[Suska]

Why do you need religion to express nature? Art is sufficient.

Like I said, in a sense they are the same thing. I didn't say you need religion to express nature. I said nature encompasses society as the universe encompasses nature. I said Religion is not a mere function of society.

The value of religion is it gets everyone's art on the same page.

Am I to just follow behind you sweeping up the garbage you leave? The value of things is at best difficult to express. Religion's value is nebulous - it is not a simple thing to be explained. We use symbolism to express the order of the things we see, but it isn't the symbolism we're after.

What do you mean "failure"?

You portion out the "Sublime" and say some people just pretend. Everyone plays their part and to say more is incautious. In these matters it would be like saying "Some people are just not really part of the Universe." or "Nature" because they fail to earn attention in society. The sublime is just everywhere.

[Daktoria]

Like I said, in a sense they are the same thing. I didn't say you need religion to express nature. I said nature encompasses society as the universe encompasses nature. I said Religion is not a mere function of society.

I don't know what you're getting at here. You seem to be suggesting intelligent design.

Nature is chaos. It's just present. There's no intrinsic value to it. It's only after we apply it to categorical judgment that art is formulated.

Am I to just follow behind you sweeping up the garbage you leave? The value of things is at best difficult to express. Religion's value is nebulous - it is not a simple thing to be explained. We use symbolism to express the order of the things we see, but it isn't the symbolism we're after.

You portion out the "Sublime" and say some people just pretend. Everyone plays their part and to say more is incautious. In these matters it would be like saying "Some people are just not really part of the Universe."

Yes.

Some people pretend to be unable to symbolize in that they remove themselves from the universe. These people are the unreasonable. It isn't that they're ignorant, but that they're arrogant.

Religion formulates symbols for them to practice so the reasonable remain undisturbed.

or "Nature" because they fail to earn attention in society. The sublime is just everywhere.

The unreasonable perpetually aim to simply hoard attention for themselves by living vicariously through others.

Religion protects the reasonable from the unreasonable by admitting that what's sublime to someone isn't automatically sublime to everyone. That way, people can express nature in their own proportion.

People don't have to be congruent. Just similar. They're like gears in an engine. Gears don't have to be the same size. Their teeth just have to have synchronized rhythms.

[Suska]

I don't know what you're getting at here. You seem to be suggesting intelligent design.

What? How? It's a simple observation that whatever society is is a subset of the natural world (biology surrounded by matter) and whatever the natural world is is surrounded by absolutes (it seems to go on forever). Is that wrong?

The rest, I have no idea... It seems like you're just yanking my chain by uttering nonsensical things.

[Daktoria]

What? How? It's a simple observation that whatever society is is a subset of the natural world (biology surrounded by matter) and whatever the natural world is is surrounded by absolutes (it seems to go on forever). Is that wrong?

Society is abstract. Nature is concrete. Saying society is encompassed by nature is like saying colors are encompassed by shapes. Yes, colors exist in shapes, but shapes don't define colors.

Similarly, society exists in nature, but nature doesn't define society. Existence =/= relevance.

The rest, I have no idea... It seems like you're just yanking my chain by uttering nonsensical things.

Sorry. I just don't find nature particularly sublime. Never have.

When people say we have to save the environment, I never understand what for.

[Suska]

You're really annoying to talk to. You can't address a single point without demonstrating you didn't understand it, at the same time you really really cannot admit you don't know anything about it, so you wind up saying ridiculous things that have nothing to do with anything...

I didn't say nature defines society. I didn't say existence equals relevance. I didn't say "We have to save the environment" I didn't say colors are encompassed by shapes or one defines the other, and I didn't say the sublime was limited to nature. I'm not about to go on with this conversation, you need medication or something...

[onemalehuman]

What? How? It's a simple observation that whatever society is is a subset of the natural world (biology surrounded by matter) and whatever the natural world is is surrounded by absolutes (it seems to go on forever).
.

Excuse me, what is the difference to a subset of the natural world and biology being separate from the total sum of what takes place on this planet as DNA to every plant and animal is composed with inorganic material(periodic table of elements) alive within the perpetual balances universally taking place currently to never duplicated detailed lifetimes?

as I repeat myself so often, there is only one point of time that can take place for everything to add together and be what is taking place now individually.

This instant of compounding results expanding the details presently changing in shape and form not destroying the energy that keeps life conceiving lifetimes as the cellular half of molecular migration one lifetime at a time is now.

Politics and religion are waring ideologies in a constant fight to rule now each generation using language as the definitive and words are just invented sounds a human body can duplicate at will with the memory to attach mental images with sounds of syllables.

Just like a computer, program incomplete data into it and the only thing that comes out is inaccurate facts assumed correct enough to build a reality around the ideas shared into ideology of social justification.

Eastern philosophy or western theology doesn't matter as they are governances to the same end goal, rule the moment like there is no tomorrow. which physically speaking there never was any more than yesterday existed because the planet spins, the moon reflects the star light and seasons change with solstices and equinoxes being opposite each side of the equator/tropics.

Now, you think I cannot figure out the logistics to maintaining the food supply for winter from the other half of the planet?

I understand the network of supply and demand, I just have a problem with management only educating on the need to know basis. Again, once a person looks beyond time relativity, real loses the "ity" suffix and character is nothing but a staged performer following directions and a memorized script hoping the captivated audience pays to be deceived again.

[Someone5]

http://www.touchstonemag.com/archives/article.php?id=06-01-005-f

I've been rereading this essay over and over lately, and it's been hitting home deeper and deeper every time. Kirk's point, in short, is that religion gives unreasonable people an out to express themselves, and in turn, they remain civilized. It also unites people under common virtue such that they can communicate reasonably even if they use different words to express different ideas. For example, everyone comes together around holidays despite how holidays bear different sentiments for different people.

When religion is used to give unreasonable people a way to express themselves, it means that religion becomes an excuse for unreasonable people to do unreasonable things. They change the religion to suit their unreasonable needs. It is more often the case that people will cherry pick a religion's principles to justify whatever it is they're going to do anyway. Religion isn't much of a control on unreasonable people--just an avenue by which they can provide a moral justification for being unreasonable.

School has started again, my mom related how they have to form the kids up to practice finding their bus or wind up spending an hour sorting it out. It's a wonder to me how the mind works inside an unfathomable institution - how people cease to think when they are waiting to be told what to do.

That's the wrong lesson to learn there; the lesson that you ought to understand there is that bureaucracies are about procedures, not just paper, and that people unfamiliar with a bureaucracy have a hard time making use of even its most basic functions.

Getting on the right bus becomes more complicated than just asking; it becomes a procedure whereby information is communicated in a coded way (a number on a bus, which you are supposed to be able to translate into a route), and if people aren't taught how that coding works (while they are paying attention) they won't get how to do it. And it's further complicated because the people who need to get on the bus are often forced to queue themselves while waiting on the bus, and that in itself has its own procedure (namely, stand in a line at this location).

The institution doesn't strip away the person's ability to think; but in this case a person who chooses to think independently will miss the bus. What institutional learning seems to do is to provide a person with an additional mode of thinking that gives them a context for handling bureaucratic procedures--a bureaucratic mind, if you will, to go along with their natural independent mind. The problem society has is that people have a hard time switching contexts, and therefore people have a hard time getting out of their bureaucratic mind while out and about in all the world's various bureaucracies. Even if you're just out shopping, there are bureaucratic procedures to mind (don't run around, the shopping carts are in this location and ought to be returned to these other locations, this is how you pay for things, items of such and such a kind are stored on aisle X not aisle Y, etc).

That independent mind never really goes away, it just doesn't often get engaged because honestly society does not favor independence. If you went around behaving independently in our society you'd never get anything done. Trying to confront that bureaucratic mind on a social level is a form of primitivism--disengaging the learned bureaucratic mind and engaging the natural independent mind. It would mean breaking up the bureaucracies--or at least intermingling them with non-bureaucratic institutions. But bureaucracies are efficient (more than everyone just doing their own thing anyway), and immediate material efficiency is preferential in capitalism.

[Daktoria]

When religion is used to give unreasonable people a way to express themselves, it means that religion becomes an excuse for unreasonable people to do unreasonable things. They change the religion to suit their unreasonable needs. It is more often the case that people will cherry pick a religion's principles to justify whatever it is they're going to do anyway. Religion isn't much of a control on unreasonable people--just an avenue by which they can provide a moral justification for being unreasonable.

You're assuming unreasonable people obtain leadership.

I'm not saying leadership can't be obtained nor hasn't been obtained, but there's a process you're ignoring. That process can be prevented by not making the unreasonable self-aware.

Don't forget, "Ignorance is bliss."

[Someone5]

You're assuming unreasonable people obtain leadership.

I'm assuming unreasonable people will be unreasonable; if the orthodox leadership objects, they will go their own way with their own interpretation of the religion. You will get a new "denomination" of the religion that backs the unreasonable proposition(s). The only way that is countered is by other unreasonable people being in charge of the orthodox religion and having themselves a holy war to purge the infidels.

I'm not saying leadership can't be obtained nor hasn't been obtained, but there's a process you're ignoring. That process can be prevented by not making the unreasonable self-aware.

Don't forget, "Ignorance is bliss."

All it requires is that the unreasonable people have followers; even if they fail to gain leadership in the orthodox institution, they will create new leadership in their splinter group. I would also add that you are assuming that religious leadership means something to unreasonable people--if they're truly unreasonable, it probably doesn't.

[Daktoria]

I'm assuming unreasonable people will be unreasonable; if the orthodox leadership objects, they will go their own way with their own interpretation of the religion. You will get a new "denomination" of the religion that backs the unreasonable proposition(s). The only way that is countered is by other unreasonable people being in charge of the orthodox religion and having themselves a holy war to purge the infidels.

Last I checked, "interpretation" requires the exercise of reason. Martin Luther, for example, supported "total depravity" because Pope Leo X thought the sale of indulgences was a bright idea to pay for St. Peter's Basilica. Interpretation was a matter of convenience, not necessity.

All it requires is that the unreasonable people have followers; even if they fail to gain leadership in the orthodox institution, they will create new leadership in their splinter group. I would also add that you are assuming that religious leadership means something to unreasonable people--if they're truly unreasonable, it probably doesn't.

No, unreasonable people also need provocation. Without Pope Leo X, Martin Luther wouldn't have catalyzed the Protestant Reformation.

The real question is, "How do unreasonable people rise to leadership positions to provoke schisms?"

[Someone5]

Last I checked, "interpretation" requires the exercise of reason. Martin Luther, for example, supported "total depravity" because Pope Leo X thought the sale of indulgences was a bright idea to pay for St. Peter's Basilica. Interpretation was a matter of convenience, not necessity.

You checked incorrectly; the sale of indulgences was a reasonable way to pay for St. Peter's Basilica. If you're a cash strapped church, it is very reasonable to introduce a new money-making doctrine in order to afford new construction projects. Luther's opposition to it was unreasonable on those grounds. Granted, Luther didn't appreciate the construction of the basilica as a goal. A reasonable person would have suggested to the Pope some other way of raising the money that didn't require the creation of new doctrines.

No, unreasonable people also need provocation.

Reasonable people require provocation--that's what makes them reasonable. Unreasonable people act first and justify second.

Without Pope Leo X, Martin Luther wouldn't have catalyzed the Protestant Reformation.

I would categorize Martin Luther as unreasonable. He was analytical, but not reasonable.

The real question is, "How do unreasonable people rise to leadership positions to provoke schisms?"

They speak what they feel, and others feel the same way they do; they become leaders by being at the front.

[Social_Critic]

Consider my case: I was raised in a family where religion was practiced - but they went to religious services about twice a year. However, over time I have concluded that the Gods of the major religions are all imaginary - fictional characters if you will. Ever since I reached this conclusion, I have been able to use a fairly coherent argument to convince most of my family to become agnostics. I suppose you can say I'm not in a position of leadership, other than I am the elder in a fairly small tribe.

Religion isn't necessary to give us a social or moral structure if we have an alternative solution. In a democracy, rulers no longer need to say they were chosen by God to rule over people, and if the laws are written according to the will of the people and society has a well designed constitution to protect the rights of the minorities, then the system works. I know there are three ifs involved, but it's something we can strive for, rather than striving to go to heaven or be re-incarnated as a sports super hero in our next life.

[Suska]

It seems fair what you're saying.

bureaucracies are efficient

Right, I was thinking about this earlier this morning. As traveled as I am I picked up a European sense of efficiency - In plenty of cases I'd almost rather nothing got done. We are presumed into the system and told to look on the bright side, well the bright side is a good thing I suppose, however there's a difference between people's paces and how much convincing a person needs and so there's a tension between the functional society and the functional individual. Personally, I'd rather nothing got done then be obligated to do things I don't understand or favor doing. There just doesn't seem to be much point in a functional society of fools - which is the basic flavor of bureaucracies everywhere. I don't know what the answer is - just seems regrettable that fun and functionality appear to be fairly exclusive of each other.

[Daktoria]

You checked incorrectly; the sale of indulgences was a reasonable way to pay for St. Peter's Basilica. If you're a cash strapped church, it is very reasonable to introduce a new money-making doctrine in order to afford new construction projects. Luther's opposition to it was unreasonable on those grounds. Granted, Luther didn't appreciate the construction of the basilica as a goal.

Well yes, my point was whether or not the Basilica's construction was reasonable. Martin Luther was merely reacting to someone else's unreasonable establishment.

Reasonable people require provocation--that's what makes them reasonable.

Eh...

...if anything, reasonable people think before they act. They aren't provoked. They consider the circumstances, and compare circumstance to goals. Circumstances aren't goals themselves.

Unreasonable people act first and justify second.

Right. That's called rationalization.

I would categorize Martin Luther as unreasonable. He was analytical, but not reasonable.

Martin Luther rationalized because he realized Catholic corruption.

Sometimes, reasonability entails making up rationalizations to deal with unreasonable people. You don't want to do it, but it's convenient to gather strength against the unnecessary.

They speak what they feel, and others feel the same way they do; they become leaders by being at the front.

No... I don't think Pope Leo X was like that. He was quietly ambitious from the get go, and constructed the Basilica in order to unite Christian Europe against the Turks while trying to solidify Italy under personal domain and balancing the French against the Spanish.

Feelings didn't have much to do with it at all.

[onemalehuman]

.

Don't forget, "Ignorance is bliss."

Ignorance only exist by choice of ignoring the obvious. Bliss comes in when others are willing to give up what they are for whom one defines them as socially and pays them for the service of being misled.

The only way reality rules real is in the art of selling false illusion perpetuated by what if scenarios. Ignore the "ity" rounded off left out of the theory and moral fable theology that psychologically gets a gender to believe character has matter beyond words through reciting sold philosophies.