Secular Intolerance

[Nick_A]

Greta quoted Carl Sagan:

Science is more than a body of knowledge; it is a way of thinking. I have a foreboding of an America in my children's or grandchildren's time — when the United States is a service and information economy; when nearly all the key manufacturing industries have slipped away to other countries; when awesome technological powers are in the hands of a very few, and no one representing the public interest can even grasp the issues; when the people have lost the ability to set their own agendas or knowledgeably question those in authority; when, clutching our crystals and nervously consulting our horoscopes, our critical faculties in decline, unable to distinguish between what feels good and what's true, we slide, almost without noticing, back into superstition and darkness.

Science is a way of thinking. How does this way of thinking contribute to the quality of understanding in terms of values for the benefit of society as a whole?

The last sentence Simone Weil wrote in the notebook found after her death was: "The most important part of education--to teach the meaning of to know (in the scientific sense)."
The whole of Simone Weil is contained in these few words.
- Biographical Note, Simone Weil, Waiting for God (GP Putnam's Sons 1951, Harper 1975) p xi

Must what feels good be in opposition to science?

“Knowledge has three degrees – opinion, science, illumination. The means or instrument of the first is sense; of the second, dialectic; of the third, intuition.” — Plotinus

Greta seems to support Carl Sagan in the belief that science is the greatest source of knowledge. Yet for Plotinus science as a way of thinking is superior to opinion but less than intuition. If true, what does it mean “to know” in science and if we don’t know, how can it be considered ultimate knowledge?

Secular intolerance with the effect of spirit killing in education and in the world in general assumes knowledge it doesn’t have so seeks the elimination of the third direction of thought in favor of the glorification of dualistic reason. Jesus said to “let the dead bury their dead.” This growing glorification of dualistic thought assures many more spiritual deaths and the decline in societal quality due to the loss of qualitative feelings devolving into negative emotions.

Secular intolerants will win but what they will win will be horrors you don't want to know.

[Harbal]

Secular intolerants will win

So there's a happy ending, that's a relief.

[Nick_A]

Secular intolerants will win

So there's a happy ending, that's a relief.

Yes the happy ending is progress as envisioned by the seculrists. Progress requires the complaints and attitudes of the young be indoctrinated to express self importance.

"The children now love luxury. They have bad manners, contempt for authority; they show disrespect for elders and love chatter in place of exercise.” Socrates

The supremacy of chatter as a social ideal accomplished over smart phones assures that secular intolerance serving the goal of progress through chatter is not in vain.

[Harbal]

Progress requires the complaints and attitudes of the young be indoctrinated to express self importance.

I don't know why you're blaming me for that. All I require of the young is that they don't bother me, and in return I'm more than happy to leave them alone.

The supremacy of chatter as a social ideal accomplished over smart phones assures that secular intolerance serving the goal of progress through chatter is not in vain.

That's nothing to do with me either. I don't have a smart phone and have never advocated anyone else should get one.

[Nick_A]

Progress requires the complaints and attitudes of the young be indoctrinated to express self importance.

I don't know why you're blaming me for that. All I require of the young is that they don't bother me, and in return I'm more than happy to leave them alone.

The supremacy of chatter as a social ideal accomplished over smart phones assures that secular intolerance serving the goal of progress through chatter is not in vain.

That's nothing to do with me either. I don't have a smart phone and have never advocated anyone else should get one.

You and society in general will win the benefits of secularism with no conception why they will be lost. It will have to be lost. The Great Beast is incapable of anything else by its own initiative

[Greta]

Greta quoted Carl Sagan:

Science is more than a body of knowledge; it is a way of thinking. I have a foreboding of an America in my children's or grandchildren's time — when the United States is a service and information economy; when nearly all the key manufacturing industries have slipped away to other countries; when awesome technological powers are in the hands of a very few, and no one representing the public interest can even grasp the issues; when the people have lost the ability to set their own agendas or knowledgeably question those in authority; when, clutching our crystals and nervously consulting our horoscopes, our critical faculties in decline, unable to distinguish between what feels good and what's true, we slide, almost without noticing, back into superstition and darkness.

Science is a way of thinking. How does this way of thinking contribute to the quality of understanding in terms of values for the benefit of society as a whole?

What have the Romans ever done for us?? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qc7HmhrgTuQ

“Knowledge has three degrees – opinion, science, illumination. The means or instrument of the first is sense; of the second, dialectic; of the third, intuition.” — Plotinus

Greta seems to support Carl Sagan in the belief that science is the greatest source of knowledge. Yet for Plotinus science as a way of thinking is superior to opinion but less than intuition. If true, what does it mean “to know” in science and if we don’t know, how can it be considered ultimate knowledge?

Secular intolerance with the effect of spirit killing in education and in the world in general assumes knowledge it doesn’t have so seeks the elimination of the third direction of thought in favor of the glorification of dualistic reason. Jesus said to “let the dead bury their dead.” This growing glorification of dualistic thought assures many more spiritual deaths and the decline in societal quality due to the loss of qualitative feelings devolving into negative emotions.

Secular intolerants will win but what they will win will be horrors you don't want to know.

Nick, as I have told you more than once - as usual ignored - I see no reason to discount any ethical means of learning or gaining information. As I went into great detail to you earlier - seemingly pointlessly, you bungling time-wasting dumbarse - we have this incredible wonderland in our heads and it would seem wasteful not to use and enjoy it.

I won't say any more for now because in a week's time you'll just rabbit on as though the post wasn't made.

[uwot]

Progress requires the complaints and attitudes of the young be indoctrinated to express self importance.

Quite how you have manage to get this so completely wrong is a wonder of tortured logic. Progress is made in small steps by agreeing with someone. So for instance, you might get a pat on the back for adding a decimal point Einstein's equations. Huge leaps in progress are made by proving something wrong; do that to Einstein and the Nobel Prize is in the post.
And that Nick_A, and any passing reactionary, religious, right-wingers; is the reason conservatives of all stripes use 'progressive' as a pejorative term: they haven't the cerebral maturity to accept they might be wrong, and hate those who imply they might be, simply for disagreeing with them. It is precisely their bloated self importance that makes a conservative. Or just a whiny twerp.

[Nick_A]

Greta

Nick, as I have told you more than once - as usual ignored - I see no reason to discount any ethical means of learning or gaining information. As I went into great detail to you earlier - seemingly pointlessly, you bungling time-wasting dumbarse - we have this incredible wonderland in our heads and it would seem wasteful not to use and enjoy it.

Uwot

Quite how you have manage to get this so completely wrong is a wonder of tortured logic. Progress is made in small steps by agreeing with someone. So for instance, you might get a pat on the back for adding a decimal point Einstein's equations. Huge leaps in progress are made by proving something wrong; do that to Einstein and the Nobel Prize is in the post.
And that Nick_A, and any passing reactionary, religious, right-wingers; is the reason conservatives of all stripes use 'progressive' as a pejorative term: they haven't the cerebral maturity to accept they might be wrong, and hate those who imply they might be, simply for disagreeing with them. It is precisely their bloated self importance that makes a conservative. Or just a whiny twerp.

We’ve come to a great question in philosophy and religion: what is human progress?

Greta thinks she is open to the question which she is not. Uwot restricts the concept of human progress to science and ridicules those who know that human progress is primarily associated with conscious evolution or the evolution of Man’s “being.”

“Give me beauty in the inward soul; may the outward and the inward man be at one.” ~ Socrates

Matthew 16: 24 Then Jesus said to his disciples, “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. 25 For whoever wants to save their life[f] will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will find it. 26 What good will it be for someone to gain the whole world, yet forfeit their soul? Or what can anyone give in exchange for their soul?

This is the essential question which will be strongly condemned through egoistic secular intolerance. According to secularism the inward and outward man are already one. Winning the world through progress is by definition gaining in one is essentially man. According to the secularist Jesus and Socrates are expressing archaic outdated ideas unaware of how man is already one and there is no soul to lose. If they kept their denials to themselves it wouldn’t be so bad but these denials are spread into society as some sort of educated conclusions to which only an idiot could question. Intimidated and sensitive people fall victim to this attitude resulting in spirit killing

The question of what human progress is will be condemned by secularists in all possible ways since in their eyes there is nothing more to question. The ultimate in human progress is comfortable cave life and all that pertains to the outer man. Will this concept of progress and the worship of the Great Beast actually lead to regression and will any secularists ever understand why?

[Arising_uk]

...
The question of what human progress is will be condemned by secularists in all possible ways since in their eyes there is nothing more to question. The ultimate in human progress is comfortable cave life and all that pertains to the outer man. Will this concept of progress and the worship of the Great Beast actually lead to regression and will any secularists ever understand why?

Has it ever crossed your mind that you are showing no inward beauty at all? It's just a long line of complaints about others, how about displaying or at least telling others how to achieve such stuff rather than just whinging and quoting dead philosophers, some of whom are probably not saying anything like what you think they are as you are reading them in translation and in a different milieu.

How about giving us a practical outline of what you would teach in schools if you were in charge?

[uwot]

We’ve come to a great question in philosophy and religion: what is human progress?

Uwot restricts the concept of human progress to science...

No he doesn't. uwot was giving an example, which happens to be scientific, but the same is true in most other fields. In religion, most people would think that our not sacrificing people to the gods, to ensure a good harvest, or a favourable result in battle, is progress. Similarly, most people would agree that democracy represents a progressive step from monarchy, tyranny or theocracy. The discovery of perspective was progress in art. Counterpoint in music. Movable type in printing. Etc, etc, etc... New ideas don't always lead to progress, but sticking with the old ideas is moribund.

...and ridicules those who know that human progress is primarily associated with conscious evolution or the evolution of Man’s “being.”

No. He just ridicules the pomposity of those who claim to know things like the above; exactly as Socrates taught. Oh look:

“Give me beauty in the inward soul; may the outward and the inward man be at one.” ~ Socrates

So you have heard of him.
Anyway, what's all this addressing uwot in the third person?

[Harbal]

How about giving us a practical outline of what you would teach in schools if you were in charge?

Apart from pumping the poor little buggers full of Simone Weil, I don't think he knows.

[Nick_A]

...
The question of what human progress is will be condemned by secularists in all possible ways since in their eyes there is nothing more to question. The ultimate in human progress is comfortable cave life and all that pertains to the outer man. Will this concept of progress and the worship of the Great Beast actually lead to regression and will any secularists ever understand why?

Has it ever crossed your mind that you are showing no inward beauty at all? It's just a long line of complaints about others, how about displaying or at least telling others how to achieve such stuff rather than just whinging and quoting dead philosophers, some of whom are probably not saying anything like what you think they are as you are reading them in translation and in a different milieu.

How about giving us a practical outline of what you would teach in schools if you were in charge?

Another one with the complaints. Anyone questioning the logic of the Great Beast is considered to be complaining. In previous times it was called philosophy.

How can you speak of education or expect me to describe what to teach if we haven’t agreed on the goals of education? For secularism, the goal is to indoctrinate the outer man into preferred cave life which secular intolerance supports and for universalists the goal is to awaken the inner man so as to put facts into a conscious human perspective. Establish your goal first and then describe what furthers it.

[Nick_A]

We’ve come to a great question in philosophy and religion: what is human progress?

Uwot restricts the concept of human progress to science...

No he doesn't. uwot was giving an example, which happens to be scientific, but the same is true in most other fields. In religion, most people would think that our not sacrificing people to the gods, to ensure a good harvest, or a favourable result in battle, is progress. Similarly, most people would agree that democracy represents a progressive step from monarchy, tyranny or theocracy. The discovery of perspective was progress in art. Counterpoint in music. Movable type in printing. Etc, etc, etc... New ideas don't always lead to progress, but sticking with the old ideas is moribund.

...and ridicules those who know that human progress is primarily associated with conscious evolution or the evolution of Man’s “being.”

No. He just ridicules the pomposity of those who claim to know things like the above; exactly as Socrates taught. Oh look:

“Give me beauty in the inward soul; may the outward and the inward man be at one.” ~ Socrates

So you have heard of him.
Anyway, what's all this addressing uwot in the third person?

I should have been more specific. By science I meant scientific thought or dualistic reason. All the advances you've mentioned are the results of dualistic reason. This is mechanical progress. Human progress refers to the evolution of human being, what we ARE. These are totally different concepts.

[Harbal]

How can you speak of education or expect me to describe what to teach if we haven’t agreed on the goals of education?

I told you he didn't know.

[uwot]

I should have been more specific.

Fair enough.

By science I meant scientific thought or dualistic reason.

I'm sure you you explained this elsewhere, but why do you equate scientific thought with dualistic reason?

All the advances you've mentioned are the results of dualistic reason.

Does that make them bad?

This is mechanical progress. Human progress refers to the evolution of human being, what we ARE. These are totally different concepts.

I suspect you're idea of the evolution of human beings, and mine are two different things. Given that some of your references, Socrates and Jesus, for example, are over two thousand years old, in what way are we supposed to evolve?