[BeardFisher-King]

That's the main trouble though, isn't it? If we think we're special, by definition nothing else can be.

We can think that we are "special" and still recognize the limits of how we are "special". More importantly, we can recognize the implications of our "specialness"

Just as astronomers spent millennia developing maths to explain how stars move around the Earth, because they assumed they were the center.

And yet that assumption was superseded, somehow.

Once you have a hammer, all your problems become nails. There's no guarantee that someone will come along and point out we're wrong, or that we'll listen if they do.

I agree that a larger toolkit is a good idea. That's why I keep banging on about cognitive dualism and the need for (at least) two methods of talking about reality and human nature. The "hammer" of mechanistic materialism is as limited as the "hammer" of faith or of philosophy.

I fully expect us to genocide every species on the planet, and if it comes to it, the Universe, should we continue to believe we are special (especially given how we treat fellow humans).

Just as I feel that an eternal afterlife, and a personal god, drains all meaning from the world, so to does Humanity being special deny us a civil place among the universe. I hope we either learn better, or are exterminated for our folly, before we do irreparable harm.

Well, if you take Cixin Liu's speculative cosmology seriously, the guiding principle of the universe is "Exterminate or be exterminated". His assumption is that humanity is not uniquely genocidal, and that irreparable harm might be inevitable.

Nice post, Wilshire. My main thrust is that humanity can recognize that we have "special" characteristics without reading those characteristics as a free pass to do any damn thing that occurs to us.

Note: I finally figured out how to work the quote tags!

[TaoHorror]

Great points @Wilshire + @H

I agree ( I thought I was saying "spe-shial", as in species, but spells out special ... nevermind ).

I absolutely agree a great deal of damage has resulted from our species conceit and believe systems in the after-life callously treating this world from it ( not all, but some have ). So you have accurately pointed out some awful things, which sucks big time. That said, awful things resulting from disrespect/recklessness does not in itself disprove those beliefs ( not saying you're doing that, just making it clear ).

As I've said, you have a tall hill to climb in proving a negative ( doesn't mean you're wrong, just make take a very long time to prove your position that there is no meta-physical reality ) ... but maybe not  ... in the spirit of others so heroically exposing themselves, I will do so now with what may appear an inane point.

Maybe, it's easier to prove you're right than we first thought ... if you are correct, than I put forth we should've been able to scientifically resurrect people by now. I'm not talking about bringing someone back after 6 minutes of a controlled environment ... say 24 hours dead. If we have no soul, shouldn't be that hard to keep a body in the proper temperature to avoid decomposition for 24 hours and we can use jumper cables to jump start the human again. Take heart disease - could be less traumatic to simply not revive the human, perform the heart transplant while they're dead, then revive them. If there is no soul, this should not be a mountain to climb to achieve this. Scientific resurrection would go a long way proving your stance on this.

[TLEILAXU]

That's the main trouble though, isn't it? If we think we're special, by definition nothing else can be.
Just as astronomers spent millennia developing maths to explain how stars move around the Earth, because they assumed they were the center.
Once you have a hammer, all your problems become nails. There's no guarantee that someone will come along and point out we're wrong, or that we'll listen if they do.

I fully expect us to genocide every species on the planet, and if it comes to it, the Universe, should we continue to believe we are special (especially given how we treat fellow humans).

Just as I feel that an eternal afterlife, and a personal god, drains all meaning from the world, so to does Humanity being special deny us a civil place among the universe. I hope we either learn better, or are exterminated for our folly, before we do irreparable harm.

You can believe you are special without believing you have to exploit corrupt African leaders extract their natural resources for cheap. You can believe you are special without insisting global warming is a hoax. You can believe you are special without burning GMO test crops or trying to manipulate poor African countries to abandon GMO crops because they offend your feelings.
What exactly do we mean by special anyway    ?
Also, our sacred nucleic acids and amino acids should cover the cosmos.

[Wilshire]

BFK: Thanks. As you may pretty well know by now, I don't spend much time educating myself on other's works. I don't know if I'd agree with Cixin Liu or not, but I would hope that humanity might rise above abject genocide.
That said, I don't personally believe we as a species can do that while simultaneously seeing ourselves as special. I think that being special, whether its humans over humans, or humans over other things, is central to much of the evil in the world.
I don't think that particular difference can be reconciled, but at least we've identified the major sticking point, right?

TH: I'm not sure your logic makes much sense regarding revival:
We can't revive a flower once its dead ... does that mean flowers now have souls?
What of dead animals? Horse? Dogs? Chickens? Fish? Ants?
So now everything that we can't revive has a soul?
What of rocks and nonliving things. We can't animate them, so does that mean their souls have left?
I don't think you intended to imply any of that, but that's where that argument concludes in my mind. Since the conclusion is nonsensical, the logic doesn't really apply. If I've misinterpreted you, please redirect me.

But, even if what you said was true and correct,  you've now defined god, or metaphysics, or souls, as the absence of scientific knowledge. So then, millennia ago souls and magic filled everything, now they fill less as human understanding of reality increases, and millennia into the future they disappear entirely? ... I assume this isn't your intent, I'm just pointing out that using ignorance, or absence of knowledge, as the crux of an argument doesn't make much sense.
As above, I'm certain these are not the conclusion you intended, so please show me where I went astray.


Tleilaxu: I agree. Those things are possible. But, as I said up above to BFK, evil and special seem axiomatic to me. Others, obviously, feel the opposite is true.
In fact, probably most everyone feels the opposite of much of what I said. I'm not attempting to sway anyone. These are just my beliefs .
Special being anything that sets humanity permanently and irrevocably apart from the rest of the universe. Be that the idea that we're the only thing with a soul, or the only things with free-will, etc.

[TaoHorror]

You can believe you are special without believing you have to exploit corrupt African leaders extract their natural resources for cheap. You can believe you are special without insisting global warming is a hoax. You can believe you are special without burning GMO test crops or trying to manipulate poor African countries to abandon GMO crops because they offend your feelings.
What exactly do we mean by special anyway    ?
Also, our sacred nucleic acids and amino acids should cover the cosmos.

Agreed, well said!

[TaoHorror]

TH: I'm not sure your logic makes much sense regarding revival:
We can't revive a flower once its dead ... does that mean flowers now have souls?
What of dead animals? Horse? Dogs? Chickens? Fish? Ants?
So now everything that we can't revive has a soul?
What of rocks and nonliving things. We can't animate them, so does that mean their souls have left?
I don't think you intended to imply any of that, but that's where that argument concludes in my mind. Since the conclusion is nonsensical, the logic doesn't really apply. If I've misinterpreted you, please redirect me.

But, even if what you said was true and correct,  you've now defined god, or metaphysics, or souls, as the absence of scientific knowledge. So then, millennia ago souls and magic filled everything, now they fill less as human understanding of reality increases, and millennia into the future they disappear entirely? ... I assume this isn't your intent, I'm just pointing out that using ignorance, or absence of knowledge, as the crux of an argument doesn't make much sense.
As above, I'm certain these are not the conclusion you intended, so please show me where I went astray.

No, no - didn't mean to say just because we haven't figured out how to scientifically resurrect that you must be wrong - just that if you are correct, this should be doable ( I expressed myself poorly there, sorry ). I did caveat with proper temperature to avoid decomposition - but yes, we should be able to revive any animal as with no soul/Outside, they/we are all just complex machines waiting to be "solved". What exactly is stopping us for cranking up the car when the batteries dead?

More crazy shit for you: I believe all mammals are conscious and suspect they have souls ( including vermin ) - could be dead wrong, I have no objective proof. I believe once evolution yielded a "kind" of life with the neural capability/capacity to house consciousness, a soul may well show up 

@TL/Wilshire - I really stepped in shit on this special usage ... I meant species conceit when using it ( species as an adjective, came out spelled "special" ... pronounced spee sheal ... but not a word, so I fuck-headed that one ). I agree completely that considering ourselves as "special" is a mistake, but also agree with TL regardless of how we view ourselves, we should not allow that perception to drive self destructive behaviors/actions.

[Bolivar]

While I understand how seeing ourselves as special might possibly provide a justification for destructive behavior, I'm not convinced that it's a primary motivator of it. If someone wants to do something fucked up, they'll find a way to rationalize it regardless. It's just a fact that in the world today, and what we can glance from the geological strata, that we're the only ones who have this. Telling the truth should not be  inherently dangerous. I'll take responsibility over ignorance any day of the week.

I'm also not convinced that trivializing ourselves would somehow place a safeguard against atrocity. Industry reduces the human person to units of production and consumption but it has had no problem brutalizing the planet over the last 150 years.

Bolivar, that's a beautiful post. You mentioned Catholic music, so I thought I'd add that I sing Gregorian Chant at my church, where we are blessed to attend the traditional Latin Mass.

That's awesome and you're lucky. We can only get a Latin Mass by us every once in a while for certain holy days of obligation. I went to our cathedral for the Immaculate Conception of Mary and was blown away. I still think the Novus Ordo has it's own beauty but it's clear that we lost a lot along the way. What really surprises me is how, from what I saw that day and what I've read about it elsewhere, it's really young people who are filling the pews for these Latin Masses. This really is a generation starving for tradition.

[Wilshire]

While I understand how seeing ourselves as special might possibly provide a justification for destructive behavior, I'm not convinced that it's a primary motivator of it. If someone wants to do something fucked up, they'll find a way to rationalize it regardless.
...
I'm also not convinced that trivializing ourselves would somehow place a safeguard against atrocity. Industry reduces the human person to units of production and consumption but it has had no problem brutalizing the planet over the last 150 years.

Again, baseline assumption disconnect here. Helpful when identified, but unfortunately difficult to reach past.
You're of course correct, the absence of 'being special' does not make for a perfect utopia in all things. However, I still think that thinking oneself above others is what drives those most negative behaviors. Industry has brutalized the planet for far more than 150 years. But slavery didn't arise out of treating all humanity as equal. Similarly, one wouldn't brutalize the planet if they thought it matter as much as they did.
I'm not saying that everything is equal in all things, just that a healthy dose of humility - and absent a writ direct from god - would be far more likely a chance of harmony than otherwise.
 
As I mentioned previously, my fundamental belief that any God and/or afterlife removes any semblance of meaningfulness from worldly actions makes our two belief structures difficult (impossible probably) to reconcile. I do appreciate the discourse though

It's just a fact that in the world today, and what we can glance from the geological strata, that we're the only ones who have this. Telling the truth should not be  inherently dangerous. I'll take responsibility over ignorance any day of the week.

I'm not really sure where this fits in, if it was directed in response to me in some way.
Certainly, we're not the only animals that kill eachother.
Generally speaking, telling the truth is only ever dangerous when the truths being told don't match up and the recipients decided recourse is violence. This becomes more and more an issue as connectivity between disparate groups with different cultural heritage increases.
Personal responsibility is key. Shunting it off to a scapegoat, be it some other person, group, or some deity, or anything else, is unacceptable.

it's really young people who are filling the pews for these Latin Masses. This really is a generation starving for tradition.

Just curious, how old is a young person in your mind?

[BeardFisher-King]

it's really young people who are filling the pews for these Latin Masses. This really is a generation starving for tradition.

Just curious, how old is a young person in your mind?

I won't speak for Bolivar, but in my church, we have a growing number of young families with husbands and wives in their 20s and 30s.

Bolivar, that's a beautiful post. You mentioned Catholic music, so I thought I'd add that I sing Gregorian Chant at my church, where we are blessed to attend the traditional Latin Mass.

That's awesome and you're lucky. We can only get a Latin Mass by us every once in a while for certain holy days of obligation. I went to our cathedral for the Immaculate Conception of Mary and was blown away. I still think the Novus Ordo has it's own beauty but it's clear that we lost a lot along the way. What really surprises me is how, from what I saw that day and what I've read about it elsewhere, it's really young people who are filling the pews for these Latin Masses. This really is a generation starving for tradition.

The Novus Ordo rite can be done with solemnity and beauty, true, but the intense rapidity of the changes made after Vatican II was a tragic mistake. I was going to remark that vernacular Masses could have been celebrated alongside Latin Masses, until I realized that perhaps the truly disastrous change was "turning the priest around". It makes the new rite more of an interchange between the congregation and the priest. The traditional rite has the priest acting on behalf of the congregation, with all facing the high altar. 

[Wilshire]

it's really young people who are filling the pews for these Latin Masses. This really is a generation starving for tradition.

Just curious, how old is a young person in your mind?

I won't speak for Bolivar, but in my church, we have a growing number of young families with husbands and wives in their 20s and 30s.

Thanks. From context here, I think young person would probably refer to someone in their 20s-30s as you described, but figured I'd ask.
Only tangentially related (or indeed entirely off topic), so often the term millennial is used to describe a generic 'young person', which wasn't used in this case but I still find it interesting to know what people from various ages call young (as I'm sure one of these day's I'll cease to be young by most any reasonable measure and will then ask the opposite, 'how old is old'). Recently read an article which defined "millennial" as 23-37 years old. Most people probably use that term (incorrectly) to describe a person between the ages of maybe 16 or 18 to <30. I'd guess people forget that 'millennial' is supposed to describe a particular generation, which gets older every year just like all the others, rather than being a direct substitute for young person.

[H]

I also really believe that if you try to orient yourself towards the kind of life He's describing, you absolutely nurture a closer relationship between yourself and the objective truth/good - God. It's awesome watching your spirituality grow when you take the time to study scripture, do good works, and to meditate and pray.

Great post and in a way I am envious of the kind of faith that you have, because I have never had any of that, nor ever experienced anything like it.  That being said, I don't really feel badly about it.  Surely I can't "know" what I am "missing" but I certainly just don't see it for myself.  Of course, your post illuminates many of those things, despite being raised Catholic and my wife being rather religious I do practice, it still is not to me what it is to her (and seemingly, to you).

I honestly think this is the worst possible way to discuss the subject here, because I am in no way articulate enough, especially in text to really convey what I think about "all of it" and in a way, I probably come across as "against" religion, which I am not.  This is why I quoted what you said above, because it is, to me, the full "distillation" of what it's all about.

We can debate until the end of time if Jesus was really the son of God, or not, and arrive no where, our lives literally the same as they were when we started.  It hardly proves anything.  Rather, what I focus on is what is doctrine telling people and what are people doing.  So, as you quote, if we look at what the Gospels are telling us, it's generally some pretty good advice.  But where things break down, of course, is what people are doing.  Of course, there are great people, doing great things in Jesus' name.  But there are also people doing not great things in Jesus' name.  I am not trying to make an equivalence though, there is no way to know what the sum total of "good" to the sum total of "bad" done would or could ever be.  My only point is, like any human endeavor, religion is often a mixed bag.

That isn't to say that people shouldn't be religious.  In fact, just the opposite, if it helps people be better people, they absolutely positively should be religious.  The problem I have, and it's the same problem I have with every single human (religious or not), is when people use something as an excuse to specially not be better people.  Which is exactly why I quoted what you said above.  Because that is the whole point.  Showing up to church has little meaning if you don't do what you said above.

I am for whatever helps people do two things: first, make the world more psychologically palatable to them while also, two, making them better, more responsible people.  If it's not doing both, then I have an issue.  So, I never have an issue with religion.  I have an issue with people, that sometimes applies to religious people, sometimes non-religious people.

I could go on and on, but I'll cut this short here.

[BeardFisher-King]

Great post, H! I especially like the way that you express the unimportance of "proving" the claims of a religious belief system. To me, what's way more important is to belong to a faith community.

[TLEILAXU]

Great post, H! I especially like the way that you express the unimportance of "proving" the claims of a religious belief system. To me, what's way more important is to belong to a faith community.

Faith is definitely important for collective organization, coherence etc. and the people who rant against religion are ignorant of the fact that virtually every human community has some kind of shared mythology, whether it's religious or ideological.
That being said, faiths are not equal.
There's a brilliant line in Heretics of Dune where Tylwyth Waff exclaims "The sun is not God!". The implications here are tremendous imo.

[BeardFisher-King]

Great post, H! I especially like the way that you express the unimportance of "proving" the claims of a religious belief system. To me, what's way more important is to belong to a faith community.

Faith is definitely important for collective organization, coherence etc. and the people who rant against religion are ignorant of the fact that virtually every human community has some kind of shared mythology, whether it's religious or ideological.
That being said, faiths are not equal.
There's a brilliant line in Heretics of Dune where Tylwyth Waff exclaims "The sun is not God!". The implications here are tremendous imo.

No, faiths are not equal, or perhaps we could say that all faiths are equally "nonsensical"; i.e., they all have a resistance to being disproved.

I don't get your point with the quote from HoD, Tleilaxu. Could you expand upon the implications and the context?

[Madness]

Madness, to summarize TH belief before things get too tangled:
If the universe is all cause-effect, then it doesn't make sense that humans have something that exists outside of that. If, though, a soul exists, then the the cause-effect chain is broken and free will can exist.

If, then. Lots of presupposing happening here.

...

I'm not a scientist and far from learned on a lot of the things. But, my layman thinking and all I've ever been taught is that the human body is biological, not mechanical. To me, pretty cut and dry, and the arguments that we are machines are nonsense.

...

ETA: excuse me if I'm reading your argument wrong. Kinda hard to see who said what when 5 posts are quoted in a post. If I am, sorry. Could you explain it better. Or, whoever believes we're fucking machines, is love to know where that line of thinking comes from.

Not supporting either argument but there are plenty of examples regarding biological computation, MSJ. Even extreme, for instance, Rat Brain Robot/Worm Brain Robot

*insert Madness comments about language*

Lol. I appreciate that that is communicated through my blathering.

But what exactly is biological? Every living being consists of one or more cells, each which takes in inputs as environmental/metabolic signals and produce an output. You could maybe say this could fit the definition of a machine. Going deeper, the  molecules in cells that carry out biochemical reactions can be termed molecular machines https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Molecular_machine#Biological

C. elegans. I wish I had otherwise remembered to remember better examples from one of my biopsych courses regarding simple nervous systems.

...

As I said to Wilshire, I was very surprised to read this post from you, Bolivar.

I have deep concerns with anything that makes Humans special above all other things.

+1

We can think that we are "special" and still recognize the limits of how we are "special". More importantly, we can recognize the implications of our "specialness"

Contextually unique?

I agree that a larger toolkit is a good idea. That's why I keep banging on about cognitive dualism and the need for (at least) two methods of talking about reality and human nature. The "hammer" of mechanistic materialism is as limited as the "hammer" of faith or of philosophy.

At this juncture the thread seems to be getting into the minutia of Bakker territory so I hesitate to repeat views I don't necessarily have the capacity to argue effectively but...

Faith and philosophy don't have the pedigree that "science!" does, does it? Even as someone who pays attention to anomalous human behaviours, I've not yet encountered the priest or philosopher who spake and thus produced a nuclear reaction.

I absolutely agree a great deal of damage has resulted from our species conceit and believe systems in the after-life callously treating this world from it ( not all, but some have ). So you have accurately pointed out some awful things, which sucks big time. That said, awful things resulting from disrespect/recklessness does not in itself disprove those beliefs ( not saying you're doing that, just making it clear ).

Those are two separate contexts, no? I hesitate to speak for Wilshire but I don't think he cares to invalidate anyone's belief.

Maybe, it's easier to prove you're right than we first thought ... if you are correct, than I put forth we should've been able to scientifically resurrect people by now. I'm not talking about bringing someone back after 6 minutes of a controlled environment ... say 24 hours dead. If we have no soul, shouldn't be that hard to keep a body in the proper temperature to avoid decomposition for 24 hours and we can use jumper cables to jump start the human again. Take heart disease - could be less traumatic to simply not revive the human, perform the heart transplant while they're dead, then revive them. If there is no soul, this should not be a mountain to climb to achieve this. Scientific resurrection would go a long way proving your stance on this.

I'm not even sure what to make of this. Are you suggesting that the only reason we don't have immortality by science now, today (!!), is because we have souls?

TH: ... If I've misinterpreted you, please redirect me.

+1

No, no - didn't mean to say just because we haven't figured out how to scientifically resurrect that you must be wrong - just that if you are correct, this should be doable ( I expressed myself poorly there, sorry ). I did caveat with proper temperature to avoid decomposition - but yes, we should be able to revive any animal as with no soul/Outside, they/we are all just complex machines waiting to be "solved". What exactly is stopping us for cranking up the car when the batteries dead?

Scientific progress? Give or take a hundred years ago, anomalies aside, we hadn't conceived "batteries," unless you were talking about assault and battery.

More crazy shit for you: I believe all mammals are conscious and suspect they have souls ( including vermin ) - could be dead wrong, I have no objective proof. I believe once evolution yielded a "kind" of life with the neural capability/capacity to house consciousness, a soul may well show up 

A panpsychist, then ?

...

I could go on and on, but I'll cut this short here.

How you act give commitment to your belief/ideology? (The Royal You, of course.)