Prishon likey likey this! Prishon glad to hear! Prishon WTF? Shut up now! I think you are right. I haven't read the guy but I dont think he manages to tickle me. Whats in a name? Everything: Wit like stone...Prishon say me li... Prishon shut the fuck up! — Prishon

Prishon! Don't go planet of the apes on us!

If God exists, isn't the universe a simulation? — TheMadFool

Why should that be? Did God(s) built a huge computer on which they simulated the universe?

Prishon! Don't go planet of the apes on us! — TheMadFool

Prishon say no wanna d... PRISHON! SHUT THE F. UP!

☺

I'm not sure I understand what your argument is. Sounds like you're just having fun with language. That's fine. I do that too. I have nothing to add to my earlier comments. Take care.

Dr. Johnston, the patient's condition is deteriorating rapidly. Fae's language abilities have taken a turn for the worse and I fear fae's losing fae's sense of self.

Tell me what I don't know Dr. Samuel, not what I already know.

:lol:

:rofl:

Prishon no fae! Prishon Prishon!. Prish... PRIIIIISHON! In your cage!

But if we are looking for exaltation in issues of ultimate concern, for Australians I think the sun is our spiritual centre. — Banno

At the temple of Melanoma Trismegistus... :death:

:wink:

In who's name we slip, slop, slap.

Do you mind elaborating the point you wish to discuss? — Ennui Elucidator

In the context of a shared language used in a community, what has permitted the discussion of religion with a relatively small amount of bloodshed has been the common investment in a secular world.

That world tolerates the personal views of people by a common acceptance of the uses of the personal. In Witt speak, the limits of a private language are not imposed but discovered. The secular world is not a denial of what can be believed or not by a person but a withdrawal from that sort of thing to the extent a difference can be recognized. The differences permit a Venn diagram where the over-lapping areas are not simply a single circle.

So, consider the scroll Pascal kept literally next to his heart that was discovered only after his death. One of the lines written there is: "My God is your God." I think that can be fairly counted as a religious conversation.

To characterize the primacy of this secular language as another kind of religion is like using a cease-fire agreement to gain a better position for one's troops.

That is an interesting pragmatic take on the discussion - that religion is such a loaded concept that applying it to the secular context would break the peace between sects. It is also a good historical reminder of why religion was moved from the communal to the personal, so that disparate religions could co-exist in public space in increasingly diverse populations in Europe (even it was just Christian diversity). There is a lot here from a sociological/political perspective, especially as "liberalism" spreads to populations that have truly diverse religions and/or traditional liberal countries have an inflow of diverse populations. Religion as primary and necessarily in the public sphere carries a certain danger.

It reminds me a bit of the particularism debate, i.e. if no religion has special access to knowledge/wisdom/etc., why pick one religion over another? To the extent that the scope of most religious theory is universal, it feels almost disingenuous to suggest that we can really move between religions in response to our aesthetic sensibilities. Perhaps it is a bit of a different take on the idea that all religions share the same ultimate substance, but just express it differently (a theory which I happen to reject), so we should be tolerant of others' religion.

Language is a game, so why not have fun?

But really, the post started off with a discussion of religion, language, and meaning, so I'm not sure how it is a criticism that that is the subject of my post. You've chosen to participate, so I assumed that you were interested in the conversation. (Banno, for his part, was dragged in and I asked him to pretend as if.) I'm totally happy to entertain other sorts of conversations about religion, but I was trying to have this one.

I can't promise you this is the best translation, but here you go...

Have you not heard of that madman who lit a lantern in the bright morning hours, ran to the market-place, and cried incessantly: "I am looking for God! I am looking for God!"
As many of those who did not believe in God were standing together there, he excited considerable laughter. Have you lost him, then? said one. Did he lose his way like a child? said another. Or is he hiding? Is he afraid of us? Has he gone on a voyage? or emigrated? Thus they shouted and laughed. The madman sprang into their midst and pierced them with his glances.

"Where has God gone?" he cried. "I shall tell you. We have killed him - you and I. We are his murderers. But how have we done this? How were we able to drink up the sea? Who gave us the sponge to wipe away the entire horizon? What did we do when we unchained the earth from its sun? Whither is it moving now? Whither are we moving now? Away from all suns? Are we not perpetually falling? Backward, sideward, forward, in all directions? Is there any up or down left? Are we not straying as through an infinite nothing? Do we not feel the breath of empty space? Has it not become colder? Is it not more and more night coming on all the time? Must not lanterns be lit in the morning? Do we not hear anything yet of the noise of the gravediggers who are burying God? Do we not smell anything yet of God's decomposition? Gods too decompose. God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him. How shall we, murderers of all murderers, console ourselves? That which was the holiest and mightiest of all that the world has yet possessed has bled to death under our knives. Who will wipe this blood off us? With what water could we purify ourselves? What festivals of atonement, what sacred games shall we need to invent? Is not the greatness of this deed too great for us? Must we not ourselves become gods simply to be worthy of it? There has never been a greater deed; and whosoever shall be born after us - for the sake of this deed he shall be part of a higher history than all history hitherto."

Here the madman fell silent and again regarded his listeners; and they too were silent and stared at him in astonishment. At last he threw his lantern to the ground, and it broke and went out. "I have come too early," he said then; "my time has not come yet. The tremendous event is still on its way, still travelling - it has not yet reached the ears of men. Lightning and thunder require time, the light of the stars requires time, deeds require time even after they are done, before they can be seen and heard. This deed is still more distant from them than the distant stars - and yet they have done it themselves."

It has been further related that on that same day the madman entered divers churches and there sang a requiem. Led out and quietened, he is said to have retorted each time: "what are these churches now if they are not the tombs and sepulchres of God?" — The Gay Science aphorism 125

And here we are - the modern men who turned away from god and left its corpse for the grave diggers. No longer do we deny the deed, but we have also failed to become god ourselves. The ubermensch is yet for tomorrow.

Let it be said that I am not looking for god, rather I am trying to build a lantern.

It's undead. Like "spiritual, buy not religious" – animated, but not alive. — 180 Proof

You are right, of course. We are in a culture that can't help but keep fighting the dead god as if it lives. And in some ways, it isn't just the undead god our culture fights, but the shadows and memories, as if these feeble things constitute some vital force that can reanimate god before our very eyes.

From devout belief (onward and then back) to make believe ... which Žizek calls "the sublime object of ideology". — 180 Proof

But you can't go trotting out Zizek as if I have any idea what he is talking about. The transcendent (or the negated impotence of human experience) is not the only sort of thing that matters nor is the relation of the finite to the infinite inherently the aim of communal meaning creation. A language community engaged in meaning making does not have to hint at the "divine" through the acknowledged limitations of the group. I guess if you are talking about the reality of religious talk in our culture (that religion is inherently about god), perhaps you are right. We will act as if our structures approximate (or at least aim towards) that which we pretend is sublime. The way you put it sounds less like absurdism and more like power brokers engaged in petty lip service to control the masses.





This is really more for Banno regarding the apparent criticism of religion as ideology.


Language is representational and, to the extent it is not the thing represented, it is inherently inaccurate/distortive/etc. So if the discussion is about a language community, it is of necessity about a community that has distorted the "thing in itself" or whatever phrase you wish to use for "the state of affairs" (i.e. that metaphysical stuff which I don't talk about). I'm not sure in what way physics (despite Banno's very functional keyboard, mouse, and keyboard) is any less ideology than some other discourse or how religion is especially ideology for this purpose. I also question why a religion cannot be as mindful of the difference between perception/thought, language/symbol, and metaphysics as any other language community.

Yes, talk in one way and you get a bridge. But talk in another and you get a reason to build it. Judging a language by its ability to build bridges seems misguided at best, but also emblematic of the issues I am trying to get to. Engineering is how we name conversations about bridge building. Tennis is how we name the conversations about hitting a yellow ball over a net with a racquet. There are professional tennis players, professional commentators, and people picking up the racquet for the first time - yet we describe them equally within the tennis bucket. What do we call it when people join in community to make meaning? Politics? Ethics? Is a parent speaking to their child about sharing because we want our friends to feel good an ethicist? Are they doing ethics? Is that what we mean in philosophy when we talk about ethics? Maybe they are doing axiology?

And what do you make of democratic lay lead religious groups? Who is doing the fleecing?

To the extent that the scope of most religious theory is universal, it feels almost disingenuous to suggest that we can really move between religions in response to our aesthetic sensibilities. — Ennui Elucidator

The inability to move between religions accounts for why most hold to the religion of their upbringing. The foundational mythology of most religions is too fantastical for most to covert to. I can buy into the Mormon ethic generally for instance, but literal acceptance of Joseph Smith's discovery of mystical gold plates is well beyond my ability to accept. I think an introspective person of faith should recognize the vulnerabilities of their own faith in that they are accepting beliefs that will be fantastical to others, all the while recognizing that those foundational beliefs do lead to the discovery of spiritual truths. It matters not that the foundational mythology is literally false in any religious tradition. Ideally, all of this should lead those of faith to greater tolerance of other's beliefs out of recognition that both are seeking the same answers, while both recognize that both live in glass houses in terms of provability of their myths.

Those who attempt to cure the problem of limiting themselves to their own religion in search of spiritual answers by abandoning the concept of literalism, likely find that solution not workable either. Openness to wisdom and spiritual advancement requires great trust and great attention to what is being taught. That trust comes naturally to the Catholic of the Priest and to the Jew of the Rabbi, but it's often difficult for those of different faiths to convince one another of their wisdom, even if the wisdom each ultimately is advocating is the same.

I'm not sure in what way physics (despite Banno's very functional keyboard, mouse, and keyboard) is any less ideology than some other discourse... — Ennui Elucidator

Because the keyboard works.

Th game of science has been set up so that if what we say doesn't work, we re-think it. We change what is being said so that it matches what happens. The theory is made to fit the world.

Religion changes what is going on to match what is said. The world is made to fit the theology.

That is, there are important differences in the way the games of science and religion are played. Science brings about the internet. Religion brings about the Taliban.

And yet science brings about climate change. So maybe it is people are shitty and you pick the narrative for why they are shitty that advances your agenda. Causation is a story we tell ourselves to account for experience and that story is judged good or bad according to our criteria. Different contexts lend themselves to different criteria, but capitalism (or other evolved systems of aggregation, manipulation, and distribution of resources) takes far more credit for your keyboard than science.

If science was merely an observational endeavor, I’d throw in the towel and concede the point of descriptive language verses something else, but what about the whole “experimental” bit of the experimental sciences? Do you really believe (or at least argue) that scientists don’t try to prove their theories by changing the world? Or at least change their pocketbooks? I find the idea that “science is this and religion is that” to be cherry picking. Not because I care if religion is somehow found lacking as a useful concept, but because science isn’t some disembodied process immune from the failings of the people that do it.

And without belaboring the science debate in this thread, the actual workings of science seem to favor reworking the facts until your theory is confirmed and waving away outliers or other inconvenient bits of the world for further study/dismissal. Paradigm shifts are hard fought in science not necessarily because of the method, but because of the people that employ it.

Saying that religion and science are both ideology is no more controversial than pointing out that both are inventions of people within the limited abilities of people. That doesn’t mean they are equivalent or even equally good in areas of importance, but simply that identifying a topic as ideology is not necessarily relevant to every exchange.

In any event, if all religion is to you is the Taliban, we clearly aren’t going anywhere. There are similar views of science that permit people to be equally as dismissive. The thing is, whether someone comes espousing the merits of their religion or their scientific world order, if they posses superior technology/techniques and the willingness to do harm, their ideology sounds remarkably alike.

And here we are - the modern men who turned away from god and left its corpse for the grave diggers. No longer do we deny the deed, but we have also failed to become god ourselves. The ubermensch is yet for tomorrow. — Ennui Elucidator

Poetic nonsense from where I sit and I started an entire thread on this here. Of course this section of FN is also an obsession of Jordan B Peterson's. Nietzsche may have despised Christianity but Christians seem to love Nietzsche since he sets up atheism as the notion that without gods anything is permissible, hence Stalin and Hitler...

But really, the post started off with a discussion of religion, language, and meaning, so I'm not sure how it is a criticism that that is the subject of my post. You've chosen to participate, so I assumed that you were interested in the conversation — Ennui Elucidator

What I found is that you are stuck on certain words ('religion' and 'spirituality') as in some way codified so an ongoing conversation per say did not seem possible. But sometimes I do that too, so I don't hold it against you. Conversations do run out of dynamism and I am a believer in moving on when this happens.

Like two ships passing in the night. Our context is such that despite our willingness to play the game, we lack sufficient commonality to get off the ground. You don’t know me, so it isn’t unexpected that I am less well understood than if you did. It is mildly amusing that you’d take from this conversation that I believe language to be codified or believe that it should be codified. I even felt a bit like I was waving a flag yelling “Meaning is use, so how should we use this word and is there even a good reason to do so?”

Regarding Nietzsche, I posted the quote because you suggested that I misapplied the idea that god is dead. I simply wanted to highlight that the changing role of god in society (rather than the idea of god or the god object) was the target of the claim that god is dead. The trappings of religion survive the change of orientation, and it is for us to decide what to do with them. It may be, however, that even religion will survive the movement away from god and instead of the churches being the tomb (the place where the remnants of the god orientation reside), they will be the house for the community that comes after.

But if we are looking for exaltation in issues of ultimate concern, for Australians I think the sun is our spiritual centre. — Banno

Indeed, for all we Indo-Europeans! Old "Dyeus Phter" has had more incarnations over the years than you can shake a stick at. In a roundabout way, this kind of makes sense. Without our weak little yellow dwarf of a star, there would be no life at all around here.

Like two ships passing in the night. Our context is such that despite our willingness to play the game, we lack sufficient commonality to get off the ground. You don’t know me, so it isn’t unexpected that I am less well understood than if you did. It is mildly amusing that you’d take from this conversation that I believe language to be codified or believe that it should be codified. I even felt a bit like I was waving a flag yelling “Meaning is use, so how should we use this word and is there even a good reason to do so?”

Regarding Nietzsche, I posted the quote because you suggested that I misapplied the idea that god is dead. I simply wanted to highlight that the changing role of god in society (rather than the idea of god or the god object) was the target of the claim that god is dead. The trappings of religion survive the change of orientation, and it is for us to decide what to do with them. It may be, however, that even religion will survive the movement away from god and instead of the churches being the tomb (the place where the remnants of the god orientation reside), they will be the house for the community that comes after. — Ennui Elucidator

Hmm - so this is not what I thought. Simply stated, I found you too dogmatic - on two words particularly. But maybe you are a dogmatic person.

when you define religion as a "language community", to what do you refer? Perhaps that people within a given religion have a common semantic reference, a common set of meanings for the language that they use, fully understood only within the sect?

In my opinion, the most important function of religion is the lending of increased significance to the milestones of human lives. This, of course, is the function of meaningful ritual, and so it follows that in my view, common profound ritual is the most important aspect of religion. It also seems to myself to explain the ubiquity of religion in the human experience. As you note above:

Religion, as understood, is totalizing both of necessity and thesis. This isn't to say that everything is religious, but it isn't so dissimilar from the statement that all acts/speech is political speech. — Ennui Elucidator

Perhaps strangely to some, I myself am an atheist who yet considers religion to be of great importance to the human experience, for precisely the reason noted above, the innate value of meaningful ritual. In a world of people who claim to be "spiritual but not religious" ( as absurd a statement as has ever been made), I define myself as "religious but not spiritual". I simply think that the future will ultimately prove to demand non-theistic religion.

...don’t you think it a bit odd to divorce “spirit” from “spirituality” in a conversation where I am investigating what use some philosophy people might have for religion without god? [...] So we’ve got people who are happy to do “spirituality” without animation/breath/soul but not religion without god. — Ennui Elucidator

This dichotomy has arisen because the very idea of "spirit" has ever been ill-defined in our Western languages. What did the ancients mean by the terms "animus"/"anima"? The semantic field of "animus" is wide enough to build an international airport on, precisely because the Romans really didn't understand what they meant by the term...they were simply trying to describe phenomena the cause of which they could not begin to comprehend. In Latin, the term could mean: life force, soul, breath, mind, intellect, affect, strength of feeling, intention, and any of a slew of individual emotions (courage, vehemence, will, wrath, etc., etc.), and a few other things which I can't immediately recall. The word "spirit" is nearly the same in English: it means everything to the point that it means nothing, and that is the partial cause of the abuse and misuse of the term "spiritual" that we can discern today, as you note above:

The idea of “spiritual” is really a major problem. It is the biggest bunch of non-sense one can imagine wrapped in a bit of anti-establishmentarianism. Besides the nonsense on its face (transcendence thrown in with some bad metaphysics), it is clearly culturally received conditioning that is not an independent invention (or experience) of the person espousing spirituality. — Ennui Elucidator

Yet, as you note,

Someone is born, you want to celebrate. Someone dies, you want to mourn. Not because either event necessitates such a reaction, but because that is what we have been acculturated to do. — Ennui Elucidator

...and the meaningful ritual associated with religion is of great assistance in lendi g increased meaning to that celebrating and mourning...

And yet science brings about climate change. — Ennui Elucidator

What to do with that. Do you think perhaps you might be blaming the messenger? Do you suppose that if you shoot all the scientists, that would solve the problem?

Science is a social endeavour that involves humans, and so involves all the messy convolute issues that implies. Yes, it functions to support the status quo, and so it has helped capitalism to thrive. It is also the reason we know about climate change, and the source of the solution, in renewable technology.

Blaming science for climate change is ridiculous.

Overall, your line of thought here remains concealed, even jumbled. It's hard to see if, let alone how, you differentiate religion from other activities, while your treatment of meaning as use seems half-hearted. The result is incongruous.

I don't think there's much more to be said.

Shooting the scientists alive today would be like closing the doors after the cows are out, no? Perhaps you think it was the Taliban that invented the extraction and processing of oil.

Technology/science provides tools, but not all tools needed to be provided. One might even spend some time considering whether the alleged purpose of science (some magical description of the world devoid of responsibility for what comes) is even a worthwhile human endeavor. The proof of science’s adequacy is in the destruction of the world before and the recreation of the world as we wish it (efficacious meddling, if you will). The proof of science’s worth is not nearly so simple. Selecting the parts of science that you cheer as emblematic of the worth of the endeavor and ignoring the rest is suspect reasoning at best.

Religion is not logic, for instance, even if logic can be put to use in furtherance of religion. The same is true of art, or science, or playing sports. There is lots of stuff not usefully described as religion or religious in virtually any context in which you might discuss it (just the same as there is lots of stuff that people do that is not usefully described as “human endeavor” at the end of each sentence). However, to the extent we are focused on the impact such stuff has on issues of ultimate concern (meaning), speaking of it as it relates to religion might be very useful. For instance, if a scientist is doing science because she feels that it is her best response to her obligation to heal the world and we are discussing her motivation, why wouldn’t we speak of if in religious terms? The lack of focus on “why” or any similar issue which invokes meaning should be a pretty reliable indication that talking about religion is probably unhelpful.

Blaming science for climate change is ridiculous. — Banno

Knives, guns, machetes, should all be imprisoned.

A bad workman blames his tools.

For instance, if a scientist is doing science because she feels that it is her best response to her obligation to heal the world and we are discussing her motivation, why wouldn’t we speak of if in religious terms? — Ennui Elucidator

Why should we speak of it in religious terms? Why not in ethical terms? Or psychological? Or social? Or political?

You appear to have religion as your only tool, and treat everything accordingly.

It's tedious.

Knives, guns, machetes, should all be imprisoned.

A bad workman blames his tools. — TheMadFool

Somehow that might make sense to you, but...?

Somehow that might make sense to you, but...? — Banno

:lol: Carry on...

For what it's worth, here's what I think.

To try and bring to light the flaws/downsides/disadvantages of science is not something worthwhile in any sense of that word. Why? EVERYTHING has pros and cons, even children seem to know this. So there really is no point in telling people what they already know or are aware of.

It's tedious. — Banno

DO you think we would be able to get out of this mess without science? One can't jump of the rollercoaster after it starts.

Ennui Elucidator when you define religion as a "language community", to what do you refer? Perhaps that people within a given religion have a common semantic reference, a common set of meanings for the language that they use, fully understood only within the sect? — Michael Zwingli

This is a muddled idea that I’m unsure how to clean up. We’ve got some agents (with undefined capacities outside of the ability to “mean” or perhaps “intend” coupled with apprehension). While I could try for something bigger with “community” in the long run, for this purpose perhaps it can mean something like “agents with regular contacts that engage in cooperative/coordinated behavior.” (Though I recognize in advance that language can be shared by enemies.) Language is a bit harder, but it probably can be something like “the proffering, acceptance, and interpretation of symbols.” Throwing it all together, I’d come up with a language community is a group of people that uses symbols in a way supportive of their cooperative/coordinated behavior. What is not essential on my definition is that people fully understand anything (whether in the group or outside of it). It is more about the general use of symbols in a way that tends towards the group’s continued use of those symbols.

I apologize if that is too mushy. Lots of big ideas and I don’t necessarily want to fully explore them.

Perhaps strangely to some, I myself am an atheist who yet considers religion to be of great importance to the human experience, for precisely the reason noted above, the innate value of meaningful ritual. In a world of people who claim to be "spiritual but not religious" ( as absurd a statement as has ever been made), I define myself as "religious but not spiritual". I simply think that the future will ultimately prove to demand non-theistic religion. — Michael Zwingli

I am glad to find a sympathetic ear. Ritual is an easy aspect of religion to identify, but I can’t join you in seeing it as the most important part of religion. In part, the reason I am interested in religion is in response to the notion of alienation and the continued isolation of the individual. It is as if we had to go through things like existentialism where we rejected dictated meaning to find the freedom to give meaning to that which was previously imposed. Man is a social beast, after all, and so it may have been a fool’s errand to expect man to define himself against the world rather than to carve himself out from within it.

Without delving too far into my own circumstance, suffice it to say that I too frequently see people engaged in ritual devoid of personal meaning to them, badly espousing what other people told them it is supposed to mean, yet clinging to it like a life raft. It is as if they think that performing an act will by magic turn the moment from the profane to the holy - the meaningless to the meaningful. What I believe that they fail to understand is that the ritual is the fodder by which people join in community to share (and thereby transform) our individual experiences of the world.

And yet when we try to talk of religion we hear how science gives us keyboards and religion gives us the Taliban. Being aware that everything has its good and bad doesn’t mean that otherwise intelligent people won’t dramaticize in order to make it clear that they don’t like something.