Philosophy Now Forum

I thought the 'virgin' in the Bible was a mistranslation in the sense that the original term used just meant 'good woman'.

Greta wrote:

Conde Lucanor wrote: That's evidently false, because I've made no associations between any statement of yours or anyone else in this forum and new age or pseudoscience. Again, I've been very specific about the Wikipedia article.

Nonsense! You are forcing me to go through the whole copy-paste annoyance because you are being blindly competitive

We'll see who's forcing who to go through this annoyance. Maybe it's something good because you'll learn to be more cautious with what you read and write, instead of rushing impulsively to demonstrate your superior judgement.

Greta wrote: 1. Examples of you associating my posts with the Wiki article's pseudoscience and ignoring my rebuttals:

1a. In response to:
Do you not endorse secular spirituality for yourself or for everyone? Have you thoughts on this?

You replied:
I don't endorse it for myself and I would hope that most people decided to endorse a different type of secularism, free of the romantic anticapitalism that is behind the New Age movement, which looks for shelter in some elements of Eastern religions and begs for a "return to nature". This "secular spirituality" reminds me of the ideological proposal of Avatar.

Here we can see how your exasperation and wanting to kick someone in the nuts is not caused by someone or something external, but comes within yourself. Here we see how you attached yourself to a post of mine that:
1. Was not addressing a particular view of yours.
2. Does not mention or make any direct or indirect reference to you or your posts about the subject.
3. Came in response to a question about my latest post directed at Marjoram_blues about the Wiki article (which you conveniently left out now), and which said:

Conde Lucanor wrote:Whether it was tone, style or whatever that did not allow me to embrace the content of the article, I don't put in doubt that the content does reflect what "secular spirituality"is all about. I guess that means that as a secularist, humanist and atheist, I cannot endorse THIS "secular spirituality" thing.

I explicitly stated to what I was directing my objections (the content of the Wiki article), where it was (the Wiki article) and which view I could not endorse (THIS particular view described in the article, as came out in my conversation with Marjoram_blues, into which you jumped). So, knowing this context, the way anyone should have read the post that you say tries to associate your posts with pseudoscience is this:

Conde Lucanor wrote:I don't endorse it (the "secular spirituality" described in the Wiki article) for myself and I would hope that most people decided to endorse a different type of secularism, free of the romantic anticapitalism that is behind the New Age movement, which looks for shelter in some elements of Eastern religions and begs for a "return to nature". This "secular spirituality" (described in the Wiki article) reminds me of the ideological proposal of Avatar.

All the information was there, all the references were clear, but you decided to ignore them. And the reasons why you do that, were made explicit right away in that same post where you jumped in:

Greta wrote:Some people are so attached to logic, sensibleness and practicality that they find it distasteful to "let go", aside from accepted conventional areas of release like sex and thrillseeking. So they contain their own capacity to rhapsodise, to become carried away - and then they scoff at believers for rhapsodising (because what feels right on the inside can appear silly from the outside) ...

Keep rhapsodising, "letting go", becoming carried away...and you'll find yourself wanting to kick the nuts of a lot of people. Maybe if you had asked what I thought of other conceptions that could be labeled as "secular spirituality", we could have started a discussion about YOUR particular view and seen the differences.

Greta wrote: 1b. In response to:
Are Richard Dawkins, Carl Sagan, Neil deGrasse Tyson, Max Tegmark and Roger Penrose new agers? If so, then I agree with you that New Age romanticism and secular spirituality are synonymous. Seriously, why paint with such a broad brush?

You replied:
At least the 3 first names, which I'm more familiar with, can hardly be said to have embraced anything close to the "secular spirituality" described in the Wikipedia entry referenced in the OP. I mean, Carl Sagan, for goodness' sake!! The man is on record speaking against New Age thinking and pseudoscience.

1c. In response to:
Marj and I could not have made it more clear that secular spirituality need have nothing whatsoever to do with pseudoscience. Your response above is very weak, displaying mechanistic thinking and a general lack of comprehension. There is not much point wasting time unless you can lift your game.

You replied:
Are you making reference to any particular description of "secular spirituality"? Because I do. I made perfectly clear which source of descriptions I'm referring to in my comments, and so I have also restrained myself from advancing any description of what "secular spirituality" ought to be. Unlike you, I have never stated that "secular spirituality" has to do or not with something. I just pointed at a description of "secular spirituality" posted in the OP, made it clear that I would assume it's a correct description and said that as an atheist, humanist and secularist, I could not support such view. Is your definition of "secular spirituality" the same as the one in the link provided in the OP? If so, then for sure I don't embrace your view either, but then you will have to solve the contradiction between that source and the descriptions you are proposing. Perhaps then we will see who's responses are weak and who's lacking comprehension.

Read again, again and again. See that whenever I make a reference to "secular spirituality" (always on quotes), I point at the Wiki article. When doubt arose about what we were discussing, I clarified I was talking about the Wiki article and readily asked if you subscribed to it (because that would be the only way it could have something to do with your own views).

Greta wrote: This would be less problematic if you had not ignored all of these earlier posts:

The problem is: you were the one who jumped into a conversation that was already contextualized in terms of the Wiki article. If you ignored that content, what gives you the right to demand that your earlier posts be considered?

Greta wrote: Notice how the tone becomes increasingly exasperated? Why do you think that might be?

What else could I have done to get through to you? Is the only way to get through to threaten to kick you in the nuts every time you try to associate Marj's and my conversation with the extremities of the Wiki article?? Should I adopt Bob's 125 pt bold font? I don't know how else to get through after all that!

I have RSI and cannot readily go through another tiresome search/copy/paste exercise just to deal with such obviously disingenuous gaming.

What I see here is that you think one must take a position about "secular spirituality", because it is a thing that exists undeniably; the individual positions will always refer to that general category. But as an old nominalist, I categorically reject such notion. Life on Earth can go on without any reference to an abstract "secular spirituality", which is just a label people can put to a set of beliefs and practices. Its silhouette appears only in discourse, when you talk about it, when you try to describe it, to define it (which implies setting its upper and lower limits). In a Wikipedia article, for example.

What you've done could be illustrated with a simple example of a similar dialogue:

Subject #1: What is 'Eternal Romantic Love'? This article in Wikipedia suggests it's the indivisible union between souls, each one made for the other, even before their birth, and beyond their deaths.

Subject #2: I'm suspicious of this entry. It actually advocates for dualism and other idealist nonsense. I certainly cannot endorse this 'Eternal Romantic Love' thing.

Subject #3: Do you not endorse eternal romantic love for yourself or for everyone?

Subject #2: Not for myself and I would hope that most people decided to endorse a different type of romantic engagement, free of all that "soul" and "eternal" nonsense.

Subject #3: You're trying to associate Subject #1's views and my conversation about eternal romantic love with the "soul" nonsense! And I already said eternal romantic love is not that. I'm barely restraining from wanting to kick you in the nuts!

Conde Lucanor wrote: ↑Sat Jan 20, 2018 9:15 pm

Greta wrote:Some people are so attached to logic, sensibleness and practicality that they find it distasteful to "let go", aside from accepted conventional areas of release like sex and thrillseeking. So they contain their own capacity to rhapsodise, to become carried away - and then they scoff at believers for rhapsodising (because what feels right on the inside can appear silly from the outside) ...

Keep rhapsodising, "letting go", becoming carried away...and you'll find yourself wanting to kick the nuts of a lot of people. Maybe if you had asked what I thought of other conceptions that could be labeled as "secular spirituality", we could have started a discussion about YOUR particular view and seen the differences.

Conde, what I did was provide my view about secular spirituality. What would you have me do? Provide someone else's view? In providing my own view, at odds with the OP, I was passively disagreeing with the accuracy of the Wiki article. Do you have a problem with that? It seems to me that MY particular view is only a problem to you because it's not YOUR particular view.

I would prefer that new agers did not hijack this concept (even Wiki falls for it), turning people away from some important concepts by rendering them twee, childish and shallow. The situation reminds me of the time the Socialist Alliance turned up at the Iraq invasion rally, attracted most of the media exposure, and weakened the demonstration's credibility with TV audiences.

Ultimately, our brains and bodies have some very interesting capacities with some interesting possible ramifications. We can choose to explore or not, depending on how attractive the idea of "letting go" is.

Arising_uk wrote: ↑Sat Jan 20, 2018 7:38 pm I thought the 'virgin' in the Bible was a mistranslation in the sense that the original term used just meant 'good woman'.

I think the original in the Hebrew Torah that the Christians took for a prophesy, was "young woman". Young woman and virgin woman... I don't speak Hebrew, nor nothing, but it is an easy mistake to make for translators. "I fucked a very young woman" "I fucked a virgin" are almost -- although not quite -- equivalent. Maybe in some time and era they WERE completely equivalent, and therefore only one word was used for the two, which the Christian bochers took up as a prophesy.

Greta wrote: ↑Sat Jan 20, 2018 10:22 pm Conde, what I did was provide my view about secular spirituality. What would you have me do? Provide someone else's view? In providing my own view, at odds with the OP, I was passively disagreeing with the accuracy of the Wiki article. Do you have a problem with that? It seems to me that MY particular view is only a problem to you because it's not YOUR particular view.

Why is it that I feel I have not even started to discuss your view (and evidently, I wouldn't have a problem with it...yet ) and you feel I have already engaged that view and reached conclusions about it? I'm baffled.

If you were someone else who knew me, you would also know that first I would ask with the fullest detail how you define objectively the subject of inquiry (that's what the Wiki article attempts). Several discussions can branch from this: is the definition correct? Can differing definitions be admitted under the same label? And then, if all this is clear, to which description I can attach myself from and intellectual and moral perspective? However, just before you jumped in, I had said to Marjoram_blues that I would not doubt that the Wiki article described what "secular spirituality" is all about, and that I just would not subscribe to that which the article advocates for. When saying I would not doubt it means I was making an assumption, I' was not challenging the accuracy of the description, even though I could. I deny that I must say what "secular spirituality" is or ought to be. The reason is that it's just another abstract broad label into which people can put almost anything they want, it doesn't mean anything and it doesn't have to mean anything (except for the people who require that it means something). It just appears to be a concept that orbits in the vicinity of "philosophy of life" or "lifestyles", of which there should be ample tolerance to its differences. No need to fight about it, except to say: it's not my own preference. I'm not fighting any of my friends or acquaintances for doing yoga or meditation (again, this is an example, I'm not arguing this must be necessarily associated with "secular spirituality").

Greta wrote: ↑Sat Jan 20, 2018 10:22 pm I would prefer that new agers did not hijack this concept (even Wiki falls for it), turning people away from some important concepts by rendering them twee, childish and shallow. The situation reminds me of the time the Socialist Alliance turned up at the Iraq invasion rally, attracted most of the media exposure, and weakened the demonstration's credibility with TV audiences.

You see, you did decide to argue in favor of one objective definition, one that will make the concept recognizable to all. We could have started a conversation about it, but you jumped too early to accuse me of saying things I never said.

The example from politics comes in handy, as the word "socialist" is also used as a broad label into which you can put almost everything. The human/political implications of that, of course, are far more serious and one feels compelled to make distinctions.

Conde Lucanor wrote: ↑Sat Jan 20, 2018 11:49 pmThe reason is that it's just another abstract broad label into which people can put almost anything they want, it doesn't mean anything and it doesn't have to mean anything (except for the people who require that it means something). It just appears to be a concept that orbits in the vicinity of "philosophy of life" or "lifestyles", of which there should be ample tolerance to its differences. No need to fight about it, except to say: it's not my own preference. I'm not fighting any of my friends or acquaintances for doing yoga or meditation (again, this is an example, I'm not arguing this must be necessarily associated with "secular spirituality").

If it doesn't mean anything then why did the notion resonate with some of us? Maybe some people want a bit of what religion has but without the mythology? Maybe, in dismissing the obviously superstitious aspects of religion, we throw the baby out with the bathwater?

The European invaders did exactly that to indigenous cultures, unaware that humans learn through aggregation of knowledge, not its dismissal, even if the knowledge is tainted by "primitive" superstition. As a result they did not pick up the deep knowledge of the land and environmental awareness from the indigenes and, with the knowledge effectively lost, many mistakes were made with the environment. That ignorance is partly responsible (along with overpopulation) for today's environmental problems.

This may prove the same if we disregard ancient knowledge without seriously considering the possibility that the ancients weren't complete idiots.

Greta wrote: ↑Sun Jan 21, 2018 12:12 am

The European invaders did exactly that to indigenous cultures, unaware that humans learn through aggregation of knowledge, not its dismissal, even if the knowledge is tainted by "primitive" superstition. As a result they did not pick up the deep knowledge of the land and environmental awareness from the indigenes and, with the knowledge effectively lost, many mistakes were made with the environment. That ignorance is partly responsible (along with overpopulation) for today's environmental problems.

That's the common, conventional, romantic view of indigenous populations long debunked, a kind of Rousseauian hangover. The real story is far more complex and less friendly to the environment. Even the Mayans disappeared, not in being conquered by Europeans or anyone else, but by their own excessive degradation of the environment. The truly ironic part is we now know a thousand times more about climate, environment and agriculture than they could ever hope to know in spite of which we continue the same destruction on a global level what they've done on a local one.

The "indigenes" were not so different; the assumption that they were is a common myth. They just didn't have the means of what amounts to mass destruction.

Greta wrote: ↑Sun Jan 21, 2018 12:12 am
If it doesn't mean anything then why did the notion resonate with some of us?

There's a difference between hearing the echo of music and listening with precision the notes of the 2nd movement of Beethoven's Ninth.

Greta wrote: ↑Sun Jan 21, 2018 12:12 am Maybe some people want a bit of what religion has but without the mythology? Maybe, in dismissing the obviously superstitious aspects of religion, we throw the baby out with the bathwater?

Maybe. And maybe some people don't want anything to do with religion and the word spirituality. Maybe what some people think is exclusively a contribution of religion is actually something that humans already had and religion just spoils it. Why not just secularism? Why not just humanism?

Well , Nick,I don't agree with most of your definitions but I'll say that you are not afraid to state a firm opinion.

Conde Lucanor wrote: ↑Sun Jan 21, 2018 6:09 am Why not just secularism? Why not just humanism?

Because they are as boring at batshit, pardon my French, monsieur. I am interested in the weirdness of existence that materialists tend to ignore, deny or gloss over and theists tend to overstate or embellish.

Dubious wrote: ↑Sun Jan 21, 2018 1:14 amThe real story is far more complex and less friendly to the environment. Even the Mayans disappeared, not in being conquered by Europeans or anyone else, but by their own excessive degradation of the environment.

The real story in Australia is very much as I said above; they knew the land and understood how to work it sustainably. Now Australia has lost a higher percentage of its original forests than most places in the world, and the clearing continues in Queensland at a record pace. We white Aussies simply don't get it, which is also why we are sitting on our hands doing nothing whatsoever about the Great Barrier Reef dying. We would have understood far more had the British been less arrogant and respected the Aboriginals' hard-earned knowledge handed down generations.

Indigenes (look it up: http://www.dictionary.com/browse/indigene) didn't sit around mindlessly and told things to the next generation that could be safely ignored. They passed on information they believed would help their offspring survive, that had helped them survive, and that would include many generations' worth of observing the environment and passing on what had been found.

Alas, the British largely considered the Aboriginals to be sub-humans and much of that knowledge was wasted, and it's everyone's loss.

BTW, the Mayans were hit by unprecedented drought so, yes, they had tilled the land too hard - for conditions they had no chance of anticipating.

Greta wrote: ↑Sun Jan 21, 2018 11:54 am

Conde Lucanor wrote: ↑Sun Jan 21, 2018 6:09 am Why not just secularism? Why not just humanism?

Because they are as boring at batshit, pardon my French, monsieur.

But that doesn't say much, does it? I mean, human interests can be so diverse and anything can be thought to be boring or interesting, so that doesn't seem to be a valid criteria as to where to put efforts in our advocacy. The question is: what is needed? As I understand them, both secularism and humanism allow for the development of individual interests, free of the barriers imposed by the dogmas of institutionalized religions. That seems broad enough to encompass all human possibilities without restrictions, but limited to their concrete conditions of existence, which they can own and manage.

Greta wrote: ↑Sun Jan 21, 2018 11:54 am I am interested in the weirdness of existence that materialists tend to ignore, deny or gloss over and theists tend to overstate or embellish.

I'm not sure what is that "weirdness of existence" that you talk about, but I'm pretty sure the minds of materialists don't tend to ignore the real conditions of existence and the possibilities they provide to human endeavors. Neither Carl Sagan, Neil DeGrasse, Sartre, Beauvoir, Derrida, Deleuze, Gramsci, Levi-Strauss, Marx, Chomsky, Jameson, Fry, Habermas, to name just a few, appear to have done that.

Conde Lucanor wrote: ↑Sun Jan 21, 2018 5:55 pm... Carl Sagan, Neil DeGrasse ...

You are correct that people like Sagan and Tyson do embrace the weirdness of existence. I would consider each to be "spiritual", much more so than many who claim to be, and they are/were too open-minded to lock themselves into materialism. They never held ideologies that pre-empted science, which is what straight materialism does. Rather, they are the types who remain open to the possibility that future findings may well be surprising.

Dubious wrote: ↑Sun Jan 21, 2018 1:14 amThe real story is far more complex and less friendly to the environment. Even the Mayans disappeared, not in being conquered by Europeans or anyone else, but by their own excessive degradation of the environment.

Greta wrote: ↑Sun Jan 21, 2018 12:05 pm The real story in Australia is very much as I said above; they knew the land and understood how to work it sustainably.

That could very well be true for aborgines in Australia but you didn’t make that distinction when you wrote:

The European invaders did exactly that to indigenous cultures, unaware that humans learn through aggregation of knowledge, not its dismissal, even if the knowledge is tainted by "primitive" superstition. As a result they did not pick up the deep knowledge of the land and environmental awareness from the indigenes and, with the knowledge effectively lost, many mistakes were made with the environment. That ignorance is partly responsible (along with overpopulation) for today's environmental problems.

To repeat the story is not as simple as you make out to be regarding indigenes and their deep knowledge:
https://mises.org/library/were-american ... mentalists

Greta wrote: ↑Sun Jan 21, 2018 12:05 pm Alas, the British largely considered the Aboriginals to be sub-humans and much of that knowledge was wasted, and it's everyone's loss.

The Brits considered considered themselves superior to everyone they could easily defeat. It was a great party while it lasted until they faced other major European powers. Party over including the great British Empire!

Greta wrote: ↑Sun Jan 21, 2018 12:05 pmBTW, the Mayans were hit by unprecedented drought so, yes, they had tilled the land too hard - for conditions they had no chance of anticipating.

Again, it’s more complicated than your simple assertion. The Mayans were not too unlike us in handling the environment in which drought was just one aspect; beside it was the added factor of overpopulation.

Here’s a more complete story…a powerful message for us contemporaries in spite of our vaunted technologies!

https://science.nasa.gov/science-news/s ... 6oct_maya/

Dubious, that some indigenous societies were better or worse environmental custodians than others is to be expected.; it would be strange if they were all equally environmentally knowledgeable. The fact is that indigenous people cannot possible live on a land for thousands of years without knowing far more about it than foreign invaders. This is how humans progressed the way they did - cultural transmission of growing and evolving bodies of knowledge over generations. If we routinely ignored the learning gained by our ancestors where would we be?

Similarly, the line of hard won knowledge from ancestors, sometimes won with lives, was cut off, lost, when Europeans failed to recognise the knowledge and value of people they considered to be lesser. We will ideally be careful with what we discard from earlier cultures, to not assume that a source is always wrong because it's often misguided but rather consider the content presented and its apparent intent.

The fact is that the Mayans would not have cleared those forests except that, like the Africans today, they were left with little choice due to unprecedented drought. Today, with our historical and global knowledge, there is no excuse to behave similarly but they had no way of expecting climate change of unprecedented extremity, or at least an extremity they didn't know could happen. As an early and relatively much less developed culture it's an understandable error IMO, quite unlike the today's corrupt and self-interested implementation of pro coal and oil policies, despite the science.