Critical Thinking, reductionism, epistemology RI megathread

[Stephen Morgan]

Anyone who thinks this process isnt already happening needs to re-boot their brain.

Dude. The entire world is aflame in a series of brutal and murderous wars which revolve in one form or another around differences of opinion regarding religious beliefs, and you're worried about the looming shadow of scientific orthodoxy?

Those wars are fought for material reasons.

[justdrew]

Title: The Holy Reich: Nazi Conceptions of Christianity, 1919-1945
Author: Richard Steigmann-Gall
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 0521823714

Traditional evaluation of Christian complicity in the Holocaust and other Nazi crimes focuses on the degree to which Christians allowed themselves to be used for Nazi purposes, but this presupposes a distinction between Nazis and Christians which did not entirely exist. Many Christians actively supported the Nazi agenda. Many Nazis were not only devout Christians, but also believed that Nazi philosophy was animated by Christian doctrine.

The Christianity promoted by the Nazis was labeled “positive Christianity,” a perspective that focused on the relationship between Christian promises of salvation and the German Volk as a special race of people. Point 24 of the NSDAP Party Program, created in 1920 and never rescinded, reads:

“We demand freedom for all religious confessions in the state, insofar as they do not endanger its existence or conflict with the customs and moral sentiments of the Germanic race. The party as such represents the standpoint of a positive Christianity, without owing itself to a particular confession. It fights the spirit of Jewish materialism within us and without us, and is convinced that a lasting recovery of our Volk can only take place from within, on the basis of the principle: public need comes before private greed.”

How is all of this possible? How can the reality of the relationship between Nazism and Christianity be so far removed from popular perception? The truth about all this is detailed in Richard Steigmann-Gall’s book The Holy Reich: Nazi Conceptions of Christianity, 1919-1945.

Christians avert their faces from the true relationship between their religion and Nazism in part because the truth is difficult to bear, but also in part because they simply don’t understand what Christianity was like in Germany at the time.

[Searcher08]

Anyone who thinks this process isnt already happening needs to re-boot their brain.

Dude. The entire world is aflame in a series of brutal and murderous wars which revolve in one form or another around differences of opinion regarding religious beliefs, and you're worried about the looming shadow of scientific orthodoxy?

Charactering many of those wars as religious rather than ethnic or nationalistic is shoehorning in the extreme, especially given the nature of eg Islamic Fundamentalism and where that came from (and who helped pay for it).

Too fucking right I'm concerned about it. The shadow isnt 'looming', its already here. Many types of non-Western mainstream medicine are under attack (and by that I mean practitioners being phoned up repeatedly and intimidated by these followers of Scientism)

Why is it a concern?
Mostly because this Orthodoxy REALLY BELIEVES that it has the answers.
Running a society along reductionist scientific lines is to me an utter nightmare of Roman Empire x Blade Runner proportions - where there are certain ideas that are permitted and everything else is not. If you think this is not based, try floating a new idea to these people and see what happens.

If there is one thing which the world needs now IMHO, it is the freedom to THINK.

The degree of openness to new ideas of many organisations has plumetted in the last thirty years

[tazmic]

Welcome to the Orthodox Church of Scientism

Anyone who thinks this process isnt already happening needs to re-boot their brain.

‎"While war, slavery and religion had once been necessary, they would not always be so; in the future only science could guarantee human progress" - Winwood Reade, The Martyrdom of Man, 1872

[brekin]

brekin wrote:

And really, people in academia don't get jobs and get fired for
all manner of petty sub doctrine slap fights.

C_W wrote:
You base this on your years as a professional arbitrator in these kinds of matters? Or maybe you are a Supreme Corut Justice or something? Ah.. you have worked in HR at many major universities? Wait, wait.. no... you've looked in to it? I have looked in to it. They really do get fired for that.

Have you ever talked to an educator at the college or grad level, or even a phd candidate?
You basically believe what your boss does to get on. I didn't think that was news.
And was this a science professor who got fired for teaching intelligent design?
I mean at the end of the day you do have to do what you are supposed to be paid for.

brekin wrote:

I personally believe Evolution a la
Pierre Teilhard de Chardin may be some type of emerging intelligent design. But expecting
others to agree with me, or even entertain the idea, is not something I expect or
demand. If I'm in the minority on that and a majority disagrees then that is the way it goes.

C_W wrote:

I guess we can all be glad that you are not the leader of any social justice groups. Or a lawyer working pro-bono. Or a parent. Wait.. are you a parent? Would you fight for your kid? I view this as fighting for my kid. Same, same.

Trust me, I won't quake the day my future children ask me, "Dad, what did you do during the intelligent design wars?"
I'll tell them, "Well Johnny, I sat them out like I did the flat earth wars."
And I don't see how fighting (aka having heated discussions on a internet forum) for something (Intelligent Design) that
as it is commonly presented defies almost all scientific and common sense is fighting for my kid.
Really if your child's, say high school psychology teacher, decided that Dianetics really was the most advanced form
of psychology and started teaching your kid that, I know you would have no qualms in having them fired.

brekin wrote:
And really if someone wanted to teach the classic fundamentalist Intelligent Design stuff I'm sure they
could get plenty gigs at Oral Roberts type universities. It's not like there is a nation wide ban on
it as far as I know.

C_W wrote:
Yes, yes - where they can be easily dismissed.

I don't follow you there. There are platforms for people to teach Intelligent Design
and some people eagerly patronize them and send their kids. (Which imho would
be like sending your kids to school to learn the reality of cartoons.) But anyways, people are free
to teach it and be taught. If they are easily dismissed then so are we all.
We all serve at the King's leisure.

[Searcher08]

Welcome to the Orthodox Church of Scientism

Anyone who thinks this process isnt already happening needs to re-boot their brain.

‎"While war, slavery and religion had once been necessary, they would not always be so; in the future only science could guarantee human progress" - Winwood Reade, The Martyrdom of Man, 1872

From Wiki

Cecil Rhodes, an English-born South Africa politician and businessman, said that the book "made me what I am(*)".

(*) which was a right wanker

[Stephen Morgan]

Anyone who thinks this process isnt already happening needs to re-boot their brain.

Dude. The entire world is aflame in a series of brutal and murderous wars which revolve in one form or another around differences of opinion regarding religious beliefs, and you're worried about the looming shadow of scientific orthodoxy?

Is that right?
I thought Iraq was about the oil and Afghanistan was about revenge? (and the oil pipeline)
I forget what the religious impetus for the first two world wars was... unless you count the Darwinist-Atheist Nazism vs the Jews (but also the handicapped and gay)

And the Commies, don't forget the commies.

So, you haven't come across the story about the Kaiser trying to subvert the British Empire through adopting Islam and starting a jihad against His Britannic Majesty? What do they teach in schools these days? I recommend "On Secret Service East of Constantinople". Or "Greenmantle".

[barracuda]

Those wars are fought for material reasons.

That is a ridiculously reductionist idea. I'd agree that it is a component, but the impetus that drives and sustains the participation of the armies in these wars is fraught with religious ideas. Are you saying there is no religious component involved in the Israeli occupation? Or the fighting in Kashmir? Or the "God and Country" of the US recruiting schemas?

Charactering many of those wars as religious rather than ethnic or nationalistic is shoehorning in the extreme, especially given the nature of eg Islamic Fundamentalism and where that came from (and who helped pay for it).

I'll agree easily that there are a variety of reasons behind the wars listed in the link I submitted, but to ignore the religious component is far more dangerous than pointing out its very real existence.

Too fucking right I'm concerned about it. The shadow isnt 'looming', its already here. Many types of non-Western mainstream medicine are under attack (and by that I mean practitioners being phoned up repeatedly and intimidated by these followers of Scientism)

Give me an example, please, so that I might think about it.

Why is it a concern?
Mostly because this Orthodoxy REALLY BELIEVES that it has the answers.
Running a society along reductionist scientific lines is to me an utter nightmare of Roman Empire x Blade Runner proportions - where there are certain ideas that are permitted and everything else is not. If you think this is not based, try floating a new idea to these people and see what happens.

The orthodoxy has a few accomplishments which tend to bolster their feelings of superiority, like computers, space travel, telephones, disease eradication and so on. The paradigmatic nature of their approach to the world leaves little room for philosophising about the uses to which the end results will be put. Bill Joy's essay Why the future doesn't need us outlines some of the hubris associated with this restrictive thinking.

So long as capitalism remains the dominant economic model, technical innovation will continue to be prized above charity, altruism, reverence and respect for the world.

If there is one thing which the world needs now IMHO, it is the freedom to THINK.

The freedom to think does not guarrantee that people actually will think, or that they will know how to think, or that they will not want to continue to be told what to think. People in my country have a great deal of freedom to think, and they mostly think about curly fries and Kim Kardashian, as far as I can tell.

[Stephen Morgan]

Yes.

[barracuda]

I have a materialist-reductionist suspension bridge spanning the East River near Brooklyn, New York that you may be interested in purchasing.

[hanshan]

...


barracuda:

The freedom to think does not guarrantee that people actually will think, or that they will know how to think, or that they will not want to continue to be told what to think. People in my country have a great deal of freedom to think, and they mostly think about curly fries and Kim Kardashian, as far as I can tell.

...

[brekin]

barracuda wrote:

The freedom to think does not guarantee that people actually will think, or that they will know how to think, or that they will not want to continue to be told what to think. People in my country have a great deal of freedom to think, and they mostly think about curly fries and Kim Kardashian, as far as I can tell.

I believe this is mostly accurate. A log of my thinking for the last 15 minutes confirms this.





I also thought about cars a few times. And robotic cars for a rather long time.

[Canadian_watcher]

Title: The Holy Reich: Nazi Conceptions of Christianity, 1919-1945
Author: Richard Steigmann-Gall
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 0521823714
.

here's an excerpt from an interview with the Author, R. Steinmann-Gall.

Richard, if you think of Hitler or Goebbels, both baptised Catholics, or Goering, a pretty active Protestant, none of them is an orthodox Christian, they’ve all got some pretty peculiar ideas.

Richard Steigmann-Gall: Right. And it should be noted right off the bat that when I discuss Hitler’s conceptions of Christianity in the book, and contend that in some way or other Hitler regarded himself to be a Christian, that’s not to say that Hitler went by the benchmarks of typical Christian practice, and his religious views were unorthodox, as were those of his immediate associates. As you say, Goering was notable for being a Protestant. He wasn’t particularly an active churchgoer either, but what’s interesting is that the leadership of the Nazi party embraced the idea – at least those who weren’t the Pagans like Himmler and Rosenberg – embraced the idea of what got called “positive Christianity” within the Nazi party. And among other things, positive Christianity attempted to bridge the sectarian divide that had fractured German society between Catholic and Protestant. Hitler talks – in private as well as in public, but more especially in private – about the meanings of positive Christianity for him, and one of the things that became clear to me as I was analysing what the Nazis meant when they kept using this expression “positive Christianity” was that it would be a faith which no-one was ever baptised into, but rather would be a set of ideas and ethics, according to the Nazis, that would among other things emphasise commonalities – and including, in Hitler’s mind of course, anti-Semitism, which he I think (rather successfully, when you look at how people reacted to it), tied in with Christianity.

http://www.pubtheo.com/page.asp?pid=1268

[Laodicean]

...


barracuda:

The freedom to think does not guarrantee that people actually will think, or that they will know how to think, or that they will not want to continue to be told what to think. People in my country have a great deal of freedom to think, and they mostly think about curly fries and Kim Kardashian, as far as I can tell.

...

Oh yeah? How do you know your thinking is in fact your own? It could very well have been Kim Kardashian who put those thoughts into your mind and you just typed her name on this board and hit send. How do you know your thoughts are your own thoughts? Thoughts by their nature are unseen. They just kind of pop into your mind (or millions of other people at the same time). Do we really have the freedom to think? Where do thoughts come from? And where do they go? What do they create? What do they destroy? What the fuck is going on???!!!

[barracuda]

I see you've hit an epistemological wall there, dude. I just hope your worldview comes equipped with air-bags.