I grew up in a Catholic family. I performed all my sacraments as a child. baptism, reonciliation, communion, and confirmation. It was when I was 14 years old, going through the process of confirmation, that I felt as though I was decieving myself. Confirmation is basically confirming, as an independent person, that you are a Catholic.
Part of the process was to perform a good deed. Serve in the soup kitchen for poor people, or pick up trash in the city, or something along those lines. After doing these things we could then go on to complete the rest of our confirmation with our peers. Of course this was all done so we could show God that we are devout Christians who want to take our place beside him in heaven.
I remember feeling very guilty going through out this process. Knowing in my mind that I was only doing these "good deeds" in order to go to heaven. It felt very selfish and I always wondered whether anyone of my peers felt the same as me. I was too nervous about discussing my thoughts with anybody because I was affraid people might think I was a bad person.
Looking back on the experience it's easy to see how Catholicsm promotes selfishness. Teaching young people to perform good deeds, essentially for their own benefit, in the name of God. Doing away with the idea of what it is to be a true Christian. The type of Christian that Jesus was, a self-sacraficing man who in return was given no money nor wordly riches, instead he was given a crusifiction.
What makes it even worse is that this is all done in a huge church, decorated with expensive statues, fountains, and things of that nature. All meant to entice us into becoming Catholics, by appealing to our senses and selfish delight.
Catholicism and selfishness
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Carrotblog
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Hi there,
thank you for your heart-rendered narrative. Not sure what to say, since autobiographical narrative can sometimes be locked in on itself.
There are a few points I might add if you don't mind, and I've annotated your narrative to reflect these. Thanks for telling and best wishes.
I grew up in a Catholic family. I performed all my sacraments as a child. baptism, reonciliation, communion, and confirmation. It was when I was 14 years old, going through the process of confirmation, that I felt as though I was decieving myself.
Your nurturing in a catholic environment is a community - a belonging to a subculture, one which defines your roles.
it strikes me that when you were 14 years old, in puberty, your individual identity began to question whether living locked in role, locked in the belonging to the community was sufficient for individual authenticity. Yet at 14, who is to know?
Confirmation is basically confirming, as an independent person, that you are a Catholic.
And what is Catholic? Did belonging to a group, following its roles qualify you as "Catholic" or as a 'nominal Catholic'? If you were Catholic, had you internalised external community, rituals, routines, roles into the life of your own which you had started to realise at 14 years old?
Confirming anything, makes a statement. Sharing no origin akin to yours, and understanding nothing of confirmation which I have no experience of, your confirmation is made before a body of people; before a community. There is nothing "independent" about that confirmation: it is a joint act of participation. Unless the participation in the act was false, or made in weakness through the lack of courage to reject the external catholicism which had shaped you into accepting the point of confirmation.
Part of the process was to perform a good deed. Serve in the soup kitchen for poor people, or pick up trash in the city, or something along those lines. After doing these things we could then go on to complete the rest of our confirmation with our peers. Of course this was all done so we could show God that we are devout Christians who want to take our place beside him in heaven.
Strange to hear this here. The 'deed' is a doing. The autobiography implies that 'mere' doings can substitute any inner movement of the self.
If your assumption is that doing 'good' things, can shape inner belief, (and let's not even say how that correlates with faith as another entity yet), then there is a magical fantasy move from the sphere of social action (doing) into the metaphysics of the religious worldview. The relationship between (doing) and (showing God) is flawed, particularly if you feel your 'place beside him in heaven' is a goal.
Why do I question this? Because no man takes his place beside another in such intense devotion unless he is in love with another. If there is no love in that relationship, what is the point in being close to another, unless it substitutes a guise for one's one ontological insecurity?
I remember feeling very guilty going through out this process. Knowing in my mind that I was only doing these "good deeds" in order to go to heaven.
It's hard to understand how such a dysfunctional belief is set up: "by being good [through doing things], one correlates a fantasy wish to go to heaven. The narrative fits the Skinnerian model of stimulus-response: "if I do good things, I get a reward. If I keep on doing good things, I am rewarded with heaven".
I suppose I find this thinking somewhat puerile, if not ridiculous. Who on earth can call this a 'faith' or 'religion' if this is all it amounts to?
It felt very selfish and I always wondered whether anyone of my peers felt the same as me. I was too nervous about discussing my thoughts with anybody because I was affraid people might think I was a bad person.
I'm sorry to hear that. Growing up in the secular wilderness, I had no such experience. What is good works, if not altruism with an unconscious motive? The fear and trembling you experienced when confronted with social rejection is a different order from that of Kierkegaard's fear and trembling, when Isaac is to be sacrificed by his father Abraham before God: there is no parallel; here in autobiography there is a movement locked in inauthenticity, and in the Kierkegaardian parallel, there is a movement towards a terrifying leap of faith, conceived as madness, murder, filicide and totally incomprehensible by those who claim to be genius.
Looking back on the experience it's easy to see how Catholicsm promotes selfishness. Teaching young people to perform good deeds, essentially for their own benefit, in the name of God. Doing away with the idea of what it is to be a true Christian. The type of Christian that Jesus was, a self-sacraficing man who in return was given no money nor wordly riches, instead he was given a crusifiction.
Your logic is different from mine, and follows no formal rules of predication. Still, I surmise this is autobiography, and not philosophy per se. From the autobiographic experience, the Skinnerian stimulus [do good things] and response [reward in heaven] has nothing to do religion, except in the framework of living in a catholic community that you have described.
What is it to be a true Christian, when this experience has not been incorporated in your own historical narrative? How is it possible to be religious, void of the inner life? Where is the inner life in a description of your own catholicism as a stimulus-response set? It perturbs me as I read, as I am on the trail of an itinerant in life's life, having found no answer myself, I see the path you have come from has offered certainty [of being] which has never been grasped in its vitality; through the essential wholeness which your catholic faith implies, yet has not been found in your experience.
What makes it even worse is that this is all done in a huge church, decorated with expensive statues, fountains, and things of that nature. All meant to entice us into becoming Catholics, by appealing to our senses and selfish delight.
From describing superficial external social roles as a form of Catholicism, attacking this as 'religion', now you have are having a jibe at architectural design????!! How is it possible to be so concrete??
Where is the reflection in a man's life, if all he sees is the concrete around him? These concrete edifices reify in his own mind, a structure which is not there, and in attacking the false god of his own beliefs, the danger he approximates to a faith which he disowns, is a verisimilitude of his own making.
Perhaps that is what others call a hang-up.
Best wishes.
xoxoxoxoxo
Miffy
http://carrotblog.livejournal.com
thank you for your heart-rendered narrative. Not sure what to say, since autobiographical narrative can sometimes be locked in on itself.
There are a few points I might add if you don't mind, and I've annotated your narrative to reflect these. Thanks for telling and best wishes.
I grew up in a Catholic family. I performed all my sacraments as a child. baptism, reonciliation, communion, and confirmation. It was when I was 14 years old, going through the process of confirmation, that I felt as though I was decieving myself.
Your nurturing in a catholic environment is a community - a belonging to a subculture, one which defines your roles.
it strikes me that when you were 14 years old, in puberty, your individual identity began to question whether living locked in role, locked in the belonging to the community was sufficient for individual authenticity. Yet at 14, who is to know?
Confirmation is basically confirming, as an independent person, that you are a Catholic.
And what is Catholic? Did belonging to a group, following its roles qualify you as "Catholic" or as a 'nominal Catholic'? If you were Catholic, had you internalised external community, rituals, routines, roles into the life of your own which you had started to realise at 14 years old?
Confirming anything, makes a statement. Sharing no origin akin to yours, and understanding nothing of confirmation which I have no experience of, your confirmation is made before a body of people; before a community. There is nothing "independent" about that confirmation: it is a joint act of participation. Unless the participation in the act was false, or made in weakness through the lack of courage to reject the external catholicism which had shaped you into accepting the point of confirmation.
Part of the process was to perform a good deed. Serve in the soup kitchen for poor people, or pick up trash in the city, or something along those lines. After doing these things we could then go on to complete the rest of our confirmation with our peers. Of course this was all done so we could show God that we are devout Christians who want to take our place beside him in heaven.
Strange to hear this here. The 'deed' is a doing. The autobiography implies that 'mere' doings can substitute any inner movement of the self.
If your assumption is that doing 'good' things, can shape inner belief, (and let's not even say how that correlates with faith as another entity yet), then there is a magical fantasy move from the sphere of social action (doing) into the metaphysics of the religious worldview. The relationship between (doing) and (showing God) is flawed, particularly if you feel your 'place beside him in heaven' is a goal.
Why do I question this? Because no man takes his place beside another in such intense devotion unless he is in love with another. If there is no love in that relationship, what is the point in being close to another, unless it substitutes a guise for one's one ontological insecurity?
I remember feeling very guilty going through out this process. Knowing in my mind that I was only doing these "good deeds" in order to go to heaven.
It's hard to understand how such a dysfunctional belief is set up: "by being good [through doing things], one correlates a fantasy wish to go to heaven. The narrative fits the Skinnerian model of stimulus-response: "if I do good things, I get a reward. If I keep on doing good things, I am rewarded with heaven".
I suppose I find this thinking somewhat puerile, if not ridiculous. Who on earth can call this a 'faith' or 'religion' if this is all it amounts to?
It felt very selfish and I always wondered whether anyone of my peers felt the same as me. I was too nervous about discussing my thoughts with anybody because I was affraid people might think I was a bad person.
I'm sorry to hear that. Growing up in the secular wilderness, I had no such experience. What is good works, if not altruism with an unconscious motive? The fear and trembling you experienced when confronted with social rejection is a different order from that of Kierkegaard's fear and trembling, when Isaac is to be sacrificed by his father Abraham before God: there is no parallel; here in autobiography there is a movement locked in inauthenticity, and in the Kierkegaardian parallel, there is a movement towards a terrifying leap of faith, conceived as madness, murder, filicide and totally incomprehensible by those who claim to be genius.
Looking back on the experience it's easy to see how Catholicsm promotes selfishness. Teaching young people to perform good deeds, essentially for their own benefit, in the name of God. Doing away with the idea of what it is to be a true Christian. The type of Christian that Jesus was, a self-sacraficing man who in return was given no money nor wordly riches, instead he was given a crusifiction.
Your logic is different from mine, and follows no formal rules of predication. Still, I surmise this is autobiography, and not philosophy per se. From the autobiographic experience, the Skinnerian stimulus [do good things] and response [reward in heaven] has nothing to do religion, except in the framework of living in a catholic community that you have described.
What is it to be a true Christian, when this experience has not been incorporated in your own historical narrative? How is it possible to be religious, void of the inner life? Where is the inner life in a description of your own catholicism as a stimulus-response set? It perturbs me as I read, as I am on the trail of an itinerant in life's life, having found no answer myself, I see the path you have come from has offered certainty [of being] which has never been grasped in its vitality; through the essential wholeness which your catholic faith implies, yet has not been found in your experience.
What makes it even worse is that this is all done in a huge church, decorated with expensive statues, fountains, and things of that nature. All meant to entice us into becoming Catholics, by appealing to our senses and selfish delight.
From describing superficial external social roles as a form of Catholicism, attacking this as 'religion', now you have are having a jibe at architectural design????!! How is it possible to be so concrete??
Where is the reflection in a man's life, if all he sees is the concrete around him? These concrete edifices reify in his own mind, a structure which is not there, and in attacking the false god of his own beliefs, the danger he approximates to a faith which he disowns, is a verisimilitude of his own making.
Perhaps that is what others call a hang-up.
Best wishes.
xoxoxoxoxo
Miffy
http://carrotblog.livejournal.com
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Dan Rowden
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Carrotblog
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Having been raised a Catholic and going through the sacrament of confirmation, I can relate to Nick's post. Confirmation is simply a mindless exoteric ritual for the youth being confirmed, and an equally mindless esoteric rite for the Minister facilitating the receipt of the sacrament.
Opinionated twaddle hardly worthy of a philosophy forum. Having not been raised a Catholic, some things are more logical and easier to see.
Perhaps you do need to experience bunny love as the panacea to the reductionist mindset expressed in your post.
Lots of love.
xoxoxoxoxo
Miffy
http://carrotblog.livejournal.com
Opinionated twaddle hardly worthy of a philosophy forum. Having not been raised a Catholic, some things are more logical and easier to see.
Perhaps you do need to experience bunny love as the panacea to the reductionist mindset expressed in your post.
Lots of love.
xoxoxoxoxo
Miffy
http://carrotblog.livejournal.com
How does not being raised a Catholic make things more logical and easier for you to see? If I told you that I was whole-heartedly going along with the religion then what you said might make sense. But as Dan and I have told you, our hearts and minds were not in the Catholic religion because of our logic and reasoning. Therefore you make no sense at all.Carrotblog wrote:Opinionated twaddle hardly worthy of a philosophy forum. Having not been raised a Catholic, some things are more logical and easier to see.
Perhaps you do need to experience bunny love as the panacea to the reductionist mindset expressed in your post.
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Carrotblog
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Hi Nick,
I've expressed my thoughts in the reasoning above.
I have no difficulty with your expression of your rejection.
Lots of love.
xoxoxoxoxo
Miffy
http://carrotblog.livejournal.com
I've expressed my thoughts in the reasoning above.
I have no difficulty with your expression of your rejection.
Yet, you have failed to come up with a sufficient/adequate reasoned or philosophical defence of your position. In the absence of any logic and reasoning, your position makes no sense at all.But as Dan and I have told you, our hearts and minds were not in the Catholic religion because of our logic and reasoning. Therefore you make no sense at all.
Lots of love.
xoxoxoxoxo
Miffy
http://carrotblog.livejournal.com
What I said was straight forward and to the point. Point being, the Catholic religion breeds selfishness. I came to this conclusion through sound and clear reasoning. If you cannot comprehend how I came to this conclusion after reading my original post then I believe it is your own reasoning you should be re-evaluating.
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Carrotblog
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Sure Nick.
PostPosted: Tue Jun 27, 2006 5:41 am Post subject:
What I said was straight forward and to the point. Point being, the Catholic religion breeds selfishness. I came to this conclusion through sound and clear reasoning. If you cannot comprehend how I came to this conclusion after reading my original post then I believe it is your own reasoning you should be re-evaluating.
What you said was straight-forward: but let's not pretend that it is a reasoned nor philosophical explanation for your position.
The point you made: "Catholic religion breeds selfishness" is flawed as a premise and as a conclusion: it is based on an extrapolation of your personal experience. None of your reasoning is sufficient to convince anyone who has not been through your own personal situation; none of your reasoning is sufficient to convince anyone who has a basic grasp of the philosophical method of enquiry too. It may convince only yourself. That is not to say that I can not comprehend your position: I do, just as Mr Drowden does. I can comprehend your situation, however I am completely unconvinced by it.
As a logical supposition, you need to identify your 'premise' and substantiate it using a formal method of logic (deduction, inference, and other tools of thinking) rather than making spurious and personalised assumptions.
To offer an opinion as you have done is not worthy of calling a 'philosophical conclusion'. It is the kind of lay-thinking which does thinking of any kind no credit. It has a similar analogy in fundamentalist circles where fundamentalists use emotive/personalisation as a basis for reasoning, and deduce that they are right as a result of their own thinking and everyone else who doesn't "comprehend" them as inferior or damned to hell.
Lots of love.
xoxoxoxo
Miffy
http://carrotblog.livejournal.com
Even if I was an oustider looking in on the situation I described I would still reach the same conclusion through observation. Either way I would still be experiencing the situation, only difference is I would have to use my imagination a little more to put myself in the boy's shoes. The fact that I used my own personal experience to help get my point across in no way dis-credits my reasoning. There is no bias involved in my evaluation of the situation. A man of genius can read what I said and agree that Catholicism does indeed breed selfishness by putting themselves in the situation I described. I choose to use my personal experience as an example because it was easier to display my point, in no way did I have to include that in order to do so. The fact that you cannot be convinced of this unless you yourself have experienced that exact situation shows your reasoning is lacking a key element of genius.
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Carrotblog
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Finally I had realized fundamental and all-encompassing absolute certainty, and it was so utterly simple and obvious. Absolute certainty was before me at all times everywhere, it was in fact right in front of my eyes so to speak, and had been all along. The only difference was that I now consciously understood and acknowledged it.
Lol!A man of genius can read what I said and agree that Catholicism does indeed breed selfishness by putting themselves in the situation I described.
I see. You're a genius, which is why you are exempt from needing to use reason.
That is wonderful for you, although for anyone else, the question coursing through one's mind .........
"Are you then a fool or a genius?"
The answer may be very challenging, for only a fool would have himself believe he is a genius on the conditions you have specified for your beliefs.
Lots of love.
xoxoxoxoxoxo
Miffy
http://carrotblog.livejournal.com
P.S. Thanks for posting, and enjoy your brain! ;)
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suergaz
If you can't recognize my use of reasoning your are insane. Also, I never specified condition(s) of genuis, I gave you one attribute of genius.Lol!
I see. You're a genius, which is why you are exempt from needing to use reason.
That is wonderful for you, although for anyone else, the question coursing through one's mind .........
"Are you then a fool or a genius?"
The answer may be very challenging, for only a fool would have himself believe he is a genius on the conditions you have specified for your beliefs.
Lots of love.
xoxoxoxoxoxo
Miffy
http://carrotblog.livejournal.com
P.S. Thanks for posting, and enjoy your brain! ;)
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Trevor Salyzyn
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I think Miffy sounded like a textbook.I think Miffy, beneath the bunny fuzz, is showing the substantial teeth of a challenge to [your] atheism.
However, she was pointed when she said "[Nick's conclusion] is based on an extrapolation of [his] personal experience." A very poor extrapolation, I might add, since Nick was "too nervous about discussing [his] thoughts with anybody because [he] was affraid (sic) people might think [he] was a bad person."
He used one example to create a universal rule. All that he really establishes is his own selfishness, and his own self-reprisal. Catholicism bred selfishness in one person. Dan makes two. I think it's high time Nick engaged his curiosity and asked his peers whether they felt the same as him during confirmation, now that he no longer enamoured by the Christian ideal.
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Carrotblog
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Hi Mookestink,
(strange smell here suddenly)
Hello Pye!
Nice to meet you. I have two front teeth. They are very prominent, all the better for tucking into reason. A sly fox of a commentator on my blog tells me that it is a rare rabbit that resists the call to be well done.
Undercooked reason, pretending to be honest and serious atheism offends me - that too has a strange odour. In searching for intellectual honesty, I have not found answers. However, I am shaking off the chaff on the way. Hard-boiled reason, also becomes unindigestible, even for rabbit' teeth.
Lots of love!
xoxoxoxo
Miffy
http://carrotblog.livejournal.com
(strange smell here suddenly)
Lol! If that's what you think clearly you haven't read enough!I think Miffy sounded like a textbook.
Hello Pye!
Nice to meet you. I have two front teeth. They are very prominent, all the better for tucking into reason. A sly fox of a commentator on my blog tells me that it is a rare rabbit that resists the call to be well done.
Undercooked reason, pretending to be honest and serious atheism offends me - that too has a strange odour. In searching for intellectual honesty, I have not found answers. However, I am shaking off the chaff on the way. Hard-boiled reason, also becomes unindigestible, even for rabbit' teeth.
Lots of love!
xoxoxoxo
Miffy
http://carrotblog.livejournal.com
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Dan Rowden
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Nick's argument goes as follows:
A - Nick was a Catholic
B - Nick was selfish (as he performed superficial good deeds only with the hope of entering heaven)
Nick's conclusion: Catholics are selfish
Here we go:
A - Miffy is a Rabbit
B - Miffy is a Genius
Following the same line of reasoning, we conclude:
Rabbits are Geniuses!
Bunnies Rule!!!!!!
mwa mwa,
xxxx
Muffy
A - Nick was a Catholic
B - Nick was selfish (as he performed superficial good deeds only with the hope of entering heaven)
Nick's conclusion: Catholics are selfish
Here we go:
A - Miffy is a Rabbit
B - Miffy is a Genius
Following the same line of reasoning, we conclude:
Rabbits are Geniuses!
Bunnies Rule!!!!!!
mwa mwa,
xxxx
Muffy
muffyrabbit.blogspot.com
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Trevor Salyzyn
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miff
I'm better read than I'd like to be. Too much reading turns a person into a Don Quixote, or a scribbler.Lol! If that's what you think clearly you haven't read enough!
Indeed. Poor thinking or too much reading leaves a person red (which I must admit is how I eat rabbit-meat). Even I, atheist that I am (although in a debate I'd side with the monists or pantheists), cannot abide the reasoning most atheists use. The complaints barely touch the skin, whereas I prefer consistent extended arguments that cut right through the sinews and bones.Undercooked reason, pretending to be honest and serious atheism offends me
.
It's nice to meet you too, Miffy, and yes I've had a sense about the quality of those incisors of yours :) You will remember that there are cats about who like to slit the throats of bunnies most gratuitously, when they are in no real need of a meal. I also know you know how bunnies shed, especially itinerant ones, eventually all the way to their true being ;)
.
It's nice to meet you too, Miffy, and yes I've had a sense about the quality of those incisors of yours :) You will remember that there are cats about who like to slit the throats of bunnies most gratuitously, when they are in no real need of a meal. I also know you know how bunnies shed, especially itinerant ones, eventually all the way to their true being ;)
.
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Carrotblog
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Hello Muffy,Nick's argument goes as follows:
A - Nick was a Catholic
B - Nick was selfish (as he performed superficial good deeds only with the hope of entering heaven)
Nick's conclusion: Catholics are selfish
is that really you? So we meet at last after separation from the Tarn warren! Last I saw you, Muffy dreamed of trains. Not to mention infinite delays and debris on the lines. Laden with time abundantly on life's platform, I espy Muffy's humour in slating syllogistic reasoning too ;)
Hello Mookestink,Indeed. Poor thinking or too much reading leaves a person red (which I must admit is how I eat rabbit-meat). Even I, atheist that I am (although in a debate I'd side with the monists or pantheists), cannot abide the reasoning most atheists use. The complaints barely touch the skin, whereas I prefer consistent extended arguments that cut right through the sinews and bones.
be careful you don't get poisoned by infected rabbit meat too, otherwise you may end up with verbal diarrhoea such as those found in the abundance of atheist blogs on the net. Monads are as interesting as gonads, but perhaps therein lies a link with myxamatosis? Swellings in the brain; swellings in the gonads, swellings in the monads....
Pray tell....why pantheism?
Hello Pye -It's nice to meet you too, Miffy, and yes I've had a sense about the quality of those incisors of yours :) You will remember that there are cats about who like to slit the throats of bunnies most gratuitously, when they are in no real need of a meal. I also know you know how bunnies shed, especially itinerant ones, eventually all the way to their true being ;)
it's hard to get one's mind off food in this forum. You are spot on - although which spots? Many spotted cats like to torment itinerant rabbits. What is a defenceless rabbit to do, other than harken Hermes' lightning flash to slash the offender with Occam's Razor? On my way, I perigrinate without the eyes of a falcon. A little blind, a little dim, and a false turning here and there. There is always danger on the way; falsehood and self-deception. False turns and dead ends.
How does a rabbit attain true being? As I shed on my way to discover if I can discover being, my fur will induce an asthma attack for someone somewhere....
Lots of love.
xoxoxoxo
Miffy
http://carrotblog.livejournal.com
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Trevor Salyzyn
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- Location: Canada
miffy,
#1: Pantheism is little more than a sly way for indifferent rationalists to appear to be on both sides of the God-debate. It is a triumph to make the "God is everything"/"Everything is God" assumption: an overused word is settled into an impregnable fortress where it can ignored. A monotheist would agree with me to an extent (excepting that I don't have a proper religious upbringing), and an atheist (or naturalist) would agree that the definition doesn't infringe upon their unbeliefs (although, pragmatically, it's inefficacious). A pantheist only needs to worry about all-or-nothing fundamentalists and Romans (on second thought, we ALL have to worry about those damnable time-travelling Roman legionnaires).
#2: With just superficial juggling of words, pantheism is conceptually identical to monism.
Arguing about deities is boring, ergo I choose a position that lets me ignore the debate and think about other things. It's a calculated, shrewd, awe-inspiring, riveting, beautiful, exemplar, and above all lazy way for me to opine an opinion about a part of metaphysics that everyone and their rabbit seems qualified to categorically deduce and prove beyond all doubt (or in layman's terms, to inheret).
Trevor
Why single out atheist blogs? Most everything that has appeared on a personal webpage, whether you're talking about a Geocities site eight years ago up to its modern incarnation within the blogosophere, is garbage. If it's untamed philosophy, doubly so. I can tolerate The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy, or a few translations of older books that aren't worth tracking down otherwise. If you've seen a philosophy blog, atheist, Christian, or otherwise, that is anything other than a self-indulgent waste of magnestism, congratulations. You've found a diamond in the rough -- or maybe just a plain ol' needle in a haystack....verbal diarrhoea such as those found in the abundance of atheist blogs on the net.
I had to pull out a dictionary to figure out why I haven't heard about myxomatosis before. You certainly do put a lot of effort into this persona. My mental picture of you is a very empathic veternarian, a card-carrying member of a bizarre over-the-top vegetarian cult, or just a particulaly well-read wabbit. Or all of the above.Monads are as interesting as gonads, but perhaps therein lies a link with myxamatosis?
Because a careful observer would notice two things.Pray tell....why pantheism?
#1: Pantheism is little more than a sly way for indifferent rationalists to appear to be on both sides of the God-debate. It is a triumph to make the "God is everything"/"Everything is God" assumption: an overused word is settled into an impregnable fortress where it can ignored. A monotheist would agree with me to an extent (excepting that I don't have a proper religious upbringing), and an atheist (or naturalist) would agree that the definition doesn't infringe upon their unbeliefs (although, pragmatically, it's inefficacious). A pantheist only needs to worry about all-or-nothing fundamentalists and Romans (on second thought, we ALL have to worry about those damnable time-travelling Roman legionnaires).
#2: With just superficial juggling of words, pantheism is conceptually identical to monism.
Arguing about deities is boring, ergo I choose a position that lets me ignore the debate and think about other things. It's a calculated, shrewd, awe-inspiring, riveting, beautiful, exemplar, and above all lazy way for me to opine an opinion about a part of metaphysics that everyone and their rabbit seems qualified to categorically deduce and prove beyond all doubt (or in layman's terms, to inheret).
Trevor
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suergaz
Why single out atheist blogs?
She didn't, quite.
When I am forced to enter into the religiosity of an ism, which is the only way I've ever entered into one, I choose the athe one. Metaphysics is down.Miffy: Pray tell....why pantheism?
Trevor: Because a careful observer would notice two things.
#1: Pantheism is little more than a sly way for indifferent rationalists to appear to be on both sides of the God-debate. It is a triumph to make the "God is everything"/"Everything is God" assumption: an overused word is settled into an impregnable fortress where it can ignored. A monotheist would agree with me to an extent (excepting that I don't have a proper religious upbringing), and an atheist (or naturalist) would agree that the definition doesn't infringe upon their unbeliefs (although, pragmatically, it's inefficacious). A pantheist only needs to worry about all-or-nothing fundamentalists and Romans (on second thought, we ALL have to worry about those damnable time-travelling Roman legionnaires).
#2: With just superficial juggling of words, pantheism is conceptually identical to monism.
Arguing about deities is boring, ergo I choose a position that lets me ignore the debate and think about other things. It's a calculated, shrewd, awe-inspiring, riveting, beautiful, exemplar, and above all lazy way for me to opine an opinion about a part of metaphysics that everyone and their rabbit seems qualified to categorically deduce and prove beyond all doubt (or in layman's terms, to inheret).
Trevor
:D
People like their poetry parboiled for the most part.
Actually I never performed any of the good deeds we were supposed to do, I just pretended to. Secondly, I never actually believed in the religion. I just pretended not to be an athiest for fear of upsetting my family.muffy wrote:Nick's argument goes as follows:
A - Nick was a Catholic
B - Nick was selfish (as he performed superficial good deeds only with the hope of entering heaven)
Nick's conclusion: Catholics are selfish
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Carrotblog
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Hello Trevor,I had to pull out a dictionary to figure out why I haven't heard about myxomatosis before. You certainly do put a lot of effort into this persona. My mental picture of you is a very empathic veternarian, a card-carrying member of a bizarre over-the-top vegetarian cult, or just a particulaly well-read wabbit. Or all of the above.
Lol! I use a dictionary to check the spelling of words such as myxamatosis. I have a bog; I am a blog! I am not a vetinarian! (Where's that dictionary spelling for "vet"?) Alas, doctors and vets are useless in healing my condition. Thus, I am in flight. If you are interested, I have some favourite carrot recipes too. Recently I discovered Steve Cook's atheist blog, I have admired how he manipulates Musata Ornata (banana plant) - he uses it most unconventionally! If you are interested in carrot toast as well, it is a great hors d'oeuvre before tucking into "Phenomenology of Spirit".
Zag's point is spot-on. Why atheist blogs? Perhaps because this is my own starting point, and I have started with what I am most familiiar with. I know less about Zororastrian practices and shamanism, having spent my bunny years, enquiring within another faculty of the mind, in another faculty of the great rabbit university.
Perhaps had I reincarnated as an eagle, then myxomatosis would not be an issue. Still, monads and gonads are hard to get in touch with....unless...that is....one is a "genius", in which case, he can be very much in touch...Pray tell....why pantheism?
Because a careful observer would notice two things.
#1: Pantheism is little more than a sly way for indifferent rationalists to appear to be on both sides of the God-debate. It is a triumph to make the "God is everything"/"Everything is God" assumption: an overused word is settled into an impregnable fortress where it can ignored.
Why are you required to take side on the "God-debate"? If "God is", what use is your debate?
If God only "exists", then debate is equally useless. Equally; if a rationalist is indifferent, perhaps the question is not very interesting for him: that itself is a reflection of his own spiritual condition.
I wish I could fathom sense out of pantheism; I wish the small mind within my long ears could grasp the sense in speculative philosophy and the human folly lying therein. However if pantheism holds that God is everything, then within everything is nothing. God then, is both right and wrong; evil and good; something and nothing. God is the force and anti-force; the universal binary polarity; Hegel in motion, thesis + anti-thesis, sense and nonsense, synthetic nonesense in attempting to align right and wrong as two sides of a $ coin. Can such a position lead to a fertile mind?
Naturalist or atheist? The former invests belief in nature; the latter invests belief in denial; a denial of a god. God. To fortress one's whole life on believing that "something is not" is perturbing down to its foundation. In the wilderness of my rabbit-rearing bunnyhood, I too have wandered as little Red Riding Rabbit, in danger of being ensnared; in denial of what humans cannot know (universal truth), believing that a refutation of someone greater than I is possible......only, my assumption was false: in order to refute God's being, it is required of me the following conditions:....(excepting that I don't have a proper religious upbringing), and an atheist (or naturalist) would agree that the definition doesn't infringe upon their unbeliefs (although, pragmatically, it's inefficacious).
1. Knowledge, complete, universal of everything there is. (otherwise my premise is incomplete; my conclusions are drawn from what is data unverifiable).
2. In the absence of universal knowledge, sufficient "faith" of my own to blind my reason into believing that I can make sense of myself by refuting God's existence.
Alas! I have been in a rabbit trap for too long. Thus, I perigrinate........
Oh I see. Gonads worshipping monads ;)..pantheism is conceptually identical to monism.
I have a bog. I am a blog.
xoxoxoxo
Miffy
http://carrotblog.livejournal.com
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Carrotblog
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Hope you're okay. Sounds like life was very difficult for you when growing up.Actually I never performed any of the good deeds we were supposed to do, I just pretended to. Secondly, I never actually believed in the religion. I just pretended not to be an athiest for fear of upsetting my family.
Muffy merely pointed out that your "way of believing" about a subgroup of people [Catholics] was expressed based on a philosophical mistake [fallacy] called a [syllogism].
Perhaps if you were pretending all along to be catholic, then you weren't ever catholic......except in name only. It sounds like a good thing that you left. People with 'nominal belief sets' are a deterrent for any religion.
Best of luck on your journey.
Lots of love.
xoxoxoxo
Miffy
http://carrotblog.livejournal.com