Philosophy Now Forum

Immanuel Can wrote:...but women's rights would never have come around except in the Christian West.

That was a consequence of the Enlightenment period which caused a lot of rethinking in the West not exempting god or religion. Had that not happened, women would have continued to be predefined as inferior and kept in their place according to the long history of Christianity.

Dubious wrote:That was a consequence of the Enlightenment period which caused a lot of rethinking in the West.

Two problems with that theory:

1. The Enlightenment in itself produced marginal improvements for privileged women, but actually pretty abominable conditions for the average woman. Remember: it was just the early stages of the Industrial Revolution...women's voting, education, health issues, and so on all remained generally unaddressed until much later.

2. The Women's Suffrage Movement, the start of modern Feminism, didn't happen until well after John Locke, that self-declared Protestant, justified universal human rights -- using Protestant rationales. There were no such rationales in the Enlightenment itself, no reason why women could not have continued in subservience.

Skip wrote: Usually, I just razz you guys for cheap laughs, or because you piss me off, but for once, I'm asking seriously:
Why do you do this?
What do you hope to accomplish? Convert atheists by attacking them? Make them look bad to uncommitted people, who will therefore start believing and get born again? Score brownie points with the Big Guy? Do you think any of it will work?

I don't expect to accomplish anything, I'm just trying to express my own beliefs, and I find that when I do I encounter a lot of hostility. Many accuse me of trying to force my beliefs onto others, I am not, I am just stating what I believe, but I find that it makes some people angry that I state my beliefs on a public forum. It's as if they think that a public forum should be reserved for only atheist views and beliefs and everyone else needs to be censured.

FYI, on another forum there was a member who would condemn anyone who believed differently than he did. I was constantly being critical of his methods and approach, stating that there were other ways of believing, and few of them were wrong.

There is a verse in 1st Corinthians,

"1 Corinthians 14:34-35Authorized (King James) Version (AKJV)
34 Let your women keep silence in the churches: for it is not permitted unto them to speak; but they are commanded to be under obedience, as also saith the law. 35 And if they will learn any thing, let them ask their husbands at home: for it is a shame for women to speak in the church."

that is attributed to Paul, but I think it was added later by the church Hierarchy to keep women in a subservient condition. In the church I attend that verse is certainly not followed, but rather it is very much ignored.

Immanuel Can wrote: Two problems with that theory:

1. The Enlightenment in itself produced marginal improvements for privileged women, but actually pretty abominable conditions for the average woman. Remember: it was just the early stages of the Industrial Revolution...women's voting, education, health issues, and so on all remained generally unaddressed until much later.
2. The Women's Suffrage Movement, the start of modern Feminism, didn't happen until well after John Locke, that self-declared Protestant, justified universal human rights -- using Protestant rationales. There were no such rationales in the Enlightenment itself, no reason why women could not have continued in subservience.

What you say is to a great extent true, the Enlightenment itself had a lot of learning to do. Nevertheless, it was during the turmoil of that period and mostly because of it as the incipient event that caused all subsequent changes including major modifications of it's own views. Had this ferment of reevaluations not happened with it's own abundance of errors and injustices the position of the West would have remained virtually static controlled by Christian dogma with hardly a change in the status quo. It was within the revolutions of the enlightenment that questions of equality in all its forms became paramount.

thedoc wrote: but I find that it makes some people angry that I state my beliefs on a public forum. It's as if they think that a public forum should be reserved for only atheist views and beliefs and everyone else needs to be censured.

Ahem?
I cannot speak for others, but my anger is directed - very specifically - to what you and IC said about atheists.
I don't give a flying fig about your beliefs.
I do defend myself against slander.

FYI, on another forum there was a member who would condemn anyone who believed differently than he did. I was constantly being critical of his methods and approach, stating that there were other ways of believing, and few of them were wrong.

Then I wish you had brought some of that attitude here to direct at your mentor.

Skip wrote: I cannot speak for others, but my anger is directed - very specifically - to what you and IC said about atheists.

And just what did IC or I say about any particular atheist, I remember making comments about atheism in general, and agreeing with IC's comments about atheism in general, but not about any particular atheist.

thedoc wrote:

Skip wrote: I cannot speak for others, but my anger is directed - very specifically - to what you and IC said about atheists.

And just what did IC or I say about any particular atheist, I remember making comments about atheism in general, and agreeing with IC's comments about atheism in general, but not about any particular atheist.

Changing the frame of reference makes no difference.
As an atheist, I am exactly as included in the collective term "atheists" as you are in the collective term "theists".
The lies you spread about atheists in general all apply to me in particular.
The lies you tell about what IC insists on calling "Atheism", as if he were talking about a religion, in spite of numerous corrections
by people who have first-hand knowledge of what it actually is; your seconding, and thirding and citing as an authority,
his scurrilous "atheist dogma", in spite of having been told numerous times, by people with first-hand experience, that no such thing exists
apply to me, and are repeatedly directed at me.
I take that personally.

I never attacked you, or told a lie about you, personally (you volunteered out of the blue as an IC disciple)
or imputed wrongdoing to all theists collectively, or told a lie about theists in general or what they believe -
though I have cited verbatim text from your holy book, which does exist, to make a point.
If you choose to interpret that as persecution, you won't be the first or last.

Skip wrote:

So be it. Good luck in your quest, whatever that may be.

Immanuel Can wrote:But we can lose focus on the commonalities...which are substantial. The goal of ethics is to articulate the core that all human beings ought to be reasonably committed to, and to provide guidelines for situational particulars. This is not too ambitious a task to do if objective morality exists.

And if it does not, then ethics are impossible anyway. What use is an ethic when one is the only human being alive who believes in it?

We hardly need to reinvent the wheel here. Thousands upon thousands of minds better than ours have been put to the problem. That ethical and moral issues remain so messy and inconsistent everywhere bears testimony to morality's inherent relativity

Morality must change as populations grow. The morality required in a twelve person tribe in danger of starving is not the same morality required by prosperous modern societies with millions of people. Often rigidity in social mores is actively destructive, eg. prohibition.

Immanuel Can wrote:

The way we resolve the conflicts of interest is utilitarianism, simply aiming for the greatest good for the greatest number of people. That can be a problem for those with minority interests but you can't please everyone. Today, however, society is restructuring itself along roughly feudal lines - with pockets of wealth becoming ever more dominant.

As you point out, utilitarian steamrollers the minorities. Some of us think that's immoral.

I don't I think of utilitarianism as being any more immoral than killing intelligent animals for food. Rather, it's simply inevitable, just as Abrahamic religions steamrollered women, gays and atheists for centuries. Stuff happens, the strong consume or use the weak. We do our best to even things out, but there comes a point where attempts to bring fairness interfere so much with the free flow of societal activity that it brings economic and social distortions that end up hurting more people than are helped.

It's the same problem as described earlier - the diversity and dynamism of nature. We dream of sustainable systems and ideals - things that are not conditional or relative - and each time we think we or hold a permanent moral or economic system in our hand it gradually turns to sand and slips through our fingers, it will all crumble as surely as we will all die and all societies on Earth will one day be gone ... lost in the sea of time

Immanuel Can wrote:I don't think society is going back to feudalism...not if we understand that term literally.

More likely, global dictatorships (hello, EU), angry cultural factions (hello, Islam) and monolithic governments are going to become the rule, along with very powerful multinational companies (hello, Monsanto). That's the direction we're travelling right now.

Not literally. Then we have to go back in time 600 years or so

Walmart is wealthier than the nations of New Zealand and Norway. However, what I see is PPPs deepening. Look at the current situation, millions of hapless PAYE taxpayers contributing to a government charged to represent them, but whose actions most usually favour the top 1% or 0.1%. I suspect that the close ties between some governments and their multinational partners will result in effectively conglomerate public/private entities.

Immanuel Can wrote:

Clearly we need to acknowledge the subjective, although even then, stepping back and taking a third person view is considered a time-honoured way of developing clearer perspectives.

Yes. But again, the point of getting new perspectives is to see something. If doing so just reveals another thing we "see through," then we are functionally blind.

Destination v journey. Yes, I probably should be more clear and set some life goals. Alan Watts once described himself as an intellectual vagabond, and that resonated with me. Still, as you know, I reject religions so whatever goals I set myself would not be their teachings.

Immanuel Can wrote:Whose values are they that offend you? What are the sticking points, for you?

A few for starters: Treatment of women as less capable beings and creation of hard barriers in some cultures and subcultures. [/quote]
Well, I can't speak for all traditions, but women's rights would never have come around except in the Christian West. In fact, that's where they DID appear. Did you ever wonder if there was a rational link? There were more human beings in India and China, and very, very smart ones -- why did they develop no conception of women's rights? I suggest it had something to do with their ideology, not their intelligence.[/quote]
Actually, women's equality has appeared elsewhere, most notably in Mao's China, where he wanted each individual to be the best possible tool of the state. Sometimes good can come from bad and vice versa.

Also, I understand that women's rights in indigenous societies depended on the percentage of nourishment for the tribe provided by them. So, in Eskimo societies where all food is hunted by men, the women were chattel. Wives were given to house (igloo) guests for the night as a courtesy. On the other hand, tribes that lived in lands with much vegetation and few animals tended to have equality between the sexes because the men caught so few animals that they'd tend to finish eating them on the way back while the women's gathering provided most of the tribe's nutrition.

Then again, it wasn't so long ago that Muslim women were living like us in the west. Only in our lifetimes has misogyny in Islam been interpreted as lore, and law. Religions go through phases. Not so long ago in history Christianity wasn't much better than Islam is today. For a while each was improving but now Islam is backsliding. So it goes.

Immanuel Can wrote:

Fundamentalist creationism that distracts people from the beauty and wonder of evolution. For me, Sagan and Neil DG Tyson's Cosmos series was a spiritual experience and, as you noted, if one finds something that makes them feel so good, we might want to pass it on to others.

I saw Sagan's offering. But I have to admit that I found it rationally incoherent. For one thing, he says that even though we're all stampeding toward impending death and ultimate cosmic heat death, this somehow makes "life mean more." I never could understand that point: it seems to me as though his cosmos makes us infinitely unimportant. But he doesn't explain in the film, really.

Still, "we are made of star stuff" will stay with me for life, and the sense of connectedness between us and all others things that the series promoted. beautiful. I do get what you say, though. Scientists are almost as inconsistent as philosophers as philosophers are as scientists.

My main issues with rationalist orthodoxy are: 1) The pat explanation for the meaning of life, with "You make your own meaning" being as about as deep as the explanation we were given up to around the turn of the century, ie. "To reproduce". Related to this is: 2) the adherence to Gould's obviously erroneous assumption that evolution is a "bush, not a tree" and that humans are just one small branch. nothing much different.

To find meaning, all we need do is look at the stories of the universe and of the Earth - each has come from relatively formless, hot, pressurised and chaotic beginnings to become the incredible, complex, beautiful, interesting and sometimes poignant things of today. Reality really does appear to progress, not just randomly change. We will hopefully be links in a chain to something "more" than we are today.

Immanuel Can wrote:

I also have big problems with theistic interference into people's personal decisions regarding childbirth and end-of-life.

Actually, Christianity is highly respectful of right-to-life, both at the beginning and at the end.

But not respectful of right-to-death, and the right to kill appears to be conditional in ways that are irrational, eg. the welfare unwanted and unfeeling blobs of protoplasm that lack even a formed nervous system being of more interest than those of grown people.

Skip wrote: Changing the frame of reference makes no difference.
As an atheist, I am exactly as included in the collective term "atheists" as you are in the collective term "theists".

Actually, it makes ALL the difference.

To criticize an ideology is not the same as to criticize people. You can tell that's true, because people can -- and often do -- change or modify their ideology. An ideology that is put beyond criticism is a dogma. And Atheism can be just as much a dogma as any religion, if it is treated as immune to critique.

One of the central assumptions of philosophy is that ideas should be refined through critique. Atheism needs to "be a big boy" too, and step forward and take his lumps when they're due, instead of whining. After all, Atheism itself is, if nothing else, a denial of other people's ideology. And if it can't take the heat, then it needs to stay out to the kitchen, and keep to those sequestered regions where only people who choose not to think skeptically can find it.

By criticizing Atheism, we're being respectful of Atheists. We're assuming they're "big boys" (and girls), and smart enough to see problems in their own ideology, and to take it without wincing or whining. We anticipate they will reply with reasons and evidence, and there will be an intelligent, critical exchange from which all will benefit.

Now, maybe you're right: maybe some Atheists can't accept criticism. And really, I don't much blame them, since I think the ideology with which they're living is pretty thin. I understand that nobody likes to see their house on fire. But that's philosophy.

I'm going to continue to assume Atheists are grownups. Now, if we're wrong about that, and Atheists can't endure a little critique, then that might tell you as much as anyone needs to know about the nature of believing in Atheism. But at the moment, I'm going to continue to act like at least some reasonable people still perhaps claim to be, and think of themselves as Atheists.

Greta wrote:...morality's inherent relativity...

In regard to secular morality, I think your statement is entirely warranted.

Dostoevsky thought so. Nietzsche thought so. And when two brilliant minds with such oppositional views somehow still turn out to agree, that's got to tell you something.

Immanuel Can wrote:Stuff happens, the strong consume or use the weak.

Social Darwinism, then?

Destination v journey. Yes, I probably should be more clear and set some life goals. Alan Watts once described himself as an intellectual vagabond, and that resonated with me. Still, as you know, I reject religions so whatever goals I set myself would not be their teachings.

Fine. But if you're getting no answers -- just "seeing through" everything...so that everything looks suspicious, inauthentic, unworthy and so forth...then what are you actually seeing? There's nothing left to look at, nothing to hope for, and no point.

I'm not saying be unskeptical or uncritical. I'm just saying that if criticism is being used well, it yields results in terms of definite answers. If it's being used undiscerningly, it just shaves the epistemological field flat.

Actually, women's equality has appeared elsewhere, most notably in Mao's China, where he wanted each individual to be the best possible tool of the state. Sometimes good can come from bad and vice versa.

Oh, for heaven's sake. Mao's China has killed more females than any other regime in the history of the world. Did you not know? The one-child policy has created rampant infanticide, almost exclusively against women. Go look in China. Count the heads. There should be slightly more women than men, on the world average...where did all the women go?

Then again, it wasn't so long ago that Muslim women were living like us in the west. Only in our lifetimes has misogyny in Islam been interpreted as lore, and law. Religions go through phases. Not so long ago in history Christianity wasn't much better than Islam is today. For a while each was improving but now Islam is backsliding. So it goes.

None of this is so, I'm afraid. Muslim women have been historically oppressed in the extreme. Christianity has never been anywhere near so bad as Islam...not hijab, no child "brides," no polygamy, no license for wife-beating (read "The Chapter of Women" in the Koran), no revenge rapes and homicides for disobedience...

But I do really wonder at the silence of the Feminist movement on Islam. I wonder if they really care about women after all...or just the rights of white, western ones.

Still, "we are made of star stuff" will stay with me for life,

It's a pretty line, I admit. But what does it really say? Nothing. We don't twinkle. We're not heavenly. We're apparently not eternal, celestial or always bright either. He might have equally said "space junk": it's less poetic, but the essential implication is the same. He's saying we're debris derived from a random event in space.

My main issues with rationalist orthodoxy are: 1) The pat explanation for the meaning of life, with "You make your own meaning" being as about as deep as the explanation we were given up to around the turn of the century, ie. "To reproduce". Related to this is: 2) the adherence to Gould's obviously erroneous assumption that evolution is a "bush, not a tree" and that humans are just one small branch. nothing much different.

Yeah, I have to agree.

We will hopefully be links in a chain to something "more" than we are today.

Well, as cosmos admits, "we" won't. Long before the ponderous gears of evolution would ever turn sufficiently to produce any change we would know about, we and billions of our ancestors will be dead.

"We" will never see any of that. That's not a great deal of hope or meaning, is it?

Immanuel Can wrote:

I also have big problems with theistic interference into people's personal decisions regarding childbirth and end-of-life.

Actually, Christianity is highly respectful of right-to-life, both at the beginning and at the end.

But not respectful of right-to-death, and the right to kill appears to be conditional in ways that are irrational, eg. the welfare unwanted and unfeeling blobs of protoplasm that lack even a formed nervous system being of more interest than those of grown people.

"Right to death?" Well, here's a question: to where are you sending people when you "mercy-kill" them? Is it really "mercy"? How would we know?

Even supposing that the Sagan account of things were true (let us accept that for the minute, without question) would it ever really be an act of "mercy" to remove a person from the only life they will ever have, and send them into eternal black darkness? Is even a difficult and painful life better than the eternal black hole? I would be tempted to consider the possibility that it might: and that "mercy" might be better spent on alleviating the pain, not on killing the patient. I'm not sure how we can ever be "respectful" of life by simply ending it forever.

As for infanticide, I suppose we'll just have to disagree that that is ever warranted. But we'll leave that there.

Immanuel Can wrote:[Changing the frame of reference makes no difference.]

Actually, it makes ALL the difference.

To criticize an ideology is not the same as to criticize people.

How is this relevant to thedoc's changing frame from person to category that includes person?
You invent an ideology, make up a bogus and ridiculously improbable dogma that you falsely associate with people you falsely label as members of the belief-system you invented - people who have nothing in common except rejecting your dogma - and call that criticism.

An ideology that is put beyond criticism is a dogma.

No, that's just power. Dogma is a codified set of beliefs. However many times you repeat a lie, it continues to be untrue. Atheists have no set of beliefs; they simply do not believe in a god. There is no dogma; there is no authority; there is nothing to criticize.

And Atheism can be just as much a dogma as any religion, if it is treated as immune to critique.

See, there it is again. The incorrect capital, the false claim, the same lie.
There is no Atheism.
There is no dogma.
It is not treated.
There is nothing to critique.

After all, Atheism itself is, if nothing else, a denial of other people's ideology.

That, and nothing else.
I do not buy your brand of snake-oil. End of story.
If you can't grow up, be a big boy (or girl) or whatever you need to do to accept that...
well, I'll just have to keep calling your bluff, as and when the spirit moves me.

Skip wrote:category that includes person?

Ideologies do not "include" persons. You are guilty of a category error there. Ideologies do not "have" people: people "have" ideologies. And when a person changes his or her ideology, he or she is the same person.

Atheism is an ideology. You may not think so, but you're wrong. It's a thing people believe, and it's framed in at least one basic proposition. And it's a thing they can change without thereby becoming not-a-person or a different person. Ideologies are no more persons than hats or sports jerseys are persons. They are things which a person can take or leave.

Both Thedoc and I are criticizing Atheism. If you want to make that personal to yourself, then you are doing it, through your category error. We can't help you with that, and there's no reason for you to be upset...except that you wrongly confuse ideology with persons.

Immanuel Can wrote:...category that includes person?
Ideologies do not "include" persons.

No, they don't. Categories do.
Persons espouse, advocate or adhere to ideologies. Atheists do none of those things.
However, categorizing persons as adherents of ideologies does include them.

You are guilty of a category error there.

I might be, if I had said that. Since you said that, watch for the boomerang.

And when a person changes his or her ideology, he or she is the same person.

Is this supposed to be relevant?

Atheism is an ideology.

There is the lie again.

You may not think so, but you're wrong. It's a thing people believe,

No. It is a description of people who refuse to believe one particular claim.

and it's framed in at least one basic proposition.

Yep. "Take your woo someplace else."

And it's a thing they can change without thereby becoming not-a-person or a different person.

I suppose they could, but it still wouldn't be relevant.

Both Thedoc and I are criticizing Atheism.

A thing you have invented, but applied to people who are real.
See, I could make up a whole new fictional strain of cooties and tell everybody how awful it is
and then say "everybody who believes in a supreme being carries the virus" without actually naming you.
That wouldn't make the criticism of the unreal thing any more valid, or my inclusion of you as a carrier any less personal.
There are other ways I could categorize you - and other persons who share at least one point of similarity with you
- but it probably wouldn't be in the same category as thedoc.
I think that a believer in an omniscient and moral deity (a category of persons in which I do not include you)
could not carry on the kind of propaganda campaign to which you appear to be dedicated (a category I have not named,
whose ideology I have not invented) for fear of severe, not to mention embarrassing, injury from burning pants.
(Lucky Jesus has no sense of humour, eh?)

there's no reason for you to be upset...except that you wrongly confuse ideology with persons.

I'm not upset, I'm just calling bullshit where I step in it.