterably depressing.

Temp wrote:

But is this thinking now sadly out-of-date - very last century?

I'm not sure thinking can really go out-of-date, at least not existentialist theory which is less a philosophy and more just an emphasis on the nature of existence when applying any philosophy one cares to. And it long pre-dates the coining of the term too. One of the most existential passages in literature is the opening chapter of the gospel according to John. Substitute "word" with "logos" and "god" with "life" and you have more or less a synopsis of Jean Paul Sartre's "Being and Nothingness".

Deleted.

Deleted.

Temp, your posts are becoming very non-existentialist!   

Ah so we are still existentialist here - I was about to introduce nihilism, but no matter.

I had a friend once who painted her bathroom in Farrow and Ball's eau-de-nihilism.

EDIT: I've been reading through Sartre quotes on BrainyQuotes. I think this is my favourite:


“I dreamed vaguely of killing myself to wipe out at least one of these superfluous lives. But even my death would have been In the way. In the way, my corpse, my blood on these stones, between these plants, at the back of this smiling garden. And the decomposed flesh would have been In the way in the earth which would receive my bones, at last, cleaned, stripped, peeled, proper and clean as teeth, it would have been In the way: I was In the way for eternity.”

Poor Simone de Beauvoir. I bet she was always saying, "Oh, Jean-Paul, do buck up. Go and mow the lawn or something."

Yes I too can just imagine Mme Beauvoir saying: " Oh do come on Jean-Paul, we've got Andre Gidé and Che Guevara coming tonight. I'm just trying to tidy up a bit and, 'ow you say, "passer avec l'aspirateur", but you are in the way as usual. Sorry Chou-chou, but, well ...  you are always in the way!"

I've long suspected that God has a sense of humour - a seriously big one.

Well, He must be pissing Himself in Mosul at the minute.

No, it's the other chap who's pissing himself at the moment - as he has done for a long, long, long time now.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-28381455

The ultimatum cited a historic contract known as "dhimma," under which non-Muslims in Islamic societies who refuse to convert are offered protection if they pay a fee, called a "jizya".

"We offer them three choices: Islam; the dhimma contract - involving payment of jizya; if they refuse this they will have nothing but the sword," the Isis statement said.

How angry ordinary, decent Muslims must be that these Isis thugs have turned Allah into a sort of Tony Soprano. But then I suppose the same has been done with the Christian God too throughout history. It is all a bit of a farce, isn't it?

But it sort of gets us back to the theme of the thread - what is the sensible Darwinian option here: convert, pay up, or the sword? I suppose pointing out to Isis that Allah is all merciful wouldn't do any good, would it? No, probably not.

No room for humour today, I'm afraid.

I've just been listening to From our own Correspondent on the car radio while quietly blaspheming at being stuck in a traffic jam caused by our local Gay Pride march (there's a nice irony) and as ever wondering how anyone could possibly believe in an Intelligent Creator when his creation is so terribly flawed.
And please, don't start talking about 'Free will', I'm becoming increasingly Skinnerian in my old age as I watch us pigeons merrily pecking out each other's eyes.

Edit- apostrophe sin.

Temp wrote:

But it sort of gets us back to the theme of the thread - what is the sensible Darwinian option here: convert, pay up, or the sword?

There is none. At least not as far as the individual is concerned, either making the threat or having the threat directed at them.

However religion facilitating mass murder does merit examination in terms of human behaviour which can, at least potentially, affect the species' development. The proven inclination on the part of humans to liquidate/exterminate/murder/kill/end the lives of entire communities of fellow humans - and especially when using as justification something as subjectively determined as "religious belief" (proving also therefore that an innate urge to kill predominates over the stated reason in terms of motive) - must be considered as a recurring factor in how we as a species determine the actual importance of our own survival. There appears to be a dichotomy between how this species-wide survival is evaluated consciously and how our own individual survival is viewed.

The notion that "god" has a sense of humour, as Priscilla alluded to, is indicative of what appears to be a prime reason for us having invented gods in the first place - the projection of human attributes onto what is essentially a metaphysical descriptor of universal structure which then allows us to more easily or readily accommodate the dichotomy stated above and in fact plays a significant role in perpetuating this accommodation, therefore also perpetuating its influence on how we subsequently behave. If the notion of species survival means that the most of us as individuals should live as long as possible and that we communally strive to achieve that goal (as most legal and social rule systems at least nominally have had asserted on their behalf by us as a primary motive for our having formulated them), then god (and the devil etc etc) are indicators of our inability to actually project that notion in a meaningful way onto the species as a whole.

God represents the difference therefore between what we consciously presume to be the definition of survival and what observable reality suggests it actually is - based more on random physical events than the translation of any ideal into practical application, be that translation ascribed to divinity or humanity. It is an expression of our failure to understand and influence the universe we consciously inhabit in a way that can then be translated into a preferment for our species' survival that we innately hope (and many believe) this universe naturally affords us. When the universe lets us down god takes up the slack and provides the reassurances the universe cannot.

Some people seem however to be more easily let down by the universe, and for them god picks up an awful lot of slack as a result.

nordmann wrote:

Yes.

But Paul, forget "red" and any conventional test to ascertain what is "red". The existentialist argument applies to all perception so one could just as easily use "square" or even "alive" as example descriptors. The only important element in the argument is that reality is agreed, not proven.

Nordmann, yes, yes, I understood perfectly that "red" was only an example and used it as an example of the myriads of other examples. Now we, two, stay at the same line, at least for this...

Take now such an example as "happyness"...First we have to agree! on the concept of the word...perhaps "feel good" (Dutch "goed gevoel") and the other side "feel bad" are better expressing the concept...? And these two feelings are constantly alternating and many times conflicting...can only influenced by our "rational reasoning" ? (or is that two times the same word?)

And there I come back to my "good" and "evil". Also to answer to Temperance...
I think that in each individual there is a tendency for good (in our own eyes!) and for bad (also in our own eyes!) behaviour. And that behaviour can be inlfuenced by our genetical heritage or by our education, environment (the nature versus the nurture debate).
What at the end is seen as good or evil in society is coined by that same society, gradually changing over time accumulated by trial and error as what is "seen" as "good" and "bad" to that society...? And yes, there are several "societies" each with their own "constructions"?

And to come back on the comforting (inherited for survival of the species or not) religion...if I look around me, I see statistically (for the time being) more comforted religious adherents than other ones...

Still lack of time...my utterings of the moment...

Kind regards and with esteem to all the contributors of this thread,

Paul.

The thread is progressing nicely towards 3000 views, which is astonishing.

Our musings on Darwin, faith and Sartre's vacuum-cleaner (surely as interesting as Schopenhauer's poodle) are catching up with Downton Abbey.

I understand that each age - and perhaps creed tailors their fall back God to fit the needs of their time; currently I suggest that compassion is in demand. That does not preclude there being a force for change of a word, that  enfolds the entire vast universe and all that there in  do dwell. And you cannot prove otherwise any more than a glock like me can it is so.

Temp's great Bronte poem touches on the enormity of it all - revealing why she was unable to attend her father's church services that probably followed aspects of faith that could not accept  the enormity of her understanding.

My own awed view became even  more traumatised when physicists announced that there were at least 16 dimensions......... so whatever frail conjecture we may have, we may have hit upon something of a truth somehow, somewhere, sometime. Rational dismissal that demands proofs must also prove its own rationality.

And look, nordmann, I know I shouldn't dabble any where near these deep waters, I appreciate your never saying as such.

Priscilla wrote:

That does not preclude there being a force for change of a word, that  enfolds the entire vast universe and all that there in  do dwell. And you cannot prove otherwise any more than a glock like me can it is so.

Notwithstanding the insertion of "of a word" in the first sentence which therefore invites the reader to question what was actually meant this statement also illustrates our very human interaction with the physical universe which leaves it open to place a name and identity on guesswork.

In physics "force" is a simple expression to relay concisely. Force is the quantifiable effect of the interaction between two (or more) physical bodies where "body" can be anything physically describable from sub-elemental level up to entire galaxies and beyond. However the crucial aspect to force in this definition is that it is a product. It is the effect of interaction and only to a certain level and in quite specific contexts causal. As an effect however it therefore cannot logically reside within any purely physical theory at the core or root of anything, least of all universal creation.

In metaphysics however, as Descartes and later Liebnitz were wont to remind us, "force", being a measure of effect also therefore must contain within its definition future effect, often unknown, unpredictable, or at the very least unmeasurable in the present. Its elimination or relegation as a primary cause cannot therefore be so easily accommodated in any theory. This in logical terms facilitates much - for Liebnitz it allowed him to conjecture on universal perfection (the universe doesn't come any better than it is) - a philosophy rather misleadingly called "optimism" but which also could represent extreme pessimism if one thinks about it. Even Liebnitz disliked that appellation in his day.

Of course those who called it "optimism" weren't strictly speaking philosophers, or mathematicians, or physicists. They were essentially theologians who had seized on the vagueness of force in metaphysical terms and the notion that the universe was perfect to recruit metaphysical theory in the 18th century to what they hoped was a growing body of "proof" of a divine will behind everything. Liebnitz himself was ambivalent on this subject - like many he often employed the term "god" to represent philosophically what "x" often represents in mathematical theorems taught to schoolchildren today. But then "proof" of a theorem and "proof" of a theory are two very different things scientifically - not that theology tends to differentiate much either way.

So your second sentence above begs the question of what might even begin to represent "proof" to you of anything. Inability to display a proof will indicate three exclusively different propositions depending on whether you are referring to physics, metaphysics or theology. In physics it simply demonstrates either that the supposition is incorrect or that we as yet have not the data to fully prosecute the theory. In other words it represents a permanant or temporary breakdown in the deductive reasoning process. In metaphysics it can be accommodated as a constant much more easily, because in metaphysics there is little qualitative distinction between conjecture and deduction anyway. Here it can mean simply that it is "unknowable" but admissable, depending on where and how it as cropped up in the deductive (or conjectural) reasoning process. In theology however it goes the extra mile. Here inability to prove one proposition can - and often is - presumed therefore to be "proof" of something else (the something else normally being a rather unphysical assertion).

Your sentence "rational dismissal that demands proof must also prove its own rationality" almost makes sense therefore in a purely physical context. The rationale I employ when demanding that a physical assertion you might have made requires proof must itself of course be proven to be rational. Otherwise no progress can be made in arriving at any conclusion which could even begin to be termed as "true". However in the constructs that accommodate supernatural phenomena as primary causes in an otherwise physical universe the notion of "proof" itself sidesteps all notions of "rationale", at least as the latter is commonly understood.

The motto of "Alpha Sigma Phi", the Yale-founded academic fraternity (there are several semantic problems with that description but we'll skip over them for the moment*) is "causa latet, vis est notissima" - the cause is hidden but the effect is visible to all - which they borrowed from Ovid's "Metamorphoses". He was actually discussing a magical fountain which featured in the myth surrounding the effemination of Hermaphroditus when he made the comment, but this version of his sentence has nevertheless in the past become popular as a "classical" proof that the establishment of a primary cause is not the point of scientific study. It is also a sly way of inferring that the quest for proofs themselves is immaterial and that this has somehow been endorsed by the ancients and therefore carries an august pedigree. Theists and deists alike have seized upon it as an expression of the validity of what they think regarding cause, effect and proof. This to me has always been good enough reason to look elsewhere.

* - a masonic lodge in effect, a self interest group whose methods used to shamelessly promote their own members materially at others' expense are disguised as arcane and esoteric ritual.

Paul, you are still exploring the well established and easily observable phenomenon whereby alternative interpretations of commonly agreed terms lead to disagreement. Existentialism - and this was my point in introducing the subject - explores the possibility that even when total agreement is expressed and understood we have no way of actually knowing that we are experientially addressing the same subject at all. The subject might not "exist" except purely subjectively for the interpreter regardless of agreement. We each are our own universe. By extension even those who might disagree or agree with us cannot be assumed to "exist" either.

This is a handy metaphysical argument to employ at times (I can see for example how it might appeal to psychopaths) but even Sartre acknowledges and explains in his "Being and Nothingness" that the alternative is also true by the same logic - there are some things which can only be deemed to exist when we are forced to acknowledge a fundamental disparity between our universe and the next person's. They exist in contention and cannot exist without that being at their essence. The failure of our own private universe to underpin and demonstrate to us the existence of everything as experientially real is proof that there are more. Remember he was discussing ontology, not reality.

Priscilla wrote:

And look, nordmann, I know I shouldn't dabble any where near these deep waters, I appreciate your never saying as such.

Ah, Priscilla, how I admire and envy you your tact and diplomatic skills, and you, nordmann, how I admire and envy you your intellect and eloquence.

I remember once on another thread (Charity?), when I had mentioned the unhappy and deluded George Price, nordmann posted a sardonic and devastating one word response: "And?" A response which - to be fair - he later deleted.

Having read the above brilliant posts, I too am tempted to reply: "And?"

I've just been watching my sentimental and trashy film about Martin Luther, and a couple of quotes from the screenplay have stuck in my mind. The first is Luther's early argument with Andreas Karlstadt about the nature of salvation. The young Luther pointed out to his Wittenberg superior that the Fourth Lateran Council of 1215 had ruled that: "Salvation could lie outside the Church, but not outside Christ."

I have found some comfort in that. But what are we to make of this word "salvation"? is this just another irritating semantic red herring, a word that has no place in our brave, new, post-Enlightenment, scientific world? Would Darwin himself be so dismissive of this foolish word? Perhaps not, although his canine friend, Huxley, would perhaps have been (that said, Huxley - honest man - confessed he was agnostic rather than atheist).

Words, words, words, as Hamlet, in some irritation, noted. Yet for all our arguing over the meaning of words, for all the philosophers' wranglings, and for all the rationality of the scientists, where are we now? Have we as a species progressed one inch beyond that wretched, grinning ape who so triumphantly hurled his bone - his sceptre - into the air?

I nearly wept this morning watching the BBC News: the contrast between that hardened, bitter Ukrainian soldier, obviously a rational man, who simply shrugged as he stood amidst the wreckage and the bodies, and the local village women - simple, ignorant peasants no doubt - who came with their candles and their flowers to grieve for people whom they had never known and who meant nothing to them. Most of the women crossed themselves as a simple gesture of respect and compassion. And?

Ah, compassion. The word Priscilla mentions. Feeling with. Something we clever, rational, arrogant humans perhaps forget at our peril.

PS The second quotation from Luther was one of  Cardinal Cajetan's remarks to Aleander. The old Cardinal - who, as Cardinals go, was not such an idiot - warned the eager Aleander to beware how and where he hoped to "serve God". For that "is where you will be tempted".

Temp wrote:

the contrast between that hardened, bitter Ukrainian soldier, obviously a rational man, who simply shrugged as he stood amidst the wreckage and the bodies, and the local village women - simple, ignorant peasants no doubt

I would never have dared make such concrete presumptions regarding these people ("obviously", "no doubt"?). I admire and envy your audacity!

Irony, chuck, irony.

Chucked as far as one can, I imagine.

It is probably more "rational" for people to display empathy with victims in such situations - not evidence of simplicity, ignorance or even peasantry, but of humanity - and the soldier's demeanour can convey anything from callousness to shame to traumatised confusion emotionally (all of which may or may not be "rational" in the circumstances). As someone who has been caught up in traumatic situations not too dissimilar in the past I can assure you that even one person can undergo all these emotions for completely rational reasons none of which are apparent at the time, least of all to news cameras.

Irony or not, it is brave of you to deduce so much all the same. Personally I would be cautious of leaving myself open to the accusation that I was transferring my own conflicting reactions and feelings to the images of those depicted in the new report.

Have I been unfair? If I have, I apologise.

"Brave of you" - who's doing irony now, I wonder? And yes, I am conflicted - that I do own.

I meant it, I was not being ironic (I hate ironing!).

But it does illustrate the differences hinted at (badly, I admit) above in my post regarding physics versus metaphysics versus theology and how each provides different degrees of latitude concerning what is admissable input in any argument. I avoided any reference to "compassion" in replying to Priscilla's post, not because I am discompassionate but because in a discussion concerning causality it must be demonstrated first what is meant by the term before the interlocutor (especially if attempting to be respectful to others' opinions) can even contemplate running with it ("salvation" too, by the way). These terms scream out for contextual definition when they are "chucked" into any discussion but - you may have noticed - are rarely graced with same.

EDIT: Now I'm off to see Dragon Trainer II with someone for whom contextual definition is all in the future, the jammy bastard!

nordmann wrote:

Priscilla wrote:

That does not preclude there being a force for change of a word, that  enfolds the entire vast universe and all that there in  do dwell. And you cannot prove otherwise any more than a glock like me can it is so.

Notwithstanding the insertion of "of a word" in the first sentence which therefore invites the reader to question what was actually meant this statement also illustrates our very human interaction with the physical universe which leaves it open to place a name and identity on guesswork.

In physics "force" is a simple expression to relay concisely. Force is the quantifiable effect of the interaction between two (or more) physical bodies where "body" can be anything physically describable from sub-elemental level up to entire galaxies and beyond. However the crucial aspect to force in this definition is that it is a product. It is the effect of interaction and only to a certain level and in quite specific contexts causal. As an effect however it therefore cannot logically reside within any purely physical theory at the core or root of anything, least of all universal creation.

In metaphysics however, as Descartes and later Liebnitz were wont to remind us, "force", being a measure of effect also therefore must contain within its definition future effect, often unknown, unpredictable, or at the very least unmeasurable in the present. Its elimination or relegation as a primary cause cannot therefore be so easily accommodated in any theory. This in logical terms facilitates much - for Liebnitz it allowed him to conjecture on universal perfection (the universe doesn't come any better than it is) - a philosophy rather misleadingly called "optimism" but which also could represent extreme pessimism if one thinks about it. Even Liebnitz disliked that appellation in his day.

Of course those who called it "optimism" weren't strictly speaking philosophers, or mathematicians, or physicists. They were essentially theologians who had seized on the vagueness of force in metaphysical terms and the notion that the universe was perfect to recruit metaphysical theory in the 18th century to what they hoped was a growing body of "proof" of a divine will behind everything. Liebnitz himself was ambivalent on this subject - like many he often employed the term "god" to represent philosophically what "x" often represents in mathematical theorems taught to schoolchildren today. But then "proof" of a theorem and "proof" of a theory are two very different things scientifically - not that theology tends to differentiate much either way.

So your second sentence above begs the question of what might even begin to represent "proof" to you of anything. Inability to display a proof will indicate three exclusively different propositions depending on whether you are referring to physics, metaphysics or theology. In physics it simply demonstrates either that the supposition is incorrect or that we as yet have not the data to fully prosecute the theory. In other words it represents a permanant or temporary breakdown in the deductive reasoning process. In metaphysics it can be accommodated as a constant much more easily, because in metaphysics there is little qualitative distinction between conjecture and deduction anyway. Here it can mean simply that it is "unknowable" but admissable, depending on where and how it as cropped up in the deductive (or conjectural) reasoning process. In theology however it goes the extra mile. Here inability to prove one proposition can - and often is - presumed therefore to be "proof" of something else (the something else normally being a rather unphysical assertion).

Your sentence "rational dismissal that demands proof must also prove its own rationality" almost makes sense therefore in a purely physical context. The rationale I employ when demanding that a physical assertion you might have made requires proof must itself of course be proven to be rational. Otherwise no progress can be made in arriving at any conclusion which could even begin to be termed as "true". However in the constructs that accommodate supernatural phenomena as primary causes in an otherwise physical universe the notion of "proof" itself sidesteps all notions of "rationale", at least as the latter is commonly understood.

The motto of "Alpha Sigma Phi", the Yale-founded academic fraternity (there are several semantic problems with that description but we'll skip over them for the moment*) is "causa latet, vis est notissima" - the cause is hidden but the effect is visible to all - which they borrowed from Ovid's "Metamorphoses". He was actually discussing a magical fountain which featured in the myth surrounding the effemination of Hermaphroditus when he made the comment, but this version of his sentence has nevertheless in the past become popular as a "classical" proof that the establishment of a primary cause is not the point of scientific study. It is also a sly way of inferring that the quest for proofs themselves is immaterial and that this has somehow been endorsed by the ancients and therefore carries an august pedigree. Theists and deists alike have seized upon it as an expression of the validity of what they think regarding cause, effect and proof. This to me has always been good enough reason to look elsewhere.

* - a masonic lodge in effect, a self interest group whose methods used to shamelessly promote their own members materially at others' expense are disguised as arcane and esoteric ritual.

Nordmann,

how I appreciate your always well founded and logical comments. Only since some twelve years when entering the ex-BBC history messageboard that I got involved in such philosophical discussions...before, always going with a big turn around the religion/philosophy bookshelf in the local library...even today...all what I learned was from persons as you and, challenged by their comments, pushed to do research on the internet...When reading your well drafted messages I need nearly every five sentences to look in my dictionary for a word that I don't understand...And something in my inner says that you have to have done studies of philosophy or studies for for instance to become a Roman-Catholic priest...

In any case today I learned again something to add to my scanty knowledge...

With high esteem for your in depth and logical approach,

Paul.

nordmann wrote:

Paul, you are still exploring the well established and easily observable phenomenon whereby alternative interpretations of commonly agreed terms lead to disagreement. Existentialism - and this was my point in introducing the subject - explores the possibility that even when total agreement is expressed and understood we have no way of actually knowing that we are experientially addressing the same subject at all. The subject might not "exist" except purely subjectively for the interpreter regardless of agreement. We each are our own universe. By extension even those who might disagree or agree with us cannot be assumed to "exist" either.

This is a handy metaphysical argument to employ at times (I can see for example how it might appeal to psychopaths) but even Sartre acknowledges and explains in his "Being and Nothingness" that the alternative is also true by the same logic - there are some things which can only be deemed to exist when we are forced to acknowledge a fundamental disparity between our universe and the next person's. They exist in contention and cannot exist without that being at their essence. The failure of our own private universe to underpin and demonstrate to us the existence of everything as experientially real is proof that there are more. Remember he was discussing ontology, not reality.

Nordmann,

I hope I understand all what you say. Had to look in the dictionary for "contention" only to see that it was the well known "dispute"...And for "ontology" (philosophy: the study of the nature of being).

Nordmann, I know that all my interpretations come from "my own universe" and that I not know how the other persons view the subject from their "own universe"...but is it not "practical" to progress, to read the many interpretations written down by the several persons each with their "own universe" to come to a "greater picture" of a "subject"...?

Kind regards and with esteem,

Paul.

Paul R wrote:

And something in my inner says that you have to have done studies of philosophy or studies for for instance to become a Roman-Catholic priest...

Hah! Your inner self's first guess is fair enough. However his second ...

Let's just say I have limited time on this planet so all my "studies" have instead tended to be ones centred on actually learning stuff, however unsuccessful most of the effort has thus far been. And black dresses don't suit me anyway.

Quote :

but is it not "practical" to progress, to read the many interpretations written down by the several persons each with their "own universe" to come to a "greater picture" of a "subject"

Maybe it is sometimes. You are however discussing education, not existentialism. I agree in the main with what you have just said there but it has no bearing on our discussion concerning experiential reality. Sartre might even have dismissed it is a very likely method by which the learner is vulnerable to acting and thinking inauthentically, his dreaded "mauvaise foi" that prevents us from ever recognising reality. But like you I am too practical to let that ever bother me.

Well, not that much.

Temperance wrote:

Have I been unfair? If I have, I apologise.

"Brave of you" - who's doing irony now, I wonder? And yes, I am conflicted - that I do own.

You've interpreted that scene from the crash in the way the BBC meant for it to be interpreted and the onus of unfairness lies with the BBC in the way the piece was conveyed. The Beeb is no different from any other news outlet in having biases, political agendas and inaccuracies combined with the tendency to sensationalise. Lord knows I've seen enough tripe come out of the Beeb on Greece to write a large book and it is worse in this particular case where the Cold War mentality still abounds in the West.  

Yet a shrug can mean many things besides indifference, a shrug can also mean 'I don't know' or as a sign of helplessness in a bad situation. And like spoken language, body language has different meanings in different places yet the Beeb automatically gives an English interpretation to the gesture when in the Ukraine it would mean something else entirely. In this case, I'd suggest it is the BBC who are ignorant peasants, rather than the local population at the site who would know exactly what is going on there. Unlike anyone else from outside.

I am sure that the BBC, like all media organisations, does have "agendas", ID - but if any error in interpreting the man's gesture has been made, the mistake was mine. His words - presumably translated accurately and unedited by the BBC - were indeed angry and bitter, and he was, it seemed, indifferent to the fate of the victims. He said that the world media were only showing interest in the disaster because the dead were "foreign". He accused the BBC - and others - of not caring about the ordinary Ukrainians who are dying daily in the conflict. A fair point and fairly reported by the BBC, I think.

But the actual point that I was - so clumsily and ineptly - trying to make was that his apparent disregard for the victims could be seen as entirely rational, whereas the compassion and grief shown by the local women for their fellow human beings - these foreigners, these strangers - was not. Their gestures - no words from them - were deeply moving, and I'm glad the BBC showed them and the flowers and the candles that these women had brought to the scene.

Sigh. My expression "simple ignorant peasants" was indeed meant to be ironic - can't you see that?  

But yes, the western world is full of ignorant peasants, I agree - and we can ourselves at times appear to be such. If I came over that way yesterday - if I have been grossly unfair - I can only apologise.

But that soldier didn't give a damn, you know - and why should he indeed? What did I expect him to do - weep for Hecuba? And I'm not suggesting British or American soldiers - in the same situation - would have been any different. That is our human tragedy.

While discussion about media manipulation (intended or otherwise) in the reporting of this latest "big" news story is of huge interest and merits a thread in its own right it is of tangential relevance to the subject of this thread - which while being admittedly broad cannot be served well by veering into political discussion, as the Ukraine catastrophe is bound to do. It would be nice if people can make their points regarding human impressionability and gullibility in the face of received intelligence (the latter also in its broadest sense) without too much referral to this particular incident.

The thread began with examples of how people citing religious motivation endanger their own lives voluntarily and often the lives of those around them performing deeds which in other contexts would be deemed stupid, antisocial or even downright criminal. Gullibility to some extent may indeed play a role in why this is so - both for the individuals who perform the deeds as well as their neighbours who accept their actions as understandable, even desirable and worthy of condonance or endorsement.

I accept that the sidetrack into existentialism hasn't contributed much to resolving why this might be so, except to underline how fundamentally we assume hegemony in thought and morality without much justification that bears up to thorough scrutiny on a philosophical level. Nor does approaching the phenomenon from a religious perspective resolve much since it only tends to confirm the existentialist view - that while the actions might have many traits in common, including stated religious motivation, interpretation of what religion itself means is so kaleidoscopically diffuse that even two individuals partaking in the same exercise cannot be said with assuredness to share exactly the same interpretation of whatever religious they subscribe to, making declaration of shared motive difficult to state with absolute assuredness either. Societal, psychological and other diverse factors are also obviously present to varying degrees in each instance.

The original question however posed the conundrum regarding how such apparently detrimental activity in terms of risking life might be seen to square with evolutionary theory. Is it evidence of anything in that regard? Myself, I am inclined to believe that it is a close behavioural relative of the altruistic drive we innately possess, silly as that might sound. However our capacity to relegate the importance of our own life in certain circumstances in order to preserve that of another person has very strong definition and explicability in Darwinian terms, as does a tendency for such innate instincts to "misfire" or be inefficiently applied (in Darwinian terms again) under other circumstances. The same instincts that elevate selfless sacrifice to the higher echelons of the commonly held goodness scale (which appears to be present regardless of religious belief, and sometimes even despite it) might also be triggered if the individual is somehow convinced to believe that something good will emanate from the resultant action, even when nothing observable in the purely physical environment would appear to justify it.

Most things that trigger such misfires, such misplaced or seemingly illogical or counter-productive applications of instinctive behaviour, are deemed by us to be aberrant in terms of natural behaviour and on that basis would normally be seen as a "bad thing", and it is in that context that the room created for detrimentally manipulative actions is also recognised as "bad". However religion, as well as political ideology, are consistently experienced as "good", even when the manipulation and all else that we have agreed is "bad" is present.

Political ideologies which fail are found out comunally when eventually the promised rewards - all of which tend to be advertised as available in this life - fail to materialise in the manner promised or fail to materialise at all. This, in philosophical terms, is the application of ideas and thought within a predominantly physical set of parameters. The reasons for the emergence of the ideology, the method by which it spreads and is interpreted, as well as the reasons for its eventual disappearance when that occurs, are all deducible from observable phenomenon. Even if those doing the deducing may not agree on everything they seldom have to stray into the realm of metaphysics to prosecute their arguments. In the case of religion however much the same can be said with one huge exception, one that seems only even potentially explicable in metaphysical terms - a religion's potential to survive even the most rigorously critical and largely accurate assessment of its hominine origin, transmission and adherence. It is something that despite evidence against it which would sink any political ideology we stubbornly persist in maintaining. It is almost as if religion exists primarily to accommodate and encourage evolutionary misfires of the type mentioned above, misfires the persistence of which we actually protect, and of which self-harming and murderous aggression are just two prominent examples. Humans don't require religion to behave in this way, as any glance at the news will verify any day of the week, but yet it has proven one of the most endurable excuses for doing so, and when so used has produced some of the oddest, most extreme (as well sometimes as the most otherwise motivationally inexplicable) examples of both behaviours.

Which brings me right back to the original title and question. Is religion just one big misfire in evolutionary terms or is it actually performing an explicable, observable and measurable role in human evolution?

nordmann wrote:

While discussion about media manipulation (intended or otherwise) in the reporting of this latest "big" news story is of huge interest and merits a thread in its own right it is of tangential relevance to the subject of this thread - which while being admittedly broad cannot be served well by veering into political discussion, as the Ukraine catastrophe is bound to do. It would be nice if people can make their points regarding human impressionability and gullibility in the face of received intelligence (the latter also in its broadest sense) without too much referral to this particular incident.

I'm not sure the above is entirely fair: I was - however clumsily and ineptly and vaguely - trying to link the (apparently) differing behaviours and attitudes of the soldier and of the Ukrainian women to the ideas we have been discussing with such lively interest.

I note your reference to human impressionability and gullibility.

However, this is your site and your thread, and courtesy demands that we keep strictly to the topic you have set, and discuss it as you would wish.

But, that said, may I be allowed one final digression? I mentioned weeping for Hecuba yesterday: The Trojan Women - and Shakespeare's reference to the Player's apparently senseless weeping for the wretched queen - were very much on my mind yesterday. I'm sorry if this is of no relevance to anything, but I should still like to post this link. Then no more about this - and that's a promise.


http://www.theguardian.com/stage/2005/mar/19/theatre.classics

I have no intention of being unfair and take your point completely about the contrast between the soldier and the women in the news story as presented on TV. My own "however" however is that it is actually unfair on your part to deduce anything by way of irrationality exhibited by these people based on what you saw and heard in a news item. Putting aside the whole issue of unavoidable manipulation inherent in the editing process of a piece tailored for transmission on the TV news there is the question of why a person appearing to behave callously or discompassionately should be deemed "rational" while a person behaving apparently compassionately and empathically be deemed "irrational", and by whom. I would really like to know what criteria could be used to arrive at this conclusion as to me all the behaviour described has a rational explanation and indicates rationality on the part of the people concerned, however diverse the reactions displayed. Both empathy and indifference, if that indeed is the contrast supported by the image you saw, have rational explanations.

On the subject of how we discuss things I have never insisted either that anyone adhere "strictly" to any topic here, least of all my own - and have often stated quite the opposite in fact when diversions from a principal theme have proved very enlightening and helpful, even if not apparently so at first. And nor is there a compunction to discuss things as I or anyone else "would wish". This too is disingenuous as reading any thread here would readily show.

If attempting however to divert a discussion from a political quagmire of current affairs which might prove anathema to progressing the theme under debate is seen as interference by you then it is I who should apologise, especially if your insistence that it should be allowed do so is shared by the rest of the contributors. I was merely trying to keep the thread at least close to the topic it addresses. We just have different views apparently as to how this is best achieved.

Which brings me right back to the original title and question. Is religion just one big misfire in evolutionary terms or is it actually performing an explicable, observable and measurable role in human evolution?

That's not exactly the original question though, is it? That's asking whether the persistence of religion as a set of codified structures and behaviours based on a belief system is or is not an evolutionary misfire, rather than whether particular, apparently self destructive, practices are, of themselves, conducive to the perpetuation of the individual/group.

I'm tending towards thinking that religion is not a misfire but instead an (unfortunately) inevitable outcome of the interaction of human consciousness, memory, emotions and social organisation. Our consciousness  makes us  aware of ourselves as entities in relationship to our world in such a entirely integrated way that we cannot envisage that we become completely disconnected on death. We exist in consciousness and so cannot imagine the absence of that. Our egos, in the colloquial sense, also make it hard to contemplate the world continuing without us. Our experience, however, tells us that the world does continue after the death of others and so we try to accommodate that knowledge by placing those dead in some kind of relationship with the world and at the same time, soothe our own fears. Our developed intelligence has allowed us to deal with abstractions and see that not all we experience and understand is concrete and material so that after death existence could be of a different order to corporeal life. By these means we allow ourselves to go on living, and functioning, in what might otherwise be an intolerable existence.

As we have discussed earlier, once religion becomes a social structure, reflecting the organisation and hierarchies that we experience in 'normal' life, it functions as a supporting mechanism for social cohesion and identity and so becomes self reproductive as well as improving the  reproductive outcomes of the adherents. As you note, religion has the advantage over political ideologies in placing its rewards and punishments in the next life, not this one. Can't really lose there.
The very persistence of religion almost implies that it must have an evolutionary benefit; if it didn't, wouldn't it have just died out?

Those strange, dangerous practices, as well as their social functions within the group, also discussed previously, seem to me to reflect some of the extreme behaviours exhibited by animals under environmental pressures. There is something reactive about the way these exhibitions of exaggerated belief by self harm intensify , I would still like to know more about the social and political circumstances under which they arise.

edit: I see there are more lengthy posts. I'll posts these musings all the same. If I read more now, I'll do a Temp and delete as unworthy.

I tend to agree with everything there, ferval, in terms of behaviour.

I apologise for misrepresenting my own question - I did indeed intend to expand it from just the aberrational self-harming etc (though forgot to emphasise that) as in terms of evolutionary processes I cannot see how the action can be assessed in those terms without the broader stated motivation being included in the assessment. Why we are prone to hold religious views concerning the afterlife etc etc come into this of course, and I cannot fault anything in your explanation on psychological and anthropological grounds. But the broader question then is why we as a species have become prone to this when it does not have any apparent impact on our survival or development in evolutionary terms. Bacteria and cockroaches, for example, would seem to tick all the boxes regarding Darwinian success stories without an apparent need for this. Less facetiously so do higher mammals, at least those whose existence is only threatened by our own. Sartre might argue the presence of a conscious ego at non-human level and I tentatively agree with this. So what is it about the human ego then, if indeed this is the root of the dilemma?

I might suggest that the human ego facilitates this but surely it's complex symbolic reasoning and language that affords it? Since religion deals in the immaterial, it can only be expressed symbolically and disseminated verbally particularly since, as you said, it has no obvious reward. 'Good' and 'bad' in religious terms are often not the visible, or even logical, precursors of reward and punishment and ritual, although often with emotional or sensory impact, requires explication to be elevated from performance into obligation.
To restate a point of yours, there's confusion between religiosity and religion; the ego tends to support the former, and language etc allows the latter.

And yet not everyone who can speak, otherwise express or even internally accommodate consciousness in communicable terms, and is exposed to religious influence, ends up being religious in terms of belief (however conversant with or interested in the principles involved they may be). This would suggest that something apart from intelligence or societal pressure determines the inclination to be one way or the other and the presence of ego and language would appear to require yet another factor added to activate one's religiosity. Could this "x factor" be biological?

No, I don't think so since that would necessitate some 'religious centre' in the brain and I find the alleged evidence for that unconvincing. Although imaging appears to identify a neural response to something, the controls on what precisely is/are the stimulus/i for that response are so vague as to be practically meaningless. A 'religious experience'? What does that mean?

A biological predisposition to gullibility? That's a thought but I suspect that we're dealing with too many variables to tease out the strands. Declaring oneself agnostic or atheist has its own rewards, not least I'm afraid to admit, a certain feeling of satisfaction in not being gullible!

We've discussed sexual selection in the case of the extreme manifestations of devotion but have we been a wee bit rarefied by not considering the most basic responses - sexual arousal in both the participants (male) and the onlookers (female)? That's about as Darwinian as you can get. Religions, and particularly those of the Book, have taken an inordinate interest in controlling what goes on in peoples' bedrooms which is ironic (sorry!) since religion is so often right in there with pain and death, all jostling for position on the mattress in a gruesome foursome. I'm reminded of the reaction to the crucifix scene in The Exorcist, not to mention Ken Russell's oeuvre and also work by various academics including Roberts Gilchrist on the devotional aids of medieval religious women  
So maybe the 'biological' aspect operates at the most fundamental and essential level.

Then we'd all be doing it, methinks  

Ferval and Nordmann,
great discussion of yours...and thank you Nordmann for the immediate reply.
With high esteem to both,
Paul.

God, you're easily entertained, Paul!    

As a self-imposed punishment for raising this issue and pissing everyone off I'm now struggling through Sartre's "Being and Nothingness" in Norwegian ("Tilværelse og Intenhet"). They do "nothingness" really well here! For the record "mauvaise foi" up in these parts is "malplassert tillit" - "badly placed faith". I reckon that's me alright!

Pooh - you call that a penance? Now this would be impressive:

Being and Nothingness(Chinese Edition) (Paperback)

by Jean Paul Sartre (Author)

Be the first to review this item.

You could be the first, nordmann.

It wasn't the issue discussed here that has pissed me off (I can't speak for anyone else) -  it's all been extremely interesting and thought-provoking. No, it's  being called gullible that has left me fuming away nicely. Sin of pride you see...

As I have remarked elsewhere, I think we are all too hot here in England. But are we bothered? We need to chill out, or whatever the current expression is. Perhaps a nice new thread about propaganda from 1485 to the present day?

EDIT: Just to get us all started:


存在与虚无？


Cúnzài yǔ xūwú

You 轻信 person, you!