Heartland

The relationship that exists between Western nations, and countries where fundamentalism is permeating at the moment is centuries old.

Any current military actions are just one particular role of the dice, they're not
the big picture.

Will attitudes change in these nations, through the use of military force, and the "spread of democracy" ?
It doesn't appear so. If current military policy makers thought this,
it seems they were mistaken.
Was Afghanistan expected to rapidly embrace democratic ideals, prominent in the West, in any coherent way? How might that happen?
This is a war torn, tortured country that suffers profound poverty, tribal segregation
and harsh geography and climate. Aside from that, it has been policed by a hard
line Islamic "government" for a considerable time.

What we are seeing at the moment (sighting the recent violence in Afghanistan and Iraq) is an attempt to mop up the mess created by Western military action.
That mess being a vacuum, ripe for exploitation by those prepared to attack
Western presence in the region.

I think it's easiest to blame current US policy, because they appear as the "doers" in this situation; the ones using force.
Remember that fundamentalism is omnipresent in the world today.

What are the reasons for a rise in this Fundamentalist Islam?
Perhaps it's because people have found a sense of purpose that is not apparent in western culture this century. How does religion fair in Europe and the West
in general, at the moment? Not very well, I would say.
I think we live in quite an apathetic society. How strongly do we believe in our core values, and what are those core values ?
Are they the values that our current government is preaching ? If not, why? Have they been distorted?

I believe 9/11 was related to the actions of Fundamentalists, who felt that the governments of places like Saudi Arabia were coercing the West,
against the ideological beliefs of its people. That concept was taken to an
Extremity by those who planned the attacks.
Is that so far removed from how we feel about our own governments?

I don't think it's a bad thing that religion is largely on the decrease in the democratic West. (Well, apart from in America...*)

At least the Western democracies are founded upon rationality and concern for "the rights of man"; the US constitution, though not without its faults, is based upon a reasoned approach to why laws should be.

Whereas a theocracy is based on "do as we say because our invisible sky-fairy says so."

* People were polled on the statement "Human beings, as we know them, developed from earlier species of animals." and asked to say true/not sure/false. This is a graph of the results arranged by country, with the moost "true"s at the top, to fewest at the bottom.

There's more at this Clicky.

I think the main problem is our western governments are/were trying to enforce something, and while they did it went wrong. A slower, but more natural evolution is always better for both people and system as it becomes more stable and people are more likely to accept the changes through seeing several effects than when they have to deal with dozens of unoverseeable new things in their lives. That's how it went in ex-Eastern Bloc - where corrupt or extremely conservative politicians got hold of the lead, doing a bad but more overseeable job, which is IMO the thing the people were looking for and the most likely reason they voted for them.

Obviously fundamentalism is all over the world indeed, in some way I think everyone is, as you're holding on to your 'believes' (believes in a not religious way). But some people realise there is a society they can't enforce things on, others are confident the people need to live their way, and those are the dangerous ones. But I guess we all realise that...

markfiend wrote:I don't think it's a bad thing that religion is largely on the decrease in the democratic West. (Well, apart from in America...*)

It doesn't seem a bad thing to me either but don't you think it's a trend likely to cross the ocean? Sure, there have always been religious nutters in the US, but then the US society - and especially the political part of it - was also one of the first to be 'dereligionised'. I guess there were quite some people feeling a bit lost without this 'certain' bit to hold on and as they went looking for something new - going through New Age rubbish and all that first - they rediscovered religion and implemented it in their daily lives. I think if we want to keep the decrease of religion going, we should make sure there's something else to hold on to because - a bit like Communism vs Capitalism evolved to Civilisation vs Terrorist - lots of people seem to need that?

Obviousman wrote:...don't you think it's a trend likely to cross the ocean? Sure, there have always been religious nutters in the US...

On the contrary. The US is getting worse. Did you look at my clickies before? Less than 30% of respondents in the US agreeed with "Human beings, as we know them, developed from earlier species of animals."

The only motivation to deny that statement can be religious.

markfiend wrote:

Obviousman wrote:...don't you think it's a trend likely to cross the ocean? Sure, there have always been religious nutters in the US...

On the contrary. The US is getting worse. Did you look at my clickies before? Less than 30% of respondents in the US agreeed with "Human beings, as we know them, developed from earlier species of animals."

The only motivation to deny that statement can be religious.

To be honest I didn't But the research was mentioned in our national media earlier last week. The evolution in Belgium was - IIRC - more people said they didn't come from apes, but also there were more respondents saying they did believe. Therefore the general conclusion was the middle group is being cut out, so there's more polarisation on this front as well.

Obviously in the US and Turkey 'Intelligent Design' is widely being promoted, but it is mentioned more often here. Quite sure if it'd be mentioned around here more often by the right (read wrong) people, loads of people would accept it. It's IMO exactly the same thing as right wing nutters at UKIP/Vlaams Blok/... saying it's all the muslim's/foreigners'/... fault. It's even becoming a trend in management and economics, Ethical Investments is running on its last legs, Religiously Inspired Investments are the next big thing, and so on

But as I said it's all just a matter of who's involved in promoting. Shiploads of money are invested in promoting ID (I think there's a big consortium based in Seattle or Salt Lake City?) but next to none in Darwinism or Neo Darwinism or whatever came next, as scientists are far too busy argueing who was right in the end, all think they were the one to be right and would rather die than give money for someone to promote someone else's point of view. No doubt we're f**ked as well

Obviousman wrote:But as I said it's all just a matter of who's involved in promoting. Shiploads of money are invested in promoting ID (I think there's a big consortium based in Seattle or Salt Lake City?) but next to none in Darwinism or Neo Darwinism or whatever came next,

The thing is that the people who are promoting ID are out-and-out liars. It's all "this is a problem for Darwinism, that's a problem for Darwinism" when in fact, if they are genuine problems, you can guarantee there's people trying to solve them.

Although for the most part they're not problems at all.

I don't know why they pick on Evolutionary Biology -- it's actually one of the best supported theories in science. A lot more is known about how and why evolution works than about how and why gravity works; but you don't get people trying to promote "Intelligent Falling theory".

I agree that more could be done to popularise these aspects of science; but science TV producers just want things like Walking With Dinosaurs...

Obviousman wrote:as scientists are far too busy argueing who was right in the end, all think they were the one to be right and would rather die than give money for someone to promote someone else's point of view. No doubt we're f**ked as well

I think it's more that scientists are too busy doing actual science. You know, the stuff in laboratories...

Scientific knowledge is arrived at more by consensus than an adversarial approach. In theory at least, anyone is free to read a scientific paper, carry out the same experiment and see whether the results match. (Obviously it can't always work like that if it's a paper describing a fossil or something - but in principle any scientist can look at the fossil!)

And so, in the 150~ years since Darwin published "Origin of the Species" there has been a lot of work done, all of which demonstrates incontravertibly, that evolution happens, has happened for the past ~3.8 billion years since the first living thing on the planet, and is still happening.

Now if someone says that evolution is the way that God chose to create life on Earth, that's a philosophical matter and beyond the reach of science. And I see no real need to argue with such a statement (although I don't believe it myself).

But to say that "XYZ is very complicated, it looks like it was designed. It can't have evolved therefore it was designed" is just an argument from ignorance. Every example of a "designed" system that the ID proponents can put forward that has been looked at by scientists can be shown to have evolved. So they keep shifting to new examples that haven't been looked at yet...

markfiend wrote:I don't think it's a bad thing that religion is largely on the decrease in the democratic West. (Well, apart from in America...*)

At least the Western democracies are founded upon rationality and concern for "the rights of man"; the US constitution, though not without its faults, is based upon a reasoned approach to why laws should be.

Whereas a theocracy is based on "do as we say because our invisible sky-fairy says so."

Nietzsche makes an interesting point about all this. What happens when the death of God* trickles down to the masses? If we look to book V of The Gay Science, he makes the point very bluntly: our whole European (i.e., Western) morality will fall away because we've done away with the foundation for it. In other words, the West has built its political and moral institutions on a foundation which it has subsequently destroyed. What are human rights? What is justice? These turn out to be meaningless questions after the death of God, because the claims that they are based on are done away with. What is justice? Whatever the people incharge say it is. What are human rights? Whatever rights the people in charge grant you. What is the principle for human action? The will to power, because there are no standards for judgment anymore, we've gotten 'Beyond Good and Evil' into the realm of moral relativism. In The Use and Disadvantage of History for Life, Nietzsche sums up the death of God as being (from memory, the quote may be off) the doctrine of "sovereign becoming, the fluidity of all concepts, types, and kinds" and the "lack of any cardinal difference between man and animal"--a doctrine he calls "true but deadly."

Western civliization has reached the point, he's saying, where it recognizes that moral truth is impossible and all we have are moral values which lack all basis exterior to our selves. Concepts like justice, human rights, etc, are then rendered meaningless. This is something we all ought to be concerned with. Post-modern (i.e., post-Nietzschean) thought offers no rational basis for our way of life. We have become (or are becoming) a civilization that can no longer articulate why its way of life is choiceworthy. We have also become a civilization that has rendered the will the only criteria for human action--and if that's the case, what basis can we have for condemning anything at all? We've reached the point where we are liberals because we like it, not because it is a way of life that has a rational basis in nature (the claim made by Locke, for example). This ought to be very worrying.



*For Nietzsche, this entails the realization that all is flux--no God, no eternal Being (i.e., the form of the Good or something like it), and no eternal human nature. No religion, no metaphysics and no natural justice, in other words.

It's a charge often levelled by believers that non-belief engenders immorality, but I think you'll find that statistically, non-believers are under-represented in prison populations around the world.

I agree that there's little logical basis for a rational morality other than "because we like it", but when it comes down to it, why is an arbitrary morality based on what religious leaders tell us is "the word of God" any better?

Theocratic authority can hardly claim the moral high ground when (for example) the Ten Commandments place self-serving rules such as "Thou shalt have no God before me" and "Thou shalt keep the Sabbath" before, and therefore presumably of higher priority than "Thou shalt not steal" and "Thou shalt not commit murder". And of course such atrocities as 9-11 (to relate this back to the original topic) can be justified by theocratic moralities which see the unbeliever as deserving death.

I do understand the Nietzschean viewpoint, but I think a case can be made for a rational morality based upon such ethics as "do as you would be done by". The "objective standard for morality" claimed by religions has indeed fallen; however, rather than descending into a "free-for-all" of moral nihilism, we need to erect our own standards, for the good of humanity as a whole.

I'm just glad they broke up when they did..the world is a much nicer place with out those ass munching ponces.. If I ever hated a boy band with a passion it was 911. !!

markfiend wrote:The thing is that the people who are promoting ID are out-and-out liars. It's all "this is a problem for Darwinism, that's a problem for Darwinism" when in fact, if they are genuine problems, you can guarantee there's people trying to solve them.

Liars backed by money are dangerous people, always were, always will. That's why something should be done and scientists need to come from behind their desks - where they are indeed doing actual science - try to go for a concensus - because that's really a problem, people don't get a clear image and therefore will be more likely to step into the easy solution - and promote themselves. Obviously lots and lots of work have been done, but science diverged rather than converged and that results - for most people - in a blurrier picture, as they don't see we got on and are much further on many levels than before...

markfiend wrote:It's a charge often levelled by believers that non-belief engenders immorality, but I think you'll find that statistically, non-believers are under-represented in prison populations around the world.

That's not quite what I was trying to say; rather, Nietzsche indicates that with the embrace of relativism we, as a species, are presented with the danger that we will beome utterly mediocre, incapable of the exertion necessary for any sort of human greatness. He calls this the Last Man, the human being who is devoted to nothing but a sort of base, animal pleasure and herd-life.

markfiend wrote: I agree that there's little logical basis for a rational morality other than "because we like it", but when it comes down to it, why is an arbitrary morality based on what religious leaders tell us is "the word of God" any better?

Well, if the basis is 'because we like it,' it's not really rational, is it? It's simply asserted, and thus arbitrary. One can appeal to a sort of pragmatism, but that presupposes a standard by which to judge good and bad outcomes, which the relativist position says is impossible, because we can never transcend our own subjectivity (in Platonic terms, we can never get out of the cave). As for your question, I daresay that's why the Catholics are so into philosophy--St. Thomas argues for a natural law, attainable in principle by all human beings, which allows us to know right from wrong. Divine law, for Thomas, is simply the most perfect formulation of the eternal law of the cosmos--which is also the basis for the natural law.

markfiend wrote: Theocratic authority can hardly claim the moral high ground when (for example) the Ten Commandments place self-serving rules such as "Thou shalt have no God before me" and "Thou shalt keep the Sabbath" before, and therefore presumably of higher priority than "Thou shalt not steal" and "Thou shalt not commit murder". And of course such atrocities as 9-11 (to relate this back to the original topic) can be justified by theocratic moralities which see the unbeliever as deserving death.

Well, if you look at how they break down, you see that the first four are concerned with what man owes to God, five can be interpreted as bit of an overlap, and the rest are concerned with what man owes to man. Your 'therefore persumably of higher priority' seems problematic when considered in this light. The structure, then, is a reflection of the hierarchical view of the cosmos that underlies the Judaic and Christian traditions.

As for something like 9/11, there's a radically different theology at work there, and it really isn't fair to compare it to Christian or Hebrew moralities. Islam divides the world into dar-al-Islam, or the world of Islam, and dar-al-harb, the world of war. It is the job of the believer to convert dar-al-harb into dar-al-Islam, through either da'wa, the call to conversion, or jihad. It is, then, just like Christianity, evangelical--however, the crucial difference is that conversion by the sword is not justified (even though it has been practiced in the past) by mainstream Christian doctrine, nor is the co-mingling of the political and religious authority justified ('Give to Ceasar what is Ceasar's and to God what is God's,' 'My Kingdom is not of this world,' etc, etc, etc, see also Q 91-94 of Thomas's Summa Theologica on natural law, divine law, human law and eternal law). There is a doctrine of jihad, however, in Islam, and while some make a distinction between internal and external jihad (i.e., the struggle to be good and the struggle to subdue the infidel), external jihad is never done away with theologically. There is also no distinction between religious and political authority within Islam (hence, Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri call the very idea of democracy sinful--it replaces divine law with human law). All of this leads up to a very different theology ("the only good infidel is a dead infidel") than that which underlies Christian and Jewish morality. This is the theology that attacked New York, London, Madrid, Bali...the list goes on and on. Like it or not, we're in a war of religion that only paused for breath for a few hundred years (Why September 11th? It was the anniversary of the defeat of Muslim invaders at the gates of Vienna. 1653 maybe? Europe began to push the empire back). Remember, in his Hindu Kush delcaration of the late 90's, one of the grievances bin Laden cited was the reconquista of Spain. How long ago was that?

markfiend wrote: I do understand the Nietzschean viewpoint, but I think a case can be made for a rational morality based upon such ethics as "do as you would be done by". The "objective standard for morality" claimed by religions has indeed fallen; however, rather than descending into a "free-for-all" of moral nihilism, we need to erect our own standards, for the good of humanity as a whole.

But is everyone capable of doing so for themselves? I have my doubts. The other option is for one person to do it for all other people. Nietzsche calls this person the overman. The vast difference, however, is that what you're proposing is a sort of consciously fictional morality, while the morality and political theory of Hobbes, Locke, Jefferson, Adams, and Washington (to name a few) wasn't, in their eyes, fictional; rather, it was a rational deduction from a consideration of nature. 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.

Markfiend wrote:I do understand the Nietzschean viewpoint, but I think a case can be made for a rational morality based upon such ethics as "do as you would be done by". The "objective standard for morality" claimed by religions has indeed fallen; however, rather than descending into a "free-for-all" of moral nihilism, we need to erect our own standards, for the good of humanity as a whole.

I think Kants Categorical Imperative might be what we're searching for:

Kant wrote:Act only according to that maxim by which you can at the same time will that it would become a universal law.

Yawn !!! This is the kind of conversation you hear going on in a pub behind you and the temptation to turn around and choke the people involved with their own Nobby's Nuts is almost overwhelming!

We're all armchair generals when a war breaks out on tv. But when you hear these anoraks banging on and on about the Middle East and the history of the area is numbing.

"er, well Gerald, in a totaliterian vegan world erm.. where everyone is ya know therefore quite unmistakingly ..well need I quote Homer at this point? 'cos as you know, that would be just soooo reminiscant of the reconquista of Spain. And you'd have to be a fool hardy nitwit not to appreciate the works of Neitsche...blah blah blah blah.."

Which translates to : I'm a twit, who uses big words for no real reason and I love to watch Question time and tut to myself.

And the only quote you ever need from Homer ( some dead bloke me thinks, who wore a toga) is that of Homer J. Simpson ( who wore a toga for all the right reasons) " Why bother going out ? Your only going to end up back here anyway" Class.

Excuse my spelling, I'm just a blue collar slob ( well more of a dirty collar slob more like) ho ho.

Ramone just described me. And a man actually did turn around and said 'cut out the Christian bashing.'

Ramone wrote:Yawn !!! This is the kind of conversation you hear going on in a pub behind you and the temptation to turn around and choke the people involved with their own Nobby's Nuts is almost overwhelming!

We're all armchair generals when a war breaks out on tv. But when you hear these anoraks banging on and on about the Middle East and the history of the area is numbing.

"er, well Gerald, in a totaliterian vegan world erm.. where everyone is ya know therefore quite unmistakingly ..well need I quote Homer at this point? 'cos as you know, that would be just soooo reminiscant of the reconquista of Spain. And you'd have to be a fool hardy nitwit not to appreciate the works of Neitsche...blah blah blah blah.."

Which translates to : I'm a tw*t, who uses big words for no real reason and I love to watch Question time and tut to myself.

And the only quote you ever need from Homer ( some dead bloke me thinks, who wore a toga) is that of Homer J. Simpson ( who wore a toga for all the right reasons) " Why bother going out ? Your only going to end up back here anyway" Class.

Excuse my spelling, I'm just a blue collar slob ( well more of a dirty collar slob more like) ho ho.

So what's your point? If you're not interested in the conversation, go find a thread where you can wallow in old memories of the 'good ol' days.' Nobody forced you into this conversation, nobody forced you to read it. What did you expect from a thread titled '911 and all that'? A discussion of pointy boots and capes?

I don´t consider it that difficult to find a base to defend a liberitarian culture. Unless you acceped that some pigs may be more equal than others there is no reason to believe that evolution had any philosophical preferance for any naked apes it grew or happened to breed. If it were natural laws that shaped our species there is no justified reason to prefer anyone for what a burning shrubberry told you. Or even suggest that the voice in the head of your early ancestors wasn´t anything else than their own madness´s one.
You can conclude a sentence like "All men were created equal" from natural laws. As there was no creation at work at all.
Actually, that argument offers itself much more than old books: You can not prove that even if you can trust in prophets really being prophets and not early editions of what became TV-preachers the scriptures weren´t changed to whatever was needed at the time, You can allways investigate nature´s laws and draw your conclusion.
This reminds me of the greek philosophers who were confident that a cart drawn by two horses went twice as fast as a one drawn by only one. Take a tape measure and a watch, And skip the philosopher´s blatter about that.
I don´t want to say that philosophy is overdue in our world / time / whatsoever. But where you talk about finding solutions to practical questions like "How do I treat the person next to me?" a science that requires considering the possible or actual positions of the various cultures of the recent some 5000 years you possibly won´t get done before the lifespan of the person next to you expires.
HOW!

Ramone wrote:Yawn !!! This is the kind of conversation you hear going on in a pub behind you and the temptation to turn around and choke the people involved with their own Nobby's Nuts is almost overwhelming!

We're all armchair generals when a war breaks out on tv. But when you hear these anoraks banging on and on about the Middle East and the history of the area is numbing.

"er, well Gerald, in a totaliterian vegan world erm.. where everyone is ya know therefore quite unmistakingly ..well need I quote Homer at this point? 'cos as you know, that would be just soooo reminiscant of the reconquista of Spain. And you'd have to be a fool hardy nitwit not to appreciate the works of Neitsche...blah blah blah blah.."

Which translates to : I'm a tw*t, who uses big words for no real reason and I love to watch Question time and tut to myself.

And the only quote you ever need from Homer ( some dead bloke me thinks, who wore a toga) is that of Homer J. Simpson ( who wore a toga for all the right reasons) " Why bother going out ? Your only going to end up back here anyway" Class.

Excuse my spelling, I'm just a blue collar slob ( well more of a dirty collar slob more like) ho ho.

if it wouldnt be for topics like this from time to time, I would have left this place long ago. I'm just so not interested, what you peeps are currently listening too.
especially Mr. Meerkats posts are always a stimulating read.

Go on, ramone, try it out. It doesnt hurt.

eotunun wrote:I don´t consider it that difficult to find a base to defend a liberitarian culture. Unless you acceped that some pigs may be more equal than others there is no reason to believe that evolution had any philosophical preferance for any naked apes it grew or happened to breed. If it were natural laws that shaped our species there is no justified reason to prefer anyone for what a burning shrubberry told you. Or even suggest that the voice in the head of your early ancestors wasn´t anything else than their own madness´s one.
You can conclude a sentence like "All men were created equal" from natural laws. As there was no creation at work at all.
Actually, that argument offers itself much more than old books: You can not prove that even if you can trust in prophets really being prophets and not early editions of what became TV-preachers the scriptures weren´t changed to whatever was needed at the time, You can allways investigate nature´s laws and draw your conclusion.

I think you're onto something here actually. Genetic analysis has shown a remarkable genetic homogeneity in the human race: there is less genetic variation between all humans world-wide than there is between the members of virtually any other species. (This is because of a genetic bottleneck; it has been estimated that the worldwide population of humans was reduced to around 2000 by the after-effects of the Toba super-volcano 75000 years ago.)

This genetic evidence has shown (for example) that racism is without biological foundation; there is more genetic variation within the "races" than between them; in other words if one were to choose a random member of what used to be called the "negro race" it is likely that I am more genetically similar to him than he is to another member of his "race".

The practical upshot; we are the same (Suzanne ), at least substantially genetically the same. It is of course commiting the naturalistic fallacy to suggest that what is defines what ought to be, but it is at least suggestive that on a pragmatic level we "ought" to have some concern for our fellow human beings because we are related to them. However I see I have been pre-empted by:

sultan2075 wrote:One can appeal to a sort of pragmatism, but that presupposes a standard by which to judge good and bad outcomes, which the relativist position says is impossible, because we can never transcend our own subjectivity

I think we could possibly look to our biological roots for this; we have evolved as a social species; it seems that for the last few million years of our evolutionary history humans have lived in small "clans" - perhaps similar in scale to troops of chimpanzees (who are after all the most closely related living species to us humans.) Our social interactions have evolved along with this style of living to include an "inbuilt moral sense" (or conscience) which, I suspect, is an evolved set of behaviours for "getting along" with the rest of our "troop" without too much friction. And as Dawkins argues, sets of behaviour can only evolve when the organisms exhibiting those behaviours have a greater tendency to survive through the generations.

Now that we have trancended the tribal / clan / troop style of living, and (again, per Dawkins) we have also transcended genetic evolution -- any act of sex involving contraception is a victory of our minds over our genes' "will to survive" -- yet perhaps we can still take our cue from our biological history.

If we assume that at least one universal "good" can be defined: the survival of the human species as a whole; genetic survival is the only guarantee of immoralty we have. Now it seems to me that the main thing that has guaranteed this survival over the past few million years -- cooperation -- is more likely to guarantee our species' survival than naked competition. So this is to me a basis for an objective morality.

f it wouldnt be for topics like this from time to time, I would have left this place long ago. I'm just so not interested, what you peeps are currently listening too.
especially Mr. Meerkats posts are always a stimulating read.

Go on, ramone, try it out. It doesnt hurt. Wink

- Consider myself told off! ( in a sense). Ok maybe I was little hostile in my approach to pub bores who bang on about philosophers and insist on trying to out quote each other and then with great gusto try and crow bar them into conversations. I know it must be hard and indeed highly frustrating for some people to join in what the 'man in street' would consider 'everyday conversations' by trying to emulate their contempories by injecting other peoples philosophies into their mantra.

People, I believe should form their own thoughts and beliefs and not use others as some sort of interlectual crutch to make up for their own inconsistencies.You shouldn't go quoting other people's work, it's not big and it's not clever - ok, it may prove you have the power of recollection when it comes to literary work. And you can wrap your tongue around lots of big words in the dictionary, But it does not prove your own interlect. Always speak your own mind, you'll get far more respect for it.

If I wanted to I could scour the 'net and cut and paste rows upon rows of quotes from many soothsayers and sages from days gone by.But it will not make me a better man. It won't get me laid or any happier in life. True , it looks very impressive, and I'm sure Sultanwhatisname is very proud of his work, but he just comes across as an arrogant self important douchebag - Me? I know I am a self important douchebag - I just don't hide behind other people work to prove it

Markfiend - your still a cool dude in my book

I do see where you're coming from in a way Ramone, but the beautiful thing about human thought is that a lot of people have already done a lot of the thinking.

It takes a genius to have the insights of someone like the great philosophers, but one need not be a genius to understand these insights once they're "out there" in the world. So we don't need to keep going over things from first principles, retreading ground that has already been covered; re-inventing the wheel, if you like. We can take what people have already discovered and build on it for ourselves.

"If I have seen further, it is by stanging on the shoulders of giants." (Isaac Newton) just to finish with a quote

Ramone wrote:Markfiend - your still a cool dude in my book

Thanks You're not bad yourself.

I missed that while typing my previous post.

"If I have seen further, it is by stanging on the shoulders of giants." (Isaac Newton) just to finish with a quote [/quote]

A quote worth a thousand words, and the inspiration for 'our' Noel to name an Oasis album.

I avoid cliches like the plague

Ramone wrote:A quote worth a thousand words,

...and I can't even spell it right!

BTW, the 'great' philosophers mostly thank their greatness on the fact that a lot of people accepted their ideas and found them at least 'interesting'. But before it came to the masses, there was a big promo-tour organised, in ancient Rome and Greece as well as in modern-day Germany and Austria. Without the support of Socrates, we wouldn't have heard as much of Plato as we now did. And maybe even less from HIS most famous student, Aristoteles...

Just like the million-seller boysband that is hip nowadays would never be seen, was it not for the huge promo-stuff going on.

There are a lot of people out there that are as smart as Nietzsche, Freud, Socrates and Hawking. But they lack the resources or the 'little push' to make their beautiful ideas known.

So, can someone PLEASE promote our own HL-philosopher MarkFiend (Meercattus Omnignosticus), for he deserves it! And give him a Nobel-prize, for christ's (or insert other icon of choice) sake!

These threads are good from time to time, Ramone. As said before, if you don't like them, stay out of them. I stay out of football-threads for that very reason...

IZistoteles.