posted
Adam Cadre's my favorite commentator on American politics.
He has a new essay up at http://adamcadre.ac/calendar/13140.html "Scott Brown and the case of the 41% majority", which has finally explained to me, more clearly and convincingly than I've seen anyone yet explain, why Democrats can't get anything done.
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posted
That is really fantastically well-written. The idea isn't new, but it's presented very well and I agree with it almost completely.
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posted
The first linked essay doesn't really attempt to describe conservatives at all, because they don't matter to the topic.
As for your second essay, which is a steaming pile of crap, I need only rebut it as so:
quote:Why am I repeating those elementary truths, you ask?
Because it is only through repetition that people can be convinced of them, as certainly life experience belies each assertion.
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posted
"He has a new essay up at http://adamcadre.ac/calendar/13140.html "Scott Brown and the case of the 41% majority", which has finally explained to me, more clearly and convincingly than I've seen anyone yet explain, why Democrats can't get anything done."
Or to summarize: there are way too many DINO's (or blue mutts, if you will).
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quote:Originally posted by bringer: I believe your linked essay is simplistic. Kinda describes conservatives like saying a dog is a four legged fur bearing mammal.
What a ridiculous caricature of liberalism. This essay is every bit as preposterous in describing the wants and desires of "liberals". It is describing some kind of retro 60's hippiedom point of view and pretending that this is a liberal.
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posted
Well, liberals do seem to morph quite rapidly from generation to generation. How are the conservatives, those who hang on a bit to what they know and trust, supposed to define what is ever changing? Is morphing from JFK to Maxine Waters a caricature of liberal movement? The liberal platform seems to be that if anything is new then it has to be better. Don't think so. Specially since alot of what liberals are pushing is old and easily identifiable to any serious student of history and tyranny. New morality isn't. New social justice isn't. Neither is it new nor is it just. New atheism is an old animism that man at best is an animal and quite superior as such. Are we Egyptians in walk and in talk? Liberals have succumbed to Che's disease, and morph not for any merit seen or acheived but simply for the sake of morphing.
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quote:Originally posted by bringer: Well, liberals do seem to morph quite rapidly from generation to generation. How are the conservatives, those who hang on a bit to what they know and trust, supposed to define what is ever changing?
I consider myself a liberal, but so do lots of people I disagree with on key issues. It's not helpful to pile all kinds of the worst viewpoints into that term and then beat on it - it's the worst kind of straw man.
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posted
Never mind bringer's amusing definition of new atheism; I'm flabbergasted by his redefinition of animism. Unless the likes of Christopher Hitchens have taken up a belief in a 'soul' that I haven't heard of.
I think we should chip in and buy bringer a deluxe G.I.Joe edition of Battleground of the Martyrs. Or maybe a Lego version of The Passion.
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quote:Animism (from Latin anima "soul, life")is a philosophical, religious or spiritual idea that souls or spirits exist not only in humans but also in other animals, plants, rocks, natural phenomena such as thunder, geographic features such as mountains or rivers, or other entities of the natural environment
How curious. By that wiki definition, some mormons are animists. I imagine a better definition would require that to be a major part of someone's theology, rather than a speculation.
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quote:Originally posted by Pete at Home: How curious. By that wiki definition, some mormons are animists.
Is that problematic? Since, AFAIK, animism isn't an organization, I don't see a contradiction with being an animist and also being a member of an organized faith. Tibetans are generally both animists (specifically Bonpos) and Buddhists; American Buddhists tend not to be animists.
quote:Originally posted by bringer: I believe your linked essay is simplistic. Kinda describes conservatives like saying a dog is a four legged fur bearing mammal.
It's funny, that you accuse it of simplicity when it refers to and illustrates 5 different points in the American politican spectrum (plus 2 additional points not present in it, though present in the Canadian spectrum) and detailedly discusses how they intermingle, while you link to an essay that stupidly divides the whole of humanity into liberals and conservatives instead and treats them as if they're distinct separate species.
Once again, you try to use words in the exactly opposite way that they're usually defined.
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quote:Originally posted by Pete at Home: How curious. By that wiki definition, some mormons are animists.
Is that problematic? Since, AFAIK, animism isn't an organization, I don't see a contradiction with being an animist and also being a member of an organized faith. Tibetans are generally both animists (specifically Bonpos) and Buddhists; American Buddhists tend not to be animists.
Adam
It seems like an extremely distant categorization of part of a very specific group ... feels akin to saying that some Siamese cats are plants.
Buddhism is a much bigger tent than LDS, Here I'm talking about a range of beliefs within a single highly unified sect. (Most LDS when we say mormon are thinking only LDS, not RLDS, FLDS, or other sects, but I should have been more specific).
The Balinese explained to me that their form of hinduism was animist, but that this was the earlier form of hinduism, before (according to them) Buddhism split off from Hinduism. So the idea that Buddhism might encompass some animist sects (if that's the right term) would not surprise me.
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"On the right, advocating uncompromising social conservatism, laissez-faire capitalism, and military responses to international conflict, we find the vast majority of the Republican Party, including nearly all of its senators..."
So you don't need to know any more than this, about your idealogical opponent underdogs, from whence they derive their power?
Bit of a snip here....
"No Democrat who had any prayer of getting elected would have made any headway against the power structure. And seeing that...."
Just seems to give up here about ever understanding this 'power structure'.
"...and seeing that, voters are swerving in the other direction, even though that means heading more directly over the cliff."
So voters are stupid lemmings. That's an arrogant assessment. Can't see it, don't want to understand it, so it's gotta be stupid.
Yeah, I'm gonna stick with simplistic.
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quote:So you don't need to know any more than this, about your idealogical opponent underdogs, from whence they derive their power?
For the purposes of that essay? No. Of course, I am not surprised that you have some difficulty understanding the value and purpose of focus. *grin*
quote:So voters are stupid lemmings. That's an arrogant assessment. Can't see it, don't want to understand it, so it's gotta be stupid.
I would argue, rather, that the author is asserting that he can see and understand it, not that he is presenting an option because he does not see or understand it. You may of course disagree, but inventing a motivation for the guy seems unnecessary.
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posted
Hi folks! It's been a while, but that bit about Egypt and Chris Hitchens made me want to say "Hi," and, "I'm an animist, by that old definition," and "I sincerely hate Christopher Hitchens and Atheism, a lot."
Oh and about that article: the Democratic Party includes folks like me (a radical environmentalist/anarchist); folks like Bernie Sanders (a democratic socialist); and folks like Hilary Clinton. And that's just 3 of the white people. Now maybe it's just that from way over here, all the Republicans look the same, but it really does seem that the Democratic Party is a bigger tent than the Republican Party-- and going on about DINOs and RINOs really misses the point.
As an added thought: I have a much easier time talking to rural Libertarians (who almost always vote Republican) than most Democrats, who usually infuriate me. At the same time the Dems still are the better choice for me if I'm going to vote. Does this help or harm my argument? I'm not sure. What do you think?
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posted
Nuance, Animism, usually helps the logic of an argument but not necessarily its power to persuade.
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posted
Thank you, Kenmeer. That is better. More please.
By Animism I mean Gaia and James Cameron and man who deserves no merit over any bug or beast. I believe that Atheism recedes to this low station of man too easily.
posted
" I believe that Atheism recedes to this low station of man too easily."
I see little reason to believe this. I do know that it is common for many religionists to think that without a divine teleology we are 'no better than beasts'.
I say whatever, for a) 'beast' is a human-derived concept, so the very thinking of such a distinction proves our inherent 'humanity', b) the existential POV that atheism usually invokes requires us to find our own meaning in life, and this again is a 'human' and inherently noble, courageous act, c) believing that without divine teleology humanity is somehow less, is giving up without a struggle.
My older brother is a lifelong Mormon who went on a mission to Ireland '70 to '72. While he was gone, I found this chest of his, and being a nosy little brother with a fetish for the magic he perceived in his older brother's cool stuff, dug around a bit. I found what was either a letter to himself or a paper he wrote in college for a theology class? It said (paraphrase) that without God, a holy plan, we are no better than (the) beasts.
I say that the real test of a God's omnipotence would be Its ability to save us even if It didn't exist.
Some people spend hours immersed in video game virtual realms filled with magic and all the Holy Quests and rentable teleologies one can handle.
I don't. I pray. To God. That's my imaginary escape from verified existential facts. It helps me. There are things that would be much harder for me to do, yea, I might not do them at all, if I didn't pray.
But do I believe there is a God or a Holy Plan?
No. I have zip evidence to this effect, and not a single person who believes there is a Holy Plan has provided a single tangible piece of evidence supporting their belief.
I think it would be a terrible insult to my existence to pretend my Mighty Imaginary Friend was anything but imaginary, or that my hope was anything more than hope. I think it sorely demeans the magic of existence to require it frame itself in (untested) supernatural (fool's) gold. Children who can't keep in mind that their imaginary friend is imaginary typically end up in jail, mental institutions, or really really unhealthy relationships...
My very very very fave quote on the Wonder of What May Come to Pass in the Great Beyond is by my very very very fave author, V. Nabokov, who said:
"Life is a great surprise. I do not see why death should not be an even greater one." V. Nabokov
I am willing to be surprised. I probably have no choice. I don't pretend to myself that a surprise is anything but a surprise, that I can know the nature of it beforehand, and I feel sorry (yes, that's pity) for those who feel they can outguess postmortal fate. We can rarely outguess mortal fate even with the surfeit of verifiable data it presents.
BTW, I am NOT an Atheist (except in certain fudgy technical sub-definitions of the term by which I would be called a 'soft atheist', but I find those definitions frivolous and tedious). I am an agnostic, and damn proud to be one since to be other would be to pretend I know what I don't.
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posted
As an atheist and an armchair philosopher, bringer, I find myself wondering what you mean when you assert that we are "better" than beasts. Since you do not believe that I as an atheist can hold this position, your use of the word "better" must imply a superiority in a category which I do not accept.
Because I do accept that we are, as sentient beings, far superior to non-sentient beings in many ways (beyond merely the technological). The obvious fact that we are able to hold meta-ethical concepts in our consciousness implies a further form of superiority, for example.
what atheists lack, rather than a reason to believe that humans are special (for we do indeed have that), is a reason to believe that humans are special as part of some overarching and unimpeachable plan. Humans may be special, but no one ordained that we are special for some ultimate purpose; we just happen to be the creature on this planet that got to our status first and most successfully.
This belief -- that things happen because they happen, and not because some cosmic arbiter has caused or approved them -- is what truly distinguishes an atheist from the religious. It has very little to do with whether or not we feel more of a kinship with cows than you do.
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quote: This belief -- that things happen because they happen, and not because some cosmic arbiter has caused or approved them -- is what truly distinguishes an atheist from the religious.
Its what distinguishes the atheist from the *theist*, not the religious. In America, they are mostly synonymous, but as a non-theistic religious, you can see why I like to make a clear distinction.
posted
The distinction is tautological, as the opposite of atheism is theism. Frankly, "things happen because they happen" doesn't mean anything to me. The laws of physics work by causation, so things that follow the laws of physics happen for a reason.
In my dimly lighted way of understanding the Big Picture, you don't have to be a theist or atheist (I'm neither) to accept that things happen for reasons beyond our comprehension. I don't know how we can possibly tell what "causes" things to happen for which we have no such understanding, or even if we really know what "cause" even means in the physical universe.
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quote:In America, they are mostly synonymous, but as a non-theistic religious, you can see why I like to make a clear distinction.
As a religious person, however, you still believe in a "plan" -- some method by which we are elevated from our natural, baser state to something better. Even to atheistic or agnostic religious people, religion provides a supernatural path that presumably offers something better than the life one is capable of directly observing. This is, again, the principal difference between the two extremes.
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quote:Frankly, "things happen because they happen" doesn't mean anything to me.
It's a shorter way of saying, "All things which might be said to happen are caused by events which produce observable effects." This is a much broader philosophical statement than it at first appears, and it completely rules out the traditional Christian God (although, interestingly enough, not necessarily the Mormon one).
Moreover, it's a way of noting that things have a tendency to happen as a result of causes, but that these causes do not necessarily have to be intentional. The belief that we live in an intentional universe is core to the religious mindset.
posted
Oh, I do. And I even believe in deliberate improvement; if people want to subscribe to a plan for that improvement, be it based in the Bible or Tony Robbins or their local college's adult curriculum, more power to 'em. What I don't believe in is the adage that everything that happens to you is part of a narrative written by someone else. You can spin it into a narrative if you like -- although you don't have to -- but no one's plotting it except you.
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quote:In America, they are mostly synonymous, but as a non-theistic religious, you can see why I like to make a clear distinction.
As a religious person, however, you still believe in a "plan" -- some method by which we are elevated from our natural, baser state to something better. Even to atheistic or agnostic religious people, religion provides a supernatural path that presumably offers something better than the life one is capable of directly observing. This is, again, the principal difference between the two extremes.
Rather than argue over religious vs non-religious theist vs non-theist religious etc. I propose we use Richard Carrier's definition of supernatural as ontologically basic mental entities and classify beliefs as either supernatural or natural and proceed accordingly. That article requires some vocabulary background so this one is probably be easier to read however be aware that it is targeted at a people interested in the problem of friendly general artificial intelligence, an almost universally atheist audience, so be prepared for a few jabs (the article makes a lot of good general points about the supposed conflicts between science and religion so I would recommend reading it anyways).
It seems that most Orneryians have different religious beliefs from one another so I think it would be useful if attempted to standarize a way on classifying them.
quote:Originally posted by TomDavidson: Oh, I do. And I even believe in deliberate improvement; if people want to subscribe to a plan for that improvement, be it based in the Bible or Tony Robbins or their local college's adult curriculum, more power to 'em. What I don't believe in is the adage that everything that happens to you is part of a narrative written by someone else. You can spin it into a narrative if you like -- although you don't have to -- but no one's plotting it except you.
Hmmm. Are you aware that this idea (no one writing the narrative outside of ourselves) is an *explicit* premise of the Buddhadharma? It seems like you want to make a disticntion between atheism and a non-theistic religion like Buddhism, which is fine, but the one you've offered is garbled:
quote: As a religious person, however, you still believe in a "plan" -- some method by which we are elevated from our natural, baser state to something better.
This could describe my workout plan, which as far as I know would work just as well for atheists as it does for me.
quote: Even to atheistic or agnostic religious people, religion provides a supernatural path that presumably offers something better than the life one is capable of directly observing. This is, again, the principal difference between the two extremes.
Supernatural would need to be defined here, since it can mean almost anything, but its false about Buddhism (and likely other non-theistic traditions) to say that there is a promise beyond the observable. Indeed, not only false but close to opposite.
posted
My impression is that core Buddhism is a philosophy, one that has acquired the trappings of more traditional supernatural religion.
That space between rational philosophy and irrational magical thinking (what we typically call 'religion') produces concepts almost immeasurably beautiful. The idea of a Bodhisattva has all the beauty of the myth of Jesus, while employing less supernatural thinking and replacing the Cross with a more honest and tangible suffering: sticking around this vale of tears.
posted
Adam, how does Buddhism fit into Richard Carrier's definition of supernatural that I posted above? Would Buddhism be a natural worldview?
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