Religions and their respective bubbles of delusion

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You could have fooled me.

It's not my kind (to fool people).

Well, that's it if I can avoid it

No sweat. Let it lay.

What about people who only see shades of blue?

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=emM_juVdzds&feature=related[/youtube]

If you see only blue then the concept of color is meaningless except in a scientific spectrographic way.

Umm... I am using blue as an example of something basic. Pruss's argument requires that perfection be a universal that is related to God, and that God is also an object that cannot fully defined. I am also not trying to say that the qualia that we experience as blue is universal. I am really trying to get at the issue is that the qualia experienced is very relevant to how we define blue. Blue isn't just a physics equation, but rather blue is this color

My disdain for scientific references is based upon the fact that many people use them to miss the point. I mean, understanding human perspectives is usually more of a matter for the social sciences, the humanities, and things like that. So, just as we don't reference physics too heavily in literary criticism, we would not reference physics too heavily in a discussion about perspectives on religion.


Sand, I don't even know where the heck you get "permitting any success in that attack generates a sense that those assumptions might be false", but that is not the only reason why a person would be offended. I mean, a smart person might be offended if you call them stupid, but I doubt they have a fear that the notion that they are a stupid person will become widespread. I even already mentioned that I find child molestation offensive, but this isn't a matter of false assumptions or anything like that. This is more related to the fact that child molestation violates my moral sense and disgusts me.

In western society, we have different rules about what can be said and what cannot be said. These rules didn't emerge because of a growth in confidence either, but rather they emerged when more differing ideas came about, and these ideas could no longer be suppressed. So, we're not just really comfortable with ourselves, but rather we lack the strength to impose an orthodoxy. That's the original reason for freedom of speech, religion, and all of that stuff. This blog post basically gets at this issue from the western perspective: http://www.positiveliberty.com/2004/09/ ... nment.html Now, Islam doesn't have that issue, so they're basically like how things were before all of this occurred. The issue is less that they feel vulnerable, more that in their way of life, it is generally still unacceptable to criticize these ideas, and in general, attacking a person's religion is one of the less acceptable things to do, and that's in a society that has practiced religious toleration and disagreement for a long time, in their culture it is a punishable offense, likely for similar reasons that it used to be in Christian societies.

I mean, you can just keep on asserting "fear! FEAR!!" but, I don't really see evidence given that other possibilities for these actions are humanly possible, and they also seem more likely given that many societies have harshly enforced their religion and that our change really was not a matter of less fear, but less ability to enforce.

It's quite evident you cannot perceive fear in Muslim culture where it is quite obvious to me. Religion is more than a faith, it is a power structure and when that structure is assailed it is equivalent to a cry of treason to a national power structure. It is not just culture in Christianity which has become more tolerant, it is the loss of power over life and death which makes it milder.

An intelligent person should not be offended to be called stupid unless he/she respects the appraiser and then the fear does arise that the label might have some substance. Thereby the fear.

Well, ok, but what you think to be obvious doesn't really seem the same to me as what these people are likely to believe.

Religion does include power structures, but those are relatively irrelevant to what the people at the bottom think about their religion being insulted. They aren't high-up in that power structure. They might not even be beneficiaries, as I would imagine that Islamic women also feel angry when their religion is insulted. One does not have to deny that religion has power structures in order to recognize that people place a large portion of their identity in their religion.


I get the feeling that the psychology of insults is more complex than this.

Upon thinking a bit more on the subject I concede there is a bit more to insults than my own personal attitude. Being rather inured to other people's opinion of me I value an insult as effective only if it originates from someone whose opinion I respect. I don't know all that much about Arab culture but it seems to me, especially amongst males, that intersocial evaluations are extremely potent and any devaluation of social status is taken as a serious threat. As I mentioned before, a daughter who is detected in a negative social context can be killed for devaluing "family honor" (whatever that might be) and this is not an unusual occurrence. Social interactions within Arab culture therefore seem far more rigid that that in the west although this type of brutal passion is not unknown here also. Insofar as religion is concerned this type of personal macho emotion related to social approval probably transfers to insults to religious doctrine. Added to that the valuation and acceptance of quick tempers and a kind of weapons respect found mostly in the west amongst gun lovers is extended to knives and swords in Arab culture where some really beautiful blades are created and valued. A Freudian could connect this to the male dominance in the culture and a blade weapon as well as a gun has sexual connotations. The ubiquity of rape and unleashed male aggressions against women in general in the culture speaks to me of a rather primitive uncontrol of male passion where the fault for the assaults are attributed to the women rather than to the guilty men. This is not unlike the attitudes of much western law enforcement where a raped woman is frequently assumed to have enticed a male who therefor guilt free. Therefor insult has a very strong social effect in this culture which I neglect in my personal attitude.

And you don't see why I would take offense to all you have just said? You make broad assumptions about why one would believe or feel, but have never sat on the other side and, therefore, do not actually know, do you? I don't mind someone arguing against God using their own logic; I mind someone saying that it is absolutely impossible that there is any adequate logic in my reasons to believe. Can you see the difference? In the first situation I am, at least, treated as a rational being. In the second, I am written off as not being a rational and intelligent being (and put on the same level as a reactionary fundamentalist???). Is there anyone in this world who wishes to be told that? Does anyone have the right to SAY or imply that? Life is complex and often beyond rational understanding. Why does a parent love their child? DOES a parent love their children? Or the parent who doesn't? Can it all be explained perfectly by science, so that there never is an exception to the theory, and you can always predict the answer? You downplay the complexity of life and emotion when you fail to recognize that anything beyond pure science has any validity in discussion.

I am amused by the direction the thread has taken, but that is about the end of it. I don't WANT to argue the finite points of a cosmological argument, and that is far from the only thing upon which I base my faith. I WILL say that I KNOW faith comes from a certain life experience, and I do not expect or ask that those who haven't shared it hold faith. I only ask that, in all your debates and discussions, you hold a little respect for those who choose faith, and show a little less disdain.

Why would I ask that? Why would I care? Well, first off, civility requires it. Second off, the attitude keeps a lot of interesting ideas from being expressed on these forums, because reasonable people read the forums, see the bias, and stay away. That leaves you pretty much arguing amongst yourselves or with the occassional fanatic who believes it is their duty to convert you. You end up seeing a very skewed version of the world, and missing the opportunity to gain understanding on the rest. In my world view, the more different people I can engage with and actually understand, the more enriched and educated I become about the reality of life and the various peoples we live with, and that affect our lives. But an eletist debate style prevents that. You write it off as insecurity; I say it is the simple fact that people are too busy to argue simply for the sake of arguing, if there is no chance of increased mutual understanding to follow. The arrogant attitude cuts you off. Not your logic, the arrogance.

Religion was assassinated by MTV. The modern state found the community, the belief in something beyond the material, the morality... a threat.

Love, or any other emotion is built into the neurological complex of the organism. To claim it is impossible for science to work out the intricacies is to assume that there are physiological functions that have no physiological mechanisms but somehow materialize out of impalpable forces. I do not get insulted by your fantasies, merely I have confidence that all human thoughts and reactions have a material basis. That this riles you seems to me that you feel somehow insecure in your professed beliefs. I am not attacking you, merely pointing out that what you believe makes no sense to me. That you find this disturbing seems to indicate that what I believe is important to you. I can't imagine why. Why not ignore me?

Religion is the opiate of the masses. Giving your slaves opiates helps keep them in line. No one would ever fully destroy such a useful tool.

Corporate take over. Religion led too often to spiritualism, with shopping, that's less of a danger.

Spiritualism can easily be tempered by the right "interpretations" of the inspiration.

What you believe dictates how you treat others, how you vote, and how you act in this world. I think we all care about what others believe, for those reasons, far more than most will admit. In my debates with aethiests I've come to understand that they want to convert me away from faith far more than I would want to convert them to it, and there is a reason for that, which is many aethiests seriously believe faith, via religion, is the vehicle for a lot of the madness and evil in this world. If you believe that, of course you are going to act on it, and try to persuade people to hold a different view. How could you not? And I do feel I need to temper that, because I don't feel that the life I live is responsible for madness nor evil in any way; I work hard to be a positive force in a very ordinary way. Why WOULDN'T I want you to understand that instead of fighting to change me (if you were, and I'm not saying you are, but many of your beliefs do)? Lol, of course, its probably the NT side of me that thinks that way, so I don't really expect you to agree, but just to explain.

Last edited by DW_a_mom on 30 Sep 2009, 11:26 am, edited 1 time in total.