From: L' Ermit (lhermit@hotmail.com)
Date: Thu Feb 28 2002 - 11:50:38 MST
[b]Order[/b]
[nng 1*]
[Richard Ridge 1]
[nng 2]
[Hermit 2]
[hr]
[nng 1] I do not see the "dangerous" aspect of the above.
[Richard Ridge 1] The danger Johnson was referring to was simply that when
social constraint ceases to mandate organised religion, it dries up and
withers. A danger from his point of view of course, progress and freedom
from mine. However, it does seem to me that, oppressive and archaic as it
is, the Catholic Church has some advantages over other christian variants -
if only because its insistence on defining doctrine places it in a position
to moderate the views of believers (and admittedly to exacerbate them). By
contrast, individuals of faith are free to invent god in their own image and
to seek transcendental justification for their poisonous views - and hence
evangelical sects that are far more militant that any mainstream church. One
of the great problems with moribund faith without doctrine is that it rarely
stays that way, and an even more extremist form of doctrine often ends up
being reasserted.
[nng 2] I concur with the above if by "faith" you mean "religion". But if by
"faith" you mean "belief in that which cannot presently be proved" then I
think you overgeneralize.
[Hermit 2] To facilitate agreement, these are the "working definitions"
generally agreed upon here over a long period of time (refer our archives at
http://javien.lucifer.com). If you disagree please identify the area and
cause for disagreement prior to disintegrating into a welter communications
failures.
[list]
Faith is to vest belief in someone/something.
Belief is to accept something as true (or perhaps false) in the absence of
sufficient evidence or the in the face of contradictory evidence for that
acceptance. Sufficient evidence would render belief unnecessary.
Conventional religion is a systemized technique to persuade people to vest
faith, belief and usually cash (or other award) in return for promises of
"heaven tomorrow".
[/list]
[nng 1] Religion is a coping strategy - most people need something like it -
some do not.
[Richard Ridge 1] I would contend that emotional dependency of that kind
cannot possibly be considered healthy.
[Hermit 2] Nods vigorously.
[nng 2] Read "To Thine Own Self Be True: The Relationship Between Spiritual
Values and Emotional Health" by Lewis M. Andrews, Ph. D. and then tell me
what you think.
[Hermit] In general, if you can you provide a web source, please cite it. If
not please present your own arguments rather than someone else's (that the
vast majority of the upwards of 500 people listening to you are not going to
read). As it is, before anybody is daft enough to read your recommendations
(daft as you have not proven yourself a reliable source of recommendations
in this forum, and time is precious), can you explain exactly what
differences you see between "spiritual values" and "worthless coin"?
[nng 1] I have yet to see well-reasoned, consistent, well-supported secular
ethics. They all wind up appealing to something unprovable.
[Hermit 1] Have you seen a set of "well-reasoned, consistent, well-supported
non-secular ethics"? Or was this more a general complaint about the nature
of the Universe? Would you please explain your understanding of the
scientific method and game-theory and their application to ethics?
[Hermit 1] As an elementary starting point in diagnosing the analytic
methodology you apply to ethical systems, kindly explain how you would
determine that a system of ethics grounded in a simple "tit-for-tat"
strategy is not "well-reasoned", "consistent", "well supported" or "secular"
and identify which of these aspects you find problematic.
[Richard Ridge] Not so long ago you were citing Godel's theorem as grounds
for asserting that faith is a required component in areas where rationality
does not reach (Which sounds like having found a flaw in your calculations,
you invent an unprovable quantity (god) to fill the hole. Which must make
for a somewhat unstable edifice - and certainly makes for hypocrisy on your
part) . On that occasion you appeared to be rather more enamoured of
uncertainty :-)
[nng 2] You are equating faith with unprovability and uncertainty in the
above in order to deduce hypocrisy and my alleged enamorement with
uncertainly.
[Hermit 2] Not at all. Your presence here indicates that you are rational or
seek to become so or are attempting to determine if rationality is
desirable. Gödel is well-reasoned, consistent and well-supported. Thus it
would not be rational to reject Gödelian uncertainty, thus I (and I assume
Richard) conclude that you should support Gödel. However I see the apparent
contradiction that you are seeking certainty beyond what is necessary when
it comes to an ethical system, which apparent conclusion presumably leads
Richard to seek your motivation to transcend uncertainty knowing that this
cannot be done. I too would be interested in your answer.
[nng 2] I am merely postulating the existence of a provability beyond that
of rationality that can lead to a certainty beyond that of the "provisional
truth" that rationality leaves us with.
[Hermit 2] Upon what grounds do you postulate this? What evidence do you
offer in support?
[Richard Ridge] On the whole, I am far from persuaded that a consistent set
of ethics grounded in transcendental sanction is a good thing.
[nng 2] I am willing to concede that it may not be - a grounding in
something other than transcendental sanction might very well be better. But
I have found nothing else that works nearly as well.
[Hermit 2] So having failed to find an ethical system which contradicts the
nature of the universe, you now claim to have selected one which contradicts
the nature of reason and allege that it is "better". I find the probability
that you are correct to be slight. Would you lay it out for inspection?
[Richard Ridge] Such certainty is precisely what accounts for the manifest
evils of religion.
[nng 2] I hypothesize (as do others) that there exists a central core of
good teachings in each religion.
[Hermit 2] Upon what grounds do you hypothesize this? Are you familiar with
the ad populem fallacy? I suggest that the history of religious men does not
tend to support this assertion.
[nng 2], around which tradition (of mediocre value) and nonsense (of
detrimental value) have accumulated over the ages (where sometimes an "age"
is a very short period of time).
[Hermit 2] Why is this necessary. Are you familiar with Ockham's razor? Do
you think that perhaps you might be "multiplying entities unnecessarily"? If
not, why not?
[nng 2] I suggest that all the "manifest evils of religion" are a
consequence of the accumulated nonsense.
[nng 2] To get to what is worthwhile you must, to borrow the Buddhist
phrase, "peel the onion".
[Hermit 2] What makes you imagine that that the center of the onion is
different from the outside? After all, if you saw a tray full of apparently
rotten food, would you really scrabble through it in search of a bit that
was not rotten? If so, why? What you be your motivation for doing so? The
hope of a discount? Or something else?
[Richard Ridge] I would suggest that a great many of our ethical notions
today have much more to do with JS Mill than the Bible (which can only be
good - were it otherwise we would still be incarcerating homosexuals or
stoning adulterers), namely that individuals should have the liberty to
behave as they wish as long as that behaviour does not adversely impact on
others. What was particularly noteworthy about Mill was that he did not
consider a lack of consistency of application a problem - it is far more
sensible to judge each case on its individual merits than shoehorning them
into a set of moral absolutes.
[Hermit 2] Nods vigorously again.
[nng 2] Legal law, by definition, is written down. Judging each case, on
it's own merits, while simultaneously allowing for an appeals process that
may, at any point it time, reach the highest court in the land, winds up
with people appealing, not on any sound reason, but merely because they
didn't like how that court chose to judge that case. Without guiding "moral
absolutes", the legal profession will continue to grow well beyond what I
think it should.
[Hermit 2] What do you see as a "moral absolute", where does it come from
and what court applies it? How is this "moral absolute" disseminated and
enforced? Were these moral absolutes in favor of slavery until recently? Are
they still in favor of slavery? How come, if you assert the existence of
such a "moral absolute", does it appear very different in different cultures
and over time? If you assert that such a "moral absolute" existed, but is
not currently enforced (and presumably has not been enforced over a long
period of time) is there any difference between that law and no law?
Consider that there are precedents in this issue. How is an unwritten,
unenforced, "moral absolute" different from "no law"?
[Hermit 2] A law which is not "written down" (published) cannot be fairly
applied and will give the appearance of being capricious and arbitrary.
Exactly the opposite of good law. Appeals are a part of law, and there are
procedures for managing the process. If laws are inadequate or faulty, there
are procedures to rectify or correct them. What is the equivalent process
for a "moral absolute"?
[nng 2] Aristotle and various others in the religious and philosophical
arenas
[Richard Ridge] I hardly think the Nicomachean ethics is something we would
wish to rely on - the idea of a unity of virtues is not one of Aristotle's
happier conceits. Aside from anything else, the Aristotelian list of virtues
is far from being identical to a christian list and does not count 'faith'
in that particular calendar.
[nng 2] There may be some slight twisting of words necessary here.
[Hermit 2] LOL. Slight? Justify please.
[nng 1] I've give the sources he mentions above. Feel free to discredit or
follow up on them as you see fit.
[Richard Ridge] Discrediting it is not difficult.
[Hermit 2] It takes time. So far I see nothing worth taking the time to
respond to.
[nng 2] Then go for it.
[Hermit 2] Justify why we should. We do not insist on your money, your
attention, your worship, or your belief. We ask you (and do the same
ourselves) to examine and query, to determine things on a rational basis, to
support assertions made if asked, and a willingness to learn. People here
are willing to, and do, dedicate time to these tasks, the church and its
members, but we do anticipate a reasonable likelihood of a return in terms
of personal growth from such investments. As we do not yet know you very
well, and do not yet comprehend what you are advocating, we are asking you
to make explicit to us exactly what you are recommending, so that we can
determine, using rational criteria, whether it is worth while investing the
time in it.
[Richard Ridge] If a search for faith were universal, Europe would not be
becoming increasingly atheistic, while most Europeans now appear to be
happily devoid of any faith (contradicting your assertion that most people
do need faith).
[nng 2] Please provide me a link to a survey result of Europeans that
indicates
that they consider themselves devoid of faith.
[Hermit 2] Appended below.
[nng 2] I have heard that in America, there definitely has been an outcry
against the crimes of organized religion (and, through association, against
organized religion), but a great majority continues to believe in some form
of "spirituality" - which gets defined in different terms based on the
individuals' background.
[Hermit 2] The US is undoubtedly the most religious developed country, but
even here secularism is on the rise, "The non-religious (not a member of a
religion, not "having faith in a Divinity") comprises 29 million odd people
with a margin of error at the 95th
percentile not exceeding 1%." [American Religious Identification Survey
infra]
[hr]
[url=http://www.gc.cuny.edu/studies/key_findings.htm]"American Religious
Identification Survey"[/url] From page 6
[quote]Since the mid-1960s,when the Harvard theologian Harvey Cox ’s best
selling The Secular City 2 ushered in a brief era of "secularization,"
American religion has been widely perceived as leaning toward the more
literal, fundamental, and spiritual. Particularly since the election in 1976
of President Jimmy Carter, a self-avowed Born Again Christian, America has
been through a period of great religious re-awakening. In sharp contrast to
that widely held perception, the present survey has detected a wide and
possibly growing swath of secularism among Americans. The magnitude and role
of this large secular segment of the American population is frequently
ignored by scholars and politicians alike. However, the pattern emerging
from the present study is completely consistent with similar secularizing
trends in other Western, democratic societies.3 For example, Andrew Greeley
has found that England is considerably less religious than the USA. He also
notes similarly high levels of secularism in most countries of the European
continent west of Poland. [3 For an interesting comparison, see Andrew
Greeley, Religion in Britain, Ireland and the USA, in Roger Jowell et
al,ed., British Social Attitudes:The 9th Report (Dartmouth Publishing Co.,
Aldershot, England, 1992).[/quote]
[hr]
Excerpt from
[url=http://forum.javien.com/XMLmessage.php?id=id::OkRlJgoF-InxT-Xkxb-UkhF-PXJdEyAmMWJg]"More
Stats - was RE: virus: Fwd: [BPR] - The U.N.'s Shocking Agenda: follow-up
part three", Hermit, Sun 2001-02-04 00:28[/url]
Source: "World Christian Encyclopedia : A Comparative Survey of Churches and
Religions Ad 30-Ad 2200" by David B. Barrett(Editor), et al (Hardcover, 2
Volumes, March 2001)
<http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0195079639/thehermit0d>
<snip>
Even so, no one in 1900 would have predicted the sweeping defections from
Christianity that took place "in Western Europe due to secularism, in Russia
and later Eastern Europe due to Communism, and in the Americas due to
materialism," the book says. Christianity began and ended the century as the
world's biggest religion, the encyclopedia says, with 555 million believers
in 1900 or 32.2 percent of world population and 1.9 billion or 31 percent as
of last year. Counted Christians are divided among 33,820 denominations or
similar distinct organizations. Some 386 million believers are in
"independent" churches apart from the historic Catholic, Orthodox, Anglican
and Protestant branches, the book reports. Christians counted as belonging
to other groups have quadrupled since 1970, with huge increases noted among
Pentecostal and Charismatic movements.
<snip>
/me notes that the reason that Christianity scores so well is that all of
the various religions blended together under the label "Christianity" make
it score much better than it should. If we were to class the 33,820
denominations separately, e.g. Russian Orthodox, Greek Orthodox, Catholic,
Presbyterian, Baptist, Mormon, Adventist etc., they would each become almost
irrelevant.
<snap>
[hr]
[url=http://forum.javien.com/XMLmessage.php?id=id::5E2laiNN-gfoh-jVzJ-U0Uy-EQo@eg9B_h90]"virus:
State of Religion - Challenging preconceptions of sex and society with
simple facts.",Hermit,Sat 2001-02-03 20:55[/url]
May answer many questions as why, in the US, religious "moral values" have
proven a failure.
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