Theophobia

[Canadian_watcher]

sigh

[norton ash]

Such lovely prayer flags have been attached to what began as, and remains, a poison tree.

Or lots of nourishing ingredients added to the stone soup.

Proving well enough that there's very little 'theophobia' at RI. The original premise mocks the earnestness and gravity (or playfulness) with which I believe most of us approach matters of faith and spirit. The 'faith' defended by C_W remains nebulous, and we receive punchy, adversarial responses to questions like 'how is it being attacked?' and 'what is this faith of yours, anyway?'

That's the theme you're seeing recur with some of us. I don't see many faith-haters here. Maybe a few Socratic and Jesuitical traditionalists.

But what's also recurring is the tenacious 'It's Dawkins and you scientific atheist bastards against those of us of more generous spirit.' Which is resentful, and divisive, and reductive, and not true.

Talk of heaven! ye disgrace earth. (Emerson's angry, misanthrope buddy Thoreau, disappearing through the treeline again.)

[MacCruiskeen]

But what's also recurring is the tenacious 'It's Dawkins and you scientific atheist bastards against those of us of more generous spirit.' Which is resentful, and divisive, and reductive, and not true.

It's true. See AD's incessant supercilious one-line Thritical Crinking homework assignments throughout this thread, which have indeed been resentful, divisive and destructive, and epistemologically deeply naive to boot, for all their impenetrable smugness. He has sabotaged a potentially interesting thread by bullying C_w shamelessly. If we're talking intellectual soundness, then quite frankly (and I say this after having suffered patiently through 30-odd pages of this boring nonsense), AD's argument is as thick as shit. It is deeply stupid. And it's the way of the world in the 21st century, which is why it urgently needs opposing.

A few statements of the obvious: No thought springs independently and fully formed into the world. Intellect is not and cannot be independent of emotion, of perception, of place or of time. Neither emotion nor intellect is independent of society, and societies are multifarious. (This is -- inexcusably, but I'm not writing a bloody book here -- to say nothing of the world beyond society, i.e. the animal, vegetable, mineral, subatomic, quantum-theoretical & astronomical world beyond human beings, in which world we live, unavoidably, thank god.) This world existed long before any brains existed that were capable of thritical crinking, or even of critical thinking. Thought does not arise "purely" in any brain, human or animal. No thought takes place outside a context undetermined by that thought.

In other words,and in short, there is no intellect without faith. A world unknowable in its entirety precedes the human mind. And if you're going to insist on a definition of faith, then I don't mind offering you one: faith is the body, which is the same thing as the senses, which is the same thing as the soul, all of which precedes intellection and is a necessary precondition for it.

See Michael Polanyi, Gregory Bateson, R.D. Laing and (goddammit) Wilhelm Reich, just for example.

(on edit: typos removed)

[norton ash]

There is no intellect without faith. And if you're going to insist on a definition of faith, then I don't mind offering you one: faith is the body, which is the same thing as the senses, which is the same thing as the soul, all of which precedes intellection and is a precondition for it.

See Michael Polanyi, Gregory Bateson, R.D. Laing and (goddammit) Wilhelm Reich, just for example.

That's a good one. Debatable, mysterious, whole and beautiful.

Btw, I never said anger was a bad thing. I think all the best people are angry.

[justdrew]

I don't have any problem with faith in theory, I have problems with how some of them have effected me and mine.

please listen, this isn't some trifling thing...

[The Consul]

Sometimes I think it hardly matters what we believe, other times I believe it barely matters what we think. It's like an old friend who'd been pressing faith said to me, restraining his anger, when I said it would be more honest to go to the slaughter house on Sunday than church "well what DO you believe in, man!"

Why do I have to believe anything, and if so why must I proclaim whatever that might be? Isn't it all just a stale pretzel of salty denial burning away in our childish tummies, either way?

I can believe you without believing what you believe and you could save my life without my ever knowing your name for the mystery often ends where the definitions begin.

[vanlose kid]

But what's also recurring is the tenacious 'It's Dawkins and you scientific atheist bastards against those of us of more generous spirit.' Which is resentful, and divisive, and reductive, and not true.

It's true. See AD's incessant supercilious one-line Thritical Crinking homework assignments throughout this thread, which have indeed been resentful, divisive and destructive, and epistemologically deeply naive to boot, for all their impenetrable smugness. He has sabotaged a potentially interesting thread by bullying C_w shamelessly. If we're talking intellectual soundness, then quite frankly (and I say this after having suffered patiently through 30-odd pages of this boring nonsense), AD's argument is as thick as shit. It is deeply stupid. And it's the way of the world in the 21st cenntury, which is why it urgently needs opposing.

...

and you would think that this was glaringly obvious, especially to critical thinkers.

*

[The Consul]

AD the devil is right on your tail, man. Probably has been for years. You're playing his tune.

“Abashed the devil stood, / And felt how awful goodness is.” - John Milton

During the siege on Mecca in 1979 authorities tragically hesitated to react, wondering, shit...what if Juhayman al-’Utaybi is the mahdi?

[justdrew]

um... way back on page 30 or so I meant FUD campaigns not FUBAR.

FUD = Fear Uncertainty Doubt
more or less just another disreputable rhetorical device, but a very popular one in this modern world.

---

between thought and emotion

Dissociation of sensibility is a literary term first used by T. S. Eliot in his essay “The Metaphysical Poets”[1] It refers to the way in which intellectual thought was separated from the experience of feeling in seventeenth century poetry.

Eliot used the term to describe the manner by which the nature and substance of English poetry changed “between the time of Donne or Lord Herbert of Cherbury and the time of Tennyson and Browning.” In this essay, Eliot attempts to define the metaphysical poet and in doing so to determine the metaphysical poet’s era as well as his discernible qualities.

We may express the difference by the following theory: The poets of the seventeenth century, the successors of the dramatists of the sixteenth, possessed a mechanism of sensibility which could devour any kind of experience. They are simple, artificial, difficult, or fantastic, as their predecessors were; no less nor more than Dante, Guido Cavalcanti, Guinicelli, or Cino. In the seventeenth century a dissociation of sensibility set in, from which we have never recovered; and this dissociation, as is natural, was aggravated by the influence of the two most powerful poets of the century, Milton and Dryden.

Theory of dissociation of sensibility

The theory of dissociation of sensibility rests largely upon Eliot’s description of the disparity in style that exists between the metaphysical poets of the sixteenth and early seventeenth century and the poets of the late seventeenth century onward. In “The Metaphysical Poets,” [1] Eliot claims that the earlier grouping of poets were “constantly amalgamating disparate experience” and thus expressing their thoughts through the experience of feeling, while the later poets did not unite their thoughts with their emotive experiences and therefore expressed thought separately from feeling. He explains that the dissociation of sensibility is the reason for the “difference between the intellectual and the reflective poet.” The earlier intellectual poet, Eliot writes, “possessed a mechanism of sensibility which could devour any kind of experience.” When the dissociation of sensibility occurred, “[the] poets revolted against the ratiocinative, the descriptive; they thought and felt by fits, unbalanced; they reflected.” Thus dissociation of sensibility is the point at which and the manner by which this change in poetic method and style occurred; it is defined by Eliot as the loss of sensation united with thought.

Eliot uses John Donne’s poetry as the most prominent example of united sensibility and thought. He writes, “[a] thought to Donne was an experience; it modified his sensibility.” Eliot’s apparent appreciation of Donne’s ability to unify intellectual thought and the sensation of feeling demonstrates that he believes dissociation of sensibility to be a hindrance in the progression of poetry. Eliot asserts that despite the progress of refined language, the separation between thought and emotion led to the end of an era of poetry that was “more mature” and that would “wear better” than the poetry that followed.

[American Dream]

I think the construction of a "militant atheists vs. spiritual people" struggle reflects very little of what is actually going on here at Rigorous Intuition.

Like setting off the dueling nationalisms of Louis Farrakhan and David Duke against one another, there is the danger that it would actually reinforce flawed constructions of what is going on and obscure as much as it reveals.

[Canadian_watcher]

Mac, that was a great post, thank you for it. I love your way of approaching the fact that there was before there is. Hopefully that will help to improve the discussion here.

I object to the recent assertion that this is some sort of 'militant atheists' versus 'spiritual people.' Is it that? I don't see it that way. I do see that there is a prejudice, and that some otherwise perfectly open-minded, forward thinking, out-of-the-box type people (the best kind of people, IMO) are blinded by a bias they don't see that they have.

In light of any assertion by anyone that 'that stuff doesn't exist at RI' (meaning that a prejudice against people of faith doesn't exist at RI) I am forced to counter by saying that it does. I've felt it, seen it, read it, experienced it. I am not really offended by it nor do I feel oppressed by it, rather I think it is a shame. It is a crying shame.

I'd never heard of this person until today, as I have just been introduced to the fact that there exists an Institute For Noetic Science... Anyway.. here is something that maybe will help?







If, while watching, you hear your inner self saying "pseudo-science" or "cult" or "bullshit".. you might want to think about your own blockages to wisdom (aka "biases")

peace good people.

[Searcher08]

Peter is a very smart (and nice) guy... Was well known for The Global Brain / Awakening Earth ideas back in the 80s... I did some consulting for the company he worked with



This was several YEARS before Tim Berners-Lee came up with the WWW

[Plutonia]

It's about discernment, isn't it? It begins to make sense if we allow for a spectrum from coarse to fine degrees of perception.

Raimond Gaita in his recent lecture about the impact of wikileaks, points out that spin-doctoring true information does more to undermine meaningful consent than outright lying, because it addles peoples ability to think critically through the erosion of the collective understanding of what constitutes evidence. In other words, spin is reality distorting.

At the heart of democratic ideals is the contrast between legitimate and illegitimate persuasion. To a large extent, the difference is marked by the ways that forms of persuasion respect - or fail to respect - what Simone Weil called our “faculty of free consent.” The lecture will explore what we should make of the distinction and what its implications are for political action when democratic governments become more secretive, more authoritarian and more reliant on spin.

http://www.law.unimelb.edu.au/index.cfm ... aryID=5390

If you google "reality distortion field" what you'll get is hundreds of thousands of references to Steve Jobs and Apple:

In a recently screened BBC documentary, UK neuroscientists suggested that the brains of Apple devotees are stimulated by Apple imagery in the same way that the brains of religious people are stimulated by religious imagery.

People have often talked about “the cult of Apple”, and if a recent BBC TV documentary is to be believed, there could be something in it.

The program, Secrets of the Superbrands, looks at why technology megabrands such as Apple, Facebook and Twitter have become so popular and such a big part of many people’s lives.

In the first episode, presenter Alex Riley decided to take a look at Apple. He wanted to discover what it is about the company that makes people so emotional. Footage of the opening of the Cupertino company’s Covent Garden store in central London last year showed hordes of Apple devotees lining up outside overnight, while the staff whipped up customers (and themselves) into something of an evangelical frenzy. This religious-like fervor got Riley thinking – he decided to take a closer look at the inside of the head of an Apple fanatic to see what on earth was going on in there.

Riley contacted the editor of World of Apple, Alex Brooks, an Apple worshipper who claims to think about Apple 24 hours a day, which is possibly 23 hours too many for most regular people. A team of neuroscientists studied Brooks’ brain while undergoing an MRI scan, to see how it reacted to images of Apple products and (heaven forbid) non-Apple products.

According to the neuroscientists, the scan revealed that there were marked differences in Brooks’ reactions to the different products. Previously, the scientists had studied the brains of those of religious faith, and they found that, as Riley puts it: “The Apple products are triggering the same bits of [Brooks'] brain as religious imagery triggers in a person of faith.”

http://www.digitaltrends.com/computing/ ... cientists/

So that is one end of the coarse/fine spectrum- inducing religious feeling in order to sell product (whether Christianity, war, Obama or Apple.) At the other end is what I consider "real", both of the faithed and non-faithed varieties.

Here is Zinnia Jones aka Zachary Antolak, a trans-gender activist and vlogger who recently released her chat logs with Bradley Manning (http://www.bradleymanning.org/news/the- ... -chat-logs) face to face with Coleman Barks reading Rumi. I can get behind, enjoy and be enlivened by both of them and I suspect I'm not alone:

[Canadian_watcher]

Plut!

- That first video - interesting, but really it can be flipped perfectly on its head and the same thing can be said ( I mean the VERY same thing) if you switch the words "atheist" and "believer" and "science" and "religion" ....

Let it be said first of all though that it is presumptuous in the extreme, I think, for Zinnia (above video) to claim to speak for all atheists. I would never claim to speak for all people of faith. Not even for two people of faith. I understand that it is a personal matter... it seems to me that, if atheism is a highly personal worldview that each atheist should have his/her own formulations of why they are atheist and necessarily be offended that anyone would be out there speaking for him/her. It's like the damn Pope when it gets to that point. The Pope! Atheists shouldn't have a 'spokesman.' It'd be like people who don't eat macdonalds having a spokesman.

haven't watched the second video yet... gotta see "Barney's Version" starting now in my living room.

[American Dream]

I object to the recent assertion that this is some sort of 'militant atheists' versus 'spiritual people.' Is it that? I don't see it that way. I do see that there is a prejudice, and that some otherwise perfectly open-minded, forward thinking, out-of-the-box type people (the best kind of people, IMO) are blinded by a bias they don't see that they have.

In light of any assertion by anyone that 'that stuff doesn't exist at RI' (meaning that a prejudice against people of faith doesn't exist at RI) I am forced to counter by saying that it does. I've felt it, seen it, read it, experienced it. I am not really offended by it nor do I feel oppressed by it, rather I think it is a shame. It is a crying shame.

Here's what I wrote a day ago:

.. .AND also neatly brings the thread back around towards wacko David Icke type conspiracy lore, which is kinda how this thread all started- remember?

You insisted on the DMT elves thread that David Icke was so spiritual and it was obvious that his intentions were good so the anti-Semitism and Reptilian Theory either didn't exist or didn't matter.

I seems to recall that when this was not affirmed from all quarters, you insisted that some people were just not open to spirituality, or something like that.

And then I seem to recall that you jumped ship on that thread and went and started this thread, which framed things a bit differently...

It is things like this that cause me to make negative judgements regading aspects of the "spirituality" which you are expressing.

Does this mean I therefore have a global prejudice against all people of faith?

No- it depends very much on each individual and what they say and do...