|
| quote: | Originally posted by Subey
Lots of things are boring. You are aware of the concept of "flogged to death", or "beating a dead horse"?. Certain topics where both sides use the same arguments over and over again, which result in nothing new being gained is boring to participate in. If someone has something new to add to these topics then they should be opened up again to inspection. However that is rarely the case. |
No subject is boring alone. It depends on you and on the people who are talking about it. Maybe our focus is not interesting to you, fair enough, but having the opportunity of debating people such subject some incredibly open-minded people as the ones we can find here is interesting to me.
| quote: | Originally posted by Subey
If I were to ask who are you? Then there has to be one specific answer. You are not me.. you are not someone else etc. You are clearly you. Yet if I were to ask 100 people who you were, including yourself then I would get 100 different answers.
The issue, how real are the versions of you that are not complete that are held in the mind's eye of these 100 people? If there is a conflict between different views then whose view wins? Or can they both coexist? If I think you are a theif and my facts are wrong is my view still real? Either I am a theif or I am not. Interpretation has to be overided by the reality.
The point of the divine then is that interesting things can be learned from errors in interpretation (i.e. thinking I am a theif when I am not), but in the end there is only one truth. |
No one can ever know this "one truth", but we can learn different points of view from other people.
| quote: | Originally posted by Subey
Why do you think the Greeks didn't worship Prometheus as their primary deity? Considering the fact that...
1) he gave mankind its greatest gift (existence)
2) he gave them their next greatest gift (fire) |
I don't know much about Greek philosophy/mitology in order to answer this. If I had the time, I would study right now and get back to you, but unfortunately, I can't do so right now. As I said earlier, I can talk about Christianism, Buddhism, Shintoism and Taoism, without much problem, but the amount of research I need to do in order to debate the other things make such discussions impossible to me right now.
| quote: | Originally posted by Renegade
The trouble is that you're opening up a Pandora's box by claiming that certain aspects of the Bible should be interpreted metaphorically (i.e. the nature of God) where others should be taken more literally (i.e. moral instruction). Furthermore, if you argue that this aspect of the Bible is metaphorical, then where do you draw the line? |
You don't need to take the moral instructions more literally because of one simple reason: it wouldn't necessarily cancel the original meaning out.
Take the 10 commandments, for example: "Thou shalt not steal." could be expanded to similar actions (e.g. cheating on a test could be seen as "stealing someone else's merits or effort", for example). This way the philosphy wouldn't ever be outdated. Also notice that, if you're not taking these words literally, interpretaion would (or should) be subjective, so these "rules" could become actual pieces of advice, which is quite an advantage: these commandments would be guidelines for a better life (not just for oneself but for the whole community) i.e. "heaven", which might lead to a "personal hell" if ignored (someone who kills, steals and lies is bound to have more problems compared to someone who doesn't; also, someone who cheats on a test is bound to face some problems in the future for taking credit of something she is not able to do). These commandments are there for a reason: it improves social life.
So, answering your question, I don't believe you need to draw a line anywhere. The less you focus on the words and the more you focus on the ideas, the better it will be for everyone.
| quote: | Originally posted by Renegade
If the nature of God is not consistent with the God presented in the Bible (given that the God of the Bible - as you pointed out - isn't even presented consistently by the Biblical authors to begin with) then it begs the question, "why was God portrayed in this way to begin with"? |
Because, once God's been humanised, its concept can be better understood. This is a quite popular artistic tool. What better way to show what kindness is than portraying the perfectly kind person? (i.e. Jesus).
| quote: | Originally posted by Renegade
If God is as you have described him and the God described in the Bible is metaphorical, then why were the authors of the Bible so obfuscatory? If God isn't actually omnibenevolent and omnipotent (willing and capable of preventing suffrage), then why did they paint him in that light? |
But it is, the authors didn't obfuscate anything - in fact, they did quite the opposite, as you can understand the concepts better this way. See God for a minute as the humanisation of "consequences": there's no fixed limit to what our actions can do, let alone if we combine our actions with everyone else's. This gives "destiny/consequences" an omnipotent status. There are too many simultaneous variants happening every second. Not to mention the things we don't really understand and the power of human suggestion.
As for being omnibenevolent, there are two different ways of dealing with it: it can (a) either be a way of showing that the Christian philosophy is the path to kindness and helpfulness (b) or the belief that problems, for instance, get better after a while (which they eventually do, depending on how you face them).
| quote: | Originally posted by Renegade
How do you decide which aspects of the Bible are meant to be interpreted literally and which are meant to be interpreted as metaphors? How can one obtain any truth from this book if the lines between fact and fiction are so indistinguishably blurred? |
Fiction can be examples, so you don't need to see truth exclusively in "facts". Like I said, you don't need to have fixed laws on "what needs to be taken literally and what needs to be taken metaphorically" - as long as the ideas are transmitted, there's no problem at all.
Naturally, I prefer the metaphoric approach because dogmas wouldn't have any purpose to exist, it would create a higher level of understanding (as in not condemning others harshly), and the philosphy would always be adapted to someone's reality. I reckon this would be a more realistic way of dealing with it, as we all compare the things we learn to past experiences.
| quote: | Originally posted by Renegade
Nihilism needn't be interpreted so pesimistically though. All this philosophy actually states is that the concepts you mentioned ("meaning, purpose, comprehensible truth, or essential value") are not absolute and that an "authentic" exploration of these concepts begin from the starting point of absolute rejection of all pertinent and pre-existing doctrines. Thus, the nihilistic doctrine states that any authentic "meaning, purpose, truth or value" must be based on the assumption that every "meaning, purpose, truth or value" every previously ellucidated is either false or unverifiable. It's essentially Cartesian skepticism, in these terms at least, but less metaphysical or ontological in scope.
Now - and this is the point that most people fail to understand about Nihilism - this doesn't mean that concepts like "meaning, purpose, truth or value" cannot exist, or that the nihilist must live without them, it just means that they can only ever be authentically explored subjectively. You can't form an authentic value, for instance, if you begin from the starting point that murder is wrong. You must first presume it isn't and then proceed from there (which may of course lead you to the same conclusion, but at least it's a conclusion you've arrived at rationally and subjectively, rather than just unquestioningly inheriting a pre-existing mantra from elsewhere). Thus, one's own value system is created ex nihilo - from nothing or, to put it another way, from nihilism. |
I didn't mean to bring a pessimist view on Nihilism, even because I'm very fond of Buddhism, in which the concept that "any authentic "meaning, purpose, truth or value" must be based on the assumption that every "meaning, purpose, truth or value" every previously ellucidated is either false or unverifiable" also exists*.
I first mentioned it because I remember (or believe) that Arbiter's way of dealing with life seems to have been greatly inspired by this philosophy, but that some people would take these precepts rather pessimistically as they need these pre-exiting laws (it's happened, for example, in medieval Japan, when people believed Buddhism would 'expire' in a couple of years and a form of nihilism - obviously it's not the same philosophy - would take over, so they believed they would lose all their basis, which caused several problems... somehow, they didn't seem able to recreate it).
| quote: | Originally posted by Renegade
Now, if you're familiar with the doctrine of existentialism, you can begin to see how a nihilistic philosophy actually takes shape. Existentialism begins from the starting point that human existence has no inherent "meaning, purpose, truth or value" but from this beginning - for me at least - the most "optimistic" of all philosophies can be created.
From Sartre's "Existentialism as a Humanism":
(The full text can be found here. I recommend it as an excellent read if you have an hour or two free.) |
I'm a bit short of time now, but I'm looking forward to reading this in February, when I'll finally have my vacations 
| quote: | Originally posted by Renegade
So, to put it bluntly, I disagree with your apocalyptic conclusions about nihilism. Human existence may be inherently meaningless, but that is not say that it is lived without meaning. |
Well, in medieval Japan, for example, when Buddhism went through an awkward crisis (people believed the teachings would "expire"), there was hell on earth. Not everyone would be prepared to reject a philosophy they believed during their whole life (and that's been passed on for generations).
In any case, the last sentence is the reason why I'm not against religion. Religion can provide a meaning of life to many people. If that's good for them, and this doesn't harm anyone else (let's keep in mind that the crimes commited on behalf of religion could be commited by something else, such as politics), fair play.
| quote: | Originally posted by Renegade
Why religious organisation, though? Don't our secular societies demonstrate that order can be maintained beyond the confines of organised religion?
I think you're being too harsh on mankind. Even if they can't be bothered reading a code of laws (and let's face it - who actually has read a code of laws in their life?), I'd like to think that most people - on a most general level at least - have a fundamental understanding of what is wrong or right. A man with an empathetic capacity will never feel comfortable knowingly injuring another man without cause for instance. I don't think that the removal of religion (or even possibly the removal of laws) would result in quite so clear a moral decline. From your perspective, at least, would the destruction of religious codes cause you to start acting immorally because you knew that you could do so without any form of divine judgement? |
Although most people do have a general understanding of what's right and what's not, religion would complement it to those who felt the need to. Besides, I don't think a purely secular state would be useful to solve other sort of problems, such as selfishness, forgiveness and many other behaviours that increase (or not) the chances of survival.
Besides, the more people want to extinguish religion, the more people will fell threatened and behave like fundies, because of phenomena such as self-deception.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
* "Come, Kâlâmas. Do not go by oral tradition, by lineage of teaching, by hearsay, by a collection of scriptures, by logical reasoning, by inferential reasoning, by reflection on reasons, by the acceptance of a view after pondering it, by the seeming competence of a speaker, or because you think, ‘The ascetic is our teacher.’ But when you know for yourselves, ‘These things are unwholesome, these things are blamable; these things are censured by the wise; these things, if undertaken and practised, lead to harm and suffering,’ then you should abandon them. And when you know for yourselves, ‘These things are wholesome, these things are blameless; these things are praised by the wise; these things, if undertaken and practised, lead to welfare and happiness,’ then you should engage in them."
http://www.buddhanet.net/e-learning...sm/bud_lt19.htm
___________________
Indiana Clones Upcoming Sets
[ I May Upload Something Someday ]
|
