On Sun, Feb 5, 2017 at 9:21 PM, Brent Meeker <meeke...@verizon.net> wrote: > > > On 2/5/2017 3:14 AM, Telmo Menezes wrote: >>> >>> Inconsistent? Would you have people who oppose fascism not have a >>> definition of fascism - so that they were just opposing some undefined, >>> amorphous ideology? >> >> It is interesting that you bring this up. Are you familiar with the >> essay "Ur-fascism" by Umberto Eco? He discusses precisely how hard it >> is to define fascism: >> >> http://www.pegc.us/archive/Articles/eco_ur-fascism.pdf > > > Yet he defines "Ur-fascism", the eternal fascism, and is critical of it. So > are you saying I should talk of ur-theism when I mean belief in the God of > the Bible, Quran, and Torah? And leave "theism" to be used to mean the > truths of arithmetic; So Bruno and I will both be misunderstood?
My point was simply that certain things are (perhaps) surprisingly hard to define. You mentioned fascism, and it turns out this is one of them. Pointing this out is not the same as muddying definitions. Further, I argue that basing an ideology or belief system on opposing an ill-defined concept can lead to terrible things. Terrible things have been done in the name of god and religion, and in the name of fascist ideologies. It is also true that terrible thing have been done in the name of anti-religion and anti-fascism. >> I was born in the aftermath of the carnations revolution in Portugal, >> and was raised in a society that considered itself to be almost >> religiously anti-fascist, but without a clear definition of what >> fascism is. Some of these "anti-" people were as vicious, if not more, >> than what they claimed to oppose. My mother received a letter from the >> communist party saying that she should abandon her job, since my >> father also had one. She was also told to denounce anyone speaking >> against the communist party. She refused to do both, and was then >> included in a list of people that were to be hanged in public. All >> this was done under the label of "anti-fascism". Fortunately there was >> a counter-revolution before it came to that. I am grateful to the US >> for helping at that stage -- although this is an historic period that >> is still not openly discussed. > > > And so do you think of yourself as agnostic about the value of fascism?...or > communism? Yes, I reject simplistic views of History where one side is 100% good and the other 100% evil. Absolute belief leads to terrible ideas, such as trying to bomb countries into democracy. >>> They did. For example, the rejection of Mendelian genetics and the >>> insistence on Lamarkism for purely ideological reasons in the USSR. >>> Marxism-Leninism was based on a belief in a specific type of social >>> engineering, the idea that you could gradually improve society by >>> changing the way people act and then wait for these behaviour to be >>> transmitted and accumulated across generations. Scientific theories >>> that implied that you cannot transmit characteristics that you >>> acquired after birth through purely biological processes was verboten, >>> and overwhelming scientific evidence resisted (just like the >>> creationists do). >>> >>> >>> You make my point. They had scientific rational reasons they put forth >>> for >>> their policies. It was wrong science and it was enforced by violence (as >>> other religions have done) - but it wasn't an appeal to supernatural >>> revelation and faith. >> >> That was true in the beginning, but once you put your beliefs above >> empirical evidence, like they did, I don't see where the difference to >> an appeal to supernatural revelation is. > > > It's only a difference of degree. Theists also try to make scientific > arguments (e.g. first-cause, fine-tuning,...), but they also explicitly > appeal to revelation and faith. If you go far enough down authoritarian rabbit holes you eventually get to "revelation". Example: North Korea and the Kim dynasty. >>> Then they built monuments to science and progress, made to inspire awe >>> and fear, just like cathedrals. An example is the Fernsehturm in >>> Berlin, made to resemble the Sputnik and the be seen from afar. It was >>> also a powerful TV signal transmitter, in an attempt to silence the >>> dangerous transmissions from the west. People who like facts and >>> reason are not afraid of debate. They don't try to silence the >>> opposition. >>> >>> >>> They also don't use words to obfuscate meaning. >> >> I don't think any of us is doing that. We are debating definitions, >> which is arguably 90% of philosophy. >> >> >>> Then why do people feel the need to crate the word "agnostic"? >>> >>> >>> I think it's a cop out to avoid the question of whether the God of theism >>> exists. Agnostics were originally people who were not just uncertain >>> about >>> God, they held that the question was impossible to know anything about, >>> a-gnostic. So it was not a "nuanced" position - epistemologically is >>> was >>> an extreme position and so deserved a name. >> >> Yes, I tend to agree with this epistemological extreme, because I >> think it is a necessary implication of Gödel's theorems. > > > ?? Godel's theorems are about what is entailed by axioms in a formal > logical system. As such it has nothing to do with facts in the world. Couldn't you make the same argument about differential equations? > Do > you suppose juries should always vote "Innocent" because there are truths > that are unprovable from the prosecutions evidence? Do you avoid sailing > west from Portugal because we can't be sure the Earth isn't flat and has an > edge you could fall off of? No. I do what I can with imperfect information like everyone else. Sometimes I'm wrong. So far I've survived. What does have to do with avoiding absolute belief? >> >>> When Dawkins, who is often castigated as >>> a radical atheist, was asked, on a scale of 1 to 7 how certain was he >>> that >>> there is no God, he said "6". And since you like to credence original >>> usage >>> of words over current usage you should know that agnosticism was >>> originally >>> just considered a form of atheism - since it implies not believing in >>> God. >> >> I don't have such a preference. I am trying to apply reductio ad >> absurdum to your argument. You accuse me of obfuscating meaning by >> going against the current use of a word. If that is not permissible, >> anyone who did it before me should also be denounced, so let's retreat >> to the original definition. > > > Why does it follow that someone should be criticized for using a word to be > understood in his time and place. I'm only criticizing using in a way to be > misunderstood in the time and place it is used. But how does usage evolve? >> >>> And even deists, like Thomas Jefferson and Tom Paine, were considered >>> atheists because they didn't believe in the god of theism. >> >> I get that. I wouldn't be particularly offended to be labeled "atheist >> agnostic", in the sense that I do not believe in any of the gods >> described in abrahamic religious texts. But I know nothing about god >> in general. > > > Because "god in general" includes animist, deist, polytheist, and other > supernatural entities. But even such a broad category has its boundaries. > They are all agents having wills and acting unpredictably as do people. > They are all inconsistent with the idea of ubiquitous, impersonal > deterministic laws; the Laplacian worldview. Ok, and for me the keyword here is "will". We don't know what that is, so why not admit some ignorance? Telmo. > Brent > > >> >> >>> Yes, I used to tell people I was an agnostic. But the problem was that >>> they >>> assumed I was just on the fence and undecided about their God (usually >>> Christian in the U.S.). But I wasn't at all undecided about Yaweh, any >>> more >>> than I was undecided about Zeus or Baal or Thor. >> >> I understand that, I have the same problem. >> >>> And although I supposed >>> there could be some god-like being, e.g. the great programmer in the sky >>> of >>> our simulation, it was a bare possibility which I estimated to be less >>> likely than finding a teapot orbiting Jupiter. So I decided it was >>> disingenuous to call myself an agnostic, and also led to annoying >>> attempts >>> to convert me. >> >> Right, my wife makes a similar argument (not giving the religious >> people any ammunition by making it sound that you are open to >> considering their belief system). I can see your point. >> >> Telmo. >> >>> Brent >>> >>> -- >>> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups >>> "Everything List" group. >>> To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an >>> email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. >>> To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. >>> Visit this group at https://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. >>> For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. > > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "Everything List" group. > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an > email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. > To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. > Visit this group at https://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. > For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. 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