Mind Expanding Things that Aren't Science

Topic

We seem to have lost the old Thought Provoking (TM) mind expansion thread, so here’s a replacement.
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Astrology:
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https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2019/nov/06/i-was-an-astrologer-how-it-works-psychics
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Before you scoff, there are some interesting insights in the article that you don’t have to be a believer to appreciate. Here’s a couple of extracts that made me wonder:
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I’d understood organised religion to be something between an embarrassment and an evil. Yet as Aids did its dreadful work – this was the 1990s – I watched nuns offer compassionate care to the dying. Christian volunteers checked on derelict men with vomit down their clothes. I became uncomfortably aware that New Agers do not build hospitals or feed alcoholics – they buy self-actualisation at the cash register.

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I also learned that intelligence and education do not protect against superstition. Many customers were stockbrokers, advertising executives or politicians, dealing with issues whose outcomes couldn’t be controlled. It’s uncertainty that drives people into woo, not stupidity, so I’m not surprised millennials are into astrology. They grew up with Harry Potter and graduated into a precarious economy, making them the ideal customers.

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Some repeat customers claimed I’d made very specific predictions, of a kind I never made. It dawned on me that my readings were a co-creation – I would weave a story and, later, the customer’s memory would add new elements. I got to test this theory after a friend raved about a reading she’d had, full of astonishingly accurate predictions. She had a tape of the session, so I asked her to play it.

The clairvoyant had said none of the things my friend claimed. Not a single one. My friend’s imagination had done all the work.

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And my favourite:
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I can still make the odd forecast, though. Here’s one: the venture capital pouring into astrology apps will create a fortune telling system that works, because humans are predictable. As people follow the advice, the apps’ predictive powers will increase, creating an ever-tighter electronic leash. But they’ll be hugely popular – because if you sprinkle magic on top, you can sell people anything.

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White supremacy is a system of structural and societal racism which privileges white people over everyone else, regardless of the presence or absence of racial hatred. White racial advantages occur at both a collective and an individual level. We just updated this chart, which presents *some* of the ways people practice and reinforce white supremacy that they may not be aware of, or even think of as “white supremacy”. If you are unsure of what any of these terms mean, please feel free to look them up. There is an abundance of scholarship and research on each of these things. Image Source: Safehouse Progressive Alliance for Nonviolence (2005). Adapted: Ellen Tuzzolo (2016); Mary Julia Cooksey Cordero (@jewelspewels) (2019); The Conscious Kid (2020). #AntiRacism #AntiRacist #TeachersOfInstagram #WhitePrivilege

A post shared by The Conscious Kid (@theconsciouskid) on May 26, 2020 at 5:35pm PDT

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JRCarter wrote:

View this post on Instagram

White supremacy is a system of structural and societal racism which privileges white people over everyone else, regardless of the presence or absence of racial hatred. White racial advantages occur at both a collective and an individual level. We just updated this chart, which presents *some* of the ways people practice and reinforce white supremacy that they may not be aware of, or even think of as “white supremacy”. If you are unsure of what any of these terms mean, please feel free to look them up. There is an abundance of scholarship and research on each of these things. Image Source: Safehouse Progressive Alliance for Nonviolence (2005). Adapted: Ellen Tuzzolo (2016); Mary Julia Cooksey Cordero (@jewelspewels) (2019); The Conscious Kid (2020). #AntiRacism #AntiRacist #TeachersOfInstagram #WhitePrivilege

A post shared by The Conscious Kid (@theconsciouskid) on May 26, 2020 at 5:35pm PDT

Is it saying it’s racist to call the police on African-Americans if it’s because they’re African-American or even if they are commiting a serious crime and you would call the police if the perp was white?

Anonymous wrote:

Is it saying it’s racist to call the police on African-Americans if it’s because they’re African-American or even if they are commiting a serious crime and you would call the police if the perp was white?

No, it’s not. It’s referring to incidents like the one in NYC where a woman called the police on a black man because he asked he to put her dog on a lead.

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Todd

lorcan_nagle wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Is it saying it’s racist to call the police on African-Americans if it’s because they’re African-American or even if they are commiting a serious crime and you would call the police if the perp was white?

No, it’s not. It’s referring to incidents like the one in NYC where a woman called the police on a black man because he asked he to put her dog on a lead.

OK, I was asking because a few years ago I was the victim of an Anti-Semitic hate crime on the bus, and the perpetrators were African-American, and when I called the police they started screaming that I was a murderer because I was exposing them to racist cops (note that the police didn’t show up), so I’m a bit OCD about the issue; I know for a fact that plenty of African-Americans agree I was justified, but since the attitude exists I got OCD about it, especially since  I would be surprised if JR thought I was wrong.

lorcan_nagle wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Is it saying it’s racist to call the police on African-Americans if it’s because they’re African-American or even if they are commiting a serious crime and you would call the police if the perp was white?

No, it’s not. It’s referring to incidents like the one in NYC where a woman called the police on a black man because he asked he to put her dog on a lead.

Or because they’re having a cookout or because they’re selling lemonade or because you don’t think they belong where you see them or…

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lorcan_nagle, Todd

Anonymous wrote:

OK, I was asking because a few years ago I was the victim of an Anti-Semitic hate crime on the bus, and the perpetrators were African-American, and when I called the police they started screaming that I was a murderer because I was exposing them to racist cops (note that the police didn’t show up), so I’m a bit OCD about the issue; I know for a fact that plenty of African-Americans agree I was justified, but since the attitude exists I got OCD about it, especially since  I would be surprised if JR thought I was wrong.

No, you were justified.

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lorcan_nagle, Todd

Anonymous wrote:

He’s saying the commies are bad though, he’s not picking sides between the regime and Falun Gong, he is just saying Falun Gong is crazy.

Which is the correct answer. Both are bad news.

While the crackdown on Falun Gong by the Chinese government is cruel and repressive their leader is also a nutjob who holds very racist views and  follows all the coercive patterns of a cult.

Sometimes there isn’t a good guy in the story.

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Todd

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Christian, Todd, lorcan_nagle

Just learned about this, some countries in Europe still collect a church tax. Like Sweden. This seems very outdated.

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Church_tax#Sweden

 

I had kind of expected this for Italy, even though Italy isn’t very religious. In Rome they have a saying “Catholicism is made here, and believed elsewhere.” Poland seems much more Catholic than Italy. Not sure about Ireland.

Oh, Germany does that, too. I mean, only for members of the churches, obviously, but the state will collect a church tax for them. Still.

It’s pretty scandalous really.

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I’m not sure how it works these days, but when I was born I was automatically made a member of the church even though I wasn’t baptized. I think that’s still in place if your parents are both members. Not sure though. (But I am 72,6% sure Tobias will correct me if I’m wrong.)

I haven’t opted out of my membership yet (which would see me stop paying church tax). It’s not like it’s a lot of money. But I should.

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Anonymous wrote:

I haven’t opted out of my membership yet (which would see me stop paying church tax). It’s not like it’s a lot of money. But I should.

It’s not just the money. You’re also helping to artificially inflate the number of Christians that there are claimed to be in the world.

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Todd

DavidM wrote:

It’s not just the money. You’re also helping to artificially inflate the number of Christians that there are claimed to be in the world.

I’m going to have to call the boss of christianity on this one.

@Christian, is this true?

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Christian

From the description in the wiki article it isn’t obvious that you can opt out completely in Sweden, like if you’re atheistic. It just says your money can go to other religions. I think if you can opt out it’s alright.

 

The money side of religions is kinda interesting. I think the German Catholic church counts as a separate entity from the rest of the Catholic church, moneywise. There is also the Vatican Bank which is plagued by scandals. When I was in Vienna I slept in a guesthouse of the Teutonic Order. I read a bit about it later that said the order, which used to run countries, only has a few hundred members left and is billions in debt.

Some evangelical churches here demand a tithe of 10% of your earnings, seems crazy to me but it is optional.

In most though it’s collection plate and fundraising events. That’s all I ever knew in the UK in any type of church – but I have read there are some small obscure ones that asked for tithes. It’s interesting how religion gets tied into the fabric of our structures though, the US and French approach of separation of church and state is pretty rare, I think Turkey do it too but not many other countries.

Schools in the UK have a requirement for daily worship which must be majority Christian. In practice I’ve found how ‘daily’ and how religious that is varies enormously. In my school we mainly had announcements, sang a hymn and that was it. Parents can opt their kids out, we had a couple of Jehova’s Witnesses in my school who went and sat in the library.

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garjones wrote:

It’s interesting how religion gets tied into the fabric of our structures though, the US and French approach of separation of church and state is pretty rare

Yeah, and if we’re honest even those countries that do have an on-paper separation are far from separating those religious aspects from the fabric of their society. Certainly when I lived in France I felt the religious underpinnings much more vividly than in the UK.

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Dave wrote:

Certainly when I lived in France I felt the religious underpinnings much more vividly than in the UK.

In what way? Were you in a big city or a more rural area?

 

There are some areas in the Netherlands where everyone will feel the religious underpinning in a big way, like a handful of municipalities. In most parts on the country it is very secular although there isn’t a strict separation of church and state, we have Christian political parties in parliament. One party especially is very strict, and actually advocates for a Christian theocracy.

Anonymous wrote:

In what way? Were you in a big city or a more rural area?

Large town/small city, so somewhere in the middle.

Life basically shut down entirely on a Sunday, religious holidays were celebrated with a more overtly religious bent, the importance of the church seemed greater to the fabric of the society, stuff like that.

Nothing hugely drastic but certainly more pronounced than my experience in the UK (although having said that I have always lived in very multi-cultural areas in the UK so maybe that partly accounts for it).

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Dave wrote:

Yeah, and if we’re honest even those countries that do have an on-paper separation are far from separating those religious aspects from the fabric of their society.

Yeah I don’t know much about that aspect in France but it’s been clear for a long while how often religion is raised in US politics (see Trump and his Bible photo op a few weeks back), while in the UK it is very rarely discussed at all. While the structure has the head of the country as the head of the church the convention is politics and religion do not mix. Nobody is calling for the 10 Commandments on courthouse walls even though they could if they want.

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Dave

garjones wrote:

In most though it’s collection plate and fundraising events. That’s all I ever knew in the UK in any type of church

 

The Church of England does a good job pretending that it needs charity fundraisers to keep going, but it’s actually rolling in it. The building of the Metrocentre in Gateshead (the biggest shopping mall in Europe when it was built in the ’80s) was financed by the Church. You don’t fund projects like that that if you haven’t got enough money to fix your church roofs.

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To be fair I wasn’t claiming poverty for them, just that their method of raising money wasn’t a tithe. The Catholic Church is also rolling in it but while we have some examples of a form of taxation for them most places I know are collection plate/box and fundraising events too.

I am sure the Catholic church has some cash lying around but I’m not sure how their riches are counted. They own a lot of opulent real estate in the form of churches but they can’t really sell those. People want to worship in a beautiful church, not in some ugly concrete box.

 

Also the “Catholic church” is not one entity. Many countries have their own Catholic church. Like I said, the Catholic church in Germany is an entity of its own, financially it is apart from the Catholic church in other countries. I think this is also the case for the Catholic church in the Netherlands, but I’m not sure.

Anonymous wrote:

I’m not sure how their riches are counted.

Government grants + gullible donations – pedophile payoffs = that

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Christian, Todd

Anonymous wrote:

Also the “Catholic church” is not one entity. Many countries have their own Catholic church. Like I said, the Catholic church in Germany is an entity of its own, financially it is apart from the Catholic church in other countries. I think this is also the case for the Catholic church in the Netherlands, but I’m not sure.

Financially I’d assume all churches are individual to that country, it’d be required for various legal and audit purposes. The same is true of global franchises.

I wasn’t referring specifically to the Vatican but they do get a percentage of the donations from individual countries. Apparently Google says they get most of their income though from tourists. It brings in around 100m Euro annually so it they have liquidity and it’s not just all in buildings.

When Ajran brought up Church taxes and didn’t know about Ireland, my first thought was “Pretty sure we don’t tax churches here”, resolved to look it up to be sure, and then… played Stellaris for another 12 hours.

But there isn’t a personal tax that is earmarked to go to religious institutions or anything like that here.  Irish law is a fork of British law on that front.  And generally if we want to enrich the Catholic Church we give them control of educational or medical facilities no questions asked.

garjones wrote:

Financially I’d assume all churches are individual to that country, it’d be required for various legal and audit purposes. The same is true of global franchises.

This is the case.  Some churches in commonwealth jurisdictions sucessfully claim they are non-justiciable entities and therefore governed on the basis of their own documents of union and constitutions (and therefore not subject to certain pieces of legislation) but many or incorporated. The Vatican, I believe, is the only exception for obvious reasons.

Why Black Christians are bracing for a ‘whitelash’

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njerry, Todd

I wonder about the connection between religion and art. Has any great art been produced outside the context of religion?

Anonymous wrote:

Has any great art been produced outside the context of religion?

Tons of it.

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Todd, Dave

Religion is subjective in the same way that Art is.

“Outside” is also a concept open to interpretation.

Ergo, art is, you know, stuff, and maybe good? Idk I like it sometimes

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I’ve seen a few have what resembled a quasi-religious experience invoked by looking at art.

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Anonymous wrote:

Religion is subjective in the same way that Art is.

Yeah that is the problem with the question as it comes to art.

 

If I look at my own appreciation of what I see as great art, it seems all of it either has strong religious themes, or even when that theme is not present the work is made by someone who was religious. Even the modern artists I like (Kandinsky, Rothko, Mondriaan)  were either religious or made work with deeply spiritual meaning.

Anonymous wrote:

I’ve seen a few have what resembled a quasi-religious experience invoked by looking at art.

Yeah this is true, for me often the two mix together in a way.

 

One time I had something a bit similar to a religious experience when experiencing art, was in a modern art installation:  it was a large darkened room in a museum, that used light and sound to put you in a special state of mind. I went in that room to experience it, I don’t know, maybe a hundred times, it was just awe inspiring. I never even looked at the artists name, dunno why. Later I tried to look up what the name of the artist or the installation was and how it worked, but I never found out.

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There is a term used in psychology to describe when the aesthetic experience is so profound that it renders a change in the emotional state. I forget what it is though and rudimentary googling is not priving helpful.

Maybe its “cuddles for puppies” state?

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I think you’re discounting a vast number of landscape and portrait painters. And it’s not a valid point to say “but they were religious people”, because back in the day everyone was religious.

I think there’s a good argument to be made that all the best music is religious, though.

I know the term you mean because I’ve looked into the effect of aesthetic emotions. Psychology is a fascinating ology. That’s going to annoy me now til I remember. I’ll think of it when I think of something else.

It should be called “cuddles for puppies” state. It’s not always a positive emotional state.

Anonymous wrote:

Maybe its “cuddles for puppies” state?

Is it sublimity? Or is that more a philosophical term?

Anonymous wrote:

I wonder about the connection between religion and art. Has any great art been produced outside the context of religion?

My favourite artist, Vincent Varys Vikander (also a good friend) did his last year in konstfack (prestigious swedish art school) focused on dogs, dicks and bad photos of ugly tattoos.

I’ll ask him about religious themes the next time I talk to him. I got a tenner saying he’s going to loop back to masturbation. Somehow.

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Maybe religious is not so much the right word, maybe it’s more spirituality. Getting things out of their everyday reality and elevating them to a higher plane. I think a painter like Vermeer does that, and so does Rothko.

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Anonymous wrote:

focused on dogs, dicks and bad photos of ugly tattoos

What a difference a comma makes.

There was a lot of dog dickage there too!

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Dave

Anonymous wrote:

Maybe religious is not so much the right word, maybe it’s more spirituality. Getting things out of their everyday reality and elevating them to a higher plane.

Well, that’s kind of a definition of art, as well, so I don’t think we’d find great art that doesn’t do that.

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DavidM, Dave

Ceci n’est pas une forum post.

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DavidM

Is it still great art when it elevates you to a lower plane?

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njerry

Anonymous wrote:

Is it still great art when it elevates you to a lower plane?

Like this?

Yeah, I think that still counts.

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Todd, njerry

Anonymous wrote:

Is it still great art when it elevates you to a lower plane?

I think in that case it’s just an elevator.

Great can mean terrible depending on the intent, for example, if it’s designed to diminish or invoke a sense of erasure, “make art great again.”

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Bernadette is the smartest person on this forum.

You heard me, Everyone Else.

If I’m so smart how come I’m speechless? I’m smart enough to know when to say nothing. Oh, wait, I know the correct response to cover every scenario. It wouldn’t work outside of here:

Your face…

 

Your face!

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Anonymous wrote:

If I’m so smart how come I’m speechless? I’m smart enough to know when to say nothing.

See, that is why you are the smartest person here

Anonymous wrote:

a sense of erasure

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Todd

Rocket wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

If I’m so smart how come I’m speechless? I’m smart enough to know when to say nothing.

See, that is why you are the smartest person here

I didn’t say it’s always the ethical choice.

Something that one of my biology teachers said and stuck with me: why do we see ant colonies as “nature” and not human cities? Our creations, cities and iphones etc, are part of nature too.

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DavidM

Anonymous wrote:

Something that one of my biology teachers said and stuck with me: why do we see ant colonies as “nature” and not human cities? Our creations, cities and iphones etc, are part of nature too.

I read about perceptions of nature vs culture as part of my human ecology studies. It’s wild.

To sum up a year and a half of academic studies: There is no difference between nature and culture.

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Dave, DavidM

Or rather, there is no culture. There is only nature.

Opposites are defined by each other. And not real.

Like darkness. There is no darkness. Only varying degrees of light.

Or cold. There is no cold. It’s just the absence of heat.

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Anonymous wrote:

Something that one of my biology teachers said and stuck with me: why do we see ant colonies as “nature” and not human cities? Our creations, cities and iphones etc, are part of nature too.

They sure are. On the other hand, using a definition of nature that refers to everything in the natural world except products of human civilsation is a useful shorthand sometimes. Not technically correct, but useful.

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Dave

Sure, but genetically engineered ants who build supersized colonies on the carcasses of fallen human cities is “unnatural”

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Christian

Anonymous wrote:

Sure, but genetically engineered ants who build supersized colonies on the carcasses of fallen human cities is “unnatural”

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Todd

Christian wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Something that one of my biology teachers said and stuck with me: why do we see ant colonies as “nature” and not human cities? Our creations, cities and iphones etc, are part of nature too.

They sure are. On the other hand, using a definition of nature that refers to everything in the natural world except products of human civilsation is a useful shorthand sometimes. Not technically correct, but useful.

Yeah, I always used to have this same conversation about the term “man-made” as opposed to naturally occurring – and why we didn’t apply similar terms to things that animals made.

The value in pointing all this out is that there’s this mystic ideal of nature in many people’s minds that has nothing to do with biological realities. Like, if people would just disappear, the world would be perfect because it’s all nature and nature is beauty and holiness. All of which is nonsense. Sure, nature is fascinating, but that includes us, and the moral/aesthetic values attributed to the “natural” world are human inventions that said nature doesn’t give a shit about. And “protecting nature” isn’t something we need to do because it is an end in itself, but because we’re going to be gone pretty soon if we don’t and nature will carry on just fine without us.

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Dave, lorcan_nagle

It’s only humans that are bothered about “protecting nature”, nature doesn’t care about protecting itself. If a species needs to wipe out another one in order to survive, it goes ahead and wipes it out with no regrets. But if humans wipe out a species, suddenly we’re the bad guys?

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DavidM wrote:

But if humans wipe out a species, suddenly we’re the bad guys?

I wonder if other species ever did something as radical as humans did, wiping out other species, or destroying our own habitat by our exploitation of the environment. I think they would if they could. I don’t think it is “unnatural” that we are doing that, we are just the victims of our success.

 

I have been watching some youtube stuff by an anarcho-primitivist named Derrick Jensen who is very pessimistic about this stuff and basically says we have to annihilate our own civilization to stop the destruction of the planet. I don’t agree with him on that but his arguments are interesting.

Anonymous wrote:

I think they would if they could. I don’t think it is “unnatural” that we are doing that, we are just the victims of our success.

I think they probably have. If you think of the dodo in Mauritius or the moa in New Zealand. They were tasty and easy to catch so humans arrived and ate them all until they were extinct. Any carnivore would have done the same and probably have many times over the aeons.  Self-preservation is a key instinct.

The difference is of course we have the ability now to be able to predict the long term effects of our actions (hence fishing quotas and the like).

DavidM wrote:

It’s only humans that are bothered about “protecting nature”, nature doesn’t care about protecting itself. If a species needs to wipe out another one in order to survive, it goes ahead and wipes it out with no regrets. But if humans wipe out a species, suddenly we’re the bad guys?

In fairness, I don’t think it’s that sudden.

garjones wrote:

The difference is of course we have the ability now to be able to predict the long term effects of our actions

Well some effects. I think some other effects may be invisible or unpredictable at the moment.

 

But I agree there are a lot of things we can sort of figure out what it is doing to the environment, a big thing with pollution seems to be the chemical industry, including fabrication of plastics etc. Maybe a lot of problems would be solved if there were an ethics commision that has to do continuous check ups on companies that could be leaching nasty chemicals into the environment that are killing animals and plants.

 

The way things work at the moment seem the other way round, environmentalists have to sue companies and prove what they’re doing is harmful. Maybe the burden of proof should be on the companies and they have to show what they are doing is safe. Of course they’ll still try to cut corners to get away with things in order to make extra money or defeat the competitors.

Anonymous wrote:

I have been watching some youtube stuff by an anarcho-primitivist named Derrick Jensen who is very pessimistic about this stuff and basically says we have to annihilate our own civilization to stop the destruction of the planet. I don’t agree with him on that but his arguments are interesting.

That’s what I mean though, we’re not going to destroy the planet. It’s going to change somewhat, but there’s a lot of species that are going to survive under those new conditions no problem – it’s just that we’re not among them. But in the development of life on Earth, our time will have been nothing but a blip, in the long term.

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lorcan_nagle

It was interesting listening to Freakonomics the other day. I was sympathetic to the idea anyway but when they went through the economics with things like deforestation we should just pay them to retain them. It’s quite cheap. Beef farming on the forests not only harms the environment even more but isn’t that profitable.

Basically the high estimate of what it would cost annually to reserve the entire Amazon forest is $12bn, share that amongst the richest G20 or so countries and it’s $500m or so. Sounds a lot but not really in the context that the US annual feferal budget is $4.79 trillion. All the lobbying and lecturing seems very inefficient in comparison.

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Todd, Dave

Christian wrote:

That’s what I mean though, we’re not going to destroy the planet. It’s going to change somewhat, but there’s a lot of species that are going to survive under those new conditions no problem – it’s just that we’re not among them. But in the development of life on Earth, our time will have been nothing but a blip, in the long term.

 

In Jensen’s argument, he sees that as destruction, what we do – we may not smash the planet into a billion little parts, but wiping out species and environments is destruction. It’s like cutting someone’s arm off and saying “well I am not killing you, I am just changing you a little bit.”

 

I think though, despite the bad people do, it doesn’t pay to be overly cynical. People consist of good and bad, we just have to help the good part along.

 

 

Christian wrote:

But in the development of life on Earth, our time will have been nothing but a blip, in the long term.

Not necessarily a blip. Our legacy could be a long, lasting one. It’s already a notable mass-extinction and future hypothetical inheritors of the nomer ‘dominant species’ will be able to observe our short time here on the geological time scale.

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lorcan_nagle

I have this thought I want to get out of my head. I have been thinking about some musings by Derrick Jensen on the nature of our culture, how it takes some perverse lust in violating borders. I disagree with a lot he says but there is some truth to that. It is a bit like Freud’s Eros and Thanatos. Man has this bloodthirsty instinct, that shows up I think in our desire to control other people’s will. In a way that is a gross violation. If there is anything sacred, it is the inviolability of our thinking. But I believe ideologies and religions function to a large extent by force feeding certain thoughts and concepts to create group loyalty. “If you want to be part of our group, you have to let go of all common sense and believe the bread turns into the body of Christ.” You see the same mechanism in certain groups in the current “culture wars”.

 

Jensen thinks this bloodthirsty instinct sets our culture apart from other cultures and beings (he thinks indigenous peoples were all great and blameless), I doubt that. I think even other animals would possibly also drive species to extinction and destroy the environment if they had the capacity. There is in evolution also something like an arms race, if we know others can gain a short term advantage over us by exploiting some resource, we instinctively want to do the same or surpass them, in order to not let them use their advantage to destroy us. This combined with our intellectual power makes us so dangerous as a species. It’s why we fill the air with poison and build nukes and make biological weapons.

 

I wonder what can stop that. I think in a lot of that stuff we do we just want to survive. Like Tamerlane said after killing 5 % of the world’s population in his conquest, “everything I did was in self defense.”

Anonymous wrote:

In Jensen’s argument, he sees that as destruction, what we do – we may not smash the planet into a billion little parts, but wiping out species and environments is destruction. It’s like cutting someone’s arm off and saying “well I am not killing you, I am just changing you a little bit.”

Well, yeah, but species are wiped out every day in nature, too. It’s part of how evolution works. Yes, it’s a terrible thing that we’re reducing biodervisity, but even if we do our worst, it’ll all be back inside a few hundred thousand years. It won’t actually matter to anyone but us.

Anonymous wrote:

Not necessarily a blip. Our legacy could be a long, lasting one. It’s already a notable mass-extinction and future hypothetical inheritors of the nomer ‘dominant species’ will be able to observe our short time here on the geological time scale.

I don’t think it’s very likely that any future dominant species will develop a need to observe and reflect what has come before them. Consciousness and intellect delivered some interesting results, but it currently seems like it was an evolutionary cul-de-sac. Dinosaurs needed none of that nonsense, and they dominated for like 150 million years; we on the other hand are at the end of our ropes after a few hundred thousand. Cool idea with all the being self-aware and whatnot, but didn’t pay off.

Christian wrote:

I don’t think it’s very likely that any future dominant species will develop a need to observe and reflect what has come before them. Consciousness and intellect delivered some interesting results, but it currently seems like it was an evolutionary cul-de-sac. Dinosaurs needed none of that nonsense, and they dominated for like 150 million years; we on the other hand are at the end of our ropes after a few hundred thousand. Cool idea with all the being self-aware and whatnot, but didn’t pay off.

Evolution doesn’t have an endgame though. There is no plan, no… Consequence analysis. Consciousness was unlikely, yes. But given that we are here it was also unavoidable. There may be many, many, many different dominant species that come before one that is on our level, but with enough time one or more will come.

But, the entire ecosystem could of course be COMPLETELY fucked before that happens. A solar flare that scorches the planet, an oversized asteroid that basically destroys everything, etc.

It hasn’t paid off entirely YET, Christian.

Christian wrote:

It won’t actually matter to anyone but us.

 

How so? I think it matters to everyone we interfere with as well, all the other beings we mess with. If we destroy a piece of forest that was the habitat of some rare species, that is the end of their world. Animals may not have the same concept of “the end of the world” that we have, but I still think that matters to them.

 

Anonymous wrote:

There may be many, many, many different dominant species that come before one that is on our level, but with enough time one or more will come.

Maybe, maybe not. As you say, there is no gameplan, no ultimate target. I am not sure about unavoidable. That’s like saying that, because a specific lottery number came up, that it was unavoidable that it came up. It wasn’t. It’s just what happened. It may never happen again, quite possibly. Or it may.

It hasn’t paid off entirely YET, Christian.

Optimist!

Anonymous wrote:

How so? I think it matters to everyone we interfere with as well, all the other beings we mess with. If we destroy a piece of forest that was the habitat of some rare species, that is the end of their world. Animals may not have the same concept of “the end of the world” that we have, but I still think that matters to them.

But nobody else will remember them, or lament their passing. They will just be gone, just like billions of species before them have come and gone, and just like we have come and will go. There is no static shape to nature, no all-encompassing natural sphere that will preserve “nature” as it is now forever if only we don’t meddle. It’s all in transit, species developing, arriving, dying, in an endless cycle.

Christian has already forgotten my name and I’m not even gone yet.

Christian wrote:

That’s like saying that, because a specific lottery number came up, that it was unavoidable that it came up. It wasn’t. It’s just what happened.

That makes some sort of sense, if the lottery number that was best adapted to the set circumstances present in the drawing of the lottery was the one that was drawn.

Christian wrote:

But nobody else will remember them, or lament their passing.

Nobody will remember mankind when we’re gone either, but I think the finiteness doesn’t mean we don’t matter. Same for other species.

 

Of course it is a tough question what “matters” for animals, but I do think they might have some sense of love and care for others and for the landscape and they don’t want it destroyed.

 

On the other hand, wether they care or not, we should care. I do think we have some moral duty to protect the world as best as we can.

 

(I do get your point that nature isn’t static and that everything goes away ultimately, but that doesn’t mean we should speed that process up.)

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Todd

This book got me thinking about a lot of things, I heartily recommend it to anyone who feels depressed about our future and about the bad things people do sometimes.  Basically the book sets itself the task of showing our common human decency. It debunks a lot of things that have been used to paint humanity in a bad light, like the Stanford prison experiment, the murder of Kitty Genovese, an alleged genocide that took place on Easter island, and other scenarios by shining a new light on them and showing we may have misunderstood a lot of things. It also tells of some scenarios and experiments where people started seeing and treating each other in a more positive, and hopeful way.

 

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Todd

Anonymous wrote:

(I do get your point that nature isn’t static and that everything goes away ultimately, but that doesn’t mean we should speed that process up.)

I don’t disagree with that. Honestly the reason why I make this argument is that it often feels like putting the whole issue into terms of caring about “nature” makes it possible for people who don’t care about “nature” to ignore it. As if the impact on ourselves wasn’t far, far bigger than that on “nature”.

Sometimes on the Facebook feed there is a story of an archeological finding that dates back over 10,000 years and some post in the reply section that it can’t be because their religious belief system is that human history is 6,000 years.

These believers challenge carbon dating and other scientific verification methods.

Makes me wonder…

In Rutger Bregman’s book, Humankind A hopeful history, he also talks about religion, and he has this idea that a God who sees everything and punishes sin came into existence as communities grew and people were no longer able to become acquainted with everybody in their community. Hence a God has to be introduced to replace societal bonds and keep everyone in check. I think I agree with this idea. Morality is not some transcendent ideal that is bestowed on us by higher powers but a kind of truce, a set of habits and beliefs that enable people to live together in peace.

 

This also plays a part in the whole “freedom vs social conformism” question. Technically we have all the freedom we want. We can do whatever we want and are able to do, but if it intrudes upon other people’s freedoms to live their life, we need to find some compromise. (I think you can extend this infringing on others rights on other facets of nature as well, like the freedom to use animals as food source or despoil the natural landscape)

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Rocket, Todd

Joe Marx, the grandson of Karl Marx

Seriously, that is him: 5 Historic Figures With Drastically Different Descendants

Todd wrote:

Joe Marx, the grandson of Karl Marx

is he a little young to be Karl’s grandson?

Interesting video about economics and how some of the biggest, richest and most well-known companies today not only have never made a profit but have no plan that would lead them to be profitable.

 

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Christian, garjones, Todd

Atheists Are Sometimes More Religious Than Christians

https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2018/05/american-atheists-religious-european-christians/560936/

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Todd

JRCarter wrote:

Atheists Are Sometimes More Religious Than Christians

https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2018/05/american-atheists-religious-european-christians/560936/

First, researchers confirmed the widely known fact that, overall, Americans are much more religious than Western Europeans. They gauged religious commitment using standard questions, including “Do you believe in God with absolute certainty?” and “Do you pray daily?”

Yeah, I would’ve expected that.

Second, the researchers found that American “nones”—those who identify as atheist, agnostic, or nothing in particular—are more religious than European nones. The notion that religiously unaffiliated people can be religious at all may seem contradictory, but if you disaffiliate from organized religion it does not necessarily mean you’ve sworn off belief in God, say, or prayer.

The third finding reported in the study is by far the most striking. As it turns out, “American ‘nones’ are as religious as—or even more religious than—Christians in several European countries, including France, Germany, and the U.K.”

Very different than the headline, especially because they don’t make a difference between actual atheists and people who just don’t follow any organised religion. But still very interesting.

America is a country so suffused with faith that religious attributes abound even among the secular. Consider the rise of “atheist churches,” which cater to Americans who have lost faith in supernatural deities but still crave community, enjoy singing with others, and want to think deeply about morality. It’s religion, minus all the God stuff. This is a phenomenon spreading across the country, from the Seattle Atheist Church to the North Texas Church of Freethought. The Oasis Network, which brings together non-believers to sing and learn every Sunday morning, has affiliates in nine U.S. cities.

That’s pretty cool. I talked in a different thread about how the institution of weekly mass is something that really goes missing when communities turn secular, and it’s good to see people finding alternatives to that. I hope the Oasis Network, or something like it, makes it to Europe.

One of the reasons for this difference between Europe and the US is also very interesting:

The U.S. hasn’t secularized as profoundly as Europe has, and its history is crucial to understanding why. Joseph Blankholm, a professor at UC Santa Barbara who focuses on atheism and secularism, told me the Cold War was a particularly important inflection point. “The 1950s were the most religious America has ever been,” he said. “‘In God We Trust’ becomes the official national motto. ‘Under God’ is entered into the pledge of allegiance. That identity is being consciously formed by specific actors like Truman and Eisenhower, who are promoting a Christian identity at home and abroad, over against a godless communism. It’s the Christianization of America—as a Cold War tool.”

It is very encouraging to me that even amongst Christians in Western Europe, only a fourth believes in God “with absolute certainty”. To use the terminology from a different thread, it seems like we’re leaving the mass delusion.

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lorcan_nagle, Todd

There was a time in my life that I was looking for something to believe in and since my family was either alcoholic or dealing with alcoholics(ie codependency) I became familiar with 12 step organizations.  It can be a religion to some(they do the activities listed in that poll) but 12 step groups may not be considered religions so that may be why Americans differ in their response(also AA and its affiliates were started in the US so I do not know whether they have spread to Western Europe to a large extent).

The 12 steps did help me but just like Christianity in my youth, I stopped feeling the need to attend mass/meetings. The first few steps help you develop a “higher power”(One of my best friends is an Atheist who has a very strong program so it does not need to be a religious figure like God). I happen to call my higher power God for simplicity’s sake. If you have read the Food and Drink thread, you know I do not abstain from alcohol so it is not a requirement to abstain to work the 12 steps but if you go to a meeting it might be a good idea not to be drunk or buzzed.

Having said that, I am curious as to what is

Christian wrote:

the mass delusion.

? personally I think Religion is a bit of a racket so if you are referring to various church organizations I agree with you. But if you are referring to a higher power as a mass delusion, I would be curious as to why you think so. I do not what to get into a debate about God. I am just curious what your reasoning is.

p.s. If you are just looking for a weekly gathering discussing a single topic, you could always go to the local pub and watch the Bundesliga. I’m sure they are people indulging in worship of FC Bayern München that you could join.

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Todd

I think I had two so-called “religious experiences” in my life, the problem is they are for two different religions. So I still don’t know which is the right one.

Anonymous wrote:

I think I had two so-called “religious experiences” in my life, the problem is they are for two different religions. So I still don’t know which is the right one.

I call them “spiritual experiences” and imo, if any religion wants to lay claim to them, they are definitely not the “right” one. there is not a “right” religion anywhere imo.

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DavidM, Todd

Rocket wrote:

they are definitely not the “right” one. there is not a “right” religion anywhere imo.

Agreed, that part was kind of meant as a joke.

 

I think religion/spirituality can be a good thing to incorporate into one’s life. I wouldn’t call it a delusion necessarily although some beliefs are probably delusional.

Rocket wrote:

? personally I think Religion is a bit of a racket so if you are referring to various church organizations I agree with you. But if you are referring to a higher power as a mass delusion, I would be curious as to why you think so. I do not what to get into a debate about God. I am just curious what your reasoning is.

I think he’s referring to this article I posted in another thread:

Is belief in God a delusion?

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Rocket

Todd wrote:

I think he’s referring to this article I posted in another thread:

Yup. I don’t want to replicate the discussion here, it started here: http://thecarrier.net/forums/topic/weird-news-thread/page/3/#post-44679

But just to answer your question:

Rocket wrote:

? personally I think Religion is a bit of a racket so if you are referring to various church organizations I agree with you. But if you are referring to a higher power as a mass delusion, I would be curious as to why you think so. I do not what to get into a debate about God. I am just curious what your reasoning is.

I do agree that the aspect of delusion comes into it only when you’re talking about organised religion. Because it is there that you suddenly are declaring things that have no basis in empirical reality with absolute certainty and regardless of conflicting evidence or logic. Which is apparently the prime symptom of a delusion.

p.s. If you are just looking for a weekly gathering discussing a single topic, you could always go to the local pub and watch the Bundesliga. I’m sure they are people indulging in worship of FC Bayern München that you could join.

Well right now I can’t can I because all the pubs are bloody closed down! You’re right though, the tragedy of my life is that I am excluded from the two big faiths of Germany, being an atheist and also not the slightest bit interested in football. (Also, the local pubs are more likely to be devoted to BVB Dortmund – everybody hates fucking Bayern München here.)

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Rocket, Todd, DavidM

Rocket wrote:

(also AA and its affiliates were started in the US so I do not know whether they have spread to Western Europe to a large extent).

Yeah, they don’t really exist here (at least speaking for Germany), but everybody knows the AA program from television shows, of course. I think hardly anybody realises that it’s all faith-based, though.

[Al-x]

https://31.media.tumblr.com/717ae1ac4cb6dc03b1871e95ed0d2a91/tumblr_n1olwhs07S1re18amo1_400.gif

• This reply was modified 4 years ago by Al-x.

I just heard someone on BBC’s Moral Maze say the sentence “good people tend to like to be told what to do, because they want to do the right thing.”

Good people are only obeying orders.

I think he was sarcastic but it really struck me. I hate being told what to do. I kind of assumed everybody does. But it made me wonder if there are people who actually like it.

 

I think good and evil is something that doesn’t need to be “told”, I assume everybody has that in them as an instinct. Practical advice is something else of course, we can all use that at times.

[Christian]

I think you could replace “good” with “religious” in that sentence, once again. That’s one thing organised religion has going for it: You’re clearly told “This is good!” and “This is bad!”, so you know to do one thing and to avoid the other. And you can be certain that you’re doing the right thing, because your religion has told you so and so you’re pleasing God.

I think good and evil is something that doesn’t need to be “told”, I assume everybody has that in them as an instinct. Practical advice is something else of course, we can all use that at times.

I am not so sure about that. Outside of hurting someone physically, there’s a lot of “good” and “bad” territory that is negotiable, and that has to do with our societal contracts. We could all easily come up with things that used to be seen as bad or sinful that we don’t see as such anymore, but there are probably also many things that we justifiably see as bad or good that wouldn’t be as easy to recognise as such on pure instinct.

• This reply was modified 4 years ago by Christian.