Heartland

Izzy HaveMercy wrote: IZistoteles.

IZistoteles true.
Sorry. Pun.

I don't think religion is the problem. Most people will want to appear to be something if it gives them the advantage of being accepted and by being accepted having greater influence. Once a belief system becomes that of the majority it becomes dangerous and potentialy oppresive. The Bolsheviks in Russia started as a small group of idealists with in most cases the intention of building a better society. Once they came to power it was clear to the majority that it would be in their best interests to join them - because it gave them personal power. Consequently people who were by nature reactionary started calling themselves Socialists and climbing to positions of power.
In the same way men like Bush or Blair would be identifying themselves as Pagans if that what was the main belief system in the West over the last few hundered years. They would be doing the same things regardless of what religion or political system they were claiming to represent - because that's what they are.

sultan2075 wrote:Liberalism, then, was based on a claim to philosophic knowledge that post-modernity rejects (because it rejects the possiblity of such knowledge). Liberalism now is based on inclination and feeling--and on habit, too--and as such it seems to be incapable of defending itself from its critics. This strikes me as problematic.

Sorry to dig up an old thread, but I've been thinking about this...

IMO post-modernity's rejection of knowledge is of itself problematic. Sure, in and of itself, there is no certainty beyond Descartes' cogito ergo sum, but surely we must operate from a first assumption that there is actually an external universe, and that our sensory data correspond with it in a regular way. To do otherwise is to allow all sorts of solipsistic fantasies or "brain-in-a-jar" scenarios which, while unfalsifiable, aren't really of much pragmatic value.

So while we may reject absolute certainty, we must accept empirical knowledge about the apparent universe in order to function within it. Even the most fervent post-modernist will accept the empirical knowledge that to put milk on his cornflakes in the morning isn't going to cause his head to fall off.

I dislike post-modernism's deliberate obscurantism and assertions about the sciences which are demonstrably false. The Sokal Affair demonstrated the emptiness of the post-modern approach; to put it brutally, IMO a large part of post-modernism is pretentious, vacuous mental masturbation of the worst kind.

So having rejected post-modern rejection of knowledge, we can derive, per Locke et al, "natural law" from the nature of human biology, as I argue above.

I still maintain that an atheistic morality of this sort grounded in empirical knowledge of human behaviour and evolutionary past cannot fail to be superior to a morality based on a deity. God is good, we’re told, but in turn, good is defined by God. Rape, incest, murder, etc., aren’t wrong because they are wrong in and of themselves, they are wrong because God said not to do them. If God changes His mind tomorrow, it will be okay. And we have evidence from God's own book that he has in the past changed his mind. See Numbers 31 for just one example.

To sultan2075 I say:

Mark: I owe you a response, and you will get one; at the moment I'm drowning in pre-semester work. Suffice it to say I wish that my students were half as well read and articulate as you.

DarkAngel: Thanks for stroking my ego

Kitty: Please don't step on the keyboaradssdfsd!ngaskga g.a

Damn it. And now she's chewing on my beard. What the hell?!?