Societies don't have to be secular to be modern

[grumbler]

That's exactly what I thought he was saying, even though I said I hadn't read his books    

Oh.  I thought you were referring to Fukuyama when you wrote your post, since you mentioned his name.  You and he seem pretty much in the opposite corners when it comes to the forces of history.

There are so many fundamentally debatable implicit or explicit assumptions here that your conclusions cannot be accepted as evidenced at all.

I'm not asking to have it accepted as evidence. If you don't share my view, that's ok. You've done nothing to refute them though.

If you are agreeing that they are not evidenced, then by definition they cannot be refuted. 

You need to read more carefully. I did not say it would already have peaked. I said it would have peaked sooner than when is now believed to be the time it will peak. It need not be a big difference, but I'm sure it'd be some difference.

Peaked is past tense.  You need to write more carefully.  If you mean to speak of the future, you use future tense.

I did not say the Koran is less vague than the bible. I said that the Koran is considered the final word of God. The testimonies on the life of jesus is just that, testimonies. Of course some people belive it to be the literal word of god anyway, but you don't have to see it that way. The Koran is the word of god, period.

Again, just because you believe the Koran to be the "word of God" and the Bible not to be, does not establish your preposition as truth.  It is merely a preposition.

Exponential population growth does lead to competition over resources. This is self-evident. That is not to say all wars must be waged over resources, but to say that there is no competition over resources is to say war must not be waged.

This is mere argument by assertion. World War 2 was not fought due to competition over resources, nor was World War 1, nor the Franco-Prussian War, the US Civil War, the 20 Years War, the Hundred Years War, the Wars of the roses, etc, etc.  It is trivial to disprove the idea that "to say that there is no competition over resources is to say war must not be waged."  I am not, of course, arguing with the contention that people compete to consume.  this is a fundamental tenet of economics.  The point, though, is that this occurs whether there is exponential population growth or not. Plus, population does not grow to match the available resources, as Malthus assumed.  There are reasons why families restricted size that didn't involve the fact that they couldn't feed or clothe more children.

[grumbler]

To just give away your life as if it had no meaning is to be a nihilist.

Not sure what you mean here, or how it applies.  The WTC attackers were not giving their lives away, they were sellling them for a cause, and getting top dollar (as they saw it).  This is the opposite of nihilism.

As they saw it. Exactly. From my view, they were giving their lives away. 

Ah.  I misunderstood.  I thought you were calling them nihilists, but now you concede that they were the opposite of nihilists.  From the viewpoint of a nihoilist, they could be arguing that they were "throwing their lives away," but a proper hihilist wouldn't care, since their lives have no meaning anyway.

Rational thinking will lead to nihilism.  That is the problem with nihilism; it is pretty much irrefutable except by using concepts like faith.  Ultimately, the lives of any humans, and indeed of the race as a whole, is meaningless.  Compared with the scope and scale of the cosmos, whether you are good or bad, or live 20 minutes or 200 years, is unnoticeably trivial.  Only a god or some kind of immortality can give it meaning.

No. I seem to be doing just fine. Maybe it's just you?

I have no idea what this means.  Is it meant to be a response to what I wrote?  If so, you need to read what i wrote again, because it wasn't about you, nor was it about me.

If you acknowledge that good things are good, and bad things are bad, and these things are good respectively bad because human nature makes some things fundamentally good and some things fundamentally bad, (like, for example, to live is good, and to die is bad), you will never end up with nihilism unless you consider bad things good. Or you suffer from depression or something that is unrelated to your philisophy.

Exactly.  What you refer to here is faith, which (as Kiekengaard and Neitsche pointed out long ago) is the only alternative to nihilism. Rationality cannot get you there, you just have to "believe" (or "acknowledge,: to use your slightly erroneous term) that good things are good, etc.

That is, of course if you care so much about "meaning."  I don't need either your faith-based path or the nihilists logic-based path because "meaning" isn't important to me.

And you're wrong when you say no one here is arguing they are typical of anything in particular. *I* am arguing they are.

Ah, well you are communicating very poorly, then, because I don't know what you are arguing that the WTC attackers are typical of.

The GIGO principe. Which, would be evident from context, since I was quoting a post of your talking about it. 

  The World Trade Center attackers were typical of the GIGO principle? 
That doesn't even make sense!     Something "typical" of a set must belong to that set to begin with, and people cannot be part of the set "principles." Unles you are confusing "principle" as the idea with "principal" as a type of person? The two words are completely different.

And which I SAID I MEANT, but of course you seem to be reading as poorly as always.

I admit that I cannot (as always) read gibberish well.  Not even well enough to know whether you are writing it well, or poorly.

This is why arguing with grumbler never goes anywhere. It always becomes an argument about the argument.

Ah, the old "I cannot argue my point, so I will blame my opponent" weasel.  When you pose inarticulate arguments, and your opponent points out that they don't make sense, consider whether or not it might be your own fault for writing poorly in the first place.  It is bad form to blame the reader when you write gibberish.

[grumbler]

No, I'm sorry, that was a bit flippant of me and I apologize. I do understand the nihilism argument. I'll try to adress it in a sec in more detail

Okay.  My post was before I saw this, so we will both retract claws and I will await further clarification.

[Pat]

You say "Only a god or some kind of immortality can give [life] meaning."

I disagree. I think most people can get meaning from doing things that feel good to them such as for example spending time with people they love, or by, hell I don't know, perhaps taking a walk in a place that is beautiful and serene and can make them feel as one with nature, or perhaps by experiencing the religious feeling that can be inspired by great art. Or great literature written by people inspired by truth in a way that is indeed prophetic (and far more relevant to our lives than such inspirations thousands of years old, which may have been relevant then but no longer is).

It is true that human nature is, in a way, religious. That is not, and this is the important part, not to say men are by nature inclined to organized religion, led by leaders who tell them lies. If it were so the indoctrination inflicted by the religious on their children would not be necessary. They would not tell them to have "faith", they would appeal to their reason (and children are usually quite clever have they not been propped full of pre-conceived notions - one of the great Russian writers, I'll be damned if I can remember which one at the moment, says some thing like "I have found that anyone can understand the most complex of concepts as long as they do not already hold beliefs to the contrary", and I agree since I have found the same thing; perhaps someone recognize it and can help me with a more exact quotation?).

But anyway, as for human nature and religion; religion has been a useful evolutionary adaptation by allowing knowledge to be passed on over generations before we had a written language. Why not let it remain being a useful tool, by allowing these archaic beliefs from a time long gone die the death they deserve? God knows (figuratively speaking, of course ) other things can take their place just fine.

Science can create religious experiences by stimulating parts of the brain. So not only has science killed god, it can also bring him back to life at will. The amount of self-deception and lying to oneself that is required to still believe in him knowing what we know today must be incredible.

I will also add that I find it absolutely immoral to say "maybe there is no God, but people need to be lied to for reasons of utility".


[When I clicked the "Post" button I saw your new reply. I shall therefore adress that one as well]


You bring up Kierkegaard and Nietzsche (whose names are spelled like this, by the way). I have not read Kierkegaard and my acquaintance of him is too shallow to be of any use. I have read some Nietzsche, and while I am in no way an expert on him, I will say what I think of him and his thought (I hope you will correct me if I mischaracterize it more than you find permissable for the purpose of argument, which does sometime call for simplification of things).

Nietzsche rejected God along with egalitarianism and, well, being nice to people, since that would lead to the slave morality which he loathed. He philosophised with his hammer and eventually he turned that hammer on himself.

But Nietzsche was from an authoritarian and anti-egalitarian society. He was from Germany, which due to it's weakness had been the battle-field of Europe and constantly tred on by foreign armies. And learnt it's lesson, and learnt to value strength. So of course, when he disposed of traditional morality, especially christianity which he saw as a religion for slaves that helped along the downfall of the roman empire, the morality to put in it's place had to be a morality of strength and not one of weakness.

You, grumbler, also come from an anti-egalitarian society which values strength over weakness, and perhaps one of the reasons America remains the huge exception in the modern world on account of it's religiosity, while almost all european cultures independently of each other have abandoned religion long ago, is that religion remains relevant in America because America has preserved some of the darwinism that produced the traditional religions.

[grumbler]

You say "Only a god or some kind of immortality can give [life] meaning."

I disagree. I think most people can get meaning from doing things that feel good to them such as for example spending time with people they love, or by, hell I don't know, perhaps taking a walk in a place that is beautiful and serene and can make them feel as one with nature, or perhaps by experiencing the religious feeling that can be inspired by great art. Or great literature written by people inspired by truth in a way that is indeed prophetic (and far more relevant to our lives than such inspirations thousands of years old, which may have been relevant then but no longer is). 

You are using "the meaning of life" in an entirely different way than I am.  In English, at least, that phrase has a specific meaning, and I keep forgetting that you are not a native speaker of the language.

It is true that human nature is, in a way, religious. That is not, and this is the important part, not to say men are by nature inclined to organized religion, led by leaders who tell them lies. If it were so the indoctrination inflicted by the religious on their children would not be necessary. They would not tell them to have "faith", they would appeal to their reason (and children are usually quite clever have they not been propped full of pre-conceived notions - one of the great Russian writers, I'll be damned if I can remember which one at the moment, says some thing like "I have found that anyone can understand the most complex of concepts as long as they do not already hold beliefs to the contrary", and I agree since I have found the same thing; perhaps someone recognize it and can help me with a more exact quotation?).

This is a mere diatribe against religion, and not an argument at all.  I know you consider "religion" to be an " indoctrination inflicted by the religious on their children," and know that you cannot understand an alternative viewpoint because you already hold beliefs to the contrary.  Well, i shan't attempt to enlighten you, because I don't really care what anyone believes about religion, and one cannot debate beliefs.

But anyway, as for human nature and religion; religion has been a useful evolutionary adaptation by allowing knowledge to be passed on over generations before we had a written language. Why not let it remain being a useful tool, by allowing these archaic beliefs from a time long gone die the death they deserve? God knows (figuratively speaking, of course ) other things can take their place just fine.

I very, very much doubt that religion is an evolutionary adaptation.  That you would want to think so is evident from your dismissal of religion as "archaic beliefs from a time long gone" that "deserve" death.  If religion is necessary, i would agree that it is not for evolutionary reasons, but I think you have some fundamentally erroneous concepts of what evolution is.

Science can create religious experiences by stimulating parts of the brain. So not only has science killed god, it can also bring him back to life at will. The amount of self-deception and lying to oneself that is required to still believe in him knowing what we know today must be incredible.

Mere argument by assertion.  Redefining religious experiences so that they can be described as stimulation of the brain misses the entire point.  If one is describing religion exclusively that way, one can describe anything in those terms.  Thus, "science can create the experience of spending time with people one loves by stimulating the brain.  So not only has science killed love, it can also bring it back to life at will. The amount of self-deception and lying to oneself that is required to still believe in love knowing what we know today must be incredible."

You, grumbler, also come from an anti-egalitarian society which values strength over weakness

I have no idea what this means.  Are you saying that egalitarian societies value weakness over strength?  That seems to me to be pretty absurd.

As a side note, I don't come from whatever anti-egalitarian society you believe I come from.  I was born and raised in the US, and while the US is not exactly egalitarian, it is certainly not anti-egalitarian.  Either you don't know where I am from, don't know anything about the US, or else don't comprehend that there are shades between "perfectly egalitarian" and "anti-egalitarian."

and perhaps one of the reasons America remains the huge exception in the modern world on account of it's religiosity, while almost all european cultures independently of each other have abandoned religion long ago, is that religion remains relevant in America because America has preserved some of the darwinism that produced the traditional religions.

No, the reason why religion remains popular in the US and not in Europe is because European countries had official religions until very recently, and the US did not.  Thus, when governments in Europe became discredited (and they all were, over the last century or so), the religions so closely associated with them also were discredited.  The fact that the US, unlike Europe, has such a long history of credible government is almost certainly not primarily due to the separation of church and state, but that separation probably played a part.  Now that the Europeans are learning to separate church and state, it will be interesting to see if religion becomes more popular there.  Certainly it is far to early to tell whether the European "abandonment" of religion* is a permanent thing.  Religious interest tends to be cyclical, though the current ebb of religious interest in most of Europe is the lowest of which I am aware.


* As an aside, it is amusing, to someone who knows enough history to see the longer view, to see something that happened in the last century described as having occurred "long ago."

[Pat]

I now saw this post as well. I'm struggling to keep up so please bear with me here.

Peaked is past tense.  You need to write more carefully.  If you mean to speak of the future, you use future tense.

If I was unclear in my writing I apologize. English is my second language but I do hope I can make myself somewhat understood anyway, and if not, and something is unclear, feel free to ask and I'll try to explain better what I mean.

This is mere argument by assertion. World War 2 was not fought due to competition over resources, nor was World War 1, nor the Franco-Prussian War, the US Civil War, the 20 Years War, the Hundred Years War, the Wars of the roses, etc, etc.  It is trivial to disprove the idea that "to say that there is no competition over resources is to say war must not be waged."  I am not, of course, arguing with the contention that people compete to consume.  this is a fundamental tenet of economics.  The point, though, is that this occurs whether there is exponential population growth or not. Plus, population does not grow to match the available resources, as Malthus assumed.  There are reasons why families restricted size that didn't involve the fact that they couldn't feed or clothe more children.

OK but let's assume we have exponential population growth.

Let us assume, for ease of counting, that each family has four children. This is less than in many pre-industrial societies today.

Without malthusian checks, this means the population doubles every generation. Of course, this is untenable, since resources in pre-industrial societies, especially agricultural ones, living off the land, simple do not double every generation.

Humans like to fuck. This is human nature. And if you do not have contraceptives you will have problems if there are no cultural values to counteract this. Different societies have come up with different ways of dealing with it. In polynesian societies they'd practice penile subincision so the sperm could escape from the base of the penis outside the vagina, but they still had to ritually embark into suicide journeys into the unknown whenever the population grew too big. This continued into modern times; there are islands in the pacific where you can talk to people who remembers this, and who will specifically tell you that it was to keep the population down. This is how the polynesians traversed the great distances of the pacific ocean to colonize remote islands, and probably how they traversed even the indian ocean to colonize Madascar (the Malagay language is a polynesian language).

In semitic cultures they'd sacrifice children to Baal. Archaelogists at Carthage have found this practice increased in times when resources were scarce.

Of course, if you're strong, and your neighbour is weak, you make your neighbour your enemy and take his resources. You drive him off his land; now it is your land. In pre-industrial society it is easier to defeat the enemy and win resources, than it is to defeat the enemy that is lack of resources. Because that is a war that simply could not be won, until we invented contraceptives.

I'm not saying all wars are over resources. I do not deny there have been wars over ideas. I even wrote that in my post. But it is wrong to say there have been no malthusian pressure on people in human history. That would be to say that the polynesians suicide-journeyed into the unknown, and the carthaginians sacrificed their children, for no reason at all. That there were no reason for these practices (and practices to counter over-population can be found in all but the most warlike of pre-industrial societies, by the way; in most agricultural societies it took the shape of taboo on sex before marriage and intricate dowry rules meaning many could not marry).

[Pat]

I very, very much doubt that religion is an evolutionary adaptation.  That you would want to think so is evident from your dismissal of religion as "archaic beliefs from a time long gone" that "deserve" death.  If religion is necessary, i would agree that it is not for evolutionary reasons, but I think you have some fundamentally erroneous concepts of what evolution is.

We know that we can stimulate parts of the brain to create experiences that are religious. I assume you are not a creationist. Why, then, did this part of the brain evolve? What is your explanation?

I'll give you an example from recorded history to illustrate how religion has helped humans evolutionarily.

The plague that'd be known as the Black Death most likely originated in India, and was carried across rivers by mongol messengers to the asian steppes, where it became endemic among the marmot populations living in colonies beneath (some believe the resulting depopulation of the steppes was a greater reason for the Mongol withdrawal than having to elect a new Khan). Anyway, the marmots on the Asian steppes now carried the plague. It is interesting to note how the beliefs of Manchurian nomads adapted to these new conditions. Because now they started to believe that when their ancestors died of disease, they were reincarnated as marmots. So great care had to be taken when hunting marmots so that one did not kill a sick marmot. And out of respect one had to strike one's tents and move away if one's camp so much as happened to be close to a marmot colony.

I suppose benevolent religion like this was the norm before the organized religions of today.

[grumbler]

OK but let's assume we have exponential population growth.   

Okay, and then we will assume that we don't.

Let us assume, for ease of counting, that each family has four children. This is less than in many pre-industrial societies today.

That is assumption A0.  Assumption A1 is that each family has two children.  This is more than many pre-industrialized societies today.

Without malthusian checks, this means the population doubles every generation. Of course, this is untenable, since resources in pre-industrial societies, especially agricultural ones, living off the land, simple do not double every generation.

Even without malthusian checks, this means that population  remains fairly static.  Of course, this is tenable in either industrial or pre-industrial societies.

Humans like to fuck. This is human nature. And if you do not have contraceptives you will have problems if there are no cultural values to counteract this.

Contraceptives are not just the little manufactured thingies you buy in packages.  Contraception has been known for millennia.  It hasn't been widely practiced because in most pre-industrial socieities infant mortality was high enough to make six to eight babies a necessity if enough children were to survive to support the couple in old age.

Cultural values have restricted birth rates in some classes and some societies.  France during the Napoleonic Wars became the first pre-industrial society to see contraception gain favor in all classes at the same time, as far as I know.

Of course, if you're strong, and your neighbour is weak, you make your neighbour your enemy and take his resources.

Yes, and you would do this even if there were no population pressures at home. 

In pre-industrial society it is easier to defeat the enemy and win resources, than it is to defeat the enemy that is lack of resources. Because that is a war that simply could not be won, until we invented contraceptives.

Again, you falsely associate industrial societies and contraception, which isn't correct.  It is definitely true that contraception became more safe and effective as medical knowledge grew, but it wasn't invented in the industrial era.

I'm not saying all wars are over resources. I do not deny there have been wars over ideas. I even wrote that in my post. But it is wrong to say there have been no malthusian pressure on people in human history.

Malthus developed a specific theory that (a) population will always outgrow food supply, and (b) when this occurs, population will be reduced through war, disease, and famine, to a rate below what the land can support, at which point he cycle will begin again.  Malthus's conclusion was that society was not perfectible.  I don't know what a "malthusian pressure" is, though.  He doesn't use that term.

That would be to say that the polynesians suicide-journeyed into the unknown, and the carthaginians sacrificed their children, for no reason at all.

  This is the logical Fallacy of the False Dichotomy.  The choices are not just (1) "malthusian pressure" or (2) "no reason at all."

[grumbler]

We know that we can stimulate parts of the brain to create experiences that are religious. I assume you are not a creationist. Why, then, did this part of the brain evolve? What is your explanation? 

"We" don't know that at all.

We do know that we can stimulate portions of the brain that cause total recall of events in the past, including events involving love.

The plague that'd be known as the Black Death most likely originated in India, and was carried across rivers by mongol messengers to the asian steppes, where it became endemic among the marmot populations living in colonies beneath (some believe the resulting depopulation of the steppes was a greater reason for the Mongol withdrawal than having to elect a new Khan). Anyway, the marmots on the Asian steppes now carried the plague. It is interesting to note how the beliefs of Manchurian nomads adapted to these new conditions. Because now they started to believe that when their ancestors died of disease, they were reincarnated as marmots. So great care had to be taken when hunting marmots so that one did not kill a sick marmot. And out of respect one had to strike one's tents and move away if one's camp so much as happened to be close to a marmot colony.

  You think the human species has evolved in any measurable way since the Fourteenth century? 

I'm gonna need a cite on that one.  Evolution generally takes place over thousands, and tens of thousands, of generations.  You are talking about events that occurred within the last twenty to thirty generations.

[Pat]

No, the reason why religion remains popular in the US and not in Europe is because European countries had official religions until very recently, and the US did not.  Thus, when governments in Europe became discredited (and they all were, over the last century or so), the religions so closely associated with them also were discredited.  The fact that the US, unlike Europe, has such a long history of credible government is almost certainly not primarily due to the separation of church and state, but that separation probably played a part.  Now that the Europeans are learning to separate church and state, it will be interesting to see if religion becomes more popular there.  Certainly it is far to early to tell whether the European "abandonment" of religion* is a permanent thing.  Religious interest tends to be cyclical, though the current ebb of religious interest in most of Europe is the lowest of which I am aware.

I need look no further than my own country to say that your theory is wrong. Sweden, too, has a long history of credible government, and it certainly wasn't lack of credibility in government that caused a lack of faith in religion. In 1809 we made a product of the french revolution our king and instated a liberal constitution that wasn't replaced until 1976, as a mere formality of modernization. At the time it was the second oldest constitution in the world, after the American. We had a stable and gradual transition from monarchy to democracy, and a stable and gradual transition from religion to atheism.


Edit: Sorry, what was I thinking. Constitution was in 1809, Jean-Baptiste only elected king the next year, in 1810 (and not coronated until 1818).

[Pat]

You think the human species has evolved in any measurable way since the Fourteenth century? 

I'm gonna need a cite on that one.  Evolution generally takes place over thousands, and tens of thousands, of generations.  You are talking about events that occurred within the last twenty to thirty generations.

Not at all, it's just an example to show how it the manner it has worked throughout all of human history. There will have been many similar instances of religion adapting to new knowledge.

This was to illustrate the importance of religion to pass on knowledge in the time before writing. The Manchurian nomads, many generations after their ancestor died from catching plague from a marmot, will keep avoiding marmots even though they don't know why.

BTW, an anecdote: When the Manchu-dynasty of China was toppled in 1909 (I think) and the last emperor had to change his job to being a gardener, the ban of Chinese to settle in Machuria, that the Manchu-dynasty had enacted to maintain their power-base, was lifted. So they built a railway into Manchuria and colonized it. The Chinese thought the Manchus were rediculous with their stupid archaic beliefs, and didn't understand why you wouldn't hunt marmots. So the Chinese hunted the marmots indescriminately. And got the plague. Which spread along the rail-road lines to the rest of China. And a lot of people died.

[Pat]

I'm not saying Malthus was right. Malthus was wrong, but only because he didnt foresee what I in may earlier post called the "invention and wide-spread use" of contraceptives.

It is true that there have existed primitive contraceptives for a long time, but these have been expensive, ineffective, cumbersome to use, or all three. Widespread use of contraceptives is quite recent.



(To further accentuate the link between contraceptives and loosening of traditional morals, one may point to the sexual revolution and the pill)



What I refer to as malthusian pressure is the same thing as population pressure.

[Martinus]

While there's quite a bit of evidence showing that the earth is not 6000 years old, I would challenge you to show any evidence  that proves Jesus was not resurrected, or that we do not go to heaven.

Most atheists would only argue there's no proof either way on those points.  But you went the extra difference to say that things like heaven and the resurrections aren't just unknown, but false.  Which must means you think you have some evidence on those points...

You have a funny idea of proof for a trial lawyer. 

Anyway, since you consider these ideas non-falsified, and from this derive that they have to be allowed as true (i.e. you lead your life as if resurrection happened and if people were going to heaven), I cannot but marvel at your selectiveness. 

When was the last time you sacrificed a young male goat to Zeus? Or made auguries to Janus before embarking on a new venture? I will not even suggest going to your neighbouring village and kidnapping their young men to tear their hearts out on the altar of Huitzilopochtli.

Of the countless thousands of gods, goddesses, half-gods and heroes, you ignore and consider false all but one. At least I am consequent in what I do - I extend the same treatment to all of them.

[Pat]

Assumption A1 is that each family has two children.  This is more than many pre-industrialized societies today.

Which ones?

edit: I mean since there are many, I suppose you'd have little problem mentioning, say, three?

[Martinus]

Can we introduce a rule against arguing with posts line by line, the way grumbler does? It makes the entire thread unreadable.

Now I could go on and ignore him wholesale, but whenever people ignore his inane ramblings, he seems to announce himself a winner of the debate for some inexplicable reason.