Present what you want to mean by “objectivity” in detail, if you can.
I think I’ll be able to show what kind of mistake you are making, most probably.
All “absolutism” and “objectivism” are what you may call as an “opinion” overrated/glorified by the person claiming it, based on arbitrary perspectives.
We can say this because there is no truly independent basis/premises that would support “absoluteness” or “objectivity” since any notion/definition/POV requires another reference/frame/system that support it.
And there are so many possible way to see things and no “absolute” nor “objective” perspective that would tell which point of view is “better” than others in generic way.
In other words, all you are saying is mere “opinion”.
Some opinions may contain well organized perspectives, while some are highly IMAGINATIVE.
Do you really qualify it as a religious movement?
I mean, they are more or less just a bunch of mobs trying to justify/publicize themselves as whatever that may appeal positively.
Maybe the first version of them were a bit more religious, but the second version seems to be a gangs using kids (probably with drugs) as disposable fighters pretending to be Christian, democratic, revolutionary, etc.
And I don’t think it’s a good tactics if you want to fight religious (and/or emotional) fanatic movement/impulse.
I mean, by presenting them as something “scary” and “(potential) threat”, you would likely to create emotional reactions (defensive mentality) and the reduced rationality that comes with it.
In the kind of mentality, we often commit exact same type of silliness Jesus Camp people are making (as far as basic attitude is concerned).
I’m not so sure. I mean I don’t think people in US are so immature compared to other countries.
I’d say Americans are less fanatic compared to people in Israel and some Arab countries, for example.
And many Americans are generally nice and kind people with good degree of openness.
But I do think Americans tend to be a bit too naive (to follow the flag/president/etc) and they are already trained/conditioned to go into victim mentality by media and politicians (and big corporations).
As long as the habit of going into and trenching in the victim mentality is there, it’s sooooo easy for anyone to exploit the person with a simple shadow of threat.
I don’t like to see other humans becoming robotic. Robotic people in mass-hysteria (from fright and anger/hate) is the big factor in fanatical movement.
So, I don’t think it’s a good idea to “shock” people to reinforce their habit of trenching in “us vs them” mentality.
We can see silliness in them and see similar habit/mechanism in ourselves so that we might become less sensitive to scare tactics.
Yeah, but that they consider Evangelist Christianity to be the thing to aspire to with their actions shows a problem with what happened.
It’s not directly the Christian’s that where there’s fault, but it’s a byproduct of introducing this construct among the people that were there, and what this potent construct of the Bible (which most western Christians forget has strong messages…very strong messages…of vengeance and retribution, fighting for liberation, holiness through fighting for God’s chosen people and against corruption, and freedom from this persecuting physical life by death and rebirth into the eternal arms of God, who blesses those that fight in his name) can encourage in the minds of people feeling related by circumstance to the Hebrews and early Christians depicted in the Bible…literally.
Here, stretching way back to the 50’s and moving up into the current times, this article gives a perspective of the relationship between Christianity and this region for a great length of time.
Among the lines like:
Are lines like:
And:
And:
And:
I’m sorry…but Religion isn’t to blame so much, as you say Nah; their perspectives, but it’s sure a very powerful weapon for cultivating those perspectives encouragingly with emotional force.
It’s not about the people…it’s about the construct of what Religion is as an antagonist for this type of thought.
Had these people not mixed their initial perspectives with religious provocation, they would not reach the pinnacle points of conviction and fervor that they can reach.
Nice as a person, yes…as a nation…no.
America is really dangerous for established civilizations, and considering it’s population, even more so.
This place doesn’t know how to take anything in moderation; everything is over the top and driven.
It’s the land of “Best you can be…and more!”
Or, “All you can get…and more!”
Either one works.
I’m not saying it’s a horrible place; I’m simply stating what is the cultural backbone of what makes this nation tick on the basic level.
No, we don’t mob in violent civil war…often.
But we do individually and in small groups act irresponsibly and act violently…the primary difference is that we seem to do it out of, largely, interest in taking material; not control or ideals.
Most extremely violent places on the planet are so for a principle of life, or ideals.
Here…it’s for money, or revenge.
No, we don’t have mass murders…often, and not nearly as large.
But our individual murder capita can stand to rival many places when including mass murders when stretched out of say…60 some odd years.
Actually…they’re trained by the founding of their nation…American’s came from victimization…that’s what the Revolutionary war was about.
I agree.
I don’t consider ILP to be a large hangout for that demographic honestly.
It’s a shocker approach for the demographic outside of that one.
Obviously I wouldn’t approach said people with a shock approach.
The policy concept itself would NEVER happen in America…EVER.
It’s insane to think that it could.
But I say it to stress how vital it is to be aware of the capability, and to be on guard…America was founded on liberation from Religious fervor, in part but not exclusively.
I would hate to see it return to religious hysteria because we close our eyes and come to forget the power that religion can hold, and what it can fuel people to do, without even being told to; all because we assume it’s too figurative to be taken literally…that someone didn’t mean to give another person the idea of literal action with their figurative versing and preaching.
I’m saying that it’s dangerous when we forget this.
Silliness is just dismissing the ability for a bomb to explode because a person believed the most insane idea about a religious dogmatic agenda.
I think they use religion no differently from any other terrorist organisation. Their leader is certainly a religious fanatic and self proclaimed messiah and the combatants are known to shroud their political agenda in Christianity/mysticism. Their main goal is to overthrow the government and institute their brand of Christianity.
Notice how in the above you make a whole bunch of assertions… and ultimately end up making a self defeating argument.
You are saying absolutely, that absolutism and objectivism are just baseless opinions… which means your statement about it is itself a baseless opinion.
Do you see how you failed to argue your case?
It is your baseless opinion, that objectivism is a baseless opinion?
I’m an objectivist… so your baseless opinions don’t move me!
You can SAY that objectivism is just as baseless as your opinions, but that dosn’t make it true Nah! Because that’s just your baseless opinion!
I have opinions that I check against objective reality which I have access to through my senses… Reason tells me that my interpretations of reality are just that: interpretations. So I adopt instrumentalism as my measure of true/false because the measuring stick with instrumentalism is still the objective reality that I have access to. Rationality is the limit of my understanding… and naturally any interpretations of reality I hold to be true needs to be rational in order for me to even understand it, much less apply and test it.
Why do I think reality is objective? Because it’s shared!
I do consider Judaism (and other monotheism) to be one of the silliest form of religion because of strong tendency toward victim mentality (and hate, violence, and lack of rationality associated with).
It conditions people to be fanatic, robotic, and then to act in mass-hysteria when their emotion (fear) button is pushed.
I don’t think the humanity really needs this kind of silliness, although I don’t think it will disappear.
This is why I don’t really see the movement as very religious.
I think it’s the religious mentality (to be robotic) that is used for civil war, regional control, and then by mobs.
I’d say, it’s the combination of human nature/tendencies.
The greed (for the control and manipulation), then religious mentality (and the construct of some religions to foster hate and violence).
I don’t think we can eradicate the greed, nor religions.
But we can educate ourselves of utter silliness and the consequences of certain human nature/tendencies IF we don’t want to become robotic hysteric mass.
I think what I said is applicable to both of them, the religious construct and people.
And I think the construct of the religion you talk about is there because of people (or the tendencies of human mind/emotion).
Since emotional thinking tends to make people less rational, I don’t think making emotional plea is a good way to present the case against the emotional thinking.
Often, there is only 1 in 100 who posts in a forum. Others simply read.
And you never know what kind of people are reading.
I see post 911 as “religious hysteria”.
And I don’t see the “literal vs figurative” factor to be very important.
In the emotional thinking, people may use anything so that they can see themselves as right/good/positive.
I do think we can do lots of things from silliness.
And I do downplay the risk/danger of the people or the religious construct BECAUSE it’s a bit over-emphasized in your presentation.
Also, it’s easier (for some people) to see the same tendency within themselves when it’s not something very evil/demonic. It’s easier to admit some silliness. Who doesn’t commit silly mistake, after all?
And the admittance of the mistake/silliness breaks the emotional mental frame in which one tries to see oneself as right/good to the point of perfection/absolute. It breaks the delusion of perfect goodness/righteousness.
And this breaks the delusion of total division, or “us vs them” mentality.
Sometime, smaller things can get into a system and then break up many barriers.
I’m not so sure if they really believe in what they are saying.
What they say sounds more like street gangs claiming to be the leader of community and trying to protect local population, to me. Empty words of criminals/liars.
I mean, when they attack and kill parents and teachers to snatch kids to make them slave soldier and other kinds of slaves, I don’t think many people are seriously buying their claims (religious or political).
For absolutists (If they are logical/ration), all opinion is baseless unless we can find absolute basis.
Similarly, since you consider certain notions to be “objective”, they would be baseless unless you have “objective” basis.
However, for someone who consider all opinions to be relative, an arbitrary base can be a valid/appropriate one, depending on the logic.
In other words, absolutism and objectivism ARE self-defeating perspective unless you can find absolute or objective basis, respectively.
And I’m saying these from logical perspective, just in case you don’t understand that I’m saying these with the limitations/conditions and thus what you mistook as “absolute statement” were actually pretty relative to limitations/conditions.
What’s the instrumentation of “objective moral”.
What’s other instrumentation are you talking about?
Are you serious?
Does your “reality” includes “moral”?
If so, how?
If being shared makes something “objective”, what’s the requirement for the exact extent of sharing?
For example, if you say sharing by two people makes something objective, there can be many different version of “objective reality” of your kind.
First of all, Just because something does not have an objective basis, dosn’t mean it dosn’t have ANY basis… It just means it’s worthless to anyone other than yourself and those who care what you personally think.
A statement like “Stumpy’s ugly” dosn’t have an objective basis BUT it does have a subjective basis, namely your personal preference… Objectivly it might be true that YOU THINK stumpy is ugly, but it’s not true that “stumpy is ugly” objectively… Get it?
Also you seemed confused about what instrumentalism was… I suggest you look it up on Wiki or something.
As for an objective notion of morality, well where to begin?
I suppose I should define morality first.
Morality is a code of conduct within a group, the violation of which would result in conflict or otherwise renders you blameworthy within that group.
The objective basis of morality
Humans as a species tend to have certain social instincts that lay the foundations for morality in our society. These instincts evolved in humans, being selected for allowing us to work together in groups without killing or otherwise harming eachother in the process. Strength in numbers and all that jazz.
That’s all “morality” is in objective terms… If you define morality as “the things I think are right and wrong!” than it’s a purely subjective phenomena… And it becomes relative to each individual. BUT that’s just because of the shitty subjective definition used.
I asked you about the “extent” of sharing, the shared nature you claimed to be the basis of your “objectivity” but you failed or avoided to clear that up.
Let’s see if you can make objective explanation about the objectivity you talk about.
Thank you for the suggestion.
Wikipedia: “In the philosophy of science, instrumentalism is the view that a concept or theory should be evaluated by how effectively it explains and predicts phenomena, as opposed to how accurately it describes objective reality.”
So, it is the notion for science, according to the article. Now, tell me how you apply it to your “objective moral” ?
What’s the “concrete theory” of yours regarding moral and what"s the predictions based on it, and the actual results?
Or are you confused about your “instrumentalism” ?
So, your “morality” is clearly relative to “a group”.
It that all?
Are you claiming what you just wrote as an objective statement?
Your “objective basis of morality” depends on and relative to what you call “social instincts”, according to what you wrote.
It’s also relative to “evolution of humans” via dependency of “instincts” upon it.
In other words, your “objective moral” is pretty relative to arbitrary (and vague) notions you happened to choose, like “social instincts”, “evolution of humans”, “Strength in numbers”, “groups” of unknown nature (size, extent, etc), and so on.
To me, it’s just an arbitrary and personal opinion of yours regarding what you WANT to see as “objective moral”.
If you want and if you can, you can explain about all these vague notions and assertions you’ve made.
Again, what’s the exact extent/nature of “sharing” that makes something “objective”?
And why it’s better from what kind of perspective compared to “purely subjective” notion?
Personally, I consider morality as a delusion, another irrational attempt to justify/rationalize one’s (or others’) action/thought/etc.
And the idea of "objectivity is similar to that of “god”.
It give the (false) sense of security/solidity/certainty/etc to the person who worship/overrate without due reasoning. In other words, I think it show the insecurity and irrational nature of the person.
It’s similar to Jesus camp people thinking they are talking truth and they are right/good/etc.
I think overrating subjective perspectives is a stepping stone for the kind of fanatic attitude/actions we see in video.
I guess objectivism is less irrational than religious absolutism, but the basic mechanism is the same.
I know you have been talking in the sense roughly equating religion and people.
In other words, you are not presenting just about “the construct of the religion” but also the people who made it up and holding it as “scary”.
And people or the construct, I’m saying emotional presentation may invite emotional thinking and thus not very constructive in rational thinking.
As for your equation of people=religion, I have my opinion and I may write if you desire so (in the marathon thread of yours).
Sigh…
What does that even mean?
Are you trying to insult me?
I know…
What do you mean “the extent”?
Objectve reality is shared universally by all real things!
How is this an alien concept to you?
The same way I apply it to everything else… what a silly question!
Like I said, morality is untimately based in human social instincts… That means we can “test” moral ideas against them!
In fact we ARE testing them that way… in fields like neurology and evolutionary psychology.
Is this a real question?
or are you trying to be an asshole again?
No… it’s only applicable in a “group”.
Let’s assume “Do not kill” is a moral rule. It would not apply to “cows”, for example, UNLESS cows were considered “members” of the group.
Yes Nah… it’s “relative” to reality… just like every other objective thing!
…
I think at this point that would be a wasted effort… If you want clerity I could suggest some light reading… maybe an indtruduction to philosophy book for starters.
… ok?
WOW!
You really can’t stop talking about yourself can you?
How many times did I say that I don’t care about your personal opinions?
Is my english bad? I mean… which part don’t you understand?
Why are you repeatedly offering me your personal opinions in your posts? Do you think I’ll suddenly care? Do you think I should care? if so then why?
I’m seriously curious now…please tell me!
This, which I don’t often do, was not a thread about analytical presentation.
It was, as I said previously, meant to provoke; I think it did that.
People seem to have noticed one way or the other, and that was mostly what I was after.
Attention is good enough honestly.
People have their own brains to figure out what they truly think of these kinds of things.
I like the little debate, because it stirs it up for people to chew on that read along, but ultimately, it’s up to them.
I just wanted to note it, and so I did.
I don’t really care if someone get’s rational or emotional about it; that’s up to them.
Just as long as they take note of it; good enough; they can do with it as they want.
As to the post-o-thon, it’s a free internet where I’m from, so if you feel compelled to write something in there, then that is within your privileges.
I don’t think it’s locked or anything.
It means, I was following the perspectives of yours.
And the perspectives are made by your soul. And it’s a lost soul in the imaginary enclosure of “objectivity”.
And it wasn’t written to make you feel insulted.
But you are free to feel in anyway, you want.
Hold on. Are you saying there are “real thing” and “unreal thing” ?
If so, how do you distinguish them, objectively, by instrumentalism?
Now, what’s the example of your “Objectve reality” that is “shared universally by all real things!”
Well, I would say it’s not really rational concept
Your “Objectve reality” is based on instrumentalism and instrumentalism is based on theories that make good prediction.
In other words, your “Objectve reality” depends upon (and relative to) theories and how good they can predict.
It makes your “objective reality” pretty relative to arbitrary perspective with which you construct theories and other arbitrary perspectives upon which you evaluate the prediction results.
So, your “Objectve reality” is a relative and arbitrary notion, after all, yet you are trying to present it as something more than that, and I don’t think it’s a very rational thing to do.
Please respond in detail with examples (if you are able and not just avoiding to answer).
It should be easy if it’s that silly for you.
Show me the actual theory, prediction made with it, and observed results.
“Instrumentalism” is the notion for science (according to Wiki thing you suggested), and I expect scientific rigor in your study of “Objective Moral”.
Provide concrete example if you can.
I asked you because you seem to be mixing science and moral.
Is your “moral” scientific domain you can predict/test with scientific theory and with scientific rigor?
“A code of conduct within a group”, which is your definition of “moral”, and it’s pretty vague and vast to cover with current scientific knowledge, I’d say.
Even if scientific methods can cover a bit (or even more), there remains the question of “universality” you pretend. I mean, to prove that your “Objective reality” is shared universally is a huge task (if not impossible). I simply don;t think you’ve accomplished it. I don’t think you do understand the extent of the bar you are setting.
So, I’m highly skeptical about your “Objective moral”, even more skeptical than your “objective reality”.
I think it’s just in your hopeful imagination = personal and arbitrary opinion of not so rational nature.
I meant to say exactly that: it’s only applicable in a “group”.
Your “morality” is clearly relative to “a group”, in the sense it depends on the group (its nature, composition, etc), it’s limited and conditional to the group.
And it means your “morality” is relative to an arbitrary choice of a group, the way group is defined, the rigor used in determining the member of the group.
It’s your personal and arbitrary opinion, after all.
Since your “moral” is relative to a group, you need to specify the group when you present your moral, to be precise.
Anyway, show us the example of your “Objective moral”, which we don’t need to assume.
And if your “Objective moral” is limited to human being, it means it’s relative to humans being and thus not universally shared/applicable and thus contradict your notion of “Objectivity”.
Now, you need to define your “reality”.
And you need to come up with something more than arbitrary and personal definition of it. If you can’t, your “reality” is relative to arbitrary and personal basis, and so as your other cherished imaginary notions like objectivity and morality.
I guess you are simply incapable of explaining.
So far, you have failed to show concrete example of theory, prediction and actual result concerning your “Objective moral” (nor Objective reality) to be verified with your “instrumentalism”.
I’ve already told you that all I say is mere “opinion” based on arbitrary and personal perspectives.
Unlike you, I’m not claiming universal applicability, objectivity, and so on.
In other words, what you said contradicts what we can observe in this thread.
Since I’ve already said at least a few times that all I say is my “opinion” based on arbitrary and personal perspectives. I have to say that you are pretty slow to understand this.
I don’t pretend that my opinions can be sharable, especially “universally”.
I know some people (like Absolutists and Objectivists, among others) have hard time following my perspectives because it conflicts with their personal beliefs.
But it’s easily sharable by someone who can think in different perspectives without friction/resistance from (often subconscious) stiff and narrow core beliefs.
Personally, I don’t care about your personal attitude. It’s your business and you
are free to decide (to care or not) if you have that type of freedom.
As I said before, my interest in this thread is mainly to show the similarity shared by Jesus camp people and some of posters. And you are one one the person who share certain similarities.
Objectivism is pretty similar to Absolutism in some area such as the tendency to “overrate” one’s personal and arbitrary opinion.
I think it’s done so hoping to have more influence over others, probably.
It may work for not so rational people, but it doesn’t work well with very rational people. It’s a variation of emotional and hopeful thinking, I’d say.
Sure. And I used the occasion to show emotional thinking (especially the victim mentality) is often what makes people less rational and then possibly fanatic.
I’m not sure if all people have the kind of brain to figure it out, though.
You may want to care if you like other to be more rational.
Well, I’ll write as you seem to be not really negative about it (although not very positive, most probably. )
As sometimes happens, Nah, I find the responses your posts generate even more entertaining than the posts themselves, lol. You do try to provide the necessary disclaimers up front, but people seem to overlook or forget them and get mad at you for expressing opinions about their opinions. Can’t help it, it cracks me up.
I found “Jesus Camp” to be hideous when I first saw it (and there was a thread on here around the time it came out)…and I think that there’s a certain amount of hypocrisy shown by those who decry, either in content or in motive, what these ‘true believers’ are teaching their children and then go on to spout the usual stuff, like ‘god admonishes followers to go out and spread the word’. WTF do you think those people are trying to do? Just because you don’t like their version of the ‘word’, or their methods or their audience, for that matter, what gives you the right to criticize them when they’re doing exactly what they think the god admonished them to do?
You see, there’s a core problem in the belief that a god ‘admonishes’ the followers to do such a thing. It causes this sort of business to happen. And why don’t some of you see this hypocrisy, I never can understand.
I have a brother who once participated in a church mission (one of the evangelical ones, I have no idea which) to go to Honduras and help provide some medical-related services for impoverished rural villages. They built some schools, too. Once, when talking with him about this, I asked how this was connected to ‘spreading the word’ and he said that they led prayers with the villagers lined up at the clinics and then they shared with them the Christian doctrine ‘when the time was right’ during their interactions. I asked him what they would do if the villagers had said “F*** off with that religous stuff, we got our own. Just give us the health care and the schools and then scram!!” His answer was, “oh, we never require them to participate in the religious stuff, it’s entirely voluntary on their part.” I must have laughed for ten minutes straight at that one. He just prays for me when I do stuff like that, it’s how we manage to maintain the family ties, ha ha.
Anyway…I remember recoiling in horror watching what was happening to those children at Jesus Camp, and I also remember recoiling when I saw the little boy’s shell shocked reaction after going out on the streets to evangelyze and getting yelled at by people. And recoiling at the kids in the pathetic homeschooling situations being taught nonsense for science.
Which brings me to what I think is the bigger travesty: what gets lost in the talk about the violent overtones of the movie is the IGNORANCE. What is it, something like 40-50% of Americans regularly poll with the belief that human beings didn’t evolve from anything but were instead created like we look now by a magic-wielding god, and that the earth is 12,000 years old. I think some good old fashioned horror ought to be directed to that, because this unbelievable ignorance and the inability to reason and think critically is more likely to bring us down. Add in the paranoia and violence that the ignorant masses tend to fall into and, while I’m not a betting person, the future isn’t looking too good.
And another disturbing thing about that movie that I just remembered was how American-centered their religious messages were. I also remember thinking afterwards how political the stuff was they were telling their kids.
