Is Jesus's divorce law anti-love?

[Gnostic Christian Bishop]

Is Jesus's divorce law anti-love?

Jesus agreed with the O.T God on divorce. Let no man break that union or let no man put asunder.

I see that as anti-love. If Jesus is wrong about such a fundamental issue, then what else was he wrong about?

If a Christian, even if you become convinced that Jesus was indeed wrong, it would not make any difference to you because you actually follow tradition, culture and your family’s inherited traditional God. Not really a God that you selected through trials of his moral character. Right? Shame on you for neglecting the most important decision of your life.

I think that the moral reason all divorce pleas should be granted is that no one, gay, straight and all conditions in between or over, should be denied the ability to seek a lifetime loving partner, wife or husband, for any reason. I see being able to seek a loving mate or partner as a fundamental human right.

Do you agree?

Regards
DL

[Red Economist]

Is Jesus's divorce law anti-love?
Jesus agreed with the O.T God on divorce. Let no man break that union or let no man put asunder.
I see that as anti-love. If Jesus is wrong about such a fundamental issue, then what else was he wrong about?
If a Christian, even if you become convinced that Jesus was indeed wrong, it would not make any difference to you because you actually follow tradition, culture and your family’s inherited traditional God. Not really a God that you selected through trials of his moral character. Right? Shame on you for neglecting the most important decision of your life.
I think that the moral reason all divorce pleas should be granted is that no one, gay, straight and all conditions in between or over, should be denied the ability to seek a lifetime loving partner, wife or husband, for any reason. I see being able to seek a loving mate or partner as a fundamental human right.

Do you agree?

Regards
DL

I basically agree. I support the idea of free love (though in practice, navigating the emotional roller coaster is going to be tricky), so the idea of making divorce easy as possible sounds fine. it really shouldn't be up to a courtroom [you talk about 'divorce pleas' so I assume that's what you mean] to decide whose 'married' or in love anyway.

On the broader religious issue, the second paragraph is a little garbled, but I think you are making a distinction between the theological and moral content in Christianity (i.e. believing in a set of morals that you yourself have chosen to follow "tradition, culture, family" is separate from belief in god).
But is there not a logical problem in beliving in a moral system whose legitimacy is based on it originating from a creator, without believing in that creator? [though you did mention in another post you are a gnostic, which if I'm not mistaken means seeks the spiritual truth 'within' oneself?]

[Cerdic]

Luke 16:18

"Anyone who divorces his wife and marries another woman commits adultery, and the man who marries a divorced woman commits adultery.

What I read though, is that it is possible to translate this as "in order to" rather than "and".

Marriage is a lot more than love. It is a commitment to another person. It is the foundation for a family. It is the foundation for a stable home.

[Ethics Gradient, Traitor For All Ages]

I'll have to really dig around but I remember reading something by Tolstoy where he interprets Jesus' statement as actually being against the institution of marriage all together, implying free love which fits the overall narrative much more than a ban on divorce.

[Gnostic Christian Bishop]

I basically agree. I support the idea of free love (though in practice, navigating the emotional roller coaster is going to be tricky), so the idea of making divorce easy as possible sounds fine. it really shouldn't be up to a courtroom [you talk about 'divorce pleas' so I assume that's what you mean] to decide whose 'married' or in love anyway.

On the broader religious issue, the second paragraph is a little garbled, but I think you are making a distinction between the theological and moral content in Christianity (i.e. believing in a set of morals that you yourself have chosen to follow "tradition, culture, family" is separate from belief in god).
But is there not a logical problem in beliving in a moral system whose legitimacy is based on it originating from a creator, without believing in that creator? [though you did mention in another post you are a gnostic, which if I'm not mistaken means seeks the spiritual truth 'within' oneself?]

Thanks for this and yes, Gnostic Christians seek that spark of God we believe to be in all people. Self-examination is important as how else can we truly learn about what nature has produced to hold the spark of God.

On your morals comment.
If there was a God on the menu being offered whose moral character and tenets was superior to what secular law is doing then I would follow those tenets if not that God. I am not a literalist and that God would have to be natural as there is no evidence at all for anything supernatural.

I am please that you can judge Jesus' morals without fear.

Regards
DL

[Gnostic Christian Bishop]

Luke 16:18

"Anyone who divorces his wife and marries another woman commits adultery, and the man who marries a divorced woman commits adultery.

What I read though, is that it is possible to translate this as "in order to" rather than "and".

Marriage is a lot more than love. It is a commitment to another person. It is the foundation for a family. It is the foundation for a stable home.

Indeed. But a home cannot function as well as it can mentally when there is no love in it.

Marriage is more than love as you say, but without love a house is not a home and the foundation is built on sand.

What % of the population would you deny love to if you include unhappy heterosexuals as well as the gays which I am sure you do not think should marry?

Regards
DL

[Gnostic Christian Bishop]

I'll have to really dig around but I remember reading something by Tolstoy where he interprets Jesus' statement as actually being against the institution of marriage all together, implying free love which fits the overall narrative much more than a ban on divorce.

Now that would really be loving thy neighbour. :laugh:

That view would fly in the face of what most would want.

If everything is free, so to speak, then nothing has value.

Humans are valuable.

Regards
DL

[helot]

Luke 16:18

"Anyone who divorces his wife and marries another woman commits adultery, and the man who marries a divorced woman commits adultery.

What I read though, is that it is possible to translate this as "in order to" rather than "and".



I wouldn't agree with that tbh.

Here's the Greek:

πας ο απολυων την γυναικα αυτου και γαμων ετεραν μοιχευει και πας ο απολελυμενην απο ανδρος γαμων μοιχευει


the particle και is used and that functions the same as 'and'. The first (in bold, that's the one you're on about) links two parts of the clause together while the second kai links two clauses...

So let's ignore the second kai and everything after it...

πας ο απολυων την γυναικα αυτου και γαμων ετεραν μοιχευει

This would be translated as:
whoever divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery

There are only two verbs in there, απολυων (divorces) and μοιχευει (commits adultery). There'd have to be a third verb to get your interpretation

[ÑóẊîöʼn]

Is Jesus's divorce law anti-love?

Jesus agreed with the O.T God on divorce. Let no man break that union or let no man put asunder.

I see that as anti-love. If Jesus is wrong about such a fundamental issue, then what else was he wrong about?

If a Christian, even if you become convinced that Jesus was indeed wrong, it would not make any difference to you because you actually follow tradition, culture and your family’s inherited traditional God. Not really a God that you selected through trials of his moral character. Right? Shame on you for neglecting the most important decision of your life.

I think that the moral reason all divorce pleas should be granted is that no one, gay, straight and all conditions in between or over, should be denied the ability to seek a lifetime loving partner, wife or husband, for any reason. I see being able to seek a loving mate or partner as a fundamental human right.

Do you agree?

Regards
DL

First, please stop using the [FONT] tags. They either don't work, or you don't know how to use them.

Secondly, if you're basing your decisions concerning love and marriage on humanist grounds like "rights", then what does it matter what Jesus said? In a humanist framework the rightness or wrongness of a decision is independent of whoever promotes it. In the Christian framework, human rights are at best subordinate to the will of God, or at worst an invention of Satan attempting to usurp the moral authority of the Lord.

My personal opinion as a humanist is that people should be free to (dis)associate with each other in any manner that is mutually acceptable. The opinions of Jesus, or for that matter any other religious personage, are completely irrelevant.


I'll have to really dig around but I remember reading something by Tolstoy where he interprets Jesus' statement as actually being against the institution of marriage all together, implying free love which fits the overall narrative much more than a ban on divorce.

You see, this sort of thing is exactly why I think "interpretations" of the Bible are almost always an exercise in pointless fucking bullshittery. One "interpretation" can give an entirely contradictory meaning to another "interpretation". By what standard is either correct?

There doesn't seem to be any actual interpretation going on in any case, instead what happens is that people read into the Bible their own prejudices and preferences. Kind of like how God seems to love/hate all the things that their followers do. What a coincidence!

[Ethics Gradient, Traitor For All Ages]

I agree, but in the context of everything else said during the sermon of the mount or whatever, the ban on divorce seems very out place, so I think the belief is that it had been altered in favor of the institution. I'm not an expert on Christianity however. I have not been able to find the writing, I think it must be in dead tree form at home, I'll look for it tonight.

[Red Economist]

Thanks for this and yes, Gnostic Christians seek that spark of God we believe to be in all people. Self-examination is important as how else can we truly learn about what nature has produced to hold the spark of God.

Thought so, but wasn't 100% sure. I hope you find the answers you are looking for- as it is no doubt a long process.

Welcome to Revleft by the way.


On your morals comment.
If there was a God on the menu being offered whose moral character and tenets was superior to what secular law is doing then I would follow those tenets if not that God. I am not a literalist and that God would have to be natural as there is no evidence at all for anything supernatural.

It is interesting you talk about a moral character 'superior' to secular laws, as the case for following a god and his/her/it's tenants. Do you judge the superiority of that god's moral character and their laws by your own self-reflection as a Gnostic?

I would also want to ask whether;

i) given that there is a separation between theology and morality in your understanding, if you would follow a god based on your own intuition/faith without being able to 'know' rationally whether that god exists?

ii) What would you consider a 'natural' as opposed to a 'supernatural' god.

I'm just curious as I've never actually been able to talk about religion with a theist before. I've been around mainly atheists and agnostics who didn't care much for religion so it's never been a 'hot topic' if you will (plus talking about religion is still taboo because it can be personal and intimate). Though ironically, I find Marxism is pretty much a religion in terms of judging the nature of man, minus the deity. Whilst 'god works in mysterious ways', as I humanist I just have to accept people are just pretty crazy.


I am please that you can judge Jesus' morals without fear.

That's quite a compliment. many thanks. :grin:

[Gnostic Christian Bishop]

Thought so, but wasn't 100% sure. I hope you find the answers you are looking for- as it is no doubt a long process.

Welcome to Revleft by the way.



It is interesting you talk about a moral character 'superior' to secular laws, as the case for following a god and his/her/it's tenants. Do you judge the superiority of that god's moral character and their laws by your own self-reflection as a Gnostic?

By my own self reflection, yes. As a Gnostic Christian, no. I define myself as human first and Gnostic Christian comes after.

Babies and children can show good moral judgement without having a clue of what Gnosticism or religion are. All they are are human.


I would also want to ask whether;

i) given that there is a separation between theology and morality in your understanding, if you would follow a god based on your own intuition/faith without being able to 'know' rationally whether that god exists? My Franglais, I am French, is having a time understanding this phrasing but let me try.

There should not be any separation between theology, philosophy and morality. To me, theology and philosophy have some identical purposes. One being to come up with the best rules to live life well with.

As a Gnostic Christian, I see both of those disciplines as being created by men and not imaginary Gods be they p[olitical or religious Gods.

To us, man is supreme here and not some absentee imaginary God.


ii) What would you consider a 'natural' as opposed to a 'supernatural' god. Let me show you where I think my consciousness went when I found the Godhead.

Please Google ---Through The Wormhole - Is There A Sixth Sense PART 2/2


It may well be that the cosmic consciousness I found is within our magnetic shield or field.

It may be that I have proof (only for myself), of what many have dubbed God.


I'm just curious as I've never actually been able to talk about religion with a theist before. I do not use that word for myself because of the baggage it carries.


I've been around mainly atheists and agnostics who didn't care much for religion so it's never been a 'hot topic' if you will (plus talking about religion is still taboo because it can be personal and intimate). Absolutely. People associate the post with his God and judge him the same way they judge his beliefs. The two cannot be divorced just like there is no real separation of church and state as people cannot shut off half their brain.



Though ironically, I find Marxism is pretty much a religion in terms of judging the nature of man, minus the deity. Whilst 'god works in mysterious ways', as I humanist I just have to accept people are just pretty crazy.



That's quite a compliment. many thanks. :grin: No argument and you are welcome.

Gnostic Christians are often closer to atheists than religionists in terms of morals and strange to say, because of that, most of my friends are not into religions at all. The left of religions and non-literal readers I get along well with. The right wing, not so much thanks to their demonstrable double standards of morality.

Regards
DL

[Orange Juche]

What I read though, is that it is possible to translate this as "in order to" rather than "and".

Now I'm interested in the original texts, because these kinds of mistranslations are so common in the bible. And "in order to" seems to make more sense, given the context of who we have of Jesus in the four canonical Gospels given, and when you look at the Gnostic Gospels.

[bropasaran]

It's irrelevant whether it's "in order to". I was actually a seminarian and a Dominican postulant (like a novice monk) and read much about stuff like this, anyway, canon law and church father always held the view that sacramental marriage is effectually indissoluble. Some have used terminology of allowing divorce, but second marriage was never allowed if the 'former' spouse is alive; on the other hand the normative terminology is that spouses can separate, but divorce is not possible. There are various types of rules of what kind of marriages are (not) allowed and thus marriages can be annulled, that is- proclaimed to have never actually existed if some of the rules were ignored when the supposed marriage happened; there are also rules dealing with non-sacramental marriage of converts; but divorce of church members who are in sacramental marriage is not allowed. Widows are allowed second marriage but they are advised to remain celibate, and maybe become a monk/ nun, which was the norm throughout history.

[Red Economist]

No argument and you are welcome.

Gnostic Christians are often closer to atheists than religionists in terms of morals and strange to say, because of that, most of my friends are not into religions at all. The left of religions and non-literal readers I get along well with. The right wing, not so much thanks to their demonstrable double standards of morality.

Regards
DL

That makes a lot of sense, as often it is shared goals like social justice or free thought that gets people to work together, rather than simply shared beliefs. [The far left is highly fictionalized, so this is something it's taken me a while to figure out]


My Franglais, I am French, is having a time understanding this phrasing but let me try.my apologies. I do ramble at times when I'm thinking really hard as it's easy just to get carried away.


There should not be any separation between theology, philosophy and morality. To me, theology and philosophy have some identical purposes. One being to come up with the best rules to live life well with.

As a Gnostic Christian, I see both of those disciplines as being created by men and not imaginary Gods be they p[olitical or religious Gods.

To us, man is supreme here and not some absentee imaginary God.
You're a better atheist than me, as by making the distinction between theology and morality, I've giving credit to the existence of god (in so far as he/she is the source of a moral system or code). nicely done. :grin:


Babies and children can show good moral judgement without having a clue of what Gnosticism or religion are. All they are are human.This is very true. I'm interested in psychology and by my own judgement I would say that kids are far more open to experience, their emotions and empathy than adults. Some how we seem to train them out of part of their 'humanity' so they function in the existing institutions.



Let me show you where I think my consciousness went when I found the Godhead.

Please Google ---Through The Wormhole - Is There A Sixth Sense PART 2/2


It may well be that the cosmic consciousness I found is within our magnetic shield or field.

It may be that I have proof (only for myself), of what many have dubbed God. As a Marxist, my bias is against the idea of a sixth sense. I wouldn't discount the possibility of some kind of human perception of magnetic fields as it sounds 'plausible', given that it exists in animals (such as helping migrating birds navigate).

I would be more skeptical as to whether there is an ability to percieve the thoughts, feelings and experiences of other people as this crosses a philosophical line in Marxist theories of mind. In Marxism, the mind is purely physical and identical with the brain; thoughts do not have an independent existence of the neuro-electrical patterns of the brains.

For the same reason, I am suspicious of Quantum Mechanics, as I believe in the objective existence of matter and the property of an atom does not change because it is observed. I don't accept the idea of Schrodinger cat that the cat is both alive and dead before you look in the box. I think this an issue about the limits of human knowledge, not the property of matter. BUT this is no more than a hunch and covers an area I know almost nothing about.

Marxists are (normally) Atheists; In the book I've read, I have seen particular venom against an English bishop by the name of George Berkeley (1685-1753) who used an extreme form of subjectivity to argue for the existence of religion and that matter is dependent on mind/consciousness and so needs a god to conceive of it. I mention him in case you know of him, but the same ideas reappear in films such as The Matrix and Inception in different forms.

I am stumped by the experiment performed in the link you suggested, and I realize that our understanding of the human brain is still in it's infancy as it poses serious limitations to the accuracy of social science in predicting human behavior. I know this from my own experience in thinking over whether Marxism can be considered a science and how accurate it is so I could easily be wrong. But this is a philosophical, not a scientific position; Any thoughts or suggestions are welcome. :)

[consuming negativity]

Christ was one of the first to speak out against the Roman government. He was portrayed as a pacifist who thought we should obey Rome... by Paul. All of the stuff like that is in Paul, and it's after the Empire had Christianized. Paul wasn't even an apostle - he just knew some people who knew the apostles. The real Christ threw the moneylenders out of the Temple and hung out with beggars and prostitutes. He was a bad ass. Paul doesn't do him justice.

[Dave B]

For what it matters.

Jesus was actually fairly chilled out and liberal about this kind of thing and tended to reserve his criticisms for the church and organised religion.

Conversation With a Samaritan Woman

4 But he had to pass through Samaria. 5 Now he came to a Samaritan town called Sychar, near the plot of land that Jacob had given to his son Joseph. 6 Jacob’s well was there, so Jesus, since he was tired from the journey, sat right down beside the well. It was about noon.
7 A Samaritan woman came to draw water. Jesus said to her, “Give me some water to drink.” 8 (For his disciples had gone off into the town to buy supplies.) 9 So the Samaritan woman said to him, “How can you—a Jew—ask me, a Samaritan woman, for water to drink?” (For Jews use nothing in common with Samaritans.)
10 Jesus answered her, “If you had known the gift of God and who it is who said to you, ‘Give me some water to drink,’ you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water.” 11 “Sir,” the woman said to him, “you have no bucket and the well is deep; where then do you get this living water? 12 Surely you’re not greater than our ancestor Jacob, are you? For he gave us this well and drank from it himself, along with his sons and his livestock.”
13 Jesus replied, “Everyone who drinks some of this water will be thirsty again. 14 But whoever drinks some of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again, but the water that I will give him will become in him a fountain of water springing up to eternal life.” 15 The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water, so that I will not be thirsty or have to come here to draw water.” 16 He said to her, “Go call your husband and come back here.” 17 The woman replied, “I have no husband.” Jesus said to her, “Right you are when you said, ‘I have no husband,’ 18 for you have had five husbands, and the man you are living with now is not your husband. This you said truthfully!”

This appears to be clever play on Demicretean philosophy.

---------------


A Woman Caught in Adultery


8 Jesus returned to the Mount of Olives, 2 but early the next morning he was back again at the Temple. A crowd soon gathered, and he sat down and taught them. 3 As he was speaking, the teachers of religious law and the Pharisees brought a woman who had been caught in the act of adultery. They put her in front of the crowd.
4 “Teacher,” they said to Jesus, “this woman was caught in the act of adultery. 5 The law of Moses says to stone her. What do you say?”
6 They were trying to trap him into saying something they could use against him, but Jesus stooped down and wrote in the dust with his finger. 7 They kept demanding an answer, so he stood up again and said, “All right, but let the one who has never sinned throw the first stone!” 8 Then he stooped down again and wrote in the dust.
9 When the accusers heard this, they slipped away one by one, beginning with the oldest, until only Jesus was left in the middle of the crowd with the woman. 10 Then Jesus stood up again and said to the woman, “Where are your accusers? Didn’t even one of them condemn you?”
11 “No, Lord,” she said.
And Jesus said, “Neither do I. Go and sin no more.”

Difficult to know what he wrote in the sand; perhaps the 12 commandments or the name of the local brothel?

I think people who haven’t read the gospel pamplets should be banned from writing on Christianity that would include 95% of Christians .

It is not as if it is the three volumes of Das Kapital or the collected works of Lenin (read both); the gospel documents take about 4 hours.

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

I'll have to really dig around but I remember reading something by Tolstoy where he interprets Jesus' statement as actually being against the institution of marriage all together, implying free love which fits the overall narrative much more than a ban on divorce.

No, it really doesn't. Jesus was a rabbinical reformer, who underlined the importance of Jewish religious law several times. It seems people expect the historical Jesus to have been some magical exception to the prevailing attitudes of his time - because it seems even some atheists have trouble with the concept that Jesus was simply a dude. And not a particularly admirable or progressive dude.


For the same reason, I am suspicious of Quantum Mechanics, as I believe in the objective existence of matter and the property of an atom does not change because it is observed. I don't accept the idea of Schrodinger cat that the cat is both alive and dead before you look in the box. I think this an issue about the limits of human knowledge, not the property of matter. BUT this is no more than a hunch and covers an area I know almost nothing about.

It doesn't really work that way. Observation of the system doesn't change anything; what "makes" a system have definite characteristics (in the sense of a definite position, impulse etc.) is interaction with the environment. Observation simply records the outcome of that interaction,

[Gnostic Christian Bishop]

It's irrelevant whether it's "in order to". I was actually a seminarian and a Dominican postulant (like a novice monk) and read much about stuff like this, anyway, canon law and church father always held the view that sacramental marriage is effectually indissoluble. Some have used terminology of allowing divorce, but second marriage was never allowed if the 'former' spouse is alive; on the other hand the normative terminology is that spouses can separate, but divorce is not possible. There are various types of rules of what kind of marriages are (not) allowed and thus marriages can be annulled, that is- proclaimed to have never actually existed if some of the rules were ignored when the supposed marriage happened; there are also rules dealing with non-sacramental marriage of converts; but divorce of church members who are in sacramental marriage is not allowed. Widows are allowed second marriage but they are advised to remain celibate, and maybe become a monk/ nun, which was the norm throughout history.

Good info. Thanks.

Two quick questions come to mind.

Do you think the Christian theology moral in terms of denying people the right to seek love as they wish and trying to control what some might see a s personal decisions?

The other question I ask, because you seem well versed, is off topic but I need clarification on this practice and wonder if you are as well versed on it as you have shown on this original issue.

I cannot post links yet but please Google ---- WHEN SAME-SEX MARRIAGE WAS A CHRISTIAN RITE

Do you know anything about this practice? Is it a gay wedding?

Regards
DL

[Gnostic Christian Bishop]

That makes a lot of sense, as often it is shared goals like social justice or free thought that gets people to work together, rather than simply shared beliefs. [The far left is highly fictionalized, so this is something it's taken me a while to figure out]

my apologies. I do ramble at times when I'm thinking really hard as it's easy just to get carried away.

You're a better atheist than me, as by making the distinction between theology and morality, I've giving credit to the existence of god (in so far as he/she is the source of a moral system or code). nicely done. :grin:

This is very true. I'm interested in psychology and by my own judgement I would say that kids are far more open to experience, their emotions and empathy than adults. Some how we seem to train them out of part of their 'humanity' so they function in the existing institutions.


As a Marxist, my bias is against the idea of a sixth sense. I wouldn't discount the possibility of some kind of human perception of magnetic fields as it sounds 'plausible', given that it exists in animals (such as helping migrating birds navigate).

I would be more skeptical as to whether there is an ability to percieve the thoughts, feelings and experiences of other people as this crosses a philosophical line in Marxist theories of mind. In Marxism, the mind is purely physical and identical with the brain; thoughts do not have an independent existence of the neuro-electrical patterns of the brains.

For the same reason, I am suspicious of Quantum Mechanics, as I believe in the objective existence of matter and the property of an atom does not change because it is observed. I don't accept the idea of Schrodinger cat that the cat is both alive and dead before you look in the box. I think this an issue about the limits of human knowledge, not the property of matter. BUT this is no more than a hunch and covers an area I know almost nothing about.

Marxists are (normally) Atheists; In the book I've read, I have seen particular venom against an English bishop by the name of George Berkeley (1685-1753) who used an extreme form of subjectivity to argue for the existence of religion and that matter is dependent on mind/consciousness and so needs a god to conceive of it. I mention him in case you know of him, but the same ideas reappear in films such as The Matrix and Inception in different forms.

I am stumped by the experiment performed in the link you suggested, and I realize that our understanding of the human brain is still in it's infancy as it poses serious limitations to the accuracy of social science in predicting human behavior. I know this from my own experience in thinking over whether Marxism can be considered a science and how accurate it is so I could easily be wrong. But this is a philosophical, not a scientific position; Any thoughts or suggestions are welcome. :)

Interesting view.

You are right in that we should be skeptical of anything that sounds close to supernatural. Telepathy is basically what we are talking of here when discussing contact with non-corporeal entities. What some see as woo should always be spoken of carefully.

When I had my apotheosis, had to decide if there was any veracity in my experience or whether it was a mind burp or some other completely internal mind and real experience.

Not long before my apotheosis, I had my first telepathic experience that had me making contact for just a second or two with my wife who was in another part of our home. If I had not had that experience and an actual witness, victim was her word, to telepathy being real, I would likely have never believe the veracity of my second experience with the Godhead. Because of her testimony as well as mine in the first experience, I am forced to give veracity to the second. I cannot be sure of how I did what I did but I would die before denying what I see as truth.

Faith without facts is for fools but I have a few facts and that kills faith and becomes belief.

Regards
DL

[Gnostic Christian Bishop]

Christ was one of the first to speak out against the Roman government. He was portrayed as a pacifist who thought we should obey Rome... by Paul. All of the stuff like that is in Paul, and it's after the Empire had Christianized. Paul wasn't even an apostle - he just knew some people who knew the apostles. The real Christ threw the moneylenders out of the Temple and hung out with beggars and prostitutes. He was a bad ass. Paul doesn't do him justice.

Rome has manipulated Christianity for so long that people have forgotten that it is what governments decided it would be and not religious thinkers.

We may never know the real Jesus or if he ever existed, which is doubtful, but when examining his morals and doctrines, it5 is demonstrable that much of it is unworkable rhetoric and some of it, like his no divorce policy is anti-love so the Jesus' on offer, other than my Gnostic Christian :ohmy: one are not worthy of the title, some think name, of Jesus or Christ.

I often challenge Christians to moral debates and they always run and hide.

That says more than I ever could about Christian morality.

Regards
DL

[Gnostic Christian Bishop]

Dave B

The charge was adultery.

Adultery takes two and any punishment should include two getting punished.

Jesus likely wrote, without the male here, there is no trial as such a charge requires two defendants.

Regards
DL

[argeiphontes]

It seems people expect the historical Jesus to have been some magical exception to the prevailing attitudes of his time - because it seems even some atheists have trouble with the concept that Jesus was simply a dude. And not a particularly admirable or progressive dude.


If that dude even existed, as some fringe theories (http://www.skeptiko.com/241-joseph-atwill-repsonds-to-caesars-messiah-critics/) like to deduce that he didn't.

[argeiphontes]

It doesn't really work that way. Observation of the system doesn't change anything; what "makes" a system have definite characteristics (in the sense of a definite position, impulse etc.) is interaction with the environment. Observation simply records the outcome of that interaction,

Actually it does. Schroedinger's cat is a real paradox. Entaglement and all that voodoo is real. States are really indeterminate until observed (aka measured), and this is true of entangled pairs of particles. In other words, the findings of quantum mechanics are compatible with Absolute/Monisitic Idealism or some kind of Transcendental Materialism perhaps. For example:

http://physicsworld.com/cws/article/news/2007/apr/20/quantum-physics-says-goodbye-to-reality
http://www.rdmag.com/news/2014/07/scientists-separate-particle-its-properties

Although 'measurement' rather than conscious observation is what's needed for wave function collapse...
http://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?t=507154

...conscious observation seems sufficient:
http://www.deanradin.com/papers/Physics%20Essays%20Radin%20final.pdf

Gotta love science ;)

[bropasaran]

Good info. Thanks.

Two quick questions come to mind.

Do you think the Christian theology moral in terms of denying people the right to seek love as they wish and trying to control what some might see a s personal decisions?
I'm really not the person to talk to about relationship questions, I'm pretty f*cked up concerning sexuality, long story short, I was a far-right bonehead who started getting somewhat bisexual, which messed me up, I attempted suicide, went on to be a catholic monk, went to an ultra-orthodox catholic sect that denounces the Vatican church as immoral heretics, then left Christianity, I'm now something like SBNR, and I'm still celibate, avoiding exploring by experience anything that has to do with sexuality.

But to note, all religions trough history and geography have norms point of which is to control personal decisions of the followers of those religions. I've researched a lot of religious traditions, basically all of the traditional organized religion and their denominations, and (not counting modern ones) didn't find any that have a notion of some sort of a 'personal sphere' where people should decide by themselves how to act.


I cannot post links yet but please Google ---- WHEN SAME-SEX MARRIAGE WAS A CHRISTIAN RITE

Do you know anything about this practice? Is it a gay wedding?
Boswell grossly misrepresented a custom that appeared in the middle ages among some nations that are Eastern Orthodox and then tried to apply that misrepresentation of his to some pre-Schism examples that he also grossly misrepresents. There was never in Church's history any hint of approval of homosexuality, same situation is in Eastern Orthodoxy, Oriental Orthodoxy and Church of the East (which broke away from catholicism in the 10th, 5th and 5th century, respectively). Before modern times, the only time when some sizable Christian group held a positive view of homosexuality was in the first and second centuries when some libertine groups supposedly existed, if we assume that Church sources about them (which are the only extant ones that mention such groups) are not slurs.

I never really saw the point of that kind of revisionism, gays wanting approval of Christian churches, or when people do all sorts of mental acrobatics to try and make it look like Jesus and the Church were vegetarian or whatever, like, what's the big deal, if you wan't to be vegetarian, be one, who cares about Jesus and the church, why do you crave confirmation from there.


I often challenge Christians to moral debates and they always run and hide.
I'd venture to say that you never actually encountered a traditionalist Christian, who's not ashamed of historical Christian teachings. Group-wise, I know only of two groups that are really dedicated to preserving the historical doctrine and ethics of the church, from the Apostolic Fathers in the first centuries, through Church Fathers up to today, those are in the Catholic tradition the (non-conclavist) Sedevacantists, and in the EO tradition the Mathean Zealots, both are very small groups, I think neither have over 100k members.

[Red Economist]

It [Quantum Mechanics] doesn't really work that way. Observation of the system doesn't change anything; what "makes" a system have definite characteristics (in the sense of a definite position, impulse etc.) is interaction with the environment. Observation simply records the outcome of that interaction,

I'm going to have to sit down and read about it in some detail I think as I really need to know the science before I can draw philosophical conclusions on it; it's just never come up before.


Interesting view.

You are right in that we should be skeptical of anything that sounds close to supernatural. Telepathy is basically what we are talking of here when discussing contact with non-corporeal entities. What some see as woo should always be spoken of carefully.

I'm unsure whether to assume if the supernatural is simply very rare phenomena, or doesn't exist at all. But to be honest, it's probably something rare that we just don't have the knowledge to understand yet. The truth is usually pretty crazy.


When I had my apotheosis, had to decide if there was any veracity in my experience or whether it was a mind burp or some other completely internal mind and real experience.I became a Marxist during a mental breakdown, so I know quite well how you keep looking over your shoulder, thinking, "am I just chasing ghosts and shadows, or is this actually something real?" it's a tricky one really.
Marxism relies heavily on the romantic school of philosophy through dialectics, so intuition about human nature does kick in more often than in a liberal school of thought.
Often it is usually a combination of both internal and real experiences, but it's hard to figure out the balance between the two.


Not long before my apotheosis, I had my first telepathic experience that had me making contact for just a second or two with my wife who was in another part of our home. If I had not had that experience and an actual witness, victim was her word, to telepathy being real, I would likely have never believe the veracity of my second experience with the Godhead. Because of her testimony as well as mine in the first experience, I am forced to give veracity to the second. I cannot be sure of how I did what I did but I would die before denying what I see as truth. I imagine it was a very intense experience that kind of just cut through what you already knew about the nature of things. So as much as I might want to find a rational explanation, it may well be the case that you are the only one who can know the validity of it because it relies on your own inner experience and self-reflection.
The inner world of our consciousness has a depth which is very hard to describe to anyone without a shared experience; so perhaps you were fortunate that your wife felt it too.

If it was me, I'd wonder if it represented something to do with my unconscious sexual drives (given it's your wife and obviously you'll have feelings for her). However, Freudian explanations rely heavily on re-imaging sexual experience as not merely physical or biological, but psychological- and in much the same way as explaining religious experience, language simply breaks down without the shared experience to communicate.


Faith without facts is for fools but I have a few facts and that kills faith and becomes belief.Well said. it's a difficult balance to figure out. :grin:

[Red Economist]

p.s. I just looked up the definition of Apotheosis on wikipedia.


Apotheosis (from Greek (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greek_language) ἀποθέωσις from ἀποθεοῦν, apotheoun "to deify"; in Latin deificatio "making divine"; also called divinization and deification) is the glorification of a subject to divine (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Divinity) level. The term has meanings in theology (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theology), where it refers to a belief (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belief), and in art (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Art), where it refers to a genre (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genre).
In theology, the term apotheosis refers to the idea that an individual has been raised to godlike stature. In art, the term refers to the treatment of any subject (a figure, group, locale, motif, convention or melody) in a particularly grand or exalted manner.


Given that Gnosticism is about self-reflection and finding the divine within oneself, do you therefore consider yourself in some way divine? Or is it more of a question of re-discovering the divine which exists in all of us?

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

Actually it does. Schroedinger's cat is a real paradox. Entaglement and all that voodoo is real. States are really indeterminate until observed (aka measured), and this is true of entangled pairs of particles. In other words, the findings of quantum mechanics are compatible with Absolute/Monisitic Idealism or some kind of Transcendental Materialism perhaps. For example:

http://physicsworld.com/cws/article/news/2007/apr/20/quantum-physics-says-goodbye-to-reality
http://www.rdmag.com/news/2014/07/scientists-separate-particle-its-properties

Although 'measurement' rather than conscious observation is what's needed for wave function collapse...
http://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?t=507154

...conscious observation seems sufficient:
http://www.deanradin.com/papers/Physics%20Essays%20Radin%20final.pdf

Gotta love science ;)

Really, Dean Radin, the "author in the field of parapsychology" to put it politely? I mean, if you want to talk about the interpretation of quantum mechanics, at least find actual scientific sources. I would recommend some modern work on decoherence, Bohr's later articles (after his controversy with Fok), Everett's work (and I do mean Everett's work, not the guff some later popularisers have made it into), and Fok's work, although I think that is only in Russian (I think some of the people here might help with translating Fok's seminal "K diskusii..." article in "Pod znamenem Marksizma").

[Gnostic Christian Bishop]

p.s. I just looked up the definition of Apotheosis on wikipedia.



Given that Gnosticism is about self-reflection and finding the divine within oneself, do you therefore consider yourself in some way divine? Or is it more of a question of re-discovering the divine which exists in all of us?

Discovering. Not re-discovering.

The Gnostic Christian belief, as we are Universalists, says that we are all on the same path. We do not read literally as we think all religions and Gods should be thought of as myths to be internalized until apotheosis hits. Only then should any veracity be given to any of the Gods or ideas of God.

We are not literal readers but this quote we believe to be true.

2 Peter 3:9
The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness; but is longsuffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.

None are really ever lost to God but in the sense of that quote, we say that all are saved and in this we have no choice. It is our next evolutionary step and that cannot be stopped.

We think that, obviously, no omnipotent God could ever be seen as losing any of the souls he is said to love.

Regards
DL

[Red Economist]

Discovering. Not re-discovering. The Gnostic Christian belief, as we are Universalists, says that we are all on the same path. We do not read literally as we think all religions and Gods should be thought of as myths to be internalized until apotheosis hits. Only then should any veracity be given to any of the Gods or ideas of God.Yeah. In terms of 're-discovering' I was thinking of Islam; how people don't 'covert' to Islam, but 'covert back' to Allah.


We think that, obviously, no omnipotent God could ever be seen as losing any of the souls he is said to love.That's quite a nice idea. :)

[argeiphontes]

(I think some of the people here might help with translating Fok's seminal "K diskusii..." article in "Pod znamenem Marksizma").

I would recommend some non-Marxist publications, such as ones that deal with physics. At least Radin was published in Physics Essays not "Under the [something] of Marxism." Any interpretation of quantum mechanics should be investigated since there is no way to rule out any except by experimentation, and even then you're hitting the wall because it is completely possible that particles have no existence at all until an event requiring them to exist occurs, hence probability.

Besides, that wasn't my point. I'm perfectly prepared for Radin's work to be baloney. But are you prepared for materialism to be baloney?

For a Marxist, you love to rely on appeals to authority and ad hominem arguments more than one would assume.

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

I would recommend some non-Marxist publications, such as ones that deal with physics. At least Radin was published in Physics Essays not "Under the [something] of Marxism."

"Under the Banner of Marxism" was the most important Soviet philosophical journal and Fok was probably one of the most important figures in Soviet physics. If you do anything related to many-body systems, you're likely building on Fok's work. Physics Essays, on the other hand, is widely recognised as a crackpot journal, that publishes without regard for the quality of articles.

[argeiphontes]

"Under the Banner of Marxism" was the most important Soviet philosophical journal and Fok was probably one of the most important figures in Soviet physics. If you do anything related to many-body systems, you're likely building on Fok's work. Physics Essays, on the other hand, is widely recognised as a crackpot journal, that publishes without regard for the quality of articles.

See my edits above.

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

I would recommend some non-Marxist publications, such as ones that deal with physics. At least Radin was published in Physics Essays not "Under the [something] of Marxism." Any interpretation of quantum mechanics should be investigated since there is no way to rule out any except by experimentation, and even then you're hitting the wall because it is completely possible that particles have no existence at all until an event requiring them to exist occurs, hence probability.

Besides, that wasn't my point. I'm perfectly prepared for Radin's work to be baloney. But are you prepared for materialism to be baloney?

For a Marxist, you love to rely on appeals to authority and ad hominem arguments more than one would assume.

Pointing out the state of modern science, and the interpretations of quantum mechanics people outside a small circle of cranks actually hold (Fok was instrumental in formulating later variants of what is usually called "the Copenhagen interpretation" because popularisers are lazy), is not an appeal to authority.

Oh, and as for the peer-review policy of Physics Essays:

"Realizing the interchangeable roles of authors and reviewers, the positive aspect of the reviewing process will be retained by providing the authors with the reviewers' comments. Authors should judge which part of the reviewers' suggestions are appropriate to improve the quality of his or her paper. "So it's a vanity press.

[argeiphontes]

Pointing out the state of modern science, and the interpretations of quantum mechanics people outside a small circle of cranks actually hold (Fok was instrumental in formulating later variants of what is usually called "the Copenhagen interpretation" because popularisers are lazy), is not an appeal to authority.


That's not the appeal to authority I was talking about.



Oh, and as for the peer-review policy of Physics Essays:
That's the one. Why don't you read the paper and tell me what's wrong with it?

But, again, the point I was making had nothing to do with Radin, it's just a nice continuation of the slipperly slide towards Absolute Idealism (edit: or at least the end of physics). Mwa ha ha ha ha ha ha!

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

That's not the appeal to authority I was talking about.

That's the one. Why don't you read the paper and tell me what's wrong with it?

But, again, the point I was making had nothing to do with Radin, it's just a nice continuation of the slipperly slide towards Absolute Idealism (edit: or at least the end of physics). Mwa ha ha ha ha ha ha!

Take your pills, man, take your pills.

What's wrong with the article? Well, for one thing the experimental setup relies on the participants sensing the light by... wait for it... extrasensory perception. But generally, there is a rule in science: you stick to actual published, peer-reviewed scientific journals because if someone wanted to avoid the scrutiny of the usual publishing process, something is very clearly fishy.

[argeiphontes]

wait for it... extrasensory perception

From previous discussion(s), you know that I don't think you can rule anything out if it has experimental evidence. Quantum entanglement used to be "spooky action at a distance" too, and there's still no mechanism of action for it, and it propagates instantaneously and all that. I'll be happy to discuss this again in other thread if the opportunity comes up.


Take your pills, man, take your pills.


You know, 870, every time I reply to one of your posts I order another 5lbs of rice from Amazon. If we ever agree on anything, it'll be the first sign of the Apocalypse... :)

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

From previous discussion(s), you know that I don't think you can rule anything out if it has experimental evidence.

Except there is no experimental evidence for "extrasensory perception", and in any case one doesn't "explain" one new and unexplored phenomenon by invoking another, particularly not if there is no evidence apart from wishful thinking that the second phenomenon exists. That would be the equivalent of saying that, well, sure poltergeist activity has decreased, the ghosts are frightened by the psychic death rays the Antarans are beaming in our direction.


Quantum entanglement used to be "spooky action at a distance" too, and there's still no mechanism of action for it, and it propagates instantaneously and all that. I'll be happy to discuss this again in other thread if the opportunity comes up.

It's a statistical effect. Please, be honest here, how many serious treatments of the problem have you read? And I mean serious, published scientific work, not pop sci or worse (I almost wrote "poo sci", which would have been amusing simply on account of being largely true). Most people, it seems, just absorb the most fantastic claims and the flashiest explanations from popular work, not bothering to learn about the phenomenon. And then they try to "win" against people who actually work in the field, which is I think specific to physics, as I don't see many people claiming they know better than biologists because they watch the Discovery Channel.

[Gnostic Christian Bishop]

Yeah. In terms of 're-discovering' I was thinking of Islam; how people don't 'covert' to Islam, but 'covert back' to Allah.

That's quite a nice idea. :)
And quite logical as compared to how Christians must view their theology.

Hence these quotes.

“Faith must trample under foot all reason, sense, and understanding.”

“Reason is a whore, the greatest enemy that faith has.”

Martin Luther “

This puts the rest of us in a position where reasoning with theist becomes impossible.

It is useless to attempt to reason a man out of a thing he was never reasoned into.

Regards
DL

[Red Economist]

“Faith must trample under foot all reason, sense, and understanding.” Holy sh*t, that's crazy. I mean...wow. :confused:

[quietly, tries to hide copies of Stalinist literature].

I'm not sure I asked, but were you a gnostic before or after your telepathic experience with your wife? Was it something you were hoping for, or was it unexpected? I'm just wondering which one came first.

[Gnostic Christian Bishop]

Holy sh*t, that's crazy. I mean...wow. :confused:

[quietly, tries to hide copies of Stalinist literature].

I'm not sure I asked, but were you a gnostic before or after your telepathic experience with your wife? Was it something you were hoping for, or was it unexpected? I'm just wondering which one came first.

Only a number of years after my apotheosis did I choose Gnostic Christianity. It is a thinking mans religion and I liked that they sought to tolerate and unite all peoples and Gods.

The minimum any religion should preach is equality of the sexes and most of the other religions do not teach that simple standard.

They all give it lip service but as you can see, even with religions being the majority forever, equality is still not at hand.

Before becoming a Gnostic Christian, I was just a guy who had an apotheosis and no God. I still have no God but myself which is what Gnostic Christians are all about.

http://www.thesongofgod.com/tgc/basic_beliefs.html

As Jesus asked in the bible, --- have ye forgotten that ye are Gods?

Most people have thanks to evil literalist reading of myths.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=alRNbesfXXw&feature=player_embedded

Regards
DL

[Gnostic Christian Bishop]

http://i.imgur.com/IBroXK9.jpg

Regards
DL

[Red Economist]

Only a number of years after my apotheosis did I choose Gnostic Christianity. It is a thinking mans religion and I liked that they sought to tolerate and unite all peoples and Gods.

Ok. so it was in reasoning out your apotheosis that you found Gnosticism.


The minimum any religion should preach is equality of the sexes and most of the other religions do not teach that simple standard.

They all give it lip service but as you can see, even with religions being the majority forever, equality is still not at hand.


I think if memory serves there have been historic ebb and flows of liberalization and authoritarianism in religions. Literalism only really started in the 19th century, but your still basically right. Or has literalistic readings of the bible seen something that's changed over time too?



Before becoming a Gnostic Christian, I was just a guy who had an apotheosis and no God. I still have no God but myself which is what Gnostic Christians are all about.

http://www.thesongofgod.com/tgc/basic_beliefs.html

no wonder you spend so much time on the left. ;)

Do you struggle with the nature of your beliefs? (I do as a Marxist as it involves several leaps of faith based on asserting the 'essence' of things over their 'appearances').
I mean as in much of the bigotry of what is today considered to be 'normal' behavior, is about making assertions based on appearance; e.g. someone does something evil, therefore they are evil [actually that's one of the more sophisticated, when you get away from sexism and racism]. Where as progressive beliefs are based on making a distinction between appearance and essence, e.g. just because someone does evil things, do not automatically make them evil.


13. In order for faith to be real and acceptable to God, then such a faith must always acknowledge the believer’s right to walk away from that faith without any judgment or condemnation from God, or from God’s appointed church. True faith, justified faith, is always about choice; for it is the freedom to choose that makes a faith powerful. It is not correct doctrine which empowers the believer, but rather the freedom to choose, and in the choosing, faith becomes the gift we give ourselves.

I like this one. It's the mark of sincerity and integrity of belief as well as freedom.



As Jesus asked in the bible, --- have ye forgotten that ye are Gods?

Most people have thanks to evil literalist reading of myths.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=alRN...layer_embedded (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=alRNbesfXXw&feature=player_embedded)

Marxism draws on Ludwig Feuerbach's concept of Atheism, in which god is a projection of man and that god is an alienated self-concept of man. So in a way, I would agree with you- that man is a 'god' in a sense. In some ways, Marxism is therefore an attempt to re-discover man's self-alienation and become 'god' in a purely physical material sense in being master of the natural world and of social life.

So,the fact it was a horrible mess is in someways a predictable result of wanting to 'play god'- at least without discovering the true 'human, 'social' self.

It is interesting how Alan Watts comments on the interplay between the idea of a divine monarchy and a monarchy as a system of government on earth- or in it's present manifestation, fascism. It is amazing how these things evolve.

I read the beginning of John Locke's Two Treaties on Government which set out that case for constitutional government by consent, and I was struck by how much it relied on re-interpreting genisis and the role of Adam in challenging the concept of 'divine right', as I had always assumed liberalism had been clearly secular. So the idea of believing in a spiritual republic of equals as the precursor to an actual republic of equal makes alot of sense.

http://i.imgur.com/IBroXK9.jpg

At this point, I would say "god help us", but that's kind of the issue. :crying:

[Gnostic Christian Bishop]

Thanks for the intelligent reply.

The literalism I was speaking of is what they have called what the early church did after Constantine bought it. They force all the Christian and semi-pagan cults to only accept the 4 main gospels as gospels. They burned most of the other gospels around in that day and basically annihilated all those who would not reject all other gospels. The start of Inquisitions basically.

The literal type of reading that is done today I agree is fairly recent. It is quite foolish to do so but then that is Christianity and Islam for you.

----------------------------

“Do you struggle with the nature of your beliefs?”

Not in the least as it does not rely on the supernatural and can be fully expressed without a miracle working absentee God that we have to follow even though he is not here to follow and whose message has been screwed up by men.

I do not have to rely on faith as you do thanks to my apotheosis, let’s just call it revelation, and being a Gnostic Christian whose theology is based on logic and not dictates from above, I get to deal with facts and not fictions.

Faith without facts is something I often throw at Christians when they stumble on debate and go hide behind their blind faith based on nothing.

-----------------------------

“e.g. just because someone does evil things, do not automatically make them evil.”

I would need a scenario to judge the veracity of your statement but think I can agree.

Except that if the good of the act surpasses the evil then I would not brand it evil in the first place. Do a quick example to show your reasoning.

--------------------------

Marxism is therefore an attempt to re-discover man's self-alienation and become 'god' in a purely physical material sense in being master of the natural world and of social life.

The way you describe it is almost pure Gnostic Christian.

As above so below.

End times mythically predict that the laws of God and heaven will be the same law on earth. It is to us here to impose our law on heaven. Our secular law has already surpassed the poor morality shown in the bible and religions will just have to adjust to it or die. A good example od this is gay marriage.

Younger generations will not tolerate discrimination without just cause. They will not judge a person by who is in their bed.

Our level of intelligence and morality will eventually kill all religions. That does not serve me well as a Gnostic Christian but if the mainstream religions are not going to do better than secular law and only promote superstition and sugar daddy Gods then they deserve to die and if my religions follows then that is just too bad. I have to go with what is best for society at large.

Regards
DL

[Gnostic Christian Bishop]

Red

Apologies on the fonts. G D program will not let me edit.

Regards
DL

[Red Economist]

nah, it's cool. This forum can be a bit glitchy at times. I can't always edit it because all the text just disapears, so there's nothing let to edit.


e.g. just because someone does evil things, do not automatically make them evil.”
I would need a scenario to judge the veracity of your statement but think I can agree.
Except that if the good of the act surpasses the evil then I would not brand it evil in the first place. Do a quick example to show your reasoning.

No, that's fine. I think we're in agreement on this.


Marxism is therefore an attempt to re-discover man's self-alienation and become 'god' in a purely physical material sense in being master of the natural world and of social life.

The way you describe it is almost pure Gnostic Christian.

Yeah. I was beginning to suspect that. :grin:


End times mythically predict that the laws of God and heaven will be the same law on earth. It is to us here to impose our law on heaven. Our secular law has already surpassed the poor morality shown in the bible and religions will just have to adjust to it or die. A good example od this is gay marriage. Younger generations will not tolerate discrimination without just cause. They will not judge a person by who is in their bed.

well said. we've gone beyond the literal 'good' and 'evil' interpretations, but it comes back every so often, in a different form; .e.g. Fascism (and Communism when it's being Totalitarian).


Our level of intelligence and morality will eventually kill all religions. That does not serve me well as a Gnostic Christian but if the mainstream religions are not going to do better than secular law and only promote superstition and sugar daddy Gods then they deserve to die and if my religions follows then that is just too bad. I have to go with what is best for society at large.

I'm not 100% sure this is necessarily true. If I define religion in a narrow sense as belief in 'god', science is showing that there are natural explanations to how the world works. But Science cannot disprove the existence of god. This is something the followers of 'New Atheism' like Richard Darwkins and Christopher Hitchens are probably finding. I became an atheist by Marxism and secondary school science, so I haven't read their books, but they seem very narrow. They seem to miss out the human element of actually having a 'belief' and knowing it may not necessarily be true.

The non-existence of god is something that requires a philosophical proof because, as an underlying assumption, it originates from human consciousness. Basically it is an act of will to set aside religion. For that to happen, pretty much everyone would have to agree that religious reasoning is no longer valid and the advances of science are no where near that level.

Religion however is not outright 'false'; it is an ideology which simply organizes it's understanding round a central governing principle- the existence of god. Marxism is organised round a different set of governing principles or dogmas, so it actually shares some aspects of religion because it is a 'romantic' philosophy based on intuition and emotion. In both cases, there is a universal human content irrespective of the social evolution- and that core can be carried on (and must be) even in an atheist world view.

And what is best for society at large is everyone thinking for themselves. Think subversive thoughts my friend. ;)

[Dave B]

As Jesus asked in the bible, --- have ye forgotten that ye are Gods?

In 1844 Karl was a Fuerbachian, and Fuerbach was indeed and interesting thinker.

He was one of the first people to turn things on their head or invert them to see what they looked like then, although perhaps that was part of the Socratic method.

Fuerbach basically postulated that it wasn’t so much that God made man in his own image but that man made god in his own image.

Or perhaps more accurately men had an image of God that was a reflection of, and fitted in with their own ideology, value system and even personality.

It didn’t actually require each person to totally invent their own personal God; all that was needed was a version to be presented to them that fitted their own position.

A bit like buying a pair of shoes or a suit.

This was the genesis of the idea of superstructural ideology being a product or ‘mirror’ of material economic base, ‘pursuit’ or just an economic interest.

[That was different to the previous Hegelian ‘idea’ that ideas independently evolve and unfold of themselves in a positive direction; a bit like science.

I actually think that the Hegelian ‘idea’ with its thesis, anti thesis and synthesis was plagiarised from the ‘scientific method’.]

So when looking at any ‘revolutionary’ ideology which would include a religion, especially at its point of origin, one should look for a correlation between the economic base of its early adherents and its essential content.

That shouldn’t be rocket science with early Christianity as its economic base was the poor, oppressed and dispossessed and its essence was a rabid hostility to the ruling class and the rich etc; expressed metaphysically.

But that was its negative programme like leftist have a shared negative programme towards capitalism and the capitalists.

However according to Fuerbach, and I agree with him like Karl ‘did’, early Christianity or the essence of it had or seemed to have a positive programme.

(it doesn’t matter if it was irrational or not- in fact it being irrational made it a more ‘interesting’ object of analysis).

That was the idea within Christianity of mutuality and humility (as an antithesis and negation of hierarchy).

Unfortunately for us this was couched with term ‘Love’.

For Feuerbach this positive programme was the irrational form or expression of an innate frustrated communist or social instinct.

Or in other words Feuerbach deduced the existence of a natural communistic ‘Mutual Aid’ like social instinct/human essence, and propensity for communism from the ‘Essence of Christianity’.

Or in other words to use ‘Marxist’ jargon the ‘content’ of the positive programme of ‘love’, or if you like the cause, was an innate social instinct/human essence that being socially frustrated expressed itself in another ‘form’.


Thus;


To Ludwig Feuerbach In Bruckberg Paris, August 11 1844




Dear Sir,

Since I just have the opportunity, I take the liberty of sending you an article of mine in which some elements of my critical philosophy of law [Contribution to the Critique of Hegel's Philosophy of Right. Introduction (https://marxists.anu.edu.au/archive/marx/works/1843/critique-hpr/index.htm)] are outlined. I had already finished it once but have since revised it in order to make it more generally comprehensible. I don't attribute any exceptional value to this essay but I am glad to have an opportunity of assuring you of the great respect and — if I may use the word — love, which I feel for you. Your Philosophie der Zukunft, and your Wesen des Glaubens, in spite of their small size, are certainly of greater weight than the whole of contemporary German literature put together.

In these writings you have provided — I don't know whether intentionally — a philosophical basis for socialism and the Communists have immediately understood them in this way. The unity of man with man, which is based on the real differences between men, the concept of the human species brought down from the heaven of abstraction to the real earth, what is this but the concept of society!

https://marxists.anu.edu.au/archive/marx/works/1844/letters/44_08_11.htm

Thus again; early Christianity was the product of a ‘reaction’ of this human essence and innate social instinct to the unnatural ‘private property as human self-estrangement’.

Driven by human’s social instinct to return to its natural state.

Modern communism would be merely a consciousness of this fact and turned into something rational.

As not just a good idea but something that fulfils an emotional/instinctive need.

Thus;


3) Communism as the positive transcendence of private property as human self-estrangement, and therefore as the real appropriation of the human essence by and for man; communism therefore as the complete return of man to himself as a social (i.e., human) being – a return accomplished consciously and embracing the entire wealth of previous development. This communism, as fully developed naturalism, equals humanism, and as fully developed humanism equals naturalism; it is the genuine resolution of the conflict between man and nature and between man and man – the true resolution of the strife between existence and essence, between objectification and self-confirmation, between freedom and necessity, between the individual and the species. Communism is the riddle of history solved, and it knows itself to be this solution.


https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1844/manuscripts/comm.htm

Stirner responded that egotism and materialism were in-separately fused together as one concept and that a social instinct could have no material basis.

Something that was debunked in Darwin’s second book and later in Kropotkins and Pannekoek’s material.

Engels later accepted the notion of the social instinct in Darwin’s book and that probably led to a partial reappraisal and return to the original 1844 and post Stirner position.

As we can see I think in Kautsky’s work and Engels’

http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1894/early-christianity/index.htm



As Marx and Engels noted in their superstructure- economic base theory; it is exceptional for super-structural ideologies to generate revolutionary ideologies, they tend to rework or revise existing ones.

Thus Christianity was reworked away from class hostility and mutuality to adapt it to say feudalism, just as Marxism was reworked to adapt itself to Bolshevik state capitalism and Stalinism etc.

Eg you had Stalin saying in 1906


..in socialist society there will be no need for the existence of political power….


http://www.marx2mao.com/Stalin/AS07.html#c3


Actually in a way early Christianity itself was a revision of the Old Testament material and concept of God, and modern Christianity a reversion back to it.

The Old Testament god was vindictive, vain and interventionist.

So much so that material success was proof of God’s blessing and being say disabled was his curse for sin’s and even the sin’s of your fathers etc etc.

As with say the ‘divine right of kings’; an attractive ideology for the ruling class.

The early Christian and gospel ideology that ‘wealth and power’ was in the gift of the Devil, ‘this is not my kingdom’ and the rich were Satanic appealed to the other class in society.

[One of the earliest heresies was Marcionism in the 2nd century which basically said the Old Testament God was different to the one in the Gospel [pamphlets].

As regards the first inquisition etc that was in fact against the Cathars who basically held to the original view of the material world with its economic and social system being innately evil etc etc.

On different world’s perhaps an unrevised religion might be slightly different.



The Ferengi concepts of the afterlife are a mirror of their pursuit of wealth in life. When a Ferengi dies, he is said to meet the Blessed Exchequer, who reviews the financial statements of that Ferengi's entire life. If he earned a profit, he is ushered into Ferengi heaven: the Divine Treasury, where the Celestial Auctioneers allow him to bid on a new life. Ferengi who were not financially successful in life are damned to the Vault of Eternal Destitution.[3] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ferengi#cite_note-3)
When a Ferengi prays or bows in reverence, he holds his hands in a bowl shape with his wrists together. A typical Ferengi prayer begins with this phrase: "Blessed Exchequer, whose greed is eternal, allow this bribe to open your ears and hear this plea from your most humble debtor." As is typical, this is accompanied by placing a slip of latinum into a small statue made in the Exchequer's likeness.
Ferengi also make regular pilgrimages to Earth's Wall Street (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wall_Street), which they view as a holy site of commerce and business



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ferengi#Religion



Mixed in with the trash there is loads of good stuff in Star Trek; including moneyless ‘communism’

[Gnostic Christian Bishop]

nah, it's cool. This forum can be a bit glitchy at times. I can't always edit it because all the text just disapears, so there's nothing let to edit.



No, that's fine. I think we're in agreement on this.



Yeah. I was beginning to suspect that. :grin:



well said. we've gone beyond the literal 'good' and 'evil' interpretations, but it comes back every so often, in a different form; .e.g. Fascism (and Communism when it's being Totalitarian).



I'm not 100% sure this is necessarily true. If I define religion in a narrow sense as belief in 'god', science is showing that there are natural explanations to how the world works. But Science cannot disprove the existence of god. This is something the followers of 'New Atheism' like Richard Darwkins and Christopher Hitchens are probably finding. I became an atheist by Marxism and secondary school science, so I haven't read their books, but they seem very narrow. They seem to miss out the human element of actually having a 'belief' and knowing it may not necessarily be true.


Yes, trying to prove God does not exist is definitely a logical fallacy and impossible for science to do.

Only the opposite can be shown to be true, that God is real, and religions of course have failed to do so.

God has never popped up to declare his reality and that is the only possible proof that could be accepted.



The non-existence of god is something that requires a philosophical proof because, as an underlying assumption, it originates from human consciousness.

I disagree as there can be no proof of God's non-existence. We cannot look everywhere at the same time and that sneaky bastard could be flipping about.

There is a difference between not believing in something and saying that that something does not exist.


Basically it is an act of will to set aside religion. For that to happen, pretty much everyone would have to agree that religious reasoning is no longer valid and the advances of science are no where near that level.


Again I disagree.

Science can be used quite easily to show morals.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hj9oB4zpHww


Religion however is not outright 'false'; it is an ideology which simply organizes it's understanding round a central governing principle- the existence of god.

If the governing principle or God can be shown to be false, or if that principle God cannot prove itself to be true, then it cannot be said that it is false.


Marxism is organised round a different set of governing principles or dogmas, so it actually shares some aspects of religion because it is a 'romantic' philosophy based on intuition and emotion. In both cases, there is a universal human content irrespective of the social evolution- and that core can be carried on (and must be) even in an atheist world view.

And what is best for society at large is everyone thinking for themselves. Think subversive thoughts my friend. ;)



When they can be found, for sure. If none rebelled, like Rosa Parks did, we would still have slavery and the U.S. would be a British holding without the Boston tea party.

The trick to rebellion is to make sure that what you are fighting for or rebelling against is moral and worthy.

Regards
DL

[Gnostic Christian Bishop]

Dave B

Thanks for this.

You have done a lot off research in this area and I cannot really say to much as I have not.

I did pull this.

"That was the idea within Christianity of mutuality and humility (as an antithesis and negation of hierarchy)."

When Christianity annihilated the Gnostic Christians and others who did not wish to follow their literal only 4 main gospels view, they were also pushing for a hierarch within Christianity. Adherents were to have to climb that hierarchy to get to God. Gnostic said the opposite. That all had direct access to God and did not have to suck up to a bunch of men in dresses and funny hats who also had to be paid to appease God and insure the adherent did not burn in the hell that the church invented.

The mutuality you speak of is of course only to their own and humility is also rather a droll concept when you profess to have a pipeline to God and that the rest of the world is somehow all wrong and does not.

Regards
DL

[argeiphontes]

Red

Apologies on the fonts. G D program will not let me edit.

Regards
DL

What about copying and pasting into notepad first, then copying again and pasting here?

edit: Interesting discussion in this thread...

[Red Economist]

Yes, trying to prove God does not exist is definitely a logical fallacy and impossible for science to do.

Only the opposite can be shown to be true, that God is real, and religions of course have failed to do so.

God has never popped up to declare his reality and that is the only possible proof that could be accepted.

Yeah, it would kind of nice of god to show up. But he'd probably only do it when we're all atheists and go "boo".

:ohmy:



I disagree as there can be no proof of God's non-existence. We cannot look everywhere at the same time and that sneaky bastard could be flipping about.

There is a difference between not believing in something and saying that that something does not exist.

God is not a conclusion but an assumption. The idea of creation and therefore of the prime mover is based on a system of logic, not proof. It is a question of going back indefinitely to find some kind of 'original cause'. So the 'proof' of god is based on logic, not necessarily evidence.

The non-existence of god is based on a possible philosophical proof in that god is a dis-embodied consciousness. If it can be shown scientifically that the mind and the body cannot be separate, then philosophically the belief in god, the soul and the afterlife would collapse- as each rely on the assumption of a dualist philosophy between mind and body/matter. It would show scientifically that religion is man's self-estrangement.



Again I disagree.

Science can be used quite easily to show morals.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hj9oB4zpHww


no. Science alone cannot establish a morality. Any moral system is still a product of human beings and therefore contains a degree of subjectivity. I'm not against a scientific conception of man, but there is a limit to what science can do before it becomes a tyrannical pursuit. This may well be a question about the definition of science, rather than whether science can be a basis for morality.

Institutionalized Science has a very dangerous belief that the truth is wholly objective and can therefore be discovered only in the external world. Now it is certainly preferable to base conclusions on evidence, but science rests on a series of philosophical assumptions and contains it's own morality.

The belief in scientific inquiry and the search for truth as a moral motivation of the scientists can lead someone to want to find a cure for a disease, or to weaponize it. When truth is considered to be wholly objective, it is alienated from the person and it's consequences on other people. Scientific rationality can exclude and repress moral feeling as well as identify an objective and external basis for it.
Science in some ways continues to contain the seeds of religion in seeking to create a wholly objective conception of man, in much the same way religion seeks a wholly objective god. There is an absolutism in science which is as conducive to fanaticism as religion. Could Social Darwinism be considered a truly human morality, even if it is a scientific one?

Neoliberalism, like Fascism and Marxism-Leninism (Stalinist Communism) claims a scientific basis for morality. Yet, each one of those contains immorality- so science cannot be the whole answer because the question is made by human beings, so the answer must be for human beings. Not just the 'facts'.

Science can be so absolutist that it leaves no room for doubt- and doubt, so long as it is a small space in our understanding and not a crisis in our knowledge, is the basis of human growth because we seek to better understand ourselves.


If the governing principle or God can be shown to be false, or if that principle God cannot prove itself to be true, then it cannot be said that it is false.

Life would be much easier if that was the case. Take the argument to it's logical absurdity; If god as a governing principle is false, it is a false belief which is held contrary the evidence. Therefore it is a 'delusion'.

Whilst saying religion is a dellusion might work with individuals, it does not work on a societal level. Religion has existed for thousands of years, and science did not become seperate from it until the 19th century. In the enlightenment in the 18th century, 'natural science' was part of 'natural philosophy' and natural philosophy contained elements from theology. Many scientists worked to understand the universe because they wanted to understand god (Einstein being an obvious example).

Man has lived without the kind of institutional science that developed in the 19th century and did relatively 'ok' with religious explanations for several thousand years. In practice, religion cannot be shown to be false or as delusional- because it does not show itself to be wholly dysfunctional in the thousands of years that it existed, even if we may wish to call it destructive.

[Red Economist]

When they can be found, for sure. If none rebelled, like Rosa Parks did, we would still have slavery and the U.S. would be a British holding without the Boston tea party.

The trick to rebellion is to make sure that what you are fighting for or rebelling against is moral and worthy.

Sorry, missed this bit.

The very act of rebellion or fighting may itself not be wholly moral, even if what is being fought for is. The "end justifies the means" is an accusation that sticks against communists even though they rarely used it to describe themselves. So honestly, don't know on this one.

If anyone else wants to join in, feel free. Dave B knows more than me on this so- you're very welcome to chip in. I'm just making this stuff up as I go along and so I'm probably riding over a lot of subtleties and missing out alot of stuff.

I think Engels would have a go at me for almost putting philosophy before science in my last post as an idealist position. :confused:

[Dave B]

I think when it comes to Gnosticism we are faced with the problem that most of what we know about them comes from the critical literature of the ‘early church fathers’ from the approximately the third century.

Who were in the process of founding an organised religion based on the principals of Bolshevik Vanguardism, ‘centralised democracy’ and a catholic version of the third international and Comintern.

However we can learn something from the vitriolic attacks on them.

They appeared to have two principles.

One was a view that the ‘world’ was essentially evil or Satanic and that included the concrete, but as well more important, to ourselves, the general social and economic status quo etc.

It was a bit like the idea that we are living in a satanic virtual reality computer game for some reason or other.

The second was the idea, that persisted later on in different forms, of the notion of the universal priesthood.

Where people can and must become ‘religiously’ emancipated by spontaneous self revelation without dogmatic instruction etc.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Priesthood_of_all_believers

That idea probably still persists theoretically with the Quakers and was a central tenet of Luther; when the Catholic Comintern ruled the show.

However Protestantism with its own dogma’s and organisation became itself what it opposed.

As the post early church became increasing integrated into the status quo, professionalised and institutionalised both Gnostic tenets became increasingly unacceptable.

What is remarkable I think about the canonical gospels is that the inconvenient stuff remains in it and hasn’t been deleted.

Perhaps there was more that was.

The woman caught in adultery might be an example of something that nearly successfully removed.


It is omitted from many versions; I think it is more likely given its content that attempts were made to remove it rather it being added in.

It might seem strange to hear a Marxist say that there is stuff in the gospels that doesn’t sound right.



I picked it up and read it cold and the bit about the ‘Eunuchs’ sounded totally out of place to me.

I think it was originally about homosexuality not that is a subject that greatly interests myself.

If it was it would be something that needed tweaking.

There are a wide variety of ‘other gospels’ which vary considerably in ‘quality’ and ‘provenance’. There was clearly money to be made in producing convincing forgeries as there was in holy relics in the middle ages.

Some are crude and really cranky and others extremely sophisticated.



Some are dated very early and there is good evidence that they had just as wide a circulation early on as the cannonical ones.

Eg the Quran contains material and perhaps only material from the infancy gospel of Thomas.

[Gnostic Christian Bishop]

What about copying and pasting into notepad first, then copying again and pasting here?

edit: Interesting discussion in this thread...

I will do some tests.

Regards
DL

[Gnostic Christian Bishop]

Yeah, it would kind of nice of god to show up. But he'd probably only do it when we're all atheists and go "boo".

:ohmy:



God is not a conclusion but an assumption. The idea of creation and therefore of the prime mover is based on a system of logic, not proof. It is a question of going back indefinitely to find some kind of 'original cause'. So the 'proof' of god is based on logic, not necessarily evidence.

The non-existence of god is based on a possible philosophical proof in that god is a dis-embodied consciousness. If it can be shown scientifically that the mind and the body cannot be separate, then philosophically the belief in god, the soul and the afterlife would collapse- as each rely on the assumption of a dualist philosophy between mind and body/matter. It would show scientifically that religion is man's self-estrangement.




no. Science alone cannot establish a morality. Any moral system is still a product of human beings and therefore contains a degree of subjectivity. I'm not against a scientific conception of man, but there is a limit to what science can do before it becomes a tyrannical pursuit. This may well be a question about the definition of science, rather than whether science can be a basis for morality.

Institutionalized Science has a very dangerous belief that the truth is wholly objective and can therefore be discovered only in the external world. Now it is certainly preferable to base conclusions on evidence, but science rests on a series of philosophical assumptions and contains it's own morality.

The belief in scientific inquiry and the search for truth as a moral motivation of the scientists can lead someone to want to find a cure for a disease, or to weaponize it. When truth is considered to be wholly objective, it is alienated from the person and it's consequences on other people. Scientific rationality can exclude and repress moral feeling as well as identify an objective and external basis for it.
Science in some ways continues to contain the seeds of religion in seeking to create a wholly objective conception of man, in much the same way religion seeks a wholly objective god. There is an absolutism in science which is as conducive to fanaticism as religion. Could Social Darwinism be considered a truly human morality, even if it is a scientific one?

Neoliberalism, like Fascism and Marxism-Leninism (Stalinist Communism) claims a scientific basis for morality. Yet, each one of those contains immorality- so science cannot be the whole answer because the question is made by human beings, so the answer must be for human beings. Not just the 'facts'.

Science can be so absolutist that it leaves no room for doubt- and doubt, so long as it is a small space in our understanding and not a crisis in our knowledge, is the basis of human growth because we seek to better understand ourselves.



Life would be much easier if that was the case. Take the argument to it's logical absurdity; If god as a governing principle is false, it is a false belief which is held contrary the evidence. Therefore it is a 'delusion'.

Whilst saying religion is a dellusion might work with individuals, it does not work on a societal level. Religion has existed for thousands of years, and science did not become seperate from it until the 19th century. In the enlightenment in the 18th century, 'natural science' was part of 'natural philosophy' and natural philosophy contained elements from theology. Many scientists worked to understand the universe because they wanted to understand god (Einstein being an obvious example).

Man has lived without the kind of institutional science that developed in the 19th century and did relatively 'ok' with religious explanations for several thousand years. In practice, religion cannot be shown to be false or as delusional- because it does not show itself to be wholly dysfunctional in the thousands of years that it existed, even if we may wish to call it destructive.

Interesting and wide ranging thoughts.

I have something that speaks to this. " Whilst saying religion is a dellusion might work with individuals, it does not work on a societal level."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LNSe4Ff57n4&feature=player_embedded


"If it can be shown scientifically that the mind and the body cannot be separate,".

I think they are close to showing that mind and body can be separate.

http://vimeo.com/26318064

I also have done telepathy twice so the separation of mind and body to me is quite real and true.

"Science alone cannot establish a morality. Any moral system is still a product of human beings and therefore contains a degree of subjectivity.".

Here is a scientific method showing morality.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xa6c3OTr6yA

Which moral issue do you see that you think cannot be scientifically answered?

Regards
DL

[Gnostic Christian Bishop]

Sorry, missed this bit.

The very act of rebellion or fighting may itself not be wholly moral, even if what is being fought for is. The "end justifies the means" is an accusation that sticks against communists even though they rarely used it to describe themselves. So honestly, don't know on this one.

If anyone else wants to join in, feel free. Dave B knows more than me on this so- you're very welcome to chip in. I'm just making this stuff up as I go along and so I'm probably riding over a lot of subtleties and missing out alot of stuff.

I think Engels would have a go at me for almost putting philosophy before science in my last post as an idealist position. :confused:

Yes. It all depends on the reason for the rebellion and how it is done.

The ends being justified by the means cannot be covered by the one statement as we do not know the details and each rebellion would have to be judged individually.

Louis Pasteur's notes show that he lied about his vaccines efficacy on a test case to continue his unproven chemical trials on the first boy that lived.

That lie saves many lives but it might have been murder if the child had died.

How tough should tough love by is a hard question to answer with a firm policy.

Regards
DL

[Gnostic Christian Bishop]

Dave B

That last was for you. Apologies that I cannot edit that post. G D system is still not cooperating.

Regards
DL

[Red Economist]

Interesting and wide ranging thoughts.

I have something that speaks to this. " Whilst saying religion is a dellusion might work with individuals, it does not work on a societal level."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LNSe4Ff57n4&feature=player_embedded



I'm uncomfortable with describing religion as a dellusion for two reasons;

the first is that as someone whose had mental illness (depression and anxiety in the main) I can vouch that diagnosis are often accurate and rely heavily on the insight of both the therapist and the patient. The job of therapy is basically to allow the patient to re-discover themselves through psychological insight. If I'm not mistaken, most diagnostic criteria for mental illness are not based on establishing a casual relations but based on identifying a 'cluster' of symptoms that appear to be inter-related.

The second, it that classifying religion as mental illness or dellusion has clearly political outcomes. The Soviets in the 60's and 70's themselves used to define religion as a mental illness and would (I think depending on how important the person was) forcibly confine them into psychiatric institutions to 'correct' them. This was part of a much wider policy of attrbituing 'anti-communist' beliefs as a mental health problem or 'sluggishly progressing schizophrenia' (i.e. having anti-communist beliefs is anti-social therefore, a precursor to mental illness).

The question is ultimately can someone have the right to hold a belief which we believe or can establish to be false. Because of the philosophical uncertainty regarding the nature of religion, the changefulness of human belief systems, as well as the implications of trying to treat 80-90% of the people alive today- I am very cautious about this. I'm not 100% opposed, but on an emotional level I know that if I was put into a mental institution for having 'extreme' or 'eccentric' beliefs- I would not wish it on anyone else.

A world where psychiatrists define not simply who is sane, but 'how' sane someone is feels like it will end up with the words "I love big brother" from Orwell's 1984. I don't think a 'belief' is the problem- it's the actions that really matter.



"If it can be shown scientifically that the mind and the body cannot be separate,".

I think they are close to showing that mind and body can be separate.

http://vimeo.com/26318064

I also have done telepathy twice so the separation of mind and body to me is quite real and true.

If this is the case then I'm in serious trouble as Marxism relies on the materiaist dogma that mind is dependent on the body. The reason Marxists hold that economic determines politics, is that "you have to eat before you can think". I would explain consciousness in purely physical terms. I just 'don't know' what those physical terms are.

To be honest, science is a battle ground between philosophical ideas and I would probably assert a materialist philosophy even though it is a dogmatic position. So, I suppose I would end up defending my own dogmas in the same sense as anyone else, if a scientist came out and said "it's official; god exists!"

My hope is that I could physically see the evidence for myself- and then I would be open to it. It is perhaps possible that this is simply a conditioned thought pattern that I would have to train myself out of.

In the case of 'blind sight' (in the first half of the documentary: Vimeo is a bit slow, so I'm watching it on youtube), the fact that the 'sight' can be seen by parts of the brain not normally associated with sight on a computer screen, would mean I would accept it as a physical phenomena. Beyond that I don't know.

So I would put my philosophical hunch against a scientist on occasion. this is not intellectual territory I would normally enter, because I support science as a way of establish truth. But after a certain point I cannot rationally explain why I believe what I believe and it's rests on my own personal philosophies; it only feels 'self-evident', even though I know it is something I have learned. It would take a profound personal experience, whether a single trauma or an accumulation of experiences to shake that belief. Is it the same for you?

I hope my honesty does not offend you. I suppose that there is a security in believing in these dogmas that the universe is law-governed.


"Science alone cannot establish a morality. Any moral system is still a product of human beings and therefore contains a degree of subjectivity.".

Here is a scientific method showing morality.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xa6c3OTr6yA

Which moral issue do you see that you think cannot be scientifically answered?

I do not hold that truth is wholly objective. Truth, is a function of human knowledge. Whilst matter exists objectively, knowledge of it is dependent on the viewer. George Orwell illustrates the problems of this in 1984 by saying that 2+2=5 if the 'party' thinks so.

If truth is therefore not wholly objective, neither can morality be wholly objective. I therefore have a problem with the idea of science acting as a potentially tyrannical imposition on human morality- since humanity is also defined by how we feel as well as how we think.
'truth' or 'morality' is the reconciliation between the objective evidence and subjective emotion. Morality is a function of human beings and so cannot be wholly objective and therefore not wholly scientific.

Beyond a certain point all knowledge descends into nonsense because it is a human faculty and is limited by it. Knowledge is the ability to articulate words based on their association to an object, then abstract to an idea. all knowledge and morality is subject to our human frailties and the limitations of our perception.

But you are appealing to my inner Trekie. :grin:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xh_t2fFF3B0


How tough should tough love be is a hard question to answer with a firm policy.

Well said.

[Red Economist]

As the post early church became increasing integrated into the status quo, professionalised and institutionalised both Gnostic tenets became increasingly unacceptable. What is remarkable I think about the canonical gospels is that the inconvenient stuff remains in it and hasn’t been deleted.

Marxism has equally been used in such a way, with new interpretations and emphasis on particular texts.


There are a wide variety of ‘other gospels’ which vary considerably in ‘quality’ and ‘provenance’. There was clearly money to be made in producing convincing forgeries as there was in holy relics in the middle ages. Some are crude and really cranky and others extremely sophisticated.

I remembering hearing about a Gospel of Mary Madeline and a Gospel of Judas. I think I might have to sit down and read the gospel of Judas if I can get a copy, simply for being subversive.

I think Gnostic Christian Bishop is probably much better suited to reply to the specifics, so I'll leave that.

[Dave B]

As a scientist I have no illusions about scientist cherry-picking the data to fit a theory that they believe in.

They might be right in the end but it is still regarded as a deplorable practice which is more often than not is exposed.

They do it in a slightly different context in the area I work in eg writing up a paper containing pretty and perfect looking pictures of HPLC chromatograms as if they all look like that on all tested samples.

When you do it 95% of yours look crap compared to the one’s they present and sometimes it doesn’t work at all.

So you think you are muppet at it until you swap experiences with others.

They are gobshites in my opinion and most of them aren’t coalface analytical chemists like myself.

Whilst only wanting to be slightly narcissistic; in the papers I have published I have always presented the raw, genuine and inevitably slightly ugly data.

The paper I am writing up now is going to include the most appalling looking chromatogram that you can expect on the most difficult sample.

Social Darwinism is another sort of gross example of cherry-picking the theory.

Darwin himself made that clear in his second book which is cherry picked out,Re his social instinct theory.

As Engels surmised using that exact term, robbed from Darwin, and later addressed in Kropotkins ‘Mutual Aid’ and Pannekoek’s Marxism and Darwinism in a nutshell.

http://www.marxists.org/archive/pannekoe/1912/marxism-darwinism.htm



6) On the other hand I cannot agree with you that the war of every man against every man was the first phase of human development. In my opinion the social instinct was one of the most essential levers in the development of man from the ape. The first men must have lived gregariously and so far back as we can see we find that this was the case.

https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1875/letters/75_11_12.htm


Before I read Darwin I didn’t subscribe to the view that he was a particularly great scientist, and still think he is overrated, an Arab almost 1000 years before Darwin said the same thing.

But the following was good and demonstrates he had a good handle on the philosophical Kantian like debates that had gone before it.

Maybe he tossed the idea around over brandy and cigars with others.




The following proposition seems to me in a high degree probable—namely, that any animal whatever, endowed with well-marked social instincts,5 would inevitably acquire a moral sense or conscience, as soon as its intellectual powers had become as well developed, or nearly as well developed, as in man. For, firstly, the social instincts lead an animal to take pleasure in the society of its fellows, to feel a certain amount of sympathy with them, and to perform various services for them.

The services may be of a definite and evidently instinctive nature; or there may be only a wish and readiness, as with most of the higher social animals, to aid their fellows in certain general ways. But these feelings and services are by no means extended to all the individuals of the same species, only to those of the same association. Secondly, as soon as the mental faculties had become highly developed, images of all past actions and motives would be incessantly passing through the brain of each individual; and that feeling of dissatisfaction which invariably results, as we shall hereafter see, from any unsatisfied instinct, would arise, as often as it was perceived that the enduring and always present social instinct had yielded to some other instinct, at the time stronger, but neither enduring in its nature, nor leaving behind it a very vivid impression. It is clear that many instinctive desires, such as that of hunger, are in their nature of short duration; and after being satisfied are not readily or vividly recalled.

Thirdly, after the power of language had been acquired and the wishes of the members of the same community could be distinctly expressed, the common opinion how each member ought to act for the public good, would naturally become to a large extent the guide to action. But the social instincts would still give the impulse to act for the good of the community, this impulse being strengthened, directed, and sometimes even deflected by public opinion, the power of which rests, as we shall presently see, on instinctive sympathy. Lastly, habit in the individual would ultimately play a very important part in guiding the conduct of each member; for the social instincts and impulses, like all other instincts, would be greatly strengthened by habit, as would obedience to the wishes and judgment of the community. These several subordinate propositions must now be discussed; and some of them at considerable length.

It may be well first to premise that I do not wish to maintain that any strictly social animal, if its intellectual faculties were to become as active and as highly developed as in man, would acquire exactly the same moral sense as ours. In the same manner as various animals have some sense of beauty, though they admire widely different objects, so they might have a sense of right and wrong, though led by it to follow widely different lines of conduct. If, for instance, to take an extreme case, men were reared under precisely the same conditions as hive-bees, there can hardly be a doubt that our unmarried females would, like the worker-bees, think it a sacred duty to kill their brothers, and mothers would strive to kill their fertile daughters; and no one would think of interfering. Nevertheless the bee, or any other social animal, would in our supposed case gain, as it appears to me, some feeling of right and wrong, or a conscience.

For each individual would have an inward sense of possessing certain stronger or more enduring instincts, and other less strong or enduring; so that there would often be a struggle which impulse should be followed; and satisfaction or dissatisfaction would be felt, as past impressions were compared during their incessant passage through the mind. In this case an inward monitor would tell the animal that it would have been better to have followed the one impulse rather than the other. The one course ought to have been followed: the one would have been right and the other wrong; but to these terms I shall have to recur.


3 'Metaphysics of Ethics,' translated by J. W. Semple, Edinburgh, 1836, p. 136.

4 Mr. Bain gives a list ('Mental and Moral Science,' 1868, p. 543-725) of twenty-six British authors who have written on this subject, and whose names are familiar to every reader; to these, Mr. Bain's own name, and those of Mr. Lecky, Mr. Shadworth Hodgson, and Sir J. Lubbock, as well as of others, may be added.

5 Sir B. Brodie, after observing that man is a social animal ('Psychological Enquiries,' 1854, p. 192), asks the pregnant question, "ought not this to settle the disputed question as to the existence of a moral sense?" Similar ideas have probably occurred to many persons, as they did long ago to Marcus Aurelius. Mr. J. S. Mill speaks, in his celebrated work, 'Utilitarianism,' (1864, p. 46), of the social feelings as a "powerful natural sentiment," and as "the natural basis of sentiment for utilitarian morality;" but on the previous page he says, "if, as is my own belief, the moral feelings are not innate, but acquired, they are not for that reason less natural."

It is with hesitation that I venture to differ from so profound a thinker, but it can hardly be disputed that the social feelings are instinctive or innate in the lower animals; and why should they not be so in man? Mr. Bain (see, for instance, 'The Emotions and the Will,' 1865, p. 481) and others believe that the moral sense is acquired by each individual during his lifetime. On the general theory of evolution this is at least extremely improbable.


http://darwin-online.org.uk/converted/published/1871_Descent_F937/1871_Descent_F937.1.html

The theory of social instinct amongst animals has gone beyond speculation and is almost hackneyed now.



It was on TV yesterday re a pod of social killer whales looking after ‘stumpy’ a slow swimming disabled killer whale with a bad back and half its dorsal fin missing etc.

Maybe they are early Christians.

It might be amusing that Marx was one of the ‘first’ to theorise about the possible existence of a social instinct as part of a human essence only to abandon it as the result of the work of a hypocritical ‘anarchist’.

Then to have it said that it was ‘at least extremely improbable’ that all moral sense(s) are [only] acquired by each individual during his lifetime as an ‘aggregate of social relations’.

For me moral sense isn’t about eating fish on Friday or publically farting or not farting in appreciation of a good meal.

It is about being a shit and not a shit and not slagging people off for the consequences of computer magic when posting, as if they wanted it to look like that.

As I am posting as SPGB I am obliged to state that as orthodox Marxists they hate me for this kind of stuff.

[Red Economist]

As a scientist I have no illusions about scientist cherry-picking the data to fit a theory that they believe in. They might be right in the end but it is still regarded as a deplorable practice which is more often than not is exposed.

Hurrah! A scientist on Revleft! At last someone who knows something other than political theory! :grin:

Are you at University? (apologies if you older, but about 70% of people on revleft are age 34 or lower). A quick look up on wikipedia of what 'HPLC' suggests your doing Chemistry?



They do it in a slightly different context in the area I work in eg writing up a paper containing pretty and perfect looking pictures of HPLC chromatograms as if they all look like that on all tested samples. When you do it 95% of yours look crap compared to the one’s they present and sometimes it doesn’t work at all. So you think you are muppet at it until you swap experiences with others. They are gobshites in my opinion and most of them aren’t coalface analytical chemists like myself.

So when your face with a cliam being made in popular science, how do you feel about it; how reliable is the information the general public get told about science? (I realize it's not much, but I honestly don't know).


Whilst only wanting to be slightly narcissistic; in the papers I have published I have always presented the raw, genuine and inevitably slightly ugly data. The paper I am writing up now is going to include the most appalling looking chromatogram that you can expect on the most difficult sample.

I kind of like that really; it's more honest to show what a mess the reality is. Not the nice 'easy to swallow' stuff but showing the actual complexity and uncertainty involved in coming up with a theory.


Social Darwinism is another sort of gross example of cherry-picking the theory.Darwin himself made that clear in his second book which is cherry picked out,Re his social instinct theory.

As Engels surmised using that exact term, robbed from Darwin, and later addressed in Kropotkins ‘Mutual Aid’ and Pannekoek’s Marxism and Darwinism in a nutshell.

http://www.marxists.org/archive/pann...-darwinism.htm (http://www.marxists.org/archive/pannekoe/1912/marxism-darwinism.htm)

Quote:
6) On the other hand I cannot agree with you that the war of every man against every man was the first phase of human development. In my opinion the social instinct was one of the most essential levers in the development of man from the ape. The first men must have lived gregariously and so far back as we can see we find that this was the case.


I'll just nodd and agree here as this is something I kind of know about but wouldn't know where to start looking for it in Darwin's work.


https://www.marxists.org/archive/mar...s/75_11_12.htm (https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1875/letters/75_11_12.htm)



Before I read Darwin I didn’t subscribe to the view that he was a particularly great scientist, and still think he is overrated, an Arab almost 1000 years before Darwin said the same thing.

Yeah, I think there is a tendency to justify the idea of intellectual copyright by saying certian people came up with ideas and were a genius, when actually what they say had been floating around and discussed on margins for a long time. I think it was Alfred Russell Wallace who also came up evolution about the same time.
But if I remember correctly, the reason Darwin got the credit was because he discovered the mechanism for natural selection to take place (somewhat borrowing ideas from the economist Thomas Malthus on over-population).


But the following was good and demonstrates he had a good handle on the philosophical Kantian like debates that had gone before it.

Maybe he tossed the idea around over brandy and cigars with others.


Quote:
The following proposition seems to me in a high degree probable—namely, that any animal whatever, endowed with well-marked social instincts,5 would inevitably acquire a moral sense or conscience, as soon as its intellectual powers had become as well developed, or nearly as well developed, as in man. For, firstly, the social instincts lead an animal to take pleasure in the society of its fellows, to feel a certain amount of sympathy with them, and to perform various services for them.

The services may be of a definite and evidently instinctive nature; or there may be only a wish and readiness, as with most of the higher social animals, to aid their fellows in certain general ways. But these feelings and services are by no means extended to all the individuals of the same species, only to those of the same association. Secondly, as soon as the mental faculties had become highly developed, images of all past actions and motives would be incessantly passing through the brain of each individual; and that feeling of dissatisfaction which invariably results, as we shall hereafter see, from any unsatisfied instinct, would arise, as often as it was perceived that the enduring and always present social instinct had yielded to some other instinct, at the time stronger, but neither enduring in its nature, nor leaving behind it a very vivid impression. It is clear that many instinctive desires, such as that of hunger, are in their nature of short duration; and after being satisfied are not readily or vividly recalled.

Thirdly, after the power of language had been acquired and the wishes of the members of the same community could be distinctly expressed, the common opinion how each member ought to act for the public good, would naturally become to a large extent the guide to action. But the social instincts would still give the impulse to act for the good of the community, this impulse being strengthened, directed, and sometimes even deflected by public opinion, the power of which rests, as we shall presently see, on instinctive sympathy. Lastly, habit in the individual would ultimately play a very important part in guiding the conduct of each member; for the social instincts and impulses, like all other instincts, would be greatly strengthened by habit, as would obedience to the wishes and judgment of the community. These several subordinate propositions must now be discussed; and some of them at considerable length.

It may be well first to premise that I do not wish to maintain that any strictly social animal, if its intellectual faculties were to become as active and as highly developed as in man, would acquire exactly the same moral sense as ours. In the same manner as various animals have some sense of beauty, though they admire widely different objects, so they might have a sense of right and wrong, though led by it to follow widely different lines of conduct. If, for instance, to take an extreme case, men were reared under precisely the same conditions as hive-bees, there can hardly be a doubt that our unmarried females would, like the worker-bees, think it a sacred duty to kill their brothers, and mothers would strive to kill their fertile daughters; and no one would think of interfering. Nevertheless the bee, or any other social animal, would in our supposed case gain, as it appears to me, some feeling of right and wrong, or a conscience.

For each individual would have an inward sense of possessing certain stronger or more enduring instincts, and other less strong or enduring; so that there would often be a struggle which impulse should be followed; and satisfaction or dissatisfaction would be felt, as past impressions were compared during their incessant passage through the mind. In this case an inward monitor would tell the animal that it would have been better to have followed the one impulse rather than the other. The one course ought to have been followed: the one would have been right and the other wrong; but to these terms I shall have to recur.


3 'Metaphysics of Ethics,' translated by J. W. Semple, Edinburgh, 1836, p. 136.

4 Mr. Bain gives a list ('Mental and Moral Science,' 1868, p. 543-725) of twenty-six British authors who have written on this subject, and whose names are familiar to every reader; to these, Mr. Bain's own name, and those of Mr. Lecky, Mr. Shadworth Hodgson, and Sir J. Lubbock, as well as of others, may be added.

5 Sir B. Brodie, after observing that man is a social animal ('Psychological Enquiries,' 1854, p. 192), asks the pregnant question, "ought not this to settle the disputed question as to the existence of a moral sense?" Similar ideas have probably occurred to many persons, as they did long ago to Marcus Aurelius. Mr. J. S. Mill speaks, in his celebrated work, 'Utilitarianism,' (1864, p. 46), of the social feelings as a "powerful natural sentiment," and as "the natural basis of sentiment for utilitarian morality;" but on the previous page he says, "if, as is my own belief, the moral feelings are not innate, but acquired, they are not for that reason less natural."

It is with hesitation that I venture to differ from so profound a thinker, but it can hardly be disputed that the social feelings are instinctive or innate in the lower animals; and why should they not be so in man? Mr. Bain (see, for instance, 'The Emotions and the Will,' 1865, p. 481) and others believe that the moral sense is acquired by each individual during his lifetime. On the general theory of evolution this is at least extremely improbable.


http://darwin-online.org.uk/converte...nt_F937.1.html (http://darwin-online.org.uk/converted/published/1871_Descent_F937/1871_Descent_F937.1.html)

The theory of social instinct amongst animals has gone beyond speculation and is almost hackneyed now.


Many thanks as that was some really new ideas to hear from Darwin, especially about the Bees.

Unfortunately in economics the idea of a social instinct has been systematically erased till only the one true faith of free market fundamentalism is triumphant. I've read that certian economic theories are being 'exported' from economics into the sciences, particularly biology and evolution. Do you know if this is the case?


It was on TV yesterday re a pod of social killer whales looking after ‘stumpy’ a slow swimming disabled killer whale with a bad back and half its dorsal fin missing etc.

Maybe they are early Christians.

only if 'stumpy' is sacrificed for all the sins of whale kind...


It might be amusing that Marx was one of the ‘first’ to theorise about the possible existence of a social instinct as part of a human essence only to abandon it as the result of the work of a hypocritical ‘anarchist’.

Then to have it said that it was ‘at least extremely improbable’ that all moral sense(s) are [only] acquired by each individual during his lifetime as an ‘aggregate of social relations’.

For me moral sense isn’t about eating fish on Friday or publically farting or not farting in appreciation of a good meal.

It is about being a shit and not a shit and not slagging people off for the consequences of computer magic when posting, as if they wanted it to look like that.


Wasn't it Jean Jaques Rousseau (at least as an earlier one) who suggested man was inherently a social animal? but these things have been kicking around for a long time.


As I am posting as SPGB I am obliged to state that as orthodox Marxists they hate me for this kind of stuff.

No probs. The heretics are always more interesting.

[Dave B]

There are two problems in science as well as in other ‘disciplines’ that is selective presentation of datasets or in information ie ignoring datasets or other empirical evidence collected scientifically that contradicts the conclusions of others.

And each dataset being massaged with inconvenient results being left out as outliers.

Even an honest scientist can fall foul of this.



Something weird shows up and it is; oh well it is only the second run of the day and they aren’t always reliable etc etc.


If the result is a jolly one no such idea enters your head.



A proper scientific presentation should include all the counter arguments and positions and some of the better wikipedia entries do this.


I am over 34 and work as an analytical chemist in a food factory eg analysing apple products etc for the allegedly mutagenic mycotoxin patulin that makes you grow two heads etc.


And for adulteration which is a fun game, I don't want to go into too much detail on that.



They don't mind me being a commie but worry that I might blab too much; they actually try and do the right thing most of the time.


On balance I think academic scientists can be trusted; much less so though I think than maybe 20 years ago.



The university people used to be allowed just to get along with doing what ever the felt like and presumably the capitalist class would pick up the spin off effects.

Now the have to submit something called an economic impact proposal; I can’t remember exactly what it is called.

Went to a lecture recently by a geologist discussing his work on the rift valley in Ethiopia or whatever and how in 40 million years Eritrea is going to float of into the India ocean or something.

I asked how he got the funding for the expensive field trips, it looked like a jolly to me, and he said he made up some cock and bull story how it might help them to find oil deposits.

I still do find it surprisingly why the capitalist tolerate at all stuff like archaeology which is nothing but a pain in the arse as far as they are concerned.

I like it myself and am real Time Team fan.

al-Jāḥiẓ almost a thousand years before Darwin postulated a natural selection theory; there seems to be a real hostility to this idea and that wikipedia entry is much less pro that idea than I remember it to be.

He also discussed breeding animals for required characteristics and made what you would thing was a bloody obvious analogy to natural selection.


In a discussion broadcast by ABC (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Broadcasting_Company). the palaeontologist and practising Muslim Gary Dargan said that al-Jāḥiẓ had made observations that described evolution: "Animals engage in a struggle for existence; for resources, to avoid being eaten and to breed. Environmental factors influence organisms to develop new characteristics to ensure survival, thus transforming into new species. Animals that survive to breed can pass on their successful characteristics to offspring.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al-Jahiz#Kitab_al-Hayawan_.28Book_of_Animals.29

It is improbable that Darwin had read him and yes Darwin probably took ideas from his more immediate circle.

Malthus was a shit and a ‘social Darwinist’; but he was a clever bloke and did ‘economics’ as well.



In fact the 'mistake' in Karl’s volume one of Capital was dropping out unconsumed fixed capital in his analysis, in contempt to Malthus’s position.


I thought Rousseau started off from the proposition of natural man being a lone wolf?

It has been a long while since I read his social contract.

I think Rousseau was taking the piss and was using irony.

He wrote a best seller called the New Heloise, it is a great entertaining easy read I think; but it has to be read first before paying any attention to the shit that is written on it.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julie,_or_the_New_Heloise

Rousseau supposed theory was more Bolshevik or even Jacobin;




`There is never either sullenness or discontent in obedience because there is neither haughtiness nor capriciousness in the command (of the master). Because nothing is demanded which is not reasonable or expedient, and because the master and mistress sufficiently respect the dignity of man, even though he is a servant, so as to employ him
only with things that do not debase him."

"the servants know well that there most assured fortune is attached to that of their master and that they will never want for anything as long as the house is seen to prosper. In serving it, therefore, they are taking care of their own patrimony and increasing it by making their service agreeable; this is to their greatest self interest."




Letter X-to Lord Bomston

[Red Economist]

There are two problems in science as well as in other ‘disciplines’ that is selective presentation of datasets or in information ie ignoring datasets or other empirical evidence collected scientifically that contradicts the conclusions of others.

And each dataset being massaged with inconvenient results being left out as outliers. Even an honest scientist can fall foul of this. Something weird shows up and it is; oh well it is only the second run of the day and they aren’t always reliable etc etc. If the result is a jolly one no such idea enters your head. A proper scientific presentation should include all the counter arguments and positions and some of the better wikipedia entries do this.

I'll have to remember this. Marxism cuts accross a lot of major disputes in describing itself as a science, but personally because it's screwed up so many times and is pretty controversial, I still think of it as a philosophy.


I am over 34 and work as an analytical chemist in a food factory eg analysing apple products etc for the allegedly mutagenic mycotoxin patulin that makes you grow two heads etc. And for adulteration which is a fun game, I don't want to go into too much detail on that. They don't mind me being a commie but worry that I might blab too much; they actually try and do the right thing most of the time.

that's cool. Though I'm sure the conspiracy nuts who worry about the government adding substances for mind control won't be too happy with a commie near a food factory. :grin:


On balance I think academic scientists can be trusted; much less so though I think than maybe 20 years ago. The university people used to be allowed just to get along with doing what ever the felt like and presumably the capitalist class would pick up the spin off effects. Now the have to submit something called an economic impact proposal; I can’t remember exactly what it is called.

There has been a user on revleft whose posted about how the Koch Brothers in the US fund universities on condition they give pro-business economics courses, or something like that. So I'm sure there is influence- but it's tricky to spot. (except in the case of the oil industry funding think tanks specalising in the denial of climate change).


Went to a lecture recently by a geologist discussing his work on the rift valley in Ethiopia or whatever and how in 40 million years Eritrea is going to float of into the India ocean or something. I asked how he got the funding for the expensive field trips, it looked like a jolly to me, and he said he made up some cock and bull story how it might help them to find oil deposits.

lol. there was me thinking scientists take themselves seriously. ;)


I still do find it surprisingly why the capitalist tolerate at all stuff like archaeology which is nothing but a pain in the arse as far as they are concerned. I like it myself and am real Time Team fan.




al-Jāḥiẓ almost a thousand years before Darwin postulated a natural selection theory; there seems to be a real hostility to this idea and that wikipedia entry is much less pro that idea than I remember it to be.

He also discussed breeding animals for required characteristics and made what you would thing was a bloody obvious analogy to natural selection.

Quote:
In a discussion broadcast by ABC (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Broadcasting_Company). the palaeontologist and practising Muslim Gary Dargan said that al-Jāḥiẓ had made observations that described evolution: "Animals engage in a struggle for existence; for resources, to avoid being eaten and to breed. Environmental factors influence organisms to develop new characteristics to ensure survival, thus transforming into new species. Animals that survive to breed can pass on their successful characteristics to offspring.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al-Jahi..._of_Animals.29 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al-Jahiz#Kitab_al-Hayawan_.28Book_of_Animals.29)

It is improbable that Darwin had read him and yes Darwin probably took ideas from his more immediate circle.

Wikipedia is subject to kind of 'campigns' by groups trying to promote their own adgenda. I think people on Revleft try it occasionally, but the natural sciences are generally considered much more reliable than political entries because there more subject to evidence.

The Muslim world was highly educated and tolerant (I think even a few atheists as well as Christians and jews) and it is a shame it's kind of degenerated to the mess it is now.


Malthus was a shit and a ‘social Darwinist’; but he was a clever bloke and did ‘economics’ as well. In fact the 'mistake' in Karl’s volume one of Capital was dropping out unconsumed fixed capital in his analysis, in contempt to Malthus’s position.

I think Malthus himself was ok, but his ideas were used to justify the workhouse system in 19th century England. Charles Dickens made a joke about him in A Christmas Carol where scrooge says something about letting people freeze to death to "reduce the surplus-population". I think his ideas continue to have an influence on the environmental movement- though it's not in the obvious sense of over-population, but more in terms of over-consumption, limits to growth and the depletion of natural resources, (Peak oil being the headline one).



I thought Rousseau started off from the proposition of natural man being a lone wolf? It has been a long while since I read his social contract. I think Rousseau was taking the piss and was using irony.

He wrote a best seller called the New Heloise, it is a great entertaining easy read I think; but it has to be read first before paying any attention to the shit that is written on it.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julie,_or_the_New_Heloise

Rousseau supposed theory was more Bolshevik or even Jacobin;


Quote:
`There is never either sullenness or discontent in obedience because there is neither haughtiness nor capriciousness in the command (of the master). Because nothing is demanded which is not reasonable or expedient, and because the master and mistress sufficiently respect the dignity of man, even though he is a servant, so as to employ him
only with things that do not debase him."

"the servants know well that there most assured fortune is attached to that of their master and that they will never want for anything as long as the house is seen to prosper. In serving it, therefore, they are taking care of their own patrimony and increasing it by making their service agreeable; this is to their greatest self interest."

Letter X-to Lord Bomston

My knowledge of Rousseau is virtually non-existent; I tried reading bits of the social contract when I was very young and never really got into it, but I remember a lot of people accusing him of being the precursor to the Jacobins and then the Bolsheviks and twentieth century totalitarianism for the theory of the 'general will' of the people. He was the person who popularised the concept of the noble savage. A quick check on wikipedia shows he thought man in his natural state was not corrupt;


Rousseau criticized Hobbes (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hobbes) for asserting that since man in the "state of nature . . . has no idea of goodness he must be naturally wicked; that he is vicious because he does not know virtue". On the contrary, Rousseau holds that "uncorrupted morals" prevail in the "state of nature" and he especially praised the admirable moderation of the Caribbeans in expressing the sexual urge[20] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean_Jacques_Rousseau#cite_note-20) despite the fact that they live in a hot climate, which "always seems to inflame the passions".http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean_Jacques_Rousseau#Theory_of_Natural_Human

[Dave B]

Just noticed that you describe yourself as a Freudo-Marxist.

I am also very interested in the cross over between psychoanalysis and Marxism.

Feuerbach was possibly the first Freudo-Marxist, in his Essence of Christianity he essentially put early Christianity on the couch and psychoanalysed them and as far as I can tell was one of the first people to use the term ‘projection’ in the way it is used by the psychoanalysts today.

Re projecting their own value systems and consciousness onto in this case an imaginary object.

Eg

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthropomorphism

It is a heavy read though so I wouldn’t recommend it to anyone.

I think Freud himself was a fraud, charlatan and plagiarist myself and there was only a very small and ill formed baby in that particular bathtub.

[Red Economist]

The crossover between freudian psychology and Marxism is pretty tricky because Marxism doesn't respond well to claims of human irrationality. Whilst the conflict between the id, ego and super-ego is a form of dialectical internal contradiction, it can be 'idealist' in attributing the causes to consciousness itself. So I've had to borrow some 'pavlovian' ideas about how the super-ego etc is conditioned, whilst the id is the raw, 'unconditioned' physiological drives. Once you start thinking of the super-ego or reality principle as an internalization of moral norms- you can get into some pretty radical territory as I think the original Freudians did.

That said I think freudianism does actually introduce sexuality in Marxism, because there really isn't any mention of sex as a human activity and social interaction outside of Engel's work on the family.

It was mainly a product of necessity as I came out as bisexual and has lots of problems with anxiety and depression. I'm a fan of Wilhelm Reich, but mainly because using his ideas helped overcome my problems after I got over the initial skepticism of 'well, sex can't be that important surely?' :o

[PhoenixAsh]

Quick question:

What has love got to do with the institute of marriage...even the concept of marriage in the eye witness period?

[Red Economist]

if marriage means a relationship without all the legal-moral compulsion of 'till death do us part' it is based on love. the problem is when you say to people "you have to love each other- you're married!".

[argeiphontes]

Re projecting their own value systems and consciousness onto in this case an imaginary object.


The whole Jungian interpretation of religion (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jungian_interpretation_of_religion#Western_religio us_tradition) is based on this idea.

[Gnostic Christian Bishop]

Red Economist

“It would take a profound personal experience, whether a single trauma or an accumulation of experiences to shake that belief. Is it the same for you?”

Yes. Once a belief is formed with all its logic trails, it is hard to find a fact that dismantles it.

That may be why I had to experience telepathy with a human before I would believe that it was a real phenomenon that could happen with a non-physical entity. Although I see that entity as physical and made up of sub-atomic particles alone.

--------------------------------

“I do not hold that truth is wholly objective. Truth, is a function of human knowledge. Whilst matter exists objectively, knowledge of it is dependent on the viewer. George Orwell illustrates the problems of this in 1984 by saying that 2+2=5 if the 'party' thinks so.”

I was beaned by a failing log in the bush one time. I did not know it existed till it hit me but existed whether I was aware of it or not.

--------------------------------

“Morality is a function of human beings and so cannot be wholly objective and therefore not wholly scientific.”

I do not see morality as objective at all. To me it is all subjective which you seem to also think as you indicate that it is our subjectivity that determines if something is moral or not.

Regards
DL

[Red Economist]

“It would take a profound personal experience, whether a single trauma or an accumulation of experiences to shake that belief. Is it the same for you?”
Yes. Once a belief is formed with all its logic trails, it is hard to find a fact that dismantles it.

That may be why I had to experience telepathy with a human before I would believe that it was a real phenomenon that could happen with a non-physical entity. Although I see that entity as physical and made up of sub-atomic particles alone.

I think I would be the same. I tend to trust my own inner experience and intitution over other things, so if I had a telepathic experience I would try to find ways to rationally explain it.
Much of the process of my becoming a Marxist has been because of dealing with depression and figuring out the environmental causes which make me feel depressed and what I can change, so in some ways that is similar.


“I do not hold that truth is wholly objective. Truth, is a function of human knowledge. Whilst matter exists objectively, knowledge of it is dependent on the viewer. George Orwell illustrates the problems of this in 1984 by saying that 2+2=5 if the 'party' thinks so.”

I was beaned by a failing log in the bush one time. I did not know it existed till it hit me but existed whether I was aware of it or not.

sorry to hear that. but yeah, it's a tricky line between what is real and what we see or experience individually in the same reality, at least in philosophy.


“Morality is a function of human beings and so cannot be wholly objective and therefore not wholly scientific.”

I do not see morality as objective at all. To me it is all subjective which you seem to also think as you indicate that it is our subjectivity that determines if something is moral or not.


I'm a hedonist to the best of my ability, so I trust my emotions and am ethically very subjective as a result. it occasionally conflicts with my own Marxist beliefs because objective reality acts as a limit on what I can and can't do to be happy. So I would view pleasure as good and pain as bad, but this is subject to reason and whether pursuing pleasure is self-defeating and has bad consequences.

[Gnostic Christian Bishop]

I think I would be the same. I tend to trust my own inner experience and intitution over other things, so if I had a telepathic experience I would try to find ways to rationally explain it.
Much of the process of my becoming a Marxist has been because of dealing with depression and figuring out the environmental causes which make me feel depressed and what I can change, so in some ways that is similar.

[/SIZE]

sorry to hear that. but yeah, it's a tricky line between what is real and what we see or experience individually in the same reality, at least in philosophy.



I'm a hedonist to the best of my ability, so I trust my emotions and am ethically very subjective as a result. it occasionally conflicts with my own Marxist beliefs because objective reality acts as a limit on what I can and can't do to be happy. So I would view pleasure as good and pain as bad, but this is subject to reason and whether pursuing pleasure is self-defeating and has bad consequences.

Pleasure is what we are all here trying to achieve. We are created for the best possible end, by nature, and that best end would see us all with the maximum amount of pleasure at our end.

So your answer would have to be answered by your own subjective feelings. Has pursuing pleasure been self-defeating and has bad consequences in your own subjective judgement.

It all comes down to the self. After all, that is what morals are all about. How the self deals with what comes to hand.

Regards
DL

[Christian Insurrectionist]

Christ was one of the first to speak out against the Roman government. He was portrayed as a pacifist who thought we should obey Rome... by Paul. All of the stuff like that is in Paul, and it's after the Empire had Christianized. Paul wasn't even an apostle - he just knew some people who knew the apostles. The real Christ threw the moneylenders out of the Temple and hung out with beggars and prostitutes. He was a bad ass. Paul doesn't do him justice.

(let's not forget that at least of the Pauline corpus isn't even actually written by the historical Paul - who was considerably more radical than deutero-Paul and Pseudo-Paul. Also, to be fair, it is a fair interpretation of Jesus to be some form of pacifist and I say that as a Christian and nonpacifist.)

[Gnostic Christian Bishop]

(let's not forget that at least of the Pauline corpus isn't even actually written by the historical Paul - who was considerably more radical than deutero-Paul and Pseudo-Paul. Also, to be fair, it is a fair interpretation of Jesus to be some form of pacifist and I say that as a Christian and nonpacifist.)

How is turn the other cheek and walk an extra mile for the military speaking out against governments?

What in particular in the bible has Jesus speaking against Rome?

Your money changer example is Jesus against his own temple practices and not against Rome. He did not break the Roman statues that had to be in their temple by law.

Regards
DL

[Dave B]

Whilst I think it is possible to make class analysis of early chrisitianity I think you have to be careful to avoid anachronism and not project modern leftist ‘Judean Popular People's Front’ ideologies back into the period; as a criticism.

As regards ‘early christianity’ rather than Jesus per se; and flipping forward 40 years or so I think we can get a basic idea of early Christianities attitude to Roman imperialism from the first and earliest internally dated Christian document.

Written in AD68-69 ie the revelation according John.

http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1894/early-christianity/index.htm

Just as an example, even if it whiffs a bit of Maoism.


18;11 Then the merchants of the earth will weep and mourn for her because no one buys their cargo any longer— 12 cargo such as gold, silver, precious stones, pearls, fine linen, purple cloth, silk, scarlet cloth, all sorts of things made of citron wood, all sorts of objects made of ivory, all sorts of things made of expensive wood, bronze, iron and marble, 13 cinnamon, spice, incense, perfumed ointment, frankincense, wine, olive oil and costly flour, wheat, cattle and sheep, horses and four-wheeled carriages, slaves and human lives.
14 The ripe fruit you greatly desired has gone from you, and all your luxury and splendour have gone from you— they will never ever be found again!
15 The merchants who sold these things, who got rich from her, will stand a long way off because they are afraid of her torment. They will weep and mourn, 16 saying,
“Woe, woe, O great city— dressed in fine linen, purple and scarlet clothing, and adorned with gold, precious stones, and pearls— 17 because in a single hour such great wealth has been destroyed!”


{“dressed in fine linen, purple and scarlet clothing, and adorned with gold, precious stones” might conjure up images for some of modern Christian bishops- but lets drop that for the moment.}

You might say I suppose that that was merely a reaction to persecution and there had been some kind of falling out in between; but over what?

You could also argue that direct action in ‘Judea’ against the Roman state ie kidnapping Pontius Pilate's wife, was a stupid idea and was bound to end in tears.

Although no doubt the ‘Judean Popular People's Front’ would have been one of the instigators of the disastrous ‘Jewish’ revolt of 70AD.

Again looking at just early Christianity as a movement we can possibly get an idea of how they politically positioned themselves from another early document eg Origen’s Contra Celsum of circa 220AD.

In that, perhaps surprisingly, Origen doesn’t argue for christianity on the basis of JC’s miraculous powers etc or sorcery as Celsum put it.

But on the ‘ideological’ example that they set of non-hierarchical co-operative communities of the ‘working classes’ or ‘low individuals’ as Celsum puts it.

Even in modern 19th century communism there had been a strand of that or communism as practical example eg Icarainism and Owenism.

If not actually christians successfully doing it for themselves over extended periods.

Eg the Shakers

https://marxists.anu.edu.au/archive/marx/works/1844/10/15.htm

And Whinstanley.

That idea in say the period of ‘simple commodity production’ would have been that much less Utopian than it became later in capitalism.

I don’t think there were any Roman statues in the temple in JC’s time; for what it matters.

I seem to remember, from Josephus?, there was an attempt to put a statue of the recently divine Caligula in the temple but that he was assassinated before it happened.

I thought the money changing stuff was the racket of changing dirty money, with the emperor’s (Tiberius’s) head on it, for clean money that could be accepted by the temple?

The dirty money thing cropped up with the JC thing of paying Roman taxes; which was more than just not liking to pay money taxes..

The priests were attempting to entrap JC with a ‘patriot act’ like aiding and abetting tax terrorism charge.

Or discrediting himself with his constituency; which is at the end of the day what we should really be interested in.

The introduction of new tax laws to be paid in money and foreclosure on debt after the formal inclusion of Judea into the empire and Roman economic law in 6AD was causing social disruption.

On tax payment day or period or whatever poor peasants were forced into fire sales of their produce for cash at the time of a glut.

Rich peasants with a cash reserve held onto their produce to sell it at a higher price later.

As things progressed over the next 20 years rich peasants also had enough to lend to lazy peasants for them to pay their money taxes.

And changes in Law as regards land being allowed to be put up as collateral and security etc; the poor peasants were foreclosed on and dispossessed of their means of production to become agricultural wage slaves.

Wage working is a recurrent theme in the gospel pamplets.

[Gnostic Christian Bishop]

Interesting speculations.

Regards
DL