Hi Bruno Marchal Am I wrong ? I don't think that "complexity" and Platonism (top-down being) suit each other. Complexity seems to arise from bottom-up being as sets of miracles that happen when the Aristotelian intellect gets stuck.
[Roger Clough], [rclo...@verizon.net] 1/9/2013 "Forever is a long time, especially near the end." - Woody Allen ----- Receiving the following content ----- From: Bruno Marchal Receiver: everything-list Time: 2013-01-09, 05:37:48 Subject: Re: Whoever invented the word "God" invented atheism. On 08 Jan 2013, at 21:25, Alberto G. Corona wrote: Le me add some meat here We can not reduce the concept of God to a boring principle that we need to put somewhere. Like a ugly furniture inherited from the grand-parents which for its sentimental value we have to keep and locate somewhere, so that the familly visits show that you are a well educated and respectful person. God is like the refligerator. if you drop the old one, you need another. Why? because religion -or an extended notion of religion and divinity- is deeply embedded in human nature. An objective study of God includes an explanation of the subjective reality or the resulting description is incomplete. if the reality is overall, mental and divinity a neccesity, then the divinity is part of reality For reasons that I detail below, God must be the absolute source of meaning in all aspects. therefore it embodies the causation and direction of what is "physical" as well as what is mental, personal or moral and any else. Therefore, for the believer, God must be personal, among other things, or else, the believer lacks a foundation for the aspects that God does not includes. As I tried to show in robotic Truth, religion is a neccesity for the operation of social beings. For all machines, actually. Even when isolated. the "robotic truth" can be approached by introspection when the machine complexity is above the L?ian threshold. If there is no agreed meaning, that is, goals, there is no inequivocal rules for social action. if there are no inequivocal rules for social coordination, descoordination and internal decomposition of the group follows. For that matter religion is the core social instinct. it is as deeply embedded in social nature as is other unique human traits, like the white in the eyes, another social adaptation (facilitates the reading of the emotional states and intentions of others). Probably the first religion was a cult of the person of the recently dead leader of the tribe that was an example and a guide to all the other members by emulation. That's why by history and by neccesity a god, must be personal . A society with a impersonal Principle is full of smalller personal gods in conflict, sometimes violent. Philosophers, Demagoges, scientis, rock stars, Soccer clubs. This politheism becomes salient and agressive when there is no personal God, or, at least, no Cesar or Zeus that make clear who is the ultimate authority. A dialectic materialist society need a Lenin and a Stalin because its impersonal Principle is not personal. The abstract and incognoscible Allah need a ruthless political Mahoma. The cult to the blood, the leader and the territory. These are the almost mathematically inexorable traits of the primitive tribal religion that we have by default in the genes. In the origin, the cult to the leader, the public rites, The bloody sacrifices, All are devoted to strengthen coordination and ensure collaboration, and mutual recognition between the members. And the sharp distinction between us and the others. A membrane separates the entity from the outside and defines an living unit that perdures in time, be it a cell or a society, in the latter case, the membrane is created by religion, the physical territory and the blood ties. In this sense, primitive religion may be exigent, very exigent and dangerous. The bloody mesoamerican religions, which grew unchallenged during centuries, with his pyramids of skulls illustrate how a primitive religion evolves in itself when not absorbed or conquered by a superior civilization. Hmm... That? why the belief in a all transcendent God that created all men at its image and dignity and incarnated in a person, Christ to imitate, is the best use of this unavoidable and necessary part of us called religion. In this sense, Christianity free us from the obedience to the dictatorial earthly leaders, the bloody sacrifices, the cult to the lebensraung (vital space) of the tribe , or the supertribe, with its psycopathic treatment to "the others". Because nihilism is unbearable except as a self-steem booster by means of a self-exhibition of strength for a certain time, as the young russians did in the early XX century. If hihilism would not be painful it would not be a matter of exhibition. Sooner or later the nihilist has to choose between the suicide, that has a perfect evolutionary sense, since someone isolated, with no guide to help others in society is a social burden, and suicide is the social apoptosis, by means of which the social body re-absorb the useless. Or else the , guided by its simple instints and devoid of the experience and traditions of the past, and therefore with no vaccine for the recurrent errors of humanity, the unbeliever will reinvent again and again the primitive cults to the earth the tiranic leader and the blood. Of course with the fashionable decorations of our time; Probably some eco-globalist-aborto-eugenesist cult with a greath leader that would suspend our rights, for the good of humanity and the planet, of course. I agree partially. But the Christian have politicized religion, where the greeks have succeeded in making it into a science, and today we have not yet come back to the scientific attitude in those matter. There is a strong resistance from fundamentalist atheists, more numerous than I thought possible. European atheism seems different than american atheism (which is often just agnosticism). Bruno 2013/1/8 John Clark On Tue, Jan 8, 2013 at 9:59 AM, Roger Clough wrote: >Whoever invented the word "God" invented atheism. Yes, I agree with that, one clearly had to come before the other. Before some human invented God there was no need for another human to invent atheism. John K Clark -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en. -- Alberto. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en. http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
