Friday, December 21, 2018

Burden of Proof

http://bitchspot.jadedragononline.com/2018/12/19/atheism-and-the-burden-of-proof/
got me thinking, trying to resolve cognitive dissonance of Kant, Plato, and reality. I think I have, and religion still loses. There is no physical god, just the eidos of a god in the mind of the believers. Eidos is a Greek word, the root of idea, but meaning more like an concept. It is like Plato's form, and Kants division of a priori, not physical but realish in our minds, but some of them have real counterparts, some do not. Gods are one that the eidos has no real counterpart.

We can divide our thinking into two main groups of objects, those who represent real objects, and those who have no real counterpart. Those with no real counterpart may have evidence of existence as processes, amplifiers, or have no evidence, as fiction or something else. No evidence suggests it is false. Like gods. It is all that simple.

There is no point arguing with people who have a wrong concept locked in. It is belief that is emotionally tied to their thinking, and must be chipped off, one tentacle at a time. The belief is interlocked with their concept of self. Nothing is going to change their mind until they start to question the belief.

Kant was a philosopher that separated morality and his beliefs, he defined good will as the greatest good, followed by happiness. He realized he was contented with Pietism splinter of Lutharanism, and never explored options; good will and happiness as it was, was sufficient. He did not depend on religion for moral direction, education, medicine, but was content with religion for his social needs. Please note that good will and goodwill are different. Will is about what drives us, while goodwill is a friendly attitude, compassion, charity. We need to have a drive to the good, not just posses virtue but also to act. We can be virtuous and be a hermit, do very little. Or we can be active doing... but all the while maintaining virtue. These are different reproaches.

Kant was famous for splitting knowledge, experience based and a priori. A priori can further be split into real and fiction, with the fiction dropping as trivial, to be "flung on the fire forthwith." That is where the god concept belongs.      


Friday, December 14, 2018

Temporal vs. Sensible

Temporal vs. Sensible

After reading a bit of Plato and Kant, it is clear that there are two worlds, a temporal world and a sensible world. This is an important distinction going forward.

 By temporal I do not mean anything to do with time, but between the temples, and that is the in the brain, not religious structures. For clarity, the temporal world must exist, but represents the sensible world, but has no physical existence, but as we can examine it, share it through communication of ideas, concepts, and the Greek word, eidos to reduce confusion. Eidos is the root of ideas, yet has a more temporal denotation... the original concept of what I am on about here.

The sensible world here is the physical world that we can measure, and sense through the senses. So now that we have two separated "worlds", we can look at each separately. Anything, even god can exist in the temporal world, for the word exists, yet it has no powers beyond those we assign it, and no partner in the sensible world. Pythagoras Theorem exists in the temporal world (tworld), and has a partner in the sensible world (sworld), as many thing do. Not so for gods, fairies, elves, gremlins, satin, etc. That which is not partnered in the sworld, is, well, fake.

Philosophy is work in the tworld, and we must always be sure that it has a partner in the sworld, else, it to, is fake.

This may be the Kant's green glasses.

But not so fast here!! What about the Nominal world of Kant, it that is what he caobjects lled the actual world that is the world that we sense? So now we have three worlds, actual, what we sense, and what we think we sense that resides only in our mind. In the Buddhist tradition there is the Mangala of the Nine objects of a finger pointing at the moon.Is this the same damn thing?

Tuesday, December 4, 2018

Negative People

Perhaps I am just a negative person? Or perhaps realistic.

Sir David Attenborough addresses the UN climate change summit in Poland with a stark warning:
If we don’t take action, the collapse of our civilisations and the extinction of much of the natural world is on the horizon. … The world’s people have spoken. Time is running out. They want you, the decision-makers, to act now. Leaders of the world, you must lead. The continuation of civilisations and the natural world upon which we depend is in your hands.
Overpopulation is how I define this problem. A world wide one child policy, and UN declaration of "do not teach hatred or violence to your children" would be a good start.

Skeptics are just negative people who are proud of being negative. Well maybe, at least they claim to be looking carefully at what is being offered, but through their own biases. That is the real problem, have they ever examined their own biases, and they are all to happy to interrupt any discussion, to displace any argument. They are not listening learning, but shut down and carry on type thinking. Oh well, reject that group as something to label myself as.

Ethic limit become the defined limit of behavior that is acceptable to the people. We may not agree, but it is an attempt to define. Consider the UN Delectation of Human Rights; it has one item about freedom of religion which will contribute to everlasting trouble. The right for people to teach their children hatred, and wrong information, in the form of religion. If we want peace, all religion should be considered a partly correct historical belief system. By doing mash ups, we can see what is correct and what is not. Reject the incorrect, accept the correct.

We need to exhibit characteristics like compassion but not to devote our life to them. It is what we get from those characteristics that drives us forward, all the while knowing that there are people who depend on those characteristics to make a living. These people we can ignore... for they are users. This eliminates helping of the habitual and those who live off the habitual like charities. Collecting for the orphans in Africa is for others to support. We need to educate and support local first. I do that through my taxes, as much is wasted through welfare.

Some see my attitude as negative, and that is there choice. I do not give to paid collectors. Any organization that does not provide an audited statement on line or in print of their paid out to collections ratio are businesses, not charities. And they call me negative.