charles brough

It's a Christian methodology to tie the religion to other beliefs in order to work its way into the mainstream. Look at all the pagan holidays it took over, like Christmas and Easter. If you come in and try a short-term denouncement of another religion, you get a defensive response. If you adopt the other religion and work alongside patiently as a long-term strategy, you eventually gain support.

 

Look at the way passive promotion of western long-term strategies overthrew the former Soviet Union, as opposed to aggressive western short-term military efforts to curb Islamic state governance.

Good point! Christianity didn't need to develop a new cosmology, It just adopted the Judaic one and then claimed it was "the LAST testament" of the same old God. It purported to bring Judaism up the the 2,000 year-ago then present. It was such a successful formula that the Muslims copied it. In our times, the same old now worn out forumla was adopted by Reverand Moon to build his cult. I suppose the Mormons and Christian Scientists used it also.

To develop a world-view system able to lead us into building a new civilization capable of replacing this declining one, we have to get a new and better formula!

By the way, is the pai free? Do you have any pumkin or, even better yet, key-lime?

The study of ethics falls within philosophy. Although the philosophy group I go to rarely emphasizes it. Science needs lots of liberal arts around it and philosophy is one of those areas.

 

They do talk of Hume and the philosophy of science. I think one thing that appears to cause many to turn from science is that it is so ethically neutral. There is a point to that. Hopefully, scientists themselves don't take pride in being ethically neutral and aren't.

As you say, the study of ethics falls within philosophy, but should it really do so? It seems to me ethical/moral ideological systems evolved to make a society operate more uniformly and hence efficiently (social evolution). I say this because, as science is well aware of, we evolved through millions of years of evolution as small, social, hunting/gathering size-group primates. It is our group of innate social instincts that lie at the base of our moral/ethical systems. I name as examples, just three of many: the alpha protecting the group territory, the mother caring for their offspring and the expectation that the one you do a favor for will return the favor when needed.

It seems to me that ethics/morality is a social evolutionary development that evolved through a natural selection process to enable large bodies of people to coordinate their social feels in a united and uniform way. I would add that I think present moral/ethical systems are breaking down because the old ideological systems which support them have become obsolete.

Morality/ethics is a subject that seems to me to have no meaning outside of the above. That could be why it is philosophical.

Moreover, moral/ethical systems are the means to the ends, and we humans have no goals or purpose other than the ideological system that unites us. All successful mainstream ideological systems have or have had goals (as "ends") and a moral/ethical "means to the ends."

I think ethics is a social evolution, hence science, subject. . .

Demand after the price change relative to demand prior to the price change.

 

You may not realize it, but when you talk about people buying more or less you're talking about demand. There's really no way around that. I agree with the second part of what you said here (that there is a self-reinforcing spiral), but not the first (that lower price leads to lower demand). When prices drop, the purchase of those goods tends to increase relative to when prices for those goods were higher. This is made rather obvious by the behavior which occurs when stores have sales. People buy more of the item on sale. You can repeat yourself all you want, but it won't change this simple fact.

 

I agree that investment and spending is needed right now, and I also agree that government has essentially become a lender of last resort. However, I still fail to see why you think investment raises prices, and why higher prices somehow lead to higher demand. That doesn't even begin to make sense.

I think I may have what is at the bottom of our differences. The public and media regards money as different from credit. They are not. When the goverrnment hires contractors and borrows from the banking system to pay for it, there is an expansion in the total money supply even thought there may be the same number of paper currency bills in circulation. The total number of bills has little to do with demand. When the borrowing increases, the total money supply expands and, in response, prices rise. Prices rise in rough proportion to the increased amount of credit.

Now, with banks flush with cash but lending it out parsimoniously because they expect prices and demand to shrink (the "double dip"), there is no increase in the money supply. So, as residential real estate prices continue to drop, businesses will borrow less, people will buy less, and the tax take will decline, all because the Stimulus is over.

The Tea Party was a bandwagon that few wanted to just jump on; what they wanted to do was steer it. As I said, the name was supposed to recall the "No taxation without representation" battlecry of the original Tea Party. Then those who wanted to keep taxes lower for themselves grabbed the reins and changed the slogan. When "oppressive government regulation" became the thrust, the religious conservatives who want to steer abortion and same-sex marriage legislation their way also jumped on. It's those people who are anti-science, although the anti-corporate-tax/anti-wealthy-tax people will happily thump a bible or two to get their way. They have a history of killing many birds with one stone, some spilled oil and a haze of burned coal.

 

Everyone on that bandwagon is so happy to think themselves in control that they don't realize the straw they're sitting on is covering barrels of toxic waste just waiting for relaxed government regulations. And since science is suggesting that we be more concerned about the impact of such actions, science is going to be treated like the devil. It's no wonder why the mega-corporate tax dodgers openly welcome the religious right.

Congratulations! That is the best summation of the Rightists I have ever encountered. I sum it up much like that in "The Next Civilization." With much more space to deal with in its many pages, I also added the Von Mises and Ann Rand Libertarian influence and also the growing sense of class. To free themselves from guilt over wanting to end care for the mentally and physically handicapped, the insane, the aged and unemplyed, they need to see themselves as "better" in order to justify it. This pushes classism and seems to be the same process that occurred late in all the previous civilizations. With blacks growing in number and the whites (as is the Tea Party) controlling the wealth, it could even end, ultimately, in a caste system.

There seems to be a fair bit of evidence that the "tea party" is, among other things, anti science.

I may be wrong, but I think that science drives the progress that will get us out of the recession and ensuring that children at school get a good education in science will help to maintain our standard of living.

I conclude that the Tea Party's ideas are the last things that would get us, and keep us, out of recession.

Agreed! In order to have the voting support of the militant faithful, the corporate class has to become more anti-evolution. That anti-science position helps them deny global warming. Thus, they would also starve the educational system until it EVENTUALLY volves into a few church run technical universities used to teach the skills to a small middle class that it would use to service the upper classes. Left would also be a few of the old-line universities for the children of the rich to luxuriate in as professional students and/or have connections needed to land important positions. The rest of the population would become "the rabble."

In every past civilization past its peak, the middle class vanished, religious reaction grew, the class structure hardened, and the secular system disappeared. Take a look at the collapse of the Hellenic age and the regression of Buddhist philosopjy in both India and China as the older faiths returned. Secular Humanism is on the same road.

Civilizations follow a discernable life cycle, one that has tended to shorten with each millenium.

We all know there is a vast difference between the Old Testament and the New Testament. The older one is the Judaic Bible. It recounts the history of an historically obscure, monotheistic tribe which, in Numbers, Deuteronomy and other parts describes their invasions and slaughtering of the men women and children of the lands they stole.

In comparison to the brutal Judaic Bible, the New Testament is generally a beacon of pragrance and light---even though, of course, there are exceptions. Being only half as ancient and hence that much less out-of-date, the offensive parts are much less in number: such as the admonitions to hate your family (Luke 14:26), Kill Jesus's enemies (Luke 19:27 and Math. 10:34), regarding dealing with slaves (Eph 6:5) and the subjection of women (1Tim 2:11-12)

Since there is this vast difference between the two Bibles, why is the Jewish Bible considered part of the Christian Scripture?

"Now, philosophy has degenerated into a pedantic Ivory Tower fussiness and stuffy academic playground for professional students. " This is what is known as a false premise or possible even two

- philosophy must advance knowledge/though to be useful

- modern philosophy does not advance knowledge

- modern philosophy is therefore useless

 

I am not sure I agree with the first one and the the second is, to my mind, completely untrue; the conclusion that they cannot be defended might seem to flow validly from the premises but is untrue due to the false premise(s). It could also be described as begging the question - I think you have assumed the truth of your argument in the premises.

 

You seem to state that any philosophy since the renaissance has been futile and with no connexion to the real world - Marx, Bentham, Nietzsche, Popper, Weber etc - these people have affected politics, the law, the state, science and sociology and many other facets of human life.

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Oh, I agree that I over-stated it. Actually, I like Schopenhaur. I never really thought Marx was regarded as a philosopher. Marsxists would perhaps say, instead, he was a social theorist. But I would agree he was a philosopher along with Hegel. So very, very many words and so little that has proven to be accurate now . . .

My take on the Tea Party is that they started out being pissed off about paying taxes without being fairly represented by either of the major parties. Suddenly, they started getting a lot of attention and new members who really pushed the whole tax angle, and the representation part took a back seat. Before the 2008 election, they had middle income people frothing at the mouth about tax increases when Obama was actually going to lower their taxes. That told me something was wrong with their ideology.

 

I think the Tea Party is being used by the mega-corporate special interests to shove the tax agenda and now the budget cutting down everyone's throats. All the reduction in government programs helps dilute regulations that cost businesses money in compliance. The last 10 years have been all about strangling programs like EPA, FDA and even public education and then complaining about why they don't work, why some should just be abolished and others privatized.

 

In the USA, I think we should place a moratorium on all government handouts to companies that don't qualify as small businesses. I think any company whose personnel is not at least 50% US citizens should not receive any kind of benefit from the US government. And I agree with Warren Buffet; why should I be paying 28% taxes on my middle income when he only pays 17% on over $40M? Tax the wealthy; they argued that the Bush tax cuts would create more jobs and trickle that extra wealth down AND THEY LIED. They moved operations overseas and screwed us into the worst time in the memories of most people living.

Yes, that's my take on the subject also. . .

Relative demand increases when prices drop, and it decreases when prices increase. Your premise is broken.

Demand that is relative to what?

Also, I suggest you read the first post again because no mention was made of demand. When prices decline as they did in the Great Depression, people buy less, less is produce, the Treasury tax take declines and the economy spirals down.

If the government does not increase spending and get prices going up again, Europe will soon lead us into a credit collapse that would bring us a gobal depression.

We call the theorizing of the great minds of Athens and the Athenian age as well as those of the European Renaissance as "philosophers" but they advanced human thought and were a part of the growth of science.

Now, philosophy has degenerated into a pedantic Ivory Tower fussiness and stuffy academic playground for professional students.

How here can defend them for us all?

May I first introduce this subject with a comment?

When prices go down, people put off purchases because prices will go down and they can get the items cheaper. That reduces manufacturing and workers are laid off. So, there is even less demand. Also, government tax receipts decline as income declines. That makes the national debt more difficult to control. So, the debt grows.

When prices are going up, people borrow to buy before prices go higher. The borrowing puts more money in circulation and prices continue to rise. Manufacturing increases to supply the growing demand, workers are hired and the government gets in more tax revenue.

Right now, prices are relatively stable. So, we are not recovering.

If it's sold as honey then it would be fraud for it to be anything but honey.

There are tests for adulteration of honey by other (cheaper) sugar sources and the consumer protection agencies occasionally use them. By and large, honey is honey.

Yes, absolutely. And the only reason why there is an adequate stock of honey in each market is because the price is set even with demand! I guess the questioner is unaware of the supply/demand priciple! If not, he may be wondering why it costs so damn much to buy a bottle when there is so much in the market!

I made a mistake clicking on this thread. Even the title makes no literal sense. And then, as you read down, you find no credible explanation of the causes of mental breakdown. From my study and experience, I am aware of many causes, causes of all kinds. One man I saw in an inteview who had syphlitic damage in his brain thought people were piping poisonous gas into his house and making it hard for him to think. He believed he was Napoleon, also.

In another case, the woman was aware of all her surroundings but could not make useful decisions. It was then called manic depressive. The cause is unknown. She has no religious faith.

I am a non-theist but had depressive episodes when I was young.

In a science forum like this, I think everyone should take on some responsibility and put in something scientifically valid and not some theory concocted just to offend the faithful and philosophy---even though I sympthize with his motive!

I thought this thread was about what the price of gold would do, so I opened up and was disappointed!

It has moved down today and might get as low as a paltry $1,600 (!) an ounce before it rests. I expect much higher prices when they finally give up on Greece and it goes default.

One reason is that the idea of us "descending from monkeys," as the clergy likes to put it, seems demeaning and denigrating. It seems to deny our role and importance in the universe.

Another is that without faith, we are led to believe our existence is without purpose.

Without faith, we lack a moral foundation.

There are others, but these perhaps play the most central role. Anyone whose faith is based upon these questionable issues is encouraged to state they are. I suggest we go one at a time, however. Lets do this completely and effectively.

i have been reading over some religious idea's covered by most theologians and it became self evident i dont belong to any particular religion, however i do have spirituality and self awareness, im willing to overlook all the fallacy's of religion to see what is meant behind the metaphors and such but i dont believe in any particular being as god, this brings me to my conundrum, imagination, what is it?, where did it come from?, is it the force that made us evolve or is it just the force that helps us prosper once were alive? after all these questions are answered i think every believer in god needs to ask himself or herself a single question to fully overstand the existence of their personal god, WOULD GOD EXIST IF YOU COULDN'T IMAGINE IT? we all have biases of what we imagine god to be, for example i quite enjoy imaging god as all the laws we must abide, the laws of physics, laws of nature and laws we created ourself via politics, all these laws are very real and we live our lives by them (or most of us, those who aren't in prison) this is what i IMAGINE god to be, someone else however, perhaps a Christian may idealise god in his/her imagination as a HUGE white bearded male in which our universe makes up a small sub-atomic particle of HIS beard (or lungs or guts or heart) all that being said you are still only imagining god and if imagining god makes god real then what does that make our imagination? any idea's on the matter would be greatly appreciated as im trying to come to terms with the human imagination (or life on the whole) thanks for reading guys...

Can you explain or describe what you mean by saying you have spirituality? I would say that mirages, hypnosis, magic, and near-death experiences are mysterious, but are they examples of the spiritual that you mention? All of them are readily explainable. Would you consider belief in Santa Claus as "spiritual?"

First of all, I would suggest that you take the position of all science in being that you do not believe in something the existence of which cannot be verified. That is a good starting point. You cannot, for example, verify the existence of Santa Claus in the same way you cannot verify that of "God" or any god. In fact, you cannot verify even the existence of any spirits at all, including a self-spirit or "soul' capable of living after the death of your body and brain.

If you only accept such logic and even get used to it, a whole new world will opened up to you. You will see everything as being "natural." That is, the universe operates according to natural cause and effect. No longer is there any need to fear the unknown, to see fortune tellers, avoid hauted houses, wonder what "evil" ("Satan's work") is, and be fooled by magic. You become a truly modern man.

When you recognize that there is no god and never was, you will undertsand that it will continue to be true long after humanity outgrows and brings to an end its too-protracted spirit-believing Age.

I also suggest you give up the idea that there is a inteliigent force (god) determining natural law. The so-called laws of nature have evolved through centuries and are either mathematical forumations or generalizations or both. They will continue to evolve. As with all human understanding, there is no arbitrary, rigid and inflexable "Truths" or "Laws." Gods come and go in history, but man has always improved his understanding of himself and the universe. We will always need science to continue doing so.

brough

http://civilization-overview.com

Is it as the Bible says, "God came to bring not peace but a sword?"

Has anyone ever seen that sword? It must exist if the Bible says

God came to bring it. So where is it?

I know that is picky, but the fact is that that is what is meant by

"taking it literally." Also, what did God mean by the many references to "Babylon?" Did that mean Rome, the "Anti-Christ" of just the city of Babylon?

And if the Bible is supposed to be "The Infallable Word of God," why does He have Moses describing his own death and burial? Why does He tell us to "play with snakes" and "speak in tongues, "drink wine" and "wash each others feet?" Do you do all these things? If you don't, you are disobeying ":the infallible world of God."

It can be argued that certain religious ideals lead to overpopulation, unequal resource distribution, etc and so on. It can be argued that religious ideals lead to the opposite through motivation of charitable behavior, planetary custodianship etc.

Do you know of a single mainline religion so far that did not promotive having more children? Or one that promoted planetary custodianship? Neither Islam, Christianity, the Hindu faith, or East Asian Marxism promoted either. The Chinese Marxist ideological system promotes neither, but due to Western Secular influence after the fall of the Soviet Union, Chinese Marxism substituted nationalism for its world-commune stance, birth control and Western capitalism. The adopting of the one-child policy was also a result of the Western secular influence. Marxism was able to adopt it because it had suppressed the old religion of China.

Our Secular Humanism has influenced the world and provided enough unity to set up the Global Economy, but it has proven unable to replace the old religions/ideologies. Until they are replaced with an advanced ideology, world conditions can only grow worse.

Yes, I believe that religion evolved and had very good reason to do so. So too did belief in deities and higher powers:

Absolutely. When religions were evolving into being forty to over a hundred thousand years ago, people had no scientific understand. It was then logical to believe that the "spirit"-like consciounsess we have existed in everything else as well. It was a means of explaining everything that happened. Over the milleniums since, the number of spirits that needed to be imagined declined as more natural explanations were able to be figured out. Now, science is able to provide a more or less accurate natural cause explanation for everything. In no case now is a "spirit" explanation any longer needed or better.

Social theorists sometimes refer to East Asian Marxism as a "secular religion." What reason could social sciernce academics have for referring to it that way?

Even more interesting is that even "Secular Huanism" can also be referred to as a secular religion. Could it be because both are ideologies and have to be qualified by the word "secular" to distinguish them from the ancient "spirit" believing ones? In other words, it would seem that the only difference between East Asian Marxism and Christianity, for example, is that the older one is based on "spiritism" while the "secular" one is not.

If that is the only difference, what is it they all have in common that explains why, in one form or the other, they all dominate the way we think?

Any thoughts on this?

Some science philosophers have speculated that religion is "hard wired" in us (a dumb way of saying we have a "religious instinct"). Does anyone believe that? I don't.

Other ones speculated that religion is just a means the rich used to control the masses. That seems to me they regard it as a sort of parastic phenomenon. For a human trait that has characterized the human race for well over 40,000 years, that just doesn't seem to be an adequate explanation.

What do the rest of you think?

Psychology is a subpart of neuroscience, which is part of science.

You stated that three times in your post so it must be true . . . !

I believe I can show that psychology can be more accurate by not being connected to neuroscience!

OK here goes: we evolved through millions of years as small group social primates and in the form of hunting and gathering groups. Neuroscientists are not able to effectively show this neurologically nor are genetists able to genetically. It is knowedge resulting from work in paleontology, anthropology, etc. The result of that knowledge is that our behavior must necessarily resemble that of many other small group social animals, especially primates.

So, the innate motivation that is common among small group social primates can be, and has been, visibly observed and noted. Those behavioral patterns we all share can be honestly referred to as "instincts" which in us, are subject to minor modification by our ideologies in order to enable us to operate more efficiently.

Thus, we are in a position to tell neurologists and geneticist when their conclusions are wrong if and when they are.

The two major streams of physics that transcend basic human intuition - einsteins relativity and the quantum world - have been tested to a staggering degree, and these models which are counter-intuitive and beyond easy comprehension just do not admit to any philosophical argument that has as an axiom the datum world as we human beings perceive it. It is a humbling thought that the entire sphere of human experience is a special case where universal equations are reduced to mundane classical limits.

Yes, I've looked at both Relativity and Quantum mechanics and agree it does not follow any cause-and effect process we understand. However, it seems presumptious to assume that state will continue to exist indefinitely. Our perception of the universe is not static.

I question the future of Quantum Physics. The perplexity of quantum physics spreads into other fields. My field is social theory. I have taken the work of over twenty-two social and natural sciences to build a cause and effect theory of the natural selection process in social evolution. This work is objective and in conflict with much of the social theory concensus, such as it is. I see my approach as determinist.

I believe that the mystery of quantum physics has enabled a visible drift in social theory away from the strictly determistic approach. This leads me here because I have a theory about this in "The Last Civilization" and hope to get comments from some of you.

I have seen in social theory that if something is observed to be too complex to sort out or leads to "politically incorrect" conclusion, it is either subtly abandoned or excused in the same way, perhaps, quantum physics is accepted. That is, that the universe does not adhere to a strictly determinist ideal.

An example of social theory concluding such a problem as unsolvable and by inferrence, therefore possibly quantum in character, is the way social theorists abandoned the mid-last century quest to find out why and how civilzations rose and fell. They failed miserably, so the profession simply abandoned the word "civilization" (a word for which they had never agreed on a definition) and substituted the even less definable, omnibus word, "culture."

My centension is that the universe is determinist and that the problem of quantum physics is not a result of a quantum-chaotic universe but of physicists accepting such a view rather than admit they are presently stumped and that the problem will probably be solved by other (and better?) physicists perhaps generations later on.

Do you think I am wrong?

For about the last three years, wherever you drove, shops, stores, businesses of all kinds blatently advertised "We Buy Gold!." All over the country people who became unemployed and those behind in their morgage sold what gold they had to help them survive.

Where did it all go? It was refined and turned into investment form for the rich! Those poor people who sold now see how much more it is worth (in dollars) than it was when they gave up their gold rings, bracelets and even teeth fillings. The rich now look back and see how they, the ones who bought that gold from the refiners who got it from the poor, how much profit they have from the misfortune of the poor, the poor, that is who were once the middle class.

Will the people ever get back their gold? Or will it continue to be used in yacht bathroom plumbing and stored in wealth-owners safes? __________________

How true.

 

Some of that must have something to do with over population, including in the west, with to many would be alpha males in various walks of life competing against one another and confusing the masses.

 

Same principal when retailers provide to much choice for consumers all it ends up doing is making it difficult for them to make a choice and hence they don't end up making one and walking out of the store.

 

It seems to me that smaller groups of humans that ethnically or culturally uniform are always more cohesive than larger multicultural groups. E.G. Anglo-Saxon Australia at 15 million or so was far more united than multiculatural Australia at 23 million.

In order for all the various "ethnicities" to get along, the secular ideological unity has to increasingly depend on doctrines of tolerance and ever more humanism in order to minimize friction. This tend can only go so far, however, without undermining society. It undermines the state's ability to react to dissent. Ethnic protests over imagined slights leads to riots and individual acts of terrorism. The state seems impotent and loses respect. This can only go on for a limited time before people will give up and begin to long for a "Caesar" or 'Napoleon,' that is, for an alpha male who they can respect, one who can force through needed reforms and bring back hope.

To be precise, I do not like the term instinct too much as the definition has been muddled quiet a bit. In general it refers to a series of behaviors that are initiated upon a certain stimulus. However there are many issues with that. A less complex behavior are reflexes. While less complex, they are still orders of magnitude more complex than certain regulatory circuits that are based on biochemical reactions (i.e. receptor-ligand binding leading to activation of transcription factors, leading to gene expression changes, to give a rough example).

Certainly, the instinct concept would not be used in biology and organic chemestry, but I find it useful in animal behavioral study and social theory as long as we keep in mind that the behavioral differencfes between, let us say, Europeans and Sudanese is ideological/cultural. It is useful because there are hman social behavioral patterns ("instincts") that are common to all the apes, most of all primates, and many other small group social mammals. For example, the females care for the young, the males compete for the responsibility of protecting them, ones that do not return a favor are rebuked, Teenagers are rebellious, the actions of the dominant male are closely watched, the group has a territory ("home," "private property" amd "national borders." There are many more.

A century ago, people careless compiled a list of so-called "instincts" such as compassion, altruism, prejudice, religiousness, ambition, etc. As it became realized that their list was riddled with error and inaccuracy, the term came into disrepute and has remained there.

Perhaps a new topic could be introduced. It could be called Ponderables, for those of us who like to nibble at the edges of the unknown and share those thoughts with others.

If you and the others really want to consider a new theory, I'll do my best because I have worked on one for decades. It involved amassing an understanding of the data of some 24 social and natural sciences.

It involves social evolution. As of now, the social theory consensus, such as it is, has no viable explanation of what civilizations and societies are and both how and why they rise and fall, no theory other than a really hopeless one dealing with "memes."

What I theorize, in a nutshell, is that "societies" and their civilizations are a type of organism in that they have a life cycle and a non-genetic way of evolving through natural selection. They compete with each other and ultimately the older (weaker) is natural-selected out. A new one develops based upon a new and advanced (for the times) ideology ("religion").

I can support this vital role of ideology by reminding everyone that we evolved through millions of years of evolution as small-group primates (hunter/gatherers). We are still small group primates and unable to funtion successfully without the use of language and religion (the newer the better) to bind us into larger groups (nations and their "societies").

Any questions?

One factor easily overlooked is that the cost of medical care has been rising at an accelerating rate. It is part of the reason for a general decline in middle class living standards and hence its ability to pay for it. Not being any reason to think the costs are going to stop rising, we have good reason to believe it is going to result in a shorter life span if that has not already begun.