The cult of idealogy

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The cult of idealogy

What is a cult? A cult is a group of people that follow an idea or a person. The idea of godlessness is a cult. As is communism, socialism and others. Marx was no different than Christ or L. Ron Hubbard. Instead of giving us an answer, he gave us another Idealogy.

So here we stand in modern times with the various Idealogies battling each other out. New ones, old ones, some truth, no truth…

Where is an individual to turn? How can one not expect more people to become misanthropic in the current state of affairs? All the idealogies are at each other’s throats, calling for an end to the other. The godless want “an end to faith”. (Courtesy of Sam Harris, and his pundits.) Is Sam Harris any different than a modern day version of Marx, or dare I say any other charismatic atheist leader? He walks the walk, and thinks that he is on the side of ultimate righteousness… what he doesn’t realize is that his path is no different than [u]ANY other idealogy.[/u] His faith is no less or no more strong than someone who believes in the rapture…

Harris believes in the power of liberal science. Science without justification or morals, or proof. Global Warming(1), Stem Cell Research(2), Abortive measures and Euthanasia(3)… All these are the spoils of his idealogy. Most of them, merely because they contradict the enemy of the liberal idealogy. The Christian Idealogy.

What we need is not an end to faith. What we need is an end to idealogies. What we need is for people to stop being huxtered by charismatic liars, who know nothing of the actual truth of the world. The cultural and political elite continue to run our lives, even with are so called seperation of church and state.

I think the answer lies in teaching. BUT, it must be self-taught. People must be taught to discern fact from fiction. They must know the importance of myth, and the dangers of believing in them literally. They must have the common sense, not to believe in golden plates, special translations (Jehovah), or alien races that travel billions of light years to commit genocide. (twice).

It’s not an easy road to travel. One has to let go of their lies, and grasp onto the truth.

but unless we let go of our idealogies we are doomed to a perpetual war of the words, and knives and swords and guns and planes.

All for our god. (or man made god…)

Can you let go of your idealogy?

  1. even with our heat waves in this summer, they aren’t shattering records set 90 years ago. In fact they aren’t even close. Most real scientists recognize the problem the underwater volcanos are causing with producing tons more carbon (and other noxious gases) than we could ever hope to produce.

  2. There’s no evidence that stem cell research will cure anyone, not to mention the ethical question of “would that human I just killed to save my ONE life have saved the entire human race?”

  3. There’s no question that a “clump of cells” is a human being, as there’s no question that commiting suicide for subjective reasons is morally and ethically wrong.

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Can you divorce your wife?

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So says your ideology. If you aren’t questioning it, then aren’t you falling prey to the very kind of faith you’re berating?

This page says the question isn’t whether we’ve got the hottest day in our summer, but that we’re experiencing fractions of degrees in increases.

This page says we release a lot more greenhouse gases than volcanoes.

This page says stem cells are already used in some treatments.

I say that a clump of cells isn’t a human being; being an entity with self-awareness is what makes us what we are. I also say that you can’t approach the question of suicide by simply arguing that there are absolute moral principles that people should always follow, because there aren’t.

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The First* Book Of Dan~:
[size=100]Chapter 4:[/size]
[size=75]Society is divine.[/size]

"Two lovers touch.
Something is created
Which none could ever build alone.

Through combinations and changes of more then one,
Things come into existence
Which are beyond the imagination.

Billions of stars,
So much power,
But not a speck of arrogance found,
As they peacefully watch over our heads.

In our universe there is never found just one.
There must be two or more [of any species or star].
There must be society.
This is the way of the divine."

From this lesson we see that nothing is singular.

Chapter 2:
The way of bodies.

“Built within beings.
Changing with their environment.
Imperfect.
Made of many, smaller parts.”

Here we see the universal principal of bodies.

One of the main things that makes a human body unique is… well, there are too many things to mention here.

Suicide is a form of destruction.
I don’t like destruction.

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If the wife poisons you with lies, it’s your duty to not stay with her.

I’m agnostic I follow no idealogy. I’m not berating faith, I’m berating idealogy… which you supplanted in the rest of your post, you’re idealogical belief that global warming is happening and that it’s man made.

so what will that zygote turn into when it matures?

A giraffe? A zebra?

A monkey?

No, of course not. You’re idealogy blinds you to your own past, and your own creation. You were once that same “clump of cells”, and by following your idealogy and calling it such, you lower the value of your own self worth. You’ve bought the idealogy lie hook line and sinker.

There is far more to humanity than being self aware.

Of course not… part of your idealogy is relativism. which in itself is a misnomer. You don’t believe all truths are equal, or that all lies are equal. You merely use relativism as an excuse to perform and stand up for various atrocities.

Without moral absolutes you can do whatever you wish. Kill the future of the human race, kill those who are too much of a burden (or convince them that is the best option.)

It’s ludicrous to think that death is better than life. Death is nothing without life. Life is nothing without death. We’ll sell the cutlure of death for the survival of the fittest… something that doesn’t even occur in nature.

Tell the crippled and the handicapped they should abort any future generations because they weaken the human race… all while not realizing that YOU are weakening the human race by doing such an act.

You and others following you’re idealogy are no different than those who blindly follow the lies of their own idealogy. You can’t see the spruce tree through the forest.

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So does potentiality equal actuality?

Because I could kill my neighbor, should I be locked up?

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scythekain:
I’m agnostic I follow no idealogy. I’m not berating faith, I’m berating idealogy… which you supplanted in the rest of your post, you’re idealogical belief that global warming is happening and that it’s man made.

K Quite clearly you do have an ideology and a faith.
This is part of the self deception you must work on.
Understanding some actually philosophy might help you work out
your self deceptions.

Dan: I say that a clump of cells isn’t a human being"

SY: so what will that zygote turn into when it matures?
A giraffe? A zebra?A monkey?

K: quite clearly a clump of cells cannot compare to a human
being. If you make that connection, you should probably
return to school and learn the difference between
a clump of cells and a human being. You cannot connect
what is and what might be. For example, you cannot
say because today is a certain day, tomorrow will
be the same certain day. If today is warm, then tomorrow
will be warm also. It doesn’t work that way. Potentially
is not the same as actuality. Try reading mediaeval
philosophers. They kill thousands of trees on this very point.

S: No, of course not. You’re ideology blinds you to your own past, and your own creation. You were once that same “clump of cells”, and by following your idealogy and calling it such, you lower the value of your own self worth. You’ve bought the idealogy lie hook line and sinker.

K: Your ideology is showing far more then dan’s.
You mistake a clump of cells as being human.
That is ideology hard at work.

S: There is far more to humanity than being self aware.

K: ok, tell us.

Dan: I also say that you can’t approach the question of suicide by simply arguing that there are absolute moral principles that people should always follow, because there aren’t."

SY: Of course not… part of your ideology is relativism. which in itself is a misnomer. You don’t believe all truths are equal, or that all lies are equal. You merely use relativism as an excuse to perform and stand up for various atrocities.

K: simply not true. Please share with us, the exact atrocity
that dan has committed, not those who share his viewpoints,
but his exact atrocity. You are labeling. the village idiot has
stated publicly he is a christian, and believes in moral absolutes, yet
he has committed horrible atrocities, such as torture, killing
of hundred of thousands of innocent Iraqis civilians,
of flying hundreds of people to prisons in foreign counties
for the express purpose of being torture, violating the law,
violating the constitution, holding prisoners for years without
any regards to their legal rights. Yea, that is mister
moral absolute for you.

SY: Without moral absolutes you can do whatever you wish. Kill the future of the human race, kill those who are too much of a burden (or convince them that is the best option.)

K: feel free to name me one absolute moral principle.

SY: It’s ludicrous to think that death is better than life. Death is nothing without life. Life is nothing without death. We’ll sell the culture of death for the survival of the fittest… something that doesn’t even occur in nature."

K: Actually, if you weren’t so ideologically driven, you
would realise that the GOPhers are the real drivers
of the culture of death you speak of. They allow millions,
every single year to die of extreme poverty in the world.
They advocate war which has killed thousands in the last
3 years.

Tell the crippled and the handicapped they should abort any future generations because they weaken the human race… all while not realizing that YOU are weakening the human race by doing such an act.

K: I am handicap. Perhaps we should be telling you what is and
isn’t weakening the human race.

SY: You and others following you’re ideology are no different than those who blindly follow the lies of their own ideology. You can’t see the spruce tree through the forest."

K: you are far more ideology driven then I or dan is.
Tend your own garden before you tell other people
what they believe in is wrong. Moralist such as yourself is
harming america far more anything I or dan can do.

Kropotkin

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Dan~, I apologize; I don’t think I understand your response on stem cells.

I don’t like it either; however, I don’t see how I can demand that someone’s right to control their own life be taken away.

Berating faith in an ideology; attacking people who are so certain that their ideas are reality that they become blind to all else, and demand that no other idea can surface. I have an ideology; it happens to be mine, and it happens to change every instant I’m here (in existance, that is). Nevertheless, I probably won’t hold many ideas to be true that don’t fit into my ideology; in order to me to accept a new idea, I would haveto change my ideology.

My principle goal wasn’t to persuade you to accept my ideas about global warming, but to have you consider your own bias, especially considering how many questionable facts you listed at the end of your post. How was my response an ideology while your initial “agnostic” list wasn’t?

To my past? In my mind, my identity–that is, the one that formulates the thoughts represented by this text–was equivalent to a clump of cells at one point in the past; nothing more, nothing less. You are the one confusing time, not me; my self worth now is only based on my past to the extent that I became what I am because of it. Similarly, the rapture and all of the judgement that “fundamentalist” Christians of the right proclaim is in the future, and irrelevent today beyond the preparation that it should entoll, if in fact it will ever occur. The world hasn’t ended yet, and time exists for us. By your thinking, even a couple’s decision not to have sex at a certain time is equivalent to murder; how many people have I murdered by not aiming to have sex at every waking moment since puberty?

Can you name something of humanity whose value doesn’t stem from our self-awareness?

No I don’t…I believe they’re all relative. Relativity isn’t equality.

No you can’t; you’re you and you have your beliefs. Those beliefs aren’t whatever you wish them to be, they’re what you are. While you might jump to the conclusion that moral relativism allows any atrocity to be rationalized, it doesn’t, because a rationalization that goes beyond the reality of a person’s beliefs simply doesn’t hold up, even within their own mind.

What? Survival of the fittest doesn’t equate to might makes right; might makes power, power is part of what survival is. Survival, though, is certainly not always right or even related to it.

Ouch. But my actual point, again, was that you’re so certain of yourself about all of this, and have your own ideology. I mean, really, you’re making accusations on the basis of my three links (which I just googled) and a few lines of argumentation. It seems to me like you’ve already got a picture in your mind of what a person who clings to this or that ideology looks like. You’ve got a set of ideas about how they’ll respond, and what they must really be like and really believe. Sounds a lot like “a systematic body of concepts.”

Edit: I apologize for such a long post immediately following Peter Kropotkin’s with such similar content; he posted while I was writing.

Peter, I think you’ve confused names, as “Dan~” appears in reference to quotes of me.

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K: I am often confused. my apologies.
Its due to my extreme old age and senility.
Its hell to get old. :smiley:

Kropotkin

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Basically some people are pissing on the human mechanics of belief and trust. Nothing too much here.

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We have ideologies, and need them, for two (EDIT: or more) reasons.

First of all, we use ideologies the same way we use words. We’d never get anything done if I had to explain what all my big words meant when I used them. We’d never get anything done if I had to re-explain everything I believed about everything whenever I talk. So, I say I’m a Christian. You need to know what that is. It’s chunky- a great big block of stuff. Some of what you think that word entails probably doesn’t apply to me, and if you’re clever, you know that, but I still use that chunky word in a fix.
Secondly, if anything is true, then believing it would be an ideology- the right one. If everything taught about evolution right now is the absolute truth, then believing it all is no less an ideology. That’s the way the truth will work, because…
Thirdly, there’s the matter of coherence. It’s only natural for beliefs to stick together in chunks. I believe this, because it follows from that. There’s a natural instinct that says the bigger, more complete and stickier your chunk of beliefs is, the better it is.

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Ucc…that’s three reasons :slight_smile:

Beyond that, I agree. So, in case he didn’t get it before (I don’t always make sense), how is that you don’t have an ideology scythe?

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Uccisore: We have ideologies, and need them, for two reasons.
First of all, we use ideologies the same way we use words. We’d never get anything done if I had to explain what all my big words meant when I used them. We’d never get anything done if I had to re-explain everything I believed about everything whenever I talk. So, I say I’m a Christian. You need to know what that is. It’s chunky- a great big block of stuff. Some of what you think that word entails probably doesn’t apply to me, and if you’re clever, you know that, but I still use that chunky word in a fix.

K: I agree with the premise. We have ideologies and we
need them. They do act as a short hand, I am a …
and we don’t need to re-explain what I am… but it
works the other way to, the use of these ideology as
weapon. An accusation as it were. he is an… the
common one today is “he is an communist” Or “liberal”.

UC: Secondly, if anything is true, then believing it would be an ideology- the right one. If everything taught about evolution right now is the absolute truth, then believing it all is no less an ideology. That’s the way the truth will work, because…

K: Now we have problems, believe in something does not
automatically constitute an ideology. I believe in many things that
does not create an ideology. I believe in buffalo wings, hot and often.
that does not create an ideology. A fixation perhaps, but not
an ideology. Evolution is not the absolute truth by its very label
of theory, because by its very definition of theory, it is not
absolute truth.

UC: Thirdly, there’s the matter of coherence. It’s only natural for beliefs to stick together in chunks. I believe this, because it follows from that. There’s a natural instinct that says the bigger, more complete and stickier your chunk of beliefs is, the better it is."

K: The old argument of hegel and the system builders,
build it and they will come, whereas Nietzsche and
Schopenhauer fought against the system builders.
Which side are you on?

Kropotkin

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Kropotkin: I agree with you that defining someone as an ideology can be used against them. I’m not sure if it’s always a bad thing, but it’s clearly a shortcut away from real philosophy.

As to my second point, when I said that any true thing we believed would end up being an ideology, I mean any large body of true things. Your opinions on hotwings may not be, but perhaps a full thesis on the nature of nutrition would.  As to an ideology being absolute instead of mere belief, I think that has to do with coherence. That is, my Christian ideology has things aren't very absolute- things I can let go of, if the evidence reigns against them. Things that I wouldn't lose sleep over if I had to change my opinions on. Those are fringe beliefs- nothing else hangs on them. However, there are beliefs at the 'center' (like basic theism), that if I had to let go of, would take a lot more convincing, and I would be a lot more resistant, because I would have to change everything that's based on it.  I think all ideologies, all belief structures would work that way. Your foundational things become absolute because you are so used to building up from them, that your world doesn't make sense (you lose perspective) if you question them. 
 Someone who seems more open-minded than you may well just be taking some beliefs as fringe, that you take as foundational.  They're more open to challenging this or that, because this or that isn't tied so deep to how they view the universe. Dig a little deeper, and you'll find we're all basically the same.

To your final question, I ain’t read them fellers. What I can say about the debate, as I see it from the laymens perspective, is that I feel system building is natural, inherent to the way humans think, and I am skeptical of claims that it can be escaped from, leaving aside the issue of whether or not we should.

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quite clearly you’re buying the idealogy.

#1) this clump of cells you’re talking about is a human zygote. NOT just any old clump of cells.

#2) if you really feel that there is no comparison to a human being, you know nothing of how human development happens within the womb. That zygote once formed is not going to magically become a chicken.

You don’t have faith in your idealogy… you have knowledge. I’m not berating. I’m liberating.

You have a truth.

But it’s filled with someone else’s truth…

You cannot relate your truth to someone else, in the same way someone else cannot relate their truth to you. And who’s to say what they call truth isn’t a lie? Once we believe in a lie, it becomes truth.

There is a relative nature to truth… that’s how so many human idealogies form. But there’s danger within those same waters, because there’s also an absolute nature to truth. Certain other idealogies can see these absolutes that you overlook and see the dangers of your own idealogy.

All to often we look at a mirror and see only our external self and not our internal self. Our internal self is infinite, We are at once connected with every other atom in the universe as we are sitting in our own body in front of the monitor. Hence the creation that we destroy… the destruction of human life for selfish reasons is dangerous… whether for abortion or stem cell research.

It doesn’t take a holy book to see that, but some of you could certainly use one for your own implementation of morals is sorely lacking.

You look at the holy books and see only myth. Therefore you think it’s false… what you don’t realize is that the reality before your eyes is false. Everything you experience is a dream. A myth.

When I speak of the dangers of idealogy, I’m not speaking against them, I’m speaking of the dangers. Look at how up in arms each follower got in this post.

Uccisore is defending his idealogy, which is at complete odds with peter and xunzian and your idealogy.

Why? What makes any of you so certain that you are right… that you have the universal answer of truth.

Truth is like water. It can flow and it can be solid.

Truth is like light. It can shine out to others in the darkness of lies, and it can reflect the true nature of humanity. IF we let it.

IF we don’t hide behind someone else’s version of the truth.

And that’s really what an idealogy is.

But what does that mean? It means that you follow Paul’s idealogy, of redemption by human sacrifice. It’s no different than killing babies for human sacrifice. He kills them so that those alive can live longer… not giving the future generations their proper chance to live. Paul kills god/man so that we can live longer in the afterlife.

Both are philosophies of self preservation, neither belongs to you.

Words are the story teller for the myth we are living. Don’t let someone else tell your story. Don’t succumb to the idealogy.

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And you know this how? Because it happens to be similar on some issues to a major side of a political debate? I believe in the solar system and gravity too, I think you’ll take awhile to liberate me.

I cannot or I should not? Relate is a very broad term; even saying, “what they believe to be true, I believe to be false” is stating a relationship.

You’re changing topics very rapidly here. My truth and the universe’s Truth are different things. My truth relies exclusively on my own perspective, hence limiting my capacity to be certain about Truth; I can’t reasonably know an absolute, although it is possible that I would believe in something that happens to be an absolute–I just wouldn’t be certain of it logically. Can you tell me an absolute that you know for certain?

It isn’t our self if it is another atom; it isn’t infinite. Our own self is, by definition, limited. In 400 years, in all likelihood, you won’t exist physically; the energy that composes you now will, but that won’t be you any longer.

“Dangerous” doesn’t equate to “absolutely wrong and evil”. My moving air particles as I type on my keyboard could potentially cause our galaxy to implode; is that evil too (my typing that is)?

How is that? Where have I failed to implement morals?

…You’re telling me that I’m too certain? I’m Christian, so your accusation is just a bit off the mark.

Complete odds? Aren’t we agreeing on the great body of the topic at hand? We’re discussing and not particularly fiercely or angrily…I don’t see what danger you’re talking about that we aren’t sidestepping.

Just a little while ago I thought I was the relativist here.

The reality is scythe, that however much you think we’re trying to look at the world through someone else’s ideology, we’re ultimately applying everything we experience and think about to our own perspective. I’m Christian, but I’m certainly not one like Uccisore, Paul, or George W Bush. I’m my own kind of Christian. The reason I stick to the traditional label is for language, such that my position and perspective can be generalized, simplified, and communicated more easily. Don’t think that because the words are the same that the thinking is identical.

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I think… my point is being missed. I’m going to revise it and try again.

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The reason why people are missing your point is because your original post is infected with ideology.

That will cause conflicting ideologies to jump on your ideology and, well, then exatically what you warned about happens.

What’s new?

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But if that’s really his point, then isn’t he saying “be careful, people think differently and often disagree in dangerous ways”?

I’m not entirely sure that’s all he wanted to tell us…

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His point was that any set of ideas quickly becomes a self-sustaining ideology at the exclusion of other ideas.

His examples, then, were to show how narrow minded science is. While failing to accurately back it up and espousing his own ideology as the objective truth.

Which is were his original post fell short.

That’s how I understood it, anyways. YMMV.