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Topic: The Problem with Agnosticism (Read 33487 times)

Re: The Problem with Agnosticism

Reply #75 –
Quote from: jseaton2311 on

Quote from: string on
So unless your family have lived all their lives in a different society than the rest of us they have been influenced by that society to think of some things as good and some things as not good.

From psychology we have learned that the predominant influences for molding us into the type of people we are going to be are friends and family; and probably in that order.  The rest of society will have very little to do with what kind of person we become.  If we don't get morals and goodness from our family, we are unlikely to get it somewhere else. To say that my family's goodness could only stem from religion is to say that it couldn't stem from basic human nature which is peace not hatred, happiness not greed, love not heartache, and wisdom not confusion.  The goodness religion teaches lasts for the hour it takes to deliver the sermon and then people are off doing their own thing again; people live with their families not their pastors.  I'm not denying the Christian foundation and influence in this nation, but if it weren't for strong family influence, goodness wouldn't spread any further than the front door of the church. 


Strongly suggesting that some people, yourself included, led a very sheltered life -- retarding their value system's development, & furthermore, bastardizing their perception of it.

Re: The Problem with Agnosticism

Reply #76 –
Quote from: jseaton2311 on
To say that my family's goodness could only stem from religion is to say that it couldn't stem from basic human nature which is peace not hatred, happiness not greed, love not heartache, and wisdom not confusion.  The goodness religion teaches lasts for the hour it takes to deliver the sermon and then people are off doing their own thing again...
Is basic human nature distinct from family and society influence? Do sermons preach something else than basic human nature?

Re: The Problem with Agnosticism

Reply #77 –
Quote from: jseaton2311 on
From psychology we have learned that the predominant influences for molding us into the type of people we are going to be are friends and family; and probably in that order.  The rest of society will have very little to do with what kind of person we become.  If we don't get morals and goodness from our family, we are unlikely to get it somewhere else.

Society influences our way of thinking, as it did our parents and their parents before them. If that were not the case then a family living in a Christian community would feel no difference if they were suddenly transported to an Islamic community. No family makes up a complete code of conduct, they may embellish it or ignore some aspects, but the fabric is that of the community in which they, and their forebears, lived. How else do you think that a distinct Chinese community lives in America, or Mexican, or Native Indian or Polish or Irish, all gradually morphing into an American way of life and thought?

Quote from: jseaton2311 on
To say that my family's goodness could only stem from religion is to say that it couldn't stem from basic human nature which is peace not hatred, happiness not greed, love not heartache, and wisdom not confusion.
Whether or not human beings are so sainted as you portray is highly debatable, but another debate.

Of course "goodness" (or evil) does not stem only from religion, but it just so happens that religions have tried to set themselves up as such for generations and have put more effort into it than relatively disorganised non-religious individuals. Religions have had their nunneries and monasteries to (others might say scholars) refine and "improve their "holy books" for years, each holy book purporting to be God's answer to morality. Whether I think that these books are the answer or not is beside the point, the fact is that what is in them has moulded our civilisation for hundreds of years and in so doing set much of the moral framework of cultures and the people living in them. Note I say much, consistent with my previous  use of the word "predominate".

Re: The Problem with Agnosticism

Reply #78 –
Quote from: ersi on
Do sermons preach something else than basic human nature?
Some sermons teach all sorts of things that do not derive from basic human nature - not working on Sunday, not eating "that which is forbidden", a woman covering her hair, and so on and so on and so on....

Re: The Problem with Agnosticism

Reply #79 –
Quote from: string on

Quote from: ersi on
Do sermons preach something else than basic human nature?
Some sermons teach all sorts of things that do not derive from basic human nature - not working on Sunday, not eating "that which is forbidden", a woman covering her hair, and so on and so on and so on....
How do you know not working on Sunday etc. is against human nature? Maybe it's human nature to preach various things, to make up rules, to try to follow them, then to rebel, tear it all down, live in anarchy for a while, then think of some order again, etc?

Re: The Problem with Agnosticism

Reply #80 –
Quote from: ersi on
How do you know not working on Sunday etc. is against human nature? Maybe it's human nature to preach various things, to make up rules, to try to follow them, then to rebel, tear it all down, live in anarchy for a while, then think of some order again, etc?

Have you noticed this trend in human civilization?  If not, then it is not in our nature.  Human nature takes into account only those behaviors we have exhibited in the past.  If you think we might evolve into something else, then that's a different story, but human nature is based on our demonstrated behavioral history, not on any possible future behavior. 
James J

Re: The Problem with Agnosticism

Reply #81 –
Quote from: jseaton2311 on

Quote from: ersi on
How do you know not working on Sunday etc. is against human nature? Maybe it's human nature to preach various things, to make up rules, to try to follow them, then to rebel, tear it all down, live in anarchy for a while, then think of some order again, etc?

Have you noticed this trend in human civilization?  If not, then it is not in our nature. 

Serious question. How far does your knowledge of history go? By the age of twenty, I had already seen empires rise and fall first hand. Nothing human (or inhuman, if you prefer) is unknown to me.

Re: The Problem with Agnosticism

Reply #82 –
Quote from: ersi on
By the age of twenty, I had already seen empires rise and fall first hand. Nothing human (or inhuman, if you prefer) is unknown to me.

I KNEW you were going to say something like that.  Yes, empires have risen and fallen, but is it something humans do like bees make honey?  I think not, but think what you will and keep it to yourself. 
James J

Re: The Problem with Agnosticism

Reply #83 –
Quote from: ersi on
By the age of twenty, I had already seen empires rise and fall first hand.


When I was 20 I was too busy watching Bosoms rise and fall, as for the hand --- well ....

Re: The Problem with Agnosticism

Reply #85 –
Quote from: jseaton2311 on

Quote from: ersi on
By the age of twenty, I had already seen empires rise and fall first hand. Nothing human (or inhuman, if you prefer) is unknown to me.

I KNEW you were going to say something like that.  Yes, empires have risen and fallen, but is it something humans do like bees make honey?  I think not, but think what you will and keep it to yourself.

If you knew it, you should have some logical answer to it (as opposed to emotional).

We disagree on our views of human nature and I think, quite reasonably, that such disagreement itself is a vivid example of human nature, and of the nature of humanity. I have no problem living with it, but I accept that it's equally human to struggle painfully trying to cope with it. This is so because human nature is dual. Human nature is divine and diabolic nature active in the same body.

Re: The Problem with Agnosticism

Reply #86 –
Quote from: ersi on
Human nature is divine and diabolic nature active in the same body.

Not really.  Human nature is to question why and explore.  Ever had an inquisitive child ask you a question and then ask 'why' at the end of your explanation and then 'why' again at the end of that explanation, etc. etc.  We humans have been doing that since we came down out of the trees and we'll probably never stop because there will always be wondering.  We figure out a lot of stuff, but we're always looking for the next thing to figure out and that's what keeps us exploring. 
James J

Re: The Problem with Agnosticism

Reply #87 –
Quote from: jseaton2311 on

Quote from: ersi on
Human nature is divine and diabolic nature active in the same body.

Not really.  Human nature is to question why and explore.  Ever had an inquisitive child ask you a question and then ask 'why' at the end of your explanation and then 'why' again at the end of that explanation, etc. etc.

Yes, I have them asking 'why' all the time. It's diabolic. And human.

I do my best to explain. I get through to children better than to you. That's life.

Re: The Problem with Agnosticism

Reply #88 –
The more knowledge one accumulates, the fact of how much we as humans don't know, is ever more evident.

There is no doubt that great revolutions of scientific thought will occur in the next century, the century after that, & in centuries onward. So which current pet scientific dogmas will be among the first washed away by new facts & sudden clarities?

Re: The Problem with Agnosticism

Reply #89 –
Quote from: SmileyFaze on
There is no doubt that great revolutions of scientific thought will occur in the next century, the century after that, & in centuries onward. So which current pet scientific dogmas will be among the first washed away by new facts & sudden clarities?
Over the years, several dogmas have been swept away and replaced by new ones.

Who knows what mankind will worship next ... catmas have been done --- dolphinmas?  .... well also taken - how about snailmas?   .... - it looks like mankind has been very fickle with their deities .... .

It is indeed mankind's nature to believe in funny things.

Re: The Problem with Agnosticism

Reply #92 –
Quote from: ersi on
You are like some guy who insisted something like virii was the proper plural for virus.
"Viri" maybe?
Quote from: ersi on
Maybe in Latin* it is ...
* I know it isn't
It is. In English it is also - facultative.
Quote from: etymonline; edited
dogma (n.) [abbr=Look up dogma at Dictionary.com][/abbr]
c.1600 (in plural dogmata), from Latin dogma "philosophical tenet", from Greek dogma (genitive dogmatos) "opinion, tenet", literally "that which one thinks is true", from dokein "to seem good, think" (see decent). Treated in 17c.-18c. as a Greek word in English.

Re: The Problem with Agnosticism

Reply #93 –
As I said, not English. Dogmata is Greek. Viri is Latin. Dogmas and viruses is English. To each language its own grammar.

Re: The Problem with Agnosticism

Reply #94 –
Quote from: ersi on
As I said, not English.
Quote from: TFD
dog·ma (dôgm, dg-)
n. pl. dog·mas or dog·ma·ta (-m-t)

Quote from: ersi on
Dogmata is Greek. Viri is Latin. Dogmas and viruses is English.
Quote from: http://encyclopedia.thefreedictionary.com/viri
Plural of virus
Quote
1 Most English words ending in -us, particularly those derived from Latin, replace the -us suffix with -i to form plurals. This is irregular, however: some words that end in -us do not pluralize with -i. Sometimes this is because they are not Latin words, and sometimes due to habit (e.g. campus, plural campuses, anus, plural anuses, are both Latin words that do not, in English, pluralize with -i). Conversely, some non-Latin words ending in -us or Latin words that would not have pluralized with -i in Latin are given an -i ending in English...
Quote
2 The English plural of virus is viruses.[1] In most speaking communities this is non-controversial and speakers would not attempt to use the non-standard plural in -i. However, in computer enthusiast circles in the late 20th century and early 21st, the non-standard viri form (sometimes even virii) was well-attested, generally in the context of computer viruses.[2]...

Re: The Problem with Agnosticism

Reply #95 –
... In any case, I was writing in DnDSpeak ...

Re: The Problem with Agnosticism

Reply #96 –
Selectively applying latin or greek grammar to words in a sentence that's otherwise in english is rather silly. If you want greek grammar, write in greek.
Otherwise, would you apply the original language's grammar to every single loan word? If not, where do you draw the line?

Re: The Problem with Agnosticism

Reply #97 –
@Josh
This is the situation you get in two cases: 1. In case of a rampantly invasive lingua franca 2. In case of low prestige of home language absorbing foreign elements.

The first case is lingua franca, which I don't really identify as a language. It can be twisted too much as situations require, which is not possible with a true language. For the speakers of a lingua franca of course they are perfectly positive they have a language, so I mostly just silently disagree, even though the reasons are solid.

The second is the case of a dying language, a language being replaced, assimilated into another.

To me language equals grammar. Grammar is rules. The rules are not fluid. They only appear fluid when there are parallel rules having an effect on each other. In your examples, the rules are perfectly well documented as originating in different languages. They organically belong to their respective languages and only have occasional use in English through direct immediately traceable borrowing.

How should I explain it to you? There's a difference between a language and a language game.

Quote from: string on

... In any case, I was writing in DnDSpeak ...

Right. I hope Josh will get it some day.

@Macallan
Agreed.

Re: The Problem with Agnosticism

Reply #98 –
Quote from: ersi on
To me language equals grammar.
Grammar is a structural element, feature of a language.
Quote from: ersi on
The rules are not fluid.
Of course, they are.
As language being a product of people, each and every speaker - in every generation - participates in CREATING the language. Academically, English is a descriptive language - people rule it.

Re: The Problem with Agnosticism

Reply #99 –
Quote from: Josh on

Quote from: ersi on
The rules are not fluid.
Of course, they are.
As language being a product of people, each and every speaker - in every generation - participates in CREATING the language. Academically, English is a descriptive language - people rule it.

Your own posts speak against you. You pick on language implying that the rules are different from how people use the language here. In effect I was simply agreeing with you, even though in a way you don't like to be agreed with.

You can't twist the rules any way you like. I mean, you can, but this is language game, not proper language. I know Russian and I can twist it so that it breaks your heart. This would stop your liberal-mindedness about grammar, but I don't want to break your tender heart.