Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
There are a number of distinctions but, as you and others have pointed out throughout the thread these are largely due to the changes in social and political environments, legal rights and freedoms, and the ways in which the information is transmitted and the number of people it can reach - basically the ease with which these ideas are propagated. The arguments used have also been fleshed out as a result of scientific discoveries. Plus, the topic is a lot more pertinent to people's lives and affects broader populations because of the exposure to these ideas.
That being said, if you break down the arguments used in the days of Aquinas, Voltaire, and Russell, for instance, and compare them with modern ones their core has barely changed. You are still expected to get from the same A to the same B, you just take a far more scenic and elaborate route.
Ideas are not static, they evolve, mature, and gain traction. One can't expect there not to have been change. It's sort of like saying there are two distinct theories of evolution.
I can't speak for what Mircea does or does not understand, even though I do, on occasion, lean toward the latter because I'm not as unbiased as I'd like to be. I can, however, on the basis of my 8 months here, draw an opinion on the quality of someone's responses on this site. Here I've come to observe a great tendency toward gish gallop where quantity is far more important than quality, after all, it's easy to drown out factual errors in white noise.
It's difficult to explain a great many things with a drive-by post, but the real problem is most people have the attention span of a gnat.
And, most people are uncomfortable with Reality®.
For example, a lot of people have this hysterical hallucination that Iran will be raining 1 megaton nuclear warheads down on the US and Israel.
I could do a drive-by post and simply say: It isn't possible.
That's not exactly satisfactory, but I cannot explain why it is impossible in a 30-second sound-bite.
And then some really aren't interested in Truth, they'd rather cling to their hysterical hallucination, because it makes them feel comfortable, which is basically what religion does.
"Anything that is not a fact is not reliable. If it were, all faiths in the world would be one faith, not dozens of faiths."
that's like saying if food was reliable there would only be one flavor of food, not dozens of flavors of food.
That's a False Analogy, like the many others you've used.
You know, the amusing thing about your god -- when did modern humans arise? What 125,000 years ago? -- is that it took your god 125,000 years to come to the conclusion that we should love our neighbor as ourselves.
That's a False Analogy, like the many others you've used.
You know, the amusing thing about your god -- when did modern humans arise? What 125,000 years ago? -- is that it took your god 125,000 years to come to the conclusion that we should love our neighbor as ourselves.
Your god is soooo unimpressive and uninspiring.
I'm not sure Tzaph's god-thing came to that conclusion, being that she is a born-again Jew. Hers is the god-thing of the OT/Tanakh. I think the love-neighbour-as-self thing came from Jesus, not his (purported) old man.
Personally, I would use the descriptors "inept" and "bungler" well before "unimpressive and uninspiring."
It's difficult to explain a great many things with a drive-by post, but the real problem is most people have the attention span of a gnat.
Thing is, you rarely explain anything. You give a tone of more often than not irrelevant examples, some of which are simply inaccurate, but the actual explanations rarely materialise. As for people's attention span, if you were so certain of most people's inferiority compared to your own shining virtues, then perhaps taking this into consideration and dialing down on the insults and patronising might make it easier for you to reach those minds and "explain" things. Which, frankly, kinda demonstrates my point, it's hard to have a meaningful exchange of ideas when all you do is feed your own ego.
It's difficult to explain a great many things with a drive-by post, but the real problem is most people have the attention span of a gnat.
...
In all fairness, I don't think it's anything to do with attention spans. I think it's more about what's relevant to individuals. For example, a new thread was started this evening about the Kingdom of Edom. While I find it slightly interesting, really, how many people are very interested in what became a small Jewish kingdom almost 3,000 years ago? How many people find that relevant to their lives?
As a former geology major, I might be very interested in eurypterids or the Schooley Peneplain. As a retired principal, I might be interested in the issue of free and reduced school lunches. As an everyday person I might like the music of Perry Como. But most people are simply not interested in those topics because they are not relevant to their lives.
And it is no different than obscure religious topics even within the Religion & Spirituality Forum.
and on the spectrum of maturity and development, biting others is a behavior seen in toddlers or young children.
That is true but I was figuratively speaking. Even so, it is a response that sends a clear message.
Quote:
Originally Posted by LearnMe
These threads are full of people who have all sorts of different perspectives, opinions, levels of critical thinking, ability to reason and styles of writing, brief and/or long-winded...
Always seems to me that being critical about how someone may or may not write the ideal comment far as they are concerned, directly related to the topic or not, is just more "white noise," but easy enough to tune out if you ask me. Simply distill from these threads what matters most to you, discard the rest and comment accordingly.
What's so hard?
Not like even the best of threads can avoid the same dead end regardless...
Right?
White noise? White noise is when you lecture others no matter how eloquently you do it.
But they are either true or not. preference or belief about what it true, doesn't make it true though one can fiddle the semantics as 'true' for that person, that merely means 'faith' and isn't true in the empirical sense
It seems like you are saying that unless something is a fact that it is not true. That only facts are true. That is a false dichotomy.
To say all personal preference is faith is saying that your preference and taste in food, music, art, poetry, and exercise are "merely faith."
That to me is convoluted. "Your opinions about food are merely faith" "your views on sculpture are merely faith" "your taste in music is merely faith" that sounds very convoluted.
The words "view" "belief" "opinion" "personal preference"
convey something very different than
"merely faith"
Yet you conflate them.
I suspect that you are getting confused. We agree that a thing (Fact) is either true or not. Human constructs like art, music, politics, ethics and -even tastes in food, are personal to the individual (or indeed groups who are trained in a cultural preference..which they to often see as the only True preference) even though the artefacts to which such preferences are directed have an independent existence, true enough (that point is a red herring).
So we seem to agree on that.
So what about this argument that personal preference is a matter of faith? This is where the broad application of 'Faith' can cause confusion. We do have a certain faith (rather in the sense of 'Let's hope it doesn't go wrong' when we start our car. But this isn't the 'Faith in the existence of things that have no decent evidence for them. Quite a different thing altogether; which is why 'belief' (with the tag of 'based on actual experience' is attached (1) so when we are talking about tastes in music, personal preference is really what it's all about. There is very often a debate about 'which is best'. And they are somewhat divertingly circular. I like This and so it's best and anything else is wrong so your tastes are somehow wrong. There is a Lot of bias in musical discussion, (as I know from the youthful know -it -all wrangles of the modernists vs. the traditionalists (which cold become political in time..in the Prom. regulars queues) and this can approach and even overlap with 'Faith'.
So while personal preference about Things that are known to exist is Not to be equated with faith in the existence of things Not known to exist, there is a lot of similarity in the mindset, and indeed a heap of overlap.
(1) which of course leads into personal experience of things like dreams, answered prayers OOB's, messages from aliens, the sacredness of condensation from holy statues. The things (or experiences) may be real, but the conclusions about them are Faith.
Last edited by TRANSPONDER; 09-19-2019 at 04:26 AM..
I suspect that you are getting confused. We agree that a thing (Fact) is either true or not. Human constructs like art, music, politics, ethics and -even tastes in food, are personal to the individual (or indeed groups who are trained in a cultural preference..which they to often see as the only True preference) even though the artefacts to which such preferences are directed have an independent existence, true enough (that point is a red herring).
So we seem to agree on that.
So what about this argument that personal preference is a matter of faith? This is where the broad application of 'Faith' can cause confusion. We do have a certain faith (rather in the sense of 'Let's hope it doesn't go wrong' when we start our car. But this isn't the 'Faith in the existence of things that have no decent evidence for them. Quite a different thing altogether; which is why 'belief' (with the tag of 'based on actual experience' is attached (1) so when we are talking about tastes in music, personal preference is really what it's all about. There is very often a debate about 'which is best'. And they are somewhat divertingly circular. I like This and so it's best and anything else is wrong so your tastes are somehow wrong. There is a Lot of bias in musical discussion, (as I know from the youthful know -it -all wrangles of the modernists vs. the traditionalists (which cold become political in time..in the Prom. regulars queues) and this can approach and even overlap with 'Faith'.
So while personal preference about Things that are known to exist is Not to be equated with faith in the existence of things Not known to exist, there is a lot of similarity in the mindset, and indeed a heap of overlap.
(1) which of course leads into personal experience of things like dreams, answered prayers OOB's, messages from aliens, the sacredness of condensation from holy statues. The things (or experiences) may be real, but the conclusions about them are Faith.
The point is you use "merely faith" and "faith claim" as a pejorative. When the more accurate terms (and by your own admission just above less confusing) are "views, opinions, beliefs, stance, position, personal preference, interpretation"
and if you are going to use a pejorative for how someone interprets a book then it also applies to how someone interprets a piece of music.
When you say "The things (or experiences) may be real, but the conclusions about them are faith." Again convoluted wording. The conclusions are just that, conclusions, interpretations, opinions, beliefs, views.
For instance let's apply that to a view expressed earlier of that "unless something is a fact then it is not true." Let's say the experience of "facts are true" exists. We agree on that. According to you, the conclusion drawn from "facts are true" that "if it's not a fact then it is not true," that conclusion is according to you faith or merely a faith claim.
it sounds like you are saying any interpretation of personal experience is faith.
if that is the case then it applies to all personal experiences as well including yours
according to you, when someone says their "intuition is unreliable" that is faith.
when phet experienced what the reader told him about the chef in his life, according to you that is faith.
in that example, it is a fact that what the reader told phet was true.
he is the only one who can validate that. you are calling it faith
Last edited by Tzaphkiel; 09-19-2019 at 08:15 AM..
In all fairness, I don't think it's anything to do with attention spans. I think it's more about what's relevant to individuals. For example, a new thread was started this evening about the Kingdom of Edom. While I find it slightly interesting, really, how many people are very interested in what became a small Jewish kingdom almost 3,000 years ago? How many people find that relevant to their lives?
As a former geology major, I might be very interested in eurypterids or the Schooley Peneplain. As a retired principal, I might be interested in the issue of free and reduced school lunches. As an everyday person I might like the music of Perry Como. But most people are simply not interested in those topics because they are not relevant to their lives.
And it is no different than obscure religious topics even within the Religion & Spirituality Forum.
Your comment reminds me of a thread I've been tempted to start for awhile now, as I have noticed either lack of interest, casual interest, lots of interest or even maybe an infatuation with certain subjects that may or may not relate to how we define ourselves as individuals.
Thread title; How do we define ourselves most?
Is it by way of our religion? Our culture? Our community? Our family? Our job? Our lifestyle? Perhaps all the above? If so, to what extent one thing over the other? What is most "relevant to their lives" as you ask. All to say, some people seem "tuned in" to one's religion above all else while others not so much. To whatever the degree, we tend to define or represent who we are accordingly.
More into Radiohead than Perry Como when it comes to music...
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
