Non-belief vs. Christianity: human rights pioneers

THWOTH · **#21** by **THWOTH** » Feb 04, 2012 11:17 pm

Epicurus, pioneer of non-belief.
Occam, pioneer of non-belief.
Hobbes, pioneer of non-belief.
Jefferson, pioneer of non-belief.
Kant, pioneer of non-belief.

Clive Durdle · **#22** by **Clive Durdle** » Feb 04, 2012 11:21 pm

Stein, what country are you in? Here in Britain things got hairy with Henry VIII, but in Europe there were three main groupings - the people, Arminians and Baptists, the Princes like Henry VIII, and the Catholics, which resulted in continent wide religious wars, and groups like the Jesuits.

"Christianity" helping human rights? Nope. People thinking, reading, arguing, discussing did.

Clive Durdle · **#23** by **Clive Durdle** » Feb 04, 2012 11:25 pm

Stein, also look at Christopher Hitchens, Portable Atheist.

THWOTH · **#24** by **THWOTH** » Feb 05, 2012 10:27 pm

Stein wrote:
THWOTH wrote:I guess I just think that Wollstonecraft is a pioneer of non-belief within the context of her era, manipulating religious ideas as a means of imbuing her thesis with a kind of cultural authority and acceptability.

Sir Francis Bacon did much the same in his discourse on utopia 'New Atlantis' (Wiki), in which he proposed certain secular ideals for a 'well-governed' state (and I would suggest that notions of human rights and civil equality are predicated on the secular principle and can only really work within a secular context) while seeking to redirect the prevailing obligation of philosophical endeavour from a quest to understand God's, His creation, and our place in it, to a pursuit for an understanding of what humans could make of and for themselves.

Would Bacon count as one of your pioneers of non-belief, particularly when one considers his contribution to what came to be known as The Scientific Method' in Novum Organum (Wiki).

No. A pioneer in non-belief is someone who says "Non Credo" / "I don't believe".

We all believe something or other don't we(?), so the focus is on what is being believed, by whom and for why.

The atheist concludes that believers are wrong to rely on religious authority of course, but your conditions seem to disallow those who merely challenged the prevailing credos and assumed authority of religion.

Yet in arguing that rationality and reason as the only grounds by which to come to an understanding morals and ethics, or of nature, as Wollstonecraft and Bacon did, surely the challenge to the assumed authority of religions is both implicitly and explicitly stated? And surely this challenge consists in a wider challenge to the prevailing social norms and acceptances of their day. Is your search concerned with degrees of disbelief then, and specifically with rooting out those with a suitably strongly expressed disbelief of religious claims? What are you hoping to illuminate by your search?

Stein wrote:For goodness' sake, Bacon actually said [paraphrase] "A little learning inclines one to atheism, but greater learning brings one back to belief"!

As mentioned, you seem to be looking for pioneers of human-rights that are only self-declared explicit atheists.

Just as atheism must be seen in the context of theocratic claims (because this is the only context by which atheism can be understood), advocates of human-rights must be seen within the context of an unjust socio-political climate. In this instance, the necessary conjunction of the two appears to limit the scope of what the definition of each can encompass: Wollstonecraft and Bacon's challenge to religion's authority is not valid because they are not irreligious enough. Why does this matter?

Stein wrote:When I look for an atheist, I look for ......... well ........ an atheist. And the (frankly) knee-jerk response that I sometimes get -- that one can't expect atheists until today's era -- is belied by Brhaspati (7th century b.c.e.), Critias (5th century b.c.e.), Knutzen (17th century c.e.), Meslier (18th century c.e.), and so on. Such figures already exist throughout history; we don't have to shoehorn other figures in order to have such a list. -- And the real atheists make it clear they know the risks they run by promulgating atheism, yet they do it anyway.

I did not refer to 'atheists of today' but of two British philosophers from the 16C-17C and to the man who nailed the coffin lid shut on the claim that nature and humanity were divinely created; Darwin. No matter, and putting aside the dubious notion that so-called real atheists are those who are willing to subject themselves to a certain qualifying level of risk...

May I ask, what is the point of framing the topic title in terms of competing outlooks?

Stein wrote:In my assembling all these human rights pioneers who seem to have this yen for cobbling together counter-cultural notions of theism, I'm dealing often with figures ready to risk their necks.

Again you appear to imply that Wollstonecraft and Bacon were just not proper examples of 'counter-cultural' thinkers nor pioneers of freethinking? :ask:

Stein wrote:And real atheists through history have also risked their necks. Yes, it's often dangerous to promulgate atheism, just as it's often dangerious to fight for human rights. It comes with the territory.

You are looking for human-rights pioneers who also risked their lives for atheism? Would you consider that risking one's life for atheism, which would be to risk one's life by declaring that one has arrived at a conclusion which challenges or defies assumed religious authority, is also to assert a concomitant human right for the individual's dominion over their own lives? It amounts to a claim for personal intellectual autonomy made wholly apart from, regardless of, and indeed in the face of, the insistences and coercions of religious authority. Are you looking for the seeds of the human right to be allowed to think for oneself, a right which is asserted and declared in defiance of authorities' insistences to the contrary? Perhaps I should have mentioned Socrates also. :dunno:

Stein wrote:We're dealing with figures of incredibly admirable courage in this survey. That's why they are worth any amount of scholarly travail in studying them. We owe them everything. If not for them, we'd still be living out our lives in the same way people lived under Lugalanda in ancient Sumeria!

You might think that Wollstonecraft and Bacon are not that worthy of study, did not have a sufficient impact on the way people lived their lives, or were not suitably courageous individuals, but perhaps this is indicates that their societies they inhabited were not sufficiently intolerant, bigoted or oppressively religious for your ends?

Again, I'm somewhat at a loss as to what you hope to gain from your enquiries.

Stein · **#25** by **Stein** » Feb 06, 2012 7:50 pm

THWOTH wrote:
Stein wrote:
THWOTH wrote:I guess I just think that Wollstonecraft is a pioneer of non-belief within the context of her era, manipulating religious ideas as a means of imbuing her thesis with a kind of cultural authority and acceptability.

Sir Francis Bacon did much the same in his discourse on utopia 'New Atlantis' (Wiki), in which he proposed certain secular ideals for a 'well-governed' state (and I would suggest that notions of human rights and civil equality are predicated on the secular principle and can only really work within a secular context) while seeking to redirect the prevailing obligation of philosophical endeavour from a quest to understand God's, His creation, and our place in it, to a pursuit for an understanding of what humans could make of and for themselves.

Would Bacon count as one of your pioneers of non-belief, particularly when one considers his contribution to what came to be known as The Scientific Method' in Novum Organum (Wiki).

No. A pioneer in non-belief is someone who says "Non Credo" / "I don't believe".

We all believe something or other don't we(?), so the focus is on what is being believed, by whom and for why.

The atheist concludes that believers are wrong to rely on religious authority of course, but your conditions seem to disallow those who merely challenged the prevailing credos and assumed authority of religion.

#1 [I'm numbering my interjections, so it's easier for us to keep track of each of my points] That is correct, because I'm trying to unearth a parallel to Buddha, Socrates and Christ whose autonomous experience of a reality that is explicitly not divine leads to some pioneering principle in social empathy.

THWOTH wrote:Yet in arguing that rationality and reason as the only grounds by which to come to an understanding morals and ethics, or of nature, as Wollstonecraft and Bacon did, surely the challenge to the assumed authority of religions is both implicitly and explicitly stated?

#2 Not really, because the cultural norm of a reality that's framed by the divine is essentially unreversed.

THWOTH wrote: And surely this challenge consists in a wider challenge to the prevailing social norms and acceptances of their day.

#3 Merely doing that does not supply us with a reversal of the cultural norm of a reality framed by the divine.

THWOTH wrote: Is your search concerned with degrees of disbelief then, and specifically with rooting out those with a suitably strongly expressed disbelief of religious claims? What are you hoping to illuminate by your search?

#4 I want a strongly expressed disbelief in the divine, not just a disbelief in some culture's religious claims, which is a lot narrower and less sweeping. What I hope to illuminate are three things --

A) How valid and consistent are the historic patterns I've so far traced,

B) What has made the methods behind the successful inclusive social innovations of the past successful, and

C) Can we apply whatever was successful in those methods adopted in the past to new crises in social justice today, like a threatened ecology, free-lance WMDS, etc.

THWOTH wrote:
Stein wrote:For goodness' sake, Bacon actually said [paraphrase] "A little learning inclines one to atheism, but greater learning brings one back to belief"!

As mentioned, you seem to be looking for pioneers of human-rights that are only self-declared explicit atheists.

Just as atheism must be seen in the context of theocratic claims (because this is the only context by which atheism can be understood), advocates of human-rights must be seen within the context of an unjust socio-political climate. In this instance, the necessary conjunction of the two appears to limit the scope of what the definition of each can encompass: Wollstonecraft and Bacon's challenge to religion's authority is not valid because they are not irreligious enough. Why does this matter?

#5 As I explain in #1, I'm looking for a direct parallel to the Buddha/Christ (etc.) model.

THWOTH wrote:
Stein wrote:When I look for an atheist, I look for ......... well ........ an atheist. And the (frankly) knee-jerk response that I sometimes get -- that one can't expect atheists until today's era -- is belied by Brhaspati (7th century b.c.e.), Critias (5th century b.c.e.), Knutzen (17th century c.e.), Meslier (18th century c.e.), and so on. Such figures already exist throughout history; we don't have to shoehorn other figures in order to have such a list. -- And the real atheists make it clear they know the risks they run by promulgating atheism, yet they do it anyway.

I did not refer to 'atheists of today' but of two British philosophers from the 16C-17C and to the man who nailed the coffin lid shut on the claim that nature and humanity were divinely created; Darwin.

#6 One important clarification: While there is a distinction between a cosmos that is generated versus one that is created, there are enough differences among those pioneers who are serving here as models to warrant my working with a divine concept that can be either "creator" or "moderator" (essentially, the Buddha model is the latter). Darwin may have closed the lid on a creator but not a moderator.

THWOTH wrote: No matter, and putting aside the dubious notion that so-called real atheists are those who are willing to subject themselves to a certain qualifying level of risk...

May I ask, what is the point of framing the topic title in terms of competing outlooks?

#7 This has partly to do with my concerns outlined in #1 and partly to do with the nature of the original exchange this thread stems from. It started in the Christianity forum and ultimately this exchange required its own thread. Out of courtesy to those in the original exchange, it seemed better to keep this new thread in the forum where its started. Hence, "Christianity" in the title. Perhaps "Theism" would serve better, even though the Jesus call for consideration of the poor is a huge component here. But the chief hope of finding an explicitly atheist outlook as a perfect contrast to the Buddha/Jesus (etc.) model dictated framing both the title and the ongoing thread in terms of competing outlooks.

THWOTH wrote:
Stein wrote:In my assembling all these human rights pioneers who seem to have this yen for cobbling together counter-cultural notions of theism, I'm dealing often with figures ready to risk their necks.

Again you appear to imply that Wollstonecraft and Bacon were just not proper examples of 'counter-cultural' thinkers nor pioneers of freethinking?

#8 They simply do not contrast enough with the model that I'm seeking to debunk.

THWOTH wrote:
Stein wrote:And real atheists through history have also risked their necks. Yes, it's often dangerous to promulgate atheism, just as it's often dangerious to fight for human rights. It comes with the territory.

You are looking for human-rights pioneers who also risked their lives for atheism? Would you consider that risking one's life for atheism, which would be to risk one's life by declaring that one has arrived at a conclusion which challenges or defies assumed religious authority, is also to assert a concomitant human right for the individual's dominion over their own lives? It amounts to a claim for personal intellectual autonomy made wholly apart from, regardless of, and indeed in the face of, the insistences and coercions of religious authority. Are you looking for the seeds of the human right to be allowed to think for oneself, a right which is asserted and declared in defiance of authorities' insistences to the contrary? Perhaps I should have mentioned Socrates also.

#9 Actually, Socrates is already one of my models, since the earliest sources all agree on his unflappable and repeated claim that he often heard some divinity tell him what not to do from childhood on. So Socrates actually supports this odd pattern I'm trying to challenge rather than throwing it in doubt.

Frustratingly, the pioneering atheists duly outlined in my mega-posting (http://www.rationalskepticism.org/gener ... 28933.html) never once speak in terms of allowing freedom for those who don't believe. They implicitly don't oppose such freedom, of course, but they still don't address that at all. I fully expected to find something like that. I didn't, much to my surprise. Instead, if/when they come close to anything like that at all, it's instead some kind of pronouncement involving the idiocy of those who believe and/or the degree to which their concerns ought not to be taken seriously by society (some of the points made in this context are not negligible but they do not involve an explicit call for someone's greater freedom).

THWOTH wrote:
Stein wrote:We're dealing with figures of incredibly admirable courage in this survey. That's why they are worth any amount of scholarly travail in studying them. We owe them everything. If not for them, we'd still be living out our lives in the same way people lived under Lugalanda in ancient Sumeria!

You might think that Wollstonecraft and Bacon are not that worthy of study, did not have a sufficient impact on the way people lived their lives, or were not suitably courageous individuals, but perhaps this is indicates that their societies they inhabited were not sufficiently intolerant, bigoted or oppressively religious for your ends?

#10 Hm.......... Since these figures already have explicit atheists among their own contemporaries, like Knutzen, Meslier, Diderot, etc., I'm afraid I don't see the pertinence of this consideration.

THWOTH wrote:Again, I'm somewhat at a loss as to what you hope to gain from your enquiries.

#11 It's partly to do with the concerns outlined in #4 and partly to do with the fact that when I grew up, I lived/ate/drank/breathed the world of academe. So it's become second nature for me -- once I detect some pattern in my reading -- to vet such patterns closely. I was imbued with the notion in academe that every idea should be challenged rather than merely promulgated. If one thinks that one has really detected an important aspect in human endeavor, then testing that conclusion endlessly and challenging it sharply is simply what one does if one is human. It was only after I grew up that I made the sobering discovery that most people don't do that. Moreover, most people are even clueless when confronted by such a testing mentality. Not only do they have no such yen in themselves; they do not even recognize it in others when confronted with it. It's as if they are reading something in a foreign language.

Cheers,

Stein

spin · **#26** by **spin** » Feb 06, 2012 11:39 pm

Good luck, THWOTH. I've always had difficulty with unintended irony.

THWOTH · **#27** by **THWOTH** » Feb 07, 2012 12:18 am

Stein · **#28** by **Stein** » Feb 07, 2012 8:49 am

Evidently, Spin is trying to divert the discussion --

THWOTH wrote:
Stein wrote:
THWOTH wrote:I guess I just think that Wollstonecraft is a pioneer of non-belief within the context of her era, manipulating religious ideas as a means of imbuing her thesis with a kind of cultural authority and acceptability.

Sir Francis Bacon did much the same in his discourse on utopia 'New Atlantis' (Wiki), in which he proposed certain secular ideals for a 'well-governed' state (and I would suggest that notions of human rights and civil equality are predicated on the secular principle and can only really work within a secular context) while seeking to redirect the prevailing obligation of philosophical endeavour from a quest to understand God's, His creation, and our place in it, to a pursuit for an understanding of what humans could make of and for themselves.

Would Bacon count as one of your pioneers of non-belief, particularly when one considers his contribution to what came to be known as The Scientific Method' in Novum Organum (Wiki).

No. A pioneer in non-belief is someone who says "Non Credo" / "I don't believe".

We all believe something or other don't we(?), so the focus is on what is being believed, by whom and for why.

The atheist concludes that believers are wrong to rely on religious authority of course, but your conditions seem to disallow those who merely challenged the prevailing credos and assumed authority of religion.

#1 [I'm numbering my interjections, so it's easier for us to keep track of each of my points] That is correct, because I'm trying to unearth a parallel to Buddha, Socrates and Christ whose autonomous experience of a reality that is explicitly not divine leads to some pioneering principle in social empathy.

THWOTH wrote:Yet in arguing that rationality and reason as the only grounds by which to come to an understanding morals and ethics, or of nature, as Wollstonecraft and Bacon did, surely the challenge to the assumed authority of religions is both implicitly and explicitly stated?

#2 Not really, because the cultural norm of a reality that's framed by the divine is essentially unreversed.

THWOTH wrote: And surely this challenge consists in a wider challenge to the prevailing social norms and acceptances of their day.

#3 Merely doing that does not supply us with a reversal of the cultural norm of a reality framed by the divine.

THWOTH wrote: Is your search concerned with degrees of disbelief then, and specifically with rooting out those with a suitably strongly expressed disbelief of religious claims? What are you hoping to illuminate by your search?

#4 I want a strongly expressed disbelief in the divine, not just a disbelief in some culture's religious claims, which is a lot narrower and less sweeping. What I hope to illuminate are three things --

A) How valid and consistent are the historic patterns I've so far traced,

B) What has made the methods behind the successful inclusive social innovations of the past successful, and

C) Can we apply whatever was successful in those methods adopted in the past to new crises in social justice today, like a threatened ecology, free-lance WMDS, etc.

THWOTH wrote:
Stein wrote:For goodness' sake, Bacon actually said [paraphrase] "A little learning inclines one to atheism, but greater learning brings one back to belief"!

As mentioned, you seem to be looking for pioneers of human-rights that are only self-declared explicit atheists.

Just as atheism must be seen in the context of theocratic claims (because this is the only context by which atheism can be understood), advocates of human-rights must be seen within the context of an unjust socio-political climate. In this instance, the necessary conjunction of the two appears to limit the scope of what the definition of each can encompass: Wollstonecraft and Bacon's challenge to religion's authority is not valid because they are not irreligious enough. Why does this matter?

#5 As I explain in #1, I'm looking for a direct parallel to the Buddha/Christ (etc.) model.

THWOTH wrote:
Stein wrote:When I look for an atheist, I look for ......... well ........ an atheist. And the (frankly) knee-jerk response that I sometimes get -- that one can't expect atheists until today's era -- is belied by Brhaspati (7th century b.c.e.), Critias (5th century b.c.e.), Knutzen (17th century c.e.), Meslier (18th century c.e.), and so on. Such figures already exist throughout history; we don't have to shoehorn other figures in order to have such a list. -- And the real atheists make it clear they know the risks they run by promulgating atheism, yet they do it anyway.

I did not refer to 'atheists of today' but of two British philosophers from the 16C-17C and to the man who nailed the coffin lid shut on the claim that nature and humanity were divinely created; Darwin.

#6 One important clarification: While there is a distinction between a cosmos that is generated versus one that is created, there are enough differences among those pioneers who are serving here as models to warrant my working with a divine concept that can be either "creator" or "moderator" (essentially, the Buddha model is the latter). Darwin may have closed the lid on a creator but not a moderator.

THWOTH wrote: No matter, and putting aside the dubious notion that so-called real atheists are those who are willing to subject themselves to a certain qualifying level of risk...

May I ask, what is the point of framing the topic title in terms of competing outlooks?

#7 This has partly to do with my concerns outlined in #1 and partly to do with the nature of the original exchange this thread stems from. It started in the Christianity forum and ultimately this exchange required its own thread. Out of courtesy to those in the original exchange, it seemed better to keep this new thread in the forum where its started. Hence, "Christianity" in the title. Perhaps "Theism" would serve better, even though the Jesus call for consideration of the poor is a huge component here. But the chief hope of finding an explicitly atheist outlook as a perfect contrast to the Buddha/Jesus (etc.) model dictated framing both the title and the ongoing thread in terms of competing outlooks.

THWOTH wrote:
Stein wrote:In my assembling all these human rights pioneers who seem to have this yen for cobbling together counter-cultural notions of theism, I'm dealing often with figures ready to risk their necks.

Again you appear to imply that Wollstonecraft and Bacon were just not proper examples of 'counter-cultural' thinkers nor pioneers of freethinking?

#8 They simply do not contrast enough with the model that I'm seeking to debunk.

THWOTH wrote:
Stein wrote:And real atheists through history have also risked their necks. Yes, it's often dangerous to promulgate atheism, just as it's often dangerious to fight for human rights. It comes with the territory.

You are looking for human-rights pioneers who also risked their lives for atheism? Would you consider that risking one's life for atheism, which would be to risk one's life by declaring that one has arrived at a conclusion which challenges or defies assumed religious authority, is also to assert a concomitant human right for the individual's dominion over their own lives? It amounts to a claim for personal intellectual autonomy made wholly apart from, regardless of, and indeed in the face of, the insistences and coercions of religious authority. Are you looking for the seeds of the human right to be allowed to think for oneself, a right which is asserted and declared in defiance of authorities' insistences to the contrary? Perhaps I should have mentioned Socrates also.

#9 Actually, Socrates is already one of my models, since the earliest sources all agree on his unflappable and repeated claim that he often heard some divinity tell him what not to do from childhood on. So Socrates actually supports this odd pattern I'm trying to challenge rather than throwing it in doubt.

Frustratingly, the pioneering atheists duly outlined in my mega-posting (http://www.rationalskepticism.org/gener ... 28933.html) never once speak in terms of allowing freedom for those who don't believe. They implicitly don't oppose such freedom, of course, but they still don't address that at all. I fully expected to find something like that. I didn't, much to my surprise. Instead, if/when they come close to anything like that at all, it's instead some kind of pronouncement involving the idiocy of those who believe and/or the degree to which their concerns ought not to be taken seriously by society (some of the points made in this context are not negligible but they do not involve an explicit call for someone's greater freedom).

THWOTH wrote:
Stein wrote:We're dealing with figures of incredibly admirable courage in this survey. That's why they are worth any amount of scholarly travail in studying them. We owe them everything. If not for them, we'd still be living out our lives in the same way people lived under Lugalanda in ancient Sumeria!

You might think that Wollstonecraft and Bacon are not that worthy of study, did not have a sufficient impact on the way people lived their lives, or were not suitably courageous individuals, but perhaps this is indicates that their societies they inhabited were not sufficiently intolerant, bigoted or oppressively religious for your ends?

#10 Hm.......... Since these figures already have explicit atheists among their own contemporaries, like Knutzen, Meslier, Diderot, etc., I'm afraid I don't see the pertinence of this consideration.

THWOTH wrote:Again, I'm somewhat at a loss as to what you hope to gain from your enquiries.

#11 It's partly to do with the concerns outlined in #4 and partly to do with the fact that when I grew up, I lived/ate/drank/breathed the world of academe. So it's become second nature for me -- once I detect some pattern in my reading -- to vet such patterns closely. I was imbued with the notion in academe that every idea should be challenged rather than merely promulgated. If one thinks that one has really detected an important aspect in human endeavor, then testing that conclusion endlessly and challenging it sharply is simply what one does if one is human. It was only after I grew up that I made the sobering discovery that most people don't do that. Moreover, most people are even clueless when confronted by such a testing mentality. Not only do they have no such yen in themselves; they do not even recognize it in others when confronted with it. It's as if they are reading something in a foreign language.

Cheers,

Stein

spin · **#29** by **spin** » Feb 07, 2012 11:45 am

Stein wrote:Evidently, Spin is trying to divert the discussion --

You are simply misguided in all respects. As I pointed out in post #4, you have not understood the post you were attempting to respond to. You have just taken it as a means to spread your fallacious nonsense about the wonders of deism, ie how in your mind deism is responsible for improvements in society. How utterly drivelous. Had deism qua deism been responsible for one iota of improvement, we should have seen practical signs of such improvement from religionists themselves. Instead, in each case, we see the disaffected people gaining enough power to force an improvement of their own rights. These people may have been deists, but the improvements have certainly not been deism qua deism. It is not the deism that can be pointed to, the disaffectedness of the group. Upset barons grab a modicum of power from the king. Wealthy burgers do the same from the nobility. Lower gentry clean up he rotten boroughs. Nearly everyone was a deist. Deist struggling against deist, indicating that deism was not a significant factor. That alone should wean you from your claim.

Just think about it: your thesis is as silly as saying that it was Newton's deism that was responsible for his mathematical and scientific efforts. It was not through his deism but his grounding in the mathematics and science.

You may as well argue that it was deism that was responsible for 99% of the unnatural deaths in the world because those doing the killing were deists of some sort or another. (Yes, even Hitler was a deist.)

Women's rights, gay rights, black rights were fought for and gained in varying degrees by the disaffected people themselves becoming aware of their plights and finding the instruments to fight. In all three cases the substantive gains were won not by deism qua deism but by the disaffected people, some of whom were deist. Deism isn't significant regarding rights: disaffectation is.

Clive Durdle · **#30** by **Clive Durdle** » Feb 07, 2012 2:38 pm

Actually, Socrates is already one of my models, since the earliest sources all agree on his unflappable and repeated claim that he often heard some divinity tell him what not to do from childhood on

In 1977 Princeton University psychologist Julian Jaynes (1920–1997) put forth a bold new theory of the origin of consciousness and a previous mentality known as the bicameral mind in the controversial but critically acclaimed book The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind. Jaynes was far ahead of his time, and his theory remains as relevant today as when it was first published.

Jaynes asserts that consciousness did not arise far back in human evolution but is a learned process based on metaphorical language. Prior to the development of consciousness, Jaynes argues humans operated under a previous mentality he called the bicameral ('two-chambered') mind. In the place of an internal dialogue, bicameral people experienced auditory hallucinations directing their actions, similar to the command hallucinations experienced by people with schizophrenia today. These hallucinations were interpreted as the voices of chiefs, rulers, or the gods.

http://www.julianjaynes.org/overview.php

THWOTH · **#31** by **THWOTH** » Feb 07, 2012 3:43 pm

Socrates referred to his "daimon" (a representation of his moral consciousness) which was categorised as a sign or inner voice which issued prohibitory messages in periods of dazes (perhaps suggestive of epilepsy or of a deep meditative state). The point was that this inner voice reminded him when he failed to live up to his own rhetoric, an analogue to the inner debate between one's impulses or motivations and one's actions. One knows when one is lying, for example, as the lie must be sold to the self before it can be sold to others. Socrates daimon held him to account.

Wiki wrote:The words dæmon and daimôn are Latinized spellings of the Greek "δαίμων", a reference to the daemons of ancient Greek religion and mythology, as well as later Hellenistic religion and philosophy. Daemons are good or benevolent nature spirits beings of the same nature as both mortals and gods, similar to ghosts, chthonic heroes, spirit guides, forces of nature or the gods themselves (see Plato's Symposium). Walter Burkert suggests that unlike the Judeo-Christian use of demon in a strictly malignant sense, “[a] general belief in spirits is not expressed by the term daimon until the fifth century when a doctor asserts that neurotic women and girls can be driven to suicide by imaginary apparitions, ‘evil daimones’. How far this is an expression of widespread popular superstition is not easy to judge… On the basis of Hesiod's myth, however, what did gain currency was for great and powerful figures to be honoured after death as a daimon…” Daimon is not so much type of quasi-divine being, according to Burkert, but rather a non-personified “peculiar mode” of their activity.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daimon

Homer's use of the words theoí (θεοί: "gods")
and daímones (δαίμονες), suggest that while distinct,
they are similar in kind.

[/aside]

Stein · **#32** by **Stein** » Feb 07, 2012 8:53 pm

Clive Durdle wrote:
Actually, Socrates is already one of my models, since the earliest sources all agree on his unflappable and repeated claim that he often heard some divinity tell him what not to do from childhood on

In 1977 Princeton University psychologist Julian Jaynes (1920–1997) put forth a bold new theory of the origin of consciousness and a previous mentality known as the bicameral mind in the controversial but critically acclaimed book The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind. Jaynes was far ahead of his time, and his theory remains as relevant today as when it was first published.

Jaynes asserts that consciousness did not arise far back in human evolution but is a learned process based on metaphorical language. Prior to the development of consciousness, Jaynes argues humans operated under a previous mentality he called the bicameral ('two-chambered') mind. In the place of an internal dialogue, bicameral people experienced auditory hallucinations directing their actions, similar to the command hallucinations experienced by people with schizophrenia today. These hallucinations were interpreted as the voices of chiefs, rulers, or the gods.

http://www.julianjaynes.org/overview.php

Finally, this is concrete stuff. Thank you! I'm devouring this page right now. It's great that at last we have a modern scientist who is grappling with this phenomenon in a systematic way. Whether his conclusions are eventually borne out or not, it's great that we finally have someone with a modern sensibility addressing this phenomenon in observational terms.

If a one-to-one correspondence is ultimately established between the "unconscious" part of the mind and "God-sightings" by altruists like Socrates and Buddha, then the whole riddle of an external divinity may be eventually solved.

Cheers,

Stein

Cito di Pense · **#33** by **Cito di Pense** » Feb 07, 2012 11:34 pm

Stein wrote:It's great that at last we have a modern scientist who is grappling with this phenomenon in a systematic way. Whether his conclusions are eventually borne out or not, it's great that we finally have someone with a modern sensibility addressing this phenomenon in observational terms.

Whyn't you 'devour' the fact that the guy died in 1997, and published Bicameral in 1977. This belongs in the same bin with Fritjof Capra. They're both about equally as 'modern'.

nunnington · **#34** by **nunnington** » Feb 08, 2012 5:10 pm

C. G. Jung spent his entire life arguing that religions, myths, fairy-stories, artistic symbols, even political philosophies, represented eruptions from the unconscious, and he saw things like Nazism and Communism as the violent overthrow of the rational conscious mind.

In fact, I think he argued that dealing with the non-rational aspect of the mind is one of the huge problems facing us, as if we ignore it, or suppress it, it comes back at us like a roaring lion. But he was enough of an optimist also to argue that the unconscious always does produce an adequate symbol-system, even though the shift from an old one to a new one may be fairly traumatic.

This is very speculative of course, and could even be seen as a fairy-tale itself.

Cito di Pense · **#35** by **Cito di Pense** » Feb 08, 2012 5:21 pm

nunnington wrote:C. G. Jung spent his entire life arguing that religions, myths, fairy-stories, artistic symbols, even political philosophies, represented eruptions from the unconscious, and he saw things like Nazism and Communism as the violent overthrow of the rational conscious mind.

In fact, I think he argued that dealing with the non-rational aspect of the mind is one of the huge problems facing us, as if we ignore it, or suppress it, it comes back at us like a roaring lion. But he was enough of an optimist also to argue that the unconscious always does produce an adequate symbol-system, even though the shift from an old one to a new one may be fairly traumatic.

This is very speculative of course, and could even be seen as a fairy-tale itself.

I think it can be seen as an 'invented problem' or 'brain-teaser'. Jung wanted to say something without saying anything.

Clive Durdle · **#36** by **Clive Durdle** » Feb 08, 2012 6:53 pm

Not as simple as that!

Stein · **#37** by **Stein** » Apr 24, 2012 3:10 am

Cito di Pense wrote:
Stein wrote:It's great that at last we have a modern scientist who is grappling with this phenomenon in a systematic way. Whether his conclusions are eventually borne out or not, it's great that we finally have someone with a modern sensibility addressing this phenomenon in observational terms.

Whyn't you 'devour' the fact that the guy died in 1997, and published Bicameral in 1977. This belongs in the same bin with Fritjof Capra. They're both about equally as 'modern'.

-- While even more modern is the current research on the central question of "Whence Altruism?" --

http://books.google.com/books?id=7Mw89B ... sm&f=false

http://www.amazon.com/Altruism-Altruist ... nskepti-20

http://www.humanism.org.uk/humanism/hum ... us-beliefs

http://seedmagazine.com/content/article ... se_closed/

Stein

Cito di Pense · **#38** by **Cito di Pense** » Apr 24, 2012 1:25 pm

Stein wrote:current research on the central question of "Whence Altruism?"

fizz fizz fizz, buzz buzz buzz

Since altruism is still in the eye of the beholder, your particular definition of altruism appears to be along the lines of "fifty billion flies cannot possibly be wrong". What has happened when there is a concord between one person's idea of kindness and another's? It tends to mean that two people think they were made for each other, and they can start talking about "the purpose-driven life". These people can go on begging their questions until they are blue, and calling it 'research'.

These 'researchers' are trying to prove that people have 'special sauce', but not in so few words. They want to explain human success as a species before the jury is in on the success of the human species. This is like a dog chasing its tail, or suggesting that over-population is a problem that can be solved by more altruism. I see a feedback loop of people wanting to make altruism more necessary. You know, the self-fulfilling prophecy. A religion substitute for those who've given up theism.

The conclusion that is being assumed in this thread is also ethno-centric to xianity, if you but examine the title of this thread.

THWOTH · **#39** by **THWOTH** » Apr 24, 2012 1:28 pm

'Pop!'

Cito di Pense · **#40** by **Cito di Pense** » Apr 24, 2012 1:59 pm

THWOTH wrote:'Pop!'

From the Humanism Today link:

"Non-believers" do, of course, have many beliefs, though not religious ones. For example, they typically hold that moral feelings are social in origin, based on treating others as they would wish to be treated (the 'golden rule' which antedates all the major world religions).

They typically hold...

This is recognisable as the 'fifty billion flies' thing.

One can certainly hold that "moral feelings are social in origin", but one cannot be very profound spouting a tautology. What's curious in the hidden message is that this makes people 'special' and leads to 'success'. Yes, indeed, they're special. And they can have population spikes and crashes just like a spherical ball of bacteria can. Secular humanism is expressible as the idea that there's always more where that came from. Some secular humanists are just darling, so sincere in their desire to live without woo, but still believe in their heart of hearts that engineers (and altruism) will solve all their problems.

Engineering is not simple altruism, but the testing of solutions against problems in a manner in which failure means something.

I'm just questioning altruism as some sort of substitute absolute. If I can't question altruism, I might as well just have some other absolute authority. These people need to study the fricking logistic equation, and contemplate the phrase "misery loves company".

I, too, see myself as an ethical 'pioneer'. That's pioneering in the sense of suggesting that exploration starts with getting off the treadmill. The John Stuart Treadmill. Meanwhile, I can understand people's enthusiasm for expanding markets.

THWOTH wrote:
May I ask, what is the point of framing the topic title in terms of competing outlooks?

Funny how 'altruism' and 'free lunch' sound so silly together.

Stein wrote:the cultural norm of a reality that's framed by the divine the deification of empathy is essentially unreversed.

Stein wrote:humans have their paper trails detailing just how, in the written record, humans have advanced the notions that it's not smart to treat fellow humans as subhuman.

Uh huh. That would be the paper trail of 'lip service'. It's this obsession with texts, you see... If you say there's a correlation between texts preaching empathy and a basic component of human biology called empathy, you're playing both ends against the middle in order to imply that a basic component of human biology is 'lip service'. That's just what I say about people, too. Fantastic.

OTOH, one could simply see it as the continuing project of some people to conceive of the publication of their intellectual detritus as an achievement. I think it all goes back to toilet training issues. Me, I'm just having a conversation, here. Go on, tell me what problems xianity solves that it has not created for itself.

THWOTH wrote:arguing that rationality and reason as the only grounds by which to come to an understanding morals and ethics, or of nature, as Wollstonecraft and Bacon did, surely the challenge to the assumed authority of religions is both implicitly and explicitly stated?

Well, surely that is to argue that 'what we like' is not to be the basis of morality. This is in order that internet porn not be considered moral just because some people like it.

Non-belief vs. Christianity: human rights pioneers

Re: Non-belief vs. Christianity: human rights pioneers

Re: Non-belief vs. Christianity: human rights pioneers

Re: Non-belief vs. Christianity: human rights pioneers

Re: Non-belief vs. Christianity: human rights pioneers

Re: Non-belief vs. Christianity: human rights pioneers

Re: Non-belief vs. Christianity: human rights pioneers

Re: Non-belief vs. Christianity: human rights pioneers

Re: Non-belief vs. Christianity: human rights pioneers

Re: Non-belief vs. Christianity: human rights pioneers

Re: Non-belief vs. Christianity: human rights pioneers

Re: Non-belief vs. Christianity: human rights pioneers

Re: Non-belief vs. Christianity: human rights pioneers

Re: Non-belief vs. Christianity: human rights pioneers

Re: Non-belief vs. Christianity: human rights pioneers

Re: Non-belief vs. Christianity: human rights pioneers

Re: Non-belief vs. Christianity: human rights pioneers

Re: Non-belief vs. Christianity: human rights pioneers

Re: Non-belief vs. Christianity: human rights pioneers

Re: Non-belief vs. Christianity: human rights pioneers

Re: Non-belief vs. Christianity: human rights pioneers

Re: Non-belief vs. Christianity: human rights pioneers

Re: Non-belief vs. Christianity: human rights pioneers

Who is online